During her run in Doctor Who, Jenna Coleman’s Clara Oswald was controversial. Some say she took over the show and tried too much to become the Doctor. I believe there’s a reason as to why she becomes reckless and gives up her life in the end.
Series 7 saw Matt Smith’s Doctor and Clara go through a lot. She thwarted the Great Intelligence trying to kill The Doctor by splintering herself through time and then watched three Doctors with three different opinions on their actions in the Time War.
Clara saw that no matter what happened, every Doctor would protect the innocent no matter the cost, even if it means the loss of their life.
Because of these actions, when Time of the Doctor airs, Clara’s an expert on who The Doctor is. She sees one of his worst days firsthand.
When the 11th Doctor died and the Time Lords granted him a new life-cycle, she came face to face with a Doctor who had no clue who he was.
Clara’s arc in Series 8 saw her become the carer to Peter Capaldi’s Doctor. While he makes this joke in Into the Dalek, it’s actually an apt description. Since he is unaware of who he truly is, Clara takes the reins and becomes more like The Doctor.
She shows the angry, eyebrowed Time Lord who The Doctor really is. This is especially seen in Flatline when The Doctor is trapped in the miniature TARDIS.
Clara takes the lead, making the choices she knows The Doctor would and investigating the disappearances with a fake identity.
Furthermore, in Into the Dalek Clara pretends to be The Doctor’s teacher asking him “Is that really what we’ve learned today?”
While it comes across as condescending, Clara is trying to make The Doctor use his brain like he used to. She wants him to stop seeing the Daleks in black and white.
She wants him to be the better man she’s aware he can be. The same goes in Kill the Moon once The Doctor leaves Clara to decide the fate of the moon and the Earth.
She slaps him and decides he is condescending her and she wants to give up on him. It nearly happens but after one last trip to the Orient Express in space, Clara stays, knowing The Doctor still needs her, and vice versa.
However, while Clara is trying to work out if she and this new incarnation is a good fit, she meets a teacher at school. Danny Pink quickly becomes the love of Clara’s life.
As it always is due to life with The Doctor, things get complicated. Clara can’t decide who she wants to be with the most: the man she loves, or her best friend.
It isn’t until the finale of Series 8, Dark Water, she realizes Danny is the one she wants to say those three magic words to.
Unfortunately, Danny Pink dies and something inside of Clara snaps. She saves the Doctor countless of times, and in her grief, she believes she deserves the same back.
Rather than creating a rift between the two, The Doctor agrees and they search for Danny. While The Doctor and Danny don’t agree with the other, they do agree on keeping Clara safe.
Knowing she wouldn’t be truly happy without Danny, The Doctor agrees to give in to Clara’s misguided attempt of bringing Danny back.
This leads them on the path of Missy (Michelle Gomez) who brings the dead back as Cybermen. Only two Cybermen break their conditioning, one of them being Danny thanks to his love for Clara.
Sadly for Clara, Danny sacrifices himself and rather than returning to the land of the living, he gives his place to the young child he accidentally killed as a Soldier.
With Danny now gone, Clara is unsure of where she goes next. She feels that all she has left is her travels with The Doctor but lets him go when he tells her he’s found Gallifrey.
Of course, that’s a lie as The Doctor thinks Danny’s alive and Clara is happy with him. Both of them lied to let the other be free.
In a short time, Clara loses her best friend and the love of her life, twice. Add onto this the fact she lost her mother when she was only a child, it’s easy to see why her mental state deteriorates.
Series 8 was all about Clara’s obsession with traveling alongside The Doctor catching up with her, and not in a good way. One major complaint about Clara in Series 8 is how much she tries to be The Doctor.
I take that as her trying to show The Doctor who he is since he’s still unsure. She wants him to remember he is the funny life-loving magical wondrous madman in a blue box.
Of course, it’s his fight with Missy that makes him remember he’s the idiot who passes through and helps out.
Although, Clara certainly helped to put him in line when he was in the wrong.
By the time Last Christmas rolls around, Clara is living alone with no boyfriend and no best friend. The Doctor is also alone with no Gallifrey in sight. They’re brought back together thanks to the Dream Crabs and a certain magical bearded man in a red suit.
As the survivors are wakening up, Clara refuses to since in the dream world Danny is still there. Clara doesn’t want to lose the love of her life again and would rather die than keep going.
It was subtle in the episode, but it showed Clara’s declining mental state.
Losing Danny for the third time forces Clara’s traveling obsession to return with a vengeance. While previously she watched what she was doing, the pretense slips away and dying is no longer a fear.
If anything, it’s something she wants to welcome.
In Series 9 she is more The Doctor than the Time Lord is, and it’s something he comments on continuously.
Clara acts dangerously like The Doctor because she knows life is too short. She needs something to help her forget her hurt. She’s an addict looking for the next fix, and putting herself in danger quells the pain.
It’s also the one way she knows that will reunite her with her love sooner rather than later.
This is why it’s important in Face the Raven when Clara stops running and readies herself for death in a regeneration pose. This is Clara saying to herself “enough is enough” and realizes the addiction has overwhelmed her.
With the addiction taking over her life, Clara knows she’ll never be able to stop and gives in to the Raven.
The Doctor bringing Clara back can be argued as selfish, but that’s a topic for another day. Clara’s return diminishes her sacrifice and throughout Hell Bent, we see she doesn’t care about dying and wants to.
Of course, that’s a wish she will get around the long way.
Clara completes her transition at the end of Hell Bent, becoming The Doctor in her own way with a TARDIS of her own.
Before her death, she wants to make sure others don’t go through what she did before resigning to her fate.
Yes, Clara Oswald is a control freak and she is bossy but beneath that, all she wants is to help others. She wanted to make sure people were safe, but she was human. Her own selfishness got in the way.
Her heart is in the right place, even if her head isn’t. She overreacts throughout Series 8 and 9 because of her negative thoughts. Living her life dangerously masked the insane pain inside.
That is why Clara Oswald is one of the most complicated characters created. She isn’t ‘Clara Who’. She is Clara Oswald: the Impossible Girl: the woman who tried to live like The Doctor to forget her pain.
Under the wrong actress, the arc could have been mishandled. But with a versatile, quick-witted, and talented Jenna Coleman, it was always in good hands.
