Doctor Who - In Defense Of Hell Bent: Why It Doesn’t Ruin Face The Raven And Heaven Sent

Acceptance

“It's okay, I went too far… this is right, I accept it.”

After travelling to the end of the universe with Clara, the Doctor realises that she will never be able to stand by as he disregards his morals in favour of her, and will want to return to the moment of her death. In order to prevent this, and to protect her, he attempts to wipe her memory of him, sacrificing the opportunity to ever be with her again in order to keep her safe. Clara, overhearing this, reverses the polarity on the neural blocker so that it backfires on the Doctor, wiping his memory of her.

In these final moments, understanding that his time with Clara is over, the Doctor accepts that he had gone too far in hope of saving her, meddling with time itself. This is even punctuated by four knocks, a call back to Ten’s brief turn as the Time Lord Victorious in The Waters of Mars - the last time the Doctor went too far. Clara’s death in Face the Raven is perfect and is a beautiful conclusion to her arc of becoming too much like the Doctor. Many fans say that negating this death cheapens it, and they are right, it does - but once again, that’s entirely the point. The death isn’t undermined by Moffat’s writing, but by the Doctor’s actions. He steals this poetic end away from her, crossing the line and letting his grief take him beyond even his own rules. The events of Hell Bent are meant to feel unnatural, because the audience needs that tangible feeling that what Twelve is doing is very wrong.

As his memory is wiped, he tells Clara that this is right, he accepts she must die and he must move on. He composes a song in her memory, which is a sign he is beginning to process his emotions in a healthy way, and commemorate the time they spent together. This is the final conclusion to not just Twelve and Clara’s story, but to Twelve’s grieving process. Until Series 9, nobody asked the question of what would happen if the Doctor simply refused to accept the loss of a companion. It explored, in detail, what a loss that significant can do to a person, turning the rinse and repeat formula of companion dies, Doctor mopes for an episode, Doctor goes on the rebound on its head.

For this reason, I put to you that Hell Bent is not just a perfect end to an era, but possibly the best handled and written companion departure of them all.