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Ch. 2: “World Enough and Time” Analysis Doctor Who S10.11: Fish Metaphor Foreshadows Doctor’s Fall & Hope for Future

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Fish Have Many Meanings

I’m sorry about not getting this chapter finished before Season 10 started because, as you’ll see, fish foreshadow so much of what the 12th Doctor is about. In fact, they show up in surprising places, like the Library, because all roads and Fish lead to the metaphors of the Library, Rome, and Vikings. For the 12th Doctor, they also lead to prison, Library metaphors, Hospital metaphors and more.

I started putting Religious symbology related to fish in this chapter, like the Christian fish a.k.a. ichthys here before Season 10, along with the symbolism of water, which is mostly what I didn’t finish. For the most part, I’m going to skip the symbology for lack of time.

I didn’t get a chance to talk about the Fish in “The Eaters of Light,” so we’ll examine it below.

Since Fish hold a lot of meaning, it’s no wonder that fish, fishing, eating fish, representations of fish, or mentions of fish and shoals are common throughout DW. In fact, live goldfish show up in at least one episode of each of the nuWho Doctors. Also, fish people are either mentioned or show up multiple times in 11th and 12th Doctor episodes, along with some Classic Who episodes.

Here is an image showing an example of a live goldfish with Dr. Moon and CAL’s dad from “Silence in the Library.” This is in CAL’s virtual reality.

In fact, fish are so important that they show up 3 times in the Library in 3 different ways. We’ll look at this more in depth in a bit.

Fish As a Metaphor

Fish and other sea and river creatures (which I’ll collectively refer to as “Fish”) are one of the most important metaphors of the 12th Doctor. They can symbolize, among many other things, mystery, transformation, and the unconscious, which we’ve looked at in depth in the pre-airing chapters of TRODM, starting at Chapter 9 of Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who.

However, Fish represent so much more. Because they hold great significance across many cultures, groups, mythologies, and religions, DW is tapping into a rich set of metaphors for these normally watery creatures. For example, they can represent the following: knowledge, wisdom, eternity, creativity, femininity (we’ve also looked at how the Doctor, through integration, is both male and female), and fertility (we’ve looked at the plague associated with the 12th Doctor in Chapter 17). We’ll revisit this.

Note that some representations may seem contradictory, such as good luck, happiness, and freedom. Fish are contextual, depending on how they are used. I see Fish as good luck and happiness symbols for the Doctor once he is freed. Right now, they are promises for the future. Bill represents a face of the Doctor, so I am also referring to her.

In the meantime, they represent the undoing of the 12th Doctor: prisons, hospitals, universities, and libraries, important themes for him.

Because Fish are so important, we had to see more than the Harmony Shoal scar-faced people in Season 10. I’m betting, because they are so significant, that we should see more in either the finale or Christmas Special.

The 12-step Great Work: Transformation, Projection & Pisces

We’ve examined how the Doctor’s transformation follows the original 4-step process of the Great Work. However, the Great Work can involve additional steps. Since we are dealing with the 12th Doctor, the 12-step process, describing 12 chemical operations of the Great Work, becomes ever more important.

Tip: Matching up numbers, like the 12-step process, 12 chemical operations, and the 12th Doctor, is an important part of making connections and reading subtext.

Projection & the 12-step Great Work

The 12th step is projection – the ultimate goal of Western alchemy. Once the Philosopher's stone or powder of projection has been created, the process of projection can transmute a lesser substance into a higher form, which tends to be lead into gold. In fact, this is why the Doctor could be called Living Metal. This was a term used in “Silver Nemesis” a 7th Doctor story, although “Living Metal” was never defined.

And we know from our look at the 4-step process, the Doctor is a being of pure consciousness and is returning to be what he was born to be. The question is what does that mean? That’s where the 12 steps begin to help us tie a lot of things together to answer.

Great examples of projections are the Cloister Wraiths in “Hell Bent.” The Time Lords are quite scared of them, so the ghostly Wraiths have real power. I see the Raven, the Quantum Shade, in “Face the Raven” as the same thing.

Watch Marvel’s Dr. Strange for an understanding of fighting on a ghostly level. We most likely won’t see it that way, but that’s the way I envision it because this is what projection means. It’s pure consciousness – ghostly beings. Also, it refers to CAL in the Library metaphor and Morbius. She uses tools in her dream. However, she has great power and can move things with her mind in the projection.

12 Steps & Pisces

The 12 steps not only have a chemical operation, but also they have a Zodiac designation. And Pisces, the fish, which is the 12th Zodiac sign, represents it. This is why the symbol for projection, shown below, is the symbol for Pisces, which represents 2 fish. In fact, there is a symbol of Pisces in the Doctor’s office in “The Pilot.” I know I mentioned it, but it might be in a later analysis

In fact, Pisces also represents self-undoing: being one’s own worst enemy. That certainly describes the 12th Doctor. But that’s not all. According to Wikipedia, Pisces represents the House of Undoing, which includes

· Places of seclusion such as hospitals, prisons and institutions, including self-imposed imprisonments

· Mysticism and mystery

· Things which are not apparent to self, yet clearly seen by others

· Elusive, clandestine, secretive or unbeknownst matters

· Privacy, retreat, reflection, and self-sacrifice

· Unconscious/subconscious

· Unknown enemies

This all sounds like what has been happening with the Doctor.

Pisces = Prison & the Library Metaphor

Pisces, among several things, is associated with prison. After all, fish have to live in water, or they will die, unless they have developed special survival skills and have become amphibious fish, like mudskippers.

12th Doctor & Prison

Here’s an image of half of one of 12th Doctor’s faces. Below we see that he is looking into Clara’s fishbowl in “Time Heist” that contains a castle, a goldfish, and some water plants. Because the setting of “Heaven Sent” was a castle within the Doctor’s confession dial, and the Doctor spent 4.5 billion years imprisoned, tortured, and dying there, the castle and prison are metaphors for him. The fishbowl, itself, is a metaphor for prison.

So the Doctor being imprisoned in a castle was foreshadowed before the mid-point of Season 8. That also goes along with the island castle factory issues we saw in the “The Eaters of Light” analysis.

But he’s also looking into the bowl in the image, so one of his faces is watching himself.

But that’s not all. Check this out. In this image below, the Doctor is looking into Clara’s dryer. Because his face is spinning around in the reflection at the beginning, he represents all Doctors. However, check out the 2 different Eye symbols (red and yellow arrows) that represent beings watching him. Who is watching the Watcher? That’s the subject of a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode. Anyway, there is also an open door (white arrow), representing the Door metaphor, and foreshadowing the future of being a Door.

Most Fish Need Water The problem with being a Fish is that most of them need water to survive. River, Amy Pond, and even Clara, since she is associated with a lake, provide the Water metaphor that Fish need.

This is why the 12th Doctor has been having such problems. He hasn’t wanted to live without the women he cares about and loves, in whatever capacity that is. We’ve seen how this has been driving, in part, his self-destructive behaviors. In “Heaven Sent,” he sacrifices himself over and over, dying over and over. He almost let himself drown after he jumped from the castle into the sea. It was only thoughts of Clara who kept him going.

The Mudskipper I’m fascinated by mudskippers, amphibious fish, so I was really happy but surprised to see one at the beginning of “The Lie of the Land” with a Monk’s foot next to it. This image, shown below, is making a statement that the Monks no longer need the Water metaphor to live. This foreshadows that the 12th Doctor will be able to live without the Water metaphor, at least for long periods of time. Mudskippers can spend a lot of time out of water. This is a sign of healing.

Prison & River

Prison is also associated with River, who, as we looked at early on, is a mirror of the Doctor. She spent a lot of time locked up in Stormcage for killing him.

The first time we saw River in an 11th Doctor episode was “The Time of Angels.” She was associated with the 12th Doctor, as shown by the timer in the image below. She is from the 12th Doctor’s timeline and is a face of the 12th Doctor. Please keep in mind that people, including Doctors, can take on numbers of other Doctors temporarily. We’ll look at this quite a bit in “World Enough and Time.”

Fish, Pisces & the Library Metaphor

Religious symbology shows up a lot in DW, especially with the Doctor because he was born to save the universe.

Christian Fish & Projection (Pisces) Symbols in the Library One of the symbols associated with the Doctor is the Christian fish or ichthys, colloquially known as the “sign of the fish” or the “Jesus fish.” It has 2 intersecting arcs with extended arcs at one end for the tail.

Check out this image below from “Silence in the Library.” Not only is there a Pisces symbol on the 2 doors, but also there are the additional arcs to create an ichthys on each of the 2 Library doors. In fact, the Dr. Strange movie uses almost the same projection symbol that is on the doors.

The Doctor, alone, doesn’t equal 2 fish, though. It takes at least 2 people to pilot the Boat. An integration. It’s why the puddle in “The Pilot” was looking for a pilot and got Heather. Here’s where Clara came in and Bill, too. We examined Clara with the Boat metaphor at the beginning of “Deep Breath.”

The 3rd fish reference in the Library is in Donna’s dream. Donna and her dream husband go fishing, shown below.

Prison & the Library Metaphor Mean Djinn Traps

While I’ve mentioned the Library being a prison, I never showed you the 2 djinn traps. The first, shown below, is very close to the beginning of “Silence in the Library” before we see the 10th Doctor and Donna enter the Pisces doors above. As you can see by the patterns on the floor with patterns in circles inside other patterns and circles, it’s a complicated symbol. There are 2 concentric circles. However, if we count the inside and outside borders of circles of the outermost circle because it has a multiple of an 8-pointed star, the extra circle gives us 3 generations and 3 Doctors.

Looking back to the prison ship in “World Enough and Time,” we can see in the image below that is much less complicated. This means the Doctor is close to breaking free from all of this.

In case, the Library didn’t catch enough djinn, it has a second trap, shown below. CAL is represented by the floating security ball, which has shut itself down, and dropped to the center of the smallest circle. She is deeply trapped. We get confirmation of that when we realize she is really a child cyborg, the control node of the Library computer.

Fish, a River Metaphor, “Human Nature” & “The Family of Blood”

Episodes with lots of wall hangings and items in scenes scream subtext objects. So it’s no surprise that “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood” have so many connections to other episodes and are outline episodes for the larger story.

Here’s the 10th Doctor, who is playing the 24th Doctor (a multiple of 12). Behind the Doctor are 2-framed fish on the wall. I think they are probably paintings or prints/copies, rather than dead, preserved fish, which could change the meaning of the subtext. The Doctor, Martha, and Joan are all associated with the fish at points in the episode as they stand near or cross the path of the fish.

Being human is a form of prison for the Time Lord part imprisoned in the watch.

We also see Joan with a pocket watch, shown below. Like the Doctor, she has hidden her identity and is living as a human, so we know she represents an imprisoned Time Lord.

And “The Family of Blood” shows us who Joan represents. Below, she is outside the little Library area, but inside is a picture of a river. The painting of the river is best viewed not in this image below but from the next one, which doesn’t have Joan. The odd thing about this scene with Joan was that Joan had her eyes closed for several seconds, even though she was talking to Martha. That most likely is significant, given we’ve seen that the Doctor has had vision issues and that River is a mirror.

Below is a better view of the river painting. Joan, in the above painting, is being associated with this river painting. Therefore, Joan is a mirror of River.

BTW, River didn’t realize why she needed separate bathrooms from Hydroflax in THORS, so I’ve been wondering, given the mirrors, if River is visually impaired, too.

Fish, Romans & Slavery

Fish, Romans, and slavery come up in 3 different episodes that I can think of off the top of my head in addition to Rory’s imprisonment in an android body.

“The Eaters of Light” In “The Eaters of Light,” there is a carved fish in a rock, shown below, although it’s hard to see. Simon tells Bill the Romans are close to the rock with the fish. The Romans, then, are associated with the Fish, and so is Bill. Since the Fish represents imprisonment, the Romans, themselves, are imprisoned.

“The Fires of Pompeii” We saw previously that Peter Capaldi’s character, Caecilius, in “The Fires of Pompeii” has a chain around his neck, so he’s a happy slave.

The first words of the episode take on new meaning, knowing that fish equate to the Doctor.

VENDOR (OC): Fish! Get your fresh fish!

Pompeii is not what it appears to be even beyond the surprises in the episode. The fish vendor is selling bodies and body parts, which is consistent with the half-faced man and the butcher/pig metaphor. It’s consistent with all the brains in the big “C” room that are enslaved in TRODM.

The fish vendor isn’t the only one involved in the slave trade. Another vendor sold Caecilius the TARDIS, which is the Doctor’s wife metaphor.

When we first see him, he is admiring the TARDIS in his home.

CAECILIUS: Modern art! Out of the way, that's it. Oh, Rombus, I'm a little bit peckish. Get me some ants in honey, there's a good lad. Ooo, maybe a dormouse?

Caecilius is admiring the TARDIS as art in a similar way that Vastra admires her wife, Jenny, in “Deep Breath,” when she has Jenny pose as a living statue while Vastra works.

Caecilius is peckish, which is interesting, especially since we see him eating snacks in TRODM and now even more in Season 10. That mirrors the Master. The only time I’ve seen the Doctor eat a lot is in “The Two Doctors,” when the 2nd Doctor was mutating temporarily.

Rombus is an interesting name. Besides being an equilateral quadrilateral, it also means flatfish, magician’s circle, or spinning top, all of which have been in the text and subtext in various episodes.

The dormouse was considered a delicacy in ancient Rome. The most interesting thing about it is that Elizabethans believed Dormouse fat could induce sleep since the animal put on fat before hibernating. Since unconsciousness is a huge factor with the Doctor, the dormouse seems to suggest he wants to sleep or continue sleeping maybe because he doesn’t want to give up his human family in the dream or because he is being controlled.

Caecilius’s son and daughter are slaves, too. His daughter, who is part of the Sybilline Sisterhood, is wearing gold and turning to stone like the rest of the sisterhood. She is a mirror of the Doctor in that she can see into the past and future. And his son is wearing, what looks like a gold pocket watch around his neck, and he has a chain pattern on his sleeves. His tunic is purple with gold accents. The son is a mirror of the Doctor because we learn at the end of the episode that he is studying to be a doctor.

BTW, there is a lot of subtext that says the Doctor is trying to free himself and the other slaves. Here’s an example, and we’ll look at more in the future. The 10th Doctor and Donna introduce themselves to Caecilius.

CAECILIUS: Who are you?

DOCTOR: I am Spartacus.

DONNA: And so am I.

CAECILIUS: Mister and Mrs Spartacus.

Spartacus, a former gladiator and an accomplished military leader, was one of the escaped slave leaders in the Third Servile War, a major failed slave uprising against the Roman Republic.

The 1st Doctor, Slavery & Fish in “The Romans” The 1st Doctor is involved in the slave trade in the shocking subtext of the 2nd season 4-episode story called the “The Romans.” Nero is his mirror, and Nero is the one who gives Barbara the gold bracelet that enslaves her to the Animus’s control in the next story. Is this planned by the Doctor? Or is he also mind controlled? I haven’t seen enough of the 1st Doctor to tell.

Near the end of “The Romans,” the Doctor sets fire to the map of Rome (says it’s by accident, but it’s not. The 10th Doctor mentions it in “The Fires of Pompeii.”), and Nero decides that it’s a good idea to burn Rome. Later, Vicki, a companion, tells the Doctor that he should get credit for the fire in Rome. The Doctor likes that idea, and once Vicki leaves, the Doctor laughs maniacally. This morphs into Nero’s maniacal laughter, as Nero plays the lyre while Rome burns.

Backing up to the beginning of the first episode of “The Romans,” there is an exchange reminiscent of Caecilius’s exchange above. However, the 1st Doctor mentions a goldfish when he, Barbara, and Ian are discussing the Roman meal. Like “The Fires of Pompeii,” ant’s come up in the conversation, which is interesting because the next 1st Doctor story is about ant-like beings and living larval weapons, controlled by the Animus, who are fighting butterfly-like beings.

BARBARA: Ant's eggs in hibiscus honey. DOCTOR: Oh, absolutely. What did you say? IAN: Ant's eggs, Doctor. DOCTOR: Yes, that's what I thought she said. Ant's eggs. What do you think I am, a goldfish, hmm?

BTW, the insectoid war symbolizes what’s happening with the 12th Doctor.

Pisces, Season 10 & the Library Metaphor at the University

Since Pisces represents a prison and other institutions, the university represents a prison, too. In fact, the Vault is a representation of the prison, the Library metaphor, and the Doctor’s mind, which we’ve examined, so the Vault also represents his own prison.

Season 10 has been playing out in the Library metaphor since “The Pilot.” In fact, in the opening scene in the Doctor’s office, shown below, the clock (white arrow) says it’s 4 o’clock. We’re in the Library. But that’s not all the evidence…

In “World Enough and Time,” at the beginning of the episode, we see various windows go by. This window, shown below, is from “Smile” with the hayfield and 2 sets of tracks (white arrow) in the foreground. The strange thing about this is that there is no city in the background. So how can the hayfield be there? Where are the Vardy? This is another item that says something isn’t right. Also, it tells us that we’ve been in the Library metaphor the whole time.

There Doctor being a professor and teaching at a university has quite a few similarities to a 4th Doctor story “Shada,” written by Douglas Adams, but was never completed due to a labor situation. There have been quite a few references in Season 10 to Adams. According to the TARDIS Wikia:

The story revolves around the lost planet Shada, on which the Time Lords built a prison for defeated would-be conquerors of the universe. Skagra, one such inmate, needs the help of one of the prison's inmates. He finds nobody knows where Shada is anymore except one aged Time Lord who has retired to Earth, where he is a professor at St. Cedd's College, Cambridge. Luckily for the universe, Skagra's attempt to force the information out of Professor Chronotis coincides with a visit by the professor's old friend, the Fourth Doctor.

I nearly mentioned this in “The Pilot” analysis, but I forgot about this. Thanks to Difficat for mentioning “Shada” in the comments on a past analysis.

Pisces & the Hospital Metaphor

Being that Rory is a mirror of the 12th Doctor, it’s not surprising that he is connected to prison (being imprisoned in a Roman android body) and a hospital, which we saw him first working in during “The Eleventh Hour.”

Now, Bill, a face of the Doctor, is also associated with the Hospital.

Hospitals, though, can be both negative and positive. We saw how Bill was in a hospital nightmare.

However, in the long run, it is meant to heal. In “The Pilot” analysis, we looked at how the St John Ambulance symbol was both a symbol of torture in DW and healing. Therefore, it’s not surprising that a face of the Doctor is in both a torturous situation and one that is healing.

Femininity

We’ve seen how the Doctor in TRODM was a male on the outside but female inside. In fact, we examined how his watch in “Human Nature” had a woman’s voice as part of his Time Lord consciousness. She said she was hiding among men.

He gave us more information in “World Enough and Time”:

(Night. Sitting on a bench, eating the chips from polystyrene trays.)

DOCTOR: She was my first friend, always so brilliant, from the first day at the Academy. So fast, so funny. She was my man crush.

BILL: I'm sorry?

DOCTOR: Yeah, I think she was a man back then. I'm fairly sure that I was, too. It was a long time ago, though.

BILL: So, the Time Lords, bit flexible on the whole man-woman thing, then, yeah?

DOCTOR: We're the most civilised civilisation in the universe. We're billions of years beyond your petty human obsession with gender and its associated stereotypes.

Fish = Fertility While a Sun

Being a Sun metaphor, the Doctor is very fertile, which we’ve examined, especially in relation to “Heaven Sent.” There are Y-shaped symbols, meaning plague crosses, all over the castle. Nearly every time he moves gears, he is unconsciously creating more ghostly beings. He is powering a factory, creating an army. We’ll look at this more in depth in another chapter and how it relates to the factory of Cybermen in “World Enough and Time.”

Fish: Food for the Soul

This is the section I really had to update since we hadn’t seen the Doctor eating much, except TRODM. He eats a lot in Season 10. Anyway, in TRODM, the 12th Doctor was eating sushi. Eating fish is a 12th Doctor metaphor for self-sacrifice and self-destruction.

However, Fish is also food for the soul. For the 12th Doctor, it is both deathly and healing.

In contrast to the sushi, the Doctor’s burger snack represents unhealthy food since it is wrapped like a fast food burger. One hallmark of the 12th Doctor is that he represents duality (healthy/unhealthy, sushi/burger, “Heaven Sent”/”Hell Bent,” life/death)

Of course, fish are especially prominent in 11th and 12th Doctor episodes as food. How can we forget the 11th Doctor’s favorite food: fish fingers and custard? And I loved seeing the 12th Doctor eating sushi, upscaling his consumption to purer food. This exemplifies, for one thing, his own purification through the Great Work, at least that was true in TRODM. (We’ve gone back in time since I wrote this.) BTW, fish fingers, because of “fingers,” represent body parts. Eating fish does too.

Fish People

Of course, eating fish isn’t the only prominent thing in in 11th and 12th Doctor episodes. We heard mention of fish people, like Jim the Fish, in both 11th and 12th Doctor episodes. Also, Clara and the 12th Doctor went to visit the fish people in Clara’s dizzying excursions with the Doctor at the beginning of the “The Caretaker.” However, we didn’t actually see them.

However, we actually saw fish-like people in “The Husbands of River Song.” Here’s the maître d' of the Harmony & Redemption restaurant, shown below. He actually was going to ask the chef to prepare the Doctor for River to eat. River gave the Doctor the advice to try the fish.

Fish, Vikings, and Ashildr

Even though we’ve talked about this, to be inclusive to the Fish metaphor, I’m leaving this in.

The Fish metaphor gives us part of the connection to the Vikings, who shows up in at least ½ the 9th season episodes of the 12th Doctor, whether it is Ashildr or other subtext.

The image below shows an example of the Fish metaphor/Viking connection in the 12th Doctor ghost episode of “Under the Lake,” and it shows up again in the second part “Before the Flood.” The sea creature is Jörmungandr, the sea creature of Norse mythology, and is a symbol of Ragnarök. In the ship, under the Roman cross are 3 Star Trek crewmembers from the original series. They look like Captain Kirk, Spock, and a poor red shirt, who will probably die.

Anyway, the Viking connection goes back to Classic Who. It hasn’t showed up much in nuWho, except one time I can think of outside of the 12th Doctor. Rory gave the 11th Doctor a Viking funeral after River killed him in “The Impossible Astronaut.”

Much of DW is based on the Viking concept of anthropomorphizing objects.

Neptune, Roman Mythology & Fish

According to Wikipedia, “divine associations with Pisces include Poseidon/Neptune, Christ, Aphrodite, Eros, Typhon and Vishnu.”

The Season 9 episode “Sleep No More” had a reference to Neptune.

According to Wikipedia,

Neptune (Latin: Neptūnus [nɛpˈtuːnʊs]) was the god of freshwater and the sea in Roman religion. He is the counterpart of the Greek god Poseidon. In the Greek-influenced tradition, Neptune was the brother of Jupiter and Pluto; the brothers presided over the realms of Heaven, the earthly world, and the Underworld. Salacia was his wife.

Depictions of Neptune in Roman mosaics, especially those of North Africa, are influenced by Hellenistic conventions. Neptune was likely associated with fresh water springs before the sea. Like Poseidon, Neptune was worshipped by the Romans also as a god of horses, under the name Neptunus Equester, a patron of horse-racing.

Neptune is the creator of horses and is the god of the sea as well as the owner of a powerful weapon, the Trident. Poseidon is the Greek Neptune and is one of the big three gods Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon. He accidentally created horses when he had an affair with Medusa, and also created a boy who roams the seas as a pirate past the pillar of Hercules.

We’ve seen that horses, water, and Medusa, among other things, have been important.

Danny (Doctor mirror) was associated with Neptune’s trident, shown below, on the flag of Barbados after he integrated with Clara.

Also, the 11th Doctor also was associated with Neptune. He’s playing a face of the 12th Doctor here because Neptune is associated with the Pisces. We’ve already seen how the 12th Doctor has been associated with Jupiter/Zeus.

It could be that the 11th Doctor could be Neptune, while the 12th Doctor could be Jupiter, and Missy with her relationship to the Nethersphere and the dead would be Pluto. They would all be faces of the Doctor. River might represent the dead, too, being in the Library.

It’s interesting that Clara was wearing seaweed in “The Caretaker.” While we didn’t get to see the fish people, she met Danny in a taxi for a date with seaweed on her shoulder, shown below.

Neptune’s wife had a crown of seaweed. While Clara doesn’t wear a crown of it, seaweed is symbolic. Clara represents all companions, including River. I’m mentioning all of this, too, because of the significance to the title “World Enough and Time,” which we’ll examine in the next chapter. It could go along with what Wikipedia says about Salacia:

The god Neptune wanted to marry Salacia, but she was in great awe of her distinguished suitor, and to preserve her virginity, with grace and celerity she managed to glide out of his sight, and hid from him in the Atlantic Ocean. The grieving Neptune sent a dolphin to look for her and persuade the fair nymph to come back and share his throne. Salacia agreed to marry Neptune and the King of the Deep was so overjoyed at these good tidings that the dolphin was awarded a place in the heavens, where he now forms a well known constellation Delphinus.

Salacia is represented as a beautiful nymph, crowned with seaweed, either enthroned beside Neptune or driving with him in a pearl shell chariot drawn by dolphins, sea-horses (hippocamps) or other fabulous creatures of the deep, and attended by Tritons and Nereids. She is dressed in queenly robes and has nets in her hair.

Next Chapters

We’ll look at the meaning of the episode title; the Doctor’s OMG hair; the significance of the Doctor using the title “Doctor Who”; the Master and other mirrors; how “Face the Raven,” Heaven Sent,” and more fit in; the hospital from hell and various aspects of it; various references, and much more.