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Lungbarrow
(Marc Platt) |
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 Name: Glospinninymortheras, ‘Glospin’ for short
Format:
Book
Time of Origin: Gallifrey, a contemporary of The Doctor
Appearances: "Lungbarrow"
Doctors: First Doctor and Seventh
Doctor
Companions: Chris Cwej, 2nd
Romana, Leela, K9 and Ace
History: Although he was The Doctor's Cousin, Glospinninymortheras soon established himself as The Doctor's first true enemy, going to great lengths to drive The Doctor away from his family and sacrificing two regenerations solely to frame The Doctor for murder.
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| William Hartnell |
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Although seen as twisted by most of his family, Glospin was the favourite of Satthaltrope, the Housekeeper of Lungbarrow, and strongly disliked The Doctor from when they were children together. Glospin's behaviour was largely disapproved by his cousin Innocet, but he was constantly determined to have things for himself, resenting how Quences continued to favour The Doctor despite The Doctor showing no real interest in everything Quences wanted for him. Even after The Doctor was expelled from the Academy after his first trip off-planet resulted in two of his friends being lost to The Toymaker ("Divided Loyalties"), Quences continued to favour him over the other Cousins. Even when The Doctor was officially disowned from the family and cast out, left working at a lowly position in the Capitol, Quences still insisted that The Doctor attend important occasions at Lungbarrow even when The Doctor wasn't interested in automatically responding to Quneces' orders. The Doctor's 'exile' from Lungbarrow led to the family generating a new Cousin, Owis, as a 'replacement', but Owis was dim-witted and immature beyond what would be expected from a newborn. It was particularly controversial as Houses on Gallifrey were only to be allocated a specific number of cousins, and even if The Doctor was disowned he was still alive, so even in Lungbarrow itself opinion was divided on whether Owis should exist.
On the day that Quences' will was to be read as he prepared to step down from his position as the head of the House, Glospin went to visit The Doctor to gloat over how he had been replaced by Owis. However, Glospin's taunts focused more on how The Doctor's name was now forbidden within the House rather than admit that even those who disliked The Doctor acknowledged that Owis was an inferior replacement. Glospin claimed to have found genetic anomalies in the Loom records which proved that The Doctor did not belong to the House of Lungbarrow, intending to present this proof to the Prydonian Chapterhouse so that The Doctor would be executed as a Loom-jumper and Glospin would secure his perceived birthright. As the furious Doctor fought with Glospin, the Hand of Omega appeared and drove Glospin off, leaving a scar on his arm that not even his later regeneration could heal. Deciding to escape Glospin's accusations rather than stay and defend himself, The Doctor wrote a letter to the Chapterhouse about Lungbarrow's technically illegal generation of Owis before he departed in the TARDIS, unable to ever return after the Hand of Omega - which had followed him into the ship - caused him to accidentally travel into Gallifrey's past (Allowing The Doctor to rescue Susan, the granddaughter of the Other, who identified him as her grandfather).
However, The Doctor was unaware that Glospin had taken a genetic sample from him during their fight, which Glospin intended to use to ensure that he achieved his revenge. Returning to Lungbarrow to learn that Quences wouldn't read his will until all of the Cousins were present, Glospin used the stolen sample to influence the form of his next incarnation as he deliberately triggered his regeneration. This allowed Glospin to regenerate into the physical double of the First Doctor, murdering Quences in this body in order to frame The Doctor for the crime (more standard methods of disguise would have been seen through by the House's internal security). Having regenerated once again to conceal his temporary 'disguise', Glospin hoped that his actions would allow him to subvert Quences' will and become his successor as Kithriarch instead of The Doctor, bribing a Chancellory guard to take copies of the documents 'proving' The Doctor's true heritage back to the Capitol. However, before the guard could leave, Quences' death resulted in the House of Lungbarrow sinking into the ground, being buried and forgotten for 673 years. The guard was left stuck in the transmat as the signal cut off before he could leave, while Glospin and the rest of the family were trapped in the house itself for the next few centuries. Certain rooms would force the more psychically sensitive Cousins to relive the events of the original collapse. To make matters more complicated, to prevent the House from killing the surviving residents after Quences' death, Satthaltrope, the Housekeeper of Lungbarrow, put Quences' body in stasis and convinced herself that he wasn't actually dead, which would make it complicated when the time came to read the will. With nothing else to do with his time, Glospin focused on manipulating Owis for the next few centuries, nurturing Owis's resentment of The Doctor in particular.
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| Sylvester McCoy |
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When the Seventh Doctor returned to Lungbarrow - the TARDIS having apparently interpreted a signal to bring The Doctor home a bit too literally - he found Glospin locked in the stove as punishment for taking more than his share of the fungus that was the only food left in the House. The two instantly recognised each other despite their centuries apart and The Doctor's intervening six regenerations. Glospin believed that The Doctor had finally returned to gloat over the situation he left his family in, accusing his old rival of murdering Quences. When the body of Arkhew, another Cousin, was found, Glospin accused The Doctor of that murder also, when in reality Arkhew had been murdered by Owis because Owis was afraid that he would be killed once The Doctor had returned to the House as he became 'surplus'. However, The Doctor had an interesting advantage thanks to his current companion Christ Cwej; the TARDIS had recently started to use Chris as an external repository for The Doctor's subconscious memories, with this making Chris more receptive to external psychic influences. This allowed Chris to access the House's own recollection of events, although Chris's attempt to clear The Doctor backfired when he identified the man in his vision as the First Doctor, with Glospin subsequently identifying Chris as a human and using it as further evidence of his claims that The Doctor was an intruder to Gallifrey as a whole.
Despite The Doctor's distaste for inter-house politics, he agreed to try and find the will to free his family from the mess that he had left them in, only for Glospin to continue to try and turn the other Cousins against The Doctor. These threats ranged from constantly reminding Owis of the risk to himself if The Doctor returned to the House to trying to argue that The Doctor would depose Satthaltrope as Housekeeper. Even when The Doctor discovered Quences' will hidden in an old game, Glospin claimed that The Doctor had it with him all along. On a wider scale, The Doctor's old companion Romana was dealing with various political enemies on Gallifrey, with these foes both opposing her reforms and trying to learn the 'truth' about The Doctor's background. Although her enemies' attempt to question Leela and Ace about The Doctor failed, Leela's own research into the past of her husband Andred had revealed the secret of Lungbarrow's disappearance, as Andred's Cousin was the guard that Glospin had tried to give the documents to. As Romana realised that Lungbarrow was the key to the question of The Doctor's past, she managed to send Ace and Leela there to help The Doctor.
Despite the aid of his companions and the revived Badger - an avatroid that had been The Doctor's friend and teacher as a child, now reactivated after centuries of dormancy to protect him - the situation in Lungbarrow continued to deteriorate as the Cousins became increasingly suspicious of The Doctor, as well as resenting the freedom he had enjoyed while they were trapped. When The Doctor was knocked out as the Cousins released their centuries of resentment against him, his companions travelled into his subconscious to restore him by using Chris's link as a bridge. Their subsequent search of his long-buried subconscious memories revealed The Doctor's apparent origin as a 'reincarnation' of the Other, Gallifrey's mysterious third founder, who committed suicide as a political protest against Rassilon's forced 'reforms' by jumping into the Looms, later reborn as The Doctor. Having tagged along on their astral journey, Glospin saw this as proof of his beliefs in The Doctor's illegal past despite The Doctor's protests that he had never remembered any of that before. As CIA agents attempted to take The Doctor and Romana into custody, Leela and Ace were able to use an old canister of nitro-nine to blow the roof of the house and give the Cousins a chance to leave - The Doctor having disabled the TARDIS to prevent his family trying to steal it - the distraction allowing The Doctor to call the House of Lungbarrow itself as a witness to 'his' crime. Questioning the House revealed that Glospin was on his fourth incarnation rather than his third, helping The Doctor and his companions deduce what Glospin had done… as well as the unexpected twist that Quences, having predicted his death, had arranged for his mind to be transferred into Badger in an attempt to ensure that The Doctor, as his chosen heir, would assume his responsibilities.
When The Doctor rejected his inheritance and the furious house struck out at him, The Doctor's companions and Cousins were forced to flee while The Doctor downloaded the template of the Lungbarrow Family Loom into a data extractor. As Satthaltrope was crushed by the House, Glospin attacked The Doctor, outraged at The Doctor's perceived role in the fall of the House, but he was killed by Badger as Quences' ghost expressed his displeasure at The Doctor bringing ruin to Lungbarrow rather than raising it up like Quences had wanted. Despite Quences' efforts, Chris was able to save The Doctor by helping him back into the TARDIS before the rampaging House toppled over the cliff, Glospin's body being destroyed along with the House he had long sought to become master of. Although the Cousins would never forgive The Doctor for abandoning them, the data extractor he had salvaged would allow Innocet to become head of a new House of Lungbarrow, his family free as The Doctor returned to his travels, his past as the Other dismissed in favour of The Doctor he was in the present.
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