- You may wish to consult
Fear (disambiguation)
for other, similarly-named pages.
Fear was an emotion.
According to the First Doctor, fear was a paralysing emotion which weakend the mind. When trying to prevent Sensorites from getting into his and his companions' heads, the Doctor instructed them to remain calm, as calmness could increase their mental fortitude. (TV: The Sensorites)
The Twelfth Doctor saw fear as a superpower. (TV: Listen, WC: Fear Is a Superpower) He told Bill Potts and Nardole that "Fear keeps you fast. Fast is good." Due to the effects of adrenaline, (TV: Oxygen) "your heart is beating so hard, I can feel it through your hands. There's so much blood and oxygen pumping through your brain, it's like rocket fuel. Right now, you could run faster and you could fight harder, you could jump higher than ever in your life. And you are so alert, it's like you can slow down time." (TV: Listen) Such a feeling would result in faster breathing, as well, though that could lead to a faster death, in places where oxygen was in short supply. (TV: Oxygen)
The Eighth Doctor felt he had grown stronger by facing his fears, and not denying them. (AUDIO: Phobos) As Clara Oswald expressed to a young First Doctor, "fear can make you faster and cleverer and stronger. [...] If you're very wise and very strong, fear doesn't have to make you cruel or cowardly. Fear can make you strong." She concluded that fear was like a companion, a constant companion, bringing people together. In fact, "Fear makes companions of us all." (TV: Listen) These words stayed with the First Doctor who, when trapped in the Cave of Skulls, noted to Barbara Wright that "fear makes companions of all of us". When Barbara expressed surprise that the Doctor was ever afraid, he noted that everyone was afraid but that hope always went with fear. (TV: An Unearthly Child)
The Third Doctor believed that fear was the root of all progress. By his thinking, new challenges, particularly when life-threatening, would often lead to solutions being developed to solve those problems, in fear of the consequences. (AUDIO: The Rise of the New Humans)
The Seventh Doctor regarded fear as a self-preservation mechanism. (AUDIO: Harvest of the Sycorax) The Twelfth Doctor sometimes purposely scared his companions, in order to "max up" their adrenaline, and therefore their capability at solving and surviving a new situation. (TV: Oxygen)
Carol Richmond believed that fear was a weakness that could keep one from taking action. She maintained that fear could make one violent, as well. (TV: "Strangers in Space") The First Doctor explained that fear loosened one's mind, and made one more vulnerable to mind control. (TV: "The Unwilling Warriors")
The Thirteenth Doctor believed that keeping one's friends out of harm's way while taking on a threat alone was "giving in to fear". She maintained that it was easier to be brave together, and wiser to share the burden. (COMIC: A New Beginning)
One of the Eighth Doctor's greatest fears was the fear of what he himself might end up being responsible for. (AUDIO: Phobos)
According to Miss Quill, the "first fear" was a fear that "everyone" went back to and could not face. The Lorr Ballon claimed that this was just cowardice. Quill claimed that a soldier without fear was inefficient, and was one that won battles, but lost wars. (TV: The Metaphysical Engine, or What Quill Did)
Some beings could feed on fear, like the entity on Phobos, (AUDIO: Phobos) the Fearmonger, (AUDIO: The Fearmonger) and Qetesh. (TV: Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith)
The Keller Machine fed off the fears of its victims. They included Arthur Linwood, who was afraid of rats; Kettering, who was afraid of drowning; the Third Doctor, who was afraid of fire; Alcott, who was afraid of dragons; and the Master, who was afraid of the Doctor. (TV: The Mind of Evil)
Permians hunted by inducing a state of fear in the minds of their prey. (AUDIO: The Land of the Dead)
The First Doctor noted fear as an example of emotions to the Cyberman leader Krail, along with hate, pride and love. He questioned, "Have you no emotions, sir?" (TV: The Tenth Planet, Twice Upon a Time) The Twelfth Doctor, when facing the Cybermen of the Mondasian colony ship, noted that the Cybermen didn't have fear but that they knew how to use it. (TV: The Doctor Falls)
When facing Eknodine, the Eleventh Doctor remarked to Rory Williams that they were bent on killing them as fear turned them into savages. (TV: Amy's Choice)
Ostensibly, the Daleks did not fear. (AUDIO: Return to Skaro) During the Last Great Time War, the War Doctor expressed the belief that the Daleks feared defeat and being helpless, opining that their genocidal campgain was motivated by them seeing this fear reflected in potential victims. (AUDIO: The Enigma Dimension) The Ninth Doctor believed that, despite their purging of emotions, one little spark of fear remained in the Daleks' DNA. He goaded to them that that spark of fear "burn[ed]" when they faced him. (TV: The Parting of the Ways) Shortly before the Battle of Canary Wharf broke out, Rose Tyler mockingly noted that the Cult of Skaro feared the Doctor to the point of physically recoiling, (TV: Doomsday) with Clara Oswald observing, during the Siege of Trenzalore, that the Daleks were terrified of the Time Lords returning to the universe. At the end of his life, the Eleventh Doctor noted that the Daleks were so scared of him that they refused to ever open fire on him, fearing that he might have some failsafe to turn against them. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)
Addressing humankind shortly before the Battle of Canary Wharf, Cyber-Leader One assured the people of Earth that they need not fear as the emotion would be removed upon their conversion into Cybermen. This still didn't assure them. (TV: Doomsday)
George Thompson and his Mum put objects that scared George into his cupboard, a "sort of special thing" that they did since George was at least seven and a quarter. (PROSE: My Special Book) By the time George was eight, the cupboard inadvertently become a psychic repository for George's fears, where his peg dolls became animated. (TV: Night Terrors)
On the Minotaur's prison ship were pictures of those who had fed it and what their fear was. They included Novice Prin, who was afraid of sabrewolves; Lady Silver Tear, who was afraid of Daleks; Royston Luke Gold, who was afraid of Plymouth; Tim Heath, who was afraid of having his picture taken and Tim Nelson, who was afraid of balloons. (TV: The God Complex)
The Eleventh Doctor thought that anyone who wasn't scared of a Weeping Angel was a moron. (TV: The Time of Angels)
The Sixth Doctor listed vertigo with agoraphobia and xenophobia as fears which, when mixed together, would form "naked fear". (PROSE: The Ultimate Evil)
The fear of robots was called robophobia. (TV: The Robots of Death)
As the result of her travels with the Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith found that her top three fears now included going blind and getting bitten by a snake, both due to incidents in which she found she could no longer trust her senses. She told the Fourth Doctor that the aliens they encountered, like the Daleks, Sontarans and Eight Legs, did not phase her in quite the same way. Sarah's greatest fear, however, was one day being without the Doctor, as no other life could compare to what she had with him and the TARDIS. (PROSE: Sarah Jane and the Temple of Eyes)
The fear of spiders was called arachnophobia. This was a common fear among many beings, with several incarnations of the Doctor also displaying this fear. (TV: Planet of the Spiders, PROSE: Prisoner of the Daleks, GAME: Blood of the Cybermen, COMIC: Outrun)
When Davros observed the fear that his prototype Dalek drone had instilled in his peers, he had an epiphany to use fear to command respect, reconstructing himself to exploit it and blackmail the other Kaleds. (PROSE: Davros Genesis)
Several of the Doctor's companions expressed a fear of the Daleks, (AUDIO: Return to Skaro, TV: The Evil of the Daleks, Destiny of the Daleks, Bad Wolf, Doomsday, The Stolen Earth, The Pilot) Clara Oswald being a notable exception. (TV: The Time of the Doctor) The Fourth Doctor noted that mutual fear of Dalek conquest had led to many worlds becoming allies. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks) Fear of the Daleks had waned due to many failures of the New Dalek Paradigm leading the Prime Minister of the Daleks to reinstate the Bronze Daleks as the basic drone, hoping to capitalise on the fear that that model of casing had instilled during the Last Great Time War. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) Though the Eighth Doctor once claimed that everyone should fear the Daleks, (AUDIO: Mutually Assured Destruction) the War Doctor noted that he did not fear the Daleks directly, but rather what they represented, (AUDIO: The Enigma Dimension) a belief that Bernice Summerfield shared. (AUDIO: The Lights of Skaro) By contrast, Clara Oswald believed that the Doctor did fear the Daleks directly, noting that seeing fear in the Time Lord made their companions fear as well. (PROSE: The Companion's Companion) In 2022, Cleo Proctor was surprised to find herself instinctively scared of an inactive Dalek casing, which she had a vague familiarity with, whilst pointing out what appeared to be a toilet plunger sticking out of it. (AUDIO: Recruits)
As a result of their biological immortality and prodigious healing abilities, the Ashtallans did not have a concept of fear when the First Doctor and his companions arrived on Ashtallah. The later introduction of death into their society introduced them to fear. (AUDIO: The Invention of Death)
When the Question was broadcasted, every sentient who heard it, save the Eleventh Doctor, was overcome by a sense of fear. (TV: The Time of the Doctor, PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords)
Those who survived the Dummy Massacre on 26 March 2005 were left scared by the ordeal, leading to many wilfully forgetting the incident and moving on, however for some, such as the new webmaster of the conspiracy website Who is Doctor Who?, embraced his fear. (PROSE: The Doctor Was Involved in the Dummy Massacre)
Captain Hartmann believed the symbolism of his black Nazi Schutzstaffel uniform spread fear, noting its insignia which included the SS twin lightning flashes and the death's head. (PROSE: Illegal Alien)