The character’s bravery is accompanied by a streak of independence so wide it could be seen from space (should come in handy, that), which means that Clara isn’t much one for following orders. “The governess should enter by the back door unless accompanied by the children”, “Don’t follow me”, “Stay in there” and “Don’t come looking for me, forget about me” are just some of the instructions Clara neglects to heed in The Snowmen. This Victorian heroine is no hysterical fainting lady. In terms of unflappability, compare Alice the housemaid’s reaction to meeting Vastra, Jenny, Strax, and the – I’m going for herd – herd of snowmen to Clara’s excited, wide-eyed absorption of the alien world in which she finds herself.
She’s quick on the uptakeĪdd the ability to psychically melt a horde of snowmen (collective noun for a group of snowmen? A herd? A gaggle? A Frosty?) to the “total screaming genius” who erased the Doctor from the pathweb in Asylum of the Daleks, and we’re left with the distinct impression that Clara/Oswin is one smart cookie. Like Astrid Peth before her, Oswin joined the crew of a starship to see the universe only to fall at her first voyage, but unlike Astrid, Oswin – or at least a version of her – is about to get a second (or third, or fourth?) chance. The one-word reason she gives Vastra for seeking out the Doctor? Curiosity, the prerequisite of any Who companion worth their salt.
In The Snowmen, Clara’s first remark to the Doctor is a question, and the inquisitiveness continues from then on in. So that’s at least four identities for the new companion – soufflé girl, Dalek, Barmaid, and Governess, to which we can add the modern day ‘Clara’ glimpsed next to her former self’s headstone in the teaser trailer for coming episodes. First presented as a shipwrecked Junior Entertainments Officer with a taste for Bizet and baking, it was revealed by the end of the episode that Oswin not only hadn’t evaded capture by the Daleks, but had in fact been transformed into one of them. Initially, we meet her as Clara the barmaid from The Rose & Crown, before she dons a higher neckline, clips her vowels, and becomes Miss Montague, the governess of Darkover House (which, incidentally, seem to have about as much luck with governesses as Hogwarts does with Defence Against The Dark Arts teachers).Īsylum of the Daleks saw Coleman’s character similarly split, though this time as a psychological coping mechanism rather than an act of spirited social climbing. She lives a double/triple/n-ple lifeīefore we even wade into the multiple era versions, the Clara we meet in The Snowmen already leads a double life. No sitting in her red wellies by the garden swing waiting for the Raggedy Doctor for this companion, once she claps eyes on her quarry, it’s a running pursuit, a clamber onto the roof of his carriage, and an upside-down “Doctor Who?”, before the credits have even rolled. A woman of action and hand-grabbing, hang about Clara does not. Instead, she’s the girl who pursued – or as the Eleventh Doctor might have it, the “bird who smiled” (we’ll put the Gene Hunt lingo down to his post-Pond humbuggery).
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