8-Bit Theater/Characters

Warriors of Light

Garland: "And what kind of tactics do you tend to employ?"
Fighter: "Oh, we usually murder our way to the top and claim victory whilst astride a pile of mangled bodies."
Garland: "I see..."
Fighter: "But we're heroes so it's okay when we do that."

• Amusing Injuries
• And the Adventure Continues...: For Black Mage and Fighter at least.
• Badass Crew: Fighter and Thief get to do badass things on a regular basis, but Black Mage and Red Mage have defeated multiple demigods.
• Butt Monkeys: Black Mage generally has it the worst, but all of the Light Warriors get their share of abuse at various points.
• Destructive Saviours: Initially. Later they drop the "saviours" part.
• Five-Man Band: there are a couple of... er... strange ways to assign roles to this group. Mostly it works like this:
  • What you'd think would be the format:
    • The Hero: Fighter
    • The Lancer: Black Mage
    • The Smart Guy: Red Mage
    • The Big Guy: Fighter (again)
    • The Chick: Thief
  • What the format actually is:
    • The Big Bad: Sarda
    • The Dragon: Black Mage
    • The Evil Genius: Thief
    • The Brute (minus any evil intent): Fighter
    • The Dark Chick: Red Mage
  • Yes, this is maybe the only series where you have to use a mixture of two different tropes to describe the team layout.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopaths: All of them except Fighter. For a certain value of heroic, of course.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep"
• Light Is Not Good
• Meaningful Surname: McWarrior, Evilwizardington, Statscowski. The only exception is Thief, whose last name is the name of his clan, i.e. Khee'bler.
  • Though Thief's fake surname (since Thief isn't his real first name) might be Bastard.
• Nominal Heroes: In-universe they are only considered heroes because King Steve appointed them to be the Light Warriors, and he only did so because they showed up first and tricked him into choosing them. Neither King Steve who appointed them nor Thief who became their leader cared much about the fate of the world they were supposed to save, as Thief explains in episode 336. As the story progresses it becomes increasingly obvious that the Light Warriors are the Villain Protagonists of the story.
• Prestige Class
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits
• Seen It All: By the end of the comic, except for Fighter.
• Static Characters: Every time it looks like they might get some Character Development, they stay the same in the end.
  • The time anything resembling character development stuck was early in the comic when Red Mage learned that it was better to use one of his heal spells and live than be more versatile and dead. Then he started his trademark illogical plans.
  • Black Mage has a number of epiphanies about the nature of evil and the nature of morality... unfortunately he ignores them either because his Sanity Meter is turned to "psycho" or evil is too much fun. The two could be interrelated.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: And that's on the very rare occasions when they do work together at all. Most of the time they are closer to Divided We Fall.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonists
• Villain Protagonists

Black Mage Evilwizardington

"If there was a way to get magic for free, do you really think I'd have spent so much time sacrificing children to my dark gods? For spells, I mean. Obviously there'd still be sacrifices. A hobby's a hobby."

• Ambidextrous Sprite: The crescent moon on his Blue Mage outfit.
• Attractive Bent Gender: Well, the Archer Captain thinks so. Squick.
• Ax Crazy
• Black Magic: Specifically necromancy and several offensive spells, such as Bolt-2 a.k.a. Electric Death, Eye Beams and of course his Hadoken, which he got by sacrificing nine orphaned kids to his dark god and which siphons love out of the universe every time it's used.
• Blessed with Suck: He becomes this kind of character after his class change. At first he thought that Blue Magic grants its user the immunity to enemy attacks, as well as the ability to learn and use said attacks - so naturally, he was overjoyed after gaining Blue Magic. As he learned quickly (and painfully), it didn't grant him immunity to anything, and while he was able to learn attacks used against him, he had to survive them first. Plus, in the course of the series, he's learned only three spells through Blue Magic - one of which is the Goblin Punch, which has a mostly impractical range. The others include a spell specifically targeted at him, as he learns the hard way, while the third one rewrites reality according to Sarda's whim, which in practice also makes it targeted at him.
• Blood Is the New Black: Happened to him a few times.
• Brilliant but Lazy: It's fairly easy to read him as this; over the course of the comics he's used the widest varieties of spells, displayed in-depth knowledge about magical theory(including magics he doesn't personally practice, such as ice and summoning) and history, and as mentioned elsewhere, so long as he's not particularly angry or close to White Mage, he's generally the smartest of the group. He just happens to be insanely lazy, commenting more than once that a battle would go their way if they all actually fought instead of just standing by to let Red Mage get mauled, and not acting on it because it's too much effort. Partly justified by him being a Death Seeker; he knows that when he dies he becomes one of the single most powerful creatures in existence.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: once fought off a deep one, a dinosaur, and a giant marmoset with nothing but his knife. He was certainly feeling it afterwards , though.
• Butt Monkey: To the point where the universe itself is geared to hurt him.
• Card-Carrying Villain: He makes no attempt to present himself as anything other than evil, makes absolutely no excuse for mass-murder and destruction, and he's damn well proud of it. Red Mage and Thief tend to be just blind to morality and ethical standards, but Black Mage can very easily see the moral dilemma of a problem, and he may even argue about the validity of it. ... Of course, he only identifies it so he can go in the completely opposite direction.
• Casanova Wannabe: Every time he talks to White Mage, he is either this or Dirty Old Man (minus the 'old' part, as he only went through puberty a year or so before the events of the comic).
• Character Alignment: Confirmed to be of the evil alignment in this strip.
  • On his better days he's Chaotic Neutral. Usually he's Neutral Evil.
• Charm Person: Hypnovision.
• The Chew Toy: And, frankly, he deserves it.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Not only does he betray the rest of the team when given a chance, but he also frequently stabs them in the back (or head) literally - especially Fighter.
  • While Black Mage is a literal back-stabber, Thief may hold the higher "betray the group" count.
• Cosmic Plaything: The universe just loves gnawing on him. To be fair though, the universe probably should have thought about the consequences of allowing a nexus of excessively destructive reality-warping power to exist in the soul of an individual with as much sanity and stability as a nuclear bomb. The universe is probably trying to rectify the situation by attempting to stamp him out of existence without killing him (as killing him would hence get rid of the Restraining Bolt that is his mortal body... you know, 'cause that did not work out so well last time).
• Deadpan Snarker: Occurs mostly when he is around Red Mage and Fighter for any period of time. And when he's not holding the Idiot Ball.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Even Black Mage thought that Thief's idea to impose fees for clouds was really sick.
  • Also planned to create a whole new level of hell specifically as punishment for the things Red Mage did to chocobos.
• Evil Is Petty: In addition to being an Omnicidal Maniac, he is also the biggest Jerkass in the comic (with the possible exception of Sarda).
• Eye Beams
• The Faceless: And for a good reason.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: All of the Light Warriors qualify, but Black Mage really takes the cake, stabs the cake, urinates on whatever's left, poisons it, gives it to an orphanage, and then Hadokens said orphanage for good measure. A full list of his atrocities would probably double the size of this page.
• For the Evulz: The reason for nearly everything he does in the series.
• Freudian Excuse: subverted. Technically he has one, in that the excessive amount of power that exists in his soul has driven him insane (confirmed in-universe)... but he realises this at one point, ignores it, and continues to go on to do so many evil things that there is literally no justification for what he's done.
• Genre Savvy: Very much so. Unfortunately for him, he's not Genre Savvy enough when it comes to Sarda.
• Glass Cannon: He describes himself as one.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: stabbity-stab-stab. Plus, he once used Hadoken on a bee that annoyed him.
  • And here are some other things that have suffered his wrath.
• Hidden Depths: He has moments like these when the audience realizes he has a vast swamp of rather uncomfortable emotional turmoil. And he has moments like these which could count as a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming. However, they often come on the heels of moments like these which clearly favor him for the post of anthropomorphic personification of all Evil. He's still a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk...Maybe.
• Humanoid Abomination
• I Love the Dead: Once expressed willingness to have sex with White Mage's dead body, considering it only slightly less ideal than having sex with her while alive. He did have sex with the corpse of his own doppleganger.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: He has a lot of trouble hitting the right target with his Hadokens. "HOW DO YOU MISS A VOLCANO?!". (Though he doesn't mind too much as long as something dies.)
  • "How did you not only miss us, but manage to zap yourself?".
• Iron Butt Monkey
• Jerkass
• Knife Nut
• Laughably Evil
• Like a Badass Out of Hell: He managed to briefly take over Hell after being killed by Lich, then came back to the land of the living to kill Lich. This eventually backfired on him, as Lich in turn took over Hell in his absence and then brought Black Mage back to life... thus demoting him from the position of the all-powerful Hell King back to that of the universe's favourite Chew Toy.
  • That said, after Lich manages to bar Black Mage from Hell by getting him stuck on the corporeal plane, a lot of very powerful Eldritch Abominations make sure to keep him out of hell (such that whenever he dies, a God of Evil sends him right back to the overworld). If Black Mage ever gets back there, which he is still conspiring to do, the universe wouldn't be around for much longer (or it would, but it wouldn't be a nice place to exist). Let's just say this: there is a reason why all the legions of Hell were terrified of him.
• Love And Anger Make You Dumb: on a good day, he's smarter than Thief. Introduce anger or a proximity to White Mage, and his IQ and sanity will plummet so fast you'll swear you just witnessed it exceeding the speed of light.
• Made of Evil: He is the closest thing to the Anthropomorphic Personification of Evil. If he ever gets back down to Hell again, he will fit the bill of God of Evil.
• Magic Knight: When the plot doesn't require him to be Squishy Wizard, he can be quite competent in physical combat - to the point where it's hard to tell whether he killed more people with his Hadoken or with his knives. He even managed to kill a sea monster and at least one, possibly two groups of cultists with nothing but knives.
• Major Injury Underreaction: "I appear to have come aflame."
• Meta Guy: his cynicism to Fighter's Cloudcuckoolander observations lean on the fourth wall.
• Monster Clown
• Murder Is the Best Solution: He even worked up a flow chart for it.
  • "I call it my 'final solution'. Basically, I'm given a license to kill and it solves all my problems.
• The Necromancer
• Never Bareheaded: He actually does remove his hat once, but it's not shown on screen and the only person who sees it is driven mad from the sight.
• Nice Hat: According to the epilogue it's huge too.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: despite how much of a Genre Savvy Deadpan Snarker he is, he doesn't realise how a lot of what he does or says immediately throws the minds of everyone around him into speculative horror territory. His face doesn't help.
• The Nuker
• The Odd Couple: And no, not in that way (okay, mostly not that way...) with Fighter. No matter how many times he attempts to or successfully kills Fighter, they're still together, even three years after Chaos is defeated ... probably so he can still make Fighter suffer, but it never works out that way.
• Omnicidal Maniac: He's not very discriminant with who he murders. Or brutally maims.
• Only Sane Man: When he's not killing everyone in sight or carrying the Idiot Ball, he frequently finds himself in this role.
• Person of Mass Destruction
• Pet the Dog: Comic 486 is the only time he ever shows anything remotely resembling compassion, and it's never brought up again.
  • After coming back from Hell and killing Lich, he couldn't bring himself to disillusion Fighter who believed he came back from Heaven. This being Black Mage, to say it's a sign of compassion would be saying too much, but still...
• The Pig Pen: Acknowledged by everyone but the man himself. He insists that the smell is from his spell components.
• Ping-Pong Naivete: He can be the smartest of the Light Warriors, barely smarter than Fighter (if not dumber than Fighter) or somewhere in between, depending on what makes for a better joke at the moment. In particular, his intelligence seems to rapidly decrease the closer White Mage is to him.
• The Plan: A Dangerously Genre Savvy one he set up at the Citadel of Ordeals, where he knew he would have to "face his flaws"; as per the typical physical manifestation of fantasy metaphors, he would therefore have to kill off his evil side. Considering that there was no way in hell he was going to get rid of all of his evil, he managed to rig the situation so that after killing his evil side, he would re-inherent all the evil. It's a real pity that he has never attributed so much forethought to plans that could in anyway benefit the world.
• Played for Laughs: His numerous atrocities. Only the fact that they aren't played seriously saves him from being a Complete Monster.
• Power At a Price: His own power seems to come at the price of his sanity and morality. However, he isn't opposed to using other people's lives or sanity to get access to more power. Remember how he got the Hadoken?
• Power Limiter: if Black Mage finally manages to get rid of his mortal body, he'll no longer have his Restraining Bolt in place and hence be able to use his full powers without limit. That is a ridiculous amount of power, and the universe seems to wisened up enough to this to try to make sure this doesn't happen.
• Psycho for Hire: as long as you can point him in the right direction and get out of the disaster zone, you can invade and destroy an entire country single-handedly. As Thief found out with the poor Dwarf nation.
• Robe and Wizard Hat
• Sanity Slippage: goes up and down the insane slope like a yo-yo. The way it works is this: if he's (relatively) sane, he will be Genre Savvy, smarter than Thief, and generally the level of violence will be restricted to a comparative minimum (or at the very least will be efficient); if he's gone down the insane slope, his IQ will reduce massively, he will lose all ability to reason, and carnage will ensue. Lots of carnage. With blood.
• Sarcasm Failure: A lot of Black Mage's sarcasm is all but lost (much to to his frustration) 100% of the time on Fighter (who either cannot understand it or is Obfuscating Stupidity to infuriate Black Mage), and 75% of the time on Red Mage (who has a habit of Completely Missing the Point).
• Self-Made Orphan
• Small Name, Big Ego
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Does this all the time, particularly when talking to city guards trying to find him.
• Starfish Language: A purported spell for reading a book for hours at a time.
• The Starscream
  • Probably one of the only instances where one of the heroes is trying to replace the Big Bad. Okay, so maybe "hero" is a bad description...
• Terrible Artist: It seems that he can't draw very well.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Pie.
• Ugliness Equals Evil: He is overweight, smelly, and his face is so ugly that just seeing it drove the Onion Kid insane.
• Villain Protagonist
• Villain Protagonists Want Redheads: His lust for White Mage.
• Vitriolic Best Buds Type 1: With Fighter.
• Walking Wasteland: The evil "mindless destruction is fun" kind. Sometimes it'll be limited to just stabbing someone repeatedly until they die. Sometimes he's a Walking Disaster Area and bad things just continuously happen in his vicinity (usually to him). Sometimes, he'll just Hadoken something that annoys him a lot. In any case, his violence is usually indiscriminate and completely arbitrary (much like some kind of natural disaster... a sadistic natural disaster). However, if Thief decides he wants to target something, he'll use Black Mage to horrifyingly direct ends. Remember the Dwarf nation? Nuff said.
• What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Frequently asks this with a lot of sarcasm that neither Red Mage nor Fighter seem to hear. This often is coupled with Fighter's use of the phrase, which he uses in (seemingly) complete innocence, and together makes for some very meta leaning on the fourth wall.
• What Is Evil?: Discussed via internal monologue here. Unfortunately, anger at the stupidity of Fighter tends to have an amnesiac/obliterating/stupefying effect.
• Witch Species: He's an Inherent Gift Magician whose face is a bastardization of non-euclidian geometry so mind destroying that even seeing it drives you insane. This trope might fit, but then again...
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: He's a nexus for the ley lines in reality and has the lowest sanity tolerance ever. Being born like this, his incredible power has warped his sanity considerably over the years, making morality seem increasingly irrelevant to him. Having an insane Ax Crazy maniac running around with the forces of creation at his finger tips was probably not the best idea ever.
• The Worf Effect: Lampshaded by Red Mage.

Fighter McWarrior

"I like... what was it again?"

• Achievements in Ignorance: Glorious Chainsaw Method actually depended on Fighter being too dumb to realize it's impossible. And it worked.
  • Surviving a fall from over a mile in the air. By blocking the ground.
• Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny: He even lampshaded this once.
• Author Avatar: suprisingly semi-confirmed by the man himself
• Barrier Warrior: After his class change, he gained the ability to block anything with his swords. That included powered-up Black Mage's evil black energy tendrils and even the Earth itself.
• Berserk Button: Fighter will not tolerate the idea of someone talking about purposely harming Black Mage. Not even if that person is his ally. Which stopped both Red Mage and Thief from their idea. When Black Mage was killed by Lich, Fighter reacted... poorly.

Fighter: Get up, Lich. I'm not through hurting you yet.
Lich: You have no idea the forces at work here, boy. If death himself cannot take me, what makes you think you can?
Fighter: I SAID GET UP!

• Brown Note: Of sorts. Listening to Fighter talk can reduce the intelligence of anyone nearby. Known victims are Red Mage, Black Mage, and possibly Drizz'l. It has the opposite effect on Chaos.

Red Mage: Oh dear. I think it's finally happened. Years of exposure to Fighter's, shall we say, point of view, has left Black Mage a spluttering vegetable.

• Bumbling Sidekick: At times. Although he occasionally proves to be smarter, deadlier, and basically more competent than his fellow Light Warriors, and always holds the moral high ground, he mostly serves as the local ditz.
• Character Alignment: Confirmed to be good in this strip.
• Characterization Marches On: In the early strips, he and Black Mage were a bit closer to Vitriolic Best Buds Type 2, with Fighter occasionally snarking back at BM. For example, back then Fighter mocked BM for being beaten up by White Mage and even called him a jerk once. In later strips, Fighter just takes BM's insults and abuse without fighting back and always assumes that they're BFF anyway.
  • Considering how many times BM stabbed him in the head, I'd say this might've been intentional.
• Cloudcuckoolander: He lives in different realities most of the time. The brief times he collides with the one everyone else lives in usually combines some combination of Crowning Moment of Awesome, Too Dumb to Fool, and Too Dumb to Live. Also Too Dumb To Die, apparently. In any case among his usual frolicking in Happy Cloud Land Where Black Mage is my friend, he occasionally dips down to reality with piercing insights, usually resulting in...
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Happens more than once. When he's in the right spatial alignment. Clashes heavily with Dumbass Has a Point and leaves everyone wondering exactly where the line between Obfuscating Stupidity, insanity, and pure idiocy lies. Anyone needing a justification?

Fighter: Don't lie to the poor lady, RM. You know exactly who we are and we don't look innocent at all. All I'd trust those two jokers with is a stab in the back and then the throat. And you wear a mask. I look okay and seem honest, but as far as she knows, it's an elaborate act. A ruse that works so well my own friends could never suspect - never consider - the evil I inflict upon innocents wheresoever we go.

Red Mage: He's just kidding of... of course...

• • Although, that said, sometimes you get things like this:

Fighter: I like this plan. It needs a sword fight in the middle, but we can burn that river when we cross a bridge over the bush with two birds in glass houses.

• • I rest my case.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass
• The Ditz: So much...
• The DPSer
• Dual-Wielding: To a ridiculous degree during his fight with Kary, when he dual-wielded sword-chucks.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Is quite prone to relatively intelligent suggestions that usually go ignored.
• Dumb Is Good: His Genius Ditz moments notwithstanding, he is the dumbest of the Light Warriors. He's also the only member of the group who is undeniably and consistently good.
• Dumb Muscle: Most of the time.
• Genius Ditz: When it comes to swords, he's an innately talented genius. When it comes to non-sword related matters, his mind is a vast ocean filled with strange and paradoxical creatures that should never have made it past the design stage of evolution.
  • He can also read Overcomplicatian language and occasionally shows at least some knowledge of mathematics (correcting Red Mage's mistake from the previous strip) and physics.
• Hard Head and Use Your Head: "The main tactic of the Ram Form of Zodiackenshido is to break your opponent's equipment with your head before he breaks your head with his equipment"
• Horrible Judge of Character: He believes that Black Mage is his friend and that he's just a misunderstood helper rather than evil incarnate; Red Mage is a genius; Thief is a good leader with their best interests at heart and, in general, that the Light Warriors are heroes.
• Idiot Hero
• Ignorance Is Bliss
• Improbable Weapon User: Sword-Chucks, yo!
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness
• Jumped At the Call
• Made of Iron: How else would he survive being stabbed in the head by Black Mage all these times?
  • Because there's so very little to actually damage in there
• Man Child
• Meta Guy: In a very much Cloudcuckoolander fashion. He usually serves as a counterpoint to Black Mage's snark. They both can get dangerously close to leaning on the fourth wall.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Apparently, he considers every monster the Light Warriors encountered to be cute, or at least nice - including Chaos himself. It's hinted that this is the reason why he hangs out with Black Mage.
• Puppy Dog Eyes: At least, if Black Mage is to be believed.
• The Real Man / The Loonie
• Redheaded Hero
• Stupid Good: To a fault.
• The Tank
• Terrbile Artist: His drawings aren't any better than BM's.
• Token Good Teammate
• Too Dumb To Die
• Trademark Favorite Food: Cookies.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Black Mage.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist
• Warrior Poet: Likes haiku.
• What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Will say this with utter conviction and (probably) lack of any kind of sarcasm. This is usually followed by Black Mage a) stabbing him, b) being so consumed by Angrish that he is immobilized, or c) using heavy sarcasm that Fighter obviously ignores.
• Why Did It Have To Be Spiders?

Red Mage Statscowski

Red Mage: "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped. The success or failure of any given step will have no impact on the macro level."
Black Mage: "That's so stupid I can't even see straight any more."
Red Mage: "Now imagine what'll happen when physics tries to figure it out!"

• A God Am I: Learned almost "every move in the game" from the Datasphere and planned to dethrone the gods.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: The feather on his hat(s).
• Accidental Innuendo: He does this so frequently it seems like it might actually be on purpose.

"Wait, your balls shrunk."

• An Ice Person: Although he spent a large time trying to keep his spell use "neutral," he eventually started specializing in ice spells, including one that could destroy an entire universe.
• But You Screw One Goat!: "Animal husbandry." That is all.
• Character Alignment: Difficult to pin down, although (like most characters) he probably wasn't made with one in mind anyway. In-universe the man himself claims he is "Lawful Amazing." Suggested to be of Evil alignment here. His Munchkiny actions are often quite Stupid Neutral however.
  • Clear leaning towards StupidNeutral.
  • Brian said he went with Lawful because he figured he's dedicated to a code, it just happens that that code is all about breaking the rules, so Neutral Evil seems like a safe bet.
• Cloudcuckoolander
• Crazy Enough to Work: Sometimes his plans are so completely insane they actually work. Most of them, however, are just crazy enough to fail hilariously.
• Crossdresser
• Does Not Understand Sarcasm: "We're going to have a code. When I stab you in the ear, that means I'm being sarcastic. Got it?"
• Evilutionary Biologist: When it comes to Chocobo breeding.

All it required was a cocktail of dangerous experimental surgery, and a willingness to ignore the unnessecary suffering of perfectly innocent beings.
Also, I shot magic into their chromosones until they turned inside out, evolution is my bitch.

• Fake Memories: "Plus, Red Mage? You can NOT tell him this, but he's not actually a cross dresser and he has no daddy issues. I've just been messin' with his head."
• Hero with an F In Good
• Insane Troll Logic
• The Jack
• Last of His Kind
• Min-Maxing: His obsession.
• Munchkin
• Nice Hat: Apparently his hat is so nice it boosts his stats.
• The Red Mage: And a Master of None.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Seems to genuinely believe that he's a 'fractactical genius', and loves to brag about it.
• The Smart Guy: Well, sort of...
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Has several with Garland and a few others.
• The Strategist: Although most of his plans are somewhat hindered by such minor things as: The Laws Of Physics, Common Sense, Black Mage, Basic Logic, their own brain-breaking insanity, the incompetence of his cohorts, his own incompetence, Black Mage, a lack of proper equipment, a lack of regard for any kind of rationality, Fighter's stupidity, his own stupidity, being needlessly overcomplicated to the point of madness, Black Mage, his tenous grasp on reality, King Steve...
  • ...he still pulls off a good one every now and then. See Crazy Enough to Work.
• Why Couldn't You Be Different?: He claims that his father hated him because he wanted to have a daughter rather than son. This resulted in Red Mage's cross-dressing tendencies. (But see Fake Memories above.)
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Thinks he's in a paper-and-dice game. And sometimes a MMO.
  • Or even an RTS.
• You Fail Logic Forever

Thief/Prince Elf

Black Mage (seeing Thief with an enormous bag of loot): "Didn't the pirates take everything already?"
Thief: "They left everything that was nailed down. I did not."

• Bad Boss / Mean Boss: Let his law-ninja die of starvation because he was too much of a miser to buy food for them. He's also this for the rest of the Light Warriors, as he constantly steals from them, tricks them into signing manipulative contracts, makes them do countless humiliating and/or life-threatening things for him, and physically abuses them.
• Badass Normal: Does the physically impossible without any magic or the power of stupidity and manages to do so much with fine print or just with words.
• Character Alignment: Once again, confirmed in-universe to be evil.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder
• Consummate Liar
• The Evil Prince: He fits a number of the qualifications, but seems to genuinely care about his father.
  • And his mother.
• Dangerously Genre Savvy: When it comes to politics, schemes and contracts he can bind anyone across the scale from Chaotic Good to Chaotic Evil onto a piece of paper. That or rob them blind.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Papas
• Even Evil Has Standards: Both he and Red Mage were disgusted by Black Mage's plan to make White Mage drink what was most likely a paint thinner and then rape her (alive or dead).
• Evil Genius: Truly deserving of his status as Magnificent Bastard, he can manipulate and swindle anyone into doing anything. For one thing, he manages to keep Black Mage on a leash (because if he doesn't, Black Mage becomes an uncontrollable Eldritch Abomination that even terrifies the demons from Hell), and he screwed with Red Mage's head to turn him into a cross-dresser. For the Evulz of course.
• Hoist By His Own "Picard": Matoya and Raven use his legal trickery to their advantages, but they end up flogging themselves.
• Impossible Thief: Among other things, he can steal secrets, souls, resolve, childhood memories, and most famously, his ninja class abilities from the future. One of the only things he apparently can't steal are things that are both nailed down and on fire.
• Jerkass
• Kid with the Leash: is one of the few individuals that can control Black Mage and channel his destructive impulses to a common goal (... most of the time).
• Magnificent Bastard: Called this in-universe by Black Mage, and rightfully so.
• Miser Advisor
• Non-Action Guy: While he can hold his own in a fight when he wants to, most of the time he prefers to make the other members of the group (or his lawninja squad, or White Mage and Black Belt) do the fighting for him.
• Only Sane Man: Well, other than being thoroughly evil, he's this compared to the other three. He still has his Stupid Evil moments, though.
  • What's scary about his Stupid Evil moments is that they leave Black Mage in the roll of Only Sane Man. Think about that for a moment.
• Our Elves Are Better: So he keeps saying anyway
• Read the Fine Print: His Super Ultra Fine Print.
• Shouldn't You Stop Stealing?: The Trope Namer.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Via a Freudian Slip "Do you have any idea why every impoverished clump of hovels you people call towns are so impoverished, clumped, filthy, and hoveled?... Neither do they! So let's move before they catch on to me... Er...It. Because it's certainly not me." Lampshaded by Black Mage: "Saying that only makes me suspect you more."
• Villain Protagonist

Warriors of Darkness

Garland: "We have failed to enact any significant revenge against the hated Light Warriors."
Vilbert: "Point of order: Nuh-uh!"
Bikke: "Yar. Ye slam o' poetry be as significant as a pee in the ocean."
Drizz'l: "It's what we're all thinking."

• Dark Is Not Evil
• Fake Ultimate Hero: In the penultimate strip White Mage makes everyone believe that the Dark Warriors were the ones who defeated Chaos and saved the world.
• Forgot I Couldn't Swim: Naturally, their first Evil Plan as a full team involved the ocean.
• Goldfish Poop Gang
• Harmless Villains
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains
• Legion of Doom
• Minions With An F In Evil
• Quirky Miniboss Squad
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Propped up as the true heroes and saviors of the world in the epilogue.
• Unknown Rivals: The Light Warriors are barely aware of them, only Black Mage recognizes them during their first encounters as a full team, and they didn't even know why they were out to get them, or that they were even after them in the first place.

Garland

Garland: "You will pay for your insolence, princess. For when I summon the dark lord Chaos to do my bidding, my very first uh... bid will be to hurrrrrt you. Hurrrrt you!"
Princess Sara: "What're you gonna have him do? Poke me in the ribs?"

Garland: "Oh heavens no. I'm nefarious, not cruel."

• Affably Evil
• Card-Carrying Villain: Even though he's probably the least evil character of them all.
• Contractual Genre Blindness: The reason why he didn't let Drizz'l kill the Light Warriors when the opportunity to do so arose.
• The Ditz
• Enemy Summoner: He has actually been shown to be fairly competent in monster summoning.
• Evil Sounds Deep: And it hurts.
• The Faceless
• Gosh Dang It to Heck: Apologizes for saying "aw, nuts."
• The Hero
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Gives Fighter and White Mage a run for their money. He'd probably apologize about that.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain
• Malicious Slander: Starts a Scare Campaign against the Light Warriors, except he's right about them.
• Nice Guy
• Not So Harmless: The way he dealt with the Dark Warriors' mutiny against him was actually pretty clever.
• Put The Poodle In A Shelter: He's nefarious, not cruel.
  • The most evil thing he did in the comic was probably finding a quarter and not asking if it belonged to anyone.
• Speech Bubbles: Starts off as black-on-grey, then standard black-on-white, then white-on-black, and finally settles on red-on-black. Lampshaded as him working on his evil voice.
• Spikes of Villainy
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Comes up with a stealth tactic nearly identical to Red Mage's and, likewise, thinks Red Mage's giant block of ice is a cold-fusion generator.
• Supreme Chef: His greatest, and possibly only real, ability.
• Tin Tyrant
• Why Did It Have To Be Forest Imps?

Drizz'l

"I have got to find new, non-sucky, friends."

• The Beast Master: Tends to rely on monsters (the giant spiders, camel spider, platypus, random encounters in the Temple, and the Fiends). Likely a Ranger/Fighter, being a Drizzt ripoff.
• Canon Foreigner
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Becomes prevalent in his interactions with Thief and the other Dark Warriors towards the end. Needless to say, his elven royalty shows.
• Deadpan Snarker
• Dual-Wielding
• Even Bad Men Love Their Papas
• Giant Spiders: His minions prior to becoming a Dark Warrior.
• Heel Face Revolving Door: Joins the Light Warriors, wants to return to the Dark Warriors but teams up with Thief to backstab everyone, but is then forced to rejoin the Dark Warriors.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain
• The Lancer
• Only Sane Man
• Our Elves Are Better: To a lesser degree than Thief, but he has his moments.
• Overused Copycat Character
• Punctuation Shaker
• Speech Bubbles: Inverted (white on black).
• The Starscream: Actually manages to take leadership over the Dark Warriors for a little while and make them slightly less ineffective.
• Weapon of Choice: Scimitars.
• White-Haired Pretty Boy
• You Killed My Father: His primary grievance with the Light Warriors.

Bikke

"Be this 600 or pineapple?"

• Ambidextrous Sprite: Though it's entirely probable that he has two perfectly healthy eyes and intentionally moves his eyepatch when he turns.
• Bad Boss: Killed his crew by feeding them Cheetos when they were suffering scurvy rather than oranges. Not out of stupidity, but so he wouldn't have to share the booty.
• The Big Guy
• The Ditz: Easily tops both Fighter and King Steve in this regard.
• Hook Hand: After believing himself to have one, Vilbert eventually gives him a prop one.
• Never Learned to Read
• Pirate
• Psychopathic Manchild: Garland apparently carries a baby tote for him.
• Talk Like a Pirate

Vilbert von Vampire

"My dark soul burns with fiery agreement. Or possibly tacos."

• Basement Dweller: Moved out of his parents' house - and into their basement. But after joining the Dark Warriors he moved into a completely different basement.
• The Chick: The dramatic flair of the group.
• Evil Redhead
• Goth
• Our Vampires Are Different: He is more of an Emo Teen than an actual threat.
• Really Seven Hundred Years Old
• The Roleplayer
• Rule of Cool: He explicitly states that despite being a vampire, sunlight doesn't harm him simply because his death should "be more interesting than that."
• Speech Bubbles: Black text and outlines with a red gradient background.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Thinks he's in a LARP.

The Other Warriors

Red Mage: "But the Other Warriors were on the same quest."
Thief: "It's because they aren't smart! You were able to fool them. You."

• Canon Foreigners: There's nothing resembling them or their roles in Final Fantasy I.
• Dropped A Bridge On Them
• Heroes Of Another Story
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep"
• Idiot Heroes
• Killed Off for Real
• Nice Guys

Ranger

• The Archer
• Department of Redundancy Department: His full name is Generic Dual-Class Half-Elven Ranger. His other class is also Ranger.
• Dual-Wielding: Taken Up to Eleven. Unfortunately, he chose to take it Up to Eleven against Sarda, which still left him about Eleventy-Zillion short.
• Heinz Hybrid: He's apparently 50% elf, 25% human and 12.5% orc. The remaining 12.5% is unknown, but presumably also human.
  • Bizarrely, in his introduction, he claims to be half-elven and half-human. Later he says he's a half-elven ranger who is a quarter Lefeinish (human) and a quarter half-orc. This puts him anywhere from 112.5% to 125%, depending on what the other half of the half-orc is.
• The Hero

Berserker Axinhed

"Just because I fly into a blind, homocidal rage at the tip of a helm doesn't mean I'm incapable of appreciating the finer things in life."

• The Berserker
• Berserk Button: Taking off his monocle, but since it works when he takes it off himself, his berserk button can be whatever he wants it to be.
• The Big Guy
• The Faceless
• High-Class Glass
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Averted. When he isn't berserking, he's not much of a stereotypical dwarf at all.
• Quintessential British Gentleman: Apart from being a dwarf and periodically going psychotic, he fits.

Cleric

"Well look at that, another beautiful miracle. If it weren't for my atheism, I'd be impressed by it."

• Agent Scully: This leads to his undoing.
• The Chick: More sensible than Ranger and Berserker, and kinder than Rogue.
• Dumbass Has a Point: As completely stupid as it is to be both a cleric and an atheist, he makes a compelling point that it prevents him from seeming like he has favorites or is a suck-up.
• Flat Earth Atheist
• Healing Shiv: Uses one and is the Trope Namer.
• Nay Theist: Knows the gods exist but does not believe they do in order to not ruin his bargaining position.
• White Mage: Naturally.

Rogue

"I know a guy."

• Friend in the Black Market: It's Thief.
• Honest John's Dealership
  • Real Estate Scam
• The Lancer
• Loveable Rogue
• Non-Action Guy
• Only Sane Man: Within the group of the Other Warriors.
• The Smart Guy: Of the more Lancer/Trickster-ish variety.

The Fiends

• Back from the Dead
• Big Bad Quadrumvirate
• Elemental Embodiments: Really only Kary. Lich is more of an elemental antithesis (and embodiment of death), whereas it's an entirely Informed Ability for Ur and Muffin.
• For the Evulz
• Knights Of Cerebus: Lich and Kary play this straight, and Ur and Muffin subvert it.

Lich

"Death is the natural state of all being. Life is the aberration. It is fleeting, and full of pain. Come, embrace the eternity in nothing!"

• Badass Boast: Loves to do this even more than the other villains.
• Charm Person: Uses "creepy undead mind control" to prevent his wives from cheating on him. Try not to focus too much on the creepy...
• Dem Bones
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Seems to genuinely care about his son, even if he considers him to be a bit of a failure.
• The Grim Reaper
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Though even the original translation had "Lich" as a proper noun and name.
• The Necromancer
• Nietzsche Wannabe
• Our Liches Are Different
• Physical God: Becomes the ruler of Hell after Hell King Black Mage kills him.
• Soul Jar: Used the Earth Orb for this purpose.

Kary

"Look, I haven't killed anything in about three minutes, so my patience is nil at this point."

• Ax Crazy
• Hero-Killer: Kills Black Belt.
• Hot Amazon: Black Mage apparently thinks so.

Black Mage: Lady, if you weren't trying to kill me, and half made out of snake, I'd be on you like blood on my knife.

• Multi-Armed and Dangerous
• Personality Powers: Really the only Fiend to fit this.
• Playing with Fire
• Snake People
• Stupid Evil + Bad Boss: Slaughters her own minions for little or no reason just to prove she's evil and because she likes killing things.
• Worthy Opponent: Calls Fighter one, anyway.

Ur

"Anyway, you guys ordered an apocalypse if I'm right."

• Affably Evil: Handles ending worlds in a friendly, business-like manner.
• Eldritch Abomination
• Everything's Squishier with Cephalopods
• Omnicidal Maniac: Planned to destroy the world when summoned.
• Punctuation Shaker: His true name is Jnn'efur.

Muffin

Dragoon: "Muffin is a dragon. It all makes sense now. Like, when I'd say 'Polly want a cracker?" she'd say "No, Muffin want to rip a knight in half and suck out the pulp.'"

• Achilles' Heel: A spear through her brain.
• Batman Gambit: How she deals with each of the Light Warriors.
• Evil Plan: Forming the Dragoons to kill off all the other dragons to take their treasure and having the Dragoons killed off, too.
• Faux Affably Evil
• Fluffy the Terrible: Though Dragoon suspects it wasn't her real name.
• Hoist By Her Own Petard: Creating an order of knights designed solely to slay dragons really comes back to bite her.
• Last Of Her Kind
• Our Dragons Are Different
• Smug Snake
• Superior Species: Sure thinks she is. Manages to out-do even elves in terms of racial arrogance.
• Visionary Villain
• We Can Destroy Together: Briefly allies with Black Mage before tricking him into getting off of her while flying in the middle of the sky.

Others

White Mage

• Already Done for You: Kills Chaos while the Light Warriors were stalling for time to think of a way out of it.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?
• Evil Costume Switch: Her robes turned inside-out.
• Face Heel Turn: Well, the single most adorable attempt at one ever.
• The Healer
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep"
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: But, fortunately, she got better.
• Logic Bomb: Convinced Chaos that a universe without Order would still lead to Order.
  • And that it would be boring.
    • Then zapped him with enough White Magic to kill a vile dark god of chaotic energy.
• The Noseless
• Only Sane Woman: Usually.
• Out of Focus: Originally a Fifth Ranger of sorts, but started showing up less and less as the comic went on.
• Redheaded Hero
  • Heroes Want Redheads: She might have a crush on Fighter, or at the very least has no contempt for him.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Italian.
• White Mage: Duh.

Sarda

"I, gentlemen, am Sarda, and that makes me the wizard who did it!"

• A God Am I
• Arch Enemy: To Black Mage.
• Ascended Extra: Basically everyone is, but he is the comic's Most Triumphant Example. In all editions of Final Fantasy I, Sarda/Sadda is just a hermit who gives the heroes a rod to get past the Earth Cave. In 8-bit Theater, he is so much more.
• Badass Mustache
• Comes Great Authority: But absolute power, rocks absolutely.
• Evil Sorcerer
• The Faceless
• Hoist by His Own Petard
• Hypocrite: He can make a case for Black Mage, but he can't really claim the moral high ground over Thief and Red Mage.
• Idiot Ball: Just once, though at the worst possible moment. Quoth the Evil Overlord List: No matter how tempted I am with the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head.
• Jerkass
• Mind Screw: Does this to the Light Warriors, Other Warriors, and Dark Warriors in various ways.
• Nigh Invulnerability
• The Power of Hate: His hatred of the Light Warriors are what kept him going for eons.
• Pet the Dog: Toward White Mage and Fighter, even though he has every reason to hate the former.
• Prescience Is Predictable
• Reality Warper
• Seen It All
• Stable Time Loop
• Time Abyss: Technically older than the universe.
• Trickster Mentor
• Villain Teleportation
• The Wizard Who Did It: He explicitly refers to himself as one.
• You Already Changed the Past: Tries to prevent White Mage from accidentally creating the universe, but in doing so causes her to do it. As such, firmly believes that You Can't Fight Fate.
• Best Served Cold
• Big Bad:Unless you count the Light Warriors themselves, as he is responsible for setting everything in motion. Besides, he's nearly as nasty as Black Mage, regularly abusing his power, screwing with Ranger for no reason and with the entire town of Onrac just to get revenge on White Mage. He even inadvertently killed Onion Kid's - AKA his own - adoptive parents when he was doing it. All because he can.
  • You could say he takes the place of Garland, the Big Bad from the source material, being a character scarred by the Light Warriors in the beginning, involved in a time-loop plot, planning on the Light Warriors to complete their quest, and becoming the vessel for Chaos. They're even both fought in the Temple of Fiends.
• Death by Irony: A combination of Hoist by His Own Petard and poetically dying the way he grew up--accidentally harmed by Black Mage's evil.
• Demonic Possession: By Chaos.
• Freudian Excuse: He's such an asshole because Black Mage made his past self's life miserable. This is cancelled out because he didn't do anything to fix it, though Word of God suggests he couldn't.
• From Nobody to Nightmare
• Future Badass: Of the Onion Kid.
• Living Bodysuit: For Chaos.
• Go Mad From the Isolation: Being trapped and alone for billions of years alone was really just the final straw that broke the wizard's mind.
  • Go Mad from the Revelation: His madness started with Black Mage's face.
• One-Winged Angel: After absorbing the elemental orbs and Black Mage's super evil.
  • Clipped-Wing Angel: And explodes a few minutes later.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Traveled to the beginning of the universe in order to prevent the Light Warriors from coming into being.

Black Belt

"You try walking a straight line without bumping into wave functions of neighboring realities."

• Achievements in Ignorance
• Bare-Fisted Monk
• Dumb Muscle
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep"
• Missed the Call: According to White Mage.
• No Sense of Direction
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: He's not gay!
• Killed Off for Real: Twice, in fact.

Dragoon

"All those poor, poor fools not living in towers or being able to leap into the stratosphere. It's like they wanted to drown."

• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: While White Mage and Onion Kid list off the Light Warriors' atrocities, Dragoon complains about their unwittingly taking his spear with them to Sarda.
• Big Damn Heroes: Pops up out of nowhere to save Thief from Muffin by jamming his spear through her head.
• Canon Foreigner: Dragoons weren't introduced until Final Fantasy II, and it was III that added the whole jumping shtick.
• Chekhov's Gunman
• Embarrassing First Name: One strip implies that his first name is actually Sebastian, and that he isn't too fond of it.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": He doesn't answer to Sebastian.
• Last of His Kind
• Nice Guy
• Running Gag: Invariably lands on Black Mage when jumping.
• Unwitting Pawn
• What an Idiot!: In-universe, the other characters call him out on the stupidity of believing that Muffin was a parrot all his life.
• Put on a Bus: But comes Back for the Finale and, unlike the countless cameos within said finale, he's actually the sixth most prominent character in it.

King Steve

King Steve: "Did I ever tell you about the time I built this castle all by hand?"
Princess Sara: "It's 400 years old, dad."
King Steve: "Yes, yes. I designed it that way, you know."

• 0% Approval Rating: To the point where half of his subjects, when given a choice, preferred to get a sword through their heads than to be ruled by King Steve forever.
• Brick Joke: See The Cuckoolander Was Right below.
• The Caligula: He starts wars with other countries and murders his own subjects on a whim. Plus, he likes to wear shoes made from baby skin. Fresh daily. That cry. His severe mental retardation does not help matters.
• Cloudcuckoolander
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Turns out one can drill for mana.
• The Ditz: He's even more stupid than Fighter.
• Imaginary Enemy: His political rival Length of String. Until King Steve assassinates him.
• Imaginary Friend: Right Hand Man Rodney the coffee stain.
• The King of Town: On a good day.
• Laughably Evil
• Satellite Character: Left Hand Man Gary.
• Too Dumb to Live
• Worthy Opponent: Thief considers him to be the world's foremost criminal mind.

Princess Sara

• Deadpan Snarker
• Demoted to Extra: A big part of the Dark Warrior and King Steve sub-plots earlier on, but Drizz'l and Left-Hand Man Gary essentially take her place.
• Damsel in Distress: Parody of the trope, in that constant kidnapping led to her learning some things of evil from villains.
• Evil Costume Switch
• Evil Is Sexy: Even Garland says her villain outfit is hot.
• Hot Chick with a Sword: Well, Fighter certainly thought so when he saw her borrowing his sword and slaughtering a giant with it.
• Only Sane Woman
• Politically-Active Princess: She has this role due to Alternative Character Interpretation (compared to her Damsel in Distress Final Fantasy counterpart). Mostly because leaving King Steve to his own devices would pretty much be the end of their dynasty.

Chaos

"I am the yawning chasm from before the before; the darkness after the end of all things. I am nothing and no thing is eternal."

• Affably Evil: Rather sporting to the Light Warriors and, well, anyone who wants to destroy the world in a "cakeological singularity" can't be all bad.
• Bigger Bad: This IS based on Final Fantasy I after all. "Darko, the Dark God of the Dark" says that all the monsters in the world are "fragments" of Chaos.
• Brought Down to Normal: "Chaos! You're too tall!"
• Eldritch Abomination
• Generic Doomsday Villain: Invoked trope. He wants to destroy all of existence out of a misguided belief that it would be chaotic. Unfortunately, White Mage explains to him that such a thing would create perfect order.
• God of Evil
• Meaningful Surname: Apparently his full name is Chaos Doombringer.
• Omnicidal Maniac
• Order Versus Chaos
• Power of the Void
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Planned to give Black Mage the same fate as everyone else in the world.
• Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: While he did get mentioned about once a year, he still comes from nowhere (literally).
• Hijacked by Ganon: Possesses Sarda's body after a Phlebotinum Overload and threatens to destroy the universe towards the end of the comic.
• Twenty Four Of Your Earth Hours
• The Unfought: Well, unfought by the Light Warriors, at least.

Matoya

• Baleful Polymorph: Turns people who annoy her into frogs.
• Crystal Ball
• Hot Dragon God-King On Witch Action
• Interspecies Romance
• Smug Snake
• Wicked Witch

The Cultists

Thief: "You're not going to have to incest at us first, are you?"
Cultist: "No, we don't do that!"
Cultist: "Any more!"
Mrr'grt: "As much!"

• Big Bad Wannabes: Actually got close to ending reality in both of their appearances, but they still pale in comparison to the Fiends, Sarda, and the Light Warriors.
• Cult
• Embarrassing First Names: They all have girl names, though this doesn't seem to bother them.
• Everything's Squishier with Cephalopods
• Filler Villains: In their first appearance, since the entire arc has 0 impact on the story.
• Nietzsche Wannabes: Naturally, being a parody of Lovecraft's works.
• Omnicidal Maniacs
• Punctuation Shaker
• Religion of Evil
• Starfish Language
• Villainous Incest / Parental Incest
• Unexplained Recovery

Astos

• Evil Chancellor
• Evil Plan: If the Light Warriors were killed by Drizz'l or the assassins, he would have simply plunged Elf Land into a dark age under his kingship. When the Light Warriors attacked him, he was going to use that to create a civil war.
• Our Elves Are Better
• Smug Snake
• Villain with Good Publicity: As far as "good publicity" is possible among elves.
• Anticlimax Boss
• Talking the Monster to Death: Literally - Red Mage and Black Mage tried to come up with a Pre-Mortem One-Liner before fighting Astos, but they botched it so badly that it ended up killing him.

Warmech

"BEHOLD MY HUMAN LASER!"

• Cloudcuckoolander
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"
• Go Mad From the Isolation
• Hugh Mann
  • Paper-Thin Disguise
• Insane Troll Logic
• Walking Tank
• Bus Crash: Kills himself off-screen.

Akbar

"Suckers!"

• Evil Redhead
• Honest John's Dealership

The Sulk

• Captain Ersatz
• The Eeyore
• Hulk Speak

The Real Light Warriors

• Butt Monkeys: Whenever we see these guys, they're usually getting screwed over.
• The Chew Toys: When you consider how they were supposed to be the heroes, their suffering is very disenheartening.
• Cosmic Playthings: Even when the Light Warriors aren't screwing them, things rarely work out for these guys.
• Evil Counterparts: Inverted; since the Light Warriors are the very definition of Villain Protagonists, they are very heroic. To drive the point home, while the RLWs use character sprites of Fighter, Thief, and Red Mage's upgraded classes from the first Final Fantasy game (Knight, Ninja, Red Wizard, respectively) Black Mage's is a White Wizard.
• Missed the Call: They were supposed to be the ones to become chosen by fate, but because they were out level grinding, the main characters got the job.
• No Name Given: The only member of the group whose name was revealed is the Red Wizard named Barry.
• Think Nothing of It: When they do pull off some heroics, they are very humble about it.