Talk:The Master (Classic Who)

Numberring Incarnations
The Doctor's and Romana's incarnations may be simple to number, but the same cannot be said for the Master. The character is rarely, if ever, referenced to by their number, both in and out of universe. The number itself is quite complicated to come by, and is inconsistent when considering multiple sources. New incarnations are also inserted every so often, mostly between Beevers and Jacobi. This means the numbers would need to be changed regularly, which creates confusion for readers, both familiar and unfamiliar with any sort of numbering system.

One example of inconsistency is the numbering for Delgado and Pratt/Beevers. The television series never referenced Delgado's number. It did however call Pratt (and therefore Beevers) the Master's final (i.e. 13th) incarnation. The novel 'Legacy of the Daleks' later implied that Delgado and Pratt/Beevers are the same (13th) incarnation. However, the comic 'Doorway to Hell' flat out shows that the Delgado Master is not the same incarnation (making him the 12th at the latest) by having him regenerate. The audio 'The Two Masters' also makes use of a pre-disfigured Beevers Master, who is shown to be burnt to a crisp by one of his future incarnations.

Taking all of that into account, I believe placing numbers on incarnations (minus maybe Hughes and Pratt/Beevers) isn't very useful in the context of a Wikia page. Perhaps referring to each incarnation (or body) by their actor/portrayal or an in-universe alias/nick-name would be a more reasonable alternative.

Just for reference, here are the incarnations of the Master as reffered to by their portayal and some aliases.

ORIGINAL CYCLE William Hughes - The First Master James Dreyfus - The Inventor (Big Finish First Doctor Adventures audios) Roger Delgado - ? Geoffrey Beevers - The Thirteenth Master

SURVIVAL Peter Pratt & Geoffrey Beevers - The Burnt Master Anthony Ainley - Tremas New Adventures - Major Kreer (Virgin New Adventures novels) Geoffrey Beevers II - Mr. Seta/John Smith (Big Finish Main Range audios) Gordon Tipple - ? Eric Roberts - Bruce Doctor Who Magazine - The Preacher (DWM Eighth Doctor comics) Short Trips/Companion Chronicles - George/Richard/Sailor/Maestro/Maestro Jr (BF short story and audio) Geoffrey Beevers III - Don Maestro (Big Finish's Mastermind audio)

NEW CYCLE Alex MacQueen - Harcourt De'ath/The Doctor (Big Finish Dark Eyes/UNIT/Main Range audios) Derek Jacobi - The War Master/Yana (Big Finish War Master audios) + Titan - The Boy (Titan Eleventh Doctor comics) John Simm - Harold Saxon Michelle Gomez - Missy

EXCLUSIONS Doctor Who Magazine - Magnus Edward Brayshaw - The War Chief New Adventures - Felix Kriegslieter Eighth Doctor Adventures/Faction Paradox/Philip Madoc - The Man with the Rosette/The Magistrate/The War King who have all been implied to be the Master, but haven't explicitly been stated so.

FangrrlLife (talk) 03:30, March 10, 2018 (UTC)