“Run, you clever boy” – The Clara Oswald Mystery

March 21st, 2013
Warning! This article and its comments may contain spoilers...
run-you-clever-boy-the-clara-oswald-mystery

Doctor Who loves a good old fashioned mystery and if there is anything we, the fans, love, it is dissecting and unraveling all the clues and red herrings that come our way.

With the Doctor’s latest companion Clara Oswald, Christmas has well and truly come early – actually it did, when Jenna-Louise Coleman made a surprise appearance in Asylum of the Daleks some three months before her expected debut. Since the soufflé girl arrived on our screens, we have been caught up in her character and ‘The Clara Oswald Mystery’.

So, who is Clara Oswald? Jenna has described her alter ego as “mysterious” but that’s just the icing on the cake. How can the same person – or different versions of the same person – keep popping up in the Doctor’s life? Steven Moffat has she will lead the Time Lord on “his merriest dance yet”, so will her identity have anything to do with his big and “greatest secret” that will be revealed during the new series? Only time will tell…

Que Sera, Sera, but whatever happens, judging by this latest trailer, the Doctor is just as eager to find out the truth as we are, and you can use this discussion to share with us and each other your wide speculation and theories. A link will be added to the sidebar so you can contribute to the comments as Clara’s story develops over the coming months.

Get involved, join the conversation, have fun, watch out for spoilers, “and remember”…

80 comments on this article
  1. Hannah
    May 15th, 2013 at 9.43pm | #1

    My pen-pal friend in another state got one of the dvds earlier, and I don’t know if this was her, or an article I read, but it says classic who fans will be ‘blown away’.

  2. Collins
    May 16th, 2013 at 2.04am | #2

    Changed my mind. The little girl in the spacesuit in The Day of the Moon = Clara. No evidence whatsoever, but it’s kind of a cool idea.

  3. Calli Arcale
    May 16th, 2013 at 7.22pm | #3

    @Collins
    No, the little girl in the suit was already revealed to be River Song. I really don’t think Clara’s going to turn out to be another incarnation of River.

  4. Calli Arcale
    May 16th, 2013 at 7.26pm | #4

    @Collins
    “Yes, time was rewritten and it never actually exploded, but Timey-Wimey and all, we know that undoing some fixed events do not change events they caused (Amy’s parents did not come back after the cracks were sealed, etc.).”

    But her parents *did* come back!

  5. Rio
    May 18th, 2013 at 12.43pm | #5

    Sorry to disappoint a lot of you, but it’s not Susan. Moffat read a load of the theories, and although he says many are so good he may have to use them, none of them are accurate. However, we don’t have long to wait !

  6. TARDIS
    May 18th, 2013 at 9.41pm | #6

    Clara is the TARDIS! She exists at every point in time, all at once. She is there to guide and help the Doctor. The TARDIS said that it CHOSE the Doctor, and in a flashback it was Clara that recommended the particular TARDIS. That is why she is still alive and River’s psychic link continued, because the TARDIS is still alive.

    I look forward to John Hurt playing Doctor 8.5, great actor :)

  7. Bailey
    May 19th, 2013 at 2.40am | #7

    @TARDIS

    8.5?!?!?

    What am I missing here?

  8. azleep
    May 22nd, 2013 at 12.59pm | #8

    @TARDIS

    That’s a wicked theory!

  9. jordan
    May 23rd, 2013 at 4.57am | #9

    @Calli Arcale
    although river is connected to clara because of the next episode of doctor who where clara goes into the doctors timeline to save the doctor and copies of her are sent all over space and time and then the doctor goes into his own timeline to save clara and it show that john hurt is the twelth doctor

  10. knitMuse
    May 24th, 2013 at 1.36am | #10

    Clara is linked to River telepathically when she jumps into the Doctors’ timeline, explaining all the flirting between them, I feel.

    As for John Hurt… from the last episode, it seems he is (for the moment), simply an incarnation of the Doctor we do not know about. Speculation will no doubt run rife until November as to whether he is a) the very first Doctor (before William Hartnell) who did whatever it was that made the Doctor start running in the first place, b) the true 9th incarnation that was involved in the Time War, therefore pushing the numbering of the incarnations out so that Chris Ecclestone’s Doc is really number 10, David Tennant’s is really number 11 and Matt Smith’s is really number 12 OR c) he is the 12th incarnation yet to be realised, or possibly the Valeyard, an incarnation said to arise around the 12th of the Doctor’s incarnations.

    Personally, I hope he is the option a – I would really like to find out why the Doctor started running in the first place!

  11. lani bee
    May 26th, 2013 at 4.03am | #11

    Even if it would most likely never happen, I hope clara the doctor develop a deeper relationship in the next series! fav companion as of yet!

    oh! if it interest anyone, I made a cute music video tribute for them recently with my hubby! check it out!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EG0-t4ReDQk

  12. TARDIS
    June 5th, 2013 at 11.33am | #12

    I think he will be the doctor before Eccleston, the one that killed all the time lords in the time war. @Bailey

  13. Bailey
    June 8th, 2013 at 10.09am | #13

    @TARDIS

    Oh. That makes sense, thanks!

  14. Harkness
    July 9th, 2013 at 11.10pm | #14

    @knitMuse
    Thats just amazing, as long as it’s one of those three, I can be more than satisfied. If only I thought of those!

  15. Bailey
    July 12th, 2013 at 5.41am | #15

    @Collins

    That was Melody Pond…

  16. Harkness
    August 9th, 2013 at 12.05am | #16

    Just and idea: Maybe, since Clara stepped into the Doctor’s tieline, a bunch of timey wimey stuff happened and She was a previous incarnation of River. But I think the most likely theory for who Clara is that she is the navigation console of the TARDIS. Think about it, the TARDIS pointed the Doctor to it, aka the TARDIS stole the Doctor. And in The Name of the Doctor, she was there and said to pick a certain one. I have cause to believe that is the answer.

  17. Harkness
    August 9th, 2013 at 12.08am | #17

    @TARDIS
    You are definately correct, there is no other possible explanation.

  18. Harkness
    August 9th, 2013 at 12.11am | #18

    And as Capaldi is the 12th Doctor, maybe Hurt is “8.5″, the one that sealed the Time War in the Time Lock.

  19. Amber Watkins
    August 9th, 2013 at 2.24am | #19

    @Collins
    completely different actress

  20. Caitlin McMillan
    September 7th, 2013 at 8.03am | #20

    @TARDIS YES!!!

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