Eight/Goosnake, Roberts and Jacobi!Masters
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EIGHT
Eight is another Doctor whose television career was all too brief, and whose reputation is largely built on audios and novels. He’s capable of great emotional range-this Lloyd Rose quote from Camera Obscura, spoken by the villain Sabbath, sums him up well.
“The Doctor had dragged him into this like a drowning man pulling another under. True, the purpose was to attain something they both wanted, albeit for different reasons, but the Doctor had not consulted him. Had he thought Sabbath would refuse? Or did he just not care? Monstrous egotist, insane risk taker, manipulator and trickster. I have underestimated him, Sabbath thought grimly, a complacent and foolish thing to do, though not yet, fortunately, a mistake. I let myself forget he was not human, judged his capabilities and limits as if he were. If the gentleness was true, I presumed the ruthlessness was a front; if the ruthlessness turned out to be true, I was sure the gentleness would be revealed as hypocrisy. But neither and both are true. He lives in contradictions as we cannot, and for him they are not contradictions, but wholeness.”
Regeneration is a Special Time for the Doctor. If you had to judge Three based off Spearhead, Four off Robot, or, god forbid, Six off the Twin Dilemma, you’d know only a part of their characters. Eight is far more than his Tigger side, though it’s undeniably a part of him, as the brilliant Caerdroia points out. He’s easily one of the more layered, complicated, multi-faceted Doctors. While Eight is traditionally attractive, he’s more frequently praised for his ‘husky’ voice, which shines in audios.
He and the Master interact in the TVM, which was introduced in the Seven era Pairing Guide. From Seven’s death, Eight goes on to battle the Master for control of his body for an embarrassing hour or so. The Master tries to ‘take his body’ a lot-he may well also be a fair bit Regeneration Crazy. Screaming ‘you are my life!’ at one point is hardly up to Delgado!Masters’ Dignified Post Break Up Sulking Standards. Even so, Roberts!Master (nee Goosnake!Master) manages to have something of a sense of humor, and to understand the importance of both good grammar and fabulosity-check those robes! He either knows of figures out that the Doctor is half-human-a controversial bit of canon/fanon that sees different interpretations in fic. It’s been explicitly denied in the comics, and perhaps undermined by New Who, but remains an interesting interpretive lens.
When body snatching goes poorly, the Doctor offers to save the Master, despite the Master having killed both his companions, the previous owner of his current host-body, and attempting to either co-occupy the Doctor’s body or eliminate the Doctor in the attempt (which precisely will happen is unclear, but the thwarted attempt at Possession is quite sexualized). The Master refuses and falls into the Doctor’s TARDIS, and the ending leaves the question of his survival both ambiguous and problematic.
OVERALL DYNAMIC:
This is more a question of might-be than a catalogue of observations. The events of the plot, as they strictly unfold, leave little room for interaction between Eight and Roberts!Master, but almost imply it between Eight and whatever form of the Master still inhabits his TARDIS at the end.
If we were to take Simm!Master’s speech about the Time War in The Sound of Drums as something of an As You Know, Bob, you could posit that they knew each other then, when they were both fighting. This is complicated by Ten meeting Yana, who he should thus recognize, but there’s a host of possible explanations. The Eighth Doctor has something of a penchant for memory loss-it’s often been the subject of jokes in fandom. He could well have lost all memory of knowing a younger Jacobi!Master during the war, or of any interaction between them before that and after the TVM. Jacobi!Master could be a later incarnation of the Master Eight knew during the war-one he’d have no reason to recognize as Ten. There’s room for a lot of speculation and fic.
As to how they might get along, Eight has a certain Byronic sensibility that could cause him to appreciate the Master’s more ridiculous gestures, and a playful side that could work well with the Master’s strong sense of the absurd. We know little about Jacobi!Master (unless we import characterization from his portrayal of the Maser in Scream of the Shalka and weld it on to his performance as Yana and, very briefly, Jacobi!Master), but I mentally class Eight and Jacobi!Master as a matched set, in the vein of Three/Delgado!Master and Five/Ainley!Master.
Jacobi!Master seems, from the combination of sources aforementioned, possessed of more of a Delgado!Master-ish reserve and snark than of Ainley!Master’s highly dynamic emotional intensity. That emotional intensity is characteristic of all Masters, so is certainly still there, despite not being as close to the surface. There’s little doubt that Jacobi!Master would be interested in this Doctor, who proves in paracanon to be thoroughly charming, prone to deep attachment, and very clever in the Humanities Major sense that has always marked the ‘let’s quote poetry and summon something I read about in an archeology textbook’ Master. He’s emotionally accessible, attractive, but, above all, susceptible to the Master’s charms-especially in a time of conflict and stress, like the Time War.
Stress might make Eight more open to possibilities he’d normally not allow himself to explore. As aralias once said, “I quite like the idea that they got together during the time war, because (assuming they know the other one is there) it's the first time they've been on the same side for ages, and they have a common enemy (or two, if we count the time lords), and we know from looking at nine and ten that despair and loneliness (and i don't think the doctor had a companion during the time war) makes the doctor more susceptible to romantic attachments. Also eight is the first kissing doctor, according to the TVM.”
Eight, with his series with Charley, is in some ways the first New Who Doctor. Possibilities of romance are raised with the kiss and explored with Charley, and as such the text seems to give you permission to read it in a sexualized light. From there, retconning of his relationship with the Master or giving the same character an additional romantic relationship during the Time War both seem quite reasonable.
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EIGHT
Eight is another Doctor whose television career was all too brief, and whose reputation is largely built on audios and novels. He’s capable of great emotional range-this Lloyd Rose quote from Camera Obscura, spoken by the villain Sabbath, sums him up well.
“The Doctor had dragged him into this like a drowning man pulling another under. True, the purpose was to attain something they both wanted, albeit for different reasons, but the Doctor had not consulted him. Had he thought Sabbath would refuse? Or did he just not care? Monstrous egotist, insane risk taker, manipulator and trickster. I have underestimated him, Sabbath thought grimly, a complacent and foolish thing to do, though not yet, fortunately, a mistake. I let myself forget he was not human, judged his capabilities and limits as if he were. If the gentleness was true, I presumed the ruthlessness was a front; if the ruthlessness turned out to be true, I was sure the gentleness would be revealed as hypocrisy. But neither and both are true. He lives in contradictions as we cannot, and for him they are not contradictions, but wholeness.”
Regeneration is a Special Time for the Doctor. If you had to judge Three based off Spearhead, Four off Robot, or, god forbid, Six off the Twin Dilemma, you’d know only a part of their characters. Eight is far more than his Tigger side, though it’s undeniably a part of him, as the brilliant Caerdroia points out. He’s easily one of the more layered, complicated, multi-faceted Doctors. While Eight is traditionally attractive, he’s more frequently praised for his ‘husky’ voice, which shines in audios.
He and the Master interact in the TVM, which was introduced in the Seven era Pairing Guide. From Seven’s death, Eight goes on to battle the Master for control of his body for an embarrassing hour or so. The Master tries to ‘take his body’ a lot-he may well also be a fair bit Regeneration Crazy. Screaming ‘you are my life!’ at one point is hardly up to Delgado!Masters’ Dignified Post Break Up Sulking Standards. Even so, Roberts!Master (nee Goosnake!Master) manages to have something of a sense of humor, and to understand the importance of both good grammar and fabulosity-check those robes! He either knows of figures out that the Doctor is half-human-a controversial bit of canon/fanon that sees different interpretations in fic. It’s been explicitly denied in the comics, and perhaps undermined by New Who, but remains an interesting interpretive lens.
When body snatching goes poorly, the Doctor offers to save the Master, despite the Master having killed both his companions, the previous owner of his current host-body, and attempting to either co-occupy the Doctor’s body or eliminate the Doctor in the attempt (which precisely will happen is unclear, but the thwarted attempt at Possession is quite sexualized). The Master refuses and falls into the Doctor’s TARDIS, and the ending leaves the question of his survival both ambiguous and problematic.
OVERALL DYNAMIC:
This is more a question of might-be than a catalogue of observations. The events of the plot, as they strictly unfold, leave little room for interaction between Eight and Roberts!Master, but almost imply it between Eight and whatever form of the Master still inhabits his TARDIS at the end.
If we were to take Simm!Master’s speech about the Time War in The Sound of Drums as something of an As You Know, Bob, you could posit that they knew each other then, when they were both fighting. This is complicated by Ten meeting Yana, who he should thus recognize, but there’s a host of possible explanations. The Eighth Doctor has something of a penchant for memory loss-it’s often been the subject of jokes in fandom. He could well have lost all memory of knowing a younger Jacobi!Master during the war, or of any interaction between them before that and after the TVM. Jacobi!Master could be a later incarnation of the Master Eight knew during the war-one he’d have no reason to recognize as Ten. There’s room for a lot of speculation and fic.
As to how they might get along, Eight has a certain Byronic sensibility that could cause him to appreciate the Master’s more ridiculous gestures, and a playful side that could work well with the Master’s strong sense of the absurd. We know little about Jacobi!Master (unless we import characterization from his portrayal of the Maser in Scream of the Shalka and weld it on to his performance as Yana and, very briefly, Jacobi!Master), but I mentally class Eight and Jacobi!Master as a matched set, in the vein of Three/Delgado!Master and Five/Ainley!Master.
Jacobi!Master seems, from the combination of sources aforementioned, possessed of more of a Delgado!Master-ish reserve and snark than of Ainley!Master’s highly dynamic emotional intensity. That emotional intensity is characteristic of all Masters, so is certainly still there, despite not being as close to the surface. There’s little doubt that Jacobi!Master would be interested in this Doctor, who proves in paracanon to be thoroughly charming, prone to deep attachment, and very clever in the Humanities Major sense that has always marked the ‘let’s quote poetry and summon something I read about in an archeology textbook’ Master. He’s emotionally accessible, attractive, but, above all, susceptible to the Master’s charms-especially in a time of conflict and stress, like the Time War.
Stress might make Eight more open to possibilities he’d normally not allow himself to explore. As aralias once said, “I quite like the idea that they got together during the time war, because (assuming they know the other one is there) it's the first time they've been on the same side for ages, and they have a common enemy (or two, if we count the time lords), and we know from looking at nine and ten that despair and loneliness (and i don't think the doctor had a companion during the time war) makes the doctor more susceptible to romantic attachments. Also eight is the first kissing doctor, according to the TVM.”
Eight, with his series with Charley, is in some ways the first New Who Doctor. Possibilities of romance are raised with the kiss and explored with Charley, and as such the text seems to give you permission to read it in a sexualized light. From there, retconning of his relationship with the Master or giving the same character an additional romantic relationship during the Time War both seem quite reasonable.
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