TF2: The Complete Character Lore

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Do you know which of the Team Fortress mercs  is canonically named Jane? Or which two are   officially father and son? Or which one has drank  so much alcohol that normal food makes his body   think that it's been poisoned? ... Actually, you  can probably guess that last one pretty easily.   Let's dive into the real lives of the Team  Fortress mercenaries, as revealed throughout   the officially published comic strips, official  trading cards and other Valve published lore. Let's meet the *real* team. Firstly, some  important context on what the story of Team   Fortress 2 even is. Now, I'm not going to go  into a lot of detail here as by the developers'   own admission TF2's story is more convoluted  than Half-Life or even Portal's, but it is   important to cover a few things so we can better  understand just who these nine people are and   give some context to the important life events  that we're going to talk about in this video. The BLU team and the RED team are actually  two separate groups of mercenaries,   both working for a company called TF Industries  - unbeknownst to each other - and employed to   fight each other repeatedly at the demands  of the mysterious Administrator - the same   person whose voice we hear whilst playing  the game. Despite the BLU and RED teams being   canonically different people, the majority  of Team Fortress's story only focuses on   one team and only ever really fleshes out the  personalities and life of one of each merc. So for the sake of this video, we won't be  talking about both Scouts or both Soldiers,   etc. just *the* Scout and *the* Soldier and  so on. At a critical point in the story,   the company that supplies the weapons to TF  industries and our mercs - Mann co. - gets taken   over and set upon by the robots of Mann versus  Machine mode, ultimately leading to TF industries   being abandoned by the Administrator and the end  of the fighting between the BLU and RED mercs. The majority of the story from this point on  then features Miss Pauling, the Administrator's   assistant, reuniting one set of our mercs,  hunting down the robots and their creator,   and fighting the Team Fortress Classic version  of themselves and a horde of killer robots in   what ends in a massive cliff-hanger we've now been  waiting over five years to read the conclusion of. Now, as I said, that is an extremely short  version, and I've purposely left out some   key details and character names in an attempt  to reduce confusion to anyone who might not be   familiar with the story at all. But of course,  if anyone is interested in a more comprehensive   story overview or a video in the same style as  this one focusing on the non-player characters   of the TF2 universe, then please do let me know  and if there's enough interest, I would love to   make those videos too. So with all of that out of  the way, let's profile our mercs, starting with   those that we know the least about and moving  through to the juicier and juicier details.   Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most  that we know the least about is,   of course, Pyro. We don't know their name. Heck, we don't even know their gender. With  that said, Pyro is referred to several times as   "he", "him", "his" or "sir" in the  comics, including by Miss Pauling,   who is second in command at TF Industries - the  company who employed Pyro in the first place.   So if anyone knows Pyro's true identity then  it's going to be Pauling. But on the flip side,   Soldier does at one point suggest that he had  always had a suspicion that Pyro was a woman. And it's also worth noting that in the comics we  meet all nine of the Team Fortress Classic mercs   and only one of them is ostensibly female...  Pyro. And on the TF2 official website,   official trading card and the back of the  NECA action figure box, Pyro's profile reads:   "He's a fearsome, inscrutable on fire  Frankenstein of a man... If he even is a man" Of course, Pyro's lack of clear identity is,  ironically, part of Pyro's identity, and it seems   unlikely that will ever be any straight answers or  smoking guns confirming who or what is underneath   the mask. But believe it or not, that's not  actually where Pyro's story ends. In the comics,   during a period between TF industries being  abandoned and Miss Pauling reuniting everyone,   Pyro is found sitting as CEO at a successful  company called Frontier Engineering and is   considered to be personally responsible  for the company having a record quarter. Another interesting tidbit is the fact that Pyro  genuinely appears to see the world in Pyrovision   as originally shown in the Meet the Pyro short,  with multiple panels throughout the comics showing   us the world through Pyro's eyes in the same  bubblegum rainbow wonderland point of view. Next up is Heavy Weapons Guy. From the comics,  we know that his name is Mikhail or Misha as a   nickname. Whilst Heavy is, of course, outwardly  Russian, we learn from the comics that he's from   Siberia, and this action figure box tells  us specifically the Dzhugdzhur mountains.   Heavy loves his miniguns and he's named them all:  Sasha being his main one, Natasha, of course,   being his best known other gun. But also Svetlana.  Oksana, I'm Sheila. But despite being attached to   his metal killing machines, he also shows a lot  of compassion for his family. He lives with his   mum and three sisters, Bronislava, Yana and Zhana,  th e latter of which we'll hear about a bit later. Engineer: Real name Del Connagher,  from the town of Big Cave, Texas. Whilst many of our mercs might appear clever, but   mostly insane, Engineer is the most  genuinely intelligent. Having no fewer than   11 PhDs. Whils his personal history is never  explored in great detail, throughout the comics   his family are among the most important to the  main storyline. We all know about Australium from   the in-game universe: the extremely rare metal  used to decorate sought after expensive weapons. The Engineer's grandfather - Radigan Conagher -  built a series of machines that use Australium   as fuel to extend a person's life and Dell  - our Engineer - has continued that work,   iterating and improving on the design during  his time working for the Administrator.   Throughought the comics's story obtaining  Australium and using it to extend life is *the*   main plot point motivating the lead antagonist  as well as the other main non-player characters. If it wasn't for Engineer's grandfather,  and in the present day period of the comics,   Engineer himself, this motivation wouldn't even  exist. So whilst the other mercs definitely get   more screen time, Engineer is *the* most important  merc when it comes to the underlying story. The Sniper on the back sleeve  of his NECA action figure   we find out that Sniper's real name is Mick Mundy. However, we find out in the course of the  comics that his birth name is actually   Mun-dee in the same style as his parents' names:   Bil-Bel and Lar-Nah. And perhaps most surprisingly  of all, he's actually from New Zealand,   which in the Team Fortress universe is a  sunken underwater world covered in a glass   dome. With that said, Sniper is shown to have  been blasted out of underwater New Zealand on   a rocket whilst just a young baby adopted  by Australians and brought up in Australia. Miss Pauling also addresses Sniper's  adoptive parents as Mr and Mrs Mundy   suggesting that Sniper's birth name being  Mun-dee and adoptive surname being Mundy   making his name technically Mun-dee Mundy  is maybe just a happy little coincidence. The Spy. It goes without saying  that we don't know a lot about Spy.   Arguably more so than Pyro, a lack of  identity as part of Spy's character. His name is unknown and whilst of course, being  a Spy, he could be pretending to be French,   his France origin is confirmed on the website and  on the back of his action figure box, along with   his ability to speak French, Spanish and Catalan.  As with Engineer, his personal history isn't much   expanded on in the comics, but we do see a couple  of interesting moments reinforcing his in-game   character, such as a mention of his suit costing  $10,000 and his teeth apparently housing a series   of miniature items such as a full roast dinner.  Spy often hints about having a more than friendly   relationship with Scout's mother: There's Scout  specific voice lines, the art and the side of the   Ambassador is suggested to show an enemy's mother,  and there's straight up photographs of them   together in the Meet the Spy short. But in the  comics, it is pretty much said directly: Spy *is*   Scout's father. Spy believing the Scout to be on  the verge of death disguises himself as Welsh pop   legend Tom Jones (who we see elsewhere in  the comics that Scout is a big fan of) and   Spy admits to having dropped a sex bomb in Scout's  mother. He even then directly calls Scout "son". The Scout. During the epic reveal  where we learn that Spy is Scouts dad,   we also learn two more things about Scout: he  is 26 or 27 years old, and his name is Jeremy. We elsewhere learn that Scout is from Boston  as his accent and multiple item names suggest.   He's the youngest of eight brothers, which  is what ultimately led him to be able to   run as fast as he can. Scout is frequently  shown as being not particularly intelligent   including lacking basic reading skills. He's  a huge fan of Tom Jones - who we already know   that Spy disguises himself as when revealing  himself to be Scout's dad - and Scout has a huge   collection of Tom Jones memorabilia, as well as  having a misspelt Tom Jones tattoo on his chest. Scout is a hopeless romantic for the  Administrator's assistant Miss Pauling,   constantly trying and failing to  woo her and is apparently completely   unperturbed - or perhaps unaware - of  her polite and consistent rejections. The Medic: from Stuttgart, Germany. During  a brief time where the Medic is dead and   negotiating a deal with the devil, we  find out that his name is Mr. Ludwig. That's right: Mister, not Doctor. Because it's  confirmed in multiple places that Medic apparently   has no formal medical training. Instead, he  just takes a fascination and experimenting on   living things. This experimenting even  involves somehow separating the very   souls out of the other eight mercs  apparently without their knowledge   and this is what ultimately allows  him to successfully trick the devil   and come back to life after being very thoroughly  killed by the team Fortress Classic Heavy. Medic appears to have no real moral leaning  towards nor against our mercs and in fact,   through much of the story, he's actually working  against the rest of the team. But similarly, he   does bring Sniper back from the dead by replacing  his organs with those of various exotic animals,   he brings a bunch of the other  mercs back from the dead by simply   squishing any old blood back inside  them and he does ultimately avenge   his own murder by helping Heavy kill the  Team Fortress Classic Heavy after having   experimented on him by somehow surgically  implanting a baboon uterus inside of him. The Demoman. Full name Tavish Finnegan  Degroot. Place of origin: Ullapool, Scotland.   Demoman is one of the more fleshed  out characters in the TF2 comic series   with his background not just explored  a little during the main series,   but also featuring heavily in  the Halloween event spin-offs. We know how Demo Man lost his eye: at seven  years old on Halloween night he goes to   work for none other than Merasmus, the wizard  who haunts Ghost Fort during in-game events.   Whilst working there that night, Demoman is  spoken to by the Magical Bombinomicon - The book,   which is also a re-occurring Halloween and game  character. Demo is tricked into opening the book,   he gets his eye haunted by the trickster spirit  of the magical book and thus Monoculus is fortmed. That's right. Monoculus is Demoman's  Haunted missing eye. However,   during the course of the mainline comics,  Medic reveals that he has grown Demoman's   eye back no fewer than eight times,  but something haunted always happens,   leading them to conclude that it's the *eye  socket* which is haunted, not the eye itself. On his trading card, which released all the way  back at 2008, it stated that a failed plan to   blow up the Loch Ness Monster at the age of  six led to the death of his natural parents.   However, on the official website, this sentence  is changed to say it caused the death of his   original *adoptiv*e parents, and this page doesn't  appear to have been updated since at least 2011.   However, however, the box for his 2013 NECA  action figure (which for all the other mercs   usually has exactly the same or similar text  as the trading card and official website) makes   no mention of this at all, suggesting  a possible retcon to the parenticide,   accidental or otherwise. And indeed in the comics,  whilst Demoman's dad is confirmed to be dead,   we do meet his mum several times (who could  of course plausibly be an adoptive mother...   Well, a second adopted mother if the official  website text is to be taken as fact).   But either way, we do learn that he lives with  this mum and that working jobs and making money   is apparently very important to her and even  though they live in a massive futuristic mansion   and Demoman earns over $5 million a year,  she still thinks he should be working harder. And of course we can't forget Demoman's other  dear, loving relationship: Alcohol. At one point   in the comics Demo is fed normal food and kept off  alcohol for a period of time, which leads his body   to start reacting like it's being poisoned. But  fear not because his consistent drinking from an   apparently young age enables his body to react  appropriately, with his organs seemingly under   their own steam converting his stomach into a  distillery and fermenting bone marrow thus giving   him a high enough blood alcohol level to start  poisoning the robots who are attacking him... It wouldn't be Team Fortress without  amazing nuggets of trivia like that. The Soldier. Throughout the comics soldier is  regularly referred to as Mr. Jane Doe. For those   unaware, Jane Doe is the name typically given to  an unidentified female corpse. Now, obviously,   soldier is not an unidentified female corpse,  but he is shown throughout the comics to be   consistently the stupidest of our mercenaries,  leaving it completely open to possibility that   he has somehow mistaken Jane Doe as being  his own name, even though it might not be. Despite this outward stupidity, Soldier  shows an impressive ability to acquire jobs   and at various points is apparently a sergeant,  barrister, a priest in at least one state,   a qualified exorcist in Guam, a public defender,   a tour guide of celebrity homes and...  winner of a nose picking contest. Soldier   has a more than business relationship with  more characters than any of the other mercs. Firstly is the wizard Merasmus, who Soldier is  revealed to have been roommates with. In a series   of bizarre stunts, including inadvertently getting  Merasmus's castle turned into a raccoon sanctuary,   Merasmus ends up moving in with the real Tom  Jones, only for a soldier to show up on the   aforementioned celebrity homes tour and kill  Tom Jones, framing Merasmus in the process. Soldier also meets and seemingly instantly  falls in love with one of Heavy's sisters,   Zhana. Soldier and Zhana's escapades form one of  the main subplots throughout comics three through   six... and presumably seven, should it ever be  released. They start by immediately making love   as soon as they meet; separating from the  main squad and infiltrating an enemy base;   breaking out of interrogation; apparently get  engaged; get naked, covered, head to toe in honey   and bare knuckle fight a horde of killer robots;  Zhana intimidates Miss Pauling for ogling soldier;   and, rather fittingly, the last panel we see them  in together is alongside Pauling, Saxton Hale and   his partner Maggie, the rest of the mercs except  Engineer... and a recently delivered baby baboon. So there we are. Those are our mercs. But as I said at the  start, there's plenty of other characters,   like the Administrator, Miss Pauling,  Saxton Hale and his whole story arc,   as well as the entire Mann family whose namesake  is Mann Co. that we hardly touched on at all.   So if you think you'd like another "Meet the  REAL" episode focusing on the side characters,   then please do let me know in the comments below. And whilst you're there, why not tell me what  your favorite factoid is about our nine mercs,   whether it's one mentioned in this video  or not. If you enjoyed this video, you'll   probably also enjoy this one about TF2's coolest  glitched items or this one that the magic YouTube   algorithm thinks that you;ll like. And of course,  if you're new here, don't forget to subscribe. Thanks, and have fun!
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Channel: Casperr
Views: 2,684,503
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: tf2 gameplay, team fortress 2 gameplay, let's play team fortress 2, tf2 story, tf2 official story, tf2 comics, tf2 real story, tf2 meet the, tf2 meet the team, pyro gender, scout father, spy scouts dad, soldiers name, jane doe, tf2 lore, tf2 canon
Id: rQmeH0k_wSc
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Length: 17min 7sec (1027 seconds)
Published: Sat May 21 2022
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