The 11th Doctor wasn't just the 11th Doctor (in fact it turned he was secretly sort of the 13th Doctor), he was also the last Doctor. His regeneration cycle ended with him. In his last episode the Time Lords granted him a brand new regeneration cycle allowing him to regenerate into the 12th Doctor after all, but until the last moment as far as he is concerned, the 11th Doctor is on his last ever incarnation and will die for good at Trenzalore.
So as far as the Doctor is concerned its his last regeneration, so he's as Doctor-y as he's ever going to be. There's no time left for a learning curve so he just is the Doctor - there's no identity crisis, no real regeneration trauma - he's the most held-together Doctor, the most cofnident, and that makes him the scariest. But he doesn't want to be the scariest to his friends so he makes himself the silliest. Moffat's compared him to a Peter Pan figure and I really like that.
He works on a bigger scale than any of the previous Doctors, he's not saving Earth from invasion as the season finales, he's saving all of time and space from the hugest of timey wimey events. He is the ultimate Doctor, fully formed from the start in a way the previous Doctors could never be, because he's the only one with all their experience. Twelve is a reset that strips the Doctor down to the core again, Eleven is the epic hero built from everything that has come before.
The alien-ness of Eleven is a direct reaction and course correction from the failure of his human-ness as Ten which brought him nothing but pain. He doesn't have time to mope around about the curse of the time lord, he's got all the knowledge of how to be the Doctor that he 's ever going to have and he's decided he should be a young, silly, friendly doctor who's all about messing about and dancing around the universe, having fun and helping children. He decides on that personality as the ideal Doctor to present in the split second he meets young Amelia Pond as the Doctor who can best befriend her and the more she laughs, the more he steers into it:
"You're funny"
"Good. Funny is good."
Why does he care so much about the little girl he meets straight away? Because it's his last life. He doesn't just want a companion. He wants a family again. In The Beast Below, his parenting instincts are shown to be at the forefront of this incarnation's abilities - family's on the mind. He's "very old and very kind" and he's chosen to take on the role of grandfather to the whole universe, but Amy Pond is his favourite.
That's not who he really is though, he's actually a grumpy old man with a real scary dark side. He can be even grumpier than Twelve sometimes! It's like the difference between parents and grandparents, where a lot of grandparents tend to be the fun silly childlike friend because they're nearing the end of their life and they're just trying to live it to the fullest while they can and don't want to be weighed down by behaving 'responsibly'. The bow tie is a good example of the old man pretending to be a child - its something an old man would think is trendy and cool while a young person would think 'oh my god, you're so old' (as Amy does). Eleven has to deal with some of the hardest, darkest stuff building up inevitably to his death but the more he has to deal with, the more exaggerated his outer child persona becomes to fend off that darkness. But you see who he really is, the ancient legend of the Doctor, in those moments when he snaps.
In Series 5, Eleven is still forming this persona. He snaps more often, he's grumpier more often, and apart from the initial fishfingers and custard, his Doctor's silliness is relatively contained to no fashion sense and some bad jokes. Until the Lodger. The Lodger forces Eleven to try and fit in with humans and in doing so brings out more and more ridiculousness. He learns that 'competent' silliness is intimidating and alienating, whereas harmless laughable ridiculousness (like picking up a fez for example) wins friends and brings out the best in good people.
The other aspect of his character highlighted in Series 5 is shown in Amy's Choice. He hates himself. He knows he's not the 'quirky' childlike old man he pretends to be but a dark genocidal figure of legend. The Pandorica at the end of the season hammers this home with how his reputation is enough to bring all his enemies together just to trap him. He wants to be 'The Doctor' so he's 'the man who forgets' as The Moment describes him in Day of the Doctor. He suppresses who he is and what he's done, but it's all still there under the surface. The Dream Lord forces him to confront who he is beneath the surface and that never goes away. There's a quote that I think sums this up quite well - The saddest people smile the brightest.
By Series 6, it's clear that by embracing Amy and Rory's marriage but not abandoning them, allowing them time to themselves between adventures but still coming back for them, and through discovering River Song is a 'Pond' too, Eleven's relationship with them has moved beyond companionship to family. And the reason he's going for that change is because unlike every previous relationship, if Eleven spreads his visits out long enough, they might outlive them. He might not have to watch them wither and die. The Doctor himself has embraced his new personality with more confidence, upped the silliness to the extreme and even found a young-at-heart romance with River. In short, life is good. Except he's being hunted by the Silence and about to die.
Facing a darker fate than ever before, the Doctor has to laugh at the darkness more than ever before. Eleven might have to face the events of A Good Man Goes To War, but by the next episode he's facing death by changing into a top hat and tails and talking about leg powernaps. At first death is a burden, at heart perhaps to some part of him death is a gift, but by the end he realises: death is an opportunity. 'The Doctor' is struck dead by an impossible astronaut, but Eleven himself survives escaping unknown into the universe. The legendary mythic figure dies, the fun-loving ridiculous idiot escapes to live another day.
Series 7, the Doctor himself gets darker as he gets lonelier. Amy and Rory were his best friends who became his family, but at the end of the day it will always be them before him now. They drift further and further away as they build a real human family life with less and less space for the Doctor. The Power of Three shows how no matter how human they want to be, they're never going to be able to let go of the Doctor because he really is family to them, but he doesn't have the self-esteem to really see that. To him, they seem to be drifting further and further away, and it really affects him. I think that change is also partly because he's not a huge well known universal figure anymore now that he's spent the gap between seasons erasing himself from all databases in the universe so he doesn't ahve to act like a role model anymore except for for Amy. He's not the universe's granddad anymore, he's just Amy's best friend. When he's on his own, when she's not watching, he can just do whatever he thinks needs doing. Ironically, she found out she was capable of the same when left alone with Madame Kovarian in Wedding of River Song the season before.
All season, Eleven has been getting colder and darker as he spends more time alone and losing Amy and Rory in The Angels Take Manhattan breaks him because they really were his family and he always thought he could outlive them. He tells Amy in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship: "You'll be there til the end of me" and he is genuinely shocked when she suggests the opposite. They're the first companions that he hasn't emotionally prepared to lose and when he does, he can't cope. The universe has finally hurt him too much. I think you can describe the state he's left in in the Snowmen as depression since it's so apathetic and down. He's given up in a way he never thought he could.
But then Clara comes along and manages to pique his interest again. The frost thaws. He justifies his return to caring as pursuing the mystery of the Impossible Girl and it's all because she's 'impossible'. He isn't ready to admit to himself he could care about a person like that again given how hurt he was last time. I think you see in the second half ot he season that he helps who he can but he doesn't form the same emotional connection with people except for Clara. She really is the only one who adds warmth to him - 'there's a sliver of ice in his heart' but she is the one who can melt it.
Then in Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, he confronts her about her previous deaths and realises she has no idea what he's talking about. She's not a trick or a trap. She's not even a mystery. She really is just a girl. And that realisation fills him with such hope. He is so happy when he realises. It's like he finally gets some hope back because he's realised he is still capable of connecting with and loving an actual person and that friendship can still make him better. It's no longer a mystery keeping him going, he has someone who makes him feel alive again. He's latched onto Clara as the anchor that keeps him grounded in reality and not lost in depression. He becomes more dependent on her than the Doctor has perhaps been on any companion before, and this really shows once he reaches his more vulnerable Twelfth incarnation.
The universe kicked him harder than it ever had before when it took Amy and Rory from him, but by the end of Series 7, it gives him back something so huge: Gallifrey. His home. Eleven gets his reward. So naturally the next episode he dies.
In Time of the Doctor, Eleven finds the crack in time and space with Gallifrey waiting on the other side. The first thing he does is send Clara back home and given how dependent he is on her by this point, I think he'd only send her away if he was 100% certain he was going to die. And he does it immediately after finding out its the Time Lords asking Doctor Who, and he then immediately asks what the planet is because he knows it's going to be Trenzalore.
I think Eleven stays expecting to die the next day, every day, and that's what he means later when he says "I might leave tomorrow" to Barnable. He knows he dies on Trenzalore, and he knows its an unwinnable situation. And it's why he laughs when Clara says she wouldn't let him get stuck there because he doesn't really think he's stuck - the Doctor can't ever sit still - he thinks he's got one day left every day and he's just waiting to die and saving as many lives as he can while he does. And the saddest part is he looks down when Clara says "What about your life?" because he really doesn't think his life is worth saving.
I think in any other situation he would equip the church for the long battle then leave. But here because it's the Time Lords and he knows the Trenzalore prophecy and he's been forced to live with the village for 300 years before he even has the option to leave, he finally makes the choice to stay for the long battle himself and that may be the first time he's ever done that. It shows how far he's come since Series 1 when Nine left Satellite 5 and the Daleks were able to take over. He's finally grown enough to stay and deal with the consequences just like Nine knew one day he was going to have to.
On his last day, he sees Clara one last time - the representation of hope in his depression. His face when he sees her is enough to break hearts. Hope comes back but it's just to say goodbye. He can die happy but he still has to die. The clock has to strike twelve. He finally knows he's not going to die tomorrow, he's going to die today and he has so many mixed feelings. But mostly, after all these years of waiting, death is a gift. But then he gets an even better gift. He gets to live. He gets to regenerate. He's no longer the last Doctor. And he's never been more excited in his life.
He's ready to change, even though it's scary. Eleven dies as he lived - the optimist, the hoper of far flung hopes and the dreamer of improbably dreams. He knows that his next life doesn't have to be the ultimate Doctor, he doesn't even have to be the Doctor. It's a reset. A second chance. He doesn't even have the genocide of the Time War hanging over him anymore. Eleven dies freer and more alive than he ever was before.
For me, Eleven is the Doctor. He perfectly captures how I envisioned an ancient Time Lord hero looking, acting and being like. Very old and very kind. Alien but so emotive. Silly but terrifying. Ancient but with the face of a child. Hidden, dark, self-loathing side. He just looks and feels like he has the weight of centuries on his back. And travelling with the Doctor should be fun or else why would companions do it? And I don't think any other Doctor gives as much to his companions as Eleven does.
"I will always remember when the Doctor was me."
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