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Date Posted: 04:35:33 07/19/08 Sat
Author: Darby
Subject: Dr. Horrible - Deconstructing archetypes (some mild thematic spoilers)

I'm liking it more than I expected to.

I find it interesting what Joss is doing with the achetypical hero and villain. Well, not so much the hero - the self-serving doofus isn't very new.

But the guy with the PhD in Horribleness - he's evil.

It's kind of a classic point of characterization that a good villain isn't evil to themselves, but Horrible is. Or is he?

When he talks about being evil, you can almost see the quotes around the term - yes, I want to destroy the system and run the world, and yes, the system calls that "evil," so I'm fine with being evil. I'll adopt that as a self-descriptor and even use the parameters of the definition to drive (some) of my decisions (some may say that the character is "acting out" the villain role, but I think there's more to it than that). It's not brand-spanking new as an approach, but Neil Patrick Harris manages to do it without stepping visible over the irony boundaries - Dr. Horrible is aware of the irony (he is a doctor, after all), and doesn't need to, um, hammer the point.

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