From: bcr@cernapo.cern.ch (Bill Riemers)
Subject: Re: The Valeyard Explained
Organization: CERN, European Research Center for High Energy Physics
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 01:08:52 GMT

>>>>> On 12 Jan 93 03:56:29 GMT, jblum@hamlet.umd.edu (Hi ho -- Kermit the Frog here...) said:

	KERMIT_THE_FROG> WHY ON GALLIFREY was the Valeyard wearing a MASK to disguise himself as
	KERMIT_THE_FROG> Mr. Popplewick?  The whole Matrix dreamscape was an illusion -- he could
	KERMIT_THE_FROG> just make himself look like Popplewick.  Or create Popplewick out of whole
	KERMIT_THE_FROG> cloth like Goth did for the various figures in "Deadly Assassin"

Who ever said he did use a mask.  If you want to destroy an illision, the easiest way
is to create an illusion of destroying the illusion.  Lets try an example:

  Lets say the Valyard had created the illusion of having two heads.  Do you
  consentrait and make the extra disappear?  No, because as soon as you stop
  consentraiting it'll be back.  On the other hand, if you immagin a sword
  and chop off the extra head your subconsious will accept that the Valyard
  no-longer has two heads, you would be surprised to find a new one re-
  appearing.  So sure, the sword may disappear as soon as you set it down
  and start thinking about something else, but you still won't forget cutting
  off the extra head.

So ultimately it takes less mental energy to do things in whatever way seems most
natural.  So maybe, the Valard wasn't wearing a mask, but still ripping off a mask
was the best way to destroy his illusion.  You just need to keep remembering
that things in the matrix are not real objects, but only what you think they
are.  One last example:

  Immagin the Doctor drinks out of a vile.  If he believes the contents are
  water he lives.  On the otherhand if he believes the contents are poison 
  he dies.  It doesn't matter where the vile came from, if it is in the
  matrix it acts simply as he believe it will act.  The problem would come
  if the Valyard thought the contents of the vile was poison.  If he was
  strong enough willed to convince the Doctor the contents are poison, the
  Doctor dies.

So, in the matrix the Valyard was using his will to convince the Doctor
he looked like Mr. Popplewick.  Since, they were both the same Time Lord,
the Doctor could only hope a stalemate and not expect to destroy the illusion
directly.  So, instead of trying to directly battle the Valyard, the Doctor
simply accepted the illusion and then surprised the Valyard by adding his
own illusion of the mask.  An analogy to this would have been the Doctor
accepting he drank poison in the previous example, but believing it was
a type of poison that he just happened to have the antidote for...

                                       Bill

--
"Yeti!  Saw them in the London Underground twenty years ago.  Ghosts!
A headless woman used to walk through my bedroom at midnight.  Mermaids?
Grandpa was rescued from the Marie Celeste by one.  Vampires?  I always
wondered where my dad went to at night.  Telepathy?  Right now you're
thinking that I'm talking crap.  So what can you tell me that I won't
believe in?" - Andrew Hunt, "CAT'S CRADLE: WITCH MARK"
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