What about him, though? What about what the Doctor needs and wants? Why does nobody ever ask that? The universe just seems to take and take and take from him and the few fleeting moments of happiness he gets are always taken away in such awful fashion. It’s just not right.
There’s no easy way to
answer this, because I understand it comes from a place of frustration –
probably over watching the Doctor have to lose someone he loves deeply. It comes from watching him lose her twice and
twice essentially shouting out in agony, “The
universe owes me her!”
So I’m going to give you
the not-so-easy answer: the universe
owes no one.
Yes, some deserve better, but no one is owed a thing in life and it’s something
that’s hard to accept. You can work hard
and be the best person you know how to be and things might not work out exactly
as you wanted them to – things can turn out disastrous. That’s life.
It’s cruel and unfair sometimes, but here’s the thing: you only get one
turn at it and you make of it what you will during the time you have. Even the Doctor, with all of his
regenerations, will one day end – he is not actually
immortal.
Does the universe merely
take and take and take from the Doctor? No.
It seems that way now; it always seems that way after a tragedy. The truth is, for all of the bad, there’s
also been a whole lot of good and it would do well for us to remember
that. As the Doctor said himself once, “The
way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good
things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa the bad things don’t
always spoil the good things and make them unimportant.”
Clara made the decision to
take on that chronolock to save Rigsy – an uninformed decision she might not
have made if she’d known the truth of the matter – but the thing is, before
that, her and the Doctor had so many
years of adventures together. For
all of their pain, there was so much love.
There’s a reason he wanted her to smile for him; there’s a reason he
talked to her and thought about her laughter while stuck in the confession
dial. These things had become symbols of hope to him.
Does he remember those
things? We could argue about that for
the rest of the series (or until someone
confirms either way) but what he does remember is Clara Oswald’s love.
If he cannot remember her voice or her face or her final words in the
Cloisters, he can remember her messages and the emotions that have guided him and
will continue to guide him forward. And he
is content to move forward without her for her because of her. Because a memory he does retain is that she
is alive and she is out there in the universe.
She is still hope, just as all of his previous companions have been for him.
Yes it hurts and yes it’s unfair
because the Doctor does deserve more,
but we can’t dismiss what he’s gotten any more than those of us suffering can
dismiss the good moments in our lives, or the good friends we have and continue to find who remind us to get up off our arse and win. We can’t ignore the little things that make
us smile or laugh and drive us forward; we should cherish those things and
those people and understand that the bad will never outweigh the good, so long as we remember it.
say you love me 