ANALYTICAL: THE FINAL INCARNATION - HOW A TIME LORD DEALS WITH THE END

Here's another one of those "studies" I decide to do every once in a while... 

As someone who possesses the entire series on some form of tangible media, (which does make a difference - more and more stories are not making it into the archives of  the streaming platforms that have bought the rights to the show), I can select episodes that deal with specific themes and watch them all back-to-back. As I do this, I can also record some observations I made while viewing the content and share them with you in my cute little Blog. 

Hope you enjoy my latest subject of study.  

As The Deadly Assassin premiered, several hitherto-unknown saliant points regarding the show's Lore get established. The adventure, in general, has much to say. One of its most important messages, of course, is to stay away from railroad tracks (even if the trains look pretty small). But, in terms of creating new canon, it presents a major detail concerning the lifespans of the Gallifreyan Elite. In an almost off-hand way, it gets mentioned that a Time Lord is only capable of regenerating twelve times. Meaning that, after thirteen incarnations, that's the end for them. They must accept death.  

It seems the main reason this new "rule" was created was to take the Master's character in a new direction. But it still caused some long-reaching consequences for the entire thrust of the show. If anything, it gets us to ask one Huge Question: What happens when the Doctor reaches his final incarnation?

Which is, eventually, a dilemma that we arrive at. Many years after the Master faces this deeply-troubling limitation, the Doctor must deal with it, himself, in Time of the Doctor. But, between those two point, the "Only Thirteen Lives" Rule has a significant role to play in the life of, at least, one other Time Lord. 

The purpose of this entry will be to examine how getting to that last incarnation influences the behavior of the Doctor and those other individuals who have found themselves in this situation. We'll see that, in every case, a Time Lord accepts their mortality in a different way. 

PROPER DEFINITION

As is often the case in these analyses, we need to make things as clear as possible: 

Over the many seasons of the show, we've seen any number of Time Lords face their mortality in all sorts of ways. In fact, the very second Time Lord that the Doctor meets once he flees Gallifrey is murdered by an execution squad in Part Nine of The War Games (even though every fan in existence seems convinced that he regenerates from the incident!). This sort of thing is not just limited to the Time Lords he meets, though. The Doctor, himself, seems convinced he's reached his end in episodes like The Wedding of River Song or The Magician's Apprentice. 

If we want to get really technical, there's been any number of instances throughout the whole history of the series where the Doctor thought he was going to die. Particularly as he reaches a cliffhanger. Part Two of Trial of a Time Lord, for example, ends with him actually uttering: "I really think this could be the end!". But there are any number of other occasions where his reactions express that same sentiment without him actually verbalizing it. Time Lords (including the Doctor, himself) often seem convinced that they are on the verge of death. 

In order to clear up any sort of confusion, we need to create a nice specific definition of what we're going to discuss, here. So, to be concise: In this entry, we are looking at Time Lords that have reached their final incarnation. We will examine the sort of ramifications that ensue when they arrive at such a point in their lives. 

Unlike other situations where a Time Lord thinks they might die, we will look at instances where they really do know they've reached their end. In most other scenarios where a Time Lord thinks they're in fatal danger, there's a little bit of hope. They believe they might still find a way out of their deadly predicament. If nothing else, they might actually regenerate from the whole thing. But not this time. This time, they truly are done. That "I might just regenerate" option has been legitimately exhausted. If the Time Lord is lucky, they might just age to death in their final incarnation. But if something unfortunate does happen, it's definitely going to kill them.    

Clearly, such a state of being is going to affect a Time Lord in a very unique way. They're going to have a different outlook on their life. They might accept their inevitable fate. Or they might do everything they can to fight it. They might even find a way to use the whole misfortune to their advantage. 

And that's what we're going to look at in this entry. We're, basically, going to examine the different sorts of attitudes we've seen a Time Lord exhibit at the end of their regeneration cycle.  

THE FIRST TIME IT HAPPENS 

So we're actually going to tackle this one in a linear fashion (odd choice for a show about time travel, I know!). We'll start with the first Time Lord we witness suffering from this problem. The scoundrel who this whole rule was created for: the Master! 

The Master is probably the best example ever of a Time Lord refusing to accept the inevitable. Which makes sense for the character. Megalomaniacs tend to crave immortality. It would be even worse for the Master since he was now on his final incarnation and still hadn't achieved his greatest ambition of conquering the Universe. There's no way he'd let himself die before accomplishing his ultimate dream. Bur even if he was ruling all of Time and Space, he's not ever going to let go of that title, easily. He would resort to anything in order to extend his lifespan or even just dodge the problem altogether by, somehow, achieving immortality.

In order to avoid his Final End, the Master hatches some mad schemes. His first plan displays just how massive his hubris is. There are, of course, some tactical advantages to returning to Gallifrey and robbing the Eye of Harmony of all its power. He'll be able to navigate his way through Time Lord society efficiently since this is where he hails from. But there are any number of huge risks involved in such a venture. There are Time Lords that he's trying defeat. Immensely powerful beings that even the Doctor admits have beaten him. The Master is practically a fool for pitting his will against them. But, mad egotist that he is, he still tries. 

His second plan of becoming the Keeper of Traken was far easier to execute. But he intentionally chooses to try the more challenging gambit, first. It's just one more thing that shows off one of his more prominent core traits. The Master is completely delusional. We see it in the way he wants to take over the Universe. In the way he refuses to accept death. And even in the way he creates his plans to avoid his demise. His massive conceit is at the center of everything. Which means, of course, that there is no room in his ego for the humility required of him to bravely face his end. 

The Master will fight the consequences of being in his thirteenth incarnation until his dying breath. 

SOME QUESTIONS....

While the Master's attitude during his final incarnation is quite straightforward, his whole experience in this state raises a lot of questions. 

The biggest one being: why does a man who was once a Handsome Roger Delgado suddenly appear to be a corpse? Is this what becomes of a Time Lord when they hit the thirteenth incarnation? Or did something else happen that caused him to look this way?    

Fortunately, we've seen other Time Lords reach this point and not become some emaciated skeletal being. So we know it was something else that caused the Master to take on such an appearance. However, nothing has been said on the show that offers any kind of clear explanation. 

Other forms of media have tried to give a backstory. The most popular one stems from the novelization of Deadly Assassin. It seems that, sometime after Frontier in Space, events start occurring in the Master's life that cause him to rapidly move through his regenerations. Something goes wrong with a plan that causes him to get badly injured or he needs to assume a very quick disguise or other such incidents that precipitate a sudden regeneration after going through the process only a short while previously.. Regenerating so often in so short a time creates a sort of "burn out" that causes him to look so hideous in his final incarnation. 

It's a solid enough theory that I'm willing to subscribe to. 

The other problematic issue is the fact that a different actor is brought in for Keeper of Traken to play what is meant to be the same incarnation of the Master. This new actor isn't required to shout his way through a fright mask like the previous one. He's given a make-up job, instead, to achieve the corpse-like appearance. So he looks and even behaves quite differently but is still supposed to be the final incarnation of the Master. Again, no explanation is given within the context  of the show for why we have a Master that seems so different. 

I like to think that the Master did manage to tap some of the energy from the Eye of Harmony and use it to trigger a sort of partial regeneration. He's still in the same incarnation but has used the power he stole from the Time Lords to rejuvenate himself slightly.  

It's the best the evil renegade could do, under the circumstances, to extend his lifespan a bit more. 

If you should desire to check it out, I explore both of these concepts in greater detail in these entries:https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2016/10/chronologies-and-timelines-master-part-1.html and : https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2016/10/chronologies-and-timelines-history-of.html

AT LONG LAST, A NEW BODY

Hell-bent on not submitting to his fate, the Master's determination pays off. He lives beyond the thirteenth incarnation by being able to summon a certain amount of energy during his brief Keepership. With such powers, he hijacks Tremas' body (with a name like that, the poor guy never stood a chance!). 

The Trakenite body does seem to last him quite a while. This is, in fact, the only version of the Master that faces off with the Doctor in several of his incarnations (okay, John Simm kinda does it too but it's a bit of a cheat!). Quite a few years seem to pass from Fourth Doctor to Seventh, which would indicate a decent amount of longevity for the Ainley Master. Eventually, though, that version of the evil renegade seems to reach its end. As we get to Doctor Who - The Movie, we see him ever-so-briefly in one body played by Gordon Tipple and then he takes over an unfortunate ambulance driver portrayed by Eric Roberts. 

We could analyze these events in greater detail, here. But we are actually falling out of the parameters of our study. Ainley, Tipple and Roberts do not constitute "final incarnations" of the Master. At this point, the renegade is just body-snatching to keep himself alive. Which, to me, creates a very different mentality for a Time Lord. In his thirteenth body, the Master's fighting against the Laws of Nature. But, after Keeper of Traken, he's full-on breaking them. 

JUST A BIT MORE ABOUT THE MASTER....

There is one more important point that we should bring up before closing the book on the Master. It's that all-important scene in The Five Doctors where he's summoned by the High Council of the Time Lords and asked to sit in on one of their board meetings. The Council wants him to go into the Death Zone and save the Doctor. At first, they try to appeal to his better nature. But the Master quickly shows them he doesn't have one. So Borusa makes him an offer he can't refuse. If the Mater cooperates, he'll be granted a whole new regeneration cycle. 

This scene is important for several reasons. Firstly, it shows that twelve regenerations is not some sort of naturally-occurring biological limit that Time Lords are stuck with. It is, in fact, a rule that is imposed upon them by the society they live in.. 

More importantly, though, it is a rule that can be broken. Under the proper circumstances, the High Council will grant extra lives to a Time Lord. If they deem it fit.  Which means, of course, that there is now some kind of hope for the Doctor when he reaches his final incarnation. 

It should also be noted that, although the Master did no receive the reward Borusa offered him, we can safely guess that, when the High Council resurrected the evil Time Lord  to fight in the Time Wars, the Master was given the new regeneration cycle he so badly needed. This is re-enforced by the fact that we have now seen several incarnations of him (or her) in the New Series. 

One can't help but wonder how much longer he has before he uses up all his bodies again. Or what sort of damage he might do, this time, to artificially extend his life once he reaches that point. 

THE MASTER OF JOCUNDA 

While the Master did the worst job of accepting his mortality, the next Gallifreyan we meet who's in the same situation seems to be the polar opposite. Out of all the Time Lords we've seen that have reached this point in their lives, Azmael from The Twin Dilemma does the greatest job of handling his final incarnation. 

This is probably displayed best when he actually tells the Doctor that he can't regenerate anymore. It's not some great admission of shame or inadequacy or some other such melodramatic declaration. He's very matter-of-fact about it. Even a bit brutally honest. "I'm really not that useful, these days." he's plainly stating, "I can't even regenerate anymore." This indicates a very comfortable adaptation to his current situation. He's near the end of his existence and he's pretty okay with that. 

The little backstory that we get about him seems to reinforce this idea. Apparently, he was a well-respected professor at the Time Lord Academy for a good chunk of his career. But he chose to leave the position as he got older and even decided to depart from Gallifrey, itself. One gets the impression that, as he reached his thirteenth body, he felt the need to retire. More than likely, he wanted to just live peacefully on a nice planet like Jocunda. But the inhabitants were so impressed by his knowledge and wisdom that they asked him to become their ruler. 

What truly shows his calm acceptance of the inevitable is the fact that he realizes his inability to regenerate can actually be used to his advantage in his fight against Mestor. With the consciousness of the evil gastropod trapped within his body, Azmael literally wills himself to death by trying to induce a thirteenth regeneration.  

It may be the story that ends up on the bottom of most fans' lists, but that's still a pretty clever way to resolve the conflict! 

ELEVEN IS REALLY THIRTEEN 

Finally, many years after the Big Revelation in Deadly Assassin, the Time Lord we're most concerned about reaches his last incarnation. As Moffat takes over as Head Writer, the Doctor is now on his thirteenth body. Ironically enough, we don't realize he's arrived at that point until he's nearly at his end. 

Some bizarre things occur during New Who that really start messing up the Incarnation Numbering System. The first complication that we experience happens towards the end of Series Four. Ten does that weird thing where he regenerates back into himself. As we see this happen, we have to consider whether or not this constitutes a "real" regeneration. If we do consider it to be "proper", then Eleven won't actually be Eleven. He'll be Twelve.     

And then we get to the Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration. Moffat decides to drop a huge bomb. There's been a "secret" incarnation of our hero that, apparently, existed during the Wilderness Years. He's a version of the Doctor that fought in the Time Wars that he doesn't like to talk about. Which means, of course, that if Ten changing back into Ten counts as a valid regeneration, then the Doctor is now on his last body. 

One gets the impression that, during Eleven's reign, Moffat waited till the absolute last minute to make that crucial decision about Ten's regeneration at the end of Series Four. Without a doubt, the War Doctor counts as a legitimate incarnation. So the Doctor is definitely on his twelfth body when he transforms during Part 2 of The End of Time. But what about that crazy cliffhanger resolution for Stolen Earth? Does that actually put him at Thirteen? 

Moff really doesn't seem to truly make up his mind on the matter until we get to Time of the Doctor. Where Eleven sits with Clara in the clock tower in the town of Christmas and explains to her that he's truly at his end. Until that moment, it really does seem like he still has a regeneration to go. There are any number of instances during Matt Smith's three seasons that seem to indicate this. 

Or are there? Let's take a specific look at the various situations where the Doctor seems confident that he can still regenerate. There are some interesting nuances to those moments that create a certain degree of ambiguity. Which suggest that maybe Steven Moffat had made up his mind a long time ago that the Eleventh Doctor really was the final incarnation. 

A CERTAIN LACK OF CLARITY

To make this part of the analysis a bit easier to process, we will properly number the various instances where it's indicated that the Doctor can still regenerate. We will then point out that those moments are "greyer" than they seem: 

1) River Shoots Him

This one is pretty cut-and-dry. At the very beginning of Series Six, we watch the Doctor get assassinated by a mysterious astronaut that climbs out of Lake Silencio and shoots him dead. After the first shot is fired, the Doctor begins to regenerate. He's shot several more times so that the regeneration process is halted and he dies, instead. 

This one gets dismissed pretty quickly. As we would later learn, we're not really seeing the Doctor, here. But rather, it's the Teselecta impersonating him. Which means, of course, that it's just creating the illusion of an attempted regeneration. The real Doctor inside the Teselecta might no longer be capable of regenerating, but the vehicle he's traveling in can fake it quite easily. Especially since the people operating said vehicle know that the regeneration won't complete itself. Just gotta project some golden energy for a few seconds and then drop to the ground. Nothing too difficult. 

So seeing the Doctor attempt to regenerate in this scene has no real bearing on whether or not the Doctor really is capable of still doing it. It's all just a bunch of fakery.

There is still one thing that doesn't quite make sense. Who, exactly, is the Teselecta creating the false regeneration energy for? Amy and Rory don't really know the rules of regeneration, so why would they need to see a failed attempt? River Song, as we would later learn in Husbands of River Song, knows that Eleven represents the last incarnation. So a regeneration attempt could potentially confuse her. 

My guess is that River is still not sure, at this point, that the Doctor has used up all his regenerations. So that little display does make things more convincing for her. I'm also guessing that the Kovarian Schism of the Silence is watching the whole proceedings from a distance (Amy did, briefly, see one of their priests and then forgot about him). The Doctor would probably not want them to know he's on his last incarnation. So he would have the Teselecta create a failed regeneration to keep them fooled.

2) and 3) Poisoning and Illness

The next two instances that hint at the Doctor still having a regeneration left can both be tackled at once. They involve him being poisoned by River Song in Let's Kill Hitler and his attempts to avoid contracting Chen-7 in The Girl Who Waited. 

In both instances, the idea of regenerating from the harm of the poison or disease is discussed. We are told that regeneration won't work under these circumstances. We presume that effects from either of these toxins are so powerful that the process can't actually ensue. 

But what if it was something else entirely that was affecting the whole situation? During Let's Kill Hitler, for instance, the TARDIS Interface simply claims: "regeneration not possible". We all assume that it's because of the effectiveness of the poison extracted from a Judas Tree. But what if the TARDIS is just simply stating a fact? Whether he's been poisoned or not, the Doctor just won't regenerate. 

The same can be said about all the Chen-7 that might be floating around the Wellness Centre on Apalapucia. When the Doctor says he won't regenerate if he becomes infected, he's not referring to the potency of the virus. He's actually just stating that he can't regenerate anymore. 

Listen carefully to the wording in both of those instances. It's not particularly specific. Which leaves things quite nicely open to interpretation. Perhaps we're talking about how certain poisons or illnesses can prevent regeneration. Or perhaps the conversation is about something else. 

4) Healing River's Hand 

For quite some time, this one seemed to strongly contradict that the Doctor was on his final incarnation. 

About halfway through The Angels Take Manhattan, the Doctor uses some regeneration energy to heal River Song's broken hand. If the Doctor is meant to be on his last incarnation, how would he be able to do that? He should be completely out of regeneration energy. But, somehow, he gives some to River Song. It doesn't quite make sense. If, perhaps, he still had "one regeneration bullet left in the chamber", he could borrow a bit from that one to help heal her. But if you no longer have the ability to regenerate, where does that energy come from? 

I created some head cannon for this, of course. But we do get an answer of some sort many years later in the story Lux. It does seem like the Doctor is capable of tucking away a bit of energy from his latest regeneration to save it for a rainy day. When he needs to quickly cure a light wound, he can tap into that reserve. He explains this as he cures some burns he acquired to his hand while fighting Lux's attempts to imprison him within false realities. 

So we can safely guess the Doctor did something similar as he regenerated at the conclusion to End of Time - Part 2. He stored away a bit of extra regeneration energy from that transformation and decided to finally use it on River during Angels Take Manhattan.     

It's entirely possible that Professor Song, by this point, knows the Doctor is on his last life. It would help to explain why she gives him such a vicious slap. She's extremely upset with him for using whatever regeneration energy he has left on her instead of himself. He needs it way more than she does. 

5) Threatening the Cyberiad 

This one also becomes a bit difficult to rationalize without receiving a better explanation. During Nightmare in Silver, the Doctor appears to be having deep confrontations within his Id with the part of his mind that's being controlled by the Cyberiad. At one point, he points out to the Cybermen Hive-Mind that he could just initiate a regeneration and that would  "burn out all the cyber-widgets" in his head. He decides not to, however, and challenges his opponent to a game of chess, instead.  

But why would the Doctor say such a thing if he was out of regenerations? My only guess would be that he was still hoping to intimidate the Cyberiad a bit by threatening to burn him out of his system. But it was all just a big bluff. Stating such a thing, however, makes little tactical sense. Was he hoping his enemy would just leave his mind out of sheer fear of being "regenerated away"?! 

Unlike the situation with River Song in Point 4. we never get a future episode that explains a bit better what happened. And I doubt we ever will. I just can't visualize some kind of throwaway dialogue in a story where the Doctor says something to the nature of:: "Yeah. I tried to scare away the Cyberiad by claiming I was going to regenerate - even though I couldn't!"

DOES ELEVEN AND/OR MOFF KNOW OR NOT? 

Before we can actually get into the Doctor's attitude towards being at the end of his regeneration cycle, we need to look a bit more at this whole concept of whether or not it was always known that Eleven was on his final incarnation. In order to get some degree of clarity on all this, we need to try to determine what was the perspective of both the protagonist and the Head Writer. 

As careful as some of the wording could be when the subject of regeneration came up in a script, I'm more inclined to believe that Moffat just wasn't really sure if he should tackle this whole issue until he got to Time of the Doctor. The attempts to keep things fairly ambiguous during such discussions may have been intentional so that he could be allowed to think things over. Alternatively, he may have decided right upfront that the Doctor was on his last incarnation but wanted to keep that a secret throughout almost all of Eleven's tenure. Which could also explain some of that careful wording during regeneration discussions. But that does seem a bit unlikely. Particularly when you have instances like the Doctor threatening the Cyberiad in Nightmare in Silver. That one really points strongly to the idea that the Doctor can still regenerate. Which indicates to me that Moffat was fairly uncertain about what he was going to do about all this which incarnation is the Doctor really on? business. I suppose if I were ever able to sit Moff down for an interviewer, questioning him about this would be, pretty much, at the top of my list.

But things become even more complicated when we try to work out if the Doctor actually knew he had used up all his regenerations. Even if the Head Writer was probably uncertain about the whole thing, it's nice to try to work out some sort of internal logic to it all.  So we need to ask ourselves: Was the Doctor, himself, being intentionally vague when the subject of regeneration came up? And, if he was, then why?  

It's entirely possible that, like the audience, the Doctor also wasn't sure if his tenth incarnation changing back into himself was an actual regeneration. Because it didn't involve a complete change of appearance, it might just be some sort of "partial" regeneration that didn't use up the full energy. While some of that remaining energy was syphoned into a nearby bio-receptable, a lot of it may have actually returned to his body (or, perhaps, never left it at all - he may have only released just a bit of regen power in order to cure his wounds). So it just might be that the Doctor thought there was a possibility that he had used so little energy to heal himself from the Dalek death ray that he would still be able to induce a full regeneration after the one he had in End of Time. 

Or maybe he couldn't. He really wasn't sure! 

He may have also been a bit in denial about the whole thing. Maybe, in his hearts of hearts, he knew that he'd used up a full regeneration during the Series Four finale, but he just didn't want to face up to that fact. This would certainly account for those instances where he seemed more certain that he still had one more incarnation left after him. During those moments, his level of denial was quite high. The other times when he stayed more cryptic about things, he was being more honest with himself. 

I suspect that it was a combination of both uncertainty and denial. Sometimes, he was sure he'd reached his end but still didn't want to admit it. Other times, he really was at a loss.

AT TRENZALORE, THE DOCTOR FINALLY MAKES UP HIS MIND 

As Eleven soldiers on, he hears more and more doom and gloom about this world called Trenzalore. He even manages to dip into his own future and sees his grave on the planet's surface. Eventually, he arrives there "properly" and knows what fate awaits him. 

Shortly after his arrival, the denial and uncertainty die out. The Doctor, at last, reaches his conclusion on the matter. The "weird regeneration" he had during his last battle against Davros and his latest breed of Daleks counts as genuine. He is certain, now, that he's in his final body. 

Up until this point, his attitude has been more like the Master's. While he's not willing to destroy civilizations to maintain his existence, he still fights against his own mortality. In more subtle ways, of course, but he's still doing it. His general sense of vagueness whenever regeneration comes up in a conversation indicates a refusal to face the facts. He's not like Azmael, who admits quite openly that he's no longer capable of regenerating. He's the exact opposite. He seems to be trying to keep the whole thing a secret. In this sense, his behavior really does resemble that of his greatest foe: He won't accept that the end is near. 

But landing on Trenzalore does almost seem like a final submission to the inevitable. Once there, the Doctor adopts the mentality of his old mentor. He seems to go into a sort of retirement. Just like Azmael, he's still keeping pretty active. He's not ruling an entire planet, but he is defending a small town against invaders. Overall, though, he's settling down. He actually manages to stay in just one place in time and space for several centuries. This, alone, proves how determined he is to live a quiet life. Back in Power of Three, he could barely manage such a feat for even a few days! 

It is, perhaps, most interesting to note how meekly the Doctor accepts his fate when it finally arrives. For what he thought would be the final time, he climbs the bell tower and waits for his death at the hands of the Daleks. Had this been happening to the Master, he would have been dragged to the place kicking and screaming. But the Doctor has made his peace. He's ready to go. Only Clara's last-minute pleading with the Time Lords gets him a new lease on life.

FINAL ASSESSMENT

As we reach the conclusion of this whole Analysis, things actually seems to work out to a decent symmetry. We have a bit of a Goldilocks and the Three Bears pattern going on. The Master sits on one extreme of dealing with his final incarnation. He steadfastly refuses to die. Azmael is on the other end of the spectrum, peacefully accepting the inevitable. And the Doctor rests somewhere in the middle. Fighting his mortality for a time but, ultimately, facing his fate with dignity and grace.  

Admittedly, I am skewing things a bit with my own head cannon. At no point do we actually hear Eleven making claims to the nature of: "I'm really not sure if that time I regenerated but kept the same face actually counts." or "I know I'm in my final incarnation, I just haven't been willing to admit it to myself." Or words to that effect. The idea of the Doctor's uncertainty or denial over no longer being able to regenerate is something I came up with to explain the vagueness of certain discussions that occurred during Matt Smith's three seasons. My theory only holds so much water - it can't be entirely proven. But it does make some solid sense (if I dare say so, myself!). 

In the end, though, I'd like to think that the whole Goldilocks motif works fairly well. By no means do I believe it was done intentionally. There are just too many years between each case of a Time Lord being on their last life. I don't think anyone in production would play that long of a game. I can't picture Phillip Hinchcliffe sitting down with JNT in the early 80s and saying: "I showed the Master displaying one extreme of what it's like to reach the thirteenth incarnation. You need to make a story with a Time Lord that displays the other end of the spectrum." And then the Ghost of JNT appearing to Moffat many years later and saying: "The Master and Azmael were pendulum swings. Have the Doctor sit somewhere in the middle."  

In the end, it's all just a string of coincidences creating a theory that's being ever-so-slightly fueled by my own feverish imaginings. 

Always feels good when I do an ANALYTICAL essay. I'm actually doing some legitimate research when I write this. Rather than just spewing out the empty rhetoric of my overblown opinions! 

Since we're on the topic, there are certain fans who now believe that Eleventh Doctor was never actually on his last incarnation. That the whole Timeless Child story arc nullifies the idea. I don't believe this to be the case. Here's why: 

https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2022/05/fixing-continuity-glitches-emergency.html