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kogo-dogo · 4 years ago

Note

i’ve never heard of the video game series u talked about in that last ask, but i loved ur character analysis for torque! i’m very curious to hear abt dr killjoy if you want to share ur thoughts there too? even just the name dr killjoy is bitching as HELL

You do not know how happy it makes me to talk about Dr. Killjoy.

Torque may be one of my favorite characters of all time, but Dr. Killjoy is… he’s up there. And he’s a lot more fun to talk about because he is a fabulous disaster, as well as the poster child for the phrase “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Since Torque is such a vague character, whose personality and backstory are revealed gradually and oftentimes subtly over the course of two games, Killjoy is really the motherfucker who steals the show and is very obviously the favorite of the creators. Even the other sentient spirits on Carnate Island take a backseat to him, and he ends up being a massive driving force in the plot and the one who actually helps the player unravel the man they’re playing as.

(I can’t even say “the guy who you’re put in the shoes of” because Torque doesn’t wear shoes.)

Spoilers follow, but I’ve already told y’all you probably don’t wanna actually play these games.

Dr. Killjoy is the most well-intentioned, terrible person you will ever see in a video game, probably.

Dr. Killjoy is the spirit of a deceased alienist who was the head doctor at a facility known as The Carnate Institution for the Alienated in the late 1800s/early 1900s. Basically, he’s a psychiatric doctor who hails from a time when lobotomies were still in high fashion and experimental procedures on the mentally ill were less than savory, to put it lightly. Killjoy specifically was known for being rather extreme even at the time, having a very experimental mind and extreme delusions of grandeur. While it’s never outright said he was anything beyond “insane,” he operates in a perpetual manic state and is very, very animated and melodramatic.

How melodramatic? He acts like he has a live studio audience at all times. His whole schtick is that he appears from old film projectors. In a game that is mostly mired in the realm of realism (barring the ghosts and monsters), he creates a fucking weird-ass magic machine that lets you cast spells and basically says, “Ta-da! Look! I made brain magic that will cure your psychosis, Torque!”

(It does not, in fact, cure his psychosis.)

The problem with Dr. Killjoy is that he’s very much a product of his time, and obsessed with the idea of scientific progress over all else. He firmly believes that what he’s doing will further a cause that will eventually work out to help people, but the lives lost in the process are just par for the course. The remnants of his hospital (still used as of the first game, albeit as a hiding spot for COs to smoke, drink, and party) are littered with the mummified bodies of former patients and captured corrections officers that Killjoy decided to experiment on.

He will gladly tell you about all of the dead shit laying around his house, too. He loves to hear himself talk.

In the first game, he fixates on Torque as a special interest case and is absolutely obsessed with figuring out how to “fix” him. Most of the time this involves testing him in positively batshit ways. Sure, it probably seems like bad form nowadays to lock a guy in a burning cafeteria or a room full of monsters with shivs for hands, but to Killjoy? Makes perfect sense, since you can really see a man’s character based on how they react to high-stress situations, and what’s more high-stress than a near-death experience?

But whenever he shows up, whenever he has anything to say, whenever he decides to grace Torque with his presence, it’s always under the belief that he is doing something good for the guy. While he never outright says anything to the effect of “I care about you,” his chipper attitude and his absolute determination to coax Torque into doing what he feels will be for his benefit makes it obvious. He’s adamant about every death trap he lures Torque into or every “diagnosis” he tosses out or every “treatment” he devises, and is even the only character from the first game to follow him into the second…

… Because he feels like Torque isn’t well yet, and he cares enough about this random guy that he’s just going to tag along and try to find a way to help him out. In all the worst possible ways.

He’s equal parts a perfect foil to Torque and a driving force to the narrative, being the one who lays down most of the scraps you get about Torque’s mental health (though a lot of it is conjecture, outdated, and wrong), the island, the monsters, and even the drama in Torque’s life. He’s like a weird, gossipy old lady with a very out-of-date medical degree, and he is delighted whenever he sees his favorite patient and excitable about pretty much every goddamn thing he sees.

And it’s funny to watch Torque and Killjoy interact because Killjoy is so exuberant and loud, and Torque is just Very Done With This Shit. In the first game, Torque mostly responds to him by glaring at him stone-faced until he stops talking, and in the second game he seems actively annoyed whenever Killjoy has the audacity to open his mouth. And Killjoy? Does not give a single iota of a shit, and will just gleefully quote Othello at Torque as he’s trying not to get himself killed, or idly chit-chat with him while he’s struggling to figure out how to get out of a room Killjoy locked him in.

But I cannot overstate that despite how annoying, how unpredictable, how dangerous, and how utterly in love with himself Killjoy is, he is absolutely dedicated to the idea of curing Torque. There is actual good intent in what Killjoy is doing, and he seems to legitimately give a damn about Torque and vouch for him to pull through all of the trials thrown at him. Again, this man essentially built a magical machine to try to cure schizophrenia and, even if it worked about as well as shining him with a UV light, that’s some dedication.

Hell, when Torque escapes Carnate Island, as previously stated, he follows him just to double down on helping him understand what is going on and making sure he gets a shot at treatment. He’s so fucking flippant and apathetic with literally anyone else he encounters (all the people Torque is trying to save mean nothing to him), but he is rooting for this man so bad. So bad.

There are hints dropped that Killjoy has known Torque for a while longer than even Torque was aware of (and even an implication that he was acquainted with Torque’s dead mother), and he’s just so disdainful of Blackmore, Torque’s nebulous nemesis, and when compared to the other spirits across both games, he’s actually the only one attempting to offer any assistance at all. Horace Gauge (the “good” spirit) mostly just whines about how much pain he’s in and how unfair life is, and Hermes (my EXTREMELY PROBLEMATIC THIRD FAVORITE of this series) is actively trying to kill Torque or convince him to kill everyone around him. Creeper and Copperfield in Ties That Bind are just irredeemably awful and… yeah.

Yeah. Don’t look up either of those last two.

Killjoy is of the mind that he and Torque are a team, it seems, and this ghost would follow him to the ends of the earth for no reason other than to make sure he succeeded at defeating his inner demons, basically.

… Ugh. Okay. I can’t really do Killjoy any more justice in words. Here’s every cutscene involving him from the first game. Ignore how ugly this game is. Also, I know I linked it before, but he also has a really good boss theme.

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