Talk:The Minister

Speculation
This page seems to be 50% speculation? It tries to suggest that the Big Finish Minister is the same as the Minister of War mentioned in Before the Flood, where has this ever been confirmed? And it also tries to make out that she is also a version of the Minister of Chance, where has this been confirmed either? I haven't gone down the rabbit hole of the newly created Minister pages, but I can assume there's going to be more speculation and fanfiction throughout. DrWHOCorrieFan ☎  00:47, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I suppose we could create a separate Minister of War (Before the Flood) page if there is deemed to be too much ambiguity over whether The Same Face really was referencing the Before the Flood name-drop.


 * There's nothing fanficky about the Minister being, er, the Minister, though, as my now-completed updated version of this page will hopefully show. The Same Face is a very deliberate prequel to Death Comes to Time in that respect, ending with the Minister intent on doing good in the universe as a Renegade, with a winking mention that her next incarnation might adopt a name like "Minister of Luck". ("Chance" and "Luck" are of course more or less synonymous terms, with Chance literally being the French word for "Luck".) This is the equivalent of a story about a man by the name of "Who", at the end of which he is seen stealing a TARDIS and running away with this granddaughter, and someone wonders if he'll come to be known as "Professor Who or something". It would, in my opinion, be laughable to deem this too implicit to be Wikified, but at any rate the intent is beyond reasonable doubt. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 00:53, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Completely disagree with The Same Face being a "deliberate prequel". Do you have any evidence that Big Finish sought out the rights to be allowed to use this character? Doubtful. Big Finish making a fun little reference to a character that they have no right to use belongs on the BTS section only. As for the Minister of War referenced in Before the Flood, they would have absolutely used that as marketing for the story (or at least mentioned it somewhere) so as of now it is also speculation.


 * Call my argument laughable all you want, but this is your fanfiction material and shouldn't be taking over the entire page. DrWHOCorrieFan ☎  01:00, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but it's no less explicit that the Minister is the Minister, than that the "man with a bent nose" in The Tomorrow Windows, The Gallifrey Chronicles and Miranda is the Minister; if anything it's moreso. There's nothing ambiguous about a Time Lord called "the Minister" who keeps changing what they're Minister "of" with each regeneration, and who it is stated might be "the Minister of Luck or something" next, being meant to be the Minister of Chance. Another way to think of it: what if we had a story about a Time Lord called "the Monk", who has in past incarnations been "the Assisting Monk" and "the Observing Monk" and so on, who ends the story vowing to start interfering in history, with some joking that they might come to be known in their next regeneration as "the Intervening Monk"… is there any way in the world at all that this would not be a clear prequel to The Time Meddler, with our Monk being an earlier version of the Meddling Monk? Come on.


 * But then, I note that you don't actually theorise anything about the intent not being that this is the Minister. You seem to acknowledge the idea that the Minister is referenced. Instead you go down the copyright rabbit hole, and… look, it is speculation that Big Finish have "no right" to use the Minister, and with something as explicit as this, you are doing nothing short of alleging that BF engaged in copyright infringement here. If The Same Face is unlicensed, then, well, it fails Rule 2, there's not really a way around this. But there's no need to resort to such an assumption; as seen with Faction Paradox, it is often the case that characters created for Doctor Who can be used by BBC Who in perpetuity even if their creator can also use them externally.


 * At any rate, I will note that Minister of War as currently written does not categorically state that O'Donnell was talking about the same Minister of War as the incarnation of the Minister who went by that name. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 01:14, 23 January 2023 (UTC)