The Guardian of Light In Time

[Rob McCow]

"Nothing will happen to you."
"What, nothing?"
"Nothing, nothing at all. Ever."

So who is this mysterious being who sends the Doctor on his quest to find the Key To Time? In a Universe that is almost totally rational, how can the Doctor accept what is effectively god turning up and giving him orders?

What do you think of the character of the White Guardian? Is he really an ally of the Doctor? On the basis of the one scene he's in at the start of the Ribos Operation, he seems as much of a threat as anything he's encountered.

Should the White Guardian return to the show? Were the Guardians a good idea, or do you think they're silly?

And how many times have you seen a wicker chair like that around? Must have been a big seller at the prop store...

[Si Hunt]

He's not really God.

If all you knew of existence was your town, the Mayor would be "God". As we learn there is a wider and wider existence, different and greater beings present themselves, and thus it is so in Doctor Who. Before the Guardians, there were the Time Lords, and it seems to me that the "Higher Gods", e.g Fenric, The Toymaker, The Gods of Ragnarok, are even more powerful than them. The Guardians, let us not forget, "cannot be seen to act" which strongly suggests some higher force to which they are answerable.

Romana did once compare the Universe to a stack of Russian Dolls. Perhaps each layer is ruled by a higher power?

Si.

[Andrew Curnow]

I like that idea, Si!

I also really like the scene between the Doctor & the Guardian at the start of Ribos ("two old soaks filling in the plot"). And in as far as I've ever felt the need to analyse it, I'd say it's nice to know there is something higher & greater than the Doctor - it places him firmly in the role of experienced, but definitely not godlike, traveller, which is how it should be.

[SiHart]

Perhaps this is what the new series needs to take the Doctor down from the godlike figure he's become?

[Si Hunt]

Perhaps, just as every force has a reaction, the Guardians are the living embodiment of the two polar forces in the Universe; so just as a force has a reaction, the natural force or energy for good has an equal leaning towards evil; note the non-sentient names given to the sentient Guardians; Light and Dark, or chaos. Maybe it's not force and reaction but light and darkness.

If you have a dark room, it stays dark unless someone shines a light. That light is only defined by the fact that where there is light, there is no dark. Likewise, what is the dark? A space where there is no light. If there was neither dark nor light, neither could exist because they are both defined in terms of the other one. In the same sense, if there were no evil, there could be no concept of good because there'd be nothing to juxtapose it against. So I would suggest that Light being unable to exist without Dark (and vica versa) is less a literal threat of the other being unable to survive without his counterpart, more an observation that each would cease to have any meaning or power without the other one to be compared against it.

Si.

[Jon Masters]

Excellently put, Si. There is also that really intriguing line in Enlightenment about 'until we are no longer needed'.

I always thought, if they were ever to decide to permanently end Doctor Who as a series, that it would be quite cool if the Doctor became the White Guardian and the Master the Black - to continue their struggle until the end of time.

[Anthony Williams]

The one thing that I've always wondered with the Key to Time season is was it ever the White Guardian that sent the Doctor on his quest? I always thought that it'd be quite a neat idea if the Doctor had been essentially tricked by the Black Guardian into gathering the Key to Time for him, from those very first scenes of The Ribos Operation, and then only realising that it was actually the Black Guardian at the end of the season...

Food for thought, perhaps?

[SiHart]

I did wonder if they'd intended to get Cyril Luckham back at the end of the season to play both the Guardians, then discovered he wasn't available or something. It would have been great if the Black was the mirror of the White.