#cartmel masterplan

[rassilon-imprimatur]

I rather like that this is much less the vague "Cartmel Masterplan" "the Doctor has always been something ancient and mysterious," (Remembrance of the Daleks et al) and is a more sinister "the Doctor is turning/evolving/mutating into/WILL BE something mysterious"

[wanderingmadscientist]

Just watched remembrance of the daleks, and it's so crazy, I love it.

[humandisastersquad]

Listening to The Four Faces of Immortality dr who short story and thank you Gary Russell for legitimising the Here's How The Timeless Child And The Cartmel Master Plan Can Still Work in a published piece of dr who media

[red-of-raxacoricofallapatorious]

sometimes I remember the looms exist then i really fucking hate my life

[doctornolonger]

Stumbled across this smart review of Marc Platt’s classic VNA from the blog Recurring Bafflement, figured some readers here might appreciate.

[arcalian]

Me being fed by rtd once again alluding to the other one and really emphasizing how similar the doctor and toymaker are

[makiruz]

(Oh my god, the Cartmel Masterplan has a Wikipedia page)

[silvereyedowl]

Exactly.

I read a comment (possibly on Reddit) from someone who pointed out that if the TImeless Child reveal had ended with the Doctor revealing in turn that she had been aware of it the whole time, it would have been much more interesting.

Instead we got a plot twist that would have been controversial even if it was executed well which was poorly done and extremely ill-conceived, which also undermines the Doctor's character on top of it.

(Thanks to @idle-speculation)

I can tell you exactly how the Timeless Child undermines the characterization of the Doctor, because it actually does.

First, we need to talk about mysterious characters. In a general sense, they can be broadly divided into two categories: mystery to others and mystery to self.

The mystery to others is, well, a mystery to other people, but is also fully aware of who they are and what their secrets are. This character can fit in any role, and whether or not any of their secrets are revealed really depends on the story: if they're the antagonists, the protagonists have a vested interest in uncovering their secrets, but if they're the protagonist, they may have an equally strong motivation to keep those secrets secret.

The mystery to self is most easily defined through the archetype of the amnesiac hero: they don't know who they are. Although the mystery-to-self character can be used in any role and in whatever story the creator wants to tell, they have a traditional role and story: they are typically a protagonist, seeking answers to their personal mysteries. The amnesiac hero wants to know who they are.

Now that we have defined this, explaining how the Timeless Child reveal undermines the Doctor's characterization is simple: The Doctor is traditionally a mystery to others. The Timeless Child is a poorly-executed attempt to turn them into a mystery to self character, that then doesn't commit to revealing the mystery.

Ever since the First Doctor debuted back in 1963, the Doctor has been depicted as fully aware of his secrets. Some of those have been revealed over the decades, but the aura has usually been there. The Timeless Child rewrites the Doctor as an amnesicac hero, with lifetimes unknown to her, but then declares that this is unimportant and the whole story effectively did not matter.

[narvin]

[timelxrd-victorious]

So, uh, with the mention of the Flux in "Wild Blue Yonder" and the brief allusion to the Timeless Child and how the Doctor doesn't know xir own species anymore...

I'm just going to post these snippets from the Eighth Doctor Adventures novel Unnatural History, published in 1999. (Snippet sources.)

[makiruz]

But I hate that too, it's just that it's easier to pretend that didn't happen than the Timeless Child

Still thinking about how the original intent with regeneration was (as written by David Whitaker) “oh, he just does that sometimes, it’s part of the TARDIS, don’t worry about it, it happens all the time.”

And then, a few years later, Terrence Dicks and Robert Holmes put in a throwaway reference to those previous “renewals” that became one of the biggest fights in the fandom ever since, and it’s only ever gotten worse.

But no, it’s Chris Chibnall who’s “breaking canon” and “spitting on William Hartnell’s good name”, not any of those guys mentioned above. Just saying, if he’s spitting on One, so we’re they. And let’s not get started on various EU writers…

[dwacademyera]

So I've seen alot of people arguing about making the Timeless Child canon (as in RTD is going to acknowledge it and not push it under the rug like we hoped).

And it's got me thinking that now, the BBC have absolutely no excuse to not make Academy Era stories.

The original reason alot of writers and fans didn't like delving into the academy era was because "it removed the mystery of the doctors origins"

Well... it ain't their origins anymore. You're not going to ruin any mystery, because its just one tiny chapter in a supposedly very long life.

So, more academy era when?

[macbethz]

My controversial doctor who opinion is I actually like the doctor being the Other reincarnated but only if it’s just kind of implied and means absolutely nothing. Like ok this space god-king threw themself into a baby machine but just got remade into Some Guy who occasionally gets angsty visions and uses the name for clout

[makiruz]

Oh, can we say the Doctor is absorbing memories of the actual Timeless Child?

Help me out here, I want anything other than "she's a reincarnation" because that's the Cartmel Masterplan and we hate the Cartmel Masterplan

[humandisastersquad]

Basically the timeless child, after Tecteun had finished experimenting on them to find the secret to regeneration, became the Other (which makes sense since they're Not of Gallifrey) and helped discover time travel and found Time Lord society etc alongside Rassilon and Omega (and Tecteun). This is even kinda suggested in The Timeless Children

TECTEUN walking down a corridor -- at the far end, two Gallifreyan figures (with the collars up) in silhouette. We can assume these might be Rassilon and Omega.

THE MASTER: With Tecteun, they became a self-appointed ruling elite. And Tecteun proposed: that he gene-splice the ability to regenerate into future generations of citadel dwellers. It would become the genetic inheritance of them and their descendants. But he would restrict the regenerative process to a maximum of twelve times.

The timeless child became the base genetic code for all Gallifreyans within the citadel. The civilisation which renamed themselves, with characteristic pomposity, Time Lords. The foundling had become the founder.

Eventually, they become disillusioned with what Rassilon is doing and throw themselves into the Looms to be eventually reincarnated as the Doctor etc etc

Alternatively, here's another take that I found digging around my blog where the Other's 'death' was due to Rassilon mindwiping and constructing a new identity for them to then be a an agent of the celestial intervention agency division.

[codenamesailordarillium]

Okay also .. is this ep the one where we've decided we're gonna cram in a whole load of character development we'd previously been neglecting for the "fam"?