Terrible Zodin

Terrible Zodin
Main aliases:	Zodin
Job:	Sword-swallower, Villain
Place of origin:	Zymymys Midamor
First mentioned in:	The Five Doctors [+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (TV story)"]
Appearance:	The Dangerous Book of Monsters [+]Loading...["The Dangerous Book of Monsters (novel)"]

You may be looking for the species.

The Terrible Zodin (TV: The Five Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (TV story)"], PROSE: Verdigris ^[+]Loading...["Verdigris (novel)"], etc.) or "the terrible Zodin", (PROSE: The Five Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (novelisation)"], The Colony of Lies ^[+]Loading...["The Colony of Lies (novel)"], Seven Deadly Sins ^[+]Loading...["Seven Deadly Sins (short story)"], Faithful Friends: Part 1 ^[+]Loading...["Faithful Friends: Part 1 (short story)"]) was a female individual encountered by and reminisced about by the Doctor on a number of occasions. He first met her some time prior to or during his second incarnation. (TV: The Five Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (TV story)"], etc.) Iris Wildthyme also claimed to have met her. (PROSE: Verdigris ^[+]Loading...["Verdigris (novel)"])

The Second Doctor's earliest allusion to "the Terrible Zodin" saw him adding something about beings who "hopped like kangaroos". (TV: The Five Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (TV story)"]) Some accounts suggested that "the Zodin" were indeed a broader, non-humanoid alien race (TV: The Mad Woman in the Attic ^[+]Loading...["The Mad Woman in the Attic (TV story)"]) beyond the female "Terrible Zodin" singled out by the Doctor (TV: The Five Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (TV story)"]) and the Decayed Master, (AUDIO: Masterful ^[+]Loading...["Masterful (audio story)"]) but others treated "Zodin" as the personal name of a singular figure (PROSE: Cold Fusion ^[+]Loading...["Cold Fusion (novel)"], Apocrypha Bipedium ^[+]Loading...["Apocrypha Bipedium (short story)"]) who may have employed hopping mutants — either grasshoppers or kangaroos — as minions. (PROSE: Legacy ^[+]Loading...["Legacy (novel)"], Apocrypha Bipedium ^[+]Loading...["Apocrypha Bipedium (short story)"])

At least one account acknowledged, however, that the singular "terrible Zodin" was visibly monstrous, with "talons and claws". (PROSE: The Colony of Lies ^[+]Loading...["The Colony of Lies (novel)"]) One account suggested that the Second Doctor's recollection of the Terrible Zodin referred a Monoid, and some of the details seemed off because "the Doctor’s memory [was] shaky, possibly also from the effect of the First Doctor’s abduction". (GAME: The Five Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (game)"])

Most accounts acknowledged the Terrible Zodin as a "villain" akin to likes of the Master, (TV: Attack of the Cybermen ^[+]Loading...["Attack of the Cybermen (TV story)"], PROSE: Millennial Rites ^[+]Loading...["Millennial Rites (novel)"], AUDIO: Requiem for the Rocket Men ^[+]Loading...["Requiem for the Rocket Men (audio story)"], etc.) the Ice Warriors or the Cybermen, (PROSE: Seven Deadly Sins ^[+]Loading...["Seven Deadly Sins (short story)"]) with one source claiming she was the third-most wanted criminal in the Galaxy, after the Master and the Rani, (AUDIO: Requiem for the Rocket Men ^[+]Loading...["Requiem for the Rocket Men (audio story)"]) although the Seventh Doctor on one occasion purported to reveal that his many allusions to "the Terrible Zodin" actually referred to the stage name of a sword-swallower he greatly admired. (PROSE: Lungbarrow ^[+]Loading...["Lungbarrow (novel)"])

Biography

Origin

In one account, the Seventh Doctor claimed that Terrible Zodin was originally a sword-swallower at the Grand Festival of Zymymys Midamor. (PROSE: Lungbarrow ^[+]Loading...["Lungbarrow (novel)"]) This seemed to stand in contrast with a majority of accounts where Zodin was an enemy of the Doctor's (TV: Attack of the Cybermen ^[+]Loading...["Attack of the Cybermen (TV story)"]) known for using mutant minions (PROSE: Legacy ^[+]Loading...["Legacy (novel)"]) and erasing memories with mind rubbers, (PROSE: Cold Fusion ^[+]Loading...["Cold Fusion (novel)"]) but one account acknowledged all of the sword-swallowing, the mind rubbers, and the mutant kangaroo minions, also treating Zodin herself as an essentially likable individual. (PROSE: Apocrypha Bipedium ^[+]Loading...["Apocrypha Bipedium (short story)"])

By one account, the individual hazily remembered as the Terrible Zodin by the Second Doctor was a Monoid. (GAME: The Five Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (game)"])

Encounters with the Doctor

When the Doctor's second incarnation visited a UNIT reunion in the early-mid 1980s, he reminded Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart about "the Terrible Zodin", first referring to "her" and then to how "they" used to "hop like kangaroos". (TV: The Five Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (TV story)"]) The Brigadier didn't recall this "terrible Zodin", and the Doctor corrected himself, saying: "No, of course, you weren’t concerned with her, were you? She happened in your future". (TV: The Five Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (TV story)"], PROSE: The Five Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (novelisation)"])

When Third Doctor and Iris Wildthyme recalled their prior encounter with "the Terrible Zodin" on Mars, Iris mistakenly remembered Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart as having been present, but the Doctor corrected her, saying the Brigadier hadn't been "involved with her". (PROSE: Verdigris ^[+]Loading...["Verdigris (novel)"]) The Third Doctor later made the same mistake to the Brigadier's face, adding "the terrible Zodin" to the list of "everything [the two of them had]been through. Yeti, Daleks, Axons, the Master…", then saying "Never mind" when the Brigadier showed no memory of the name. (PROSE: Faithful Friends: Part 1 ^[+]Loading...["Faithful Friends: Part 1 (short story)"])

Jamie McCrimmon cited "the terrible Zodin" in the same breath as Yeti as an example of monsters he'd encountered who were visibly monstrous; his reference to her prompted Ace to ask the Seventh Doctor "what was 'the terrible Zodin'". In reply, the Doctor sighed and said: "Now there was a legend…". (PROSE: The Colony of Lies ^[+]Loading...["The Colony of Lies (novel)"])

By one account, "Zodin" was involved in an adventure in which the Doctor interacted with multiple incarnations of himself. After this she erased their memories of the incident using "mind rubbers", preventing the later Doctors involved from remembering having experienced the events before. The Fifth Doctor and Seventh Doctor discussed the incident when they crossed paths. (PROSE: Cold Fusion ^[+]Loading...["Cold Fusion (novel)"])

Making light conversation with Dwayne Landmott, the Fifth Doctor told him about a man who was "a servant of the Terrible Zodin", and whom he described as "utterly without pity, but with a strange predilection for cream cakes", adding: "we got on rather well". (PROSE: The King of Terror ^[+]Loading...["The King of Terror (novel)"])

The Seventh Doctor frequently bored people to sleep with long-winded accounts of it, although he was incapable of recalling whether she was assisted in her schemes by mutant kangaroos or by giant grasshoppers. The Third Doctor's memory of the event, however, was already hazy and he came to doubt it when confronted with the implausibility of giant mutant grasshoppers (PROSE: Legacy ^[+]Loading...["Legacy (novel)"])

During the early 21st century, the Terrible Zodin hired a planet assassin named Dominicus to destroy Earth. On that occasion, the Sixth Doctor described her as "a devastating diva of dissimulation, the queen of corruption and chicanery." (AUDIO: Power Play ^[+]Loading...["Power Play (audio story)"])

The Eighth Doctor mentioned having the autograph of the Terrible Zodin. (COMIC: The Glorious Dead ^[+]Loading...["The Glorious Dead (comic story)"])

One anecdote in The Diary of an Edwardian Adventuress, written by the Eighth Doctor's companion Charlotte Pollard, read: "Of course the hairy kangaroo had been at the mind rubbers and didn't even realise the sword was there! How we laughed. Terrible name-dropper, Zodin, but worth her weight in soufflé all the same". (PROSE: Apocrypha Bipedium ^[+]Loading...["Apocrypha Bipedium (short story)"])

The Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones at some point met the Terrible Zodin, a fact which Martha documented on her MySpace blog on 1 July. (PROSE: Martha Jones ^[+]Loading...["Martha Jones (short story)"])

Other references

Within a timeline that was later aborted, as they tried to figure out who had Time Scooped them to a desolate castle, the various incarnations of the Master briefly considered the Terrible Zodin as a suspect. (AUDIO: Masterful ^[+]Loading...["Masterful (audio story)"])

Skorpios had a photo of himself dancing with the Terrible Zodin. (AUDIO: The Doomsday Contract ^[+]Loading...["The Doomsday Contract (audio story)"])

When he wrote over Sir Percival Addlington's afterword to The Secret Lives of Monsters, the Twelfth Doctor noted many other monsters were not covered in the text, including the Terrible Zodin. (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters ^[+]Loading...["The Secret Lives of Monsters (novel)"])

Appearance

By one account, "the terrible Zodin" was a clawed, talonned "monster". (PROSE: The Colony of Lies ^[+]Loading...["The Colony of Lies (novel)"]) Sarah Jane Smith suggested that the Zodin species were "stripy" and, based on Sarah Jane's hand movements, had big ears and a trunk. (TV: The Mad Woman in the Attic ^[+]Loading...["The Mad Woman in the Attic (TV story)"]) One account suggested that the woman remembered by the Doctor as "the Terrible Zodin" was actually a Monoid. (GAME: The Five Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (game)"])

Personality

The Seventh Doctor once described Zodin as a celebrated sword-swallower at the Grand Festival of Zymymys Midamor, seeming nostalgic about her and making no indication that she was any kind of enemy to him. (PROSE: Lungbarrow ^[+]Loading...["Lungbarrow (novel)"])

However, most accounts suggested that the Terrible Zodin deserved her adjectival moniker; the Sixth Doctor considered her a villain of rare guile and cunning, bombastically complaining that "they don't make villains like her any more". At one point, his unstable memory caused him to refer to Peri as "Zodin". (TV: Attack of the Cybermen ^[+]Loading...["Attack of the Cybermen (TV story)"]) The Sixth Doctor later listed her alongside the Master or "the self-styled Queens of the Satanic Winding Sheet" as examples of "egomaniacal megalomaniacs" who had a "tendency to exaggerate". (PROSE: Millennial Rites ^[+]Loading...["Millennial Rites (novel)"])

Charley Pollard seemed to consider her benign but lightly derided her in the diary for being an inveterate name-dropper. (PROSE: Apocrypha Bipedium ^[+]Loading...["Apocrypha Bipedium (short story)"])

Behind the scenes

The first reference to the Terrible Zodin occurs in a scene in The Five Doctors when the Second Doctor mentions her to the Brigadier. Because several variant cuts of The Five Doctors exist and because Patrick Troughton apparently elaborated on the script, the amount of details on her and the details themselves vary from version to version.

The Terrible Zodin has become something of a running joke in Doctor Who. She is always discussed, but so far has never actually appeared on screen, in an audio or in print - other than a profile and sketch in The Dangerous Book of Monsters, by Justin Richards. In the introduction to The Wintertime Paradox, Dave Rudden wrote:

My favourite thing about Doctor Who is the occasional allusion to other adventures. Sometimes, a reference will be to an actual story. Other times, it’s just a joke (I’m looking at you, Zodin).Dave Rudden

An alternative Terrible Zodin would have appeared in the flesh in The End of Time, a possible follow-up to the unmade Doctor Who TV movie The Time of My Life (which would eventually be superceded by the 1996 TV movie) plotted out in 1994 by Randy Lofficier, Jean-Marc Lofficier and Philip Segal. The outline described her as an "alien villainess" with psychic powers, able to feed on "the spiritual energies released by her victim's deaths" like "a psychic vampire". In the plot, she had become the champion of the Black Guardian, here reimagined as the Embodiment of Death; Zodin sought to gather the segments of the Key to Time to destroy the universe and remake it in her own image. Over the course of the plot, it would be revealed that either the Seventh Doctor or Rassilon had already done this, destroying the "classic" Doctor Who universe and creating the rebooted Time of My Life continuity — meaning this Zodin would have been a rebooted form of the one originally mentioned in The Five Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (TV story)"]. Zodin was last seen falling into the event horizon of the black hole, though this did not seem to kill her.