For Mr. Puzzles, have you ever heard of Harley Sawyer?
He is the former protégé of Elliot Ludwig turned head of Playtime Co.'s Special Projects division and the director of the Bigger Bodies Initiative, the catalyst that had led to the company's experiments revolving around orphaned children, as well as its eventual downfall. Realizing that Playtime was a failure, Sawyer tried to save it through his experiments, turning people of all ages into living toys that would work for the company. However, Sawyer would prove to be a liability causing numerous problems, culminating in the "Theater Incident", which led Leith Pierre to betray him and turn him into an experiment himself which was known as Experiment-1354: The Doctor. What made Sawyer stand out from the other experiments is that instead of getting a physical body, he was turned into a digital entity in the factory's systems.
After the Hour of Joy and the fall of Playtime, the Doctor was forced to partner up with the Prototype, running the factory's prison where he tortured and killed toys for his own amusement with his "pets": Yarnaby and the Nightmare Critters, including the large Baba Chops. All the while, the Prototype and the Doctor worked together to achieve the former's enigmatic end goal.
It's unknown how Harley Sawyer looked as a human, but "The Doctor - Chapter 4 Cinematic Trailer" confirms he was white. As Experiment-1354, Harley was reduced to three organs (specifically the lungs, heart and unusually giant brain), which are stored and kept alive within machines that are scattered around the prison.
Unlike the other experiments, which had superhuman physical bodies, the Doctor is digital. When he looks through the TV screens scarried throughout the factory, he'll appear as an eye that changes depending on his mood. His eye is usually white during his speeches, but turns yellow with hands coming out of it while hunting for the Intruder, and black-and-red during his jumpscare. He has several other unused eye animations.
When he decides to face the Intruder personally, he takes control of mechanical bodies with long robotic arms and legs, and a TV head that displays his eye. All these bodies wear white cloaks made of lab coats stitched together, with a few in particular wearing robes made out of lab coats. In "The Doctor - Chapter 4 Cinematic Trailer", he wore a black coat that didn't make it to the final game.
Harley Sawyer is shown to be an infamously malevolent, ruthless, manipulative and heartless sociopath with an esteemed lack of empathy, humanity or compassion towards anyone but himself.
He took advantage of the company's desperation in order to preform the Bigger Bodies Initiative which allowed him to conduct horrific experiments on orphaned children and transform them into monstrous toys to use as slaves. While he claimed to do this for the sake of cutting costs for the company and saving it from bankruptcy, he was only motivated by his morbid curiosity and desire to snuff out mortality while viewing it as the “curse of the weak”.
Sawyer was also quite adept at manipulation and deception. He groomed and exploited an orphan named Quinn Navidson by pretending to care for him and encouraged him to show the world his full potential so he could transform him into Yarnaby in hopes he could be a useful experiment. He even went on to isolate and condition Yarnaby into only being loyal to him to the point he became psychologically dependent on him. However, the Doctor never really cared about him. Later on, he attempts to manipulate the Intruder into turning against Poppy by claiming she knew the Hour of Joy was coming and was indirectly responsible for all those who were killed (even though she was not aware the Prototype planned to kill the employees). He also manipulated the prison warden into getting the Omni-Hand for him under the false pretense of helping him survive the Hour of Joy, and it is heavily implied he betrayed and kill him in the end.
To make him worse, not only is Sawyer an extreme sociopath, but he is also quite sadistic and revels in the suffering of others. In his tape conversation with the Prototype in Chapter 3, he makes it clear he outright enjoys cutting, prodding and burning at the experiments to unlock their secrets (much to the Prototype's anger). He even disturbingly believes it to be "exciting" while showing a deep disinterest about feeling remorse for any of his actions (including turning adults, children and possibly infants into toys). He even claimed that he found it "nauseating" when his colleagues felt sympathy towards the experiments. He even found Yarnaby's lower intellect and simple mindset to be pathetic and amusing, claiming he could get a good laugh at it. He also relished in making the Intruder suffer and viewed it as another one of his experiments and a game. It’s even said by Doey that Sawyer hunted and starved various toys for his own amusement.
Sawyer was also quite arrogant and prideful. He presented an extreme perfectionist attitude alongside a fiery temper. He yelled at his assistants to turn the cameras off when he was looking at Boxy Boo (presumably fearing the footage would expose his crimes). He shows nothing but disrespect, selfishness and disloyalty to Playtime Co., having insulted them for their failures, caused various incidents without remorse and even refused to listen to his co-workers and higher-ups, which caused obviously and practically everyone to hate him. Eventually, when he was betrayed by Leith Pierre and turned into an experiment, he refused to take accountability for his mistakes and yelled at Pierre and vowed to kill him. He even outright admits that the Bigger Bodies Initiative was solely his discovery and claims that he was entitled to all the credit and recognition and no one else.
Sawyer's arrogant outlook shined through even in his early years. His mentor, Elliot Ludwig, saw that during the Young Geniuses Program, Harley did not care for his comrades or fun and took his experiments seriously. However, it was noted that he did have genuine respect and admiration for Elliot as he was the only one who could bring out Sawyer’s humanity and happiness when they were working together. He outright admitted that the Program and working with Elliot was all he ever wanted, showing that he did care for him at some point (and perhaps even saw him as a father figure). However, at the end of the day, Sawyer lacked humility, as he only cared about progress for the sake of it rather than for humanity, and any type of change Elliot tried to make in him made Sawyer bristle and only invoked his anger. When Elliot kicked Harley out of the Young Geniuses Program, Sawyer became enraged that his idol “betrayed” him and insulted him by calling him a "soft, pathetic, small-minded backstabber". He even dramatically went on to claim that nobody cared about him nor understood him, showing that Sawyer takes no responsibility for his actions and blames everyone but himself for his failures.
Harley is also known to be notoriously picky, as in the Sandwich Note, the writer tells their friend that Sawyer resented sweet pickles, telling them that if they take his order, they mustn't pick out sweet pickles lest they get punished severely. Even though the writer admits this was merely a joke, it provides a good insight of his personality, confirming that he is very childish despite his age, although it's possible that it's a type of food preference he strictly adheres to. In the tape reporting about Kevin Barnes, a scientist bemoaned Sawyer's choice of continuing to include Kevin Barnes with the other two children despite his aggressive behavior that could render Doey as a dangerous asset; considering the dangers of this; it's obvious that the scientists warned against this choice numerous times which he refused to listen to.
He appears to be somewhat delusional, claiming that he gave the children he transformed into toys a purpose. He even claimed that his experiments would improve mankind, though it is unlikely this is really genuine since Elliot Ludwig claimed that Harley’s experiments were never for the betterment of humanity, but for progress and progress alone. It’s likely Harley is just using these claims as yet another excuse for his actions. He also mentions how he wants to bury himself deeper to prevent anyone like the Player and the Prototype from finding him, implying he is more motivated by his selfish desire to protect himself.
After being found and recruited by the Prototype, he was forced to partner up and work alongside him, who threatened to kill Sawyer should he disobey him. Even though the Doctor is now a mere pawn of the Prototype, he does not fear him as he knows 1006 needs his intellect to crack the “secret” he desires. He calls the Intruder a "little germ", but however, he comes to see their value as they best his traps. He tries to do intimidation and "who lives and who dies" tactics, only to be outsmarted and defeated by the Intruder, who used the machines of Elliot, the man the Doctor despised the most, to reach him and destroy his brain, killing him for good. His last condescending words before his death were "You've... saved... no one.".
Harley Sawyer's past is shrouded in mystery. There are implications he had a bad home life, as it is pointed out that he did not miss it, claimed that nobody cared about nor understood him, and it’s suggested he was not surrounded by kindness. This statement implies that he was an outcast and may have even been abused by his parents. However, it is known for sure that, as a young man, Sawyer was once a student at Elliot Ludwig's Young Geniuses Program. It was an initiative made by Ludwig to mentor young and bright minds to "embrace the science of the future and tackle the universe's most unanswerable questions". Sawyer did not care for his comrades or fun of any sort, but he ultimately became very close with Elliot himself and presumably even saw him as a father figure. The two would work on experiments together happily with it being mentioned that Ludwig was the only one who could break his cold demeanor and even make Harley smile. Harley even admitted to Ludwig that the program and working with him was "all he ever wanted".
However, Elliot soon saw a dark side to Sawyer, noting that he only cared for progress for the sake of it and not for that of humanity. Any time Elliot attempted to steer him in the right direction, Sawyer would become irate and hostile with one instance resulting in him storming out of the lab insulting Elliot's ideals claiming that progress “doesn’t care about how anyone feels about it”. These incidents led Elliot to make the tough and heartbreaking choice to expel Sawyer from the Young Geniuses Program, hoping he could one day learn humility and grow as a person. However, Sawyer was left enraged and heartbroken from this decision, refusing to see that Elliot was trying to help him and grew a hatred for his former mentor calling, him a soft, pathetic, small-minded backstabber one who like everyone else never cared about nor understood him. Eventually, Sawyer would grow up to become an esteemed and respected neuroscientist as an adult. However, he had never truly changed as he was infamous among his colleagues for his perfectionism and arrogance, believing the world was “one bad day” away from being complete destroyed, with many frequently making jokes and mocking him about it.
On January 15th, 1990, he would soon be contacted by Playtime Co’s head of innovation Leith Pierre. Leith knew about his past history with Playtime and offered a job at the company. However, Sawyer became disillusioned and ashamed at the company. The profits were declining, many of their experiments were failing and people were constantly seeing things that they shouldn’t. So he had came to the higher-ups at Playtime Co. to propose a solution to the ongoing problems surrounding the company. Sawyer proposed the idea to make giant toys, which would allow Playtime Co. to save money by having the sentient toys take the place of the employees, thanks to which they wouldn't have to worry about being sued or having to pay their employees.
According to Sawyer in another VHS tape, many employees had deemed the initiative to be an "impossibility", though he would eventually prove it a success following the creation of Boxy Boo, the first successful experiment. Following this, Sawyer assigned Boxy as a guardian in the factory to prevent others from discovering the truth about the initiative, fulfilling the creature's hankering for human flesh. He had also sent Boxy after employee Rowan Stoll to have him killed once he started working against Playtime and trying to reveal their secrets.
After Sawyer had proposed the Bigger Bodies Initiative to Playtime, he started leading the company and had decided to dedicate an entire portion of the factory to testing orphans, which would be dubbed "the Game Station". In this room, a toy would be assigned to the orphan, and they'd be tested in three different minigames, each of which would test the orphan's intelligence, reaction time, and physical endurance. As the orphans played the games, their progress would be monitored and written down, and would then be sent over to Stella Greyber. If the orphan performed well, the scientists would then use poppy gas and electrical shocks to turn them into giant toys, though some of the other experiments were also created using other employees, some of which were forced into getting involved with despite their hesitancy. During this time, he met an orphan named Quinn Navidson whom he noticed held back when he partook in the Game Station. Harley determined that Quinn was holding back because he wanted people to have lesser expectations of him. Sawyer took this as an opportunity to manipulate the young boy and encourage him to do well in the Game Station. Ultimately, Harley transformed Quinn into Experiment 1166 aka Yarnaby. Sawyer then isolated and restricted Yarnaby's contact with anyone else but himself in order to groom him into being his personal bodyguard and servant.
With Sawyer's help, Playtime Co. had created multiple experiments that would aid with different parts of the factory, with Huggy Wuggy serving as the factory's security, Mommy Long Legs serving as the Game Room's hostess, CatNap serving as Home Sweet Home's guardian as well as gassing kids to sleep so they could be taken and turned into toys and Boxy Boo serving as a last-resort to getting rid of any employees that were aware of his initiative. In case any of the experiments had ever rebelled, Playtime Co. had placed Toy Parts inside of the Puzzle Pillars in order to continue building giant toys. Despite this Experiment 1006: The Prototype didn't want the Bigger Bodies Initiative to continue and consistently and constantly interfered with Sawyer's initiative, sabotaging the company's progress himself.
At some point he interrogated the Prototype and Sawyer begins a conversation with him. The Prototype asks if he feels any remorse or empathy towards the toys and children he experiments on. However, Harley dodges the question but indirectly, admits he feels no regret or remorse for his actions. He even claims that he believes there to be a secret inside 1006 and he cuts and prods at it to get closer to unlocking it. He then cruelly tells the Prototype that he can either fight or give in but regardless he will continue with his intentions to learn the secrets he holds. In 1993, an incident occurred in which the Playtime theater caught ablaze resulting in the deaths of over fifty people. The incident was so bad that various witnesses to the event had to be killed so the company could avoid bad press and legal repercussion. It was determined by Gerad Lockehart that the culprit behind the incident was none other than Sawyer himself. Leith, Eddie and Stella discuss Sawyer’s arrogance and how his actions and mistakes cause various incidents around the factory. Leith is unwilling to kill him as he is too vital to the Bigger Bodies Initiative to lose. However Leith comes up with an alternative solution. As karmic punishment for Sawyer’s reckless actions and constant failures, Leith had him transformed him into an experiment himself. He would be trapped as a supercomputer with his lungs, liver, heart and brain stored in different machines scattered around the factory. He would then continue to serve the company, but as little more than a bodiless guide/advisor for the scientists. Thus, Harley Sawyer was turned into Experiment 1354: The Doctor and condemned to the same fate he left so many others in; he was robbed of his humanity and freedom. Harley however vowed to get revenge on the company and especially Leith for betraying him.
On August 8th, 1995, the Prototype had made a massive rebellion that led to the deaths of many Playtime Co. employees and scientists, including some tourists and innocent lives, which forced many of the company's higher-ups to flee the factory. In the chaos, the Doctor was impressed with the Prototype’s actions and cunning. The warden that facilitated the Playtime Co, prison begged the Doctor to save him. The Doctor tricked the warden into giving him the Omni-Hand, which would allow him full access to the factory. He claims that with it he could help him escape. The warden agrees and gives it to him. Once he obtained the hand, it can be presumed he betrayed and killed the warden. This incident caused Playtime Co's downfall and left the company with no choice but to permanently close its own doors, thus destroying Elliot’s legacy and dreams forever.
Sometime afterwards, the Prototype decided to spare the Doctor and kept him alive so he could finish a "project" for him. However, the Doctor hit various roadblocks in said project, much to the Prototype's chagrin and annoyance. The Doctor attempts to convince the Prototype to give him access to the labs, but the latter refuses. The Doctor reminds The Prototype he needs him in the long run as he is the only one who can crack “that secret”. The Prototype agrees and gives the Doctor more time, but threatens him by reminding him his usefulness is the only reason he is not dead. Sometime later, the Doctor would take control of Playtime Co.'s prison and rule it with an iron fist, starving its inhabitants, hunting them and making them sick. He would do this with the help of his "pets": the Nightmare Critters (especially Baba Chops) and Yarnaby. When one of the employees (the Player) returned to the factory ten years after the Hour of Joy, The Doctor observed them via the camera and witnessed their entire journey inviting the defeats Huggy Wuggy, Mommy Long Legs and CatNap. As soon as Poppy and the Player descend into the prison below The Doctor is amused and believes they are coming to him like “lambs to the slaughter”.
During a train ride to the inside of the prison, the Doctor appears as an eye on a TV and notices the Player, deciding to make them go through a "game" he has planned. As the Player traverses the Prison, the Doctor observes them and decides to test their reaction while they are in a state of fear. He then introduced them to the Nightmare Critters and the Mini Huggies and has them attack the Player, who fends them off, which seemed to entertain the Doctor. After having enough "entertainment", a satisfied Doctor allows the Player to continue on. Eventually, the Player reaches an observation room, where the Doctor, comments on the last few experiments (Huggy, CatNap and Mommy) they dealt with, and decides to “try something new”. He then unleashes his dedicated attack experiment, Yarnaby, and through the observation room, is behind a layer of protective glass. Yarnaby escapes from the cell. The only way out requires traveling through a series of backrooms Yarnaby has escaped into, forcing the Player to navigate around the feral beast in cramped spaces. They aren't alone, however, as a strange but friendly stretchy creature named Doey the Doughman helps by unlocking doors and distracting the monster, allowing them to safely exit Yarnaby's territory.
After entering the Safe Haven, Doey gives The Player the primary objective to defeat the Doctor. The Player must first face his minions before they can take him on. These include (in order) the Nightmare Critters, Yarnaby and a much bigger version of a Baba Chops doll. To progress, The Player is forced to destroy the Doctor's preserved organs by causing a power surge. All the while, the Doctor talks to The Player throughout. The Doctor surmises that the real reason the Player came back to the factory is because they lost someone they loved and they wanted to know their fate. The Doctor then tries to make the Player question their partnership with Poppy by revealing that she in fact knew the Hour of Joy was coming all along (even though she was not aware the Prototype planned to kill the employees). After being attacked y the Nightmare Critters again the Player manages to take shelter behind a locked door, and the Doctor presents them with a choice: kill the Simon Smoke doll trapped inside a container in the room and open the door or die in there without a way out, stating that both Poppy and Doey would do it. If the Player makes the choice to kill the toy, the door opens as the Doctor congratulates them on understanding. If the player escapes the room without killing the toy, the Doctor will express his disappointment and annoyance and allows the player to "see The Doctor now".
As soon as the Player enters the Doctors lair their are attacked by one of his vessels and fall through a trap door. The Doctor tries to stop The Player by placing obstacles in their way via having his vessels chase them, but he can’t do much as an observer. The Player manages to use large battery’s to power the lift to get back the monitor room. The Doctor claims that the machines of Elliot Ludwig are nothing to him and calls them the childish fantasy of a naive broken man. The Player, having had it with the Doctor's cruelty, finally gets to him and his main form is revealed as a giant brain in a machine, surrounded by security bots and monitors. His life source is threatened as The Player overloads the system. His last ditch effort to survive is to charge at The Player with his sentries upon removing the Omni-Hand from his control. The energy surge causes an implosion, outright killing the Doctor. Thus, he has perished for all that he has ever done, putting an end to his cruelty and the pain he caused for good. As he dies, he spitefully proclaims that the Player has saved no one.
The Doctor's death gave The Prototype the opening to attack Safe Haven, blowing it up and killing everyone there, making Doey snap and falsely accuse The Player and Poppy Playtime for this, leaving The Player with no other choice but to forcefully kill him in the underground construction zone where they use liquid nitrogen canisters, industrial saws and a tunnel boring machine to kill him. In his dying moments, Doey remorsefully apologizes for his actions before he dies.
Here is how his screen looks like:
As well as his TV vessels when they're not activated:
So is them while cloaked:
And when they're activated they looked like when they are searching:
So is them when they spotted the Intruder:
And here's what his brain looks like:
MP: Did I just get forced to listen to a rant again? Also he seems alright, I presume..