| NOTE: This page is only about the main timeline incarnation of Eobard Thawne, as his time remnant incarnations were not voted Pure Evil. Therefore, only the main timeline version of Eobard Thawne's info and crimes should be placed here. His Flashpoint counterpart can be found here: Eobard Thawne (Flashpoint). |
| “ | Oh, I'm not like the Flash at all. Some would say I'm the reverse. | „ |
| ~ Eobard Thawne's most famous qoute. |
| “ | Barry Allen: Why do you hate me so much? Eobard Thawne: I didn't always. I was obsessed with you. For so long, I wanted to be "The Flash". I spent years figuring out how you came to be. Duplicated the reaction... and it worked. I became like you. Barry Allen: And so what happened? Eobard Thawne: This ability to travel through time revealed the truth. My fate was to become your greatest enemy, I was never going to be the Flash. So I became the reverse of everything that you were. The more people you saved, the more you were loved, the more I had to take from you. Barry Allen: That is why you killed my mother? That's why you ruined my life? Because you couldn't be me? Eobard Thawne: I became better than you! I am the one thing you cannot stop, Flash! |
„ |
| ~ Eobard Thawne explaining the origin of his hatred towards the Flash. |
| “ | Liar. Don't you know who I am? I have always been the hero. You're the villain, Flash. You're the one who reversed my entire life and dragged me into hell. And that's why you die tonight! BY MY HAND! | „ |
| ~ Eobard Thawne blaming Barry Allen for ruining his life, before he runs off to kill him as a child. |
Professor Eobard Thawne, also known as the Reverse-Flash and Dr. Harrison Wells, is the main antagonist of the Arrowverse.
He is a manipulative and egotistical speedster from the 22nd century obsessed with defeating and destroying Barry Allen/The Flash, his former idol, by any means necessary to prove his own superiority. Though his time-traveling schemes end up affecting Barry Allen's life due to killing his mother and sending his father to jail, Thawne ends up stranded in the past and remains there by impersonating Dr. Harrison Wells. He is the arch-nemesis of Barry Allen/The Flash, and the entirely of Team Flash.
In his true form, he was portrayed by Matt Letscher, who also played Harrison Love in The Mask of Zorro. While bearing the likeness of Harrison Wells, he was portrayed by Tom Cavanagh for a majority of The Flash, as well as Crisis on Earth-X.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
In General[]
- He became a mass-murdering time criminal who literally murdered and maimed as many people as Barry Allen/The Flash saved and was loved by, be it women, children, elders, infants, and any kind of life. (In fact it was due to his time traveling in which the events of the Arrowverse gets set-up, where Malcolm Merlyn sabotages the Queen’s Gambit and many more)
- He dedicated his entire life to finding ways to kill Barry Allen.
- Despite seemingly showcasing redeeming qualities in Season 1 including care for Team Flash and Grodd, Thawne would later admit his hatred of being in the 21st century and his time at S.T.A.R Labs, as well as stating that he would reverse all his good actions. He would ultimately admit to Barry Allen that he only cared about himself.
- This is assuming he previously had those redeeming qualities in the first place, given how Thawne didn't care that his actions would cause a singularity that threatened the lives of everyone he claimed to care about when Season 2 Flash travelled back in time to warn him and even threatened to kill Season 1 Team Flash out of petty spite towards Season 2 Barry, providing evidence that he might have never originally had redeeming qualities to begin with.
- He was generally involved directly or indirectly with most of Flash's main antagonists and most of the bad things happening to the Team Flash members.
- While the Negative Speed Force requires negative emotions to be accessed and can warp a user's personality, Eobard demonstrates that he is fully aware of its inner workings and continues to utilize it regardless.
- As displayed in Season 1 and 8, cutting him off from the Negative Speed Force does not change his personality at all, and if how his ancestor Eddie Thawne manages to overcome the Negative Speed Force's influence over himself thanks to Barry Allen's prompting is of any indication, it proves that just like Barry points out, Eobard had the chance to not give into hatred like Eddie ends up doing but did it anyway.
- Although he has some comedic moments for the audience, they do not detract from his heinousness, and he is taken very seriously in-universe. In fact, the majority of them simply display how sadistic, spiteful, and deranged he is.
- In the end, he acts as one of the worst villains ever in 'The Flash', if not the whole Arrowverse, rivalling Zoom.
Past[]
- While his Pre-Crisis motive is somewhat understandable being that all of the work that he did duplicating the reaction that led to the Flash gaining his speed due to Thawne's admiration of Barry was for nothing when he realized his fate to become Barry's worst enemy (even then, doing what he did is an extreme reaction to this type of life-altering event despite it driving him insane), his Post-Crisis motive is completely and utterly pathetic. He became Barry's archenemy because he "stole" Thawne's greatest moment by saving a crowd that was "meant for him to save".
- Even then, neither backstory could be confirmed as it wasn't actually shown in universe but was merely told by Thawne, meaning that it could possibly be completely fake. Even if one of them were proven correct (as the Flashpoint Reverse-Flash also had the same motive, became a villain but later became a hero in his own right), it's still no excuse for his actions later on.
- This also showcases how Thawne’s egotism and sense of entitlement lead him to become a hero, not out of good intent, but for glory and admiration that he felt he deserved. Thus, he ignored what actually made Flash a hero, as well as what being a superhero overall entailed, similar to Syndrome and Mysterio.
- Even then, neither backstory could be confirmed as it wasn't actually shown in universe but was merely told by Thawne, meaning that it could possibly be completely fake. Even if one of them were proven correct (as the Flashpoint Reverse-Flash also had the same motive, became a villain but later became a hero in his own right), it's still no excuse for his actions later on.
- He rigged a chemical transport truck to crash and destroy an entire city block in order to draw out Flash to stop it, finally discovering that Flash was from the 21st century.
- He murdered Tina McGee’s security guards and kidnapped her, forcing her to build a way back home at the threat of her life. As Cisco’s vibes showed, once McGee completed the machine, Thawne killed her for no reason anyway before Team Flash was luckily able to change the timeline to save her.
- He instigated the Crisis of 2024 by assisting the Anti-Monitor, causing the greatest devastation to Central City ever seen with the Anti-Monitor's shadow demons before disappearing in an explosion of light with the Flash. This makes Thawne indirectly responsible for Barry disappearing during the Crisis and Nora having to grow up without her father.
- Upon discovering the Flash’s secret identity as Barry Allen, he travelled back to May 18, 2000, along with a future Barry Allen who he then pushes into ongoing traffic, causing a past version of his late parents to rescue him, just to torment his nemesis with the memories of his dead loved ones.
- He tries to force Barry into killing him by using own vibrating hand technique.
- He taunts Barry while toasting to his success and tells him of his plans to kill him as a child, giving him the choice of imprisoning him, which would risk the erasure of his family and friends from the timeline, or kill him. He then forces him to admit that he can't stop him and that he has already won.
- He rejects Barry's offer for redemption and a way to save his own life, out of some delusional belief that he ruined his chance to be the hero.
- After future Flash saved his 11 year old self, Thawne infamously killed Barry's mother Nora Allen out of petty spite and framed Barry's father, thereby traumatizing Barry for the rest of his life and altering the timeline in hopes that the Flash would never come to be.
- After realizing he was losing his speed and would be trapped in the 21st century if the Flash never came to be, he is then confronted by Barry who thanks him for giving him one more day with parents, but Thawne tells him that he will destroy Barry and everyone he cares about, even if it meant having to tear the universe apart.
- He brutally killed the original Harrison Wells and his fiancée Tess Morgan, while stealing the former's identity and hiding his body in the woods to take over his company and life. Even after Wells' death, Eobard proceeded to taint his image with his actions. While he also committed numerous good deeds while impersonating Dr. Wells, it was only to build his reputation and achieve more fame to boost his ego.
- While he stopped working with General Eiling when he started using Grodd as a test subject, he likely only did this so he could eventually become a supervillain after the Particle Accelerator Explosion and he never shows care for him afterwards. Furthermore, it’s implied Thawne was also very controlling of Grodd despite apparently being kind to him, as Grodd told Harry Wells that "father never ask, father take" when the latter was impersonating him and trying to get him to release Caitlin.
- When Hartley Rathaway confronted Thawne about the explosion risks of the particle accelerator, he fired Hartley and threatened him with ruining his reputation so he could only apply as a physics teacher if he spoke about the situation.
Season 1[]
- He purposefully caused the Particle Accelerator to explode during its grand opening in 2013, killing dozens as well as creating numerous murderous meta-human supervillains, thereby having their blood on his hands.
- This also included Clifford DeVoe, turning the initially well-intentioned professor into a mass-murdering scientific mastermind who nearly enslaved and destroyed humanity.
- While Barry was comatose, he constantly expressed his desire to kill him, only refusing to do so because he needed to have Allen alive in order to return to his timeline as well as regain access to his powers.
- He acted as a friendly mentor to Barry to teach him how to use his powers, but was merely using him so he could return to his own timeline. Though he saved Barry and his team’s lives multiple times, it was for pragmatic reasons only. He would proceed to help Barry fight meta-human criminals, during which, Barry would nearly lose his life countless times, which can be blamed on Thawne since he intentionally caused the Particle Accelerator Explosion.
- After Simon Stagg revealed his intentions to exploit the Flash's powers, Thawne murders Stagg in order to prevent any interference for the egotistical speedster's own plans. While Stagg himself engaged in numerous unethical and callous acts, Thawne committed murder mostly for his own selfish interests without any form of altruism.
- He manipulates anti-villain Plastique into trying to murder General Wade Eiling to prevent him from interfering with his plans, ultimately causing her death and an explosion that nearly destroyed Central City.
- When Joe starts investigating Nora’s death, Thawne ambushes him as the Reverse-Flash and threatens to murder his daughter if he doesn’t stop.
- He frees Girder from the pipeline to use as a distraction against Blackout. When that act eventually causes Girder’s brutal demise, he had no remorse for the consequences when confronted by Barry on it.
- He breaks into Mercury Labs and murdered two security guards.
- Via exploiting speedster mechanics, he massacred Joe West's and Eddie Thawne's police squadron while making it look like the Reverse-Flash was a separate entity who nearly beat him to death in front of Team Flash and the police.
- What worsens this is that he engaged in this act despite the fact that Eddie was none other than his own ancestor. Eobard likely did this out of indifference because, as he later reveals, he considers Eddie a pathetic member of his bloodline due to Eddie's uneventful life compared to those of most Thawnes.
- He refuses to assist Season 5 Flash and his daughter Nora to fix the Speed Force Transmitter until Barry revealed he wouldn't go home unless he helped them and even then refused to help the two drain dark matter until Nora revealed it was Cicada's they would be draining from, something Thawne would use to his advantage later on.
- Although he claimed to Nora that Savitar was a "much bigger jerk" than he was, he wasn't being serious, but instead using the fact that a version of Barry was Savitar to taunt him to Nora’s face, mockingly asking her if she had seen Barry's "pizza face". It was especially hypocritical as Thawne was far worse and less sympathetic than Savitar, one of the Flash's most sympathetic Big Bads, ever was.
- After discovering Season 2 Flash had travelled back to this time, he was going to kill him in a rage. When Barry claimed Thawne had won, but his actions lead to the singularity which Barry needed his help to get faster to stop it, Thawne didn’t care and mocked Barry, taunting Barry he didn’t need him and was about to kill him until Barry revealed he had hidden a letter to his past self that would expose Thawne unless he helped him, forcing Thawne to reluctantly agree to the deal.
- He threatens Season 2 Barry that he would kill him and past Team Flash if the Time Wraith came after him and ruined his plans.
- He suggests killing Ronnie Raymond and Martin Stein in order to prevent them from exploding and killing thousands of innocents. Though he seemingly had noble intentions behind this, Thawne was only interested in saving himself and his team, so he could continue using them for his agenda.
- He kills Cisco after the latter learnt about his true identity and crimes in spite of the close bond the two had, although this gets erased after Barry travels back in time. Even though he claimed Cisco was like a son to him, Thawne still held no qualms in killing him, showing his self-serving plans outweighed his apparent care for Cisco. Throughout the series, Thawne continues to sadistically mock Cisco with his vibrating hand technique despite knowing how much it traumatized him, and has attempted to kill him several more times in the series without remorse.
- He kidnapped General Eiling and allowed Grodd to painfully brainwash him to keep him from interfering in his plans.
- He brutally murders journalist Mason Bridge by ploughing his vibrating hand into his chest, destroying all Mason's evidence that was close to exposing him. Although Mason was somewhat condescending to Iris as Thawne had earlier witnessed, he had started to warm up to her and Thawne merely killed him because he was about to become an inconvenience to his plans, then hiding his body like he did with Stagg.
- Once learning that Team Flash had discovered his identity, he set up Hannibal Bates to die by pretending to be him and proceeded to mock Team Flash after they realized his deception.
- He kidnapped Eddie as a hostage and threatened to starve him to death if he saw fit.
- He taunted Eddie over his mediocre future, even tossing away the engagement ring he had inherited from his grandmother.
- He reactivated the Particle Accelerator, uncaring that it would kill all the pipeline inmates (who were still victims of his original particle accelerator explosion) and mocked Barry Allen for getting outplayed by Captain Cold and losing all the inmates in his efforts to save them.
- He almost killed Green Arrow during the fight against him, The Flash, and Firestorm.
- He only made a deal with Barry that would allow Barry to go back in time via a wormhole so he could go back to the 21st century using the same said wormhole, neglecting to inform Team Flash that the wormhole could create a singularity that would consume reality itself.
- After Barry reneged the deal and came back to stop him, Thawne brutally beat him and taunted Barry that he would murder him, his friends, and his father out of spite before his ancestor Eddie shot himself, erasing him from existence though not before taunting Barry about how he long he had controlled his life.
- Ultimately, his plan caused the singularity, threatening to destroy reality itself and forcing Ronnie Raymond to sacrifice himself to stop it.
- This also causes Barry to push everyone away to ensure their safety as he blames himself for both Eddie and Ronnie's deaths, thus breaking Team Flash apart for quite some time.
- It would also cause Zoom's eventual arrival to become the next Big Bad in Season 2.
- In Earth-Prime, Ronnie's death in the singularity allowed Deathstorm to come to Earth in 2022, directly engaging in serial killings, and trick Caitlin into giving him access to Ronnie's body and be even more deadly in those conditions. His defeat would cause Frost's death and Caitlin to be possessed by Khione for the entirety of the final season in a failed attempt to resurrect Frost.
Season 2[]
- In a posthumous message, he only confessed to Nora Allen’s murder as a way to taunt Barry, admitting it wouldn’t matter as Barry would never truly be happy.
- Given his reaction to Zoom’s fake Flash helmet in the Season 1 finale, it is also implied that Thawne might have known Zoom would murder Barry’s father (Henry Allen) in front of him and that this was a Thanatos Gambit on Thawne’s part.
- Due to the existence of supernatural elements he could have credibly confessed killing Harrison Wells and Tess Morgan and duplicating the former's likeness, but he did not, forever tarnishing his legacy.
- His actions along with Zoom’s against Barry’s parents ultimately motivated Barry to go back in time to alter reality and create Flashpoint along with all the consequences there after including the creation of the Rival, the Flashpoint Reverse-Flash and Season 3 Big Bad Savitar, which unlike Zoom, Thawne was aware of and showed no remorse for.
Crisis On Earth-X[]
- After mysteriously evading death, he teamed up with the victorious Nazis from Earth-X to invade & conquer Earth-1 to enact all the Nazi horrors of genocide and ethnic cleansing on the planet. He only joined the Nazis to screw with Barry and the Earth-1 heroes rather than a genuine conviction, which makes him worse.
- He chose to keeping wearing Harrison Wells’s face to forever mock Barry Allen over his actions.
- He showed no sympathy to Dark Arrow for his best friend Prometheus killing himself, instead deriding Prometheus as “soft”.
- Even though he allied himself with Dark Arrow and Overgirl, he truly didn't see them as allies. He also threatened to kill Dark Arrow at one point, before Overgirl interfered, who threatened him back by stating she'll break him if he ever touch her love again, forcing him to stop.
- He along with Dark Arrow and Overgirl stranded most of the main heroes on Earth-X to be massacred in the Sturmbannführer's concentration camps along with all the other “undesirables”.
- Despite seemingly showing redeeming moments in Season 1, he admitted to Supergirl that he hated every single minute of being in the 21st century and working with Team Flash at S.T.A.R Labs.
- He also mocked her and her cousin, Superman, saying how he fought him once in the future and admits that while the latter was fast, he was faster, which implies that he either killed him, or merely defeated him.
- He nearly cut Supergirl open, without anesthesia, to give her heart to Overgirl.
- In a deleted scene he tried to make Harry Wells betray the Earth-1 heroes to the Nazis in exchange of not killing him. After Harry refused to help him he attempted to kill him, but Harry put nanobots into his body that would protect him against being vibrated by a speedster.
- He taunted Barry for refusing to kill him due to his moral code and proceeded to abandon his Nazi allies without a second thought to save his own skin and escape from the scene. He also insinuated that he could do the same identity theft he did to Harrison Wells.
Season 5[]
- Although he was tortured by head guard Trevor Shinick, it wasn’t played sympathetically and Thawne ultimately proved to deserve it upon the revelation of his true motives.
- He pretended to show remorse for his actions and be working to redeem his legacy to manipulate Barry’s future daughter Nora into inadvertently creating genocidal Season 5 Big Bad Cicada and defeating both versions of Cicada to erase her dagger from existence…the object negating his powers, allowing him to break out of prison just before getting executed.
- He massacred the prison guards and proceeded to torture Trevor Shinick to death out of revenge, although this was undone by Nora's time rewind.
- His actions towards Team Flash almost led Nora to ragefully (yet understandable on her side) kill him in cold blood but Barry and Iris were able to stop her from commiting murder.
- His manipulations ensured Nora would be erased from existence which Thawne taunted her for and while he did give Barry the only way to save her, not only was Barry threatening him at the moment, but his “solution” of going into the Negative Speed Force would turn Nora into a monster with Thawne being the winner no matter the scenario, mockingly bidding Team Flash farewell to decide.
- Though he claims he views Nora like his own daughter, he mostly only said this to taunt Barry. Even if his feelings were genuine, it’s ultimately proven Thawne cared more about himself as he lets her die without a second thought.
- His timeline meddling was one of the factors of the Crisis on Infinite Earths happening sooner than expected, that is, 2019 instead of 2024. This also forced Oliver Queen to leave his wife and daughter in order to help the Monitor prepare for the Crisis. In fact it was likely due to Thawne’s timeline meddling that caused Oliver Queen’s death.
Season 6[]
- After Crisis on Infinite Earths caused him along with all the other Harrison Wells to be subsumed into Nash Wells’ mind, he took over Nash Wells’ body and put Nash in a psychological torture sequence of reliving his worst memory of his protégé dying.
- After getting control of Nash's body he sadistically tried to kill Cisco just for the sake of it. At first with the same technique he used to kill him in an erased timeline from Season 1 despite knowing that it traumatized him, and when he realized he had no access to his powers, he tried to strangle him until Cecile hit him with an Ouija board.
- When Barry asked him what he wanted, he revealed that he was done being patient and was going to kill Barry, his family, and all his old and new friends, starting with Nash.
- He tricked Team Flash into inadvertently allowing him to escape and proceeded to try and kill Barry all while mocking his failure to save Nora before eventually being recaptured and expelled from Nash’s body.
Season 7[]
- He only temporarily teamed with Flash to defeat Godspeed because his ego refused to allow anyone but himself to kill Barry, stabbing Godspeed and nearly killing him despite Barry’s protests and immediately turning on him after Godspeed’s defeat despite the fact Barry got him reconstituted.
Season 8[]
- He utterly ruined Barry’s life in a series of events, murdering his father-in-law and main character Joe West, sabotaging S.T.A.R Labs to nearly cause a radioactive explosion, get it shut down, and force Team Flash to erase all their data, framing Barry as a criminal accomplice of Joseph Carver, and finally going on a rampage in the Flash’s suit to incriminate him as having gone mad, gaslighting Barry into willingly giving up almost all of his powers. The situation also led to Iris having Deon undo his treatments of her time sickness so she could research about the presence of Negative Still Force.
- He murdered Barry Allen as a child and remade reality in his own image with the term Reverse-Flashpoint, reversing every good action he ever did, causing the deaths of several heroes, and stealing Barry’s entire life to become the Flash and get engaged to Iris.
- When Barry arrived at the engagement party, he rallied Barry's friends and led them in an attack against him.
- Despite Barry warning him that his actions would cause the end of the world, Thawne refused to listen and instead chose to fight Barry to try and stop him from resetting reality back, risking Armageddon itself.
- Despite his supposed affection for Cisco, Eobard did not seem troubled by the fact that he was dead in the timeline he created.
- Due to his long-term relationship with Iris in the new timeline, it is very likely he committed rape by deception. After Reverse-Flashpoint was undone, Mia Queen brought the situation up as an argument to not save him from getting erased.
- Not only did he trick Iris into being in a relationship with him, but he tried to manipulate her into shooting Barry.
- His machinations against Barry led to Despero antagonizing Team Flash and later trying to destroy Central City if it meant killing Thawne.
- He attacked the Central City Police Department's office and nearly succeeded in murdering the new Green Arrow, Mia Queen.
- Despite it being completely his fault that he was now being erased from existence, he demanded that Team Flash save him from death, all while taunting Team Flash including mocking Caitlin over Ronnie’s demise, brazenly admitting to Barry that after he saved him, he would go right back to trying to kill him in any way possible yet acting as if he was entitled to their help.
- He showed no gratitude for Team Flash saving his life, which required severing his connection to the Negative Speed Force, and removing his powers.
- Although he agreed to help John Diggle open a mysterious cosmic box, it was only so he could see a way to escape imprisonment on Lian Yu. He also taunted him over the death of his close friend Oliver Queen, even though it was Thawne’s fault he was dead.
- He was collaborating with the Negative Still Force, who was responsible for Iris' time sickness and her accidental entrapment of Renee Wazzo.
- Once the Negative Still Force tricked Barry into almost killing Iris to revive Thawne in his Flashpoint counterpart, he mockingly thanked Barry for resurrecting him by killing Iris and saying that Nora Allen and Iris served for something, goading Barry into nearly killing him in a rage.
- Through resurrection, he killed his Flashpoint counterpart by ripping off the counterpart's face in front of his (counterpart's) lover, Meena Dhawan, which horrified her.
- He told Barry that if he didn’t kill him, he would murder his children, Nora and Bart, right in front of him, even if they stopped Barry from killing him in anger.
- After becoming the embodiment of all Negative Forces, he went on a killing spree for fun, quickly massacring dozens before Barry arrived to stop him.
- His duel with Barry would trigger a second Armageddon, something Thawne taunted Barry as it wouldn’t end until one of them was dead.
- When Barry refused to fight him and instead chose to meditate, Thawne snapped in a rage and created a massive wave of energy to consume all life, despite Barry warning him that he wouldn’t survive it, killing countless innocent people before Barry reversed the wave and it collapsed back on Thawne, killing him.
- What’s worse is that Thawne’s attempts to destroy Earth-Prime in Season 8 would destroy a multiverse worth of Earths as after Crisis on Infinite Earths, Earth-Prime was considered to be all that was left of the multiverse and an amalgamation of countless other Earths.
Season 9[]
- Overall, his death last season incites the Negative Speed Force to finally take on Barry Allen and his friends with its own hands out of revenge for costing it its avatar, leading to his ancestor Eddie Thawne, who had been somehow resurrected through unknown means and living a new life in 2049, to acquire speed powers and don the mantle of Cobalt Blue once the Negative Speed Force reveals to him that his original sacrifice didn't matter at all as Eobard kept returning several times after that, leading Eddie to descend into villainy.
- Upon being resurrected by Cobalt Blue through being taken to the new Multiverse just before his death, Thawne teams up with him, Zoom, Savitar and Godspeed to finally kill the Flash under the Negative Speed Force's orders with some speed offered by Blue in behalf of their Speed Force.
- Even though Cobalt Blue brought him back to life, however, Eobard doesn't show his resurrected ancestor any respect, still mocking him for his unworthiness in spite that if it weren't for Eddie, he would have stayed dead and not being summoned there, proving how ungrateful he is to his ancestor.
- He also chooses to mock Godspeed and Zoom for their failures at killing the Flash even though they are on the same team and in spite that he failed to kill the Flash more times than them, displaying an incredible amount of hypocrisy.
- Furthermore, considering how he later claims that Barry Allen's life is only his to take and that he will take care of the Flash after killing Team Flash, it's highly possible that Thawne planned to kill Cobalt Blue, Zoom, Godspeed and Savitar later on if they interfered with his petty vendetta.
- Electrocutes Chester P. Runk with red lightning instead of his recurring hand vibrating act just to maximize and extend his suffering, though he survives thanks to the latent metahuman traits he received from his black hole incident, before highlighting Allegra that he has the face of her late friend/mentor Nash Wells and plans to kill her wearing it.
Trivia[]
- Despite being Pure Evil, Eobard Thawne wasn't seen in that particular light by some of the Arrowverse's creatives:
- His actor Matt Letscher described Thawne as a tragic and humane character who was once a normal person in his life that idolized the Flash, he wanted to be loved by society in a similar way he was, before being psychologically broken upon discovering that he was fated to become his idol's archenemy in hinting that he possibly suffered some sort of childhood trauma (his parents died, abused, neglected him or were completely absent in his life). However, Letscher's perception of his character doesn't count unless clearly shown, so this doesn't make Thawne any sympathetic.
- Former Arrowverse showrunner Andrew Kreisberg and his other actor Tom Cavanagh felt that Thawne's fatherly bond with Cisco Ramon was genuine due to Thawne seeing some parts of himself on Cisco and that temporarily killing him before the Flash reversed that was a decision he didn't make lightly but still did because Cisco had seen too much plus his need to return to his time. However, Thawne's posterior attempts to kill Cisco makes it unlikely that the bond was genuine if it ever was and while Kreisberg may not have written Thawne as purely evil, the writers who replaced him after his firing in 2017 may have seen him as such.
- Though unconfirmed to be canon, a deleted scene of the Season 1 finale "Fast Enough" actually reveals that when Eobard Thawne gained the memories and love of the original Harrison Wells upon stealing his appearance, which heavily implies that sometimes, Wells' good-hearted nature overcame Thawne's whenever he seemed to genuinely care for Team Flash. If this were confirmed, it would make Eobard even worse, as that would mean that he never had any positive qualities he would later subvert in his subsequent appearances. He even chuckles about getting "teary-eyed" over Tess, the woman he himself killed. Although the same clip gives him the pretense of wanting to reunite with his family, he never addresses them again in subsequent appearances.
- Cavanagh also commented before the first season finale's airing that he played Thawne not as a "straight villain" towards Barry Allen, who he truly incited to increase his aptitude as a speedster and caring for his personal safety, as Cavanagh felt that Thawne did care very much for Barry as he wasn't the version he despised from his future. However, given how both Barry Allens he interacted with are the same individual at the end of the day, his supposed "care" for Barry Allen may have disappeared with time assuming it was ever real, not to mention that if said "care" was real, it was most likely thanks to the explanation above of Wells' positive nature sometimes overcoming Thawne's evil one.
- Although he can be considered somewhat more complex than his comic book counterpart due to his more personal relationship with The Flash, this does not disqualify him from being Pure Evil, as he still commits similar atrocities with a lack of redeeming qualities. Also, in later seasons, he increasingly seems to gravitate towards his comic book counterpart's personality, thus erasing whatever complex ambiguity he carried at that point.
External Links[]
- Eobard Thawne on the Villains Wiki
- Eobard Thawne on the Arrowverse Wiki
- Eobard Thawne on the DC Database Wiki
- Eobard Thawne on the VS Battles Wiki
- Eobard Thawne on the Wikipedia
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 Pure Evils
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Arrow See Also | ||
 Pure Evils
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