Grandfather Paradox Grandfather Paradox - also known as " the voodoo priest of the House of Lungbarrow " ( PROSE : " Christmas on a Rational Planet " ) or just the Grandfather - was the mythical founder and nominal leader of Faction Paradox . Even if a historical Grandfather " existed , " he voluntarily " stopped " ever having existed , and was never under any obligation to be true to the legends about him . ( PROSE : " The Book of the War " ) Biography . Grandfather Paradox founded House Paradox 400 years before the War . Although any member of an Oldblood House was technically allowed to found a new House , the general consensus was that no more Great House s were needed . When the Grandfather in quick succession founded House Paradox , began talking of alter - time structures , recruited members from other Houses , and established the Eleven - Day Empire , the sluggish Homeworld was simply too shocked to react . They only got around to dealing with the Grandfather after the Imperator crisis forced them to start taking care of their errant members . Knowing that executing the Grandfather would only serve the purposes of his death imagery - obsessed House , the Great Houses simply locked him up on their prison planet . 241 years later , when the Carnival Queen threatened rationality throughout the universe , Lady President Romana released three hundred prisoners , including the Grandfather , during an epileptic fit . ( PROSE : " Christmas on a Rational Planet " ) He promptly cut off his arm , removing the Houses ' convict tattoo in the symbolic Act of Severance . ( PROSE : " The Book of the War " , " Interference " ) He redefined House Paradox as " Faction " Paradox , no longer protected by the Protocols of the Great Houses and recruiting from the lesser species instead of just Homeworlder s . He then " retired " from history , erasing himself from it altogether . ( PROSE : " The Book of the War " ) Gramps . Gramps was a cat living in a retirement home in Florida . He had a dignified manner and appearance , with fur in patterns of dark brown and black that seemed to move and blur impossibly in the shadows , streaks of silver - grey around his face , and no front right leg . He led a group of other cats in a fight against a younger cat — apparently Gramps ' past self — in which the younger cat lost a leg . ( PROSE : " Gramps " ) Attack on Gallifrey . A one - armed person claiming to be the Grandfather led an invasion of Gallifrey at the start of the War . The Eighth Doctor initially believed that the man was actually a version of himself from the future , made into a surrogate Grandfather by the Faction ( PROSE : " The Ancestor Cell " ) after he had been infected by a Paradox biodata virus during his altered third regeneration on Dust , ( PROSE : " Interference " ) but later came to believe that " Grandfather Paradox " appeared to " everyone " as their most twisted , cynical , even " evil " future self — the " Ghost of Christmas Cancelled . " ( PROSE : " The Gallifrey Chronicles " ) The Faction ' s invasion of Gallifrey culminated in a confrontation onboard the Edifice between the Eighth Doctor , the Grandfather , and the temporal ' ghost ' of the Third Doctor who existed before the Faction changed his history . Faced with the options of leaving Gallifrey or begging the Grandfather for mercy , the Doctor instead chose to fire the Edifice ' s ancient weapons systems , draining the Edifice of power and forcing the timeline to choose between the Dust and Metebelis III realities , but also destroying Gallifrey in the process . This Grandfather appeared to the Doctor as a bald man with a stump in place of his left arm , wearing black armour and robes , described by Fitz Kreiner as resembling the Doctor " if he ' d spent twenty years in the navy before becoming a psycho . " ( PROSE : " The Ancestor Cell " ) The Grandfather ' s shadow . Supposedly , the knife which the Grandfather used to cut off his arm was held in the Stacks in the Eleven - Day Empire . The traces of blood it contained were thought to be the only physical remnant of the Grandfather . ( PROSE : " Act of Severance " ) More importantly , the knife held the shadow of the Grandfather . Instead of having just one shadow - weapon , the Grandfather ' s shadow contained an infinite arsenal of every weapon imaginable . ( AUDIO : " The Eleven Day Empire " , " The Shadow Play " ) Godfather Morlock had it attached to Cousin Justine , who was temporarily shadow - less after following Morlock ' s instructions to diffuse a Sontaran fusion bomb . The Grandfather ' s shadow gave Justine access to an infinite arsenal of every weapon imaginable , all contained in her shadow . Shortly afterwards , the Eleven - Day Empire was destroyed and Justine became the Faction ' s last scion , very literally bearing the Grandfather ' s spirit or quintessence . ( AUDIO : " The Eleven Day Empire " , " The Shadow Play " ) Godfather Morlock had previously tried the exact same scheme with Cousin Shuncucker , who also bore the Grandfather ' s shadow and thought herself " last scion " after the destruction of the Faction ' s earlier homeworld . Morlock had been forced to abandon the project when it became obvious that Shuncucker was completely insane ( a condition perhaps caused by the shadow ) . ( AUDIO : " Movers " , " A Labyrinth of Histories " ) Legacy . The Speaker ' s Seat in the Eleven - Day Empire ' s Parliament was always left empty to symbolise the Grandfather - who - never - was . ( PROSE : " The Book of the War " ) The Doctor had memories of his mother reading him a legend from a storybook . In the legend , a young man travelled back in time to before his parents were born and murder ed his grandfather . The man then became the " Grandfather Paradox " figure , with many more legends associated . He lost an arm — nobody could agree which , or how — and he was alive and dead , murderer and victim , all in one . ( PROSE : " The Gallifrey Chronicles " ) When Cousin Mila ritually summoned spirits on Mercy , the most corporeal spirit appeared as a man missing one of his arms . Which arm was impossible to make out . ( PROSE : " Holding Pattern " ) Aki knew she would have to become the Grandfather ' s hand to save the bone people from the witch - woman . The babel said that it was a more powerful shadow than any the Grandfather cast . ( PROSE : " Newtons Sleep " ) Academician Devonire became obsessed with finding the Grandfather ' s severed arm and presenting it to Faction Paradox as a peace offering from the Great Houses . He believed that the Immaculata Formosii had the arm , and at a meeting on Kaiwar , Formosii promised to give it to him in exchange for his own arm . Devonire rejected this offer , stole the arm , and escaped . However , the arm he stole was in fact his own ; this sparked severe paradox anxiety in Devonire , who eventually cut off the matching arm , threw it off his balcony , and declared himself to be Faction Paradox , saying that the Faction had created him just as the Grandfather had created the Faction . The Houses froze him in their prison , partially in fear that he was right . ( PROSE : " The Book of the War " ) The Remote treated the word " Grandfather " as a vile obscenity . ( PROSE : " The Taking of Planet 5 " ) The Great Attractor was known to the Great House s as the Grandfather ' s Maw . ( PROSE : " The Brakespeare Voyage " )