I don’t
know why, when a character annoys me, I sometimes blame the writer and, other
times blame the character themselves.
Clara is one where, even though I know
the writing has let her down big time, I still tend to blame her, and I’m
not sure why that is. On my latest
rewatch of Who, I’ve been paying
particular attention to Clara and why she hasn’t been working for me. Basically, the writing for Clara has been a
mess, so much so that I can’t get into all of it in a single post. Since my grievances manifest differently when
she’s with different Doctors, I’m splitting these posts into her time with
Eleven and with Twelve (so far.)
In
series 7, the greatest disservice done to Clara is, by far, the whole
“Impossible Girl” thing. By making her
into a mystery, she really doesn’t get much chance to be a person for her
entire first half-season on the show.
She’s so generic, her characterization so noncommittal, that I can
hardly tell whether or not she’s acting in character in a given episode. There’s nothing for me to hang onto, nothing
to let me in so I can get to know her.
It’s like writing her as a person is put on hold until the big reveal,
so she spends nearly all her time with Eleven in a bland holding pattern. My first time through series 7, I was
hard-pressed to come up with many adjectives for Clara other than maybe “smart”
and “kind.” As I’ve mentioned, Amy has
similar issues on her first season of the show, but it’s even more glaring with
Clara because, by the time we meet her, we’ve already seen two other versions
of her, both of whom are written much more specifically than she is. Although I have my problems with both Oswin
and Victorian Clara, I have a decent handle on who they are. With the Clara we get full-time, however,
it’s like the writers didn’t get any further than “ordinary young woman”
(though, let’s face it, they probably thought “girl”) before calling it good
enough and moving on to the mystery.
Clara
also pales in comparison with her previous forms where meaningful contributions
are concerned. Oswin and Victorian Clara
are both over-the-top clever, frequently giving the Doctor a run for his money
and beating us over the head with their wonderful capability. Meanwhile, all Clara offers in her debut
episode is a single scene where she uses the tech knowhow temporarily bestowed
on her by the episode’s villains. The
skills aren’t actually hers – earlier in the episode, she herself is shown to
be ludicrously computer-illiterate (I challenge you to find a 24-year-old woman
living in a major city in 2013 who doesn’t understand that more than one person
can use the Internet at the same time.)
They’re a by-product of being kidnapped by aliens, and they’re
completely gone by the end of the episode.
If it weren’t for the mystery about her, I don’t see why the Doctor
would have invited her to join him. Most
of her time with Eleven is in fact pretty short on contributions to the
victory. Her biggest moments tend to be
stirring, emotional speeches, which are well and good, but she doesn’t do much
in the way of tangible action. I think
of when she goes in to parlay with Skaldek in “Cold War.” While it is
dangerous and she’s brave to do it, she’s only there to relay the Doctor’s words, and another character
literally calls her the monkey to the Doctor’s organ grinder – not so much with
the agency.
Finally, the whole “the TARDIS doesn’t like Clara” plot aggravates the crap out of me, because every time it comes up, she’s not using a key! She struggles vainly with the locked door and grumbles at the TARDIS for being unreasonable. I could see it if the TARDIS wouldn’t let her in despite using a key, but who blames a door for not opening when it’s locked? (Clearly, I have a lot of feelings about this plot.) So stupid, and it reflects really badly on Clara’s common sense.
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