Category talk:Individuals who knew the answer to the Question

Deletion

I agree with what was said on the talk page for the original category, this topic is way too controversial/ambiguous to put into a category. Especially seeing as now that we have the Timeless Child storyline, it is possible that the Doctor themselves doesn't even know their "real" name. LauraBatham ☎ 06:06, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Um, this is controversial and ambiguous? I took it as "if in the context of a singular story, a character learns the Doctor's name that isn't "the Doctor" or "Doctor Who" ect, that character should be entered". I got all of these people I added into this category from The Doctor's aliases#Individuals with knowledge of the Doctor name - so if a part of the Wiki explicitly state that they know the Doctor's real name, then they should be qualified to be entered into a category.

Besides, the revelations from The Timeless Children are entirely irrelevant. There are so many retcons about the Doctor and his life, but we don't mention that accounts wildly contradict other things unless if they're relevant. If you wanna go down that road, then there are lots of categories that would need deletions.

Epsilon📯 📂

09:50, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm neutral about the category itself per se, but I agree that The Timeless Children (which doesn't even mention the matter of the Doctor's "true name") has nothing to do with it. Possibly the Timeless Child had a name which our Doctor does not know. So? "The Doctor's name" isn't any old name that the Doctor has had at one point or another; by convention it refers to the name, the one the Doctor refused to give Ian and Barbara, the name that was written on the side of the cot, the name which was the password to the Tomb, the answer to the Question. If we want to be unambiguous on this point, we could always rename the category to Category:Individuals who knew the answer to the Question…

I would actually question why characters who know the real name as "Doctor Who" should be discounted, @Epsilon. One of the few times we had a character explicitly say "I know the Doctor's real name", namely in World Enough and Time, she said that the real name in question was "Dr Who"! Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 12:07, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

The topic of the Doctor's name is ambiguous as it is a question never properly answered. The list on the page has context through headings and other information stated, but just slapping on a category that says "this character knew the Doctor's name" doesn't tell us much. Even the title of "the Doctor" itself has been said many times to be their "name", which means that every character who they have introduced themselves to knows their name.

Assuming the category does not get deleted for the reasons the original was (on that note, are we violating T:BOUND?) I have no problems with Scrooge's rename suggestion. Though I'd prefer it to be "Individuals who know the answer to the Question" to fit in with other categories (such as "Individuals who can fly the TARDIS" and "Individuals who have been kidnapped"). LauraBatham ☎ 15:07, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I disagree, actually; it really should be "knew", to accommodate cases like Clara Oswald, who at one point knew the Doctor's name, but then forgot it. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 15:14, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I forgot about Clara. Fair enough. LauraBatham ☎ 15:30, 8 July 2021 (UTC)