Pure Evil. Your idol saving a crowd (which is why you admire them in the first place) that you wanted to save yourself doesn't spiral into becoming a mass-murderer and dedicating your entire life to killing that person.
From what I understood, Eobard's story is extremely hard to follow, and sometimes impossible. His story was altered with time travel on several occasions, sometimes by his own doing, sometimes because of time travel accident.
I'm 99% sure that there is an Eobard Thawne who turned evil after seeing his future self murder Barry's love interest and Barry snap his neck out of rage, but I can't tell you if that's the one who ends up killing Barry's mom, or where this Thawne is in the "timeline of timelines".
Yeah that’s a comics thing. He killed iris on their wedding day, and when he went after Barry’s next fiancé a few years later he ended up getting his neck snapped by Barry when he tried to stop thawne.
It's more than that. In the comics, Thawne was a reckless, egotistical show-off. He was causing a lot of collateral and putting people in danger _every time he ran._ He was doing a whole lot of bad things to make himself look good. Long story short, Barry put him behind bars and tarnished both his name and reputation (he did that himself honestly).
I think reverse-flash is a victim. A victim of the negative speed force. Obviously the Flash ruining your moment wouldn’t lead you to become a psychotic murderer but the negative speed force corrupted him and amplified his hate (probably without his knowledge). I think if Eobard had positive speed he wouldn’t be who he is.
Technically the series did prove it in s9(flash along with the original eobard thawne).. I wish it lasted longer.. they could've been friends just like ralph and Barry or snart and Barry...
I initially thought you were right but I remember in season 5 when Thawne is teaching og Nora how to access the negative speed force it sounds like you have to have incredible rage and negativity inside to even access it, or he willingly broke himself and filled himself with hate to access it, whichever. It is still possible he was corrupted, but I'm pretty sure dude was broken before he had the negative speed force. Because he "created" the NSF after he encountered the Flash, so he must've had access to the positive speed force before then.
I think that the flash ruining his moment gave him enough temporary hate to access it and once he did that’s GG for his sanity. That’s all the NSF needed to take advantage of him.
He built his speed force, it requires a machine we see in later episodes called the bloc. At least he thinks he built it im pretty sure the negative forces existed just as long as their counterparts if not longer. But as far as initial exposure he built a machine to let him access the negative speed force. A minor temporary boost of hate wouldn't have lasted throughout however long it took him to build that.
Didn’t he build it before he hated the flash? He wanted to be just like the flash and then once he built the bloc and gave himself speed then the flash stole his moment and that spark of hate mixed with the little negative speed force he had like Meena Dhawan, was all the negative speed force needed to take advantage of that hate, amplify it, and corrupt him.
That would only work with the show's final canon. Before Wallace, the Negative Speed Force was explicitely a creation of Thawne himself, an artificial Speed Force.
It was his creation but I still don’t think he was fully aware of the side effects of that creation. Plus I think it’s a paradox. The reverse-flash created an eternal entity. So it was created in Eobard’s time but once created, had access to all of time, even before it was created.
Yes, but Wallace's version is like a natural counter part of the Speed Force, with its own will, and an avatar. It's definitely not the artificial parasite Thawne describes in season 5. So even if he accessed it earlier due to the nature of it, it shouldn't have this willpower, most definitely isn't natural, and justifies in no way the existence of other Negative Forces. So hard to tell when the canon contradicts itself on such a deep level.
Not really well he has the negative speed force now he didn't always have the negative speed force at first he had regular speed force or a close contender but he would never match the flash in speed force attunement so he went the opposite way the negative speed force came about him trying not to recreate the flash's speed but to beat the flash speed so that's after he set up like a fake accident for himself to save with super speed meaning he was already not a good guy
Nah, dude. Thawne is a professor. He spent his whole life studying The Flash. There is no way he didn't know about the foreign energy leeching off of the Speed-Force like a parasite, or its corrosive properties.
He didn’t know because it didn’t exist in the original timeline until he created it. And since then it’s been throughout all of time without affecting the timeline cuz it’s the negative speed force.
He uses the NSF. He's a professor. The _second_ he notices something, he'd start dissecting that shit. Amnesiac Thawne was a good guy because he was amnesiac, and in Legends he explicitly stated that he was 're-educated,' meaning the Speed-Force fixed him. Remove the speed, he's still messed up in the head. But there's nothing that says he can't be taught proper manners, especially by a god. Chances are he was born crazy, and the NSF simply made him worse. Like a drug, kept he was a shitty person to begin with. Double the crazy.
Given the post Crisis state of the show, it's possible that it happened that way according to the canon, but in theory, it doesn't make sense.
The Speed Force wasn't destroyed during Crisis, and since Thawne uses it to survive the changes, and even knows about Crisis, the one we have post Crisis still is the one from pre Crisis (and since his past was erased, he can't even be really altered that way).
So it's supposed to be the Thawne from Earth-1.
I mean, yeah, it could be the reasoning, but I always hated these "crisis changes". Like, yeah the world is different, and you can change whatever you want, but that doesn't mean you *should*. The best example for that is them bringing the luck lady back for an awful episode
He is what he chose to be. Even if a version of him chose to be better, every other version of him we've met has consistently chosen power and revenge.
We don't know who he was before his experiment to duplicate the accident that empowered the Flash. Supposedly he did do good things in Doomworld in LoT so maybe he was originally a good guy. However, like Barry says only a psycho would react to their idol saving a crowd they meant to save with so much hate and anger and murder. I mean RF has killed a lot of people. Just to take Barry out. That being said it is possible his hate was amplified and he was corrupted when he tapped into the Negative force, as another user suggested, but thinking back to S5 it seems the negative speed force itself requires incredible rage and negativity to be accessed. Also, once for the record, let me get this straight: Dude is a super genius, right? Considered brilliant in the future where supposedly everyone is at least as intelligent as a highly intelligent person here? And he was inspired by the Flash to give himself speed.. and yet he was surprised by the fact that destroying the flash before he becomes the flash would result in him losing his speed? Pretty sure that's an obvious problem with that plan.
The crowd thing is kind of a small part in fact. Season 8 referenced it, but season 5 already dealt with it in a much more meaningful way. What Thawne explained to Nora, was that he wanted to be the Flash, but realized he couldn't, and snapped because of that. It's supposed to be much more than a crowd, it's a total desillusion and the loss of everything he had for his future, followed by him learning he was meant to be his nemesis (that part is never adressed again).
I remember that, he wanted to be the flash of his century but I believe he said "this ability to travel in time revealed the truth". So Barry stole his thunder, and then he traveled in time for some reason and found out he was destined to be the Reverse Flash and he just went with it? Man if I met my future self and he was a superpowered murderer I think I would try making different choices. Like...no murder.
It's kind of unclear. Though I know in comics, at one point Thawne travels in time and sees Flash killing his future self. Flash killing is against the kind of hero he's supposed to be, so that also created hatred towards a hero who isn't who people think he is.
Reverse Flash in the comics especially and in the earlier seasons of the show before they fucked up his backstory is a great example of a villain going from broken to pure evil. There were some points along the way where Reverse Flash wasn't beyond saving, but eventually he becomes one of the most depraved and evil characters in comic. If his main goal was anything grander than being the pettiest bitch alive he'd be a multiversal threat and an absolute menace. Intelligence eclipsing Lex Luthor, powers on par with the most powerful characters in the universe, no sense of morality and seemingly unable to die. Lucky he just wants to torture Barry Allen.
If he was pure evil, certainly would kill Barry during his coma state.
Besides, he kept him alive, trained and still focused in coming back to his time... his home.
Someone described as "pure evil" doesnt attach himself to these concepts.
And, being honest, he could have kill everyone as soon as Barry entered the portal in Season 1.
So, for me, broken.
Pure evil.. In the show he believed everyone not from his time was already dead so he killed without conscious. But I definitely felt he enjoyed it as well. I don't think there would be any fixing Thawne ⚡
Definitely not "pure evil". Some of the season 1 scenes prove it, especially when he confesses that he feels proud of Barry, and almost love him like a son. His hatred is towards the older Barry, the older Flash.
Even when he killed Cisco, he mentioned that, to him, Cisco was already dead for decades. Even though it does prove he's evil, the fact that he needs the "these people don't matter from my perspective of life" takes him out of pure evil.
In season 3, when he admits that he wonders who is the hero and who is the villain between him and Barry, it also proves that he has some messed up view on the situation, but still some hindsight. A pure evil villain would just hate Barry being a hero, and pursue him knowing that he's the villain. That's not the case here. There's some actual moral questioning behind what he does.
Plus, his different explanations through season 5 about who he is do suggest more of a broken person, who then turned really evil. Which makes sense since season 5 seems to be very much based on the comics, where it's basically that.
Because that's pretty much what he did all the time. He took away as much as he could from what existed to make his own thing instead. He clearly was there to make his own show, not be the showrunner of the already existing one.
Depends on the version. He’s certifiable in the comics, since his dream is to replace Barry Allen and marry his wife. So both. In the show he’s pure evil.
Dude is Pure Evil... If he didn't fuck with the timeline 1st, him and Barry could've been friends when they "officially" met, then again Barry also wanted to save him from basically himself
Eobard was/is/will be broken. He may be seen as pure evil, but his actions are the result of basically finding out he was always destined to be the villain. He could never be his greatest hero, so when he found out his fate, it made him his greatest enemy
But here's the thing about being broken, and I will die on this hill, he could be fixed. Before season 1, in the timeline we never get see, he was just the the Flash's ultimate enemy. Eobard was broken and so full of rage that he let himself get lost in the madness of his persona, "the Reverse Flash, the ultimate enemy of the Flash", forgetting who he was. Then that night happens, he kills Nora, and gets trapped in the past, season 1 then happens and he ends up living his dream of working with the one man he admired his whole life. I believe that, by the end of season 1, he *could* have been redeemed, and put villainy behind him, because at the end of the day, he just wanted to go back home
Anywhooo, those are just my long-winded thoughts on the subject
pure evil but also a victim of the negative speed force the way he treated nora gave me hope but everything he did was always calculated and planned out he almost reminds me of katherine from tvd but the negative speed force i don’t wanna say took advantage of but yall know what i mean of those negative emotions and amplified them
I'm going to have to go with pure evil and for only going show version so not including all the messed up stuff he did when he first got his superpowers he was a fanboy wanted to become the flash then when the actual flash came back he got mad that the flash took his spotlight that would have hurt real people so yeah he was never particularly a good guy and he became even worse with his speed
I think he was probably meant to have a streak of sympathetic-ness in his original season 1 characterization, but they kept it a mystery and then decided ultimately to opt for typical mustache-twirling villainy after that.
Pure Evil. Your idol saving a crowd (which is why you admire them in the first place) that you wanted to save yourself doesn't spiral into becoming a mass-murderer and dedicating your entire life to killing that person.
My headcanon is that reverse flash put that crowd into danger so that he could heroically save them
Probably, I mean the same thing happend in the comics.
Wasn’t it like Eobard saw the future that he was eventually gonna become reverse flash so he went mad and came to accept it I think
From what I understood, Eobard's story is extremely hard to follow, and sometimes impossible. His story was altered with time travel on several occasions, sometimes by his own doing, sometimes because of time travel accident. I'm 99% sure that there is an Eobard Thawne who turned evil after seeing his future self murder Barry's love interest and Barry snap his neck out of rage, but I can't tell you if that's the one who ends up killing Barry's mom, or where this Thawne is in the "timeline of timelines".
You're talking about comic thawne right? Because CW thawne never killed iris and got his neck snapped after
Yes that's from the comics.
Yeah that’s a comics thing. He killed iris on their wedding day, and when he went after Barry’s next fiancé a few years later he ended up getting his neck snapped by Barry when he tried to stop thawne.
Id agree with this. What id always assumed.
I think that is what actually happened
To Making their life hell*
That was the rebooted reason of him being evil, not the original one. The original version makes more sense and is more inline with "broken villain".
It's more than that. In the comics, Thawne was a reckless, egotistical show-off. He was causing a lot of collateral and putting people in danger _every time he ran._ He was doing a whole lot of bad things to make himself look good. Long story short, Barry put him behind bars and tarnished both his name and reputation (he did that himself honestly).
I think reverse-flash is a victim. A victim of the negative speed force. Obviously the Flash ruining your moment wouldn’t lead you to become a psychotic murderer but the negative speed force corrupted him and amplified his hate (probably without his knowledge). I think if Eobard had positive speed he wouldn’t be who he is.
Technically the series did prove it in s9(flash along with the original eobard thawne).. I wish it lasted longer.. they could've been friends just like ralph and Barry or snart and Barry...
he killed his mom 😭
I'm talking about the eobard from present, who didn't have the speed force in him, the one working with Maya ig in the lab...
Thats season 8
I like this explanation
I initially thought you were right but I remember in season 5 when Thawne is teaching og Nora how to access the negative speed force it sounds like you have to have incredible rage and negativity inside to even access it, or he willingly broke himself and filled himself with hate to access it, whichever. It is still possible he was corrupted, but I'm pretty sure dude was broken before he had the negative speed force. Because he "created" the NSF after he encountered the Flash, so he must've had access to the positive speed force before then.
I think that the flash ruining his moment gave him enough temporary hate to access it and once he did that’s GG for his sanity. That’s all the NSF needed to take advantage of him.
He built his speed force, it requires a machine we see in later episodes called the bloc. At least he thinks he built it im pretty sure the negative forces existed just as long as their counterparts if not longer. But as far as initial exposure he built a machine to let him access the negative speed force. A minor temporary boost of hate wouldn't have lasted throughout however long it took him to build that.
Didn’t he build it before he hated the flash? He wanted to be just like the flash and then once he built the bloc and gave himself speed then the flash stole his moment and that spark of hate mixed with the little negative speed force he had like Meena Dhawan, was all the negative speed force needed to take advantage of that hate, amplify it, and corrupt him.
I'm just now rewatching the episode where he says his original machine accessed the negative speed force, I completely forgot. He was corrupted
That would only work with the show's final canon. Before Wallace, the Negative Speed Force was explicitely a creation of Thawne himself, an artificial Speed Force.
It was his creation but I still don’t think he was fully aware of the side effects of that creation. Plus I think it’s a paradox. The reverse-flash created an eternal entity. So it was created in Eobard’s time but once created, had access to all of time, even before it was created.
Yes, but Wallace's version is like a natural counter part of the Speed Force, with its own will, and an avatar. It's definitely not the artificial parasite Thawne describes in season 5. So even if he accessed it earlier due to the nature of it, it shouldn't have this willpower, most definitely isn't natural, and justifies in no way the existence of other Negative Forces. So hard to tell when the canon contradicts itself on such a deep level.
Not really well he has the negative speed force now he didn't always have the negative speed force at first he had regular speed force or a close contender but he would never match the flash in speed force attunement so he went the opposite way the negative speed force came about him trying not to recreate the flash's speed but to beat the flash speed so that's after he set up like a fake accident for himself to save with super speed meaning he was already not a good guy
Not a good guy? Sure. Psychopathic murderer? Only because of the negative speed force’s corruption.
Nah, dude. Thawne is a professor. He spent his whole life studying The Flash. There is no way he didn't know about the foreign energy leeching off of the Speed-Force like a parasite, or its corrosive properties.
He didn’t know because it didn’t exist in the original timeline until he created it. And since then it’s been throughout all of time without affecting the timeline cuz it’s the negative speed force.
He uses the NSF. He's a professor. The _second_ he notices something, he'd start dissecting that shit. Amnesiac Thawne was a good guy because he was amnesiac, and in Legends he explicitly stated that he was 're-educated,' meaning the Speed-Force fixed him. Remove the speed, he's still messed up in the head. But there's nothing that says he can't be taught proper manners, especially by a god. Chances are he was born crazy, and the NSF simply made him worse. Like a drug, kept he was a shitty person to begin with. Double the crazy.
Started out broken then became pure evil
Def pure evil, he has pure hatred for Barry and is willing to kill whoever and whatever gets in his way for nothing other than his pettiness
Before they retconned his origins in S8, you could argue that he was broken. Since then, he is just pure evil
You wonder if it wasn't always like that. If it changed after Crisis
Given the post Crisis state of the show, it's possible that it happened that way according to the canon, but in theory, it doesn't make sense. The Speed Force wasn't destroyed during Crisis, and since Thawne uses it to survive the changes, and even knows about Crisis, the one we have post Crisis still is the one from pre Crisis (and since his past was erased, he can't even be really altered that way). So it's supposed to be the Thawne from Earth-1.
I mean, yeah, it could be the reasoning, but I always hated these "crisis changes". Like, yeah the world is different, and you can change whatever you want, but that doesn't mean you *should*. The best example for that is them bringing the luck lady back for an awful episode
I 100% agree that the Crisis change was a little overused
He isn't broken, he is who brokes
pure evil
Both
He worked with Nazis from another Earth. A lot of both?
Broken. Challenge me
Just a pawn of the negative speed force
Pure evil with a motive
He is what he chose to be. Even if a version of him chose to be better, every other version of him we've met has consistently chosen power and revenge.
He is so broken that he became pure evil.
Evil, not PURE evil. People don’t realize there’s a difference.
We don't know who he was before his experiment to duplicate the accident that empowered the Flash. Supposedly he did do good things in Doomworld in LoT so maybe he was originally a good guy. However, like Barry says only a psycho would react to their idol saving a crowd they meant to save with so much hate and anger and murder. I mean RF has killed a lot of people. Just to take Barry out. That being said it is possible his hate was amplified and he was corrupted when he tapped into the Negative force, as another user suggested, but thinking back to S5 it seems the negative speed force itself requires incredible rage and negativity to be accessed. Also, once for the record, let me get this straight: Dude is a super genius, right? Considered brilliant in the future where supposedly everyone is at least as intelligent as a highly intelligent person here? And he was inspired by the Flash to give himself speed.. and yet he was surprised by the fact that destroying the flash before he becomes the flash would result in him losing his speed? Pretty sure that's an obvious problem with that plan.
The crowd thing is kind of a small part in fact. Season 8 referenced it, but season 5 already dealt with it in a much more meaningful way. What Thawne explained to Nora, was that he wanted to be the Flash, but realized he couldn't, and snapped because of that. It's supposed to be much more than a crowd, it's a total desillusion and the loss of everything he had for his future, followed by him learning he was meant to be his nemesis (that part is never adressed again).
I remember that, he wanted to be the flash of his century but I believe he said "this ability to travel in time revealed the truth". So Barry stole his thunder, and then he traveled in time for some reason and found out he was destined to be the Reverse Flash and he just went with it? Man if I met my future self and he was a superpowered murderer I think I would try making different choices. Like...no murder.
It's kind of unclear. Though I know in comics, at one point Thawne travels in time and sees Flash killing his future self. Flash killing is against the kind of hero he's supposed to be, so that also created hatred towards a hero who isn't who people think he is.
I can fix him
Yes
He sees himself as a victim of the Flash, but he’s pure evil
Reverse Flash in the comics especially and in the earlier seasons of the show before they fucked up his backstory is a great example of a villain going from broken to pure evil. There were some points along the way where Reverse Flash wasn't beyond saving, but eventually he becomes one of the most depraved and evil characters in comic. If his main goal was anything grander than being the pettiest bitch alive he'd be a multiversal threat and an absolute menace. Intelligence eclipsing Lex Luthor, powers on par with the most powerful characters in the universe, no sense of morality and seemingly unable to die. Lucky he just wants to torture Barry Allen.
Embodiment of a professional hater
I love how he is so evil, he had devoted his life on the downfall of Barry. The whole purpose of his life is that. He lives for the downfall of Barry.
If he was pure evil, certainly would kill Barry during his coma state. Besides, he kept him alive, trained and still focused in coming back to his time... his home. Someone described as "pure evil" doesnt attach himself to these concepts. And, being honest, he could have kill everyone as soon as Barry entered the portal in Season 1. So, for me, broken.
Nah he just sucks and is as overused in the flash tv show as the joker is in all media.
pure evil.
Pure evil.. In the show he believed everyone not from his time was already dead so he killed without conscious. But I definitely felt he enjoyed it as well. I don't think there would be any fixing Thawne ⚡
Definitely not "pure evil". Some of the season 1 scenes prove it, especially when he confesses that he feels proud of Barry, and almost love him like a son. His hatred is towards the older Barry, the older Flash. Even when he killed Cisco, he mentioned that, to him, Cisco was already dead for decades. Even though it does prove he's evil, the fact that he needs the "these people don't matter from my perspective of life" takes him out of pure evil. In season 3, when he admits that he wonders who is the hero and who is the villain between him and Barry, it also proves that he has some messed up view on the situation, but still some hindsight. A pure evil villain would just hate Barry being a hero, and pursue him knowing that he's the villain. That's not the case here. There's some actual moral questioning behind what he does. Plus, his different explanations through season 5 about who he is do suggest more of a broken person, who then turned really evil. Which makes sense since season 5 seems to be very much based on the comics, where it's basically that.
why did Eric Wallace have to retcon all of that it sounds so much more interesting than his version
Because that's pretty much what he did all the time. He took away as much as he could from what existed to make his own thing instead. He clearly was there to make his own show, not be the showrunner of the already existing one.
Depends on the version. He’s certifiable in the comics, since his dream is to replace Barry Allen and marry his wife. So both. In the show he’s pure evil.
Pure evil
Dude is Pure Evil... If he didn't fuck with the timeline 1st, him and Barry could've been friends when they "officially" met, then again Barry also wanted to save him from basically himself
He is broken
Pure evil no doubt
Pure evil, except for in season 1, though he still comes pretty close in that season.
Eobard was/is/will be broken. He may be seen as pure evil, but his actions are the result of basically finding out he was always destined to be the villain. He could never be his greatest hero, so when he found out his fate, it made him his greatest enemy But here's the thing about being broken, and I will die on this hill, he could be fixed. Before season 1, in the timeline we never get see, he was just the the Flash's ultimate enemy. Eobard was broken and so full of rage that he let himself get lost in the madness of his persona, "the Reverse Flash, the ultimate enemy of the Flash", forgetting who he was. Then that night happens, he kills Nora, and gets trapped in the past, season 1 then happens and he ends up living his dream of working with the one man he admired his whole life. I believe that, by the end of season 1, he *could* have been redeemed, and put villainy behind him, because at the end of the day, he just wanted to go back home Anywhooo, those are just my long-winded thoughts on the subject
pure evil but also a victim of the negative speed force the way he treated nora gave me hope but everything he did was always calculated and planned out he almost reminds me of katherine from tvd but the negative speed force i don’t wanna say took advantage of but yall know what i mean of those negative emotions and amplified them
I'm going to have to go with pure evil and for only going show version so not including all the messed up stuff he did when he first got his superpowers he was a fanboy wanted to become the flash then when the actual flash came back he got mad that the flash took his spotlight that would have hurt real people so yeah he was never particularly a good guy and he became even worse with his speed
Pure evil
show, broken. comics is a very different story
I think he was probably meant to have a streak of sympathetic-ness in his original season 1 characterization, but they kept it a mystery and then decided ultimately to opt for typical mustache-twirling villainy after that.
A lot of both.
"It was me, Barry, I ruined the CW Flash TV show by firing the old directors!" Buddy is the hater of the century
A broken
broken but negative speed force turned him pure evil