Team Fortress 2/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


As a class-based shooter, every character in Team Fortress 2 has a fixed set of equipment and abilities, and a role to play in propelling the team to victory. Each class is distinct in looks, personality, and nationality and has a set of weapons and equipment unique to them.


The Entire Team

Nine mercenaries have come together for a job.
It's the middle-ish part of a century a lot like the one we just had. A simpler time. There are three TV stations, one phone company, and two holding corporations that secretly control every government on the planet. Each corporation administers its half of the world with a multi-disciplined army of paper pushers. For any problem lacking an obvious bureaucratic solution, mercenaries like these are contracted to address the situation through a massive application of force.
Now's your chance to Meet the Team.

Medic: Can you feel the schadenfreude?
Scout: He-hey, look, you shapeshifted into a dead guy!
Pyro: AH HA HA HA HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Heavy: I am amused by entire eety-beety-teeny team!

Offense

Not Pictured: Humility

The Scout (Real Name: Jeremy)

"Listenin'? Okay -- grass grows, birds fly, sun shines, and brother, I hurt people."

Voiced by: Nathan Vetterlein

An American, with a Bronx accent, but is really from South Boston. Wears a team-colored t-shirt, a black messenger bag, cleats, dogtags, and handwraps. Looks and sounds exactly like Vince Offer, and to some extent even has a similar personality. The fourth class to receive new equipment. Uses a scattergun, a pistol, and a bat. Meet the Scout!

Tropes exhibited by The Scout include:
  • Actor Allusion: The Scout stole a line from Left 4 Dead's "church guy" as of his update. Obviously, they both share a voice actor.
  • American Accents: Boston, although he sounds like he's from Brooklyn (Which is intended).
  • Amusing Injuries:
    • Had a dove accidentally sealed inside his chest due to its habit of flying into peoples' open wounds. Occasionally, when gibbing a scout, a dove would fly out of his gibs.
    • Had all his blood punched out, or so he says, in "Meet the Sandvich". An unused line from the video reveals that he would've been hit with his own legbone as well.
  • Annoying Younger Sibling: He's the youngest of the team, and is a Bratty Half-Pint taken to the max. Which makes sense, as he's the youngest of eight brothers.
  • Attention Whore: Several of his lines are some variant of "LOOK AT ME!".
  • Badass Boast:

"Grass grows, birds fly, sun shines, and brudda... I hurt people. I'm a force of nature. If you were from where I'm from, you would be fucking dead."

  • Batter Up: Being a baseball fan, his default melee weapon is an aluminum bat, and a few of his unlockables are bats as well.
  • Body Horror: Has a live bird sealed in his chest on accident during a surgery, that was never removed. On rare occasions, when he gets gibbed, the bird will fly out unharmed.
  • Bratty Half-Pint: Just listen to his lines for about 5 seconds.
    • Backstory-wise: he's the youngest of eight children (referred to as "his mad-dog brothers").
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: He has a few lines that only make sense in the context of a computer game:

"Yeah, I dare ya. Rage Quit! Come on, make us both happy."

"I am OWNING you, you fat bald fatty fat...fat-fat!"
"You'll never hit me! You'll never hit my tiny head! It's so tiny, I've got a fricken'... such a tiny little head!"

  • Casanova Wannabe: Played with. He can attract girls, just not the "classy" ones like Miss Pauling.
  • Charles Atlas Superpower: The Scout trained himself to run everywhere, originally so he could reach fights in time to have some fun before his seven older brothers got there.
  • Difficult but Awesome: Unskilled Scouts die quickly, but skilled ones rack up the bodies and capture points. His playstyle requires quick reflexes, constant movement, and in-depth knowledge of the map, as well as good aim since he has to keep moving while shooting to stay alive. He is hard to control for many veteran FPS players, due to his ludicrous speed.
    • On the other hand, truly veteran FPS players might get a sense of nostalgia from the quick movement and emphasis on dodging attacks rather than soaking them up.
  • Double Jump: This is Scout's usual ability, but equipping him with weapons, like the Atomizer, increases his ability with extra jumps and going higher.
  • Eat My Dust: One of his lines.
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Seems to be fond of his. "Look at me, ma!"
    • He also doesn't take kindly when he learns the enemy Spy sleeps with his mom.
  • Extra! Extra! Read All About It!: "Extra! Extra! You're frickin' dead!"
  • Fourth Wall Observer: One has to wonder where he picked up the word "Rage Quit". Yes, he actually does tell his domination victims to ragequit.
  • Fragile Speedster: The most mobile class, but he only has 125 health (110 when using the Sandman).
  • Freudian Excuse: His Attention Whore Bratty Half-Pint personality can be easily explained by being the youngest of nine brothers and lacking a father figure for most of his life.
  • Glass Cannon: His Scattergun can do upwards of 100 damage per shot, meaning with it, he can kill most classes in a couple of shots (though he has to get almost point-blank to the target to deal the most damage per shot).
  • Genre Savvy: In the 2011 Smissmas comic, Scout recognized that Old Nick trying to kidnap Jack was going to end badly for Nick. Downplayed, since he also thought Jack was a disguised Spy.
  • Handsome Lech: As seen here.

"So how you doin', Miss Pauling? Hey, you ever seen me with my shirt off? Cuz it is awesome."

    • In A Smissmas Story, when the Scout, Soldier, and Spy are sentenced to community service by hosting a "Meet Santa" at a mall, the Scout has people form a line for single moms and one for everyone else.
  • Handwraps of Awesome
  • Hit and Run Tactics
  • Hot Mom: As revealed in "Meet the Spy", his mother managed to keep her youth very well. After having eight kids, no less.
  • I Have Brothers: Rare male example.
  • Inherently Funny Words: BONK!
  • Interface Screw: The Holy Mackerel and Unarmed Combat broadcast how many times he hits someone over the kill ticker, with a new tick being made for each person he's hit. This can effectively block out the kill feed until he's done or the target's killed.
  • Keet: He's cheerful, loud, and just plain enthusiastic about his line of work. Unlike most keets, his job happens to be "murderous thug".
  • Lean and Mean
  • Motor Mouth: Once talked for at least five hours on end.
  • Must Have Caffeine: In an early trailer, his motto simply reads "Too. Much. Caffeine." Plus, two of his unlockable weapons are energy drinks.
  • Oh Crap: Variations of this when Crit-A-Cola wears off and if he's being hit while trying to chug Bonk! Atomic Punch when his health is in the red.
  • Older Than He Looks: He's in his twenties, but gets frequently confused for a teenager. His personality does not help his case.
  • Pastimes Prove Personality
  • Pet the Dog: In the 2011 Halloween comic, he kneels down to eye level with one of the kids and gives him a tooth that he beat out of someone with his bat.

Hey there, slugger. C'mere. You are gonna love this. You see this bat? Bam! That... is a human molar. From some dummy with a big mouth that used to be fulla teeth. It's all yours, little talkin' France.

Show him your REAL war face!

The Soldier ("Real" name: Mr. Jane Doe)

"If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight!"

Voiced by: Rick May

A Boisterous Bruiser and a Drill Sergeant Nasty. American, thinks Sun Tzu is something of a Memetic Badass, talks like a cross between George C. Scott in Patton and R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket, wears fatigues and an ill-fitting helmet in team colors. Wanted to "do his bit" in World War II, but was rejected from every service in the American military - so he self-financed a one-man rampage across Europe, not stopping until several years after the Germans had surrendered. He shared his class update alongside the Demoman, similar to the Sniper and Spy update. It conclusively revealed that he was never in the Army (his personal Berserk Button), as well as the Soldier's lifestyle: he lives in a windowless apartment, ready to kill any visitor who isn't a tomato soup salesman or a rib deliveryman. Uses a rocket launcher, a shotgun, and a shovel. Meet the Soldier!

Tropes exhibited by The Soldier include:

"Sun Tzu said that, and I bet he knows a little more about fighting than you do, pal, because he invented it! Then he perfected it so that no man could best him in the ring of honor! Then he used his fight money to buy two of every animal on Earth, then he herded them into a boat and beat the crap out of every single one!

  • Armed Legs: The Mantreads, which enable the Soldier to Goomba Stomp enemies by falling from heights that would normally hurt him.
  • Awesome but Impractical: Pretty much the Mantreads and Market Gardener. 9 times out of 10 you'd perform far better using the Equalizer and Shotgun, but then you couldn't pull off crazy stuff like this.
  • Badass Bandolier: Including two semi-cosmetic frag grenades. You can only use one of them in a suicidal explosion if you've got the Equalizer equipped.
  • Berserk Button: Do not call him a civilian.
  • The Berserker: While you normally don't want to damage yourself with your own rockets, equipping the Equalizer gives some credence toward not worrying about getting damaged to be potentially able to run at your enemies almost as fast as a Scout with a now-really powerful melee weapon which will kill most of the classes in two attacks. Just make sure they aren't looking at you.
  • Blinding Bangs: A helmet, but it works the same way.
    • Played straight with the Battle Bob promotional hat.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: "You are not welcome in MY WORLD!"
  • Bond One-Liner: Many of his killing spree voice notes qualify. "Time to inform YOUR NEXT OF KIN!"
  • Book Dumb: In spades.
  • Captain Obvious: See his quote, also:

Administrator: Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert! RED Spy is in the base!
Soldier: A RED SPY IS IN THE BASE?!
Administrator: Protect the Briefcase!
Soldier: WE NEED TO PROTECT THE BRIEFCASE!

  • Cloudcuckoolander: He is notably the character with the loosest grip on reality, as evident by him going on a Nazi killing spree and not ending until four years after World War II ended.
    • Further proven by his update, in which he let himself get fooled by an extremely obvious robotized duplicate of the Demoman made by his superiors.
    • He apparently has tea parties with cardboard cutout soldiers, and his first reaction upon finding crash-landed alien weapons is to pick them up and go "pew pew" while announcing he's going to join the Space Marines.
  • Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: Dominating a Spy will have the Soldier taunt them while generally mentioning their French nationality. One calls the Spy a "rifle-dropping coward", while another has him say "Your white flag does not stop American bullets". Think not of how the latter would be a war crime, and remember that the Soldier isn't too sane.
    • One of his Achievements is "Geneva Contravention", which is obtained by killing 3 unarmed people. Granted, he's not exactly in the army.
  • Colonel Kilgore
  • Companion Cube: His enemies' severed heads.
  • Crazy Survivalist: The Soldier apparently lives in a windowless apartment with a barricaded door, several hundred cans of army surplus soup and a pile of "Guns and Haircuts" magazines. With a wizard!
  • Death From Above: Rocket jumping allows the Soldier to fly to great heights from which he can rain down rockets upon his enemies. The Gunboats greatly reduce the self-damage taken from rocket jumping, allowing Soldiers to perform bombing runs with high frequency, while the Mantreads let him actually land on enemies to damage them.
  • Dirty Communists: What he thinks of the Heavy.
  • Difficult but Awesome: Rocket jumping. A lot of people see it as just a typical advantage that Soldiers and Demos have, but when you can blast all the way across the map in five seconds (as showcased in the openings to these tutorials) and even beat out the Scout with enough practice, it becomes clear how useful it really is.
    • A good Soldier can also "juggle" enemies in the air with his rockets, making them completely vulnerable to his attacks. There's actually two Rocket Launchers made with this specific purpose, the Direct Hit and Liberty Launcher. However, while the actual act of bouncing someone into the air isn't hard, predicting where they will land and striking it with another rocket is, as well as actually hitting them mid-air. With good practice a Soldier can even solo a Heavy-Medic pair using this technique (mainly because even under the effects of an ÜberCharge, they can still be bounced and knocked off balance), but the amount of wrist control required is insane.
    • The Direct Hit rocket launcher is very hard, but rewarding to use: it's one of the few weapons able to one-shot light classes and easily destroy Engineer nests.
    • Using the Market Gardener effectively also theoretically falls into this category. If you can get good enough at rocket jumping (which is highly difficult to master in and of itself, particularly airstrafing) and learn all the niche areas of a map, it's possible to drop in on enemies with absolutely no warning and land a One-Hit Kill on 7 out of 9 classes, then be gone before they can react (or continue mopping them up with your Rocket Launcher).
  • Drill Sergeant Nasty: Very similar to Sergeant Hartman from Full Metal Jacket, and even more psychotic than his team.
  • Dumb Muscle/Genius Ditz: At times he's far more concerned with killing than any sort of tactics. When asked if he knew what a "conflict of interest" was, his response was "a breed of dog". On the other hand, one of his taunts is remarkably erudite: "You're like the Cyclops of Greek myth -- except you're Scottish, and I HATE you!" He also appears to have read The Lord of the Rings, although he seems to have Australia and New Zealand confused since he calls the Sniper many different variations of "Bilbo Baggins". Or he just doesn't care.
    • "You just got dominated, Barble Bapkins!"
    • He also seems to understand the relationship between England, Scotland and the UK and uses it to taunt the Demoman. "Scotland is not a real country. You are an Englishman in a dress!"
  • Eagle Land: The Soldier marinates himself with Flavor #2.
  • Familiar: Not really, but Merasmus posted a newspaper ad, calling Soldier one and stating that the latter is perfect for new wizards and witches. $3 or for free or best offer.
  • Friend to All Children: He's tough, but he took three kids trick-or-treating on Halloween, and didn't hesitate to defend the children of Teufort from Old Nick.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: Somehow he went from being rejected by every branch of the military, having no training, and being unable to locate Poland on a map to personally killing over 6000 people during and after WW2.
  • Gender Blender Name: His name is apparently Mr. Jane Doe.
  • General Ripper
  • Glass Cannon: Can become this with the Equalizer, which gets stronger as he takes damage.
  • Goomba Stomp: Performs these by wearing the Mantreads and landing on someone from a massive height.
  • Hot-Blooded

"You cannot burn me. I am already ablaze with passion for war!"

  • Hypocritical Humor: A Pyro domination line goes, "Fire is for cooking s'mores, son; get a REAL GUN." This coming from the guy whose primary is a rocket launcher (not technically a gun) and whose secondary is a shotgun (the same as the Pyro). For more examples, see Moral Myopia below.
  • Irony: The Soldier has made his disdain towards hippies and long hair (read: anything longer than a buzz cut) clear. There's also a promotional hat in the form of unusual-looking long hair for the Soldier.
  • It's All About Me: Capturing points or intelligence noticeably has him stress in his lines that they are his.
  • It's Raining Men: If you're wearing the Mantreads, landing on an enemy negates any fall damage that you might take. Said fall damage is tripled, and the enemy takes it instead.
  • Jack of All Stats: The Soldier simply isn't included in most counter cycles, and his weapons and stats are fairly straightforward. That, and his weapons might make him comfortable to Quake arena players.
    • This is not to suggest he's not a valuable player; the Soldier is a vital staple in competitive play, and considered a highly important class throughout even the highest levels.
    • For people really good at Rocket Jumping, he's more of a Lightning Bruiser.
  • Misery Builds Character: As the Soldier says, "Pain is weakness leaving the body!"
  • Moral Myopia: To the Soldier, it's only a war crime if the enemy team does it.
  • No Indoor Voice
  • Official Couple: In the comics, he ends up dating Heavy's younger sister Zhanna, much to Heavy's chagrin.
  • One-Liner, Name. One-Liner.: When the Tin Soldier set is equipped, upon getting a Revenge Kill, the Soldier may say:

"Beep boop son, beep boop."

  • One-Man Army: He was (or, at least, claimed to be) one of these during (and a few years after) World War II.
  • Parrot Exposition: See Captain Obvious above.
  • Patriotic Fervor: Taken to the extreme for Rule of Funny.
  • Pet the Dog:
    • In this Halloween comic, if the Soldier's line about being on the lam with the kids is an attempt to get candy, it's quite touching to see the merciless military man putting on a goofy costume and taking some kids trick or treating with him. If it isn't, he's still trying to keep them fed.
    • In an outtake of Meet the Medic, the BLU Soldier holds a dying teammate in his arms.
    • Like the Scout, he saves the kids of Teufort from being kidnapped.
  • Phony Veteran: Contrary to his claims, he has never served in an army, and all those medals he has are self-awarded. However, he did acquire a fly to Poland and fought in World War 2 on his own initiative, though most of the years in Europe were spent killing civilians because he didn't know the war was over. Just don't mention that he's a civilian to his face.
  • Pitiful Worms: He sure loves to call people maggots and spineless worms.

"You are a spineless worm! You are a mistake of nature! You are walking vomit!"

"Stand! On! The! Point! Numbnuts!"
"I! Am! On! FIRE!!!"[1]

  • Reindeer Aren't Real: The Soldier will declare that Scotland is not a real country, and thus the Scottish Demoman is actually "an Englishman in a dress".
  • Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Sometimes, especially when he's on a kill streak. Also, if he has the Tin Soldier costume set on, he goes "Beep beep boop" and occasionally "Robot noises!" while firing a weapon.
  • The Scourge of God: "If God had wanted you to live, he would not have created me!"
  • Sergeant Rock
  • Shaggy Frog Story: From "Meet The Soldier":

"If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight! Sun Tzu said that, and I'd say he knows a little bit more about fighting than you do, pal, because he invented it, and then he perfected it so that no living man could best him in the ring of honor. Then, he used his fight money to buy two of every animal on earth, and then he herded them onto a boat, and then he beat the crap out of every single one. And from that day forward any time a bunch of animals are together in one place it's called a 'zoo'! (Beat) Unless it's a farm!"

Some say he used to drum for the Kaiser Chiefs, and that he wears all his clothes backwards. All we know is, he's called The Pyro.

The Pyro

"Mmfmff!"

Voiced by: Dennis Bateman

Race and nationality unknown, as the Pyro dresses in head-to-toe fireproof suit in team color, and a face-obscuring gas mask which muffles their voice. Since the Pyro's appearance is completely obscured by their suit, the Pyro could actually be a woman. Second class to have received new achievements and weapons. Uses a flamethrower, a shotgun, and a fire axe. Meet the Pyro!

Tropes exhibited by The Pyro include:
  • Air Guitar: His melee weapon taunt.
  • Ambiguously Gay: The pink, flowery purse he keeps in his locker and the rather sassy pose he makes after losing a round have lead some players to believe this. If you consider him a man, that is.
  • Ambiguous Gender: The Pyro is either a man, a woman, or a robot.
    • In Matt Hazard: Blood Bath & Beyond, there is a specific level that has Shout Outs to numerous video games, primarily TF2. In the middle of the stage, there are two outhouses in the background, one for the men, and one for the Pyro.
    • Early concept art, however, shows the Pyro as distinctly male.
    • Valve has officially stated that they do not have an answer, finding the constant pondering funny.
      • A past update would display random challenges on the title screen for the player to perform with the monicker, "Give him a shot!" referring to the class the challenge was about. When a challenge was issued for the Pyro, the pronoun "Him" could randomly change to "Her" or "It".
  • An Axe to Grind/Ax Crazy: Depending on whether the person you ask subscribes to the Psychopathic Manchild interpretation above.
  • Barrier Warrior: The Pyro's compression blast generates a small reflective shield in front of the nozzle.
  • Berserk Button: No matter how cutesy they perceive someone as, do NOT tell them fire could be a bad thing.
    • As "The Naked and the Dead" shows, they also don't like someone hurting children. Classic Soldier and Classic Scout learned this the hard way.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Up to Eleven.
  • Cute Mute: In the Australian Christmas comic, at least.
  • Cute and Psycho
  • Difficult but Awesome: While the straightforward W+ M1 Pyro is looked upon with contempt by other players, Pyro users who manage to master the compression blast find themselves with an axe-crazy pyromancer who can reflect projectiles back at opponents (including arrows fired from Snipers and Medics), use opponent's rockets to Rocket Jump themselves up, disarm sticky bombs, neutralize ÜberCharged Medics and separate them from their teammates, as well as putting out fires on teammates. Just see this.
    • Most players overlook the "ambush" aspect of playing a Pyro. A single Pyro, even an inexperienced one, unexpectedly flanking his foes and setting them all ablaze is an effective, if sometimes suicidal tactic. And if coupled with the Axtinguisher, the Pyro becomes a close range assassin, setting unaware foes on fire, and then swiftly whipping out the Axtinguisher to finish them in a single blow. The flame and axtinguish combo is commonly referred to as the "Puff 'n Sting".
    • Mastery of the Flare Gun can result in Pyros out shooting Snipers from halfway across the map.
  • Dissonant Serenity: In True Meaning, the Pyro doesn't appear to be too shaken by a rocket that crashed into the Engineer's house, barely missing the two.
  • Drop the Hammer: The Homewrecker.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"/No Name Given: To an even greater extent than the other classes. Even when off duty the Engineer (Dell Conagher) calls them Pyro.
  • The Faceless: Nobody knows what's under that mask... yet. (In the character model, the Pyro's head is the mask.)
  • Featureless Protagonist: Nobody has ever seen what the Pyro looks like under that suit.
  • Foil: To the Sniper. While the Pyro deals damage over a wide area at close range with the flamethrower, the Sniper deals precise damage to single targets at long range with the sniper rifle.
    • Also, the Sniper is a cold professional. Pyro would appear to be... less so.
  • Heterosexual Life Partners: Apparently Engineer and Pyro live together. When a rocket crashed into their house he joked that they may have just adopted a super baby. This mirrors their relationship in-game; no Engineer is complete without a Pyro.
  • High-Class Glass: Part of the Pyro's miscellaneous item, the "Whiskered Gentleman".
  • Idiot Savant: Variously described by the others as a "mutant", a "whack-job", a "mumbling abomination" and a "mental deficient", the Pyro inspirationally makes up for whatever they may lack in social skills by being an expert at inflicting burning agony upon others.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Some of their melee weapons. They have the usual selection of axes and sledgehammers, such as the Axtinguisher and the Homewrecker, but the Pyro also uses improvised weapons like a gardening rake, a car battery attached to a car jack, and, giving new meaning to the word "hotmail", a a mailbox.
  • Kryptonite Is Everywhere: Methods for putting out fire have increased in number by the day, making afterburn not even half as menacing as it used to be. To this date, 5 out of 9 classes have items that immediately put out a fire (the Scout's Mad Milk, the Pyro's airblast and Manmelter alt-fire, the Heavy's Sandviches, the Sniper's Jarate, and the Spy's Spyicle (kinda)); the Medic has intrinsic health regeneration that almost neutralizes the afterburn, his Medigun renders it irrelevant on the healed teammate, and activating a normal ÜberCharge extinguishes fire; the Demoman's shields give him great resistance to fire; and the Spy's Spy-cicle makes him outright immune.
  • Leeroy Jenkins: Their ability to set people on fire while charging forward has many new players scrambling to pick this class.
  • Lethal Joke Character: The Pyro is the stereotypical noob class, and playing them can result in derision from veteran players. He's also been heavily nerfed repeatedly and other classes surpass him in virtually all areas.[2] Yet see Difficult but Awesome above for a taste of what a skilled Pyro can do.
    • In terms of counter cycles, the Pyro is mostly used for spy checking but can also completely neutralize enemy Soldiers and Demomen.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Has the highest health/speed balance of all the classes. 100% of baseline speed, with 175 health; only three other classes meet or exceed the Pyro's health level, and they're all slower than Pyro. Couple with the major damage that Pyro can do with the flamethrower (albeit at short range, hence the speed), and you have this.
    • Pyros however have abysmal range, only some of his secondaries give him any range at all, and that's pitiful damage too. The other three classes on par with the Pyro's health have very high damage rates and can easily shred a Pyro in seconds. So despite having a surprisingly large amount of health, it tends to get eaten up pretty quickly.
  • Limited Wardrobe: Is never seen without the asbestos suit. His trading card bio infers he wears it constantly.
  • Kamehame Hadoken: One of the Pyro's taunts. Is also capable of an instant kill on multiple enemies if you are lucky enough.
  • Kill It with Fire
  • Knight of Cerebus: Played with. His teammates see them as this, due to their status as The Dreaded. Then you get to see inside their mind...
  • MacGyvering: A running theme with the aesthetic to the Pyro's items. A few of their hats are things that aren't really hats.
    • Their Degreaser is a flamethrower made with a gas pump, a car muffler, an exhaust pipe, a fire extinguisher and a stove top burner.
  • Master of None: With the right unlocks, they can fulfill most roles on a team, but those roles are better performed by more specialized classes (able to pick targets like a Spy with the Axtinguisher, ambush like a Heavy, return explosives from Soldiers/Demomen, etc.). Their potential resides in his versatility and the difficulty for an opponent to figure out a Pyro's loadout and tactics before it's too late.
  • Mysterious Past
  • Nice Guy: Once you get past their evident insanity, they're actually this. They really want to spread happiness across the world, with this being one of the few traits they have in common with their best friend The Engineer.
  • Not So Different: The Backburner Pyro has to sneak around and punishes enemies from behind. Kind of like a Spy...
  • Obliviously Evil
  • OC Stand-In: Due to their lack of screentime and no canonical backstory, face or set gender.
  • Ornamental Weapon: Those napalm grenades are apparently just a style statement.
  • Papa Wolf/Mama Bear: Regardless of Ambiguous Gender, one thing's made clear: don't even think about hurting children in their presence. The Classic Team's Soldier and Scout learned this the hard way.
  • Playing with Fire: While their weapon is the flamethrower, the Hadoken has some... interesting implications.
  • Proud to Be a Geek: The Pyro's hats would suggest this, coupled with the game's time period (the 60s) being a hotbed of sci-fi B-movies and Silver Age comics.
  • Psychopathic Manchild: The utterly insane maniac known as Pyro turns out to be a geeky, childish person fond of cute things. Miss Pauling herself treats them like an overgrown, weird kid when not having their psychotic outbursts.
  • Pyromaniac: Of course!
    • In the Medic's "Meet The" video, Pyro is shown playing with a lighter while they wait outside the infirmary. The Pyro is also the disguise least often picked by Spies - because "if you're playing Pyro, you're either setting the other team on fire, checking for Spies by setting your team on fire, setting mines on fire, or you're a Spy."
  • Required Secondary Powers: The Pyro is fireproof. If they weren't, they wouldn't be able to run forwards and fire his flamethrower at the same time.
  • Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: While taunting with a melee weapon.
  • Skill Gate Characters: When using the aforementioned W+ M1 strategy. A charging Pyro is pretty hard to beat if you can't react fast enough, but it's a minor threat to more skilled/lucky players.
    • They can actually be a lot tougher than people think, especially since Soldiers often forgo their Shotgun in favor of other items.
    • The "Puff 'n Sting" Axtinguisher combo when airblasting requires enemies to be too disoriented in the split second they're in the air to fire and aim at the Pyro, which rarely works against sufficiently skilled players.
  • Super-Persistent Predator: Just about every W+M1 Pyro will be this, constantly chasing down any enemy they see (including other Pyros) until they're a pile of char.
  • Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors: Forms a very firm one with Spy and Engineer. A Pyro is the best counter for a Spy, who is the bane of the Engineer, who can easily dispatch the range-challenged Pyro.
    • This means when a Pyro has the patience to stay with an Engineer, the security of the Engineer becomes a lot better. It helps too that the Pyro can neutralize incoming explosives, meaning only enemy Snipers and Heavies pose a threat, under ideal circumstances.
  • The Spook: Nobody knows who this person is, where they came from, or even their gender.
  • Token Good Teammate: A twisted example. They seem to be the only person in the team who is genuinely motivated to do good. Pity they're too insane to realize they're doing the opposite.
  • Trickster Archetype: Wild Mass Guessing has the Pyro pegged down as this due to the beanie (an old symbol of the tricky little kid), meaning that possibly all hints of the Pyro's femininity are merely his attempts at screwing with the rest of the team.
  • The Unintelligible: Perhaps a comm line in the mask would help...
    • It's stated that the asbestos-lined suit has contributed to the ravaging of the Pyro's lungs and thus obscuring of their voice as much as the mask itself.

Defense

HE'S drunk. You don't have an excuse!

The Demoman (Real name: Tavish Finnegan DeGroot)

"One crossed wire, one wayward pinch of potassium chlorate, one errant twitch, and KABLOOEY!!"

Voiced by: Gary Schwartz

Black Scottish cyclops. Characterized as a Drunken Master and wears bandoliers of grenades on his black vest, worn over a team-colored suit. Apparently considers the Loch Ness Monster his mortal enemy, may have lost an eye in an attempt to slay it, and accidentally killed his first set of adoptive parents. On account of his lack of an eye, and blood heritage, he considers himself something of a Last of His Kind. He shared his class update with the Soldier, much like the Sniper and Spy. The update revealed the Demoman's lifestyle; along with working three jobs, he lives in a mansion in New Mexico with his blind mother. Uses a grenade launcher, a stickybomb launcher, and a bottle. Meet the Demoman!

Tropes exhibited by The Demoman include:
  • Afro Asskicker: When he has his afro.
  • The Alcoholic: Ever wonder why the Demoman drinks? 1968 was an especially bad year to be a minority.
  • Angry Black Man: Unless it's his morning off.
  • Badass Boast: "So... t'all ya fine dandies, so proud, so cocksure, prancin' aboot with yer heads fulla eyeballs... come and get me, I say! I'll be waiting for ya with a whiff of the ol' brimstone! I'm a Grimm bloody fable, with an unhappy bloody end!"
  • Bilingual Bonus: His family motto is "In regione caecorum, rex est luscus." This is a famous Latin quotation from Desiderius Erasmus. The meaning? "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." (However, the seal seen on this page misspells "regione" as "regionem".)
  • Boisterous Bruiser: "Oh they're gonna 'ave to glue yew back togeth'r, IN HELL!"
  • Brave Scot: When he's on your side.
  • Brown Eyes: The only team member (except maybe The Pyro) to have them.
  • Buffy-Speak: "Awww... There's a new angel in heaven... IN HELL!"
  • Cluster F-Bomb: "Imma Black Scottish Cyclops. They got more (extended bleep) than they got the likes o' me."
  • Continuity Nod: The old Demoman model in Team Fortress Classic also had an eyepatch and knit cap.
  • Difficult but Awesome: In public servers, a Demoman can usually get away with just laying some clever traps, and may even fare well in direct combat. In competitive play, Demomen have to learn all the potentially useful sticky jump locations on a map and be able to execute them perfectly (and thus be able to get to the central control point faster than the enemy Scouts), has no hit-scan weapon and so must rely on prediction, has low mobility without the aid of sticky jumps. However, in the right hands, his trap laying and insane damage output make him possibly the most powerful unit on the field because of his area denial abilities - for instance, at mid on Badlands, if a Demoman can arrive fast enough he can set traps all about the enemy's side and also fire grenades behind the enemy medic, preventing an escape while the soldiers jump above to fire down on him. In a game of territorial control, a scout picking off the enemy demoman is often the perfect opportunity to push forward and advance.
    • Note that this trope does not apply to sticky mines, which require less effort to get more reward when compared to the grenade launcher, which is the core complaint about the class.
  • Disproportionate Reward: Inverted. According to the Demoman's mother, his late father didn't get much for some of the jobs he did.

"Yer da walked fifteen miles in the rain to blow up the Queen of England for a nickel!"

  • Drinking on Duty
  • Drunken Master: He does carry a bottle of alcohol at all times, and his bottle taunt involves drinking out of it, even if it's broken.
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: He has tea with his blind mother every day in the mansion he bought for her.
  • Eyepatch of Power: He's a "Black Scottish Cyclops."
  • Eye Scream: He was said to have lost his eye in an explosives accident. He says himself that he lost it to a wizard who removed it to remove the bragging rights of an evil spirit.
  • Fan Nickname: Demopan
  • Foil: As of the War update, he's revealed to be pretty much the anti-Sniper. Cold Sniper vs. Boisterous Bruiser. Camper van vs. mansion. Estranged from his parents who dislike his profession vs. living with and doting on his aging mother, who approves of his profession to the point of being worried when he's got a day off. And it doesn't stop there: the Demoman only has one eye, meaning he has very poor depth perception, while the Sniper is a Sniper, and thus likely has excellent depth perception. The Sniper comes from Australia, which is in the southern hemisphere, whereas the Demoman comes from Scotland, which is in the northern hemisphere. Furthermore, the Über update reveals that while Sniper spent years in the Australian Outback, the Demoman hasn't even been to the beach.
    • In-game, the Demoman is a highly versatile class that fares well at close-to-medium range with attacks that deal area of effect damage. By comparison, the Sniper is a highly specialized class that solely focuses on the precise elimination of targets at long-range.
    • This even extends to the players, who would much rather have a demoman than a sniper, regardless of player strengths. A team with 4 or more demomen would be considered near-unstoppable, while anywhere more than 1 sniper on anything other than defense usually meant someone would be raging over allchat.
  • Golf Clubbing: The Nessie's Nine Iron.
  • Hilariously Abusive Childhood: He never saw his real parents until they came to visit him at an orphanage after he lost an eye and his adoptive parents honing his demolition skills. Allegedly, it's a tradition among the Highland Demolition Men.
  • Improbable Weapon User: That scrumpy bottle somehow does as much damage as an axe or kukri.
    • To say nothing of the Ullapool Caber, which we reiterate, is a grenade that you're using as a melee weapon.
    • Not to mention the Nessie's Nine Iron and Frying Pan of Doom (which used to be exclusive to him and Soldier).
  • In a Single Bound: Can be invoked with the Sticky Jumper, a sticky bomb gun which does absolutely NO DAMAGE. This weapon is meant for the purpose of practicing sticky-bomb jumping, but since the weapon does no damage, wheres you could only use up to two (possibly three if being healed by a medic) bombs without killing yourself, you can sticky jump with EIGHT STICKY BOMBS.
    • Players often combine the Sticky Jumper with the Ullapool Caber to become a flying Action Bomb!
  • In the Blood: His affinity for explosives, as explained by his retconned bio.
  • In Vino Veritas: The Demoman seems quite reasonable when he's sober, as in his update comic. Presumably he's always drunk during the game itself then.
  • Last of His Kind: Despite still having a mother that's black, Scottish, and alive, he remains of this trope since he has one eye while his parents lost both.
  • Mad Bomber
  • Major Injury Underreaction: "Oh, that smarts."
  • Man in a Kilt: Not in-game, but the Demoman wears one in his family portrait, and an opposing Soldier may mock him for being "an Englishman in a dress".
  • Nice Guy: One you quit his alcoholism, he's quite friendly and reasonable with others.
  • Nice Hat: His trademark beanie.
  • Not So Different: One of his domination lines toward Snipers is "I hate you bloody campers! EVERYONE bloody hates you!" Yet defensively-minded Demomen tend to lay stickybombs at crucial chokepoints and then sit there, waiting for a ripe opportunity to detonate them.
  • Race Lift: The Demoman's Team Fortress Classic counterpart was white.
  • Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: "Ka-BOOOM!"
  • Scary Black Man: On the enemy team.
  • Self-Made Orphan: As explained on his trading card, but then thoroughly Retconned. The updated bio on the "Meet the Demoman" now states he managed to kill his adoptive parents and that his real parents only took him in when he discovered his love for explosives, reasoning that they decided to abandon him until his abilities finally aired.
    • This Retcon is more like Flip-Flop of God - when "Meet The Demoman" originally came out, he allegedly blew up first set of his adoptive parents in an attempt to destroy Loch Ness Monster. With the website redesign, the current canon uses this original version.
  • Throw Down the Bomblet
  • Trap Master
  • Twofer Token Minority: "I'm a black Scottish cyclops! They got more &#%$*@!@&#&!#*$ than they got the likes of me."
  • Violent Glaswegian: At least when drunk.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy/Why Couldn't You Be Different?: Despite his seven figure salary, Demoman's mother disapproves that he only works three jobs (his dad had twenty-six jobs) and hasn't yet lost more than one eye, since every other member of his clan has lost both of their eyes long before him.
  • Your Wife: "Dominated! An' I've been shagging your wife!"
An ingredient in his sandvich, honestly...

The Heavy (Real Name: Mikhail)

"Some people think they can outsmart me. Maybe... Maybe. I've yet to meet one that can outsmart bullet."
Voiced by: Gary Schwartz

A massive Slavic man with a shaved head and Perma-Stubble. Rather than The Heavy as you might expect, the Heavy provides examples of The Big Guy or The Brute (depending if they're on your team). Wears a team-color shirt, a Kevlar vest, and an ammo belt across his chest. Named his miniguns "Sasha" and "Natascha", and a machinegun "Tomislav". He's a pretty stoic guy outside of battle, but he really hates it when other people touch his gun. Perhaps the closest thing to a main character in the game, in how he is often featured "front and center" due to his size in artwork (in one splash screen, in the game's box art, in the selection lineup and in the promotional team lineup) and him getting the first class-centric video (and appearing first in both trailers and foremost in "Meet the Sandvich"). The Heavy was the third class to be updated with fun new toys. Uses a minigun, a shotgun, and his own fists. Meet the Heavy!

Interestingly, The Heavy also makes an appearance along with Max, Strong Bad and Tycho in Poker Night At the Inventory by Telltale Games.

Tropes exhibited by The Heavy include:
  • Acrofatic: It's surprisingly easy for him to sneak by an entire team and punch them to death.
  • Angrish: His AAANNGGHHH YAAAA DAH.
  • Atop a Mountain of Corpses: Gets to do the pose in "Meet The Medic".
  • Awesome Yet Practical: As of the time of writing, Heavies are considered one of the most dangerous and effective classes when played well, and can rack up high body counts with ease. They're also very, very, fun to play!
    • This has led to people who believe that players who use the Heavy a lot lack the skill needed to play other classes and thus have a low opinion of players who frequently use him.
  • Bald of Awesome/Bald of Evil: Depends whether he's on your team or the enemy's.
  • Berserk Button: Don't mess with his weapons, his sandvich, his family and Medic. It won't end well for you.
  • BFG
  • Big Brother Instinct: The main reason why he refused to rejoin the team at first in the comics is because he felt he had to protect his three younger sisters, only accepting the offer when they proved they could take care of themselves just fine. He also extends said protectiveness towards his best friend Medic.
  • Big Eater: "SANDVICH MAKE ME STRONG!"
    • He even earns an achievement for scarfing down 100 Sandviches, and before it was nerfed he could eat them one after another without stopping if he felt like it.
  • Big Fancy House: Big Fancy Cabin, really. We only see how big it is through one photo in "Meet the Director", but it's pretty impressive.
  • The Big Guy / The Brute: Depends on whether or not he's on your side.
  • Big No: "OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
  • Bilingual Bonus: The songs the Heavy sings while pushing the bomb cart are Russian working songs.
  • Blunt Metaphors Trauma: "Ho, hohoho, oh that slaps me on the knee!"
  • Boisterous Bruiser: "Is good time to run, cowards!"
  • Buffy-Speak: Mostly because he's more eloquent in his native tongue.
  • Butt Monkey: Blu Heavy ends up at the wrong end of the axe in "Meet the Pyro."
  • Cargo Ship: In-Universe, according to the Director update comic, as it shows the Heavy as having bought a bed for his mini-gun, and he sleeps next to it. In game, a dominating enemy Scout will taunt the Heavy about taking Sasha out for a nice steak dinner.
  • Companion Cube: He talks to his Minigun and his Sandvich.

"What was that, Sandvich? 'Kill them all?' GOOD IDEA!"

  • Consulting Mister Puppet: Some of the stuff (see above) he says in regards to the Sandvich implies this.
  • Continuity Nod: Making the Hound Dog hat official might be a reference to the "hair Heavy", a Heavy with wavy black hair, seen in the Heavy's "Soviet Union" achievement portrait, which itself is a reference to the original concept art of Heavy, which had said hairstyle.
    • The Heavy Doorag helps give him a slight resemblance to the original Heavy from Team Fortress Classic. There's an unofficial reskin for it that also gives him the TFC Heavy's goggles.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: During the filming of "Meet The Heavy", the director questions the Heavy about his past.

Director: Your father was a counter-revolutionary. When he was killed, you, your mother, and your sisters were transported to a North Siberian gulag. Paint me the picture.
Heavy: No. This is my gun. I like to shoot this gun. Is all you need to know.

  • Deadly Upgrade: Transplantation of an Übercharged Mega Baboon heart as seen in "Meet the Medic", which allows him to be invincible.
  • Difficult but Awesome: The only subversion in the entire team. While everyone else has a bit of a difficulty curve to master the class and become credit to team, Heavies are one of the easiest classes to play and even the best Heavies will still rely heavily on their team to cover their weaknesses (namely being Sniper and Spy bait). In small enough servers, the difference between victory and defeat is often which team remembered to bring a Heavy.
    • Indeed, the Heavy is more or less a hard counter [3] to all but the best Pyros and Scouts. Wily Heavies also are one of the best Spy checking classes (only the Pyro is better). With a good Medic, the only real threat to a Heavy are Snipers and sentry guns.
    • Double subverted, though, in that a skilled Heavy, as a primary target with low speed, knows where to be and what to do to avoid headshots, Spies and ambushes. Depends very heavily on the server you're playing on, but under the right circumstances Heavy benefits a lot from good tactics.
  • Dumb Muscle: He acts like a stereotypical example. But that's all right, because he's yet to meet one that can outsmart boolit. And in his native Russian, he's quite a bit more eloquent.
  • Eloquent in My Native Tongue: How eloquent? He has a PhD in Russian Literature!
  • Everything's Satiating With Sandviches
  • Everything's Worse WithBig ShavedBearsThat Hate People
  • Fat Bastard: When he's not on your team.
  • Fate Worse Than Death: Poker Night At the Inventory shows us that the Heavy remembers the respawn system of the game as a series of nightmares...

Heavy: Do you ever get the nightmares?
Strong Bad: Sometimes I get the Jibblies.

Heavy: I am talking about visions of endless suffering. Dead Doctors everywhere. Spy cannot be found.

Strong Bad: That sounds like the Jibblies, man.

Heavy: I do not like this "Jibblies".

  • Finger Gun: One of the Heavy's taunts, and it can insta-kill anyone unlucky enough to be in his line of fire.

"POW! HA HA!"

He told you not to touch that darn thing.

The Engineer (Real Name: Dell Conagher)

"Hey look, buddy. I'm an engineer — that means I solve problems. Not problems like 'What is beauty?' because that would fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy. I solve practical problems."

Voiced by: Grant Goodeve

American, from Bee Cave, Texas. Dressed in coveralls of team color, one welding glove, hard hat, and goggles. Exhibits Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness during the "Meet the Engineer" trailer, but this is markedly absent from his in-game dialogue. Judging by the maniacal laughter he sometimes indulges in (including as one of his taunts), he seems to have a bit of the Mad Scientist to him as well. Has 11 PhDs. Was the last class to receive new weapons. Uses a shotgun, a pistol, a wrench, a building tool and a destroying tool. Meet the Engineer!

Tropes exhibited by The Engineer include:

"I appreciate that you're my employer, and an old man besides... but if you don't take your goddamn hands off me I will break you in HALF."

  • Bottomless Magazines: The Widowmaker DE:HR promotional weapon uses up building metal as ammunition. Each hit on target returns metal according to the damage done to the enemy, so a engineer that can aim consistently can literally shoot forever without as much as picking ammo crates. Regardless of the method used to recover used up metal, the Widowmaker has no reload animation nor needs one.
  • Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: To Pyro.
  • Continuity Nod: A photo from his update reveals that his father was the Engineer from Team Fortress Classic. One of his domination lines towards the Spy is a reference to this.

"That's what my daddy taught me to do to backstabbers."

  • Dissonant Serenity: What's to worry about when all you need is more gun? Designed by him, built by him... "and you best hope... not pointed at you."
    • In battle, Engineers can be pretty calm and relaxed just a few feet away from where the rest of their team is getting murdered. But then a spy comes in...
    • Also, in True Meaning, he stays calm during and in the aftermath of a rocket crash into his living room that barely missed him and the Pyro.
  • Eagle Land: Pretty much Flavor #1, almost an opposite of the Soldier. Nicest of the bunch, but as of the Engineer Update, he has received somewhat mean-spirited class specific domination lines like the other classes did in theirs.
  • The Engineer: Obviously.
  • Evil Laugh: He can pull off great ones.
  • Gadgeteer Genius: Sentries, dispensers, and teleporters, oh my!
  • Glass Cannon: The Widowmaker has no need to stop to reload, as it uses Engineer's metal supply. However, it also restocks this ammo upon hitting someone, possibly fully refunding the metal cost. With the effect caused by Kritzkrieg, a surprise Engineer holding the Widowmaker theoretically becomes a wall of endless gunfire for about ten seconds.
  • Goggles Do Nothing
    • This is doubled by the Hotrod. The mask is seen to flip down when the Engineer is going to build something, but in real life the smoked lenses of both the goggles and mask would render one unable to see. Ironically the Hotrod is currently the only hat with a practical application: Spychecking. Actual Engineers would only flip down the mask when building things and thus would be holding a toolbox as well. Spies disguised as the Engineer would have the mask flipped down to use the Sapper, caused by the Sapper using the same PDA slot as the the Engineer's build PDA).
  • Good Ol' Boy
  • Gun Twirling: When drawing his pistol and during his taunt when it's in use.
  • Heterosexual Life Partners: With Pyro, for a given value of "Heterosexual"...
  • Lamarck Was Right: His grandfather Radigan worked for RED and BLU and was also a skilled engineer.
  • Machine Empathy: Engineer is always aware of his deployables' state even without looking at his PDA. And he really, really cares about them.
  • Mad Scientist: If the goggles and the laugh doesn't give him away, the fact that he chopped a hand off For Science! surely does... and he still manages to be the sanest character on the team.
  • More Dakka: "Use more gun."

"Sometimes, you just need a little less gun."

  • Mr. Fixit
  • Nice Guy: Hands down the nicest person on the team. Doesn't mean it's a good idea to get on his bad side.
  • Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Subverted; he's got 11 PhDs, but they're all in various types of mechanical engineering, architecture, and the like.
  • Only Sane Man: Even with the Mad Scientist tendencies, he's still the closest thing the team has to a sane person. Of course, you should always Beware the Nice Ones...
  • Out of Focus: He was the last class to receive a weapon set, well over two years after weapon sets were introduced, and he didn't receive any new weapons in the Über Update. He has the least amount of weapons out of all the classes. Admittedly, Valve has tried to design and implement some weapons for him, but the Engineer more so than any other class runs the risk of breaking the game in two if his weapons change too much.
  • Percussive Maintenance: Even the official Sentry gun manual notes that whacking devices with a wrench makes their deployment faster and repairs and upgrades them.
  • Rockers Smash Guitars: The Engineer's Dischord kill taunt has him strumming his acoustic guitar, then smashing it, possibly on an enemy's head.
  • Scary Shiny Goggles: Uh, wow.
  • Shoot the Medic First: He can repair his buildings with ease when alive, so he's a vital target. Especially when they're carring a Sentry to redeploy.
    • On the other hand, Spies may target an Engineer's turret before the Engineer himself to keep them from being killed while backstabbing the latter.
  • Shorter Means Smarter: He's the shortest member of the team.
  • The Smart Guy
  • Smoking Barrel Blowout: When taunting with his pistol.
  • Southern-Fried Genius
  • Squishy Tech Wizard: Alone, an Engineer is almost completely disadvantaged. With his sentry, he becomes a brick wall.
    • With the Frontier Justice, a sentry-less Engineer can be a very nasty Glass Cannon (a crit shotgun can deal up to 180 damage per shot, letting him One-Hit Kill anything weaker than a Soldier, and two hit kill anything weaker than an overhealed Heavy).
    • Even more so with a Gunslinger; the most common plan with that is to drop sentries, rack up kills, then use the revenge crits with the Frontier Justice to wreck the enemy team.
    • The Pomson 6000 gives him a unique ability: the power to drain Über Charges and Spy Cloaks. The former can severely cripple an enemy team especially if the Engie manages to land multiple shots on the Medic. The latter combos well with the Southern Hospitality, resulting in the ability to efficiently Spycheck. Both effects come straight out of left field for an enemy who thinks the Engineer is only good for building stuff.
      • The shots also penetrate, so essentially you can kill more than one enemy with it equipped. So in a strategic location place a teleporter, sentry, dispenser and have Engie with equipped with Pomson and watch him go to town on the enemy, they ill barely be able to attack you and your allies will have cover as they exit.
  • Tranquil Fury: While the others tend to use Unstoppable Rage when pissed off, Engineer becomes way colder, losing his Good Ol' Boy demeanor and replacing it by a Badass Baritone.
  • The Turret Master
  • Un Evil Laugh: He coughs during his Schadenfreude taunt.
  • Wicked Cultured: Dell, to Blutarch Mann's personal care attendant, regarding a painting in Blutarch's mansion: "Say, ain't that an original Kicasso?"
  • You Have Researched Breathing: The "Texas Slim's Dome Shine" is basically Engineer without his hat.

Support

On second thought, I'll walk it off...

The Medic (Real Name: Mr. Ludwig)

"Now? ( chuckle)... Let's go practice medicine."

Voiced by: Robin Atkin Downes

A German Mad Doctor, implied to hail from the Nazi era ("raised in Stuttgart, Germany, during an era when the Hippocratic Oath had been downgraded to an optional Hippocratic suggestion") with team-colored heavy rubber gloves, a Badass Labcoat, and an Awesome Backpack. The TF2 trading cards describe the Medic as madly curious about human flesh and/or pain and healing to be his investment to see more hurting in the future... not to mention that the healing benefits of the medigun were originally just a side effect of whatever he was really shooting them with. He was the first class to receive new weapons. Uses a syringe gun, a Medi Gun, and a bonesaw. Meet the Medic!

Tropes exhibited by The Medic include:
  • Affably Evil: He's a very friendly person, as well as an horribly amoral doctor.
  • Ascended Fanon: As a matter of strategy, the Medic spends most of his time behind a Heavy, so fans generally assumed that they're awesome buddies (at the least). This was brought to canon in the "Meet The Medic" video, where the Medic chats affably with the Heavy while performing surgery, then works with him to do all that killing.
    • Medic players also have some venom towards Spies (since they're regularly tricked into healing them). This too was referenced, when we see the head of the BLU Spy hooked up to a car battery, begging for death.
  • Awesome Backpack/Ammunition Backpack: Provides healing, invulnerability, and steroids.
    • Except in "Meet the Spy", possibly to make it possible for the Spy to support him before the knockout.
  • Awesome Yet Practical: ÜberCharges can break almost any defense.
  • Back-Alley Doctor

Medic: When the patient woke up, his skeleton was missing, and the doctor was never heard from again! (laughs) Anyway, that's how I lost my medical license.

  • Badass Labcoat He's the page's image.
  • Big Guy, Little Guy: When he's with the Heavy (which he should be if the player is smart) he's the Little Guy.
  • Blue and Orange Morality: The only conceivable reason why he joined the Classic Team.
  • Blush Sticker: Not him, but the Pocket Medic doll in his likeness.
  • Boring but Practical: The vast majority of players flatly refuse to play the Medic, but the Medic is so fundamental to team strategy (and the ÜberCharge is so powerful) that if one team has 2 Medics and the other has none then, barring grotesque differences in individual player skill, the team without medics might as well not have bothered showing up.
  • Bow and Sword in Accord: With the Australian Christmas update, the Medic can now equip the Crusader's Crossbow and the intimidatingly large Amputator.
  • But Not Too Evil: The Medic was around during WWII, is German, has a dark past, and like the rest of the team, is a sociopath, who considers his healing an unintended side effect of his real work. But at least he's not a Nazi.
  • Butt Monkey: In "Meet the Pyro", the Blu Medic was locked in a shack by Red Pyro and burned alive.
    • Much more seriously in the comics, thanks to Classic Heavy.
  • Combat Medic: His syringe gun and bonesaw never see use as medical tools, and his Medigun is best suited for breakthrough support.
    • There also exists such thing as a "battle medic", a player who would rather fight and often refuses to heal. Woe befall any player that actually tries this with him though. Battle Medics are so despised they tend to get votekicked off even if everyone else on the team are dead.
  • Crazy Enough to Work: The ÜberCharge system, as revealed in the "Meet the Medic" video.

Heavy: Doctor! Are you sure this will work?
Medic: HA HA! I have no idea! (activates Über Charge with a crazed grin)

  • Creepy Good: He is a Deadly Doctor who performs Meatgrinder Surgery, can pull a pretty decent Slasher Smile, and is able to scare even the Heavy.
  • Deadly Doctor: "Zat was doctor-assisted homicide!"
  • Difficult but Awesome: The Ubersaw allows two Medics to infinitely chain Übers one after the other while dishing out large amounts of damage. However, this requires both of them to have excellent communication (to save Übers when there's no enemy and to instantly switch Übers once one runs out), something many people tend to forgo in this game.
  • Disturbed Doves: In his "Meet the Team" video. The Medic keeps several doves as his pets, one of which is named Archimedes.
  • The Dog Bites Back: After being mistreated by Classic Heavy one time too many, the latter learns the hard way he shouldn't have messed with him.
  • Dressed to Heal: Medic wears a white labcoat and gloves. A patch eventually added a Randomly Drops mirror for his head and a surgical mask for his face.
    • In Beta, he had a stethoscope slung around his neck for absolutely no reason. While he no longer carries it with him it can still be seen in his cubby in the respawn room, and another Randomly Drops item allows him to put it back around his neck.
  • Dr. Jerk: At least in battle. Not so much when off the clock.
  • Einstein Hair: Part of his Halloween 2011 costume.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He adores his pet doves, to the point when Classic Heavy kills Archimedes, he very calmly swears revenge.
    • Of course, there's also his relationship with his teammates. Especially Heavy.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Believe it or not, The Medic does take his job as a doctor seriously. He refuses to have a drink when performing surgery, and will never, ever, kill someone on the operating table.
  • Foreign Cuss Word: Fond of insulting people in German.
  • For Science!: Progress sounds like hearts exploding, apparently.
  • Four Eyes, Zero Soul
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: Recipients of an ÜberCharge get them.
  • Goggles Do Nothing: The Medic received a pair of goggles called Ze Goggles as a hat option in one update, which he wears on top of his head.
  • Grandma, What Massive Hotness You Have!: One of the most popular classes with fangirls, despite looking to be in his mid-50s. There's just something about older men...
  • Gratuitous German: Uses the improper pluralization of "dummkopf" and "schweinehund". Correct in the German translation, however.
    • 'Schweinehund' has the potential to be offensive, so it may be a case of Moral Guardians, since he does do very well with other vocabulary.
  • Harmful Healing
  • Healing Factor: The Medic regenerates health constantly. The Blutsauger reduces it in exchange of draining the life out of stricken enemies. An update introduced the Medieval Medic Set, which boosts the healing rate even further. Specifically, he can heal up to 7 hit points a second - so fast that there's typically no point in running to find health, as by the time you get there you'll have already healed yourself. Coupled with not relying on ammo in normal circumstances, a properly equipped Medic can go indefinitely without any form of external resupply, leaving his allies to fight over ammo drops.
  • Herr Doktor: The definition. Fellow Medics even say "Thank you, Herr Doctor!" when they're healed.
  • Heterosexual Life Partners: With Heavy, very much so.
  • Immune to Bullets: He can grant this ability to a teammate for up to eight seconds. Uses it memorably on the Heavy in "Meet the Medic":

Heavy: I AM BULLETPROOF!

  • In Love with Your Carnage: "Ha ha! Vat a bloodbasz!"
  • Light Is Not Good: Definitely invokes this; the only team member to wear tons of white, associated with doves and angelic music and yet probably the most sadistic member of the whole team.
  • Lethal Harmless Powers: ÜberCharge protects its user and patient from any harm. If the patient is a minigun-wielding Mighty Glacier it no longer looks so peaceful.
    • The patient's heart might not stand the stress of the ÜberCharge and will explode unless it's been modified.
  • Mad Doctor: His "Meet the Team" video displays that the Medic has absolutely nothing even remotely resembling sanity left in his brain - not that the other characters are much better.
  • Mad Scientist: Jacked Up to Eleven and beyond in the "Meet the Medic", which is basically how the Medic invented the ÜberCharge system using the Heavy as his personal guinea pig by replacing the Heavy's heart (which could not stand the ÜberCharge system. As in, the damn thing exploded) with that of a mega baboon.
  • The Medic
  • Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Averted with his defection to the Classic Team, as he is Only In It For The Money and has no ill will towards his former teammates (He even resurrects Sniper despite still being on the enemy team). Played very straight with him backstabbing Classic Heavy after being mistreated one time too many.
  • Morality Pet: His pet doves, including one called Archimedes. Though Archimedes has a strange habit of hiding inside the people on the operating table.

Scout, after the operation: Oh man, you would not believe...! (Beat) how much this hurts.
Scout's chest: Crrroooo.
Medic: Archimedes?!

"Vhen ze patient voke up, his skeleton vas missing, and the doktor vas never heard from again! Ahaha!"

"Ha ha haaa! Oktoberfest!"

  • Team Pet: Archimedes and the other doves. He even tells them his secrets!
  • The Un-Smile: As revealed in the comics. His Slasher Smile shown when Sniper got killed was actually him being happy to see his friend. As he said it himself, his smile comes across as "smug and evil".
  • Those Wacky Nazis: Averted. Robin Walker stated that it would have been too easy and boring to make him a Nazi. Although it may be because a Nazi character wouldn't be allowed in Germany.
  • Turn Your Head and Cough: This is one of the lines that may be spoken when holding a melee weapon, aiming at an enemy player, and choosing the "battle cry" speech.
  • Waistcoat of Style: What he wears underneath the labcoat, as seen in "Meet the Medic".
  • Wild Card: In the comics, though unlike other examples it's shown as strictly business and has no ill-will towards his teammates. He comes back to the team anyway.
  • Worst Aid: It's not clear just how much Medic knows about real medicine. If he invented the uber-heart, he is a genius. Still, you wouldn't want to be on his operating table...
About as close as he'll let you.

The Sniper (Real name: Mr. Mick Mundy/Mun-dee)

"Professionals have standards. Be polite. Be efficient. Have a plan to kill everyone you meet."

Voiced by: John Patrick Lowrie

An Australian man with a bush hat and khakis, and shooter glasses. Appears to be estranged from his parents to the point his father calls his occupation "crazed gunman". Fancies himself to be something of a Cold Sniper ("You know who has feelings? Blokes what bludgeon their wife to death wif a golf trophy. Professionals have standards."), but in actuality emotes just as much as any other class (except maybe The Faceless Pyro). He had to share his update with the Spy, which led to an Escalating War between the two characters. (As if Snipers didn't hate Spies enough...) Uses a sniper rifle, an SMG, and a kukri. Meet the Sniper!

Tropes exhibited by The Sniper include:

"Kill ya again soon, mate."
"See you in five minutes."
"Where'd I get you that time? The liver? The kidney? I'm losing track."

  • Butt Monkey: The BLU Snipers in "Meet the Engineer". They get killed on-screen more than any other class (in rather humiliating ways as well) and the ending reveals that the Engineer's campfire is in fact a BLU Sniper's burning corpse. A BLU Sniper is also one of the RED Spy's victims in "Meet the Spy" and in an early concept of "Meet the Medic", a BLU Sniper dies dramatically in the arms of a BLU Soldier, seconds before the two get run over by a train. In "Meet the Pyro," an explosion cause the Blu Sniper to fall out a shack, he crawls, cries for "Help", and finds out too late that the ankle he grabs was the Red Pyro, who blasts him with the flamethrower.
    • Played more seriously in the comics, as he gets subjected to a Trauma Conga Line that leads to his death (Don't worry, he comes back).
  • Cold Sniper/Friendly Sniper: Zigzagged; Sniper is cold, cruel, and occasionally outright gleeful at killing his enemies; but he's also friendly towards his teammates and is very down-to-earth compared to the rest of the classes.
  • Consummate Professional: As close as you're gonna get in this game series anyway. It's hard for any character to be overly serious in this series, but the Sniper sure tries his darnedest.
  • Cool Shades
  • Crazy Prepared: "Have a plan to kill everyone you meet."
  • Cute Little Fangs: Watch him talk during "Meet the Sniper".
  • Do Not Run with a Gun: The Sniper moves noticeably slower while scoped in, and he's not very fast to begin with. Taken even further with the Cozy Camper, which reduces your speed while scoped even further in exchange for being unable to flinch and reduced knockback while aiming.
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: He keeps in contact with his mother via phone calls and postcards.
    • In the "Meet the Director" comic, he's very pissed off when an anonymous source (actually the Administrator) sends him photos of his parents as a threat.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: He might be a crazy gunman, but when he says professionals have standards, he means it. His kills are as quick as possible, only insulting the opponent when they're dead, and shows nothing but pure disgust at Classic Sniper's sadistically shooting Spy and letting him bleed slowly and painfully.
  • Every Bullet Is a Tracer: When you're using the Machina.
  • Fingerless Glove
  • Homemade Inventions: According to its publicity blurb, the Sniper created the Bazaar Bargain from an old bolt-action rifle, a long piece of metal, some bolts, one half of a binocular and a military-grade laser sight, all bought for just under three dinars.
  • Hypocrite/Hypocritical Humor: Despite his advice to "be polite" he still throws piss at people as a weapon and his domination taunts are very impolite.
  • Jerkass: Generally, the classes' lines of speech insult someone, and the Sniper has more lines than any other class. This trope is also noticeable because of his "be polite" rule.
  • Kukris Are Kool
  • Land Down Under
  • Lean and Mean: Especially in his domination lines to the Heavy.
  • Nice Hat
  • Not So Above It All: He claims to be polite, professional and have no emotional ties to his work. However, his lines toward enemies are very rage-filled and impolite. Not to mention the whole Jarate thing...
  • Professional Killer: Part of his rivalry with the Spy.
  • Scars Are Forever: The Sniper (of both teams, no less) has had a scar across his nose, cheek, and ear ever since "Meet the Spy", where the RED Spy cut the BLU Sniper's face with his knife before stabbing him in the back with it.
  • Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: In the "Meet the Sniper" video.
  • Sniper Rifle: Oh, really?
  • Sniper Scope Sway: Averted. When scoped in, all rifles will only move when your mouse moves.
  • Sophisticated As Hell: He goes into great detail in the art of assassination. Conversely, he also throws jars of piss at people.
  • Tall Poppy Syndrome: One of his domination lines towards the Engineer seems to be this.

"Not so smart with your brain outside your head, are ya?"

  • 'Tis Only a Bullet in the Brain: When equipped with a full Croc-o-Style kit, he cannot be killed by headshots, automatically setting his health to 1. It doesn't matter whether the bullet was charged or how much health he had before.
  • Thicker Than Water: Understandably averted. As his brief stance on Heaven shows, he considers his foster parents his true family over his biological ones.
  • Tranquil Fury: While he normally just delivers loud, cheery taunts on the battlefield, his voice completely changes to low, venomous one-liners when he's in for the kill. This also carries onto the comics, as The Medic can attest to personally.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: His parents do not care for his career choice. He spends quite a bit of the video speaking on the phone to his unseen father, who seems to think that the Sniper's some kind of crazed gunman. They do seem to accept him by the time they meet in Heaven in the comics.
  • Verb This: Several of his responses after killing a Spy goes along these lines.

"Sneak around that, ya phony scoundrel!"

Totally Not A Spy

The Spy

"Right behind you."

Voiced by: Dennis Bateman

French, with a weird accent that seems to take a drunken tour of most of southern Europe. A Badass in a Nice Suit. Upper class, balaclava mask, flower in lapel, wingtips, omnipresent cigarette. Equipment disguised as other stuff. He shared the update with the Sniper, and they'd been trying to constantly kill each other over it. Uses a revolver, an electro-sapper, a knife, a disguise kit, and an invisibility watch. Meet the Spy!

Tropes exhibited by The Spy include:

"You are an amateur and a fool!"

"Surprise!"

  • Big No: The Spy, when he gets hit by...

"Jarate? Nooooooooo!"

    • Also done mockingly in an unused taunt:

"They should call you whiners 'Dr. NOOOOOO!'"

  • Bond One-Liner: "I never really was on your side...", among others.
  • Brief Accent Imitation: In a few of his lines to an enemy Scout and Engineer.
  • Butterfly Knife
  • Butt Monkey: The BLU Spy was this in "Meet the Sniper", "Meet the Spy", "Meet the Medic", and "Meet the Pyro."
  • Cast as a Mask: In the "Meet the Spy" video, he is played by the Scout's voice actor until he removes his disguise.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder
  • Convenient Color Change: This is part of the Spy's infiltration.
  • Difficult but Awesome: The class is, amongst all of the classes, especially the light ones, the most laughable in the hands of a rookie. And yet half the metagame is based off his possible presence. That says it all.
    • That said, the Spy is the only class which can counter any other class with impunity, but unless you're actually good at quickswitching weapons and have the reflexes to use them, you'll be lucky to average 1 kill per lifetime, whereas other classes can easily average an upwards of 5 kills per life.
    • The Cloak and Dagger takes this Up to Eleven. Suddenly you have someone who can appear from almost anywhere, nearly silently, and insta-kill any class in the game. Hard to pull off but worth it when it works.
  • Disappeared Dad: A literal one to Scout.
  • Dissonant Serenity: Part of his schtick of being a high class gentleman.
  • Double Reverse Quadruple Agent: Trope Namer.
  • Evil Laugh: Subverted. During the Schadenfreude taunt, he laughs, then begins snorting. See Un Evil Laugh below.
  • Everything Sounds Sexier in French: His seduction of the Scout's mother probably counts.
    • At the end of his video, he calls her "Ma petit chou-fleur" ("My little cauliflower").
  • Face Palm: The Spy on any given losing team is seen doing this (unless he's in disguise) during Humiliation.
  • Failed a Spot Check: The Spy's flawless disguises actually consist of... a paper mask with a face painted on it. The enemy team must be rolling a lot of ones.
  • False Friend: The Spy's main tactic is to be one of these to the other team.
  • Foreign Cuss Word: One of the Spy's responses for losing a match or going to sudden death is "Ohhhhh... merde." "Merde" is the French equivalent of the expletive "shit".
  • French Jerk: Quite condescending towards his enemies.
  • Friend to All Children: Maybe not all children, but the BLU Spy seems pretty happy to be giving a kid a piggyback ride in this newspaper image.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes: While Pyro, Scout and Soldier can be either feared (the former) or disliked (the latter two), Spy is outright hated due to his behavior, being the one with the most enemies among his team (Sniper, Scout, Engineer and Pyro).
  • Gratuitous French/Spanish/Italian
  • Hand Cannon: His revolvers. One fan roughly computed his Ambassador as having a .668 caliber.
  • Hidden Depths: The RED Spy seems to be sincerely in love with the BLU Scout's mother, as apparent from his warm smile when he finds a photograph of them holding hands in a parking lot.
    • In the 2011 Christmas comic, the BLU Spy has a surprisingly tender conversation with a frightened child and even gives him a piggyback ride later on.
  • Hidden Heart of Gold: While all of the mercs are Jerks with a Heart of Gold to variable degrees, Spy would rather keep his rare kind moments to himself. Especially evident with his relationship with Scout.
  • Invisible Jerkass
  • Jerkass: More of one than he lets on. When doing particularly well (especially Dominating someone) he tends to drop his suave demeanor and resort to petty name calling and juvenile taunting. He'll also lose his cool if certain things happen to him: one of his responses to Jarate is an amazingly vicious growl of "I HATE YOU".
  • Kill and Replace: Spies have an "Identity Theft" achievement for killing the player they are disguised as.
    • Now literally doable with the 'Eternal Reward' - backstabbing automatically disguises you as who you just killed.
  • Knife Nut
  • Ladykiller in Love: The RED Spy with the BLU Scout's mother.
  • Lean and Mean: Just listen to how fond he is of calling Heavies "Fatty" or "Morbidly Obese."
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: "Meet the Spy" reveals that the RED Spy is dating the BLU Scout's mother, possibly making him Scout's father. There is currently an achievement for killing Scouts called "Who's Your Daddy?" This turns out to be true in the canon comics.
  • Major Injury Underreaction: "I do believe I'm on fire" and "I appear to have burst into flames." Interestingly, the third reaction is "Fire, fire, FIRE!"
  • A Man Is Not a Virgin: One of his post-domination lines for the Scout is "Here likes the Scout: He ran fast, and died a virgin."
  • Man of Wealth and Taste: He's quite proud of that suit, and gets quite angry if you get any of your blood on it.
  • Malevolent Masked Man: He is never seen without it.
  • Master of Disguise: He can even look like an allied Spy disguised as an enemy Spy!
  • The Mole
  • Not So Above It All: Probably the most professional of the classes, yet when he dominates enemies, he has some very immature things to say to them.
  • Not So Different: He has to sneak around and punishes enemies from behind. Kind of like a Backburner Pyro...
    • Spies with the gibus and camera beard are called Spybraham Lincoln. Consider that the Pyro's 1890 counterpart was, and might still be Honest Abe himself... The Pyro also has a misc item that was originally a hat, and they're both fake facial hair. Uncanny.
    • There are only two classes in TF2 with the majority of their faces concealed. Guess which two.
    • That Pyro is a Spy!! [4]
    • During Humiliation, all of the classes but two cringe in surrender. Guess who else merely acts annoyed with their teammates' stupidity?
    • We know all the hometowns of all the classes, except the Spy, who from an indeterminate region of France, and the Pyro, who is from an indeterminate... region.
  • Only Sane Man: Mostly in the comics.
  • Open Secret: Everyone in the team seems to have picked up the fact he's Scout's long-lost father.
  • Paranoia Fuel: Invoking this trope is most of the point of the class. Your allies? Could be enemy Spies (yes, even the Spies!). The Spy you just killed? Might not be dead. See something in the corner of your eye? A cloaked Spy, waiting for you to pass so he can stab you in the back.
    • The Cloak & Dagger has added a new level of paranoia, though - there could now be a spy ANYWHERE, waiting for a large, confusing battle in which to strike, stab and sap. Meanwhile, the Dead Ringer hardly helps matters - you finally killed that spy that was causing your team no end of misery! Except... maybe you didn't...
  • Pet the Dog: Along with the Scout and Soldier, the Spy defends Teufort's children from getting abducted by Old Nick. He teaches one to defend himself and later even happily lets the boy ride on his shoulders.
  • Professional Killer: Part of his rivalry with the Sniper.
  • Put Down Your Gun and Step Away: One of the Spy's taunts is "Just lay your weapons down and walk away."
  • Reverse Grip: The Spy normally carries his knife the same way the other classes hold their melee weapons, but will spin it around and hold it this way when backstabbing someone.
  • Sensei for Scoundrels: He taught a kid how to stab a man in the neck.

Jack: … I was so scared.
BLU Spy: And are you still scared?
Jack: Hm. No.
BLU Spy: Good. Merry Smissmas.

  • So Proud of You: He says this to Scout, his son, as he's dying (while disguised as Tom Jones).
  • Sophisticated As Hell: His default attitude is a cold, collected professional. When he's dominating someone, he instantly switches to a snorting, juvenile pun-thrower with all the elegance of a 12-year old (which he makes up for by being screamingly funny.)

"May I borrow your ear piece?" (in falsetto) 'This is Scout! Rainbows make me cry! Over!'"
"Here lies Scout. He ran fast and died a virgin."
"What's the matter? Fat got your tongue?"
"I'm looking at your X-ray, and I'm afraid you suck!"

Non-Player Characters

"Overtime!"

The Administrator (Real name: Helen)

"It saddens me that despite my best efforts to instruct and better you, some of you insist on finding new ways to fail."
Voiced by: Ellen McLain

The Voice. Also known as the Announcer, The Administrator is the source of the mysterious disembodied voice that announces vital events during the match, angrily berates the team upon failure and congratulates them upon victory. This disappointed and slightly angry Evil Overlord clearly lets you know in the world of Team Fortress, a tie does not mean everyone wins, but that everyone loses.

The Administrator secretly controls both RED and BLU (and, by extension, every country on the planet), supporting each team when necessary. To prevent either team from realizing this, she condemns any friendship between RED and BLU. She has an assistant named Miss Pauling and is also an acquaintance of Saxton Hale, allowing her to influence production of new weapons. The Administrator has an affinity for cigarettes and Punishment Monthly magazine, and occasionally posts on the official Team Fortress 2 blog, usually to berate the players for abusing glitches or exploits to gain unlockable items.

Tropes exhibited by The Administrator include:
The Loyal Assistant

Miss Pauling

"You know, forgetting for a minute that we don't condone friendship, it's sort of... almost... uh... reprehensible. Totally and completely reprehensible."

The Administrator's young and perky assistant, taking care a variety of odd jobs ranging from secretarial duties to carrying out hits and disposing of bodies. Despite having a much more merciful attitude, she still gets her jobs done efficiently.

Tropes exhibited by Miss Pauling include:
Machismo Ho!

Saxton Hale

"Half the time even I don't know why I'm hitting something!"

Testosterone Poisoning personified. Saxton Hale is the rugged Australian CEO of Mann Co., star of the Saxton Hale's Thrilling Tales comic series and an all-around man among men whose favorite pastimes include fighting, drinking and battling with rare and ferocious animals. Identifying features include his exceptional moustache, trademark shirtlessness, rippling muscles, crocodile-tooth lined hat and a patch of chest hair shaped like Australia. Saxton is the latest Hale to take up the reins of Mann Co. since Zepheniah Mann left its ownership to loyal aide and tracker Barnabus Hale in his last will and testament. His boisterous presence is felt in all areas of the company, from the slogan ("We sell products and get in fights") to the customer forms, which include tickboxes for informing product-thieving rivals that he is coming to pummel them to death with his bare hands. His inspiring image also features on numerous Mann Co. catalogs and promotional materials. He is known (and feared) for his belief in handling customer service issues personally, with his official policy being: "If you aren't 100% satisfied with our product line, you can take it up with me!".

Tropes exhibited by Saxton Hale include:

Barnabus Hale: Skip me for now, mayor! I like this cougar's pepper sauce!

Blutarch (top) and Redmond (bottom)

Redmond and Blutarch Mann

"I'm no closer to beating him than I was a hundred years ago!"

The two twin brothers who own RED and BLU, respectively. They are forced into partnership by their father for their constant bickering. Naturally, Blutarch decides to take the land by force by hiring nine mercenaries to perform a land grab; unfortunately, his brother thought the exact same. Thus, a stalemate. Since they could not take the land by force, both decided to simply outlive the other twin, hiring Radigan Conagher to build them a life extending machine.

Tropes exhibited by Redmond and Blutarch include:

Blutarch's assistant: Give him a moment, dear. He's just dead.

"I have mounted an epic campaign of leisure against the ravages of time. Waiting for nature to do to my brother what my men could not. And yet here we are at the end. And he... won't... DIE.

Quite a cheery guy, isn't he?

Zepheniah Mann

"I, Zepheniah Mann, being of sound mind, do hereby vow to haunt the earth as a horrifying poltergeist, until such time as I have quenched my all-consuming thirst for vengeance against the world, and especially against my dunderhead sons."

The above is taken from The Last Will And Testament of Zepheniah Mann, which is about 90% of his entire existence in the game's related media. (Although it seems like he does appear as an angry ghost in the Halloween map.) Patriach of an arms dealing empire who wasted his fortune on worthless land in the Americas, his will sets up a posthumous vengeful scheme to set his sons against each other forever, and sets up the Backstory for this game.

According to his will, he has only given his belongings to five people: his maid Elizabeth who got his personal estate, his tracker Barnabas Hale who took control of his business empire, his sons Blutarch and Redmond Mann who got the land to fight over, and a fifth character whose identity remains unknown as well as what he received.

He appears on the map Harvest Event as a ghost to haunt the mercenaries for waging noisy battles over his grave. Any player who gets too close gets stunned for several seconds.

Tropes exhibited by Zepheniah Mann include:
"..."

Radigan Conagher

"Alright."

The Engineer's soft-spoken grandfather, who was contracted to build an immortality machine for Blutarch Mann so he could outlive his brother Redmond. He was later asked by the Administrator's ancestor to create the same machine for Redmond as well. In exchange for this offer, Radigan was given one hundred pounds of Australium, an element that helped Australia become the world's most technologically advanced nation.

From this amount of Australium, Radigan created a variety of new inventions. However, the Australium's radiation eventually caused Radigan to become Australian; he went from a regular scientist to a muscular, shirtless, mustached scientist with a robotic left hand and chest hair in the shape of Texas.

Tropes exhibited by Radigan Conagher include:
TF2's Resident Headless Horseman

The Horseless Headless Horsemann

"Rwaa ha ha ha haaa!"

The crazed and powerful spirit of Zepheniah's apparent brother Silas Mann, the Horseless Headless Horsemann is the first boss NPC of Team Fortress 2. He is commonly found haunting Mann Manor.

Tropes exhibited by The Horseless Headless Horsemann include:
  • Alliterative Name: The Horseless Headless Horsemann, and the two items associated with him: the Horseless Headless Horsemann's Head and the Horseless Headless Horsemann's Headtaker.
  • Ax Crazy
  • An Axe to Grind
  • Camera Screw: The camera shakes when he's nearby. As if everything going dark and the music weren't unsettling enough.
  • Damage Sponge Boss: He has at least 3000 HP under his belt, with another 200 added for each player on the server. He also shows up only with a minimum of 10 players are on the server, meaning without cheats he always has at least 5000 HP.
    • Servers normally can hold up to 24 people, with some servers being able to hold up to 32 people. This means that the Horsemann can peak at around 7800-9400 HP. For comparison, the highest HP any player can go is 450, which is an overhealed Heavy.
  • Enemy Mine: Aside from passing off aggro and the more serious players, both teams commonly team up to defeat him when he spawns.
  • Headless Horseman: He wears a jack-o-lantern as a head, however.
  • Implacable Man
  • Large Ham: He doesn't even speak, and he manages to chew scenery with the best of them.
  • Lightning Bruiser: He is as fast as a scout's normal speed. Fortunately, he can't jump.
  • One-Hit Kill: Only two things can survive his Headtaker: A Wrangled Sentry, and a Dead Ringer Spy. And in both those cases, only just (and he'll probably swing again).
  • Oxymoronic Being
  • Palette Swap: Aside from his entrance, exit, and scaring animations, he's a sized up reskin of the Demoman.
  • Slasher Smile
Don't disturb him.

Merasmus the Magician

"Who dares disturb Merasmus the Magician?"

An old magician and an early contractor of the Demoman, partially responsible for the latter's loss of his eye. He is also currently the Soldier's roommate.

Tropes exhibited by Merasmus the Magician include:
He had his good eye on ya the whole time!

MONOCULUS!

The Demoman's disembodied left eye taken from his body and haunted upon opening a forbidden tome at Merasmus the Magician's castle. After Soldier enrages Merasmus, he unleashes the eye upon the team, setting up the events leading to the 2011 Halloween event.

Tropes exhibited by MONOCULUS! include:
  • Artificial Brilliance: His AI is more complex than the Horsemann, that's for sure. He leads his shots, prioritizes threats, and can juggle combo.
  • Berserk Button: Gets really pissed upon taking a critical hit.
  • Bold Inflation: His name is officially spelt in all-caps.
  • Damage Sponge Boss: Like the Horsemann, he can take an incredible pounding. Helps that he's resistant to miniguns and flamethrowers.
  • Death From Above: His main method of attack is to rain down smaller eyeballs which do the same damage as critical rockets on both teams.
  • Enemy Mine: Enforced, even more so than the Horsemann. When he appears, the capture point resets and both teams cannot cap until he is either defeated or leaves the map, so there's no point to killing each other, other than being a dick.
  • Evil Eye: Well, duh.
  • Faceless Eye
  • Get Back Here Boss: He teleports around a lot and will only stay around for 90 seconds, though this also makes it easier to defeat him because doing so opens up a portal to an area that if you can exit gives players invulnerability, crit-boosts, overheal, and a speed boost. Buffed players also stun him when they damage him.
  • Giant Eye of Doom
  • Glass Cannon: In comparison to the Horsemann being an immovable damage sponge, MONOCULUS! is easier to push around. He also has a hideously strong damage advantage, shooting eyeballs that kill most classes in a couple of hits.
  • Insistent Terminology: It's not "Monoculus", it's "MONOCULUS!". Valve also insist that upon being killed by him, the player must raise their hands toward the ceiling and scream the name at the top of their lungs. It's just the etiquette. And when the police arrive, be sure to explain!
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: See Turns Red below.
  • Taking You with Me: Anyone near him when he dies is coated in Jarate. And since he's no longer around, both teams are going to be focusing on each other again pretty quickly...
  • Time Limit Boss: He only hangs around for 90 seconds per appearance, so if you want the achievements for taking him down, make sure to do it quickly and hope the other players want to kill him as well.
  • Turns Red: Shooting him with critical hits will make him shoot volleys of faster projectiles that lead their targets flawlessly. He noticeably looks angrier when this happens.
    • Thanks to an update, defeating him causes him to become stronger when he next spawns.

Gray Mann

Gray's Mercenaries/The Classic Team (Unmarked spoilers!)

  • Adaptational Villainy: They certainly weren't heroes in their home game, but the comics prove them to be way, way worse than they appeared.
  • Anti-Villain: Subverted. They seem at first like they're just like the Modern Team in terms of goals, but as "The Naked and The Dead" shows, they prove to be more morally bankrupt and despicable than their modern counterparts.
  • A Father to His Men: Classic Heavy's sole redeeming quality is that he deeply cares about his team. Hell, he killed Gray Mann and tried to kill the TF2's team due to this trope.
  • Archnemesis Dad: It's confirmed TLC's Engineer Fred is Dell Conagher aka TF2's Engineer's father, though their relationship isn't shown enough to truly confirm this.
  • Artificial Limbs: TFC's Engineer has a robotic lower half.
  • Asshole Victim: After everything they've done, their deaths at the hands of the Modern Team are well-deserved.
  • Badass Crew: Mirroring TF2's team dynamics (minus the dysfunctionality), the whole team are this.
  • Bait the Dog: A consistent trait amongst them is that their laughable affability inevitably leads to utter depravity.
  • Big Bad: Classic Heavy usurps Gray Mann's position as this from "Old Wounds" to "The Naked and the Dead".
  • Evil Counterpart/Foil: To the Modern Team, obviously enough.
  • Evil Old Folks: All of them, especially Classic Heavy, Classic Pyro and Classic Sniper.
  • Hate Sink: Given the fact they oppose the hilariously sociopathic protagonist crew, they're clearly designed to be as utterly detestable and unsympathetic as possible (at least those given focus) as of "The Naked and the Dead".
  • Immortality Seeker: Classic Heavy's true goal. The others are Only in It For the Money.
  • Karma Houdini Warranty: After previous issues having them as unstoppable forces one-upping the modern team and even their own boss with little to no consequence, all of them save Classic Engineer get their comeuppance in "The Naked and The Dead", with Classic Heavy's being particularly brutal.
  • Kick the Dog: He wasn't a nice guy beforehand, but Classic Heavy's mistreatment of Modern Medic is completely atrocious, the lowest points being crushing his pet Archimedes and killing him in front of Modern Heavy out of spite. He pays for it dearly.
  • Kick the Son of a Bitch: Classic Heavy killing Gray Mann, though it's later flipped by Gray having a pitiful demise and Classic Heavy turning out to be more despicable than Gray ever was.
  • Killed Off for Real: By "The Naked and the Dead", all of them are dead except for Classic Engineer and perhaps Classic Medic.
  • Knight of Cerebus: Even worse than their own employer, who was already this. Fitting, considering the tone of TFC.
  • Moral Myopia: Classic Heavy is pissed off when the Modern Team kill their own members, but is apparently a-ok to kill and torture their own members, not to mention killing his own employer.
  • Samus Is a Girl: Classic Pyro turns out to be an old woman named Beatrice.
  • The Starscream: Classic Heavy offs Gray Mann in "Old Wounds".
  • Villain Ball: They pull it in "The Naked and the Dead", all the more baffling since they avoided this trope before.
  • Walking Spoiler
  • Would Hurt a Child: Classic Soldier and Scout planned to get "an endless supply of free kids" for something clearly nefarious. Modern Pyro did not take that well.


Back to Team Fortress 2
  1. ↑ After being ignited by the Pyro
  2. ↑ The Spy and Heavy are better ambushers, the Demoknight is a better melee combatant, etc
  3. ↑ Something that will always beat something else
  4. ↑ They both have the same voice actor
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