Talk:Anything You Can Do (short story)
Fifth Doctor?
I don't think this should be designated a Fifth Doctor story.
It was clearly Rudden's intention to have the Doctor's incarnation ambiguous - he even uses gender-neutral pronouns for the Doctor here, to avoid excluding (say) 13. The point of the story is the timeless nature of the conflict between the Doctor and the Master, and their essentially different but enduring natures.
The illustration doesn't look to me like 5. It's entirely in silhouette, with one figure having no distinguishing features and the other looking like it's wearing a longish jacket and a small, brimmed hat. The hat itself looks a lot more like a Fourth Doctor kind of hat, with a more pronounced dent in the top.
But in any case, the illustration is just an artistic interpretation of the theme. I mean, in the audiobook edition the Master is given a Scottish accent, which makes the Delgado identification equally tricky - that's just the reader's artistic interpretation. I'd say privilege Rudden's stated intention over either.– The preceding unsigned comment was added by 2A02:C7D:B306:ED00:9457:EE4E:8C5F:39B2 (talk).
- I'm not seeing gender-neutral language here. Definitely he/him pronouns. In any case, authorial intent is not really a valid source for in-universe information. That said, we can definitely look further into the evidence.
× SOTO contribs ×°/↯/•] °|💬•| {/-//:\•\ 20:02, November 30, 2018 (UTC) - I can confirm the Doctor who is actually the Doctor in the story never gets any he/him pronouns. When the TARDIS shows up 'A figure stepped out. In the flickering light of the passageway, Cade could barely make them out. "Trying to be me, Master, and yet you missed the most basic part." The figure shook their head.' Those are, in fact, the only two pronouns for the Doctor in the story. (Cade, of course, gets gender-neutral pronouns too, as they are some kind of non-binary person.) 165.225.80.114talk to me 15:55, December 6, 2018 (UTC)
