the mad scientist

late night ramblings on discovering my favorite type of "villain" archetype

Hi all! First of all, I wanna say hello to my new subscribers! Hi! I am literally so excited you are here. I cry every time I get a notification saying I got a new subscriber.

Second, I wanted to give you a quick update on my plans for this newsletter. Right now, I’m deep into my audio research (so much cool stuff to share soon!), but I want to take my time with those articles and make them really in-depth and worth the wait. So, I’m going to release one big research piece every Wednesday.

However… I also love writing, and sometimes I just want to share the random thoughts that keep me up at night. So, in between the research articles, I’m going to sprinkle in more personal posts— specifically whatever I can’t stop thinking about that keeps me up til 3 am.

And here’s the first one that kept me up:

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“We’re all mad here.”

It’s a quote I’ve uttered more times than I’d like to admit, being a girl whose entire life has been woven with Alice in Wonderland. It was my baby room theme, the first book read to me, my Tumblr bio during my pop-punk princess phase (you know the edits I’m thinking of). But it wasn’t until recently, while watching the movie Heretic starring Hugh Grant, that this quote took on a new meaning for me.

I don’t usually watch horror movies. I hide behind my fingers and turn the volume alllll the way down because the music terrifies me more than the visuals. So…there’s not really a point. But Heretic intrigued me—the plot, the premise, and most of all, Hugh Grant’s character. The way he was driven to insanity by his work, his obsessive need to solve his experiment, gripped me in a way I didn’t expect. I became obsessed with the film, and like anyone should do after consuming a piece of media, I scrolled through Reddit to see what other people thought.

And that’s when I realized I stood alone in my opinion.

Most people hated Grant’s character. They saw him as selfish, reckless, and evil (which trust me, he is. he’s a murderer, but…he’s still kind of interesting). But instead of deterring me, it reminded me of another time I stood firmly against popular opinion: reading Frankenstein in Mrs. Casteñeda’s high school English class.

Let me tell you about my man, Victor Frankenstein.

When I read that novel, I became obsessed. Like Heretic, I hyperfixated on the leading, brooding, morally ambiguous scientist. Victor’s intelligence and passion for his experiment were intoxicating. He was flawed, sure—but also brilliant. He literally created life! And yeah, he used body parts from graves, but at least it wasn’t murder. Meanwhile, the monster he created just complained. Constantly. He whined about being ugly and unloved. As a depressed teenager, all I could think was, “Ya, me too. Get over it.”

I walked into class ready to discuss my main man and, in my mind, bask in the collective admiration for his brilliance. To my shock, all I heard were sympathetic takes on the monster and scathing critiques of Victor. People hated him. And as I always do, I got way too into it—loudly, passionately, as if I were personally defending his honor. I remember heated arguments with classmates, my hands flying, my voice rising as I championed the man who “stole fire from the gods.”

Who cares that much? Me, apparently.

(And I still do. Victor is literally so cool. He created life! The monster just cries about how his life sucks. Like, okay, do something about it?? I cannot STAND a victim complex.)

But I digress.

Victor Frankenstein, the Mad Hatter, the dude from Heretic that I can’t remember the name of, and even Tony Stark (I just thought of him, but he’s my favorite superhero)—they all fall into the same archetype: the “mad scientist.” And, unsurprisingly, they’re all some of my favorite villains. Which got me thinking, why?

(It’s my favorite question to ask.)

Here’s what I think: I see a lot of myself in the mad scientist archetype. I’m a very passionate person, driven by an insatiable need to learn. I rarely watch Netflix anymore (not in an I’m better than you way, I promise). Mostly, I sit on my laptop, falling down rabbit holes of new information, diving into a new topic every week. Sometimes, I hyperfixate to the point where it becomes my entire personality. Music is the perfect example. My obsession with music recommendations is borderline mad scientist territory. I analyze genres, find connections, and create playlists like experiments in a lab.

Like the mad scientist, I get so caught up in my passions that I often ignore the world around me. Sometimes, it feels like I’m crafting my own version of life in a lab—ideas, projects, and obsessions coming together to form something new. Maybe that’s why these characters resonate with me. They’re not afraid to be consumed by their work. They’re unapologetically obsessed, often to the point of madness. But isn’t that kind of beautiful? To care about something so much that it becomes part of who you are?

Sure, the mad scientist archetype is flawed—they often lose their way, sacrificing relationships or sanity for the sake of their pursuits. But maybe that’s what makes them human. It’s their madness that drives them, and in some ways, it’s their madness that makes them great.

So yeah, we’re all mad here. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

<3 Brooklyn