Borderlands/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Vault Hunters

Mordecai

As "The Hunter"

  • Badass Longcoat: His original model used this, and the influence can still be seen in the vest combo he sports.
  • The Beast Master: Mordecai, barring its cooldown, has a skill which allows him to sic a bird on his enemies.
  • Big No: Whenever Mordecai dies. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! I NEVER DIE!!!"
  • Cool Mask
  • Evil Laugh: Mordecai employs this trope quite often when he scores a kill.
  • Friendly Sniper: His victory dialogue against elite mooks ("Nothin' like a challengin' kill!"; "Yeah, not bad! Not bad."; "Heh; another trophy for my wall.") seem to imply that he regards his enemies as sport, as challenges that he is excited to meet. As opposed to, y'know, people.
  • The Gunslinger: Every playable character can use guns and has skill trees relating to them, but Mordecai actually gets a skill tree that's called this, specifically with pistols.
  • The Lancer
  • Noodle People: Mordecai is a lot thinner than the other player characters (including Lilith) Knoxx even comments on it in one of his tweetergrams

Knoxx: Troops will deploy today if all goes to plan. Just met a man named Mord-ee-kai. Dude, eat something.

  • Sarcasm Mode: Some of Mordecai's lines when standing still. HE LOVES IT!

Lilith

As "The Siren"

  • Action Girl
  • Badass Boast: After scoring a critical hit, she sometimes says: "[laugh] I'm really good at this!"
  • The Chick
  • Flash Step: Her special ability allows her to step into an alternate dimension (causing an explosion that helps discourage her enemies from attacking), run quickly to her target, pop out with an energetic shockwave that stuns her foes, and then proceed to mow them all down.
  • Incendiary Exponent:
    • Her Phoenix skill sets her on fire (with only beneficial effects). It also allows her shots to cause fire damage, acquainting their targets with the Man On Fire trope (with harmful effects).
    • She is also an expert with elemental guns and can crank the elemental damage done by them Up to Eleven. A Maliwan Hellfire submachinegun turns Lilith into a firebreathing goddess of pure destruction.
  • The Smurfette Principle: Out of the playable characters.
  • Touched by Vorlons: The source of her powers, although she insists it's because she's crossed the "Hotness Threshold".

Roland

As "The Soldier"

  • Badass in Distress: In Borderlands 2.
  • Combat Medic: Roland has a skill tree called 'Medic' that helps him heal his allies, but that doesn't mean he's any less capable of shooting you. The tree has other abilities that specifically make him hardier, increases his weaponry's magazine size. and actually has an ability that requires him to kill an enemy to activate it. And one of the ways he can heal allies is by shooting them, giving the term new meaning. Plus he can upgrade his turret to heal allies while unhealing everyone else. There is an insane medic 'build' which is perfect for arena fighting. Getting healed by your turret and a healing boost from killing enemies... Hitting level 45 pretty much allows you to run around in the thick of battle without a shield running from enemy to enemy and shoot them point blank (who cares about weapon accuracy?) for continued ownage. Question is: are you able to reach level 45 in your first playthrough?
  • Defector From Decadence: A former member of the Crimson Lance.
  • The Engineer
  • Healing Shiv: Roland can access Cauterize, a special ability that makes his weaponry heal allies. The text of the skill states this also works with rockets and grenades.

"Hold still while I heal you..." BRAKKA BRAKKA BRAKKA. "There, all better."

and

Brick

As Himself

  • The Big Guy
  • Big Word Shout: Whenever he uses his Action Skill, he will shout one of these three every time he kills someone:
    • "BLOOOOOOOOOD!"
    • "MOOOOOOOOORE!"
    • "KIIIIIIIIIILL!!!"
  • Dumb Muscle: Barely literate, but is described as having "rhino-like" strength
  • Good Old Fisticuffs: He can specialize in hand to hand combat. Keep in mind the planet is populated with gun toting road warrior type bandits and assorted monsters. Good thing Brick hits like a train.
  • Invulnerable Knuckles: Brick can beat alien monsters, bandits with various head gear, and other things to death with his bare hands and not bat an eye. He even regenerates while he does it.
  • Laughing Mad: When he uses his Action Skill.
  • Mighty Glacier
  • Pipe Pain: His melee weapon.
  • Screaming Warrior: Brick becomes this whenever he uses his Action Skill, to either annoying or hilarious effect.
  • Tragic Keepsake: The paw necklace he has used to belong to a dog he had when he was young.

Friendly NPCs

CL4P-TP (Claptrap)

  • Cyber Cyclops
  • Master of Unlocking: A mild example. Claptraps guard the gates to new areas of the world, and must grant the player access for them to continue.
  • Robot Buddy: Deconstructed to a degree. The player characters bear no ill will towards the Claptraps, but both the bandits and Lance do. There are multiple side quests involving Claptrap repair, since people tend to use them as target practice. In one of the DLC, one Claptrap goes mad and starts a robot revolution in retaliation for all the mistreatment.
  • Series Mascot: The first of two. The second one is Steve.
  • Stop Helping Me!

The Guardian Angel

Dr. Zed

Mad Moxxi

SWF LOOKING 4 STR

Marcus Kincaid

  • Arms Dealer
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: Has no problem hiring the Vault Hunters to eliminate his competition.
  • Gold Tooth
  • Skunk Stripe
  • Unreliable Narrator: Marcus narrates the beginning of the main game, the beginning of The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned and Claptrap's New Robot Revolution DLC, as well as the credits for The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, in the form of a story for a young child. However, he often messes up details or contradicts himself.

Marcus: The Vault Hunters had stopped the evil doctor Zed from-
Child: I thought his name was Ned.
Marcus: Yes, yes. Whatever you say. Where was I...

    • At one point, he explicitly says he is lying when he is talking about Patricia Tannis rejecting him.

Patricia Tannis

Scooter

Get you one!

Scooter: Lucky's an old buddy of mine... and by old buddy, I mean "asshole what ruined my momma's girl parts." Sounds like he's in trouble so you go on ahead and try and keep him alive long enough so I can kill him at a later occasion.

TK Baha

Bandits

Nine-Toes

Also, he has three balls.

Sledge

P.S.: You guys aren't friends.

Mad Mel

Krom

Taylor and Jaynis Cobb

  • Cain and Abel: Subverted as Taylor is just as bad if not worse than his brother, as it would turn out.
  • Crazy Prepared: Taylor apparently puts armed midgets in storage containers (complete with beds and toilets) in case he has a sudden need to betray someone.
  • King Mook
  • Shout-Out: Jaynis Cobb? Jayne Cobb? Anyone?

Baron Flynt

That's Medicinal.

Mr. Shank

Crimson Lance

Commandant Steele

General Knoxx

Doesn't like Mondays


Other

Dr. Ned

I'm Helping!

Interplanetary Ninja Assassin Claptrap

Viva la Robolution!

Steve the Bandit

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