Random headcanon I came up with early this morning, because Iâve been thinking about Gallifreyan language recently:
The reason why so many Time Lord things are decorated with circular Gallifreyan, often too impractically to actually be read (eg. on the Moment), is because itâs a cultural touchstone that remains from pre-/early-Pythian Gallifreyâs use of magical runes and sigils.
Presumably it was more typically Old High Gallifreyan used in that time (though The Timeless Children does seemingly confirm circular Gallifreyan existed at least as far back as Rassilon's time, if not earlier), however. Twelve describes it as âthe language of the Pythiaâ in The Lost Magic, and as Eleven says in The Time of Angels:
ELEVEN: There were days, there were many days, these words could burn stars and raise up empires, and topple gods.
This is obviously very reminescent of the Carrionites' (themselves from the Dark Times too) "word-based science" from The Shakespeare Code:
MARTHA: What did you do?
TEN: I named her. The power of a name. That's old magic.
MARTHA: But there's no such thing as magic.
TEN: Well, it's just a different sort of science. You lot, you chose mathematics. Given the right string of numbers, the right equation, you can split the atom. Carrionites use words instead.
In other words, while they probably weren't actually intended as such and may have their own specific meaning, whether they be poetry, namesakes, histories, instructions, whatever... these are basically protective wards:
[ID: Five screenshots of Circular Gallifreyan in New Who.
1. Rassilon's Inner High Council meeting in The End of Time Part 2. The table and headrests are inscribed with circular Gallifreyan.
2. The Moment in Day of the Doctor. Gallifreyan writing bends round the edges of the wooden frame.
3. The 'whirligig' rotar in Eleven's second TARDIS, inscribed with individual Gallifreyan symbols.
4. Set photo of the glowing Gallifreyan writing on the steps of Thirteen's TARDIS.
5. Tecteun's laboratory in The Timeless Children. Circular Gallifreyan lines the light above her, and a door in the background.]
As a side note - if they actually are kind-of intended as a form of protection, perhaps this is why we were only introduced to Circular Gallifreyan in New Who, despite it seemingly existing through Gallifreyan history. Because it was retroactively inserted into Gallifreyan culture as a form of defense during the War in Heaven / Last Great Time War?
Regardless, this also opens up questions how many other Time Lord traditions are holdovers from the Dark Times.
For example, who's to say that the renegade naming tradition didn't begin as a form of protection from hexes - either from hostile forces in the pre-anchoring universe, or from oppressive magic-users back on the homeworld? This may also be connected to the change in Gallifreyan name format before and after the Intuitive Revelation (eg. ancestral -sti and -sor names), though shifting power structures, gender roles etc. presumably played a role too.
Heck, is this one reason why Gallifrey's own name has changed over its history? From Jewel to Gallifrey in Rassilon's time to try and protect it from vengeful Pythian curses. From Gallifrey to just 'the Homeworld' in the War to protect it from new rituals of alternative histories and paradox?
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