DW 9.10. Face the Raven
Meta café time...
I'm leaving out huge amounts in order to focus on just the main imagery. But I wanted... something pared down? Not that it's short, but - you'll see. There might be more thoughts later (/rambling) and maybe even fic.
But for now - Clara.
Just Clara.
Killed by Death
Clara died.
This is an important point.
The companion died.
She wasn’t lost to time or mindwiped, nor did she fall into another universe or walk away. She died.
I don’t think this has happened since Adric.
But almost more important is how.
She wasn’t shot or blown up or run over or stabbed or poisoned… She was killed by death.
Literally and figuratively.
The raven extinguished her life - a literal manifestation of its mythical symbolism, as the raven is traditionally known as mediator animal between life and death. We know the Street has a telepathic field that ‘normalises everything you see, places it within the compass of your expectations, your experiences.’
And for death, you see a raven.
Going back to Norse mythology, Odin is depicted as having two ravens - Huginn and Muninn - serving as his eyes and ears: Huginn being referred to as thought and Muninn as memory. The Norse connection being especially poignant as Ashildr, Odin’s Valkyrie, is back; her role to gather those fallen in battle… … (See my post on The Girl Who Died)
But the raven was also a ‘Quantum Shade’.
- In literature and poetry, a shade can be taken to mean the spirit or ghost of a dead person, residing in the underworld.
- In physics, quantum mechanics - or rather, the uncertainty principle - states ‘the impossibility of simultaneously specifying the precise position and momentum of any particle’.
In terms of a Quantum Shade this would seem to be the unlife of the raven, simultaneously dead and alive (it is neither and both); it is a physical (yet transient) mark on the skin and a bird; it kills people yet does not touch them.
Symbolically, then Clara has always been associated with birds, right from the start… (We hear Carmen, before we even see her):
We have also often seen her with a Horus/bird necklace/jewellery (graphic courtesy of purplefringe):
I have talked about Horus before, but here are the basics:
Different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egypt specialists. These various forms may possibly be different perceptions of the same multi-layered deity in which certain attributes or syncretic relationships are emphasized, not necessarily in opposition but complementary to one another, consistent with how the Ancient Egyptians viewed the multiple facets of reality. He was most often depicted as a falcon, most likely a lanner or peregrine, or as a man with a falcon head.
The Osiris myth is the most elaborate and influential story in ancient Egyptian mythology. It concerns the murder of the god Osiris, a primeval king of Egypt, and its consequences. Osiris's murderer, his brother Set, usurps his throne. The remainder of the story focuses on Horus, the product of the union of Isis and Osiris. Their often violent conflict ends with Horus's triumph, which restores order to Egypt after Set's unrighteous reign and completes the process of Osiris's resurrection. The myth, with its complex symbolism, is integral to the Egyptian conceptions of kingship and succession, conflict between order and disorder, and especially death and the afterlife.
If Clara is Horus, then clearly Gallifrey is Osiris, and she is (gradually) helping to restore it, through an elaborate storyline often involving death and the afterlife.
Going back to that gorgeous graphic above, of course I can’t not talk about her mother’s name…
Ellie Ravenwood is, I think, just about as complex a name as Clara (bright) Oswin (god’s friend) Oswald (god’s power).
- Ellie is a pet form of Ellen or more commonly Eleanor, which itself is of Hebrew origin and comes from the Hebrew element 'el' meaning 'god' and 'or' meaning light, so the name means 'God is my light'.
- Raven of course signifies death, and Ellie died on the date when ‘Rose’ first aired. (Also remember that Clara’s birthday is 23rd of November. I plain refuse to believe these dates are random.)
- Wood… I don’t even know where to start. Although as the woman whose love story (and daughter) began with a leaf, it’s infinitely fitting.
I have talked about the duality of Clara before, how she is Schrödinger’s Companion, and it is entirely fitting that Clara’s ending is as much about duality as her life was.
Her origin story bound in a leaf, strong enough to defeat a sun god; her ending her own… and yet not.
She took upon herself another’s death, sacrificed herself for his sake. The death was transferred, but - it was not a death meant for her.
And that, I think, will be important. To quote The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe:
"But what does it all mean?" asked Susan when they were somewhat calmer.
"It means," said Aslan, "that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards."
Rigsy was no traitor, and I do not think that Clara will come back to life. But still - there are rules within fairy tales (and Doctor Who is, at heart, a fairy tale), and the hero who nobly sacrifices herself in another’s stead will not go unrewarded.
Especially as death is usually an important step in a hero’s journey:
11. THE RESURRECTION. At the climax, the hero is severely tested once more on the threshold of home. He or she is purified by a last sacrifice, another moment of death and rebirth, but on a higher and more complete level. By the hero’s action, the polarities that were in conflict at the beginning are finally resolved.
12. RETURN WITH THE ELIXIR. The hero returns home or continues the journey, bearing some element of the treasure that has the power to transform the world as the hero has been transformed.
This episode is was obviously the death, and I am sure that because of that she will somehow have the power to help resolve the ultimate conflict of the narrative. Bringing back Gallifrey or something along those lines would be my guess. But she's always been connected to Gallifrey. And Daleks. Could she be an egg? Time will tell. For now...
(x)
And the next lines are:
Rest now, hardship is over.
Live. Wake up. Wake up.
And let the cloak, of life - cling to your bones. Cling to your bones.
Death means transformation, and re-birth.
Full fathom five thy father lies.
Of his bones are coral made.
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Be a Doctor
Clara’s role, from first till last, has been as the one who saves the Doctor, usually by reminding him who he is.
(Something of course started by River in A Good Man Goes To War, the pivotal turning point in Moffat Who. Back then River gave him the choice between Warrior and Doctor, and Clara carries that same torch.)
In her first appearance, as Oswin, she severed the link between the Doctor’s warrior status and the Daleks, helping to turn his name from something to be feared, to a question once more.
In her second appearance, she once more gave him something to live for, made him be the Doctor rather than a man who walked away.
Then, as ‘herself’ in The Name of the Doctor she saved him physically, creating endless echoes, but more importantly she gave him back himself in The Day of the Doctor. (Where we had River in the role of Fairy Godmother, watching over her protége and helping her.) And the way she saved him - and Gallifrey - was by reminding him of who he was:
DOCTOR: Then what do I do?
CLARA: What you've always done. Be a doctor. You told me the name you chose was a promise. What was the promise?
TENTH DOCTOR: Never cruel or cowardly.
WAR DOCTOR: Never give up, never give in.
We see the same here.
Clara is about to die, but she spends her last moments reminding and instructing him:
CLARA: You. Now, you listen to me. You're going to be alone now, and you're very bad at that. You're going to be furious and you're going to be sad, but listen to me. Don't let this change you. No, listen. Whatever happens next, wherever she is sending you, I know what you're capable of. You don't be a Warrior. Promise me. Be a Doctor.
Because being the Doctor is a choice:
DOCTOR: There's no such thing as the Doctor. I'm just a bloke in a box, telling stories. And because sometimes, on a good day, if I try very hard, I'm not some old Time Lord who ran away. I'm the Doctor.
The way Clara does this is also consistent…
DOCTOR: Because I've been where you have. There was another box. I was going to press another button. I was going to wipe out all of my own kind, man, woman and child. I was so sure I was right.
BONNIE: What happened?
DOCTOR: The same thing that happened to you. I let Clara Oswald get inside my head. Trust me. She doesn't leave.
I talked, after the Zygon episodes, about Clara as an idea. About the Osgoods as a concept, the two of them embodying The Peace.
As I suspected, Clara does something very similar here (and I expect this to be enhanced) - she makes herself the one who holds the Doctor to the mark. Her memory, the idea of her, something to remind him who he is supposed to be. She has, indeed, become The Peace - the Doctor’s own, private, Peace:
CLARA: Heal yourself. You have to. You can't let this turn you into a monster. So, I'm not asking you for a promise, I'm giving you an order. You will not insult my memory. There will be no revenge. I will die, and no one else, here or anywhere, will suffer.
All season the narrative has toyed with what would happen if the Doctor lost Clara.
- When he lost Donna he decided to travel alone.
- And when he lost his Ponds he retired entirely.
What now? He may want to burn everything, but she has not left him that option. Only time will tell.
And finally...
My Tribute to Clara and the Doctor
[Jesus to a Child]
Goodbye Impossible Girl. ♥
I'm leaving out huge amounts in order to focus on just the main imagery. But I wanted... something pared down? Not that it's short, but - you'll see. There might be more thoughts later (/rambling) and maybe even fic.
But for now - Clara.
Just Clara.
Killed by Death
Clara died.
This is an important point.
The companion died.
She wasn’t lost to time or mindwiped, nor did she fall into another universe or walk away. She died.
I don’t think this has happened since Adric.
But almost more important is how.
She wasn’t shot or blown up or run over or stabbed or poisoned… She was killed by death.
Literally and figuratively.
The raven extinguished her life - a literal manifestation of its mythical symbolism, as the raven is traditionally known as mediator animal between life and death. We know the Street has a telepathic field that ‘normalises everything you see, places it within the compass of your expectations, your experiences.’
And for death, you see a raven.
Going back to Norse mythology, Odin is depicted as having two ravens - Huginn and Muninn - serving as his eyes and ears: Huginn being referred to as thought and Muninn as memory. The Norse connection being especially poignant as Ashildr, Odin’s Valkyrie, is back; her role to gather those fallen in battle… … (See my post on The Girl Who Died)
But the raven was also a ‘Quantum Shade’.
- In literature and poetry, a shade can be taken to mean the spirit or ghost of a dead person, residing in the underworld.
- In physics, quantum mechanics - or rather, the uncertainty principle - states ‘the impossibility of simultaneously specifying the precise position and momentum of any particle’.
In terms of a Quantum Shade this would seem to be the unlife of the raven, simultaneously dead and alive (it is neither and both); it is a physical (yet transient) mark on the skin and a bird; it kills people yet does not touch them.
Symbolically, then Clara has always been associated with birds, right from the start… (We hear Carmen, before we even see her):
We have also often seen her with a Horus/bird necklace/jewellery (graphic courtesy of purplefringe):
I have talked about Horus before, but here are the basics:
Different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egypt specialists. These various forms may possibly be different perceptions of the same multi-layered deity in which certain attributes or syncretic relationships are emphasized, not necessarily in opposition but complementary to one another, consistent with how the Ancient Egyptians viewed the multiple facets of reality. He was most often depicted as a falcon, most likely a lanner or peregrine, or as a man with a falcon head.
The Osiris myth is the most elaborate and influential story in ancient Egyptian mythology. It concerns the murder of the god Osiris, a primeval king of Egypt, and its consequences. Osiris's murderer, his brother Set, usurps his throne. The remainder of the story focuses on Horus, the product of the union of Isis and Osiris. Their often violent conflict ends with Horus's triumph, which restores order to Egypt after Set's unrighteous reign and completes the process of Osiris's resurrection. The myth, with its complex symbolism, is integral to the Egyptian conceptions of kingship and succession, conflict between order and disorder, and especially death and the afterlife.
If Clara is Horus, then clearly Gallifrey is Osiris, and she is (gradually) helping to restore it, through an elaborate storyline often involving death and the afterlife.
Going back to that gorgeous graphic above, of course I can’t not talk about her mother’s name…
Ellie Ravenwood is, I think, just about as complex a name as Clara (bright) Oswin (god’s friend) Oswald (god’s power).
- Ellie is a pet form of Ellen or more commonly Eleanor, which itself is of Hebrew origin and comes from the Hebrew element 'el' meaning 'god' and 'or' meaning light, so the name means 'God is my light'.
- Raven of course signifies death, and Ellie died on the date when ‘Rose’ first aired. (Also remember that Clara’s birthday is 23rd of November. I plain refuse to believe these dates are random.)
- Wood… I don’t even know where to start. Although as the woman whose love story (and daughter) began with a leaf, it’s infinitely fitting.
I have talked about the duality of Clara before, how she is Schrödinger’s Companion, and it is entirely fitting that Clara’s ending is as much about duality as her life was.
Her origin story bound in a leaf, strong enough to defeat a sun god; her ending her own… and yet not.
She took upon herself another’s death, sacrificed herself for his sake. The death was transferred, but - it was not a death meant for her.
And that, I think, will be important. To quote The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe:
"But what does it all mean?" asked Susan when they were somewhat calmer.
"It means," said Aslan, "that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards."
Rigsy was no traitor, and I do not think that Clara will come back to life. But still - there are rules within fairy tales (and Doctor Who is, at heart, a fairy tale), and the hero who nobly sacrifices herself in another’s stead will not go unrewarded.
Especially as death is usually an important step in a hero’s journey:
11. THE RESURRECTION. At the climax, the hero is severely tested once more on the threshold of home. He or she is purified by a last sacrifice, another moment of death and rebirth, but on a higher and more complete level. By the hero’s action, the polarities that were in conflict at the beginning are finally resolved.
12. RETURN WITH THE ELIXIR. The hero returns home or continues the journey, bearing some element of the treasure that has the power to transform the world as the hero has been transformed.
This episode is was obviously the death, and I am sure that because of that she will somehow have the power to help resolve the ultimate conflict of the narrative. Bringing back Gallifrey or something along those lines would be my guess. But she's always been connected to Gallifrey. And Daleks. Could she be an egg? Time will tell. For now...
(x)
And the next lines are:
Rest now, hardship is over.
Live. Wake up. Wake up.
And let the cloak, of life - cling to your bones. Cling to your bones.
Death means transformation, and re-birth.
Full fathom five thy father lies.
Of his bones are coral made.
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Be a Doctor
Clara’s role, from first till last, has been as the one who saves the Doctor, usually by reminding him who he is.
(Something of course started by River in A Good Man Goes To War, the pivotal turning point in Moffat Who. Back then River gave him the choice between Warrior and Doctor, and Clara carries that same torch.)
In her first appearance, as Oswin, she severed the link between the Doctor’s warrior status and the Daleks, helping to turn his name from something to be feared, to a question once more.
In her second appearance, she once more gave him something to live for, made him be the Doctor rather than a man who walked away.
Then, as ‘herself’ in The Name of the Doctor she saved him physically, creating endless echoes, but more importantly she gave him back himself in The Day of the Doctor. (Where we had River in the role of Fairy Godmother, watching over her protége and helping her.) And the way she saved him - and Gallifrey - was by reminding him of who he was:
DOCTOR: Then what do I do?
CLARA: What you've always done. Be a doctor. You told me the name you chose was a promise. What was the promise?
TENTH DOCTOR: Never cruel or cowardly.
WAR DOCTOR: Never give up, never give in.
We see the same here.
Clara is about to die, but she spends her last moments reminding and instructing him:
CLARA: You. Now, you listen to me. You're going to be alone now, and you're very bad at that. You're going to be furious and you're going to be sad, but listen to me. Don't let this change you. No, listen. Whatever happens next, wherever she is sending you, I know what you're capable of. You don't be a Warrior. Promise me. Be a Doctor.
Because being the Doctor is a choice:
DOCTOR: There's no such thing as the Doctor. I'm just a bloke in a box, telling stories. And because sometimes, on a good day, if I try very hard, I'm not some old Time Lord who ran away. I'm the Doctor.
The way Clara does this is also consistent…
DOCTOR: Because I've been where you have. There was another box. I was going to press another button. I was going to wipe out all of my own kind, man, woman and child. I was so sure I was right.
BONNIE: What happened?
DOCTOR: The same thing that happened to you. I let Clara Oswald get inside my head. Trust me. She doesn't leave.
I talked, after the Zygon episodes, about Clara as an idea. About the Osgoods as a concept, the two of them embodying The Peace.
As I suspected, Clara does something very similar here (and I expect this to be enhanced) - she makes herself the one who holds the Doctor to the mark. Her memory, the idea of her, something to remind him who he is supposed to be. She has, indeed, become The Peace - the Doctor’s own, private, Peace:
CLARA: Heal yourself. You have to. You can't let this turn you into a monster. So, I'm not asking you for a promise, I'm giving you an order. You will not insult my memory. There will be no revenge. I will die, and no one else, here or anywhere, will suffer.
All season the narrative has toyed with what would happen if the Doctor lost Clara.
- When he lost Donna he decided to travel alone.
- And when he lost his Ponds he retired entirely.
What now? He may want to burn everything, but she has not left him that option. Only time will tell.
And finally...
My Tribute to Clara and the Doctor
[Jesus to a Child]
Click to view Goodbye Impossible Girl. ♥