The Disillusionment of Velma Dinkley

                Over the past few weeks, I’ve been rewatching my all-time favorite incarnation of Scooby-Doo: Mystery Inc. It came a few years back, and if you like the current trend of lingering plot lines and running mysteries ala Gravity Falls, then this version will be right up your alley. Not only are the plot and dialogue stepped way up, there is a huge emphasis on the characters, and actually developing them. In some cases, like Fred, this incarnation created the first true personalities they ever possessed.

                Daphne is cast as the youngest from a family of nothing but incredibly successful people, living with oceans of expectation over her head; Fred a trap-obsessed (and I’m using that word very literally) guy who has trouble understanding anything else; Scooby and Shaggy the burnout kid of rich parents who are visibly embarrassed by them.

                And then there’s Velma. Poor Velma, who unlike the others, somehow felt like she lost character depth in the conversion, which is saying a lot given how little she had before. Velma’s prior defining trait was her intellect, and while that is still present, it’s given far less weight than her relationship with Shaggy. Oh yeah, in this series, the kids actually act like teens who spend all their time together, and romance forms, which could have been interesting if they hadn’t written Velma like a wife from a 90’s sitcom. From trying to change his outfit and diet, to being angry when he spends time with others, all the way to giving an actual “choose me or the dog” ultimatum. In a show of great writing and fun, the way they did Velma dirty sticks out all the more.

                So, that part was bad, but bad stuff sometimes gets me thinking: if I were in their shoes, pitched the chance to create this character arc and growth for Velma, what would another option have been? What journey do you give the character who is pretty much defined by being too smart for the situations she’s in? Explore her hobbies between missions? Dive into why her intellect is being spent in such a ridiculous manner? I went through a few origin idea tweaks before I realized there was no need to change Velma’s roots. It was her future that was way more interesting.

                See, there’s an element to Mystery Inc I haven’t brought up yet, but is consistent with the greater Scooby-Doo mythos: technology. Gobs of Mystery Inc villains invent their own tech to create the illusion of being a monster, harkening back to the old cartoon days when quite a few retired scientists seemed to enjoy dressing up in rubber masks. Only here, they aren’t scientists, they’re scattered across an array of other professions and passions. And that becomes our key plot point on the journey of Velma Dinkley.

                With the exception of the Velma/Shaggy relationship, I’d keep everyone else about Mystery Inc the same and start from there. Team of kids, solving mysteries, uncovering greater secrets, unmasking robbers, so on. Have Velma start off being essentially the same type of Velma we know, smart, competent, and perhaps with a slight bit of an ego. Let’s not go overboard, but she is a teen hanging exclusively with people dumber than her, some shitty habits can develop, and also gives us something to contrast with later. For the first few episodes of the series, she’s the same as she’s always been, often relegated to the background.

                Then, something happens. Perhaps the next “fiend” they unmask is a professor or researcher that Velma looked up to, saw as something of a career aspiration, only to realize how bad life had really gone for them. That’s the thread that begins the unraveling. When we follow Velma from here, it’s as she moves the gang in new research directions, likely exploring on her own in many instances, motivated to find out more about the people they lock up.

                She starts digging in, even after the cases are done. Examining the paths that these people took to end up slinging world-changing inventions while wearing plastic masks. Slowly, over time, we see her come upon the one inescapable conclusion that looms overhead: her intelligence does not have value. Not in the world they live in, set against whatever systems are in place. Not when people who could build bug-controlling sonic devices spend their downtimes as chefs, or children can invent fully capable robotic minions.

                This would also be a great place to slip in some greater world-building overall, offering up some explanations for why their world is flooded with wasted genius. Could be magic (that is sometimes real in the Scooby world), conspiracy, results of some historic event that got wiped out of history books. Regardless, anyone who has watched Scooby-Doo through the years knows this is an issue that goes all the way back to the original series, so I feel like actually talking about it falls within the fair realms of canon.

                At this point, we have a character primed with potential. Velma has spent her life defined by a feature she now realizes is more common, and less valued, than she’d grown up believing. If you wanted to take a positive spin, this could shift her motivations moving forward, giving her a sense of empathy with the villains, maybe even leading to her helping a few whose causes were just, or at least including the targets of their revenge in the final shitshow. Going another direction, it would be somewhat fitting if this realization pushed Velma toward deciding that these “criminals” were just people striking back at an unjust system. With her knowledge of these exact sorts of capers, and her position on the team, Velma could become a mastermind in her own right, even using some old perpetrators as pawns to keep herself away from suspicion.

                I’m not necessarily saying that Velma should be the final villain, although there is absolutely pathing to do that and make it feel like the natural outcome. This was more general thought experiment, and sincerely asking myself if I could do better. Because that’s how we keep our minds sharp and hone our craft, which are traits that will come in handy finishing up this giant haunted pear costume. Someone hand me the cobbled together technobauble that lets me remotely control beer, I’ve got a brewery haunt.

                Because hey, if there’s no minors allowed, then there’s no risk of any meddling kids.