I could stare at this .gif for literal hours. There is something mesmerizing about the movement of NPH's fingers.
And I bet his husband would agree.
This particular examination happened after Clinton and I were on a kick of showing Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog to anyone we had immediate access to who had never seen it. And by Clinton and I, I mean mostly me, because he insisted I show it to one friend, and I was immediately reminded how awesome it is and proceeded to show it to many other people after that single friend. But I digress. After we were done with these showings, I had it on the mind and we just started talking. And that talk became rather pointlessly in-depth, as often these things do, (See: Title of post). And we came up with the following conclusion: I think he is evil; Clinton thinks he is not.
But before we begin any discussion of whether or not someone is evil, we must first know what to be "evil" really means. As the passage of time and the writing that accompanies it clearly show, the word has had many meanings, and said by different people can mean different things. But in order to get as clear a definition as possible and avoid sweeping generalizations, (Oh, wait. Too late for that part), I did what any sensible person would do: I Googled "definition of evil."
I got this:
Which is all well and good, (or just "well" if you're an even more hard-core Grammar Nazi than I), but malevolent is a big word, and I don't know about you guys, but whenever I read this word, I misread it as Maleficent. As in the witch from Disney's Sleeping Beauty, even though I haven't seen that movie in at least two decades, if I've ever actually seen it in its entirety at all, (which I'm not positive I have). So let's click "malevolent" and see what we get for that then, shall we?
.................
Well, that could have gone better. But thankfully, Google gave us two words to define evil--the other being "immoral". So, is Dr. Horrible immoral? Well, whose morality are we judging him by? Because everyone has their own, and though it may be true that there is a general and widely-accepted idea of Right Vs. Wrong in most cultures, it is vague at best and entirely problematic and contradictory at worst. It still ultimately comes down to each individual person's idea of morality. Ask just about any, "Do the ends justify the means?" kind of question, and you'll have half the people say yes and half of them say no, even if they were raised in the same culture or even the same household. So is Dr. Horrible immoral? To you or I, maybe. But does he think he is? I'm gonna go with a solid nope. He feels he is entitled to and deserving of all of the goals and aims he is trying to achieve. Thereby, anything he has to do to rule the world and get the girl is totally okay. His ends will justify his means, and therefore are not ultimately immoral, at least in his own mind. Killing is the only thing that gives him pause, and even that is quickly remedied as soon as he realizes there is someone he'd really love to kill after all.
Sometimes I feel like throwing darts at Nathan Fillion's face too, but only because he's so awesome and it's really not fair to the rest of us.
So that makes defining evil as "immoral" problematic, too. Thankfully, there is more than one online dictionary in the world, with more than just two words to define "evil".
So let's knock some of these out, shall we?
- Wicked: A word which can be defined as, "playfully malicious" and I can't think of a better visual representation of that definition than this face:
So I think we have wicked covered. And really, you have to admit that playfully malicious is a pretty good, concise explanation of Dr. Horrible's character in general.
- Harmful: ...Is there some part of "This world is going to burn" and "The birds are singing 'cause you're gonna die" that is difficult to understand? And even if these are just hypothetical empty threats, the climax of the series kind of clinches that in a tangible way. Harmful--Check. (Which is also a check for injurious, which in case you're like me and you don't know and had to Google it just now, is a big, fancy-pants way of saying harmful).
- All of definition #3: Pretty much everything that happens to or around Dr. Horrible is unfortunate, and occasionally--as in the case of the ending--can be disastrous.
- Definition #4: No, I don't think attempting and planning a murder and numerous heists is bad conduct at all.
- Marked by anger or irritability: Though I wouldn't call Dr. Horrible someone who is perpetually angry or necessarily quick to anger, he is certainly irritable and not beyond getting real mad real quick.
I think this entire song is evidence of that. Look at those furrowed eyebrows, man.
(And no, there isn't any point I can't back up with .gifs, but thanks for asking)
So Dr. Horrible qualifies for all but that which we cannot judge him by for reasons previously stated. He is, by these definitions, evil.
But these are all arbitrary, arguable definitions of evil, you may be saying. More likely you're wondering why in the world you're still reading this, but hey. Well, let me present to you my really simple definition of evil, which I take from no dictionary:
An evil person is just a really, really not good person.
Yes, I realize that is almost not eloquent enough for even Captain Hammer, but I'm serious. Evil to me is basically just an absence of redeeming qualities, or so very few redeeming qualities that it hardly matters, all lovingly sprinkled with apathy, misanthropy, and occasional sociopathy just to top everything off. Is Dr. Horrible entirely devoid of redeeming qualities? No. Here's a list for you, because I really like making lists, (I once scoffed at my friend Ashley when she told me, after I watched RENT for the first time, that I remind her of Joanne. I told her I don't make lists in my sleep, but hell, maybe I do).
1.) He is, at least at first, really against killing someone, (and to some degree, hurting people in general).
When the Bad Horse tells him the only way he's getting into the Evil League of Evil is to kill someone, he seems traumatized when he hangs up that phone, and deliberates it with Wolowitz Moist shortly thereafter. Granted, he writes it off as "not my style" rather than "horrifying" and "why in the world would I do that?" but the hesitation is still there. This tells us he has some kind of moral compass. Though, as I stated earlier, his morality can be all his own, it's nice to know he's not entirely amoral. Similarly, when Johnny Snow calls him out for not showing up for a showdown via email, (very tough of him), Dr. Horrible says, "...also, there's kids in that park so..." as a reason for not showing up. In the final showdown scene, he doesn't shoot his Death Ray at anyone, just in the air to scare people.
2.) He is in love, and tries very hard, (and very awkwardly), to impress the girl of his dreams.
This whole concept is very normal, and very human.
3.) He's Neil Patrick Harris.
This shouldn't be a valid redeeming quality, but come on now.
4.) He does care about the well-being of society, (although in a scary kind of way).
He says society needs an overhaul, and that when he's in charge, there will be social change. He proposes anarchy, if not his complete and total rule, but hey; he's got some happy things in his heart.
5.) He likes frozen yogurt.
6.) He's a male who actually does his laundry.
This is enough to make him a winner in the eyes of most girls.
7.) Even at his most despicable moment, he cares about the feelings of his girl.
"No sign of Penny, God, I would giving anything not to have her see..." Despite everything else, he still cares what Penny thinks and doesn't want her to see him doing his more blatantly evil deeds.
8.) He likes Harry Potter.
Pay attention during "Brand New Day" when he sits in his huge chair, (that I wish I owned). Though I don't know why he only has #6 and #7, or why he has two copies of each.
See? He's not without merit as a person. But he falls into the second qualification of evil I gave; someone who has redeeming qualities but their bad qualities make their good ones superfluous. He may be all of those things that I listed, (and possibly more), but he's also a man driven entirely by his own selfish ambition to rule the world, who usually doesn't give any mind to other people who may stand in the way of that. He acknowledges that there are social problems, but thinks he's the only one who sees them and that him being in charge will change everything just the way he wants it. And even when he says he'll solve those problems when he's in charge, he only mentions them as an afterthought to "cash" and "fame". He intends to impress and win over Penny by achieving his goals. Does he ever wonder what Penny may want? No. Would he care if he knew? Probably not. Though initially against killing anyone, when he decides to kill Captain Hammer, he is dead-set, (no pun intended). He misses his meetings at the laundromat with the woman he loves so that he can make and perfect a Death Ray to kill his nemesis, proving his ambition is ultimately more important to him. He will kill Captain Hammer. He will get into the Evil League of Evil. With their help, he will rule the world. And when Penny cries because he murdered her boyfriend, she can have Australia and that will make everything better and she will love Billy unconditionally. Obviously.
If you've read the comic they put out, you learn he originally aspired to be like the heroes, but saw in them the same attitude he saw in his childhood tormentors and became obsessed with defeating people like that. Of showing them that smarts could outweigh strength. And the smart people were the bad guys, so he became a bad guy. Saw in every villain who won against a hunky hero an idol to be revered. It's doubtful he ever considered what negative consequences the villain's victory may have had on every day people, or anybody else besides the hero, for that matter, and it doesn't seem that he ever considers the consequences of his own actions either. He wants what he wants, and he'll get it, no matter the cost.
And he does. At a cost he probably would not have been willing to pay, had the option been presented to him on a silver platter with a note telling him, "If you do this, then you're in." But it wasn't. It was an accident. A consequence. One he never considered. One that ripped whatever part of him that was good that may have remained out, chopped it up, stomped on it, then picked it up again and spat on it, just for good measure. And herein we have the most damning evidence of all: he flicks the light switch of his feelings to off. He won't feel a thing, he says. He has everything he wanted, and what it cost to get there doesn't matter anymore, because his feelings; his humanity; his goodness; are gone. If you turn off your own feelings, do you think you care about anyone else's? About what happens to anyone else, or even what happens to you?
No. You don't. You've become a sociopath, and there's no turning back.
And let's be honest. After what happened to him, do you think Dr. Horrible won't finish the job if he ever sees Captain Hammer again? And remember, he's got the ELE behind him now.
Dr. Horrible is inherently evil. Is he pure evil? No. Is he still likable? Oh, hell yeah; I love him, and there are parts of him that I think all of us can relate to. I even own a full costume of him which I wore to work once. There are tons of awesome evil people that we love. The Joker. Darth Vader, (yes, at least for awhile, he is evil. That's a whole 'nother argument, kids). The Master, (either the Doctor Who or Buffy villain. Take your pick, though I think the former is better). KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNN. Ganondorf. Oh, good baby Raptor Jeebus, do I love Ganondorf. Take your pick; they're all over, and we adore them despite their inherent evil.
Obviously, you're welcome to disagree. That's the point of a discourse like this. That, and shameless attention-grabbing. But hey, what are blogs for, right Doc?
That still got a bit dark near the end, didn't it? Here, have some Freeze Ray to cheer you up. Stops time. Freeze ray. Tell your friends.
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