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PaulHanley β The Other
Published: 2013-06-29 04:21:06 +0000 UTC; Views: 15711; Favourites: 253; Downloads: 0
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Description
Ironically, this latest "I'll draw anyone as the Doctor" commission is probably gonna be the most controversial of the bunch, even though it's the most canonical. It's also really stretching the definition of "The Doctor", but I couldn't resist the challenge. And there's something gloriously transgressive about depicting him at all.
Gallifreyan legend speaks of three men instrumental to the creation of Time Lord society: the wily and sinister Rassilon; the brilliant but doomed Omega; and an "Other" lost to history. Some say this being is connected to the Doctor. Some even claim he IS the Doctor. But a lot of people believe a lot of different things about where the Doctor comes from, who he really is, and who he'll become. And always remember the first rule: The Doctor Lies.
A big special thanks to one of Doctor Who's great myth makers, Lance Parkin, for offering advice on how the Other should look (which interestingly, was very different from my initial idea). I did my best to mesh up the description he gave me with the fleeting bits of description Marc Platt offers in the novel "Lungbarrow". Hopefully this'll serve as a "definitive" version for this rarely-depicted character.
DOCTOR: A long time ago, on my home planet of Gallifrey, there lived a stellar engineer called Omega.
ACE: Stellar? As in stars? You mean he engineered stars?
DOCTOR: Ace!
ACE: Sorry. Go on.
DOCTOR: It was Omega who created the supernova that was the initial power source for Gallifreyan time travel experiments. He left behind him the basis on which Rassilon founded Time Lord society, and he left behind the Hand of Omega.
ACE: His hand? What good was that?
DOCTOR: No, no, not his hand literally. No, no, it's called that because Time Lords have an infinite capacity for pretension.
ACE: I've noticed that.
DOCTOR: The Hand of Omega is a mythical name for Omega's remote stellar manipulator, a device used to customise stars with. And didn't we have trouble with the prototype.
ACE: We?
DOCTOR: They.
-"Remembrance of the Daleks", 1988
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Comments: 64
What is βthe Otherβ like in terms of characterisation?
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This character is surrounded by so much mystery...Β
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I fully understand that you don't want to tell who the face is based on but I have side question:
Do you think the other's depiction on the ebook cover of Lungbarrow could be based on the same person ? (I already asked the amazingly talented Daryl Joyce about who he used as a reference but it's sadly been too long ago for him to remember)
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Well, it's not like it's a HUGE secret with the Other's face- it's just that it was something Lance Parkin told me privately about what he had in his head when he wrote "Cold Fusion".Β But since it's info he chose not to explicitly put in the book, I assume he didn't want it "out there" b/c it'd take away some mystery from the character- which I totally get.Β It's kinda like how I have specific ideas about who the Doctor actually is, what really happened to his original family and why he left Gallifrey... but if I were ever writing the character professionally, I wouldn't want that stuff out there for fear it'd be taken as "official", when really it's just a fan theory that's a useful writing tool to get in a character's headspace.Β
I don't know Marc Platt at all, so I have NO idea if he ever conferred with Lance about what the Other looked like.Β But I know Daryl a bit, and I can say the guy puts a *lot* of thought into his paintings- so I'm sure whatever he was thinking at the time, it was interesting.
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Hello there, I love the design it's definitely a spot on depiction of The Other in my opinion. And the detail coloring and effort put into it is spectacular and gorgeous, I was wondering though if maybe me and my friends could use this design for our up and coming. Doctor Who web series, If not I understand completely but truly still amazing art work. 
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By all means, go right ahead! Be sure to send me a link when it's done.
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Would you count "The Other" as canon.
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Honestly, I don't like to think of ANYTHING about the Doctor's days before leaving Gallifrey as canon. Β I like to think of The Other as kinda being like the Joker's origin flashbacks in BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE. Β You can take them as "real" or just the questionable account of an insane person. Β The Doctor's woven such a web of lies around himself that it's hard to know if anything we think we know about his pre-UNEARTHLY CHILD days is real. Β
Also, there's a bit of evidence nowadays that the Doctor himself is getting so old he's forgetting some details of his past- so ya have to wonder if even he knows the truth at this point.
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I was thinking of using it in a future story :3Β
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John Hurt would have been great as the Other... I like to think he's the Doctor's past life/something like that. As close to it as a show frequently written by atheists would go.
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This is really good, but whenever I think of the Other I just see Jaime Murray.Β For some reason...
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Brilliant work, it is funny I have seen the episode enough times that reading the quotes from it my inner monologue automatically switches to the appropriate voices before I've even halfway through the first line.Β
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It does look kind of like the John Hurt Doctor. He looks ancient yet inexplicably kind. "What I did is for peace and prosperity"Help created the Time Lord Society and over a millennia of peace. But given how power hungry and corrupt the early time lord society was.Β
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Ahh, I wish Andrew Cartmel had time to portray The Other on screen. This is a spectacular take of him.
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he looks a bit like the seventh Doctor, I dig it
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He also looks a bit like John Hurt. Which would make sense, The Incarnation ZERO.
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i'm drawn to the faint text around the spark his gauntlet is creating, like a floaty equation of some sort, and that idea delights me... goodness knows the Time Lords were probably that drily logical, and Rassilon was the most poetic/flamboyant of the three. The Other has always been (at least in my mental imagery) the most practical, especially given the fact that if he IS the Doctor, then he didn't do something ridiculous like get himself locked in a pocket universe or eaten up by the inhabitants of some other pocket universe or locked in a time pocket or something stupid like that.
So the concept of conjuring tiny sparkly equations to do his cosmic bidding in a very sensible fashion just pretty much makes my day, haha.
...sorry for rambling oops
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That face... I almost feel as though he should be giving us a sly wink.
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Didn't the Other throw himself in to a loom and reincarnate as the Doctor?
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Ooooh, very cool!
I like your concept a lot! :3
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You might be suffering from emoticon overload.
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It wouldn't happen to be the first time. The internet does fascinating things to the human psyche!
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Not controversial to me, and great stuff. The background really sings.
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Thanks! I'm surprised by how much love The Other is getting today. When I first mentioned I was drawing him on Facebook, someone (jokingly) threatened to burn down my house!
And thanks- that background took a lot of time. It's only the second time I've done a Gallifreyan landscape- it's a fun place to draw.
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It looks like Sylvester McCoy with a beard. Strange, I never pictured the Other in my head as having a beard... I always had him as looking not unlike a younger Hartnell but with dark hair.
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McCoy? That's crazy talk. Crazy.
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Nope! Though the face is a dead trace of an actor all Doctor Who fans would know. I'm not saying who though.
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WELL... the lower body is almost exactly what's under Character Options' Omega's robes (yes, I used it for ref). And the glove is Rassilon. As for the face... well I suppose you could use the generic Time Lord head and give it a beard. BUT... there's a secret about that likeness. I'll tell ya in a PM.
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Damn, now I'm wondering too...
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I recognised the armour, but the face was an interesting surprise
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I love that he and Rassilon have matching gloves.
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Thanks- Omega was the main influence, but I wanted at least a little nod to Rassilon. I kind of like the idea that this is the same gauntlet- except what was once a benevolent device used for creation was twisted into something destructive by Rassilon.
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He looks a bit like David Suchet. This is great.
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Brilliant! The New Adventures were a mine of invention, playing around with the idea of what is/was/could be Doctor Who. Their legacy still influences the show today.
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Well sure, how many of the writers for the show cut their teeth on those? Cornell, Roberts, Chibnall, Gatiss, DAVIES... even Moff did a short story for one of the Decalogs. It's pretty much the show's "High Council" of writers.
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Can't remember a Chibnall one? Still, if its as bad as his tv scripts my brain will have ejected it. Or did you just mean they read them?
Tell you what, when you've got time (ha ha ha ha) I'd really like to see you tackle Faction Paradox...
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I coulda sworn he'd written one, but looking at the list- apparently not! Guess he was still too busy writing angry critiques of Pip and Jane Baker for fanzines.
Faction Paradox is intriguing from the bits I've heard, but I don't really know that much about them, and I gather the amount of books concerning them is pretty massive...
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