Template talk:Christinas

From Tardis Wiki, the free Doctor Who reference
Revision as of 17:51, 22 February 2023 by Cousin Ettolrhc (talk | contribs)

Not Incarnations


I have a couple of issues with this table/template.

First of all, we need to establish one thing: cwejen are a species. Even if the text is ambiguous about this, our page on them is called [[Cwej (species)]|cwej(species)], and as we sstrive for continuity wherever possible, we should be consistent here. No species has an "incarnations" table, because thats clearly nonsense. The only thing different about the "christinas" to the other cwjen is that they are female; it causes misunderstanding to treat them all as incarnations of Christina Cwej because they justaren't.

The only female cwejen who could possibly be considered "incarnations" would be the 4 "Christine Summerfield"s. But even they are not - they're simply four different female cwejen with similar physiology (and memory? I can't remember if fhey all remember being Blonde girl (Dead Romance) or not. If not, there's even less of an argument to say they are incarnations of each other). Whilst I'm on the topic of the Christine Summerfields, they're named incorrectly . The first one is called First Christine Summerfield and this continues, with an exception at Eliza uo to Fourth Christine Summerfield. This, again, implies they are all somehow incarnations of a Time Lord, or at least some kind of regenerator, when they sinply are not. We already have a practice, if not policy, for naming individuals with the same name who debut in the same source - arabic numerals! For an example of this, see The Doctor 2 (Rose), which is named as such because it would of course be completely nonsensical to name it Second Doctor (Rose), as that would imply they were a version of the Second Doctor. So i propose we rename those three pages to Christine Summerfield 1 ect (although - does that need to be discussed on their individual talk pages?).

Nevertheless , the situation with the Christinas template is more dire, because it is actively confusing users - as an example, i thought all of them reincarnated in some way, rather than all just being different versions of Chris Cwej.

Cousin Ettolrhc 07:21, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

The five variations of Christina seen in The Five Christinas were specifically stated to be counterparts of the same person and each held the same universal quality that made them a target by CERN. And the three other clones of Christina from Dead Romance were created using the same hybrid of Chris/the blonde girl rather than just being clones of Chris-only like the rest of the Cwejen. Therefore I think that this template is completely necessary, although maybe it could be renamed as Counterparts of Christina like the templates for the Pete World counterparts. Also, in terms of the naming of the Christina clones, each one was stated to have been created first, second, third, etc. I don't see any issue with naming them First Christina Clone. DrWHOCorrieFan 20:12, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
Alright, if the five from that story where, sure. I haven't read that so I can't comment on it.

That's a different case tho. If anything, this discussion should result in a new template for Christine Summerfields, separate to Christinas. I presume that was a typo, and you meant to say "First Christine Clone"? As they are not, as far as I know, based off Christina Cwej, only off the blonde girl and Chris Cwej. And, as I stated before, the reason to name them cardinally (specifically, arabically) instead of ordinally is because the cardinals "First" ect make them look like incarnations, which they just aren't (and yes, I've read Dead Romance). They're iterations of the "Christine Summerfield Project" (or whatever), sure, but they aren't incarnations of each other - there isn't a continuity of consousness. But more importantly, it isn't useful useful to readers to cover the 5 Christine Summerfields as incarnations, because even if one could argue it on a very technical and pedantic basis (the argued would be wrong, but it could be made), that wouldn't be helpful to readers as they would, by default, imagine First Christine Summerfield turning into Second Christine Summerfield in some way, which very certainly does not happen. Cousin Ettolrhc 23:15, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

In Dead Romance each clone was specifically created first, second, third and then forth, and killed in that order too. I don't think that having them named to reflect this order is in any way confusing. Although maybe they could be turned into First Christine Summerfield clone, etc? DrWHOCorrieFan 06:29, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
Yes, they were. But I feel you didn't read my message clearly enough, but to clarify. This wiki isn't solely a "Dead Romance" wiki, rather it is a Doctor Who wiki. Hence, the average person seeing a page here will be a Doctor Who fan, and so will be familiar with "First" ect being used for Time Lords, or at least people who turn into each other. For this reason I think we should rename the pages 1, 2, and 4. But this thread isn't actually about renaming Christine Summerfields, it's about the Christinas template. My argument there is that the Christine Summerfields should be removed from it, because they aren't incarnations of Christina Cwej (unlike "Glasses" ect). Cousin Ettolrhc 10:03, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

The word "counterparts" doesn't appear in The Five Christinas, but we know that the person the five are "imprints" of is Chris Cwej, because a male pronoun is used for him: "even we're imprints of someone else, and I'm sure he was one too, taking after someone he met till bits rubbed off on him he didn't even realize." It's not explained why Tina has enlisted the help of these four Christinas in particular - she initially claims they're the result of her splitting herself in five, but this is immediately contradicted. The only connection between them is that they're all female and that Tina chose them for this particular heist at CERN, so I don't see why they should be grouped separately from other Cwejen.

(Tbh, the story really doesn't say that Eliza or the other Christine Summerfields were Cwejen - the only line that could be interpreted that way is the one I've quoted above, which equates these five girls' relationship with Cwej to Cwej's social mentor/mentee relationship with the Doctor. So of course Eliza bears an "imprint" of Cwej: she was created by him, travelled with him, learnt from him, telepathically inherited his dreams, etc. I didn't think "Eliza = Cwejen" until I heard it was the editorial intent, and I suspect the same was true for whoever first added it to this article.)

I support calling the clones Christine Summerfield 1, Christine Summerfield 2 and Christine Summerfield 4, both because they're separate people and because "First Christine clone" would wrongly imply that there was an original Christine that all four are clones of. PintlessMan 12:04, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for coming in with information from the "Five Christinas", PitlessMan. I support your view to remove this template under the assertion that the five female Cwejen are not counterparts of each other, but of Chris Cwej. And personally I'm okay with a new, separate template being made for Template:Christine Summerfields but I'm totally ambivalent on that, I mainly want to separate the female cwejen from the Christine Summerfields. Cousin Ettolrhc 12:31, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
I held off replying until I had chance to reread The Five Christinas and @PintlessMan's interpretation is correct. I must have erased the ending from my mind where it is revealed that Tina hasn't been telling the whole truth. DrWHOCorrieFan 15:39, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
That's very interesting. The identification of Eliza as a Cwej always rather bothered me, since her character arc in Dead Romance and the FP audios revolves around her lack of any family, hence her fruitless research into the Summerfield bloodline and eventually joining the Faction to the point of self-sacrifice. Since Eliza being a Cwej isn't explicit in the text – it may have been the author's intention, but the text of the story itself is ambiguous – I've removed that identification from her infobox. I also support the Christine Summerfield 1 naming format. 17:28, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
Aren't Cwejen just clones of Chris Cwej made by the Superiors? So Eliza being a clone of Chris Cwej on behalf of the Superiors is literally the same thing, is it not? DrWHOCorrieFan 21:18, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

So, DrWhoCorrieFan, do you support throwing this template away and removing it from it's relevant pages? And I'd agree with you there about Eliza, yeah. Although that's not actually quite what happened.As far as I know, the Cwejen are made using cloning machines on the Homeworld, but Christine Summerfield was just made in an alley by Chris Cwej. But I don't mind if she is considered as Cwej or not. Cousin Ettolrhc 17:51, 22 February 2023 (UTC)