Celestial Toymaker
From Multiversal Omnipedia
The Celestial Toymaker is a television character who features in Doctor Who.
Contents |
Biography
The Celestial Toymaker was a powerful cosmic being who resided in the universe. He ruled over his own dimension known as the Celestial Toyroom where he commanded immense powers, but they were limited by the rules he set for any particular game, although he could bend these rules or 'forget' to mention them to his opponents if he so chose. He himself was immortal and invulnerable, and appeared capable of space and time travel at will. During the course of a game, one of the players might die outright or they might lose, in which case, the Toymaker would have total control over their life and personality, perpetually. (Episode: The Celestial Toymaker)
During his first incarnation, the Toymaker drew the Doctor's TARDIS back to his realm and made the Doctor and his companions play his games again. This time the Toymaker arranged things so that even if they won, the Toyroom would vanish completely at their moment of victory, leaving him the only survivor and the Doctor and his companions his subjects forever. The Doctor outwitted the Toymaker again and escaped, leaving his realm in chaos. With his defeat, the Doctor came to believe that the Toyroom would cease to exist. (Episode: The Celestial Toymaker)
Overview
Personality and attributes
In appearance, the Celestial Toymaker was an alien intelligence who was able to take on a human form. (Episode: The Celestial Toymaker)
He was noted for being an enigmatic immortal entity. (Episode: The Celestial Toymaker)
Powers and abilities
It was said that he was an eternal being of infinite power. (Episode: The Celestial Toymaker)
He maintained his home in the Celestial Toyroom that was a pocket universe under his control. (Episode: The Celestial Toymaker)
Notes
- The Celestial Toymaker was created by Brian Hayles and portrayed by actor Michael Gough where he made his first appearance in Doctor Who "The Celestial Toymaker" (1966).
In other media
Video games
Novels
- In The Quantum Archangel, the Celestial Toymaker was referenced in the setting of the BBC Past Doctor Adventures novel series. He was claimed to be one of the fundamental forces of the universe similar to the White and Black Guardians of Time where the Toymaker was the avatar of games and illusions called the Crystal Guardian.
- In Doctor Who: Divided Loyalties, the Celestial Toymaker was referenced in the setting of the BBC Past Doctor Adventures novel series. While trying to win Adric to his side, the Toymaker tried to broker comradery with the E-Space native by saying he was also from another universe, having been born elsewhere and forced to live out his life in a place not his own, until he seemingly changed his story by claiming to be a voluntary exile in the manner of the Doctor, though he specified that he was not a Time Lord. However, this same account also saw the Toymaker identifying himself as a Great Old One and the Guardian of Dreams to the Doctor and Stefan. While the Toymaker in a dormant and disembodied state, the First Doctor, Rallon and Millennia arrived in the Toyroom in a stolen TARDIS to investigate the legend of the Toymaker. After he managed to possess Rallon, the Toymaker made Millennia one of his living toys, with the Doctor able to best him with the help of the Dymova. Knowing that he would become an even more worthy opponent given time to mature, the Toymaker allowed the Doctor to leave the Toyroom. Rallon's individuality would later reassert itself in full — much to the distress of what remained the original 'pure' Toymaker — their consciousnesses had substantially merged, with the Toymaker's personality and behaviour being influenced by Rallon's own. His servant Stefan would go on to observe broad aspects of the Toymaker's personality which were actually part of Rallon's, including 'a sense of morality, of good and evil'; without him the Toymaker was 'cold and harsh'. When the Toymaker discovered that Rallon's body was dying after centuries of existence, he set out to ensnare the Doctor again and hatched a complex plot to turn his companions against him and absorb the Fifth Doctor as a new host, but was thwarted when Rallon forced himself to undergo multiple regenerations consecutively, with the trauma expelling the Toymaker from his body. A projection of Rallon's potential future self then merged with the Toymaker to ensure that his full powers continued to be kept under control. While waiting for his Toyroom to repair itself, the Toymaker decided to take his servant Stefan to Earth to seek amusement, deciding to go to Blackpool from an idea he had seen in Tegan Jovanka's mind. By this account, although the Toymaker had meaningfully regenerated, in a way which altered his personality, he kept the same face as before.
Comic Books
- In Doctor Who Magazine v1 #56 (1981), the Celestial Toymaker appeared in the backup strip story "The Greatest Gamble" published by Marvel UK. On one of many occasions when he tricked game-players from across human history into playing games with him, the Toymaker lured a professional gambler from the Old West named Gaylord Lefevre from his steamboat in the Mississippi, challenging him to a game of cards. After Gaylord attempted to mark the cards to "even the score" when his luck began to sour, the Toymaker proclaimed that the game was forfeit and transformed him into one of his many toys after playing along briefly to his cheating attempt. The Toymaker later challenged a Roman soldier, leading him past the toy version of Gaylord.
- In Doctor Who Magazine Comics v1 #91 (1996), the Celestial Toymaker appeared in the story "Endgame" published by Marvel UK. Having been banished to the ether in his defeat, the Toymaker spent millennia searching for a way to best the Doctor, eventually finding that the Imagineum would be able to create a version of the Doctor under his bidding that was more powerful than the original. As the Imagineum had been in a spacecraft that crashed on Earth and looted by the Knights Templar, the Toymaker played and won a game of canasta with a descendant of the Templar living in the 1990s named Marwood, placing him under his bidding and the Imagineum in his possession. However, Marwood's adjutant, Felix, stole a component of the Imagineum called the Focus, and entrusted it with Maxwell Edison and Izzy Sinclair, before he was killed by Marwood in a mirror version of Stockbridge the Toymaker made, while keeping the real village in a Macro-Dimensional Linkage Device that resembled a snowglobe. When the Eighth Doctor arrived in the fake Stockbridge, the Toymaker confronted him when he, Max and Izzy tried to retreat to his TARDIS. While the Doctor and Izzy were able to escape from his clutches, Max was captured, and taken to the Macro-Dimensional Linkage Device that the Toymaker had sealed the real Stockbridge in. When the Doctor and Izzy mounted a rescue from the Toyroom, the Toymaker had Marwood and his dolls capture them, and forced them to play games of snakes and ladders and hangman before the Toymaker unveiled his possession of the Imagineum. The Toymaker placed Izzy and Max in a game of mousetrap and created his duplicate of the Doctor, placing them in a game of gladiatorial chess. Despite his duplicate being physically superior to him, the Doctor was able to convince his duplicate not to fight by explaining that he was merely just another one of the Toymaker's playthings. After seeing the Toymaker murder Marwood after growing bored of him, the duplicate of the Doctor was left with no doubt that he too would eventually befall the same fate, so he turned on the Toymaker, going to kill him, but the Doctor instead used the Imaginuem to create a duplicate of the Toymaker, sending him and his duplicate to compete in a perpetual stalemate in the Dark Places where the Toymaker originated. As the Toyroom began to dissipate, the Doctor, Izzy, and Max fled, while the Doctor's duplicate remained so he could destroy the Imagineum, and the Doctor restored Stockbridge after Max took the "snowglobe" with him from the Toyroom.
Audio Books
- In Doctor Who: The Nightmare Fair, the Celestial Toymaker appeared in The Lost Stories that were produced by Big Finish Productions. According to the Sixth Doctor, "nobody [knew]" who the Toymaker really was. He was said to be "old beyond imagining" and to predate "Time Lord records". A team of modern Gallifreyan researchers who attempted to "chart his path through time" gave up, bored of all the games he played with his own past. The Doctor speculated that they didn't try any harder than that because they couldn't find a way to control him. While facing the Toymaker in Blackpool, the Sixth Doctor came to believe that he had finally cracked the riddle of the Toymaker's origins, deducing that the Toymaker originated in another universe and was "hurled" into the Doctor's universe by some kind of 'catastrophe', believing his theory explained the Toymaker's longevity and immunity to the usual laws of physics. The Toymaker did not confirm or deny the theory, but did corroborate the Doctor's conclusion that he had lived for "millions of years", and then told the Doctor that he used his powers to build and assist civilisations for the first few "thousands of millennia" he spent in the Doctor's universe until he eventually got bored and only mindless destruction could give him any satisfaction; after an equal length of time spent destroying everything he had previously built up, he discovered games as his final and lasting distraction, as they allowed him to embrace nihilism without falling into inactive apathy, surrendering all to the whims of chance.
Appearances
- Doctor Who: "The Celestial Toymaker" (1966)
External Links
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