alt title(s): Eight Bit Theater; Eight Bit Theatre
Wait, that is NOT how we do things around here, buddy. First we have to argue incessantly over semantics. Then one of us has to hurt one or all of us. Also, you're a villain.
— Red Mage
8-Bit Theater
is a
Sprite Comic by Brian Clevinger, written since 2001. Its plot parodies the one from
the original ''Final Fantasy'', following four Light Warriors (
which really aren't the best for the job), Fighter McWarrior, an
astoundingly stupid sword-obsessed warrior with
rare good ideas; Black Mage
Evilwizardington, an
Ax Crazy Heroic Sociopath with a
tendency to get hurt; Thief, a fugitive prince of elf clan
Khee'bler with extreme greed - and an expert on
manipulative contracts; and Red Mage Statscowski, a
strategist which considers life to be a
tabletop game and thus is
obsessed with his stats, and also likes to
cross dress.
Humor comes mostly from the
violent nature of the protagonists, absurd situations and
playing with tropes -
RPG ones mostly.
Tropes used include:
- Affably Evil (Garland)
- Amusing Injuries (Black Mage stabbing his comrades, usually in the head)
- Anticlimax (For example, the fight with Astos:)
Black Mage: "Astos"? Mo' like, "Yo ass is toast!"
Astos pauses, then falls over, dead.
Thief: I don't think he's breathing.
Black Mage: Well! That was easy!
- Beware The Nice Ones (White Mage)
- Back From The Dead (all four Light Warriors)
- Brain Bleach ("I would settle for the power to stab out my mind's eye.")
- Butt Monkey (Black Mage, though he really deserves it)
- This is spread throughout the cast. Fighter is frequently insulted and assaulted by Black Mage. Red Mage had his skeleton removed from his body and was later turned into a 1 eyed monster (He got better(No, he didn't. He claims to, though.).). Thief was mauled by Berserker, had all his accumulated treasure smashed, was torched by Bahamut, and was shaken to oblivion by Muffin. White Mage can only watch in sorrow as the Light Warriors slaughter innocents, eachother, and in general ignore their "responsibility" as heroes, plus her best friend died. Onion Kid's main purpose is to go through various torments that usually relate to Black Mage. Garland went through this briefly before he founded the Dark Warriors.
- The Caligula (King Steve, the psychotic and bloodthirsty ruler of Corneria)
- Caught With Your Pants Down
- Crapsack World
- Crazy Enough To Work (Every single plan Red Mage has ever come up with. Occasionally they do)
- Crosses The Line Twice
- Crossing The Streams (Red Mage's Ice 9 spell takes away all the heat in the universe. Is cast inside a Bag Of Holding, killing the fire elemental fiend inside)
- Damsel In Distress (Subverted. The damsel in question has been distressed so many times, she's picked up a few things, and helps her captor.)
- Designated Hero (The main characters)
- Destructive Saviour: In as much as they could be saviors.
- Dual Wielding (Fighter and Drizz'l. Then taken to ludicrous extremes when Fighter begins quadruple-weilding through sword-chucks. Scary part is, it works.)
- Dungeon Master (Sarda, the jerkass "wizard who did it")
- Dysfunction Junction (From the man himself: "I'm not sure why the Light Warriors worry about obstacles or monsters standing in their way. They are nothing compared to the obstacles and monsters within the party.")
- Elves Vs Dwarves
- Everyone Calls Him Barkeep (parodied, since the Light Warriors' original classes are their real names, and remain so even after they change classes)
- Evilly Affable: Pretty much everyone who isn't named White Mage or Fighter, but Black Mage and Thief in particular.
- Evil Tastes Good
- Face Heel Turn (Black Mage is attempting one of these as of 1017, though as he points out, "that'd imply there existed a time I wasn't on team Evil")
- Fastball Special
- Febreze Is Better (the Trope Namer, from an Omake column by Red Mage)
- Flanderization (Black Mage used to be at least selective about what he stabbed and/or nuked. Now he just kills everything at all times.)
- Fluffy The Terrible (the
parrot dragon Muffin)
- Four Is Death (The Four Fiends, though this could be applied to the Light Warriors themselves)
- GIS Syndrome
- Healing Shiv (The Trope Namer; one of The Other Warriors used one to bring Thief back from the brink of death)
- Heroic BSOD (Black Mage after watching Fighter use his new "Wood-in-steak")
- Heroes Want Red Heads (White Mage - although Black Mage isn't much of a hero. Also, White Mage seems to have a thing for Fighter, who is also red haired.)
- Heroic Sociopath (Black Mage; Red Mage and Thief to a lesser extent although not that much less)))
- Highly Visible Ninja (Thief's law ninjas, who wear bright red)
- High Pressure Blood (violent spurts of red liquid are the usual bleeding)
- Honest Johns Dealership (used straight by Akbar, totally subverted by Jeff)
- Hyperspace Mallet (White Mage)
- Impossibly Cool Weapon: The sword-chucks are impossible, even in this world.
- Improbable Weapon User (Fighter has his Sword-Chucks, and no less than four swords on his person at any given time. And then there's this line:
Fighter: "You try balancing a cow on the end of a fence post to wield it like a club. That's a physical damn challenge!"
- Jerkass (Thief, Black Mage, Sarda)
- Kamehame Hadoken (Black Mage's Hadoken)
- Killed Off For Real (Black Belt)
- Last Of His Kind (Red Mage and Dragoon)
- Lampshade Hanging (lots of it)
- Mad Eye (Black Mage - particularly because you can't see his face - and Sarda)
- Medium Awareness
- Munchkin (Red Mage)
- No Sense Of Direction (Black Belt, and in a lesser extent, Fighter)
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot (Fighter's idea of combining swords and nunchucks)
- Only A Flesh Wound (Black Mage stabs his comrades, usually in the head, and they always survive)
- Only Sane Man (Black Mage (this trait keeps him just out of Complete Monster), and White Mage too)
- Thief, Princess Sara, Left-Hand Man Gary, and Drizz'l also have their moments of this.
- Our Elves Are Better (Played for laughs)
- Person Of Mass Destruction (Black Mage)
- Pirates
- Poke The Poodle (What White Mage's brush with evil results in)
- The Power Of Love (subverted: Black Mage's most destructive attack is powered by draining love from the universe)
- Punctuation Shaker (Drizz'l, the Cultists with names such as Mrr'grt and L'zlhe)
- The Real Man (Fighter)
- Rule Of Funny
- Silence You Fool (Drizz'l, here)
- Staff Chick (White Mage)
- Squishy Wizard (Black Mage, of course)
- Theme Naming (Khee'Bler and Sahn'Tha elves)
- Token Evil Teammate (Black Mage... probably Thief too)
- Undead Author (The Cave of No Return)
- Unsound Effect (from "Ominous Latin Chanting" to "Orgy of Violence")
- Unstoppable Rage (Fighter went into this when Black Mage was killed by Lich)
- 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.")
- Vitriolic Best Buds (Fighter and Black Mage)
- Welcome To Corneria (Trope Namer)
- With This Herring (parodied)
- The Worf Effect (Black Mage is stated to suffer from this effect by Red Mage)
- Writer Revolt (why Black Belt was permanently killed off for real)
- Yuppie Couple (Onion Kid, the little kid whose new family is constantly killed)
The webcomic also included two
Character Blogs /
Fourth Wall Mail Slots for Red Mage and Evil Princess Sara.
