Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The Dæmons

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This page is for discussing the ways in which The Dæmons doesn't fit well with other DWU narratives. You can also talk about the plot holes that render its own, internal narrative confusing.

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• Various pronunciations of 'Dæmons', 'Dæmos' (and all other permutations) are used throughout the story.

The characters could be unsure of how to pronounce it, or simply make errors in doing so.

• No explanation is offered for why Bok shares the superstitious credulity of the villagers when it comes to iron and "magic spells" / old Venusian lullabies. Furthermore, if he is so cripplingly frightened of iron-based metals, he ought to be terrified whenever he passes through the church gate (though he opens it with no apparent reluctance in episode 6).

As a gargoyle, he was built to represent the villagers' superstitions, so of course he would beleve in them. As for the gate, it is unknown if it is made of iron, or if it's the combination of iron and the Venusian lullaby - which sounds like a spell or hex - that scares him off.

• A signpost next to the heat barrier says: 'Devil's End 1'. However, in episode two, the barrier has a five mile radius, centered on the church.

Signposts usually list distance to the border point of a town. Depending on how large the township of Devil's End is within that border, this would not be an inconsistency.

• If the "breached" heat barrier is still hot enough to make the Brigadier's swagger stick smoulder so profusely, it ought to have some fairly unpleasant effects on human flesh (but the troops pass through entirely unscathed).

• In episode three, the energy exchanger interferes with radio communication, but by episode five it has lost this side effect.

• Surely any alien race that has taken such a keen interest in the development of homo sapiens and their direct evolutionary predecessors over the last hundred thousand years, would be aware that altruism and the capacity for self sacrifice is a key human trait, and arguably is one of the major contributory factors in allowing them to survive and become Earth's dominant species. Would Azal then, really by so shocked by Jo's attempt to protect the Doctor to the extent that it leads to his own destruction?

Depends which humans he had met previously. Not many would really so readily sacrifice their lives for someone else.

The Doctor's explanation does imply there might be a little more to it than death by confusion. Since the psionics / "black magic" upon which Azal's technology is based seems to thrive upon the energy of negative human emotions (according to the Doctor's explanation of the purpose for the coven), Jo's altrusitically leaping into the path of Azal's psionic "death ray" sets up a force field of positive human emotions that deflects the energy back at its sender, fatally.