Heaven Sent

[lisa @lisa]

@ichabod           @arbutus                          @mudlark

 

The Dial as a portal.  Similar in many ways to the time when Donna got caught

up into CAL?   The Dial as a computer hard drive seems interesting too.  So  where did Donna’s

body go in that episode?  That’s the bit we aren’t told.

I think  I  saw this mentioned previously ?   TL magic is  all the computer created.

Sometimes I get to wondering if this show is a prediction ?  I like that about sci-fi.

The books tv movies.   I can imagine we are the future Galifreyans too .

 

[ichabod @ichabod]

@lisa  I can imagine we are the future Galifreyans too

LOL!  I think we’re them *now* — our leadership is, anyway: buried in technology, trying to control everything, and acting like total dicks half the time (more than half, in fact).

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@arbutus

But I wonder what would have happened to that body had he failed?

I suspect that if he had given up or otherwise failed his mind would have remained trapped forever in the Confession Dial or, to look at it another way, ceased to exist except as a record on a hard drive.  His body would have remained in potentia on the threshold of the teleporter, never to be reconstituted and ultimately to be deleted from the teleporter hard drive.

@ichabod

if this is Missy’s doing, what is she after?

I imagine that the destruction of all the Time Lords by the Doctor, leaving the two of them as masters of the all time and space, would be an objective entirely in keeping with her past record.  She is, after all, ‘bananas’  and his/her schemes never less than grandiose in their ambition, though inevitably containing an essential flaw 🙂

[swordwhale @swordwhale]

@serahni

“Capaldi you sodding genius.”

Yep.

Accurate post is accurate.

[JimmyP @jimmyp]

You clever buggers! First time I’ve been able to properly log in and read the comments here and you’ve all covered all my thoughts and answered my questions so eloquently and intelligently. This place is genuinely a pleasure compared to the other comment-pits that Who (and other shows/films) tend to create.

In lieu of anything original to say about the episode therefore, can I just say to @puroandson – delighted to have you back after your mini hiatus, and have enjoyed the contributions of ‘andson’ immensely. I don’t have any bambinos as yet, but when I do I hope truly that I’ll have as wonderful a relationship as you 2 do.

You’re a credit to each other and this site.

[ichabod @ichabod]

@mudlark  his/her schemes never less than grandiose in their ambition, though inevitably containing an essential flaw 

Yes — the flaw often being the Doctor!  If she can get rid of all the TLs *and* keep the Doctor crazed, then all her other plans might well work out (s/he might think).

I suspect that if he had given up or otherwise failed his mind would have . . . ceased to exist except as a record on a hard drive. His body would have remained in potentia on the threshold of the teleporter, never to be reconstituted and ultimately to be deleted from the teleporter hard drive.

Gawd.  *That* idea just gave me the shivers . . .

[Josh @josh]

@ichabod           @arbutus

Thanks for the warm welcomes! 🙂

I’m still up in the air as to whether “the hybrid is me” means the Doctor or Ashildr/Me.  Use of he/him/his has been known historically to be gender neutral at times, so I don’t think the bit from the “Next Week” preview is proof that the hybrid is not Ashildr.

As for bonkers theorising, I like the idea of Capaldi being on the Gallifrey side of the crack in the universe from Time of the Doctor AND that he’s responsible for gifting himself with the new regeneration cycle.  How’s that for a bootstrap paradox?

It would be a great excuse for one more scene with Clara and Capaldi through the crack in the universe.

[ichabod @ichabod]

@josh  It would be a great excuse for one more scene with Clara and Capaldi through the crack in the universe.

Not sure I could take it . . . nah!  I’d love it!  Show us how far the Doctor has come, in mental setting-to-rights, since Face the Raven (several billion subjective years at least . . . oughta be good for something).

[lisa @lisa]

@ichabod

Yes.   I take your point and yet strangely it lacks that same magicalness.    😉

On the other hand there is  plenty of intrigue and  horrors of war madness.

Still, if the environment keeps disintegrating we may get our own domes?

But in the sense that  TL tech suggests  in some far future that at the rate we

are moving forward all the impossible tech that we see in this show will be integrated

 

 

 

[lisa @lisa]

 

 

 

 

[nerys @nerys]

I watched “Heaven Sent” a third time last night. In Canada I watch via the Space channel, which means there are commercials. I think this episode suffers from commercial interruptions even more than most, mainly because the music is so extraordinary (none of the usual Doctor Who rousing themes, but some truly beautiful and inventive subtext) and segues seamlessly from one scene to the next. Commercial interruptions, ridiculous advertising banners across the bottom of the screen, all jar the viewer out of this marvelous emotional flow. I know Space has bills to pay, but still. I can’t wait till this one comes to Netflix!

I felt this the first time I watched it, and last night’s viewing confirmed it for me: “Heaven Sent” is, for me, when Capaldi truly became the Doctor. As much as I have enjoyed Capaldi’s performances these past two seasons, I have also felt he (and perhaps Moffat, as well) has been finding his way toward who his Doctor really is. “Heaven Sent” is such a tour de force performance, but the thing is, here I never felt he was performing. Capaldi wasn’t just embracing the Doctor; he was embodying him. Bravo!

[tardigrade @tardigrade]

@mudlark

I’m not so sure about the idea of it as a mini Tardis, bigger on the inside and able to contain the Doctor physically. @tardigrade agrees with this idea, but it seems to me to have a major flaw. As @ichabod says, if that is the case, how does the Doctor enter it? When the external dimensions of the Tardis shrank in Flatline, the Doctor couldn’t get out of it, and by the same token, nobody could get in.

He teleported in, and used some sort of portal to get out too, so isn’t needing to pass through a physical hole on the outside of the dial, which was the problem in Flatline.

@tommo

Did he have his sonic sunglasses on him at all? i seem to remember a shot of him in a corridor putting them on or am i mistaken?

Certainly has them when he exits the dial, since he puts them on in the desert. So must have had them the whole time. It occurred to me later that he might have had a “D’oh” moment, when he reaches for them in the bright desert and realises that they would have been a faster option for getting through the crystal wall than the fist he’s been pounding away with for (literal) ages 🙂

[tardigrade @tardigrade]

It occurred to me that the Doctor’s time in the confession dial could be seen as a possible fulfilment of the hybrid prophecy. He’s destroyed a billion hearts (actually more like a trillion), it’s just that instead of it being a genocide, it was suicide – he’s been knocking them off two at a time and they were all his own. And, as widely discussed, the process may have brought penance / catharsis for the loss of Clara, healing his own heart(s). And of course he’s standing in the ruins of Gallifrey.

If Ashildr’s on Gallifrey and got there “the long way around” also then she’s had ample opportunity to find herself a nice Time Lord, settle down and introduced her warrior (Viking) DNA into the Time Lord gene pool, making them all “hybrids”. She wasn’t interested in human men, since their lives were so short- a TL may be a different proposition though.

[lisa @lisa]

@tardigrade

That is a good point!  It would  had to occur before Galifrey got frozen in time.

But it may be possible.    So she could potentially be someone’s mother?  The one that

created the hybrid?

Also, maybe she was the woman holding her head in her hands to Rassilon’s side in the “End

of Time”

[Mirime @mirime]

Not read through all the posts, not been very well, but that was rather marvellous!

I’m hoping the watching it chronologically from Clara’s point of view rather than the Doctor’s theory is true and that we just saw the creation of the Confession Dial.

Definitely need to watch it again when I’m less dazed – what was the missing octagonal flagstone with arrows pointing at the gap all about? The rest made sense, but that confused me.

[Whisht @whisht]

So…. finally caught up with comments and don’t see any Tarot ones so, are we* all agreed it was Judgement this week?

From my book:

“[this card] is a time … to reap the rewards or pay the penalty for past actions. Judgement indicates the end of a chapter and therefore marks a new beginning; but in-between lies a confrontation with the consequences of past choices and actions.”

* by “we” I mean anyone who actually cares which is obviously a minority! 🙂

[Whisht @whisht]

In terms of themes for this season (I’m sure wiser heads than I will do this better then this) but I like how the premise could begin with:

Who is the monster?

Or

Who is the monster.

The monster within is key to Sleep no More and the Zygon two-parter as well as having references in pretty much all the other episodes (hm, I haven’t double checked so that may not be strictly true, but I think its roughly right).

And in fact, the monster is a pat of us all. So maybe that’s the hybrid – we all are its just that we must choose not to give in to it (that destructive side of us).

[can’t wait for a much fuller explanation – or different explanation! – from others here!!]

[lisa @lisa]

@Minime

I think he pulled out the stone as a way to keep track of how long he had before the Veil

would catch  up to him?

 

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

@whisht

Oh, never fear, I believe I may have ranted about the tarot a bit in BBC Approved Spoilers 🙂 and had a bit of a chat with @phaseshift and @kharis and others in there on the subject, where we mused on the cyclical nature of the tarot journey, which fits in rather nicely with all the snake (ouroboros) imagery.

Yes, Heaven Sent could be read as Judgement or as Death (in the form of the Veil, as @phaseshift pointed out) but personally I think it’s the Tower – the castle in the ocean in which the Doctor is imprisoned for billions of his subjective years.

I think the Judgement card is yet to come. But the World card, is definitely Gallifrey. We still have the Lovers card to come too.

Bless whichever little posse on the Who creative team it was who decided to weave the tarot into this series – I love it. There’s so much scope to weave similar recurring undercurrents into episode sequences in this way. You could have a whole series which is the Doctor’s own Alice in Wonderland journey, with various aliens along the way which recall the Cheshire Cat and the March Hare and the Hookah smoking caterpillar and the Red and White Queens. Are you writing this down, Moff?

@nerys

“Heaven Sent” is, for me, when Capaldi truly became the Doctor. Capaldi wasn’t just embracing the Doctor; he was embodying him.

Well said – I do hope we get a couple more series of his Doctor!

@jimmyp

Welcome! This is a great spot – thanks to @craig our founder and Emperor and the various mods who have served and do serve with us.

I am always amazed that there so many readers who haven’t yet posted, almost 3000 active members now, from our humble beginnings as @danmartinuk Guardian blog refugees (not refugees from his writing, obviously 🙂 but we used to get upset because The Guardian always closed the comments thread before we were done bonkers theorising) – wow.

 

[lisa @lisa]

@whisht

Judgment sounds excellent!

I’m afraid I lost track a bit of the Tarot  tracking     🙁        But I did find it fascinating!

 

Seems to me that folks/aliens are predisposed to having survival instincts.   And yes.

You need that motivating force.  Maybe its even another superpower?

 

[nerys @nerys]

@geoffers

when the doctor reaches the wall (and the word “home” is there, then disappears) for the first time (our viewpoint), he clearly thinks that it’s the TARDIS waiting for him on the other side. his “home… away from home,” so to speak. he doesn’t realize he’s broken through to gallifrey until he’s on the other side. he looks around, sees the city, and then the boy runs up behind him…

I agree with your take on this. I hadn’t quite put that together, so thank you.

@puroandson

Where are you on the ‘me’ question? Is Me the hybrid or is it the Doctor after all?

Where am I? I’m lost, I tell you! Lost! Seriously, I’m waiting for brighter minds than mine to work that out. No matter what, I guess we will find out on Saturday.

[Brewski @brewski]

@ichabod That does it; you win the internet today!

Lol.  Thanks!  But I’m afraid I’m in the wrong time zone.

 

[RorySmith @rorysmith]

@jphamlore

I wondered the same thing since he put them on after stepping on  Galifrey. Obviously they don’t work to break down crystal walls.

 

[toinfinityandbepond @toinfinityandbepond]

When the Doctor writes “BIRD” in the sand

 

does that mean that THE BIRD is THE WORD?

[tardigrade @tardigrade]

@lisa

Also, maybe she [Ashildr] was the woman holding her head in her hands to Rassilon’s side in the “End of Time”

Rassilon’s wife maybe? Given his age, that would mean her DNA could be in basically the entire TL population, and they’re all “hybrids”. Would help explain why the first Doctor went to Earth upon leaving Gallifrey, if he knew that.

[ichabod @ichabod]

@tardigrade  It occurred to me that the Doctor’s time in the confession dial could be seen as a possible fulfilment of the hybrid prophecy. He’s destroyed a billion hearts (actually more like a trillion), it’s just that instead of it being a genocide, it was suicide – he’s been knocking them off two at a time and they were all his own. And, as widely discussed, the process may have brought penance / catharsis for the loss of Clara, healing his own heart(s). And of course he’s standing in the ruins of Gallifrey.

Brilliant!  Except his hearts when he steps out of the Dial are not healed — far from it, if he’s more or less become the Raven, but on sky-blackening scale for Gallifrey . . .

@whisht  are we* all agreed it was Judgement this week?

@juniperfish   personally I think it’s the Tower – the castle in the ocean in which the Doctor is imprisoned for billions of his subjective years. I think the Judgement card is yet to come. But the World card, is definitely Gallifrey. We still have the Lovers card to come too.

Can’t decide between these possibilities

could have a whole series which is the Doctor’s own Alice in Wonderland journey, with various aliens along the way which recall the Cheshire Cat and the March Hare and the Hookah smoking caterpillar and the Red and White Queens. Are you writing this down, Moff?

That could be great fun — and I suspect that fun is definitely on the table for S10 (after all this glorious catastrophe ending S9).  (Well; unless he allows Clara to guide him, one last time, away from vengeance and toward — what?!)

 

[Magslscott @magslscott]

Did anyone else notice the recalls of the previous doctors in makeup/overlay? Here is the ones I thought I noticed-

1. War Doctor (John hurt) upside down in the water,
2. 11th Doctor in the door frame staring back at him/looking out
3. 1st Doctor turning over while dying (same one that Clara told to take the Tardis)
4. 8th Doctor when staring into the Tardis while talking (look at the eyes, done with makeup)
5. 6th Doctor crawling to the teleport room in the hallway (this is the one I’m least sure of)

Also why hasn’t anyone said something about Ashildr calling herself “me”? Strangely Doctor 12 doesn’t say “I am the hybrid” he says “the hybrid is ME” …..

[tardigrade @tardigrade]

@magslscott

Also why hasn’t anyone said something about Ashildr calling herself “me”? Strangely Doctor 12 doesn’t say “I am the hybrid” he says “the hybrid is ME” …..

It’s been noted more than once, but in a thread this size, I can see how you could miss it. Capaldi certainly seemed to play the line as “me” rather than “Me”, sliding his sunglasses on mid-sentence. And there’s more drama in phrasing it “The hybrid is …” and drawing it out a fraction longer after withholding that crucial piece of information for so long. See all the reality programs that reach their climax with “The winner is ….”  and similar 🙂

But it’s hard to ignore the significance of Ashildr’s choice of the name “Me”, and that wording certainly leaves very open the possibility of it being her that’s being referred to. Deliberate red herring at the very least.

[jphamlore @jphamlore]

It is somewhat amusing to me to think about maybe the opposite of bonkerizing, to be able to predict certain elements of this epic mythical story without knowing a thing about the story.  How is it possible?  It can be done by reading Joseph Campbell’s The Hero of a Thousand Faces from 1949, Joseph Campbell a friend and mentor to George Lucas.

We can predict the hero will know he is different at a young age, that he has some sort of destiny.  The hero will eventually be forced to separate from his family or people and go on an adventure.  This adventure may have themes such as a descent to the underworld and a battle with a hideous monster, the hero having to overcome his fears.  This is the part everyone who has heard of Joseph Campbell knows.

What I believe may not be as well known is that Campbell goes on to predict any great myth will have an element where the hero as a result of his adventure achieves an understanding of the unity of what was previously thought to be a duality, such as young and old, male and female, human and nature, etc.  The hero must return to his family or people and tell them of his new understanding, which they may choose to either accept or reject.

So by reading a book from 1949, it would have been apparently possible for anyone to have predicted there would be some sort of hybrid in the current Doctor Who storyline, and not only that, but to predict in the future that the Doctor will bring to his people the Gallifreyans some revelation of unity between dualities that define the hybrid.

 

 

[Carrieanne @carrieanne]

@jphalmore @whilst   The doctor put the sonics on when he got to the wall and he scanned it.  It was the only time we saw him use them, which I thought was weird since he could maybe have used them for something else?

[Anonymous @]

@magslscott

“Also why hasn’t anyone said something about Ashildr calling herself “me”? Strangely Doctor 12 doesn’t say “I am the hybrid” he says “the hybrid is ME”  “

as @tardigrade soundly commented it has been said many times but they’re right -whilst we don’t miss a trick here, there are still many pages to read. A lot of people read as many posts as they can before commenting: from the reading comes the learning but I must congratulate you on noticing the Doctors -I confess that theory missed me completely. When he’s upside down in the water, I was pretty sure it was still Twelve rather than a previous incarnation but… happy to be proved wrong! 🙂

@carrieanne Yes, he could have -it might be a response to how a lot of people thought the Doctor in earlier years (since 2005) was using the sonic too much. Certainly the War Doctor commented on this during the anniversary -“are you going to build a cabinet at them?” I’m wondering if one other reason could be because the sonic is not supposed to work on wood? Hence the telepathy with a door 🙂

Kindest,

Just Puro

[tardigrade @tardigrade]

@carrieanne

The doctor put the sonics on when he got to the wall and he scanned it.  It was the only time we saw him use them, which I thought was weird since he could maybe have used them for something else?

Whoever set up the Doctor’s “personal torture chamber” knew him intimately. So presumably knew enough to ensure that key elements, especially the crystal wall, were sonic-proof. Who knows? Maybe he had a sneaky go at the wall with the sonics each time before crawling back up to the top of the castle. And I’m one who’s happy enough to see the sonic screwdriver take a break- it was getting to the point where the sonic was getting pulled out at the first sign of trouble, as @puroandson mentioned in that self-aware quote from the War Doctor.

[Anonymous @]

@tardigrade

Absolutely:

Whoever set up the Doctor’s “personal torture chamber” knew him intimately. So presumably knew enough to ensure that key elements, especially the crystal wall, were sonic-proof.

Yes, and I’m wondering if other Tardis’ (with their own TLs) also have sonics “birthing” every time they’re needed? Therefore to make this truly ‘scary lurching’ he would not be able to hack into the cameras in the dial nor the veil itself nor the albanthiblumblum! 🙂

Just Puro

[CountScarlioni @countscarlioni]

 

@ mudlark    The anachronisms in The Woman Who Lived suggested that by the seventeenth century, if not before, Ashildr/Me had been in contact with someone who time travelled and perhaps even done some time-travelling herself, and if so, Missy is by far the most likely contact.

Agreed, and lots to ponder in your full post! But as I can’t see a reason that would rule out Ashildr/Me from having taken control after Missy provided the introductions to the Time Lords (Missy as social secretary!), I’m still inclined to think Ashildr/Me may well be the key driver of these events.

More general comment on the hybrid: It appears the Doctor truly believes he is the hybrid, but that does not necessarily mean that he’s right. Or perhaps there can be more than one hybrid. It might not be either/or.

[Anonymous @]

@countscarlioni dear @mudlark

interesting (son of Puro writing on own).  He says “the hybrid is me”

Subtitles tell me it could be the doctor but then he could be lying to protect ‘Me’ who he is responsible for -giving her immortality and (remembering forwards) doing this when she was still a young girl in a village who blamed herself for everything that happened to her tribe?

[Maybe she’s overcompensating (that’s mums word!) ]

Is a hybrid made of two? Or can it be more than two? Maybe it’s two and for it to work there’s a 3rd type of thing?

Great stuff

thankyou

Son of Puro

[Anonymous @]

@jimmyp

Son of Puro again. Thankyou for your very kind comments. That is so nice.

Thankyou 🙂

[Mersey @mersey]

@tardigrade  @puroandson

Whoever set up the Doctor’s “personal torture chamber” knew him intimately. 

Theu knew him well but not intimately. They should know that Doctor never gives up.

[jphamlore @jphamlore]

@carrieanne: Not only that but for just this one episode, that the Doctor’s pockets are bigger on the inside than the outside seems to have been completely forgotten.  In The Witch’s Familiar for heavens sake the Doctor apparently even is able to carry with him the ability to serve himself a cup of tea.

[tardigrade @tardigrade]

@mersey

Theu knew him well but not intimately. They should know that Doctor never gives up.

Oh- I think they were counting on that. A major point of the dial was to keep him occupied for geological ages, and by giving him something to rail against, they could guarantee that. I don’t think he “beat” the confession dial- he simply did exactly what was anticipated of him.

[Anonymous @]

@tardigrade @mersey

Puro here -yes, I think that whilst the Doctor was a step ahead of Davros earlier on, in this episode, the creators of the dial were a step ahead a lot of the time.

[jphamlore @jphamlore]

I have an alternate theory for the confession dial.  A lot of Time Lord technology is very old and they have often almost forgotten how it works.

To me the confession dial used to function as some sort of security blanket / device of last resort for Time Lords venturing out into the universe.  They would wear a bracelet that if they got in trouble would teleport them into their confession dial.  (Time Lords like bracelets as a means to return home. See the Fourth Doctor serial Genesis of the Daleks.)  They would answer the questions only they (and the other Time Lords) would know, Gallifrey would monitor their answers, and then they’d be back home safe and sound.

But just like the  Eye of Harmony that was concealed on Gallifrey that by the time of The Deadly Assassin had been forgotten, over time the regular Time Lords forgot what were all of the capacities of the confession dial.  Even the Doctor might not have been informed.  Only someone from the very dawn of Time Lord civilization, perhaps Rassilon himself, might have known.

Now why would this capacity of the confession dial have been so important to the early Time Lords? Because their very first, Omega, was lost seemingly forever without an easy means to return to Gallifrey when he used the Hand of Omega to create the Eye of Harmony.

[jphamlore @jphamlore]

But over time the ability to transport into the confession dial was more a forgotten feature. Any ordinary Time Lord could record his confession and keep its secrets safe from Gallifrey. It is only using the backdoor to enter the confession dial, forcing one to give the secrets to avoid being killed, that allows Gallifrey to monitor the answers.

[jphamlore @jphamlore]

To me it is all about the music. That also explains to me why some would dislike *Heaven Sent* at a very visceral level.

I also can’t get enough of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris because of its use of Bach’s “Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ”, BWV 639. On the other hand I know someone who can’t stand either Heaven Sent or Solaris, especially those musically annotated scenes.

[Anonymous @]

Hello all. First post off the sofa, so here goes. First off, loved that episode, possibly the best since Moffat took over as head writer for me. Everything about it (except the door telepathy, I mean come on!) was pretty much perfect.

But I’ve watched it twice now and there’s one thing I still don’t get. So I should watch it a third time I guess, but in the meantime does anyone have any insight into how and why the word HOME appearing briefly in the azbantium wall? I think I’ve read all the comments but if you’ve already discussed this and I missed it, I apologise.

If not, it definitely has crazy theorising potential 🙂

[Josh @josh]

Assuming the theory that we’re seeing the events of this series in an alternate order from the Doctor is experiencing them, I cannot wait to go back for a re-watch in the “correct” order.  Knowing the “oh, that’s what that line/look meant” in relation to some of the Doctor’s asides with Clara would be fantastic.

@tardigrade

It occurred to me that the Doctor’s time in the confession dial could be seen as a possible fulfilment of the hybrid prophecy. He’s destroyed a billion hearts (actually more like a trillion), it’s just that instead of it being a genocide, it was suicide – he’s been knocking them off two at a time and they were all his own.

Brilliant.  Hadn’t thought of that.

@toinfinityandbepond

When the Doctor writes “BIRD” in the sand

 

does that mean that THE BIRD is THE WORD?

Hahaha! 🙂

[Mirime @mirime]

Having rewatched without the drawback of being on large amounts of painkillers, I have to say it’s been upgraded to magnificent and I now get the missing flagstone and where it went  – which should have been obvious, but I wasn’t at my best on Saturday.

@jphamlore like the ideas about the dial

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@Morpho   Hello, and a warm welcome to you.

The word HOME which appears in the wall is, I think, designed as a hint or clue to give the Doctor the incentive to persist in trying to get through it and out of the trap which the Confession Dial has become. It is ambiguous, of course, because the Doctor interprets ‘Home’ as the Tardis, whereas in fact it turns out to be his home planet.

The *how* is trickier to explain, but I think that it depends on how you see the nature of the Doctor’s experience.  Having read the comments you will be aware that there are at least two schools of thought.  Some think that the Doctor is physically present within a physical environment, having been teleported into a bigger-on-the-inside artefact. Others such as myself don’t find that explanation very convincing.

We are told that a Confession Dial is in some sense a Time Lord’s Last Will and Testament, which we know is not an exact analogy, but which  implies that it is very personal to the individual.  So an alternative interpretation is that it is an artefact attuned to the individual, with hardware containing a detailed and intimate record, not just of the things he or she has experienced, but of their innermost thoughts and feelings, including  subconscious fears.  The Doctor hands his Confession Dial to Me, and it is this which he presumably, in some sense, enters; but not, I think, physically.

If, as I have argued, the hardware in this artefact can, like that of the Nethersphere, generate a convincing and completely immersive virtual reality for the person to whom it is attuned, then what the Doctor experiences is all drawn from his own mind, even if someone has edited or used the record selectively to make his experiences a kind of private hell.  If that is the case, there doesn’t need to be a technical explanation for the word HOME,  because it is all in the Doctor’s mind, whether it appears as a result of his own deductive reasoning, or of external tampering, and the wall is not literally a wall of Azbantium, but a symbol representing a barrier he has to get through.

None of this is necessarily correct, of course, but I hope it helps 🙂

[CountScarlioni @countscarlioni]

@puroandson   Is a hybrid made of two? Or can it be more than two? Maybe it’s two and for it to work there’s a 3rd type of thing?    

 Yes! At this stage it probably pays to keep an open mind on what, exactly, the hybrid is.

[bendubz11 @bendubz11]

@countscarlioni At this stage it probably pays to keep an open mind on what, exactly, the hybrid is.

I’m just waiting for somebody to turn up in a Prius tbh.

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@puroandson  Son of Puro   Re the hybrid.

Interesting question. As you probably know, a hybrid, in the sense we normally use the term is indeed a cross between two different species, plant or animal.  In theory either or both parents could themselves by hybrids but, since hybrids tend to be infertile, this is unlikely unless genetic engineering is involved.

We can probably take it for granted that what is meant here is a lot more complicated than that, especially if it involves Time Lord technology, and it may not entail any kind of cross-breeding at all.  If Me is the hybrid, she would be the result of Mire technology inserted into a Viking girl. Both could be described as warrior races, and since the result is functionally immortal, Me has had time to develop into something very formidable indeed.

I don’t think she is the hybrid, though.  The information we have been given so far indicates that the Doctor left Gallifrey because he knew who or what the hybrid was or would be and was scared of divulging that information to the Time Lords – or anyone else for that matter.  But if that was the case, how could he have known that twelve generations down the line he was going to create that hybrid; and if he had known in advance, why would he have done it?   It’s a paradox.

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