Blog #3: Achievement Hunter – The Tricksters of Rooster Teeth (Part 1)

April 11th, 2020

As explained on my mythology page, in their book Myth and Knowing Scott Leonard and Michael McClure’s break the Trickster archetype into ten categories: creator, culture-bringer, opportunist, mischief-maker, amorous adventurer, hunger-driven manipulator, credulous victim of others’ tricks, lazy work avoider, transgressor, and clown of the body. I would now like to take it upon myself to take those categories and apply them to my favorite internet personalities, the guys and gals over at Achievement Hunter!

But before I do that let me first establish their very well deserved title as the Tricksters of Rooster Teeth.

Rooster Teeth is a production company established in 2003 comprised of many different units, of which Achievement Hunter is only one. Other units within the company include RT Animation – responsible for RWBY, another show I’ve written on on this blog – RT Core, Funhaus – another gaming channel – Broadcast, and plenty others.

All of them have one thing in common, however, and that is the – incredibly correct – belief that Achievement Hunter is a group of chaotic prankster savages who fear no God. Cross them at your own risk. Trust them also at your own risk. Basically your best hope for peace is to avoid contact with them at all costs. This has been well-documented by both Achievement Hunter and RT Core – who are usually the victims of AH’s shenanigans.

Perhaps the best instance is when RT Core planned a heist in order to obtain a microwave they’ve been promised, and who better to recruit to their scheme than Achievement Hunter? Anyone else, as it turns out. What Achievement Hunter were supposed to do was act as a distraction so that Core could slip in and steal the microwave… and to be fair half of them did do that – by physically stealing away their facilities manager so that he could watch them take a sledge hammer to a bucket of lighters, no less.

The other half, however, were in the middle of an elaborate double-cross heist in which they stole everything out of RT Core member Chad James’ office – his computer, his desk, his nick-knacks, even the paintings on his wall. Why? He refused a taco from Achievement Hunter, and as we all know, you should always take and appreciate a Trickster’s gift.

Then – because Tricksters are notorious opportunists – they made a “Take the Taco” t-shirt to sell, and decided to promote it by teaching Chad one final lesson about accepting gifts from Tricksters. What else could they possibly do to him, you ask? Why, buy a hundred tacos and force him to eat them, of course. Don’t worry, they’re not that cruel, they just forced him to eat as much as he could while they wheeled the cart of tacos around trying to get other RT employees to take them. He was probably only forced to eat like ten or fifteen tacos.

Or how could we forget the time AH just had a moldy cup of wet bread lying around – created originally to prank one of their own, Gavin Free, whose hatred of wet bread is well-known – and when the stink got to be too much for them they decided they weren’t going to throw it away. No, instead they stuck it in RT Core member Jon Risinger’s office for him to find – only Jon has no sense of smell so that cup was sitting in his office stinking up the whole building for three whole days.

I think there’s enough here to prove that Achievement Hunter as a unit are Tricksters. They’re hilariously goofy, yet deliciously devious. But how about individually? These eleven individuals are all chaotic jokers in their own ways as well, but who embodies which Trickster category the most? Check out my next blog to find out!