Grandfather Paradox (Doctor Who)
| Grandfather Paradox | |
|---|---|
| Doctor Who character | |
| First appearance | The Ancestor Cell |
| Last appearance | The Gallifrey Chronicles |
| Information | |
| Affiliated | Faction Paradox |
| Species | Time Lord |
| Home planet | Gallifrey |
| Home era | Rassilon Era |
Grandfather Paradox, usually referred to as the Grandfather, is a fictional character in the British science fiction franchise Doctor Who and its spin-off franchise Faction Paradox. In the BBC's Eighth Doctor Adventures novels, the Grandfather is a corrupt future version of the Eighth Doctor, while in Lawrence Miles's Faction Paradox series he is a seemingly incorporeal Time Lord of unknown identity. Both narratives portray him as the founder of Faction Paradox, a time-travelling voodoo cult.
In Lawrence Miles's Christmas on a Rational Planet, the Grandfather is referred to as the "voodoo priest of the House of Lungbarrow", suggesting he may have originated in the Doctor's own family.
In Lance Parkin's The Gallifrey Chronicles, the Doctor recalls his childhood, when his mother read him an ancient Gallifreyan legend about an adventurous youth. Ignoring his elders' warnings, the youth travelled into his own past and – with no clear motivation – murdered his own grandfather with an ordinary knife. The murder prevented the youth's birth, which prevented the murder, creating an irresolvable paradox. The youth was never heard from again, but legends said that he existed on some level as a being named Grandfather Paradox, a "shadowy half-man, simultaneously alive and dead, murderer and victim", always plotting against the Time Lords.
The Grandfather is the founder and leader of Faction Paradox, a time-travelling voodoo cult. Rejecting the ethos of Time Lord society, Faction Paradox members enjoy interfering with time travel and causing havoc and paradoxes. Their ritualistic practises and use of death imagery is a repudiation of the Time Lords' immortality. Rather than reproduce, Faction Paradox prefer to recruit outcasts, both from the Time Lords and lesser races such as humans.
At some point, Grandfather Paradox is captured by the Time Lords. They imprison him in Shada, their prison asteroid, declining to execute him because they fear him dead more than alive. In Christmas on a Rational Planet, the Carnival Queen disrupts the universe's rationality; this causes Lady President Romana to suffer an epileptic fit in which she signs an order to release 300 prisoners. Grandfather Paradox leads the mass escape from Shada.
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