clara isn’t going dark, she’s becoming something much more interesting

arcadian-time-lady:

Okay, so pretty much everyone is going nuts about Clara and say she’s going evil. And they are even pointing to the Steven Moffat quote from the Doctor Who Extra as proof. But here is what Moffat actually says:

I think in his darker hours [the Doctor] would always comfort himself with the idea, the old idea, that he makes people better. In this episode, he’s forced to conclude that maybe he’s making Clara worse. She’s picking up from him things of which are necessary but of which he is not proud.

The language here is very important. 

This isn’t something that the Doctor has realized with empirical evidence, this is what the Doctor thinks.

Here are some other things that the Doctor has thought this season:

• That there is no promised land.
• That Daleks couldn’t change or learn goodness and beauty
• That Robin Hood wasn’t real
• That there was a monster under his bed, when it was Clara who would actually inspire his entire existence
• That Danny was a PE teacher, that Adrian was Clara’s boyfriend, that Orson and Danny looked nothing alike
• That it was good idea to leave Clara alone on the moon, and that he was respecting her when he did it
• that there was no Mummy, that Clara wanted to be left out of the adventure, that Perkins was in on it

And yet with all this evidence that the Doctor is having trouble with his judgment this season, somehow when he becomes convinced that Clara is getting worse because of him…he is suddenly right?

Once the TARDIS went into Siege-mode, the Doctor missed everything that Clara did, such as:

• Thought quickly and saved the life of the train driver by using the sonic
• Saved Rigsy’s life when he wanted to heroically sacrifice it by saying “You’re not getting off that lightly, there’s work that needs doing.”
• She saw what was special about Rigsy, and convinced him to use his talents to help save the day

At the end of the episode, Clara says the phrase “on balance.” To which the Doctor replies that he thinks that way so other people don’t have to. 

Clara isn’t becoming dark or evil. She is becoming the Doctor’s equal.

In the bad ways and the good.