Titania
- You may wish to consult
Titania (disambiguation)for other, similarly-named pages.
Titania was one of the names of the Queen of the Sidhe. She was eternal, though she had many "aspects" which could individually be killed or removed from office if they strayed from their purpose: as Queen, she was tasked by fairy tradition to embody order just as her unloved consort, the Amadan na Briona Oberon, embodied chaos.
History[[edit] | [edit source]]
Titania did not love Oberon, viewing their marriage as purely political, unlike Oberon, who felt intense jealousy over Titania's frequent affairs with mortals.
In 1944, when a rift between the Sidhe realm and the mortal world caused damage and entropy from World War II to leak into the utopian faerie world, Titania reached out to the Eighth Doctor to help, as she could not openly go against the actions of her chaotic consort Oberon, who was speeding up the destruction by giving Americans and Nazis alike access to the fae's ability to phase between dimensions. She flirted with him openly, stating that he might someday make a better husband than Oberon, but, although she went as far as undressing in front of him as she lured him into the Sidhe realm, the Doctor steadfastly rejected her advances.
Though they parted on friendly terms, the Doctor insisted that Titania cease turning humans into fairies without giving them a choice first (even if it was to save their lives), and when she asked him why he chose to live such a lonely existence, he turned the question back on her, shocking the Queen, who had not previously admitted to herself how lonely her position felt despite her court full of attendants and guards. (PROSE: Autumn Mist)
Cultural legacy[[edit] | [edit source]]
Titania appeared as a character in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, in reference to which (PROSE: The Dream, Slow Decay) the Eighth Doctor would later decide to "call" the Fairy Queen by the name of Titania for lack of a real name, not realising that it was in fact her actual name — a misunderstanding which greatly amused her at the time. (PROSE: Autumn Mist)
Owen Harper once quoted the line "well met by moonlight, proud Titania". He studied the play at school though admitted to also having seen a porn adaptation entitled A Midsummer Night's Wet-Dream. (PROSE: Slow Decay)
One account suggested that Shakespeare based A Midsummer Night's Dream on a midsummer night's dream of his own, one which evidently featured an early version of Titania. The entry in his dream diary for 24 June 1594 was the inspiration for the play and he subsequently transcribed it into the Shakespeare Notebooks. One of the characters contained within was the "butterfly queen" Tetynia and the first line, spoken by "butterfly king" Hrobron, was "Ill met by moons' light, proud Tetynia". (PROSE: The Dream)
