Basic Trope: A character with morally ambiguous and/or evil motives has the title of doctor.
- Straight: Dr. Bob is a character who makes lots of questionable acts, with some occasional lapses into villainy.
- Exaggerated:
- Dr. Bob MD "'The Deathbringer'" has exterminated several races, killed several people (including children), crossed the Moral Event Horizon several times and is prone of kicking the dog when able to, but people still refer to him as Doctor.
- Dr. Bob has multiple PhDs, all of them (appropriately) issued by the Academy of Evil.
- Downplayed:
- Dr. Bob only has a master's degree.
- Dr. Bob is not evil, he's just a Punch-Clock Villain.
- Dr. Bob is a sociopath who doesn't care about other people's well being. However he's still loyal to his Hippocratic Oath and would help someone if the situation calls for it.
- Dr. Bob is a Ph.D student or a med student, not a full Ph.D or MD.
- Justified:
- Dr. Bob actually studied medicine.
- Dr. Bob has never been the most sane person around and has never been familiar with regular morals, but he just happens to like studying.
- Dr. Bob is doing his questionable work out of pressure and desperation; he doesn't have time to worry about being a good person.
- Since he's the team's medic (or healer) everyone calls him Doctor.
- Dr. Bob's attained his doctorate before his descent into evil.
- Dr. Bob has a PhD in laws.
- Subverted:
- Dr. Bob has the appearance of a Mad Doctor. He's the sanest and most righteous member of the cast.
- His actual full name is Dr. Bob.
- Bob's doctorate degree came from a diploma mill.
- Double Subverted:
- ...until he got his PhD, then he became a Mad Scientist.
- ...who has a PhD anyway.
- Parodied:
- Everyone is immediately suspicious of doctors on the setting.
- Being a villain requires a PhD on the setting.
- All the doctors on the setting are Mad Scientists.
- Bob has a PhD in English, art history, education, gender studies or another stereotypical A Degree in Useless.
- Zig Zagged: Dr. Bob is a morally ambiguous person, before it's revealed that he never had a doctorate, but he had studies on medicine, which he never finished.
- Averted:
- The morally ambiguous character doesn't have the title of doctor.
- The doctor is not morally ambiguous and/or evil.
- Enforced:
- The writers want the viewers to know that being a doctor makes you (or requires you to be) insane.
- The writers want to make very damned clear very fast that the Big Bad of Alice and Bob: The Series is an extremely smart man, so his threat as a Diabolical Mastermind will be settled. So they write the fact that he is a Doctor, because it takes extreme smarts (or extreme corruption) to get a Doctorate quickly.
- Lampshaded: "I don't know what the people on those schools teach but it apparently ain't sane for the students that come out of it".
- Invoked:
- All the characters assume that the morally ambiguous character is a doctor.
- The medical guild of the setting never had or completely lost its moral compass. Becoming one requires vile practices to become one (such as vivisection of slaves). Meaning any licensed doctor must be this or a covert example of The Atoner at very best.
- Exploited: Dr. Bob uses the title of Dr. to gain the trust of people to lure them to do whatever he wants.
- Defied: Dr. Bob stops doing questionable acts and tries to actually put his title to good use.
- Discussed: "You know, it's amazing how many supervillains have advanced degrees. Graduate schools should do a better job of screening those people out."
- Conversed: "Do you know that the current villain of the show is an Evil Genius?" "Well duh, how else is he going to execute his plans if he isn't smart enough?"
- Deconstructed:
- On the process of studying his degree, Dr. Bob took part on many horrifying experiments in the name of research. By witnessing, performing or being performed on them, his sanity suffered a great toll, which he was never able to recover fully from, leading him to a serious case of Blue-and-Orange Morality.
- While studying, Dr. Bob realized how wrong and bleak the world is, which leads him to trying to "clean" the world from evil with his newfound knowledge.
- Reconstructed:
- Dr. Bob had plans to Take Over the World, but he lacked the knowledge to do so. That prompted him to study a PhD to further his plans and apply his newfound knowledge to gain advantage over his enemies.
- After seeing what kind of people applied to PhD programs, schools now run intense background checks on the candidates. Thanks to that, now all of the people with PhDs can be safely trusted.
Continue your research on Morally Ambiguous Doctorate.
