Some thoughts on Dr. Horrible.
Jul. 30th, 2008 01:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blimixHow bad is Dr. Horrible? (I was inspired to share my thoughts by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
leora posting similarly.)
*Spoilers!*
It's about the moment just before the freeze ray shuts off near the end of Act III. I like to think of it thusly: Dr. Horrible spends the song psyching himself up to kill Captain Hammer, but he continues to hesitate: "There's no time for mercy." [Pause] "Here goes no mercy!" [Pause]
Plenty of opportunity, and yet he can't bring himself to do it. He's just not a killer, no matter how much he despises his nemesis.
Contrast this with the fact that Captain Hammer happily aims the death ray right at Dr. Horrible's head and pulls the trigger without a second thought. It changes the whole dynamic from "Protagonist villain with a big, huggable soft side" and "Antagonist hero who really makes an ass of himself" to a concrete "Hero who is a worse person than the supposed villain." (Sort of concrete, anyway. Maybe more of a gelatinous solid. There is some possible allowance for Hammer believing that he was responding to deadly force with deadly force, but not much, because Dr. Horrible no longer posed a threat.)
But I'm seeing what I want to see. Maybe Dr. Horrible really was about to do it, and the failing freeze ray saved Captain Hammer's life.
Or maybe it's just like real life, where what we do affects who we are, as much as the reverse is true. Dr. Horrible wasn't a killer, and remained so. But had he had a better opportunity, or a shot of liquid courage or whatever, and done it, he would have become that which he portrayed.
Maybe. But I think he simply couldn't bring himself to do it.
leora posting similarly.)*Spoilers!*
It's about the moment just before the freeze ray shuts off near the end of Act III. I like to think of it thusly: Dr. Horrible spends the song psyching himself up to kill Captain Hammer, but he continues to hesitate: "There's no time for mercy." [Pause] "Here goes no mercy!" [Pause]
Plenty of opportunity, and yet he can't bring himself to do it. He's just not a killer, no matter how much he despises his nemesis.
Contrast this with the fact that Captain Hammer happily aims the death ray right at Dr. Horrible's head and pulls the trigger without a second thought. It changes the whole dynamic from "Protagonist villain with a big, huggable soft side" and "Antagonist hero who really makes an ass of himself" to a concrete "Hero who is a worse person than the supposed villain." (Sort of concrete, anyway. Maybe more of a gelatinous solid. There is some possible allowance for Hammer believing that he was responding to deadly force with deadly force, but not much, because Dr. Horrible no longer posed a threat.)
But I'm seeing what I want to see. Maybe Dr. Horrible really was about to do it, and the failing freeze ray saved Captain Hammer's life.
Or maybe it's just like real life, where what we do affects who we are, as much as the reverse is true. Dr. Horrible wasn't a killer, and remained so. But had he had a better opportunity, or a shot of liquid courage or whatever, and done it, he would have become that which he portrayed.
Maybe. But I think he simply couldn't bring himself to do it.
