Clara Oswald
Clara Oswin Oswald was a human who somehow lived in various times and places, in separate lives that were somehow connected. The Eleventh Doctor stated that she was "the same woman" in each of her different appearances. (TV: The Snowmen)
Biography
Oswin Oswald
In one of her lives, she went by Oswin Oswald. She once claimed that the first boy she ever fancied was called Rory, but quickly admitted that "actually, she was called Nina. I was going through a phase."
At some point, Oswin joined the starliner Alaska's crew as Junior Entertainment Manager to see the universe. When the Alaska crashed on the Dalek Asylum, Oswin escaped down a shaft into the lower levels of the Asylum, where she was found and captured by the Dalek inmates. Unlike the other crew members of the Alaska, who were partially converted by the nanocloud into Dalek puppets, Oswin was fully converted due to her exceptionally high intelligence, something they valued over exterminating her. Due to the horror of what had happened to her, Oswin created a dream world for her human mind to dwell in to forget the truth. Under this life, Oswin assumed that she was surviving on soufflés in the Alaska. She also hacked into the Asylum's fully-automated systems, heavily damaging it and reducing it to a ruin.
A year later, Oswin aided the Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond and Rory Williams in finding safe passage through the Dalek Asylum. She later wiped the memory of the Doctor from the Daleks' Pathweb at one point to save him from the Daleks in Intensive Care. The Doctor attempted to rescue her, until he found her and discovered she was a Dalek. The Doctor explained this to Oswin, who first nearly gave in to her Dalek conditioning by attempting to exterminate the Doctor, then broke down over what she had become.
Oswin lowered the Asylum's defences so the Parliament of the Daleks could destroy the planet and asked the Doctor to remember her as the human she once was. She presumably died when the Daleks destroyed the Asylum. When Amy, Rory and the Doctor escaped back to the Parliament, they found out that Oswin had erased the Doctor from the memories of all the Daleks in the Parliament as well as the Dalek inmates in the Asylum. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks)
Victorian Clara
In another life, Clara Oswin Oswald (23 November 1866 - 24 December 1892; died aged 26) appeared as a barmaid and governess in 19th century London.
Clara was born on 23 November, 1866 in Victorian England. She claimed that her birth occurred behind the face of Big Ben, and that the location accounted for her exceptional sense of time. By 1892, she was working as a barmaid at The Rose & Crown. She also maintained a secret life (with a different accent) as "Miss Montague," a governess looking after the upper class Latimer family.
She met the Eleventh Doctor outside the pub's rear exit, and they examined a snowman which had appeared from nowhere. Clara then chased the Doctor down the street when he left. The Doctor locked her in his cab and ordered Strax to get a Memory worm to erase the last hour of her memory. After Strax kept forgetting to put on gauntlets, the Doctor got the Memory worm himself, but then a Snowman attacked them followed by several more. Together the Doctor and Clara caused the Snowmen to melt by imagining them doing so and then the Doctor told Strax to take Clara back to the pub. Clara followed the Doctor to a ladder that led to a spiral staircase which took her up to the cloud where the Doctor had parked the TARDIS. After knocking, Clara ran back down the spiral staircase when the Doctor came to investigate.
Clara returned to her job as a governess the next day and learned that Captain Latimer's daughter, Francesca had been dreaming about her previous governess who had drowned in Latimer's pond a year earlier. Francesca's brother Digby suggested she needed a doctor so Clara hurried to find the Doctor. While shouting up at his cloud, she caught the attention of Jenny Flint who took her to see Madame Vastra. Vastra and Jenny forced Clara to do the one-word test, where she would only be allowed to use one word to answer whatever question Vastra asked. With several well-chosen words, Clara explained why she was interested in the Doctor and mentioned the word "Pond", the surname of the Doctor's former companion, as well as a clue to the mystery. Impressed, Vastra called the Doctor and told him what Clara had said. The Doctor decided to investigate while Clara went back to Latimer's house.
The Doctor arrived to investigate the pond that the former governess had drowned in and then rescued Clara and the children from the Ice Governess, who had been created from the frozen corpse of the drowned woman. He melted her with his sonic screwdriver, but the Ice Governess recovered and chased them down the stairs, where they met Captain Latimer. The Doctor claimed to be Clara's "gentleman friend" and then Vastra, Jenny and Strax arrived. Jenny trapped the Ice Governess behind a force field and everyone hurried into Latimer's office. The Doctor quickly explained the situation and then told everyone to stay in the office and left. Clara followed and kissed him. The Doctor then confronted Doctor Walter Simeon at the front door who demanded that he give him the Ice Governess. The Doctor and Clara led the Ice Governess up to the roof and Clara used an umbrella to pull down the ladder that led to the TARDIS. They led the Ice Governess up the spiral staircase and the Doctor tried to trap her under the cloud. He then showed Clara the inside of the TARDIS and she commented "it's smaller on the outside" before asking if there was a kitchen, explaining that she liked making souffles. When the Doctor gave her the TARDIS key, the Ice Governess attacked Clara from behind. She dropped the key and was pulled off the cloud, falling to her death in the Latimer's courtyard. (TV: The Snowmen)
The Doctor used the TARDIS to retrieve Clara's body and the shattered remains of the Ice Governess and took her into Latimer's office. Strax brought her back to life but only for a short time. The Doctor asked Clara to become his companion and she agreed. After the Doctor and Vastra confronted Simeon in his institute and, with help from Clara's tears and the tears of the Latimer family, defeated Simeon and the Great Intelligence, Clara died with the Doctor by her side. Her last words were "Run, you clever boy... And remember." These were the exact same words that Oswin Oswald had said in the Dalek Asylum shortly before her death. The Doctor believed that Clara was somehow "the same woman" he had met in the Dalek Asylum. After Clara's funeral, he rushed off to investigate the mystery. (TV: The Snowmen, Asylum of the Daleks)
21st century Clara
In yet a third life, Clara was a human living on Earth at some point after the 19th century.
At some point in her adult life, she and her friend visited a graveyard, where she walked by the tombstone of 19th century Clara Oswald and ironically stated, "I don't believe in ghosts." (TV: The Snowmen)
Child Clara
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A child version of Clara once met the Eleventh Doctor at a park. It is unclear whether this version is one of the above at a younger age, or yet another incarnation.
This Clara's mother told her "not to speak to strange men." She found destiny to be "rubbish."
As a child, she'd always lose things: her "best pencil," her school bag, her gran and her mojo, which she got back. Whenever she would lose something, she'd go to a quiet place, close her eyes, then would find where she'd put it. She once met the Eleventh Doctor in a park, while he was on his search for her, and advised him about finding his friend (not knowing that he was in fact looking for her). (WC: The Bells of Saint John: A Prequel)
Personality
Oswin Oswald
Oswin possessed a flirtatious and feisty personality, and cheerfully flirted with both the Doctor and Rory. She once asked Rory to take his shirt off for no real reason showing that she considered him to be attractive and teased the Doctor about his chin, nicknaming him "Chinboy." Oswin also implied that she was bisexual, admitting to Rory that she'd once fancied a girl called Nina, although she added that she'd been going through a phase.
Following her conversion, Oswin was unable to accept the horror of what she had become, and managed to convince herself that she was still human. Oswin was extremely strong-willed, and, even after her conversion, rejected mental conditioning in favour of retaining her humanity. Notably, she was the only Dalek for whom the Eleventh Doctor displayed any compassion or pity and also the only known human who was strong enough to resist Dalek mental conditioning. In addition to being very strong-willed, Oswin was also extremely intelligent, but unfortunately it was because of her intelligence that she was turned into a Dalek. She had incredible hacking skills and possessed a knowledge of Daleks and their technology that exceeded even the Doctor's, because she had been converted into a Dalek herself. Oswin was very confident, perhaps slightly overconfident, and was fully aware of her exceptional intelligence, calling herself a genius several times.
Oswin was shown to be selfless, allowing the Doctor to complete his mission of destroying the planet and insisting that he leave her behind and escape with Amy and Rory. She was also a talented actress, being able to pretend convincingly that she was at ease with her situation with cheeky and flirty remarks and was able to change the sound of her voice easily. She also used her flirting to keep Rory cheerful and seemed to provide him with some comfort since he actually asked her to keep flirting with him as reassurance. Despite her relaxed and cheerful demeanour, Oswin did show signs of worry about her situation and admitted that she was anxious to leave. She was also shown to be wary of strangers since she asked the Doctor to come and fetch her, not entirely trusting him not to leave without her; later she sacrificed herself to lower the shield so the parliament of the Daleks could destroy the asylum. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks)
Victorian Clara
This Clara was feisty and strong willed. She was fascinated by the Doctor and even kissed him passionately. She was also slightly flirtatious, teasing the Doctor while he was climbing a ladder since she had a good view of his bottom. She cheerfully tricked him into climbing the ladder first with the words "Eyes front, soldier" since he could easily see up her dress if she went first. Clara was very curious and determined to find out all she could about the mysterious Time Lord; notably she asked the First Question twice in the same night and when the Doctor noted that it was a dangerous question Clara responded with, "What's wrong with dangerous?" This showed that she also had a reckless streak. Clara was also a bit of a feminist and was briefly angry with the Doctor when he said the TARDIS was "no more a box than you are a governess," saying that he had spoken just like a man. Apparently the Doctor was not the first man to speak to her like that and she accused him of being the same as all the other men who called her "sweet, little Clara." She proudly claimed that she was not sweet and, although she was a small woman, she certainly wasn't little on the inside.
Clara had a great deal of faith in the Doctor, in contrast to Oswin, who was slightly wary of him, and when even the Doctor's friends, Vastra, Jenny and Strax, had given up thinking that he would ever regain his adventurous spirit, Clara was able to snap him out of his misery. The Doctor realised he had found a new companion and when Clara died he was briefly devastated but later elated when he realised that there was another version of her somewhere in the Universe.
Clara was highly intelligent, just like Oswin, and was able to quickly guess the Doctor's plan to use an umbrella to pull down the ladder that led to the TARDIS. She was also the second person, after the Doctor, to guess that Walter Simeon needed the Ice Governess, although she wasn't sure why until the Doctor explained it to the rest of the group. She even managed to figure out the one word that would get the Doctor to come and save the world again, "Pond," which not only got the Doctor off his cloud but also explained that the Latimer's pond contained something dangerous. Clara was also very sharp and quick witted, being able to talk even more quickly than the Doctor and make witty remarks and retorts very easily. She was able to quickly make the Doctor smile with this talent only moments after they first met. The Doctor grew to like her very quickly, even giving her the TARDIS key, despite only knowing her for a couple of days. Unlike most women in Victorian times, Clara also wouldn't hesitate to take the lead when necessary.
Clara had the ability to change her accent easily and led a double life acting as both a barmaid and a governess. Captain Latimer's children adored her and they felt more comfortable talking to her about their problems than their own father, showing that Clara had a very maternal side of her personality. The whole family was devastated when she died. Their tears, and the single tear that Clara shed on her deathbed, were ultimately the means that defeated the Great Intelligence. (TV: The Snowmen)
Modern day Clara
Clara's modern day incarnation was more reserved than she had been in her other two lives and although she was noted for being intelligent, she was not a computer genius at first, only becoming one after being downloaded into the Wi-Fi by a Spoonhead. Similar to Oswin she was wary of the Doctor at first, most likely due to her mother warning her not to talk to strangers, and just like Victorian Clara, she was good at looking after children. However she lacked her Victorian incarnations recklessness and thought things through more carefully as shown when she didn't instantly agree to join the Doctor on his adventures and told him to come back the next day. Although she was eager for adventure, Clara was cautious and was unsure what to make of the Doctor's bizarre personality. She even seemed to think he might be stalking her, which in a way he was. Clara was also less flirtatious than Oswin and arguably less than her Victorian incarnation too and seemed to react to situations rather than initiate them, unlike her other more proactive incarnations.
Clara appeared to have no memory of her other lives, and didn't recognize the Doctor when he turned up on her doorstep. Her reaction to the TARDIS was different from her Victorian incarnation who said the Time Machine was "smaller on the outside" while modern Clara said the far more common "bigger on the inside".
Behind the scenes
- Clara shares the surname Oswald with Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who assassinated President John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963, the day before Doctor Who premièred with An Unearthly Child. Oswin's shipmate, who survived until he turned into a Dalek puppet, was similarly named Harvey.
- Clara's headstone in 1892 states that she was born on 23 November 1866 and died 24 December 1892, meaning she not only shared the same birth date as Doctor Who itself but that she was also 26 years old when she died — the same age as Doctor Who was when it was cancelled in 1989 and also the same age as Jenna-Louise Coleman, the actress who played Clara. The other Victorian companion, Victoria Waterfield, also faced the Daleks and the Great Intelligence. The oldest Dalek model to appear in TV: Asylum of the Daleks was also from Victoria's origin story, TV: The Evil of the Daleks, and another of her stories, TV: The Web of Fear, was referenced in Clara's second (a reference to the 1967 London Underground).
- Like Lynda Moss, Astrid Peth, Rita, and the Doctor's daughter Jenny, Victorian Clara was invited to travel with the Doctor, but died before she was ever able to take her first trip.
