TW: this thread deals with mature subjects and features some language that may be considered offensive or explicit. Team Fortress 2 is rated Mature by the ESRB.
INTRODUCTIONTeam Fortress 2 is a video game that was released in 2007 by Valve Corporation. It is a class-based cooperative online multiplayer first person shooter wherein a player may choose to play one of nine different classes with varied skillsets, equipment and attributes that are strategically levied to defeat an enemy team in objective-based challenges. Each of the nine classes (referred to collectively as "the mercenaries") is represented by a unique character, each designed to be eminently recognizable. The characteristics of each, including shape, sound and behavior, are elements that are used to great effect in communicating important game information to the player. Beyond this, however, a great deal of enjoyment is to be had through pure appreciation of the endearing and odd personalities that Valve has developed for them.
This heavily stylized characterization has led to some interesting choices that have provoked a decent amount of discussion among community members. In the case of at least one character, the enigmatic Pyro, this conversation is centered around gender identity and gender representation, and has resulted in the highlighting of various issues related to the modern American narratives surrounding those topics. It is my hope for this post to convey as many of the points that I find interesting about this as possible.
This initial post will be split into two parts: the latter one for addressing all issues relating to Pyro and the former for addressing the issues related to some other characters, trivia with relatively limited application, and other oddities. After looking at surface-level details about Pyro and their context mainly found in-game, I will expand the thread later with additional context and thematic analysis from the TF2 extended universe.
PART I: A BOY NAMED JANE AND A GUN NAMED SASHAThe Heavy Weapons Guy (real name Mikhail; generally referred to as "Heavy") is a large and bear-like Russian man with an equally large and exceedingly phallic minigun as his main weapon. Held suggestively at crotch height, it is physically imposing and capable of some of the most devastating damage in the game. The name of this gun is Sasha, and Heavy consistently refers to it with feminine pronouns.
The name Sasha is generally unisex, though it has regional context. Generally speaking with regard to Eastern Europe, it is a shared diminutive of Alexander and Alexandra, and is not considered a formal name. However, in other regions of Europe and in America, it is considered a formal name and is typically seen as feminine. The meaning of the name is "defender of man", which reflects the role of the Heavy as a hard-to-kill frontline fighter who generally pushes ahead of his smaller and less durable teammates. The historical precedent of referring to humanity as "man" creates an additional level of gendered significance, and sets up additional design choices down the line.
This form of subverting the typical asumptions that many would make about such a character continues not just with alternative main weapons such as a different minigun named Natascha (a much less ambiguously feminine name meaning "born on Christmas Day", which reflects the Christian overtones of Mikhail - "who is like god?"), but with much more obscure details, such as his high level of education, his love of peach bellinis, and his propensity to get drunk at Halloween, dress up as a pretty pink princess and demand that the other mercenaries brush his (non-existent) hair.
The character of the Soldier, while generally more focused on other issues such as radicalized Christianity, the cult of action and American exceptionalism, also provokes consideration of gender issues. However, it does so through the lens of abuse - through the irrelevant emotional excesses of a hyper-nationalist war criminal. Soldier is portrayed from the start as delusional to the point of total disconnection with normal human moderation, and this is reflected in the unerring machismo that informs his interactions with the other mercenaries.
In Soldier's view, everyone in his circle is a man and the failure to perform on the battlefield is what determines that you are not a real man but a "sissified maggot". However, with extremely rare exceptions, Soldier does not purposefully misgender anyone. Even when taunting the Scottish Demoman, references to kilts are portrayed as "cross-dressing". This outlines a kind of hardcore gender binary and gender essentialism that will be important later, but is perfectly represented for now by the fact that the closest thing that Soldier has to a real name is "Jane Doe", which he does not care about one way or the other.
Generally speaking, the Soldier is presented as being the most comprehensively offensive, both socially and ideologically as well as practically, and I take joy in the fact that his class has a cosmetic that depicts him as having a literal brain worm.
It is moderately interesting that the only time that Spy purposefully misgenders someone is when taunting Soldier, referencing Soldier's name by saying that "maybe your colleagues will send a man next time".
As a moderately interesting comparison to Soldier, Heavy does not view perceived weakness in other mercenaries as being even as moderately feminizing as Soldier does - or at all, for that matter. Heavy merely refers to the enemy team as "babies" or "little men". In addition, even this diminutive representation of others is at least partly coincidental - Heavy is literally larger than everyone, and he even refers to things like trains as "little", as a kind of filler word.
This likely reflects Heavy's life experiences before becoming a mercenary. After his father was executed by the USSR, Heavy, along with his mother and his three younger sisters, survived months in a Siberian gulag and eventually escaped to the mountains, where they lived a harder life than most and subsisted mainly on meat from bears that they killed themselves. It is easily possible that Heavy sees the average man as being more diminutive, in more than one way, than himself and the women in his life.
As an aside: Soldier's taunts directed at other classes are almost invariably based on nationality; when addressing the only other mercenary that is known to be American, the Engineer, Soldier seems to convince himself that Engineer is from Canada. Curiously enough, Engineer, who is from Texas, may occasionally taunt a defeated enemy Engineer by saying that "a real Texan would have dodged that".
Engineer's other voice lines are interesting both for their gender implications as well as for some coincidental commentary about race. Engineer's favorite pejoratives (and endearments, oddly enough) are "son" and "boy", which he applies to any given person almost indiscriminately, with some notable exceptions and ambiguities. He chooses to never call Demoman, who is black, "boy", which would seem to indicate a particular attentiveness to matters of offensive language. Engineer also almost never verifiably misgenders anyone; however, this will require more investigation in Part II.
Overall, Engineer, while having personal mannerisms very familiar to someone who has lived in South Texas their entire life, is one of the most educated and intelligent mercenaries, holding several doctorates in various hard sciences. This contrasts especially with Medic, who has no verifiable medical training whatsoever (though he more than makes up for it with his extreme enthusiasm and a notable lack of moral boundaries).
PART II: INSIDE THE FIREPyro is an anomaly, and much of their characteristics, physical and otherwise, are currently unknown. They are concealed entirely by a baggy flame-retardant suit, including a heavy mask that muffles their speech. It is unknown from where they originated or what their name is. In terms of what their gender is, the short answer is that we do not know. Pyro does not seem to know or care about that sort of thing at all, simply doing what pleases them from moment to moment. Much of their interests are what we might describe as childlike, and it may be possible that they do not have a fully-formed sense of gender at all.
What we do have is a fair amount of circumstantial evidence and statements from other characters. While these things ultimately cannot determine what Pyro's gender is, they can help provide context and possibly indicate some conclusions as being more likely or less likely. Unfortunately, even some of this evidence is contradictory.
The description of Pyro found on the Steam trading card references them with male pronouns, including the sentences that directly call into question the conclusion that Pyro is a man. This policy of arbitrary pronouns and even of outright baiting is a well-established theme of how Valve portrays them. As the mystery of Pyro's gender is likely to be far more interesting and satisfying than actually unveiling a gender or subverting the character entirely, it has become Valve's policy to not provide enough evidence to conclude with a high amount of certainty anything about their gender.
This does not stop community members from trying, leading to innumerable direct self-reports of unexamined gender preconceptions in the form of arguments concluding with certainty that Pyro is a woman because there is a pink purse in their locker, or concluding with certainty that Pyro is a man because of an X-ray of them that would seem to indicate that a portion of their body is closer to fitting a masculine phenotype than a feminine phenotype, or of whatever other detail a person finds compelling enough to hang a hot take on.
These things do not determine gender, even if there were only two genders.
Soldier and Spy, likely the two characters that know the most about direct combat, both note that Pyro "fights like a girl/woman". While this can be interpreted more in the sense of a taunt, these are characters that we previously noted as tending to not misgender people purposefully. In addition, Spy is an expert at reading personal mannerisms, as he has to replicate them accurately when disguised as an enemy.
While the amount of intended detail may be in question here, it is apparent that Valve is extremely meticulous with many things of this sort, though not necessarily all of them. Even just with regard to the Spy's voice lines, there are some details that take on additional significance based on the wider lore. For instance, he refers to most enemy mercenaries as "the [class]", but he refers to enemy Scouts and Spies as "that [class]", representing the idea that Spy and Scout are related in some way - referencing the possibility that they have a familial "relation", based on the theory that Spy is Scout's father.
Heavy, who we have previously noted as seeming to have an oddly progressive sense of feminine empowerment, has no specific domination taunts related to Pyro (or any class) at all, instead pulling from a pool of generic taunts that are applied to any class indiscriminately. It is worth noting, however, that one of the most famous and weighty lines in the franchise is when Heavy said of Pyro "I fear no man. But that thing... it scares me".
Engineer, who we have previously established as being possibly the most erudite and respectful mercenary, refers to Pyro interchangeably as "son", "boy" and "ma'am". Firmly concluding from this that Engineer perceives Pyro as some form of non-binary or genderfluid, or otherwise as a traditional gender that Engineer is misrepresenting, requires an excessive amount of personal interpretation. However, if we determine that Engineer's unbelievably prominent use of "boy" and "son" are merely force of habit and subtract them from all of his voice lines, Pyro remains the only individual character that Engineer genders at all.
While this is nowhere near finished, I have to break it here because it is getting far too late. I will definitely provide some closing thoughts, though.
EPILOGUEI love Pyro. They are my main - my default whenever I play TF2. Unless my team is in dire straights and they require someone to change to a more suitable class, I am playing Pyro. This is mostly for the gameplay aspects, because Pyro legitimately handles in a way that I enjoy a lot more than the other classes, but there is also a definite sense that I love them because of their comfortably ambiguous gender and the incredibly interesting discourse surrounding them. In a way, they have become a gender Rorschach test - a bundle of chaotic characterizations which we use more to learn about members of the community than to learn about the game itself.
This is especially true with all of the cosmetic items that are available, allowing Pyro players to express a wonderful variety of gender-irreverent styles.
In the coming days, I will be gathering and contributing more information about Pyro and how they are seen by others, as well as posting the best and most representative art of them. (It's odd how cute a person can be when all we see of their face is a gas mask.)
Thank you to anyone who managed to sit through all this rambling. This is important to me for reasons which have become a little more apparent lately, so it is at least worth it to myself to examine what is happening with one of my favorite characters.
