Sarge (Red vs. Blue)

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Sarge
Sarge over the course of the series; using the Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 engines respectively.
Voice actor(s)	Matt Hullum
First episode	1
Affiliation	Red Team
Armor color(s)	Red

Sarge is a main fictional character in the machinima comic science fiction video series Red vs. Blue. Sarge is the staff sergeant^[1] and leader of the Blood Gulch Red Team. He is voiced by Matt Hullum, co-creator of the series, and first appeared at the end of Episode One. A military man with a Southern United States accent, Sarge exhibits more discipline than the other Reds (and most of the Blues, for that matter), but is also somewhat sociopathic, bloodthirsty, and the only Blood Gulch soldier on either team actually serious about the war.

[edit] Character overview

Rooster Teeth has noted that they initially modeled Sarge after Full Metal Jacket's Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, but, by the middle of season 2, the character had evolved into, in the words of voice actor Matt Hullum, "every '50s stereotype character… melted down into one", exhibiting characteristics of a mad scientist, used car salesman, and "grumpy old dad".^[2]

Matt Hullum states that he initially modelled Sarge's voice on that of R Lee Ermey, the actor who portrayed Hartman, but by Season Four the character's voice became more gruff and less nasal. The change in the voice is such that Hullum notes people will often ask who voice-acted Sarge in the initial episodes, believing that Hullum himself did not.^[3]

[edit] Role in the plot

Introduced in the first two episodes, Sarge's disposition is quickly established, particularly his relationship with Grif and Simmons, in a conversation that the writers modelled on one that they themselves had over the resemblence of the Warthog to a Puma.^[4] Sarge is then absent for a number of episodes, having gone to Command to receive orders. Upon his return, Sarge managed to bomb the Blue Team's tank Sheila when she attacked the other Reds. When the Blue Team launched another attack soon after, Sarge was possessed by the dead Blue team leader, Church and shot in the head by the Blue rookie, Caboose. Thanks to Grif's use of CPR, he survives.

In season 2, Sarge is forced to build two new, permanent robot bodies for the Blues, and implants a microphone in one and a bomb in the other. This leads to Sarge being partially responsible for both teams being blasted into the distant future. Once there, Sarge leads both teams in an assault on a fortress occupied by O'Malley, the common enemy of both teams. During a battle against O'Malley and a robot army, Sarge and the Red Team leave the Blues to battle alone, in order to go in search of the source of a distress signal and end up returning to Blood Gulch.

In season 4, while the Reds explore the canyon, Sarge's right-hand man Simmons tries to convince Sarge to search for Sheila, whom he has seen still in the canyon. Sarge denies the request, thinking that Simmons is seeing things, and selects Donut as his new second in command, and exiles Simmons, who attacks his teammates and captures Grif, forcing Sarge and Donut to rescue him. Sarge is about to kill Simmons, when he is knocked out by Church, who has returned to Blood Gulch. After Sarge, Grif and Donut return to Red Base, and Simmons comes back to rejoin them, the team finds Lopez, a robot built by Sarge who had defected to the Blues and then been captured by O'Malley. From late in season 2, Sarge had been attempting to retrieve the orders from Red Command that are stored in Lopez's head; upon rediscovering Lopez, who could only speak Spanish, Sarge kidnaps Andy, the Blue Team's talking bomb, to translate the orders, but it becomes apparent that the orders are useless. The Reds are attacked by Church and Sheila, and in retaliation, Sarge radios command for a spaceship as reinforcements. When a ship does arrive, the pilot informs them that she was sent to replace a dead commanding officer; Sarge's reliance on command prompts him to believe that he is in fact dead, and the other Reds bury him. By episode 85, he has disappeared from his grave, having fallen into the underground cavern. In Episode 88, Sarge believes that he is in hell since he's underground. He confirms this when Donut arrives. He soon gets contact from Simmons and Grif, who are in the cavern to rescue them.

[edit] Relationships with other characters

Sarge's relationships with his team members are often strained by his disregard for them, particularly Grif. From the outset, Sarge has been evidenced as holding a deep dislike of Grif for unknown reasons, although one is clearly Grif's laziness. If a situation is presented where Sarge can get rid of Grif, he tries to take it; he has been heard to order other men to kill Grif, devise strategies involving Grif's death, and admitted to attempting to kill Grif in his sleep. Nevertheless, when Tucker severely injures Grif by accidentally running him over with Sheila in episode 33, Sarge does save Grif's life by transplanting Simmons' organs into him. Although Sarge's solution is usually to have Grif killed, he has been heard on one occasion to tell Grif, when the latter asked to quit, that if he could, he would make it happen.

His relationship with Simmons is more peaceful, although it is also strained. Simmons is characterized by his sycophantic attitude towards Sarge. When Simmons disagrees with him, however, Sarge turns against him, most notably when Simmons suggested they look for Sheila. Sarge then demoted Simmons, gave his rank to Donut, and exiled him. After Simmons returns to the Red Team, Sarge appears to treat him as before, though he has referred to him as a traitor.

Sarge has criticized Grif and praised Simmons for the same action. When Grif saves Sarge's life by performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) after being shot in the head by Caboose in season 1, Sarge initially thanks Simmons. However, upon learning who had actually resuscitated him, Sarge proceeds to berate Grif at length for the illogicality of using CPR "for a bullet wound in the head". Rooster Teeth had initially considered making this event a turning point in Sarge's relationship with Grif, but decided in the end that friendship would be too far-fetched.^[4]

[edit] Themes

[edit] Delusions

Sarge's battle plans tend to be delusively grandiose and seriously flawed, and he favors overly complicated plans that involve heavy casualties in his own forces, primarily Grif, sometimes making suicidal plans even when there is no actual problem to solve. Even if his plans rely on the strength of numbers, he may see fit to have Grif killed anyway.^[5] He displays frequent periods of nostalgia and compares his plans to notable figures from film, such as John Wayne and Indiana Jones. At other times, he devises plans that take ideas from popular culture, most of which are purely fiction anyway, including the Incredible Hulk, Star Wars and Spider-Man. Sometimes he makes incompetent blunders in his plans that are not immediately evident to him, but the rest of the team will criticise him for. He is also rather paranoid, and often concocts implausible theories to explain simple events. Many of these will revolve around the Blues as their primary antagonists, as a result of Sarge's intense hatred of them.

Recently, a complete dependence on command has been showcased; when a new arrival in the canyon, who the Reds think has joined their team, informs them that command sent her to replace a dead commanding officer, Sarge at first refuses to believe it, but when Grif makes a few clever comments about how command could be wrong about other things which Sarge staunchly believes in, he believes that he is dead and the Reds give him a funeral.

[edit] Skills

Sarge has some skill as a soldier, having managed to capture Tex as well as fight off, with the assistance of Caboose, the attacking hordes of soldiers in Battle Creek. His rank suggests that he is a veteran of combat. He is also skilled to some degree in mechanics, having built three separate robots, two of which were assembled simultaneously in a short period of time from scratch. Although he initially claims that he is unable to repair their jeep,^[6] also known as the Chupathingy, he later manages to fix a derelict near-identical jeep with little equipment in the wasteland. However, his work is not flawless, as when he turned Simmons into a cyborg, the latter claimed that he would occasionally shoot himself in the foot for some reason.

Sarge also appears to act as the Red Team's medical officer, as he has performed surgery on both Simmons and Grif in a relatively short amount of time, and both seem to be healthy. However, Sarge clearly knows very little about bodily functions, as he uses a diagram of a cow as an aid during Grif' surgery, claims that the body can produce any oxygen it needs when under stress, and advises Caboose to lift a heavy weight with his back as opposed to his legs.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Red vs. Blue