The tale of an Eggman who went through hell.
"Yep. That's me. You're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation."
His History Revealed: A Dr. Robotnik Biography
is a Dark Fic animatic by MugiMikey telling the fictional biography of Dr. Ivo Robotnik of Sonic the Hedgehog fame.
It starts with Robotnik's birth in the late 1940s/early 1950s. After his mother's death when he was born, Ivo was raised by his neglectful scientist of a father. He began showing an interest in science in order to get closer to his dad. After getting first place in his 2nd grade Science Fair with his animal-powered electronic project, Robotnik's dad rewarded him with a trip to the local carnival. This engrained in young Ivo the desire to create his own amusement park one day.
The rest of the video shows how young Ivo Robotnik turned from a bright-eyed child to the campy yet bitter villain he's known for as an adult.
His History Revealed: A Dr. Robotnik Biography blends realism with fantasy to give Dr. Robotnik an origin story. Much of the story is based on down-to-earth history but it's still a Sonic the Hedgehog work.
A sequel, His History Revealed: A Metal Sonic Biography, tells the creation and history of Metal Sonic from the robot's perspective.
These videos provide examples of:
- Adaptational Heroism: Robotnik's badniks aren't dangerous to the animals despite using them for power. He even takes care of the animals and protects them. It's Sonic who seemingly misunderstood his intentions and thought that he was hurting them. However, the ending implies that Robotnik was only heroic at the start of the series and quickly fell into villainy as time went on.
- Adaptational Villainy: Sonic is portrayed as an annoying rebel who keeps on breaking Robotnik's robots, and even has a more rabid, bloated design compared to his canon self. Though this may be a subverted case due to several hints in the video that Robotnik twisting the story of how he intend to use the woodland critters similar to his father did to his dog Eggy to make himself look like the hero.
- Played straight with Metal Sonic in the sequel, where his upgraded form from Sonic Heroes is portrayed as the result of slaughtering and devouring Chao to gain their Adaptive Ability.
- Adapted Out: Zig-zagged. Sonic the Fighters and Sonic R are portrayed as in-universe video games Robotnik made in his spare time to simulate potential plans while repairing Metal Sonic. However, Metal Sonic's main board was still active and processing information at the time, and from the experience, Metal Sonic learned how to stack the deck to his advantage as often as possible due to Robotnik cheating to add his favorite weather conditions R, and calling Metal Sonic a "cheap bastard" in Fighters.
- Ambiguous Situation: Given that the whole video is told from Robotnik's perspective, it's up to interpretation whether Sonic's interference took a toll on him and eventually pushed him to villainy, or if he was already bad from the get-go.
- Anachronism Stew: Despite how the video mostly follows real-world history and how Ivo's shown growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, the Space Colony ARK had still been successfully completed and launched into space years before real-world human spaceflight occurred.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: It was an unintentional death, but a sign of Harold's cruelty and Sanity Slippage is how he tried to power his engine using his son's puppy. It didn't work as expected and the puppy all-but exploded.
- Cerebus Syndrome: Compared to the more loose,
improvised and South Park-esque Black Comedy seen in MugiMikey's other Sonic content, this video is far dramatic and story-driven, with its themes of violence, abuse and death explicitly not being Played for Laughs. - Dark Fic: There's slight sexuality, cursing, and violence. For example, Robotnik has a Dark and Troubled Past that goes beyond the series' level of darkness. His first major traumatic experience was seeing the bloody remains of his puppy after his dad tried to use it to power his engine.
- The sequel focusing on Metal Sonic takes a more sudden turn towards this. To showcase how he obtained his liquid metal shapeshifting, he is seen entering a Chao Garden, studying them, feeding them to gain their trust, and then butchering them to bathe in their viscera and obtain their adaptive power.
- Death by Childbirth: Robotnik's mother, Ruth Franklin, was infertile due to radiation poisoning. After a long period of trying, she ended up pregnant with Ivo, but she died in childbirth.
- Despair Event Horizon: Metal Sonic crosses this after the events of Sonic Heroes. His compliance isn't from being wiped and reprogrammed, but because he's been bested so completely and utterly that he feels there's no point in resisting or building upon his creator's orders anymore.
- Disabled in the Adaptation: Robotnik's large size stems from a several year depressed period he had. He'd eat junk food to try and make himself feel better. He also stopped working out. Robotnik also has PTSD from his time in Vietnam, and due to having to handle a burnt corpse to survive, he suffered permanent tactile nerve damage in his hands that caused them to surge with pain before eventually losing sensation in them.
- Earth Drift: Explicitly inverted. Despite following and foreshadowing many of the same plot threads as the games, the video discusses real-world history and geography. The most major example is the United States being treated the stand-in for the United Federation, with the nuclear testing done at the Bikini Atoll post-WWII being the reason for Ruth Franklin's infertility, and New Mexico being name-dropped as the location where Gerald did his research.
- Formerly Fit: Over time, Harold's bereavement for his wife Ruth led to him becoming increasingly more grotesque and overweight, eventually dying from either obesity or substance abuse. Ivo himself also goes through a period of overeating following his tenure in Vietnam and the loss of his old friends and family.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: Out of the Robotnik family:
- Choleric: Ivo as the hard-working and passionate scientist, yet one prone to emotional outbursts.
- Melancholic: Harold as a moody, cynical and distant man still reeling from the death of his wife years afterwards.
- Phlegmatic: Gerald as a peaceful and easygoing idealist… at first.
- Sanguine: Maria, albeit not explored in this video, is a social and extroverted people person.
- Goal in Life: Robotnik's happiest childhood memory comes from the day his father took him to an amusement park. Robotnik seeks to create the greatest amusement park in the world to give his life some meaning after everything he's been through.
- Identical Grandson: Ivo begins resembling Gerald more and more over time, and looks nearly identical to him by the final time he sees Gerald before the professor's execution.
- I Was Quite a Looker: Harold used to be good-looking before Ivo was born. Ivo himself also used to be a cute child, then a muscular army veteran, to the Gonk Scientist we know today.
- Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: Funny Animals are not mentioned until Sonic appears (aside from a cameo from Shadow), yet Robotnik isn't confused or surprised by Sonic, so it's assumed that they were always there in the background somewhere.
- Maternal Death? Blame the Child!: Harold's reasoning for hating and mistreating Ivo.
- Mythology Gag: The story is game-based except for a passing reference to Sonic fighting in the name of "freedom fighting". This is a reference to SatAM, Sonic the Comic, and the Archie's comics where Sonic's comrades are called the Freedom Fighters.
- Parental Abandonment: Ivo's mother died in childbirth. His father died of alcoholism-related liver failure when he was a teenager.
- Parental Neglect: Robotnik's father Harold didn't want kids. He preferred to focus on science rather than child-rearing. Robotnik also thinks his dad blamed him for his mother's death (which was later confirmed in his dad's drunken last words). As Robotnik grew older, his father grew more distant.
- Perspective Flip: The final scenes are a brief one for Sonic the Hedgehog.
- Raised by Grandparents: It's heavily implied that Maria's guardian was her grandfather, Gerald.
- Sanity Slippage: Ruth dying in childbirth sends Harold through this until his own death, shortly after which the Vietnam War kickstarts Robotnik's descent. The ending leaves the present and future extent of the latter's case ambiguous.
- Ivo and Metal Sonic both undergo this due to repeated defeats at the hands of Sonic. Ivo becoming more outlandish and crazed as he begins to fixate more on beating Sonic rather than his original dreams of merely building a theme park. Metal Sonic following that same spiral, worsened by the emotions boiling over in him between resenting his creator and being transformed into Metal Sonic Kai before eventually succumbing to a fatalistic depression.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Ivo looks more alot like his grandfather after getting fat from his depressed period he had.
- Troubled Fetal Position: When it's stated that Robotnik stayed in his room all week after a fight with his dad, he's depicted sitting in the fetal position.
- Unreliable Narrator: Implied back and forth given that Robotnik himself is the one telling the story. This is further bolstered and explored with Metal Sonic's autobiography, with Sonic's design changing from "Small, sharp-toothed malicious gremlin" to a more traditional portrayal as he becomes disillusioned with his creator's goals, and Robotnik himself becoming visibly deranged every time he shows up compared to the methodical but passionate man we hear in Robotnik's focus piece.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Robotnik was a sweet child who became colder and more jaded as time went on.
- Villain Episode: His History Revealed: A Dr. Robotnik Biography gives Robotnik an origin.
- White Sheep: Maria is the only Robotnik present who unambiguously never turned evil or suffered Sanity Slippage.
