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The Mara was a gestalt being that dwelt in the Dark Places of the Inside and sought physical existence by taking over a host in their dream. Because of its unclear nature, the Mara was simultaneously thought of as a "he", "it", and "they".
History[]
Origins[]
Representing the "God of Beasts" in the Pantheon of Discord, (TV: The Legend of Ruby Sunday [+]Russell T Davies, Doctor Who series 14 (BBC One and Disney+, 2024).) the Mara was believed to be a creature created from the evil within the Manussans of the planet Manussa in the Scrampus System, given independent life by the Great Crystal that the Manussans had created in a zero gravity environment. (TV: Snakedance [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 20 (BBC1, 1983).)
The Kinda of Deva Loka saw the Mara as the "Evil Ones" that "started the clocks" and turned the Great Wheel of Life. (TV: Kinda [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 19 (BBC1, 1982).)
The Mara existed in the minds of its victims and could transfer itself in the form of a tattoo-like mark to those who yielded to it. It was said to be so evil that it could not bear the sight of its own reflection. (TV: Kinda [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 19 (BBC1, 1982).) Jack Harkness, claiming it was where the word "nightmare" came from, best described the Mara as "malignant wraiths," and speculated that the fairies could be "part-Mara". (TV: Small Worlds [+]Peter J. Hammond, Torchwood series 1 (BBC Three, 2006).)
Banishment[]
After entering the universe, the Mara founded and lead the Sumaran Empire in 2315, until it was defeated on Manussa and cast into the "Dark Places of the Inside" by the Federator in 2926. (TV: Snakedance [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 20 (BBC1, 1983).)
Early escapes[]
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The Mara appears before Cleopatra. (PROSE: Antony and Cleopatra [+]The Shakespeare Notebooks (2014).)
In an account that was told in the early draft of William Shakespeare's play Antony and Cleopatra, a clown delivered "the pretty worm of Nilus" to Cleopatra for her to kill herself, but the snake revealed itself to be the Mara, who had given the clown "power" as a reward for "[serving] it well", and tried to entice Cleopatra with a similar offer, though she refused, wishing only for the restoration of her lover, Mark Antony, something the Mara admitted could not be done. The clown then left Cleopatra alone with the Mara. (PROSE: Antony and Cleopatra [+]The Shakespeare Notebooks (2014).)
Possessing Tegan[]
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The Mara, in Aris' body, confronts the Fifth Doctor. (TV: Kinda [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 19 (BBC1, 1982).)
When Tegan Jovanka fell asleep listening to wind chimes of Deva Loka during her visit to the planet in 3984 with the Fifth Doctor and Adric, she mentally entered the Dark Places of the Inside and found the Mara manifested as an elderly game-playing couple named Anatta and Anicca, both of whom insisted she could not possibly exist, and then as Dukkha, who tempted and tormented her until she agreed to let the Mara take over her body.
The Mara used her body to find and possess Aris, one of the peaceful Kinda tribe, leaving Tegan. As Kinda tradition did not allow men to speak, the Mara gave Aris a voice, and he began to rally the Kinda against the human colonists that were led by Hindle, who was driven into a nervous breakdown by the Mara's presence. The Doctor was able to prevent Hindle detonating a bomb and managed to trap the Mara in a circle of mirrors to face itself, therefore driving it out of Aris and back into the Dark Places of the Inside. (TV: Kinda [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 19 (BBC1, 1982).) Tegan remained shaken by the experience, despite the Doctor assuring her the Mara was gone. (TV: The Visitation [+]Eric Saward, Doctor Who season 19 (BBC1, 1982).) However, the Mara still had influence over Tegan.
The Mara prepares to merge with Tegan. (TV: Snakedance [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 20 (BBC1, 1983).)
Eventually, the Mara guided Tegan to take the Doctor's TARDIS to Manussa in 3426, where a ceremony was to be held to mark the five-hundredth anniversary of its banishment. The Mara used Tegan, the showman Dugdale, and the son of the Federator, Lon, to obtain the Great Crystal to restore itself to physical form. The Doctor and Nyssa were guided by an old mystic named Dojjen in how to find the "still point" in order to defeat the Mara. When the Mara tried to make its return at the ceremony, the Doctor concentrated his thoughts with a small replica of the Great Crystal, and was able to repel the Mara by finding the still point.
He then grabbed the real Great Crystal to break the Mara's hold over the Manussans, and destroyed its new snake body, apparently destroying the Mara once and for all, (TV: Snakedance [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 20 (BBC1, 1983).) as it could only have been destroyed at the moment of its Becoming, trapped between modes of its being. (TV: Mawdryn Undead [+]Peter Grimwade, Doctor Who season 20 (BBC1, 1983).) However, the Doctor later told Tegan that the Mara would always be present, though she was uncertain if he was speaking metaphorically about the nature of evil, (PROSE: Goth Opera [+]Paul Cornell, Virgin Missing Adventures (Virgin Books, 1994).) and would continue having bad dreams of the Mara, which the Doctor explained was her mind's way of coping with her possession. (TV: Mawdryn Undead [+]Peter Grimwade, Doctor Who season 20 (BBC1, 1983).)
Possessing the Doctor[]
The Mara is trapped by cameras and televisions. (AUDIO: The Cradle of the Snake [+]Marc Platt, Main Range (Big Finish Productions, 2010).)
However, the Mara had actually retreated into Tegan's mind before it could be destroyed, and it emerged to possess Tegan yet again on 29th century Chodor. (AUDIO: The Whispering Forest [+]Stephen Cole, Main Range (Big Finish Productions, 2010).) When the Doctor attempted to drive it out, it changed its tactics and entered into the Doctor's mind instead, leaving Tegan completely, (AUDIO: The Cradle of the Snake [+]Marc Platt, Main Range (Big Finish Productions, 2010).) except for an aspect that remained in her subconscious. (PROSE: Mark of the Medusa [+]Mike Tucker, Tales of Terror (2017).) Hiding inside the Doctor's body, the Mara consulted a book in the TARDIS library to find out about its history and then took the TARDIS to Manussa in 2215, one hundred years prior to the rise of the Sumaran Empire, under the pretence of having Tegan examined by a Manussan doctor, and embarked on a scheme to bring about the subjugation of Manussa in that time period instead. In the process, while keeping the Doctor as its primary host, it possessed several Manussans. It used an experimental Manussan technology to project the thoughts of its hosts into solid matter, manifesting itself physically as a giant snake.
However, Tegan and Turlough were able to free the Doctor using a circle of television cameras and screens, and the Doctor linked the crystal the Mara was using as a link to the material world to the TARDIS so he could reverse the creature's physical manifestation. However, the process required that the crystal be in physical contact with the Mara, and the giant snake, fuelled by the despair of the many Manussans it had managed to possess, had swallowed the TARDIS whole. In the end, Baalaka, a young man who had been brought into existence by the crystal technology, sacrificed himself by going out into the snake's belly with the crystal, destroying it by "restoring the balance". However, the Mara had managed to possess numerous Manussans, Nyssa and Turlough before its destruction, (AUDIO: The Cradle of the Snake [+]Marc Platt, Main Range (Big Finish Productions, 2010).) as well as retaining a domain in Tegan's subconscious, (PROSE: Mark of the Medusa [+]Mike Tucker, Tales of Terror (2017).) and the Doctor stated that the Mara could not be said to have been fully destroyed, as it was inside all human beings. (AUDIO: The Cradle of the Snake [+]Marc Platt, Main Range (Big Finish Productions, 2010).)
Hiding in Tegan[]
Reaching out from Tegan's subconscious when the TARDIS crew visit Vittorio Levi's museum of Earth antiques, the Mara was able to possess Kamelion aboard the space station the museum was in and used Kamelion's transformational powers to assume the form of a Gorgon and turn people to stone. However, because the Gorgon used Tegan's face, the Doctor was able to reverse the control and free Kamelion by having Tegan face the Mara. Unable to handle seeing its own image, the Mara retreated back into Tegan's subconscious. (PROSE: Mark of the Medusa [+]Mike Tucker, Tales of Terror (2017).)
The Mara continued to have a threshold in Tegan's mind long after she had left the TARDIS (WC: The Passenger [+]Pete McTighe, Doctor Who: The Collection mini-episodes (YouTube, 2023).) in 1984, (TV: Resurrection of the Daleks [+]Eric Saward, Doctor Who season 21 (BBC1, 1984).) resurfacing in her dreams as late as the 2020s. In one such dream, the Mara attempted to possess Tegan by tempting her with a reunion with Nyssa, but she refused. Upon awakening, Tegan defiantly told the Mara that it was nothing compared to the other monsters and horrors she had encountered, and she bluntly told it to get "back in [its] box". (WC: The Passenger [+]Pete McTighe, Doctor Who: The Collection mini-episodes (YouTube, 2023).)
Continued manifestations[]
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The Mara manifested inside the minds of the wealthy residents of Gloaming, a sleep station high above the dead planet of Gillen-3. It was unclear whether the Mara hatched in the sleepers on Gillen-3, influencing them to strip the planet of its resources and cause political unrest, or as the sleepers dreamed inside their hypersleep pods. Whatever the case, the Mara quickly took root, possessing sleeper Meryl Zink, Charlotte Pollard, and Gloaming's sole android employee Franz, and attempting to possess Audacity Montague and sleeper Dekkar. The Eighth Doctor freed Charley, destroying the hatchling inside her mind as a result, but was unable to do the same for Meryl and Franz. Instead, he and Dekkar overrode Gloaming's systems to wake the remaining sleepers, ending the threat posed by the Mara. (AUDIO: The Gloaming [+]Lauren Mooney and Stewart Pringle, Deadly Strangers (Big Finish Productions, 2024).)
The Siege of Trenzalore[]
In the seven-hundred-and-fiftieth year of the Siege of Trenzalore, the Mara possessed various townspeople from the town of Christmas and used them to dig up the skeletal remains of Jalen Fellwood. It then used the dreams of the controlled people to give form to the skeleton, creating a new physical body in the form of a human-snake hybrid.
The Mara then possessed all of the children in the town's school, threatening first to use them to attack the adults, and then themselves, unless the Eleventh Doctor did as it demanded. Unlike the other beings that invaded Christmas throughout the siege, the Mara wanted the Doctor to speak his true name and unleash another Time War on the universe. However, the Mara's body had not yet entirely shed its human form and was still drawing power from the body of Jalen Fellwood, so the Doctor filled the town's snow machine with salt, something that Fellwood believed held magical properties, and the Mara melted due to drawing its power from Fellwood's beliefs, releasing the town's population from its control. (PROSE: The Dreaming [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW.)
References[]
When Izzy Sinclair played the video game Happy Deathday on the Time-Space Visualiser, the Mara was among a host of enemies that the Doctor had defeated, who were assembled by the Beige Guardian and pitted against the Doctor's first eight incarnations. (COMIC: Happy Deathday [+]Scott Gray, DWM Comics (Panini Comics, 1998).)
Psychological profile[]
Personality[]
The Mara toys with Dugdale. (TV: Snakedance [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 20 (BBC1, 1983).)
The Mara was a spirit of chaos. (AUDIO: The Cradle of the Snake [+]Marc Platt, Main Range (Big Finish Productions, 2010).) It delighted in the pain and madness of others, such as by playing tricks on people that even children could see through. It tempted individuals into letting it control them so that it could create havoc and chaos.
The Kinda believed that life and death were a turning wheel, and it was the Mara who turned the wheel. In this line of thought, wars would help the Mara, as they created death and the way to truly be free of the Mara was to find peace, (TV: Kinda [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 19 (BBC1, 1982).) or in other terms, find the "still point." (TV: Snakedance [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 20 (BBC1, 1983).)
Appearance[]
The Mara changes hosts. (TV: Kinda [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 19 (BBC1, 1982).)
The Mara was a psychevoric gestalt which fed on raw emotion, (PROSE: The Left-Handed Hummingbird [+]Kate Orman, Virgin New Adventures (Virgin Books, 1993).) such as Franz's anger with the Eighth Doctor and his desperation to maintain a quarantine on Gloaming. (AUDIO: The Gloaming [+]Lauren Mooney and Stewart Pringle, Deadly Strangers (Big Finish Productions, 2024).) Because the Mara was a gestalt, it simultaneously had many forms and none. (PROSE: The Dreaming [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW.) It spread itself by manifesting within the Dark Places of the Inside, but it required a host in the real world before it could appear in its true, snakelike form. (TV: Kinda [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 19 (BBC1, 1982)., Snakedance [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 20 (BBC1, 1983).) Even if the host was synthetic, it was still vulnerable to possession if it had some form of consciousness. A Mara hatchling without a host looked like a cross between a snake and a firework, and it would dissipate if it was left without a host for too long. (AUDIO: The Gloaming [+]Lauren Mooney and Stewart Pringle, Deadly Strangers (Big Finish Productions, 2024).)
Tegan Jovanka while possessed by the Mara. (TV: Snakedance [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 20 (BBC1, 1983).)
Those possessed by the Mara developed a snake mark on their arm and had reddened eyes and teeth (TV: Kinda [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 19 (BBC1, 1982).) and the ability to share voices between themselves. (TV: Snakedance [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 20 (BBC1, 1983).) In one case, they developed red, moulted skin. (PROSE: The Dreaming [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW.) They had access to the Mara's hive mind and could be returned control if the Mara so desired, though this was usually done by the Mara to taunt people. (AUDIO: The Gloaming [+]Lauren Mooney and Stewart Pringle, Deadly Strangers (Big Finish Productions, 2024).) The marks themselves could become real Mara, (TV: Kinda [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 19 (BBC1, 1982)., Snakedance [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 20 (BBC1, 1983).) developing like a rash until they burst from the skin and infected anyone they touched. (PROSE: The Dreaming [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW.)
Jack Harkness thought the Fairies of Earth were part-Mara, explaining that the former could control the elements of fire, water and air, claiming they could "drag [the] air right out of our bodies." (TV: Small Worlds [+]Peter J. Hammond, Torchwood series 1 (BBC Three, 2006).)
Behind the scenes[]
The CGI Mara used in used in the DVD release of Kinda [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 19 (BBC1, 1982).)
- On the DVD release of Kinda, there is an option to replace the shots of the original prop snake with a computer-generated snake image, which was later used on the cover of the anthology book Tales of Trenzalore: The Eleventh Doctor's Last Stand.
- The reference guide The Torchwood Archives confirmed Jack's theory that the Fairies from TV: Small Worlds [+]Peter J. Hammond, Torchwood series 1 (BBC Three, 2006). were part Mara.
- Writer Christopher Bailey derived the Mara from a demon of the same name in Buddhist philosophy which, as in Doctor Who, symbolises temptation rather than evil (at least, in the sense of "sinfulness"). In Kinda [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 19 (BBC1, 1982)., Dukkha, Panna, Karuna, Anatta and Anicca's names and functions all derive from Buddhism as well. Dukkha is suffering, and in Snakedance [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 20 (BBC1, 1983)., Tanha is restlessness. The Mara is also apparently aware of its grotesque hideous features, which may account for the circle of mirrors.
- According to interviews with Bailey in The Unfolding Text, the Mara in Kinda [+]Christopher Bailey, Doctor Who season 19 (BBC1, 1982). used temptation to behave in culturally disapproved-of ways. In Tegan's case, sensuality (or even sexuality), in Aris's case, aggression, which the Kinda regarded as abhorrent, especially when enacted by a male. Bailey did not welcome the addition of not-so-subtle indications of possession by the Mara, indicated by special effects, feeling instead that the acting of Janet Fielding, who played Tegan, and others, put the point across more than adequately. He particularly disliked the imagery of glowing red eyes which, he said, seemed to hark back to the Christian notion of the Devil.
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