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Sigvatr

Psychology of the Doom Guy

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The Doom Guy himself never really got much attention as far as id was concerned. I mean, John Romero simply said that the player is you and left it at that. However, little bits and pieces left here and there in id's official statements/story, intermission text and so forth help us to portray our protagonist in a more fleshed out light (that is a flesh light joke).

This is what I am able to gleam from these rare bits of information:

1) He is obviously bat shit insane, which is partially due to the things he has seen on his journeys, been exposed to Hell multiple times, addicted to drugs (I mean, I'm sure stim packs and stuff have pain killers in them, and of course berserk packs contain something awesome), and probably swam in far too much toxic sludge (kind of like the Joker's origin story).

2) He has battled through so many hordes of demons, picked up so many keys and flicked so many switches that he is almost incapable of doing anything else. This reflects on the controls of Doom in that that is all he is literally able to do. He cannot function as a normal human being and would probably need to be put in an asylum if he ever stopped doing what he does.

3) He is probably a huge misanthropist. He hates humanity and society because of all they expect him to do. He always has to take on an impossible challenge so that humanity is saved, but we all know that he only fights the demons because that is his obsession. He doesn't really care much if humanity is destroyed. He probably would like that on account of how he never really gets rewarded for his actions. It is kind of implied in the stories of Final Doom that after saving Earth in the first two games, he just got a job doing the same thing again. He also probably thinks people are retarded because they just reformed the UAC and opened more gates again. And of course he has to fix it. He has a lot of reasons to hate humanity.

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Cool Story :)

so then you could wonder: is the Doomguy classed as a villian, or a good guy/hero? impossible to answer since he saved everyone's ass over and over, and hates them for it

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The real twist is the DoomGuy is really a Z-Sec zombie.

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Sigvatr said:
2) ...

3) ...

so basically the doomguy is frank "the punisher" castle, except with demons for mobsters. except there's this part in the original storyline...

Doom said:
Recently however, the Gateways have grown dangerously unstable. Military "volunteers" entering them have either disappeared or been stricken with a strange form of insanity - babbleing vulgarities, bludgeoning anything that breathes, and finally suffering an untimely death of full-body explosion. Matching heads with torsos to send home to the folks became a full-time job.

let's pretend the body explosion part doesn't exist as it doesn't make any sense whatsoever, insanity after experiencing various dimensional jumps, however, is a fairly common theme in sci-fi. doomguy teleports more than anyone ever in the spacetime continuum, who says he couldn't have gone entirely crazy? what if there are no demons and he's just seeing things? except, who is he killing then?

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D_GARG said:

Cool Story :)

so then you could wonder: is the Doomguy classed as a villian, or a good guy/hero? impossible to answer since he saved everyone's ass over and over, and hates them for it


I call "anti-hero". His (vague) backstory does indicate that he has a sense of morality. He has witnessed humanity at its most callous (and, indeed, inept) and would be understandably jaded by its actions.

There is also the distinct possibility that he would be revered as a Christ-like figure by much of the surviving human race, a notion which he would probably reject himself, while acknowledging that he has proven himself to be humanity's only hope in the face of impending extinction. At this stage, I would imagine that he has come to accept that this is now his purpose, and would indeed have serious issues readjusting to normal life (or even normal military life). The only thing that has kept him going this long is his natural (and military-bred) instinct to survive and to protect the innocent, which was what got him posted to Mars in the first place.

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dew said:

who says he couldn't have gone entirely crazy? what if there are no demons and he's just seeing things? except, who is he killing then?


I really want to avoid any "its all in his head/he's dreaming" plot twists. I hate those.

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scalliano said:

I would imagine that he has come to accept that this is now his purpose, and would indeed have serious issues readjusting to normal life (or even normal military life). The only thing that has kept him going this long is his natural (and military-bred) instinct to survive and to protect the innocent, which was what got him posted to Mars in the first place.


This would fit with his choice to

Spoiler

"remain in hell, to make sure no demon ever rises again"

at the end of Doom 64, if that is the same doomguy :)

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He's motivated and he's loco. He's a locomotive. he runs on rage and switch hunts.

His ultimate goal is to fight his way back to E1M1: Hangar - the place where it all began - and despawn, once and for all. Problem is, he's so embroiled in the whole demon killing game that he's properly forgotten exactly how to get back, so he adopts the idea that if he kills enough demons he will eventually wind up back where he started.

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Sigvatr said:

I really want to avoid any "its all in his head/he's dreaming" plot twists. I hate those.

oh no, he's not making it up in his mind, he's seeing real things distorted. so he could be fighting and killing uac security/employees and as he uses more teleporters casually, he gets even crazier and sees wilder hallucinations (new monsters get introduced). then he goes to earth and sees it warped into all those abstract constructs. "monsters brought their own reality"? yeah, right, but who's the monster.

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dew said:

oh no, he's not making it up in his mind, he's seeing real things distorted. so he could be fighting and killing uac security/employees and as he uses more teleporters casually, he gets even crazier and sees wilder hallucinations (new monsters get introduced). then he goes to earth and sees it warped into all those abstract constructs. "monsters brought their own reality"? yeah, right, but who's the monster.


This idea contradicts Doom's backstory though.

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The "cutscenes" in Doom 2 imply that he wants to save humanity, so I'll have to disagree. I've always imagined him as a quiet, dedicated marine with a strong sense of morality. I think that he enjoys killing in the same way that real soldiers enjoy it after they've been through enough traumatic experiences- he has to do it, and he's used to it, so he loses a little sanity and just decides that he might as well enjoy it. Towards the end of Doom 2 he behaves rather selflessly by deciding to stay behind on earth, allowing the remaining humans to escape.

...and he was wayyy to upset about the death of his pet rabbit to be some kind of emotionless psychopath. :P

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I just think he's a quiet and heavily determined guy who's doing his job. If you take all the backstory, then he's basically just killing because that's what he does and the demons make the perfect enemy. He saves people because he's the good guy, and he's doing the right thing by killing the bad guys.

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I will never be able to imagine Doomguy as anything other than the man from the Doom Comic.

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DOOMGuy is whatever you want him to be, more or less. That's the beauty of it. :)

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Hmm... when you think about it, Doomguy likely is completely insane. I mean just look at the berserker pack. I don`t care how much adrenaline is pulsing through your system, you aren`t likely to see red unless:
A. You`ve finally lost it.
B. You`re high as hell. (Pun intended)
C. You broke a blood vessel in your eye.

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I never thought he needed a character. I always felt he was a hand with a gun that shot monsters, no character needed.
although, some of these theories are very impressive.

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Xaser said:

I will never be able to imagine Doomguy as anything other than the man from the Doom Comic.


Yeah, this is exactly how I feel too, and it fits in perfectly with all of the explanations I have come up with.

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I think Doomguy is a cynical, somewhat twisted antihero. Cynical against humanity, he only saves them as a side effect of killing demons, he only does it for fun. He doesn't care one way or the other how humanity ends up, even though his actions seem to suggest he is trying to save them. Nope, he tries avoiding other humans all the time, just so he can spend some "quality time" with the demons.

I view him as an introverted thinker. Thinking all the time about whatever random shit he pleases while killing demons. He is probably a philosopher, because what else can you do but think when you have nothing else to do? Not that any of his thoughts matter, he never communicates them to anyone else. He is separate from the rest of humanity.

There is a possibility that the teleport usage has led to a change in his personality.

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It's funny you should bring this up, while I was watching a dubbed over youtube video of sone comics, he did strike me as if he'd gone into psychosis. I know how that feels from the mephedrone days,

he could technically be taking large amounts of PCP or some kind of futuristid steroid that he finds in those medkits.

He's clearly mentally ill, but it takes someone insane to do something brilliant i.e save humanity

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Xaser said:

I will never be able to imagine Doomguy as anything other than the man from the Doom Comic.

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I would think doomguy would develop PTSD at one point, but I'm pretty certain he destroyed hell all by himself, and wasnt crazy or addicted to anything in the process.

I imagine him as a mute guy with a high amount of demon intolerance.
Not some action heavy guy who likes to talk about the damage toxic waste does while killing demons...sorry, ripping and tearing demons.

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Sigvatr said:

Psychology of the Doom Guy


Doomguy said:

DIE-KNOW-MIGHT! I'M COOKING WITH GAS!

Doomguy said:

RIP and TEAR!

Doomguy said:

Hoy, hoy, I'm the boy, packin' 80 pounds of heavenly joy...

Doomguy said:

Whoo-hoo baby! I'm burning out of control!

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Sigvatr said:
The Doom Guy himself never really got much attention as far as id was concerned. I mean, John Romero simply said that the player is you and left it at that. However, little bits and pieces left here and there in id's official statements/story, intermission text and so forth help us to portray our protagonist in a more fleshed out light (that is a flesh light joke).

You don't seem to have contradicted the "he's you" principle in your analysis of his personality, as the description you gave seems to be similar to how you would see yourself reacting under the marine's situation, given your posting history and how you've described yourself.

If the marine were anything by himself, he'd be somewhat like John Romero, throwing in some Ash from Evil Dead and some Hicks from Aliens.

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Maes said:

A bunch of Doom Comic quotes.

I saw that one coming from a mile away. :D

myk said:

If the marine were anything by himself, he'd be somewhat like John Romero

So he's going to try and make us his bitch and fail?

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Doomguy is an okay and sociable guy, you people are just jealous he's so powerful against the demonic invasion you're trying to call him names.

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myk said:

he'd be somewhat like John Romero


No John, you are the demons.

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Well you can also tell his personality from his status bar face, he grits his teeth when you shoot repeatedly at something. Kind of a "DIE YOU BASTARD, DIE!" expression. Also that devilish grin when he grabs that shotgun. No one really should have a look like that when holding a firearm unless they are exactly as Sigvatr describes - batshit insane.

Also the text intermissions provide some insight on Doomguy's thought process too. Some text scenes sound angry, some sound confused, and some sound rather melancholic.

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