When the Story Can't See You
Wish World and the Power of Narrative Exclusion
After my last post about how "the story IS the canon" in Doctor Who, "Wish World" delivered a perfect test case for that theory. Because here's an episode where someone's story literally becomes everyone's reality—and those excluded from that story find power in their erasure.
It's the dark mirror of what RTD himself wrote in 2020 when releasing "Doctor Who and the Time War": "All Doctors exist. All stories are true." That's the generous vision—multiple truths coexisting. Conrad's world shows what happens when someone insists only *their* story is true.
The Physics of Perception
Conrad's blindness to disabled people isn't just metaphorical, it's literal. He cannot conceive of them existing in his perfect 1950s fantasy world, so they become physically imperceptible within it. As Shirley explains to Ruby: "It's perception bias. He's not disabled, so he literally can't see us."
This is Doctor Who making narrative power tangible. Conrad's story doesn't include certain people, so they cease to exist in his reality. If story is the canon (as I argued last time), then those written out of the story become non-canonical in the world itself. They exist in what one resistance member calls the space “outside the world,” and from there, they “can see it better.”
The Power of Non-Stories
Here's what's brilliant: the episode shows that being excluded from the dominant narrative grants its own kind of sight. Those Conrad can't see understand his world is constructed precisely because they're not part of the construction. Their invisibility becomes strategic advantage. They're organizing to "bring down God" because Conrad literally cannot see them coming.
Maybe this resonates because I live with ADHD, another form of invisibility where the world is built for brains that work differently than mine. You learn to see the constructedness of "normal" when normal doesn't include you. You understand which rules are actually necessary and which are just someone's idea of how things should be.
This reminds me of how RTD's own "Doctor Who and the Time War" existed in what he called "that half-real space" for seven years, written but suppressed because it contradicted the official narrative. Sometimes stories have to live in the gaps until reality catches up to them. Sometimes being outside the canon is the only way to see how arbitrary canon can be.
Canon as Choice vs Canon as Force
RTD's philosophy ("All Doctors exist. All stories are true") creates space for contradiction and multiplicity. You can choose what's "slightly canon" for you. The Time War story waited patiently until the show's continuity expanded enough to include it.
Conrad removes that choice. His story doesn't coexist with others—it overwrites them. It's the difference between a mythology that expands to include everyone and one that contracts until only the "perfect" people remain visible. When he broadcasts his vision to the world, he's not adding to the narrative, he's replacing it.
This is why Ruby joining the resistance matters. She's not invisible, but she chooses to see. She recognizes that Conrad's singular story is crushing all the others, and she sides with those written out of existence.
The Warning
"Wish World" isn't just about the dangers of one person controlling the narrative, though that's terrifying enough. It's about what happens when we forget that stories shape reality. Conrad doesn't think he's erasing people; he just can't imagine them in his story. His imaginative failure becomes their existential threat.
As we head into the finale, RTD seems to be building toward a confrontation between two visions of narrative power. One where all stories can be true, creating infinite possibility. Another where one story dominates, creating a "perfect" world through erasure.
The marginalized see Conrad's reality clearly not despite their exclusion but because of it. They know it's a story because they've been written out of it. And sometimes, like RTD's suppressed Time War story finally seeing light, the stories that don't fit eventually help reshape what's possible to tell.
If the story IS the canon, what does it mean when you're not in the story at all? And what happens when those excluded stories find a way to tell themselves?