Mara The Mara was / were a gestalt being / species that dwelt in the Dark Places of the Inside and sought physical existence by taking over a host in their dream . Because of its unclear nature , the Mara was simultaneously thought of as a " he , " " it , " and " they . " Biology . Because the Mara was a kind of gestalt creature , it simultaneously had many forms and also none , ( PROSE : " The Dreaming " ) able to manifest within the Dark Places of the Inside , but requiring a host in the real world before it could manifest its true self . ( TV : " Kinda " ) The Mara was a psychevore that fed on raw emotion . ( PROSE : " The Left - Handed Hummingbird " ) Hosts of the Mara developed a snake mark upon the arm and had reddened eyes and teeth , ( TV : " Kinda " ) even glowing red eyes and the ability to share voices between hosts , ( TV : " Snakedance " ) although in one case the Mara possessed several individuals that developed red , moulted skin . ( PROSE : " The Dreaming " ) The Mara was snake - like in its true form . The marks themselves could become real Mara , ( TV : " Kinda " , " Snakedance " ) developing like a rash until they burst from the skin and infected anyone they touched . ( PROSE : " The Dreaming " ) Jack Harkness stated that he thought the Fairies of Earth were " part Mara , " explaining that the former could control the element s , i . e . fire , water , and air , claiming they could " drag [ the ] air right out of our bodies . " ( TV : " Small Worlds " ) Personality . The Mara was a spirit of chaos . ( AUDIO : " The Cradle of the Snake " ) It delighted in the suffering and madness of others . It liked to play tricks on people , especially ones that even children could see through . It tempted individuals into letting it control them and would create havoc and chaos . Kinda believed that life and death were a turning wheel , and it was the Mara who turned the wheel . In this line of thought , wars would help the Mara , as they created death and the true way to be free of the Mara was to find peace , ( TV : " Kinda " ) or in other terms , find the " still point . " ( TV : " Snakedance " ) Biography . Early history . The Mara was an entity created from the evil in the minds of the people of the planet Manussa in the Scrampus system . It was given independent life via the Great Crystal , which the Manussans created in a zero gravity environment . The Mara then founded the Sumaran Empire . ( TV : " Snakedance " ) It existed in the minds of its victims and could transfer itself in the form of a tattoo - like mark , to those who yielded to it . It was so evil that it could not bear the sight of its own reflection . ( TV : " Kinda " ) On Manussa , the Mara was defeated and driven out by the Federator and cast into the " Dark Places of the Inside " . ( TV : " Snakedance " ) Legends . Jack Harkness described the Mara as " kind of malignant wraiths , " claiming it was were the word " nightmare " came from , and that they suffocated people in their sleep . ( TV : " Small Worlds " ) The Mara were the Evil Ones according to the Kinda , and turned the Great Wheel of Life . The curse of the Mara was the curse of time , as it was the Mara who started the clocks . No Mara could stand its own reflection and so would recoil , which the Doctor thought made sense considering its nature . ( TV : " Kinda " ) According to a Manussan legend , the Mara would return in a dream , which it did 500 years after its defeat . ( TV : " Snakedance " ) Escaping the Dark Places of the Inside . It was on the planet Deva Loka that the Fifth Doctor , Tegan and Adric first encountered the Mara . Tegan fell asleep listening to wind chime s and mentally entered the Dark Places of the Inside . The Mara manifested to her as an elderly game - playing couple Anatta and Anicca , who insisted she could not possibly exist , and then as Dukkha , who tempted and tormented her until she agreed to let the Mara take over her body . The Mara used her body to find and possess Aris , one of the peaceful Kinda tribe , leaving Tegan . Kinda tradition did not allow men ( other than " idiots " ) to speak . Aris called himself " Aris , He Who Has Voice " , and began to rally them against human colonists led by Hindle . The Doctor was able to prevent the humans detonating a bomb and managed to trap the Mara in a circle of mirrors and face itself , therefore driving it back into the Dark Places of the Inside . ( TV : " Kinda " ) Tegan remained very shaken by the experience , as she confided to Nyssa afterward . ( TV : " The Visitation " ) Revenge on the Manussans . Unknown to all , the Mara still had influence over Tegan . It guided Tegan to take the Doctor ' s TARDIS to Manussa , the birthplace of the Mara , where a ceremony was to be held to mark the 500th anniversary of its banishment . The Mara used Tegan , the showman Dugdale , and the son of the Federator , Lon , to obtain the Great Crystal to restore itself to physical form . The Fifth Doctor was guided by an old mystic named Dojjen who showed him how to find the " still point " . When the Mara tried to make its return at the ceremony , the Doctor concentrated his thoughts with a small replica of the Great Crystal , and by finding the still point was able to repel the Mara . Then by grabbing the Great Crystal , the Doctor broke the Mara ' s hold over its controlled Manussans , and destroyed its new snake body . This time , the Doctor believed the Mara had been destroyed for good . ( TV : " Snakedance " ) The Doctor told Tegan that the Mara would always be present , though she wasn ' t certain if he was speaking metaphysically about the nature of evil . She viewed it as some terminal disease from which she could relapse at any moment . ( PROSE : " Goth Opera " ) Final possession of Tegan . However , the Mara had actually retreated into Tegan ' s mind a second time . Some time later , after the Doctor , Tegan , and Turlough had been reunited with Nyssa , ( AUDIO : " Cobwebs " ) it emerged to possess Tegan yet again . ( AUDIO : " The Whispering Forest " ) When the Doctor attempted to drive it out , it changed its tactics and entered into the Doctor ' s mind , leaving Tegan completely . It then consulted a book in the TARDIS library to find out about its history . Piloting the TARDIS to Manussa ( under the pretence of having Tegan examined by a Manussan doctor ) , it landed the ship about one hundred years prior to the rise of the Sumaran Empire , and embarked on a scheme to bring about the subjugation of Manussa in that time period instead . In the process , keeping the Doctor as its primary host , it possessed several Manussans . It used an experimental Manussan technology ( using Manussan blue crystals ) to project the thoughts of its hosts into solid matter , manifesting itself physically as a giant snake . However , Tegan and Turlough were able to free the Doctor using a circle of television cameras and screens ( similar to the circle of mirrors used on Deva Loka ) . The Doctor linked the crystal the Mara was using as a link to the material world to the TARDIS so he could reverse the creature ' s physical manifestation . However , the process required that the crystal be in physical contact with the Mara , and the giant snake , fueled by the despair of the many Manussans it had managed to possess , had swallowed the TARDIS whole . In the end , a young man who had been brought into existence by the crystal technology sacrificed himself by going out into the snake ' s belly with the crystal , destroying it by " restoring the balance " , as one of the snakedancers put it . Before its destruction , the Mara had managed to possess not only numerous Manussans , but Nyssa and Turlough as well . The Doctor stated that the Mara could not be said to have been fully destroyed , as it was inside all human beings . ( AUDIO : " The Cradle of the Snake " ) Trenzalore . The Eleventh Doctor later encountered the Mara on Trenzalore , roughly 750 years after he started protecting the planet , and the town of Christmas . The Mara possessed various townspeople , and used them to dig up the skeletal remains of Jalen Fellwood . It then used the dreams of the controlled people to give form to the skeleton , creating a new physical body . Because of the human skeleton , the result was a human - snake hybrid . The Mara then possessed all of the children in the town ' s school , threatening first to use them to attack the adults , and then themselves , unless the Doctor did as it demanded . Unlike the other beings that invaded Christmas throughout the siege , the Mara wanted the Doctor to speak his true name and unleash another Great Time War , exactly what the other invaders wanted to avoid . However , the Mara ' s body had not yet entirely shed its human form , and was still drawing power from the body of Jalen Fellwood . The Doctor used this to his advantage when he filled the town ' s snow machine with salt , something that Fellwood believed held magical properties . The Mara , drawing power from this belief , melted as soon as the Doctor informed it of the snow ' s make up , releasing the town ' s population from its control . ( PROSE : " The Dreaming " )