Sergeant Calhoun

"All right. Now listen up, because I'm only going to say this once; Fear is a four-letter word ladies. If you wanna go pee-pee in your big boy slacks, keep it to yourself. It's make your mamas proud time!"

- Calhoun briefing her teammates. Sergeant Calhoun is a major character in Disney's 52nd full-length animated feature film Wreck-It Ralph. She is found in the game Hero's Duty as the main character and is played by Jane Lynch.

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.

Personality
Calhoun is hardcore, tough, and incredibly strict. She commands her troops with a firm and domineering hand and exhibits a fierce tenacity 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 humour. It is her backstory and her dedication to her job that she appears to consider herself a soldier first and woman second.

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 von Schweetz 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 "Ha. This place just got interesting."

Appearances
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 villainous.

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.

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.

Insulted, 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 to 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 to Felix that without a beacon, the Cy-Bugs cannot be stopped.

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 King Candy (who has become a Cy-Bug after being eaten by one) interferes with Ralph's plan by attacking 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 force field bars Vanellope from leaving.

Calhoun drew her combat knife as Vanellope glitches to save Ralph as he breaks free from King Candy's grasp 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 King Candy, for good.

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.

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, who is also played by Jane Lynch.
 * Also, her facial appearance is similar to that of Jane Lynch.
 * Her attitude is similar to that of Mortal Kombat character Sonya Blade's, specifically the version of her from Mortal Kombat (2011).
 * 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, 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 secondary protagonist at the end of their movies, both of whom being kind and well-mannered, but bashful.


 * Calhoun shares some similarities to Helga Sinclair, as the two are both portrayed as strict, female blonde-haired military leaders. However, Helga is a villainess 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 antagonistic cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester from the musical TV series, Glee.
 * 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.
 * 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 Calhoun's full name after marrying Felix may now be "Tamora Jean Calhoun-Felix", assuming that "Felix" is indeed her husband's real last name (which means that his real first name is "Fix-It", the same possibly being true with Wreck-It Ralph).
 * However, It's also 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 off the main protagonist of the Metroid franchise, Samus Aran. Unlike Samus however, Calhoun does not wear a cannon as a weapon for her right arm.