The Mad Scientist Sci-Fi Trope In The Modern Day

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Whether it's a grim supernatural ritual or technology beyond the imagination of modern mankind, there's always a questionably ethical, debatably insane visionary ready to light the fuse. In science fiction, the go-to villain isn't a perfect killing machine, a race of hostile aliens, or a natural apocalypse. It's just one smart person willing to go the extra mile.

The first science fiction story, pioneering the genre as we know it today, was Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Everyone knows the tale of the cruel medical school dropout who assembles a sapient being through his own hubris. Victor rejects his creation and is punished for his failure of empathy, and thus, the enduring sci-fi format was established.

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The mad scientist trope was codified by Shelley's 1818 opus, making it one of the most recognizable tropes in fictional history. The mad scientist has been the bad guy in so many works that everyone can call half-a-dozen examples to mind. While all kinds of characters can fill this role, the thing they have in common is the allegory they all represent. The mad scientist is a character designed to embody the theoretical lesson of cosmic horror. The moral of every mad scientist story, even as far back as Frankenstein, is that mankind shouldn't try to advance too far past their boundaries. Regardless of the goal or what could be achieved along the way, experimentation can be dangerous. There are dark secrets around every corner, and every school of natural science holds something that could spell our doom. Ignorance is a virtue and the desire for knowledge, the evolutionary gift that gave humanity its position, is a sin.

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