Iris Wildthyme

Iris Wildthyme is a fictional character in the spin-off media based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who, appearing mainly in short stories and novels. She is a renegade Time Lord, and was created by writer Paul Magrs.

Related Topics:
Fictional character - Spin-off - British - Science fiction television - Doctor Who - Time Lord - Paul Magrs

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A character named Iris Wildthyme originally appeared in one of Magrs's non-genre novels, Marked for Life. Although this may simply be a case of Magrs reusing the name, it should be noted that at the end of the novel, Iris Wildthyme seemed to die and then become an infant in a scene reminiscent of regeneration.

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Iris's first Doctor Who-connected appearance was in the short story Old Flames, where she met the Fourth Doctor and Sarah. The Doctor already knew Iris as an "old friend", and she was seen to be travelling in a 20th century London double-decker bus (No. 22), which was, in reality, her TARDIS. She made her first full-length novel appearance in The Scarlet Empress, and went on to appear in several more short stories and novels in both the BBC Books and Big Finish Productions lines, as well as unofficial anthologies set in the Doctor Who universe. Her stories are in the New Wave mold, characterised by nonlinear, sometimes stream of consciousness narrative, intertextual references to the rest of Doctor Who and popular culture, and themes of unreliable narration. She has a playful, mischievous personality, delighting in baiting the Doctor and getting into trouble.

Related Topics:
Fourth Doctor - Sarah - Doctor - London - Double-decker bus - TARDIS - BBC Books - Big Finish Productions - New Wave - Stream of consciousness - Popular culture - Unreliable narration

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Attempting to pin down the exact details of Iris's history is problematic because such details are not only kept deliberately vague by Magrs and other writers, but also because the accounts of her adventures may not be reliable, in whole or in part. For example, some of her claimed exploits bear a remarkable similarity to those of the Doctor's, and some have suggested that it is the Doctor's adventures that are plagiarised from Iris's life, rather than the other way around.

Related Topics:
Doctor's - Plagiarised

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Iris has argued that her adventures are more "true" than the Doctor's recollections because she writes them in her diaries while the Doctor does not, and there are hints that Iris is aware of her status as a fictional character. In the context of the Doctor Who universe, all this may be explained by Iris's claim in the novel The Blue Angel that she was from the Obverse, a surreal parallel universe with radically different physical laws. However, to accept her claim at face value or to use this as a means of making sense of her history may be to miss the point entirely.

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Magrs may have created Iris as a polar opposite to the Doctor (whom she described as the love of her life), a metafictional construct to comment on the Doctor's own stories and the nature of fiction, textual or otherwise. Evidence to support this includes the fact that she is female, travels with attractive, homosexual companions whom she usually kidnaps, and in a TARDIS which is slightly smaller inside than on the outside. Also unlike the Doctor, she is willing to use weaponry - especially laser guns coloured a stylish hot pink.

Related Topics:
Metafiction - Homosexual - Weaponry - Laser

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Iris regenerated at the end of The Scarlet Empress (into a form resembling Jane Fonda in Barbarella), and is known to have at least six other incarnations. One of these, Bianca (voiced by Maria McErlane), appeared in the Big Finish Productions audio play The Wormery and was similar to the Doctor's villainous Valeyard incarnation. Iris has also apparently worked for UNIT as a Scientific Advisor, and for the Ministry of Incursions and Ontological Wonders (MIAOW).

Related Topics:
Jane Fonda - Barbarella - Big Finish Productions - The Wormery - Valeyard - UNIT

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Iris also claims she was raised by a House of Aunts (as opposed to Cousins) in the mountains of Gallifrey, and also that she has erased all of her records from the Matrix, explaining why the Time Lords know nothing about her. She survived the destruction of Gallifrey and the apparent retroactive wiping of the Time Lords from history that took place at the end of the novel The Ancestor Cell.

Related Topics:
Gallifrey - Matrix

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In The End of the World the Doctor stated that his homeworld had been destroyed and that he was the last of the Time Lords. Whether Iris was present on Gallifrey and killed with the others, however, is uncertain, especially given her rather unique nature.

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Iris is voiced by Katy Manning in the Big Finish audio plays and also features in all three parts of the Excelis trilogy as well as in the connected Bernice Summerfield audio drama The Plague Herds of Excelis. Big Finish published a short story collection in 2005, Wildthyme on Top, edited by Magrs.

Related Topics:
Katy Manning - Bernice Summerfield - 2005

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