"Imagine you were dying. Imagine you were afraid and a long way from home and in terrible pain. Just when you thought it couldn't get worse, you looked up and saw the face of the Devil himself.... "
You were given the bones of the idea behind Trenzalore in last weeks Nightmare in Silver - the character of Porridge.
Imagine a man so sick, broken, beaten, disgusted and so completely horrified at what he'd had to do that all he wants is to not have to be him any more and is reduced to such a state he'd be prepared to give his very soul to the Devil should the Devil came along and offered to take it all away and make it all so it never was...
That's what Trenzalore is, this what Trenzalore is for. It's a place designed to break the Doctor. Make him no longer want to be him
Basically, Trenzalore is the Doctors own personal Room 101 made entirely out of his worst nightmares and fears.
You've met the idea of an external personalisation of the Doctors own subconscious fear, loathing and paranoia before - the Dream Lord in Season 5's Amy's Choice.
Amy's Choice - introduces this fundamental idea of there existing two worlds, two realities and having to choose between each.
As stated previously, and something if you're reading before The Name of The Doctor airs, something you're going to have to take on faith - this entire reality we've seen since The 11th Hour is fake - it's a rewritten version of a completely different timeline one in which the Doctor never crash-landed in Leadworth, Clara's always been his companion since his 11th incarnation began and nobody has ever heard of River Song.
In that reality something hostile took over the Tardis - the Doctor was left with no other choice than to blow-up the ship. Clara wasn't with him in the main control room when he activated the self-destruct, she was trapped in the Tardis Library - he could see her on the monitor.
After the ship blew the main control room was ejected into a timeloop in the hope of protecting the pilot, the Tardis equivalent of deploying an airbag - and for the rest of forever that's all that version of the Doctor ever got to see - him killing Clara, over and over and over.
Of course - in practice - Clara wasn't actually killed. The Tardis did what it could to try and save her, couldn't send her anywhere safe on the ship - tried instead sending her safe off-ship. Safety being where ever the Doctor is.
During a Tardis explosion the event happens in all points of time and space simultaneously - Clara was consequently sent to safety many, many, many times over, throughout.
The villain, not about to be thwarted, still had control of what remained of the Tardis and - even though there existed no more forward - realised it could still use it to rewrite the past so as it becomes possible for it to win.
The rest, as you've aleady seen, is rewritten History.
The only obstacle that remains is preventing the Tardis self-destruct sequence being initiated: hence, The Fall of The 11th.
The Doctor has to be broken down, rewritten, changed so radically he becomes unrecognisable as who he truly is and, thus, unable to initiate the Tardis self-destruct.
For this he has to be made to not want to be him any more - the man he see's in the mirror.
As Amy's Choice disclosed, the Doctor doesn't like himself very much at all - he see's himself as loathsome, small, manipulative, and worse - he gets people killed and doesn't care. He loathes himself because it's genuinely what he believes true about himself. River even comments about this in Forest of The Dead - there he stands in a room surrounded by the people who's lives he managed to save yet all he registers as him seeing are the ones he failed to save.
The point of Trenzalore is to grind the Doctor down, force him to not simply see but accept as absolute truth that he is a total monster - one the Universe would be better off without and - in so accepting - he ceases to be who he is. Ceases to continue to want to be.
Allows himself to be rewritten - wants it. Embraces the entire idea.
This is the Fall of The 11th.
Once rewritten, he can no longer initialise the Tardis self-destruct - Silence falls when the Question is asked.
See - The Secret of The Doctors Name
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