Which of classic shooter heroes does the gay?
Posted on Jun 16, 2020
We hope you’re all still having a great Pride Month! For us, however, it’s been a challenge. With the smash success of our Does Team Fortress 2 Is Gay article, we’ve been hounded with countless, trillions of requests to discern the sexuality of more video game characters. And who are we to say no?
In the interest of bettering society, we’ve decided to answer Which of Classic Shooter Heroes Does The Gay? These heroes of vintage first person shooter games have had people stumped for decades now. Are they straight? Gay? Are they even human? We have the answers. We’ve picked seven of the best first person shooter heroes of the 90s and discerned their exact sexualities with no margin of error. We’ve got this down to a science.
Hit the jump, and let’s find out just whom doing the gay is…
Unsexual
Doomguy
There’s a quote floating around the internet, supposedly from John Carmack in a 1996 issue of PC Gamer UK:
“Canonically speaking, Doomguy is a virgin. He has never had sex, nor do we have any interest in exploring that area in the future. Doomguy, as far as myself and id Software are concerned, will always be a virgin who doesn’t even know what sex is."
However, while researching this article, we have found zero proof that this quote is real. We’ve looked at all the vintage copies of PC Gamer UK available on the internet from the given year and none of them contain a conversation with Carmack. Given that this is the year Quake was released, and a good deal of articles are related to it, it’s not impossible that an interview with Carmack could exist that could have drifted towards Doomguy’s sexuality… but we doubt it. If you know which issue of PC Gamer UK has this article, please contact us. We are completely serious.
Regardless of the factuality of this quote, we’re inclined to agree with it. Doomguy wants one thing: to rip and tear. Sex is not a thought that enters his head. There is one thing Doomguy lusts for and it is demon blood. Aside from his extreme desire to kill demons, we believe the Doomguy is a kind, gentle, and pure-hearted person… he just wants to kill demons very, very badly. In the words of a wise stranger: “Demons aren’t for sexual, they are for killing.”
Quakeguy
The Ranger is an odd case. As a near-perfect clone of Doomguy, the Ranger actually has even less personality. Quake’s plot was never its selling point, and it’s functionally an exact copy of the plot of Doom: an evil extraterrestrial enemy is coming through the portal system, and only one man can save the day. Given this, we’re inclined to think the Ranger is sexless just like Doomguy is… but there’s a twist.
Quake Champions, the latest game in the Quake series and spiritual successor to Quake 3: Arena, has added new lore to the Ranger. Quake Champions describes that after defeating the dimensional menace, Ranger was trapped wandering between dimensions for an eternity, losing all sense of self. The only thing keeping him together is a single photograph of his family, giving him the sole hope that one day he might return home. This photograph is of the Ranger, wearing normal army camos, with what can only be assumed to be his wife and daughter. This would peg Ranger as a straight, but we’re keeping him in the unsexual category due to the assumed massive mental trauma he’s gone through. After thirty years wandering through the dimensions of Quake, we think sex is the last thing on his mind.
Straight
BJ Blazkowicz
Putting BJ Blazkowicz on the Straight section wasn’t an easy choice for us, but the canon is fighting against us on this one. It is essential to the timeline of many iD software games that BJ Blazkowicz has fucked and had children. In the original storyline of Wolfenstein, BJ goes on to marry and have a child, who then goes on to bear BJ Blazkowicz II, AKA BIlly Blaze, AKA Commander Keen. Billy Blaze, in his adulthood, goes on to father his own son, who we only know as Doomguy. Without this perilous framework of marriage to go off of, the whole timeline of iD Software would collapse. We dare not mess with it. What a tragedy!
Duke Nukem
Oh god, Duke Nukem. What more can be said? This guy might be the most heterosexual man in the history of the universe. Duke Nukem is the kind of character a gay person would make to make fun of straights. He’s a hard-drinking, cigar-chomping, woman-izing man’s man who kicks ass, takes names, and cuts his hair into a flattop that only Grace Jones has ever pulled off. Hettie!
To add insult to injury, Duke’s only gotten worse over time. The long awaited Duke Nukem Forever was the final nail in the king’s coffin. Forever took the same tropes that made Duke Nukem grating in the first place and amped them up past the point of tolerance. Going from a man who wanted to save the world in time to catch Oprah, to a man who spouts movie references and makes fun of women being abducted by aliens, is a very typical trajectory for a straight man’s life.
Bisexual
Master Chief
Master Chief is a SPARTAN, a biologically modified supersoldier equipped with a cybernetic suit of armor he almost never takes off. Kidnapped at the age of six by Earth military forces, Master Chief - real name John - was raised in a brutal training regimen to craft him into the perfect soldier. The SPARTANs were seeing active duty as young as fourteen in the early days of humanity’s war with the Covenant. Master Chief is a human weapon, designed for little more than fighting against humanity’s weapon.
Master Chief can’t really experience sexual desire, because the biological modifications to his body include hormone treatments that suppress his sex drive. But if those were to be removed, what would his sexuality be? The group of children Master Chief was trained with was composed of approximately equal numbers of girls and boys, all of whom were dressed the same and expected to act the same - would Master Chief have never learned a difference in gender expression? We think it’s likely that without any kind of societal impetus to prefer one gender over the other growing up, John would be a perfect bisexual.
Gay
Gordon Freeman
Gordon Freeman is a theoretical physicist who works for Black Mesa, a top-secret scientific facility in the Arizona desert - until disaster strikes, and Earth is invaded by extra-dimensional creatures. With a sudden and stunning capability, Gordon takes up arms in the defense of humanity, first by fighting his way out of Black Mesa, then against the greater invading threat that conquers the entire planet.
Gordon is a special case because he was one of the earliest player characters designed to be a character, while also being someone the players could project themselves entirely. Unlike Doomguy, who was an almost complete blank slate, Gordon is an MIT graduate working in a specific scientific field with other little hints of his personal life scattered around. While he never speaks, it’s clear that Gordon Freeman is a person beyond who is controlling him.
And of course, he’s gay. In Half Life 2, a companion character Alyx Vance is introduced who buddies around with him fighting against the aliens controlling the world. She’s Gordon’s de-facto sidekick, and a competent hero in her own right, but little is made of the chemistry between them otherwise. It’s hinted that Eli, Alyx’s father, would like to see them get together, but neither party seems interested. All you need to do is take a look at Gordon to understand why: he looks like every single White gay dude in the world. Look at that scruffy goatee. The unkempt, yet perfect hair. Even his choice of glasses! Gayyy.
Fred Chexter
Fred is yet another Doomguy clone, with an even more interesting twist: he’s a big piece of Chex cereal. Well, not literally; the Chex is his armor. Chex Quest
was a kid-friendly take on Doom packed in with Chex cereal boxes in 1996, and to this day is considered one of the most successful Doom mods ever made. In order to make Doom safe for the kiddies, big changes had to be made: instead of blasting demons with guns, you “zorch” Flemoids (nasty aliens made entirely of mucus) back to their home dimension. Fred as well is a family-safe take on the typical ‘doomed space marine’ mold: he’s the leader of the Chex Squadron, a crack team of special agents defending the Intergalactic Federation of Cereals. It’s a weird game.
But why do we think Fred Chexter is gay? In his biography - the only information we know about him at all - he is described as having been “shy and studious” in high school. What gay kid isn’t trying their best to keep their head down in high school? Even as an adult, he’s considered “quiet and unassuming” - perhaps he’s trying to keep his personal life divorced from his squadmates? Fred Chexter is the best hero the Intergalactic Federation of Cereals has got, and he’s gay to boot. What a champ!
Tagged: Chatter chex quest doom duke nukem half-life lgbt quake wolfenstein 3d