Flame Warriors Reference

Source: Mike Reed, flamewarriorsguide.com (via TV Tropes analysis)

86 archetypes total. Creator: Mike Reed (artist, used Corel Painter 6.1/7). At peak: 2 million hits/month. Settled to ~100K/month. Original art: hand-drawn digital illustrations by Reed. Credit & provenance: the Flame Warriors taxonomy and its illustrations are Mike Reed’s, still online at flamewarriorsguide.com. This guide treats the archetypes as commentary and pairs them with original Fires art — no reproduction of Reed’s drawings, so no license is required; the credit is his. An Internet Archive snapshot preserves an earlier version of the site.

Tier 1: Core Archetypes for the Book (directly illustrate the thesis)

Troller (Ch. 2, Ch. 13)

• “Looking for a response – ANY response, and he will chum the waters with complaints, insults, compliments, and inflammatory tidbits hoping that someone will take the bait. Generally quite harmless, he practices a form of catch and release.”
• Modern equivalent: The reply guy, the quote-tweet provocateur
• Book connection: The archetype that names the phenomenon. The “catch and release” framing is key – this is fishing, not fighting. Connects to the etymology of “trolling” (fishing, not Norse).

Evil Clown (Ch. 2, Ch. 10)

• “Very quick with a joke, but his jests always have a barb. Has little patience for in-depth discussions and will often disrupt exchanges between serious forum participants by introducing irrelevant topics.” Gets bored easy, interrupts serious discussions or humiliates forumers “for funsies.”
• Modern equivalent: The shitposter, the meme lord
• Book connection: The comedian-troll archetype. Andy Kaufman, Sacha Baron Cohen. The jokes always have a barb.

Enfant Provocateur (Ch. 2, Ch. 3)

• Stirs up trouble “just because.” Pure trolling for its own sake.
• Modern equivalent: The chaos agent, the “I just think it’s funny” poster
• Book connection: The purest troll – no ideology, no agenda, just provocation. Connects to the “dispassionate third party” concept.

Ferrous Cranus (Ch. 2, Ch. 17)

• “Utterly impervious to reason, persuasion and new ideas, and when engaged in battle he will not yield an inch in his position regardless of its hopelessness.” No-sells every argument by repeating the same points forever.
• Modern equivalent: The reply-all warrior, the “I’ve done my own research” poster
• Book connection: The ANTI-troll. The person trolling is designed to crack. AI content filters as Ferrous Cranus – impervious to the provocation that might teach them something.

Philosopher (Ch. 2, Ch. 4)

• “Can actually be quite knowledgeable on a variety of subjects. Somewhat humorless and aloof, slow to anger. When he deigns to join the fray he is considerate of other opinions. Smothers opposition with his ponderous and lengthy cogitations.”
• Modern equivalent: The effort-poster, the “well actually” with receipts
• Book connection: Socrates. Voltaire. The high-effort troll who operates through sheer intellectual weight.

Profundus Maximus (Ch. 2, Ch. 3)

• “Claims to know everything there’s to know about the subject at hand but as the discussion continues, it becomes obvious that his knowledge is shallow at best and he’s just bluffing his way through.”
• Modern equivalent: The TED Talk bro, the podcast intellectual
• Book connection: The FAKE Philosopher. The low-effort troll pretending to be high-effort. The paradox: trolling requires intelligence, and Profundus Maximus is what happens when it doesn’t have any.

Tier 2: Strong Supporting Archetypes

Big Dog (Ch. 2)

• Ruthless, remorselessly intimidates and tears into combatants, even those weaker. Depicted as a bulldog. Rottweiler Puppy grows up into Big Dog.
• Modern equivalent: The alpha poster, the forum mod who bullies, the blue-check dunker
• Book connection: Big Dog is force, not wit. The distinction between Big Dog (domination) and Philosopher (provocation) is the distinction between harassment and trolling.

Lurker (Ch. 2, Ch. 13)

• “Does not participate in normal forum discourse, but he’s out there watching. Usually quite harmless. Occasionally, some mysterious impulse drives him to de-lurk and attack.”
• Modern equivalent: The silent follower, the “I’ve been reading this thread for 6 hours” poster
• Book connection: The audience the troll performs for. Without lurkers, trolling has no witnesses. The lurker-to-poster pipeline.

Godzilla (Ch. 2, Ch. 17)

• “A troll so destructive that the forum culture never recovers and is always paranoid about his return.” Person of Mass Destruction for forums.
• Modern equivalent: The raid leader, the state-sponsored troll farm
• Book connection: The weaponized troll. Russian IRA as Godzilla. This is what happens when trolling is industrialized and pointed at a community with intent to destroy.

Eagle Scout (Ch. 2)

• “Friendly and helpful (especially towards newbies), eager to keep discussion meaningful and civil, not easily provoked. Will jump on a Grenade to save the forum.”
• Modern equivalent: The good mod, the “let’s keep this civil” poster
• Book connection: The anti-troll as hero. But also: sometimes the Eagle Scout prevents the very provocation that might produce growth.

Kung-Fu Master (Ch. 2)

• “Powerful warriors but they generally choose not to fight, even unfazed by mere provocations. Woe betide those who force one to fight, as they can crush almost any opponent with ease.”
• Modern equivalent: The domain expert who doesn’t post often but when they do, they end conversations
• Book connection: The Socrates archetype. Doesn’t seek fights. Wins them all. The ideal troll: capable but restrained.

Archivist (Ch. 2, Ch. 13)

• “Especially effective and fearsome warrior who specializes in saving older posts and later using them to discredit other warriors.”
• Modern equivalent: The screenshot collector, the “receipts” poster, the ratio-with-your-old-tweets account
• Book connection: The internet never forgets. This is Fermat’s margin note as weapon – old words that come back to haunt you.

Admin (Ch. 2)

• “The strongest of all warriors. Battling him will inevitably lead to defeat in one fashion or another, even if he has to resort to banning.” Most are fair, but “absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
• Modern equivalent: The platform owner (Musk buying Twitter), the content filter
• Book connection: The establishment the troll exists to challenge. When Admin becomes corrupt, trolling is the only check on power.

Grenade (Ch. 2)

• Not a person but a subject “that always, without fail, invokes a massive backlash that makes a normally civil community devolve into angry arguments.”
• Modern equivalent: Israel/Palestine, tabs vs. spaces, pineapple on pizza
• Book connection: The trolling prompt. The Grenade is Socrates’ question – it exists to detonate certainty.

Tier 3: Useful for Sidebars, Departure Spaces, or Appendix C

Mapping to Historical Figures

Book Usage Plan

Chapter 2 (Taxonomy): Introduce Flame Warriors as the foundational text. Present 6-8 key archetypes with Reed’s descriptions. Map to the high-effort/low-effort spectrum. The departure space uses character cards.

Chapter 13 (Birth of Internet Trolling): Flame Warriors as a historical artifact of the Usenet/forum era. When Reed created this, he was documenting a culture that already existed.

Appendix C (Field Guide Updated): Full list of all 86 archetypes with modern social media equivalents. This is where the completionist reader goes.

Throughout: Use Flame Warrior names as shorthand when describing historical figures. “Voltaire was a Philosopher who occasionally went Evil Clown.” “Edison was a Big Dog pretending to be a Philosopher.” This vocabulary becomes a running thread.

Source URLs

• Flame Warriors by Mike Reed — his live site (with an Internet Archive snapshot as backup)
• Internet troll — Wikipedia
• Flame war — Wikipedia
• Godwin’s Law — Wikipedia