It was quite heavily sign-posted about her being reckless and thinking she knew more than the Doctor about changing things. She was playing with fire and got burnt but I guess there should still be some human sympathy for her death.

Someone did point out that she struck a regenerating Timelord pose.

I felt sorry for her despite everything you have said (which I agree with). She was a pretty, clever girl and was only trying to help.

Quite simply, yes.

Why would anyone not be sympathetic?

Well, I would have done but apparently it's what she secretly wanted. To do a Danny Pink, "face the raven". That's literally what she said. And then did. Bloody awful script, the only sympathy I felt was for Jenna Coleman. She deserved so much better.

Have you not hated pretty much every ep anyway? lol

Anyway, It was a great low key death,...unlike some of the loooong over dramatic flashy companion exits(and doctors exits) we have had

No I dont because shes in the finale.

No, I certainly didn't, as the scoresheet thread can testify.

Having seen "the death", Cant help shake the feeling dying during the Zygon episode would have been more emotional.

Think that was always going to be the problem going down the death route with Clara because she's done it many times before its lost a lot of the impact factor. Very much like Rory's character.

I do think she deserved better, and considering the reaction the doctor gave Davros when he thought Clara was going to die. It just didn't feel like a pivotal moment

I thought the scenes between the doctor and clara in the moments before her death were brilliant. Capaldi played it just right, melancholy and then just a bit manic when he tried to threaten ashildr to save clara. But clara's actual death didn't bring a lump to my throat ; I did think it was a clever thing to do a silent scream but the impact just wasn't there. I thought there was more impact when Rory and Amy 'died' when they got sent back in time by the weeping angels.

definitely No matter how many times I watch that episode I cry like a baby

NO sympathy, deserved to die.

Thought she was better than the doctor and knew more than he did, that was her downfall, and she paid the price for it.

I know. How care she get a starring role shes a companion FFS!

Tough crowd!

It was more The Doctors reaction that didn't sit right with me. As mentioned above when he thought Clara has died because of Davros he was manic. This time he just calmly accepts it, leaves dead Clara on the street and heads off to be teleported to god knows where.

Why? The chronolock was done he had just supposedly lost his best friend (his first thought when entering the trap street was for her safety) why did he not go and rain the hell he promised down on Asildr? Why did he just accept it and allow himself to be transported. Telling her he was angry with her. Is that it?

I can only assume that The Doctor knows Clara isn't dead at all (she's in the final as has been said in many threads). Because for me, if she is, his casual acceptance of it is utterly out of order and out of character.

Because of that reaction Clara's death has for me been the least impactful. I actually felt more at the end of the last series when they were sat in a cafe lying to each other about how happy they were. I'll reserve judgement until the finale has been seen but if that truly was the end of Clara Oswald then what an absolutely awful send off she was given.

Low-key is better. Adric's death was similarly low-key and worked very well - people's opinions on the character and actor aside.

I felt that a quiet angry plotting doctor was scarier (to Ashildr) than anything. He seems vengeful.

I felt the death was played superbly well overall.

It seems only natural that even in a TV show, you'd have sympathy for the death of a person who tried to do right. No matter how surefire, or cocky or complacent someone is you'd have to really have a deep disliking for them not to feel a shred of sympathy. I feel the scenes leading up to her death were played out just as they should have been - even then they stuck to their guns with Clara's personality. She accepted even when death was inevitable that it was her own fault, and she spent her final moments trying to console the Doctor (and to a lesser extent Rigsy). No concern for herself, no regard for her own wellbeing, and that plays exactly as it has done for her throughout the series. That she stuck by that to the very end, and it is ultimately a heroic trait that she tried to make the Doctor feel better before she went, is why it was a great ending that warranted sympathy.

The nature of the death is also exactly what the show needed. It showed that it isn't always the big threats like the Daleks or the Weeping Angels that will kill you. Sometimes it's the passing threat with a vague description, lurking in a dark alley that will get you. Clara fell at what is essentially the last hurdle of the series, and it worked brilliantly. As someone who loves the character I still couldn't see many feasible alternate exits for her. Whilst I don't quite think she had a deathwish, she nonetheless valued life a lot less as a result of her losses - she's lost her Mum, she's lost Danny, she went through a fairly traumatic time of losing Eleven... she savours every moment of life she gets with the Doctor, but in many ways I feel she just became reckless as a result of her also becoming desensitised to death - something we've seen as true since near the end of Series 8.

I did not like this episode. It was just depressing with no sci-fi.

I was in floods. . . but my GF had no sympathy at all!
The moment Clara was dying in agony, my girlfriend was painting her toenails.
All she said was "I was hoping she'd suffer a more. Would've been cool to see her BEG for death! Lol!"
She's scary sometimes.

Excellent post, well argued. Of course, this was Part One of e three-parter. I don't think we've heard the last of Clara yet.

Really? I posted the other day that I thought she looked odd when she stuck her chest out when the raven flew towards her.

Its the first death of a assistant for quite a while, and a young one too boot.

I think you might have missed huge amounts of the episode... The set-up, the setting, the plot, the resolution... All sci-fi elements.

Not sure what you were watching.

Wonderful post. Ultimately Clara died because she had become somewhat cocky and because she was reckless but at the same time also because she was brave and selfless. I find a lof of sympathy for someone whose death was caused by motives of bravery and selflessness.

I suppose that you could compare the way Clara died to people who work dangerous jobs risking their lives for others. You have to have the kind of bravery and recklessness that she did in order to be a fireman or a doctor who goes to help people in the middle of a war zone. Sometimes those people also die because of seemingly foolish insignificant mistakes like the one Clara did, but ultimately we still perceive them as heroes who sacrificed themselves for others.

Clara saying that maybe this was what she had wanted was showing that she was emotionally unstable ever since Danny's death but I also believe ahead of anything it is her trying to rationalize and compartmentalize in order to be able to face death bravely and to allow her to assume responsibility for her actions and absolute all of Rigsby, the Doctor and even Ashildr of any guilt in her death and trying to "save" all of them in the best way she can.

we have already had the death of clara in the snowmen and in the name of the doctor so it's a bit hard to have any emotions about clara's demise 9especially in such a mediocre episode as face the raven )