Talk:The War Chief

Is the name "War Chief" his daily, but not true name, like the Doctor or the Master, or was just a class name given to Magnus by the War Lords in the War Games? (Ceryu 14:30, July 2, 2010 (UTC))

Based on the other titles that people had, The War Lord for example, the name was probably more of a title given to him by the war lords.Icecreamdif 21:49, September 27, 2010 (UTC)

I think it's worth mentioning (in a behind the scenes box or whatever) that in the first appearance of the character 'Magnus' it's not made clear that this is in fact the War Chief - given the way the character is presented (both written, and drawn in a vaguely Delgado-esque way), the choice of name (Ma-----), and the point of the story (clearly an important event in the lives of both Magnus and the Doctor and the origins of a significant feud between them), I think it's fairly clear that the *author's original intention* was that Magnus was the young Master and this was later retconned by others for reasons best known to themselves. Turning Magnus into the War Chief sort of renders 'Flashback' incomprehensible in that on-screen in The War Games there's no implication the Doctor and the War Chief had a close prior relationship.

Mention in FASA that he is The Master

Does anyone have a copy of the FASA Role Playing Game handy? If so, could they say exactly what it says about The War Chief being The Master? Thanks.

I have the relavent sections, and in all truth it mentions nothing of the Master being the War Chief, only that they were allies during an uprising and the Master helped the War Chief when he worked for the War Lord. It only points out that the Master and Monk were one and the same. I have heard elsewhere however, that the earliest editions were the ones that maintained that the War Chief and the Master were the same Time Lord. Whether this is true or not i can't really verify, but someone out there must know.86.9.234.213^{talk to me} 17:19, July 16, 2012 (UTC)

FASA lists the War Chief as a seperate character

I have all the modules for the FASA rpg and nowhere does it say that the War Chief is the Master, only another fellow renegade who teamed up with the Master on a few occasions. It even has a drawing of his newest incarnation! Is it worth keeping the sentence about FASA saying that he was the Master?TARDIS43 ☎ 14:00, December 11, 2012 (UTC)

Reverted edits

I have reverted the edits made by user:41.133.47.166 to this page and Magnus, The War Games and the Master. Several months ago this user tried to make his point on several talk pages, but failed to provide convincing evidence per this wiki's rules. I reverted the edits and suggested he try the forums; as he did not do so, I've reverted his edits again. Shambala108 ☎ 16:19, January 29, 2014 (UTC)

Connection with the Master in Timewyrm: Exodus

Currently this page claims that Terrance Dicks would often use the phrase “Tall, dark and satanically handsome” to describe the Roger Delgado incarnation of the Master in his Target Novelisations, and that this is evidence of a more explicit connection between the two characters.

But I’ve searched through copies of all the Target Novelisations featuring the Delgado Master and I can’t find this phrase or any variation of it used once. Although in almost all of these novelisations Delgado is described as having a “sallow face”, “pointed beard”, and “deep burning eyes” which isn’t particularly close to the phrase used in Timewyrm: Exodus. If someone could point me to an example of Dicks describing Delgado as “Tall, dark and satanically handsome” or any variation of that, I’ll be happy enough with that but I just don’t think he ever did.

Furthermore, when taken at face value and knowing that the phrase doesn’t appear to crop up in any novelisations I can’t really say that Timewyrm: Exodus actually does draw any clear connection between The War Chief and the Master.

The end scene features the War Chief engulfed in flames, with Ace seeing him appear “Young, tall, dark and satanically handsome” for a brief moment in the flames. So what this page would currently be implying is that Ace witnesses the War Chief regenerating into Roger Delgado.

But the novel so far has gone to great lengths to make it clear to the reader that the War Chief can’t regenerate due to his aborted regeneration. To the extent that he tries to steal the Doctor’s body to survive. So it would seem strange to make such a point of the War Chief’s inability to regenerate throughout the novel only for it to amount to nothing in the end,

Additionally, the Doctor describes the Edward Brayshaw incarnation of the War Chief as having been “Tall, dark and handsome” earlier in the book. So does it not make considerable sense that the “tall, dark and satanically handsome” man we see at the end of the book is intended to be Edward Brayshaw, rather than Roger Delgado?

I just feel as though the paragraph as it currently stands is misleading. Again as I say because it draws a direct connection between The War Chief and The Master in this novel as though Dicks had intentionally suggested they were the same character in this particular novel. In reality, the only thing supporting this idea was that Dicks had supposedly used the same “satanically handsome” phrase to describe Delgado in earlier Target books, but as far as I can tell he did no such thing. Therefore the page should be changed. Timewyrm: Exodus only really builds off of continuity directly from the War Games and doesn’t really draw inspiration from anywhere else. I’m not trying to suggest that the book considers the two separate characters, just that it doesn’t actually do anything to draw a connection between the two, unlike say the Target Novelisation of Terror of the Autons. SarahJaneFan ☎ 13:55, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

You may very well have a point about the "satanically handsome was a Delgado cliché" thing turning out to be an urban legend. However, I do think the most reasonable interpretation of that scene is that the War Chief has succeeded in regenerating, at the very last second. I mean, the novel also makes a point of the fact that he's stuck as a two-faced monster due to his failed regeneration; it wouldn't especially make any more sense for him to somehow revert to Brayshaw out of nowhere!

Whether the "tall, dark and satanically handsome" incarnation glimpsed by Ace is the Delgado Master is perhaps another question, and if no evidence can be found I support edits to the current claims. However, I do think the most sensical interpretation of the scene is that it's doing the "surprise! the villain somehow survived and may be back… although who knows?" thing, and this implying that yup, the War Chief did manage to regenerate. Whether the person he became is Delgado, an earlier Master, or even (why not?) the post-Brayshaw non-Master War Chief from the FASA game, the fact remains that Occam's razor points to a regeneration. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 14:11, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

I wouldn’t necessarily agree that Occam’s razor suggests that a regeneration took place. I would perhaps argue that it appeared to be an example of the common horror trope where the villain’s true or original appearance is revealed in their final moments, especially as the book as a whole seems to draw from old horror films. But nevertheless I would certainly agree that the scene should be treated as a ambiguously on the wiki as it is on the page. And it is currently is, so I have no issues there.

As I say, the Delgado connection is my main issue here. It doesn’t seem to be true, and if not then it means there isn’t a connection drawn between the Master and the War Chief in *this particular* novel, but also nothing in it to suggest they’re separate characters. Well apart from the implication that he may have died at the end but for the Master that’s just Wednesday so it doesn’t make a difference.

In summary, while I do believe the “satanically handsome” man is Brayshaw and the intention was that he died at the end of the novel, it’s left completely ambiguous and any argument of what happened next or whether the War Chief is the Master isn’t to be found in this book. At least not unless anyone comes forward with evidence connecting Delgado to the “satanically handsome” phrase. So it would just mean that this novel doesn’t have any evidence supporting them being the same character but there’s also not necessarily anything refuting the idea. SarahJaneFan ☎ 15:04, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Hmmm. Well, I suppose it's a matter of lit-crit vs. in-universe logic. We have seen Time Lords regenerating after all even though they had seemingly been killed in a manner preventing regeneration; whereas the possibility of a Time Lord who'd been warped into a monster by a failed regeneration "reverting to their previous form in their last moments" doesn't really seem to have any backing. At best I could see this following the FASA notion of how the Master sometimes regenerated into the same face several times over, and applying it to the War Chief — so that Kriegslieter does indeed regenerate somehow in that final scene, but into a second Brayshaw incarnation.

I also would say it's an overstatement to say the Delgado connection "doesn’t seem to be true". It certainly could be true, we merely have insufficient evidence to say whether it's true. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 15:16, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Actually if anything it’s an understatement. I’ve been through all of the novelisations, Terrance Dicks never describes Delgado in a way that would connect to the phrase used to describe the War Chief at the end of Timewyrm Exodus. I’m like 99% sure of that. I was merely allowing the opportunity for someone to prove me wrong. SarahJaneFan ☎ 15:46, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Oh, I'm not disputing that you're right about the "tall, dark and satanically handsome" connection in itself being an urban myth. In fact I've been going through my own archive and I came to the same conclusion. I am merely saying that just because the phrase isn't the dead-giveaway some people thoughtlessly claimed it was, doesn't mean the man Ace sees can't be a younger version of Delgado. It's possible, in the same way that this Doctor may well be that Doctor in-universe despite the similarities in the prose descriptions being coincidental.

And indeed, the "Satanic Handsome = Roger" idea has been repeated so widely that it's often used as a basis in fanmade timelines of the Master when attempting to work in Delgado. Wrong as it may initially have been, I wouldn't be at all surprised if, should a new licensed story someday address the War Chief=Master connection, it fed into the notion of Delgado coming immediately after Kriegslieter.

That's only an epistemological side-point, though, and not hugely relevant to our editing in the main namespace. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 15:59, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

"Auton Invasion" and "Doomsday Weapon"

Where in the novelisation "Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion" does it make reference to the War Chief being an earlier incarnation of the Master? What chapter/page? Also, "Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon" has a Time Lord mention the two TARDISes being stolen by the Doctor and the Master, and reminisces about The War Games, although does not explicitly state the Master was involved with that, although this implies the War Chief didn't use a TARDIS when he left Gallifrey. Steed ☎ 23:38, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

You answered your own question (and then neutered it with bizarre speculation). The Keeper in Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon recalls the events of the War Games in the same breath as he recalls the Doctor and the Master as the only two Time Lords who became bored with life on Gallifrey and ran away, stealing a timeship each. The notion that the War Chief, considered as a separate being, could have run away from Gallifrey in some other way and for another motive is just speculative loophole-abuse, on a level with assuming that these are face of Morbius. The intended meaning is plain, and we are not to tie ourselves up in knots trying to "reconcile" contradictory accounts through this sort of tomfoolery.

Auton Invasion threw me for a loop until I realised someone made a mistake. Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons is what's being referred to, of course. And there, we have some more very significant quotes.

Already he had been behind several Interplanetary Wars, always disappearing from the scene before he could be brought to justice. If ever he were caught, his fate would I be far worse than the Doctor’s exile. Once captured by the Time Lords, the Master’s life-stream would be thrown into reverse.DWatTotA

This is, of course, the punishment feared by the War Chief in TV: The War Games after he tried starting an Interplanetary War. And this is immediately followed by:

Adelphi: "We tracked him on the Monitor. Then there was some kind of alien interference and we lost contact."
The Doctor: "Is his TARDIS still working?"
Adelphi: "I’m afraid so. He got away before it could be de- energised."
The Doctor: "Then he was luckier than I."DWatTotA

Again, I think what's throwing people out for a loop is that neither of these books mention "the War Chief" by name. But the thing is that back when they were written, the notion of treating "The War Chief" as if it were a "Time Lord name" was simply not in the zeitgeist yet. Similarly, in its summary of the War Games affair, The Legacy of Gallifrey is unclear on whether the War Chief is the Master, but it also doesn't use the title of "War Chief". Within The War Games itself, Brayshaw is "an unnamed Time Lord acting as the Aliens' War Chief", referred to as "the War Chief" in the same way that his rival is "the Security Chief". You should no more expect a follow-up to The War Games to refer to "the War Chief" as you would a follow-up to The Dæmons to take pains referencing "Victor Magister".

Absent the expectation for the use of "War Chief", these quotes couldn't be clearer about saying "Edward Brayshaw escaped and became the Delgado Master". And much as we accept "the Weapon" as an alternative to "the Moment" despite the contradictions and the lack of any neatly-trimmed, quotable sentence saying "the Doctor used the Weapon to end the Time War", we must also accept that according to some accounts the War Lord's War Chief was the Master.

This has all been gone over many times, and was eventually resolved at Talk:The Master when the whole business of "The Monk" was rightfully disentangled from this issue. Please do not restart this discussion unless you have new evidence. [[User:Scrooge MacDuck|Scrooge M

If it wasn't so sad, this would be utterly hilarious. Terrance Dicks would be rolling around on the floor laughing to think that 50 years on people would be thinking that a couple of throwaway lines he wrote in a Target novelisation were being treated as a secret coded message that the Master was really the War Chief, given that he stated many many times during his lifetime that he and Barry Letts created the Master in 1971. He always said that "continuity" in Doctor Who consisted of what he could remember about previous episodes and what later script editors could remember about his era. Chances are he simply forgot that there'd be another Time Lord villain in a Patrick Troughton story. Essentially, the novelisations don't tell us anything we don't know from the TV story: That the Master is a Time Lord enemy the Doctor has encountered before. Skteosk ☎ 00:40, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

acDuck]] ☎ 00:17, 12 January 2021 (UTC)