3 weeks till new Who!

Bagpuss

Legend
You don't think the film isn't going to be about the Fall of the 11th? After all it ends with him having stepped into his own timestream, which everyone there said was a suicidally bad idea. At the end of the episode the Doctor has found Clara but they don't appear to have returned to the real world the are still inside his timestream, they aren't out of the woods yet.
 

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Morrus

Well, that was fun
Staff member
Said by a crazy murderer who was trying to save his own life. He could have just been lying. It may have even been part of the GI's plan to lure the Doctor's companions and the Doctor himself to the place where he wanted to exact his revenge.

No, no. Said by Doriam the blue guy while his head was in a box.

They've been talking about Trenzalor for a year or two now.
 

Remus Lupin

Adventurer
Actually looking at that conversation... the one thing I'm not sure about is the Fall of the Eleventh. The question being answered led to the discovery of the Hurt Doctor, and the implications of that aren't known yet.

Yeah, assuming that Moffett has this all tightly plotted (which, with some allowances for handwaving, I'm inclined to think he does), all of the elements of the prophecy ultimately need to be significant, but as of this moment there are still a lot of questions:

1. "On the Fields of Trenzalore": OK, we're now at the fields of Trenzalore, though we don't know if the prophecy necessarily refers to this trip to Trenzalore, or the one in the future where the Doctor and Tardis both die.

2. "At the Fall of the Eleventh": Up to this point, we've assumed that the Eleventh is a) Matt Smith and b) refers to his death/regeneration. But even if this is, as I suspect, actually the Doctor's 12th regeneration, the death of Matt Smith's Doctor could still count as the Fall of the Eleventh since he's the Eleventh incarnation to go as "The Doctor". However, if the Fields of Trenzalore represents the Doctor's "final resting place" (implied by the presence of the dead Tardis/grave), then "the fall of the Eleventh" suggests the Doctor's final death.

3 "when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer": Of course, this is a problem given the events of "Name of the Doctor" since the Doctor did fail to answer, or at least refuse to do so, and ultimately it was River who give the answer. So a lot rides on how this clause is or should be interpreted, assuming that the prophecy refers to this event, and not some other one that we've not yet seen. But the way the prophecy is written it implies that there's a particular reason why this place at this particular time would require a truthful answer. I hope Moffett has a good way of dealing with this element of the prophecy, rather than just dropping it.

4 "a Question will be asked": Well, Maldovar tells us that the question that must never be asked is "Doctor Who?" And The Great Intelligence asks that question on the fields of Trenzalor, which is what would lead quite reasonably to the conclusion that this is the event of which the prophecy speaks.

5. "A question that must never, ever be answered": I have to assume that what's meant here is that the question must never be answered at this time and in this place since at least one other being knows the answer to the question (and gave it at Trenzalor), it is the giving of the answer in that context that opens the Doctor's tomb, and allows the GI, then Clara, then the Doctor himself to enter his time stream.

So where does this go next? Whether Hurt's Doctor is the real First Doctor, or the real 9th Doctor or the Valeyard or some other incarnation, it seems that the outcome of his revelation will be a sequence of events which must lead to the fall of the Silence, thus their efforts, since the beginning of the Moffett/Smith run to thwart and destroy the Doctor. Apparently this entailed, first, the attempt to destroy the Tardis, which provoked all of the Doctor's enemies to attempt to seal him in the Pandorica, and then the attempt to turn River into a weapon that would be used to murder the Doctor at a fixed point in time and space. But since neither of those attempts ultimately succeeded (though apparently the Silence believe they succeeded at Lake Silencio, which is why we haven't seen them this season).

So the question for me is whether Moffett will tie all of this together in a neat little bow for us, or whether, once all is said and done, we'll be howling that he either handwaved too much away, cheated with timey-wimeiness, or just failed to follow through on the (very large) promise of this whole plot. Frankly, I'd be happy if the bow is only a little bit frayed and poorly tied at the end of the process, since it will be very tough to make this knot hang together perfectly.
 


Tonguez

A suffusion of yellow
3 "when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer":
The Doctor did answer he said No which is a legitimate true answer, then River intervened before he was pressed further, It is a bit of a squirm but it does fulfil the prophecy
 
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Bagpuss

Legend
No living creature could speak falsely or fail to answer, because River who wasn't a living creature answered truthfully before they had a chance to lie, or successfully refuse.
 

sabrinathecat

Explorer
Seems that Time Gate (SF convention in Atlanta, GA) had a forum on RTD vs Moffat. Opinions became rather heated. Seems that there are more than a few not happy with the direction Moffat has taken. We Are Not Alone!
 

Bagpuss

Legend
Seems that Time Gate (SF convention in Atlanta, GA) had a forum on RTD vs Moffat. Opinions became rather heated. Seems that there are more than a few not happy with the direction Moffat has taken. We Are Not Alone!

A link would have been helpful, any recordings, or blogs about it?
 


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