The Clara Conundrum (SPOILERS And Speculation)

[StCoop]

At the risk of making myself look a fool come Christmas I've come up with a theory on just who the hell Jenna-Louise Coleman is going to be playing in the series on a regular basis based on what we saw in AOTD, along with assorted set reports from the shooting of the Xmas Special.

One ground rule I'm laying down for my sanity is that while it's true that in any work of fiction (doubly so for anything written by Moffat) what we're told can later turn out to be false, I'm going to asume for the moment that that's not the case here.

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In "Asylum Of The Daleks" we meet Oswin Oswald a computer genius from the future gets turned into a Dalek on her first journey into space and who doesn't know anything about the Doctor until she reads up on him. Oswin apparently dies at the end of the episode when the Daleks blow up the Asylum planet.

In this year's Christmas Special we will be introduced to a character called Calra*, in Victorian-era London who bears a striking resemblance to Oswin. Clara is seen in clothes suitable for the time period, except for one scene that takes place in a graveyard at what appears to be the end of the episode, in which she appears in several different present-day** outfits in quick succession. Also shot in this graveyard were scenes in which the Doctor (along with Vastra and Jenny) appear to be visiting Clara's grave, which is odd for someone who appears to be very much alive.

So here comes the crazy theory...

Before the Asylum is destroyed Oswin uses the Daleks psychic hive mind (conveniently introduced in this episode) to transfer her consciousness up to the Parliament Of The Daleks ship and from there into the TARDIS. Clara is her distant ancestor and she does die in the Xmas Episode (mentally at least), at which point Oswin downloads her mind into her body, after which she calls herself Clara Oswin*** in acknowledgement of her unique sitation.

Like I said, no doubt I'll turn out to be completely wrong but at the moment sans any, "This is what realllly happened" copouts, it's the best I've got based on what we know.



*Confirmed by multiple Set Reports (some of which are backed up by vidoes) in which her name is spoken.

**Or future, since the New Series has made it clear that clothing styles will never change much again no matter how much time passes.

***Her supposed full name has appeared in several reports prior to the start of the series.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Another possibility.

They loop "Oswin Oswald" over "Clara Oswin" in post. (Say them in the mirror, and you'll see that the mouth movements are close enough to not be distractingly obvious.) ADR isn't that difficult to do. And given the secrecy around JLC's appearance in "Asylum," I wouldn't put it past Moffat to deliberately foul up the set watchers with bad dialogue.

 

[DWF]

Oswin Oswald, wasn't she on the grassy knoll?

 

[Methos]

Well we know at least some Dalek's come with 'temporal re-locators' built in, so I don't have a problem finding a way for Dalek-Oswin to have ended up in the past somewhere...

After that, it's just a matter of The Doctor reprogramming the nanogenes, which we've seen multiple times, to reform Dalek-Oswin into a human being again... Then calling herself Clara, she sets out with The Doctor to regain her 'humanity' after the Dalek's robbed her of it...

M

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Now that the Daleks' curiosity has been piqued by this "Doctor who?" business, let's say that they create a new human body for Oswin and send to a time and place where they think she might meet the Doctor. Of course the Doctor would not recognize her, as he's never met her face-to-face during "Asylum of the Daleks", and he has no idea that this "Clara" girl and Oswin are one and the same.

Clara joins the Doctor and earns his trust, and ends up manipulating him to go to the Fields of Trenzalore, where, as we all know, "no living creature may speak falsely or fail to give answer". Clara will ask The Question That Must Never Be Answered, silence will fall, etc.

 

[StCoop]

Another possibility.

They loop "Oswin Oswald" over "Clara Oswin" in post.

What would have been be the point? No one knew she was appearing in AOTS until a few weeks ago, and now it has been properly aired most people will be assuming they'll be the same character in some way. It's not like they were replacing Susan (or Romana or Rani) with some generic name.

I didn't want to bog down my original post with too much detail but other set reports have her talking and acting as a Period Character; so she's either pretending (in which case they need to explain how she (a) gets her body back and (b) winds up there) or the character in that episode will be a Victorian. A Victorian who immediately changes into a mini-skirt on being given the chance to travel in time. (And yes, I know that's exactly what that last one did, but people were a lot more forgiving of logic breaks 45+ years ago.)

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

(And yes, I know that's exactly what that last one did, but people were a lot more forgiving of logic breaks 45+ years ago.)

Actually, people are still very forgiving when it comes to women wearing mini-skirts.

 

[davejames]

Before the Asylum is destroyed Oswin uses the Daleks psychic hive mind (conveniently introduced in this episode) to transfer her consciousness up to the Parliament Of The Daleks ship and from there into the TARDIS. Clara is her distant ancestor and she does die in the Xmas Episode (mentally at least), at which point Oswin downloads her mind into her body, after which she calls herself Clara Oswin*** in acknowledgement of her unique sitation.

I don't know. It's a possibility, but even for Moffat it seems a bit convoluted. And the fact Oswin is a dead ringer for her distant, distant Victorian ancestor seems a bit far-fetched as well.

I think it more likely that this Clara we see in the Christmas special really IS the same girl from the future, and we're just seeing her earlier in her timeline somehow. She's already been established as a "genius," so who knows what she's capable of (Time travel? Surviving death?).

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

I think it more likely that this Clara we see in the Christmas special really IS the same girl from the future, and we're just seeing her earlier in her timeline somehow. She's already been established as a "genius," so who knows what she's capable of.

Oswin really didn't seem to recognize the Doctor, though.

 

[davejames]

I think it more likely that this Clara we see in the Christmas special really IS the same girl from the future, and we're just seeing her earlier in her timeline somehow. She's already been established as a "genius," so who knows what she's capable of.

Oswin really didn't seem to recognize the Doctor, though.

Yeah but she had also been dead awhile and turned into a full Dalek. And we already saw that the process of conversion resulted in serious memory loss, so the fact she can't remember the Doctor anymore would seem to fit.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

I don't think Moffat's going to use the exact same plot device twice.

 

[Christopher]

And the fact Oswin is a dead ringer for her distant, distant Victorian ancestor seems a bit far-fetched as well.

Yeah, and there's never been anything far-fetched in Doctor Who....

There have been exact doubles seen numerous times before in the franchise, like Romana I and Princess Strella in "The Androids of Tara" (Romana II and Princess Astra don't count, since she deliberately modeled her regeneration on that princess), or Nyssa and Ann Talbot in "Black Orchid," or Torchwood's Gwen Cooper and her ancestor Gwyneth from "The Unquiet Dead," or Martha Jones and her identical cousin Adeola, or Joan Redfern from "Human Nature" and her lookalike descendant Verity Newman. Not to mention the Abbot of Amboise being a dead ringer for the First Doctor and Ramon Salamander for the Second.

And those are just the characters explicitly referenced as being doubles or identical relatives. There are also unconnected characters played by the same actor, like Bret Vyon and the Brigadier, Maxil and the Sixth Doctor, Princess Joanna and Sara Kingdom and Morgaine, the Pompeiian Soothsayer and Amy Pond, etc. (Personally I like to think Bret Vyon is the Brig's distant descendant.)

I don't think Moffat's going to use the exact same plot device twice.

Moffat uses every plot device at least twice. He has some brilliant ideas, but he keeps recycling the same ones.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Moffat uses every plot device at least twice. He has some brilliant ideas, but he keeps recycling the same ones.

I don't think he's ever used the exact same plot device to introduce a major character and I really doubt that he would.

 

[davejames]

Yeah, and there's never been anything far-fetched in Doctor Who....

There have been exact doubles seen numerous times before in the franchise, like Romana I and Princess Strella in "The Androids of Tara" (Romana II and Princess Astra don't count, since she deliberately modeled her regeneration on that princess), or Nyssa and Ann Talbot in "Black Orchid," or Torchwood's Gwen Cooper and her ancestor Gwyneth from "The Unquiet Dead," or Martha Jones and her identical cousin Adeola, or Joan Redfern from "Human Nature" and her lookalike descendant Verity Newman. Not to mention the Abbot of Amboise being a dead ringer for the First Doctor and Ramon Salamander for the Second.

And those are just the characters explicitly referenced as being doubles or identical relatives. There are also unconnected characters played by the same actor, like Bret Vyon and the Brigadier, Maxil and the Sixth Doctor, Princess Joanna and Sara Kingdom and Morgaine, the Pompeiian Soothsayer and Amy Pond, etc. (Personally I like to think Bret Vyon is the Brig's distant descendant.)

I'm not saying it hasn't been done, but for this particular story it just seems a little too obvious and convenient a solution. Oswin dies and her consciousness gets transferred into her identical twin from hundreds of years ago?

That seems to me about as cheesy and uninspired as the Data/B4 thing from Nemesis.

 

[Samurai8472]

I don't think Moffat's going to use the exact same plot device twice.

Moffat uses every plot device at least twice. He has some brilliant ideas, but he keeps recycling the same ones.

Oswin Oswald basically starts out like River song too

The Doctor is introduced to her and then she dies by the end of the episode.

The Doctor later meets up with her before she died.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Oswin Oswald basically starts out like River song too

The Doctor is introduced to her and then she dies by the end of the episode.

The Doctor later meets up with her before she died.

We don't know that.

 

[ROBE]

Another theory is she is like Scaroth and exists through time as the same person.

 

[Venardhi]

Her appearance is completely irrelevant in this episode mind you. No one ever actually sees her, not even the audience as we are subject only to her imagined self.

 

[DWF]

Unless or until she's been Clara-fied we really don't know that Oswin is Clara.

 

[Christopher]

Her appearance is completely irrelevant in this episode mind you. No one ever actually sees her, not even the audience as we are subject only to her imagined self.

But it's safe to say they wouldn't have cast Jenna-Louise Coleman in the role if they hadn't meant there to be a connection with the new companion.