Talk:The Master

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How to refer to each incarnation of the Master

Well, I think some of us were hoping it'd be simpler, but the fact that Talk:The Master (The TV Movie) discussion and Talk:The Master (The Keeper of Traken) are going on at the same time with seemingly different ideas made me think we should just discuss this. This is not necessarily meant to be a discussion to determine a name or page title for each Master; those should still happen on their talk page. This is just a discussion on having consistency between them.

This long comment started as something I was going to write for Talk:The Master (The TV Movie), with me saying I think it should either be both Tremas Master and Bruce Master, or both The Master (The TV Movie) and The Master (The Keeper of Traken), for consistency. …But then in the latter case, arguably some of the others should also use disambiguation terms. I personally think that for the "main" Masters (i.e. those not ambiguous or from another reality) should either all use descriptions for page titles, with the possible exception of The Master (Terror of the Autons) (the reason for which is currently discussed on his talk page and should remain there), or all use disambiguation terms, with the exceptions of Decayed Master, War Master, Missy and the Lumiat. Having any other sort of mixed arrangement would just be confusing. Please note I am not saying the wiki must subscribe to the above dichotomy, just that I think it needs to be discussed. But there's another problem:

Initially I too subscribed to the story dab pattern, for neutrality. But the problem is, the incarnations still need a name to be referred to with in articles to specify them. We can't say "The Doctor met the Master (Dominion)." in an article. It'd have to be something like "The Doctor met the Reborn Master." This means even if they're not page titles, descriptive names are necessary anyway. There are a few proposed names that work well enough with their story titles, like "Traken Master" (from The Keeper of Traken) or "Spy Master" (from Spyfall). But for most of them, a different name is needed to maintain an in-universe perspective, and because the text of the wiki will be using these names to identify the incarnations, it makes sense to me to have them be the page names anyhow, regardless of what they actually are. I am not 100% against using names on pages and disambiguation terms for (most) titles, which is essentially the status quo, but I think the page title should reflect how the character is almost always referred to on the wiki…

Last note, this is a bit pedantic, but I think it makes a difference: I think descriptive names which are derived from a name themselves should use quotes— basically, "Tremas" Master instead of Tremas Master, "Bruce" Master instead of Bruce Master, and "Saxon" Master instead of Saxon Master. This not only reads better to me, for example alleviating concerns that "Bruce Master" sounds like, and probably is, some guy's name, but also better conveys the reasons those names are being used. Currently quotes are variably used for all descriptive names (particularly with coverage of Masterful you might see something like "the 'Young' Master"), but I think that's too difficult to read and that is the best way to use them. Chubby Potato ☎ 05:02, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

As previously mentioned at Talk:Fugitive Doctor, on no account should we use quotes for the actual page names (e.g. it is and will remain Decayed Master, not "Decayed" Master). This interferes with searchability and is ungainly besides. Big Finish's own box set titles don't say The "War" Master, either; nor do the Masterful credits from which we derive the proposed Saxon Master, Reborn Master or Tremas Master renames use such quotation marks.

This point aside, my intuition thus far is that we use quotation marks when pipe-linking dabbed The Master (Something) pages for clarity — precisely to emphasise that something is a nickname which isn't really that page's proper title. For example, the "UNIT era" Master. This is informal practice and that discussion would be in a position to reform it, though, myself, I think it's intuitive enough. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 11:19, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Scrooge, you're drawing an equivalence between quite unlike things. Of course we don't use "Fugitive" Doctor or "Decayed" Master, since those names are straightforwardly descriptive of each character in their entirety. But there is a straightforward difference between those names and names which are based on identities used only temporarily by the characters. "Missy" is not an alias in the same way that "Harold Saxon" is.

I very much like Chubby's suggestion. This is what it would take for me to get on board with some otherwise-repulsive suggestions: it makes "Bruce Master" sound less like the name of my next-door neighbor, and it suitably contextualizes the conjectural leap we're making in incarnation naming. In particular, I disagree with the idea that this would interfere with searchability in any way. Quote marks work fine in the search bar, and now that Fandom has made search work better with redirects, typing the same name without quotes will return the same result in a transparent fashion. Neither search nor precedent is an argument against this proposal. – n8 (☎) 14:47, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of the quotation marks. Whilst I can understand why people might want to use them for Tremas, Saxon and Bruce, I'm 100% against using them for the Reborn Master; "reborn" is an adjective, just like "decayed", so I don't see why it would be treated any differently. Jack "BtR" Saxon ☎ 20:48, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

No one has suggested using them for the Reborn Master. I would also be opposed to such a thing. – n8 (☎) 21:16, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

I would choose Bruce Master over "Bruce" Master, Saxon Master over "Saxon" Master, Tremas Master over "Tremas" Master, Keller Master over "Keller" Master, etc. Aesthetics aside, the key problem here, which I'm surprised people are overlooking, is that placing quotation marks around part of a name does not actually communicate "this name is unofficial" in any clear or intuitive way. They could just as easily be read as some sort of quotation from some unspecified in-universe or out-of-universe source, or as in-universe nicknames (since quotation marks commonly signify a nickname when used for some but not all component words in a name; for example Punished "Venom" Snake from Metal Gear). With or without them, the wiki would still be making the same arbitrary call to employ the alias / host's name as an adjective when it was never used as such officially. That's OK by me - there's some objective, factual basis to describing Roberts's character "the Bruce Master", Simm's "the Saxon Master", etc - but if we're doing it, we should commit to doing it properly, in a way that gives the reader an uncluttered, consistent experience. Quotation marks are just confusing and distracting in this context. If a name is deemed so dodgy that it requires quotation marks, then we should just continue to disambiguate by debut appearance. PintlessMan ☎ 21:40, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

My vote would go to: The "Bruce" Master, The "Tremas" Master and The "Saxon" Master - with quotation marks as shown. To me, this indicates they are The Master but that there are sub-names to differentiate and distinguish them. Conversely, I wouldn't use quotation marks for The War Master, as there are countless examples of that name being used widely across various releases. FractalDoctor ☎ 00:34, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

I can’t believe I forgot to comment on this earlier. I am in support of “Bruce” Master and its ilk (with obvious exceptions for the War Master and the Decayed Master). While I personally find the premise of quotation marks in the link name to be aesthetically unappealing, it goes a long way in assuaging the concerns of those more skeptical about these sort of names. Likewise, it is how they’ve historically been used in-line. NoNotTheMemes ☎ 13:09, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

I would very much like to throw my two cents into this conversation. I think that whenever possible, we should note what number regeneration each Master is, much like the Doctor or the General. We obviously don't know for all of them, but we do know the numbers for a few. The Decayed Master is the Thirteenth Master, the Tremas Master is the Fourteenth Master, the First Frontier Master is the Fifteenth Master, the Bruce Master is the Sixteenth Master, the Preacher Master is the Seventeenth Master, and the Reborn Master is the Eighteenth Master. If we wanted to guess (even if we're not absolutely certain) we can even assume that the War Master is the Nineteenth Master and the Saxon Master is the Twentieth Master. I just think it makes things more orderly on here, which is something we could definitely use given the convoluted history of this character. -- MattTheNerd42 ☎ 17:40, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

What's your source for the numbering? Aquanafrahudy 📢 17:47, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Whether stolen bodies even count is significantly controversial, but the problem is that if they do, then (depending on accounts) no numbering can be relied upon. In Mastermind and Short Trips: The Centenarian a post-TVM Beevers Master steals a number of bodies for varying periods of time, in just the same way he stole Roberts's. If we counted them all, then Macqueen might be, like, the Thirty-First.

Moreover, BF only inconsistently acknowledge the events of First Frontier; the Dust Breeding account bypasses it entirely, claiming that Ainley was reverted directly to Beevers. (This implies that Tipple in the TVM was a stolen body he acquired at some point — but we cannot assume that there was just one in that gap, so it doesn't necessarily "make up" the numbers with a different-but-equivalent "Fifteenth Master"!) Then, of course, there's the accounts where it's Ainley who's placed on trial, like The Eight Doctors, which would make your count come up one short, making Roberts the Fifteenth…

Also, some accounts claim that the Decayed Master was just a decayed version of Delgado, making Delgado the Thirteenth Master as well. Covering them on the same page is obviously not desirable, but we can't just act as though Beevers was the only possible Thirteenth candidate. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 18:08, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

And the Preacher Master can't be the Seventeenth Master, because The Master (The Curse of Fatal Death) is. Well, he could be an alternate incarnation, but it's clearly not so straightforward as it seems. Aquanafrahudy 📢 18:18, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it's really possible to assign numbers. The waters are too murky. At this point, even if Sacha Dhawan showed up again on screen and proclaimed "I am the Xth Master" it would still be arguable. Also, even if we did have one or two numbers, nobody ever refers to them as such - nobody says "I loved the Twelfth Master" in the same way we might say "I loved the Twelfth Doctor" for example — Fractal Doctor @ 21:07, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Not sure I completely agree there. If a new Master was introduced as "[Numeral] Master", we don't have the right to reject that name even if it doesn't sit well with other sources that depict more or less incarnations of the Master up until that point.

We shouldn't make up incarnation numbers, but if one ever officially exists, we should use it. (Maybe as "according to one account".)

We don't elect to not use "Fourteenth Doctor" even though he is technically the sixteenth (inc. War Doctor and the VanityTen) or perhaps the the thirty-third (inc. Timeless Children, Fugitive Doctor, "Morbius" Doctors).

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

21:16, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Fair points. I did say it would be debatable though, not that we should dismiss it immediately out of hand. In such an instance, I think "according to one account" would work. In any case, I doubt this would ever happen, unless it's done jokingly (similar to Smith's Doctor telling Clyde he could regenerate 507 times). — Fractal Doctor @ 21:50, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Defaulting to the most recent incarnation with the tabbed infobox images

Although tabs haven't yet been implemented here yet, following the discussion at Tardis:Temporary forums/Archive/Replacing docpic, I have a potential way to let us have the tabs listed chronologically but with the most recent incarnation selected by default which I have presented at Talk:The Doctor#Defaulting to the most recent incarnation with the tabbed infobox images. It could easily be applied here as well. Bongo50 ☎ 22:06, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Tabbed gallery

I note this page still needs a tabbed gallery. The Doctor page works well starting from the first known incarnation, so maybe the Master should follow suit (except with "A", "B", "C", etc.) Fractal Doctor ☎ 11:08, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Indeed. Done, though as stated in my thread closure, the option of switching out this or that image is of course available. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 13:25, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, Scrooge MacDuck. Is the absence of a certain Destination Wars Master on purpose? Fractal Doctor ☎ 14:00, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

As I just finished telling User:Jack "BtR" Saxon, it's "on purpose" in the sense that I was sticking with his absence from {{masterpic}} and with the basic precedent of not including the "according to one account" pre-Delgado incarnations established by the prior decision against including Brayshaw on the template. Also, aside from his controversial existence, it stands to reason that we don't want a somewhat "random" incarnation like Dreyfus to be the perennial default thumbnail instead of Delgado. All of this is in line with Jo Martin & friends not being represented on The Doctor. But Jack argues that we do include the also-controversial John Hurt at The Doctor, so perhaps we could consider the place of the pre-Delgado Masters on this one. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 14:02, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

This might be too outlandish an idea but just a thought I had, that could solve that (here and on other pages) - would it be possible to have a secondary tabbed gallery maybe further down the page, containing miscellaneous/somewhat ambiguous incarnations. I'm guessing it would have some pushback, and could be viewed as confusing, but it's just a suggestion.

I do think this page should begin with Delgado because of the reasons you stated. Worth noting that we do include Hurt in the tabbed Doctor gallery, and we include the Lumiat in this one (as well as others). The only difference with Dreyfus is that he's pre-Delgado and so instead of being mid-gallery, he'd be eternally at the beginning/the default starting image, and I completely understand why a lot of people wouldn't want this. (I wouldn't want this either, but is there an alternative, other than just leaving him out?) Fractal Doctor ☎ 14:09, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Well, as I said, the alternative would be to start with William Hughes, thus sandwiching him away. But I would find it hard to justify including these two and not other alleged pre-Delgado Masters e.g. the War Chief, and that might get very controversial very quickly (I would be willing to bite the bullet of including Peter Butterworth, but I don't think many people would! This is just what we have the "no controversial information in infoboxes" rule of thumb for.)

As regards a more thorough gallery of incarnations, this sounds like a very good use of the proposed usage of galleries on in-universe page, which is currently against policy but is one of the proposals currently rising through the Temp Forums propositions table. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 14:12, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't think the likes of the Monk and the War Chief are comparable to the likes of Parker and Dreyfus. With the Monk and the War Chief, there are conflicting accounts on whether or not they are the Master. There's no such confusion with Parker and Dreyfus. Jack "BtR" Saxon ☎ 14:15, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough, Scrooge.

I'm probably opening a huge can of worms (and maybe not in the best suited place) by asking about the War Chief and what the evidence is for and against him being an incarnation of the Master, but I think it's worth noting that Dreyfus' incarnation was invented as, and specifically designed to be an earlier incarnation of the Master, and I think there's a debate about that warranting inclusion. I've just had a look at your back-and-forth with Jack "BtR" Saxon, and both of you raise good points. I think it's a debate to be had though at some stage, and good note about the upcoming galleries discussion. That could solve some issues down the line.

(I wrote this before seeing Jack's response just now. I'm sitting on the fence and viewing both sides, but ultimately I'm siding with Jack's reasoning here, if I'm honest.) Fractal Doctor ☎ 14:17, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

@Jack, they're not exactly the same situation, sure, but there are certainly accounts by which lights no such persons as Parker or Dreyfus's Masters could have existed (The Dark Path positing that Koschei didn't call himself "the Master" yet by the time he left Gallifrey is the obvious one). Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 14:19, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Tangential question: is Parker meant to be the same incarnation as the 'child' we saw in The Sound of Drums flashback, or not? Fractal Doctor ☎ 14:21, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

On the whole I'm less concerned about specific cases than about what a giant can of worms pre-Delgado Masters are, such that starting the infobox at Delgado just seems like the cutoff point that will cause the fewest headaches. It's a line in the sand, not a natural boundary, but it's a common-sense sort of line in the sand that readers will easily grok as saying "we're starting with Delgado for IRL reasons/sanity" rather than a judgment-call statement of "such-and-such pre-Delgado Masters count more than such-and-such pre-Delgado Masters". A full gallery elsewhere on the page, if the Temp Forums pass that reform, would then sound like quite an attractive proposal to supplement it.

(Re: Parker/Hughes… that's another controversial one. Per recent BTS quotes, it seems that yes, but that's ambiguous in the stories themselves, particularly as they have some conspicuous physical differences e.g. eye colour. So that's another area of possible contention.) Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 14:19, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm not gunna die on this hill, and I'd be happy to wait until the Temp Forum discussion happens regarding a potential alternative before continuing this debate.

I also note here that there may even be a hint of Big Finish muddying the waters themselves anyway, or subtly trying to retcon a few things in light of IRL events surrounding Dreyfus and his positioning anyway? Fractal Doctor ☎ 14:26, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

If the preacher (who appears in half as many stories as Dreyfus) and the Asian child (who is apparently not even intended to be a mainline Master) are included, there's no justification for excluding Dreyfus. Including pre-Delgado incarnations is no more "opening a can of worms" than including post-Delgado ones. I think we should either stick with major TV incarnations (as on The Doctor) or include the lot, not this weird middle ground. PintlessMan ☎ 16:32, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

It has been nearly half a year with no further discussion. Again, given the inclusion of the Preacher and the Child, there is no excuse for excluding the Inventor, an actual mainline Master who is named "The Master", appears as the main Master in multiple stories, and is explicitly positioned prior to Delgado. Can we please get this resolved now? PintlessMan ☎ 23:46, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

No we cannot. To begin with, it is non-trivial that his "being named 'the Master' and appears as the main Master in multiple stories" is operative with regards to why he should be included, but not Hughes/Parker or Butterworth or Brayshaw or Magnus.

But more importantly, I still think there is no reason to include Dreyfus here if we do not include Jo Martin at The Doctor (she explicitly the Doctor by name, explicitly before the currently-earliest incarnation in the gallery, and has begun appearing as the lead in her own stories). And I don't believe we should do either of those things. There is a long-standing policy of keeping controversial in-universe information out of infoboxes (hence "The Doctor's species" being used in all Doctors' species field). Although it can be bent on a case-by-case basis, I think setting things such that incarnations whose very existence is highly dependent on contradictory accounts, like any of the pre-Delgado Masters or the various pre-Hartnell Doctors, would appear as the page's default thumbnail in categories and Google searches, would be in stark violation of the spirit of that policy. How recurring the Inventor or Fugitive might become doesn't enter into it. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 11:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

I personally think that the CoFD Master should get a look in, although the question of exactly where to place him is something of a conundrum. Aquanafrahudy 📢 11:59, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

On the other hand, of course, we could place him between Bruce and Preacher. Aquanafrahudy 📢 16:46, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Relationship between Master and Meddling Monk

I see this site now uses FASA narrative as valid. And it contains something that may settle the controversial issue once and for all. Peter Butterworth's character in The Time Meddler is said to be the Master, but then we also have a "Meddling Monk" in Follow That TARDIS!, plus Rufus Hound in Big Finish Audios. So, how can Butterworth be the Master, AND Hound be a Time Lord unambiguously separate from the Master called "the Meddling Monk"?

The FASA narrative explictly states that in 1066(The Time Meddler) the Master disguised himself as the Meddling Monk. And that this wasn't one of his(the Master's) best schemes. So, in the same way David Morrissey in The Next Doctor wasn't actually The Doctor, Peter Butterworth in The Time Meddler/The Daleks' Master Plan WAS NOT ACTUALLY THE MEDDLING MONK. He was the Master disguised as the Meddling Monk.

So, while there may be a Mortimus/Meddling Monk separate to the Master, the guy in The Time Meddler/The Daleks' Master Plan was NOT the Meddling Monk. It was the Master DISGUISED AS the Meddling Monk. – The preceding unsigned comment was added by 197.87.143.20 (talk).

Oh good, you again.

Well, according to one account, yes. (Though it's reading the text against itself to imagine that in FASA's account there is such a thing as a real Monk who simply is not the one who actually appears in The Time Meddler.) But according to other accounts it was in fact a distinct guy in Time Meddler. There are conflicting accounts, and this is not a problem, this is not something that needs to be "settled", it's just a fact. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 09:33, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

"Quote marks"

We finally ditched the quote marks from "The Doctor", post-fork, should we do the same here? × Fractal • 21:01, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 21:27, 14 March 2024 (UTC)