Herbert West

Doctor Herbert Humilicus West is a scientist and reanimator with a friendly and polite manner. While cheerful and generally helpful, Herbert's philosophy on science often makes his work dangerous to others around him. It is referenced offhand a few times that such actions may have led to the destruction of other settlements.

He is the re-animator of Elizabeth Rourke, and is often accompanied by his assistant Andrew Snidge. He believes science is egalitarian and prefers to be called "Herbert" rather than "Doctor West".

Herbert is voiced by Ryan Schile.

Physical Appearance
According to The Narrator he has high cheekbones and a taught chin.

Herbert's body is made out of parts from multiple sources. During his first appearance he says he'd forget his head if it "wasn't sewn on." Another time he comments on how his flesh isn't "fresh" due to "explosions, spilled chemicals, a lot of sewing on my parts."

Season One
Herbert encounters Andrew after he is thrown from the PeopleMover and then employs him to buy the containment tube from Alison. He later discovers the body of Elizabeth at the scene of her death.

Season Two
Herbert is outside the Tower, his vehicle having run out of fuel. Simon approaches in his tractor and asks Herbert a few questions to test if he is a Woken before taking him back with him towards the city. When Simon explains what Woken are, Herbert readily believes him.

Herbert finds a note from Doctor Caligari in his residence, telling him to meet her at her office. Herbert and Andrew, now is assistant, go there. Caligari makes Herbert an offer to join her staff and use her resources, but Herbert is skeptical about there being a catch. After Andrew mentions the Containment Tube, Caligari reveals that she wants the Tube and calls the guards on them when Herbert says that giving it back is not an option. Herbert was prepared and incapacitates Caligari and the guards, before looting her lab with Andrew's help.

Back in his own residence Herbert expresses disappointment over how his meeting with Caligari went, as had hoped to find more open-minded people in HartLife. While disappointed, Herbert muses he wouldn't be himself without the obstacles in his life. He intends to show Caligari the glory of true science by using her Containment Tube to reanimate a corpse. When asking Andrew to prepare the irradiation chamber for the next step of the process, Andrew admits that he didn't bring it from Caligari's lab. Since the irradiation chamber is vital to the process, they take the corpse back to Caligari's lab.

In Caligari's lab they successfully reanimate the corpse, who turns out to be Elizabeth. Herbert is delighted as she is able to speak and her higher functions seem to be intact, which has never happened before. When Elizabeth starts to panic because of not being able to feel her body, Herbert informs her that he amputated it, as the torso was a total loss after her gunshot wound. He then explains, that Elizabeth can now pick any body she wants and brings out a catalog to show her his collection.

Herbert comes back to his lab to find the place in disarray after the Science Faire broke in and caused Elizabeth to go feral. After Andrew tells him what happened, Herbert says he should've foreseen something like this. Realizing Elizabeth is out there alone, with Caligari after her, makes Herbert snap. He mixes his reanimation compound, which, without the contents of the Containment Tube, will create an army of mindless inhuman corpses. The Woken army will lead them to Elizabeth.

Herbert and Andrew follow the horde of Woken through the city. Caligari finds and confronts them. Herbert tells her to give them Elizabeth, but Caligari makes it clear she doesn't have her. Chamberlain shows up and disarms Caligari. Herbert asks Chamberlain if he could torture Elizabeth's location out of Caligari. He instead points his gun at Herbert and makes it clear he intents to talk to him as well. Elizabeth shows up behind Chamberlain and disposes of him. Since Elizabeth is still in her feral Woken state, Herbert, Caligari and Andrew flee. While they're running, Caligari confronts Herbert about his crazy plan and realizes that he never meant to deal with the Woken army at all, and Herbert confirms that there are "other cities". He also reveals that the Woken are agamogenetic. After Andrew yells at them, Herbert and Caligari attempt to work together. Herbert's ideas, "a four headed badger of inordinate size" and "a miniature sun", get shut down by Caligari. They eventually build a device that can be tuned to the sound of the Woken's moans and kills them. Afterwards they go back to arguing and blaming each other for what happened. After Elizabeth, normal again, tells Caligari to leave, Herbert asks if they should go rescue Nathan now. Elizabeth tells him to leave and never come back because of what he did to the city and to her. Herbert agrees to leave because Elizabeth asked him to. He asks Andrew to come along, but Elizabeth tells Andrew to stay here. Herbert says he should listen to her and turns to leave alone. He says he hopes Elizabeth finds her son, and Elizabeth thanks him for trying to save her.

Season Three
Loamy mentions the MolePeople newpaper, "The Daily Burrow", having two people readers. One of them wrote an opinion piece about "The effects creating the Woken Dead may have on your social life".

Trivia

 * Named after the titular character of H. P Lovecraft's short story  'Herbert West—Reanimator', Dr. West is just one of the several scientist characters in Our Fair City to be named after famous fictional scientists from classic Sci-Fi/Horror.
 * It has also been implied, however, that Our Fair City's Dr. West and H.P Lovecraft's Dr. West may be the same person, having survived so long through the apocalypse using his ability to replace body parts.


 * Herbert lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico before coming to the HartLife Tower. It is unclear what exactly happened in Albuquerque that made him leave, as there are conflicting accounts.
 * He can't stand the taste of cinnamon.


 * His D&D alignment and class would be Chaotic Neutral Necromancer Wizard according to Jim McDoniel.