Light Warriors (8-Bit Theater)

Collectively known as The Light Warriors, Black Mage, Fighter, Thief and Red Mage are the main characters of 8-Bit Theater.

Despite composing the "classic" heroic party, they are, for the most part, incompetent and dysfunctional, having few redeeming traits and tending to do much more harm than good. Though most of this is Black Mage's fault, the other characters (usually Thief) 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."

Black Mage Evilwizardington

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Black Mage, before and after his class change.

Black Mage is a chaotic, egotistical, power-hungry and murderous wizard who is highly proficient in black magic, but generally incapable of casting (or unwilling to cast) any beneficial or non-destructive spells. It has been revealed that he is actually the incarnation of a nexus of magical power.

Black Mage bears a pathological hatred towards almost everybody on the planet. However, he reserves a special kind of loathing for Fighter, whom he keeps around nonetheless as a meat shield. Ever since their first meeting after being expelled from their respective schools, Black Mage has attempted to kill Fighter, most of the time by stabbing him. Due to Black Mage's physical weakness and Fighter's armor, these attempts are rarely successful; Fighter either shakes off Black Mage's attacks, recovers without lasting damage or, in the event that Black Mage does succeed, gets healed later on.

Black Mage has a fixation on White Mage and is continually trying to seduce her, using increasingly cheesy and vulgar pick-up lines. Usually, this results in White Mage smashing Black Mage with her hammer.

While in the Castle of Ordeals, every one of the Light Warriors had to face a personification of their cardinal sin. Black Mage's, the representation of Atrocity, was a doppelgänger, as the only thing evil enough to represent him was himself. Eventually, Black Mage ended up killing it and re-absorbing the evil its death set free.

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. This enables him to learn and use certain attacks that he survives being hit with.

Black Mage is currently wanted by the authorities for questioning in international serial slayings, Dwarfocide, arson and wanton acts of Apocalypse.

The Hadoken

Black Mage's trademark spell. The Hadoken is a beam of sheer destructive force, emanating from his hands. Every time it is used, it drains a portion of love out of the Universe; according to Black Mage, divorce rates rise with every Hadoken cast. Black Mage gained this spell by sacrificing nine orphans to a Dark God. The spell's primary drawback is that it can be used only once a day.

Miscellanea

• Black Mage has never been seen with a staff. Instead, he equips two knives.

• Black Mage's face is always hidden; according to him, it is so horrible that no one can bear to look at it. Indeed, when Onion Kid caught a glance at it, he went into catatonic shock, "driven insane by the very face of madness itself".

• He was, for a short time, the king of Hell after his death at the hands of Lich. However, Lich managed to usurp the position and return Black Mage to life.

Fighter McWarrior

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Fighter, before and after his class change.

Fighter is a warrior specializing in swords and master of The Twelve Schools of Vargus-do Zodiac-Style Swordplay (Zodiac Kenshido for short). Skilled as he is, he is also naïve and childlike and has an almost single-minded sword fixation, as well as a short attention span and a case of arachnophobia.

Fighter had trained in Vargus' School (Fighter's Camp '86) at least since the age of six. At a young age, he was expelled from the school for incorrectly answering a philosophical question. Shortly after, he ran into Black Mage, whom he bonded with immediately. He seems to be completely unaware of Black Mage's feelings of hate towards him and tends to shrug off the other's attempts to kill him.

Fighter is the creator of Sword-Chucks, a weapon consisting of two swords attached by a chain extending between the two hilts — a combination of twin swords and a nunchuck. At first, this is an obvious joke weapon. Nevertheless, Fighter successfully used Sword-Chucks to fight Kary, the Fiend of Fire, to a standstill at no harm to himself. His Sword-Chucks have not been mentioned since the incident, but are seen briefly before Fighter's class change.

In the Castle of Ordeals, Fighter faced the representation of Sloth, who told him he had to stop accepting his sword fighting abilities as given and actively improve 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."

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.

Miscellanea

• One of Fighter's first quests was to find the legendary "Armor of Invincibility." Thanks to a mishearing, he eventually received Matoya's "Armoire of Invincibility", which he carried until the weight became too great and he was crushed by it, surviving only due to the fact that the bottom of the Armoire was made from particle board. The Armoire was then placed in a summoning materia and later used to defeat Vilbert von Vampire.

• As a child, Fighter lived near power lines and was fond of eating paint chips, which offers a possible, if clichéd, explanation for his lack of mental capability.

• On some rare occasions, Fighter acts against his ordinary personality in the form of short bursts of intelligence. Often, these flashes of wisdom provide a clear solution to the team's current problem, or a warning for an avoidable future problem. Unfortunately, these wise words normally go ignored by the team, due to Fighter's ordinarily ignorant disposition.

• Fighter has revealed that he had also once attended college with a minor in Overcomplication language [1] after brilliantly deciphering complicated pictograms. Black Mage assumed he lied.

Thief, AKA Prince Elf, Clan Khee'Bler

A cunning and diabolically skilled pretty-boy, Thief was formerly known as the Prince of Elfland.

He secretly left his kingdom in order to raise money for a cure for his dying father. He secured funds through thievery, pawning everything off and sending the money to his "overseas account". He also maneuvered Fighter into signing a binding contract over the then-forming Light Warriors, making Thief the permanent group leader and entitling him to first dibs on everything the group discovered, especially treasure. He rarely fights, preferring to let others do his work for him while he furthers the team's goals elsewhere in secret. When he does fight, he has a tendency to ambush opponents from above, or to use backstabs.

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 abilities to "throw anything" (including teammates) at foes and to counter-attack with blinding speed.

Miscellanea

• In addition to being able to steal almost anything, Thief tends to manipulate people through way of legal contracts. One of his trademarks is "Super Ultra Fine Print", which is so small, it appears as a tiny dot on the paper. It is most often used to invert the meaning of a contract by writing in "(not)" or some variation thereof. This mirrors the microdot in real life.

• As the prince of Elfland, Thief can, at any time, summon "Law-Ninjas" to do his bidding.

• Thief's clan name is a play on Keebler, a company which uses elves in their advertising. Another clan's name is a play on Santa, as he uses elves in his workshop.

• His skill at thievery is so great that it often transcends the laws of physics, as he has said that he can steal souls, secrets and things that aren't even there. He even stole his own class change from the future. Among the few things he can't steal are things that are on fire.

Red Mage Statscowski

Versatile almost to the point of obsession, Red Mage is the most knowledgable of the Light Warriors.

Red Mage believes he is in a stat sheet RPG (such as D&D) and acts accordingly and fully within the rules of such a reality, often to the continued befuddlement and annoyance of the rest of the team. He values — to the point of fetishism — being as versatile as possible, citing versatility as the reason for being a Red Mage in the first place. Red Mage possesses the ability to cast both White and Black Magic; unfortunately, he almost never cast his magic in the early days of the comic in order to stay versatile.

The "strategist" of the group, Red Mage's plans often fail horribly, due to the laws of physics and the actions of other people, though his stratagems surprisingly proved successful against both of the Four Fiends the Light Warriors have faced to date, possibly due to the ineptitude of the fiends themselves. One of his special talents is the Rite of Stat Swap, which allows him to erase and rearrange his statistics at a moment's notice on his character sheet.

In the Castle of Ordeals, Red Mage had to face the representation of Hubris. He ended up defeating it by admitting he was powerless before it, although he didn't actually grasp the concept — he immediately started gloating about his victory.

Afterwards, he was the first of the Light Warriors to change class. Initially, it was thought he had become a Blue Mage because he was capable of firing a Hadoken back at Black Mage. However, experiments revealed that he had actually become a Mime, which enables him to copy an action once per time he sees it used.

Miscellanea

• His mimic abilities have been described by Black Mage as "photographic reflexes," a reference to the Marvel Comics supervillain Taskmaster. Episode 648, in which he states this, is called Task Mastery.

• The only offensive spells Red Mage knows are Ice Spells, including the extremely powerful Ice-9.

• Red Mage has occasionally shown himself to be a closet transvestite (naming himself Debora when he's in a dress, which occurs several times), a psychological complex that stemmed from his father disliking Red Mage for being a boy, or so it seemed. In reality, the event where his father stated he wanted a daughter is a figment of Red Mage's imagination, induced by the manipulative prowess of Thief.

See also

• 8-Bit Theater
• Characters of 8-Bit Theater