Rassilon's owls
While the Seventh Doctor was Time's Champion, his adventures were sometimes observed by owls (PROSE: Love and War [+]Loading...["Love and War (novel)"], No Future [+]Loading...["No Future (novel)"]) acting as agents of Rassilon. (PROSE: Goth Opera [+]Loading...["Goth Opera (novel)"], Human Nature [+]Loading...["Human Nature (novel)"]) Agents of Rassilon were sometimes not literal owls, but still were associated with the animal. (PROSE: Goth Opera [+]Loading...["Goth Opera (novel)"], Happy Endings [+]Loading...["Happy Endings (novel)"])
The owls were part of the wider game of which the Doctor was a tiny part, and were countered by "ravens". (PROSE: Love and War [+]Loading...["Love and War (novel)"], Goth Opera [+]Loading...["Goth Opera (novel)"], Human Nature [+]Loading...["Human Nature (novel)"])
History[[edit] | [edit source]]
Owls were a traditional symbol of Rassilon. The Cult of Rassilon the Vampire found a ROO text which supported their belief by showing an owl being overcome by a bat. (PROSE: Goth Opera [+]Loading...["Goth Opera (novel)"]) Owls could be found in culture dating back to the Intuitive Revelation: "Owl" was a suit of cards in Sepulchasm and a large stone owl statue guarded the gate of the Prydon Chapterhouse. (PROSE: Lungbarrow [+]Loading...["Lungbarrow (novel)"])
After Ruath stole Rassilon's Sigil ring as part of her ultimately unsuccessful plot to change Gallifreyan history in favour of vampires, she had a sudden feeling of being a leaf in the winds of destiny, "like she had grabbed the tail of some fast-moving bird, an owl perhaps!" Later, Romana II and Spandrell walked past two mysterious old men who had manipulated recent events from behind the scenes; one was a smiling, bearded man with an owl-headed walking stick and the other was a scowling man with a black, wooden raven. The bearded man claimed to have used Agonal and the ring to influence events. The raven man was clearly the Black Guardian, whose involvement the Fifth Doctor earlier suspected, and the bearded man's equal and antagonistic relationship with him suggested him to be the White Guardian, but Ruath had also earlier noted that owls were a symbol of Rassilon, and several of Rassilon's visages were bearded. (PROSE: Goth Opera [+]Loading...["Goth Opera (novel)"])
During the Hoothi attack on Heaven, which had the potential to threaten Gallifrey, the Seventh Doctor and Ace were often watched by two owls apparently descended from birds brought to Heaven by human colonists. Unusually, the owls were able to follow them into Puterspace. The owls were present often when people died during the course of events. After the threat was over, the Doctor took the owls into his TARDIS and released them on Earth in 1980s Lincolnshire on the night that Julian Milton died. The two owls were in love and thought as owls do, and spoke in the semi-language of owl a poem of the tragedy they continually observed. The poem began, "Long ago, when love was real..." (PROSE: Love and War [+]Loading...["Love and War (novel)"])
During Mortimus's schemes as Death's Champion in 1976, a pair of owls appeared to Ace in the un-realities of the White Room. They led her to a part of the landscape where she could contact Artemis. Later, when Ace brought UNIT to the White Room, the owls appeared again to lead the way. Later, when Ace visited a similar simulation of Heaven within the Doctor's TARDIS, two owls settled on a branch near her. (PROSE: No Future [+]Loading...["No Future (novel)"])
An intelligent owl was an active observer of the Doctor's time as John Smith, with Smith naming it "Merlin". Among the Doctor's instructions to Bernice Summerfield, he told her to never let John Smith hurt an owl. Merlin interacted with Smith and insisted on staying in his house, later protecting him from Serif. When Smith began to access the Doctor's mind, he saw himself in a glade surrounded by a circle of owls. When Death came to reclaim John Smith following the Doctor's return, the Doctor told Smith that he might become "another owl for Lord Rassilon". Merlin later rested on the shoulder of Clive Ian Alton, who had been acting for the Celestial Intervention Agency. (PROSE: Human Nature [+]Loading...["Human Nature (novel)"])
aM!xitsa, Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart's companion across time and space, took the form of an owl at several points during Bernice Summerfield and Jason Kane's wedding. SaRa!qava, who still lived in the Worldsphere, gave aM!xitsa a tesseract message cube, saying "That's for you know who about you know what." This evidently referred to the Time Lord-People Treaty. (PROSE: Happy Endings [+]Loading...["Happy Endings (novel)"])
Other information[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Enclave, home to many warped reflections of the Doctor's universe, was home to a Time-Lord-like society of giant owls. (PROSE: The Blue Angel [+]Loading...["The Blue Angel (novel)"])
Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Cornell's depiction of Rassilon as a being who influences the wider universe using agents is reminiscent of the character Shayde, who is referenced in Timewyrm: Revelation [+]Loading...["Timewyrm: Revelation (novel)"] and appeared in a deleted scene of No Future [+]Loading...["No Future (novel)"].
- In references to his owl motif, Paul Cornell included a character named Owl in Oh No It Isn't! [+]Loading...["Oh No It Isn't! (novel)"].
- Owl hooting can be heard in the background of the scene in Human Nature [+]Loading...["Human Nature (TV story)"] when the Family of Blood crash on Earth. A brush with an owl design on it was in the set for John Smith's study in that episode, but cannot be clearly seen in the televised episode. From this, Cornell considers "Rassilon's messengers" to be there in spirit, even if they're not actually there. (Author's Notes for Ebook of Human Nature)
