| Dr. Jack Potts |
–Tim Schafer, CEO of DoubleFine Productions
Dr. Jack Potts was Hollis Forsythe's former supervisor during her medical internship. He stole her work during her time working at the hospital, and in turn she tried to rewrite his personality to be kinder using Mental Connection. Unfortunately, it went wrong, and broke his mind. His mind was eventually fixed by Truman Zanotto.
Personality[]
Dr. Potts is egotistical. He often takes credit for his own intern's medical work, specifically Hollis Forsythe. From the thoughts displayed when Hollis used Mental Connection to change his mind, he has racist and sexist tendencies. This reflects on the mental image of Potts in her mind, where such attitudes manifest outwardly in his showing disdain for her, contemplating firing her, and violently claiming her work as his own.
Appearance[]
Dr. Potts is a skinny, dark-haired, middle-aged man, balding with a thick brush mustache.
In keeping with his profession, he wears business attire (sans jacket) with a lab coat, stethoscope, and head mirror (the latter strangely even when he is not examining patients).
He is only ever seen in memory vaults (which are black-and-white) and silhouetted through thick diffusion glass. However, pulling his model from the game shows he has pink skin, blue hair, and purple eyes.
Background[]
Dr. Potts was a high-level neurosurgeon at Our Lady of Restraint Neurological Hospital. He grew quite comfortable in his role there, his office decorated top-to-bottom with memorabilia of his favorite pastime: golf.
He eventually became supervisor to medical intern Hollis Forsythe. He did not care for her and tended to look down on her, but tolerated her as she was a very talented medical researcher.
One day, Hollis came to him with the results of her research, compiled into a paper titled "The Forsythe Method", offering it to him for his review. He secretly changed the title to "The Potts Method" and submitted it for publication. The medical community lauded him for "his" groundbreaking work, featuring him in the Journal of Neuroscience, and his colleagues celebrated his success. At the celebration, they handed out copies of the Journal, which is how Hollis came to learn of his plagiarism.
Knowing that no one would likely believe her claims, she instead sought to use her psychic ability to quite literally change Potts' mind. She used Mental Connection on him, sifting through his multiple complexes and personality failings to connect thoughts together that would convince him that his plagiarism was unethical and he had treated Hollis very poorly.
Unfortunately, this set off a chain reaction, linking random thoughts together. Dr. Potts went temporarily insane and experienced an episode of hyper-mania, stripping off his clothes and running madly through the hospital. It took multiple orderlies to strap him down to a gurney. Ashamed at her actions, Hollis called the Psychonauts for help. Truman Zanotto answered that call and came to the hospital to disentangle his thoughts and restore him to sanity.
It is unknown what became of Dr. Potts after this event, only that his intern left and went to join the Psychonauts.
Psychonauts 2[]
While Dr. Potts himself doesn't appear in Psychonauts 2, representations of him appear in two memory vaults inside Hollis' Mind. He also briefly appears as a mental figure in her mind with a diamond for a head.
Relationships[]
Hollis Forsythe[]
Hollis was Dr. Potts assistant intern. He stole her medical research and presented it as his own. As revenge, she attempted to rewire his personality to be more docile using Mental Connection. The attempt instead ended up damaging his mind.
Nurse Cherry[]
Nurse Cherry is Dr. Potts' subordinate and was very respectful in their doctor-nurse working relationship. He made attempts to advocate for Hollis' right to her own research, but was often shut down by Dr. Potts. Not wanting to anger his supervisor much less a senior doctor, Cherry relented in his protests, something that Hollis views as his weakness in her mind.
Truman Zanotto[]
Truman Zanotto had to fix Dr. Potts' broken mind after Hollis demolished it using Mental Connection.
Trivia[]
- Dr. Potts' name, Jack Potts, is a play on the word "jackpot".
- At one point in the game, Hollis cheers "jackpot!" She suddenly freezes, either due to her trying to shake off her sudden obsession with gambling, because she basically said the name of her much-hated former supervisor, or both, then corrects herself by cheering "bullseye!"
- Dr. Potts loves golf.
- In the Breaking Dr. Potts Memory Vault, it is strongly implied that his plagiarism is motivated through racism and sexism combined with his own sense of ego (and a lack of understanding of "good" and "bad", as they are randomly attached to other thoughts).
- Dr. Potts' model is fully textured in-game, although he almost totally obscured by medical glass.
References/Notes[]
- ↑ In the final version of the game, Dr. Potts was not a medical school professor but rather Hollis' supervisor during her internship.