#he knows he’s being used in EoT and still expects the time lords to take him with them. because he’s on their side isn’t he? he gets to

[quietwingsinthesky]

im just saying that a guy whose worldview is inflexibly based on the idea that the only two groups of people in the universe are the controlled and the ones who have the power to control them, and that there is no other way to exist, and who has done everything in his power to make sure he’s always in the latter group. i’m just saying that it’s possible this is not unrelated to. that time when he was used as a child by rassilon himself. its possible.

[leonawriter]

Something I will say about, regarding the Master, Missy, and the potential redemption plotline (especially since that was one of the highlights of the episode, and not something that hits a berserk button): 

They really aren’t making it out just yet as though it’s an out-and-out betrayal, as though Missy’s just flipping a switch and going back to being ‘evil’.

I’ve seen someone say that Simm!Master was ‘staging an intervention for himself’, and... that’s a really accurate summation, to be honest!

Let’s look at this from a timeline perspective - Simm!Master came almost directly from the Time War, essentially. Jacobi!Master was living for a very long time under the impression that he was human, and despised having been the kind of person that Yana was when the fob watch was opened. So, Simm!Master had to deal with not only the drums in his head, but also the PTSD of having gone through the war. We can see that in how he became more manic.

Then the events of The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords happens, and he refuses to ‘be good’, essentially. It’s an outright choice based on mainly - I believe - pride, as well as the rules that the Master set himself for how he lives his own life. By his own rules, and no one else’s.

Then we get End of Time, that one where Everyone Becomes The Master, and then the Master finds out where the drums were coming from, the fact that he’d been used his entire life, and chooses to save the Doctor, but again - it’s mainly a personal thing. Without realising, he’d been playing by someone else’s rules, and here he is now, able to get back at that person. 

Which is where we get to both a moment in Missy’s past, and the Master’s not-so-distant past. 

At that point, the Master is trapped on Gallifrey as they’re still trapped in the Time War. What happens next? The Doctor ends up, eventually, grabbing Gallifrey out of the Time War. So the Master is no longer trapped. We don’t know how he stabilised himself, but with access to Gallifreyan tech, it’s entirely possible. 

What do we know of the Time War? Well, the first thing is that it was mainly between the Time Lords and the Daleks, and some aspects of it were in some Time Lords trying to prevent the Daleks from ever existing, and so on - a war waged in time. 

The creation of the original Mondasian Cybermen fits in with this with almost worrying precision - it’s entirely likely that some side or other, or the Master himself, thought that they could destroy or control the Cybermen at their inception. The Master may have chosen to be there, or he may have been left there. Although I’d have to wonder at either - he’s dressed very well when out of his disguise, and yet that ship has been stuck there for a very long time. 

So here’s Simm!Master, still very much opposing the Doctor, but at the same time, they’ve had some good moments as well (their history, giving the option to  travel the stars together in EoT, saving the Doctor even if words say otherwise), but who's still pretty firmly on the ‘evil’ side of the scales. 

And Missy - the first time we see her, ever, she’s creating a legion of Cybermen, undead, to... do what? Take over everywhere so that there will be peace? (I wasn’t a major fan of the Clara era. I have to admit. So details are more hazy.) But basically, I feel that despite everything else, some of her end-game motivations are more ‘to be with the Doctor/make the Doctor happy’ than previous incarnations. Likewise, in the next time we see her, she’s overall helping the Doctor, even if that means purposefully putting Clara into grave danger, and nearly getting her killed.

Which all somehow leads into her begging for her life in exchange for ‘being good’, and ending up somehow meaning it.

Now, there’s something I’ve come to realise as I’ve been writing this, and that’s this - it does feel as though something happened between Simm!Master’s regeneration and Missy’s first appearance to make it so that she’d want to be on the Doctor’s good side. The events in EoT aren’t nearly enough. Something else had to happen. 

It’s often been said that the next regeneration of the Doctor encapsulates something that he felt that was lacking in his previous. Nine wasn’t able to be close enough to Rose, so Ten made up for that. Ten was too human, so Eleven was more alien. And so on. So why not the Master as well? What could happen to Simm!Master that would make Missy change, even in that slight way?

But I digress. My original point was that Simm!Master might have thought he was staging an intervention for himself - that he saw Missy, and figured she was acting worryingly out of character. Perhaps feeling that she was being forced, yet again, to play by someone else’s rules. And technically he’d be right, since the Doctor does have her imprisoned, and was feeding her lines, keeping a close guard on her.

But as for Missy herself?

I think that from what I’ve seen, nothing in this episode suggests that there’s a definitive betrayal. When she realises that it’s her previous incarnation (and I’m only assuming Missy’s Simm!Master’s next regeneration on), she looks worried. As someone else said regarding the promotional images, Simm!Master looks like he’s the same as always, and... Missy seems, again, sort of worried. Not to mention, at one point the three of them all seem to be working together(?) at some point next episode.

My personal theories are that Simm!Master ends up experiencing something that encourages him to want to be in a better place with the Doctor again; that Missy won’t be entirely unaffected by her character development toward redemption, but will choose to seek it out on her own terms. 

I also wonder if perhaps Missy is - just as Simm!Master is worried about how ‘good’ she’s being, perhaps Missy is well aware that if Simm!Master thinks cruelty or regeneration might ‘fix the issue’, then that’s what he might well do. Like, remember how he once chose to die instead of go with the Doctor, trapped with him? That’s the same Master who’s at work here, who pointed a gun at Missy. 

I read something just a short while ago that pointed out that Missy is basically learning ‘good’ versus ‘evil’ from the Doctor, who... isn’t always perfect at understanding that himself. Especially when he doesn’t have a human (or non-Time Lord) companion or so. Often, the Doctor can be arrogant, seeing putting himself in harm’s way as the answer, and sees himself as always being right, as well as a whole host of other things, which aren’t necessarily the best way of figuring out a compass of morality. I’d definitely agree.

So all of that, plus the way that they said she wouldn’t be appearing as a regular member of the cast again after this plotline, makes me think that instead of it being a pretence all this time, she’s simply got to figure things out on her own, under her own rules, by herself, with no one forcing her into any particular belief. 

One of the main themes of this series has been ‘promises’, but also ‘incarceration’. How promises can also trap you. This two parter does seem to be playing on that, on how everyone seems to have expectations of Missy, and they’re all pulling her to act in the way that they want her to act. The Doctor wants her to be his kind of good. The Master wants her to be like him again. (Which is rather reminding me of Nardole trying to keep the Doctor in line.) But a big theme is also free will. Bill had to write a paper on free will at the end of The Lie of the Land, and in a sense, keeping people stuck to promises they can’t break is stoppering their free will, to an extent. Missy’s free will is affected here by both her past self, and the Doctor. One represents her past in a literal sense, and the other represents the future she could have, even if it isn’t right now.