Dr. Flug Theory: Growing Up Neglected and Being the Scapegoat
Black Hat kept Flug after Flug crashed his plane into his house. But ever wonder why Flug chose to work under Black Hat?
Black Hat abuses Flug and constantly puts him under stress, fear and pressure. Yet Flug chose to work for him and chose to stay.
If it’s true that Flug, 5.0.5. and Demencia have no shadows because they have sold their souls to BlackHat, what would Flug sell his soul for?
Warning: this is going to be a long post.
We first get a glimpse of this in “Villainous-Villain Orientation Guide: Mojo Jojo” where Flug gets emotionally affected by Mojo Jojo’s backstory.
Mojo Jojo went on about how he was continuously overshadowed by his “sisters’” (Powerpuff Girls) physical power and how his “brilliant achievements went unnoticed”.
Did Mojo Jojo’s story hit too close to home?
We can catch a glimpse of how Flug grew up on based further on one picture:
(screenshot from @gabygirl1243)
This picture is already evaluated by other Tumblr users such as gabygirl1243. In essence, I’ll just be summarizing what they have said, while adding my own thoughts to it.
There are theories out there that Goldheart is Flug’s brother.
When Goldheart first appeared, he was glowing yellow and wearing yellow. Therefore yellow might be his identifying character color.
In the family picture, the woman in pink is the mom who’s intimate and shows affection to her yellow son while the man in gray can be the father standing proudly beside him. Their golden child.
Meanwhile, there’s Flug. He wears blue, his identifying color that goes with his signature shirt. He keeps to himself, hands behind his back, with the way his mother’s back is facing him, there is distance between him and his family.
If Mojo Jojo and Flug’s backstories are parallel, Flug is constantly overshadowed by Goldheart. Goldheart, a hero who can fly, glow and is seemingly powerful. He even got a heroic name to the play of words “heart of gold”.
Then there is Flug. No matter his brilliance, no matter his inventions, are constantly ignored in favor of his brother who has more impressive superpowers. Sure, Flug has a pilot’s license but Goldheart can fly! (Ouch.)
The family picture alone shows that Flug grew up with childhood neglect.
The fact that the family picture is torn from the neck up is scary. Because Flug still kept it. To me, this might be a process of impersonalization to rid himself of sympathy and warmth to what was once his family. It’s beyond emotionally distancing himself to them.
He’s emotionally cutting them off by tearing off their heads. So that when he would meet them again, they would mean nothing to him. He would never be under their “control” again (more on this later).
The Drive to Prove Himself
Growing up overshadowed, Flug is constantly filling the void of what he lacked.
Flug lacked recognition, validation and attention so he looks for it outside his family. One of the other pictures in Flug’s room is this:
Based by the body type, hands and signature color blue of the shirt, the person on the right is Flug being interviewed by an anchorwoman. Whatever the story behind this photo, it was important enough for Flug that he puts it on the wall.
Even Flug’s dream in “The Dreadful Dawn” is about earning a praise from BlackHat and is the thing he anticipates the most at the end of the episode.
If Flug stayed around the side of the good guys, he would never escape Goldheart’s shadow.
Goldheart would always outshine Flug no matter how many doctorates he would get or inventions he would make. (Which is kinda bad when he’s already ignored in his family). So that might be one of his reasons for going to the other side (aside from science without ethics allows him to experiment on others).
Perhaps his desire to start on the other side started in his teenage years.
It’s very concerning that Flug graduated from a High School of Evil:
His posture is timid, anxious and wimpy. He’s a dog with his tail between his legs.
Edit: This is young Flug with poor self-esteem. As Good Therapy states, “When a parent is not emotionally attuned to a child, there is no mirror held up, no positive reflection being shared with the child. Developing a positive sense of self, then, becomes more challenging for the child. ”
I doubt that his parents even let him learn how to fight to defend himself since he’s not his brother.
And why does he has a recycle bin over his head? It’s like someone put it in there and he’s too scared to take it off or he doesn’t want anyone recognizing him. But why would he choose such a filthy bin to cover his head?
Does his parents even know he’s enrolled in a high school for villains? Or they don’t care where he studies?
Flug, however, has a deeper problem than childhood neglect.
The ScapeGoat and the Golden Child
Comparing Flug and Goldheart in the family picture, Flug can be seen as someone who is closed off while Goldheart has his hand out in a peace sign, a more friendly gesture. Flug is dressed neatly, while his brother has a not so properly tucked shirt and a crooked tie. Yet his parents dote over him. Goldheart, in their eyes, is the son that can do no wrong.
Goldheart is the golden child both literally and figuratively.
Scapegoats have their major achievements are dismissed. Any time, money or effort spent on them is the bare minimum which might explain how Flug was able to go to the high school of evil.
Even if their parents see themselves as good people, I don’t think they realize how bad they’ve been treating Flug because having a scapegoat lets them project all the faults into, allowing the parents to think themselves and their son as emotionally healthier and more stable than they actually are.
Edit: “Goldheart” in Flug’s dream doesn’t have a heart of gold.
With their parents assigning them to these roles, it pretty much affected the relationship between Flug and Goldheart.
In Flug’s dream, Goldheart said, "Admit it, Flug. You’re a failure. They should call you Dr. Failure. It doesn’t matter what you try.”
With these words in Flug’s subconscious, I don’t think Flug was imagining that this was what his family thinks of him. This is just me but it seems like Flug has been hearing this his whole life that it got inside his subconscious.
Their parents may have said those words to him in one form or another, in many ways while growing up. With Goldheart as the perfect child, Flug was the “not good enough”.
Some scapegoats can become high achievers to disprove their parents’ claims and the emotional neglect motivates them to perfectionism in order to be worthy to others. Scapegoats can become rebels at the constant state of being looked down upon. Some would find the strength to distance themselves from their abusive family and their reality.
This is what Flug did. Unfortunately he did it by going to the other side.
Golden children is just a different flavor of abuse. Driven by the constant expectations on them, they lose their sense of self. As Psychology Today states, "It’s a world governed by external achievements, how good you look to other people (including your mother), and not at all about your character, empathy, or inner self.”
Which might explain why Goldheart in Flug’s dream is a jerk.
Parents of scapegoats and golden children are often narcissistic, seeing the golden child as an extension of themselves and living through them while projecting all their ills to the scapegoats. Goldheart grew up with this.
When Goldheart says those words to Flug in his dream, Goldheart is only reaffirming Flug’s role in the family because it’s the only way he has a sense of identity: being perfect compared to him.
He knew, subconsciously or consciously, that their parents’ love is conditional and that if he stops being perfect, he’s going to get treated like Flug. Worse, he might be the new Flug. So he tramples on Flug just to stay in place.
But why Black Hat? Flug could’ve chosen any other villain that would’ve treated him better.
Black Hat is the baddest villain of them all and Flug is going to associate himself to the best of the best of the other side. (If you can’t be loved, why not be feared?) Black Hat recognizes his skill and uses it so.
His boss’ attention is mostly negative and stressful, but at least there’s recognition and validation through sales and being left to live for another day. Flug is basically a person escaping his abusive family and entering another abusive relationship to find what he’s lacking and interpreting the new treatment of abuse as some form of “better”.
All of these, are just theories and character explorations. I can’t wait to watch the next 6 episodes of villainous to learn more :)
