Valeyard
- You may be looking for the Valeyard.
Valeyard was a title, potentially Gallifreyan in origin, which the Sixth Doctor knew to mean "learned court prosecutor". (TV: The Mysterious Planet) According to the Inquisitor, it meant "doctor of law". (PROSE: The Inquisitor)
Before his escape from Gallifrey, the First Doctor told Patience that he would take their grandchild "far from this world of vampires and valeyards". (PROSE: Cold Fusion)
In the Sixth Doctor's trial, the title was claimed by a Time Lord known as the Valeyard, who the Tremas Master revealed to be an amalgamation of the Doctor's darker sides, taken from a point in the Doctor's personal future. (TV: The Ultimate Foe)
Behind the scenes
Contrary to the in-universe definition and despite what Shannon Sullivan's A Brief History Of Time claims, "Valeyard" is not a genuine legal title meaning "learned court prosecutor" or an obsolete phrasing of "doctor of law." The term was entirely made-up during production - as evidenced by the character outline as delivered on 5 July 1985 and was devised by either John Nathan-Turner or Eric Saward. The term is originally briefly spelled in this documentation as "Valiyard", but this was amended that same day.[1]
Footnotes
- ↑ Character Outline Sheet: "The Valiyard and the Grand Inquisitor" (5 July 1985), released in the Production Documentation PDF Archive of Doctor Who: The Collection - Season 23 [all items within archive verified & scanned by Richard Bignell]
