Sergeant Calhoun

"You are one dynamite gal."

- Felix to Calhoun

Sergeant Tamora Jean Calhoun is a major character in Disney's 2012 animated film, Wreck-It Ralph, and the protagonist of the fictional Hero's Duty video game.

Background
Sergeant Tamora Jean or T.J. Calhoun serves as the non-playable protagonist in her first-person shooter arcade game Hero's Duty, the newest arcade game in Litwak's Arcade. According to her fellow cohort, Kohut, Calhoun has been programmed with the "most tragic back story ever." On the day of her wedding to her true love Dr. Brad Scott, Calhoun forgot to complete one of her highly important perimeter checks. As a result, a Cy-Bug breaks into the wedding chapel as they're exchanging their vows and devours Brad, Calhoun screaming in anguish as she grabbed a mini-gun nearby and opened fire on the monster. The tragedy left Calhoun with a hardened heart and bitter outlook on life. Fortunately, her now-husband Felix manages to change her back into a very sweet and loving woman.

Official Description

 * In the sci-fi battle zone of Hero's Duty, Sergeant Calhoun is more than just a pretty face — she is the tough-as-nails, take-charge leader who fights for humanity’s freedom. When she’s not offering in-game intel, she’s training her troops for the next attack wave. This unrelenting commander is driven by a personal vendetta and will stop at nothing to protect the player and the arcade from a virulent Cy-Bug invasion.

Physical appearance
Sergeant Calhoun is a tall, beautiful woman wearing heavy, form-fitting black and red armor. She has a large bust, slim waist, and long, shapely legs. Calhoun has fair skin and her golden blonde hair is cut into a short bob plus choppy pixie cut style with side bangs. Her eyes are a bright blue and she wears coral-colored eye shadow, thick black eyeliner, and has long, dark lashes. Her lips are a deep rosy pink. Of all the main characters, Calhoun retains the most realistic appearance and resemblance to a real human being. At her wedding, she wore a white wedding dress and veil or gown.

Personality
Calhoun is hardcore, tough, and incredibly strict. She commands her troops with a firm and domineering hand, and exhibits a fierce tenacity in which failure is never an option. She has no tolerance for shortcomings, and doesn't hesitate to roughly reprimand her soldiers, and additionally seems to enjoy goading them with taunts to increase their drive. Although Calhoun comes off at first as crass and callous, she is very serious and stoic when not engaged in gameplay. Her tragic backstory has left her heartbroken and untrusting, with a dry sense of humor. It is her backstory and her dedication to her job that she appears to consider herself a soldier first and woman second. She's tough and independent that doesn't need anybody's help and wants to be alone where nobody can hurt her.

Calhoun possesses a large heart despite her cold exterior. When she meets Felix, she is struck by his innocence and kindness, and in turn becomes more trusting, little by little. She initially refuses to slap him when the two are stuck in the Nesquik Sand, justifying that "he's a nice guy," and she abandons her original plans of destroying the Sugar Rush entrance in favor of protecting Vanellope when the Cy-Bugs invade. By the end of the film, Calhoun's temperament appears to have drastically softened and she is happily in love with, and married to, Felix.

She also seems to have a dark sense of humor, since after Vanellope jokingly ordered everyone who was mean to her to be executed, she smirked and said "Oh, this place just got interesting."

A Dark Crisis
"We are humanity's last hope. Our mission? Destroy all Cy-Bugs."

- Calhoun during her introduction

In Hero's Duty, Sergeant Calhoun and the soldiers are ready for another day of eradicating the deadly Cy-Bugs. Unknown to Calhoun, video game bad guy Wreck-It Ralph has game jumped into her game. When the game is over due to Ralph's carelessness, Calhoun reprimands Ralph for interfering with a first-person shooter before ordering her troopers back to their start positions.

After the arcade is closed for the day, Calhoun and her troopers hear a strange noise and immediately fire away when they spot a figure. The figure turns out to be Fix-It Felix, Jr. from the game of the same name. Calhoun demands to know why Felix has arrived, and the bashful hero tells her that his cohort Ralph has entered her game. Calhoun brushes it off as nonsense until an escape shuttle flies by with Ralph and a baby Cy-Bug aboard. Calhoun and Felix head to the Game Central Station to find him. The Surge Protector tells them that Ralph went firing into Sugar Rush. Calhoun is immediately worried for the game as Cy-Bugs cannot tell when the game is over, meaning they're truly deadly.

Journey into Sugar Rush
"We've got to find [the Cy-Bug] before it lays its filthy eggs."

- Calhoun to Felix

Calhoun prepares to enter Sugar Rush, and Felix asks to join. However, Calhoun tells Felix to stand down, but the handy man refuses to do so, telling her it is his job to fix what Ralph wrecks. Calhoun eventually allows him to join and the duo enter the game. Following a path made by shuttle, Calhoun and Felix find the shuttle that Ralph has crashed, only to find both Ralph and the Cy-Bug absent. Calhoun then uses her Cy-Bug tracking device to find the bug, but the sugar and candy in the world interferes with the connection. While searching in Candy Tree Forest, Calhoun asks Felix why Ralph has gone AWOL, to which Felix reveals to have no clue, but hopes Ralph isn't going Turbo. Since Calhoun's game has been recently plugged in, she is unaware of what "going Turbo" means. So Felix tells her the story of Turbo: years ago, back when the arcade first opened, TurboTime was the most popular game by far, and Turbo, the lead character of the game, enjoyed being the center of attention. However, when a new racing game RoadBlasters arrived and stole Turbo's thunder, an extremely jealous Turbo game-jumped into the new game and tried to take it over, causing it to crash. As a result, both games, and Turbo, were unplugged for good.

The Search for the Cy-Bug
"Doomsday and Armageddon just had a baby and it is ugly!"

- Calhoun upon finding the Cy-Bug nest.

Calhoun was openly disgusted by Turbo's story, but now had an understanding of Felix's situation. Suddenly, the duo found themselves walking across a large double-striped candy branch over Nesquik-Sand, but the branch suddenly dissolves, causing them to fall into the sand below. Felix, feeling despaired, goes into panic, causing himself and Calhoun to sink faster. Calhoun slaps the hero to calm him down, causing the living rope-like Laffy Taffys above them begin to laugh, and the more they laugh, the more they lower. Felix gets the idea to have Calhoun continue slapping him, but the soldier is hesitant to harm Felix, feeling uncomfortable with abusing such a good person. However, Felix reassures his safety as his magic hammer has the ability to heal him, allowing Calhoun to continue punching him until the taffys are within reach. Felix then takes hold of Calhoun and one of the taffys that lifts the two into the air, and Calhoun is briefly taken away by Felix's dashing heroism, but then she notices that the taffys are singing around them. Having enough with the nonsense, she immediately fires her gun to scare them off so that she can get back with the mission.

Felix repairs the shuttle, and he and Calhoun fly in the shuttle to search for Ralph and the bug through the air. During this time, Felix becomes smitten with Calhoun, calling her "one dynamite gal.". The compliment reminds Calhoun of her fiancé, who had also called her "dynamite gal", but was killed by a Cy-Bug on their wedding day. Traumatized, she lowers the shuttle in front of the castle of King Candy (ruler of Sugar Rush), where she orders Felix out of the shuttle, rejecting Felix's affections and leaving him to be captured by King Candy's minion, Sour Bill. Later on, Calhoun stumbles upon an underground Cy-Bug nest, which holds thousands of eggs to hatch. The eggs eventually do and the Cy-Bugs begin to ravage through Sugar Rush. Calhoun finds Ralph on the Sugar Rush Speedway and blames him for bringing about the game's destruction. Ralph insists that he saw the Cy-Bug die in a taffy swamp, only for swarms of the monsters to suddenly burst out of the ground. Calhoun then evacuates the game's citizens and prepares to destroy the entrance. However, a little girl named Vanellope who has befriended Ralph is unable leave her game because she is a glitch. After the citizens desert the game, Calhoun hesitates to destroy the portal due to Vanellope's inability to escape, but informs Felix that without a beacon, the Cy-Bugs can't be stopped.

Saving Sugar Rush
"Without a beacon, there's no way to stop these monsters."

- Calhoun to Felix

Ralph quickly formulates an idea to erupt the Diet Cola Mountain, hoping to have the lava act as a beacon. He borrows Calhoun's hoverboard to fly to the top of the mountain, where he begins to smash its crater of mentos, but then Turbo (who has become a Cy-Bug after being eaten by one) attacks him and flies him into the air. Calhoun and Felix protect Vanellope from the Cy-Bugs that begin to advance on the portal. Unfortunately, Calhoun soon runs out of ammunition, forcing the trio back into the portal but a forcefield barred Vanellope from leaving. Calhoun then drew her combat knife as Vanellope glitches to save Ralph as he breaks free from Turbo's grasps and brings the entire crater of mentos plunging into the lava, causing a massive eruption that produces a beacon, which attracts all the Cy-Bugs and vaporizes them, along with Turbo, for good.

Romance with Felix
"Very elegant affair, should have seen it—lot of grandeur. And not a single bug!"

- Ralph on Calhoun and Felix's wedding

As Felix congratulates Ralph for saving Sugar Rush, he kisses Calhoun on the cheek. Calhoun becomes surprised, and as she yanks Felix up, she initially appears to strangle him, but then she kisses him back, showing that her heavy heart has softened. After Sugar Rush is restored, Calhoun watches in amusement as Vanellope, who has transformed into a princess, jokingly decrees to have everyone who has bullied her to be executed. Calhoun then calls for Felix and Ralph that the arcade is about to open. So Calhoun, Felix and Ralph return to their respective games, just in time for Felix and Ralph to save Fix-It Felix, Jr. Afterwards, Felix and Calhoun marry with Ralph serving as Felix's best man and Vanellope as Calhoun's maid of honor. And this time, all her men were standing watch for a potential Cy-Bug attack just in case. During the end credits, Calhoun is shown to continually join Felix, Ralph, and Vanellope on a series of game-jumping adventures.

Hero's Duty
Calhoun plays a major role in the spin-off comic that takes place before the film, revealing the sergeant's programmed backstory. It begins with a mission. Calhoun and her troops were assigned to travel to a planet with no name, a wasteland ravaged by a new robotic enemy known as the Cy-Bugs, to rescue the surviving civilians of the planet's apocalypse. The troops immediately storm out after landing, but the bugs quickly prove to be an invincible force. In the midst of battle, Calhoun and her second-in-command, Kohut, are accidentally separated from the rest of the troops, and are nearly killed by an overwhelming amount of bugs, only to be saved by a man named Brad Scott.

Brad takes the two back to his refuge, where he introduces himself as one of the original creators of the Cy-Bugs. He explains that the bugs started out as a concept for a toy, but by the time production was nearly complete, scientists realized they had created a powerful weapon instead—weapons armies around the world would want. Brad warned them not to go through with the mass production, but the scientists didn't listen. Unfortunately, the bugs eventually went berserk, and dominated the planet. The scientists escaped, but Brad voluntarily stayed behind to keep the creatures at bay.

He then informs Calhoun that there is a way to defeat an immense infusion of bugs, but it'll take much work. To defeat them, he'd have to reach the 99th floor of Hero's Duty Tower to activate a beacon, but with the bugs ravaging throughout the tower, it'll take weapons capable of great power to hold them off. Brad takes the time to hand over specially designed weapons to Calhoun and Kohut, specifically built for the Cy-Bug's destruction. The plan is set in motion, and Calhoun is able to reunite with her troops (who had reached the trapped civilians), handing over the special blasters to them, evacuating the civilians, and keeping the Cy-Bugs out of Brad's path in the process. Eventually, the beacon is created, and the bugs are destroyed.

During celebration, Calhoun and Brad realize they highly admire each others' efforts and actions during the mission, and soon fall in love. And with the Cy-Bugs sure to return, Calhoun and Brad team up to stay on the planet and keep the creatures at bay for the sake of humanity, the troops loyally following along.

Disney Comic Zone
Calhoun appears in two comic stories of the single-issue magazine. In the first, Calhoun makes a brief appearance at the end of the comic attending Ralph's "Wrecking Party".

In the second story, a narcissistic bully wrongfully hogs the turns of meeker players in an attempt to beat the Hero's Duty game. Displeased with the bully's attitude, Calhoun ignites the game's "Anti-Bully Boss", which sparks an unbeatable battle at the very end of the game. The plan results in the bully's ultimate failure and embarrassment.

Wreck-It Ralph
Calhoun plays a minor role in the game, taking place after the events of the film. She appears in the opening and ending cutscenes alongside Felix, and makes a few vocal cameos during the Hero's Duty stage of the game.

Disney INFINITY: 2.0 Edition
Calhoun has three of her own power discs in the second installment to the series. "Cy-Bug Swarm", which allows the map to have swarm of Cy-Bugs fly about, "Calhoun's Command", which decorates the Toy Box map in the style of Hero's Duty and "Sergeant Calhoun's Blaster", which gives the player Calhoun's blaster as a weapon against enemies.

Trivia

 * According to director Rich Moore, the character of Sergeant Calhoun was originally planned to be a male. However, as he thought the character being male would be boring, the character's gender was changed to female. Another reason for Calhoun being female may be due to the fact that Moore actually wanted Fix-It Felix, Jr. to have a love interest.
 * Her harshness and manner of speech (with lots of obscure metaphors) is very similar to the Glee character Sue Sylvester, that Jane Lynch plays.
 * Also, her facial appearance is similar to that of Jane Lynch.
 * It is possible that her first name is a reference to Tamora, the Queen of the Goths in William Shakespeare's play Titus Andronicus. Calhoun's middle name, Jean, may be a reference to Saint Joan of Arc, an armored young commander who was the only female member of her 15th-Century French army and who led them to several victories.
 * Sergeant Calhoun is the second female Disney character to be strict and not a villainess, with the first being Captain Amelia from Treasure Planet. Her strictness is the result of something bad happening to her. However, Sergeant Calhoun shares other characteristics with Captain Amelia as well:
 * Both hold a military rank, and are in charge of an intimidating group.
 * Both lose/lost someone important to them because of their line of work. (Calhoun's fiancé is eaten by a Cy-Bug, and Amelia's first mate Mr. Arrow falls overboard into a black hole.)
 * Both fall in love with and marry a tritagonist at the end of their movies, both of whom being kind and well-mannered, but bashful.
 * Sergeant Calhoun shares some similarities to Helga Sinclair, as the two are both portrayed as strict, female blonde-haired military leaders. However, Helga is a villain while Calhoun is a heroine.
 * Jane Lynch also voiced Queen Neptuna, the leader of the Discarded Fun Meal toy support group in the Toy Story short Small Fry, as well as a part-time role as Mrs. Johnson from Phineas and Ferb. Lynch is famous for her role as Sue Sylvester from the musical TV series, Glee.
 * Jane Lynch appeared in costume as Calhoun on the Halloween 2012 episode of The Ellen Show.
 * Her outfit strongly resembles Commander Shepard's N7 armor from Mass Effect.
 * She was likely inspired by such characters as Samus Aran of Metroid fame and the female version of the aforementioned Commander Shepard.
 * Her backstory is also a gender-switched parody of the common "Woman in Refrigerator"-trope found in many video games. It might have been meant to humorously achknowledge the fact, that while stories, in which the death of a female significant other triggers a man's development, are fairly common, plots in which a man's death prompts in development for a female character are virtually non-existent.
 * Sergeant Calhoun's name is not mentioned on camera till the epilogue told by Ralph. She's only referred to by "she" or "her" by her soldiers, and "Ma'am" or "one dynamite gal" by Felix.
 * Calhoun's first name, Tamora, was only mentioned on her bio on the official website for the film.
 * Calhoun's name could be a reference to Barney Calhoun from the Half-Life series.
 * Calhoun's decision to marry Felix must have been for her own good, since Felix was actually trying to "fix" her broken heart.
 * In early drafts, Calhoun was going to have skin camouflage. This was cut out because the creators felt the audience would have a hard time relating to her.
 * Calhoun is the only female in her own game, Hero's Duty.
 * It's possible that Felix's full name after marrying Calhoun is Fix-It Felix Calhoun, assuming that he never had a last name before marriage.
 * Because the Cy-Bugs are clearly based on Metroids from a franchise of the same name, Calhoun might be based on the protagonist of the Metroid franchise, Samus Aran. Unlike Samus, however, Calhoun does not wear a plasma cannon as a weapon on her arm. Further indicating Samus as the inspiration for the character is that both have tragic backstories involving loss of a loved one; Calhoun's fiancé was eaten by a Cy-Bug on their wedding day, and Samus' parents were slaughtered when she was a child by recurring Metroid series antagonist Ridley.
 * A Limited Edition doll was available at Disney Store in 2013.
 * Sergeant Calhoun almost had color-changing camouflage skin.