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Summary
Doctor Who’s 60 years of adventures through space and time have brought the titular Time Lord into contact with various monsters and villains. Following the 2023 anniversary celebrations and the arrival of the Fifteenth Doctor, a new hierarchy of villains came to town, confirming a name given to them by fans: The Gods of Chaos.
Also known as the Pantheon of Discord, this group comprises powerful transcendental beings dedicated to chaos that’s seen them exiled from our universe. As old as known time, they have reality-altering powers that pose a challenge to the Doctor and their companions like few others. These gods gained a new lease of life when the Fourteenth Doctor and Donna took an accidental trip to the edge of the universe inWide Blue Yonder. But while the Doctor may be responsible for the recent rise of the pantheon, it isn’t new toDoctor Who.
Who Are The Gods Of Chaos In Doctor Who?
Over the years,Doctor Whohas introduced various members of the Gods of Discord and hinted at others waiting to make their big entrance. Fans seeking to create order from chaos have swept these theatrical foes with their physics-altering powers and aptitude for disorder into this mischievous but deadly group. The Gods of Chaos aren’t like other immortal entities that have appeared inDoctor Who. Transcendental lifeforms like the Eternals (introduced in the classic serial ‘Enlightenment’ and last seen in ‘Can You Hear Me?) and Chronovores (seen in ‘The Time Monster’) just aren’t as mischievous.
The members of the Pantheon of Discord are the stuff of legend. Even the Doctor recalled being told tales of these higher beings dedicated to disrupting reality and creating chaos as a child — before he grew up to antagonize them. They personify fundamental elements of our universe, or as it’s called inDoctor WhoN-Space, like music, games, and tricks, but fans have learned not to see this as a sign of order.
Each member appears to hail from a universe beyond ours, and N-Space has put up countless defenses to limit the Pantheon’s disruption, exiling most of them. They would have stayed in exile… If someone hadn’t made a mistake. The Fourteenth Doctor might not have been around for long, but he did incredible damage. Dealing with the Not-Things at the thin edge of the universe in ‘Wild Blue Yonder,’ he tried to buy some time with a salt superstition on the floor, telling them:
Salt, you can’t cross salt. In our universe, it is said that vampires, demons, and ghosts cannot cross a line of salt until they’ve counted every single grain. You’ve got no choice.
The lie failed, and at the end of the episode, the Doctor regretted doing “that thing with the salt,” worrying that invoking a superstition at the edge of the universe where the walls are thin and all things possible could cause a problem. He was right, and the Doctor could only blame himself as the Pantheon ran rampant.
When Have The Gods Of Chaos Appeared In Doctor Who?
The first of the pantheon to appear onDoctor Whowas the Toymaker, who fans first met in ‘The Celestial Toymaker’ in 1966. This mischievous entity ruled over a universe he created called the Toyroom. Mortals the Toymaker lured there became playthings of the being that the Fifteenth Doctor called a “living game.” The Toymaker had almost unlimited powers in the Toyroom, but he was bound by rules like any good game. The Doctor defeated the Toymaker at his games and freed his companion, with grave if unconfirmed consequences for the agent of chaos.
Depending on different sources, his universe was destroyed, or he was banished to the void for millennia. Audio and book spin-offs have pitted the Doctor against the Toymaker since, but his major revenge cameduring the 60th-anniversary specials. Exploiting the Doctor’s mistake, he broke through to Earth and took control of the world using the Giggle in 1925. The Toymaker could traverse space and time at will, altering reality wherever he went, including transforming people into toy items like balls and dolls.
Rules were still essential to his games, and if he lost the considerable prize for his opponent was the temporary gift of his powers. Theteam-up of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Doctorswon that when they beat him at the oldest game in the universe: catch. With their prize, the winners sealed the Toymaker away, and the Fifteenth Doctor was able to duplicate the TARDIS for himself.
The Doctor created a weak point in 1925 when another of the Pantheon broke through to Earth inThe Devil’s Chord. Maestro is soon revealed to be the child of the Toymaker, but they are the essence of music, controlling and consuming it to gain power and ensure the devastation of Earth.
Maestro changed history, creating a 1960s where the Beatles not only couldn’t write music but were disinterested. This led to a world ravaged by post-war atomic winter in the early 21st century. The Doctor has misgivings but stopped Maestro with the Notes of Banishment and a little help from his friends, the Beatles. DuringThe Devil’s Chord, The Doctor surmises that Maestro is just the start of the pantheon.
In fact, the musical nuisance arrived with their son, or as they called him, prelude: the brilliantly named Harbinger (Henry Arbinger). Harbinger survives Maestro’s banishment, and if a never-filmed 1960s script (subsequently adapted as an audio adventure) is to be believed, he could be joined by an aunt in the future. The Toymaker’s sister, Hecuba, the Queen of Time, is obsessed with clock-related games.
Another member of the Pantheon who had past dealings with the Doctor was the Trickster. This chaotic god was introduced inthe spin-off showThe Sarah Jane Adventures,having apparently escaped exile. A classic Faustian foe, the Trickster’s main power was speech, and he specialized in tricking humans into deals at the point of their death and feasting on the chaotic repercussions in the timeline. The Trickster’s vendetta against Sarah Jane saw him repeatedly exploit her history, including the death of her childhood friend, her parents, and finally, her fiance. It was at her wedding that the Tenth Doctor intervened.
The Trickster may be the most widely referenced member of the pantheon in the Whoniverse, having beennamechecked inTorchwoodand been the focus of one of the arcs in the mobile gameDoctor Who: Legacy, proclaiming, “Your pathetic group of allies and Doctors is no match for the powers of the Pantheon of Discord.“Doctor Whofans have found plenty of hints of the Trickster’s return in the adventures of the Doctor and Ruby.
What Connection Do The Gods Of Chaos Have To The Doctor And Ruby?
As showrunner Russell T. Davies told the behind-the-scenes showDoctor Who: Unleashed, there’s plenty more to come in this fascinating and deadly part of the Whoniverse:
Keeping going with this fantastical strand of the pantheon of gods, some of us call them the Gods of Chaos, which is a great title. I don’t know if it’s official, but I like it. It’s a chance, I think, introducing these gods, it starts to link them together, and Maestro is actually the child of The Toymaker. The Toymaker seems to be the supreme being of this pantheon. He’s not. There’s plenty of discoveries to come with that.
The threat to the Doctor and Ruby in Season 15 is two-fold — the danger posed by more powerful members of the Pantheon and the mystery of Ruby’s existence. We know that the Fourteenth Doctor’s actions in Wild Blue Yonder allowed the exiled entities back, and they’ve been hassled by them ever since. Even the goblins in ‘The Church on Ruby Road’ arrived in the wake of the Toymaker. But these entities have been quick to hint at something darker and more powerful: The One Who Waits.
Namechecked by Maestro and even the Beep of the Meeps, the description from the Toymaker was the most ominous:
There’s only one player I didn’t dare face: The One Who Waits. I saw it waiting and I ran…
An obvious candidate could be the Black Guardian, a persistent foe of the Fourth and Fifth Doctors. As one of the two balancing Guardians of Time, the Fourth Doctor once described chaos as his “first love,” he’s probably a bit over-qualified. Indeed, he’s already out of the picture. On arrival in N-Space, the Toymaker said he beat the Guardians and “shrank them into voodoo dolls.”
Given those name checks, the One Who Waits either sits high above the Pantheon or isn’t a member at all. However, Ruby’s story seems bound to this new hierarchy of chaos and that huge threat, given her ability to conjure snow in the most unlikely places. Fans are expecting the Season One finale to reveal the identity of the One Who Waits and answer the questions posed by Ruby’s apparently reality-altering powers, the strange music Maestro found running through her, and thefamiliar face following her and the Doctorthrough their adventures.
Showrunner Russell T. Davies has promisedthe Fifteenth Doctor’s first season ends with him and Ruby fighting the “greatest enemy of their lives.” As the frequently fourth-wall-breakingThe Devil’s Chordmade a song and dance to tell us: There’s always a twist at the end.
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Originally premiered in 1963, Doctor Who is a sci-fi series that follows a powerful being known as a Time Lord, referred to as the Doctor. Using an interdimensional time-traveling ship known as the TARDIS, the Doctor travels time and space with various companions as they solve multiple problems and help avert catastrophe as much as they almost cause it. Though the Doctor is always the same character, they experience regenerations, allowing them to be recast every few seasons as a unique immortal being with new personality traits.
