The Valeyard

Character
Name:	The Valeyard
Occupation:	Time Lord
Relationships:
Fandom:	Doctor Who
Other:	played by Michael Jayston, Geoffrey Hughes (Popplewick disguise)
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The Valeyard is a character on Doctor Who. In Season 23, the High Council of the Time Lords appoints him to proscute the trial of the Sixth Doctor. In that story The Trial of a Time Lord it is reveled by the Master that the Valeyard is an amalgamation of the Doctor between his 12th and final self.

Fandom

In Fanfiction

Valeyard fics are Doctor Who fanworks in which The Valeyard appears. These works sometimes involve a current Doctor's transition to become the Valeyard, with a certain event pushing the Doctor to become a darker version of themselves. Valeyard fics can resemble Time Lord Victorious and dark!Doctor works in this way.

Some early works featured the thirteenth incarnation of the Doctor as the Valeyard. These works were written long before the 13th Doctor's run; before the Doctor's regeneration cycles were extended past the normal 12 regenerations of a Timelord.

It is not uncommon for new or mysterious versions of the Doctor to be cast as the Valeyard. Tentoo, the metacrisis Doctor, sometimes becomes the Valeyard in fanfiction stories. There were also fan theories suggesting the War Doctor would turn out to be the Valeyard following his first appearance in canon.

Shipping

The pairing of Valeyard/Master often appears. Based on an audio story, the Valeyard has more recently been paired with the Lumiat; the good incarnation of the Master/Missy.

Fan Comments

On continuity and the depiction of The Valeyard in fanfiction:

There's a popular misconception about a particular character that I've been seeing every time that character appears in any fiction journal or community on LiveJournal. You're free to incorporate it into your story whatever I say, of course, but if I were you I'd rather know I was doing it.

The Valeyard is not a proper incarnation of the Doctor. The Valeyard is a "distillation" of the Doctor's dark side, from "between [emphasis mine] his twelfth and final" incarnations. The Master makes this statement, and the Valeyard doesn't deny it; neither of them make mention of the agency by which this distillation was brought about (though I assume it was the High Council who wanted the Doctor put on trial). If for your story you want the Valeyard to be a proper incarnation of the Doctor instead of being the Watcher from Logopolis gone bad, not only ought you to decide the Master's motivation for making up a story but you ought to decide the Valeyard's motivation for going along with him. Just so you have a retcon ready when you're interrogated by, y'know, readers like me.

But I'll note that the stories I've read that employ this misconception usually use it to good effect; and that I have nothing against developing continuity in new directions as long as, even retroactively, you know you've done it; and that I've actually advised at least one such author not to change a word on my account.

Fanworks

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

Fanart

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Fanfiction

• The Valeyard
• Reach Out and Touch Someone (The 1-900-TIMESEX Remix) by Time_Testudinem (Turtle)
• Oh Dear...
• Where We Belong
• Istanbul (Not Constantinople) - alt 13th doctor

Fanvids

• Seven Devils - Valeyard/Twelfth Doctor (series 8)
• Doctor Who Valeyard Rises Trailer

Archives & Fannish Links

• The Valeyard (Doctor Who) works on Ao3