Howling:Two "fixed deaths" for the eleventh, how does that make any sense ?

Greetings! First of all, I apologise for my english (not my native language), but I will do my best, and I thank you by advance for your patience. I'm quite a slow mind, and since I am not a huge fan of Moffat's era, I have difficulties to "stay hooked" to his stories; nonetheless, I have been watching series 6 and 7 again and again, trying to understand more about the "Silence's plans". In fact, several things don't seem to have any sense to me, so I have been searching for explanations here but in vain:

1. How could the Silence create another fixed point in time where the doctor dies? If Trenzalore is the place he must perish, I don't understand why they even tried to change that fact: by trying to alter the "Trenzalore fixed point", Time should have been desintegrated the same way it had been when River Song refused to "kill" the Doctor near the Lake in "the Wedding of River Song".

2. Beside the fact that the Teselact faked an attempt of Regeneration (which doesn't seem very consistant from my point of view), how faking his death change a fixed point? If time is desintegrating because he doesn't die, how could it possibly be different after he still doesn't die but only fake his death?

3. Unless the fixed point (22 April 2011, 5:02pm) was not about the death of the Doctor but the fact that people must believe he's dead, and even that way, how the Silence, which knows about Trenzalore, can be deceived?

4. I'm not found of the "time can be rewritten" magical trick which is hammered so many times during Moffat's era, but assuming it's a fact: if the Doctor really died near the Lake Silencio, Trenzalore time and facts should have been rewritten as well, or am I getting wrong on all this? If I'm right, the Silence should have noticed it and known that they failed in their attempt to kill the Doctor earlier. As you see, I'm so very lost in all this wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff, and I don't find consistant answers or even satisfying interpretations of those stories, concepts and facts that just seem to contradict themselves from my point of view.

Tepec ☎  12:33, November 5, 2013 (UTC) Tepec

Welcome, first your English seems fine. The only thing that might arguably be making your writing confused is that you are confused. So while I'm not sure I understand everything you say, or if you do either, I will try my best to respond to your concerns and hopefully others may come and improve or them.

The first thing that you need to understand is that "wibbly-wobbley, timey-wimey" is Steven Moffat shorthand for "what I say goes." Just bear that in mind.

1. No one has ever claimed that the Doctor's death of Trenzalore was a fixed point, there is an implication it became one when the Doctor went there and found his grave because apparently finding your grave does that, but up until that point the suggestion is that The Silence could have created a new death and new grave for the Doctor. Or at least believed they could.

2. That would depend on what a fixed point is and how it works, I have seem several explanations for that and have my own and not all are mutually exclusive, but alas the show is silent or, at best, vague on the matter, one of those "what I say goes" things.

3. How can "the Silence" be deceived? Well ultimately they can't because eventually the Doctor will go to Trenzalore and answer the question and they'll presumably know about it then. But at the moment we know so little about the Silence and they may not be able to see past their own involvement that again that question is impossible to answer.

4. Yeah, again if the Silence can't see past the consequences of their own actions how would they know what's a change and what's a paradox? They can't, whenever the Doctor shows up they think it's just a pre death event. They believe his death is a fixed point and believe his death occurred. Because of the "false regeneration" thing he made it look very convincing. Because there is no actual way a fixed point can be escaped the Doctor must be dead. The Silence just can't see how he could have cheated.

Steven Moffat has come under a lot of fire recently for not resolving his plots and this has often seemed valid.

Then I rewatched "The Beast Below" yesterday. Two pieces of dialogue, before TARDIS explosions or The Silence or Trenzalore that very strongly suggests Steven Moffat always knew where he was going. It can help restore your faith.DCT ☎  13:48, November 5, 2013 (UTC)

→ Thank you for your answer(s), some elements you point are very helpful to me!

1. I thought Trenzalore was a fixed point since the Doctor seems to think that way from my point of view. Moreover, I thought that, when he says that a Time traveller must never go where and when his grave is located is because... Well, because any "trip" that leads him there could be the one when he dies: I mean, people told him he should die there, which implies he must go there first and die once he is there; consequently, as long as the Doctor doesn't go to Trenzalore, he simply can't die. And that's what he does: simply not go there until the Great Intelligence sort of "force him". But in "The Name of the Doctor", there is another problem: the Doctor arrives on Trenzalore after his own death, meaning he's crossing his timeline and make the TARDIS crossing her own, too. From my opinion, going where you are going to die and crossing your own timeline are two different problems, and perhaps they could not be necessarily related. If the Doctor had travelled to Trenzalore before the events leading to his death, I don't see how it would have been a huge problem for the universe: he will have to do that to die (from what we know now).

2. You are right on this: the show only gives us that some events or facts are fixed in time: it gives us sometimes (Father's Day, the Wedding of River Song) indications on what can happen if something try to interfere with it, but it doesn't explain how fixed points in time are fixed(!). The only recent indication I remember is during "The Impossible Astronaut" I think, the Doctor says that the 1969 is "an easy year" (contrary to some others), and I'll have to check, but possibly in "Day of the Moon", he says something about creating a fixed point is easier during easy years. Is there other indications I missed about that?

3. and 4. I like your idea that the Silence can't see the effects of what it tries to do, and I like even more the idea that the Silence could think every intervention of the Doctor is a pre-death event. It could lead them to keep persecuting him everywhere in his timeline, and it could lead the viewer to become a bit paranoid: "what if the TARDIS explosion was a desperate attempt from the Silence, or maybe not the TARDIS explosion but at least the Pandorica, leading all those villains to make an impossible alliance; and what if the Silence whispered to the Great Intelligence to destroy the Doctor", and so on? I like that, even if for now it's not tangible.

And I'll had a point 5 to the discussion, with what you wrote about Moffat knowing where he's going: I have no doubt about the fact that Moffat has a "Masterplan", and I'm not criticizing the quality of what he's doing as the showrunner. It's obvious with the "TARDIS console-like" stuff we saw at least twice ("The Lodger" and "The Impossible Astronaut"), the fact that River Song says in the Pandorica Opens that it's like someone had taken the controle of the TARDIS just before it explodes, the "Silence will fall" that we hear for quite a long time now, and so on, that Moffat wants to do something big and he is just "placing his pawns on the big chessboard". Step by step, we are coming closer to the solution of all this. I'm just a bit skeptical about that he had planned everything since the beginning, and since every "pawn" he places is "huge" rather "subtle", it will be hard to keep something fully consistant. My personal opinion is that it's like when RTD started to use "Torchwood" in Doctor Who first series (during the weakest link thing at least!), or the drummings in the Master's mind since series 3: surely RTD wanted to do something with that, but was he already 100% sure about how he would use it later? Once again thank you for your time! Tepec ☎  16:54, November 5, 2013 (UTC) Tepec