April 19 2020

Tonight I have taken upon myself the impossible task of categorizing each of the 11 Achievement Hunters into the ten types of Tricksters as laid out in our mythology textbook. This task is impossible not because none of them fit the categories, but because too many of them fit each one, and it’s difficult to narrow each Hunter down to just one category. Probably because no Trickster is meant to embody just one, Tricksters are complicated figures who can casually switch from personality type to another. They’re multifaceted and can’t be put into just one box, but I like to make things difficult, so here I am. Let’s get started, shall we?

Disclaimer: Most of these categorizations are based off of personas of the Achievement Hunter – because like all good Tricksters AH is a bunch of shapeshifters in the sense that most of them have alter egos spawned from games they’ve played that often shape how they act in videos. Most of them are fairly normal people off camera, Ryan Haywood is not an actual murderer, I promise.

Creator – Geoff Ramsey

This one was a no-brainer. On some level, all of Achievement Hunter are creators – they create content for us every day! But beyond that they’re a group more known for destruction rather than creation, but Geoff is a special case. Geoff Ramsey was the only choice for creator because he is one of the founding fathers of Rooster Teeth, as well as the co-founder of the Achievement Hunter channel (more on the other co-founder next), so the channel, and maybe even the company, would not be possible without him. He’s one of the people who helped build Achievement Hunter from the ground up into what it is today – he’s also the one who hired everyone who works there, as he’s so fond of reminding everyone when they get on his nerves, which is often.

Culture Bringer – Jack Pattillo

Jack is the other co-creator of Achievement Hunter and Let’s Play (a branch off from Achievement Hunter), but instead of classing him as a creator with Geoff, I put him in culture-bringer because that’s what he is. Geoff may be the boss, but AH and LP wouldn’t be what it is without Jack’s dedication and creativity driving it forward from day one. As Jack himself says in the Achievement Hunter Rap Battle, “I am AH, I’m it’s voice and it’s face,” and it’s true, Jack’s in the most content by far, both in games and as the host of the weekly update show AHWU. In fact, one of the things Achievement Hunter – actually Rooster Teeth in general, really – is well-known for is their participation in the charity Extra Life. As the charity director of Rooster Teeth, Jack and his wife Caiti plan and host the Extra Life livestream every year. It’s an annual event where everyone in the company and community participate in a 24 hour livestream to raise money for charity. Their last extra life stream in November of 2019 raised $1.2 million over the course of 24 hours, the stream is one of the most beloved events in the company, right up there with RTX and it wouldn’t be possible without Jack.

The Opportunist – Trevor Collins

I struggled with this one for a while because “opportunist” isn’t a word I’d use to describe any of the Achievement Hunters usually, but upon further reflection, Trevor is the best fit because of his position within AH. A couple of years ago Geoff stepped down as the manager of Achievement Hunter/Let’s Play – he was still the creator and still in content, he just wasn’t in charge of the creative content of the channel – and eventually the title went to Trevor. Not only did he take the opportunity to become the new leader of Achievement Hunter, but he does a damn good job of it. He’s in charge of overseeing what kind of content the group puts out and making sure everything that needs to get done gets done. He looks at the engagement of certain videos and figures out what is working for the channel and what’s not, much like an opportunist he finds out how to make money and get engagement and then he makes sure it gets done – mind you, Trevor doesn’t do this because he’s greedy like a traditional Trickster would, it’s simply his job!

Mischief-Maker – Lindsay Jones

My personal favorite Achievement Hunter! This is one of those categories that could apply to literally any of them. They’re all mischievous – Michael, Ryan, Jeremy, and Gavin in particular were strong contenders to take this one away from Lindsay, but in the end I had to give it to the Chaos Queen because she truly is the most unpredictable wildcard of the bunch – and that’s saying something! Lindsay has gained a reputation with her coworkers and fans as the wildcard, she does what she wants and laughs in the face of your rules. Often that means she loses the games she plays either out of giving a shit or a lack of competence – often it’s both – but regardless of the reason it’s always hilarious. Even when her coworkers try and force her to win, she refuses to adhere to their plan. She takes advantage of the power given to her to make her friends lives harder and the results are…well, see for yourself with this short animation of one of Lindsay’s best moments. The chaos she brings is effortless – sometimes even unintentional – and is that not the best kind?

Amorous Adventurer – Fiona Nova

Fiona is the newest addition to Achievement Hunter and one of the few contenders for the Amorous Adventurer category. This was probably the hardest category to work out because when you look at a group of middle-aged gamers the last thing you’re gonna think is “Amorous.” And they’re really not a flirty bunch of people, though a case could be made for Alfredo. That left Ryan and Fiona – who aren’t necessarily amorous, but they do inspire amorous feelings in fans. Ryan’s been the Achievement Hunter that fans tirelessly thirst after for years before Fiona came along, as evidenced by this segment where they make him read thirst tweets. However, I gave this to Fiona because since she’s joined Achievement Hunter she’s started stealing the mantle from Ryan. She’s….well, to put it simply, she’s a lesbian thirst trap. Every selfie she posts on Instagram is littered with comments from women – and some men! – proclaiming their love for her and she loves it.

She’s also playfully flirtatious with other women in a hilarious way – which nobody else in Achievement Hunter can claim because everyone but Fiona are in committed long-term relationships. Fiona Nova is just here to look good and have a good time and that’s why she deserves the title of Amorous Adventurer.

Hunger-Driven Manipulator – Jeremy Dooley

This was probably the hardest category of all of them to fit someone too. They all love food and most of them are tricky and manipulative in some way but I just couldn’t fit any of them to it in my head, so for this one I’m focusing more on the “manipulator” aspect of it. I chose Jeremy because he has long been noted as the best liar out of Achievement Hunter. He knows what tales to spin in order to get what he wants, but his undeniable skill in lying only makes him have to work that much harder to be believed because everybody suspects him! Additionally, the hunger driven manipulator category focuses on a specific type of trickster who lies and schemes and steals his for his next meal, he relentlessly pursues his goals and uses whatever means necessary to get them. Jeremy is a liar and schemer when the game demands him to be, so much so that he’s now actually the host of his own show centered on spotting lies, but he’s also relentless in the pursuit of what he wants as well. Since gaining fame from joining Achievement Hunter – whom he was a fan of for a long time and worked to get where is is today – he’s dedicated his free time to his other interests and has written multiple novels and recorded several albums with his band, using the fame he gained from AH to create an audience for himself in an opportunistic Trickster way.

Credulous Victim of Other’s Tricks – Gavin Free

This one was probably the easiest to assign to an Achievement Hunter.

Lazy Work Avoider – Matt Bragg

Transgressor – Ryan Haywood and Alfredo Diaz

Clown of the Body – Michael Jones

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!

April 4th, 2020

As I am currently enrolled in English 417 – a Shakespeare centered class for those not attending CSUN – I’m finding it remarkably easy to use that class to help feed into my research on Tricksters. A Midsummer Night’s Dream helped me earlier in the semester when helping out with the Trickster-centered lesson plan and now I find the stars have once again aligned as we’ve just finished our unit on Othello right as I’m due for another blog.

Those not familiar with the play might hear the name Iago and think Aladdin, but while the colorful, avian Gilbert Gottfried might be a Trickster, his little bird brain can hardly dream of being half the Trickster figure Shakespeare’s Iago is.

Iago begins Othello by laying out his duplicitous nature for the audience, as well as Roderigo, as he explains his loyalty to “the Moor” – Othello – is a facade so that he can betray him.

“In following him I follow but myself.
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so for my peculiar end.
For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In compliment extern, ’tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at. I am not what I am.”

Othello, I.i.58-65.

While Iago tells Roderigo this to assure him that he does not love Othello, unbeknownst to Roderigo this applies to Iago’s interactions with everyone, including Roderigo himself. Iago is a character who is out for himself and his own interest – there is not one person in the play he would not step on, manipulate, or even kill if it would benefit him in some way. The best part? His reputation is spotless despite his highly manipulative ways. He is referred to as “honest” Iago by the people he wants to do the most harm to because he’s just that good at being bad.

In fact Iago is so good at being a puppet master that at times he might even fool the audience. Perhaps it is because I watched a performance while reading the play but Iago is so charismatic and smooth as he switches between the evil manipulator and the loyal, loving friend to Othello and Cassio that it felt as though he was trying to manipulate me.

But Iago is not all manipulations and scheming – I mean he is, but he’s also a humorous character, and as we all know a playful spirit is a big part of being a Trickster. He often makes quick little aside quips to the audience about his true nature, particularly right in front of other people, and often when people are praising his honesty and loyalty. These little winks are for us as the audience to occasionally remind us in a humorous way that he is the villain, yet not even we get to truly know anything about Iago’s motives for the things that he does. He gives different excuses to different people – Othello promoted Cassio instead of him, Othello slept with his wife, etc. – but neither we nor the authorities never get a clear answer as to why he’s caused so much chaos and trouble.

While Iago might not shape shift in a traditional sense, the way he shifts into the character of whoever he needs to be depending on who he is manipulating is pretty undeniable. He is the concerned, devoted friend to Othello who shudders to even suggest the infidelity of his wife, he is the two-faced schemer for hire working in Roderigo’s interests to Roderigo, he is a close friend and confidant to Cassio, he is the concerned citizen to Desdemona’s father Brabanzio. Perhaps the character who only ever sees Iago when he is not putting on a character is his wife Emilia, but even she does not know his motives or intentions. Iago may not shape shift on a physical level, but given how much he effectively changes face for other characters he might as well be.

Regardless of if you see Iago as a shapeshifter, it still cannot be denied that this Shakespeare villain embodies the Trickster archetype with every manipulative, selfish move that he makes.

28 March 2020

Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” portrays myth in plenty of different ways, but as most of my area of study thus far has pertained to the Trickster archetype, that is what I will be focusing on here. Throughout the story, the nameless grandmother gave off major trickster vibes. She is a highly manipulative character, with her first act in the narrative being an attempt to manipulate her son and daughter in law into going to the destination that she wants instead of Florida like they planned.  

She seems incredibly selfish, as well as stuck in the past, as evidenced by her constant racism and insistence that everything from her time is superior to the way it is now, the kids were more well-behaved (ignoring the fact that she’s criticizing her own son’s parenting), the people were more trustworthy, and it was just a better time in general. She’s stuck in a similar mindset of glorifying the ways of the old south that we see in “A Rose for Emily.” Her ideas of what made things and people good is heavily skewed towards upper class white people and is entirely based on appearances. This twisted sense of morality, as well as her apparent selfishness, could be seen as another trickster trait 

Her manipulation and trickery is evident throughout multiple points throughout the story, not just the beginning. When they leave for their trip, she sneaks her cat in the car and keeps him hidden, which causes the chaos later on (chaos being another trickster quality). Perhaps the most obvious manipulation within the story is when she slyly – and dishonestly – gets her grandkids on her side so that they pester their father into going to this old house. Except, as it turns out, the house she was thinking of wasn’t in Georgia at all, but Tennessee, the place she originally wanted to go. Whether she meant it this way or not, this is a trick that she plays on her family and it heavily inconveniences them even without the whole murder thing coming up.  

Then, bad things happen when the cat, Pitty Sing, gets spooked by grandma and latches onto Bailey, who is driving, causing the family to crash. I think there is an argument to be made that the cat is also a trickster of sorts, after all he is the one who causes the chaos and he’s the one who escapes with his life at the end of the story. But I think grandma’s constant and deliberate manipulation throughout the story makes her a strong contender as well. This manipulation doesn’t cease when the family is come across by The Misfit and his cronies.  

The scene that follows showcases both the Grandmother’s manipulative tendencies as well as her skewed sense of what’s right as she insists to the escaped murderer that he must be a good man because he came from good (aka either rich or white or both) people, therefore he would never kill a lady – I guess he can kill her son and grandsons, though? As her family is picked off one by one, she continues to plead for her own life by appealing to the Misfit’s conscience. Unfortunately for grandma, his sense of right and wrong is even more messed up than hers is.  

When her entire family is gone, she offers him one final plea, she calls him her baby and reaches out for him before he shoots her three times in the chest. This moment is interesting mostly because it is open to a variety of interpretations. Did she truly believe in the good in him and offer him forgiveness for his sins despite what he’d taken from her, or is she merely desperately trying to save her own life by making him think that’s the case? Or perhaps the fear has driven her mad and she truly mistakes the Misfit for her son because he’s wearing his shirt? That’s something I don’t think we can know one way or the other. I personally think that she’s still manipulating until her last breathe and it simply backfires on her – because sometimes Tricksters do face consequences, but I could also believe she’s being genuine and changing in her final moments as well. Either way, that sort of moral ambiguity is very trickster-ish, is it not?