#next episode is mummy on the orient express wish me luckkkkk

[roostercrowedatmidnight]

when i first watched s8 of doctor who when i was younger, i loved it but never liked the clara/danny/doctor dynamic going on. it just felt like i love triangle, which i'd never enjoyed before, and i couldn't see the point of it. but now i actually like it a lot more because i know it has very little to do with what is happening at the surface level, and actually serves more important thematic functions that make it super interesting.

the doctor and danny in s8 have to be in conflict because they are representative of clara's two lives -- normal work/home/earth vs adrenaline-high space adventures -- and how she is torn between them. these two different lives are constantly tugging at her throughout s8, as we all know. they are her main conflict in this series, perhaps even clara's main conflict across her entire run. of course the main symbols of those opposing lives, the doctor and danny, need to be constantly at odds, to demonstrate clara's inner struggles.

(there is also of course a surface level aspect to all this, which is that the doctor and danny both consider clara the most important person in their lives, and are jealous of the connection that the other has to her. but i'm guessing we all know that already.)

the doctor and danny are also supposed to be constant reflections of one another because they both look at the other and see their negative experiences with war. the doctor and danny were both soldiers, and although danny seems more accepting of that part of himself and has a more positive view on the military's function, both of them chose to leave that behind, and both still have the lingering trauma that a war experience causes. danny looks at the doctor and just sees the cruellest figures in the military. he is worried that clara will have something horrific happen to her on her adventures just like danny had in the military. the doctor looks at danny and sees who he was in the time war, the person who he hated being, and is probably worried that if clara can like a military figure like danny, then maybe she likes the doctor because she sees him in the same way. this feeds in to the 12th doctor's main conflict in s8, which is identity and morality. in 'the caretaker' he thought clara might be dating the other english teacher because that is the sort of person the doctor prefers to see themself as -- silly, academic, sweet. definitely not military.

this obviously isn't perfectly executed all the time, and it is sometimes disappointing that the doctor and danny only look at and evaluate one another with the worst outlook from beginning to end without ever seeing the good sides of one another that clara sees: the way the doctor is selfless, compassionate, and loves life in all its forms, and the way danny is patient, forgiving, supportive, and calmly grounded. however, i still think the dynamic does really interesting things with the doctor and clara and danny. s8 of doctor who is character-fuelled in an extreme way, so that practically every aspect of the plot is a result of the main characters (doctor, clara, danny, missy) and their actions, or a tool to help explore the characters' developments and conflicts better. and i love all of that now and understand it much better than i did when i first watched the show.