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YMMV / Red vs. Blue

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This page is for the YMMV tropes of Red vs. Blue.

Arc-Specific

  • Adorkable:
    • He's very good at hiding it most of the time, but Church can be a massive dork. Easily the most noteworthy example of this is Epsilon-Church's Squeeing in the "MIA" miniseries when he gets an annoyed Tucker to say that It's Quiet… Too Quiet.
    • Carolina occasionally gets a chance to display an endearingly dorky side.
      • When she tries to loosen up in Season 13's "Along Came A Spider," and fails miserably.
        Church: (after Tucker's filled up their Warthogs with gasoline) Oh, that was fast. You filled up our car too?
        Tucker: Yeah, I gave it to both of them. Bow-chicka bow-
        Carolina: (at the same time as Tucker) Bow-chika-bow... what? That's the joke, right?
        Tucker: Did she just say my thing?!
        Caboose: Um, no Tucker. It's "Hey chicka bum bum." Awkward.
        Carolina: (to Church) You said to loosen up!
        Church: Just a little...too loose. Just... tighten it back up a little there.
        Tucker: (off-screen) I feel violated!
      • Comes back in "Previously On" during Season 15. In a period of time that included Caboose getting trapped in the Upside-Down, an army of evil robots attacking dinosaurs, the rest of the Reds and Blues constructing a water park (and Donut then burning it down), and Sarge's "War on Gravity" among other shenanigans, Carolina thought that Wash growing a beard and Grif convincing Simmons that Game of Thrones really happened were the most noteworthy things to happen since they arrived. Additionally, she joined a band with Tucker, Grif, and Caboose, and did it just to watch them squirm at her awful singing voice. She also wanted Grif to teach her how to become "the best at being lazy."
    • The way Felix makes a joke about armor to Wash. Before Wash even reacts to said joke, Felix just apologizes and sheepishly says he was only trying to lighten the mood. The way he shows off his light shield also fits neatly under this, along with him sticking his tongue out at Tucker while wearing his helmet and then awkwardly telling Tucker to shut up when the latter points this out to him. This drops quickly once he turns out to be Evil All Along, however, suggesting it to be part of his facade. It was likely an Invoked Trope, to make himself appear less threatening. Later scenes imply that those previous moments were ultimately just extensions of his actual Psychopathic Manchild personality.
    • Jax is an excitable movie nerd, and really wants to use cinematographic shots to tell the story. Not to mention, he gets depressed easily. Even Dylan feels she should be nicer to him after hurting his feelings when she yelled at him.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • Church gets this on several levels.
      • How does he really feel about his teammates? Despite his repeated declarations of hatred towards all of the Blood Gulch Crew, he does seem to care about Donut and the other Blues at least a little bit. Notably, when Caboose gets shot twice in Season 5, he lets out two anguished Big Nos, and he seemed to despise him the most.
      • Did Alpha-Church really die not believing himself to be an A.I.? Perhaps, or it's possible that he knew it to be true, but was simply in denial. Or perhaps he fully realized this, and his last words were simply an attempt to calm himself down before pulling off a Heroic Sacrifice, or even just a grim joke?
      • While this is something of an existential question, how much does Epsilon have to do with Church's previous incarnation as the Alpha? Is he a legitimate reincarnation, or is he just someone who started to strongly resemble Church after letting some of his memories sink in?
    • Surprisingly enough, Donut gets some of this. How many of his Double Entendres are Innocent Innuendo, and how many are him Trolling his teammates? This was resolved in Season 17, which shows Donut was genuinely oblivious to his innuendos and is horrified when he realizes that he's been spewing them out en masse. Additionally, a lot of his seemingly ditzy comments can come across as him playing pranks on his friends, such as him cheerfully volunteering Simmons to become Red Team's Cyborg in Season 2.
    • Is Caboose the way he is because he was born with some sort of disorder, or because he's received brain damage after arriving in Blood Gulchnote ? Or did he start off with a disorder and the brain damage happened to increase his stupidity.
    • Are Felix and Locus just regular UNSC recruits who were good enough to get "space-marine" armor like Carolina and Wash or are they actual Spartan II's? This would mean that they were abducted as children from families they'll never know, and horribly brainwashed and experimented on to be the perfect super soldiers. The only evidence against this is that Felix has a regular-sounding name, but Spartans were infamous in canon for their sociopathic and anti-social tendencies, which describe the duo fairly well. It would also explain their demonstrated inability to adapt to civilian life, Felix's confidence in being able to beat all the Reds and Blues and Agent Carolina, and color his comments about being "stronger and faster than you" in a whole new light. While this would not justify their crimes, it would make them effective dark foils to Master Chief, showing what he could have become if he never learned responsibility or compassion on the battlefield.
  • Americans Hate Tingle: The series has had a noticeably difficult time breaking into Asian markets. Japanese audiences in particular have been slow to accept Grif, as his laziness and irreverence for authority is very much out of sync with modern widespread Japanese culture.
  • Applicability: The PSA "Snowed In" was written several months before being released and handles the topic of dealing with a blizzard and the resulting need for supplies and cabin fever. Many however note that a lot of the advice given could easily be applied to the COVID-19 pandemic plaguing the world at the time of the PSA's release.
  • Archive Panic: Every episode - plus the miniseries and many of the PSAs - is available on Rooster Teeth's website and the series' own YouTube channel! Of course it's over 300 episodes, resulting in at least one whole day of footage, so binging all at once is not recommended.
  • Base-Breaking Character:
    • Vic's quirky and bizarre nature makes viewers find him either utterly hilarious or unbearably annoying.
    • Agent Carolina. One sides sympathizes with her, pointing how she was the victim of the Director's manipulations as well as betrayal by her teammates. They also appreciate her relationship with York and were saddened that they were never able to get together. The other side hates her for being a Jerkass in the present day to the Reds and Blues and blames her for everything that went wrong with Project Freelancer, even though all of it wasn't her fault. The later seasons have made her much more well-loved, however, as she Took a Level in Kindness, seeing the Blood Gulch Crew as her new family, and outright fears them dying (and even saw them die in Santa's vision). And in Season 15, she seems to have become just as crazy as the rest of the crew.
    • Jax Jonez in Season 15, with fans being split over him being either an Adorkably kooky and hilarious film geek, or an annoying Tagalong Kid who often unnecessarily took the air out of dramatic scenes with obscure movie references. That being said, he was significantly better-liked in The Shisno Paradox when he became a Prima Donna Director with a Hair-Trigger Temper and a streak of Comedic Sociopathy a mile wide, to the point where he's seen as one of the better parts of Season 16.
  • Broken Base:
    • The Season 13 PSA about trigger warnings resulted in a pretty instant, pretty messy split between three camps: Those who felt the episode was hilarious for lampooning the Political Overcorrectness tendencies of some trigger warning users (As well as pointing out how these people make it hard to take real triggers seriously thanks to their overusage of them for mundane things), those who don't find the jokes funny due to the reason behind trigger warnings in the first placenote , and those who didn't care either way for the episode, but found it in poor taste to release something so controversial despite knowing and lampshading the backlash it would cause, given RT's own very anti-politics-on-site nature. Then there's the smaller camp who found the intense reactions from both sides ridiculously over sensitive or hypocritical, regardless of if they themselves liked or disliked the video and regardless of their own opinion on trigger warnings.
    • When the series should have ended, and if it should've ended at all. Some say it should've ended at Season 5, since it gives a sincerely sad ending to a hilarious series about how pointless everything was. Others say Season 10, with the lore and formula having been deconstructed and reconstructed, backstory having been explained, and characters having been pushed to their limits. Still others say Season 13, with The Chorus Trilogy giving fresh air to the franchise, proving it can work in an overall new setting, and ending with the death of what is essentially the show's main character. Season 14 was controversial in and of itself, but some say Vic's goodbye speech would've been an acceptable ending. And of course, others are happy that the series is still ongoing.
      • The biggest split thus far has been between those who like the series for the military-themed dialogue-focused comedy of the Blood Gulch Chronicles (particularly Seasons 4 and 5) versus those who prefer the action-thriller direction and deeper plot that Season 6 and beyond have adopted.
    • For Seasons 15-17, was Joe Nicolosi doing a good job as showrunner, or did he derail the characters and were the meta comedy and unusual plot choices he'd added in harmful? And related to the above, the dissers of Nicolosi's seasons are often those who preferred the plot-heavier seasons when the show was leaning back towards the comedy during that point in time.
    • Whether or not Donut should've stayed dead after Wash "killed" him in Season 7. While there's a general consensus that Donut is still hilarious and it's overall nice to have him as part of the Blood Gulch Crew, some have complained that the irritating trend of fans almost never taking characters' deaths at face value in this series wouldn't have become as nearly apparent if Donut had just stayed dead the first time around. Naturally, others disagree on this.
    • Related to the above is the short story "Washed Hands" from Red Vs. Blue: The Ultimate Fan Guide, which details how Wash was recruited into Project Freelancer by the Counselor. On the one hand, many fans liked the story and found it to be an interesting bit of Worldbuilding by showing some more backstory to the development of Project Freelancer. On the other hand, lots of other fans disliked the story, complaining that it was a pointless Retcon of Wash's previously Adorkable personality during the flashback sections of The Project Freelancer Saga since it revealed that he was a coldly methodical revenge-planner since childhood. And of course, there's lots of other fans in-between.
  • Common Knowledge:
    • The Grifshot is such an iconic weapon In-Universe and out that it's often assumed to be Grif's signature weapon, much like Sarge and his shotgun. In actual fact, because the series shifted to Halo 4 shortly after he gained the weapon, Grif only uses it (with a generous definition of the word "use") a total of three times: to save his life after the Meta drags him over a cliff, to fight the Tex Drones, and in the Chairman's trophy room. Of those three times, only one scene (the Tex Drone fight) has him even fire it onscreen. The Meta holds the weapon for far longer than Grif does, while Grif himself defaults to a battle rifle for most of the show after Halo 2.
    • When the first promo for Season 19: Restoration, was released, many began to believe the season was subjecting Seasons 14-Zero to Canon Discontinuity, by depicting them as solely being simulations ran by Epsilon during the finale of Season 13. The only season this was even implied to apply to however is Zero, as the figure implied to be Epsilon-Sigma asks Epsilon if he thought the fight between Wash, Carolina, and the Viper Syndicate could actually happen, only for Epsilon to say it "just looks cool". As a result, many locations from The Other Wiki to the subreddit have all claimed the seasons are retconned despite that not being officially said, and as a result had egg on their faces when it was confirmed that not only Dylan Andrews would be returning, but Agent One as well.
  • Complete Monster: Sigma, Malcolm Hargrove, Felix, Genkins, and Zero.
  • Contested Sequel: Following Season 13, the next three seasons have unfortunately developed this reputation, though for varying reasons: Season 14 dropped continuing the plot in lieu of exploring other stories through an anthology, Season 15 was criticized for wasted potential and such, and Season 16 got a controversial reception for going on a far Denser and Wackier route than any of the prior seasons. Season 17 seems to have avoided this for the most part due to a mix of better pacing in its narrative and Character Rerailment (among other factors). But then Season 18 again split the fans, some liking the non-stop barrage of flashy fights and chases, and others criticizing the writing, with rushed plotting and characterization while lacking on the comedy that always drove the series.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: Lots of the humor in this series darts across the line so many times that one can't keep track, what with moments like Private Jimmy's death at the hands of Tex, Freelancer Command having "Ctrl+F+U" as a keyboard shortcut for Caboose's teamkills, the numerous injuries poor Maine suffers through during the highway fight, the Reds and Blues completely forgetting that Doc had been sucked away into the Future Cubes for several months, the interviews conducted for finding the "right" Red Team Sargent and Tucker-analogues, Sarge's rant about the "Whites", Grif immediately trying to kill himself when he learns that pizza's been erased from history (The Shisno Paradox), and Wash shooting Donut being repeated ad nauseam to point of becoming a hysterical Running Gag (Singularity) all being the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
  • Cry for the Devil:
    • For all the Director's horrific war crimes, ruthless manipulation, large-scale Mind Rape, and sheer callousness towards everyone, his love for Allison is his one genuinely sympathetic quality that reminds the audience that he was once an actually decent human being. In the Season 10 finale, his breakdown into a hopeless and broken shell of a man is one of the saddest moments out of the entire series.
    • Despite his years of killing and ruthless pragmatism, Locus is a troubled soldier still suffering from PTSD after the Human-Covenant War, having been essentially bullied into becoming a soulless killing machine by his own commander and Felix.
  • Diagnosed by the Audience:
    • Due to having gone through a lot of brain damage, Caboose often comes across as almost completely divorced from reality. Several episodes have heavily implied that he may be somewhere on the autistic spectrum, and it's been also all but stated that he suffers from at least one learning disorder. That being said, the ambiguity is kept intentionally vague for Caboose since he's also the only character in the series to be cognizant of the fact that he's fictional, which makes it hard to tell how much of his craziness is him being an idiot and how much is him trying to put what he's seeing into the proper frame of reference for everyone. In Season 17, he openly acknowledges that he does have some form of brain damage, but qualifying it is left vague.
    • Later seasons have implied that Sarge suffers from severe PTSD, and he's always had sociopathic tendencies dating back to the first season of the show. Season 11 also has him even displaying some tendencies normally associated with senility while stuck in Crash Site Bravo.
    • Season 15 implies Grif has developed PTSD from all of the adventures he’s been dragged into, which plays a part in his decision to leave the Reds and Blues, and in Season 16 he demonstrates suicidal tendencies, attempting to blow himself up with a grenade after pizza is erased from existence.
  • Discredited Meme: One scene of Doc arguing with O'Malley got pasted with a memetic exchange ("“Are you a man or a woman?” “I’m a villain.” “What gender are you?” “Evil.” “Yeah, but what’s in your pants?” “Doom.”) and became popular. The fandom has a problem with that being described as an actual quote from the show, and the meme got banned from the show's sub-Reddit.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Quite a few, as to be expected of a series that's been running since 2003.

  • Epileptic Trees: Some of which have even come true.
  • Fanfic Fuel:
    • Project Freelancer has inspired numerous pieces of fanfiction based on it, the questionable experiments it performed off-screen, and its various agents that all existed before the series occurred. What certainly helps is that only a handful out of the originally 50 agents were seen in The Project Freelancer Saga, and even then their observed missions were only a few out of the countless assignments they went on in actual canon.
    • Really, the series has numerous moments in its timeline that are ripe for further expansion by enterprising fanfiction authors. Just a few examples are the casts' lives prior to being inducted into Project Freelancer, Tucker's training on Sangheilos between Seasons 5 and 7 followed by his time as an ambassador, life on Chorus both prior to the Civil War and after the events of The Chorus Trilogy, the mercenary exploits of Locus, Felix, and Sirus, and the lives of the Cosmic Powers among many more.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • "The Blood Gulch Crew" for the Reds and Blues that originated from Blood Gulch's teams along with their associated Freelancers and A.I.s (i.e., Tex, Wash, Epsilon, and Carolina).
    • The Mysterious Blue Guy was the most widely accepted nickname for the blue-armoured Freelancer of unknown identity in the prequel sections, who turns out to be Agent Florida, better known as Captain Flowers.
    • All the Insurrectionists/Resistance members have a couple, considering that they have No Name Given status.
      • The Insurrectionist Flame Soldier is often called "Sharkface", due to his helmet. Gained official status in Season 13.
      • "Girlie" has many, including "Heartbreaker" and "Hot Lips", both due to her lipmark insignia.
      • "Pillman" is the most common for the Insurrectionist Leader, due to the insignia on his ODST armor.
    • Felix from Season 11 was named "Sunkist Mcscouty" or "Pumpkin Patrol" due to his Scout helmet and orange striped armour. After his name was revealed, "Felix McScouty" is the generally agreed upon nickname.
    • After her mention in the preview synopsis for Season 15 but before her name was revealed, fans were taken to referring to Dylan Andrews as "Reporter Lady."
    • Spencer Porkensenson is known by some as "Unicorn" or "Rhino" due to his FOTUS helmet. After Episode 3 of Season 15 was released, "Goodbye" also started to pick up steam. More formally, he tended to be called "FOTUS Soldier" on wikis before his real name was revealed.
    • Atlus's trickster son Genkins was first known as "Green Golfer Dude" after his opening scene.
    • After Huggins' darker side was first shown in "It Just Blinked At Me", several fans started to call her "Scary Tinkerbell."
    • Phase was nicknamed "Knife Wife" as soon as clips of her knife fighting skills appeared. There's even a shirt with it!
  • Fanon: According to an inordinate number of fans...
    • Wash and C.T. had a romantic relationship, despite them only interacting twice in the show (though in fairness, both times implied they were closer than most Freelancers, but he still doesn't even react when she turns traitor... or when the Freelancers attack Charon Industries to capture/kill her). Alternately, Grif/Simmons. While Tucker does make a remark about them being in love during The Blood Gulch Chronicles, their relationship in the show is overall closer to being Heterosexual Life-Partners.
      • There's also a large group of fans who believe that at least some of the Freelancers served in the Human-Covenant War, with some specifically stating that Wash fought at the Battle of Reach. While Project Freelancer's origins are confirmed as being related to the Great War (specifically, Project Freelancer was created as a "magic-bullet" program during the midst of the war so as to save humanity by both experimenting on human-A.I. interactions and the various possible threats that soldiers would encounter on the galactic battlefield), no Freelancers have been recorded as actually getting involved in the Great War during the series. Amusingly, Red vs. Blue: The Ultimate Fan Guide actually states Wash did fight in the Great War... but only before he ever became a Freelancer.
    • Crunchbite was reincarnated as Junior. There's some evidence for this in the series, but it's far from explicitly said.
    • Carolina's nickname (often given to her by York) is "Lina." She's never called anything but Carolina in the show, though, even by York. Alternately, her real name is Carol, and she's also almost always shown using the gravity hammer, despite using it just twice in the series—pistols or melee are much more part of her fighting style, yet fans have latched onto the grav hammer instead.
    • Sarge was previously an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper. It is mentioned that Sarge jumped out of ships "during the war", so it's possible, but again, it's far from confirmed. However, this actually became a case of Ascended Fanon in Season 15, with Sarge outright mentioning having previously been an ODST.
    • Character appearances have been pretty well cemented by Luke McKay's fan art, leading most people to believe Caboose is a blonde, Grif and Simmons have brown hair, Tex has red hair, Church has black hair and stubble, etc. While Church's appearance has sort of been confirmed (the Director indeed looks like an older, even grumpier Luke McKay Church), some of the others are definitely not correct (Tucker is implied to be black along with Grif & Sister both being implied to be Hawaiian, unlike Luke McKay's white depiction of all three, and both Wash and Tex are blondes... or at least the original Allison was a blonde).
      • Speaking of character appearances in fanart, most fans seem to like depicting Simmons' robotic implants as being very blatant and Donut post-Chrovos resurrection often has one eye replaced with crystal.
    • After the Freelancer Prequel Duology in Season 14 ("The Triplets" and "The 'Mission'"), most fans think that Freelancer Agent Ohio's group and Charon Agent Sherry's group were the main inspiration for the Red & Blue Teams (or at least gave the Director the initial idea for them). Also, many fans think that the icy wasteland of a planet they're stranded on is Sidewinder (since it's the only other ice planet encountered in the series).
    • In Singularity, it's revealed that Carolina spent the years in-between the Meta throwing her off a cliff on Sidewinder and getting the Reds and Blues to help her break out Epsilon as a common foot soldier in the UNSC under the false name of "McCallister." Most fans have taken this to mean that McCallister was Allison Church's maiden name, though there's no real evidence for/against that in the show itself.
  • Fountain of Memes: More often then not, expect Caboose to be quoted by fans of Red vs. Blue.
  • Friendly Fandoms: As one could expect, it has one with both the rest of Rooster Teeth's work and Halo itself.
  • Gateway Series: Expect most people to mention Red vs. Blue as the series that got them into Machinima, Rooster Teeth, or both.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • Caboose's Image Song "Your Best Friend" was once a creepy yet heartwarming (and hilarious) single about the happiness Caboose feels whenever he's near Church. Come Season 13's ending, the song is nothing but heartbreaking since Caboose will likely never see Church again. And he was already The Woobie to begin with...
    • The fact that the Season 17 "Visit the Doctor!" PSA would air just as the 2020 coronavirus pandemic would cause the United States to declare a state of national emergency is a rather unfortunate bit of timing.
    • Additionally, the Season 17 "Snowed In" PSA ends with Church getting killed yet again by Caboose. In the weeks following that PSA, Burnie Burns announced that he was leaving Rooster Teethnote  and moving outside of the United States. Or, to phrase it another way, the last PSA to feature Burns while he worked at Rooster Teeth was one where Church died yet again.
  • He's Just Hiding: With the show's habit of going from Death Is Cheap to Deader than Dead in suitably serious moments, you can see why there's so many examples.
    • Many fans don't buy the Meta's Disney Villain Death and believe he will make a reappearance. As of Season 13, Maine is confirmed dead but his empty armor is in the possession of Malcolm Hargrove. Many episodes were spent hammering in the fact that yes, he's indeed dead, and the Meta died the moment the EMP wiped out all the original AI fragments.
    • The Freelancers get this a lot. After spending two seasons characterizing them with their own flaws and friendships that made them very likable, they're still doomed to die in ignoble, humiliating deaths and some fans really still hold out hope that some will make a reappearance, unlikely as it seems.
    • At the end of Season 13, Epsilon defragments himself in order to create new AI that can manage Tucker's suit, effectively erasing him from existence. Since this isn't the first, second, or even third time an incarnation of Leonard Church has died, many fans were hoping this would be another bluff. Unfortunately for said fans, he's confirmed to be Killed Off for Real in Season 15.
    • The same holds true for Texas/Allison, even if Epsilon made sure to delete her from his mind, ensuring she could never come back as a part of him. The Director seemed to have another copy lying around, but all of his works were explicitly destroyed by his own order. This is just as well, since the memory of Allison is exhausted being constantly brought back.
    • Some fans still believe Felix is alive against all odds and the show's established laws of nature. The temples confirmed he was dead as Locus was able to wield the key that could only be used by a true warrior once the previous was dead. Considering Donut already died and came back once or twice, anything's possible.
    • You can also add the Triplets. While it's never stated they're dead, the fact that they were left on a barren planet with a trio of enemies that has a limited supply of food and alcohol, and Project Freelancer never bothered to send rescue, some fans hope they made it out regardless. Being possible surviving Freelancers and having a canonical lesbian in their group doesn't hurt.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: A PSA was released before Season 16 that was a very thinly veiled Take That, Audience! towards those complaining about how the season was being uploaded to RoosterTeeth.com and not YouTube. Season 16 was then released a year later on YouTube to help promote Season 17 (which would also be posted to YouTube a year after its initial release... though Season 18 was still far from done).
  • Ho Yay: Has its own page. It's even gotten to a point where the creators lampshade it outside the show.
  • I Knew It!:
    • People were so sure that C.T's initials stood for Connecticut that it's been treated as practically canon as far back as season seven. However it is only in Season 9 that Connecticut's full name is first used on screen.
    • The idea that the C.T. first met in Recreation wasn't actually Agent Connecticut has been tossed around ever since Washington revealed that C.T. was a woman.
    • Fans also successfully called an Engineer being the contents of the Sarcophagus.
    • With all the theories floating around about the Mysterious Blue Guy, someone was going to get his identity right; the crowd of fans that guessed he was Flowers were correct, though fewer also guessed he was also Agent Florida.
    • Early in Season 15, the vast majority of fans were assuming that the Reds and Blues the audience initially saw were fakes. They were correct. Dylan Andrews even deduced this through the same reasoning as the viewers did (Sarge doesn't have his shotgun, Tucker has a sniper rifle, etc).
      • Speaking of Season 15, both The Ultimate Fan Guide and the same season confirm that Sarge was a former member of the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers before he eventually became a Simulation Trooper. While Relocation had Simmons noting Sarge used to "jump out of ships during the Great War," Season 15 and The Ultimate Fan Guide explicitly state that Sarge used to be an ODST.
    • Many fans also predicted The Reveal in The Shisno Paradox that the Cosmic Powers were really hyper-advanced A.I.s utilizing a God Guise.
    • Singularity confirms that 479er was the voice of "Recovery/Freelancer Command" heard during Recovery One and Reconstruction. While many had already assumed that this was true, it wasn't until Singularity that the two characters were confirmed In-Universe to be the same person and not just a case of two different characters with the same voice actor.
    • A few episodes into Zero, the fact East was subject to experiments and was a glitchy foil to Phase led to the speculation that Phase was the real deal, East was a duplicate. Sure enough, East is a Literal Split Personality.
  • Iron Woobie: Tex consistently fails at whatever she's trying to do, not that it stops her from trying or being a badass while doing so. The same can also be said of Carolina and Wash, though they go on to actually learn from the past and resolve to put their mistakes behind them.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
    • Agent Washington, to the point where he's generally seen as the "fandom bicycle."
    • Tucker surprisingly got into this territory after he got significant Character Development in The Chorus Trilogy.
    • After his face was eventually revealed during the Merc Trilogy in Season 14, Locus became incredibly popular to ship with other characters, with the Ho Yay already being pretty blatant between him and both Felix and Wash.
  • LGBT Fanbase: Has gotten an increasingly vocal and sizable one as the series has gone on, helped along by both the copious amount of Ho Yay the series has to offer and the show improving its own LGBT representation over time.
  • Magnificent Bastard:
    • Doctor Leonard Church served as the Director of Project Freelancer, who mourned the loss of his beloved wife. Founding his military program to test out the use of equipment with AI implantation in soldiers, the Director reverse engineered Split Personality in the one AI he had, the Alpha, to create fragments. The Director emotionally manipulated his soldiers to test out which AI matched which soldier and examined certain effects. The Director used turned one of his AI into Agent Texas, who would carry out dirty work for him. The Director also used his agents to steal equipment to perform more experiments. After the implosion of Freelancer and the apparent death of his daughter, Agent Carolina, the Director regrouped Freelancer, successfully hiding away the Alpha to keep him safe. When Washington rebelled and activated the EMP, the Director tried to use the Meta to stop him. Investigated by Chairman Hargrove, the Director argued that his actions were for the good of humanity, but submitted to possible arrest. In the end after a meeting with his alive daughter, the Director killed himself realizing that he could never bring back his beloved Allison.
    • Aiden Price was the Counselor of Project Freelancer. The Counselor emotionally manipulated the agents to serve the Director needs, and as such knew many things about them. After the implosion, the Counselor helped coordinate both the Alpha's hiding and Florida's disappearance. Serving as head of Recovery, the Counselor used his agents to track down the Meta at any cost, and ultimately brought the Reds and Blues in for help. After his imprisonment, the Counselor joined the Chorus genocide campaign with Charon mercenaries, manipulating a former Charon employee to act as an enforcer without giving away his former occupation. The Counselor was the only one who realized that the people of Chorus could win and doom the operation, but was unable to get his allies to flee before being killed.
    • Agent Wyoming, real name Reginald, and his AI partner Gamma, representing the Alpha's deceit, are the primary operators of Omega's plan. Hired by Omega to assassinate Tucker, Wyoming allowed a bomb to go off that knocked the Reds and Blues unconscious. Gamma manipulated an alien race into a believing prophecy, leading one alien to impregnate Tucker before being killed by Wyoming. After Wyoming sent Omega back to Blood Gulch to find a new host, he confronted and killed Agent York, and managed to escape Texas. Wyoming and Gamma reunited and headed to Blood Gulch to retrieve Tucker's alien son for Omega to possess and control the Covenant. Wyoming used his time distortion unit to cheat in battle, and when seemingly killed unleashed time copies to continue to fight. Wyoming's final push before his death was to reveal the full extent of his plan to get Tex on his side.
    • Sigma was split from the Alpha's creativity and ambition. Sigma became very interest in becoming human, and controlled Agent Maine for his full ambitions. Sigma also manipulated Agent Carolina into getting two AI, just to see the results, and ultimately almost offed Carolina to get both of those AI. As the Meta, Sigma hunted down agents for their AI, but also recognized more pragmatic choices to leave them behind, such as to get more equipment or recharge power. Upon realizing that Wash and the Blue Team were on his tail, the Meta remixed a transmission to trick the Red Team into distracting them while he stole Delta. The Meta secretly tagged along to the Freelancer Command Center, and tracked down and almost killed Wash to take the Alpha.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • Calling the Halo Warthog "Puma".
    • "It's a legitimate strategy!" (Camping.) Explanation
    • "That was the worst throw ever. Of all time." Explanation
    • "Wait. That's illegal." Explanation
    • "We've been tricked, we've been backstabbed and we've been quite possibly, bamboozled." Explanation
    • "It's still going?" is a popular reaction for when people who haven't watched Red vs Blue in a while come back and are surprised to find out that the series hasn't stopped airing.
  • Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: Surprisingly enough, despite (or perhaps, because of) Armed Farces being one of the series' main sources of comedy (especially in the earlier seasons), Red vs. Blue is actually noticeably popular with American servicemen in the Middle East according to an interview with Geoff Ramsey. What certainly helps is that Ramsey, who has served as a consultant and aid on writing RvB episodes outside of being just a voice actor, previously served in the US Army and so he knows how to mock with respect.
  • Moe:
    • Caboose, for his childish personality and utterly absurd level of stupidity. However, his perpetually upbeat nature and the fact that he still goes through a lot of suffering throughout the series makes him surprisingly endearing instead of being annoying.
    • Wash, whenever he can relax and have fun, especially so in his younger days in Freelancer flashbacks.
    • Jensen's just so darn cute, even if we can't see her under the armor. The lisp certainly helps.
    • This accounts for Theta's popularity. In a series full of Black Comedy, characters who are Too Dumb to Live, casual abuse, and general suffering, the fact that he's a cute AI with the personality and voice of a little kid is just precious.
    • Huggins. Despite her having a darker side, many have found her adorable and perky personality to be quite endearing, to the point where she even proved to be quite popular among those who weren't a fan of Season 16 as a whole.
  • One True Threesome:
    • Of the shipping variety, there's Tucker/Wash/Carolina, as Wash/Tucker and Wash/Carolina are the two most popular ships in the fandom associated with Wash, and Tucker & Carolina have actually become surprisingly good friends after the events of Season 13.
    • Of the platonic variety, there's Grif & Simmons & Church due to the surprising amount of camaraderie shown between all three characters, Grif and Church's mutual Deadpan Snarker tendencies, and Church's Worthy Opponent view of Grif from during The Blood Gulch Chronicles.
    • Sarge & Grif & Simmons are often considered to be the "core" Red Team members, and Blue Team is often summed up as either consisting of Church & Tucker & Caboose or Wash & Tucker & Caboose.
  • Periphery Demographic:
    • A lot of RWBY fans, especially those within the YouTube reaction/reviewer community, have discovered the show on the off-season when they needed content to react to/review. Both might be Rooster Teeth productions, but they couldn't be any more different!
    • Way back in the beginning, Rooster Teeth were surprised to learn that the show had a sizable fanbase among women along with the traditionally masculine "video game nerd/geek kind of market" that was the target audience. While the creators have joked that "Each one of us is 30 pounds overweight and we're all balding, so we've got a lot to offer the ladies!", the general consensus seems to be that good comedy transcends all boundaries and having the sole female character Tex also be the only truly capable one helped. Later seasons helped further by having continuously improved writing and representation regarding women, while also happening as the existence of women in "geek culture" in general became less marginalized and dismissed.
  • Self-Fanservice: A natural consequence of the fact that virtually the entire cast is The Faceless.
    • Tucker is a rather amusing case of this. In-Universe, Captain Flowers describes him as having "striking metrosexual looks," which has contributed to most of his fanart depicting him as being Mr. Fanservice turned up to eleven (as most fans seem to find it funny that the only reason Tucker can't get laid is because of his Casanova Wannabe antics).
    • Grif, who is both overweight and a habitual smoker, is often drawn with a Big Beautiful Man body design.
    • The fact that Kaikaina is "chubby" In-Universe has led to virtually all fanart depicting her as a Big Beautiful Woman.
    • Simmons is a nerd who nonetheless was able to keep up with Tucker's exercise regimen during Season 12. Additionally, his Hollywood Cyborg status has become increasingly downplayed as the series has gone on to the point where it's not even mentioned in Red Vs. Blue: The Ultimate Fan Guide. Most fanart has Simmons drawn as buff along with his mechanical implants being very blatant (i.e., having part of his face and right arm being mechanical replacements). Should be noted that in-series, his only known robotic parts are internal organs.
  • Sequelitis:
    • Lightly referenced in the Gaming PSA.
      Simmons: Join us next time for part 2 of our series: sequels.
      Grif: Parts 3 and 4 are about that, too.
    • Despite this being jokingly referenced, Seasons 9 and 10 became much more popular than the previous seasons ever were, and the Chorus Trilogy is beloved by many fans for taking the series in a fresh direction. However, then came a lot of divisive seasons, as noted above under Contested Sequel (only 17 escaped scorn, and even then it was followed by the most negatively received in 18).
  • Success Through Insanity:
    • Caboose. He's both dumb as a stump and completely divorced from reality, but his insanity results in him doing things like shrugging off psychological torture from two separate ancient A.I.s, reviving Church, and figuring out how to time travel through his own backwards logic.
    • Sarge. His plans generally make no logical sense, yet tend to bring surprisingly good results once he gets to execute them. Most notably, he caught Agent Washington at gunpoint by disguising himself as a cardboard imitation of himself, helped kill the Meta by tying a car to him and tossing it off of a frozen cliff, and made an adrenaline-fueled slow-motion car crash happen in real life.
    • Freelancer Agent North Dakota, while more or less sane, is seen as following this trope In-Universe for his unconventional battle tactics such as using the upgrade that has 99.9% chance of killing him on the spot and pulling off a Guns Akimbo with sniper rifles.
    Church: North was a crazy son of a bitch.
  • Tough Act to Follow:
    • Reconstruction was such a drastic jump in quality with its fairly serious, Darker and Edgier plot and the genuinely intimidating villain of the Meta, that it's regarded as the go-to example of Cerebus Syndrome, and in the eyes of several fans just couldn't be topped. To the point most fans found Recreation a step down in spite of the funny moments. But then Revelation delivered huge payoffs to the plot developments of the previous scenes, while also introducing the awesome animated scenes by Monty Oum.
    • Then Season 10 one-upped the symphonic metal soundtrack, large cast of characters of both genders, slick, cinematic CG fight scenes that looked more impressive even than 8 and 9's, and wrapping up many ongoing storylines involving the Freelancers that looked like it could've ended the series then and there.
    • Nowadays, The Chorus Trilogy is another contender, with its back to basics approach that set out to have a new plot that had little to do with Freelancer agents, giving a fresh direction that blended drama and comedy seamlessly. Season 14 came to be the way it was because Rooster Teeth didn't know how to follow the arc's Grand Finale (specially the Bolivian Army Ending) in a satisfactory way.
  • Unintentional Period Piece: During the DVD commentaries for the first five seasons, Burnie notes whenever a spare topical reference appears, he tended to avoid them due to believing that those gave a high risk of dating the product. And indeed, there are a few writing moments even more mid-2000s than the Halo games being used, such as references to Lost and Sister mentioning MySpace - says something about the show's longevity that later seasons mentioned Game of Thrones and Facebook. However, one line, "Can you hear me now? Can you hear me? Stupid 4G network.", manages to age well and not limit itself to the days where 3G was the norm — and in fact, the joke still works, with 5G only beginning to take off in 2019, more than a decade after the episode the joke came from.
  • Unpopular Popular Character:
  • Win Back the Crowd: Fans who disliked the focus on action and intricate plot that dominated the Recollection (Seasons 6-8) and the Freelancer Saga (Seasons 9-10) were pleasantly surprised with the Chorus Trilogy (Seasons 11-13), for having more to do with the Blood Gulch Crew, a larger emphasis on classic RvB comedy, pulling focus away from giant action setpieces, making the action more grounded, and for bringing in a new, simpler plot that had little to do with the Freelancers.
  • The Woobie: Has its own page.

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