Howling:Theories on John Hurt

Does anybody have any theories about the role he will play? It's implied he is some kind of version of The Doctor, but the rest is completely open to speculation... 87.102.91.126talk to me 20:14, May 18, 2013 (UTC)


 * I was hoping that it would be a modern incarnation of The Valeyard, but hey, at least he got mentioned by the intelligence. One theory I heard was that he is an incarnation in between the 8th and 9th, the one responsible for ending the time war. --Cadellin ☎  21:00, May 18, 2013 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of that theory, because we already know everything we need to about the time war. The Ninth Doctor's personality said it all. Going into more detail would make that aspect of Series 1 less effective. Although I do like the idea of an unknown incarnation that The Doctor would rather forget, if done right that would be a good direction to take the character.

However my theory is that he's a future Doctor. Considering that we saw a lot of The Doctor's past in the episode, I was wondering if we were going to see any of The Doctor's future, and when we saw John Hurt my first thought was that he was a future Doctor. Now I know that Eleven seemed to know something about Hurt, which would imply he is at least a version of The Doctor from the past, but remember The Doctor's line early in the episode about how he knew where his grave was because he's a time traveller - the same thing may apply to him knowing about Hurt. 87.102.91.126talk to me 21:45, May 18, 2013 (UTC)

87, "It's implied he is some kind of version of The Doctor": It's not implied, it's stated outright, both in dialogue & in the credits. The question, of course, is: Which incarnation is he playing?

Cadellin, "an incarnation in between the 8th and 9th, the one responsible for ending the time war": That's possible. However, it's also possible that Hurt is playing the Eighth Doctor & the difference in appearance is because of something that happened during the Time War.

Although I understand 87's fear that giving us more about the Time War might "make that aspect of Series 1 less effective", it all depends on what's revealed & how it's revealed. It easily could diminish what we saw of the Ninth Doctor but it doesn't absolutely have to. I can't work out how to reveal more about the Doctor's part in the Time War without doing damage but that doesn't mean Moffat can't. And, of course, we don't know that that's what he intends to do, anyway.

Right now, we don't have anything that can claim the status of a theory. What we have is guesswork. There's just not enough information for anything more. (I don't mean we should stop guessing; only that we ought to remember that what we're doing is guessing.) --89.242.70.9talk to me 22:31, May 18, 2013 (UTC)

Eleven said "He's not The Doctor... But he is me." if I remember correctly. That's a bit too cryptic to be an outight statement.

By the way I've come up with a new theory - does anyone think he might have something to do with the Dream Lord? That would fit well with the line I quoted above, and remember what happened at the end of "Amy's Choice"? 87.102.91.126talk to me 23:06, May 18, 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I agree with the "older version of the Eighth" theory. If it were a future version of the Doctor, then the Eleventh's knowledge of the Unknown Doctor is a complete violation of Moffat's spoilers policy (which we see displayed yet again when River Song leaves a new mystery as she disappears). Furthermore, if it were the Valeyard, then I doubt the Unknown would have made the claim that he did things in the name of peace, etc. However, the idea that the Unknown is an aged version of the Eighth (especially if he were the version that created the time lock on the Last Great Time War) makes sense, since the Ninth Doctor was (supposedly) so different from the Eighth Doctor--something evidently changed him for the worse. It's also possible, of course, that the Unknown is a younger version of the First Doctor, before he took the name of "Doctor." Milar Kayne ☎  00:09, May 19, 2013 (UTC)