Howling:Claras Father

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So far we have been introduced to her mother, and we have a name, but not her father.

I wonder if all the smoke and mirrors are a distraction from him. That car may be the key. Perhaps what we assume would have been his death was fixed and Ellie Ravenwood somehow violated that.(The last time we saw that car another fixed point was violated) They fall in love, have a child, and Clara is the result. Perhaps she is a "Floating" point in time (opposite of fixed) and when certian conditions are met she is reborn of a human host.

In any event, has her father been properly introduced to the viewer? I can not seem to remember his name used, even once.

(in that exact way, at that exact time)<------seems like there is more to this. We can assume that his last name is Oswald.

Perhaps he is the key. Perhaps Clara is a distraction. Perhaps his full name is Lee Harvey Oswald, perhaps the car wouldnt have killed him, but damaged him mentally. Perhaps this leads to the assasination of Kennedy, and perhaps his injuries being prevented caused a second timeline to be born, as a fixed point is violated and Clara's birth is the result of it.

And perhaps to fix it he will have to prevent Claras parents from ever meeting. And perhaps Clara survives the timeline repairs because the Doctor rememebers her. She would be "outside" the repaired timeline in much the same way that the Doctor was outside the universe in "Pandorica"

Fallingstar1971 ☎ 20:45, May 9, 2013 (UTC)

Fallingstar1971, "Perhaps his full name is Lee Harvey Oswald": The dates are all wrong for this &, in The Rings of Akhaten, his name was given as Dave. From his accent, Dave Oswald is English, not American. --89.240.242.40^{talk to me} 04:31, May 10, 2013 (UTC)

When was he introduced as David? They introduce Clara to the Doctor, but keep their names to themselves. We only get Ellies name from the headstone. The fathers name is never stated. 68.187.229.195^{talk to me} 13:53, May 10, 2013 (UTC)

Also, in the beginning of that episode, we see a swinging gate, that clicks shut. What seems to be a strong breeze blowing her father into the street. I wonder if there is an invisable person there, one that absent mindedly closed the gate behind them and pushed Claras father into the street only to have him saved by Ellie?

68.187.229.195^{talk to me} 13:54, May 10, 2013 (UTC)

68, "When was he introduced as David?": He was certainly listed as Dave (no surname) in the credits, immediately after Clara's listing & before her mother Ellie's. I'm fairly sure the name was also mentioned in dialogue, though it's a while since I watched the episode. (I was 89 before.) --2.101.51.9^{talk to me} 17:13, May 10, 2013 (UTC)

Just see Dave Oswald wiki page for more details. 64.134.71.199^{talk to me} 20:43, May 10, 2013 (UTC)

By the way, it's ludicrous to try to tie Clara Oswald to Lee Harvey Oswald just because they share a not very unusual name. Was Rory Williams related to every other Williams? Or Rose Tyler to Steven Tyler (well, they both have full lips, so you never know). I believe that we've already seen all of the people who are related to Clara although it seems like she has several clones. 64.134.71.199^{talk to me} 20:37, May 10, 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to just tie them together just by name, the time period fits, and David may very well be the fixed point that was supposed to die. Lee Harvey Oswald just happened to fit the bill, and its somebody that everybody would recognize and know what it was that he was supposed to do. As far as ludicrous, are clones born of a human mother? Do they get phone calls from human fathers? Clara was writing her mother a letter at the beginning of AOTD. Modern Clara was raised by human parents. Are you saying that Victoria Clara is a clone?

Would not Straxx's medical equipment be able to determine that? If it is advanced enough to "bring anybody back for a time" would it not be able to tell cloned DNA?

No, I dont think she is a clone. Not a typical one anyway. There was an interview that supposedly "leaked" the fact that the Doctor has met Clara more than three times. At first, I was thinking Victoria (Victorian England, Victorian Values..ect) and Victoria was there the very first time he fought the GI. How she would manifest herself mutiple times over the centuries is beyond me. I suppose she could have linked herself to the GI somehow, so that wherever he goes she goes, but it still does not connect the being born of actual parents and raised, over and over again.

Then I discovered that they met in a Webcast that went up right before the current season.

Too bad her last name isnt Saxxon. Imagine her bringing the Doctor home to meet Dad....

68.187.229.195^{talk to me} 21:16, May 10, 2013 (UTC)

68, "I wasn't trying to just tie them together just by name, the time period fits": No, it doesn't. It's not even close. Dave was in his 20s, at the time of the car incident in the 1980s. LH Oswald was in his 20s in the 1960s, 20 years earlier. The names are different & the nationalities are different, too. Additionally, LH Oswald was already acting oddly in his teens (defection to USSR shortly before 20th birthday, &c). None of it fits.

Of course, with time travel, you can make things fit that otherwise wouldn't. The trouble for the theory is that you'd need to assume Dave would not only be messed up by the accident but that he'd also somehow be taken back in time and somehow be made much younger, once he'd got back in time. What's more, all of this would need to happen without the incident that led him to meet & marry Ellie & to become Clara's father -- but it's Clara who's his only connection with time travel!

It'd be possible to cobble together some series of events involving time travel that would get him to the right place at the right time. I doubt if it'd be possible to turn that series of events into even a halfway decent DW story.

More to the point, none of the "theory" is actually based on anything in any of the episodes, except the surname. As 64 points out, it's "a not very unusual name". It's not, in fact, a theory at all. It's an attempt at fan fiction. --89.241.64.227^{talk to me} 02:39, May 11, 2013 (UTC)

Lee Harvey Oswald "theory" is ludicrous for all of the reasons 89 mentions. Plus, the only link I can see is a similar surname. Nothing else. They have nothing else in common. Plus, this is a UK show and Oswald is a U.S. historical figure. I can't see Doctor Who pinning a major storyline revelation on the hope that British audience remembers who killed JFK, 50 years after the fact.

As for clones, it is a stretch but all we've heard about is one year out of the lives of Victorian Clara and Oswin Oswald. What if our Clara is the original and the other two are both clones? I only think this might be a possibility because I'm watching Orphan Black which airs after DW in the U.S. and is all about clones. It's unlikely to be a tie-in but you never know. Plus, all of the other ideas I've seen suggested on the other Clara discussion thread are equally implausible as clones are. At this point, take your pick of implausible theories. Badwolff ☎ 19:39, May 11, 2013 (UTC)

I've thought since The Bells of Saint John that present-day Clara is the original Clara & the others are -- in some way as yet unknown -- derivatives of her. In TBoSJ, we saw Clara gain the phrase "Run, you clever boy, and remember", the computer skills & the name Oswin. That was reinforced both by the prequel to that episode (meeting young Clara & her mother) & by The Rings of Akhaten (more about her parents). We don't know much about present-day Clara's parents or childhood but we know she had parents & a childhood. We don't know that about either of the others. (Dalek) Oswin Oswald mentioned a mother but she was also under the impression that she was making soufflés, so the mother could have been as illusory as the soufflés.

Further reinforcement comes from Emma (in Hide), who told the Doctor that present-day Clara was just a girl, not something weird. Emma was an empath, with no ability to tell what might happen later, so that only means Clara was not yet something weird.

The other "origin" fact we know about present-day Clara is that she was given the TARDIS phone number by the "woman in the shop". She was, in fact, set up to make contact with the Doctor across time & space.

As an aside, if there's any connection at all with Lee Harvey Oswald, it's likely to be this: It's the show's 50th anniversary year. The day before the first episode aired, Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy & Officer Tippit. The day after the first episode aired, Oswald was himself shot by Jack Ruby. Anyone old enough, as I am, to remember the first episode will almost certainly also remember the name Oswald being all over the news at the time. If Clara's surname is significant, it's as a "nod" to the historical circumstances in which An Unearthly Child was aired. (I was 89 earlier.) --2.96.21.15^{talk to me} 21:44, May 11, 2013 (UTC)