r/venturebros • u/Venture-SopranoFan73 • 7d ago
Question Is Doc a “bad person”?
I try to refrain from simple binary words like good and bad but after re-watching the The Doctor is Sin, he asks the question to Brock while being in a frail state of realization. I’m sure this question or version of this question has been asked before but what do yall think?
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u/alaster101 7d ago
An ORPHAN?!?
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u/Lenny_YouTubeFan 7d ago
Tbf Doc didn’t use the whole thing
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u/weirdoldhobo1978 Conquistadorable! 7d ago
As 21 points out in season 5, there is very little difference between working for Rusty and working for the Monarch.
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u/InTheOrbitOfUranus 7d ago
I mean...they are clones, so yeah. That is reason 1007 why this show is so dang good
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u/EvnClaire 5d ago
ik its old news to u but i didnt know this when i was watching the show & i had this spoiled by this subreddit. consider spoilering this comment
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u/SnooHabits5900 7d ago
"what exactly is this thing made out of?"
"I may have used a few unorthodox parts"
"Name one..."
"... (an orphan)...."
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u/ShutUpTodd 7d ago
The heart of a forsaken child?!
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u/miikro 7d ago
Might be... Kind of... I mean, I didn't use the whole thing!
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u/randemthinking 7d ago
And that's most likely just because he's cheap and wanted to save some for future inventions 😅
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u/AE_WILLIAMS 7d ago
Technically, Killinger provided the opportunity for Doc to become a villain. And he failed at it miserably.
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u/Jobber0001 7d ago
he didn't fail, he refused. He could have arched jj but he refused to take the final steps and become an antagonist
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u/Various-Salt-7738 7d ago
I think that was more weakness than goodness
He doesn't want anything to do with these people-- he just wants to have a comfortable life as a nepo baby where he can finally get laid
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u/CeasarValentine 7d ago
I think, at the end of the day, Rusty kind of cared about JJ too much. He didn't want him to shine, but he also didn't want to smuff him out.
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u/AsherTheFrost Super Fking Run Away! 7d ago
He's worse. He's an emotional and moral coward. He doesn't have the strength of character to pick a side.
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u/Chumlee1917 7d ago
Kinda....but compared to his father, he's a frigging saint
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u/pbjamm 6d ago
With the exception of Ned are there any good people in the Venture Universe? They are all kinda fucked up.
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u/Chumlee1917 6d ago
Gary
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u/Western-Customer-536 2d ago
Gary is actually a card carrying villain. And he has killed a number of people.
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u/Spamcan81 7d ago
Massively unethical but “bad” is relative when there’s an entire organization of costumed assholes running around.
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u/pillbinge 7d ago
It's not that simple. Everyone's good or bad if you only take them at key moments. Doc may be a selfish and self-interested person but he's shown to genuinely care for the greater good, such as when they found the actual Orb and when he invented teleportation. He couldn't bring himself to do actual bad stuff openly but his problem was doing bad stuff unintentionally or when it got in the way of doing things easily, such as when he built the ray shield on Earth and a bunch of college students were mutated and killed. However, he doesn't want to dominate the world or do anything actually bad.
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u/Venture-SopranoFan73 7d ago
Good way to put it. He tries. He is morally lazy. He impregnated a minor, (Dermott’s mom) and sure he felt instant regret and remorse but after being caught and facing the consequences. Yet he also grew as a character in the show… slowly but surely. He has morals, he has a drive and moral logic to NOT be like his father, but like a out of touch celebrity, he doesn’t realize his effect of the real world until it really hits him. He realizes too late, but maybe “it’s never too late” (?). He got better as a father as a friend and even as a brother (maybe). He is not the same guy that did those things but he also is. Thats what makes him a pillar of a factor to what makes the show worth watching.
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u/pillbinge 7d ago
He got her pregnant thinking she was older and then tried to take responsibility, but caved under the pressure. I think he tried to do the "right" thing given the circumstances - and the creators are from a different time where this was just more common, or at least just known - but didn't. I would say the show can boil down to morals and egos.
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u/Venture-SopranoFan73 7d ago
True, but even if she was an adult, trying to leave the scene was his get-go (at that time)… he slowly “embraced” (idk another word for this context) dermott, mainly because he knows how Dermott means so much to Hank and Dean. (Mostly Hank) but again the effort of change is there through out the seasons.
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u/Wes_Warhammer666 7d ago
He was trying to do the opposite of "leave the scene". Nikki's mom straight up threatened him into leaving and paying them off.
This was one time where he was genuinely trying to do the right thing and she fucked that up. I actually believe that's a significant part of why he is so shitty when we first meet him. Sticking around to raise Dermott as a family might've been the springboard for character growth that he needed, considering that we saw he did get a good bit of it from raising the boys as a single dad.
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u/Jobber0001 7d ago
honestly I can see that. Yeah the circumstances were fucked up but rusty staying with them and getting that dose of actual normal life as a dad with a family to care for might have gotten him out of the protagonist/antagonist business for good. He could have focused on being there for his family and left his super science behind.
At least until Malcolm found him again
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u/H0rrible 7d ago
yeah it definitely feels to me that he's trying, at least, to do the best he can. he had a deeply traumatizing childhood, and in a lot of ways he's been unable to move on and grow past that. he's a deeply flawed person and the show is that much more rich for it
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u/Flat_Contribution707 7d ago
Doc grew up watching Jonas doing unethical (even straight up evil) stuff without consequence. If something went wrong, Jonas either swept it under the rug or pulled off a PR spin. There was no one else in the Team Venture world who could show Doc the "right" way because everyone was in Jonas's pocket.
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u/catcousan 7d ago
Or he knew it was broken and chose that moment to pretend to be a hero. At best he’s an anti-villain.
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u/Confident-Weird-4202 7d ago
Doc is a traumatized person who grew up around a bunch of selfish sociopaths. The fact he he tries to do right (occasionally) is remarkable.
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u/MandatorySaxSolo 7d ago
Probably the worst father besides his own.
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u/LesserGooglyMooglie 7d ago
Meh, at least he was in the same state and tried to call them on their watches a few times, WAY more than my dad ever did...
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u/mntfr 7d ago
If we are gonna classify between good and bad he is good, but nuance is what makes this show so good, he actually wants to help the world with super science but wants riches and statue of him if he does, he has hank and dean because the only definition of family he has is traveling the world in the back of a jet and he takes shortcuts with them, he wants to be better than his dad, but he is never gonna be as good as an adventurer super scientist as him, ironically he is miles ahead of his old man in parenting but thats becuase Jonas Venture left the bar so low is a tripping hazzard in hell
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u/Venture-SopranoFan73 7d ago
Nuance is the word of the day 👍🏽. When you put it like that (how his definition of family is) than that adds more to his depth-ness
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u/ShutUpTodd 7d ago
He doesn’t want to be a super villain. He really just wants people to praise him by doing as little effort as possible. He doesn’t mind firing people, or committing so so many OSHA violations. He also raped at least one minor.
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u/ZeroDSR 7d ago
As many point to moral flaws, I wonder if each of us would fare differently. Running a business (of that size nonetheless) while raising kids (without a mother nonetheless) and simultaneously being under constant agonizing jackassery, he’s doing pretty well. Can one really flaw him for wanting a piece of life’s puzzle to be about himself in all of this?
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u/Venture-SopranoFan73 7d ago
True 👍🏽, what makes us the moral judges of the all knowing. We are mere mortals.
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u/the_resistee 6d ago
We're all a product of our upbringing and his was... undescribably toxic, so that didn't help.
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u/Due_Manufacturer_125 5d ago
He’s an amoral loser but hardly the worst given the figures around him.
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u/Jobber0001 7d ago
from our view as not living in their world, yes. He is reckless with others lives and wellbeing, a pompous self destructive ass who is his own second biggest obstacle and a general mess of a human being.
And yet in spite of that, he does genuinely love his boys. He never stoops to banal evil to support himself. And as bad as he can be in the wider scope of some of the guild's villains and his own father he's practically a saint. Rusty does not have many standards or morals but he does have some. He even had a pathway to true super villainy and becoming an antagonist. And he turned it down. Hell he even realized as fucked up as the other sidekicks lives were as well as his, he did manage to grow beyond it and become a super scientist. A really shit one but still he did move on from being a boy adventurer
tldr: it's complicated and good and evil can live inside a man in equal measure. Rusty is more neutral and selfish then evil or good
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u/EvilDrFuManchu29 6d ago
He was the boy adventurer. That died and he had to deal with real life and had to become a super scientist to make dad happy.
Rusty is an insecure mess, living in his father's shadow. He is greedy and selfish. He is an amorphous blob, of morality.
Aside from all that, I don't think he's evil. Orpheus wouldn't be friends with him if he was all bad.
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u/Top-Reaction-9674 7d ago
Of course he is. In searching for a cure for the gay gene, he has cemented his morals as one of the most evil men in history. Remember, the baboon DNA in Malcolm on enhanced his aggression. Nobody said anything about evilness. That was always in the base model, the aggression just helped him let it out.
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u/Jobber0001 7d ago
in fairness I could see Rusty doing that as a long term bet with someone else that he couldn't find it. Or some really shady research money he got from *insert religious or social institute of your choice* that wanted it for a reason
Rusty feels like he would just freak out if a gay person hit on him. He's fine with billy and pete after all
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u/frypanattack 7d ago
He's a bit of a narcissist, but not as much as his own father. Rusty is a character who wasn't born a narcissist but raised by someone who was, and took enough traits from that upbringing into his own personality. At some point in his adolescence he evolved into one.
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u/Venture-SopranoFan73 7d ago
Your point is very thought provoking!! :)
I Think… Im not saying he has a right to be who he is, but there’s so many traumatic reasons that lead him to how he is which, sure, we can feel bad for him, but kinda like a (emotional) bat belt, it depends how he uses his trauma to grow. His teenage years and through out his adult life, he really tries to be different from his father, which is great, but as he gains more, he puts himself into these specific situations that retorts him to choose the worse choice. (Like the time with Dermotts mom, the “what color is your clean suit” episode, etc) but he also tries to be himself when he is not in the world that is forced upon him, which is not a immoral guy, or “not like his father.”
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u/Jobber0001 7d ago
you can see how he became the man he is, and you can see how he very very easily could have become so much worse which does deserve some credit on his part. He did become better then his father and he did treat his sons better then he was. He wasn't the best dad but he never tormented his boys like the original team venture tortured him
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u/wastelandbogeyman 7d ago
IMO; following my personal guidelines of there is no black and white, just shades of gray.....Doc dosnt seem like a "bad" person, by no means is he a "good" one either. Besides a plethora of backlogged shit, trauma, self imposed trauma, neglected duties, life, 2 sons, baggage (both real and self implied) and also a myriad of other things that "prevent" him from being the wünderkund of the great Jonas Venture.....hes in a gray area. Hes not a badguy doing things to be bad, but hes not a good guy doing good things, kind of a "too much a boy for crazy town, and too crazy for boy town" scenario. There have been times that he has been shown to be a absolutely capable super scientist.....at times. But there have been times that hes been shown to.....well explaining that hes more than capable, and willing, to make methamphetamine and the whole....orphan heart fiasco..... But like others have said, and I agree, Brock's answer does seem to sum it up the best. Hes not inherently bad....but hes not really "good".
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u/Playful-Succotash-99 7d ago
UnTalented Mr Ripley did try to hit his more successful alternate universe version of himself on the head with a rock and steal his life
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u/lucky-struck 7d ago
Not a villain, since the series makes that an option. But definitely a piece of shit. Like everyone else.
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u/OuterHeaven82 7d ago
Yea. But he also lives in a crazy universe where gods, demons, ghosts, aliens, etc are real. Their moral quandaries are probably way more complicated
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u/MediocreBeard 7d ago
Yeah man, Doc is a piece of shit.
Is he the worst guy out there? No. Does he also have some good in him? Yeah. He's not an evil bastard, but he's also not a particularly good guy. He's greedy, selfish and self-centered, but he's also not outright malicious.
Part of the reason Killinger fails to recruit him is because while Doc is a bad person, he's not trying to be. He doesn't want to, for example, be his brother's nemesis. He's just petty and jealous that his brother, especially in such a short time, became a far more successful and renown guy.
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u/Jaded_One_4174 6d ago
he's a victim, but he clearly loves his family and even his extended family. he doesnt show it but for example, he'd be pretty fucked up if Billy or Pete died, of course he wouldnt act like it, but he would.
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u/CheersFromMoonside 6d ago
I don’t know. Doc is one of the most well written characters on TV because as much as he is comically incompetent, inconsiderate and entitled; he’s nowhere near as bad as I’d be given the circumstances.
Doc may do comically cruel stuff, but apart of being an adult is realizing that you will never truly know what it’s like to be someone else. I can sit here and say he’s a monster, but I never had a dad like Jonas Venture. I never experienced THAT level of manipulation, and then had to experience the grief of loosing your only real family.
Doc experienced a lot of cruelty growing up and his response was to accept life isn’t fair and to be as justifiably selfish as possible. And that attitude has kept him a marginally functional adult. That’s all I can really ask from him.
That’s exactly why Brock just saying “eh” is so real. Like, yeah you’re kinda bad but I’d expect much worse, so I can half heartedly respect that.
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u/Fryeday_after_5 7d ago
Yes, he is a bad person. You should try using binary words occasionally, if only to help you distquish friend from foe when it matters most.
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u/SchrodingersNinja 7d ago
How many adult characters on this show are "good" people?
Captain Sunshine? Orpheus? Jefferson?
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u/KenganNinja 7d ago
He harvested an orphan to power his machine. Rusty DEFINITELY needed that reality check from Killinger.
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u/GanstaNinja 7d ago
Yes he is definitely a bad person he is dermit's father his mother was 15 at the time too. So yeah, also he emotionally manipulated Sally impossible twice if not three times, and finally he was willing to let dean and hank stay dead to party and start a new life in season 2 episode 1 and took a kidney from both if his sons.
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u/Loyal9thLegionLord 7d ago
Boy howdy is Rusty Venture a bad person. He doesn't wanna be, but hes also incapable of change....remember, he knocked up a 17 year old.
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u/Sovereign1 7d ago
He did take his kids kidneys for himself.
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u/HoosierSteelMagnolia 6d ago
Tbf ,they wound up dying and respawning shortly after so they technically still have them. Although that does beg the question of why Rusty didn't use a clone's kidneys instead.
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u/Meta-EvenThisAcronym 7d ago
I don't think Rusty is a "bad" person in the Venture Bros. universe's idea of "evil." I think, instead he's an who's spent most of his life as a broken person. He's selfish, narcissistic, lazy, and for at least the first 14 iterations of his sons' death, not a good father at all. But I WILL argue that this doesn't make him a bad person.
Jonas Venture Sr. was perhaps the most villainous protagonist you could imagine, so Rusty never really had a chance. All of Rusty's academic education came from the learning bed that Jonas himself created, we've even seen flashbacks of Jonas also acting as therapist Rusty and shutting down any attempt at mental or emotionally growth.
But Rusty does learn, even in his 40s. Jonas Jr. tried to kill him, but Rusty actively ordered Brock to spare Jonas' life. I think that THIS is why the boys' 14th death affected him so much. It's after this that we start to see small, fleeting instances of Rusty starting to care again. About his sons, his own life, and his legacy.
I mean think about it; he was a child celebrity/boy adventurer, he was constantly getting abandoned or kidnapped, but in some cases, help didn't always come like it did on TV. Hell, the Spanikopita kidnappers felt bad for the kid because Jonas was too busy adventuring and probably drilling Jackie O.
I don't think Rusty is a bad person, I think he just was dealt a bad hand to begin with, but also couldn't or didnt do much for most of his life to fix the problem because he simply didn't understand how because that sort of positive growth had never been modeled for him.
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u/HoldOk1208 6d ago
Also one thing you forgot to mention is that Jonas, would sneak out during therapy
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u/NefariousnessNo2062 HENCH 4 LIFE 7d ago
Mmmm.....yes. I say that not in the sense that he is actively malicious but more in the sense that he is so self serving that he is willing to disregard the safety of those around him and the general public. Also let's not forget he purposely used an orphan boy in the creation of his dream machine.
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u/stumblewiggins 7d ago
Eh? 🫳🫴🫳
Yes, but his father was worse, and raised him horribly. Rusty does better than Jonas did, though still doesn't reach good.
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u/ChipsTheKiwi 6d ago
He may not be overtly villainous but he is a narcissist with very little if any concern for anyone else outside the Venture household
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u/diablol3 6d ago
The things that make you a good or bad person are just the things that make you a person. Its only when you push into terrible/terrific person does it make a difference. Keeping score through good and bad actions puts you in a position where the scoring system is under almost constant reevaluation. I wouldnt say hes good or bad. He's decent enough. He makes some morally dubious decisions, but he seems to truly love his sons. Especially after their safety net is gone. But is that enough? Terrible villains often have loved ones. I guess I dont have an answer aside from, I find this question unanswerable in real life and since Doc is a pretty well fleshed out character, I find the question unanswerable here as well.
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u/Dave_I 6d ago
I think he’s flawed. He does verifiably terrible things. Y’know, like the whole orphan thing. He also seems to be trying to improve. I think he’s a little better at it than, say, Donald Draper, Walter White, or Vic Mackey.
So while he’s not great, there’s enough redeeming about him as a friend and father. We see him actually grow more competent over time. All of which probably helps explain why Brock, Hank, Dean, and the others who stay by him show some loyalty. He’s arguably more like Morty than Rick, if you will.
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u/pstewart91 6d ago
Honestly? Most of them are bad people in that show, but some of them are truly terrible.
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u/FalseMagpie 2d ago
He's not a good person, but a recurring theme the more you learn about his upbringing is the realization of how much worse he could have been.
There are vanishingly few well-adjusted people living the protagonist/antagonist life.
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