Possible Theories for Jenna's Character(s)

WARNING: IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN ASYLUM OF THE DALEKS DO NOT READ THIS POST UNTIL YOU HAVE!!

So, Jenna-Louise Coleman made a surprise appearance yesterday in the series opener, five episodes early. The biggest question is: is it the same character, and if so, how?

Possibility 1: Different characters, Oswin Oswald & Clara ________

This is not very likely, it is not the type of thing Moffat would do, unless he knows we think this and is trying to trick us. Here's a couple different ways it could work. 1) Seeing as only .1% of the human genome varies from person to person, with the right amount of random chance and dumb luck, you could get two visually identical people born hundreds of years apart. 2) Spacial genetic multiplicity, or whatever was the explanation behind Gwen Cooper and Gwen Cooper.

Possibility 2: Fractured in time as per Scaroth in City of Death

It could be the same person, fragmented through time. Each of her fragments exists at a separate point in time, but her mind jumps from one another. When this fragment died in the asylum, she just woke up somewhere else. That fragment remembers everything that happened in the asylum, everything that happened before she got fragmented, and various bits from other fragments. Every now and then, she falls unconscious and her mind goes into another fragment.

Possibility 3: She escapes and meets the Doctor again in the right order

Oswin might very well be equipped with an emergency temporal shift. She could escape the asylum before it explodes and go somewhere else. She's a genius and has Dalek knowledge, so she could build a crude chameleon arch. She could use it to rewrite her DNA and assume her previous human form. For some reason, she decides to use the emergency temporal shift to go to 1890s England. There, she meets the Doctor again in the Christmas special. Everything happens to both of them in the right order.

Possibility 4: She dies in the asylum and the Doctor meets her later at an earlier point in her time stream

Maybe she does legitimately die in the asylum. The Doctor meets her in the Christmas special, and takes her traveling, not realizing who she is (he never saw her human face in Asylum). Eventually, the Doctor realizes who she is. He knows that she must meet that fate so that he can make it out of the asylum alive. They eventually get permanently separated, and she loses all her memories. Not knowing who she is, she changes her name from Clara to Oswin Oswald, and takes a job on the Alaska starship.

Possibility 5: She escapes and meets the Doctor again as a Dalek

This is essentially the same as Possibility 3, but instead of rewriting her DNA, she uses a perception filter. That way, she could go back to being a Dalek whenever necessary.