Barry Thorne[1], more commonly known as Big Bear, is a supporting character in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
He is voiced by Kurt Alexander.
History[]
Background[]
Big Bear is a member of the Grove Street Families and is one of the longest-serving members of the gang. Bear was apparently close to Carl Johnson's younger brother, Brian Johnson, as Bear referred to him as "Lil' Brian" during deleted dialogue between himself and CJ, which was one of the major factors of Bear's defection. Between 1987 and 1992, however, he developed a drug addiction.
Events of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas[]
Eventually, and by the time of the GTA San Andreas storyline, Bear had become the personal slave to B Dup and does household chores for him, notably cleaning the toilet, in exchange for his next fix. Bear had lost much respect and had turned on the Grove Street Families in order to get more drugs. However, Bear eventually physically confronts B Dup, tired of being his personal cleaning maid, and decides to quit taking drugs. Sweet Johnson helps Bear by taking him to rehab.
In a deleted part of the mission Beat Down on B Dup, Carl Johnson would take Bear to rehab with Bear explaining how he got addicted to drugs. This would have set up a cut mission where Carl would search for Big Smoke and would need to find an informant. Bear tells Carl and Sweet about a Russian Mafia gang member who would inform Carl of Smoke's whereabouts, which would set up End of the Line.
In a similar manner to characters like Sweet or Ryder, Big Bear has a full voice set, indicating that he was meant to appear on the street (probably during a mission). His voice lines include him shouting at gang members, implying he was meant to be armed.
Character[]
Appearance[]
Big Bear is seen as quite thin, with a pale face and dark brown eyes, large ears and short black hair. His clothes are an orange checkered button-down shirt, blue jeans and white sneakers.
An unused model of him named Bb can be found in the game files[2]. This other model depicts a much fatter Big Bear, with slightly differently shaped facial features, but he is wearing the same clothes although it is never used in the game. It was probably going to be used in the beta Looking for Big Smoke mission. The used Big Bear model is called Bbthin in the game files, which suggests that Big Bear would have lost or gained weight during the storyline.
There are three cutscene models for Big Bear, an unused (fat) one csbigbear, the used thin onecsbigbearthin and another unused model called csbigbear2[3]. The third model is overweight and seen wearing gray pants and a black cap under a dark green hood. This model is a recolored version of the Grove Street Families Fam1 model.
In deleted dialogue between Bear and CJ, CJ mentions how Bear's drug addiction changed his appearance, and Bear replies by saying "Best diet I've ever been on", further implying that Bear was initially overweight before his addiction.
This weight fluctuation appears to be a direct reference to his voice actor Kurt Alexander (a.k.a. Big Boy)'s battle with obesity and his duodenal switch surgery in 2003 and subsequent hospitalization which nearly resulted in his death[4].
Prominent Appearances in Gameplay[]
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas[]
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ (11/12/2024)Full name revealed in the in-game credits, official manual and promotional material.
\TEXT\american.gxt[CRED286] Barry "Big Bear" Thorne - Big Boy
- ↑
The unused fat Big Bear model.
- ↑
The csbigbear2 model
- ↑ Big Boy's weight loss story.
