I'm confused, that sounds almost word for word what I quoted from the wiki

I only know of one audio play concerning the Valyard which was pretty recent and simply reinforced the enigma of what exactly the Valyard is.

But, if the show says he's an almalgamation of an aspect of the Doctor's personality spread across multiple incarnations then how can he be an actual incarnation? By definition, he would never have existed in reality otherwise he would be an incarnation not something taken from between incarnations.

Well, I guess I'll reserve judgement until my rewatch gets round to Trial (I'm halfway through the Key to Time at the moment) but, from what you've quoted, I really don't see how he could be a future Doctor. He sounds like some kind of metaphysical creation constructed from aspects of future Doctors not something I would ever have expected to develop naturally over the course of time.

Given that the Rani is such a high-profile character round these parts and is often mentioned ... I find it a bit odd that a thread about the long-awaited return of the character has turned into a discussion about linear timelines of Time Lords. Hey-ho, that's the magic of t'interweb, I spose.

At least no-one has said "wi**ly wo**ly ti**y wi**y" yet.

(I miss the "rolleyes" smiley at moments like this).

I guess there's not a lot to discuss at this point. We don't even know whether the new Rani is earlier or later than the Kate O'Mara incarnation.

Siobhan Redmond is a fantastic actress, though. Plus there's something about her I've always found incredibly sexy. She has very much the Dominatrix vibe that Kate had.

The bit I disagreed with was the idea that the Time Lords created him specifically for the trial because I don't think that's right. But I agree entirely that he probably isn't a normal 'incarnation' and your suggestion is quite possibly along the right lines.

However he came into being, the idea that there is an 'evil' Doctor flying around time and space is really exciting and it's a shame it hasn't been examined more closely, especially as we're now at that point in the Doctor's life where (apparently) the Valeyard came into existence.

If the Master meant the Doctor's original regeneration cycle, then the Valeyard would be somewhere between Tennant and Smith. If, however, we take him literally at "somewhere between your twelfth and final incarnation", then the Valeyard could appear any time during the Doctor's twelve incarnations following Capaldi.

Of course the line "No, sir. All 13!" in The Day of the Doctor may suggest that the Time Lords weren't aware they would give the Doctor a new cycle in the future. In which case, the Valeyard may have been created near the end of The Time of the Doctor.

Don't you just love being a Doctor Who fan?

The way I see it, until the timeline was changed, Matt Smith's Doctor really was the final incarnation. His grave was on Trenzalore and the timeline he left behind on Trenzalore did not contain any other Doctors beyond him. So, the timeline, as it existed at the time of the Trial would not have included any incarnations beyond Matt's from which to pull the Valyard from.

"Not those times!" as River Song once said.