The Impossible Girl: Who IS Clara Oswin Oswald?!?

[The Mirrorball Man]

1. I do not believe there are lots of them running around. We know TARDISes were tightly regulated, and running around the Universe freely was frowned upon while Time Lord Society was existent. So, there wouldn't be that many running around in the first place. And, many of those who were running around the Universe freely would have rushed straight home to join the fight. Someone like the Rani (or The Master if he wasn't enticed by the promise of more Regenerations), would've stayed out of it, and could still be out there.

2. Time-Locked is not dead, it's frozen in a moment of time, or outside of time or whatever, and they've already escaped from it once, and Daleks have escaped from it, so, although an almost inescapable prison, it's not actually DEAD.

3. Yes, I realize the Writers' intent is to remove them from the playing field, but, it's not necessarily a permanent situation, there is a loop hole if they choose to use it. If they really, really wanted them dead, they would have been killed, the planet would've blown up, instead of Time Locked. RTD chose to Time-Lock them instead of killing them, so, they could be played with as in The End of Time (Plus The Master and the Daleks returning)

I think we're talking about different things here. My intent is not to rain on your parade. I you want to believe that Susan or Romana or other Time Lords are still out there, that's of course fine with me.

I don't really care for the in-universe situation, to be honest, because the Doctor Who universe doesn't actually exist. The only things that exist are writers, what they have written and what they intend to write in the future. For now, the Doctor is the Last of the Time Lords. It means that there are no other Time Lords, otherwise what is supposed to be tragic would just be a sitcom-level silly misunderstanding. Clearly, that is not what was intended by Russell T. Davies & Co.

And yes, of course it may not be a permanent situation. Nothing is permanent in serialized fiction. Any writer could bring the Time Lords back in any kind of ways, and whether they're dead or not doesn't change a thing. In an anything-goes fictional universe like the Doctor Who world, nothing prevents anything from happening. But for now, that has not happened, and from the show's point of view, the Doctor is unambiguously the last of the Time Lords, i.e. the only one.

 

[Sindatur]

1. I do not believe there are lots of them running around. We know TARDISes were tightly regulated, and running around the Universe freely was frowned upon while Time Lord Society was existent. So, there wouldn't be that many running around in the first place. And, many of those who were running around the Universe freely would have rushed straight home to join the fight. Someone like the Rani (or The Master if he wasn't enticed by the promise of more Regenerations), would've stayed out of it, and could still be out there.

2. Time-Locked is not dead, it's frozen in a moment of time, or outside of time or whatever, and they've already escaped from it once, and Daleks have escaped from it, so, although an almost inescapable prison, it's not actually DEAD.

3. Yes, I realize the Writers' intent is to remove them from the playing field, but, it's not necessarily a permanent situation, there is a loop hole if they choose to use it. If they really, really wanted them dead, they would have been killed, the planet would've blown up, instead of Time Locked. RTD chose to Time-Lock them instead of killing them, so, they could be played with as in The End of Time (Plus The Master and the Daleks returning)

I think we're talking about different things here. My intent is not to rain on your parade. I you want to believe that Susan or Romana or other Time Lords are still out there, that's of course fine with me.

Sigh, I've said at least 3 times, I don't believe Romana or Susan would've stayed out of the fight, that I believe they would've rushed home, how does that translate into me believing Susan or Romana are still out there?

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Sigh, I've said at least 3 times, I don't believe Romana or Susan would've stayed out of the fight, that I believe they would've rushed home, how does that translate into me believing Susan or Romana are still out there?

I apologize. As I said, I don't care, you can believe whatever you want. That's not what I was talking about anyway.

 

[Christopher]

Then what position did you take? How could changing events erase her from where the Doctor left her, without erasing him? They always give some kind of explanation, even if it does disagree with prior "canon"

I'm not going to repeat myself. I never proposed a scenario like you're discussing here. You made it up, so if you want it explained, you make up an explanation. It's got nothing to do with me.

The Wiki is not the show, that's someone' interpretation. What we see on screen, is Timelords and Daleks have escaped from the Time-Lock, it is not death, it is a prison, locked in a moment of time, and is escapable, as shown onscreen

You're completely missing the point. It's time travel. That means that if someone died in the past, you can theoretically go back in time to before they died and save them, just as we've seen in countless time-travel stories over the decades, such as Star Trek Voyager's "Timeless" or Back to the Future Part III. Time-locking is a mechanism to explain what's preventing the Doctor from doing that, why he can't go back and undo the deaths.

Of course if you go back in time to before someone died, they'll still be alive at that point and you can rescue them. That's what you're perceiving as "escaping" the time lock. But that doesn't mean they didn't die. Doc Brown died in the Old West, then Marty McFly went back in time and saved him, so he was alive again. That's what the Doctor could've done if there hadn't been a time lock -- go back and undo the deaths of the Time Lords. But the time lock keeps him from doing that, just as the block on Manhattan keeps him from rescuing Amy and Rory.

 

[Sindatur]

Then what position did you take? How could changing events erase her from where the Doctor left her, without erasing him? They always give some kind of explanation, even if it does disagree with prior "canon"

I'm not going to repeat myself. I never proposed a scenario like you're discussing here. You made it up, so if you want it explained, you make up an explanation. It's got nothing to do with me.

You said the Time War spilled over to over places, erasing whole world from existence, therefore She would be erased, what else could that possibly mean?

The Wiki is not the show, that's someone' interpretation. What we see on screen, is Timelords and Daleks have escaped from the Time-Lock, it is not death, it is a prison, locked in a moment of time, and is escapable, as shown onscreen

You're completely missing the point. It's time travel. That means that if someone died in the past, you can theoretically go back in time to before they died and save them, just as we've seen in countless time-travel stories over the decades, such as Star Trek Voyager's "Timeless" or Back to the Future Part III. Time-locking is a mechanism to explain what's preventing the Doctor from doing that, why he can't go back and undo the deaths.

Of course if you go back in time to before someone died, they'll still be alive at that point and you can rescue them. That's what you're perceiving as "escaping" the time lock. But that doesn't mean they didn't die. Doc Brown died in the Old West, then Marty McFly went back in time and saved him, so he was alive again. That's what the Doctor could've done if there hadn't been a time lock -- go back and undo the deaths of the Time Lords. But the time lock keeps him from doing that, just as the block on Manhattan keeps him from rescuing Amy and Rory.

They escaped from within the Time Lock themselves, they couldn't have done that if they were dead. When did we see someone Time Travel to before they were dead to rescue them?

 

[Alidar Jarok]

^ They (almost) escaped from the Time Lock before they died.

I never claimed he could reach them, I said Tme-Loked is not dead, as has been shown onscreen

They did die. In The End of Time, the Time Lords were aware that the Doctor was about to use the Moment, which would kill them all. It's actually more accurate to say they did die, but it's possible to reach them depending if it's needed for the plot (but we're supposed to believe you can't reach them).

 

[Sindatur]

^ They (almost) escaped from the Time Lock before they died.

I never claimed he could reach them, I said Tme-Loked is not dead, as has been shown onscreen

They did die. In The End of Time, the Time Lords were aware that the Doctor was about to use the Moment, which would kill them all. It's actually more accurate to say they did die, but it's possible to reach them depending if it's needed for the plot (but we're supposed to believe you can't reach them).

If I recal correctly, near the end of the Episode, when he dispatched them, he said nothing about re-killing them, but instead, said something like "Back into the Time Lock you go", correct?

 

[RoJoHen]

I never got the impression that they were dead within the Time Lock, merely trapped forever in some kind of pocket universe, inside of which the Time War still rages on. They are effectively dead to the rest of the universe (until their next escape attempt, anyway), but they may as well be as far as we're concerned.

However, as we have already seen, the Time Lock is imperfect. Any number of plot devices could undo it.

 

[Christopher]

You said the Time War spilled over to over places, erasing whole world from existence, therefore She would be erased, what else could that possibly mean?

If you haven't figured out what I'm saying by now, I'm not going to waste time repeating myself. I don't get why you're fixated on Susan anyway.

They escaped from within the Time Lock themselves, they couldn't have done that if they were dead. When did we see someone Time Travel to before they were dead to rescue them?

Same answer. If you haven't gotten it from what the rest of us have already explained, then more verbiage won't help. Maybe you just need to reflect for a while on what's been discussed already.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

^ They (almost) escaped from the Time Lock before they died.

I never claimed he could reach them, I said Tme-Loked is not dead, as has been shown onscreen

They did die. In The End of Time, the Time Lords were aware that the Doctor was about to use the Moment, which would kill them all. It's actually more accurate to say they did die, but it's possible to reach them depending if it's needed for the plot (but we're supposed to believe you can't reach them).

If I recal correctly, near the end of the Episode, when he dispatched them, he said nothing about re-killing them, but instead, said something like "Back into the Time Lock you go", correct?

He referred to their death in a previous episode. He isn't re-killing them anyway. They were killed once, he just prevented them from being un-killed. It would be a little more morbid if he shouted "and now you all can die."

 

[Photoman15]

It was:
"Back into the Time War, Rassilon! Back into Hell!"

 

[RoJoHen]

It was:
"Back into the Time War, Rassilon! Back into Hell!"

Which, to me, implies that they will be going there to continue to live and die and live again in the neverending cycle of the Time War. They didn't all just die. The Time War is still happening, and it will probably keep happening forever; it is simply happening outside of the normal Universe, so that nothing else can ever be affected by it.

 

[propita]

I figured, to having seen much of old Who episodes but just this discussion, that, as posters have stated, the Time Lords are locked in time and space. No one can get in to "save" them due to the lock, but there is little to stop them from trying to find a way out. a one way door. They're not dead, but the War continues behind the lock. But since no one can get in, they are effectively dead to everyone outside the lock.

They weren't erased from time, there's been a number of comments in NuWho about Gallifrey and the Time Lords being a legend or that they're all dead. Which means people do know about them and they existed at some point, known to the universeand not erased from existence.

I defer to those who have seen many of the episodes I have not.

 

[Christopher]

Ultimately, there's no way to make any real sense out of the conflict between the narrative logic of events happening in a certain order and the realistic ramifications of time travel where causality goes out the window. It should be possible, given the ease of time travel in the series, to go back to before anyone died and find them still alive. It should be possible to go back into the past of a now-extinct race and interact with them while they did exist. So the idea of any character or race being "dead now" from the perspective of a time traveler like the Doctor is nonsense. What constitutes "now" when you can be in 396,003 CE one day and 8 billion BCE the next?

But the narrative requires that events usually proceed in a certain order, that characters who die are still mourned as having been lost, that recurring friends or foes usually experience events in the same order the Doctor does, etc. So throughout its history, the show has always fudged the temporal logic. Usually it's just ignored the question altogether; otherwise it's made up arbitrary Laws of Time to explain why the Doctor can't just go back and save Adric or visit the young Brigadier or whatever, or concocted poorly-explained handwaves like "time locks" to justify the frankly rather nonsensical narrative conceit that a race that can exist throughout all of history is somehow "extinct" at any given point in the Doctor's subjective present no matter how far back or forward he travels.

So worrying or debating about how it can make sense is a futile effort. It doesn't make sense. It can't make sense. It's sloppy and self-contradictory and ridiculous. It's all just a bunch of arbitrary fudges that the writers came up with to simplify the storytelling logic. But in the case of Doctor Who, that's acceptable, because it's all just a flamboyant, fanciful tall tale.

 

[Sindatur]

Thank You Photman15, RoJoHen and propita, you articulated many of my points well.

 

[JoeZhang]

Just accepting it's all bollocks that doesn't make much sense and any future writer can make it mean what he/she wants it to mean is easier than this tortured discussion. The key thing is that it removes the Time Lords and provides a reason why they can't be saved by time travel.

 

[Mr Light]

I thought the Doctor used The Moment to wipe out the Time Lords and Daleks from the timestream so that they never existed? It just, didn't, ah, take

 

[DWF]

It was:
"Back into the Time War, Rassilon! Back into Hell!"

Which, to me, implies that they will be going there to continue to live and die and live again in the neverending cycle of the Time War. They didn't all just die. The Time War is still happening, and it will probably keep happening forever; it is simply happening outside of the normal Universe, so that nothing else can ever be affected by it.

The moment just time locked Gallifrey, the Doctor said the planet itself is gone, so I think they were just sent back to the moment just before the planet was destroyed.

 

[who.me]

Just an idea.......But what if Clara has some connection with the Master???????

 

[who.me]

Has anyone looked up the meaning Clara??? only its a latin name and means "Clear; bright; famous" Now when we first saw her she was Clever, Xmas episode she was Clear i.e snow(snow is a clear crystal and its only light that makes it appear white)? So will she be famous in the 2nd part of series 7?

Oswin comes from the English word which means, "God's friend.." (this could be timelords friend?

"The name Oswald is an Anglo-Saxon. In Anglo-Saxon the meaning of the name Oswald is: Divine power"

So we have a clear bright famous person who is a friend od god/timelords and has Divine Power.

Now lets see the comments now LOL