Were Time Lords Ever Nice?

[Christopher]

Though I would point out that the title of the leader of the Time Lord state seems to have been "Lord President" -- which I suppose could have been used in conjunction with the title of "Rassilon," but it seems improbable.

Well, I'm just throwing ideas out there. This was a very different Gallifrey than the one we saw before; who knows how many generations had passed, subjectively, or how much they'd been transformed by the unending Time War?

His actions seem to fit what we learn in The Five Doctors, IMO. We learn then that he found a way to cheat death, and that there were rumors and legends about his cruelty.

Except the "cheating death" thing was a trick to lure in the overly ambitious. The "immortality" they were granted turned out to be a trap. Which is why I was wary of the idea that Rassilon had actually returned from the dead in "The End of Time."

 

[Admiral_Young]

Again I have to point out that the Time Lords resurrected the Master, who had exhausted his regenerations at this point. It doesn't seem implausible that Rassilon is THE Rassilion, the Doctor even calls him by name, this should be significantly telling, otherwise what would be the point of addressing him by that name? Plus they got Timothy Dalton, a well known and respected actor for the role. RTD wouldn't have hired him just to play any old role.

Also Rassilon in End of Time was pretty obsessed with not dying and IIRC elevating the Time Lords into a kind of ascended existence. Seems to match up with what was referenced earlier in the thread.

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ To be fair, Christopher has acknowledged that Russell Davies says that Dalton was playing the Rassilon. He's just wondering whether 'in-story', you could accept that he's a different character with the same name.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I know he's tossing out alternatives, I just happen to believe that the Rassilon we saw in the End of Time is the same one from "The Five Doctors", etc. I.E. stating my interpretation of the character

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ I agree with you. But it's still fun to look at other possibilities.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Indeed. I also remember that Patrick Stewart or Dalton rumours about one of them playing the Mad Monk.

I guess I'm not excluding the possibility that the bloke we saw could have been some one else, just don't think that and we've been told that he is meant to be Rassilon.

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ There was talk of Ben Kingsley in the show - either as The Meddling Monk or as Davros, IIRC.

 

[Admiral_Young]

^ Oi did I get the character's name wrong? I seem to recall the Ben Kingsley rumours, but not as much as the Stewart ones.

 

[Captaindemotion]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meddling_Monk

I guess the Stewart rumours would have stuck out with you being a Star Trek fan.

 

[Admiral_Young]

That's true...plus I just really like the idea of Patrick Stewart guest starring in "Doctor Who"!! It is the Meddling Monk. All this time I've been calling him the Mad Monk. LOL

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ The Mad Monk was Rasputin. Who was played in a movie by Tom Baker. So at least there is a Doctor Who connection!

 

[Christopher]

^ To be fair, Christopher has acknowledged that Russell Davies says that Dalton was playing the Rassilon. He's just wondering whether 'in-story', you could accept that he's a different character with the same name.

That's right. More to the point, I'm not talking about my current level of knowledge about the story; I'm describing my reaction after seeing the episode, and when I went online the next morning and saw everyone assuming it was the original Rassilon, an assumption that seemed premature to me in the absence of further information. Of course, RTD's later clarification provided that further information, but it wasn't yet available to viewers back on January 1 or 2, 2010.

 

[CaptainMatt]

Time Lords have never played entirely fair with either the Doctor or the Master. All the way back to the 70s when they used one to go after the other, or the 80s when they put the Doctor on trial to cover their own selfish ends.

 

[Admiral_Young]

@Christopher, again while I am disagreeing with you, I do understand the points you are bringing up...but for the sake of debate...The Doctor did call him Rassilon and he was the Lord President of the Time Lords. What other assumption would you have the fandom have? I'm not saying there aren't other possibilities at all, just that this one is the most logical and the automatic one fans are going to make.

 

[The Wormhole]

^ The Lady that gazed at the Doctor was meant to be his mother. She is the one who spoke with Wilf at the Church and later on during the Queen's Christmas speech. RTD has stated that she is his mother in the book. A lot of fans, including me thought she might be Susan.

The Time Lord High Council must have been really desperate in those last days of the war to make the decision to resurrect Rassilion. Not really a decision a rationale group would make under normal conditions. They must've figured they needed a leader that was as ruthless and demanding as their enemy was.

Well, we also know that they resurrected The Master for the same purpose, so that alone shows how desperate they must have been!

According to The Writer's Tale, the Time Lords were supposed to be so desperate they were resurrecting everyone from their past.

The novel Coming of the Terraphiles even says the Time Lords drafted their counterparts from alternate universes to fight the Time War. Due to this, the Doctor is literally the last Time Lord in all the multiverse.

 

[Christopher]

According to The Writer's Tale, the Time Lords were supposed to be so desperate they were resurrecting everyone from their past.

I wonder if they do that by just going back in time and retrieving them. The odd thing about how Gallifrey was portrayed in the old series is that whatever was happening on Gallifrey was always "now" regardless of what time the Doctor was in (although most of the Gallifrey stories seemed to show Earth in the 1970s-80s). The Time Lords never seemed to move through their own history, and somehow events on Gallifrey always advanced in sync with the Doctor's subjective time flow.

The novel Coming of the Terraphiles even says the Time Lords drafted their counterparts from alternate universes to fight the Time War.

Ooh, did any of them have cool eyepatches?

Due to this, the Doctor is literally the last Time Lord in all the multiverse.

I guess that would rule out a return by Romana, Susan, the Rani, or anyone else.

Again, though, I have to wonder about how Gallifrey's time relates to everyone else's time. In the new series, no matter where the Doctor goes in history, the Time Lords are treated as a dead race. There doesn't seem to be a time he can go back to before the Time War. So I guess the Time War was waged throughout history and Gallifrey was sort of retroactively wiped out. Which probably means all those original-series stories involving Time Lords have been wiped from history too, and survive only in the Doctor's memories (and those of his companions, given that Jo still had memories of "The Three Doctors" in The Sarah Jane Adventures' "Death of the Doctor").

 

[Admiral_Young]

Other races have memories of the Time Lords, this has been mentioned in several seasons of New Who, in various episodes, in fact we can go back to season one and "The End of the World" when Jabe the Tree Lady brings it up. Nothing has been wiped out by the Time War or erased. Also if everything was erased how would there still be Daleks? The Moment was supposed to end the war for both Time Lords and Dalek, yet that one Dalek survived and remembered the Doctor. Also in "Rose" the Nestene Conscienceness are an aftermath of the War that Doctor comes to Earth in the first place to take care. This is why he's back in the first place.

 

[The Wormhole]

The novel Coming of the Terraphiles even says the Time Lords drafted their counterparts from alternate universes to fight the Time War.

Ooh, did any of them have cool eyepatches?

They only referanced this with no more details than I provided. But, from a purely speculative point of view, yes, I'm sure there were plenty of Time Lords with eyepatches, or goatees, or wearing leather. Or any combination of these traits.

 

[Captain Crow]

It doesn't seem implausible that Rassilon is THE Rassilion, the Doctor even calls him by name, this should be significantly telling, otherwise what would be the point of addressing him by that name?

Rassilon could be a byword for tyrannical leader rather than the current President's actual name. Kind of like calling someone who betrays you Benedict Arnold.

 

[Christopher]

Rassilon could be a byword for tyrannical leader rather than the current President's actual name. Kind of like calling someone who betrays you Benedict Arnold.

Ooh, clever one! Except that I think the original Rassilon was generally revered as a hero and cultural founder, even though historians may have acknowledged his downside. So it's an imaginative idea, but I'm not sure it works.