I doubt Jenna Coleman knew exactly how important her character Clara Oswald would be to Doctor Who when she took the part back in March 2012.

Like her or not, Clara – thanks to Steven Moffat’s masterful planning and/or serendipity – is the most important companion of all.

This has nothing to do with favouritism. My favourite companion is Dr. Grace Holloway, the one that got away. Clara, however, impacts the history of the Doctor in an astonishing, almost impossible, manner.

From the Doctor’s perspective, he becomes fully aware of Clara on earth during the Elizabethan Age in ‘The Day of the Doctor’. It is John Hurt’s Doctor that first meets Clara, and knows that she will be his future companion. Neither is aware that Clara already met the Doctor as a boy in the very barn where the mature Doctor intends to use the Moment, a doomsday weapon with a conscience, for those not in the know, to end the Time War.

As the series implies, all modern Gallifreyans regenerate, possess two hearts, etc. These changes in the basic humanoid form – for humans look like and have the basic physiognomy of Time Lords – occurred as adaptations to the time/space vortex and the Artron Energy emanating from the phenomenon.

However, a child truly becomes recognised as a Time Lord when he or she looks into the Schism, the time/space vortex laid raw. Some children gain great wisdom. Others go mad. A few run, and the Doctor was one of the runners.

Would the Doctor though have even braved looking at the Schism if not for Clara? It is she that bolsters the boy’s courage as he weeps, afraid of the dark in ‘Listen’. She tells him the words that she hears from her Doctor Peter Capaldi; that fear is like a superpower. The Doctor will take those words with him forever. They clearly made an impact because he remembers them even in his up to date incarnation.

Clara influences the Doctor continuously through his entire lifespan. She is there to mend a history broken by the Great Intelligence, who first sabotaged the Doctor’s life.

You can argue that Clara has always been there. In other words, we’ve been following the Doctor’s timeline with Clara in it all along, but time changes when the Great Intelligence assumes control. We see the break-up of Vastra, Jenny and Strax. The stars go out because the Daleks won again. No. There are three separate timelines thanks to the events on Trenzalore. The original. The sabotaged. The repaired. Two are wiped out. The sabotaged destroys the original template.

Perhaps, this is where the Valeyard comes from. A version of the Doctor defeated and corrupted by the Great Intelligence’s influence. The repaired however usurps the sabotaged. That’s what’s important.

It’s in that repair we discover something even more amazing about Clara: she’s a Time Lord. Think about it. Clara is there on Gallifrey to persuade the first Doctor to take the TARDIS with the wonky steering. It has been stated that only Time Lords are allowed on Gallifrey. It’s why the Doctor couldn’t bring Sarah Jane Smith with him when he was summoned (although this was contradicted shortly after with Leela – and the Tenth Doctor clarified in ‘School Reunion’: “I told you, I was called back home and in those days humans weren’t allowed.” – but bear with us).

Although I have no issue about the Doctor allegedly being half-human in ‘The TV Movie’, we need not bring in the question of the Doctor’s mother since she can also be considered a very old Time Lord, not adapted to the time/space vortex. In most senses of the word, she was human. The point is that the Clara on Gallifrey in ‘The Name of the Doctor’ is at the very least the Doctor’s contemporary. This means that Clara has thirteen lives, and her presence makes a lot of sense.

From Gallifrey, The Time Lord Clara can monitor the Doctor’s life. From Gallifrey, she can make certain that the other Clara avatars are in the right time and place to save the Doctor, even if those Clara incarnates are unaware of the Time Lord Clara.

It’s astonishing to think it, but there must be two versions of Clara in existence all the time. Perhaps, Clara the Time Lord sometimes personally materializes in another incarnation to intervene. The Doctor would never know, if she wore a perception filter.

Even the Time Lord version of Clara, however, couldn’t predict what was to come. Clara, the Clara who travels with Matt Smith’s Doctor, convinces the Time Lords to change time to save the Doctor.

On Trenzalore in ‘The Time of the Doctor’, as the Doctor faces the Daleks one last time, Clara’s pleas touch and probably shame the Time Lords. They grant the Doctor a new cycle of regeneration. Limit unknown.

When Clara stepped into the scar in time and space on Trenzalore in ‘The Name of the Doctor’, it represented a finite cycle of twelve incarnations. Time Lords originally could only regenerate twelve times. There could have only been thirteen Doctors. David Tennant jammed two into one. So Matt Smith was the last Doctor of that cycle.

The Tomb on Trenzalore from a logical standpoint cannot exist. Is this a fourth timeline then? I don’t think so. I think that The Doctor’s Tomb on Trenzalore existed and exists as a paradox, preserved by Time Lord technology.

We know the Doctor, thanks once again to Clara’s subtle influence, does not wipe out the Time Lords. They exist outside the universe, trapped in cosmic amber and looking for a way back in. When they granted the Doctor a new regenerative cycle, the Time Lords must have also preserved the Doctor’s Tomb on Trenzalore as a paradox because they would have no choice.

Too much – the Doctor’s timeline, the influence of Clara, her birth as a Time Lord, the preservation of their own Time Lord lives – depends upon Trenzalore. Fortunately, they are Time Lords, and this task while I imagine difficult wouldn’t be impossible for them.

Some complaints have always been lodged at the Doctor’s companions. That the women haven’t had decisive roles in the series. That the men are frequently superfluous.

All the companions are important. You can see this in the nuanced performances even in the earlier episodes on DVD.

But Clara, because of her intrinsic part in the Doctor’s entire soul, is the most important companion of all.

> Read more by Ray Tate on his blog.

Do you think Clara is the most important companion to the Doctor? Let us know below…