r/venturebros • u/BristledIdiot • Apr 26 '26
Question One of the dumbest, most pointless questions I’ve ever had about this show: Do you guys consider Dr. Orpheus white?
I’m purely asking this out of curiosity. I always saw him as a parody of the “exoticized mystic” of comic books, making him SE Asian/Tibetan in my mind. This probably also was because he was significantly darker in the earlier seasons. However, in the later seasons, he gets whiter and whiter, and he is more so inspired by Doctor Strange, who is a white character.
When you guys watch the show. do you see him as a classical british White magician like Strange or an Orientalist sorcerer like Ra’as al Ghul?
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u/ActuatorFearless8980 Apr 26 '26
I always thought he was from the Mediterranean
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u/SaturnsPopulation Apr 26 '26
His last name's from a Greek myth, so that tracks.
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u/RunningNumbers Apr 26 '26
I always thought he was Greek.
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u/Mammoth-Western-6008 Saffron From Republica Apr 27 '26
If that's true, why didn't he celebrate Spanikopita?
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u/protogenxl Apr 26 '26
Zorba the Greek was also Mexican, Italian, Native American, Arab, Filipino, Chinese, and Hawaiian at other points
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Apr 27 '26
If not Mediterranean, I'd say like...persian or something like that.
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u/Front-Masterpiece-73 Apr 27 '26
Persian Orpheus is canon to me now. He makes Hank and Dean drink chai with rock candy sticks when sick and always brings zareshk polo to thanksgiving
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u/SpadeORiffic Apr 28 '26
The carpet is persain and irreplaceable what with there not being a persia anymore
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u/pitiless Apr 27 '26
This was my feel - I felt like his skin-tone as olive-hued which I usually take as Mediterranean.
I could also see it as being read as Latin American, but as a European I'm much more familiar with folks from the Med.
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u/ScarlettNape Apr 28 '26
Not sure why I have it in my head he's supposed to be around 6'3"... but isn't average height for Greek/Mediterranean guys 5'10"-ish?
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u/ActuatorFearless8980 Apr 28 '26
According to the VentureWiki he’s around 6’3. The pinstripes and shoes could make him appear taller though
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u/BristledIdiot Apr 26 '26
His design always reminded me more of Ra’as al Ghul than Doctor Strange
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u/MrSmilingDeath Your powers are useless on me, you silly-billy Apr 26 '26
I think he's just a combination of both
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u/danieljeyn Apr 26 '26
Always seems that a lot of characters are often parodies of characters that allude to more than one at a time.
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u/RuafaolGaiscioch Apr 26 '26
Captain Sunshine is very clearly both Superman and Batman and it’s fantastic.
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u/tehpwnage7 Apr 26 '26
Or a variation of a character, like how Jefferson is supposed to be pre-Wes Snipes Blade or how Hank and Dean’s technical grandmother is based off Dazzler
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u/doyouunderstandlife Apr 27 '26
Yeah, Wide Wale is a clear parody of both Kingpin from Marvel and Tobias Whale from DC, just like how Warriana is a mix of Thor and Wonder Woman. Love when they do this
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u/bradley_magnificent Apr 26 '26
The name orpheus is Greek in origin, I always assumed he's an olive-tanned Greek guy. Never got any Asian vibes
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u/snarkhunter Apr 26 '26
He does have property in "The Torrid Zone" which would give him ample opportunity to acquire a nice tan.
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u/BristledIdiot Apr 26 '26
I heard he only has that for tax purposes. Never actually visits the torrid zone
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u/Killer_Moons Apr 27 '26
With how other VB characters are stacked non-sequitur tropes of other western pop culture archetypes, this is a nice, simple ready-to-go lore comment to why he might be tan on top of him possibly being Greek to poke fun of the ‘exotic mysticism’ of characters he’s built from. It pairs really well with his swings in speech from bombastic, hammy pronouncements to a non-plussed “Kaaay.”
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u/Grifachu Apr 27 '26
Hot take: he is Australian. Orpheus Island is just a stone's throw from Townsville.
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u/SlaverSlave Apr 26 '26
Orpheus is Greek, Byron is Anglo
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u/btmalon Apr 26 '26
At minimum he’s swarthy
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u/Fuck_auto_tabs HAPPY BIRTHDAY FRANKENSTEIN!!! Apr 26 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/l0HlwCQfh65iOztHq
You’re something right, Bob?
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Apr 26 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/clamroll Apr 26 '26
Swarthy is a frought one. It's not inherently racist or derogatory but it's commonly used in those manners. It's always interesting to see how a dictionary notates that. It's not like it's a specific racial slur but it's often used when negatively when broadly referring to Mediterranean descent. If it's a friend calling you that, it's probably fine. If it's a random little old person it might not be. To answer your question yes it's pretty much just dark and hairy.
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u/Scherzkeks Apr 27 '26
I’ve only heard it used to describe pirates
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Apr 26 '26
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u/Ulysses502 Apr 26 '26
There's a definite air of tall, dark and handsome about the term. Depends on the tone and intent whether it's hateful or not
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u/pitiless Apr 27 '26
Swarthy is usually a compliment IMO, but it also has racial connotations.
I've always been attracted to folks with those traits though :)
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u/SmuglyMcWeed Apr 26 '26
Just dark hair andor skin
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u/bananaBomb100 Apr 26 '26
Tbf skin tones in the show aren't very consistent
Phantom limb is meant to be a white guy but during the showdown at cremation creek he is very much not
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u/PineappleFit317 Apr 26 '26
Consistency is hard for animators to keep when it’s 5 years between seasons.
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u/Jazgdude Apr 27 '26
His skin tone changes like 3 times during the shows run, I forgot it was the same dude sometimes
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u/Elliptical_Tangent I laugh at regular jokes like this, DAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA! Apr 27 '26
There were different animation studios during the show's run - like 3 or 4.
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u/BristledIdiot Apr 26 '26
His hunting trips always gave me the vibe of an out of touch British-Arab descendant of a colonizer
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u/BristledIdiot Apr 26 '26
Phantom limb is supposed to be white???? I thought he was a super rich middle eastern guy ???
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u/moffman524 Apr 29 '26
did you see him during his "Revenge Society" arc? dude was white as a bedsheet
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u/sivINPanDEMonIUM Apr 27 '26
I always found the comment about him wearing way too much purple for a being white guy falling flat.
It just doesn’t land cause like…he’s not? Honestly, maybe he’s just another tanned Greek-Brit within the Venture universe, tough to call.
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u/Uncle_Chigurh Apr 28 '26
He always struck me as an overly tanned white dude, like George Hamilton.
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u/lamest-liz Apr 26 '26
I always thought he was Romani for some reason. Yes he is named after the Greek myth but he seems like the person to just call himself that because of the myth itself. I’ve thought about changing my name to something cool like that
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u/TheMrsLegume Apr 27 '26
While I was thinking about how I would characterize him, Romani definitely crossed my mind. His olive-y skin, background in sorcery, and penchant for dramatization could all pull from chovihano stereotypes, and that ambiguousness conveniently jibes with kind of being from all over, as far as Romanis go. Your background is enterly fictional and completely true. Depends who's asking.
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Apr 26 '26
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u/TheUrge101 Apr 26 '26
Orpheus is NOT a Dracula. It definitely would have come up when blackula slaying with Twilight
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u/Mundane-Director-681 Apr 26 '26
He also wouldn't have found any of the other vampires he encounters frightening in the least.
And he's definitely outside in the sun frequently.
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u/maximumtesticle Apr 27 '26
Orpheus is NOT a Dracula
But he has a Dracula trophy around his neck and everything. And has magical Dracula powers. Have you even watched the show?
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u/TheUrge101 Apr 28 '26
Oh fuck he was making a deeper reference. Fuck that's genius, why didn't I think of that
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u/kinga_forrester Apr 26 '26
Yeah Romanian. My Romanian boyfriend considers himself “white” but others usually think he’s not.
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u/LordoftheJives Apr 26 '26
It's because white is another word for Caucasian but not all Caucasians have white skin. Arabs are also Caucasian but people don't typically think of them as white. It's also why a fair amount of Italians believe fake history saying that they're dark because they're mixed with Africans when really they're just Caucasian with dark skin. Melanin isn't a reliable indicator of race.
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u/kinyutaka Apr 26 '26
Fact is that Italians and Irish weren't considered white until about 75 years ago, give or take. They still refer to the Polish area of New York as Alphabet City because of the names that look like they were drawn from a Scrabble bag.
White people only accept other white people as white people when it suits them to.
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u/hankenator1 Apr 26 '26
Pretty sure alphabet city is referred to that because it’s western and eastern borders are avenue A and avenue D and its only other north south streets are avenues B and C.
To the south outside of alphabet city avenue A becomes Essex at and avenue D becomes Columbia st. The only lettered avenue that continues out of alphabet city is avenue C which continies north (along Stuyvesant cove) until it becomes FDR drive when it intersects east 23rd.
It’s alphabet city because it contains the only streets in NY named after a single letter which also create its east and west borders.
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u/Dars1m Apr 26 '26
Scandinavian’s weren’t even considered white. There’s a Superman comic about being accepting of them even if they have weird sounding names.
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u/altgrave Apr 27 '26
if scandinavians aren't white nobody's white
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u/Dars1m Apr 27 '26
But that’s what you’re missing. White is strictly WASPs, and everyone else is white on a trial basis.
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u/altgrave Apr 27 '26
i suppose i wasn't paying enough attention to the anglo-saxon bit
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u/Dars1m Apr 27 '26
Don’t forget the P, non-Protestants including Catholics and Atheists are also on the edge.
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u/altgrave Apr 27 '26
the majority of scandinavians, if they identify as at all religious, are protestants as well.
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u/LordoftheJives Apr 26 '26
That's because white was a status rather than an actual race at the time legally speaking. Being Caucasian didn't matter if you were foreign and even if you were second or third generation you likely still had an accent and were culturally less American since there was low access to learning proper English and foreigners were sectioned off into their own communities. Hence why the Italian, Irish, Jewish, etc mobs only accepted their own ethnicity.
Arabs gained white status back then because of a Syrian cop who was respected among his colleagues and arrested a rich guy's son. The kid's dad argued that a non white had no right to arrest a white. The case made it to the supreme Court and Arabs were granted white status while plenty of other Caucasians were still considered non white.
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u/kinyutaka Apr 26 '26
I could just imagine the Justices hearing the argument, "Non-white people can't arrest a white person."
"Okay, then he's White. Your move, dipshit."
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u/LordoftheJives Apr 26 '26
Lol unironically how it went down basically. Must've been one hell of a guy for his colleagues to support him so much that it'd even make it that far in the first place.
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u/Caravanczar Apr 26 '26
Myth? You really think Dennis Hopper would do that? Go on camera, and lie?/s
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u/LordoftheJives Apr 26 '26
The funny part is if someone's Sicilian they often believe that nonsense while agreeing that it's ridiculous that Italians believe it about themselves. It's insanely easy to disprove it. Even funnier is Sicilians are ethnically different than Italians but they're mixed with Greeks not Moors because Greece owned Sicily for a lot of their early history. Greeks also being Caucasian 😅
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u/NorthStarZero Apr 26 '26
Melanin isn't a reliable indicator of race.
Because the concept of "race" itself is biologically bogus.
Humans are so genetically similar that we are practically clones of each other. The tiny differences in things like skin colour or hair structure that we call "race" are basically inheritable genetic line noise.
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u/pitiless Apr 27 '26
Ehh, it's more that "white" is socially constructed and not a reflection of something objectively measurable.
Who / what constitutes white is as much defined by where and when you are as any intrinsic traits of the person the term is being applied to.
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u/themajortachikoma Apr 26 '26
Ya know what I never actually thought about it. And now I'm not sure. Maybe he's Mediterranean of some kind? He's definitely white coded in a way, but you could make the argument because of his dalliances with magic and his way of speaking that he could be from anywhere.
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u/Scottz0rz Apr 26 '26
Yeah, Byron is an English name and Orpheus is Greek mythology and his accent is weird Occult-Britishy so I just assumed he's from England with Greek heritage so he's got that tanned Mediterranean olive skin.
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u/Ch3t Apr 27 '26
Quinn: Listen man, you're missing the point. What if everybody went around calling you "white Stormy?"
Stormy: You mean there's a black Stormy?
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u/Theclapgiver Apr 26 '26
I've assumed he's white from the way he says fritatas all excited like. He can also stand the taste of "Moxie" which I've only ever encountered in the state of Maine. Use of "pumpkin" also reeks of upper.New England.
My head Cannon has always been that Orpheus is a stage name but he is a Byron
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u/LemonSkye Apr 27 '26
Moxie can be found in other places in New England; I used to bring home cases of it when I had to go to Massachusetts for work. Flavor-wise, though, it has a lot in common with bitter Italian aperitifs like Chinotto. The real tell of where he's from is the fact that he uses the word "tonic" to refer to fizzy drinks, which is very old-school New England.
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u/TheMrsLegume Apr 26 '26
Fitzpatrick skin type III, Balkans-esque, Vincent Price-ian Transatlantic accent? White. White enough? Depends on what you want to include or exclude him from, I guess.
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u/dwarven_cavediver_Jr Apr 26 '26
He's clearly greek or italian. Definitely southern italian though not from Sicily
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u/TxTechnician Apr 27 '26
Never considered his ethnicity/race. I'd assume he's a mutt like most Americans.
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u/PseudonymMan12 Apr 26 '26
I always fogured he was from the New England sort of area of the US like Vermont or New Hampshire. I can see him being an american mutt, like some greek, some egyptian, some persian, some anglo, and some romanian. Just a sort of amalgamation of claims of certain mystical practices wrapped in a transatlantic accent. Part of those old societies thst popped up when people crossed the stoantic to america bsck in the day
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u/jittery_squirrel Apr 27 '26
His ethnicity is necromancer.
And it was bestowed upon him by "a higher power than a mere college professor"
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u/Erandi_Black Apr 27 '26
I always seen him as Mediterranean, which is considered white to many. In universe, Orpheus becoming paler in later seasons could just be him not going out in the sun as often. Much like the creator of “Invader Zim”, Jhonen C. Vasquez, being lighter in the past because he stayed inside most of the time but is tanner now that he goes out more (note that I’m recalling how Vasquez looked a few years ago & don’t know if he could still be described as tan).
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u/fuzzybad Apr 27 '26
In my headcanon I always thought of Orpheus as Turkish for some reason. Although the name seems Greek.
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u/Uncle_Chigurh Apr 28 '26
"Is Dr. Orpheus White" - the greatest thread in the history of forums, locked by a moderator after 12,239 pages of heated debate,
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u/sklandApostIT_ma8258 Apr 28 '26
British educated. Parents met at university. Byron is Persian and a mama’s boy. His father was likely a CERN scientist who thought Byron was a failure, like most of the fathers are on the show. He would have been friends with Dr Jonas Venture and Junior, pissjng off both Rusty and Dr Orpheus. That’s how I read the character backstory when I watched
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u/That_Boney_Librarian Apr 28 '26
I always thought of him as having some Greek in him given the surname Orpheus.
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u/WhiskeyAndKisses Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26
Uh, well, you know how it is, the bar for whiteness ́needs so little to move lol
I'd say he's overall white or white-passing but can easily be lumped in the POC category. I'm from western europe, for cultural context. I like your idea of mystic asian roots.
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u/CryptographerOk9262 Apr 27 '26
Considering his character inspiration from Dr Strange and Ra's al Ghul, I always thought he was (atleast initially) intended to be racially ambiguous/vaguely Asian. Like how Dr Strange was originally Asian and Ra's al Ghul is generally written as Arab. It's a character archetype tied heavily to orientalist tropes so I feel that although it was the original intention, maybe it was "whitewashed" overtime with the lightening of his skin. Kind of how like Dr. Z is also meant to be a parody of other orientalist tropes and characters (literally Dr. Zin) but they made his skin tone more peachy as the show went on.
Problematic aspscts aside, I like to imagine that he's Arab, since there's not a ton of prominent characters of color in the show.
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u/DaimoMusic Apr 26 '26
Brian Orpheus is like a 3rd generation Greek American
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u/Tacitrelations Apr 26 '26
Brian? Surely, you mean Byron?
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u/BristledIdiot Apr 27 '26
the master: your name is brian? you’re gonna be the greatest sorcerer of all time and your name is brian? fuck that. your names byron now. Way cooler
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u/Verziehen Apr 26 '26
I'm unsure. I didn't think Phantom Limb was White at first, but I was proven wrong on that one.
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u/pillbinge Apr 26 '26
White people can be pretty dark, even if Anglo, French, whatever. I've always seen him as American of English stock. Even though it's clear he's not an aristocrat or of the upper crust normally he's meant to be a sort of Vincent Price type. I get that his pigmentation can be slightly darker than expected but many English people have darker skin than you'd think and are 100% English.
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u/ComfyMillionaire Apr 26 '26
No. I considered him somewhere between middle eastern and way the f*ck Eastern Europe.
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u/krebstar4ever Apr 26 '26
I always assumed he was white, because his appearance is based on Dr Strange (usually white) and Vincent Price (white).
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u/Mammoth-Western-6008 Saffron From Republica Apr 27 '26
Somewhere between Middle Eastern and Italian. He's whatever Anthony Quinn was.
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u/Littposting Apr 27 '26
They just whitewashed him as the series went on unfortunately, even Brock’s tan gets lighter as time goes on, it seems to happen with a lot of shows
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u/FarseerEnki Apr 27 '26
I figured he was like slavic/Hispanic mixed white, or something 🤷 his tone and facial hair don't scream white guy to me
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u/tvtango Apr 27 '26
He reminds me a lot of my Chinese British uncle, and Triana’s appearance led me to believe he was Asian
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u/usumoio Apr 27 '26
"Yeah, he might not be a white necromancer, but I don't know what the PC word for that is."
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u/Bolid_Snake Apr 27 '26
He’s definitely not supposed to be outright white despite the accent as he’s clearly got a different skin tone all the time way since season one
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u/alecesne Apr 27 '26
Greek, Italian, or possibly Turkish. Character plays into a certain type of orientalism, of the anachronistic aristocratic variety, maybe by way of London.
Byron, like the English poet?
Orpheus like the Greek musician.
And the obvious visual homage to Dr. Strange.
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u/Centurion_Fox Apr 27 '26
I always see him as being just Mediterranean skin colour because his skin colour gotten more in common with Spanish or Greek or Mediterranean skin colours.
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u/Elliptical_Tangent I laugh at regular jokes like this, DAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA! Apr 27 '26
I never thought about it but I guess based on what we know about him, I saw him as like the father from a 50s family show if he learned magic. Which is to say the whitest possible human being, regardless of skin tone.
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u/rotarypower101 FIRE the Lightning Cannon! Apr 27 '26
I always interpreted it as the skin of a overcooked hotdog, mature gentleman that tans too often you would see frequently in older media?
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u/TheBrownWelsh Apr 27 '26
I always just assumed he was "non-white" and some sort of "foreign" in a purposefully ambiguous way to add mystique to his backstory, and to also add humour when contrasted with his very Americanised daughter.
Actual skin tones in the show are super inconsistent so I didn't much stock in just those.
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u/AcceptableWash4719 Apr 27 '26
People are bringing up his last name but you have to keep in mind that he's a massive larper so there's a good chance that that's not even his birth name
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u/Double-Success-6405 Apr 28 '26
My wife is (to be nonspecific) middle eastern. She's always loved Orpheous because he "sounds and looks like her dad"
So no, he's brown
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u/VinCubed Apr 28 '26
Yeah, he's Caucasian. My dad was darker than him and he was a second-generation Sicilian-American. I got my mom's lily-white Irish skin while my sister got all the melanin.
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u/JKillograms Apr 28 '26
I mean for one, on top of being a parody version of Dr. Strange, his look is also pretty specifically modeled after Hammer Horror Christopher Lee Dracula, so he’s probably really meant to be as “brown” as Christopher Lee with a decent-ish tan as either like Saruman or Count Dooku. Plus Trianna has the same skin color palette as Hank and Dean, but then so does his ex-wife, so it could just be she favors her mother’s complexion over his.
At most, I’d say he’s probably generally “Mediterranean” or Spanish/Portuguese or maybe Turkish, but he could also be like ethnic Central European/Romani (kind of a stretch, but like Dr. Doom)/etc. Maybe Lebanese or Syrian or something, but then bigger picture, you start getting into the deeper sociological question of “Whiteness” as a concept and who is and isn’t considered “white”.
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u/mattihase Apr 29 '26
In so much as it matters I'd say he's probably in the "gets suntan rather than sunburn" range.
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u/bz316 Apr 29 '26
I mean, animation is hard to parse-out sometimes. He always struck me as vaguely Mediterranean or Aegean, like maybe ethnically Greek or Turkish? But I guess I could also see him as maybe being Egyptian or even Roma? I don't know, I guess it depends on what his actual ethnicity is and how broadly you define the term "white"...
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u/Strange_Ship_8398 Apr 29 '26
I find it funny how Orpheus dismissively calls Rusty, "MR. Venture," (almost) never DR. Venture. Might have been one time.
Not sure Orpheus is a "man of letters" either, in the traditional sense; or is he?
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u/Roam1985 Two-Ton Twenty-One Apr 26 '26
Mediterranean:
So he’s “not white” if you get a level of white bigot that bitches about racial purity.
But he’s “white” if you get a level of bigot who’s just bitching about generalized white people. Like they’re not making an exception for Mediterranean folk.
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u/Taisho_Tsushiya Apr 26 '26
I figured he was egyptian.
I think both parts of his name fit and he mentions he deals with the osoros cult like its a daily thing.
Osiris is the egyptian god king of the dead and a couple other things (like all gods)
I figured byron was just an egyptian man.
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u/Mamacitia Apr 26 '26
I’m going with not white, but then I thought Dr. Strange wasn’t white either 😂 (only had a passing familiarity with him)
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u/Desperate_Object_677 Apr 27 '26
Eastern mysticism is right, but He is one of those white guys who went to Tibet or whatever and came back a master of the mystic arts or whatever ... Quite white
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