Dr. Horrible: The Blogging Mad Scientist

Dr. Horrible: The Blogging Mad Scientist

Dr. Billy Horrible is the titular character of the musical web short Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. The short tells the story of how Dr. Horrible, a super villain, is trying to obtain a membership to the Evil League of Evil, an organization for super villains. He constructs multiple types of ray guns, such as a freeze ray or a trans-matter ray, to try to accomplish this goal. Despite all of his efforts, he is constantly denied a membership due to his schemes always being thwarted by his nemesis, the egotistical Captain Hammer. Once Captain Hammer begins dating Dr. Horrible's crush, Penny, the villain gains a new motivation and delves himself further into his work to obtain his goals of both joining the League and winning over Penny's love. Dr. Horrible and his story offer a look at both a common mad scientist character and how their actions can affect those around them.

Dr. Horrible filming one of his blogs

Dr. Horrible exhibits several qualities that a typical mad scientist possesses. When performing evil deeds or creating his video blogs, he wears a white lab coat, large goggles, and his hair appears to be spiked, which most mad scientists normally wear. He also has a creepy laugh that he continually tries to work on to appear as a more menacing villain. While Dr. Horrible's backstory is unknown, he is revealed to have several motivations as to why he acts the way he does. He frequently claims that he acts as a super villain in order to both join the Evil League of Evil and to also show Penny how far he is willing to go to gain her love. His third and ultimate motivation is to better the world, which he finds to be corrupt and "a mess".

While he does exhibit some characteristics of a mad scientist, he also exhibits certain ones that most mad scientists do not have. When alone or making his blogs, he comes across as a sarcastic and passive individual who thinks highly of himself, as most mad scientists do. However, when he goes out in public as Billy and tries to talk to Penny, he becomes shy, awkward, and never knows the right thing to say. While mad scientists tend to act egotistical both in public and private, Dr. Horrible is only able to do so when he is alone. Dr. Horrible always talks of how he wants credit for his work. This goes against how a majority of mad scientists act because most ultimately abandon their creations. When speaking to Penny, he states, "I want to do great things. I want to be an achiever." Once exhibiting his evil plan onto the public, Dr. Horrible orders everyone to tell anyone that asks who was behind it that "it was Horrible." Even when his creation is perfected, he still seeks credit for it and never denies that it was him who created it.

Dr. Horrible's creation, a freeze ray

The purpose of Dr. Horrible's creation, a freeze ray, is so he can have full power over the world. He explains that he originally created the ray so he could freeze everyone around him and be able to tell Penny his true feelings without either person being distracted. The creation of the freeze ray shows a desire for power, as it would mean that Dr. Horrible would be able to control the people around him. The more motivated he becomes to completing the project, the stronger his quest for power grows. His goal soon becomes to use the freeze ray to freeze Captain Hammer so he can assassinate him and invoke fear into the citizens. Mad scientists tend to feel that they have a sense of power or wish to have one. They make their creations in order to showcase this "power" to the public. Dr. Horrible and his freeze ray contribute to this trait since he seeks to be in control over the world with his device.

Penny, Dr. Horrible's crush and
his motivation in creating the freeze ray

Both the freeze ray and Dr. Horrible himself ultimately leave a negative impact on the city and its citizens. Once Captain Hammer begins dating Penny, Dr. Horrible loses sight of his original goal of trying to better the world and is only focused on assassinating the superhero. As his focus shifts to both perfecting his freeze ray and creating a death ray, he isolates himself in his laboratory. He begins to ignore his other super villain friends and neglect his blog, only focused on completing his devices. A common trait that mad scientists possess is that they completely delve into their work once settled on a goal, abandoning those closest to them. While Dr. Horrible's goals in creating the ray guns lead back to becoming a member of the League, they were ultimately created so he would be able to have Penny as his own. Though he claimed she was the reason why he endeavored in his creations, he never thinks about her well-being in the process and ends up accidentally killing her instead of Captain Hammer. He gains everything he wanted once his crime is committed; Captain Hammer stops fighting crime, having suffered emotional trauma from the event, the city is afraid of Dr. Horrible and he is able to get away with more crimes, and he is admitted into the League. However, the viewer is able to notice that Dr. Horrible is filled with regret over his actions. He does not seem as active in committing crimes as he previously was, since he lost his motivation to committing them in the first place. Mad scientists tend to ultimately regret their creations and choices, realizing that the world had been better without them. Their creations tend to leave a negative impact on those around them, which is what ended up happening to Dr. Horrible.

Dr. Horrible goes about his creation of the freeze ray in an unethical manner. When gathering his materials for the device, he eventually decides to obtain them by stealing them from an unattended van. Once it is complete, his main goal is to convince Penny that he is a good person. However, he only thinks he can achieve this through assassinating someone who he alone considers to be immoral. He has a noble ulterior motive, that being he wants to improve a corrupt world. But instead of going about it in a more humane manner, he decided to use methods that damaged society. Dr. Horrible could have taken the route of becoming a superhero, improving the world through committing good deeds. Instead, he took the route of a super villain, committing evil acts to get his message across to the public. His motives are misguided in that he wants to do good by being evil. Though he wishes to create a better world, Dr. Horrible only creates a worse one through his actions.

Dr. Horrible can be considered a mad scientist through how he acts in daily life and in his motivations. He seeks to have control over those around him so he can manipulate them to his will. He considers himself a great super villain and wants everyone to feel the same way and give him the recognition he feels he deserves. While Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog offers a different look at the classic mad scientist story by telling it as a musical web short about superheroes and super villains, it is still able to portray the mad scientist archetype viewers are familiar with. The mad scientist character is present through Dr. Horrible, his quest to improve the world, and his realization that "everything he ever wanted" was not worth it in the end.