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“
I'm going to make this right, kiddo. You're going to be better soon.
„
~ Dr Friedman, prior to continuing Clara's abusive "treatment."
Dr. Herman Friedman is a minor antagonist in the SCP Foundation series.
A Foundation scientist, he believes that his child is suffering from the effects of an anomalous condition designated as SCP-8000 and has taken him into Foundation custody in order to cure him. However, it rapidly becomes clear that the diagnosis is completely wrong, founded in religious mania and transphobia, and Friedman's idea of a cure is based entirely on abuse.
Dr Friedman's life prior to the events of the SCP-8000-EX article is largely unknown, though it is known that at one point, he was a member of the First United Temple of Dixieland, a religious group of influence known to the SCP Foundation. Though he eventually left the temple for unexplained reasons, he eventually joined the Foundation and gained sufficient status to establish himself as a scientist. At some point during this largely unexplored period of his life, he married and had a child, who he named Daniel (note: this is a deadname and will no longer be used in the article from this point onwards).
However, in 1982, the Foundation became aware of an anomalous phenomenon currently loose in society: designated SCP-8000, it was believed to be a form of cognitive decline caused by tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons and Call of Cthulhu, causing the suffers to lose their ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy, resulting in a devastating range of symptoms including everything from cutting, animal abuse, "sexual deviance", Satanic worship, and even suicide.
Once SCP-8000 was brought to SCP Foundation's attention by the First United Temple of Dixieland, the Temple demanded that the Foundation investigate further. To this end, they created a front organization known as the Society for Christian Parents in order to discourage D&D throughout society (though it was met with only 40% effectiveness at best), fired everyone who'd ever been exposed to D&D for non-testing related purposes, and instituted a policy of abducting and containing any individuals affected by the condition, with the cover story that they'd joined a cult.
In reality, both the Temple and the Foundation had fallen victim to the "Satanic Panic" gripping America at the time, and completely misinterpreted a series of harmless roleplaying games as a combination of mental illness, devil worship, and anomalous phenomena. Unfortunately, nobody would learn this until much later, by which time the damage had already been done.
It was at this point that Herman became involved in the proceedings. During this time, his child had become interested in D&D and had begun using it as a means of expression outside Herman's religious beliefs, even achieving self-realization as a trans woman and privately renaming herself as "Clara" after her D&D character. Unfortunately, Herman didn't see it that way: having been instrumental in classifying D&D as anomalous, he took the opportunity to put Clara into custody so he could begin efforts to study and treat the "condition." Given the pressure being applied by the Temple and Herman's position of trust within the Foundation, nobody questioned his motives.
The "Treatment"[]
Initial interviews began in earnest, during which Herman took every unusual element of Clara's behaviour as anomalous and harmful, regarding the extensive writings of Clara Blackheart as a sign of supernatural mental illness. During the second interview, Herman dosed his child's food with a truth serum in order to force answers, clearly not caring about the fact that it made Clara nauseous, then tried to force him to explain why she had women's underwear in her luggage. Clara resisted this interrogation, forcing Herman to look to the members of her D&D group.
In an interview with Edgar Starkey, Clara's friend and fellow D&D player, Herman attempted to learn more about the condition by posing as an unrelated member of Stop Cults from Profiteering (another SCP front organization). However, he learned little, mostly because he wasn't prepared to listen but also because his attitude did not endear him to Starkey: upon hearing Herman describing Clara as "a sodomite" and "a homosexual psychopath," Starkey coldly rebuffed the sentiment by remarking that the choice of words said more about Herman. Also, though it was never confirmed that Starkey had figured out who Herman really was, he darkly remarked that he sincerely hoped that Clara wasn't returned to her parents after "treatment," describing Herman as "a fundie nutcase who was worse at distinguishing fantasy from reality than any Dungeons & Dragons player I've ever met." Herman briefly hesitated at this, perhaps shaken by a moment of self-reflection, before abandoning it and leaving.
Prior to his next interview with Clara, he dosed her food with antidepressant drugs to such a degree that she was unable to sleep for the next three days, which may have been the desired effect. In the following conversation, Herman grew more and more frustrated with evidence that contradicted his worldview, demanding to know if D&D had made Clara "a transvestite", eventually snapping that "I just want my son back." At this, Clara finally expressed the full extent of her own suppressed anger at her father, claiming that she was never his son and pointing out all the self-discovery that she'd been enjoying despite his denial of it. Startled, Herman claimed that "this is the anomaly talking," and backhandedly calling her a "f*ggot" before vowing to do everything in his power to affect a cure.
After this, Herman's treatment of Clara escalated from psychological abuse to outright physical torture, and though all "treatments" failed to have any lasting effect, Herman refused to stop testing methods of "curing" SCP-8000. He first subjected Clara to twelve hours in an isolation tank, but this just left her screaming for the first hour and unconscious for the remaining eleven; then he moved on to Electroconvulsive Therapy, which just resulted in Clara attacking the guards on both attempts, eventually forcing him to admit it was ineffectual. Moving onto drug therapy, he attempted to "cure" Clara with artificial testosterone treatment, which ended with Clara attempting suicide by bashing her head against the bars of her cell two hundred times in a row. He then went so far as to chemically castrate his own child; this did have results in curbing Clara's "transexual urges," but Herman ultimately discontinued the therapy and allowed Clara's urges to return as the drugs wore off - not out any real sympathy or understanding, but simply because he regarded the treatment as "impractical," presumably regarding the loss of any sexual urge a barrier to a "normal life".
In desperation, Herman called upon religious forms of treatment in the belief that SCP-8000 was a form of demonic influence, subjecting Clara first to an exorcism (during which Clara's arm was broken during an escape attempt), then to baptismal immersion. After another escape attempt during the baptism, Herman descended to the absolute nadir of his treatment regime by attempting baptismal immersion again, but this time with Clara sedated - resulting in her nearly being drowned. All three attempts failed to affect Clara's sexuality or her enjoyment of D&D.
Resolution[]
Eventually, other members of the SCP Foundation's staff began raising concerns about Herman's methods, prompting a review of both his conduct and SCP-8000 in general. After much debate, the Ethics Committee concluded that SCP-8000 was not anomalous in nature, nor were any of its "sufferers," and that Herman Friedman was under the influence of mass hysteria. To that end, SCP-8000 was reclassified as SCP-8000-EX, denoting phenomena that have been fully explained, and all observation of D&D players was hereby terminated.
With Dr Friedman's professional judgement officially compromised, Clara was removed from his custody on the grounds that Herman could no longer be trusted with her safety. Unfortunately, due to the aggressive chemical treatments that had been forced on her, Clara could not be amnesticized on the grounds that it could have potentially dangerous effects on her health, so she had no choice but to retain the memories of her torture at the hands of her father. By way of compensation, the Foundation provided her with psychological counselling to help her with the trauma and may have also provided her with financial assistance once it became clear that she couldn't go back to her old life after all the abuse she'd suffered - to the point that she eventually joined the Foundation as an archivist.
The elder Friedman's history from this point onwards remains mostly unknown, though it's doubtful that it was very pleasant, given that he had lost the authority that had allowed him such leeway with the Foundation. What is known is that Herman never accepted Clara for who she was and remained unrepentant for what he did, even as the Foundation made amends for it. Clara never spoke to him again, so he never repaired their relationship, leaving his goal of getting his "son" back a complete and total failure from beginning to end.
Dr Herman Friedman died in 1999, largely unmourned by the Foundation. Clara didn't visit his grave until 2015, and then only at the recommendation of her psychiatrist, having come to terms with most of her trauma and embraced her identity as a woman despite her father's best efforts to crush it.
Personality[]
An intolerant and obstinate man, Herman Friedman saw the world exclusively through the lens of his religious and societal beliefs: despite having left the First United Temple of Dixieland, he continued to follow their lead in demonizing a harmless roleplaying game, and despite having become a respected scientist at the SCP Foundation, he chose to ignore more genuine threats to global stability in favour of buying into mass hysteria, simply because he was looking for something to blame for Clara's gender identity and couldn't accept that what she was experiencing was perfectly natural.
He also demonstrated a great deal of arrogance and self-importance in his willingness to ignore evidence if it contradicted his worldview, his obliviousness towards personal jabs at his character flaws, and his insistence on intruding on fields of science that he had no training in. As Clara pointed out, he wasn't a psychiatrist or psychologist and yet felt confident in subjecting Clara to numerous psychiatric treatments for her supposed wellbeing, even though none of them were medically valid in practice and most did more harm than good.
Despite his claims of loving Clara and being willing to do anything to save her, he neglected her well-being, imprisoned her against her will, dismissed her honest confessions as the results of anomalous influence, disregarded the testimony of her friends, tortured her almost to madness, did everything he could to smother her personality, and very nearly killed her. The fact that Herman was willing to enact progressively more brutal methods despite the negative success rate and the growing evidence that "SCP-8000" was simply a non-anomalous personality trait indicated that he cared more for his idealized image of Clara rather than who she really was.
Despite the devastating effects of his "treatments," Herman showed no sign of remorse or care for Clara during any available documentation, only ending a treatment due to lack of effect, not because it had done more harm than good. Even after the Foundation realized that Herman could no longer be trusted with Clara's safety, he apparently refused to express remorse and never accepted her true self - suggesting not only a total failure to learn from past mistakes, but also a refusal to admit wrongdoing.
In total, Herman was a bigoted, petty, narrow-minded, and thoroughly wretched individual who achieved nothing of any import save for wasting precious Foundation resources on his own absolute worthlessness as a father.
Trivia[]
Dr. Herman Friedman is currently regarded as one of the most hated villains to have emerged from series 9, alongside other villainous members of Foundation staff like Michael Pelion and Dr. Christopher Byrnes.
Minor/Recurring Organizations Accelerate the Future | Ahnenerbe Obskurakorps | Brazen Heart | Cowboys | Children of the Torch | Chosen of God | Crystal Elms Productions | Black Queen | Foundation Elimination Coalition | Giftschreiber | HANSARP | House of Apollyon | House of Stars | Light Courier Enterprises | Myrmidon International | PENTAGRAM | Proponents of Paranormal Rights | Pokémon Company | Second Haptic Assembly | Sin Nombre | Sugarcomb Confectionery | Syncope Symphony | Twelve Stars | Westhead Media | Y.W.T.G.T.H.F.T.
International Organizations Annihilism | Association of Black Magic Power Users | Hive | Japan Organisms Improvement and Creation Laboratory | Meat Circus | P.O.R.A. | SAPPHIRE | The Civilian
