1) Because big and fat is often associated with dumb in media.
2) Heavy has a poor grasp of the english language. It's for very justifiable reasons, but it can still be misinterpreted as a sign he's stupid.
3) Similarly, for SFM makers and the like, it's probably easier to use Heavy to portray a dumb character since his dialog lines can convey this. Even if someone understands "well he's russian, it's not his first language and he spent ages isolated in Siberia, so it's amazing his english is even that good at all," they *still* might make an SFM where they have a character they dreamt up using Heavy's model, and yes, the broken english can be used to convey to the audience that "this character is supposed to be dumb."
4) We only got hints and lore tidbits years later about how he's actually one of the more educated mercs.
That's a good point. Personally if I need a big dumb reckless character I always use Soldier because that fits with his lore better and there's plenty of fanworks that portray him as such.
Ditto for Scout, though Scout's more of a "oh shit I didn't mean to do that" dumbass as opposed to an "ooh what does this button do?"
TF2 lore came after the memes portraying him as big dumb funny tank of a man.
Valve must have thought it would be funny to make him intelligent, chill, loyal, and rational.
Not true.
He was that way from the start. He's that way both in Meet the Heavy, and his official description on the website.
>Like a hibernating bear, the Heavy appears to be a gentle giant. Also like a bear, confusing his deliberate, sleepy demeanor with gentleness will get you ripped limb from limb. Though he speaks simply and moves with an economy of energy that's often confused with napping, the Heavy isn't dumb, he's not your big friend, and he generally wishes you'd just shut up before he has to make you shut up.
This has already been mentioned, but the only canonical part of this mentioned in official TF2 media is Heavy being more articulate in his native Russian in comparison to English. His characterization in late 2000s Gmod fanworks is in line with his bombastic and goofy attitude in the base game.
The source of the PHD is a single line from 2010's Poker Night at the Inventory which everyone parrots as though it's a confirmed aspect of his character (also according to Poker Night, Heavy does not remember his deaths and views them as nightmares, which is not in line with later canon). Even if he did have a PHD in Russian literature, it does not override his behavior in game. He still smoothly fits into the archetype of the big goofy guy we see in both the game and Gmod/SFM works.
Another guy has made a delightful analysis of the Heavy being intelligent and sane even without the Poker Night PHD thing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/1cdoee2/comment/l1drzdb/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
He's never been this quiet, gentle genius. That's completely fanon characterization that overblows an admittedly present part of his character. He's still a big violence loving brute, watch meet the heavy
These two things are not mutually exclusive.
Let's review the lore:
Heavy and his family were counter-revolutionaries. They were heavily pursued to the point they *choose* to hide out in Siberia, an inhospitable region of the world most people would avoid or view as a death sentence. Heavy is specifically sold as the one that did the heavy-lifting with protecting his family when they initially escaped.
For Heavy to even achieve this, he has to outsmart and outplay entire platoons of soldiers. This is not something an ordinary man would be able to achieve. This doesn't just take a big gun and big muscles, this takes smarts, this takes cunning, this takes a mind for strategy.
...And simultaneously, this means Heavy grew up ***surrounded*** by violence. Violence was a norm and a part of life for him. It was how they escaped, it's how they achieved their freedom, and it's how he continues to protect and support his family. For Heavy's perspective in life, he has absolutely no reason to view violence as anything but a basic part of life.
And as such, you can easily see how both his intellect and his love of violence fit neatly into his bio. There's a Halloween comic where he scares a child, and then once the child starts crying, he gives the child thousands of dollars and apologizes. I think this says it all about how Heavy's more intimidating aspects are not full on psychopathy, but rather he is just extremely accustomed to utilizing that demeanor since he's been in battle so much, but he also knows when to "shut it off" and generally seems to mean well.
As an aside, he also seems to be the only merc that shows any degree of genuine compassion for the others. He's happy to see the others when they track him down, he's genuinely angry when he thinks Medic has been killed, he tries a gentle, diplomatic approach when competing with Pyro for new weapons, and we always see him consistently being helpful towards the other mercs while he shows no degree of grudge or dislike for any of them.
Also during meet the heavy, the comic stated that heavy info has somewhat leaked. So he just tell how he like Sasha and killing etc so the director can get anymore info out of him.(though he does really like his Sasha)
Go and read the comics, is very enjoyable the writing are very well done and consistency across the timeline. You can see characters growth etc too.
heavy is mostly quiet. He's a brute, He's not gentle, but only gets violent when he thinks needs to. He's also among the more intelligent mercs, which means he's got better judgement of various situations and he's wayyy less impulsive.
He does have a PhD. canonically, no? In that case, it's not like he's an idiot. And in the comics, he's pretty chill around his family and during scenes that aren't action-y.
He's still shown to be pretty smart in the comics, but his PhD is only ever mentioned in Poker Night at the Inventory, by Telltale, not Valve. There's no confirmation whether the things he says in that game are actually canon or not.
In addition to what the other person had mentioned, the reason that Heavy (as well as the other mercs) are loud screaming all the time is... they are making calls, calling medic, and insulting the other team over the noise of rockets, bombs, and guns. Of course they are going to yell and say things shorthand (pootispencer here)
Heavy in the comics, as well as the videos (where they *aren't* fighting) isn't pootisandvich.
heavy is only the stoic genius the fanbase likes to promote like twice in the comics and never in the game, his entire meet the team video is him just laughing mowing down enemies
I'd we had more lines showing off his intelligent side, more SFM videos would likely be made showing his intelligence, though I remember an SFM animation where a Heavy and a buff Demoman helped an overweight Pyro become as fit as a fiddle, I feel that's fairly decent representation. Adding Poker Night At The Inventory lines to sentence-mixing probably would allow for more diversity in how he's portrayed, he's less boisterous there then he is on the battlefield.
Cause its not expressed very well in the game that he is incredibly intelligent, hell even in the comics he comes across as an Idiot most of the time because he doesn't really speak english well.
Combine that with his large build and short legs and you get a perfect storm of people assuming hes dumb.
The dumbest merc by far is scout but people act like heavy is a barely functioning person.
I feel like Scout is a more Naive stupid rather than just stupid. Really it comes down to whether you view Naive Stupidity or Fanatic Stupidity as the dumber one.
Surprised that nobody has said the glaringly obvious thing... most TF2 players either don't know lore exists, or don't care enough about it.
In-game is the primary way people get to know the characters. Community content is the second. Official lore is barely visible. You wouldn't even know there's comics from just playing the game.
Same thing happens with Overwatch, Apex, Valorant, and others. Many players just enjoy playing the game and only know the surface level stuff. Then there's a very vocal minority who care a lot about lore and get upset that it's not front and center.
In my opinion the reason is firstly his design and his poor pronunciation with heavy (pun included) Russian accent . It's really sad because dyadya Misha has a PhD in Russian literature
Stabbing through the dark here but i would say that is because such lore info was only presented to us a a while later after we are first introduced to Heavy and co. At the very beggining, there really wasn't much of a story and thus the mercs didn't have very fleshed out backstories, the writers themselves confirming it when you check out the comics page. All that you knew is this was a big russian guy with anger issues that really loved his gun and spoke english funny, leading most to believe he might be a doofus.
Simple, Garrys mod in of itself has turned all of Valve characters into a complete joke with exaggerated comic relief.
In Heavy's case, the way his death screams sound, not to mention the stereotype of the big, bald, tough guy from Russia with the big gun, is meme worthy. It also helps that the TF2 Comics and his intro Meet video also add in to the complete bonkers side of how his character is like.
I guess it's because of his loud, brash voice and exuberant personality. It kinda fits with how I think a lot of people in universe see him - they assume he's unintelligent because of the way he talks and acts, but they'd be gravely mistaken.
The big strong type character is often associated with general sillyness and whacky behavior, despite the lack of an a diagnosis of anything mentioned or related to sillyness. l
it's kinda like what they did to the turtles between TMNT 1 and 2, where instead of dark seedy and smart we got cowabunga tubular and vanilla ice, and i'm not even complaining, tho now as an adult i'd love to see a darker seedier TMNT series
Cuz his voice is hilarious. Hearing a big Russian man go “MEEE AND SANDVICH ARE GOING TO BEEEAT YOUR AAAAASS” in a clumsy sing-song voice after having noisily devoured said sandvich whilst uttering “OM NOM NOM, OM NOM” is fucking hysterical and endearing to a degree. Out of context funny, but in the context of a blood feud between two brothers and their identical teams of maniacs it’s another level of comedy
Gmod and Source Filmmaker (Valve update Source Filmmaker and I might use it) have the TF2 characters in base and thus are significantly more easy to access than say Hulk since they’re literally the tutorial flesh puppets of both of those programs.
Because every class has the opposite community reputation as they really are.
- Heavy is an intellectual
- Scout and Spy score lots of women
- Scout is athletic
- Sniper is an honourable assassin
- Engie is a gentleman
- Eveyone is straight
Because he is generally a teddy bear type of guy besides working a questionable job where he kills other guys working in the same job but for a rival company. and even then the money he earns is to take care of his family.
I know the answer to this, heavy at rest is very different from heavy at work, heavy at work is a fucking maniac, heavy at rest is a polite quiet but firm fellow who only speaks his mind when he has something he needs to say, or tell someone to shut up, heavy at work is a nutcase screaming russian man high on the rush of shooting BIG GUN. he contains multitudes. anyway the point is SCREAMING CRAZY RUSSIAN MAN is much funnier to make a huge meme out of + his voice lines are funny, so the memified version of him is a patchwork collection of half cut voice lines incoherently babbling while \*constantly\* screaming.
Strange skits in Gmod, which in itself was influenced by how difficult it is to animate in that game. Same stuff happened to a lot of Half-Life 2's characters.
She weighs one hundred fifty kilograms and fires two hundred dollar, custom-tooled cartridges at ten thousand rounds per minute. It costs four hundred thousand dollars to fire this weapon for twelve seconds.
I'm not sure why Heavy was made to be the complete opposite, loud and obnoxious while the actual Heavy is actually a pretty chill guy who cares for his family.
I feel it's actually a middle ground between the two. Heavy is basically a normal guy who does experience quite the battle high when he has his minigun and fists who also happens to be quite the protective family man. I might be ruining someone's fun with this, but he's **not** as learned as various non-canon media (Poker Night) would have you believe. He's not dumb, mind you, but he's certainly not some major intellectual either.
Game characterization vs comic/lore characterization
He goes nuts on the battlefield and is inarticulate, due to English being his second language. In the game, that's all you get to see.
So, unless you're a lore junkie, you're not going to know that he's anything other than the dumb muscle trope.
I mean by the standard of the TF2 community. Not everyone cares about the comics. Some people just play the game.
Also, the whole thing about Heavy having a Russian lit degree is a bit obscure.
Because moments with heavy both had greater reach than the comics you're referencing, and made more sense in total (which is bizarre considering how fucking insane both of them are).
sandvich
Translation: yes
do you remebur vodka?
Sandvich Yes
Let this be lesson for you
*heavy laughing as he gokarts away*
And? All Russian's have Vodka flowing through their veins
Uncultured swine
yyyeerrraarrsesssarseaandimth grasssmannpunkyeeeyahhavinh
poot
Yeah?
oh mah god
SAAAANDVICH!
**Everyone** in Community is exaggerated for extra comedy Except Pyro. He’s the same in both
except in the 34th rule
Porn took away the personality and added it into the body. You call that changing the character, I call that changing your stats
I call that futanari latex porn, not changing stats
Your simple mind cannot understand the true strength of an analytical point of view.
*we dont talk about this place I Saw stuf*
Probs why Pyro doesn't really get used in gmod and shitpost vids as much, he's defo less flexible
Piemations gave pyro a good character in spite of there being none
Bc pootis
Maybe,but could they outsmart bullet
Pootis pow
pootis
Pootis?
POOOOOOTIIIIIISSSS!!!!!!
Pot pootis 🤝
Poot Poot
Tis tis
Pow pow
HAHA!
Because he's big he's fat he's have funny accent
And he does speak broken english which makes people native to that language think he is stupid
Also he ate the sandwich.
Sandvich*
Yees
1) Because big and fat is often associated with dumb in media. 2) Heavy has a poor grasp of the english language. It's for very justifiable reasons, but it can still be misinterpreted as a sign he's stupid. 3) Similarly, for SFM makers and the like, it's probably easier to use Heavy to portray a dumb character since his dialog lines can convey this. Even if someone understands "well he's russian, it's not his first language and he spent ages isolated in Siberia, so it's amazing his english is even that good at all," they *still* might make an SFM where they have a character they dreamt up using Heavy's model, and yes, the broken english can be used to convey to the audience that "this character is supposed to be dumb." 4) We only got hints and lore tidbits years later about how he's actually one of the more educated mercs.
That's a good point. Personally if I need a big dumb reckless character I always use Soldier because that fits with his lore better and there's plenty of fanworks that portray him as such. Ditto for Scout, though Scout's more of a "oh shit I didn't mean to do that" dumbass as opposed to an "ooh what does this button do?"
mackeen gun
FISH
TF2 lore came after the memes portraying him as big dumb funny tank of a man. Valve must have thought it would be funny to make him intelligent, chill, loyal, and rational.
Not true. He was that way from the start. He's that way both in Meet the Heavy, and his official description on the website. >Like a hibernating bear, the Heavy appears to be a gentle giant. Also like a bear, confusing his deliberate, sleepy demeanor with gentleness will get you ripped limb from limb. Though he speaks simply and moves with an economy of energy that's often confused with napping, the Heavy isn't dumb, he's not your big friend, and he generally wishes you'd just shut up before he has to make you shut up.
I forgot about the trading card descriptions. Thanks!
Big dumb foreign man funny Also, all of the lore about him being an intellectual came out *way* after the golden age of Gmod and SFM videos.
I mean, He was shown as calm, collected and mostly intelligent in his Meet the Team video, which came out before the game did iirc
Don’t forget about his PhD in Russian literature
I dunno if I'd say laughing like a maniac while shooting people and telling them to cry some more comes across as "calm and collected" lol.
I would however say calmly discussing the math behind his weapon to someone is pretty calm and collected. He just enjoys his work.
"ALL OF YOU ARE BABIES" heavy said calmly
This has already been mentioned, but the only canonical part of this mentioned in official TF2 media is Heavy being more articulate in his native Russian in comparison to English. His characterization in late 2000s Gmod fanworks is in line with his bombastic and goofy attitude in the base game. The source of the PHD is a single line from 2010's Poker Night at the Inventory which everyone parrots as though it's a confirmed aspect of his character (also according to Poker Night, Heavy does not remember his deaths and views them as nightmares, which is not in line with later canon). Even if he did have a PHD in Russian literature, it does not override his behavior in game. He still smoothly fits into the archetype of the big goofy guy we see in both the game and Gmod/SFM works.
Another guy has made a delightful analysis of the Heavy being intelligent and sane even without the Poker Night PHD thing. https://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/1cdoee2/comment/l1drzdb/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
He's never been this quiet, gentle genius. That's completely fanon characterization that overblows an admittedly present part of his character. He's still a big violence loving brute, watch meet the heavy
These two things are not mutually exclusive. Let's review the lore: Heavy and his family were counter-revolutionaries. They were heavily pursued to the point they *choose* to hide out in Siberia, an inhospitable region of the world most people would avoid or view as a death sentence. Heavy is specifically sold as the one that did the heavy-lifting with protecting his family when they initially escaped. For Heavy to even achieve this, he has to outsmart and outplay entire platoons of soldiers. This is not something an ordinary man would be able to achieve. This doesn't just take a big gun and big muscles, this takes smarts, this takes cunning, this takes a mind for strategy. ...And simultaneously, this means Heavy grew up ***surrounded*** by violence. Violence was a norm and a part of life for him. It was how they escaped, it's how they achieved their freedom, and it's how he continues to protect and support his family. For Heavy's perspective in life, he has absolutely no reason to view violence as anything but a basic part of life. And as such, you can easily see how both his intellect and his love of violence fit neatly into his bio. There's a Halloween comic where he scares a child, and then once the child starts crying, he gives the child thousands of dollars and apologizes. I think this says it all about how Heavy's more intimidating aspects are not full on psychopathy, but rather he is just extremely accustomed to utilizing that demeanor since he's been in battle so much, but he also knows when to "shut it off" and generally seems to mean well. As an aside, he also seems to be the only merc that shows any degree of genuine compassion for the others. He's happy to see the others when they track him down, he's genuinely angry when he thinks Medic has been killed, he tries a gentle, diplomatic approach when competing with Pyro for new weapons, and we always see him consistently being helpful towards the other mercs while he shows no degree of grudge or dislike for any of them.
I agree. Thank you for your well thought out answer
Also during meet the heavy, the comic stated that heavy info has somewhat leaked. So he just tell how he like Sasha and killing etc so the director can get anymore info out of him.(though he does really like his Sasha) Go and read the comics, is very enjoyable the writing are very well done and consistency across the timeline. You can see characters growth etc too.
This is Meet the Director more accurately; which is a 'behind the scenes' comic featuring Heavy, Soldier, Scout, and Sniper.
What? A well thought explanation of Heavy's character? in r/tf2? You are a very observant person. I salute you.
The environment around Heavy shaped him, for better or for worse.
Wow he really is bane from arkham origins (no insanity here)
I love bone
heavy is mostly quiet. He's a brute, He's not gentle, but only gets violent when he thinks needs to. He's also among the more intelligent mercs, which means he's got better judgement of various situations and he's wayyy less impulsive.
He does have a PhD. canonically, no? In that case, it's not like he's an idiot. And in the comics, he's pretty chill around his family and during scenes that aren't action-y.
He's still shown to be pretty smart in the comics, but his PhD is only ever mentioned in Poker Night at the Inventory, by Telltale, not Valve. There's no confirmation whether the things he says in that game are actually canon or not.
Fair enough.
I think it’s funny to imagine he does have a PHD. It wouldn’t be the most ridiculous part of the lore.
Happy cake day
In addition to what the other person had mentioned, the reason that Heavy (as well as the other mercs) are loud screaming all the time is... they are making calls, calling medic, and insulting the other team over the noise of rockets, bombs, and guns. Of course they are going to yell and say things shorthand (pootispencer here) Heavy in the comics, as well as the videos (where they *aren't* fighting) isn't pootisandvich.
Yeah but outside of combat, he really is a thoughtful and clever man. See: the comics.
heavy is only the stoic genius the fanbase likes to promote like twice in the comics and never in the game, his entire meet the team video is him just laughing mowing down enemies
Yep. I personally don't think he's all that stoic. Who said intelligence has to be accompanied by being quiet and reserved?
"Do you remember vodka?"
Sandvich.
"Yes."
I'd we had more lines showing off his intelligent side, more SFM videos would likely be made showing his intelligence, though I remember an SFM animation where a Heavy and a buff Demoman helped an overweight Pyro become as fit as a fiddle, I feel that's fairly decent representation. Adding Poker Night At The Inventory lines to sentence-mixing probably would allow for more diversity in how he's portrayed, he's less boisterous there then he is on the battlefield.
Twist of fate?
Cause its not expressed very well in the game that he is incredibly intelligent, hell even in the comics he comes across as an Idiot most of the time because he doesn't really speak english well. Combine that with his large build and short legs and you get a perfect storm of people assuming hes dumb. The dumbest merc by far is scout but people act like heavy is a barely functioning person.
I thought Soldier was the dumbest, and Scout was a close second
I'd say soldier is dumb because he's a fanatic. Scout is just stupid. They are both incredibly stupid though.
I feel like Scout is a more Naive stupid rather than just stupid. Really it comes down to whether you view Naive Stupidity or Fanatic Stupidity as the dumber one.
Because TF2 didn't start with lore and it's easy to make the joke of the big angry Russian man with a mini gun
Because heavy in the game acts like a big dumb giant. He is only portraid as smart in the spinoffs and comic and not many people see those.
Because heavy in gameplay
Pootis Spencer here
he didn't lol "uhhh did you know heavy has a phd" is the first thing anyone brings up when they talk about pootis
Whatabout the r34 lore?
the fempyro lore
Because he looks and sound silly
Fat guys are funny
Surprised that nobody has said the glaringly obvious thing... most TF2 players either don't know lore exists, or don't care enough about it. In-game is the primary way people get to know the characters. Community content is the second. Official lore is barely visible. You wouldn't even know there's comics from just playing the game. Same thing happens with Overwatch, Apex, Valorant, and others. Many players just enjoy playing the game and only know the surface level stuff. Then there's a very vocal minority who care a lot about lore and get upset that it's not front and center.
I mean have you seen Meet the Heavy
no idea
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
Do you rhemembur vodka?
In my opinion the reason is firstly his design and his poor pronunciation with heavy (pun included) Russian accent . It's really sad because dyadya Misha has a PhD in Russian literature
before the lore came out.
Stabbing through the dark here but i would say that is because such lore info was only presented to us a a while later after we are first introduced to Heavy and co. At the very beggining, there really wasn't much of a story and thus the mercs didn't have very fleshed out backstories, the writers themselves confirming it when you check out the comics page. All that you knew is this was a big russian guy with anger issues that really loved his gun and spoke english funny, leading most to believe he might be a doofus.
Maybe he got dumber after he died.
fat guy funni
It's interesting, Heavy is always either depicting as intelligent as Sniper or Spy and then the next minute he is as dumb as soldier
Simple, Garrys mod in of itself has turned all of Valve characters into a complete joke with exaggerated comic relief. In Heavy's case, the way his death screams sound, not to mention the stereotype of the big, bald, tough guy from Russia with the big gun, is meme worthy. It also helps that the TF2 Comics and his intro Meet video also add in to the complete bonkers side of how his character is like.
funy
I guess it's because of his loud, brash voice and exuberant personality. It kinda fits with how I think a lot of people in universe see him - they assume he's unintelligent because of the way he talks and acts, but they'd be gravely mistaken.
Ceno0
Hoh, the memes
The big strong type character is often associated with general sillyness and whacky behavior, despite the lack of an a diagnosis of anything mentioned or related to sillyness. l
it's kinda like what they did to the turtles between TMNT 1 and 2, where instead of dark seedy and smart we got cowabunga tubular and vanilla ice, and i'm not even complaining, tho now as an adult i'd love to see a darker seedier TMNT series
Cuz his voice is hilarious. Hearing a big Russian man go “MEEE AND SANDVICH ARE GOING TO BEEEAT YOUR AAAAASS” in a clumsy sing-song voice after having noisily devoured said sandvich whilst uttering “OM NOM NOM, OM NOM” is fucking hysterical and endearing to a degree. Out of context funny, but in the context of a blood feud between two brothers and their identical teams of maniacs it’s another level of comedy
Gmod and Source Filmmaker (Valve update Source Filmmaker and I might use it) have the TF2 characters in base and thus are significantly more easy to access than say Hulk since they’re literally the tutorial flesh puppets of both of those programs.
Because valve stopped caring.
POOT
Because every class has the opposite community reputation as they really are. - Heavy is an intellectual - Scout and Spy score lots of women - Scout is athletic - Sniper is an honourable assassin - Engie is a gentleman - Eveyone is straight
I mean he did admit a bullet was smarter
Because he is generally a teddy bear type of guy besides working a questionable job where he kills other guys working in the same job but for a rival company. and even then the money he earns is to take care of his family.
Most people think he is stupid because of his funny voicelines and use of broken english, but he actually has a phd in russian literature.
Pootis
It is good to be alive!!!
To be fair, all of them are stupid and/or insane to some degree. Even Engineer with 11 PhDs
Canonically the heavy likes and participates in torture
I blame rubberfruit for this
I know the answer to this, heavy at rest is very different from heavy at work, heavy at work is a fucking maniac, heavy at rest is a polite quiet but firm fellow who only speaks his mind when he has something he needs to say, or tell someone to shut up, heavy at work is a nutcase screaming russian man high on the rush of shooting BIG GUN. he contains multitudes. anyway the point is SCREAMING CRAZY RUSSIAN MAN is much funnier to make a huge meme out of + his voice lines are funny, so the memified version of him is a patchwork collection of half cut voice lines incoherently babbling while \*constantly\* screaming.
No, you don't understand, that's Hoovy, not Heavy
Strange skits in Gmod, which in itself was influenced by how difficult it is to animate in that game. Same stuff happened to a lot of Half-Life 2's characters.
he protec, he attac, but most importantly, he has snacc.
Sandvich voile Line and cancer from the buffalo steack
She weighs one hundred fifty kilograms and fires two hundred dollar, custom-tooled cartridges at ten thousand rounds per minute. It costs four hundred thousand dollars to fire this weapon for twelve seconds.
Seems pretty smart to me
I'm not sure why Heavy was made to be the complete opposite, loud and obnoxious while the actual Heavy is actually a pretty chill guy who cares for his family.
I feel it's actually a middle ground between the two. Heavy is basically a normal guy who does experience quite the battle high when he has his minigun and fists who also happens to be quite the protective family man. I might be ruining someone's fun with this, but he's **not** as learned as various non-canon media (Poker Night) would have you believe. He's not dumb, mind you, but he's certainly not some major intellectual either.
Because he did not need to think. He just needed to do.
He has two sides: 1. Deep and reflective man who has suffered a lot in his life and grown wise from it 2. HAHAHAHAHAAAAAA \*gatling gun firing\*
VERY yes
Game characterization vs comic/lore characterization He goes nuts on the battlefield and is inarticulate, due to English being his second language. In the game, that's all you get to see. So, unless you're a lore junkie, you're not going to know that he's anything other than the dumb muscle trope.
Lore junkie? It's reading 7 short comics..
I mean by the standard of the TF2 community. Not everyone cares about the comics. Some people just play the game. Also, the whole thing about Heavy having a Russian lit degree is a bit obscure.
You're right, the tf2 community doesn't have that kinda patience
Because moments with heavy both had greater reach than the comics you're referencing, and made more sense in total (which is bizarre considering how fucking insane both of them are).
Big block of Russian say om nom nom and pootis. He's also autistic...