Guybrush Threepwood
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Guybrush Ulysses Threepwood is the main character of the Monkey Island series of computer adventure games by LucasArts. The voice of Guybrush is provided by actor Dominic Armato in the third and fourth games. Though a mighty pirate by his own account, it is a running joke throughout the games for characters to hopelessly garble Guybrush Threepwood's unusual name, either deliberately or accidentally, with variations including "Thriftweed", "Gorbush" and "Threekwood".
The origin of the name "Guybrush" comes from Deluxe Paint, the tool used by the artists to create the character sprite. Since the character had no name at this point, the file was simply called 'Guy'. When the file was saved, Deluxe Paint automatically appended the extension '.brush'; before the designers could think of a proper name they got used to referring to 'Guy.brush' when talking about the sprite and decided to use it as the protagonist's actual name[1]. "Threepwood" was the name of Dave Grossman's RPG character and was picked through voting. The name comes from P. G. Wodehouse's family of characters including Galahad Threepwood and Clarence Threepwood, 9th Earl of Emsworth.
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[edit] Incarnations
Guybrush's age remains an issue of debate. A dialogue choice in the second game, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge (MI2), has Guybrush nearly admitting that he is nineteen years old before quickly lying that he is 21. Although the amount of time that passes between each game is vague, some estimate him to be around eighteen during the first game, The Secret of Monkey Island. During the course of the third game, The Curse of Monkey Island (CMI), Threepwood's SCUMM Actors Guild membership card states he is twenty years old.
Many people have cited this instance as a contradiction as some believe, based on dialogue with the Voodoo Lady earlier in the game, where she says that she has lived on three separate islands for the past six years, indicating that there was a five year gap between MI2 and CM. However, this is more likely an out-of-game reference, referring to the five year release-gap in real-life between the two games. It is evident that the Voodoo Lady's presence clearly breaks the fourth wall as she makes a passing yet blatant reference to LOOM. Additionally the Monkey Island timeline is extremely inconsistent, especially in attempted retcons in both CMI and Escape from Monkey Island.
Guybrush grows a beard and moustache in the second game, but is shaven in the third and fourth games. Guybrush makes a reference that he lost his beard between the third and second game but cannot remember what happened to it. Since CMI indicates that the bizarre ending of MI2, where he appears as a child, was a hex put on him by LeChuck, his losing of the beard might have been an unfortunate side-effect.
In Escape from Monkey Island Guybrush's middle name is revealed to be Ulysses by (a puzzlingly close but off screen) Elaine.
[edit] Attire
In Secret Guybrush wears a white blouse; he wears a similar blouse in all the other games as well but this one appears to have shorter sleeves (although they could simply be folded). He wears black, knee-long pants, white socks and small, black shoes. In Monkey Island 2 his attire changes radically. He now wears boots and a long, blue coat and two belts, one of which goes across his chest. In Curse Guybrush's attire is similar to his attire in Secret, but he has brown pants instead of black, a small brown vest and red sash.
Following Manny Calavera's (Grim Fandango) example, in Escape, Guybrush has multiple outfits. He starts out with a red, buttoned-up jacket, boots and a large belt with a belt buckle that has his initials on it (an in-joke from Grim Fandango). When venturing to Lucre and Jambalaya Island he wears a similar outfit to his appearance in Secret, except that his pants are a light blue and his blouse has longer sleeves. When he is once more stranded on Monkey Island in the third act he wears his red jacket, but no shoes. His pants have been ripped from knee down and his jacket seems slightly beat up.
[edit] Appearances
[edit] The Secret of Monkey Island
When Guybrush first appeared in The Secret of Monkey Island, he was an awkward teenager whose sole ambition in life was to be a pirate. (The Monkey Island games take place in the Caribbean during a deliberately vague time period; 17th century-style pirates exist alongside anachronistic objects such as soft drink dispensing machines.) Guybrush, although portrayed as an attractive lad in closeups, is a scrawny blonde youth with minimal amounts of courage, intelligence and charisma. His primary talent is the ability to hold his breath for ten minutes, and he certainly appears to be an unlikely candidate to be a buccaneer. He does exhibit plenty of persistence, however, and doggedly attempts to complete the three trials of piratehood.
In the course of exploring Mêlée Island, he meets and immediately falls in love with the Tri-Island Area's beautiful governor, Elaine Marley. Guybrush is not the only one interested in Governor Marley, however: the ghost pirate LeChuck has long been besmitten with her; Elaine, however, does not return his affection. She told him to 'drop dead', so he did. That's when things got ugly. When the villain kidnaps Elaine, Guybrush is compelled to try to rescue her from LeChuck's lair on Monkey Island. She proves quite capable of protecting herself (as she is the former captain of LeChuck's ghost crew), easily escaping LeChuck's clutches (unbeknownst to the bumbling Threepwood). Guybrush, improbably enough, manages to destroy the ghost pirate LeChuck and becomes a fearsome pirate himself.
[edit] Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
In Monkey Island 2, almost the entire game takes the form of a flashback as Guybrush tells Elaine what happened to him. Thus, it is possible to die by falling into a pit of acid, upon which the game fades back to the storytelling screen, with Elaine asking him to tell what really happened since obviously he could not have died if he was right there telling her the story.
As Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge begins, Guybrush has embarked on an epic new adventure: growing facial hair (or so Bart'n Fink are wont to believe). He soon runs into Largo LaGrande, LeChuck's former henchman, on Scabb Island. Largo discovers that Guybrush has LeChuck's ghostly beard, which he has kept as a trophy; he steals the beard and uses it to reanimate the corpse of his former boss. Thanks to Guybrush, LeChuck is now a seriously angry zombie with voodoo powers instead of a disgruntled ghost.
The Voodoo Lady tells Guybrush that LeChuck can only be stopped by the power of the legendary treasure of Big Whoop. To find it, he must travel to nearby Phatt Island and Booty Island in search of the four pieces of a treasure map. As he completes the map, he is captured by LeChuck; while attempting to escape, Guybrush causes an enormous explosion that hurls him to Dinky Island. Coincidentally enough, this happens to be where Big Whoop is hidden. Guybrush uses dynamite to "dig" for the treasure and finds himself in a maze of underground, concrete-lined tunnels.
The remaining portion of MI2 is somewhat surrealistic: One chases the other in a vague abandoned underground place that includes elevators, machines, an office etc. LeChuck claims that he is Guybrush's brother, in a parody of Darth Vader's "I am your father" scene with Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back. After Guybrush finally defeats LeChuck with a voodoo doll, he kneels and removes the pirate's "mask". LeChuck is revealed as Guybrush's bullying older brother "Chuckie". Suddenly, both Guybrush and Chuckie are children at an amusement park looking suspiciously like Booty Island, with their parents; both games seem to have been daydreams by a young boy obsessed with pirates. Only a brief scene during the closing credits hints that this may be untrue: Elaine Marley idly wonders if Guybrush has fallen prey to some evil spell of LeChuck's, and we see "Chucky" has red eyes with an evil glow. On this strange note, the game ends.
[edit] The Curse of Monkey Island
It should be noted that Ron Gilbert, founder of the Monkey Island series, left LucasArts after the second game and did not return until after the third game had been completed. The storylines of the third game are thus the work of different writers, and might not represent what Ron Gilbert had in mind originally.
Similar to the gap between the first two games, Curse of Monkey Island opens with Guybrush floating in the Caribbean in a bumper car, writing in a journal.
We learn that the surreal subterranean place and childhood theme park where Monkey Island II ended were actually the result LeChuck's deceptive spell. LeChuck had built a sinister theme park known as the Carnival of the Damned. The "revelation" that they were brothers was simply part of the evil scheme. After an undisclosed period of entrapment, Guybrush managed to escape in a long, conspicuously unrecorded, adventure.
As he is writing his memories, Guybrush suddenly finds himself in the middle of a battle between the forces of Plunder Island (led by Elaine) and LeChuck's undead crew. Guybrush stumbles into LeChuck's cargo hold and finds an enormous diamond ring, which he decides to use to propose to Elaine. Unfortunately, the ring is cursed, and immediately transforms Elaine into a statue made of solid gold.
The Voodoo Lady once again provides magical help, informing Guybrush that the curse can only be broken by replacing the ring with another containing a diamond "of equal or greater value". The ineffectual hero must assemble a pirate crew and sail to Blood Island and Skull Island. Eventually he manages to break the curse and restore Elaine to flesh and blood. LeChuck, who was killed in the earlier battle, resurfaces as a demon pirate and captures Guybrush.
LeChuck returns Guybrush to the Carnival of the Damned and once again transforms him into a child. Improbably, Guybrush manages to change himself back to normal and blow up a section of the Roller-Coaster of Death, burying LeChuck under a mountain of ice and snow. Elaine and Guybrush finally marry and sail off into the sunset together.
[edit] Escape from Monkey Island
After a three-month-long honeymoon, Guybrush Threepwood and Elaine Marley-Threepwood return to Mêlée Island. While the couple was gone, Elaine was declared dead, legally ending her lifetime appointment as governor. The governor's mansion is scheduled for demolition and a slimy politician named Charles L. Charles is poised to take over the position. With no other choice, Elaine begins a desperate campaign for re-election against Charles (who, unsurprisingly, reveals himself to be none other than LeChuck in disguise). As Guybrush wanders around Mêlée, he finds that all the local businesses are being taken over by Ozzie Mandrill, an Australian developer who is winning the deeds in matches of various insult games, such as insult swordfighting.
Guybrush discovers that Ozzie wants to take over the entire Caribbean. Ozzie is seeking a powerful voodoo talisman called the Ultimate Insult, which he will use to turn all pirates into clean, productive members of society. LeChuck is helping Ozzie in exchange for Elaine's hand after her will has been broken by the Ultimate Insult.
Once again, Guybrush must assemble a reluctant crew, sailing this time to Lucre Island and Jambalaya Island before ending up on Monkey Island. There he finds an enormous, robotic monkey and uses it to return to Mêlée. Ozzie has acquired the Ultimate Insult; he uses its power to enslave LeChuck, who has taken on the form of a gigantic statue of himself. Guybrush, piloting his robotic monkey, manages to hold off defeat long enough to frustrate Ozzie, causing him to slap his head in frustration. The statue mimics this action, which just so happens to crush the scalp-mounted Ozzie as well as the Ultimate Insult. The power of the Insult causes an immense explosion that seemingly destroys LeChuck as well.
[edit] Inspiration and references
- Guybrush is able to hold his breath for ten minutes, which he mentions on several occasions. This unusual ability is a clever way of implementing LucasArts' frequent policy of not allowing players to lose the game, either by character death or placing the game in an unwinnable state. There is exactly one way, however, (out of all the Monkey Island games) in which Guybrush can die. In The Secret of Monkey Island, he is trapped underwater; if the player takes longer than ten minutes to figure out how to escape (or simply takes no action), Guybrush drowns. At this point, the action menu (which normally consists of commands such as "Pick up", "Give" and "Talk to") is replaced with intransitive verbs he is already doing, such as "Duck" and "Float", as well as a command to "Order Hint Book". This command causes Guybrush to say the former phone number of the Lucasarts support/sales line.
- Comparisons can be drawn between Guybrush and Roger Wilco, the protagonist of Sierra Entertainment's competing Space Quest games. Both are well-intentioned but relatively dim-witted characters who reluctantly (and often unwittingly) accomplish heroic feats. Also, in Monkey Island One, if you walk too close to a certain cliff edge, Guybrush falls off. An "Oh dear, you are dead" screen, similar to the ones used in Space Quest, appears for a moment, until Guybrush bounces back up in front of it and says, "Rubber tree."
- Several adventure games feature somewhere the name Guybrush Threepwood. For example 'Constable Guybrush' is the name of April Ryan's toy monkey in the video game The Longest Journey.
- In Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, a game by LucasArts, an "easter egg" was placed in the game by use of a cheat code. When "makemeapirate" is entered in the cheat menu, Indiana Jones is turned into a 3D version of Guybrush. To add to the humor, when the bazooka is used, instead of a rocket, a rubber chicken is slowly launched and tropical steel drum music plays in the background until the chicken explodes.
[edit] Trivia
- Guybrush's ability to hold his breath is referenced in Quest for Glory V, where, should the player drown, he is presented with the message: "This is the lesson you've been taught -- Guybrush Threepwood you are not. When by water you are surrounded -- Get to shore before you're drowned". A similar message is given when drowning in Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis.
- Also in Simon the Sorcerer II, if the player asks to be sent to Calypso's shop from a still hung-over genie, the second time he'll end up at the bottom of the ocean. Upon returning to the cave Simon mentions that the ability to hold one's breath for 10 minutes is "a standard requirement for any adventure game hero". Additionally the game borrows Guybrush's line from the first game "Looks like a Red Herring to me".
- In the third and fourth games, Guybrush mentions an inexplicable fear of porcelain. This phobia may be a humorous reference to Indiana Jones' fear of snakes or the French humorist Pierre Desproges, who mentions in his '86 stand-up that he is "afraid of porcelain". Some believe this unusual fear may originate in SMI, when a vase is smashed during an off-screen fight between Guybrush and Sheriff Fester Shinetop (LeChuck in disguise). This explanation encounters problems, however, as Guybrush has no fear of investigating the porcelain in Elaine's mansion during Monkey Island 2.
| Games: | The Secret of Monkey Island | LeChuck's Revenge | The Curse of Monkey Island | Escape from Monkey Island |
|---|---|
| Characters: | Guybrush Threepwood | Elaine Marley | LeChuck | Ozzie Mandrill | Herman Toothrot | Voodoo Lady | Stan | Minor Characters |
| Islands: | Blood | Booty | Dinky | Jambalaya | Lucre | Mêlée | Monkey | Phatt | Plunder | Scabb | Skull |
| Various: | SCUMM | GrimE | iMuse | Insult swordfighting | List of Monkey Island topics |
