THE LOOK FITS

Me has enough physical resemblance to Austen that as a casting it would certainly fit.









CLARA’S LOVE INTEREST

Clara has two love interests in series 9, Jane Austen and Me; this led me to think that maybe they were the same person.

In The Magician’s Apprentice, Clara mentions Austen being a great kisser.

In The Girl Who Died, Clara mentions Ashildr being nice and fighting the Doctor for her.

In Face The Raven, Ashildr mentions Clara being beautiful.

There is also some body language suggestive of a romantic interest between the two of them and they end up travelling alone together.





STORYTELLERS

Jane Austen is a professional writer.

Ashldr is a storyteller. It is an important plot point.

ASHILDR: When the raiding parties go out, I make up stories about their battles.

DOCTOR: Because if you make up the right story, then you think it will keep them safe and they’ll all come home.



ASHILDR: My head is always full of stories.

DOCTOR: You were born for this. Show them a story they’ll never forget.



DOCTOR: A story to save a town, and a puppet from a nightmare. You see, you’ve just seen the world through the eyes of a storyteller.





RECOGNIZING ASHILDR

When Clara and The Doctor meet Ashildr, they have already met Jane Austen as mentioned in “The Magician’s Apprentice”.

Some episodes later they don’t recognise Ashildr as Jane Austen, but The Doctor actually:

Turns around to stare at her;



Comments on it being the result of too much time travel;



Comments on it being a premonition and remembering backwards, when these things don’t actually happen in the show.

CLARA: You all right? Do you know her?

DOCTOR: Never seen her before in my life.

CLARA: Okay, so, why are you staring?

DOCTOR: I don’t know. Nothing, probably. Too much time travel, it happens.

CLARA: What happens?

DOCTOR: People talk about premonition as if it’s something strange. It’s not. It’s just remembering in the wrong direction.

So, maybe they can’t recognise her as Jane Austen in The Girl Who Died because she’s dressed very differently and they don’t expect Austen to be alive centuries before her birth, so they just absentmindedly go with the logical explanation that she is just a sosia.





ME IN THE 1800

The doctor last traces Me in the early 1800s.

CLARA: He lost track of you in the early 1800s. I wondered if you were-



Jane Austen lived up till the early 1800s, so, by Face The Raven, now that they know Me has the gift of long life, they might have realized that she’s indeed Jane Austen rather than a sosia.





KENT IS NOT AN EASY DISTANCE

Austen spent some time in Kent, as does her heroine Elizabeth Bennet, which remarks on Kent not being a easy distance:

“It must be very agreeable for her to be settled within so easy a distance of her own family and friends.”

“An easy distance, do you call it? It is nearly fifty miles.”

“And what is fifty miles of good road? Little more than half a day’s journey. Yes, I call it a very easy distance.”

“I should never have considered the distance as one of the advantages of the match,” cried Elizabeth. “I should never have said Mrs. Collins was settled near her family.”

“It is a proof of your own attachment to Hertfordshire. Anything beyond the very neighbourhood of Longbourn, I suppose, would appear far.”

As he spoke there was a sort of smile which Elizabeth fancied she understood; he must be supposing her to be thinking of Jane and Netherfield, and she blushed as she answered:

“I do not mean to say that a woman may not be settled too near her family. The far and the near must be relative, and depend on many varying circumstances. Where there is fortune to make the expenses of travelling unimportant, distance becomes no evil. But that is not the case here. Mr. and Mrs. Collins have a comfortable income, but not such a one as will allow of frequent journeys—and I am persuaded my friend would not call herself near her family under less than half the present distance.”

Mr. Darcy drew his chair a little towards her, and said, “You cannot have a right to such very strong local attachment. You cannot have been always at Longbourn.”

Elizabeth looked surprised. The gentleman experienced some change of feeling; he drew back his chair, took a newspaper from the table, and glancing over it, said, in a colder voice:

“Are you pleased with Kent?”





Me also complains about Kent not being an easy distance:

DOCTOR: You don’t want to get stuck with an old fool like me. You have this whole wonderful planet to play on.

ME: It takes a day to get to Kent.

DOCTOR: In the future, you’ll fly.

ME: I want to fly right now.





PRANKING JANE AUSTEN

In Face The Raven, Me put a deadly quantum shade on a friend of Clara’s.

Clara secretly takes the shade on herself to trick Me into removing it when it’s about to kill its bearer.

CLARA: No, this is us talking the opposition into their own trap. This is Doctor 101. We’re buying time. We get all of the aliens on our side in the next half an hour, and then we reveal I’ve got the chronolock, not you, and boom! We buy ourselves more time to find the real killer.

RIGSY: The Doctor would never let you do this.

CLARA: Doctor 102. Never tell anyone your actual plan. He’ll have a tantrum when he finds out. And then, when we confront Ashildr, she’ll want to take the chronolock off just to shut him up.

Just after taking the shade and so tricking Me, se says:

CLARA: Sometimes Jane Austen and I prank each other. Oh, she is the worst. I love her. Take that how you like.



REFERENCES

Chakoteya’s Doctor Who’s Transcripts