Forum:Canonicity of NA novels

It seems to me that RTD has gone out of his way to invalidate much of the Virgin NA novels and, to a lesser extent, the BBC EDAs.

Despite the fact that all Gallifreyans (except maybe The Doctor) are birthed fully-grown from looms, The Master and The Doctor knew each other as 8-year-old children.

The Master was instantly driven insane upon viewing the Untempered Schism at the age of 8, he still managed to get into the Prydon Academy along with The Doctor and the rest of The Deca. And, although he was already insane, somehow his obsession with order later drove him insane.

The Doctor was well into his 11th century, and talked about it openly. Now, either he's forgotten, or he habitually lies about it--and he's perfectly consistent in those lies.

The 7th Doctor used a Chameleon Arch to become a human named John Smith and go to a boys school in Farmingham, where he fell in love with a woman named Joan Redfern and helped a troubled student named Timothy while fighting off aliens--and then, decades later, the 10th Doctor used a Chameleon Arch to become a human named John Smith and go to a different boys school in Farmingham a year later, where he fell in love with a different woman named Joan Redfern and helped a different troubled student named Timothy while fighting off similar but different aliens.

Iris Wildthyme really exists (and is a Time Lady, unless the post-BBC works are also canonical), and yet The Doctor never once wonders whether there might be one other survivor of Gallifrey out there, who almost certainly remembers that she's the one who destroyed Gallifrey at the end of the War.

The Doctor destroyed Gallifrey before, and it came back, and that's not even worth mentioning, but then he destroyed it a second time, and that's a soul-shattering event that he can't come to terms with, and he has no hope of things ever being made right.

And so on.

It's hard to argue that RTD and his writers didn't know about the NAs and EDAs considering how any of them wrote for those series. So, unless this is a deliberate attempt to drive the fanboy geeks nuts, the only reasonable explanation is that they've decided that the novels published between the old series and the new are not canonical. --99.170.146.147 09:02, December 28, 2009 (UTC)


 * Continuity is littered with things that actively contradict and back it up, our canon policy states what we on this wiki consider canon.
 * Though I would note that the Seventh Doctor didn't use a chameleon arch to transform himself, it was a some nanites and he was transformed back by a pod the size of a cricket ball. (see also Talk:Human Nature (novel) for other differences).
 * Between then and when the Tenth Doctor does it the Doctor goes through at least one course of memory loss, and who knows what else, including he two instances of Gallifey's destruction.
 * If Iris Wildthyme exists that validates all the BBC Books which in turn validates the Virgin novels.
 * The Infinity Doctors, Unnatural History, bits of The Scarlet Empress, and some of Twilight of the Gods suggest that the Doctor has a father and a brother. Unnatural History and The Scarlet Empress also suggest the Doctor's not sure if he was loomed or born (or if he was making up the half-human thing), and numerous other things. --Tangerineduel 13:08, December 28, 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be like a category or some kind of information for them to state they're non-canon to the TV series? You know, to avoid confussion? I personally, and based on knowledge and what I have seen, only regard the TV series and new novels that are published under the same writers as the TV series canon.

Basically:
 * Old Who
 * New Who (and novels)
 * Torchwood (and novels & audio plays)
 * Sarah Jane Advetnures
 * K9 and Company

I think of that as the propery Whoniverse continuity, but it becomes way out of order when every other story such as comic things, ect., are pulled into the TV series continuity. Shouldn't there be a descission on the wiki as to what is and isn't canonical to the main Whoniverse continuity, then? I don't think Russel T. Davies or any of the writers at that intend to class all the 'other' formated things as canon. When they brought it back, they simple followed on from the old TV series itself, and the movie. Delton Menace 13:27, December 28, 2009 (UTC)