Gregory House - Personality

Personality

House's character frequently shows off his cunning and biting wit and enjoys picking people apart and mocking their weaknesses. House accurately deduces people's motives and histories from aspects of their personality, appearance, and behavior. His friend and colleague Wilson says although some doctors have the "Messiah complex"—they need to "save the world", House has the "Rubik's complex"—he needs to "solve the puzzle". House typically waits as long as possible before meeting his patients. When he does, he shows an unorthodox bedside manner and uses unconventional treatments. However, he impresses them with rapid and accurate diagnoses after seemingly not paying attention. This skill is demonstrated in a scene where House diagnoses an entire waiting room full of patients in little over one minute on his way out of the hospital clinic. Critics have described the character as "moody," "bitter," "antagonistic," "misanthropic," "cynical" "grumpy," "maverick", "anarchist," "sociopath," and a "curmudgeon." The Global Language Monitor chose the word "curmudgeon" as the best way to describe the character.

Laurie describes House as a character who refuses to "obey the usual pieties of modern life" and expects to find a rare diagnosis when he is treating his patient. As a protagonist, many aspects of his personality are the antithesis of what might be expected from a doctor. Executive producer Katie Jacobs views House as a static character who is accustomed to living in misery. Jacobs has said that Dr. Wilson, his only friend in the show, and House both avoid mature relationships, which brings the two closer together. Leonard has said that Dr. Wilson is one of the few who voluntarily maintains a relationship with House, because he is free to criticize him.

Although House's crankiness is commonly misattributed to the chronic pain in his leg, both Stacy and Cuddy have said that he was the same before the infarction. To handle the chronic pain in his leg, House takes Vicodin every day, and as a result has developed an addiction to the drug. He refuses to admit that he has an addiction ("I do not have a pain management problem, I have a pain problem"). However, after winning a bet from Cuddy by not taking the drug for a week, he concedes that he has an addiction, but says that it is not a problem because it does not interfere with his work or life. In the 2009 season House goes through detox and his addiction goes into remission, so to say. However, it does seem that House may have gotten over his addiction in the season 6 premiere. House creator David Shore told the Seattle Times in 2006 that Vicodin is "becoming less and less useful a tool for dealing with his pain, and it's something are going to continue to deal with, continue to explore".

House openly talks about, and makes references to, pornography. In "Lines in the Sand", he returns the flirtations of a female underage patient. He regularly engages the services of prostitutes, of which his former female diagnostic team member Dr. Allison Cameron (Jennifer Morrison), who has a crush on him, is aware. He also likes to gamble, frequently making wagers.

A polyglot, House speaks English, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, Hindi, and Mandarin. He listens to jazz, plays the piano (as does Hugh Laurie) and has an interest in vintage electric guitars. He plays video games and watches a soap opera. House is a fan of the Philadelphia Phillies and Philadelphia Flyers. House is (as is Hugh Laurie) a motorcyclist. He rides a Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade, license plate Y91 as seen in "Swan Song","Help Me" and "Post Mortem" meanwhile he tends to drive anonymous American sedans. He attends monster truck rallies with Wilson.

House is an atheist. He openly and relentlessly mocks colleagues and patients who express any belief in religion, deeming such beliefs as illogical. He does not believe in an afterlife because he finds it is better to believe that life "isn't just a test". However, in the season four episode "97 Seconds", he expresses sufficient interest in the possibility of an afterlife to electrocute himself in an effort to find out; however, he is dissatisfied with the results and denounces the possibility of an afterlife. This is also an example of House's tendency to self-experiment and submit to risky medical procedures in the name of truth. Over the course of the series, he disproves the effectiveness of a migraine cure by self-inducing a migraine and controlling the effects through drugs, undergoes a blood transfusion to assist with a diagnosis, and overdoses on physostigmine to improve his memory after sustaining head injuries, subsequently causing his heart to stop beating, then undergoes deep brain stimulation soon after.

House frequently says "Everybody lies", but jokingly remarked that he was lying when he said that in the first-season finale. Even though that could be mistaken as an example of the Liar paradox, House was not creating a paradox when he said he was lying. House criticizes social etiquette for lack of rational purpose and usefulness. Dr. Cameron states in the first episode of the first season "House doesn't believe in pretense ... so he just says what he thinks". In the season three episode "Lines in the Sand", he explains how he envies an autistic patient because society allows the patient to forgo the niceties that he must suffer through. In the same episode, Dr. Wilson suggests that House might have Asperger syndrome, which is characterized by a number of traits found in House, such as difficulty accepting the purpose of social rules, lack of concern for his physical appearance, and resistance to change; though he later reveals to House that he does not truly believe this, and that claiming this was a part of a ploy to soften Cuddy's opinion of House. House is a strong nonconformist and has little regard for how others perceive him. Throughout the series, he displays sardonic contempt for authority figures. House shows an almost constant disregard for his own appearance, possessing a permanent stubble and dressing informally in jeans, T-shirts, and sneakers. He avoids wearing the standard white lab coat to avoid patients recognizing him as a doctor.