When Danny died, my first thought was: what kind of moron has an important conversation (or text) and decides to cross a road?
I have no empathy for people like that girl in my city who died in the subway because she stepped between two cars instead of the door; she was texting. It's called natural selection.
Of course, i understand not every phone conversation is gripping enough to make you stop everything else your doing. In this case, it was Clara who told him not to come home for a discussion. She told him to continue talking on the phone and that it was a very important conversation. He should have stopped (what a moron!) but i understand the reflex to continue walking to be with her, since it seems so important. But she has responsability in this too.

My impression was that she was willing to sacrifice the Doctor not only for love but also because she felt guilty?

What do you think?

Highly possible.

I don't think Clara is to blame for Danny dying but like you say she wanted to continue the phone call and it was probably what distracted Danny from concentrating fully on the road. So I understand why Clara would feel guilty.

I thought this was a thread about the 7 Dwarves.

ROFL

Griso, so glad you're contributing again!

Yes, she was guilty, but I don't think so much about distracting him. She didn't get to resolve the issues around lying to Danny that she was already feeling guilty about. After all, she expressed anger that his death was "boring", rather than "my fault".

I don't think we know enough about the accident to know that it was carelessness on his part, rather than, say, the car losing control and swerving off the road.

Or Missy set up his death and the car hit him on purpose

Very possible or the driver was also talking on the phone while driving.
It's just another exemple of how Moffat sometimes has tunnel vision. Danny dying during the conversation made it very dramatic. But i was expecting Clara to feel guilty. Apparently Moffat just didn't think about that aspect.
The finale is full of that; a completely stupid turn of events that produces a situation that gives us a wonderful scene. A bit frustrating but i try to enjoy the result.

The real irresponsable are the BBC; they should have taken the opportunity to put a public message 'don't be a phone zombie while your crossing the road'

Guilty? But she has a time machine at her disposal.

Wasn't that why she attempting to contact and then blackmail the Doctor into going back to save Danny?

I thought the weirdest part about it was the silence. You'd have thought Clara would have heard yells and screeching brakes rather than the phone suddenly going silent, which makes me wonder if Missy did mastermind it all.

But that's the point - it's not a stupid turn of events. It's a depressingly normal turn of events. Sometimes people die of things that are not their fault. Sometimes people die of things that are no-one else's fault either.


Yes. Grief and guilt and blame and denial and bargaining.

Did Kubler-Ross have access to a time machine?

Exactlyl. I originally wrote a sentence about that, but edited it out. Clara had a privileged position of actually being able to bargain.

Indeed.

How many of us say "If only I could go back and change what happened." as part of the grief process.

Then, as part of our acceptance process, "Well, I can't because time travel is not possible".

A TV series about a man who has "died" and come back to life multiple times, travelled vast distances, met umpteen different extra terrestrial species and roamed from the beginning of time until the end of time (and beyond?) doesn't necessarily have that limitation.

How many other science fiction stories have been written with the basic premise of travelling back into the past and changing the course of history.

It's called stupidity. Should have set in the park and finished the convo or waited until he got there so they could speak face to face. I do not approve of those who drive whilst they converse on the phone either, even if it's hands free. What can so important that it can't wait, or can't you just pull over and talk on the phone?

When she and the dude were in trouble in the house in Bristol she still saw fit to pick up the phone even though it was distracting her from figuring out how to escape the danger they was in. I would have just let it ring and call back latter.

20 years ago we would have thought it ridiculous that mankind has seemingly become addicted to these new fangled mobile phones so that we all walk around like zombies. Actually, that thought has made me wonder whether whether Danny's death of walking like a zombie into a busy road, may in fact be foreshadowing what he became in the afterlife.