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1'''As a Wild Mass Guessing subpage, [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff all spoilers are unmarked]]. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.'''
2
3That's right; the Pyro gets their own speculation WMG page. That's what happens when you entirely conceal a character in an asbestos suit and mask, and then get all secretive about them.
4----
5
6[[foldercontrol]]
7
8[[folder:The Pyro is…]]
9First off, thanks to the zombie skin for Halloween, whatever's under that suit has a human skeleton. That still leaves plenty of room to grasp at straws though...
10
11* Saxton Hale's Secretary who found out a bit too much info, and got imprisoned in the pyrovision goggles to shut them up.
12* Covered in burns.
13* A man.
14* A woman.
15* Patience Meriwether, wearing a prototype life extender machine.
16* A homosexual man.
17* Has a split personality, one of which is female and one of which is male.
18* Chinese.
19* Japanese.
20* Hispanic.
21* Latino.
22* British.
23* Hybrid nationality - this is why their hat collection is so varied and their nationality isn't in-your-face.
24** A cisgendered man.
25** A cisgendered woman.
26* A redhead. Because why not?
27* ''A Schizophrenic''.
28* ''...a sufferer of Dissociative Identity Disorder,'' whose identities run the gamut of genders,ages, and possibly even races, with personalities including the sadistic Pyromanic, a competent and fearless fighter, a goofy nerd, and a delusional nut/child (Pyroland's creator).
29* A ''Jewish survivor of the Holocaust.'' He was severely burned in one of the 'ovens' of the death camps, and wears the fireproof suit to protect himself and hide his deformation. He also hides a Star of David under the suit. (I like FanFic/{{Respawn of the Dead}}, sue me.) This explains his "rivalry" with the Medic - the best counter for afterburn is the Medi Gun, after all.
30* ''A FourthWallObserver''. Pyro doesn't think it's a game because s/he's an InnocentInaccurate; Pyro thinks it's a game ''[[VideoGame/TeamFortress2 because it's a game]]''.
31** You. You just won the internet.
32** He keeps everything about himself a secret in order to to screw with people, hide as another masked character in an entirely different fictional work if need be, and [[MagnificentBastard prevent anyone from]] ever creating completely accurate {{Rule 34}} of him.
33** So, he's a ([[ColorCodedMultiplayer sometimes]]) red-wearing [[PsychoForHire psychopath]] [[MediumAwareness who knows about the fourth wall]]? [[ComicBook/{{Deadpool}} Hmmm...]]
34* ''Incapable of feeling pain properly.'' The Pyro's flinch when taking damage was far less noticeable than most others, and simply a repositioning of the elbows. The Pyro's grunts don't even play that often when under heavy fire. This is why most classes are afraid of it. It's a ground troop that defuses most Spy efforts, can decimate ambush forces, plow through most defenses, overall ruin an organized plan, and it won't even so much as wince when shot most of the time.
35** ''Alternately, he’s in '''constant''' pain.'' Same reasoning as above, but also gives an excuse for the "harmless friendly fire hurts opposing Spy" tactic: Pyro pyrizes indiscriminately because [[IThoughtEveryoneCouldDoThat s/he thought the flamethrower was below everyone's baseline of pain]] (see also the WMG that Pyro thinks it's all a game, under "the pyro is actually deaf" above), and his teammates are used to it by now which reinforces the idea. The Spy for your team is not used to it from being disguised as an opposing team member and needing to stay out of the fire to keep cover, and/or RED and BLU use different chemical propellants that each have additional damaging side effects (since opposing team members are still affected by your team's flamethrower and vice versa).
36* ''Has no immune system.'' You just never see him running to a hospital to be put on masses of antibiotics and [[AppliedPhlebotinum antivirals]] after the suit is damaged because none of the battles last more than a couple of hours.
37* ''A primitive [[http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/Cremator Cremator]]'' Pyro burns people, leaving behind corpses if (s)he's good at his/her work, wears a gas mask, and nobody really knows what the Pyro is like. Cremators use flamethrower-like weapons to dispose of people in the ''VideoGame/HalfLife2''-verse and are never seen, so nobody really knows much about them, either. Cremators also appear to be at least partially trans-human. The Pyro is merely a prototype, explaining the home-made appearance of the flamethrower and the combine-esque gasmask, since Cremators were to use weapons that essentially burned enemies away.
38* ''A [[http://mst3k.wikia.com/wiki/The_Mole_People Mutant Mole Man]]'' It was smart enough to figure out how to use fire to fight back against the Children of Ishtar without hurting itself. The suit's there to hide his deformities and protect his own sensitive eyes; it also hides the fact that the mutants seen in the movie can't speak human languages (most just blame it on the mask).
39* ''a GenreSavvy / Paranoid Spy''. He's noticed how easy it is for a spy to be discovered, and went the extra mile to trick the enemy, by creating an entirely new person out of himself. The reason he doesn't sap any sentries or backstab anyone during the game is because he's just that worried about being caught, and the reason why he can walk through the enemy team is because he is wearing proper uniform. That's why the mask hides his face and his voice; a spy is under there and when the game ends, it doesn't matter who won, because the Pyro has.
40** WordOfGod is that The Pyro is… [[TheUnReveal The]] [[ShapedLikeItself Pyro]]. All of the above?
41* ''A Platonic Ideal.'' The Pyro does not have male or female attributes. Males and females have Pyro-like attributes. The Pyro is, as above, [[ShapedLikeItself the Pyro.]]
42* ''The Scout's older brother.'' He was enraged when he found out how his younger brother came about and, wanting to avenge his brother, became the perfect antithesis to the skill set and combat style of his father in-law, the Spy.
43** Bruddah also rhymes with Huddah. Food for thought...
44* ''Pre-op transgender''. Pyro hides because s/he doesn't want his/her teammates to see him/her in a body that doesn't suit them. Alternately, an intersexed individual who wants to avoid confusion from their teammates.
45* ''An internet troll.'' He lights fires in the chat forum by being a complete [[DemonicSpiders demonic spider]], upon meeting an enemy Pyro they often start flame wars, and the Flare Gun is an irritation weapon because he cannot stand lack of attention for too long. The Homewrecker destroys anything an Engineer he doesn't like can come up with, the Axtinguisher silences those who have already been set ablaze, the Third Degree hits people trying to assist his enemies, and the reason you don't understand him is beause he speaks in InsaneTrollLogic. And also, he makes you think he may be a woman.
46* ''A former Valve employee.'' Some habits from his old job stuck, and without a userbase to troll, he can't resist messing with his teammates' heads.
47* ''[[WMG/TeamFortress2 A four-year-old girl with no idea what death even]] '''[[WMG/TeamFortress2 is]]''' [[WMG/TeamFortress2 yet]].'' The Pyro suit is PoweredArmor. This ties into the guesses that the Pyro is a cisgendered female, thinks the whole thing is a game, and includes mechanical components.
48* ''A clone of the original Pyro, Abraham Lincoln.'' Unfortunately, due to the Pyro being blown to chunky red gibs repeatedly, the cloning agency had to cut a few corners. Namely, the Pyro is insane (the cloners don't have the time or money to make each clone a rational human being), the Pyro has no set gender (usually male, due to Lincoln's DNA, but sometimes something gets flipped and the clone is female), the Pyro has a rapidly decaying outer skin (he/she/it can survive for a few hours outside the suit before he/she/it starts to break down. Again, not enough time or money to make each clone stable.)
49* ''A pair of Twins.'' One boy, One girl. They keep switching teams in secret, so that's why Pyro is sometimes referred to as a "she".
50* ''The Engineer's daughter.'' It would explain why the two work so well together, and why Engie was reading Pyro a story about Australian Christmas in the Christmas 2011 comic.
51** Could also explain Pyrovision; Engineer made his daughter some special goggles so that she wouldn't be afraid when she came to see him at work.
52* ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi8iI-zwsDQ Engineer's retarded brother.]]'' The fact that the head is so tiny is more than indicative of a serious mental disorder. Though he has the body of a man, he has the mind of a child, which explains his affinity for silly hats and why his battle cry seems to be "Hello!!!". When Engie was recruited, He begged them to hire his brother too. Fortunately, "Dolt" really enjoyed setting things on fire. So Dell built him some equipment and set him "Out to play".
53** Also, in the comic [[http://www.teamfortress.com/truemeaning/?p=2 True Meaning]], we see that the Engineer and Pyro live together, and the Engineer is reading Pyro a Christmas story like one would read to a child (well, a child in the Team Fortress universe maybe). Why else would the Engineer know about the Pyro's mental state when no one else does if the two aren't siblings?
54* ''A universe-displaced [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender firebender]]'', [[AxCrazy quite possibly]] [[VillainousBreakdown Princess Azula.]]
55* ''Someone who hates sandviches [[RealitySubtext for no reason]].''
56* [[TheChessmaster Actually behind everything]], and [[ObfuscatingStupidity pretends to be a ditz]] so [[ManipulativeBastard no one suspects him.]]
57* Secretly [[InUniverseCamera the cameraman]] for some of the more gore-splattered parts of the Meet the Team videos. This is why his video is coming last- they couldn't find anyone crazy enough to replace him when he announced he wouldn't be able to shoot ''Meet The Pyro'' [[SecretIdentity for some reason]].
58* ''Someone from the [[LegacyCharacter previous generation(s) of the team]] (possibly using the life extender, though not Lincoln)- either as [[ShapedLikeItself his/her speciality, the Pyro]] or as a different class entirely. This explains why s/he's [[HeterosexualLifePartners fond of Engineer]]- s/he was best friends with Dell's father, or [[LukeIAmYourFather maybe even]]...
59* ''President of, or at least a heavy influence behind, Spytech'' (see the '''Loose Canon''' comic). [[TheChessmaster She deliberately secured the company]] to supply her [[SerialKiller favourite]] prey with inferior equipment.
60* ''A JustForFun/TimeLord Rogue.'' Time Lords ''love'' taking on titles that begin with 'The', such as [[Series/DoctorWho the Doctor]], TheMaster, The Rani, etc, and the Pyro just happens to have found a perfect place where no one will notice the odd habit, as everyone does it. As for the Pyro's sex/gender, its been changing constantly, along with [[TheNthDoctor its overall appearence]], and we haven't noticed because of the clothes.
61* ''The Sun in a '''[[AFormYouAreComfortableWith A Form You're Comfortable With.]]''''' The Sun needed a host body to keep certain people heated. However, it had no idea about humanity and that explains all the weird actions. It wears a mask and thick body suit to protect those around it but that doesn't stop it from using other flame related abilities to defeat RED or BLU.
62* ''A '''literal''' '[[FrankensteinsMonster Frankenstein of a Man]]'.'' Pyro is a gruesome creation of [[MadScientist The Medic]], made out of graverobbed corpses and the brain of a delusional pyromaniac. Underneath the suit, she is hideously mismatched and quite possibly rotting.
63* ''Screwball. She even has the propeller beanie!''
64* ''Capable of speaking perfectly well, [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation but just chooses not to]].'' His/her bio states that his lungs are ravaged by asbestos, and that is part of the reason he talks unintelligibly. But Asbestosis and similar lung afflictions cause breathlessness, and yet Pyro is one of the faster members of the team. So perhaps that's just an excuse and he's [[ShrinkingViolet shy]], or [[SociallyAwkwardHero hates talking to people]], or [[TheTrickster thinks it's funny]], or maybe [[MagnificentBastard he's hiding something]].
65** Alternatively, ''The Pyro is speaking Pyronese.'' With Pyrovision active, some of the directional signs are changed to just read "Mmm Mmmph." Maybe Pyro just assumes that everyone speaks in either mumbles or infant whines?
66* Pyro's appearance in ''VideoGame/KillingFloor'' was canon. Its yearly vacations consist of buying Doctor Who merchandise and killing zombies.
67* The Pyro's gender depends on the team S/He's on The Red Pyro is the female Pyro and the Blu Pyro is the male Pyro.
68* ''[[Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica A witch]]''. 'Meet The Pyro' shows that, where there is a blazing battlefield where everyone is massacred, the Pyro sees a gorgeous diabetic {{sugar bowl}} where they spread joy and happiness everywhere. Who tells us that the Pyro wasn't a magical girl before being the Pyro, their perception of reality distorted and turned upside down due to falling into despair and turning into a witch? Alternitavely, they could be the familiar of a witch. That would explain multiple Pyros being around in the game.
69* ''That guy who lost his skeleton to the Medic.'' We've all been under the wrong impression, thinking that the Pyro is simply wearing a full-body suit. Nope, he's actually surgically fused to the suit because he can't really live outside it, having no rigid bone structure and all.
70* ''A ReluctantPsycho'': the happy bits of the video are what Pyro wishes she/he/it could see, what she ''should'' be seeing if all was right with the world, but she knows she's too much of a slave to her [[SerialKiller own horrible]] [[PyroManiac impulses]]. So Pyro tries to imagine nice unicorns and things instead while murdering people, and uses that as an excuse to laugh and be delighted because she doesn't want to admit to herself that she enjoys burning people to death.
71* ''A monster'' who knows exactly what horrors they're inflicting on people, but visualizes everything as a silly game to make it even more fun.
72* ''Perfectly sane.'' Look at those Pyrovision goggles you've got. The ones with 'optical mask' written over the face. Yeah - they're just cut-down versions of the Pyro's gas mask. The gas mask he ''never removes''. Poor guy is in for a hell of shock if he ever takes that off on the battlefield...
73* ''The guy who invents and coins Psychedelia.'' Someday he snaps out of his LSD dream, it's the year 1968 and settles over to Woodstock. He will do the colour stuff (like in Pyroland) and also (after a long airguitar session with his axes and hammers) invents guitar solos.
74* The fourth illiterate. When in Pyrovision, the signs say 'mmmph' instead of the actual words, when Pyro held up the newspaper we didn't see any words through his/her eyes, and we've seen him/her obliviously burn books.
75* ''Born in the town of Teufort''. Because it's not a real place and thus the last place we'd ever guess. Also, Lead Poisoning.
76* ''A victim of ThatManIsDead''. That's why Pyro never takes off the gas mask and is called only by Pyro- s/he believes it's their face and their true name.
77* ''[[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness Extremely verbose]] and [[SmarterThanYouLook intelligent]] if anyone knew what s/he was saying''. As per RuleOfFunny.
78* A classic example of a {{Mook}}.
79* ''The RED Pyro is a Canadian fireman who's an albino''. He worked at the British Columbia Fire Brigade, where he learned to control fire, until that time where he rescued several innocent people from an arson caused by local gangsters or troublemakers, and he was forced to face the angry leader in combat who had two machetes while he had a Fire Axe. He got his face slashed by the leader, then accidentally used his axe handle to trip the leader into the fire. Unfortunately, he was permanently traumatized by the horrific sight of seeing the gang leader burn to death. He desperately tried to help him, but the leader refused. Later, he was a hero countrywide but couldn't work in the Fire Brigade anymore. So, he worked as a gas station attendant and a flare firing coastguard who also saved many lives. Eventually the Administrator heard about this local hero and hired him to be the RED Pyro. He created Pyroland based on his [[NightmareFuelColoringBook drawings]] and his favourite childhood books because he didn't want to see people burning to death. He wears a mask because, although he is a moderately handsome (well, he used to be good looking before he was knifed multiple times) albino, his face has some nasty knife wounds-tons of them, on his forehead and cheeks, and he's afraid that the team will shun him for being an albino. His contract also required him to confuse the team, which is why some of his behavior is rather feminine at times. After all, The Administrator loves a good MindScrew with the team to cheer her up on the worst days.
80* ''The BLU Pyro is the BLU Scout's Mom''. She followed her son to become a mercenary because she missed him and wanted to look after him, and fell in love with the RED Spy. The Administrator was not amused, so she threatened to release the photos to the BLU Scout if Scout's mom didn't also combat the RED Spy in battle as well, although she is allowed to date him off duty. She carries a flowered purse, hinting at her identity, and inside her purse contains the photos, make up, sunglasses, cash, one or two romance novels, a picture of the RED Spy, her contract, ''AMMO, CIGARETTES, A LIGHTER, A SPARE MASK AND A FLARE GUN''. Her son doesn't know, but she is rather caring towards him, which makes him think she's actually his best friend now. Cue the MindScrew is he finds out.
81** To continue, Pyroland is not a delusion, but a metaphor - It's a CHILDISH fantasy and land of wonder. Pyro is making herself think of her son and his childhood with her, and reminding herself why she does what she does.
82** Elaborating on that-to create the metaphor, could she have based "Pyroland" on the books and toys she gave to her son when he was a little boy? This could explain Scout's positive reaction in the [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/b/be/Meta_pyroland.jpg?t=20120628010544 picture]] for the Pyrovision Goggles on the Team Fortress 2 site? Like all his favourite childhood books and toys have suddenly come back to him?
83* ''Spy's equal'' because nobody knows anything about her. We don't even know Pyro's gender, let alone what she's talking or thinking about or her nationality. Spy's job is knowing everything about everyone, even to the point of taking pictures of his counterpart having sex, but he doesn't have the remotest clue who the mumbling freakshow who keeps outsmarting him is.
84* ''became what he is after seeing someone light a cigarette.'' One day, the Pyro encountered someone who was glum and stressed out, but after successfully lighting a cigarette, he cooled down considerably. The Pyro, who at this point in his life, was DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife suddenly realized his calling. He saw that the fire, which in [[CloudCuckoolander his mind]] was a [[SugarBowl magical mist of bubbles and rainbows]], made people happy. Therefore, he would provide bubbles and rainbows for ''everyone'' and make the whole world a happy place! By this logic, we can also get some insight into the Pyro and Spy's relationship. The Spy of course hates and fears the Pyro for burning him and ruining his disguise, cloak, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and suit]] in the process. However, the Pyro considers the Spy to be his best friend since he can make him so happy with his special talent, especially since he carries all of those cigarettes!
85* ''is a [=WW2=] Firebombing survivor'' (Warning: Possibly a DudeNotFunny and/or highly depressing) In keeping with the World War 2 related theme, the Pyro was a young kid/teenager during World War 2, either in Germany or Japan (Possibly Japan, fitting with the "pyro is Asian" WMG). Unfortunately for the Pyro, he/she had a tendency to continually move to cities that were about to get firebombed, and constantly got stuck in the resulting conflagrations. To mask the horror, the Pyro imagined that all the people getting burned were really in a happy kiddie land, with the fire spreading happiness around instead. Unfortunately, after too many repeats of this, the Pyro began to visualize everything this way, and after the war, built some devices to spread the happiness to everyone around him/her. Meanwhyile, in the actual world, the actual violent memories show themselves as the sadistic, destructive pyro we actually see in the video. (And this guess comes out even darker than I was expecting. May need some editing in the future.)
86* ''...the best member of the team at Mann Vs Machine'' The game mode has a lot of similarities to ''VideoGame/KillingFloor''. The Pyro was a playable character in Killing Floor. Assuming this appearance was canon, Pyro is the best at fighting the robots because s/he's already practiced on zombies.
87* ''The pyro is married to the spy.'' When they ever find out each other's true identity, it will be the most awkward day of their life.
88* ''The Pyro is a [[TheDitz ditz]].'' (S)he always forgets to remove the Pyrovision goggles. Every single time.
89* ''Pyro is a RealityWarper'' Merasmus the wizard exists in-universe, so Pyro could have untapped magical potential. Pyro is neither imaginative nor delusional, but instead has the power to change the world back and forth between Pyroland and horrible blood-soaked 'reality'.
90* ''Pyro comes from a BadFuture caused by Gray winning the war against Mann Co.''Specifically, a much more advanced robot that [[InstantAIJustAddWater gained sentience]]. Its [[BlueAndOrangeMorality somewhat odd morality]] told it that something was wrong with the world it lived in, but gave it no qualms about killing people. The reason for its sentience was likely Merasmus, who also sent it back in time in order to prevent the future from coming to pass - because of its skill at deflecting things like bombs.
91* ''related to or is the Spy from VideoGame/TeamFortressClassic.''They both wear face-obscuring masks, if that's any indication.
92* [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanFic/NobodyDies one of the Ree]].
93* ''Engineer's Girlfriend/[[HeterosexualLifePartners Best Friend]]''. This would explain why Engie brought he/she/it into the conflict between RED and BLU. He was lonely.
94* ''Blind.'' When he/she was a young child, they had a bad accident(Probably with fire) that made it nigh impossible to see. This could explain why everything Pyro sees is so childish and innocent. How our favorite arsonist sees in game? Perhaps the Medic or the Director had some experiments done that allowed the whole pyro goggles thing, or maybe he's just very good at hearing things. It's just a guess.
95* ''Schrodinger's Gender''. So long as he continues to wear that mask and suit, she is both male and female at the same time.
96* ''An exiled fairy princess.'' Specifically, she was an ignis fairy, [[TheFairFolk a particularly mischievous breed of fairy known for setting things on fire.]] One day, her incendiary antics went too far and she was banished from the magical fairy kingdom. So what did she do with herself? Why, she donned an asbestos suit and gas mask and became a mercenary, because why not? At first she joined up exclusively to make a living doing what she loved; setting things on fire. But as time went on, she grew closer to the rest of the team and eventually saw them as the family she always wished she had. She's even fallen in love with the Engineer, though she lacks the courage to show him who she really is. Though she was at first wary of the Engineer's machines (faeries have an instinctual aversion to metal and technology), she was eventually won over by his sweet and endearing personality. It was also through her love for the Engineer that she developed her hatred for spies; enemy spies were the bane of her team's existence, her love's especially. Thus, she hunts them down with ruthless efficiency to protect her family.
97* ''The Medic.'' Whether it's a JekyllAndHyde type affair brought on by the Medic's meddling or something more serious, with the Pyro being what the Medic turns into when he gets a bit ''too'' crazy, is unclear, but the Pyro represents the Medic's dark side (and considering what the Medic's other side is already like...), with them both being crazy but the Pyro doing harm when he thinks he's bring happiness and the Medic doing harm when he should be healing. The Pyro is also strictly offensive, unlike the Medic which will spend a fair bit of time treating units for after burn, and both have a mysterious past. Both of them use weapons they created themselves, and the Spy with his instakills makes the Medic useless, with the Pyro's spy checking being him acting on his insecurities.
98* A GenderBender with no control over his/her ability. The constant shifting in hormones and brain chemistry causes his/her insanity.
99* Severely autistic. Pyro seems to have done well in the business world, one that requires close attention to detail, repetitive numbers, and otherwise difficult and boring tasks that people on the autistic spectrum can manage quite well. He prefers to regress into "pyroland" like how autistics regress into fantasy worlds, and he seems to be a bit of a savant.
100* ''An LSD user.'' [=TF2=] takes place in the late 1960s / early 1970s, which is right smack in the middle of LSD's heyday as a recreational drug. LSD is famous among druggies for vibrant and colorful hallucinations, strong disconnect from reality, and euphoria. In other words, Pyroland in a nutshell. My guess is that he takes a hit before going onto the battlefield and spends the rest of the day gleefully shooting rainbows at cherubs until the dosage wears off and his shift is over. This would also explain how he seems able to function just fine off of the battlefield, and is competent enough to run a multi-million dollar engineering firm when he loses his mercenary job: he just stops taking the drug and resumes life as a normal person.
101* Formerly a gas station employee - see the description for the Gas Jockey set.
102* Sentient, hiveminded potatoes.
103* Failed clones of previously killed classes. Side effects include a strong feeling burning sensation, leading them obsessive to fire.
104* Originally an ''unwilling draft'' driven insane by the military's TrainingFromHell.
105* A ''BadassPacifist''. They started out as top of their class in basic training. But the targets were just dummies, and the training never ordered them to kill. Unfortunately, Redmond still wanted his Pyro, so he pretty much drugged Pyro in order to get them to comply.
106* The suit.
107* Heavy’s relative. Continuing the “Related to X” theories, The Pyro could be related to the Heavy. Could be a distant relative that Heavy didn’t know of when they were sent to the Gulag, and they met between being hired and the escape. Pyroland could be a Gulag induced hallucination, and after seeing the capabilities of this particular relative, The Heavy fears him/her and doesn’t treat it as a person.
108
109* John from VideoGame/{{To the Moon}} if he never met River and went through a {{Thatmanisdead}}
110
111[[/folder]]
112
113[[WMG:If Pyro could speak, most of his lines would be [[IncrediblyLamePun cooking puns]].]]
114
115[[WMG:The Pyro has a purse because he [[RealMenWearPink CAN]] have one.]]
116Who would be fireproof enough to question his taste? And since nobody is quite sure about the true identity of their team's Pyro, yet walking up to a [[TheDreaded mouth breathing freak of nature]] and [[TooDumbToLive asking what gender/sexual orientation they]] are has the potential to go badly they decide they are better off not knowing.
117
118[[WMG:The Pyro's real name will be revealed as [[TomboyishName unisex]] or [[LineOfSightName obviously fake]]]]
119Because Valve are trolls and want to keep us guessing.
120
121[[WMG:The pyro's enigmatic race and gender is [[EnforcedTrope enforced]].]]
122Because of his/her PsychopathicManchild personality. The pyro would have carried UnfortunateImplications to whatever race or gender they are supposed to represent.
123
124[[WMG:The Pyro wasn't always in Pyroland...]]
125In fact, he/she/it never was, right until "Meet the Pyro" came out. So how did he/she/it go from seeing everything like the other mercs to Pyroland? Here's my theory: if the Pyro was just as much of a Scrappy/ButtMonkey in-universe as well as out, than [[BigBad the Administrator]] was having her researchers work around the clock to find a way to make him/her/it sufficiently crazy for the Administrator's standards. It took a while because nothing seemed to work, but they finally came up with something: the Pyro-Vision goggles. This effectively made the Pyro BrainwashedAndCrazy, and the ensuing devastation in Meet The Pyro is the successful field test. Leads to boatloads of FridgeHorror now that said goggles are being distributed to the rest of the mercs...
126
127[[WMG:Pyro has an exceptionally nasty sense of humour]]
128Entire team is babies? Rainbows make me cry? Well, [[SlasherSmile why not]].
129
130[[WMG: During Meet the Pyro, RED apparently won a round and BLU left humiliated]]
131The jarring thing was, how the Pyro curbstomped the entire BLU team, while they tried to hide and run away and didn't even made attempts to defend themselves.
132* I think the implication is that they tried to hide because Pyro is utterly terrifying and will end you in the most painful way possible.
133* They weren't holding their weapons. It wasn't a battle. It wasn't even a ''fight.'' Pyro tracked down the BLU team, found where they were hiding, and slaughtered them for kicks at a time when nobody was expecting a confrontation. Why do you think their own psychotic teammates are afraid of them?
134* [[FridgeBrilliance So they were caught unawares because]] Pyro was doing what their class is designed for- ''ambushing''!
135
136[[WMG: Pyro was high for pretty much [[MushroomSamba the entire video]].]]
137...I don't think I need to [[DisneyAcidSequence explain this one]].
138* So, Pyro's a drug addict?
139* That might not be an ''oxygen'' tank on his/her/its back...
140** The Moonman Backpack, a miscellaneous item for the Pyro, contains "one part oxygen, one part mercury, and twelve parts laudanum." Laudanum is an opiate substance used as a painkiller. Just food for thought.
141* Possible FridgeHorror: Pyro is just an ordinary guy up until he was kidnapped by RED and forcefully drugged up to make him oblivious to the fact that RED turned him into a fire-spewing killing machine.
142* A bit more Horror, in real life that suit and the laudanum would have only partial painkilling effect, so Pyro is often in pain, but they're just crazy and used to it so they think it's normal.
143
144[[WMG: The Pyro took head trauma that round or is a heavy daydreamer.]]
145And thus they start imagining the normal warfare as Pyroland.
146
147[[WMG: Pyro is an UnreliableNarrator.]]
148The scene where the camera enters Pyro's mind had to be made by the Director via input from the Pyro him/herself. Maybe Pyro made the entire thing up off the top of his/her head and used it as an excuse to eat giant lollipops and disco dance for a week of filming on the Administrator's dime.
149
150[[WMG: If Pyro did take off the mask...]]
151...There would be another mask underneath it. Because Valve, that's why.
152
153[[WMG: Pyro isn't deluded, just imaginative.]]
154Well, there's nothing to suggest that what Pyro sees is truth to her/his eyes.
155* There's a surprising amount to support the interpretation that it was just Pyro's daydream, or representation of his/her/its emotional state: There's a fuzzy pink border around the fantasy, the flame insignia on Pyro's jumpsuit hasn't been replaced with a rainbow, and Pyro occasionally glimpses towards the camera while in Pyroland as if inviting you in instead of being lost in his/her own world. The difference in body language between Pyro blowing a cherub bubbles and giving Scout a flare to the face is starkly apparent. At the end, dream!Pyro is skipping away while real!Pyro is walking slowly, and there are obvious inconsistencies between Pyroland and the real world compared to the simple re-skin the Pyroland goggles give you (although the goggles might be a pale imitation), unless Pyro is somehow working on a subconscious level, there's no way they'd be able to do all this if they weren't at least partially aware of reality. Valve [[ExactWords describe Pyroland]] as 'imagination' instead of something like 'delusion'. Pyro being a nice person who doesn't understand what s/he's doing and why everyone hates them is surprisingly depressing. If Pyro actually [[CloudCuckooLander indulges in odd daydreams]], she's a ''lot'' easier to laugh at.
156** Some more support for this one: The Rainblower taunt, even when [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDp3paBk2e0&feature=related seen through Pyrovision]] turns into flames and Pyro laughs evilly. Also, Pyro's laughter in general is a bit too sadistic for someone who is supposedly scattering rainbows.
157** It's entirely possible (even likely) that Pyro's teammates fear of it is entirely founded in reality, because it displays sadistic and FauxAffablyEvil behavior on a level that not even ''they'' can fathom, and is fully aware of it to boot. Its slow strolling is entirely deliberate; it's leisurely toying with its prey, trying to prolong the experience and the opponent's agony. It feels the same pure joy an adult might feel bonding with a child when playing "hide-and-seek" with the Medic. Burning destruction is its paradise, complete with a cheerful soundtrack that they hum along to.
158** The descriptions for Balloonicorn actually support the idea that this is all Pyro's messed-up way of making their psychotic job all the more fun.
159
160[[WMG: The Pyro knows the rainbows are fire]]
161* It's basically a parody of what pyromaniacs feel and see when they set things on fire. So Pyro does know s/he's setting things on fire, but Pyroland is the excitement and colour the world fills with when s/he sees flames. And of course thanks to respawn s/he isn't aware the flames are deadly and painful.
162
163[[WMG: Pyroland is the real world, and the Pyro is the only one who sees reality the way it really is.]]
164Everyone else sees the world as a mean, scary place full of fire and death and no giant lollipops whatsoever because the Evil Purple Witch (the Administrator) put a curse on the residents of Pyroland. The Pyro is the only one immune to the curse, but doesn't realize it yet.
165* Then this explain why DeathIsCheap in the rest of the Meet the Team videos; no one died in the first place!
166* Well, it is called ''Pyro''land. Maybe Pyro is immune because s/he was the [[PrincessClassic benevolent ruler]] of it.
167
168[[WMG: The Medic and the Engineer are not afraid of the Pyro.]]
169As long as he/she/it is in the same team. For the Medic, it's because he did surgery on him/her/it along with everyone else. For the Engineer, it's because the Pyro can spy-check and always saved his buildings from being sapped.
170* Engineer is reading Pyro a story in a Christmas comic, so half-confirmed! Also because the nicest, most down to earth guy on the team being best friends with our NightmareFuelStationAttendant is rather amusing.
171* If ''anyone'' knows what's under that mask, it's most likely the Medic, considering that while his methods are questionable and he clearly gets... um... a little too much pleasure out of what he does, he certainly seems to know what he's doing. You might not have to see the face to put in an Ubercharger, but you've got to have a rummage around in the chest, and Pyro's no skinny-minnie.
172** Soldier is also not afraid; he's the only other one on the team when he helps Miss Pauling convince Pyro to rejoin the team by setting a building on fire. Because he's crazy, of course...
173
174[[WMG: Meet The Pyro is a TakeThat at the AnimationAgeGhetto.]]
175[=TF2=] has been frequently dismissed as a "kiddy game" because of its art style, so here's a video portraying one of the characters exactly how people ''think'' the game is played... oh, wait, they're actually killing the other team, and quite violently, at that!
176
177[[WMG: The Pyro's real name is a unisex one.]]
178Something like Alex or Casey, just to drive the gender ambiguity thing even more.
179
180[[WMG: Pyrovision and Pyrovision Goggles are how a person actually sees Candle Cove.]]
181Every Pyro is actually from a small town in Ohio. "Candle Cove" as it is called, was nothing more than a brainwashing device made by Mann Co. to create the last merc needed for Blutarch and Redmond's feud. They had all but one hired. But they needed one more. So with the help of a little TV show in a little town, they created exactly what they needed: completely sociopathic and insane men and women to work for them. The Pyro sees the same kind of world through his mask to always keep it so he never snaps back to reality. It keeps him in a complete mental lock. The "screaming episode" was a last ditch effort to create more Pyros when the other mercs realized how to combat them. It worked. The Pyrovision goggles were used by the other mercs to view Candle Cove on their breaks, as Saxton Hale was too cheap to get actual cable for them (Ironically, Candle Cove ran for 20 years). Without the goggles, everyone else cannot see them, and it appears as nothing more than dead static. Having all the Pyros they needed, they toned down the subliminal messages in the program, but kept some in, to distort the other merc's morality, if not just a little.
182
183[[WMG: Pyrovision is a place of infinite cruelty.]]
184Pyro sees giving a cherub a lollipop as an act ''exactly as sadistic'' as bashing a defenseless man to death with an axe, because of a severe case of BlueAndOrangeMorality.
185
186[[WMG: Balloonicorn is [[Webcomic/HarkAVagrant Fattest Pony]].]]
187It all makes sense now.
188
189[[WMG: The amount of [[SugarBowl Diabetes-inducing]] Pyroland gets depends on how full of fire it is.]]
190The more violence and burning there is the further Pyroland departs from reality. This is why the Pyrovision Goggles leave most things unchanged- the maps aren't coated in flames like in Meet the Pyro. If there's no violence or fire at all, Pyro sees the world as completely normal, and thus boring.
191** Partly confirmed; when things aren't on fire they are often grey and dull.
192
193[[WMG: Pyroland in "Meet the Pyro" was a soulless commercial product placement.]]
194Saxton Hale had a lot of inflatable unicorns, bongos and defective kaleidoscope lenses in stock he had to unload, and needed to find someone who'd be paid to endorse them. Pyro was, for some reason, kicked out by Engineer and needed the rent money.
195
196[[WMG: If Pyro sees the World through Pyrovision, then cute things in reality are horrendous monstrosities that are cool to him/her.]]
197Think about it. The Pyro sees the world as some sort of happy, rainbow, unicorn filled place of Cherubs, Candy, and happiness. In real life, he's actually killing people in the grimmest of ways possible; by burning them. So, if the Pyro thinks the dark, deadly world around him is nothing but sunshine and lollipops, then what could cute things in our world be? Why, they could very well be {{Eldritch Abomination}}s! The Pyro, being sort of an Odd Man out in Pyroland (Since everyone else is a Cherub), could very well like these things. That would explain why he has a purse, and thus, he's a freak in Real Life, and a Freak in his own World!
198** Not true; Pyro does things like chase kittens and play with rubber duckies in reality too; fire just seems to make it all the more wonderful.
199
200[[WMG: "Pyroland" is actually what the [=TF2=]'s version of hell is.]]
201Considering that the Spy speculates what the Pyro is thinking are "inhuman thoughts" and the carnage and bloodshed of the game is normal life for them, then their idea of what hell is should basically its exact opposite: The world that The Pyro imagines.
202* This would explain the 'Pink As Hell' paint quite nicely.
203
204[[WMG: Heavy tried to rip Pyro apart with his minigun]]
205Heavy is well equipped to dealing with Pyros at close range. [[DiabolusExMachina Then he tripped.]]
206* Alternatively, he was taken by surprise, didn't have Sascha on him, and tried to fight Pyro with his fists. [[CameraAbuse He failed.]]
207
208[[WMG: Pyro was not actually interviewed for Meet the Pyro, but everyone else was.]]
209* The Director (or his replacement) couldn't understand a thing Pyro said, so he went with asking the rest of the team, who are just as divided as we are about Pyro's inner mind and each contributed some story where Pyro did something Crazy-Awesome.
210
211[[WMG: The RED Engineer in the end logo/group shot is a BLU Spy.]]
212His expression looks worried compared to other Meet the Team trailer. The BLU Spy has killed the real RED Engineer and in process of either stealing Intelligence or just infiltrating the RED base when suddenly all the RED team member called for a taking of RED Team photo. He quickly take a RED Engineer disguise and try to leave the RED base, but mistaken as the real RED Engineer and forced to join the RED team posing in front of camera. If that doesn't bad enough, he must pose next to his most feared enemy, the RED Pyro, who at any times can do Spy-check and make his disguise ruined.
213
214[[WMG: The Pyro is able to selectively turn off his fantasy land.]]
215This is supported by the sequence in "A Cold Day in Hell" where Pyro starts his fight with a bear hallucinating about it being some Smokey-esque character. She then brutally murders it. Additionally, in the "Expiration Date" short Pyro shows up to support the other mercs when the bread starts overwhelming them. This implies the Pyro was taking the fight seriously.
216* During "Expiration Date", Pyro could have easily seen the bread monster as something else. I mean, Pyro does set things on fire a lot. Maybe Pyro sees the bread as a giant, fluffy kitty and is trying to use the Rainblower on it?
217
218[[WMG: The Pyro created Pyrovision to wind down.]]
219Maybe he/she/it gets bored with just plain killing the enemy team, so to unwind he activates a filter that makes the killing look like friend-making. The Engineer helped make the glasses.
220
221[[WMG: The Pyro is the Engineer's Mexican Housekeeper]]
222The Engineer lives in Texas, which is right next door to Mexico, and the Pyro clearly spends time with him. The Engineer is teaching the Pyro to read. This is also why the Pyro uses a lot of improvised house-hold type weapons, a rake, the hats, the Fast Food equipment, and a sledgehammer called The Homewrecker ;). Mexican ladies aren't well-known for being delicate flowers when it comes to housewifery, after all...
223** And when the Engineer vanished, the Pyro took over his business because she didn't want his business to fail, in a parody of a Mexican who's come to America to make money - but it's not made her happy at all.
224** And it's a TakeThat - Frontier Engineering did so well because even though she was their new CEO she never pushed them around or tried to take charge or change anything.
225** The Degreaser is made from gas station parts - don't Mexicans stereotypically pump your gas?
226
227[[WMG: The Pyro is as many at once as possible.]]
228Pyro is the child of a cheap Mexican male prostitute and a Caucasian tourist. Somebody left them in a gas station toilet in El Paso-Juarez, tucked in a handbag soaked in gasoline. They were found by a wandering Mariachi band, which picked them up to fill up the numbers (A Mariachi band usually has at least 9 players).
229
230They went crazy at 30 when they came back to the caravan site to find their spouse having an affair with the leader of the band, so they smashed the place up with the Homewrecker, killed everybody who couldn't get away, and set everything on fire. It was such a wonderful experience that now they always see fire as beautiful rainbows making the world a fun, colourful place, but if you've ever seen the descriptions for Balloonicorn, Pyroland is still kinda f*cked up even so...
231--> "I was born in a gas-station toilet, and I'll die in a gas-station toilet."
232
233[[WMG: By the Gun Mettle Update...]]
234* If you go by some of Miss Pauling's Gun Mettle Update voice lines to Pyro, and accept that she ''should'' have access to EVERYBODY'S files, it sounds like Valve has settled on Pyro's genuine personality as being a messed-up cross between a pyromaniac, a Mercenary, and an 8-year-old, with their real age at possibly just under 30.
235
236[[WMG: The Pyro is none of the above.]]
237How so? If you look carefully, you can see some words on his mask. It says ''Optical Mask'', which could mean that Pyroland is a vision created by the mask. Further solidifying this theory is the Pyrovision Goggles, which have the words ''Optical Goggles'' on them. Pyro is just a normal person, but the mask makes him look like a psycho.
238* Pyro is so horribly scarred that even if s/he did take off the mask, you could never tell if s/he were a boy or girl.
239
240[[WMG: Pyro was a victim of sexual abuse as a child.]]
241Hence the flamboyance and wearing the ambiguous suit and muffling their voice. They're using pyrovision to stay sane, but they're starting to slip. The whole ordeal has left them bitter and angry at the world, so they go around burning people. Need more proof? Look at how Pyro reacted to the classic Scout and Soldier's plan in "The Naked and the Dead". They didn't just kill both of them violently, they blew up the room in it's entirety.
242
243[[WMG: Pyro will end up in Hell, because it was Pyro's soul that Medic gave to the Devil.]]
244In "The Naked and the Dead", Medic barters one of his teammates' souls for Satan's pen, thereby guaranteeing that the owner of the soul will spend eternity in Hell after death. Medic used Pyro's soul for the trade, because Pyro loves fire. Medic wanted his teammate to be happy in the afterlife, so he arranged for Pyro to spend eternity surrounded by flames. Doing so was also an act of enlightened self-interest on Medic's part, since the destination of the mercenaries' souls will require a majority vote, and Pyro would have likely voted to go to Hell.
245** The Medic used Pyro's soul for this barter because he believed Pyro would love it in Hell, or alternatively thought he deserved Hell anyway.
246
247[[WMG: Pyro hails from England, or more specifically, [[VideoGame/WeHappyFew Wellington Wells]].]]
248Pyroland is the result of he/she being constantly overdosed on Joy.
249
250[[WMG: Pyro isn’t fully psychotic, Pyro only has psychotic outbursts.]]

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