Dr Harrison Wells is considered to be one of the words leading physicists and is the founder of an advanced technology company called S.T.A.R Laboratories. The facility housed the crowning achievement of Dr. Harrison Wells career; a giant particle accelerator. Wells promoted his creation as a gateway into undiscovered sciences. The night he debuted his accelerator to the world, it exploded. The energy generated from the explosion caused a massive electrical storm. The lightning strikes hit people all over the city including one man named Barry Allen, who would become The Flash.
Seemingly feeling remorse for the harm and destruction that he had caused (having ignored warnings from his engineers that the accelerator was unstable), Wells decided to continue to run S.T.A.R Labs with the objective of helping those who had been affected by the lightning. He himself had been confined to a wheelchair after being supposedly paralyzed from the waist down in the explosion. The lightning strikes had created a brand new species of human when the energy affected their cellular structures. This caused them to developed super powers, and the species classification of “meta-humans”. Wells formed a team with a couple of remaining scientists (who didn’t abandon him after the explosion) and nursed Barry Allen back to health. Then they taught him to use his super powers (running at supersonic speeds) to help the people of the city, in particular to fight meta-humans, as the majority affected were criminals.
The plot thickens when Wells own team discovers that the real Dr. Wells was murdered 15 years earlier. Eobard Thawn, a human from the future, had traveled back in time to kill Barry Allen as a child to alter the timeline and prevent the wrongdoings Barry would inflict upon him and his family in the future. Eobard’s method of time travel was that he, too, was a speedster. He was able to run so fast that he ripped the time space continuum. However, the jump depleted his powers so significantly that he wasn’t able to run back to his own time. He was forced to stay in the current timeline. With knowledge from the future of the significance of the real Dr. Wells development of the particle accelerator he decided to kill Wells, steal his body, and then build the accelerator many years earlier than it otherwise would have been built. The accelerator was designed to explode, release the energy and transform Barry into The Flash, create the meta-humans so that Barry could train with his new powers and not feel guilty defeating them, and when the time was right Wells (Thawn) would use Barry’s speedster powers to get him back home.
Dr. Harrison Wells is an excellent trickster because he has all of the characteristics of a trickster as defined by Hyde and Hynes. A couple examples:
Ambiguous and anomalous- Well is a time traveler and a supersonic speedster. He is not governed by time, space, physics, or traffic stops. He is a master of chaos, especially chaos that he can mask to look like order.
Deceiver and trickster- He is able to deceive the entire world into thinking he is the original Harrison Wells. He is a genius, who leads people to believe that he has made a mistake and will do anything to make restitution. He even confines himself to a wheelchair to appear vulnerable and impacted by the disaster he caused. He is really manipulating everyone and everything in order to get himself home to his timeline (his hunger!).
Shape-shifter- Aside from the fact that successfully stole someone else’s body and disguises himself in a wheelchair, he is also able to impersonating a loving and caring mentor. Everyone he works with has a deep respect and loyalty for him. He is encouraging and warm with his scientists and even Barry (the one he came into the past to kill as a child).
I could go on a lot longer, but I won’t. Sorry.
Hum 115: World Mythology 