Discussion Recap / DoctorWhoS31E7AmysChoice

If the Dreamlord is the darkness in the Doctor, doesn't that technically make him/it the Valeyard?

Moving the following here since it's now Conversation On The Main Page and Wild Mass Guessing:

• Further Fridge Brilliance: Both realities are utterly ludicrous on the surface of it. One involves old-age pensioners possessed by aliens and killing everyone while still (aside from the aforementioned alien possession, of course) clearly remaining about as powerful as you'd expect old-age pensioners to be. The other involves a cold sun, an utterly ludicrous and naked defiance of the laws of physics. Of course, this is the entire point; not only are both the utterly ludicrous kind of thing which couldn't possibly (and ultimately don't) exist outside of a dream, but they're also both equally absurd, thus making it even more difficult to tell which one could be more real over the other.

• Fridge Brilliance: Even the darkest, nastiest part of the doctor's mind still ships Amy X Rory.
  • Or even the darkest, nastiest part of the Doctor's mind is hateful enough to wish the Doctor/wants to prove the Doctor deserves eternal solitude.
  • Then again, the Dreamlord appeared before Amy in an Ready for Lovemaking outfit, which could mean that the Doctor DOES love Amy, but thinks he shouldn't and therefore represses his feelings, making them a part of his 'dark' side. The reality where Amy and Rory are together could also be intended to make our trio get in a fight against each other, or to make the Doctor aware of the fact that he would NOT like Amy and Rory to get together. He DID taunt Amy to leave her boring boyfriend behind.
  • Or even worse the Doctor wants Amy in a lustful manner. But doesn't see her as a person one is possible to love. And wants to bed her but pawn her off to Rory when he'd done with her.
  • And also, Amy wants to kill herself in the village-world because she doesn't want a world without Rory. The Doctor follows her, so he doesn't want a world without Amy, either...
    • It's worse than that; consider that just before hand, Amy had made the argument of what good is the Doctor? if he's not able to save people like Rory, thus adding to the already heavy implications that the Doctor only considers himself to be worth anything when he is playing the hero and saving people, otherwise he's just a big ball of self hate which will quite happily let his companion kill them both by driving them into a building. The Doctor was suicidal all on his own, even without Amy. This is freaky. We've seen the Doctor depressed as hell, souped up on his own omnipotence, bitter and cruel, but many fans have never seen him quite so openly suicidal.
      • It makes perfect sense, the Doctor has recently had to condemn his entire race to a fiery end AGAIN and he knows that for reasons he doesn't know or understand yet the end of the Universe might well be approaching, I'd probably be a wee bit suicidal too. On the other hand, given the Doctor's reaction as soon as the Dream Lord feigns defeat the Doctor has become rather unsure that anything is real.
      • Alternatively, the Doctor isn't at present suicidal or self-loathing, at least not consciously; however, the Dream Lord is an amalgamation of all the darkest impulses and thoughts that have built up within the Doctor over 907 years. As the Doctor himself admits, there's bound to be quite a lot.
• Fridge Logic - Even if they'd stayed in either dream, if they'd eventually died wouldn't they have just woken up in the real world at last and been fine?
  • Not if something happened to them in reality before they could wake up. Something like, say, your typical Doctor Who monsters showing up. Or starvation.
    • A TARDIS, loose in the Vortex with nobody in control. We all know how well that is going to turn out...
• More Fridge Brilliance: In dreams, your mind tends not to work very logically, and accepts the absurd as "reality".
• On first viewing, the Doctor seemed rather ineffective against the Dream Lord and unusually affected by his taunts, it seemed as though he was being pulled along by events and failing to concoct his usual wacky plan. Of course this suddenly makes sense when you know the Dream Lord IS the Doctor.
• Yet more Fridge Brilliance: The reason the Doctor realized that both dreams were a trap was because the Dream Lord is the Doctor — and, like the Doctor, when presented with two choices always Takes A Third Option.