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I'm not sure if The Could've Been King is actually a seperate thing from what I heard in The End of Time part 2.
To me it sounds like what The Doctor was 'The Nightmare Child who could have been king.', --Dalek036 18:08, January 5, 2010 (UTC)
Ingore what I posted eariler, I watched the episode on Youtube to check, and it is something different from The Nightmare Child, sorry about that. --Dalek036 12:56, January 6, 2010 (UTC)
I think that The Could've Been King could be something that The Doctor said in general to emphasise the horror that would have traversed the universe if he did not time lock the war as it was rather than an actual The Could've Been King being a name -- Anonymous bored DW fan 10:24pm Feb 21 Australia (just saw the ep)
He mentions Could've Been King and his army of meanwas and neverweres. The Nightmare Child is a different entity all together. It seems in the time war, time was used to resurrect millions of beings that died in the war, and whomever was behind it was finding new ways to destroy them. I've heard talks of a time war movie with Eccelston and Tennent. That should be interesting. Not sure if it's just rumor or a reality. - Chad Ippolito. Feb 27 2010
The Time War movie thing barely constitutes a rumor, it's just someone seen a youtube video and thought it was real or something ( But thats off topic). Personally, I feel that the Could've Been King is a similar entity to the Faction Paradox and the like. Excalibur-117 20:41, February 27, 2010 (UTC)
Could've Been King Entry Should Be Deleted[[edit source]]
There is no separate entity called the Could've Been King mentioned by the Doctor. This is a result of a mishearing of the Doctor's dialogue. The Doctor was referring to the Nightmare Child "that could have been king." This can be verified by watching the End of Time Part episode with closed captions/subtitles turned on. The following is an exact quote of the Doctor's dialogue:
"But if the time lock's broken then everything's coming through; not just the Daleks but the Skaros Degradations; the Horde of Travesties; the Nightmare Child, that could have king with his army of Meanwhiles and Never-Weres..."
Please note the very deliberate and precise use of the semicolon punctuation between the Skaros Degradations and the Horde of Travesties that indicates they are separate entities and the switch to a comma after the Nightmare Child that shows the Doctor was referring the Nightmare Child as the would-be king. This can be verified by watching a DVD or Blu-ray copy of this episode with subtitles. In short, this entry for the Could've Been King should be deleted and the related entries updated to reflect that the Doctor was referring to the Nightmare Child.67.247.26.212 04:11, March 7, 2010 (UTC)Peter Lee
Actually, He quite clearly says THE Could've Been King. Excalibur-117 11:08, March 14, 2010 (UTC)
The script for The End of Time that has every single scrap of dialouge refers to THE 'Could Have Been King. Delton Menace 11:21, March 14, 2010 (UTC)
Hi guys.
I would speculate that the Could've Been King was some sort of Gallifreyan military entity, possibly created by the Timelords as a way of fighting in the Last Great time war.
Prior to the beginning of the Last Great Time War, Romana is seen as being Lord President of Gallifrey, implying that Rassillon is no longer running things. However, a ressurected Rassillon seems to have become "The Could've Been King", as it would seem to fit into the Time War narrative.
So I would expect that prior to the beginning of(or possibly a little way into) The Last Great Time War, Romana was deposed and replaced by the Resurrected Rassilon. Therefore, I would conclude that "The Could've Been King" is the Resurrected Rassilon, as both parts are played by Timothy Dalton.
Sources:
Romana as Lord President
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/webcasts/shada/one/two.shtml
Aliascummins ☎ 13:16, April 10, 2013 (UTC)
Pure theory here, but the Doctor has been running from something since episode one right? His exact words in that episode are "Susan and I have been cut off from our people". We don't know his proper name name or WHY he is running. We do know that at a couple of points the Time Lords have tried to make the Doctor Lord President and have repeatedly thrown him at "problems"; even going so far as to highjack his TARDIS controls and using him to try to prevent the Daleks from existing. Ultimately in the 1996 movie the Eighth Doctor is effectively commanding the Time Lord side of the Time War.
If the "Could Have Been King" IS a real thing, and he led an "Army of meanwhiles and never-weres", then could it stand to reason that such a being might be an ALTERNATE version of the Doctor who perhaps accepted his elevation to the Lord Presidency or adopted a strategy based on Time-shifted duplicates rather than building and deploying "the Moment"?
See some of the paradoxes for the time-travel RTS Achron for examples of how one might generate such an army. 162.157.6.92talk to me 18:29, November 2, 2013 (UTC)
This may just remain here, on the discussion page, but I believe that the intent of the text -- in keeping with the army of "meanwhiles" and "never-weres" -- wasn't something or someone that "could have been king", but "king of what could have been". (Granted, I also nearly deleted this entire discussion page as a result of clicking "add topic".) - Cas Warner ☎ 03:49, April 1, 2016 (UTC)