While we wait for Christmas Day just a thought about the Night of the Doctor. Why did the Eighth Doctor die? Why did he have to be brought back by the sisterhood and given a potion to allow his regeneration?
BTW, the picture is from the Doctor Who: Legacy character who is dressed appropriately.
My thoughts
[pullquote]And why didn’t he know he was on Karn?[/pullquote]
From various sources we know that regenerations isn’t guaranteed to happen:
- Decapitation doesn’t allow it (Big Finish The Scape Goat)
- Not when already regenerating (Impossible Astronaut / Wedding of River Song)
- There is a chance of refusing (The Master in Sound of Drums or technically the Tenth Doctor in Stole Earth / Journey’s End though the latter is more like a regeneration without a new body)
- There are some locations that inhibit regeneration - this is mentioned in the Big Finish Dark Eyes in which Straxus tries to die in such a way as to not regenerate
I think that in the case of Night of the Doctor there are three possibilities:
- Massive simultaneous damage from the crash stopped regeneration happening - I think this is dull
- He choose to die, didn’t enter the TARDIS and this angst continued after the Sisterhood brought him back. I think this idea has merit but isn’t the whole answer
- The Sisterhood interfered to force a regeneration into the War Doctor. This has merit and I think this the best theory (thought some of option 2 applies). The sisterhood have many powers and had clearly blocked the fact that he was approaching Karn from him.
These are my thoughts - what do you think? Have I missed something? Let me know in the comments.
