#fannish

One of the most fascinating bits about Herbert West, to me, is his lack of interest in anything but defeating death and being right. He might even trade one of these things for the other, if he had to; but these are his only goals. This is why Dan cannot talk Herbert out of really stupid shit West pulls, and it's also why Hill is his antagonist, but more importantly, his foil.

To begin our discussion, we'll start off with this gifset.

In writing, it's generally recommended to structure dialogue with a purpose. Real people in real life can say whatever we want, but fictional people should not be wasting the audiences' time with extraneous nonsense, and there is usually a discernible pattern to lines like this.

When Character A tries to persuade Character B, A will frequently start with things that A finds to be persuasive, and if it does not work, move on to things A thinks that B will find persuasive. This is because A will begin with the thing that has already convinced A of a particular course. Then, A may begin to flail around for what might convince B. With me so far?

Herbert starts out his pitch by bluntly admitting that "I need you to help me" because "You're bright, and you have access to certain authorities". We don't even have to guess; these are the reasons Herbert finds their partnership persuasive. He then tries the lines in the linked gifset, and we can determine the following:

"We can defeat death!": The most important aspect of this to West. The thing he finds most persuasive. So obvious that he doesn't think it needs to be explained.

"We can achieve every doctor's dream.": Here, he's realizing Dan's not falling for Defeating Death. He tries to play on Dan's presumed goals as a doctor and healer. This, ironically, is very close to what Dan is shown to want throughout the films--to defeat death as a healer.

"You'll be famous and live lifetimes.": Note that Herbert goes from we to you. This isn't his goal at all. He does not care about being famous. He doesn't even care about personally living forever. He DOES presume Dan cares about these things.

As it happens, though, Dan doesn't, not really--which is why, in their next big Herbert Convinces Dan scene, Herbert doesn't bother bringing up anything about fame, fortune, or immortality. It's a common Devil's Bargain trope, but Herbert doesn't offer it because it didn't work on either of them.

Instead, when he tries to talk Dan into reanimating Halsey, he does this:

"This is the freshest body that we could come across short of killing one ourselves, and every moment that we spend talking about it costs us results!" - What Herbert finds to be persuasive: ease of experimentation, gaining results.

"Daaan... we can bring him back to life!" What Herbert thinks Dan will find persuasive: erasing his mistakes, not getting in trouble. We know that this is Herbert flailing because of how he whines out Dan's name--he's realizing his logical approach isn't working. So he gambles on an emotional appeal.

By way of comparison, consider the structure of the hypnotism scene with Herbert and Hill. As I've argued before, Hill's mesmerism is not mystical in nature, but a form of intensive persuasion relying on The Human Will being overridden.

Hill only succeeds by appealing to what he thinks other people truly want/need/desire and by flipping their personality traits against them. His hypnotizing Halsey works once he zeros in on what's most important of all to Halsey, to protect his daughter from harm. He fails at hypnotizing Megan because he doesn't understand or accept that what Megan wants more than anything is to protect her father and her boyfriend from harm. And personally, I think he never mesmerized West successfully, but it's instructive to see what Hill thinks Herbert wants and why that ends up failing.

"You will be my assistant... I will reveal to an astonished world my new serum." Here is, of course, what Hill wants, the thing he finds to be persuasive. Notice how Herbert consistently uses we when talking to Dan, our work, our reagent, etc., but Hill asserts ownership over the entire process, and over Herbert West--my assistant, my serum, I will reveal.

"They will retire the Nobel Prize in my name." Hill, still not giving Herbert anything at all, emphasizes his own desire for fame.

"And you, as my assistant, will be famous!" Finally, Hill remembers he's supposed to be planting suggestions for and manipulating Herbert, and throws in what he thinks Herbert wants. This is Hill's whole MO. He doesn't understand becoming a doctor or scientist for any reason other than being famous, just as West doesn't understand doing it for any reason other than being correct... and as Cain doesn't understand doing it for any reason other than healing pain and stopping death.

Again, when you're getting down to where the cheese binds and What Make Plot Go, this is good, instructive, workmanlike writing. It's boring and questionable when Character A knows exactly what B wants and offers it to them flawlessly. It's verisimilitudinous, and more interesting, to see A drop the ball--for A to accidentally reveal to B and/or the audience what A really wants and values. Even more interesting for A, if they're a consistent manipulator, to learn over time and get better at jerking B around.

Which, about that.

Herbert, throughout the rest of the first and second films, relies heavily on emotional appeals to get Dan on his side. He will admonish Dan to "be a scientist" periodically, but he mostly goes for the same baseline beats established in the above two Devil's Bargain scenes. He learned (unlike Hill) that Dan doesn't care about fame, or living forever. He doesn't care about stopping death if that doesn't also mean the proper, full restoration of life. He doesn't care about being proven right. And even though he does kind of want this, it's not about Dan's desire to be a skilled healer.

What Herbert discovers and exploits in all their interactions is that Dan is morbidly terrified of making a mistake he can't fix. He can't let go of his first patient because he internalized her death as a mistake, a flaw in himself--if he does the CPR long enough, if he lets the drugs circulate, then she'll be fixed and it'll all be okay. Dan agrees to reanimate Rufus, I think, not just because he doesn't quite believe Rufus was reanimated before, but because if Rufus was reanimated, then Dan killed him and that's a mistake Dan can't fix. He agrees to reanimate the corpse in the morgue because that lets him fix his mistake of trying to sell Halsey on the reagent, and screwing up his scholarship/Herbert's enrollment at school. He then agrees to bring back Halsey because that fixes his mistake of "letting" Halsey be murdered.

This is why the ending of the first film feels inevitable. Of course Dan views Meg's death as his own personal failure; he views every single death that occurs in his vicinity as his fault. Of course he's got to fix it. The only way he possibly can fix it. The one way Herbert promised him it could be fixed.

And, for that matter, what little does work about the plot of BRIDE works because of this one fatal heroic flaw on Dan Cain's part. He spends a lot of BRIDE trying to frame every awful thing that happens as Herbert's fault because if it's Dan's, then he's overwhelmed with guilt and shame and the crushing responsibility to fix it. This is why his shabby treatment of Gloria, as well as her death, leads to his BSoD. He doesn't have to be told by Herbert by then that this is his fault but we can fix it, Dan, you and me, by using the reagent--he dissociates and has that conversation with himself.

Herbert tells him, almost gently, "Go. Home.", and Dan's deep in his own skull, hearing all the other times Herbert said to him you'll be able to fix every fatal mistake you've ever made, and you won't get in trouble. No one will know about how you let [your patients/Dean Halsey/Megan/all of those soldiers/Angel/Gloria/the bits of the Bride] die.

We'll fix it, you and I.

And it works. Until the last time, when Herbert says the Bride is "dead tissue", don't worry Dan, we'll fix her later, except now Dan's priorities have changed and he doesn't care about covering up his own messes anymore.

He cares more about preserving life than he does about saving his own skin.

there's a very niche fandom I'm in which (as of writing this) has 338 fics for it on Ao3, and a whopping 108 of those fics were written by one singular person. There's another user who's just a few works behind the first, who's written 97 of the remaining fics in the fandom tag. That leaves only 133 fics as having not been written by either of them. That's not even to mention the fact that as this fandom is so small, most of the other fic authors for it are ALSO "repeat offenders" as in they've written more than one fic for the fandom. I'm pretty sure there's a third author in there somewhere who's written at least 50+ of the other fics in the tag as well.

BUT.

The opening song. It's, uh. It's familiar.

go my niche album reference fanart

(sketch + reference image under the cut !)

Like, did someone in the 17th or 18th century read Romeo and Juliet and spend the rest of their week fantasizing an Everyone Lives Fix-It? Where there Regency-era girls discussing if they'd rather marry Darch or Bingley over their needlework, or crafting an AU where Henry Crawford did wait a little longer and Fanny accepted his proposal? Were any turn of the 19th century girls crushed when Jo married Professor Behr instead of Laurie and found solace in filling a notebook with a self-indulgent AU they shared with their friends?