One Actor One Character

I recently had a comment on one my Let’s Play videos “correcting” me on a certain issue. During my Let’s Play of Final Fantasy X-2, I called Tidus (the protagonist of FFX) a Lombax. The commenter felt the need to address the fact that he isn’t actually a Lombax.

But the thing is, he is. And today, for your entertainment, I’m offering up the “single actor, single character” theory, which suggests that every character that an actor plays is actually the same character each time. In the above Final Fantasy example, Tidus is a Lombax because he shares a voice actor with the first titular character in the Ratchet & Clank series, who is a member of the Lombax alien race (he’s the last of his race, specifically). Because James Arnold Taylor voiced them both, they are the same character.

The best example of this theory I have found is in Harrison Ford, aka Indiana Jones. Every character Harrison Ford has ever played has been Indiana Jones at different points in his life. Let me illustrate this point.

In the 1930s, Indiana Jones battled against the Nazis for numerous artifacts. One of these was the Holy Grail. Now, in an important scene in The Last Crusade, Indy drinks from the Grail to determine it’s the real one (ie. If it doesn’t kill him, it’s the Holy Grail, pretty flawed system, but hey, it worked for Indy). Now, it’s also established that the Grail is likely to grant immortality to those who drink from it. Therefore, through this simple act, Indiana Jones can now live forever. SHOCK HORROR! The Grail also gives his father regenerative powers, a la The Doctor, which allows him to change his appearance, voice and personality every few years, which is very handy as he works as a secret agent. He currently resembles Daniel Craig.

Anyway, I digress. Back to Dr Jones. Indy lived a normal life for a while, despite all this. He eventually joined the police force, and investigated a crime amongst the Amish. This led him to working for the CIA, and this put him on a path to the presidency. BUT OH NO! Air Force One gets hijacked, and Indy has to battle these evil men and put them in their place. He succeeds. There is much rejoicing.

But then someone frames him for the murder of his wife, which leads him to lose the presidency, and instead gets pursued across the country by one of the Men In Black (although the Fresh Prince was nowhere to be seen). He dives off a drainage dam. He goes into hiding. Changes his name to Deckard. Society begins to crumble as technology rapidly improves, and soon Indy, sorry, Deckard, finds himself in a job as a bounty hunter tracking down rogue replicant units.

After a high profile case involving a replicant modelled on Rutger Hauer, Deckard earned enough credits to get himself on the next spaceship to one of Earth’s many off-world colonies. Upon arrival, he encounters a Wookie named Chewbacca. Together, they steal the Millennium Falcon, and fly away to a galaxy far, far away. Then they meet Luke, and Leia, and all those other wonderful characters, and together they battle the evil empire formed by Simba’s dad, who has now possessed the body of the Green Cross Code man.

That’s how the theory works, and you can see how easily it can be applied. It’s a fun thing to apply if you don’t want to take your media too seriously, much like I don’t.

So now I’ve explained the rules of the game to you, go ahead and come up with similar character life stories of your own!