Dr. Killjoy

"Well, well, well, look what we have here! How long I have been waiting to encounter such a fascinating specimen! My understanding is you've had periodic blackouts since... when was it... ah, yes, early adolescence. Ever wonder what happens during those blackouts? Would you say you have visions of bloodshed? Yes, surely there is bloodshed..."

- Killjoy meets Torque for the first time Dr Q. L. Killjoy is one of the principal characters of the 2004 horror video game The Suffering and its 2005 sequel The Suffering: Ties That Bind. A legendary figure in Carnate Island's notoriously violent history, Dr Killjoy made a name for himself in the early 20th century as both a surgeon and a psychiatrist, offering revolutionary treatments for apparently incurable mental illnesses to clients all over Maryland; however, the cures he devised often ended up killing his patients, and the physician soon became unwelcome in legitimate society, ultimately vanishing during the 1930s. However, Dr Killjoy resurfaces in the present as one of the ghosts haunting the island in the aftermath of the Cataclysm, promising series protagonist Torque a cure for his numerous mental illnesses - whether he wants it or not. As such, he occupies a unique role within the series, at once hindering and helping the players, serving as both ally and enemy to Torque.

He is voiced by John Armstrong, who also voices Horace Gage in the same series.

Appearance
By far the most human of all the ghosts in the series, Dr Killjoy demonstrates none of the deformities exhibited by other apparitions, perhaps due to his deliberate means of obtaining immortality. A tall, thin, dignified-looking gentleman, he is easily recognized both in person and in paintings by his slicked-back hair, widows peak and impeccably-waxed mustache. Perpetually dressed in the stereotypical garb of a surgeon, Killjoy is further distinguished by the bloodstained apron, smock and head mirror he wears; in keeping with his air of sophistication, however, he clearly wears a waistcoat and bow tie under his smock, the latter of which can clearly be seen in most of his appearances.

Also differentiating Killjoy from the other ghosts of Carnate and Baltimore is his form of manifestation: rather than simply materializing out of nowhere like Copperfield or the Creeper, or coalescing from gas or electricity like Hermes and Horace, he is instead most commonly emerges as a colorless three-dimensional image produced by specially-designed film projectors. Though seemingly incapable of interacting with the physical world, his ability to control technology other than his projectors allows him to appear virtually anywhere provided that the environment is dark enough to sustain his image - and that his projectors remain intact. During the sequel, Killjoy also demonstrates the power to communicate with Torque via television sets and movie theaters across Baltimore, during which he also manifests a laboratory in the background, though its not known if this is a real place or simply an illusion devised for the sake of his supernatural broadcast.

In both games, Killjoy speaks with a deep "Mid-Atlantic" accent - a combination of American English and British Received Pronunciation, further adding to the air of sophistication he cultivates.

Personality
Urbane, grandiose and profoundly narcissistic, Dr Killjoy is clearly in love with the sound of his own voice, and will gladly take any given opportunity to wax messianic on his talents as a surgeon, psychiatrist and actor. Throughout the asylum, he boasts of being "a star of unprecedented proportions," bragging of the hitherto unseen regions of the human psyche he has unearthed and how this makes him worthy of global attention. Every single scene he appears in features Killjoy making a spectacle of himself, commonly utilizing wild theatrical gestures, deliriously purple language, and lurid promises of the show that his patients will enjoy; for good measure, he often punctuates these monologues with vulgar demonstrations of the power he can still exert over physical reality. In keeping with his pretensions of being an actor, he enjoys monologuing on the glories of theater, the Golden Age of Radio, and even of Hollywood blockbusters; in both games, he regales Torque with classic Shakespearean soliloquies, not even caring that his audience is either not listening or too busy trying to stay alive to pay much attention. Though little harm can come to him in his intangible state, attacks on his projectors in the asylum laboratory result in an immediate temper-tantrum, in which Killjoy sneeringly dismisses Torque as a "neanderthallic barbarian" and explodes with disgust at the mere thought of anyone being able to smother "one of the brightest stars in the sky"; appropriately enough, the destruction of the last projector in the room merely results in him burying his ego for the only point in either game and swiftly effecting a cure for Torque.

Second only to Killjoy's ego is his desire to experiment, analyze and create - often through nightmarishly violent methods. It is in this desire that the Doctor's utopian ambitions and psychopathic callousness most commonly find expression: having already given Torque a means of controlling his "rage form" in his introductory cutscene as part of the first step towards properly curing him, Killjoy follows this up by conducting a lecture on the proper procedure for lethal injection - using a live inmate as a test subject; during this scene, Killjoy abandons his usual procedure in favour of simply lacerating the inmate to death with a scalpel, claiming that "we're not really trying to be humane anyway." Exploring the asylum reveals further horrors inflicted on the C.O.s relaxing there: one was left unresponsive after extreme ECT treatments intended to "tame" his brain; another fatally gouged his eyes out after witnessing something horrific in a roomful of Rorschach inkblots; a third lost all four limbs and was left to writhe helplessly in a padded cell - apparently because his body threatened the safety of his mind. In the second game, this habit for brutal and often arbitrary research continues when, annoyed by the heroin-addicted "rabble" cluttering up his makeshift laboratory, he decides to test the effects of purified narcotics on the brains of the addicts - resulting in all but one of the unfortunate group dying from cranial explosions. Most startling of all, Killjoy went so far as to modify the Slayers, using his machines to grant them the power of reanimation; his reasons for doing this are not entirely clear, but monologues from throughout the asylum indicate that he wanted to use them as co-stars in his continued attempts to play at being an actor. Perhaps because of his obsessive scientific bent, he has little love for the devoutly religious, regarding Hejira as "a self-important zealot" - though this is also born of his great appreciation for drama, as he is heard to regard the theater as a "temple of the arts."

However, despite his narcissism, his lack of empathy, his disregard for morals and ethics, and his eccentric disconnection from human attitudes, Dr Killjoy is sincere in his desire to help others. Ranse Truman firmly believes that the Doctor's intentions were pure, but merely corrupted by the supernatural environment on Carnate Island; in turn, the ghosts of the asylum patients seem to believe that the treatments they were subjected to made them better people, often reflecting how happier they feel for what the psychiatrist-surgeon did to them. Killjoy himself can be heard to reflect sadly on how few of his patients lived to see the bright new world he offered them, though he never blames himself for the low survival rate, of course. In the present, the methods he uses to cure Torque of his afflictions are undoubtedly extreme, but if the player has taken the good or neutral path through the game, Killjoy's efforts pay off and Torque is cured of his uncontrollable rage (for the time being, at any rate). Likewise, his affable mannerisms, though theatrical and deliberately exaggerated, are not entirely artificial in nature: Killjoy truly is an amiable gentleman, often reacting with sardonic approval for Torque's more benevolent acts throughout the game, and even expressing regret when Torque is forced to reclaim his rage mode during ''Ties That Bind. ''For good measure, his efforts to cure Torque are not limited to experimentation, for in the second game, he goes so far as to serve as a guide of sorts for the players, directing them through the maze of ruined streets and onto Blackmore's trail.

Powers And Abilities
At first, Dr Killjoy appears to be completely powerless, especially in contrast to the toxic intangibility of Hermes and Horace's mastery of electricity. However, as The Suffering continues, it becomes clear that the good doctor is far more than just an insubstantial image dependent on his projectors to survive: not only can he direct his cameras about the island at will, but he can also use them to project solid objects and even inflict violence; during "Slumber Of The Dead," he blocks Torque's path by projecting a heavy set of metal bars over the exit, and demonstrates his ability to interact with the physical world by slashing the unfortunate Byron to death with a scalpel. Over the course of the game, he uses this ability to keep Torque from accessing certain areas of the asylum, and even to provide him with his precise diagnosis - literally projecting the completed form into existence. Furthermore, he doesn't appear to be limited to controlling projectors: he can make his voice heard through telephones, he can command IVs and gurneys around the execution chamber, and he can control the machinery around his own laboratory - resurrecting the Slayers via this method. Furthermore, while destroying his projectors keeps him from exerting his influence on an area, it's not enough to destroy him for good.

In the sequel, this power to influence technology is expanded to encompass television sets and entire cinemas; for good measure, he even demonstrates the ability to project purified narcotics into the brains of several addicts, causing their heads to spontaneously detonate.

Prior To The Game
Much of Dr Killjoy's life prior to his arrival on Carnate Island is a mystery, and Killjoy himself has little desire to discuss his past with any of his patients; it's not even known when he arrived on the island, or if he was born there, or even if he was responsible for the construction of the lavish Victorian mansion that was to become his base of operations. All that is known is that, less than thirty years after its construction in 1877, was converted into an insane asylum in 1899 and officially named "The Carnate Institution for the Alienated."