My hypothesis here is that The Master is the representation in Doctor Who of misogny, racism, bigotry, and general social evils and prejudices.
When I say the Master, I am primarily talking about John Simm's incarnation, but I think it can to a lesser extent be applied to previous Masters from the classic series, and to Derek Jacobi's briefly appearing War Master. The idea particularly brings to mind Eric Roberts' incarnation talking about "the Asian child".
The first area I want to look at is the Master's treatment of women. The Doctor's most common interactions with women are as his Companions. The Doctor has an intimate and personal relationship with each of them, but they all provide the same function in the Doctor's life and are regularly replaced. The Master takes this companion ideal to its extreme where all women are merely objects and functions. The War Master objects to being killed by "an insect, a girl. How inappropriate." Insects and women are equal in his eyes. Simm's Master goes on to corrupt, torment and beat his wife Lucy Saxon, getting massages from a selection of "gorgeous" women who I imagine had no choice in the matter. He promises one of them, Tanya, he'll take her to the stars, mirroring the Doctor's promises to his own companions, but offering it only in return for her beauty, affection and sexual favours.
The Doctor Falls shows that the Master is actually aroused by dominant women, in this case Missy, so his mistreatment of women is not for his own pleasure but an extension of his psychological torture of the Doctor - once again: women are objects to him. Interestingly the novel The Dark Path gives the Master's origin as leaving Galifrey to see the universe, and picking up a human woman as a companion who he grows very close with only to discover she was a Time Lord spy sent to keep an eye on him. So his evil origin is being betrayed by a companion and a woman - so perhaps that's why he hates the Doctor's relationship with them quite so much.
The companions that the Simm Master is placed as an antagonist to are specifically the black and gay companions: Martha, Jack and Bill. Martha and Jack are dismissed by the Master as 'the girly and the freak'. He keeps a black family (Martha's) as prisoners and servants - this combined with his obsessive hunt for Martha after she escapes as if its an affront to his honour recalls slavery from the 19th century and the hunt for escaped slaves.
He then goes on to befriend Bill in World Enough and Time only to have her converted into a Cyberman to hurt the Doctor. Specifically he turns her into a Mondasian Cyberman, a machine man hidden behind white cloth - so in other words he forcibly turns her into a white man. He then insists on referring to her as 'it', criticising his future incarnation for using the pronoun 'she'. This recalls the dehumanising of Bill by the racist villain in Thin Ice earlier in the season who called her a 'thing.'
After his resurrection in the End of Time, the Master even turns blonde, becoming the closest thing to an Aryan Master yet. He's one pair of blue contact lenses away from the Nazi ideal. Think I'm stretching it? There's also a personality cult around him as a political leader taking on messianic qualities, and his goal in the episode is to create an identical race of white men - he even calls it "the Master Race"!
I think it's safe to say that the Master is presented as the antithesis of the Doctor. Whereas the Doctor is a heroic figure who fights for all, and the oppressed and outcast are extra entitled to a hug from him, the Master is the villain who hates all minorities. But he also contrasts to the 10th Doctor by taking a personal interest in his victims so he can truly crush them, while the Doctor is actively keeping his distance from the affections of his companions at the time, both Martha and Jack having developed romantic feelings for him.
In the classic series, the Daleks played the role of the Doctor's opposite, while the Master was his "best enemy" with their similarities emphasised as perhaps a vision of what the Doctor could have become had he not learnt compassion in his first incarnation. The Daleks were actively based on Nazis. In the post-2005 series, the similarities between the Doctor and the Daleks have been emphasised - "you would make a good Dalek" - while the Master is now left to fill the role of the Doctor's opposite, and take on the fascist qualities that the Doctor opposes.
It's no coincidence that the epic finale for Russell T. Davies's inclusive modern progressive Doctor Who chooses the Master as the villain. The Master is the symbolic enemy of everything RTD's Doctor Who stands for. The End of Time offers a moment of redemption for Simm's Master, telling the Doctor to "get out of the way" before attacking Rassilon, but once the drums have been removed from his head when he returns in World Enough and Time he is even more cruel than before. The external issue that the Master blamed his behaviour on didn't make him a racist misogynistic bastard, he made him a racist misogynistic bastard.
But then the Moffat era gives us Missy.
Firstly, it's important to note Missy has not "turned good". She is still using women to get to the Doctor - Clara - and murdering black people then transforming them into white men - Danny Pink.
But Missy is now a woman, now one of those she persecuted. In a Doctor Who metaphor, it's sort of like when a homophobe realises they were gay the whole time. A female Master is potentially a more interesting change than a female Doctor because a male Doctor was still built on traditionally 'feminine' qualities such as talking over fighting, whereas the Master is a very male character. In other words, a female Master changes everything rather than nothing.
The S9 opening two parter is called The Magician's Apprentice and The Witch's Familiar. It is generally assumed that both titles are referring to Clara, the then-companion. As the Doctor's 'apprentice' in the obvious role of companion, but then partnered with Missy as as her 'familiar' for the second part. It could just as easily be the other way around though. Twelve as a Doctor is very dependent on Clara, and often she is the one in control and he is the 'apprentice.' Equally, Missy could be seen as the 'familiar', learning from Clara how to cope with being a woman. Clara is proof you can be controlling and powerful without being a white male, something Missy now has to learn.
Missy is prepared to engage with the process of redemption in S10 because a gender change fundamentally changes who she is, leaving her open and vulnerable to new ideas about who she could be - both from Twelve and from Simm's Master. But why does Simm's Master turn into Missy?
Does she create herself by trying to be the Missy that the Master half-remembers from their encounter before his regeneration so her lack of evil racist misogyny is a bootstrap paradox with no explanation beyond because that's who she is meant to be? Possibly, but I think there's more to it than that.
Twelve is a grumpy old man who gets ordered around by his companions and in his mind, as he explains to Missy and the Master in the Doctor Falls, has no choice but to do what’s right, decent, and kind in any situation. The Master also half-remembers Twelve as the Doctor he's going to be up against now so becomes the antithesis to that Doctor. Therefore Missy becomes a dynamic woman who does what she wants and nothing else regardless of whether it’s sane or not.
This means she suddenly acts on emotions she’s buried before - she wants her friend back - because she’s doing what she wants, not what she thinks the Master should. Suddenly we have a Master/Mistress who CAN stand with the Doctor for no reason except he wants her to in a way no previous incarnation really could.
The Doctor: "Missy, you've changed."
Missy: "Have I?"
The Doctor: "I know you have. Stand with me. It's all I've ever wanted."
Missy: "Me too..."
And perhaps that’s what’s at the heart of everyone who fears and hates difference - wanting to be loved and accepted for who they are, wanting their friends to love them. They try to get that feeling of belonging by treating anyone different as inferior, making themselves seem like the better option in their eyes.. They need the world to be just like them to feel like they belong - "They're not just going to think like me. They're going to become me." That's the Master's view of the world and the Doctor's greatest achievements are those moments where he gets him/her to see that they're wrong.
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