Lets pack our trunks & say hello to the Psychic Circus! For we must head to The Greatest Show In The Galaxy in order to catch up with the Doctor, now in his Seventh incarnation, as more Old Ones make themselves apparent.
They're the sole members of the audience here on Segonax, & they are the Gods of Ragnarok. They like nothing more than their own amusement, though they soon became bored of the Land of Fiction after creating it seemingly on a whim - Conundrum by Steve Lyons exploring more of its pre & indeed post-Mind Robber existence.
It seems the Gods have a new plaything, watching on in human form as a family of a mother, father & little girl as a variety of acts tries & fails to entertain them. Their true appearance is closer to a trio of statues of living stone, & like the other Old Ones we've examined they are beings of great power, being able to exist within both their own realm & on Segonax itself by means of a dimensional well. Like Yog-Sothoth/the Great Intelligence they can also reanimate the corpses of the dead! A degree of control over the elements seems to be par for the course too going by their manipulation of rain & thunder.
Their very name of Ragnarok held a certain resonance in the Viking world, a theme that would carry over into the Doctor's next Cthulhu Mythos - centric encounter with the Old One known as Hastur the Unspeakable/Fenric. Ragnarok was the name given to a prophesied apocalyptic battle which roughly translates to Doom Of The Gods during which Odin would be killed by a wolf named Fenrir. As a Daily Mail piece from November 2013 examining the myth in connection to predictions that the event would occur on February 22 the following year put it:
"If Vikings were here today, the sounding of a distinctive horn in York would have created chaos. The ancient instrument, blown last night, signalled exactly 100 days until the end of the world, according to Norse mythology. Legend has it that the Norse God, Heimdallr, would blow the mythical Gjallerhorn to warn of the Viking apocalypse, also known as 'Ragnarok'. Ragnarok, which translates to ‘Doom of the Gods’, is due to be preceded by the winter of winters.But what have the Gods to say for themselves?
Vikings believed, prior to the apocalypse, three freezing winters would follow each other with no summers in between. All morality would disappear and fights would break out all over the world, signalling the beginning of the end. The wolf Skoll would devour the sun, and his brother Hati would eat the moon, causing stars to vanish from the sky and the Earth to be thrown into eternal darkness.
Norse mythology experts have calculated that Vikings believed this will take place on February 22, 2014. On this day, the god Odin will be killed by the wolf Fenrir and the other ‘creator’ gods. There will be huge earthquakes, the sea will rear up and the soil and the sky will be stained with poison.
The sound of the horn is supposed to call the sons of Odin to the battlefield, where Odin will ultimately be killed. After his death, the Earth was foretold to sink into the sea, paving the way for a new utopian world with endless supplies.''
DOCTOR: Listen.Eventually they are revealed as the living statues they are, & they're looking to bring about the event to which they've lent their name- or similar!
GIRL: Daddy. Daddy.
DAD: What?
GIRL: I want an ice cream.
DAD: You've already had one.
GIRL: But Daddy...
DAD: I told you once and I'm not going to tell you again. Now shut up and eat your popcorn.
DOCTOR: We're not alone.
ACE: Yeah, but it looks like it's just us and them. What a con. I mean, where's Mags and the Captain?
DOCTOR: Perhaps they haven't arrived yet. Who knows? Anyway, I'm going to have an ice cream.
MUM: They should be starting up again soon. Have a crisp, Father.
DOCTOR: Greetings. Not many in today, are there. Are you regulars or is this your first visit, too? Let me introduce myself. I'm....
DOCTOR: Oh, thank you very much. Delicious.
ACE: Professor. Professor, it's starting.
DOCTOR: Well, it's been a pleasure.
DOCTOR: Remarkable.
ACE: If you like this sort of thing.
DOCTOR: How many people have you destroyed, I wonder, before Kingpin was lured down here. Poor Kingpin. That's what you like, isn't it. Taking someone with a touch of individuality and imagination, and wearing them down to nothingness in your service.They'll show off that power over weather, too. ''Feel the rain, Doctor. Feel the chill in your bones.''. Looks like The Poetic Edda was right:
DAD: Enough.
MUM: You have said enough.
DOCTOR: Enough? I've hardly started. I have fought the Gods of Ragnarok all through time.
DAD: You are in our true time-space now, Doctor. There is no appeal beyond its confines to any other.
DOCTOR: Don't tell me what you want me to do. Let me guess. Now let me see. You want me to...
DAD: Entertain us.
MUM: Entertain us.
DAD: Or die. So long as you entertain us, you may live.
MUM: When you no longer entertain us, you die.
DOCTOR: Predictable as ever, Gods of Ragnarok. As I think it's been said before, or was it after? Anyway, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
"It sates itself on the life-blood of fated men, paints red the powers' homes with crimson gore. Black become the sun's beams in the summers that follow, weathers all treacherous. Do you still seek to know? And what? Brothers will fight and kill each other, sisters' children will defile kinship.It is harsh in the world,whoredom rife—an axe age, a sword age—shields are riven—a wind age, a wolf age—before the world goes headlong. No man will have mercy on another."With that the stage is set for the coming of the wolf. And he's hungry!
