Pyro (Team Fortress 2)

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Character
Name: Pyro (real name unknown)
Occupation: Mercenary
Relationships: Other mercenaries (coworkers)
Fandom: Team Fortress 2
Other:
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The Pyro is one of the nine playable classes in Team Fortress 2.

Canon

Pyro is by far the most mysterious mercenary in TF2. The character's real name, appearance, gender, and species remain unconfirmed. The official short film Meet the Pyro[1] shows that the Pyro is highly feared by the other mercs, including their[note 1] own teammates; the Pyro themself, however, sees the world through "Pyro-vision", and believes that their war crimes against mercs are in fact acts of kindness towards cherub-like creatures. In the official tie-in comic "True Meaning",[2] Engineer is seen reading a book to Pyro, suggesting that Pyro has a more friendly relationship with him than the other mercs. This positive relationship is strengthened by the tendency of some Pyro players in-game to defend Engineers' buildings against rockets and Spies, earning them the nickname "Pybros".

Fandom

Since Pyro has very little decipherable dialogue, no canon appearance, and minimal chemistry with the other mercs, they are relatively neglected in certain types of fanworks. As of December 2023, they are tagged in just over 2350 works on AO3, less than any other class from the game. There are over 250 works featuring them on FanFiction.Net.

Because the Pyro has so little canon material to work with, many fans have inserted their own headcanons about the Pyro into their works. There are over 150 works on AO3 with the tag "Nonbinary Pyro", and over 40 works where the Pyro is tagged as female. In fact, female fan interpretations of Pyro are quite common in fanart. Pyro (especially fem!Pyro) has been depicted in some inflation kink art, a fact that has been memed on by the community.[3]

Some fanartists depict Pyro with a static mask, while others will give them a mask that changes appearance to match the Pyro's emotions. SFM creators sometimes use an "enhanced" model[4] of Pyro to get more expressiveness out of the character than the default model would allow.

The cheerful worldview that Pyro appears to hold in Meet the Pyro has inspired many depictions of Pyro as childlike; this is sometimes but not always accompanied with the headcanon that Pyro is aromantic and/or asexual,[5] which itself may be accompanied with a discomfort with depicting a childish character in an intimate relationship.[6] Other mercs, especially Engineer, may be depicted "father figures" to Pyro. This trend is not without controversy, as some fans object to it:

y'kno what i'm gonna say it the way som ppl who like tf2 infantilize pyro is actually kinda gross considering. they are literally a paid mercenary who is also shown to actually be rather smart and also violent. esp those who ALSO hc pyro as aroace. like AS an aroace person and as a person who also hcs pyro as aroace, acting like pyro can't have romantic/sexual relationships just bc they like childish things is really. fucking weird and honestly kinda aphobic

sodafrog13, Tumblr, Feb. 16 2022

I’m not sure what [“worst blorboficiation”] was supposed to mean originally, but I’m interpreting this as “what’s a character that you wish wasn’t woobified by the fandom” and for that, I pick Pyro from tf2. People tend to forget that she’s an adult with feelings of his own. Just because Pyro acts childish sometimes doesn’t mean they’re some weird animal or whatever bullshit people reduce it to.

generalzar0ff, Tumblr, May 4 2023

I am so tired of tf2 "found family" (in that Tumblr "this character is The Mom, this character is The Dad, these characters are The Kids, nuclear kind of way) I'm sorry. Wowww you think Pyro is mentally a baby and can only understand the other mercs through the lens of "parents" and "siblings"? Should we throw a party? Should we invite Meet the Pyro

aprofessionalwithoutstandards, Tumblr, Oct. 9 2023

Popular Freeform AO3 Tags

In order of popularity as of 2024 and excluding "POV," "Mentioned," "Minor" and "Centric" tags. This list also excludes tags that are not used in at least 10 works as of the making of the list.

Relationships

The most popular pairing featuring Pyro is Engineer/Pyro, with over 200 works on Archive of Our Own and 14 on FanFiction.Net as of December 2023. Pyro/Scout is a very close second on both platforms. Works exploring the platonic relationship of Engineer & Pyro are also fairly common.

Common Pairings/Polys

Common Gen Relationships

Example Fanworks

Art

Vids

Notes

  1. ^ Most official materials refer to the Pyro with he/him pronouns, though this has been broken on some occasions; for example, the "Meet the Pyro" video's official transcript features the Scout saying "He's not here, is she?" in reference to the Pyro. This article uses they/them pronouns for consistency.

References

  1. ^ "Meet the Pyro". Valve, 2012.
  2. ^ Minttu "TheMinttu" Hynninen. "True Meaning". Valve, 2011.
  3. ^ Spy's Grave Mistake, an SFM animation by SilentManJoe. This pokes fun at the prevalence (perceived or otherwise) of Pyro inflation fanart online.
  4. ^ Enhanced Pyro, an SFM model by Maxxy.
  5. ^ doobnnoob-tf2 on Tumblr, post dated June 10, 2022. When asked about Pyro's orientation, the user responds: "asexual. I’m not against Pyro being portrayed in non-sfw scenarios tbh, I just personally see them as being too innocent for it."
  6. ^ cauldroncreations on Tumblr, post dated Dec. 18, 2019. In this post, the user provides the following as an "unpopular opinion": the user says: "i personally am not a fan of any ships involving pyro! their childish personality makes putting them in a romantic/sexual relationship with like actual adults feel.....uncomfortable for me but that is a personal issue".
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