capaldisthebest:

loversandantiheroes:

thenotoriousscuttlecliff:

Considering Jenna’s limited availability, there’s no way Moffat would’ve written such a massive role for Clara in TUAT.

I think a lot of what this centers around is people confusing the themes of Moffat’s era with themes specific to Twelve and Clara.  Memory, and specifically that idea of recreating something from a memory or the absence thereof, was a key theme in Moffat’s very first season.  The memories-as-self theme kicked off in a big way with Auton!Rory.  The utterly wonderful concept from Deep Breath of “I’m right here standing in front of you” that Bill harkens back to in TUAT?  Also started with Amy and Rory after he’d been erased by the cracks in time.  Twelve’s time spent both in the Fisher King’s statis chamber and in his confession dial - long stretches of time spent with the sole purpose of getting back to Clara is extremely reminiscent of Rory’s time spent guarding Amy in the Pandorica.  Twelve and Clara’s final moment with the neural blocker being “Let’s do this like we’ve done everything else; together,” is another callback to Amy and Rory in Angels Take Manhattan: “Together or not at all.”

Twelve and Clara’s relationship is an expression of these themes, certainly, but those themes do not belong to their relationship alone.  That’s kinda the point of a theme.

Have to disagree here. Whether Jenna would be available to film a whole episode was up in the air until Victoria was renewed for another series and had set up there filming schedule. It was also originally stated that Pearl Mackie would not be in the Christmas episode. 

Throughout the episode, there are references to the Twelve - Clara relationship. The most obvious was the “I’m standing right here but you don’t see me” theme. This was a uniquely Twelve - Clara theme that goes all the way back to Deep Breath, Peter’s first episode. When Bill was insisting that she was real and that the Doctor was looking right at her but not seeing her - that was a continuation of that theme (obviously) and would have made a lot more sense with Clara saying it.

When Bill recognizes the First Doctor as THE Doctor, this is another reference to Twelve - Clara, specifically the Cloisters scene in Hell Bent. Twelve tells the story of the Gallifreyan who ran off with the President’s (can’t remember the leader’s title) daughter. Clara immediately recognised Twelve was talking about himself and said, “I’d know you anywhere.” It is Clara knows the Doctor so well she can recognize him just by a description of his actions. 

In one of the moments  when Bill was insisting that she was real, the Doctor (12) says, “Then tell me what to do. The real Bill Potts would tell me what to do.” This doesn’t  sound ANYTHING like the relationship between Twelve and Bill. It does, however, sound EXACTLY like Twelve and Clara’s relationship. In fact, this is one of the things that the people who hate Clara the most always point out about her - she was frequently bossing 12 around. I have never heard anyone accuse Bill of this - because she DIDN’T do it.

By the way, when did Twelve ever mention (let alone explain) regeneration to Bill? When did he ever tell her he had stolen the Tardis and run away from Gallifrey? Bill asks the First Doctor about both these things, but she had never even known about them. Clara DID know about both these things very well however.

Towards the end of the episode, Bill asks the Doctor why he doesn’t want to regenerate. The Doctor says, “I’m tired of losing people.” Twelve had said these exact words to Clara in season 9, right before he told her how much he dreaded losing her. Again, a reference, in this case word for word, to a very specific and unique moment between Twelve and Clara.

Very close to the end of the episode, Bill says that the most difficult part about going off to explore the universe was letting the Doctor go. Bill didn’t let the Doctor go - she had no choice. She had been turned into a Cyberman. Her choice was to stay as a cyberman or become Bill again and travel with Heather. The Doctor didn’t have any part of her choice. None. It was Clara who let the Doctor go. She could have stayed and tried to prove to the Doctor who she was. She had a Tardis - that would be evidence in and of itself.

There are more examples. One of the other fans on here pointed out some that I had missed, these are just the ones that come to me off the top of my head. Whouffaldi is incredibly poweful and UNIQUE. When it’s there, you can’t miss it.💖💖💖

***Bit of a post script here: I have never even written another post about Bill,  so no one can accuse me of having “to connect or replace every last thing about Bill with Clara”. I saw the evidence on the screen so I wrote about it. You see I am completely aware that both Clara and Bill are FICTIONAL characters.  I am a grown woman who has long since (I mean,  we’re talking elementary school) stopped pitting fictional characters against each other.