Herbert West was a genius scientist and the creator of the STEM project. He notorious for having used the STEM project on mental patients within the Arkham Sanitarium where he would freely experiment on them and not have his illegal activities be traced.
Appearance[]
Herbert West is 'a small, slender, spectacled youth with delicate features, yellow hair, pale blue eyes, and a soft voice'. He wore formal clothing consisting of black dress pants, a white shirt, a black waist coat and a red tie, and brown shoes. He was pale, and had a large forehead. His eyebrows were such a light blond, that they were difficult to see. His actual eyes possessed blue irises. At this time in his youth, his skin was clear and free of any scarring or blemishes.
Overview[]
It is learned that Herbert was a very intellectually gifted, but perhaps mentally unstable child; despite this and notes indicating a strained, though respectful, relationship with his father, he was quite close to his sister, Laura West. Herbert lived in a family estate alongside his sister and parents, and his family was known to Marcelo Jimenez for their frequent and hefty donations to the Arkham Sanitarium at Arkham City.
Herbert always had a deep fascination with the human mind and body, especially post-mortem to where he even had his own little research facility beneath the manor where he would conduct experiments on the bodies of mental patients from the Sanitarium that would be imported to the family discreetly. After the tragic death of his sister and the murder of his parents (by his own hands) Herbert took control of the manor funds, he continued to 'donate' to Arkham Asylum in exchange for test subjects for his various experiments, and at some point took to working directly with Doctor Jimenez as well unknowingly for the Chrysalis Corporation.
His magnum opus was the STEM project where he would explore the psyche of one that has endured unthinkable trauma and mental anguish from experiencing an indescribable horror. This was in part of Arkham Asylum's heinous occult backgrounds where certain members of the staff conducted profane rituals involving communication with the Great Old Ones and other ancient eldritch monstrosities. Most of the patients were victims of these rituals and had lost whatever trace of their sanity left from it, but this allowed Herbert more freedom and liberty to explore their psyche that were tainted by the touch of the alien cosmos as well as make many profound discoveries from within with the intention of uncovering the secrets that lay hidden from man but imprinted in the mind of the broken by the Old Ones.
Personality[]
Herbert West was a child prodigy but also mentally disturbed. Despite his young age, he made strong advancements in the fields of psychotherapy, biology, and physiology though his methods, as Jimenez states were inhumane in doing so. Regardless of his severely strained relationship with his father and anti-social, often twisted behavior, Herbert loved his sister dearly. After the accident he was locked away from society by his father and plagued by schizophrenic hallucinations of Laura's corpse. His hatred and madness eventually consumed him until he murdered his parents to claim their fortune and further boost his research.
Due to being cut off from society, Herbert, whilst retaining his original brilliance also lost all humanity and became a complete sadist. The Adjudicator of Marshall, Carter and Dark Ltd. even describes him as “a serial killer masquerading as a scientist“ on account of his love for torture and assuring that his victims were fully aware of the horrible experiments he committed on them. Nevertheless, Herbert still has the same love for his sister and his original reasoning for creating the STEM system was so he would make sure that no one would go through the horrible life he went through and instead live out their days in peace and happiness within their own mind.
Herbert's incredible psychological genius gives him great introspection into his victims desires and how he can manipulate this inside of them for his own amusement to see them suffer further. He claimed to Diana Stanley that he knew what she “craved“ and “feared” and Ivan Diaz claims that Herbert knew he had to know the truth about STEM and this is what led to his death by the latter. Despite his sharp memory of his previous life, Herbert's memories are greatly distorted by his hatred, sadism and madness.