Talk:Father of Time

Duplicate pages?

shouldn't this page be merged with Father Time? DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎ 21:09, June 19, 2020 (UTC)

Interesting question. I don't think so — we have Merlin the Wise, Merlin and The Doctor (Battlefield) as separate pages, after all; and the two DWU variations of "Father Time" seem notably different, since "Father Time" seems to hate the very thought of time travel whereas the "Father of Time" is, well, the Doctor, and, besides, actively causes his earlier selves to travel through time in new directions.

Note also how the City of the Saved take on Father Time, Bribori Zadig, also has his own page (though he is yet again more different from either of the other two Fathers than the two are from one another).

But I'm not sure if what we oughtn't to do would be to move the content about the individual in COMIC: Father Time to a Father Time (Father Time) page, and make Father Time about the figure in general, with links to his three known mutually-contradictory accounts in the DWU. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 21:17, June 19, 2020 (UTC)

Father Time appeared in the 1969 comic story Father Time. The 2001 story of the same name, Father Time, features a future incarnation of the Doctor in The Emperor. While no connection is made between the original Father Time and the future Doctor, it is extremely likely that the name was chosen as a result of Father of Time being depicted as a future incarnation of the Doctor in 1987's The Test of Time to draw similarities towards the pair.

Speculation aside, Father Time was presented as "an old man with a long beard dressed in a robe and carrying a scythe" and Father of Time was later depicted fitting these exact descriptions. Both characters are presented as potentially being the embodiment of time itself, too. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎ 21:36, June 19, 2020 (UTC)

Aye, and both Merlin the Wise and The Doctor (Battlefield) are more-or-less implicitly posited to correspond to the mythical figure. Ditto for Zeus vs. Zeus (Immortal Beloved) vs. Zeus (Deadly Reunion). There's clearly a policy in favour of separating unrelated takes on "who a public-domain mythological figure ‘really was’ within the DWU".

Your speculation about a connection between Father Time the comic and Father Time is fascinating; the Father of Time and the Emperor being the same individual is not something I'd ever considered, and it is without any irony that I say the idea has rather made my evening. But as you say yourself, it is pure speculation. I don't think the identical titles are really evidence — "Father Time" is a well-known mythological figure that two DW stories could easily choose to namedrop unrelated to each other, and in the case of the novel, surely the main "hidden meaning" of the title is that it's "father time" for the Eighth Doctor — as in, it's time for him to become a father.

Now of course, if there is reason to think that you are right — that the intent was very much for there to exist continuity between Father Time, the Father of Time, and (more speculatively) the Emperor, that would rather change things. But if what we are dealing with is only "two different stories trying to explain who the public-domain 'Father Time' is in in the DWU, and coming up with different answers", I think I still oppose the merge. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 21:44, June 19, 2020 (UTC)

I'll also note that the public-domain character is based off of the greek god Kronos, which adds a whole 'nother layer to how interesting this idea is. For future readers of this talk page, a disambiguation page was set up, Father Time (disambiguation). Najawin ☎ 23:40, June 19, 2020 (UTC)