History YMMV / DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent

** The Doctor's aversion to travelling with other functional immortals like Ashildr was because they would grow detached from mortals and even heartless -- a problem she was already struggling with on her own for centuries. Thus [[FridgeHorror some fans aren't sure that one-heartbeat-from-death Clara and Ashildr/Me will make an ideal team for jaunting through time and space]] unless they pick up mortal companions. Series 9 hammered home the point that Clara considered the Doctor "essential" to her; it's uncertain whether travelling with Ashildr, who's almost an anti-Doctor, will be everything it's cracked up to be. It goes double with the idea that the Doctor and Clara together are a force for chaos that risks the universe: The Doctor is a hero who even in this episode is breaking the rules to ''save'' someone. Now Clara is travelling with Ashildr, an AntiVillain ''already'' on the wrong side of the detachment from humanity the Doctor talked about, who backstabbed him with no remorse. ''That is not a step up.''
** Will Clara's mind be able to handle immortality, or will she end up like Ashildr and forget both her original personality and that she needs to go back to her death lest time be destroyed? The good news here is that Clara's had exposure to the Time Vortex, and the ExpandedUniverse novel ''The Crawling Terror'' and ''Doctor Who Maggazine'' comic "The Highgate Horror" both make a plot point out of the idea that her mind became "bigger" than most humans' as a result...

** And finally, the Doctor doesn't fare well alone...yet he's left alone at the end of this story. Worse, since "The Husbands of River Song" doesn't take place immediately after this story, who knows how long he travels without a MoralityChain, possibly leading to "Waters of Mars"/"Hell Bent"-style incidents or even worse?

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: The remaining Time Lords, Ohila, and Ashildr, thanks to their show of NoSympathy for the Doctor. Ashildr has a smidgen of compassion for the Doctor's trials but still mocks his sorrow and grief, and all this is more her fault than anyone's. The General ''and'' Ohila's opinion of what was done to him in the dial is "Well, Rassilon had his reasons; that's the way it goes and the Doctor should have let it slide." Add to that the facts that apparently no Time Lord aware of what was going on was brave and/or compassionate enough to try and free the Doctor, no one even '''considered''' what his grief over Clara's demise might do to him mentally on top of ColdBloodedTorture (no matter how tough he was in the Time War, that doesn't mean he's immune to trauma), and the General and Ohila wring their hands over '''Rassilon''' being exiled for his monstrous deeds, and they not only look stupid in handing him the keys to the kingdom, but their accusations of the Doctor being cruel, cowardly, and selfish come off as hollow.

** Clara's TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to the Time Lords is either justified in calling out the leadership of the Time Lords for unspeakable cruelty, or flat out blaming ''an entire race'' for the Doctor's ''four billion year hell'' when half of the race was thanking him for saving them.

** Also, come the reveal in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E10TheTimelessChildren "The Timeless Children"]], Rassilon's threat of burning through all the Doctor's new regenerations becomes this with the knowledge that the Doctor/Timeless Child has infinite regenerations.

* BadassDecay: In his last appearance, Rassilon was the iron-fisted BigBad of Time Lord society who casually vaporised people for disagreeing with him. Even the Doctor clearly feared him on some level, going as far as [[BatmanGrabsAGun picking up a gun]] in a desperate attempt to ward him off the last time he came face to face with him. Here, he's a rather ineffectual old man who gets kicked off Gallifrey without even a real fight by a Doctor, who is calmly in control all the time.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: The viewer is supposed to be horrified by the Doctor's SanitySlippage and resultant VillainProtagonist behaviour, but who can blame him?
** '''DudeWheresMyReward''': He's suffered '''horrifically''' thanks to the bad and/or misguided choices of other characters: Ashildr/Me making a deal with the Time Lords, the Time Lords wanting to know about the Hybrid and seeing that as justifying ColdBloodedTorture, and Clara trying too hard to be a hero. [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished All of them owe him their lives to varying extents]], and only Clara returned the favour unselfishly; the Time Lords granting him a new regeneration cycle may have only been because he was key to their continued existence. When he asks if he's owed the chance to save Clara, between all the amazing, universe-saving feats he's pulled off and his recent trials, ''all of which the audience has been privy to'', it's hard to argue that he hasn't [[EarnYourHappyEnding earned his happy ending]]...and if Clara just had a little more faith in him when they fled, he'd have pulled it off in a way that left everyone happy, given how he comes up with plans on the fly.
** '''Insanity defence''': Having been DrivenToMadness, he needs a tranquilizer dart and ''help'', not [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech "The Reason You Suck"]] and "WhatTheHellHero" lectures.
** '''Whom has he hurt?''': In the end, his actions, save for the shooting of the General -- and even then the episode implies the Doctor did him/her a favour -- apparently do no actual ''damage'' to anyone but himself. Usually when a character disrupts time and space as drastically as he does here, the catastrophic effects are seen/felt immediately. But there are no Reapers, no time collapsing in on itself. Clara's got "wiggle room". Is her death ''really'' a fixed point in time, or is everyone just ''saying'' it is for whatever reason?
** '''NoSympathy for the suffering''': Almost ALL of the major characters come off as smug, ungrateful jerks who take no heed of his suffering but sure are concerned about the fate of poor old Rassilon, the sadistic tyrant and torturer. Clara, perhaps appropriately, is the only one who actually cares about what's been done to the Doctor, and even she has to forcefully make her opinion known when the MindRape approaches.
** '''Ten's sins, Twelve's punishments''': The Doctor loses his memories of Clara, possibly ''by choice''. The Tenth Doctor's mind wipe of Donna Noble over her objections, despite being done due to prevent her imminent death, continues to [[BrokenBase divide the fandom]] in part because he suffered no consequences. With regards to nearly crossing the MoralEventHorizon, Ten doesn't atone/accept punishment in "The Waters of Mars", in which he did more damage to others' lives...and ''Twelve'' was the one DrivenToMadness! Does Twelve deserve to suffer for Ten's actions and lose his right to grieve Clara as an AuthorsSavingThrow? That said, while restoring Donna's memories would ''kill'' her no such danger exists for Twelve and he retained substantial memories of Clara, just not personal details, giving plenty of outs for undoing the memory wipe later if the plot demanded. After "Hell Bent" aired in December 2015 there were literally ''hundreds'' of fan fiction stories published online that have hypothesized ways in which it could be undone. '''Very''' notably, Creator/StevenMoffat came to regret this aspect of the ending, and undid it himself: shortly before his regeneration in his GrandFinale "[[Recap/DoctorWho2017CSTwiceUponATime Twice Upon a Time]]" the Testimony restores all of his memories of Clara Oswald and allows him to bid farewell to an avatar of her.
** '''Double standard ending''': His choice to return to the side of good leaves him with ''less'' than what he started with. To his credit, he regards this as LaserGuidedKarma in action. But Ashildr/Me gets to be a KarmaHoudini re: her relationship with him -- she avoids the end of the universe, fulfils her goal of getting a TARDIS, ''and'' runs away with the Doctor's beautiful (her description!) companion to boot. Clara chooses to bop around the universe instead of returning to her death immediately -- '''after''' convincing the Doctor that he has to accept she's gone and move on, and after an episode whose whole premise was that bending the rules of time in ''giving'' her this second chance ''makes the Doctor the villain of the piece.'' She gets to choose to benefit from it and ride into the sunset anyway; shouldn't he get more than a new screwdriver? Suffice to say, this further encouraged complaints that ''both'' women are Steven Moffat's Mary Sues and {{Creators Pet}}s.
** '''UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming''': The Doctor doesn't ''deserve'' the Hell he goes through in this three-parter. It is repeatedly pointed out that it is NOT his fault that Clara died, though [[ItsAllMyFault he believes that to be the case]] because he didn't rein in her more reckless tendencies and/or turn her out of the TARDIS sooner. He's betrayed by two sets of people -- Ashildr/Me and the Time Lords -- who owe their continued, if ''highly'' imperfect, existences to him (in her case, he also saved her people despite being tempted to abandon them to certain doom) but decide their needs are more important than his. The Time Lords blame him for his millennia of suffering in the confession dial, but they knew he was emotionally and mentally fragile when they captured him, and just kept torturing him anyway, driving him to the point that he decided his continued suffering was the ''better'' option (because he would "win" and have a chance to save Clara). Even the reading that he "deserves" to lose Clara and suffer for making Ashildr/Me immortal and unhappy is flawed because, although he was partially motivated to save her out of grief and self-pity over all the losses he's endured, he was ''also'' motivated by both his moral code to save whomever he can when he can and his unintentional hand in her death.
** '''Written into a corner''': What options did the Doctor have ''besides'' trying to save Clara that would have led him, even in a roundabout way, back to his best self? ThereAreNoTherapists on Gallifrey. Drylanders and soldiers won't be much for providing grief counselling after what he's been through. Ohila and the Time Lords have NoSympathy. He doesn't have his TARDIS and can't start running again. Even if he could, who would he meet who could live up to his DistaffCounterpart Clara Oswald quickly enough for him to let her drift off into memory? Poor Martha Jones wasn't able to live up to the memory of Rose Tyler, who didn't even die. The Doctor would have been suffering the way he said he would in "The Girl Who Died", forever haunted by loss, possibly not taking on other companions -- which would, if Ten and Eleven's examples are anything to go by, render him corrupt or useless. He '''could''' wipe himself of his memories of her immediately, but it's doubtful he would give them up willingly -- and with a "professional" wipe instead of a tampered-with neural block, would his CharacterDevelopment survive or would he be a near-BlankSlate?

* BigLippedAligatorMoment: Clara's stand-off with the Weeping Angels and the Cyberman in the Cloisters has no bearing on the plot, and the Daleks' cameo had already sold how dangerous the place was.

* {{Padding}}: Arguably the journey to the literal end of Time and the Doctor's encounter with Me. Me's TheReasonYouSuckSpeech is thematically the same as the one Ohila gives the Doctor just minutes before. The discussion of the Hybrid prophecy could have been between the Doctor and Clara once they fled in the TARDIS (after all, either way the time loop isn't broken), with her sussing out an alternative reading of it, climaxing with the Doctor admitting to his MindRape scheme. (For that matter, Ohila could just as easily have been the last immortal waiting on him.) However, bringing back Me not only allows the AmbiguousSyntax of the final line in "Heaven Sent" but ties off her StoryArc by resolving the issue of the Doctor's grudge against her, which otherwise would have been a major loose end that later seasons might not have been able to tie off given Creator/MaisieWilliams' other commitments and the fact that her appearance might look noticeably older by then, which would contradict the character being unable to physically age. Since the Doctor ''not'' getting over Me's betrayal of him would be a bad look for a character who traditionally tries to see the good in everyone, it's for the best that it becomes a moot point here.

** Are the Doctor's efforts to save Clara, which include shooting the General ''only after knowing he'd regenerate'' and risking tampering with a fixed point ''with an ultimately successful plan for '''not''' causing a RealityBreakingParadox'', '''that''' much more extreme than the lengths he's gone to for other companions and even ''strangers'' in other episodes and the ExpandedUniverse (Exhibit A: Charley Pollard, whom Eight was willing to risk the universe for ''after their first encounter''[[note]]This is, however, a debatable example as, due to playing the TimeyWimeyBall, it was later retconned that Charley had previously travelled with the Sixth Doctor, so Eight might have had a latent memory of her.[[/note]]) -- or is everyone unjustly picking on a grieving, mentally-damaged man who [[EarnYourHappyEnding earned a happy ending]] and needs to be shown a better way? And if they '''are''' more extreme (and not justifiable by his mental state after thousands of years of torture), why does Clara warrant them but not other beloved companions -- is she ''that'' much of a special snowflake? Even characters who the Doctor was canonically in love with (River Song, Rose) have been left to their fates (although River, at least, dies before they fall in love.)

** Does Ashildr [[EarnYourHappyEnding earn her happy ending]] of finally exploring the universe as Clara's companion after millennia of taking TheSlowPath, perhaps fearing crossing the Doctor's path again all along, or is she a KarmaHoudini who hasn't properly atoned for what she did to him (taking into account that Clara forgives her actions), or both? And since she suffers from TheFogOfAges, it's suspicious that her memory of the events of "Face the Raven" is still clear ''and'' she knows all about the Hybrid prophecy ''and'' why the Doctor comes to the end of time in the first place. She either ''really'' hung onto the relevant journals and learned the right things… or she may not have actually taken TheSlowPath.

** Clara's tenure was a deconstruction of this trope as she became an increasingly reckless thrill-seeker in the wake of all the crises and tragedies in her life. But when her mistake meant she had to die in "Face the Raven", she realized what she became and why, accepted her fate, and faced death with dignity and courage. She later accepts that her mistake was part of what led to the Doctor's SanitySlippage, and convinces him to come back across the DespairEventHorizon. Now more self-aware, she's free to have new adventures as a sadder, wiser, and hopefully more cautious woman.

** Clara's fate: She '''must''' return to the moment of her death at some point to keep the universe together, but until then is immortal and free to roam the universe in her own TARDIS, with Ashildr as a companion. Opinions vary greatly as to its effectiveness. In short, it is either the perfect end to her character arc or the total desecration of the perfectly good ending of "Face the Raven" that further supports a common complaint about Moffat's era -- that recurring character deaths are not permanent. Whether you liked Clara or her exit in "Face The Raven" to begin with also plays a role in what you think of the ending.

* HarsherInHindsight: The Doctor arguing that he's entitled to have Clara back after everything he's done for everyone else but especially the Time Lords, and Ohila showing NoSympathy and shooting the argument down, is '''much''' more upsetting after the revelations of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E10TheTimelessChildren "The Timeless Children"]]. The Doctor died and regenerated an untold number of times ''while still a child'' as they were being experimented on, a process that eventually led to/allowed for ''the creation of the Time Lord race'', '''and''' went through many subsequent adult regenerations while serving the Division -- all memories they lost at some point before becoming the First Doctor. If Twelve and the others knew about this, no one would have been able to deny him Clara without also admitting the grave injustice of doing so: the only reason he wouldn't get it is because of the damage it might do the Web of Time, not because he wasn't deserving of it even after his less-than-noble actions in this episode (since far, far worse has been done to him). As well, that Twelve's karmic punishment ends up being what's actually ''yet another'' mind wipe is a lot harsher knowing the revelations of the latter episode.

** Did the Doctor '''really''' lose his key memories of Clara or is he just faking it to make sure both of them can move on with no regrets? "Twice Upon a Time" put the kibosh on this; his memories are definitively restored in its denouement.
** Since the mind wipe wasn't as thorough on the Doctor's memories of Clara as it was on Donna's memories of the Doctor, might it wear off on him eventually? The ending of the following season's finale, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E12TheDoctorFalls The Doctor Falls]]", suggests that it has when Clara appears in his mind's eye montage of past companions, but in the end the Testimony completely restores them in "Twice Upon a Time", shortly before his regeneration.

** The women got their newfound freedom on the back of '''the Doctor's''' suffering and anguish, though this can be interpreted as the Doctor unintentionally atoning for putting them in unhappy situations (immortality in Ashildr's case, not honouring her death in Clara's). Softened by the ending of "Twice Upon a Time" seeing his memories of Clara restored at last.

** Is the Hybrid prophecy still an issue or not? Steven Moffat confirmed that it was the Doctor and Clara together, so if they ever meet again, will they be able to find happiness despite it all? "Twice Upon a Time" suggests the answer is "Probably", as he will be in a different incarnation if/when that happens onscreen.

** Just as many fanfic authors came up with ways for Donna Noble to safely reclaim her wiped memories and CharacterDevelopment, stories in which the Doctor somehow regained his wiped memories and crossed paths with Clara again -- the order of said events could be reversed -- sprang up in the wake of this finale. Many writers came up with their own scenarios detailing how Clara eventually returns to face the raven; most of said stories involve the Doctor, of course. The Series 10 finale "The Doctor Falls" subsequently implying that the mind wipe wore off added more fuel to the fire, with the complication that said episode led directly into Twelve's final adventure. "Twice Upon a Time" saw his memories completely restored in its denouement, but he regenerated into Thirteen shortly afterward, shutting the door on this specific pairing and associated storylines for good except as AlternateContinuity.
** The above AlternativeCharacterInterpretation that the Doctor either did not actually lose his memories of Clara or managed to successfully reconstruct all of them and simply hid this from her in the diner was also the basis for fanfics, though again "Twice Upon a Time" rendered them AlternateContinuity.

** The Doctor comes as close as he ever has to crossing this line by becoming TheUnfettered to save Clara since it risks '''destroying the universe''', to say nothing of their friendship. Everything comes down to whether he'll force MindRape on her. In the end, he can't bring himself to do that and accepts losing both her and his memories of her (on top of wounding his prickly friendship with Ohila and now being a fugitive from his homeworld once more) by way of atoning for violating his own principles; it's even possible that he ''intentionally'' mind-wipes himself, given that the audience and other characters ''only'' have his word to go on that he doesn't know what will happen when they activate the device. (An alternate theory is that Clara actually broke the device with her meddling and as such the Doctor actually ''faked'' his memory loss in order to set her free, but it doesn't reconcile very well with the diner scenes and the sequence where the Doctor is alone after Clara leaves, to say nothing of ''any'' of the stories that followed culminating in "Twice Upon a Time", which saw the memories restored in the denouement.)

** '''Ten's sins, Twelve's punishments''': The Doctor loses his memories of Clara, possibly ''by choice''. The Tenth Doctor's mind wipe of Donna Noble over her objections, despite being done due to prevent her imminent death, continues to [[BrokenBase divide the fandom]] in part because he suffered no consequences. With regards to nearly crossing the MoralEventHorizon, Ten doesn't atone/accept punishment in "The Waters of Mars", in which he did more damage to others' lives...and ''Twelve'' was the one DrivenToMadness! Does Twelve deserve to suffer for Ten's actions and lose his right to grieve Clara as an AuthorsSavingThrow? That said, while restoring Donna's memories would ''kill'' her no such danger exists for Twelve and he retained substantial memories of Clara, just not personal details, giving plenty of outs for undoing the memory wipe later if the plot demanded. After "Hell Bent" aired in December 2015 there were literally ''hundreds'' of fan fiction stories published online that have hypothesized ways in which it could be undone. '''Very''' notably, Creator/StevenMoffat came to regret this aspect of the ending, and undid it himself: shortly before his regeneration in his GrandFinale "Twice Upon a Time" the Testimony restores all of his memories of Clara Oswald and allows him to bid farewell to an avatar of her.

** Clara's TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to the Time Lords is either justified in calling out the leadership of the Time Lords for unspeakable cruelty, or flat out blaming ''an entire race'' for the Doctor's ''four billion year hell'' when half of the race was thanking him for saving them. That said, the scene itself makes it clear that she was addressing the leadership. Multiple episodes of the Modern Era and even some of the Classic Era had well-established that the Time Lords ''were'' hated by many, such as [[Recap/DoctorWho2006CSTheRunawayBride the Racnoss]]. Also, as far as the viewer can tell the characters she's addressing (including Ohila) apparently have NoSympathy for the suffering of someone they owe their lives to, seeing his ColdBloodedTorture as a case of the ends justifying the means, and this in itself can be seen as absolutely wicked. It's ''possible'' they have to put their sympathy aside for the moment to stop his universe-risking scheme, but since the Doctor doesn't try mending fences with them after he returns to his right mind, the audience doesn't know for sure.

*** That's not to mention "Death In Heaven" and "Last Christmas", two episodes that were each originally written as an ending for Clara (until Jenna Coleman decided to return for Series 9). Many fans think either of them would have been a better departure for the character.

* BadassDecay: In his last appearance, Rassilon was the iron-fisted BigBad of Time Lord society who casually vaporised people for disagreeing with him. Even the Doctor clearly feared him on some level, going as far as [[BatmanGrabsAGun picking up a gun]] in a desperate attempt to ward him off the last time he came face to face with him. Here, he's a rather ineffectual old man who gets kicked off Gallifrey without even a real fight by a Doctor, who is calmly in control all the time. Possibly explained: He was brought back to rule in a time of extreme crisis, and his tyrannical methods were no longer palatable in peacetime. He's [[TheNthDoctor being played by a different actor again]], so this current regeneration may just not be as forceful or effective as the last one. Plus, the military sided with the Doctor and were pointing gunships at him by the time he actually stood down, effectively demonstrating that he'd ''already lost'' control of Gallifrey even if he had put up a fight. But those are thin excuses when one factors in how Classic Who portrayed Rassilon as being so powerful that he could turn people into statues with his mind ''while comatose.''

*** This became even worse at the top of Series 12, which reveals the Doctor never officially returned to Gallifrey before the Master razed it altogether.

** Is the Doctor's choice to exile Rassilon and the High Council as cruel and cowardly as the General and Ohila claim, or is it better than they deserve considering the sum of their crimes, which would make the act a merciful one on his part and thus in line with his previous actions in Series 9 towards young Davros, Bonnie, etc.? Considering what the Doctor can be like when they give into their darker side and put aside their morality, combined with the maddening trauma they just went through, is it possible he was sparing them from [[CruelAndUnusualPunishment an even ''worse'' fate]] at his hands, getting them out of range of his possible vengeance before he ''really'' lost his temper with the lot of them?
** Does Ohila condemn the Doctor over his exiling Rassilon and the High Council because she thinks he's being too hard on them, just trying to save his own skin from further grief at their hands (and given his ultimate plan to save Clara, which they certainly would have tried to stop...) Or does she think he's being '''too soft''' and trying to avoid being punished by others by giving the villains what they ''really'' deserve, given that she clearly has no love for Rassilon?
** Does Ashildr [[EarnYourHappyEnding earn her happy ending]] of finally exploring the universe as Clara's companion after millennia of taking TheSlowPath, perhaps fearing crossing the Doctor's path again all along, or is she a KarmaHoudini who hasn't properly atoned for what she did to him (taking into account that Clara forgives her actions), or both? And since she suffers from TheFogOfAges, it's suspicious that her memory of the events of "Face the Raven" is still clear ''and'' she knows all about the Hybrid prophecy ''and'' why the Doctor comes to the end of time in the first place. She either ''really'' hung onto the relevant journals and learned the right things...or she may not have actually taken TheSlowPath.

** Did the Doctor really not know which way the neural block would fire, or did he know it would target him and just pretend it was a matter of chance? If so, did he do so because he felt so guilty about having slipped into "Time Lord Victorious" mode again that he felt he deserved it, or was it because he wanted to spare Clara from having to ''knowingly'' rob him of the very memories she'd just declared were too precious to ever forfeit? Or was he subconsciously ''relieved'' to be able to shed four-and-a-half billion years of remembered grief?

** Since the mind wipe wasn't as thorough on the Doctor's memories of Clara as it was on Donna's memories of the Doctor, might it wear off on him eventually? The ending of the following season's finale, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E12TheDoctorFalls The Doctor Falls]]", suggests that it has when Clara appears in his mind's eye montage of past companions, but in the end the Testimony completely restores them in "Twice Upon a Time".

** Is the Doctor's choice to exile Rassilon and the High Council as cruel and cowardly as the General and Ohila claim, or is it better than they deserve considering the sum of their crimes, which would make the act a merciful one on his part and thus in line with his previous actions in Series 9 towards young Davros, Bonnie, etc.? Considering what the Doctor can be like when they give into their darker side, is it possible he was sparing them from [[ThouShallNotKill an]] [[ColdBloodedTorture even]] ''[[FateWorseThanDeath worse]]'' [[AndIMustScream fate]] at his hands, getting them out of range of his possible vengeance before he ''really'' lost his temper with the lot of them?

** Is the Doctor ''just'' being Time Lord Victorious 2.0 in trying to save Clara? He's coming off of not only her SenselessSacrifice but hideous betrayal and ColdBloodedTorture; might he have avoided becoming TheUnfettered if he had been allowed to process his grief instead of immediately being forced to survive the confession dial? Could '''anyone''' have sustained their sanity in his situation? With the deck stacked so high against the Doctor, he's less a hero gone bad who must be brought back to his best self and more a mentally damaged man denied the help he needs by people so coldhearted that they don't realize/acknowledge there's a problem, and thus moved to dangerous, desperate acts in hopes of healing himself, and suffers '''even more''' for it in the end. Every major character aside from Clara ends up as a villain in this reading, and most of them thus qualify as {{Karma Houdini}}s to boot.
** Is the Doctor's choice to exile Rassilon and the High Council as cruel and cowardly as the General and Ohila claim, or is it better than they deserve considering the sum of their crimes, which would make the act a merciful one on his part and thus in line with his previous actions in Series 9 towards young Davros, Bonnie, etc.? Is it even possible he was sparing them from a ''worse'' fate at his hands, getting them out of range of his possible vengeance before he ''really'' lost his temper with the lot of them?

* AuthorsSavingThrow:
** The Tenth Doctor's mind-wipe of Donna is commonly believed to be his worst moment, ignoring her consent to die and the show concentrating on ''his'' pain afterwards. The Twelfth Doctor tries to do the same to Clara, even telling her he's done it before, but she calls him out, saying she has the right to remember her past. And then the Doctor finally comes to terms with and accepts the idea of his OWN memories of Clara being wiped, in a roundabout way calling it penance for how he treated Donna. Later, he would also change his mind about mindwiping Bill Potts in "The Pilot" when she inadvertently reminded him of this experience.
** Averted with the "half-human" theory, which is often treated as borderline-heresy and has been the butt of several jokes. Here, however, it's played as a legitimate possibility, although the Doctor doesn't confirm or deny anything.
** The resolution of the story arc required Moffat to provide Clara with a happy (if bittersweet) ending, while not undoing the tragedy of her death in "Face the Raven"; the solution is to give her the chance to have further adventures within the last moment of her life provided she goes back to it eventually. At the same time, he had to erase the Doctor's memory of her so he wouldn't be consumed by grief and anguish that would undermine any future relationships -- yet still establish that all the character-development moments of the past three seasons (most specifically those of "The Day of the Doctor", as well as the Twelfth Doctor's own emotional and social evolution) are maintained. The solution: The mind wipe does cause him to lose his memories of how Clara looked, talked, etc., (thus, for those who subscribe to the romantic interpretation of their relationship, this also would include related feelings for her) but his memories of the ''adventures'' he had with with her, and thus the impact they had on his character, turn out to remain substantially intact. This is supported by the fact that the Doctor's warmer personality, which evolved over two seasons thanks to his interaction with Clara, remained such into "The Husbands of River Song" and Series 10, rather than reverting to the colder, harsher Twelfth Doctor of old. However, this was ultimately a Saving Throw that needed another Saving Throw: Twelve's GrandFinale "[[Recap/DoctorWho2017CSTwiceUponATime Twice Upon a Time]]" had his memories completely restored shortly before he regenerated, as Moffat felt bad about his fate.

* HilariousInHindsight: When the Doctor visits the last planet in the universe in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E4Listen Listen]]", he comments on a marooned time traveller, "The last man standing in the universe. I always thought that would be me." Fast forward to "Hell Bent" and we reach the very last little fragment of the universe, only five minutes to go, and what do you know, the last one standing in the universe is... Me, as in, Ashildr. (Sadly for the Doctor, when he and Ashildr enter the TARDIS, Ashildr follows him in, so he can't win on a technicality unless "man" is taken to specify male.)

** The Tenth Doctor's mind-wipe of Donna is commonly believed to be his worst moment, ignoring her consent to die and the show concentrating on ''his'' pain afterwards. The Twelfth Doctor tries to do the same to Clara, even telling her he's done it before, but she calls him out, saying she has the right to remember her past. And then the Doctor finally comes to terms with and accepts the idea of his OWN memories of Clara being wiped, in a roundabout way calling it penance for how he treated Donna. Later, he would also change his mind about mindwiping Bill Potts in "The Pilot" when she inadvertently reminded him of this experience. (Since then the Doctor's next incarnation has returned to mindwiping people against their wishes with Part Two of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E1E2Spyfall Spyfall]]" in Series 12 without any acknowledgement of Twelve's ultimate stance on the issue, but there was a different showrunner at that point.)

** The Tenth Doctor's mind-wipe of Donna is commonly believed to be his worst moment, ignoring her consent to die and the show concentrating on ''his'' pain afterwards. The Twelfth Doctor tries to do the same to Clara, even telling her he's done it before, but she calls him out, saying she has the right to remember her past. And then the Doctor finally comes to terms with and accepts the idea of his OWN memories of Clara being wiped, in a roundabout way calling it penance for how he treated Donna. Later, he would also change his mind about mindwiping Bill Potts in "The Pilot" when she inadvertently reminded him of this experience. (Since then the Doctor's next incarnation has returned to mindwiping people against their wishes with Part Two of "Spyfall" in Series 12 without any acknowledgement of Twelve's ultimate stance on the issue, but there was a different showrunner at that point.)

** The resolution of the story arc required Moffat to provide Clara with a happy (if bittersweet) ending, while not undoing the tragedy of her death in "Face the Raven"; the solution is to give her the chance to have further adventures within the last moment of her life provided she goes back to it eventually. At the same time, he had to erase the Doctor's memory of her so he wouldn't be consumed by grief and anguish that would undermine any future relationships -- yet still establish that all the character-development moments of the past three seasons (most specifically those of "The Day of the Doctor", as well as the Twelfth Doctor's own emotional and social evolution) are maintained. The solution: The mind wipe does cause him to lose his memories of how Clara looked, talked, etc., (thus, for those who subscribe to the romantic interpretation of their relationship, this also would include related feelings for her) but his memories of the ''adventures'' he had with with her, and thus the impact they had on his character, turn out to remain substantially intact. This is supported by the fact that the Doctor's warmer personality, which evolved over two seasons thanks to his interaction with Clara, remained such into "The Husbands of River Song" and Series 10, rather than reverting to the colder, harsher Twelfth Doctor of old. However, this was ultimately a Saving Throw that needed another Saving Throw: Twelve's GrandFinale "Twice Upon a Time" had his memories completely restored shortly before he regenerated, as Moffat felt bad about his fate.

** Since the mind wipe wasn't as thorough on the Doctor's memories of Clara as it was on Donna's memories of the Doctor, might it wear off on him eventually? The ending of the following season's finale, "The Doctor Falls", suggests that it has when Clara appears in his mind's eye montage of past companions, but in the end the Testimony completely restores them in "Twice Upon a Time".