History YMMV / TotalDrama

** Despite the controversy revolving around the less-than-accurate depiction of his disorder, fans with Dissociative Identity Disorder (or other neurodivergent conditions) often relate to Mike since he is a rare example of a character with DID who is portrayed as a hero, and with him and his alters overall being portrayed sympathetically. They often flesh out his symptoms and implied trauma in fan works to make him more realistic. His experience with ableism at the hands of Scott in "Grand Chef Auto", unlike the portrayal of his condition, is far more accurate and something many neurodivergent people can relate to, which only served to make him even more popular.

* HollywoodHomely:
** Jo is supposed to be so ugly that [[AnimalReactionShot a bird vomits upon seeing her nude]], but her actual design is fairly nice and no less curvy than the other girls.
** Julia's TraumaticHaircut, which shreds her hair into a messy looking mullet, is treated has the most hideous thing imaginable InUniverse, with Chef even asking if they could show it on TV. In reality, her hair just looks a little messy and a decent amount shorter and once Julia styles it a bit, she'd no doubt look fine. Many fans have even said they think [[FansPreferTheNewHer her mullet is a good look on her]].

* HollywoodHomely: Jo is supposed to be so ugly that [[AnimalReactionShot a bird vomits upon seeing her nude]], but her actual design is fairly nice and no less curvy than the other girls.

** The 2023 continuation, though not without its flaws, has been positively received compared to both halves of season 5 and especially ''Dramarama'', and regarded as a worthy follow-up to the classic seasons. Among other things, the characters' more grounded portrayals resemble the beloved ''Island'' cast more than the divisive ''Revenge'' and ''Pahkitew'' players, the voting is more strategic than ever, the lack of a RomanticPlotTumor (though there are romance arcs, they take up much less screentime than Mike/Zoey, Dave/Sky, or Shawn/Jasmine), and unlike ''All-Stars'' and ''Pahkitew Island'', everyone is BackForTheFinale.

** Teenagers being forces to compete in life-threatening challenges in a reality tv show, ''Total Drama'' may be considered to be an LighterAndSofter animated adaptation of ''Literature/TheHungerGames''.

* [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation/TotalDrama Alternate Character Interpretation]]

** Several people who shipped Wayne and Julia moved to shipping Julia with MK due to their LesYay filled alliance in the second season of the reboot. That said, the pairing still has a decent amount of supporters all things considered.

** Many complained about Priya making it all the way to [[spoiler:the final 4]] again in Part 2 of ''Island (2023)'', [[spoiler:appearing throughout the entire season again]].[[note]](Julia was spared from such reactions due to her popular role as the BigBad and her warmly-welcomed VillainousFriendship with MK, whereas Priya was stuck in a polarizing RomanticPlotTumor with Caleb)[[/note]] However, it's always been a RecurringElement that contestants who made it to the final 4 of their generation's debut season made it to the final 4 again. Owen and Duncan do so in ''Action'', Heather does so in ''World Tour'', whereas Gwen, Scott, and Zoey all do so in ''All-Stars''. Similarly, some of them have also appeared in every episode of two seasons before, namely Duncan, Gwen, Heather, and Zoey. The difference is that, with the only exception of Zoey, none of them were involved in a RomanticPlotTumor in seasons they achieved that in.

** A common criticism regarding Julia's role as villain during the second season of the reboot is that a lot of her accomplishments, such as [[spoiler:orchestrating Nichelle, Bowie, and MK's eliminations, or stealing Damien's immunity idol]], were all done off-screen with very little build-up or explanation as to how she managed to pull off said feats. However, villains acting off-screen isn't something that hadn't happened in the show before, with some examples being Heather convincing the Gophers to vote for Justin in ''Island'', Alejandro getting Tyler in an alliance and orchestrating Noah's elimination in ''World Tour'', Scott finding the immunity idol in ''Revenge of the Island'', Sugar informing Chris about Ella singing in ''Pahkitew Island'', or even [[spoiler:Bowie orchestrating Caleb's elimination in the previous season]]. It's just that these occurrences were very scarce and the exception rather than the rule, while one could argue that ''most'' of Julia's deeds were executed without the audience knowing about it until the last second.

** Due to her all-consuming obsession with ''Total Drama'' and lack of social skills, many fans believe that Sierra is autistic.
*** Alternatively, given her obsession with Cody, as well as Total Drama as a whole (to the point of knowing obscure personal details), some fans believe that Sierra suffers from Celebrity Worship Syndrome.

* HarsherInHindsight: In "Basic Straining", Ezekiel's [[{{FaceOnAMilkCarton}} face is on a milk carton]] in the fridge that Duncan and Courtney are stealing from. By the end of ''World Tour'', the now feral Ezekiel goes missing, occasionally popping back up on the plane, only to live on Boney as of ''All-Stars'', with his parents being implied to look for him via a wanted poster in ''WesternAnimation/TotalDramaPresentsTheRidonculousRace''.

** After Gwen and Courtney became friends in season 3, at least before "I See London...", there was interest in the idea of Courtney/Duncan/Gwen as a threesome.

** A common criticism regarding Julia's role as villain during the second season of the reboot is that a lot of her antagonistic actions, such as [[spoiler:orchestrating Nichelle, Bowie, and MK's eliminations, or stealing Damien's immunity idol]], were all done off-screen with very little build-up or explanation as to how she managed to pull off said feats. However, villains doing evil actions off-screen isn't something that hadn't happened in the show before, with some examples being Heather convincing the rest of the Gophers to vote for Justin in ''Island'', Alejandro getting Tyler in an alliance and orchestrating Noah's elimination in ''World Tour'', Scott finding the immunity idol in ''Revenge of the Island'', or Sugar informing Chris about Ella singing in ''Pahkitew Island''. It's just that these occurrences were very scarce and the exception rather than the rule, while one could argue that ''most'' of Julia's deeds were executed without the audience knowing about it until the last second.

** [[AgeGapRomance Blaineley and Geoff]].

** MK's antisocial and sarcastic nature combined with the reveal of how she hacked the confessionals made her largely disliked by her fellow campers, but she has no shortage of fans who love her strategic mindset, dry sense of humor, and the fact that she at least has some standards.

** Sam in ''All-Stars'' is hated for being a really pointless addition to the cast of mostly main characters, who contributed nothing to the plot. The writers failed to do anything significant with him, save for getting a poorly done SnapBack when he helped win a challenge, making him a very FlatCharacter whose only defining traits from the last season (video game obsession and having a crush on Dakota) are very underplayed. Instead, he becomes ChewToy fodder who is [[TheLoad even more useless than last season]] and doesn't provide any contribution except for "Food Fright" where he ends up stuffing up by [[RulesLawyer technically not completing the challenge]]. And even worse, his inclusion meant [[EnsembleDarkhorse more popular]] and noticeably more heroic ''Revenge'' alumni Dawn and Brick would [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter not be included in the cast]]. A lot of All-Stars' rewrites will even replace him because of his performance. Many feel that either Owen or Harold could have filled his role as either the "overweight comedy relief" or nerd voiced by Creator/{{Brian Froud|Actor}} respectively, even if it would have meant throwing off the balance between first gen and second gen characters.

** Heather in ''World Tour''. Despite being willing to be a team player, she is treated like she is plotting against the others. Especially evident when Heather tried to warn Leshawna about Alejandro and Leshawna attacked her.
** Anne Maria to the older fans. She was supposed to be the HateSink because of getting in the way of Mike and Zoey's relationship. However, because of having a distinct personality and interactions with others, many of them preferred her to Zoey. Especially when Zoey became the SpotlightStealingSquad in ''All-Stars''.

** During the second season of the reboot, many fans admitted to wanting to see Julia and/or MK come out on top, in spite of them being the main villains who cheated and manipulated their way through the game, simply because they were so charismatic and their VillainousFriendship plot being widely considered to be the highlight of the season. The fact the rest of the cast bar Damien, Caleb, Nichelle, and Priya not doing much of anything all season is a huge factor as well.

** Bridgette's kind, down-to-Earth nature has resulted in her being a popular shipping target. Along with her canonical boyfriend Geoff, she's also been paired with DJ (due to them both being [[NiceGuy nice people]]), Ezekiel (because of his unrequited crush on her) Cody and Noah (as both also have [[LauncherOfAThousandShips lots of ships]]), and others.

* [[CharacterDerailment/TotalDrama Broken Base]]

* AssPull:
** In "Up the Creek", the Killer Bass are left stranded in Boney Island after their paddles are destroyed, so they decide to pile up all their canoes and ask DJ to flutter-kick them back to Wawanakwa. However, DJ somehow manages to outswim the opposing team, crossing the finish line and securing victory. Not only does his strength come out of nowhere, but previous episodes heavily suggested that he was a terrible swimmer, due to suffering from hydrophobia.
** Leshawna's elimination in ''Island (2007)''. Chris gives the eliminated campers the chance to vote off one of the remaining contestants, but decides to count any mention of a camper's name as a vote against them. As soon as Izzy realizes this, she angrily tells everyone to stop saying Leshawna's name, but a random parrot appears out of nowhere and starts doing just that. As Chris accepts the bird's words as valid votes, Leshawna loses the competition by a landslide.
** In "I See London...", the teams must search for clues to help them capture a person disguised as Jack the Ripper. However, Team Amazon misinterprets one of the clues and decides to look for the criminal in Whitechapel, where they randomly run into Duncan. Embarrassed that they would have to go back empty-handed, Courtney and Gwen kidnap their former castmate and present him to Chris. The end result is that, with no foreshadowing whatsoever, Duncan is forced back into the game, while the team that ''did'' manage to catch Jack the Ripper is declared the loser.
** Gwen's elimination in ''World Tour'', where she loses the tie-breaker to Courtney due to an eucalyptus allergy, a condition never foreshadowed.
** For some fans, Mal's very existence. As one of the many reasons Mike's evil personality Mal is so divisive is the fact that there was no foreshadowing or hint to Mike having another personality in ''Revenge'', especially one that was responsible for getting him thrown in juvenile detention years back. There is also the issue of it creating a PlotHole in ''Grand Chef Auto'' where after Mike gets knocked out from being struck in the head by Scott, Mal doesn't awaken despite head injury being established to be his trigger.
** In "Sundae Muddy Sundae":
*** Courtney shows in a confessional that she has drawn a chart detailing how she plans to eliminate the remaining campers. Mal later exposes it to turn the contestants against her, but how he managed to get his hands on it is left unexplained.
*** Near the end of the episode, a bird randomly vomits on Courtney's sundae. This causes her to lose the challenge, as she is unable to eat it when Chris changes the rules so the campers must eat their own desserts. It makes even less sense when you remember Season 3's "Chinese Fake-Out," in which Courtney's self-proclaimed strong stomach enabled her to consume a variety of disgusting foods.
** In "The Final Wreck-ening", Mike gathers his alter-egos to fight Mal and reclaim his body. Ultimately, the key to this is a very literal reset button that would erase all of Mike's personalities including Mal; he does so and supposedly absorbs a little of all of his personas while Mal simply vanishes.
** Zee's elimination in ''Island (2023)'', which involves Chris nullifying the original voting and letting the contestants vote ''again'' at their request just because of a change of mind about who to eliminate.
** Chase's crippling pizza addiction in "A Pole Lot of Trouble", which comes absolutely out of nowhere and only serves as a device to get him and Emma back together and eliminate Chase from the competition.
** Ripper suddenly having a crush on Axel in the second episode of the second season of the reboot comes out of nowhere and directly contradicts him calling Priya picking her for the team the "worst pick yet".
** Many of Julia’s accomplishments in Season 2 of ''Island 2023'' come across as this due to the fact that they all happened offscreen. From her inexplicably being able to forge a convincing film contract to trick Nichelle into quitting, to convincing the others that it was Bowie’s idea to have MK cheat for their team (despite everyone knowing Julia’s untrustworthy, as well as her rivalry with Bowie), to finding the immunity idol without any explanation as to when or how she found it.

* DesignatedHero:
** Cody in ''World Tour''. While Sierra's treatment of him does crosses many lines, some felt he was hypocritical for his continued obsession with Gwen, even after she and Duncan hook up. That said, Cody’s behavior towards Gwen is nowhere near as dangerous and disturbing as Sierra’s treatment of Cody.
** Duncan, while the show doesn't try to hide the fact he's a bully, he keeps getting treated by others as the good guy up against the real villain. Particularly prevalent in ''All-Stars'' where there's his InUniverse VillainDecay leading to everyone (especially Chris) who keeps hailing him as a hero.
** Chris deemed Gwen a villain in season five for the sin of "stealing" her friend's boyfriend yet ignored the actions of most of the original line up of the Heroic Hamsters:
*** Regardless that she is manipulated by Heather to do so, Lindsay still went along with her to ruin Gwen's relationship with Trent in season one, which is only one of the many things she did during their alliance. That the others never reprimanded her for siding with Heather for most of the season and only sees her as an unwilling accomplice makes her elimination a rather mild punishment.
*** Courtney's already a rude person to begin with and has shown to be willing to do anything to win, from betraying her own boyfriend or dropping several contestants from a hot-air balloon. It's small wonder that she is eventually transfer over to the other team.
*** Sierra spent the whole of season three obsessing over Cody and the rest of the cast, which supposingly makes her seem ill-suited to the title of "hero". Rarely she is shown being nice to anyone who isn't Cody and her violent tendencies are rather extreme, having the intention to ''kill'' Heather in one episode with a drill.
** Mike, as he seems to have absolutely no problems with keeping damaging secrets from others, only to hurt them even more than he did when he revealed them.
** Sky falls into this boat for some because of how harshly she treats Dave late in the season, her overly competitive nature coming off as largely unjustified to them, and her moments of hypocrisy earning her negative comparisons to Courtney. It doesn't help that many have also drawn negative parallels with Zoey.
%% ** Emma in ''Island (2023)'' is supposed to come across as a sympathetic NiceGirl. However, her obsessive JerkassToOne attitude towards Chase (who, [[KarmicButtMonkey while deserving of it]], often makes Emma look extremely petty and childish), her getting back with him despite ''multiple'' red flags and warnings from other contestants, and her UngratefulBitch attitude towards her former best friend Bowie once she learns he voted for Chase can severely overshadow her more endearing qualities in the eyes of fans.