Cinder
- You may be looking for the Cinder.
"Cinder" was the primary alias of a human who grew up on Moldox during the Last Great Time War and lost her entire family to Dalek invaders when they conquered and ravaged the planet. She was a one-time companion to the War Doctor. Although "Cinder" was not her given name, she felt that it was the only name she had now that her family had been taken from her. A self-made Dalek hunter, she would later be one of the final casualties in the Time War, and the one that finally convinced the Doctor to end the war.
Biography
Early life
Cinder was only seven years old when the Time War reached Mouldox in the form of the Dalek occupation. When her homestead was attacked by the Daleks, she survived by hiding whilst her mother, father and her brother Sammy were exterminated. Cinder hid under a bin and stayed there until she was found by Coyne and spent the next several years training as a Dalek-hunter with him and other survivors of the occupation on Mouldox. Among these survivors was a girl named Stephanie, with whom Cinder fell in love and shared her first kiss. (PROSE: Engines of War)
Meeting the Doctor
When she was a young woman, after taking part in an ambush with fellow resistance fighter Finch, Cinder encountered the War Doctor, who had crashed on Mouldox in his TARDIS which fell from the sky and destroyed one of the Daleks. Shortly before the TARDIS crashlanded, Finch was erased from history by one of the Daleks' new weapons, but although she knew something was wrong she didn't know what had happened.
Cinder reacted to the Doctor with hostility when she realised he was a Time Lord; she was prepared to kill the Doctor, but the thought of leaving the planet because she had nothing left was compelling. She helped him infiltrate a Dalek base and uncover their plans to create a Temporal Cannon, a De-mat weapon that could wipe Gallifrey from history. The Doctor took Cinder in his TARDIS to Gallifrey to warn the Time Lords of the Dalek's plan.
On Gallifrey, Cinder met Rassilon and the High Council of Time Lords, but was told to keep quiet as they spoke. After the meeting was over, Cinder was kidnapped by Karlax and the Castellan and was mind probed to back up the Doctor's claims about the Daleks turning the Tantalus Eye into a superweapon. After finding out about the mind probe, the Doctor took Cinder from the Capitol and took her to the Death Zone, where the two of them kidnapped Borusa from his imprisonment in the Dark Tower.
While helping stop the Tantalus Eye plot, Cinder was shot by Karlax on board the Doctor's TARDIS, sacrificing herself to save the Doctor, shortly before the Doctor defeated the Time Lords and the Daleks. He considered demanding Borusa use his power to bring her back, but knew she would never have wanted him to sacrifice their chance to save everyone in exchange for her life alone. In honour of her death, the Doctor buried her and with the remains of her family at her old homestead, giving them a proper grave with a marker that revealed Cinder's true name, and promised he would put an end to the War. (PROSE: Engines of War)
Resurrection
The death of Cinder left a lasting mark on the Doctor, (COMIC: The Bidding War) contributing to his decision to try and end the War (PROSE: Engines of War) with the Moment. (TV: The Day of the Doctor) However, one account indicated that the War Doctor tried to restore her life; when the Sontarans began breaking the Web of Time with their ultimate war, the War Doctor and other incarnations became involved in the struggle. In the face of a growing Dalek threat, he admitted to Jack Harkness and Vastra he intended to use the instabilities caused by Sontaran to rescue Cinder from the moment of her death in the Time War. He successfully did so. (GAME: Legacy)
Indeed, a connected account depicted another adventure undertaken by the War Doctor and Cinder after the various Doctors had united. As a virus took hold of the TARDIS, both found themselves in what looked like the Cloisters, where they battled Cloister Wraiths, Weeping Angels, Cybermen, and Daleks until the sudden arrival of the General, whom the Doctor surmised was summoned by the TARDIS to help. The trio then found themselves battling Slitheen family and Gas Mask zombies in a copy of a diner, after which they entered a fake console room filled with Zygons. When a new door opened, all three fled. The three would end up battling reapers and made their way back to the real console room, where the Eighth Doctor, Grace Holloway, and Jack Harkness found them. Both Doctors then departed to find the tertiary console room. (GAME: "Bigger on the Inside")
Despite these accounts indicating Cinder's resurrection, (GAME: Legacy, "Bigger on the Inside") the War Doctor was alone by the end of the Time War. (TV: The Day of the Doctor) Indeed, the scars of Cinder's death back at the Tantalus Eye remained with him. (COMIC: The Bidding War)
Legacy
When the Ninth Doctor projected his memories of the Time War into the various adversaries battling for access to his mind, seen within them was the War Doctor cradling Cinder's body in grief. This memory among others caused the duelling to cease, as the combatants found them too terrible to bear. (COMIC: The Bidding War)
The Twelfth Doctor later saw Cinder, among other companions, when Bernice Summerfield was hit by temporal energy in the Pyramid Eternia. (PROSE: Big Bang Generation)
A manifestation of Cinder also appeared within the Celestial Toyroom talking to other companions of the Doctor. (COMIC: Relative Dimensions)
Appearance
Cinder had long orange hair, from which her name was derived. Her eyes were olive in colour. She was fairly muscular due to all the training and fighting in which she took part but was still thin despite that. (PROSE: Engines of War)
Behind the scenes
- In Doctor Who: Legacy, Cinder's appearance is drawn by artist Paul Hanley and modelled after cosplayer Athena Stamos[1][2]
- George Mann stated that by revealing Cinder had kissed a woman, his intention was for her to be a lesbian.[3]
- At the end of Engines of War, the Doctor discovers Cinder's real name but it is not revealed to the reader.
- George Mann has said he imagined Cinder's appearance as Hayley Williams from the American rock group Paramore.[4]
In non-valid sources
The War Doctor once took Cinder deep into the TARDIS "to see something beautiful": a crooked Arabian corridor with ornate doors from wildly mismatched architectural styles. Birds flew in the blue sky overhead. Behind each door was a beautiful moment the TARDIS herself had plucked from time to save from the devastation of the Time War, in the hopes of giving them a second chance and reseeding the universe with life after the War's end: the first moments of the Nestene Consciousness, the Sensorite Sense Sphere, and a Bakri synth; dew drops on Dartmoor; the first flight of a Menoptra; the hatching of an Arkos; the rites of a Sarkovian death march; the start of winter on a dry micro-world; a heliosphere; and the birth of a TARDIS. Cinder chose not to look inside a door from Moldox. (NC: The Moments In Between)
External links
Footnotes
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