Howling:How exactly did Rex become immortal?

How exactly did Rex gain Jack's immortality? 64.234.47.70talk to me 08:49, March 12, 2014 (UTC)WolfKomoki

This topic has been discussed before, so you might be interested in the archived discussion at Howling:Rex is Immortal. --89.241.211.213talk to me 09:57, March 12, 2014 (UTC)

Theories include: 87.102.91.126talk to me 18:31, March 15, 2014 (UTC)
 * The Blessing couldn't distinguish between him and Jack, so gave them both "the fixed point immortality".
 * The Blessing had to operate symmetrically.
 * The Blessing gave Rex immortality as a gift.
 * Rex became mortal before the negation of the miracle (possibly due to having Jack's blood in his veins) so when the miracle was negated the "cross-wires effect" mentioned in episode 2 occurred.
 * Could Bad Wolf be involved?

The Bad Wolf entity certainly could be involved. Although, as far as Rose was concerned, she was the Bad Wolf only briefly, she had access to all of time & space, so her effects could show up anywhere & at any time. That, by the way, applies to The Day of the Doctor, too: the real Bad Wolf could have been influencing events, rather than it only being the Moment taking the appearance of Rose/Bad Wolf.

In both cases (& probably others I've not thought of), the question isn't whether or not it's possible that the Bad Wolf was involved; it'll almost always be possible. The question is whether or not the Bad Wolf actually was involved. In The Day of the Doctor, the motivation would fit -- saving the Doctor (again). In the case of Rex, though, there's no very clear motivation for the Bad Wolf to give him the same immortality as Jack.

Also, we don't really know Rex does have the same immortality as Jack. We only know he revived once. If we find out from future episodes of Torchwood or Doctor Who that he's revived repeatedly, that'll be a different matter.

Incidentally, there's been a lot of comment about how Miracle Day established that there was nothing special about Jack's blood. It didn't. All it established was that there was nothing special that anyone could find. It could simply be that nobody used -- possibly nobody had -- the right technology to detect the differences. (Before about the start of the 20th century, nobody knew about differences in blood group. As a result, it was a mystery why transfusions sometimes worked but often didn't.) --89.241.208.10talk to me 21:50, March 16, 2014 (UTC)

He revived twice. Once when his blood was drained (at least I think that was a revival, the Data Core says it was) and once at the funeral. I don't recall it being said how long the amount of time was between those two revivals but it was probably a fair amount of time. So chances are his healing powers aren't going anytime soon, but unfortunately there haven't been any more episodes of the show at all and Rex hasn't been in any of the audios or novels, so there's no way of knowing. That said, I do see it being a possibility that Rex has to stay within the morphic field for his powers to work, especially if The Blessing was involved in providing them. That would fit Torchwood nicely without making things too difficult for Doctor Who.

As for the Bad Wolf theory, apparently when he revives at the funeral you can hear TARDIS noises. That's not concrete proof of anything, but it might be relevant. 87.102.91.126talk to me 10:30, March 17, 2014 (UTC)

On the evidence of the story it's meant to be understood as number 4 possibly with a dash of number 2. Rex revived twice but only resurrected once. As is implied in Rex's own words the first revival occurred because the Miracle meant that the full transfusion that would normally have killed him, couldn't have killed him. There are other possible "revivals" for Rex but they are the one's most connected to the discovery he may be immortal. And, dispite the failure of analysis to confirm it, there is clearly meant to be something special about Jack's blood because of its unique ability to trigger and end the Miracle.87.115.208.230talk to me 16:47, March 22, 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, the above was me.DCT ☎  16:58, March 22, 2014 (UTC)