Mad scientist dangerous or questionable, which can make them accidental villains. The prototypical fictional mad scientist was Victor Frankenstein, creator of his eponymous monster, who made his first appearance in 1818, in the novel "Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus" by Mary Shelley. Though the novel's title character, Victor Frankenstein, is a sympathetic character, the critical element of conducting experiments that cross "boundaries that ought not to be crossed", heedless of the consequences, is present in Shelley's novel. Frankenstein was trained as both an alchemist and a modern scientist, which makes him the bridge between two eras of an evolving archetype. The book
Prometheus the Fire-Bringer and then frees the Titan from his chains. Only a single line of dialogue survives from "Fire-Bringer": "Quiet, where need is; and talking to the point." This fragment is preserved in "Noctes Atticae" by the Roman scholar Aulus Gellius. Additionally, according to a scholium at line 94 of "Prometheus Bound", the Titan claims in "Fire-Bringer" that he had been bound for "thrice ten thousand years." Despite the paucity of direct evidence, Prometheus' foreshadowing of future events in the trilogy's first play suggests that the final play concerned itself with Prometheus' knowledge of a secret that could potentially lead to Zeus's