Games - Guybrush Threepwood

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	Games - Guybrush Threepwood

Guybrush 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 "Gibberish Driftwood", "Guybrush Nosehair", and "Gorbush 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. "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.

Incarnations

A dialogue choice in the second game, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, 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, he can be estimated as 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; however, this leads to a contradiction. At the beginning of CMI, Guybrush definitively states that he was imprisoned by his arch enemy LeChuck for five years, and likewise Threepwood's trusty aide, the Voodoo Lady, says that she has lived on three islands in six years. Assuming that he was actually 19 in the second game, he would be at least 24 by the time CMI begins. It can be assumed that the five year gap is an out-of-character reference to the length of real-world time between the release of the games, and not the length of time Guybrush spent in captivity. Alternatively, given that the membership card states an age rather than a date of birth, it may be the case that his card has not been renewed for four years (presumably, the guild wasn't notified of his change of address when held in captivity by LeChuck). His age is not directly addressed in the fourth game, Escape from Monkey Island, though at the onset, Guybrush and his then spouse Elaine Marley return from a three-month honeymoon that began at the end of CMI.

Guybrush grows a feeble beard and moustache in the second game, but is clean-shaven in the third and fourth games. However, the character's appearance changes quite dramatically between each of these games due to the use of different art and animation styles, so this is at best a minor continuity error. In the second game, by his own admission Guybrush resembles Zonker Harris. When Guybrush tries to drink a can of grog in Escape from Monkey Island, Elaine exclaims "Guybrush Ulysses Threepwood!" It is unclear whether "Ulysses" is actually his middle name or if Elaine is sarcastically using the name of the great hero of Greek mythology, since she forbids him from drinking grog until "all of his deeds are finished".

Appearances

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.

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