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Well, if you're not here to kill me... Welcome to my Simple Flip Island! I am Theo! King of all the land! |
” | —Theo, when he had met Tari | ||
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Not nothing... I got to have a great adventure, and hang out with my friends.... All you got was a coconut in the face. |
” | —Theo’s final words to Evelyn before being squeezed by her and his disintegration | ||
Theo (best known in the outside world as Coconut Boy) is the deuteragonist of Meta Runner, while another version is the main protagonist of the spinoff series Ultra Jump Mania.
He was the main playable character of the in-universe game Ultra Jump Mania that operates on artificial intelligence. One version originates in a game cartridge that belongs to TAS Corp.. One day, a Meta Runner named Tari warps her consciousness into the game and befriends Theo. Eventually, Tari accidentally brings Theo into the real world.
The pair became targets of Lucks and TAS Corp., prompting them to join a rebellious group known as MD-5. They succeed in hacking the servers of the evil organisation, but the plan backfires as Lucks intercepts the group and holds Theo hostage, in exchange for Tari to join TAS Corp.'s team of Meta Runners.
He is voiced by Robyn Barry-Cotter.
History[]
Theo is one of the many versions of him in different cartridges of Ultra Jump Mania (specifically TAS-Corp's speed running cartridge). He happens to be aware that he's a video game character, thus being used to dying countless times because of the player.
Season 1[]
On a speed runner tournament, Belle Fontiere is playing his game, trying to execute a glitch in order to beat a world record. Theo misses the goal and drowns in lava, resulting in Belle's loss. Tari then starts to play his game, initially playing in a clumsy manner, only to get better as she goes on. Tari then accidentally warps herself into the game, meeting Theo face-to-face. Theo mistakes Tari for a boss at first, but ventures through the level with her, growing a bond between the two of them.
He meets Lucks when he presents himself as a recolored Theo. After Tari gets forced out of the game when Lucks' scientists drill through her arm, Theo is brought out along with her. Initially, Theo believes that they were teleported to a "secret level". After tossing his coconut at a TAS-Corp employee, the pair escape the building and run through the crowded city.
Theo eventually gets separated from Tari still believing that they were in a secret level. As he's walking in the streets, people stare at him in shock as they see a real life video game character pass by. After accidentally scaring a random lady due to a visual glitch, Tari scoops Theo up and runs off. They stop at an alleyway, where Theo realizes that he's in the real world and that his powers don't work anymore.
They enter a building full of streamers called The Hive and take shelter at a streaming pod, where Theo blindly plays a video game and starts a stream, calling attention to them both. The pair find themselves cornered by Belle and some workers from TAS Corp and get split up. He successfully evades the soldiers, but he witnesses Tari getting caught. Being too late to save her, he loses hope, but is suddenly approached by Lamar Williams, offering him help.
Sitting in Lamar's car, they crash into a transport van, freeing Tari from the ruckus. A car chase commences, in which Lamar and Theo bond over their sense of humour, even complimenting a body pillow. With Tari's ability, they escape a border of TAS Corp soldiers and head towards the secret hideout embedded in a restaurant, where they meet the rest of MD-5, a ragtag team determined to take down TAS Corp for their evil schemes.
When Tari is set to play a game of Battle Blaze against Masa Shimamoto to prove her worth of joining MD-5, Theo warps into the game to aid Tari, throwing Masa off with banana mines.
Afterwards Theo starts glitching out, leading the team to think that he needs to return to his game.
When he and Tari warp into MD-5's cartridge of Ultra Jump Mania, they get forced out of the game since there was another Theo in-game. The team realize that Theo can only return to his OWN cartridge, which is held back at TAS Corp.
The next day Sofia Porter presents Operation: Silent Demon, a plan in which she will hack into the TAS Corp's network and extract their files and records of their wrongdoings to spill to the public, and also source the info on Theo's cartridge and register a delivery request back to them.
The team look to an underground competition held in Gamma Tech Stadium hosted by none other than TAS Corp. The game played in question being Tempest. In the plan Tari is required to execute a game-breaking glitch in order to crash the servers and give Sofia the opportunity. Theo is Tari's biggest supporter during these practices.
Throughout his time with MD-5, Theo finds himself getting closer to Lamar, to the point where they become best friends.
On the very day of the underground competition held in Gamma Tech Stadium, he and Tari warp into Tempest to battle alongside Lamar and Masa. He and the rest of MD-5 manage to successfully fight off the remaining players for Tari, but he eventually get eliminated from the game. When Tari is trapped and tortured by Belle, he cheers her on outside to get back up.
The plan succeeds, until he and every one get corned by Lucks and his mercenaries. Theo witnesses the plan going downhill, as Lucks reveals to the team that he hacked Theo's cartridge and used him as a spy tool. When Tari offers herself to TAS Corp. in exchange for her friends' freedom, Lucks makes sure Tari stays loyal to TAS Corp and MD-5 doesn't bother them again by destroying Theo's cartridge. His physical body is erased, but Lucks keeps the main chip to preserve Theo's consciousness, currently keeping him in suspended animation.
Season 2[]
Following Tari's surrender to join TAS Corp. in order to free Masa, Sofia, and Lamar, its revealed that Theo was restored but due to his game cartridge being broken by Lucks, has to remain within a white room to sustain him.
He has shown to being able to speak with Tari on rare occasion, with the latter claiming that Lucks hadn't let her see him in weeks and that part of their deal was that he would ensure Theo's safety in exchange for Tari's "loyalty" to TAS Corp.
Lucks himself has been studying Theo for months along with his scientists, unable to understand why Theo is able to exist in the physical world or how to replicate the results, as well as why he is so human-like despite being an artificial intelligence program.
Bored of his confinement, Theo decides to glitch himself out of the room and ends up going into the company server and is seen by Belle, to her shock, before Lucks' quarantine program recaptures him and traps him back into the safe room.
Later, Belle is able to sneak her way into Sheridan's abandoned lab and use the command on the controller to gain access to Theo where she makes a deal with him: she'll help him get back to Tari if he helps her find information on Project Blue, more specifically, on Lucinia and her mysterious disappearance.
Using a glitch, she is able to return him to the server where he searches through the data until he finds a file with the name "Lucinia" on it and Belle uses her glitching skills to defend Theo long enough for the file to download to her arm, but later abandons Theo to avoid being caught and escape with the file.
After being returned to the safe room again, Lucks realizes the room can't contain Theo because he dislikes it and decides to make him feel "more at home" by putting him back inside his broken cartridge, which is heavily damaged and causes massive glitching across the game, scaring Theo.
Over a week inside his corrupted game, he is seen running from glitched out enemies when Belle returns and informs him that she isn't going to abandon him like last time and tells him that by clearing the game, it will automatically return him to MD-5 through the link she established to Sofia's phone and works together with her to complete the damaged game despite the immense difficulty.
While MD-5 is helping Tari to transfer the backup server from Sofia's phone at the stadium, Belle is busy trying to help Theo clear through the corrupted game but fails due to the sheer damage done to the cartridge. As she vents her frustration, Theo notices data from the server bleeding over into the game and a strange pink light seen floating around the level, giving him an idea as he asks Belle to follow his lead as he executes a glitch that allows him to clip through the wall and get to the goal post, to her surprise.
Unfortunately, after Lucks realizes MD-5 is trying to sabotage Tari and Evelyn's showmatch, he has all TAS-Corp agents go on high alert and Belle is discovered inside Sheridan's old lab, leaving Theo stuck inside his game.
When Tari later warps into the server to save Theo, Theo remarks how Tari looks "cool", causing the latter to ask "what she was before". The two proceed to continue progressing through the game, discovering new glitches in the process. Right when the final flag appears in the distance, Evelyn joins the game as a enormous glitched monster made of every character in the game and steals the flag. Tari and Theo are unable to beat her because of her infinite lives cheat, but Tari reminds Theo that they only need to touch the flag to win. Tari tells Theo to do something while she holds Evelyn off, which turned out to be the Coconut Burst Jump glitch. Theo "misses", only to reveal that he was actually performing a glitch where his coconut got stuck in the handle of Tari's dropped pineapple hammer, trapping it in an infinite spin, causing Evelyn's arm to overload and malfunction, allowing Theo to touch the flag and beat the game, causing a game cache reset.
Tari sends Theo back to the real world, where he's glad to see Lamar again. After completing "Phase 2" of Tari's plan, which was crashing into Lucks' van, the MD-5, reunited, corners Lucks. Lucks explains the truth behind Lucinia and that part of her memory merged with an A.I., Tari. Theo realizes that Tari is like him, as they are both computer programs. After everyone reassures Tari that they still care about her, Masa accidentally shoots Lucks as a result of his arm being hijacked. Theo and MD-5 flee the crime scene and run into Marco, who offers them a ride.
Season 3[]
A week after season 2, Theo, Tari, Lamar and Sofia are now in Marco's hideout. Though they were as prisoners to Marco as Marco is judging what to do with them. Marco is angry as he wants a proper rematch as to which Tari agrees as Theo mainly tags along and also calls Marco a mustached boss. Theo is shown playing with Sofia as it seems like Theo is bad at using the controller in general. Marco tells the others to get ready as everyone rallies around Tari as does Theo. Tari then begins to try to warp as Theo was supposed to follow suit. However, when Tari was teleported into Sheridan's Sever, Theo followed after as shown in Testing Room.
Within Sheridan's server, Theo started exploring and testing out the various things that was in the hub of Sheridan's server there. After a while he hears Tari cry as he gets concerned as he devises a way to get onto Tari there as he built a seesaw that took him right on top onto the vents. As he crashes in he sees Tari being operated on as he gets concerned while also seeing Belle and Masa trying to talk to him to save Tari. He goes in to drop down as he fights against the nurse programs and Evelyn as he then saves Tari. Both Theo and Tari try to escape as then Evelyn attacks them as they have trouble fending her off until Sofia spawns the portal for Tari and Theo to escape. However, only Theo makes it back to where his friends were as Tari gets sent to Skybreakers.
In Skybreakers (Episode), Theo is in the ship with Lamar and Marco as he rescues Tari as he shows off his cool mech inside the game. He and the others then set sail to get to Vagabond's Landing as in the episode Dead On Arrival, Theo and the crew stop to raid an enemy ship as Theo beats up the enemy crew to get the loot. After looting the enemy ship, the crew lands in Vagabond's Landing where Theo goes off to explore the island as he goes to get some outfits for himself. He was in a shop with Lamar there trying out new outfits until they get a distress call from Tari as to which they try to get ready to go and regroup with Tari but Theo gets sniped by Lucinia.
Theo respawns back onto the ship along with Marco and Lamar as they all try to go rescue Tari. However, Tari was fine as then Marco's ship got blown to pieces by the Cabin Boy in Evelyn's ship. Theo and his group gets cornered by Evelyn as it seems hopeless until Tari executes her plan which causes his group to be able to sail away safely due to her leadership. As Tari names her ship the BlueJay Theo gets excited as he sails off to the place of choice that Tari picked. By Death Warp, it is revealed that Theo and the others were fishing in order to get a drop from Sheridan's server.
Theo then fishes up the treasure chest as Tari scans it and finds that inside the chest was a coffee cup from Sheridan's server. She scans the cup as Theo and Marco's AI companion were fighting in the background. He and his crew set sail towards Scrapbeard's Fortress as when some enemies were attacking he rushes right in as he gets help from the others. Theo and the others trek through the dungeon until they make it all the way into the boss arena.
In the boss arena, the boss named Angler shows up as Lamar decides to head back in order to distract Evelyn while Theo and his crew go to fight against the Angler itself. It takes a while but Theo, Tari, and Marco were finally able to make it out of bounds as they slay the Angler itself there. However, with Lamar gone Theo and the rest have to navigate through out of bounds in order to find the backdoor to Sheridan's server. Theo's condition was during the search getting a lot worse as he was feeling more noticeable pain of glitching out as he mainly tries to hide it from Tari in Global Testfire.
However, as time went on Tari eventually found out as the glitching was immense and as they went through the eye of the storm Tari gets a heartfelt moment with Theo as Marco gets back into the game. However that was soon short lived as their ship starts getting attacked by Evelyn's crew as she was taunting Tari. Before Evelyn could wipe out Theo and his crew Theo's side was rescued by Lamar as they all square up against each other to fight.
Evelyn's crew starts fighting against Tari's crew in Overload as Theo then tackles to isolate Evelyn from Tari. Theo fights evenly while struggling a bit against Evelyn as Evelyn as over time he was struggling against her. Eventually he gets out of his mech as he starts attacking Evelyn with speed damaging her quite a bit but Evelyn catches him and pins him to the wall. As he was to say his final words he states that he was grateful for the friends that he has and that all Evelyn gets is a coconut to the face. Theo throws his coconut at Evelyn as she blocks it as she is squeezing and apparently deleting Theo out of existence. Theo lets out a very pained scream as he is disappearing and glitching out as eventually he disappears into data fragments gone from existence.
Theo was gone for the rest of the events until he was revived by Tari in The End where he was having fun in the server alongside Tari. Theo expresses desire to want to see his friends again but Tari tells him that they are not able to as they are to stay in this server for a very long while. Theo expresses discontent as he hears that though he is glad to be by Tari's side at the very least. Tari asks him if he wants to play video games as to which Theo excitedly says yes as he wants to play Turbo Crash.
The scene ends with Theo excited running towards Turbo Crash 9 as the credits roll.
Appearance[]
Theo is the least realistic-looking human in the Meta Runner series, he is short overall, but has a large head about the same size as the rest of his body. He has a small, stubby nose and similarly small ears. He has light-blue eyes and fuzzy eyebrows. His hair is similar to a topknot hairstyle or a tree, with most of it being green like leaves and something similar to that of a tree sprouts out from the middle of his hair.
He has a yellow cloak with a white flower pattern on it and a white vest underneath. He has half a coconut strapped across his back like a backpack that he uses as a weapon as well as brown shorts and a belt with two apples and bananas strapped on. Much like other defining parts of his body, his arms and legs are quite short, although he has a reasonably large bulk. In season 2 his eyes are bigger and his eyebrows are now the same colour as his hair.
Personality[]
Theo is quite childish, happy-go-lucky, fun-loving, and occasionally stubborn. He doesn't understand the consequences in serious situations, meaning that Tari often has to look after him. He often just accepts that he's going to die in most bad situations, which annoys and concerns Tari.
He is inspired by SMG4's incarnation of Mario, meaning that he isn't the brightest, but does care for his friends, particularly Tari. This makes him a comedic relief most of the time.
Trivia[]
- According to The pilot of Ultra Jump Mania, He is illiterate.
- He seems to be, by his appearance, based off of Tom-Tom from the Wonder Boy series, and possibly a bit of Master Higgins from its NES counterpart Adventure Island.
- He is fully aware that he's in a video game, as referenced in Tari's First Game Warp.
- It is possible that Lucks (and Belle) held a grudge against him because he was the Theo that failed to achieve a new record during the speed running contest in Wrong Warp.
- According to Tari, Theo talks about the concept of death a lot for a kid due to his numerous deaths and respawns mainly due to speedruns and thus, finds it fun in killing the game's enemies.
- His moveset is based off of Mario's from both Super Mario 64 (physical abilities) and Super Mario Odyssey (coconut hat)
- Previously, the MD-5 assumed that Theo was unsafe outside of his game. Actually, it's almost the opposite. If the device holding Theo's character data is destroyed, Theo will die unless his character data is somehow preserved.
- The misconception ends up becoming true if Theo's data is completely independent of a device as revealed in Global Testfire.
- Unreal Engines is the only Meta Runner episode in which Theo doesn't appear in.
- Theo is the 2nd main character to die in Meta Runner, the first being Lucks.
- Although it is suggested Theo is illiterate as shown in Ultra Jump Mania's pilot, this is denounced in META RUNNER Season 2 - EP 2 where Theo is shown to be able to read when is he is observing files in the server. He could’ve also learned how to read while he was in the real world.
- Theo shares many similarities with Auri Bori;
- Both are associated with tropical regions; (Simple Flip Island and Port Aurora).
- Both are deuteragonists and sidekicks of the main protagonists, in addition to be young, devoted, childlike and at times casual.
- Both are influenced by an elderly and wise being; the Elder Tomato and Aloysious Bori.
- Both of them are killed in penultimate episodes, by aggressive and spiteful characters; Evelyn and Benedict, much to their friend's devastation. However, unlike Auri, who was eventually brought back to life, Theo's physical form was destroyed, as his conscious now remains in a server along with Tari.
- In the SMG4 series, Theo is revealed to be a palyable character in the game Super Smash each other in the ass Bros. 3D Dream Drop Distanc & Knuckles in SMG4: The Day My Arm Went Psycho.
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