Wing Commander/Characters: Difference between revisions

This list is alphabetical, but it's appropriate that Blair be its first entry, as he is the [[Player Character]] for most of the franchise's entries and one of its most central figures overall. Heroic, earnest and [[Hello, Insert Name Here|originally nameless]], he was portrayed by Freddie Prinze Jr. in [[The Movie]], and by [[Mark Hamill]] in the later games and the animated series.

 

* [[Four-Star Badass]]: Upgraded from [[Colonel Badass]] to this in ''Prophecy'', where he even flies a mission on your wing {{spoiler|before getting captured by the Nephilim}}.

* [[Got Volunteered]]: Spirit of all people does this during a rescue mission briefing.

* [[I Have Many Names]]: Bluehair, [[Canon Name|Blair]], "[[My Greatest Failure|The Coward of the K'tithrak Mang]]," "[[Worthy Opponent|The Heart of the Tiger]]," "[[The Hero|The Savior of the Confederation]]," "[[Lampshade Hanging|The guy from Star Wars]]"...

* [[Military Maverick]]: "Maverick" is an [[Ironic Nickname]], as [[Word of God]] claims he got his call sign as a sarcastic reference to his by-the-book flying style. However, on occasion (as noted in the [[Leeroy Jenkins]] entry), he has fit the trope in a non-ironic sense.

* [[You Gotta Have Blue Hair]]: As a result of the limited color palette available to VGA displays of the time the first game came out, the [[Player Character]] was given blue hair. When the series went to [[Full Motion Video|FMV]], this resulted in the last name of the character becoming "Blair".

 

 

* [[Ascended Extra]]

* [[Running Gag]]: His name. Many attempt to say it, most botch it badly.

* [[Unusual User Interface]]: In the novel ''False Colors'', he's offered the chance to have his cybernetic replacement arm (mentioned above) wired so he's directly connected to his fighter's controls. He declines the offer.

A mercenary out on the fringes of Confederation society, and thanks to an alien artifact a player in the Gemini Sector, in ''Privateer'' and its add-on ''Righteous Fire''.

 

 

== Lance Casey ==

* [[The Other Darrin]]: ''not'' voiced by Petrarca in ''Secret Ops''. (The credits are sparse enough that we're not sure who took over the role.)

* [[Right Behind Me]]: He starts bad-mouthing Commodore Blair, who inevitably appears. After being made aware of Blair's presence, he goes into full "recruit greeting a senior officer" mode.

 

== Michael "Iceman" Casey ==

A wingman from the first game, Casey was killed in action not long after his son Lance was born. He was a ''very'' good pilot: generally, you'd fly four or five missions with each wingman, with the best ones saved for the late-game adventures. Iceman was second-to-last.

 

* [[Dead Little Sister]]: Some unnamed members of his family were killed by the Kilrathi on Vega IX. He was pissed.

* [[Nerves of Steel]]

* [[The Quiet One]]

A pilot introduced in the original game's first expansion pack, Colson is more notable for being [[The Mole]], the first perpetrator of the "secret defector" subplot which the franchise seemed to love.

 

** [[Just for Pun|Because, y'know, Blair made him play a harp]].

* [[Frame-Up]]: He destroyed evidence to make Blair get blamed for the destruction of the ''Tiger's Claw''.

* [[Les Collaborateurs]]

* [[The Mole]]

 

== Rachel Coriolis ==

One of the first wingmen you fly with in ''Wing Commander I''. He's Blair's rival from the Academy, scoring second in their graduating class, and is also something of a [[Foil]], the [[Red Oni, Blue Oni|Red Oni]] to our Bluehair. Played by Tom Wilson in the later games and animated show, and Matthew Lillard in the movie.

 

** And then subverted in how he's next to useless when you fly with him, almost never follows orders and runs away at the earliest opportunity. He's quite the match when he challenges Blair to a duel though.

* [[Born Lucky]]: How Maniac has managed to survive for so long, according to Blair. He goes on to tell Catscratch that "there's one on every ship, but only one".

* [[Guile Hero]]: one of his most fabled exploits was in coming across two Kilrathi destroyers whilst flying a [[Fragile Speedster|dinky little patrol fighter]]. Through judicious taunts and dazzling flying alone, he was able to convince the two ships to ''[[Ramming Always Works|smash into each other]]'', with all hands lost.

* [[Hidden Depths]]: He's genuinely rattled by {{spoiler|Vagabound's}} death, and surprisingly points out that certain actions that you can take in [[WC 4]] might not be entirely moral.

* [[Leeroy Jenkins]]

* [[Limited Advancement Opportunities]]: Maniac just can't seem to get and stay past Major. Mostly it's his own fault, though.

'''Blair''': I wouldn't finish that sentence if I were you, ''Major.'' }}

* [[The Scrappy/Video Games|The Scrappy]]:

** But then, it seems like his [[The Scrappy|Scrappiness]] is deliberate. After all, he's played by [[Hey, It's That Guy!|Biff Tannen]].

'''Maniac:''' My promotion came?! MY PROMOTION--! <claps> ... Confed, that's--that's not right ... }}

* [[Shout-Out]]: Pulls one as an alternate ending to his scene with Blair and Flint.

* [[Suicidal Overconfidence]]: He tends to get killed a lot for blindly charging at the enemy in the original game. Once he gets [[Plot Armor]], this becomes a justified trope: he's ''just that good''. The problem, again, is that nobody else is.

* [[Ted Baxter]]

* [[Worthy Opponent]]: Maniac sees himself as this to Blair. To his credit, while he's obsessed with one-upping Blair, he absolutely insists that it must happen in a completely fair fight.

 

* [[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"]]: Her name is mentioned in dialog, but much of the time she was addressed by her nickname.

* [[Official Couple]]: she and Bear.

* [[Wrench Wench]]

 

== Simon "McGoo" LeDuke ==

 

== Etienne "Doomsday" Montclair ==

 

* [[Doomy Dooms of Doom]]

'''Spirit:''' What an uplifting sentiment. }}

* [[The Eeyore]]: Almost every comm message he ever sends you is about his impending death. ("Yay, we killed everyone. I bet I'm going to die now.")

* [[Knife Nut]]

* [[Master Race]]

 

== Ian "Hunter" St. John ==

A "loose cannon" on the decks of the ''Claw'', Hunter is the final wingman of the first game. He also figures a couple of the [[Expanded Universe]] novels.

 

* [[Leeroy Jenkins]]: Hunter obeys orders. Sometimes. When he feels like it. Which is not very often.

* [[Land Down Under]]: Name an Australian slang cliche, and Hunter has most likely said it at least once.

* [[Bonnie Scotland]]: Complete with [[Funetik Aksent]]

* [[Cool Old Guy]]

* [[Old Soldier]]: Played to the hilt.

* [[Team Dad]]: pilots have jokingly called him "Mother Hen".

 

== Mariko "Spirit" Tanaka ==

* [[Bilingual Bonus]]: Spirit's last words to Blair, before her [[Heroic Sacrifice]]. It's not, however, much of a bonus since your character translates it for you during the mission debriefing.

* [[Colonel Badass]]: A Lieutenant Colonel, but has enough badass to qualify.

* [[Got Volunteered]]: She pulls this on Maverick when told of a Confed ship that needs rescuing. It kind of backfires when it turns out to be a captured Confed ship that lures would be rescuers into a trap.

* [[Gratuitous Japanese]]

* [[Japanese Honorifics]]: Being Japanese, she often calls Maverick "Blair-san", and her commanding officer as "Colonel-sama" in the first game. This stops in the second game.

* [[Me Love You Long Time]]: A decade's worth actually, Spirit is this to her fiance Philip, to the point where the traitor attempts to blackmail her with his life. She reacts about as well as you might expect.

* [[Ramming Always Works]]: Heaven's Gate is a heavily armored space station that Confed thinks will stand up even to bombers. Spirit has a rather unorthodox, [[Tear Jerker]], but effective solution, given that her ship is too damaged to survive a return to base, thanks to sabotage by Jazz.

* [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]: She'll mention having fantasies of this after her fiance is taken. It doesn't quite happen.

 

== Geoffrey Tolwyn ==

First introduced in ''Wing Commander II'' as a weird combination of [[Obstructive Bureaucrat]] and [[Insane Admiral]], Tolwyn appears to have something of a vendetta against Blair, believing wholeheartedly in the cowardist propaganda spread against him and resenting the need to take Blair aboard his flagship, the ''Concordia''. Then the third game rolled around and [[Malcolm McDowell]] stepped into the role...

 

* [[General Ripper]]: He was a Space Marshall for all of five minutes, above even admiral, where some of his actions at the lower rank included [[Complete Monster|genetic profiling and eradication of anyone who did not fit his mold through bioweapons]].

* [[He Who Fights Monsters]]: The near-destruction of humanity during the Kilrathi War led him to conclude that Humanity must evolve into a warrior race via the horrific culling of the weak and near-constant warfare.

* [[Military Maverick]]: He is described as tactically brilliant but untrustworthy, too intent on fighting his own war to make a truly effective tool of Confed.

* [[Narrative Profanity Filter]]: In the novel ''Fleet Action'', when the [[Catfolk|Kilrathi]] Baron Jugaka demanded humanity's surrender, Admiral Tolwyn said, "Direct your inquiry to President Quinson. I'm sure he will tell you to go perform a certain impossible anatomical act." When the baron specified he wanted the fleet's surrender, Tolwyn "replied with what he assumed the President would have said."

 

== Kevin "Lone Wolf" Tolwyn ==

* [[Hey, It's That Voice!]]: In the Sega CD version, he's voiced by [[Cam Clarke]].

* [[Mission Control]]

* [[Reasonable Authority Figure]]

* [[Unfriendly Fire]]: He suggests this as a way to deal with Maniac if he becomes recalcitrant in a briefing

A defector from the Kilrathi empire, Ralgha ''nar'' Hhallas joins the Confederation and is even accepted into the Space Forces, eventually achieving the rank of Colonel. Of course, since he's a Cat, a lot of people mistrust him; as such it doesn't hurt him to be loyal to Blair despite his disgrace in the second game, but since the Kilrathi are a [[Proud Warrior Race]], [[Undying Loyalty|Hobbes' trust means something]]. In the third game he gets an even bigger role.

 

* [[Fantastic Racism]]

* [[Face Heel Turn]]

* [[Fake Defector]]

* [[Token Heroic Orc]]

* [[Tragic Monster]]

* [[Worthy Opponent]]: After being outed, leaves behind a recording for Blair indicating his respect for him and regret that, in order to remain loyal to the Kilrathi, he must betray him.

 

 

== Melek ==

 

* [[Friendly Enemies]]: with Blair, whom he considers a [[Worthy Opponent]]. Some Kilrathi certainly go on feeling the shame of losing to the "hairless apes," but Melek is not one of them.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Characters]]