Howling:Supernatural

The Howling → Supernatural

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I was wondering abou the supernatural in the doctor who universe. The whoniverse seems pretty content to provide a scientific explanation for most things but there is alot left to the imagination. For instance Vampires. I am not too sure if there is any spin off material about it but from what I saw in state of decay they seemed very supernatural, they couldn't be killed by bullets lived forever drank blood all turned to dust when the great vampire died. Plus there have been demons and supernatural creatures like the destroyer in battlefield and the mara. The new series has even had supernatural creatures like the beast, and Abbadon. You could even say the midnight entity was supernatural too. So I guess I have three questions to ask. One, what do you think of having supernatural creatures in Doctor Who and I mean actuially supernatural creatures like the vampires and the beast not like say a really powerful alien gets mistaken for them like Vampires in venice. I personally love the idea of them being real but I do understand why others hate it as it does bring a whole new world when you have Vampires and werewolves. Two do you think that the Silent Menace will be supernatural, I dont think it will be actually supernatural like the Beast but I do think it might be supernatural themed I.E. really powerful and god like mysterious [Black Gaurdian, Midnight Entity, Weeping Angels] Steven Moffat seems fond of these fairy tale type stories and the title's of the last two episodes do suggest that. Three I know this is probably better suited to the Panopticon but I will just post it here anyway do you think we should have a supernatural category. I mean the Doctor has fought a lot of supernatural creatures, or at least put something about them because as far as I know the supernatural does exist in some form in the Whoniverse like the Beast. User:Winehousefan 16:50, 27 March, 2010, [UTC]&nbsp

They are not supernaturaul beasts, they are aliens. ☆The Solar Dragon ^(Talk)☆ 15:28, May 27, 2010 (UTC)

As Solar Dragon says the things you mention are aliens or scientific elements.

If you're looking for categories related to what you're talking about see; Category:Occult, Category:Religion (also from within this category you'll find categories like Category:Supposed deities), Category:Theories and concepts, Category:Myths and legends. --Tangerineduel 15:46, May 27, 2010 (UTC)

Okay I see there are enough categories for wierd things in the whoniverse dosen't need to be another. Also I don't think all of them were meant to be aliens The doctor didn't know what the beast was and in Torchwood the said Abaddon and all like him imprisoned all over the universe were demons too. Winehousefan 16:35 May 27 [2010]

The Doctor didn't know what the beast was because the beast was from before time and the doctor couldn't imagine what that meant. The beast is from before the big bang. It is the "truth behind the legend". V00D00M0NKY 17:16, May 27, 2010 (UTC)

Clarke's Third Law is "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." An (out-of-universe) Doctor Who corollary (which I think comes from either Philip Hinchcliffe or Graham Williams, but I can't find the reference) is "Any sufficiently scary alien is indistinguishable from a monster."

The Black Guardian lives outside time, draws power from darkness and chaos in our universe, is immortal, and has powers restricted only by his compact with the other 5 Guardians. So, why is he not described in supernatural terms, while the Beast is? I think there are two reasons.

1. The Beast is the source of human myths about demons, so he's readily understandable as a demon in our terms, while the Guardians are completely outside the scope of our understanding. (And remember, the Doctor is talking to, and for the benefit of, humans almost all the time--and where he isn't, the show is probably interpreting for us).
2. The Doctor knows a good deal about the Guardians, and therefore often lapses into his typical technobabble when talking about them, but knows almost nothing about the Beast.

I think that's really all there is to it. Nothing is truly supernatural from the right vantage point, but some things are easier to describe that way from our vantage point. --Falcotron 17:21, May 27, 2010 (UTC)

It strikes me that it might be worth having a page (not just a category) to talk about this stuff. But only if we could find verifiable in-universe explanations for why some things are referred to as "supernatural" or "occult", in the same way we do for "magic". (By the way, if you haven't looked at the article on magic, you should.) --Falcotron 17:24, May 27, 2010 (UTC)

Right that makes sense some really powerful things with godlike powers can be explained to us as supernatural creatures, esspecially if even the doctor dosent know what they are and they are familiar to us as demons, vampires and witches, and that explanation of magic being just an advanced science makes sense to, its usually what science fiction shows use to explain away magic and the occult. I was wondering if there were meant to be Hell dimensions in the whoniverse, there hasn't been any in televised who but in battlefield its mentioned the destroyer came from a place of fire this wiki even states it could be hell. If there have been hell dimensions in spin off material I reckon it will just be like in buffy where you see hell dimensions are reality's where demons rule instead of people, rather than conventional ones. The magic article [which I checked out, thanks Falcotron] does say that there are universes where magic rules aplly rather than science and that Time Lords made our universe into more of a scientific one, I was wondering if these magic universe could be sort of Hell dimensions. Winehousefan 19:37, May 27, 2010 [UTC]

Well, we're really getting into speculation, beyond what we actually know from the canon. So, other than being consistent with what we've seen, the only guidelines are "Does this make sense?" and "Could it make for a good story, in the style of RTD's TW, Moff's DW, the NSA/TW novels, the BFAs, the IDW or DWN comics, etc.?"

I don't think the magic universes are the Hell dimensions--they're just some of the many parallel universes out there. In fact, maybe even most of them--any universe that didn't have a Rassilon to rationalize it. It's not hard to imagine that if, say, the Pythia had beat Rassilon early in Gallifreyan history, there might still be a character very much like the Doctor, but he'd be an exiled wizard who hangs around England instead of an exiled Time Lord who hangs around England. And that could easily be what happened in the Battlefield universe.

Meanwhile, the Doctor described the LGTW as "literal Hell". You could take it as referring to something very much like your "Hell dimensions". Each universe has them, and in non-rationalized universes, they were never closed off. And that would be a more sensible place to dump "demons" of the Abaddon/Destroyer mold rather than in a deep pit under the Cardiff rift, hence the "place of fire".

Even in our universe, during the LGTW, the Time Lords either "broke the seal" intentionally (e.g., to "summon" the Nightmare Child to use against the Daleks), or lost control over it. That's why reopening the War would mean bringing "literal Hell on Earth". Fortunately, the Doctor managed to keep Hell under the same time lock as the War itself. Whether that time lock is as effective as whatever the Time Lords had been using remains to be seen--although, if Caan can break in, who's to say the Nightmare Child couldn't break out if some future writer decided that would make for a good story?

Meanwhile, if you want to know more about supernaturalish things in Doctor Who (assuming you've already watched Pyramids of Mars and Enlightenment (TV story)), I think you'd really enjoy the first 7 NAs (the Timewyrm and Cat's Cradle series), and the PDAs and EDAs from around the middle of the series (when they started getting into Gallifrey's past, the Eternals, Guardians, the Old Ones, etc., but before the Time War started). And for vampires, there's Blood Harvest and Goth Opera. And, if you liked Abaddon, read the Torchwood novel The Twilight Streets. I don't know the BFAs or the comics as well as the novels, but I don't think they usually get as supernaturalish anyway. --Falcotron 11:24, May 28, 2010 (UTC)

Thanks thats alot of stuff out there to read like Goth Opera, I have heard of the timewwyrm from years ago I seem to recall it was in a John Peel novel and was one of the big doctor who villains from the wilderness years. I always loved Pyramids of Mars [who doesn't ] Its wierd though you mention Enlightenment it was one of the few old who stories I never saw when I was young the only other two were the kings demons and invasion of the dinosaurs[ obviously I am talking about non missing stories], but thats probably for the best I didn't see those two stories. I'll definitly get round to trying to get the stories on gallifrey's past thanks for the recommendations. Winehousefan 13:05, 28 may 2010[UTC]

Enlightenment gives you the basics about the Eternals, and drops hints about the Guardians, and gives some ideas about the Time Lords' place in the universe, all of which is then picked up in much more detail in the Virgin novels. So, it's worth watching it before you start reading.

The Timewyrm series is a quadrilogy that kicked off the NA line, each written by a different author (John Peel wrote the first one). Besides the Timewyrm itself, there's also kinds of other references to most of the god-like beings in the Whoniverse. And most of the rest, together with their connections to Gallifrey's past, comes out in the Cat's Cradle trilogy that immediately follow.

If you want more on Gallifrey's past, you pretty much have to read Lungbarrow, which requires reading half of the other NAs and MAs first to really get everything. And then half of that is contradicted in the BFAs and the other half in the new series. :)

As for the King's Demons, yeah, it's not one of the best stories, but it's the only time Kamelion is really used other than what feels like the same scene over and over and over in Planet of Fire (I'm surprised no one ever made a house anthem out of the endless "resist the girl, resist, my slave" lines...), so that's something. --Falcotron 12:42, May 28, 2010 (UTC)

Okay dudes and dudettes do you guys think that the silent menace will be supernatural. I mean I wouldn't have said that a season long villain will be supernatural before but lets be honest that last finale had stuff like you remember people and then they become real and as for how the doctor saved the day, to be honest it probably would have been better if it was supernatural then it wouldn't have been so techno babblish. Winehousefan, 20:40, June 29, 2010 [UTC]