The Sport of Ghost Wrestling/Characters

Here are the characters in The Sport of Ghost Wrestling.

Demetrios and his friends

Demetrios

• Amazing Technicolor Population: As a rule, ghosts have characteristic pure white skin, but have their normal hair and eye colors (black in Demetrios's case).
• Atlantis: It turns out that Demetrios was the last Prince of Atlantis before the continent's tragic descent into the ocean.
• Back from the Dead: How he became a ghost.
• Big Eater: As Marissa puts it, "Thanks a lot. You just ate an entire month's worth of groceries in an hour."
• Blue Eyes
• The Hero
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Dragon Claw.
• Kid Hero: As a ghost, Demetrios gets to be 18 forever, in a manner of speaking.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: He unfortunately lost the memories of his previous life upon becoming a ghost, though his past slowly gets pieced together.
• Lawful Good: Though it takes him a while to come to this, what with this Laser-Guided Amnesia.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Demetrios panics over the idea of sending his brother Samuel to hell when he was alive. However, he assures him that he fought his way out of hell just as he once did, and can now go to Heaven.
• Not So Invincible After All: Despite being a top Ghost Wrestler, he still falls prey to "the Island's" tricks and traps, up to and including mutant venom.
• Shapeshifting: A brief list of the forms Demetrios has assumed during the story:
  • An African bull elephant
  • A white Arabian stallion
  • A sea serpent
  • A phoenix (no, not that Phoenix)
  • A chimpanzee
  • A crocodile
  • A demonic knight
  • A demonic version of himself
  • Two of the Stock Dinosaurs: Utahraptor and Tyrannosaurus Rex
  • And last but not least, a red dragon

Marissa

• Blue Eyes: Icy blue in her case.
• Brainy Brunette: You'd pretty much have to be if you had psychic powers.
• The Chick
• Good Guy Bar: Her house serves as a hangout for the other characters.
• Ms. Fanservice: She makes her first appearance wearing a Spy Catsuit. What more proof do you need?
• Neutral Good
• Opera Gloves: She has a couple pairs of them.
• Psychic Powers: She has a few of them. Sadly, even they could not find where her sister Gloria had gone to.

Moon Shadow

• All Animals Are Dogs: Kinda/sorta. He understands Demetrios very well, and quite a few times neighs in agreement with him.
• Big Damn Heroes: Also serves as Moon Shadow's Crowning Moment of Awesome: he swoops in and severely beats up Theodore, "the Island's" last surviving guard.
• Cool Horse / Pegasus
• Meaningful Name: He has a black coat except for a white stripe on the center of his face.
• Reincarnation: How he gained his wings and came to Demetrios's aid.

Captain John "Max" Stelling

• Blue Eyes
• Combat Pragmatist: While Demetrios, Mothman, and Aristotle are melee-oriented, Max provides ranged support with his guns.
• Dark Is Not Evil: He may be a vampire, but he's still one of the good guys.
• Face Death with Dignity: When Mephistopheles' mutants invade America, he is prepared to do this. Until Demetrios shows up.
• The Lancer
• Lawful Good: He's a soldier in the U.S. Marine Corp. They're supposed to be.
• Our Vampires Are Different
• Real Life Relative: More like Real Life Best Friend.

Gloria / Nemesis

• Damsel in Distress
• Hair of Gold
• Neutral Good
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: When kidnapped by William's, she was injected with a serum that would keep her a 13-year-old girl, thus making her more susceptible to brainwashing and thinking she's William's daughter, thus severing the psychic link between her and Marissa. Fortunately, undoing the mutant transformation reverses this.

Mothman

• Defector From Decadence: Though he was never loyal to Mephistopheles to begin with.
• Friendly Neighborhood Cryptid: Mothman was unfairly kidnapped by Mephistopheles to be one of his soldiers, and turns out to be a lot nicer and more honorable than the urban legends would have you think.
• Gentle Giant
• Lawful Good
• Public Domain Character
• Winged Humanoid

Aristotle

• Big Damn Heroes: He's the one who breaks Demetrios and Kurt out of Mephistopheles' dungeon.
• Defector From Decadence
• Everything's Better with Monkeys: He's actually a chimpanzee.
• I Know Karate: Part of his training as a spy.
• Line-of-Sight Name: He takes his name from one of the books Mephistopheles has in his office.
• Neutral Good
• The Strategist: He tends to be more cautious than the eager Demetrios.
• Team Pet: He may look like this at first, but he still gladly helps out with the team.
• The Woobie: It can be hard to not see him in this light, since he was tortured and beaten into becoming Mephistopheles' spy.

Carter

• Figure It Out Yourself: Not even people in the afterlife can explain how or why somebody becomes a ghost.
• MacGuffin Delivery Service: He was waiting for the right time to give Dragon Claw back to Demetrios.
• Mr. Exposition: He explains how William turned crazy and founded "the Island."
• Our Angels Are Different: He looks very much like he did when he was alive.
• Overlord, Jr.: Carter simply wanted the island to be a private getaway for his family, not the prison William turned it into.

"The Island"

Tropes describing "the Island" in general

• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: When the other prisoners tell Demetrios of the terrible imprisonment and the important parts of their lives they missed out on during their time at "the Island", one prisoner ends with something silly:

"They make you do arts and crafts for four hours."

• Awesome McCoolname: The staff of "the Island" tend to have the cool-sounding names you don't hear as often these days, such as "William", "Dorothy", and "Theodore."
• Cult / Knight Templar: They're the classic bad guys who think they're good guys.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: William and Dorothy can't figure out why Demetrios is so opposed to living at "the Island" or why the other prisoners are secretly unhappy.
• Paranoia Fuel: "The Island" will come to find you, no matter how far you run.
• Shout-Out: "The Island" is based on the bizarre village in the classic TV show The Prisoner; one of the prisoners is even named Patrick. However...
  • Darker and Edgier: Considering how grimly determined the staff of "the Island" is in keeping its prisoners there, up to and including armed guards and ninjas, this place is a lot more militant than its predecessor.
  • Plus it has a few references to The Simpsons version of The Prisoner as seen in the episode "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes," case in point:

William: Why do you keep thinking the bubble trick will work?

Dorothy: Shut up! That's why!

• These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: According to William and Dorothy, "the Island" is supposed to keep people who "know too much" from "upsetting the balance of the world." Whatever that means.

William / Mephistopheles

• Animal Motifs: When alive again to become Mephistopheles, he becomes mixed with two animals he considers natural born leaders like himself: the lion and the gorilla.
• Back from the Dead: The first time after his Deal With The Devil, and during the last battle, he even comes back to life four times.
• Bald of Evil
• Big Bad: Though he doesn't think of himself as such.
• British Stuffiness
• Brown Eyes: When he's human.
• Complete Monster: He turned his father's private island getaway into an infamous prison for people who really didn't deserve it, kidnapped Gloria and not only brainwashed her into thinking she's really his daughter, but drugged her into remaining a 13-year-old girl so she'd stay that way, and turns himself into a mutant demon and allies with Satan himself so he can try to take over the world a second time, this time a lot less subtly. To call him insane would be putting it mildly.
• Deal with the Devil: How he came back to life the first time.
• Evil Is Hammy: During his last fight with Demetrios and when he becomes a mutant does he start Chewing the Scenery.
• Evilutionary Biologist: How he plans to take over the world the second time around.
• Honor Before Reason: During his last fight with Demetrios (as a mortal), he switches his RPG for a pair of samurai swords. It doesn't turn out very well.
• Meaningful Name: Mephistopheles.
• Neutral Evil: He's a lot calmer than Dorothy, and even has a calming influence on her. Only towards the end of Demetrios's last escape does he finally snap.
• One-Winged Angel: As the fight with Demetrios and company continues, he steadily becomes more powerful until he reaches his final form.
• Really Gets Around: A male example. Because of his craziness, William fancies himself as the mortal version of Zeus. Why else would he have all these kids who seek to follow in his footsteps?
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: When he becomes a mutant.

Dorothy

• Blood Knight: She seems very eager to kill Demetrios.
• Blue Eyes
• Chaotic Evil: She's more prone to losing her temper than William, especially when Demetrios is involved in it.
• Evil Is Hammy
• God Save Us From the Queen: Well, she's not really a queen, but you get the idea.
• Hair of Gold: Too bad she doesn't have a heart of gold to go with it, though.
• Knight Templar
• Why Don't Ya Just Shoot Him: She almost tries this with Demetrios.
• Wicked Cultured: She uses an appropriate line from Shakespeare to describe her dislike of Demetrios: "The Devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon."

Melissa / Shadowbite

• Animal Motifs: She gets turned into a half woman/half coral snake creature.
• Blue Eyes: When she's human.
• Evil Redhead
• Evil Is Sexy: Even Demetrios is a little turned on by her mutant transformation, and later she tries to put the moves on him during the last battle. Plus, as she admits, she had her way with a lot of the male prisoners, which only left them asking for more, as she puts it.
• Neutral Evil
• Non Mammalian Mammaries: Despite turning into a reptile, her chest becomes more prominent instead of less.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: More like black and red, matching the coral snake she's turned into.

Lucifer / Blackstorm

• Animal Motifs: He gets his DNA combined with that of a falcon.
• Black Eyes
• Chaotic Evil
• The Dragon
• I'm a Humanitarian: While the possibility to actually eat a ghost is up for debate, he wants to kill Demetrios for food.
• Lightning Bruiser: He's fast and packs a punch.
• Winged Humanoid

Kurt

• Blue Eyes
• Defeat Means Friendship: Well, they actually call it a draw.
• Face Heel Turn
• Mind Control: A mysterious presence seems to be controlling Kurt and compelling him to do evil deeds. Sadly, it succeeds.
• The Mole
• The Starscream / Evil Power Vacuum: When Mephistopheles gets defeated for the last time, he betrays Demetrios again and tries to take over the world himself. Fortunately, Demetrios puts an end to that.
• Was It All a Lie?: His friendship with Demetrios.