The BBC just released a Doctor Who video with Strax debating who John Hurt’s character is. Beyond being “the Doctor’s greatest secret” who is John Hurt’s Doctor Who character?
Strax has a few observations below regarding John Hurt’s mystery, battle-worn character.
After the explosive (literally and figuratively) season 7 finale, fans have a ton of questions, not the least of which is: “How is it possible that John Hurt is the Doctor?” So, let’s examine the facts as we know them, and compare them to three popular Internet theories.
John Hurt’s character is Doctor Zero
Going with the idea that the name you take is important, what if the Doctor violated his name before he took off in the TARDIS with Susan all those years ago? Initially, he existed as a citizen of Gallifrey under the name of the Doctor, and was then stripped of that name due to some transgression. He then atoned for whatever he did and regenerated into Willam Hartnell’s Doctor, and regained his name making him Doctor number 1. So, in a sense he is the Doctor because he was stripped of that moniker. This would also be validated by the fact when the eleventh Doctor, in the person of Matt Smith, stated in the finale “The name you take is like a promise you make and he broke the promise.”
John Hurt’s character is the Doctor of the Time War
When Russell T. Davies took over the show he had to do something to explain the gap between the 1996 movie starring Paul McGann as the eighth Doctor and 2005 reboot starring Christopher Eccleston as the ninth Doctor. Davies went with the idea that there was a great Time War between the Daleks and the Time Lords. The Doctor was, in theory, the only survivor of that war. He supposedly quantum locked the great battle so that neither Time Lord nor Dalek could escape. Obviously, this wasn’t entirely successful as the Daleks have kept popping up via temporal shifts, and the Time Lords made an appearance in the tenth Doctor’s final episodes where it was revealed they were using the Master as a pawn. Regardless, the ninth Doctor was a very lonely, battle-scarred, and angry person based on the double genocide he had committed. Whether this self-loathing was warranted or not, it was how he felt. He then meets Rose Tyler who “made him better.”
So what does this all mean in regards to John Hurt’s Doctor? What if Hurt’s Doctor was the Doctor of this Time War, only he didn’t use the name “Doctor”? In this scenario he was “The Destroyer of Worlds” as referenced by River Song, the “Predator” as referenced by the Daleks, or even “The Oncoming Storm” as referenced by the tenth Doctor. This would also make sense in light of what Hurt’s character says at the end of the season 7 finale, “What I did I did without choice in the name of peace and sanity.” The eleventh Doctor then retorts, “But not in the name of the Doctor!”
John Hurt is the Valeyard
In the season 7 finale the Great Intelligence references that the Doctor will be known by many names including the Valeyard (pronounced Val-eh-yard). In Whovian lore, this name has come up before in the time of the sixth and seventh Doctor. The Master explained the concept to the sixth Doctor pretty well, “The Valeyard, Doctor, is your penultimate reincarnation… Somewhere between your twelfth and thirteenth of the Doctor.” In its simplest terms, the Valeyard is that quintessential TV trope of the evil twin. So, does the Doctor recognize all his evil tendencies populating in the form of a to be released Valeyard? Since he travels throughout history, does he know of his future self’s wanton destruction?
So which one of these concepts is the most plausible?
We are pretty sure the first theory is easily discarded. Hartnell’s Doctor and the three that follow are hardly battle scarred, or suffering from severe melancholy.
Clearly, the Doctor recognizes this persona in the season 7 finale. He looks at him with fear and recognition as Clara asks, “Who’s that?” We didn’t see future Doctor’s swirling about, only past ones. The Doctor also references that in this incarnation stating, “He’s me. There is only me here. That is the point…he is my greatest secret”.
So piecing all this together our vote is with number 2 with possibly a spin on number 3. He is the missing link Doctor who committed genocide but didn’t do so in the “name of the Doctor.” He is the reason that the ninth and tenth Doctors needed Rose Tyler to make them better, and Donna Noble to stop their rage when Rose was lost. He is in Trenzalore as perhaps a sort of eternal prison or purgatory to atone for what he did.
We speculate that in the 50th anniversary, the tenth clone, the eleventh Doctor, and this “non-Doctor” will team up to fight both the Great Intelligence and the Zygons. This would jive with John Hurt’s comments to a local newspaper on how he plays a sort of Trinity with the tenth an eleventh Doctors. Perhaps in doing so John Hurt’s Doctor atones for his past and the Doctor is thereby granted extra regenerations.
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