Light Warriors (8-Bit Theater)

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Collectively known as the Warriors of Light (or simply "the Light Warriors"), Black Mage, Fighter, Thief and Red Mage are the main characters of 8-Bit Theater. Their names and appearances are based on four classes from the first Final Fantasy game.

Despite composing the "classic" heroic party, they are, for the most part, incompetent, dysfunctional, have few redeeming traits and tend to do more harm than good. Though most of their acts of evil have been perpetrated by Black Mage, the other characters (Thief in particular) do occasionally go off on rampages of destruction. As Brian Clevinger stated in the forum thread for Episode 686: "I'm not sure why the Light Warriors worry about obstacles or monsters standing in their way. They are nothing compared to the obstacles and monsters within the party." ^[1]

1 Black Mage Evilwizardington
2 Fighter McWarrior
3 Thief AKA Prince Elf, Clan Khee'bler
4 Red Mage
5 References
6 See also

[edit] Black Mage Evilwizardington

Black Mage, before and after his class change.

First Appearance: Episode 001: We're going where?

Black Mage is a chaotic, egotistical, power-hungry and murderous wizard who is highly proficient in black, i.e. destructive, magic. He bears a pathological hatred towards almost everybody on the planet^[2] and is, in fact, so thoroughly evil that his conscience is split in his evil side and his atrociously evil side.^[3] The distinction between the two sides is blurring at a rapid pace.^[4] Black Mage's face is always shadowed; according to him, it is so non-Euclidean that no one can look at it without going insane.^[5] His mastery of the arcane stems from the fact that he is actually the human incarnation of a nexus of raw magical power.^[6]

Black Mage is primarily out to gain more power and find a way to kill his teammates, whom he despises. He has shown occasional respect for Thief's potential for evil,^[7]^[8] but reserves a special kind of loathing for Fighter, whom he views as the most idiotic person in existence and frequently tries to murder, but still keeps around as a meat shield for himself.^[9] Black Mage also has a fixation on his polar opposite, White Mage, and is continually trying to seduce her.^[10]^[11]^[12] As White Mage despises Black Mage as the incarnation of all evil, this usually results in White Mage smashing Black Mage with her hammer.^[13]^[14]^[15] However, Black Mage (very) rarely shows a sensitive, compassionate side of his personality^[16], which White Mage is attracted to.

Black Mage as the King of Hell

Black Mage was, at one point, killed by the fiend Lich^[17] and subsequently spent a short time as the king of Hell, taking over by removing the resident demons' spines.^[18] Unfortunately, Lich himself went to Hell shortly thereafter, gave the demons' their spines back and returned Black Mage to life. During this short time, Black Mage was far more powerful than usual, and the effects could be felt all over the world (for example, the witch Matoya would only get the message "The Destroyer is manifest" from her crystal ball until Black Mage was returned to mortal life).^[19] When a demon makes Black Mage mortal again, this leads to him yelling the comic's only uncensored instance of the word "fuck".^[20]^[21]

While in the Castle of Ordeals, every one of the Light Warriors had to face a personification of their cardinal sin. Black Mage's was a doppelgänger and unlike the other Light Warriors, his was not named for any single sin, as the only thing evil enough to represent him was himself.^[22] Eventually, Black Mage ended up killing it and re-absorbing the evil its death set free, thereby avoiding all possibility of redemption.^[23]

Afterwards, Black Mage was granted a class change by Bahamut, like the other Light Warriors. However, Black Mage still needed the help of a Dark God, who unbound "the nexus" and completed his change to a Blue Mage^[24]. This enables him to learn and use certain attacks that he survives being hit with.

[edit] Fighter McWarrior

Fighter, before and after his class change.

First Appearance: Episode 001: We're going where?

Fighter is a warrior specializing in swords and master of The Twelve Schools of Vargus-do Zodiac-Style Swordplay (Zodiac Kenshido for short),^[25] capable of wielding more than one sword at once. Fighter is extremely resilient towards physical damage in general and easily recovers, even from injuries that, by all rights, should have killed him.^[26] Skilled as he is, he is also extremely naïve, childlike and has an almost single-minded sword fixation,^[27]^[28] as well as a short attention span^[29] and a severe case of arachnophobia.^[30]^[31] He does, however, show surprising bursts of intelligence on occasion, and has been shown to be a brilliant linguist, deciphering the Overcomplicatian riddle at Gurgu Volcano^[32] and being the first to realize the way the Leifenish language works.^[33] Unfortunately, due to Fighter's ordinarily ignorant disposition, his wisdom normally goes ignored by the team.

Fighter has a strong desire for heroism, which is his main reason for adventuring. He considers the Light Warriors archetypes of heroes, remaining ignorant towards their often cowardly and (in the case of Black Mage) cold-blooded actions. He's not only completely unaware of Black Mage's feelings of hate towards him, but also considers him his best friend in the world, despite Black Mage's frequent attempts to kill him.

Fighter is the creator of Sword-Chucks, a weapon consisting of two swords linked by a chain — a combination of twin swords and a nunchaku. At first, this is an obvious joke weapon, being as dangerous to the wielder as to his opponents. However, Fighter successfully used Sword-Chucks to fight Kary, the Fiend of Fire, to a standstill.

In the Castle of Ordeals, Fighter faced the representation of Sloth, who told him he had to stop relying on his swordfighting abilities as given rather than improving on them. He also had to learn to use his mind as well as his blades; upon this revelation, Fighter immediately cut Sloth to pieces because his brain told him "this would be faster."^[34]

Afterwards, he changed his class to a Knight, gaining the ability to whirl his swords at very high speeds (so high as to create sonic booms), as well as the ability to block attacks from hitting his comrades.^[35]

[edit] Thief AKA Prince Elf, Clan Khee'bler

Thief, before and after his class change.

First Appearance: Episode 004: Fight heroes, fight!

Thief, the (self-proclaimed) leader of the Light Warriors, is a sneaky and cunning Elven thief and the Prince of Elfland. He is also the second most malevolent of the Light Warriors. His main assets are his skills at thievery and his wits; Thief claims to be able to steal anything that isn't nailed down or on fire, including intangible objects such as souls, secrets, and things that aren't there. In addition, he manipulates people with legal contracts and, in fact, became the group's leader by talking Fighter into signing such a contract.^[36] Thief rarely engages in physical combat, preferring to hide and let the others do the work; when he does, he has a tendency to ambush opponents.

He originally appeared in the Giant's Forest, where he accosted Black Mage. He then followed Black Mage and Fighter to Corneria, where he applied for the job of Light Warrior with them.

He originally left his kingdom in secret in order to raise money for a cure for his dying father, though he continued stealing even after his father was cured. Thief, much like the other Elves, is incredibly arrogant, and considers all non-Elven races, particularly Dwarves, to be below him. Thief has no moral qualms about stealing and regards the other Light Warriors as his lackeys and holds little, if any, respect for them. He refuses to believe that dragons exist, even when face-to-face with one.

Thief was supposed to face the representation of Avarice in the Castle of Ordeals, but due to a mix-up, Black Mage ended up facing and beating it, making Thief the only Light Warrior who didn't actually face his personal ordeal.

Afterwards, he changed his class to a Ninja and gained the ability to use anything as a throwing weapon, including teammates and enemies. Further, his hand-to-hand combat skills and agility were increased, enabling him, for example, to counter-attack at blinding speed. His stealing abilities were increased as well, even to the point where he could steal things from the future, as he did with his class change, and alter the past, which constituted him retroactively changing his costume from red to black.

[edit] Red Mage

Red Mage, before and after his class change.

First Appearance: Episode 034: Introductions Are In Order

Red Mage is the most knowledgable and versatile, yet also the most delusional and cocky, of the Light Warriors. Although not as malevolent as Black Mage or Thief, he does have a certain degree of amorality. He believes that he is in a stat sheet RPG (such as D&D) and acts accordingly and fully within the rules of such a reality. He carries a character sheet listing his personal statistics and abilities, which he is able to erase and rearrange at a moment's notice. The altered statistics affect his abilities accordingly. Further, he values — to the point of obsession — being as versatile as possible, citing versatility as the reason for being a Red Mage in the first place and prides himself on such traits. According to his character sheet, “Red Mage is driven by a single desire: to find the perfect combination of stats, attributes, skills, and special abilities to achieve immortality." ^[37]. Red Mage possesses fighting skills, as well as the ability to cast both White and Black Magic (specifically ice spells).

Red Mage is the main "strategist" of the group. His plans, however, are more often than not overcomplicated and bizarre. While in accordance with logics on a certain level, his plans frequently include obvious flaws, such as his idea to construct a cold fusion reactor entirely from ice. Thus, most of the time, Red Mage's plans fail horribly, due to the laws of physics and the actions of other people getting in the way. However, his stratagems have proven surprisingly successful a number of times, most notably in the Light Warriors' battles against the Fiends they have faced to date. Effective or otherwise, Red Mage tends to be overconfident about his plans, believing them to be foolproof.

Red Mage faced the representation of Pride while in the Castle of Ordeals, due to his egotistical tendencies. After several attempts to defeat it, Red Mage bested it by admitting he was powerless before it. However, he didn't grasp the concept of his victory; he started gloating immediately afterwards.^[38]

Afterwards, Red Mage changed his class to a Mime, giving him the ability to mimic the actions of his comrades once per time he observes them.

He is also one of two 8-Bit Theater characters (the other being Evil Princess Sara) who has had their own advice column. Entitled "Twinkin' Out", the column was written by Ryan Sosa, and gave advice on role-playing games of all kinds. A running gag in the column was Febreze's ability to solve any problem. A complete archive of entries can be found at nuklearpower.com.

On the message boards, Brian Clevinger has jokingly indicated that based on the other Light Warrior's last names which establishes their character traits, Red Mage's last name would be "Statscowski," however, this has not appeared in the actual comic yet.