#moffat thought he'd write an episode about how this alien legend experiences a psychotic episode and some people dont appreciate his genius

[seaweedstarshine]

Listen is so great you don't understand. It's an episode about mental illness. And some people point out that some of the things that happen (the kid under the blanket, the airlock mechanism triggering) are on the surface unlikely, but that's the exact point. The Doctor is not an objective narrator, I mean this is the episode that starts with him sitting on top of the TARDIS in space speechifying, we see it in the way he frames it, so we see these ordinary things (a mischievous child, a dead ship breaking down) in the uncanny way he sees them—

—and because he is the Doctor, because he is the person who bad guys pause their plans to listen when he talks, because he is charismatic and impressive and the Oncoming Storm—

—because he's the Doctor, Clara (and baby Danny and Orson) start to believe him, until they arrive on Gallifrey, until Clara sees the root of his trauma, and she understands.

And it doesn't matter if this creature is a delusion or not, it only matters that it scares him, because fear is a superpower, and the way he responds to the reality he experiences is why he's the Doctor.

What. an. icon.