Archived Discussion

This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.

Contrary to popular belief, the thing hanging behind Dr. Horrible's head when he's blogging isn't a model of the Serenity, but some pots and pans that may or may not have been deliberately arranged to resemble the Firefly ship. See this interview for more info.

ParadiscaCorbasi: I wouldn't say Love Makes You Evil. Penny herself was bringing out the best in Billy. Dr. Horrible went more evil because Captain Hammer was rubbing his nose in the fact that Hammer had Penny's romantic interest and Hammer knew Horrible wanted it.

Shale: He didn't actually go whole hog until Penny died, though; he hesitated on the death ray and tried to save Hammer, etc. Turning evil because the person you were in love with died counts as Love Makes You Evil, I think.
- ParadiscaCorbasi: Fair enough. I'm gonna stick with Hammerspace though. Despite the Natter in the main page, the death ray would've ruined the line of the lab coat if he really had it underneath.
  - Agreed. The fact that there's a cut right before he whips the death ray out is a pretty good indication Neil Patrick Harris didn't have it on his person earlier in the scene.

Fast Eddie: This troper owns a Serenity kite willed to him from a certain founder of this wiki. The signal is ongoing.

See, this is the discussion page. The other page is the main page. See: Natter.

Though the darker turn really starts at the end of Act II with Captain Hammer's taunting, and "Brand New Day".
- O RLY? "On The Rise" begs to differ.

There is a point during the song on "On the rise" where if you look close in the background you can see Neil Patrick Harris serving soup. I wasn't sure at first, there was a random extra there and then it's Neil with a mustache. I think it's intentional. I don't know if it's a trope, I can't think of what it would be.
- ParadiscaCorbasi It's one of the disguise tropes. Paper-Thin Disguise, probably.

Penny has only realised that Captain Hammer is a vainglorious jerk. But up until this point he was still a jerk who saves people like Penny...most of the time.

Etrangere: Remember guys. If you disagree with something and thus want to delete, then put it in the discussion page. Don't just delete it. That way lays Edit Wars and nobody wants that.

White Rose Duelist: I feel like there's enough quotes on the page to reproduce the entire original script just by sorting the tropes by order of appearance rather than alphabetically. I know there are lots of good lines, but that seems excessive.

It seems like a lot, but it's just certain lines turning up over and over because they fit several tropes at once.

Also, I'm sure we could trim down some of the torrents of invective against Captain Hammer...I think a few tropers are identifying with the 'nice guy' protagonist a little too much.

How so?
{{Schlitzrüssler}}: And that is bad... how? It's not like Hammer has (is supposed to have?) any redeeming qualities. Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped. That said, I have met real-life stalkers, heck, compared to a guy I knew, Billy/Horrible is harmless (for a given value of harmless considering he can build death rays). Does he pester Penny with phone calls day and night? Does he follow her home despite her telling him to get lost? Does he try to force himself on her? No. He daydreams of dancing with her. Sure, he seems to suffer from massive bipolar affective mood disorder, but at least he isn't gleefully dislocating people's shoulders.
- Gattsuru : I'm not sure of the accuracy of some of the criticisms of the man. Hammer manages to be worse than Captain Amazing, but I don't remember him being racist or homophobic. He does wipe his hand on his shirt fter shaking hands with an African-American woman in the soup kitchen, but he hits on another one during the wonderflonium heist. How people interact with the poor is kinda a Kick the Dog / Pet the Dog theme throughout Act II, after all. The only individual hinted to be bisexual or gay is one of the fans, and Hammer kinda ignores all of them (and everyone else).
- I was under the impression that Cpt. Hammer didn't wipe his hand because the woman was black, but because she was homeless. That's the only direct interaction between him and the homeless so we can't be 100% sure, though.

Patsy: I didn't mean that it was wrong, only that it was excessive. My point was that some tropers seemed a little emotionally over-involved, is all.

ParadiscaCorbasi: The bystander he macked on after the heist foiling was a black woman. He shook hands with a black man in the soup kitchen, but wiped off his hands on his shirt after. And there was "I hate the homeless... ... ness problem that plagues this city." Kind of also implies he's not too bright if 'I hate the homeless-' was all he could fit on one index card. I don't recall him saying or doing anything against anybody gay. There was just the one Camp Gay fanboy and I don't think Hammer ever acknowledged him. So I made the slight alteration. Everything else appears to be accurate about his portrayal.
I seem to have missed where you got the 'gay' part, but in any case, I think you're a tad misdirected. The problem is not our reaction to Captain Hammer. He really deserves getting put down—he's a total jerk! Honestly, thinking that we should cut him slack seems like you've got a bit of Draco in Leather Pants going on. Can't argue much with overidentification with Horrible, though. He just seems like he has a heart of gold underneath and afterward my opinion of him always seems to rewind to his Woobie-ish earlier behavior, though he is misguided and dangerously so. I don't know, something about the character makes him very likeable, meanwhile Hammer is not in and of himself likeable—all that comes from Fillion's performance.

Grimace: I'm impressed people can summon that amount of venom. I mean, sure the character is a total jerk, but...I mean...it's Nathan Fillion people. I just cannot find him anything other than hilarious (horrible though his character may be).

I think you're mistaken. He plays Captain Hammer.

Wow, this sure has a lot of tropes for a series that's just 3 15-minute shorts.

I know, right?

alliterator: It's a Joss Whedon show, which means it's Trope Overdosed. {{Schlitzrüssler}}: The story of the musical (I hate calling it a "series", it's three Acts) is massively condensed. There are no superfluous scenes or lines. Imagine, if the material was padded with other stuff and made into a whole season of 12 episodes or so, no-one would complain about the trope/screen time ratio. ParadiscaCorbasi: Agreed. He had a beginning, a middle and an end. There would've been more tropes still if this had been a whole season.

ParadiscaCorbasi: The Wonderflonium powered the freeze ray. I don't know if Billy/Horrible used Wonderflonium in the Death Ray for sure...?

Now I'm sure, there was no direct mention of the Wonderflonium in the death ray..
- Not to mention the Wonderflonium's 'Do Not Bounce' label. The Death Ray getting whacked against the ground counts as what?

{{Schlitzrüssler}}: I can't put my finger on it, but I'm not happy with the Dogged Nice Guy trope entry. The examples are ok, but I have the feeling it's the wrong choice of trope. For it to be subverted, it would have to apply first. I dunno...

ParadiscaCorbasi: Fair point. I wembled about it after seeing the mention in Misaimed Fandom. We do know that Captain Hammer was only going along with "help the homeless" because it was keeping Penny's interest. But with Billy, all we have is obsessiveness before Hammer that he never acted on, and stalkeryness after that he never acted on either.

Etrangere: I think there's a yktww not yet launched that fits the idea of Billy as a Nice Guy better than the Dogged Nice Guy trope. When it does get launched, I'll edit the mention in Misaimed Fandom...

I disagree with characterizing the good doctor as a Nietzsche Wannabe because of "On The Rise". It seems to me like he just thinks it's a Crapsack World.

{{Schlitzrüssler}}: Maybe calling him a Nietzsche Wannabe is rather harsh, I agree. On the other hand, Billy seems a textbook example of a former Wide-Eyed Idealist who has suffered so many knockdown blows from bad fortune that he became very bitter and cynical to the point of nihilism. In Act I he tells Penny, "They [the homeless] are a symptom. You're treating a symptom, not the disease." He is basically an anarchist at heart, although an anarchist who wants to run the whole show (which makes it a paradox, but then, to me, that only illustrates the intrinsic and tragic impposibility of Billy's dreams for a better world).
- I'd also say Dr. Horrible lives in a Sick Sad World rather than a Crapsack World. From the trope description: "A setting marked by the horrific absence of karmic justice. Vice usually goes unpunished, while virtuous characters are treated horribly. The "upside" is it's usually parodic and funny in it's extremes... provided you're not living there." That fits. I mean, Billy/Horrible gets punished by fate every time he does something good, and he gets rewarded when he does something evil... or he gets punished for that too. Hammer on the other hand only gets karmically punished right at the end.
- Most of the (inevitably failed) anarchist states had people running things; the goal was usually more getting rid of individual legitimate power. That said, the point is almost certainly to portray Dr. Horrible as still being that sort of idealistic "truth-to-power rebel without a cause" sorta individual who's certain that the world is wrong, knows he could do better, but isn't quite sure on the how or why. I'd say he's more a wussy Ubermensch than Nietzsche Wannabe; he doesn't really want to kill everyone, nor get rid of everything. The world is kinda a combination of Crapsack World and Sick Sad World; it has both the complete reversal of karmic justice of a Sick Sad World and the rare lights existing only to show how bad everyone else is, like a Crapsack World.

{{Schlitzrüssler}}: I guess "Nietzsche Wannabe" works after all. I added Only Sane Man as a trope, and that trope's description states: "The Nietzsche Wannabe is a villain who views himself this way."

{{Schlitzrüssler}}: I still don't get the "Fury Leika" joke. Help.

Seven Seals: "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned". It's a very lazy pun.

ParadiscaCorbasi: And it has a really deep literary subtext. Furies are Greek goddesses, and Leika is a city in Greece.

Seven Seals: If Leika was a city in Ancient Greece, I might agree, but from what I can tell it's a modern neighborhood (not even a city). That would likely make it a coincidence.

{{Schlitzrüssler}}: *headdesk* Oh my... I had a semester of Old Greek in school, but I'd never have... I mean, that pun... not in a million years. "Leika" reminded me of "Laika", the first (female) dog sent into space, back in the days of the first Soviet Space Program. And "Fury" sounded a bit like "furry"... I'm so going to hell for that, yes?

Grimace: I'm right there with you Schlitz. I kept thinking of "Furry Lika"...which is not at all helping overthrow the male stereotype.

ParadiscaCorbasi: The meta joke, btw, is Dr. Horrible mentioning that the molecularly unstable gold-bar-in-a-ziplock-bag "smells like cumin."

And the Incredibly Lazy Pun here is that gold bullion = gold bars. But boullion is also another word for soup, which is what it looks like in the Ziploc bag.

Is Captain Hammer really an example of Moral Dissonance? Maybe I'm misinterpreting the trope, but I'd always assumed that was what happened when the creator/writer of a work didn't acknowledge the disconnect between a character's professed moral code and his actions. With Captain Hammer, the whole point of him as a character is that he's a self-absorbed jerk who gets away with everything he says and does because people idolize him. Then again, this may qualify as Lampshade Hanging (this show does have more of them than the interior lighting section at Lowe's, after all).

Gattsuru : I dunno. Most of the Stargate examples, and some of the Star Wars ones, rely on dissonance that the author is aware of and points out. Oh the other hand, we've got people like Ayn Rand listed, and Objectivism tends to be a big fan of heterosexual (and, by more recent fans, het and homosexual) sexual liberty. Hammer seems to flunk both aspects : Whedon makes sure he seems like an asshole for not following typical morality, and the character doesn't seem to have a moral system beyond "get girl, beat up villains". He's not dissonant with it at all, he's just an asshole.

Schlitzrüssler : Well, he considers himself a hero, the media loves him, his fans adore him, but the dissonance is that he doesn't bother to live up to the high morals we'd expect from a superhero, and he seems to see no contradiction between his behaviour and his reputation. The same moral dissonance exists in his fans' minds, when everything Hammer does is justified by the fact that it is him doing it.

Gattsuru : He is a hero, though, in the "gets girl, beats up villains" definition of things. He's certainly and undeniably not someone you'd want to be friends with, but when it comes to actual foiling vile plans, we seen him destroy a remote control that he thought was a time bomb, push someone out of what he thought was an uncontrollable car (and attempt to stop the car from causing further destruction), tossing a car at a villain pointing a charging freeze ray at him, and smacking in the face a villain who had already zapped him with a freeze ray. He's a bigot, a willing attempted murderer, a misogynist, and only works to help the homeless in exchange for nookie, but that's about three steps brighter than a Colin Farrel character. Don't get me wrong : I wish he ended the musical as a cloud of quickly spreading plasma. I just don't think every Villain with Good Publicity deserves a Moral Dissonance sticker.

Schlitzrüssler: Hm. The trope description says: Moral Dissonance is the result of having a hero who has a double standard and no one notices. It can include pretty much any unintentional double standard on the hero's part that becomes obvious to the viewer during a walk to the fridge. It's important to point out the hero isn't being a Jerkass or Anti Hero, and may in fact be likeable and decent, but their actions simply don't line up with their rhetoric and no one calls them on it. Yes on the "hero who has a double standard and no one notices" part. No, in that Hammer is a jerkass... I'm just not sure what else we're going to call that contradiction between Hammer's reputation and his actual behaviour? I'm perfectly fine with calling it Moral Dissonance.

ParadiscaCorbasi: I have started putting examples in order of occurrence rather than in the order the tropers added them to the entry.

Also, I disagree with Death By Sex — Hammer's bragging about having had sex with Penny, by the rules of the trope, should've meant he died. I guess that makes it a subversion, but it still seems off to me somehow.
- Clarabell: I disagree with it, too. I don't see it as all that significant — it's not a clear example, subversion, aversion, inversion, or anything. Also, we have a crapload of other tropes listed. Death By Sex is pretty extraneous among the list, imo. I'm removing it for now.
  - Clarabell: And here it is: * Death By Sex: Well, it's not like Captain Hammer was exactly shy when he brags about banging Penny at the press conference... Dr. Horrible had some very real motives for wanting to kill Captain Hammer, and he didn't even succeed, anyway. Penny died, but she clearly regretted being with Hammer and her death was very economically used to fuel Dr. Horrible's transformation. Just doesn't seem to fit.
  - Agreed. The sex itself isn't that significant. It's just another example of Hammer being an ass and rubbing salt into Horrible's emotional wounds.

WampaLord: Considering the massive amount of spoiler tags in the article, should we just put a big "HERE THERE BE SPOILERS" warning near the top of the page? After all, it's a 45 minute musical, not The Sixth Sense. Something tells me that knowing Penny dies doesn't ruin the experience of watching it.

Fast Eddie: Hear, hear. I'll do the honors. // later: Wow, that was a major pain in the glutes. There was a bajillion of them. Understandable, I suppose, in that most of this was written as the original 'sodes were released.

ParadiscaCorbasi: Nice work, though. ^_^ *applause*
{{Schlitzrüssler}}: Thanks, Fast Eddie.
WampaLord: That looks SO much better, very nice job!
Um, what? How does that help?
- ParadiscaCorbasi: The page was scattershot because there were so many spoilers there was almost more hidden text than visible text. The page is a little easier on the eye now, IMO.

ParadiscaCorbasi: Updated the Power Incontinence entry on Moist: an interview article reveals he really is simply profusely sweaty. Ew.

{{Schlitzrüssler}}: Ew squared. Do you happen to have the link to that article? Does it even count as a superpower then? Although I think it's funnier if it's really a totally useless superpower instead of just a glandular problem. Poor Moist. Does that qualify him for a Blessed with Suck trope?
- ParadiscaCorbasi: Sure, here it is! I figure it still counts as a [useless] superpower, and Blessed with Suck. He probably has control over water, and where's the most immediate source of water? One's own body. He's got potential he never explored. That's probably why he and Billy were friends. He believed he and Billy would never do better than wannabes, which explains his devotion and enthusiasm in Act III. Horrible Ascendant is a triumph for them both, sort of.
Baby Moondancer: There is an actual medical condition akin to what Moist has. It's called Hyperhidrosis. So I guess he could also fall under Truth in Television.

{{Schlitzrüssler}}: I posted the following (below) to Lost And Found, but no reply yet. I can't believe we don't have a trope for it yet! (I mean, I could come up with two or three examples, Dr. Horrible included, within as many seconds.) I didn't want to put it up at YKTTW yet... Any ideas?

Do we have a trope where the protagonist is surrounded by "cool" and powerful friends who are a bad influence on him, and under the peer pressure and in his hopes of winning their approval he commits more and more questionable acts? Potentially until he completely falls off the slippery slope? He may also be a newcomer to some place, i.e. an imigrant, a new recruit or a new student at a boarding school, who faces the choice between either becoming part of the "in" group or being bullied mercilessly as an outsider. Perhaps they ask him to commit theft or murder as an initiation ritual into their elite circle. Sort of like the polar opposite of Love Redeems.

Doctor Horrible isn't really a Technical Pacifist by the definition given. He has a genuine aversion to killing (or even injuring people given that his shown weapons are a paralysis ray, a stun ray and a muscle relaxer).

{{Schlitzrüssler}}: Hm, you're right. Houston, we have a problem. I just reread the Technical Pacifist page. Specifically the part where it goes on and on about the protagonist's dislike of GUNS and not wanting to make his hands dirty does not fit at all, since Dr. Horrible loves ray guns. (Well, loves building them.) Blimey. I really thought Technical Pacifist meant something different, like someone who abhors killing, but is not adverse to using violence in cases of self-defense. (sort of like: "Technically I'm a pacifist, but in your case I'll make an exception.") I must've remembered the trope wrong. Do we have something that fits better?
{{Schlitzrüssler}}: NobodyMuch, I agree on your above summary that Billy/Horrible has a genuine aversion to killing. He does not have an aversion to thinking about killing; when Captain Hammer got him angry enough, Billy's phantasies were quite violent. (And yes, they were Billy's phantasies. He merely needed the Dr. Horrible persona to turn them into reality. I'm pretty sure most of use had similar day dreams at some point in their lives.) But Billy couldn't bring himself to actually shoot Hammer with the death ray after all, couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger. Or to kill an innocent person just to advance into the Evil League of Evil. As Dr. Horrible, he rationalized this by claiming "Killing is not elegant or creative. It's not my style." I think he is lying to himself in that scene, to pretend he's a real villain who just objects on technical rather than moral grounds. He wants to be tough and badass. But whereas really evil villains with a "simply killing someone is not creative enough" quirk would have found a way around this by making the kill "creative", Dr. Horrible simply builds the next nonlethal weapon in the hope that this time he will get rid of Hammer for good. Well, until the death ray thing.... It's anyone's guess if red-clad Dr. Horrible is now nihilistic and cruel enough to kill people without batting an eyelash. By the point the doors of the League close behind him, he still isn't a murderer. We don' know what his new "style" is, besides intimidating people into doing what he wants.
Masami Phoenix: I was the one who entered Technical Pacifist, using it's second definition: "Some technical pacifists go a little further, willing to beat people up but unwilling to kill." Dr. Horrible doesn't exactly beat people up, but the comics show that he was willing to use cripping non-lethal weapons, in the form of the strength-sapping ray.
Cambdoranononononono: I think the unwilling-to-kill-but-willing-to-beat-up is an extension on the original definition, rather than an alternate definition. Much of the time, the Technical Pacifist won't use guns, but will kill people in other ways, making it an arbitrary moral constraint put in because of the author's views. The 'extension' is that they don't use guns, and the reason they don't use guns is that they're trying to avoid killing people, making the original rule more morally justified. Dr. Horiible's stance is perhaps a little closer to Thou Shalt Not Kill, but I'm not sure that fits exactly, either. I think the Even Evil Has Standards entry suffices for the most part to explain his position on killing.

{{Schlitzrüssler}}: I don't get the entry: "Incredibly Lazy Pun: Dr. Horrible points out he successfully transported gold from the bank to his lab. He holds up a ziploc bag full of the gold boullion, which has turned out liquefied." Where is the pun? *confused*

ParadiscaCorbasi: Gold boullion transmatted to something that looks like soup in a ziploc bag. Boullion is another word for soup.
{{Schlitzrüssler}}: Oh. Well, I'm not a native English speaker, that's why I didn't spot this. But shouldn't the English word for "precious metal bar" be "bullion"? Whereas "bouillon" [edited because I can't spell properly] is French and pronounced totally different. I'm not sure this isn't a case of tropers over-analysing a joke, because in the musical, Billy never uses the word "bullion" he always talks about "gold bars". It's a bit of a meta-meta-pun to go from gold bars to bullions to bouillon. A pun the scriptwriters perhaps never intended. Such things happen. Perhaps they only turned the gold into a ridiculous liquid nongoldlike mass to showcase how horribly Dr. Horrible had messed up. And because it was easier to show a ziplock bag full of muddy water than to find a metal bar (for the weight) and paint it with gold paint. *shrug*
- I've seen the word spelled both ways, and treated as correct. So I could be overanalyzing it. There is a meta-gag in that same joke. As Billy puts the bag of liquid down, he murmurs that it smells like cumin [which is probably what they used to get that 'looks like gold but nooooot quite' effect for that scene].
  - I've seen the word spelled both ways, and treated as correct. - Are you sure that people were not simply misspelling the word bullion? I've checked with Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, there's a faint connection there, via Old French, but they're definitely not spelled the same. (Even I misspelled "bouillon" at first and I years of had French in school. d'oh)
  Main Entry: bul·lion
  Pronunciation: \ˈbu̇l-yən, -ˌyän\
  Function: noun
  Etymology:
  Middle English, from Anglo-French billion, bullion melting house, bullion, probably blend of Middle French bille ingot, piece of money (from Old French, log) and Anglo-French *bulliun, buillun cauldron, from Old French boillon froth on boiling liquid, broth — more at billet, bouillon
  Date: 14th century
  1 a: gold or silver considered as so much metal; specifically : uncoined gold or silver in bars or ingots
  b: metal in the mass <lead bullion>
  2: lace, braid, or fringe of gold or silver threads
  .
  Main Entry: bouil·lon
  Pronunciation: \ˈbü(l)-ˌyän, ˈbu̇(l)-; ˈbu̇l-yən; ˈbü-ˌyōⁿ\
  Function: noun
  Etymology:
  French, from Old French boillon, from boillir to boil
  Date: circa 1656
  : a clear seasoned soup made usually from lean beef; broadly : broth

Kilyle: English spelling is so screwed up that you really can't rely on two words that are spelled distinctly being pronounced distinctly. We borrowed from everywhere and never bothered to adapt the borrowed words to our rules (unlike, say, the more sensible Japanese). That's how you get such sets as to, too, and two, or bo, bow, and beau. And no matter the spelling, the word for soup stock and the word for gold... whatever, both those words sound exactly the same in at least some of the dialects of American English. Including mine, which is pretty mainstream, not so showy as Californian or Texan or... New Yorkian. So there you go.

ParadiscaCorbasi: Official word from the Dr. Horrible twitter is that the "With my freeze ray I will stop the world" song is called "Laundry Day", so I've changed the listings for it where I spotted them.
- Masami Phoenix: Actually, Word of God from the comic-con panel identifies that the song's name is "Freeze Ray" and Joss hates it when people call it Laundry Day, so I've changed it on the main page.
  - ParadiscaCorbasi: Cool! I preferred "Freeze Ray" anyway!

{{Schlitzrüssler}}: Question: Someone added the Did Not Get the Girl trope. But the trope description of Did Not Get the Girl states: (quote) "A rare case where the hero — who is clearly not a Celibate Hero — doesn't end up with the romantic female lead. The cocky Lancer wins her heart or she has no choice but to marry someone to save her family or something, but for whatever reason the hero ends up alone. Not to be confused with two leads not ending up together because one of them dies — that is a different trope." [end quote] Bittersweet Ending doesn't really seem to fit, though, thematically I mean... or maybe it does, I'm not sure? Do we change the trope entry to Bittersweet Ending, or not?

ParadiscaCorbasi: Amongst the bullet points for Bittersweet Ending:
- When an irrevocable loss happens, which removes the innocence of the hero or of the world forever.

To my mind that makes it fit. But since this is a comic book world and we're likely to get more, that's likely to be only temporary. Maybe just subnote Downer Ending instead?

{{Schlitzrüssler}}: I'll change it to Bittersweet Ending, then, and put that together with Downer Ending. - Regarding the rumours of a sequel, I know Joss Whedon has been hinting at "plans" to do more with the Horrible-verse but I doubt they'll find the time, and frankly a part of me hopes there won't be one. Sequels made for the sake of a sequel often suck; worse if they're make for the sake of pandering to the fanbase (a common mistake of fanfiction authors), or under pressure of *gasp* some corporate executive who wants to make money with a sequel after the original was a surprise success. I'd rather let the musical stand on its own than to see it retroactively ruined by a mediocre sequel. Or worse, a TV series. With a new love interest and a new archnemesis-of-the-week or plan-of-the-week (Pinky and the Brain-style) every episode. Can you imagine? *shudder* I'm confident that Joss Whedon wouldn't sink so low, but...

UPDATE on the sequel rumors: From the New York Post: Joss Whedon planning sequel to Dr. Horrible

fleb: Dear Person Who First Added 'Dogged Nice Guy': There is no such thing as a 'somewhat subverted' trope. FYI.

Devil's Advocate: Admittedly, I haven't actually watched it, but I have read summaries, not avoiding spoilers. So how is the ending a Mind Screw? An ending that is merely (to some) unexpected does not a Mind Screw make.

Etrangere: It's not. I think the person who added it didn't understand the meaning of that trope.

Otempora: Well, you could argue that the bit with Billy at the end counts as a Mind Screw, as it's not sertain whether Billy's blogging or if it's symbolic of Doctor Horrible taking over or whatever.

ParadiscaCorbasi: Soundtrack, song titles and liner notes, official, have been released. Page has been updated to reflect the official song titles. And is there a reason somebody deleted the Disposable Woman and/or Women In Refrigerators tropes? They were valid, if lampshaded.

{{Schlitzrüssler}}: Whoa, I just notice that deleted trope. According to page history, that was Andrew. I think they were valid, too, in a way, and I liked the discussion of Penny. A subverted or lampshaded trope is still a trope, especially when, as we've seen, some fans did feel Penny was an example of a Disposable Woman and were upset about it. Perhaps Andrew thought it was too much natter,,, but where else should we put it? I think natter or not, the entries made some important points, and they clearly did not fit into the Zany Theories page or here... here is where we discuss the trope page itself, not the characters. So I vote for restoring the entries from the Markup History.

Axordil: Long time reader, first time discusser. Does Penny qualify for Deathby Origin Story? Or should we wait to see the sequel first?

ParadiscaCorbasi: The Wonderflonium-in-the-Death-Ray thing is back on the page, with a "probably" in there. Can anybody point to anything in the actual production that indicates the Wonderflonium actually is in the ~~Stun~~ Death Ray? I have watched it repeatedly and I don't ever hear a mention; the only thing Horrible ever explicitly mentions using it for was the Freeze ray. Nor do I see anything in "So they Say" where he's making preparations, to indicate the Wonderflonium is involved. Anything getting tossed hard to the ground would take damage unless built for it...

So It Begins: I just plugged Penny into the Sorting Algorithm of Deadness, and it came out a 3.1. Back Next Season (if at all). So, is Penny coming back? Perhaps, but I doubt it. Dead, not sleeping. Sorry.

h_v: removed

Superdickery: In the comic, Captain Hammer advises children to be like him and to report science geeks and outcast Goth classmates to the police as potential future supervillains.

Wrong trope.

alliterator: I got rid of the Big Applesauce example, mainly because it wasn't an example at all.

ParadiscaCorbasi: Removed: ** No, he picks it up from the statue platform where he had been hiding, because discussion belongs on the discussion page, and besides that, he didn't bend down. He pulled it out from under his lab coat.

Also, the "head up, Billy buddy" thing? "Slipping" is sung as a duet between the Billy and Horrible aspects of his personality all the way through, which is why I interpreted it as Billy trying to stop himself from going all the way through with murder.

Bob: How is this Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped?

Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: Captain Hammer heedlessly pushes Penny out of the way of the driverless van with his super strength. She goes flying some distance to land right in a pile of trash bags and cardboard boxes.
Dr. Horrible (to Penny): "Did you notice that he threw you in the garbage?"
- The Captain Hammer: Be Like Me comic. Just in case someone was doubting that Captain Hammer is the corporate propaganda tool that Horrible accuses him of being. Not only that, since the comic is written from Hammer's point of view, it showcases his fascist leanings and black-and-white world view.

Bob: Not A Subversion. It's just not an example.

Designated Hero: Subverted, bigtime. Captain Hammer is the official hero, but:
- He doesn't follow through on any of his crimebusting. From Horrible we know there's a history of Hammer catching him in the act and beating him up, sometimes brutally. But Horrible has never been arrested.
- Captain Hammer is more interested in adulation than in doing right for doing right's sake. He smashes the driverless van's control device, then jumps off the still-moving van to mack on a bystander. Moments later, when Hammer has caught Horrible and stopped his attempt to steal the Wonderflonium, he lets Horrible go in order to devote his full attention to flirting with Penny (who he "rescued" by tossing into garbage with his super strength).
- Captain Hammer is only involved in helping the homeless because it gets Penny to sleep with him.
- Captain Hammer is perfectly okay with rubbing Billy's nose in the fact that as the hero, he gets the girl. Particularly the girl Billy/Horrible wants.
- Captain Hammer is disgusted by the homeless. And apparently, by pigeons.
- He doesn't care about the innocent. Witness his "rescue" of Penny above, and the fact that he doesn't do anything to assure the safety of the people gathered at the shelter dedication; Horrible, on the other hand, encourages people to run away.
- Captain Hammer doesn't have the typical heroic compunction against killing.
- Captain Hammer is xenophobic and anti-intellectual, believing that Goths (and likely other non-conformists) and anybody with particular scientific or mathematical aptitude should be throw in jail as potential supervillains.

ParadiscaCorbasi It's Not A Subversion that Hammer, the hero of the piece, is a Jerkass whom the city pretends not to notice is one, and that the genuine villain is the likeable one?

Bob: "A protagonist of the story who, despite being selected as one of the "heroes" of the show, doesn't really do anything heroic." Hammer isn't the protagonist and we're not invited to cheer for him, so he's not an example of a Designated Hero.

Fast Eddie: A minor fix to the Designated Hero article puts this back in. I'll do that little thing.

ParadiscaCorbasi: Anyone who has the DVD — can you answer a question for me? Does the commentary or notes or anything confirm that the Death Ray was Wonderflonium powered?

Fast Eddie:

Dr. Horrible: Are you kidding? This is great! I’m about to pull a major heist. You know the Wonderflonium that I need for the Freeze-Ray? It’s being transported tomorrow.

Donteatacowman: Got the DVD for Christmas, and I don't recall a peep about Wonderflonium powering the death ray.

ParadiscaCorbasi: Yes, Fast Eddie, I know he got the Wonderflonium for the Freeze Ray. I'm asking if there was Wonderflonium being used in the Death Ray since everybody is presuming that bouncing the Wonderflonium is why it went all spazzy and exploded when Hammer pulled the trigger. Donteatacowman seems to have answered it. Which means that if Word of God didn't say the Death Ray had Wonderflonium, then it's all speculation about that.

fleb: This might just distill everything wrong with the most popular works' pages on this wiki.

Karmic Death: Subverted in that the exploding death ray kills neither Captain Hammer nor Dr. Horrible, but the innocent Penny.

Donteatacowman: Don't understand why "Wide-Eyed Idealist: Penny- subverted in that she is not that wide-eyed, just trying to make the best of things" was changed to "Wide-Eyed Idealist: Penny seems to be one, but she's not that wide-eyed, just trying to make the best of things." Yeah, I'm biased because it was my own edit the first time around, but was I wrong in calling it subverted?

Bob: Yes.

Donteatacowman: I am quite frankly intimidated by your ruthless editing. Alright, alright, I guess I know when I'm beaten.

Hey, don't worry about it, dude. That's just how editing works if you don't take it to discussion first—you don't talk about the edits you make, you just edit.

Bob: Replacing

The Good Captain: Captain Hammer
- Deconstructed in that Captain Hammer is obviously a mockery of the whole Super Hero "brave hero protecting the innocents" type. He's only considered a hero because he gets good public relations from the public media, and restricts himself to beating up only Acceptable Targets by the standards of his society: card-carrying villains, people considered freaks, etc. Captain Hammer himself is a smarmy, vain, self-centered and self-congratulatory Jerk Jock. A churlish lout who doesn't care about Collateral Damage as long as he gets to look heroic. And a bigot who looks down on anyone poor and treats women he sleeps with like trophies.

With:

The Good Captain: Subverted by Captain Hammer.

and rewriting:

His name itself is lampshaded and deconstructed when he first meets Penny, who calls him "Hammer-Man" and then when corrected asks "What are you the captain of?"

to remove an egregious misuse of the term "deconstruction".

ccoa: I'm considering adding Genre Shift to the list. Although there are some darker undertones to Act I and II, it still goes from campy comedy with some serious aspects to tragedy with some comedy aspects. My only concern is if Genre Shift can apply to a "series" with only three episodes.

Bob: I don't think it qualifies. They're still singing, it's still a musical.

Anonymous: Does No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup belong here? Presumably, after his defeat at the Superhero Memorial Bridge, Dr. Horrible would have lost his first Freeze Ray, but he has another in the denouement, so either he built a new one or he had a backup. Not only that, the one he brings the second time fires quickly, seeming to fix the flaw of taking a few seconds to warm up. He's also clearly using a prototype Death Ray, and recording plans for them. If anything, it's averted.

Donteatacowman: Personally, I didn't assume that the Freeze Ray had been destroyed at the Bridge Incident, but that point is moot. I don't think it's that major a point to point out that it's averted, and it certainly doesn't seem to have been played straight.

ParadiscaCorbasi: Does Cartwright Curse really fit Captain Hammer? My impression wasn't that his girlfriends all die off as a result of his adventures or due to the trope where the enemies seek to kill the Love Interest, but that he is such a womanizing Jerkass, he hasn't bothered to try forming a long-term relationship, but just moves on to the next girl (as evidenced in "A Man's Gotta Do". He flirts with the woman after "stopping" the Wonderflonium van, and then finishes the chorus flirting with Penny).

ccoa: I wondered that, too, but the core of Cartwright Curse seems to be that love interests only last a single episode or so. Which does fit, even if the reason for it isn't really the standard one.

ccoa: Removed the natter under the Incredibly Lazy Pun examples. Incredibly Lazy Puns don't need to be said out loud by the definition of that trope, so noting they're not said out loud is fairly meaningless.

ParadiscaCorbasi: Good catch! Fury Leika (woman scorned) was never said onscreen either. It was her name in the credits, and only saying out loud oneself later makes the pun obvious.

Donteatacowman: I could be wrong, but I'm not of the opinion that "pretty Penny" qualifies; it wasn't even alluded to.

ccoa: Where does it say it has to be?

Cambdoranononononono: "The writers put in a joke (almost always a pun), then omit the punch line." I'm not sure how you can say the writer's put in most of the joke if it isn't alluded to at any point. "I can come up with a pun for it" would be more of a Just for Fun thing than a trope, because it would apply to pretty much any work ever.

Donteatacowman: Was the "Love your hair/air" thing really a Fantasy Twist? I took it as either a Flashback or a Flash Forward to an incident that actually did happen.

ParadiscaCorbasi: It was a Fantasy Twist. The whole "Freeze Ray" thing was him in his apartment on his blog answering a reader who asked "does she even know you're..." And right before the first iteration of Bad Horse, Horrible confirms to Moist that he hasn't really spoken to her yet.

Cambdoranononononono: For what it's worth, I took it as a flashback too, and he just didn't count blurting something out and then immediately evading further contact as talking to her.

ccoa: I took it to be a flashback, too. He says he hasn't formed an audible connection yet, but that wasn't really a connection of any kind.

Cambdoranononononono: Removed the No Name Given example because it was just a listing of minor characters (bordering on extras) who were only named in the credits. Not an example, then even less of an example after further analysis.

ccoa: Removed this:

Shaped Like Itself: Bad Horse. He's bad.

Because "Bad Horse" is not a tautology. Read the trope, guys.

Cambdoranononononono: Well, I haven't known many horses, but the example would work if all horses are jerks.

Donteatacowman: Read the trope and it still seems to fit. The point is that the villain's name is "Bad Horse"; the "bad" is already said. It doesn't need to be reiterated and yet, it is. Thus, a tautology, correct? PIN number, bad Bad Horse.

ccoa: It's not being reiterated anywhere, though. Nowhere is he called "bad Bad Horse."

Donteatacowman: Yet the line in point is "Bad Horse, he's bad," as seen above, which means the same thing. Wouldn't you say?

Is Horrible really Affably Evil? He may be a Well-Intentioned Extremist who thinks he's doing what's right, but he isn't always exactly pleasant (especially by the last two acts), and the "This villain will invite the hero out to tea, offer him a favorite dish, make pleasant small talk, try to appeal to the hero's better nature, and convince the hero that the villain's plan isn't worth getting involved in" doesn't seem to apply at all.

Eriksson: Considering taking the White-Out Marker of Spoiler Tagging to the page, but it seems a daunting task (some of the plot points may or may not be spoilers, some of the trope references, to my surprise, really do need to be out in the open to make sense...) Anyone else support putting spoiler tags on the spoilers contained within this page?

Donteatacowman: This was done before (see above: Wampa Lord: Considering the massive amount of spoiler tags in the article, should we just put a big "HERE THERE BE SPOILERS" warning near the top of the page? After all, it's a 45 minute musical, not The Sixth Sense. Something tells me that knowing Penny dies doesn't ruin the experience of watching it....) So I'd say that the spoiler tag is sufficient enough, and that seems to be the general consensus so far. :)

Paradisca Corbasi: Read higher on this page. We removed the spoiler tags on the page months ago because the page was all scattershot. The show is available for download from iTunes and on DVD. At this point spoiler avoidance is on the person still trying to avoid spoilers. The Spoiler warning at the top is sufficient, IMO.

Paradisca Corbasi: I believe that Penny may have gone back to Wide-Eyed Idealist with the Prequel comic. She volunteers at multiple charities besides just Caring Hands (when does she have time to work? Does she work? Does she have an inheritance she donates — is that why she lives in that crappy apartment?) She gave the last of her food to a sick pigeon and ended up celebrating her birthday with a popsicle because it was all she had left in the fridge. She wanted her date to care about all the ills in the world, but all he cared about was the heroes/villains, and she was disappointed. And that's just the stuff I can think of off the top of my head.

Thoughts?

OODavo: Penny sounds pretty darn Wide Eyed after reading Penny: Keep Your Head Up.

Baby Moondancer: Could Penny also fit under Too Good for This Sinful Earth?

Donteatacowman: Removed:

Offscreen Teleportation: A quite literal example: the theft of the ~~gold bars~~ soup via teleportation occurs only offscreen. Additionally, Dr. Horrible's suit teleports onto him while he's offscreen in Act I, and he switches with Hammer's statue offscreen in Act III.
- It should be noted that while these are indeed literally examples of offscreen teleportation, they don't represent the general theme of the OffscreenTeleportation trope so frequently used in the horror genre (and others) where one character is attempting to escape another, and fails to do so due to otherwise inexplicable offscreen teleportation.

...because of Natter, and because it indeed seemed to not represent the trope. Any objections?

"Donteatacowman: Hammer seems like a textbook The Paolo, but Horrible seems to be a Hopeless Suitor. According to the latter, the two cannot coexist... Does anyone see a way to rectify/clarify this?"

Legendarylugi: Yes, it can be clarified quite easily...first that the two tropes may have more overlap than the page admits, and secondly...Dr. Horrible is not a Hopeless Suitor!

Penny may not have been aware of Billy's strong feelings for her, but she showed a genuine romantic interest in him. She tried to kiss him in Act II, and only backed out because technically she was dating Captain Hammer, a superhero. In Act III, when she was having serious doubts about Hammer, she waited for Billy at the laundromat with two things of frozen yogurt (one untouched since he never showed), glancing back every time the door opened hoping it was him.

And in the prequel comic, when they first meet, right after she had professed she would never be interested in a guy again, her first thought when he mumbles his gibberish is "Did that cutie really just talk to me?" In a way, that's part of the tragedy. Billy's stalkerishness was completely unneccessary. He could have had Penny easily had he not chosen instead to focus on getting vengeance on Hammer.

The trope does seem to fit, and yet, she's interested in him. So I'm not sure if I should remove the Hopeless Suitor entry or not.

Hmm. I think Hammer seems less of a Paolo than Horrible a Hopeless Suitor. The Paolo seems to imply 'would be a perfect match, if not for the other guy's involvement', which Hammer certainly wasn't.

Legendarylugi: Holy crap! As of only a few hours ago, Dr. Horrible has officially won an Emmy! And NPH will be hosting the main Emmy's ceremony in a week! **adds it to the page**

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