meta: The Meeting With the Goddess: Journey to the Centre of the Tardis

[lonewytch]

In which the World Tree is blatant, the Tardis is a Goddess, Clara's lessons about Death continue, the Doctor is in denial, Clara is most certainly not an android and a million other very interesting things occur.

Comments

[lonewytch]

Aw, thank you so much for the totally fab comment! First off, i'm really touched by how much you've enjoyed my writing. I feel totally compelled to do it, though sometimes it's a bit of a labour of love, so it's totally lovely when people really enjoy and appreciate it.

I've not really encountered bashing of this ep, but where i see the negativity start i tend to steer clear of it, because i want to keep my squee. I think this is one of the things at the crux of Moff's Who though- he's such a vastly different showrunner to RTD, and his entire approach is very mythic, so it rally lends itself to this type of analysis. Things that are more symbolically and mythically based sometimes do sacrifice logic a little more, because that isn't their key focus, and i think some criticism of Moff's Who stems from this. I adore RTD by Moff's Who suits my watching and interpreting style better precisely because of the heavy symbolism.

Toootally agree with you about the Labyrinth symbol ,and Tardis as Labyrinth, for exactly the reasons you describe. It's the journey into the centre, to the darkness (minotaur) at the core, with death/mortality/shadow self as the ultimate darkness at the centre. You can never be lost in the Labyrinth, it only appears that you're lost. (other outings of the idea are in the God Complex, and also the Maze of the Dead in The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone. I have meta on the Angles eps if you dig back - River Song is actually the only one who refers to the Maze of the Dead as a Labyrinth in that ep, and she's playing the role of the dark goddess Hecate.)

I do agree with you that the things the Doctor has allowed Clara to forget will resurface. His name, for one...it makes me now think that she will be the one to speak his name. The thing is, I think in some way he is going to have to pay for denying Clara her own self knowledge, because i don't think as her archetypal mentor he can just do that. He's so damn desperate to not admit to himself the darkness of his own past, that he is denying hers, and these things have a way in stories of coming back and slapping people in the face.

I'm not familiar with Silent Hill, but i know where you're coming from. Totally agree - Clara will act as a mirror to reflect back the Doctor's demons/shadow to him. The fact that Doctor Who? is very much tied up with "Clara Who?" is intriguing.