Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Snakedance

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This page is for discussing the ways in which Snakedance doesn't fit well with other DWU narratives. You can also talk about the plot holes that render its own, internal narrative confusing.

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• When the time has finally come that Dojjen has been waiting and preparing for, for so many years, why a) Is he so far from the city, having to be specifically summoned by the Doctor, and b) Does he not accompany the Doctor and the others to the cave to help defeat the Mara?

He knew he had grown too weak and feeble to face the Mara, and had given up hope. Only when the Doctor signalled him with the crystal did he see that there might still be a chance, if he could impart his knowledge to the Doctor in time.

• Surely someone would have worked-out the patently obvious point of the 'six faces of deception' headpiece before the Doctor did.

It has never been on public display. Ambril found it alone and has kept it exclusively for his own collection, and he is somewhat dim/shortsighted.

• If 'evil cannot face itself' as the Doctor had asserted in Kinda, then the Mara's explanation to Tegan in the hall of mirrors that not being held in a circle meant it could look at its own reflection, makes very little sense. It would only mean that it could escape its own reflection, not that it would find looking at it any easier to do.

The Mara facing its own reflection was only one aspect of what made the circle work on Deva Loka. Each mirror was being held remember, by one of the telepathic Kinda. With all of them working in unison in this way, they created a powerful psychic barrier (akin to finding their own 'still point'), which was the true cause of the Mara's banishment on that occasion.

Or maybe the Mara is strong enough to face one of its selves, just not more. Remember the circle meant he was looking at lots of reflections. It's like if you were split into two and you had a fight, it would probably end in a draw; whereas if there was twelve of them, then you would lose.