Characters / South Park: Eric Cartman

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Eric Theodore Cartman

"Screw you guys, I'm going home."
^{Click here to see The Coon}

^{Click here to see him as an adult (original future)}

^{Click here to see him as an adult (revised future)}

^{Click here to see his Panderverse self}

Kyle: "He's a fat, racist, self-centered, intolerant, manipulating sociopath."

Voiced in English by: Trey Parker, Janeshia Adams-Ginyard (Panderverse)

Voiced in French by: Christophe Lemoine

Voiced in Japanese by: Ann-Sophie Lennerfors, aka "LiLiCo" (WOWOW and Netflix dubs), Kimiko Saito (Fox Japan dub), Tetsuya Yanagihara (South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut)

Voiced in Latin American Spanish by: Vivian Ruiz (Seasons 1-2), Patricia Azan (Season 3 onwards and all redubs), José Antonio Macías (Mexican dub, both Bigger, Longer & Uncut dubs, and adult)

Voiced in German by: Jörg Stuttmann, Santiago Ziesmer (South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Singing only)

Debut: "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe"

The fat kid of the group. Incredibly foul-mouthed, spoiled, sadistic, narcissistic, bigoted, and sociopathic but the other boys keep him around because they know he won't get along well with anyone else. Among other things, he hates hippies, gingers, Wendy Testaburger's liberal views, people making fun of his weight, going to school^note or "skewl", as he pronounces it, and the "random" humor of Family Guy. He also had an intense hatred towards Jewish people prior to Season 16's "Jewpacabra", where he ended up experiencing all the suffering the Jewish went through in his nightmares, which brought himself to accept and convert to Judaism... temporarily.

His role in Coon and Friends is The Coon.

See also his self-demonstrating page.

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A-E

• Absurd Phobia: A good chunk of Into The Panderverse revolves around his fear of being replaced with a diverse woman by Kathleen Kennedy.
• Abusive Offspring: He is generally bossy with his mother, giving orders and even insulting her often.
  Cartman: MOM, GET THE DOOR!!!
• Accidental Misnaming: Played With. Cartman knew Tolkien was named after J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings, but spells it "Token" because he's a dumbass.
• Acrofatic: While usually very out of shape, he proves to be surprisingly athletic as The Coon, scaling buildings and a half-destroyed roller coaster with apparently little effort. Then this trope is subverted majorly in "1%" when his atrocious fitness causes an otherwise average class (and the whole school) to fail a national fitness test, then inverted in "The New Terrance and Phillip Movie Trailer", in which he is unable to keep up with the rest of the gang as they run throughout the town.
• Act of True Love: Cartman proves his devotion to his wife by complying to her wishes and helps Stan and Kyle fix the future, even if it may cost his happiness and family.
• Adaptation Name Change: He was called Kenny in the original Jesus VS Frosty short.
• Adaptational Heroism: Most of his portrayals in the video games, particularly the modern installments, tend to portray him in a positive light, well as postive as you can get with a Fat Bastard who prides himself in being antisemitic.
• Adorably Precocious Child: Yes, even Cartman occasionally has these moments when he's playing with the other boys. Despite being incredibly short-sighted, he is incredibly business savvy, can be a surprisingly eloquent speaker, and has managed to become rich and famous overnight on several occasions. However, he usually wastes all this effort in getting the latest video game console, winning a bet against someone, or simply prove a point. The "adorable" part comes with the Kiddie Kid attitude he displays when he gets (or thinks he's going to get) what he wants.
• Afraid of Needles: In "Shots!!!", he hates needles so much that he'll run around squealing like a pig whenever someone tries to give him a shot.
• Alas, Poor Villain: A non-lethal version. In South Park: Post Covid: The Return of Covid, his self-destructive behavior leads him to become a homeless alcoholic whom nobody wants to be around. This would be pitiful enough if it weren't for the fact that he ended up like this because his original future self went back in time and willingly sacrificed his happy ending so that Stan, Kyle, and Kenny could have a second chance at earning theirs, which prevented him from leaving South Park, meeting Yentl, and having a Heel–Faith Turn; instead leading him down a path of complete misery and loneliness. Stan and even Kyle feel extreme pity for him.
  Stan: Man, poor Cartman [Cartman is across the street throwing drunken fits].
  Kyle: It's so sad he never did anything with his life.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Despite being a bully himself, Cartman was very often ostracized by the other kids in the first four seasons for his obesity. It's strongly implied that this is one of the many misfortunes of his that inspired his evil tendencies.
• The Alcoholic: Cartman becomes one when he ends up homeless in the revised future. He's shown drinking hard liquor before screaming insults at his former friends while he's drunk and holding the liquor bottle.
• All Take and No Give: Cartman demands to have everything handed over to him whenever he wants something and he usually has his friends do the work for whatever he needs or wants done while he doesn't do any of the heavy duty stuff himself. Cartman never gives anyone anything unless it's part of a scheme he has planned and he hardly ever gives words of thanks when it's due, especially to his mother.
• Allegorical Character: He's the embodiment of bigotry. His numerous racist conspiracy theories are filled with holes and logical fallacies and he's generally pretty stupid, but he's stunningly persuasive and able to rally countless people to his way of thinking and aid his plans, much like how bigotry is pervaded in reality. He'll also cloak his true intentions behind a veneer of good intentions, while secretly being motivated entirely by spite for whatever group he's targeting and wanting an excuse to torment people.
• The Aloner: Once everyone, including his friends, severs their ties with Cartman, he ends up completely alone and isolated from people; as a result, he grows up to be a drunk, crazy homeless man who’s extremely miserable. His only method of communicating with the people who used to be associated with him is to angrily curse at them, which certainly doesn’t draw them into wanting to be with him.
• Ambiguously Bi:
  • Although he was shown to have had feelings for Wendy and Patty Nelson, he has also frequently shown heavily repressed attraction to men, among other strange tendencies. In various episodes, he's been known to dress like Britney Spears and dance with a Justin Timberlake stand-up, joins NAMBLA, takes a picture of Butters' penis in his mouth (then tries to take one of his penis in Butters' mouth), and in "Fat Butt and Pancake Head", his hand puppet Jennifer Lopez has sex with Ben Affleck. However, some of these instances, particularly NAMBLA and the pictures of him and Butters, can be chalked up to him simply being too naïve and stupid to understand what he's really doing.
  • His hatred for Kyle often leads into sexual humiliation that carries these implications, including going to great lengths to force Kyle to suck his balls in "Imaginationland", his delights in forcing Kyle to stick his finger up his ass (to activate the probe stuck in there, mind you) in "Cancelled", forcing Kyle to literally kiss his ass (and then farting in his face when he gets close enough) in "Fun with Veal", and offering to suck Kyle's balls in "Go God Go". Then there's "Cartman Finds Love", in which he keeps telling people he and Kyle are gay lovers in order to keep Kyle from interfering with Cartman's plans to make Nicole hook up with Token.
  • In "Tweek x Craig", it's implied the imaginary Cupid version of himself represents his repressed attraction to guys... or his love for himself. Then, of course, a season after that he actually gets his first girlfriend.
  • In the episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft", he asks Clyde "Voulez vous coucher avec moi?" when trying to persuade him to play. The phrase translates to "Do you want to sleep with me?".
• Ambition Is Evil:
  • In "The Red Badge of Gayness", he bets Kyle and Stan that if the Confederacy wins in a Civil War reenactment, the pair will have to be his slaves. Stan and Kyle know that this being a reenactment, the Confederacy has no chance of winning. What does Cartman do? He motivates them to fight for real, leads them across America, gets enough manpower to field an actual army along the way ("It's just like the million man march, except that there actually are a million people.") and then marches them to the White House.
  • Then there's the time he bets Stan and Kyle that he can produce a platinum album (1 million copies sold) by taking advantage of Christian rock and only fails in the end because they only give out myrrh albums instead of platinum ones.
• Angrish: His hilariously unique vocal mannerisms lead to this being used a lot. Hell, he'll use his rasped garbles for almost any occasion: one of his most memorable moments involved him delving into this out of dumbfounded jubilation in "Cartmanland".
• Animal Motifs: The pig. He's gluttonous, fat, has a loud squealing voice when he complains, and he had a pet pig early on in the series. He's also been likened to a pig by several other characters.
• Anti-Hero: Prior to his infamous plot to humiliate Scott Tenorman. He then becomes a Villain Protagonist until he goes back to being an Anti-Hero in the second half of Season 15. From Season 17 onwards, he starts alternating between Anti-Hero and Villain Protagonist.
• Anti-Role Model: He is often made the voice of political views the creators disagree with, and is also a fat, moronic, sociopathic, and all-around-awful person.
• Anti-Villain: Surprisingly becomes this in "Return of Covid". While Cartman does try to prevent Stan and Kyle from fixing the future and eventually plots to have Kyle killed in the past, it is solely out of fear that he'll lose his family if the future is changed.
• Apathetic Student: And that's when he's not actively causing trouble for his teachers or classmates. He does get invested in projects and exams, but he always goes out of his way to cheat in them, such as hiring Mexicans to do it, cheating off Tolkien, and using ChatGPT to get an unfair advantage.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: In "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe", Cartman denies that he was abducted by aliens and got an anal probe inserted inside him, even as he farts flames and has the probe protruding from his ass. When aliens blast Kenny into oncoming cattle, thus killing him, Cartman even denies that Kenny is dead, despite having (presumably) seen what happened right before his eyes.
• Arch-Enemy: For Kyle. The two clash with each other the most due to Kyle's strong moral compass and Cartman's complete lack of such. Plus Kyle's usually on the receiving end of Cartman's Anti-Semitism.
• The Atoner:
  • Became this in "The Death of Eric Cartman". Not because he felt remorse for his past actions or even cared that he might go to Hell for them, but so that he could stop being a ghost. He wasn't really a ghost; his friends were just ignoring him.
  • Of a somewhat self-preserving sort as of Season 20. As he recognizes Political Correctness is here to stay, he tries to integrate himself into it, with varying levels of sincerity and success. Getting together with Heidi has certainly helped.
  • Averted completely in season 21, as Cartman becomes abusive to Heidi, even trying to get her killed just because she made him late to a pumpkin patch. It is also implied towards the end of season 20 that he never really changed.
  • Though he has a Heel–Faith Turn in Post Covid as an adult, he also seems to expect everyone to forgive and forget his horrific actions as a kid, which Kyle understandably isn't willing to do, and views him as a Karma Houdini. However, he finally plays this trope straight by choosing to sacrifice his perfect life to travel to the past, help his friends fix the future, and give them another chance to Earn Their Happy Ending, which ruined his.
• Attention Whore: He interrupts class a lot just to get attention among other things. He stays in his relationship with Heidi precisely for the attention she gives him, despite how miserable it makes him.
• Ax-Crazy: He is known for infamously chopping up the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Tenorman and feeding them to their own son in the form of chili, in the infamous "Scott Tenorman Must Die" episode. He shows signs of full-blown psychosis at times, and generally has a narcissistic, psychopathic nature.
• Babysitter's Nightmare: In "Tsst!", several nannies are hired for the nigh-impossible task of taming Cartman, all to no avail. He even breaks Supernanny, causing her to become institutionalized while she eats her own shit.
  Jo Frost: It's from Hell... It's from Heeeeeell!
• Bad Black Barf: In one of the creepier moments of the series, coming to the revelation that the world doesn't revolve around him in the episode, "Tsst" causes him to literally puke out his evil in the form of black vomit, and he then goes on to start "glitching" and screaming in a supernatural fashion.
• The Bad Guy Wins: The infamous "Scott Tenorman Must Die". Also one of the biggest Karma Houdini moments ever. Aside from that episode, there are several moments over the show's run where he's come out on top. However, he loses just as often as he wins.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: Despite his occasional fondness for them, Cartman has an often habit of antagonizing living things.
  • He would frequently smack his pet cat and pig in the earlier seasons for trying to get some of his food.
  • It was mentioned in "Douche and Turd" that he broke Kenny's pet cat's leg.
  • A plot point of "Proper Condom Use" was Cartman literally jacking a dog off in pursuit of its semen.
  • While visiting the rainforest in "Rainforest Schmainforest", Cartman beats every animal he comes across with a stick to "assert dominance".
• Bad Review Threat: In "You're Not Yelping", he uses the threat of posting overly negative reviews to extort free food from every restaurant in town.
• Bad Samaritan: "Crack Baby Basketball Athletic Association" has him adopt crack babies only to force them to fight wrestling matches over crack that he broadcasts over the internet. He even manages to rope Kyle into helping him for a while.
• Bait the Dog: Any time where it's hinted Cartman could have redeeming qualities or genuinely doing something out of the goodness of his heart, it's subverted brutally subverted. It's most notable in Seasons 20 and 21, where he seemingly genuinely starts becoming a better person after starting a relationship with Heidi, only to reveal he's just as bad as ever and actively start trying to drag her down to his level.
• Barbaric Bully: A Fat Bastard example. He takes pleasure in tormenting others (mainly Kyle and Butters), has anger issues, and can be rather simple-minded.
• Bastard Bastard: He's the product of Jack Tenorman's affair with his slutty mother, and a Jerkass on his best days.
• Batman Gambit: In "Scott Tenorman Must Die", Cartman exploits Unspoken Plan Guarantee by telling a fake plot to humiliate Scott to Stan and Kyle, correctly thinking they'd sabotage it.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: A raging antisemite in his childhood years grows up to become an orthodox Jewish rabbi as an adult.
• Becoming the Mask:
  • He becomes "Mr. Cartmenez" in "Eek, a Penis!" for his own personal gain, but by the end of the episode he becomes genuinely sincere in wanting to "reeeach these kiiiids" and teach them "the white person way of cheating".
  • Whatever his original motivations were for becoming an outwardly kind, generous father and rabbi, The Return of Covid shows that he truly does love his family and will do anything to ensure their safety. He even sacrifices his own newfound happiness, knowing deep down that he'll turn out a far worse person for it, for the sake of his friends.
• Being Evil Sucks: Cartman's evil actions would usually bring him more misery than they do successes which Cartman realizing on occasion only for his ego to cause Cartman not to take any responsibility and remain a horrible person no matter how much he'll suffer from it. In fact he'll grow up to be a homeless alcoholic in a future where he refused to change, while a different future shows that Cartman could be genuinely happy if he decided to reform.
• Believing Their Own Lies: "Jewpacabra" in a form of self-administered karma. Subverted in "Fat Butt and Pancake Head", where it appears as if he legitimately believes that Jennifer Lopez is a living being residing on his left hand, however at the end of the episode, he reveals that the entire thing was a ploy to get Kyle to admit that he'd duped him, as Kyle had predicted he would do throughout the entire episode. In "Buddha Box", he claimed to suffer from anxiety, using it as an excuse to not interact with others. By the time of "Unfulfilled", he seemed to genuinely believe he suffered from the condition.
• Berserk Button:
  • He usually just makes a quick rebuttal when he's called fat, but occasionally it falls into this.
  • Don't scam him out of his money and refuse to give it back.
  • Never, ever let him think his penis is smaller than any other fourth grader.
  • Speaking of penis, never shoot someone there.
  • If you compare his sense of humour to Family Guy, he will react violently to such comparisons.
• Betty and Veronica:
  • He served as the Veronica to Stan's Betty to Wendy's Archie in the earlier seasons.
  • And also served as the Veronica to Kyle's Betty to Heidi's Archie in Season 21.
• Beyond Redemption: In the revised future, Butters tells Stan and Kyle not to feel sorry for Cartman being a homeless and miserable drunk explaining that nothing could have saved Cartman from himself.
• Big Bad: Has been this on many occasions, and is effectively the main antagonist of the series overall.
• Big Bad Duumvirate:
  • Forms one with Cthulhu in the "Coon And Friends" trilogy, where the two proceed to destroy everything the former doesn't like.
  • Forms another one with the Record Producer in Season 18’s two-part finale, which leads to Cartman becoming the Final Boss of that season.
• Big Bad Ensemble: With President Garrison in Season 21. Cartman has returned to his Sociopathic Jerkass self, is emotionally abusing his girlfriend Heidi, and manipulating her into staying with him by feeding her junk food and corrupting her with his Anti-Semitic beliefs, turning her into his Distaff Counterpart. The latter becomes a Serial Rapist towards his staff, sends tweets challenging North Korea inadvertently killing children along the way, nukes Canada because of tensions caused by Kyle's Millennials Against Canada group, and in the season finale, the residents hunt him down to turn him in to Justin Trudeau, while he lurks around South Park like the creature from IT.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Cartman reveals himself to be this. While he has been the Big Bad on occasion, his schemes only work if he can manipulate people into following his whims and if he can't do that, he's a very petty and inept dumbass whose plans backfire tremendously on himself. This is shown with his interactions with his mother during The Streaming Wars, whose become wise to Cartman's tactics while Cartman doesn't accomplish anything. In fact, if Cartman continues to remain evil, Cartman will just end up homeless and miserable in the revised future while the only thing that he managed to accomplish in the long run was drive everyone away from him with his awful behavior to the point where Butters wants nothing to do with him.
• The Big Guy: When siding with his friends.
• Big Eater: TV's most beloved Fat Bastard.
  • When Kenny is brought Back from the Dead as a zombie in "Pinkeye", Cartman steals his school lunch and eats it along with his since he's no longer being responsive.
  • In "City on the Edge of Forever", Cartman eats an entire chocolate cake that could theoretically feed the entire school bus for about... a day or so, at least. Which they happen to get trapped inside as it gets stuck on the edge of a cliff.
    Cartman: No... I don't think I can... hold any more of this cake... [eats more of the cake]
  • During the beginning of "The Death of Eric Cartman", Cartman eats all the skin off of an order of extra crispy KFC for all four of the boys.^note This results in one of the mere three instances in the entire series where Kenny actually cries (the others being "It's Christmas in Canada" and "The China Probrem"). He ends up rupturing his spleen and clogging the toilet when defecating it, causing him to actually believe himself dead (although he began suspecting that he was dead when the other boys acted like he wasn't there as retaliation for eating all of the chicken skin).
  • Kyle puts it best when Cartman is late for a game of World of Warcraft:
    Kyle: You wouldn't have diarrhea if you didn't eat so much, fatass!
• Big "NO!": Often combined with Little "No" whenever something is Serious Business.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He can be this at times, acting nice in front of the adults while hiding the fact he has a notorious scheme on his hands. One notable example is in "Le Petit Tourette" where he pretends to be an innocent little boy with Tourette's Syndrome so he can have the excuse of doing whatever he wants.
• Bizarre Taste in Food: Among his favorite dishes are "Powdered Donut Pancake Surprise", "Chocolate Chicken Pot Pie", and "Toaster Pastry Chocolate Mix Butter Bar". The last one consists of a stick of butter rolled in chocolate milk flavoring powder and sandwiched between two Pop-Tarts. He also eats Cheesy Poofs like cereal, meaning he pours them into a bowl followed by milk.
• The Blind Leading the Blind: Whenever paired with Butters, Cartman attempts to incorporate rationality in the former despite being almost as, if not equally, oblivious as him.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Almost any time Cartman does something that's (at least in his mind) purely unselfish in deed or intent, his reasoning can be a bit... out there.
• Boring, but Practical: Cartman himself is at the receiving end of this. Everyone eventually realizing the best way to actually deal with Cartman is to just ignore him. It works because Cartman is such a massive Attention Whore he can't stand people ignoring him, yet is unable to do anything when they don't fall for his manipulations. The boys decide to ignore Cartman, which drives him insane to the point where he thinks he's a ghost. Heidi decides to ignore Cartman after breaking up with him for the final time, while Cartman is unable to follow through with his threats of killing himself. Even his mother decides to ignore him when he is unable to manipulate her into getting breast implants, instead winding up with them himself. In fact, ignoring him is how everyone manages to permanently end his threat in the revised future, where after cutting all ties and contact with Cartman, he goes mad from loneliness and ends up becoming a friendless, homeless, and miserable alcoholic who does nothing but scream insults at people while possessing none of the manipulative and scheming tendencies he use to have.
• Boisterous Weakling: Cartman likes to think he's imposing and dangerous but has basically no defense from being actually attacked. In "Something Wal-Mart This Way Comes", Kenny is able to easily stall him by lightly hitting him, and at the end of "Christmas in Canada", he cries out for his mommy when Kyle gives him a tiny jab to his face. In "Breast Cancer Show Ever", he's perfectly willing to antagonize Wendy right up until she'll fight him, then spends the entire episode trying to avoid the conflict he willfully spawned. Wendy quickly wipes the floor with him.
• Book Dumb: He refuses to care about anything that does not immediately help him, especially school. He never pays attention in school and remains ignorant (although it's not like one could blame him considering Mr. Garrison teaches his class about trivial matters 90% of the time). Despite this problem, he forms very detailed plans, considers complex issues and is a brilliant manipulator.
• Boomerang Bigot:
  • In "Ginger Kids", Cartman, after picking on and fearing gingers for half the episode, falls prey to a prank that convinces him that he is a ginger and forms a Nazi-like cult devoted to exterminating non-gingers. And in "201", it's revealed that he actually is half-ginger. Also, in a twisted way, it has been implied on numerous occasions that he is possibly a Child Hater.
  • He constantly rips on Kenny for being poor, but in "The Poor Kid", when Kenny goes to another school, he becomes the poorest kid in school. His response to this is to tearfully make "your mom is so poor" jokes at himself.
• Borrowed Catch Phrase: In "Clubhouses".
  Cartman: Oh my God, they killed Kenny!
  Kyle: [walking outside Cartman's yard, but suddenly stops and turns towards the clubhouse] You bastards! [continues walking past the yard like nothing happened]
• Bratty Half-Pint: He whines to his mother whenever she is unable to get him something and throws temper tantrums until she lets him have what he wants. One of his catchphrases in the earlier seasons was "But moooooooom..."
• Break Her By Talking: In "Tsst", he gives Nanny Stella a vicious speech about how nobody ever wanted to marry her and how she'll never have biological children of her own, while all her friends do.
• Breakout Character: Cartman has become the most prominent, iconic and popular character on the show thanks to his sociopathic Jerkass tendencies (similar to Stewie Griffin and Bender).
• Break the Comedian: Loses his sense of humor when one of his pranks, namely submitting a photography of Kenny's butt to a milk company and reporting it as a missing person, makes a couple with actual butt-like faces believe that their missing child was seen recently. Cartman is so devastated over this that he no longer feels like he'll laugh or do pranks anymore. He finally recovers when the couple reunites with their missing "child" (now a grown adult: Ben Affleck). Cartman even laughs at Kenny's death at the end of the episode.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Cartman's stupidity stems from his laziness, ignorance, childishness and refusal to apply himself. He's capable of accomplishing great things when he does, and Lord help you when he genuinely tries. This is most apparent in "My Future Self N' Me." While Cartman has shown the ability to become a millionaire multiple times in the series (e.g. "Christian Rock Hard", "Cartmanland"), this episode reveals that he ultimately ends up as a simple lower-middle class mechanic, and that if he wasn't that lazy, he would instead end up as a billionaire owner of a time travel company.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: When not manipulating her or lashing out, he served as the Brooding Boy to Heidi's Gentle Girl. Just a quick look at their pictures as a couple in "Doubling Down" is enough to prove this.
• The Bully: When not himself the victim of fat jokes, he is usually the most prominent in school, and is especially prone to leading other students into bullying other kids. In "Bass to Mouth" is revealed that he provoked a tirade of abuse on one student (for crapping his pants in public) so much that they later committed suicide.
• Bully and Wimp Pairing: The sadistic sociopath Cartman (bully) is quite frequently paired with the passive Extreme Doormat Butters (wimp).
• Bully Brutality: He often beats up his classmates and has once amputated a student Saw-style for calling him chubby.
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • His frequent harassment of Kyle and Wendy, despite both of them being more than capable of kicking his ass. This is especially prominent in "Breast Cancer Show Ever", where he tries to weasel his way out of a fight with Wendy, but as soon as he thinks he's in the clear, he goes back to mocking her, resulting in Wendy fighting him and beating him up in front of the whole school.
  • This sometimes applies to Cartman himself. While most of the time he's just a bratty, ignorant, whiny kid he's also capable of some seriously horrific feats or destruction, murder, and cruelty when sufficiently motivated. The first and most infamous example of this is in the episode "Scott Tenorman Must Die" when he sets up a bully's parents to be killed and then hacks them up to put into chili that the bully then eats. He did this over 16 dollars.
• Butt-Monkey: He's the character that the other boys make fun of the most. The pilot episode is literally about things going into and coming out of Cartman's ass. Of course, he's still a Butt-Monkey now, but he actually deserves the bad stuff that happens to him. Exaggerated in the revised timeline onwards, where none of his schemes work in his favor and suffers even more bizarre humiliations. That is not even getting to the fact that he's destined to become a homeless, lonely, and miserable alcoholic while everyone else gets blessed with a happy and fulfilled life.
• Cain and Abel: He's Scott Tenorman's half-brother, to whom he fed his own parents. They're both Jerkasses, but Cartman is the worst of the two by a long shot.
• Can't Stand Them, Can't Live Without Them: In a very twisted way, Cartman realized in "Smug Alert" that he needs Kyle around. Not because he likes him, but life without his nemesis leaves him bored out of his mind.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Depending on the Writer, Cartman can either be this or a Knight Templar. He often acknowledges that he's a horrible person and at times with pride, but other times he'll insist he's in the right and a hero. It all depends on what can better manipulate people.
• Celebrity Resemblance: The creators say that Cartman is heavily inspired by Archie Bunker, and the funny thing is that both are very similar both physically and psychologically in Jerkass tendencies.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "Screw you guys, I'm going home."
  • "Suck my balls."
  • "Kickass."
  • "I'M NOT FAT! I'M BIG BONED!"
  • "Respect my authoritah."
  • "BET MEEEAAAHM..."
  • "AW, GODDAMMIT!", assisted by a head cock and facial grimace.
  • A Running Gag is his literal inability to say any other variation of the word "serious" other than "seriously".
    Cartman: You guys, I'm seriously!
    • Speaking of which, "No! Noooooooooooooooooo!" any time something is Seriously Business.
  • "Stupid Jew", "Goddamn Jew", and everything that insults Jews.
  • "Yeah, I want Cheesy Poofs!" in earlier episodes.
  • "No, kitty, this is my [food]", followed sometimes by a whined repetition of the phrase, and sometimes concluded with, "NO, KITTEH, THAT'S A BAD KITTEH!!!"
  • Lots and lots of swearing.
    • "Motherfucker."
    • "The fuck?" Used repeatedly in "Fatbeard".
  • "Sweet." (when ecstatic)
    • "Weak." (for reverse reaction)
    • "Lame." (alternate of the above, mostly used in "AWESOM-O", but has popped up a few times since)
  • HOW DO I REECH THESE KEEEDS?^note Used in "Eek, A Penis!" when in his Mr. Cartmanez persona, teaching troubled kids how to cheat.
  • "Tits."
  • "Hella."
  • "Whateva, I do what I want."
  • "Charade you are."
  • "I'll kick you in the nuts!" Sometimes, he'll also say "I'll kick you squah in the nuts."
  • The plot of many episodes kicks off with him breathlessly screaming "You guys! YOU GUYS!!!"
• Character Development: Cartman has generally gotten more intelligent over the years. Originally, his selfish, impulsive behaviour stemmed from his absolute inability to think beyond his momentary desires. Now, however, he's usually running mental circles around Stan and Kyle and his evilness is premeditated, revealing him as an absolute villain. His whining used to only sway his mother and leave everybody else absolutely unmoved, but now he's a master of manipulation and can play huge crowds like a fiddle.
• Characterization Marches On:
  • In the first four seasons, he was a whiny spoiled brat with a high scratchy voice who begged his mother into getting whatever he wanted and picked on Kyle mainly because he didn't celebrate Christmas. Also, the others got along with him for the most part, and he had many catchphrases. From the Scott Tenorman episode onwards, he is more intelligent, conniving, manipulative, and psychopathic; his voice is lower and deeper; the other boys hate him and rarely gets along; and he rarely says any of his catchphrases anymore.
  • In the early seasons, his main antagonism was with Kenny, whom he constantly made fun of for being poor. From about Season 5 onward, his anti-Semitism is far, far more prominent than it was previously, and he literally can't speak to Kyle without making fun of him for being Jewish. The poverty jokes come up now and then, but much more rarely.
• The Charmer: He's pretty damn charismatic, and can easily rally people to his cause. Just to name a few, creating a Christian band, mobilizing the Ginger kids to take vengeance to the world, rallying the mass for an anti-Jew pogrom (though to be fair, they misunderstood what he meant), taking over an actual pirate crew... the list goes on.
• The Chessmaster: In some episodes, he can be this. Specifically in "Scott Tenorman Must Die".
• The Chew Toy: Any time Cartman suffers, it's because he deserves it. "Return of Covid" confirms that he is the biggest example of this trope by FAR where he ends up becoming a lonely and homeless drunk whose completely miserable after he sacrificed his perfect future while every other person in the show gets to live a happy life, including those that were considered major Butt Monkeys.
• Child Prodigy: Only, and ONLY when motivated by evil.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Thanks to his over-the-top prejudice and steadfast belief that nothing is ever his fault, he believes some rather... odd things.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Describing all the ways and situations in which his mom "fucks" him in "HUMANCENTiPAD".
• Comedic Sociopath: He freely manipulates and uses everybody around him according to whichever whim has him at the moment. As an example: In the episode "Ginger Kids", Cartman freely advocates denying all ginger kids basic human rights. After Stan and Kyle conspire to turn Cartman into a ginger with makeup, convinced that it is the only way he'll learn fairness, Cartman proceeds to instantly convert to the ginger cause and quickly advocates the total genocide of all non-gingers... especially the gingers who are "faking it" with makeup.
• Conspiracy Theorist: (Supposedly) believes 9/11 was caused by Kyle. He's the first one to believe that the new Muslim family in town are terrorists and spreads a rumor that the Jews control Hollywood with Cupid Ye's help.
• Control Freak: Even when Cartman loses interest in Heidi, he manipulates her, gaslights her and threatens her with suicide when she even entertains the idea of breaking up with him.
• Coordinated Clothes: After Cartman enters into a relationship with Heidi, the pair wear matching clothes throughout the rest of Season 20.
• The Corrupter: He's good at getting others to go along with his schemes, usually Butters. Taken to extremes in "Crack Baby Athletic Association", where he manages to serve as this to Kyle of all people. He also becomes one to Heidi starting in "Doubling Down".
• Crazy Homeless Person: Cartman would grow up to be one in the revised future where he lives on the street, drinks alcohol, and screams obscenities at people.
• Crazy Jealous Guy:
  • As revealed in "The Wacky Molestation Adventure", anytime his mom gets a new boyfriend he doesn't like he has them framed for child molestation.
  • After showing hints of this in Season 20 in regards to Heidi getting along with Butters, he fully becomes this in Season 21, getting angry that she would dare reach out to other suidical boys that aren't him, and later having a complete breakdown when Kyle starts dating her in "Doubling Down". In that very same episode, he tries to initiate a Cock Fight with Kyle over her but the latter knocks him out with one punch.
• Creepy Child: Ever since the Scott Tenorman incident, he's become increasingly psychotic throughout the years, going as far as attempting to kill his mother when he feels she doesn't love him anymore. Even Damien McSatan thinks there's something wrong with Cartman.
• Creepy Crossdresser: He's worn women's clothing more than once. In his article on the South Park Archives, there is a detailed statement on what could be seen as gender identity issues.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He's usually portrayed as being a wimp but even from early on he could be a badass if the situation called for it, such as by shooting multiple electric beams at Saddam Hussein (made even more impressive by the fact that it was with a chip designed to hurt him so he was probably in pain while doing it) or by creatively knocking out a whole bunch of Mexicans with a small taser and an oil truck.
• Cruel Mercy: Cartman becomes subjected to this in the revised future. Cartman’s peers and everyone else in South Park decide not to seek any retribution for all the things that he had done to them, simply cutting ties with Cartman and leaving him all by himself, and just focusing on their own happiness. Of course with no one bothering to give Cartman the attention he wants, he goes mad from loneliness, growing up to become a homeless alcoholic who’s miserable as a result of a complete lack of any human contact. This proves to be such a terrible fate for Cartman that the next time Stan and Kyle him, they consider Cartman's predicament a Fate Worse than Death and feel extreme pity for him.
• Cuckoosnarker: For all his insanity and silliness, his snark shows no slowing down.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: He has the business smarts to get filthy rich, but he cares more about humiliating Kyle. For example, he bets Kyle ten bucks he can get a platinum album before him and succeeds in selling a million records in his Christian Rock band. But he spends all the money on a celebration and ruins the band because he wanted to rub the platinum album in Kyle's face. If he wasn't so petty, he could easily be a millionaire on his own.
• Deadpan Snarker: The de facto snarkiest character in the World of Snark that is South Park. Quite possibly the snarkiest cartoon character of all time.
• Demoted to Dragon:
  • Throughout "Moss Piglets", Cartman has been doing Heidi's bidding for fear of her.
  • Cartman willingly demotes himself to being Mr. Hankey’s right-hand man in Snow Day!, helping Mr. Hankey continue carrying out the blizzard plaguing South Park.
• Depending on the Writer:
  • Cartman's luck ranges from being Karma Houdini to getting hit full-stop with Laser-Guided Karma at the end.
  • How evil Cartman is varies between episodes. He can go from being an ignorant spoiled Jerkass (or on the rare occasion, a Jerk with a Heart of Gold) to a manipulative sadistic sociopath.
  • How much baggage Cartman carries in his relationships with others zig-zags quite a lot:
    • His relationship with his "friends". They either don't mind his company or they all utterly despise him. Kyle, in particular, gets hit with this pretty bad. He can either be a "sort of friend-ish" to Cartman, (as he describes it in "The Entity") not a friend at all (as he stated in "Casa Bonita") or outright hating him. As for Stan and Kenny, he's usually closer to them without Kyle around.
    • How he reacts to his unpopularity. While he's always an Attention Whore, he switches between being either in complete denial of how people really see him and twists things around in his head so that "obviously" everyone admires him ("Breast Cancer Show Ever", "Fishsticks", "1%", "Put It Down"), or is shown to be aware of it, but makes it clear that he really couldn't care less ("Elementary School Musical", "Coon and Friends Trilogy", "Raising The Bar"). Seasons 22 and onward significantly drop the focus on this, so it's not clear what camp he's in now.
• Depraved Bisexual: He was attracted to Ben Affleck and Michael Jefferson; dressed as Britney Spears in one episode and makes out with a Justin Timberlake cardboard cutout; had a sexual affair with Leonardo DiCaprio whilst convinced he's a Vietnamese prostitute due to a head injury; is obsessed with humiliating Kyle Broflovski (even going on a cross-country quest just to make him suck his balls in "Imaginationland: The Trilogy"); blew Butters in his sleep after giving him cold medicine, then tried to convince Butters to do the same to him; and asked Clyde to sleep with him once (he was actually quoting "Lady Marmalade"; you know the lyric). But he also experienced attraction toward Wendy, Stan's girlfriend, mentioned that he had a crush on a girl named Patty Nelson, and had a crush on Bebe when she started developing breasts (along with the rest of the male 4th graders). And Heidi Turner was his first girlfriend.
• Despotism Justifies the Means: Can often convince the citizens of South Park of this.
• Determinator: While usually very lazy and stupid, Cartman is capable of incredible things once he puts his mind to it. Although these things only really benefit him and tend to fall into "evil" territory.
• Didn't Think This Through: In "City People". By refusing to listen to his mother and continuing to sabotage her career, Cartman never thinks about the fact that they'll lose their house as a result of being unable to afford the rent until it is too late and they are forced to move into a cramped hot dog stand.
• Did You Just Have Tea With Cthulhu: Cartman managed to become friends with the dark lord, Cthulhu. The two of them then flew through the sky while singing to the tune of the My Neighbor Totoro theme song.
• Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: He does this literally in "Mysterion Rises" and "Coon vs. Coon and Friends" as he actually scams Cthulhu into doing his bidding by acting sickeningly cute.
• Dirty Coward: Of particular note is the episode where he fights Wendy. His groveling begging to get out of the fight leads to this exchange:
  Wendy: I am going to make you eat your own underwear.
  Cartman: [scared shitless] There's no need, please! Look, I'm doing it now! [does so]
  Wendy: Jesus Christ, do you have no self-respect?
  Cartman: No! Unless... will you forgive me if I do?
  • Also happens when he, along with the rest of his friends, does something wrong (or even thinks that they did). In that case, he usually tries to frame it on Butters.
• Disability as an Excuse for Jerkassery:
  • He fakes Tourette's in order to get away with swearing and saying racial slurs. He also tries this in "Ass Burgers", but fails due to a very basic misunderstanding of the disease.
  • He gains more weight so he can qualify for a mobility scooter in "Raising the Bar".
  • He does this again in "Buddha Box" where he claims to suffer from anxiety, just so he can ignore social interactions, go on his phone all day, and be inconsiderate to others.
• Disproportionate Retribution: If you wrong Cartman, he will make you pay dearly.
  • In "Scott Tenorman Must Die", Scott cheats Cartman out of $16.12, makes him beg for the money back (in a very humiliating fashion), burns the money in front of him, then tapes Cartman begging for his money and shows it to the entire town of South Park. So after more mundane revenge pranks fail, Cartman lures Scott's parents to their deaths, steals the bodies, grinds them up, uses the meat to make chili, then makes Scott eat the chili. He also gets Scott's favorite band to laugh at him as he cries, while Cartman laps the tears up right off his face. Granted, Scott acted really dickish to Cartman, but even so...
    • Scott Tenorman eventually would prove the old Klingon proverb that, yes, revenge is a dish Best Served Cold, though considering what he was put through, that revenge might have been considered proportionate..
  • In "Tsst", Cartman tied a boy's ankle to the flagpole, gave him a hacksaw and told him he had poisoned his milk, and the only way to get the antidote was by hacking off his own leg. The reason for this, you might ask? The boy called Cartman "Chubby".
  • Similarly, in "T.M.I", when a psychiatrist was calling Cartman fat to see what the reaction would be, Cartman's response is for "Mitch Conner" to lie to the psychiatrist's wife that he's been chatting online with an underage girl, which leads her to shoot herself out of fear and shame. That is one fearsome Berserk Button.
  • "Tonsil Trouble": Most people would agree that laughing at someone getting AIDS is definitely a Jerkass move. Unfortunately, this is Kyle who does it and the person provoked is Eric Cartman. Cartman decides to deliberately infect Kyle with AIDS because he laughed at him. This is even more disproportionate when you consider that there was a Running Gag about Cartman laughing at the thought of Kyle getting AIDS.
• Does Not Like Spam: He led Cthulhu on a crusade against Whole Foods. "No more organic crap for America!"
• Domestic Abuse: Well on his way to being one, judging by the way he treats Heidi, as well as always blaming it on his "high blood sugar" (in a way meant to comedically draw parallels to alcoholics). When Heidi gives the reason for why she broke up with him, she blandly notes "[he] called me a whore and then pushed me in front of a car."
• Dragon with an Agenda: There are times Cartman will willingly support the Big Bad instead of taking the title himself, it is only because it may help support his own goals. A perfect example of such is during Snow Day!, where he offers to become The Dragon to Mr. Hankey so that he can have the blizzard Mr. Hankey conjured last forever so that Cartman won’t ever have to go to school.
• The Dreaded: Both Played for Laughs and Played Straight. Cartman is a complete asshole and no one really likes him so people avoid dealing with him whenever possible. On a darker level, the people who know how monstrous he can be also never push him too far and avoid doing anything that might trigger his Disproportionate Retribution. Considering he made someone eat their own parents, this is understandable.
• Dumbass No More: When the show began, Cartman started out as an ignorant Dirty Coward with about the same level of naivety as Butters, in addition to being Book Dumb. Following the infamous Scott Tenorman incident, while he still retains his gullible and childlike traits, he's definitely become more clever when it comes to plotting schemes and manipulating others, even bordering on a Child Prodigy at times.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: In the 1992 Spirit of Christmas short (which South Park spawned from), he had Kenny's name and was the victim of his They Killed Kenny Again Running Gag.
• Egocentrically Religious: Cartman identifies as a Christian, though he only ever talks about it if he tries using it to manipulate people or as an excuse to be anti-semitic.
• Elimination Catch Phrase: "Get the fudge out!"
• Enfant Terrible: A racist, bigoted, murderous, self-centered Villain Protagonist. While his attempts at being cute aren't always very successful, he's still very manipulative and is quite psychopathic.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Double-subverted, as when he tries to kill her, he suddenly finds he can't go through with it.
• Even Evil Can Be Loved:
  • Despite all the atrocious things Cartman has done over the years, his mother will always dote on and love him unconditionally.
  • Likewise, Heidi stays by Cartman's side as his girlfriend despite knowing he's emotionally abusive until she realizes what his influence has turned her into, causing her to break up with him.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • Deconstructed. Cartman has shown that he does love his mother Liane and girlfriend Heidi, showing genuine concern for the former on occasion and being willing to escape to Mars with the latter. However, he is also so selfish and entitled that he is not above abusing, manipulating, and humiliating them to get his way, which ruins their relationship in Season 25 and 21 respectively.
  • Played straight with his family where Cartman begins to slide back to his evil ways during "Return of Covid" in his efforts to stop Stan and Kyle from fixing the future out of fear that he'll lose them.
  • He genuinely respected Chef and seemed to look up to him as a sort of father figure. When Chef appeared to die, Cartman was heartbroken.
  • Though he sometimes yells at her, Cartman never abuses his pet cat Mr. Kitty and was even willing to risk getting arrested to protect her. Same for his pet pig Fluffy, though the latter doesn't seem to be living with him as of Season 5.
  • The video games somewhat downplay this trope with the New Kid. While Cartman is sometimes perfectly willing to have the New Kid do his dirty work, he seems to genuinely value New Kid as a friend and protégé (yes, the feeling's mutual on New Kid's end), to the point where it's heavily implied New Kid's the only person Cartman truly regrets hurting when he at one point betrays them.
  • He loves and hates his friends at the same time; some of his schemes are based in trying to "help" them in his own warped way. Yes, even Kyle.
  • He also formed a genuine friendship with Michael Jefferson (aka Michael Jackson), and rushed to defend him from his false molestation accusations when he was being targeted by sergeant Yates.
• Even Evil Has Standards: All things considered, he has quite a few — even if some of them are Played for Laughs and are more "petty" standards than anything.
  • Since he's evil, Cartman can deliver bits of social commentary that would seem less acceptable if it was Stan or Kyle saying it. Of particular note are his rants on hippies, Family Guy, and the Catholic Church.
  • "My Future Self N' Me" establishes that he hates it when parents don't respect their kids and lie to them, as kids should be able to trust their parents. Because of this, he starts a business where kids can pay him to smear poop on their parents' walls.
  • "The China Probrem" shows that of all the evil acts he's willing to do, he draws the line at one: shooting men in the genitals. Never.
  • Despite the cruelty he inflicts on people, it's implied that he never performs his cruel acts on cats (aside from slapping Mr. Kitty away from his food) and has even kept many safe and well-taken care of in "Major Boobage".
  • In "Dances with Smurfs", he reacts with horror to Gordon Stolski's murder during the morning announcements.
  • By the end of the "Black Friday" trilogy, he seems genuinely horrified and haunted after watching Bill Gates murder the Sony President after he got his XBOX One.
  • Even Cartman was creeped out by Shelley's relationship with Skyler, a man ten years her senior.
  • In "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo", Cartman is so disgusted by the titular character of the episode, he can't bring himself to stick around with the others, and for good reason too.
    Cartman: Okay, that does it. Screw you guys I'm going home. Talking Poo is where I draw the line.
  • In "Free Hat", even he's disturbed that the redneck denizens of South Park want to free a convicted child murderer, claiming he killed 23 babies "in self defense". He's also disturbed that he's set free.
  • He looks horrified by Captain Hindsight and the fire department letting 14 people die in a fire in "Coon 2: Hindsight".
  • While he was only using the Record producer for his own ends during Season 18's two-part finale, he looked horrified when he saw the Michael Jackson hologram kill him.
  • In some episodes, albeit generally before his sociopathic transformation in season 5, he has shown genuine remorse when Kenny dies.
  • In "Best Friends Forever", he ends up feeling guilty with everyone else when he discovers how he and the others' actions have contributed to Kenny's condition getting turned into a media frenzy.
  • In "Ike's Wee Wee", he's horrified when Stan (incorrectly) tells him that Ike is going to get his wee-wee chopped off at his bris party.
    Cartman: Dude! That is not cool! Chopping off wee-wees is not cool!
  • He's disgusted at the things his girlfriend does during "Moss Piglets".
  • Even Cartman wants to put a stop to the notorious sexist internet Troll Skankhunt42!
  • Even Cartman is intimidated by Trent Boyett. Though this could be solely due to fear of getting beaten up by Trent and not tied to actual morals.
  • Even Cartman finds the Super Adventure Club atrocious and hates that they turned Chef into a pedophile.
  • In spite of his obsessive and creepy idolization of Hitler to the point of cosplaying as him, Cartman draws the line at claiming he was a good person and is horrified when Cupid Ye tries to do so.
  • In "Obama Wins!", Cartman voices his disgust with swingers, calling them perverts.
  • In the movie when Kenny accidentally sets himself on fire Cartman does try to put it out to save Kenny. However, when Kenny dies he is happy as he doesn't lose money on the bet he made with Kenny.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Cartman does not understand the difference between being nice and wearing a nice sweater, as seen in "Casa Bonita". "Toilet Paper" shows that he also cannot comprehend the idea of confessing to something because one feels guilty, thinking exclusively in terms of whether or not he'll be punished, and how badly, and he seemed to be in physical pain trying to process the concept of feeling bad for other people (i.e. Butters, who was falsely accused and arrested for the boys' T.P.'ing of their art teacher's house). Many attempts to berate him for his callousness have fallen flat since he genuinely doesn't seem to have a clue what empathy is. In Season 20 when he tries to be a better person (mostly due to fear of retribution) he doesn't come out as sincere and only has "women are funny, get over it" as an argument. He also seems to truly believe others think the same way he does; in "The Poor Kid", he quickly started researching his schoolmates' incomes after Kenny was put into a foster home in another state (so he could mock the new poor kid), thinking that every other student would be doing the same.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • To Stan, in looks and personality.
    • Both wear similar clothes, are voiced by Trey Parker, had the same girl (Wendy) be attracted to them, are good at reading people, had shown manipulative skills and have a sensitive side. However, Stan doesn't have malicious intentions, is usually a Nice Guy and Knight in Sour Armor and also sensitive in a good way (being an Animal Lover and generally caring towards others), while Cartman is a Manipulative Bastard who is very selfish, inconsiderate, discriminates against a lot of groups and is sensitive in a bad way (being a wimp). In regards to their relationship to Kyle, Stan is his best friend, while Cartman is his Arch-Enemy.
    • They also have shown leadership skills. Stan usually inspires people to join good causes and even when the cause isn't noble, it's not outright malicious either, is a courageous Determinator and even acts as the Team Dad to the main boys on occasion (or at least towards Kenny and Kyle). By contrast, Cartman often corrupts people (sometimes masses) into doing heinous things and would often leave when things get messy for him. He does sometimes use his leadership skills to help his teammates, but even then he's a Nominal Hero at best (at least usually).
  • Cartman is also the complete opposite of Kyle in terms of morality, political views, and attitude. Also, some episodes show that both of them understand phenomena that make townsfolk lose their mind and are Above the Influence. However, while Kyle tries to make people change their ways to help them improve, Cartman exploits their stupidity to further his goals (think of Cartman's Incredible Gift where Cartman pretends to be a medium after an accident and uses Yates' stupidity to make money without caring about the people he sent to prison, while Kyle tries to prove him wrong rationally before using the same strategy against him).
  • He's also one to Butters. Both are naïve and ignorant dimwits who seek attention. However, they are polar opposites in that Butters is an incredibly sweet Cheerful Child and All-Loving Hero without a single mean bone in his body, while Cartman is a complete and utter Jerkass who couldn't care less about saving anyone other than himself.
• Evil Genius: While he's completely inept when it comes to schoolwork or anything that requires genuine effort, Cartman is nevertheless a scarily good manipulator, fluent in multiple languages, and capable of coming up with complex plans by himself. However, due to his unchecked sociopathy, these abilities are only ever used to benefit himself and often come at the detriment (or even deaths) of others.
• Evil Gloating:
  Cartman: [in sing-songy voice] Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! I made you eat your parents.
• Evil Hero: He has a superhero persona, the Coon, but he's in it mainly for fame. He's committed countless crimes that he delusionslly views as heroic, such as assaulting people who don't recognize him, staging terrorist attacks for him to "stop", and manipulating Cthulhu into helping him go on a cross-country rampage.
• Evil Is Hammy: He's known for being an extremely campy character.
• Evil Is Petty:
  • We all know just how large in scale Cartman's schemes can run, but he has no problem doing really petty crimes like toilet papering a teacher's house. And he tied a kid to a flagpole by his ankle and told the kid he poisoned his chocolate milk and then gave him a saw telling him he implanted the poison in the kid's leg, and he needed to cut his leg off to get it ("Well, he called me "chubby"!") Also, some of those elaborate schemes are for petty reasons. See the entire Scott Tenorman fiasco.
  • He will go to absolutely any length to spite Kyle. In "Die Hippie Die", he agrees to save the town from the hippie infestation... if they will buy him a certain toy truck, don't buy Kyle the same one, and make Kyle watch as he plays with it. Granted, it's Played for Laughs.
• Evil Plan: Go to Somalia to gain massive profit: done. Tape crack babies fighting over drugs as an internet sensation to profit: done. Convince Cthulhu to assist in mass slaughter and show up your friends: done. Cartman thrives on this trope.

F-J

• The Fagin: Attempts this twice, both in "Eek, a Penis!" and "Medicinal Fried Chicken". In the former episode it's a teensy bit more low-scale, helping inner-city minority kids steal the money for both an abortion and (somehow) the answer key for their calculus test, while in the other one, he's in charge of a KFC smuggling ring where he gets 36% of the profit, but forgets to let other people steal copies of the economic engine, leading to a kid's mother getting shot and the Colonel painting a target on his head.
• Fair-Weather Foe: He displays this behavior a lot:
  • Cartman and Kyle have a mutual loathing of each other largely due to Cartman's anti-Semitism, but a number of episodes show that Cartman has no problem being nice to Kyle if it can benefit him in some way.
  • Cartman treats his mother, Liane like dirt; he disrespects her, has framed her for selling drugs, once accused her of molesting him, amongst other things. However, whenever Liane puts her foot down, Cartman has no problem acting meek as a manipulation tactic.
  • The episode "Ginger Kids" begins with Cartman calling giving a hate lecture on gingers, which ends with him calling for gingers to be exterminated. When Stan and Kyle make Cartman believe he's ginger, he pulls a 180° and begins preaching ginger-supremacy, showing that Cartman is only okay with genocide so long as he's not on the chopping block.
• False Prophet: In the "Probably" episode, it turns out Cartman only started the church to con the other kids out of their money and make ten million dollars.
• Farts on Fire: In the very first episode, his anal probe causes him to fart streams of fire in class.
• Fatal Flaw: His stubbornness and lack of foresight. While both are common for kids his age, Cartman takes both up to the extreme when he sets himself a goal, and is perfectly willing to use and abuse his peers to get what he wants. While this sometimes serves to his benefit (such as in "Scott Tenorman Must Die", "Imaginationland", "Mysterion Rises", and "You're Not Yelping"), his successes often ultimately backfire on him due to him not having thought of the consequences of his actions. The episode "City People" showcases this when he plans to get his mother to lose her job so that she will go back to giving him her undevoted attention. It works, but it also results in both of them losing their home and having to live at a hot dog stand. "Return of Covid" also implies that this behavior will ultimately ruin his life and cause him to lose all his friendships.
• Fat Bastard: During his family reunion, all of his family members, save for his loving, caring mother and grandmother, are fat annoying slobs. In another episode, Cartman from the future, who lost weight and became a better person in general (and wealthy to boot), comes to the past to tell Cartman to be a good human being. Cartman (thinking it's a trick) delivers the generic "screw you" line and says he will stay the way he is. After the other characters are out of view, the future Cartman transforms into a dirty obese mechanic as a result of his younger self not "changing for the better". Also, because his parents were never married, he is an illegitimate child born out of wedlock, which literally makes him a fat bastard.
• Fat Best Friend:
  • Downplayed. The other three boys don't view him as a friend at all, but accept him in their group because they know he won't get along with anyone else, and the four boys are viewed as each other's best friends by the town and school.
  • Played straight in the video games, where Cartman is considered to be this to the New Kid, who gives him their loyalty and trust to repay him for everything he's done for them since Stick of Truth.
• Fat Comic Relief: He is the butt of many jokes about his weight.
• Fat Idiot: Cartman is generally ignorant and naïve, though his hatred, prejudice, spite, and entitled opinion of himself occasionally give him moments of brilliance.
• Fate Worse than Death: Since Cartman's is an Attention Whore who enjoys seeing other people miserable, especially Kyle, Cartman's final fate of being forced to watch everyone, including Kyle, live happy lives and ignore him, while he's homeless, alone, and miserable is indeed worse than death for him.
• Faux Affably Evil: Cartman's willing to pretend to be nice to get what he wants—the gloves come off the second he doesn't. Sometimes he isn't even that good at being affable and relies on pity to manipulate.
• Flanderization: He began as a selfish, impulsive kid who could never think beyond his momentary desires, but became The Chessmaster whose evil was entirely premeditated. He began as a whiny brat who could only sway his mother, but became a master manipulator who can play huge crowds like a fiddle. He began as Kyle's friend (well, in the sense that he's The Friend Nobody Likes) and became his mortal enemy. He began as a mild anti-Semite, making fun of Kyle for not celebrating Christmas just to get a rise out of him, but became a full-on neo-Nazi who admires Hitler and tries to instigate his own Holocaust.
• Fluffy Tamer: Nothing else qualifies for taming Cthulhu.
• For the Evulz: Cartman's motive for committing atrocities and bullying people is solely for his own amusement.
• Freudian Excuse: It's heavily implied that his friends' constant cruelty towards him, the fact he has never met his dad, and his mother's (unintentional) abuse is what drove him to become the sociopath that he is today. The reason for his mother spoiling him is because she's looking for a friend in her son, since she doesn't have any friends otherwise.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Not only do his "friends" hate him, insult him behind his back, and actively question why they still hang out with him, but the entire fourth grade class hates him almost as much. Even Butters occasionally lets it slip that he doesn't truly like Cartman very much, being friendly to him presumably out of goodwill and fear. The boys are often divided on whatever keeps Cartman a part of their group; Kenny personally explains that he pities Cartman as an unfeeling, horrible person and so allows him to stay because he knows he'll have no other friends otherwise, while Stan and Kyle have no idea. Either way, it's rare to see his friends actually genuinely enjoying his company.
  Chef: Cartman is your friend, whether you like him or not!
  • After all, there's a reason the fourth grade class hates him:
    Kyle: Because he's a fat, racist, self-centered, intolerant, manipulating sociopath.
  • All that aside, Cartman is frequently shown playing with the other kids, including the larger class, and participating in their antics.
• The Fundamentalist: Downplayed. Whether Cartman is actually religious or just appropriating it for his own ends is very much Depending on the Writer, but he'll frequently claim to be a "good Christian" and occasionally tries to use it to rationalize his actions when he even bothers with an excuse.
• Future Loser:
  • Zig-zagged in "My Future Self N' Me", where his future self is a slim, handsome rich man who has his own time travel company. But after Cartman refuses to believe him about how he'll clean up his act and announces that he's going to be even worse than he already is, his future self changes to a fat, slovenly mechanic.
  • After changing the past so the boys' friendship won't be destroyed in South Park: Post Covid: The Return of Covid, Cartman's future self is now shown to be a miserable homeless man.
• Gasshole: He used to fart a lot in the older seasons.
  • The episode "Cancelled" has him force Kyle to stick his finger up his ass a number of times to activate the alien anal probe, only for Cartman to fart on him upon each attempt for the lulz.
  • In "Ginger Cow", Kyle is forced to ingest Cartman's farts.
• Genius Ditz: Is an excellent schemer when motivated enough, can easily manipulate people and appears to be able to speak fluent Spanish, French, and German at age 9, but is otherwise completely clueless about a lot of things.
• Godzilla Threshold: Whenever a problem gets too out of hand, he's usually brought in as a last resort to stop it.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: Downplayed with Cartman, since he was already Ax-Crazy to begin with, but he at least was a calculating manipulator and schemer who held the Sanity Ball on occasion. However, once his friends and everyone else decide to cut ties with him and avoid him at all costs, Cartman loses what sanity he used to have as a result of the complete lack of human contact to supplement his Attention Whore nature, and in the process, he becomes a drunk homeless madman with no trace of the manipulative and scheming tendencies that he use to have, with his only method of communication being cursing people.
• Good Hurts Evil: In "Tsst", when his long-suppressed conscience starts to surface.
• Good Parents: As an adult, he endlessly dotes on his kids Moisha, Menorah, and Hackelm, even more so after they begin hating on Kyle, and he's willing to step back to his evil ways to protect them from being erased by the new future.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Cartman isn't the Big Bad of South Park: Joining the Panderverse, but he is the one who indirectly started the whole plot by sending thousands of hate mails to Kathleen Kennedy, resulting in Kennedy continuously abusing the Panderstone's power until Kennedy looks like Cartman arrives in Kennedy's universe and takes her place.
• The Greatest Story Never Told: After South Park: Post Covid: The Return of Covid, no one will ever know that he gave up his happiest future with his wife and children to make a better future for everyone else.
• Greed: A defining arc during the show's fourth season was his single-minded quest to make 10 million dollars. The schemes he has tried include; becoming a part of the Denver "tooth racket"; and stealing Tooth Fairy money from kids, starting a boy band called Fingerbang, and forming his own church and embezzling its collection money. These all failed miserably for several reasons.
  • He also tried it in "Cherokee Hair Tampons" when Kyle's kidneys were failing and Cartman, being the only one with Kyle's blood type, demanded a payment of 10 million dollars when Stan begged him to let Kyle have his kidney. He has also tried to sell a crashed truck-load of aborted fetuses to the highest-bidding stem cell research center, and even to a restaurant as food.
  • In "Up the Down Steroid", he also pretended he was mentally disabled to compete in the Special Olympics and win $1000. The reasons for this are never fully explained, although in "Cartmanland", after inheriting a million dollars from his grandmother, he reveals that he wishes to buy his own amusement park so he won't have to wait in lines for the rides. He also stated that it has been his dream to own a million dollars since he was two years old.
  • In "Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow", he threatens Kyle with a gun for his "Jew Gold".
  • In "ManBearPig", Cartman stumbles upon a pile of treasure while the boys are trapped in a system of caves. Afraid that the others might find the treasure and demand a share, Cartman decides to swallow as many of the coins and jewels as he can, causing him to become extremely bloated and unable to walk or swim on his own. Later in the episode it is revealed, during the process of painfully crapping it out, that the treasure is fake and used for photographs for tourists at the caves.
• Guile Hero: Though it's very overshadowed by his Manipulative Bastard status, Cartman in his "good days" can outsmart the Villain of the Week with ease.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Cartman is infamously quick to anger, and will always have a chip on his shoulder about anything destroying his fun or train of thought. This is best shown in the episode "T.M.I.", where he gets angry simply because he thought that the school had a poster of boys' penises on the wall and that he had a 2.1 inch penis, and in his Season 21 relationship with Heidi (pre-Distaff Counterpart Heidi, at least), with "Doubling Down" showing that he apparently ragged on her feelings, called her a whore multiple times and pushed her in front of a car, all in one day.
• Hated by All: Due to his revolting habits, horrendously personality, and being possibly the biggest example of a Jerkass in all of Western Animation, just about everyone in South Park hates Cartman's guts, including his own friends. In "Breast Cancer Show Ever", while he's afraid that nobody will think he's cool anymore after Wendy beat him up, the entire fourth grade class tells him point-blank that they never thought he was cool and couldn't possibly think any lower of him than they already do (though his massive ego rationalizes this as them busting his balls to make him feel better and that they do think he's cool). Only Kenny, Jimmy and Butters have any tolerance for him, and even they have admitted at times that they don't care for Cartman either (Kenny mostly puts up with Cartman out of pity while Jimmy and Butters are just too nice to be mean to him). It reaches its peak in the revised future, where Cartman has become so hated that everyone has cut him out of their lives entirely, resulting in him becoming an alcoholic miserable hobo who has no friends or family, did nothing with his life, and spends the rest of his days drunkenly screaming at everybody (even Butters has No Sympathy for him).
• Hazy-Feel Turn: In South Park: Post Covid, while it's revealed that Cartman had converted to Judaism due to falling in love with a Jewish woman named Yentl and became a seemingly loving father on top of it, by the end of the episode he's dedicated himself to hindering Stan and Kyle's plans of travelling back in time to save Kenny, though Kyle believes that he only does it to avoid falling victim to Karma Houdini Warranty. The sequel episode confirms that his change is genuine, and ultimately sacrifices his good future for their sake, indeed falling victim to Karma Houdini Warranty.
• The Heavy: While he’s a part of the Big Bad Ensemble with Garrison in Season 21, it's his relationship with Heidi that drive the season’s plot. Since the start of that season, he's revealed himself to be an emotionally abusive boyfriend towards Heidi and has been manipulating Heidi into staying in this toxic relationship. This has led her to become his Distaff Counterpart, which causes Kyle, who was revealed to like Heidi, to go on a moral crusade against Canada, which in turn caused President Garrison to nuke the country.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: In the first episode of Season 20, it's revealed that he's actually working on his behavior, for fear of a gender war between the boys and girls (yet he still manages to tease others and be extremely insincere regardless). However, in the second episode titled "Skank Hunt", the kids start to wrongfully suspect that he's skankhunt42. That makes them destroy his computer, phone, and tablet.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Cartman has gone from being one of the team to actually being the villain of the episode and back again so many times over the years, he may as well be labeled the poster boy for this trope. Whichever side suits him, he'll join instantly.
• Heel–Faith Turn:
  • "Jewpacabra" induces this as Cartman proclaims to convert to Judaism. Not that Kyle will ever buy it.
  • "Post Covid" brings this back combined with Love Redeems with the reveal that Cartman has converted to Judaism upon marrying Yentl, a Jewish woman. However, Kyle believes he's just doing this to mess with him.
• Heel Realization: On occasion. It usually doesn't last, until "Return of Covid", where his desire to avoid having his wife see him as the asshole he used to be prompts him to sacrifice everything for his friends.
• Her Codename Was Mary Sue: When the boys are playing ninjas, Cartman's character has all the powers he wants, even stating that his future sight power outclasses Kyle's. And in "Fishsticks", he has a flashback of the viral joke Jimmy made where he believes he not only made the joke, but is beloved by all and once stopped an army of Jew-bots with the Human Torch's power.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Even though he is a psychopath, he has done some pretty heroic things, such as saving the world from Saddam's reign in the movie, demolishing Osama bin Laden's army and crippling him, and saving the town from hippies when they got out of control.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Cartman has been repeatedly shown to be a fairly talented photographer. He also takes in the cats of South Park when the town bans them, speaks conversational Spanish and German, has a knack for negotiation and deal-making, and is a decent violinist. He's actually shown to be highly charismatic (if manipulative), creative, and hard-working when properly motivated, but what holds him back is his laziness, ignorance and general refusal to apply himself.
  • Several episodes - most notably the Post-COVID specials - show Cartman has the potential to become a decent, kind person if he grows beyond his victim complex.
• Hijacking Cthulhu: Cartman manages to manipulate the actual Cthulhu via the Rule of Cute into working for him.
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Cartman wakes from a dream shouting "No, Uncle Jesse, no!" (though that could have been a reference to Full House). Cartman has also been sexually abused by others, specifically noted in the episode "Simpsons Already Did It".
• His Own Worst Enemy: He ends up becoming his own worst enemy, despite his hatred for minorities and his relationship with Kyle. Most of his horrible actions are done for petty reasons or selfish gain, and he never admits fault for any of his wrongdoings, preferring to blame everyone else for his problems and making himself the victim. This reaches its logical conclusion in South Park: Post Covid: The Return of Covid; his refusal to do anything with his life beyond manipulate and insult people (when the previous special shows that he would be capable of so much more if he chose to forego these tendencies) ends with him being a drunken hobo who has nothing and nobody in life, while everybody else has achieved some kind of success.
• Hollywood Tourette's: In an attempt to get away with swearing whenever he wants, he faked Tourette's Syndrome. It backfires on him when not watching what he says causes him to blurt out personal secrets.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Cartman use to been a notorious sociopath who was able to manipulate people into giving him what he wanted as a child who got away with all his evil deeds by having the happiest life in the Bad Future while everyone else was miserable. When the future changed to where almost everyone got a happy ending, Cartman is reduced to being a drunk and miserable hobo who can only scream at people more successful than him while having absolutely nothing and nobody in his life, with all of his Manipulative Bastard tendencies completely gone.
• Humiliation Conga: In "Awesome-O", where Butters spends the entire episode getting revenge on Cartman (both intentionally and unintentionally). Considering the things that Cartman has done to Butters, it's hard to feel bad for him.
• Hypocrite:
  • Despite getting angry whenever anyone calls him "fat", Cartman tricked Heidi into gorging herself on fried chicken (claiming it was actually a healthy substitute), then mocked her for her weight change behind her back.
  • He frequently mocks Kenny for coming from a poor family, despite the fact that he and his mom aren't financially well off either. By Season 25, he's arguably poorer than Kenny since he and his mom are forced to live in a hot dog stand while Kenny's family still lives in an actual house.
• Hypocritical Heartwarming:
  • Cartman verbally abuses Mr. Kitty and even used him to scratch himself when he had chickenpox, but he threatens to blow off Kyle's nutsack when he jokingly suggests sticking a firecracker up Mr. Kitty's butt.
  • Sometimes shows this with Kyle as, while he hates Kyle, he also can't stand not having Kyle around and has saved Kyle's life more than a few times like during "Imagination Land" and "Smug Alert" . He even vocalizes this during "It's a Jersey Thing" .
    Cartman: [to Kyle about his Jersey heritage] You may be a monster, but you're our monster.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • He makes a song about how Kyle's mom is a big fat bitch, yet he is an overweight Jerkass as well. To hammer this even more, he rips on Kyle and all Jews for being greedy and manipulative when he himself is guilty of this all the time.
  • In seasons 4 and 5, he would regularly claim to be "more mature" than his friends. Whenever something happened that seemed to prove his point, he would quickly descend into childish sing-song mockery.
• I Am Big Boned: Believes this to near-delusional, borderline body dysmorphia levels. However, he finally admitted he was fat in the Season 16 episode "Raising the Bar".
• Identical Stranger: To Marlon Brando ("Cartman Joins NAMBLA"), Dakota Fanning (the sketch in "Free Willzyx"), Bruce Vilanch ("The Coon", "A Nightmare on FaceTime"), and Honey Boo Boo ("A Nightmare on FaceTime").
• Ignored Epiphany: In "Mysterion Rises".
  Cartman: Should I just apologize to my friends and ask them to take me back? Tell them that I was being a selfish jerk? [...] Should I admit I was wrong? Ask for everyone's forgiveness and go back to my original team? Nah, screw that, I'm just gonna keep being a dick!
• Innocent Bigot:
  • Cartman doesn't think he's being racist in "Cartman Finds Love" by playing matchmaker between Nichole and Token, the only two black students in the school. He considers what he is doing as helping nature take its course. He spends the whole episode going to the extreme to uphold these views. A rare example of Cartman managing to fill a trope with the word "innocent".
  • In earlier episodes, this is his attitude toward Black and Hispanic people in general. When he thinks Chef is his biological father, he's not upset at all; but rather excited to be biologically Black... which he expresses by acting in an offensive, stereotypical manner.
• Insane Troll Logic: Uses this a lot, memorably so in "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce", "Dances with Smurfs", and, to a lesser extent, "I Should Have Never Gone Ziplining".
• In-Series Nickname: Kyle frequently calls him "fatass", while Stan uses the term "fat boy."
• Insufferable Imbecile: He may be cunning when it comes to creating evil schemes at times, but he's otherwise dimwitted and clueless, and sometimes his mean tricks only make him look like an idiot. A good example is "Cartman Sucks", where he tries to humiliate Butters in a very stupid way (which is actually more humiliating to Cartman himself than Butters), then gets easily tricked by Kyle into believing his Blatant Lies about "gay polarity".
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: He had an occasional tendency to play with dolls and have tea parties in the earlier seasons. He has also cross-dressed on multiple occasions; albeit usually for a scheme.
• Ironic Hell: In the real world, Cartman’s numerous atrocities would most likely cause him to either be sent to jail or be murdered by one of the people that he so brutality tormented. However, in the show, Cartman’s permanent karma isn’t him getting arrested or murdered, but instead becoming homeless and alone, while the people he used to torment simply deciding to shun him and move on with their lives. However, since Cartman is such a massive Attention Whore, him getting shunned and ignored by everyone is worse than getting killed or arrested for Cartman since the latter two fates may give him some recognition to fuel his need for attention, while getting shunned doesn’t whatsoever, which drives Cartman insane from loneliness and leads to him becoming a homeless alcoholic, making this a Fate Worse than Death (and ironically the most appropriate punishment) for Cartman.
• Irony:
  • In the season eight episode "The Jeffersons", Cartman mentions despising Austrians, despite the fact that he admires Adolf Hitler, who was an Austrian.
  • Cartman is by far the most anti-semitic character on the show. Can you guess what he becomes in the future? A rabbi.
  • Cartman frequently manipulates people in order to get his way, but he himself is quite gullible and easily fooled. "Scott Tenorman Must Die", "Cartman Sucks" and "Fatbeard" highlight this.
  • In "Cartman's Silly Hate Crime 2000", Cartman gets charged with a hate crime after assaulting Token. Despite being a racist, this act was not out of racism.
• It's All About Me: He is willing to compromise world peace just so he can abuse Kyle for his own amusement. He is even shocked when Mysterion tells him that making the world a better place for oneself exclusively isn't heroic. When he at one point just briefly considers that maybe the world doesn't actually revolve around him, he almost ends up Going Mad from the Revelation.
• It Amused Me: Many of the awful things he does are motivated by boredom.
• I Was Beaten by a Girl: In Breast Cancer Show Ever, Wendy Testaburger finally has it with Cartman's bigotry and challenges him to a fight, which he spends an entire episode trying to avoid, but ultimately gets the living shit kicked out of him while the whole school watches.
• Jaded Washout: Once a manipulative Child Prodigy who had the happiest future in the original timeline, Eric Cartman grows up to be a bitter, drunk, homeless, and miserable bum who’s done nothing with his life beyond angrily cursing at people in the revised timeline.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Cartman gets this quite a few times throughout the series, when his twisted worldview is occasionally proven true. Usually Played for Laughs like most everything else in the series.
  • Cartman accidentally stumbled onto a real terrorist plot while accusing the new Middle-Eastern kid (who had nothing to do with it) of being a terrorist.
    Cartman: Me being a bigot stopped a nuclear bomb from going off, yes or no?!
    Kyle: The-that's not the right way to look at it, I-
    Cartman: Yes or no, Kyle?!
    Kyle: No! Not... not like what you're saying!
  • In "Cartoon Wars, Part 1", an episode of Family Guy is set to depict the Muslim prophet Muhammad uncensored, resulting in several terrorist threats. Kyle tries to defend the Family Guy writers for standing up for free speech, while Cartman uncharacteristically points out that people can get hurt. Cartman even asks Kyle "If ten people die because Family Guy just had to have its little joke, will you still think it's funny? What if a hundred people died? Will it be funny then, Kyle?" This leads to Kyle conceding the point, teaming up with Cartman to get the episode pulled. It's ultimately subverted when Cartman later reveals that he doesn't care about people getting hurt; he's just exploiting the controversy in order to get Family Guy cancelled, due to a personal dislike of his humor being compared to the show. This turns Kyle's stance around, saying that letting things be censored because of these threats allows terrorism to work.
  • Cartman gets another good one in "Bass to Mouth." The school faculty consult him to help curb suicide attempts by students who crapped their pants, but balk at his plan to keep kids from being singled out by making everyone crap their pants with laxative-spiked pizza. Cartman then asks "Well, if you have a better idea, then why am I here?" One beat later, Mr. Mackey is on the phone, arranging a school Pizza Day.
  • Other valid points he makes include how the rainforest sucks, especially for a group of kids on a field trip set to do a choir performance, and how the influx of hippies will doom the town, both problems which he solves.
  • While his relationship with the other boys is often toxic at best, on several occasions they read him the riot act, he is quite willing to fire back that they aren't exactly the Token Good Teammates of the relationship, and can be just as cruel, selfish and manipulative as he can be under the right mood. In cases like "Fun With Veal" and "Butt Out", he makes the point that they bully and ditch him almost as instinctively as vice versa, not even considering him their friend unless it is convenient. They don't particularly help their case either.
    Cartman: Well, let's see. In the last 3.2 seconds, you've called me "fatass", "butthole", and "douchebag". I really don't feel like you guys' friend.
  • In "The Cissy", Cartman is correct in telling Principal Victoria that one's gender identity has nothing to do with their sexual orientation.
  • In "Cartman's Silly Hate Crime 2000", Cartman repeatedly tells Tolkien to stop insulting his weight. Despite getting angrier and angrier each time Tolkien does it, Cartman shows an unusual amount of restraint. Notably, he only (mistakenly) hits Tolkien with a rock after explicitly warning Tolkien that he'd do it if Tolkien insulted him again.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Subverted on many episodes, Downplayed on several others, and Deconstructed as an adult in Post Covid.
  • Cartman is one of television's most infamous examples of a Jerkass ^note He even provided the trope's page image for a while., but some episodes (especially in the earlier seasons before he Took a Level in Jerkass in Season 5) show that despite his fat, racist, anti-semitic personality, Cartman can care for others and act like a true friend to Stan, Kyle, and Kenny. However, some of his worse Kick the Dog moments (especially where Kyle, Butters, and Heidi are involved) cause many characters to see him as Beyond Redemption. Ultimately, regardless of how genuine Cartman can be in his intentions, he's a Toxic Friend Influence who stubbornly refuses to change due to being in denial about his own flaws.
  • After gradually taking a level in kindness starting on Season 22, he fully becomes this in Season 24: in "The Pandemic Special", Cartman spared the pangolin because Stan wanted him to (Cartman himself wanted to kill it to stop a cure for COVID-19 from being found and gained nothing from sparing it), in "The Vaccination Special", he showed genuine worry for Kenny and tried his best to avoid the inevitable separation of the boys, (though he ended up making things worse due to his Never My Fault tendencies), and in The Return of Covid,he sacrifices his perfect future so everyone else can get a better future. Unfortunately, this causes the revised future Cartman to regress into a full blown Jerkass again and lose his family and friendships.
  • Despite the above, Season 25 and 26 show that, despite having regressed, he's much more prone to Pet the Dog moments than he was before, especially with Stan, Kenny, Clyde, and Kathleen Kennedy. While he's still self-serving at heart, and he's still not above screwing over Kyle or Butters if it suits him, he's now capable of performing genuine kind acts when it doesn't significantly affect him, and he shows remorse for his racism for the first time ever in "Joining the Panderverse".
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk:
  • As of season 5, any display of sympathy that he might garner is usually squandered by an even bigger display of Jerkassery, to the point where most of his friends (save for Butters) already have their guards up any time he shows any outward kindness, which comes to bite him in the ass in "Skank Hunt" and "Post Covid" when his genuine (if insensitive) attempts at being a feminist and a Jewish family man respectively are seen as nothing but a façade by his peers, who then act accordingly and end up causing him to revert back to his usual Jerkass self.
  • He sometimes does something that seems genuinely generous or selfless, but there's always a selfish reason to it. His friends expect this. His inability to understand what everyone else calls being "good" is brought to light a couple of times. For example, when called out by Mysterion, we get this:
    Cartman: [as The Coon] I'm making the world a better place.
    Kenny: [as Mysterion] For you!
    Cartman: [as The Coon]' Right. That's what superheroes do.
  • His status as this trope is a notable driving point on the storyline of the episode "Casa Bonita", where he fakes his maturity just to get Kyle to invite him to his birthday party: Cartman pulls off many miserably failed attempts at being a Nice Guy to prove himself friendly and mature enough to be invited to Kyle's birthday at the eponymous Mexican restaurant. After all of them fail, Cartman admits to Kyle's face, with a respectable attitude, that he accepts his consequence and wishes him, Stan, Kenny, and Butters the best time at the restaurant; Kyle admires Cartman's selflessness and tells him that if Butters is unavailable, he can take his place, which Cartman was prompting Kyle to offer him.

K-O

• Karma Houdini Warranty: While there are times Cartman gets away with his actions scot-free, there are many other instances where Cartman suffers the appropriate amount of punishment.
  • His Kansas City Shuffle in "Scott Tenorman must die" is one of his most evil deeds, and since he didn't actually kill Scott's parents, he completely gets away with it... until "201" revealed that one of his victims by proxy was in actuality his own father, whom he's longed to meet for most of his life. Eventually deconstructed as Cartman was actually more horrified at the realization that Mr. Tenorman was a ginger, which made him half ginger.
  • Similarly, his creation of the Nazi-esque Ginger Separatist Movement in "Ginger Kids" (while he was under the impression that he was one), led him to attempt genocide on all non-gingers, only to then find out that he wasn't a ginger himself after all whereupon he managed to weasel his way out of the consequences by pretending a Heel Realization and declaring equality for everyone (which he of course didn't follow through with in any future episodes). "201" shows that Scott Tenorman took the reins of the movement after Cartman dissolved it and then turned it against him, and later in the episode Scott has the gingers kidnap Cartman the same way he had them kidnap all the other kids in "Ginger Kids".
  • His warranty completely and permanently expires at the end of Return of Covid where he grows up a homeless, lonely, and miserable alcoholic as punishment for all the horrible actions he committed as a kid.
• Karmic Butt-Monkey: While the four boys are considered Butt Monkeys in general, Cartman seems to get the worst of it as a result of being a petty and bigoted sociopath.
• Karmic Shunning: In the revised future of "South Park: Post Covid: The Return of Covid", there came a point where everyone got sick enough of Cartman's horrible behavior that they cut him out of their lives for good (basically what happened in "The Death of Eric Cartman", only on a much wider scale and on a more permanent basis). The end result is that Cartman is a drunken hobo who did nothing with his life, while all his former friends are living happily without him.
• Karmic Transformation: In the episode "Ginger Kids", after Cartman starts a crusade against gingers, the other boys try to stop him by dying his hair red and using makeup to turn his skin pale and freckly. But then Cartman just changes his tune, starts a "ginger power" movement, and tries to wipe out all non-gingers. He stops and begins preaching tolerance after Kyle explains to him that he's not really a ginger.
• Kick the Dog: Many times. Beating Token with a rock, trying to kill his mother (which he thankfully did not go along with), everything involving a social outcast, infecting Kyle with HIV, having Butters be beaten up by his parents, the whole run of "Ginger Kids", "Ginger Cow", "The Coon" and "Mexican Joker", and his abuse and manipulation of his girlfriend just to name a few.
• Kiddie Kid: Although not very open about it, Cartman was shown to have shades of this in the first four seasons, where he was occasionally seen playing with dolls in his free time and had his mother sing bedtime songs to him.
• Kids Are Cruel: Cartman is a sociopathic, insensitive, bigoted Jerkass who becomes violent over the pettiest of offenses. He's also 8-10 years old.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: He's mostly incapable of empathy towards people, but exhibits a strong bond with cats despite being a speciesist. In "Major Boobage", cats are made illegal because Kenny, along with several other kids around the country, begins using male cat musk as a hallucinogenic drug. Cartman lies to the police, claiming that he had his cat put down when he really is hiding his cat in the attic. Throughout the episode he collects abandoned cats in his attic out of sympathy. His cat has been on the show since the series began, and his love for cats could have developed from his lack of other family members besides his mother; he has no father or siblings. This empathetic relationship is reserved for cats and not humans; he does not (or more likely chooses not to) recognize a parallel between his cat safe-haven to the history of Jews hiding from Nazi soldiers during the Holocaust, which Kyle points out.
• Knight Templar: He genuinely believes Jews are evil, having apparently been convinced of it by Mel Gibson's films. Also subverted to a degree, as in a deleted scene from "The List", he seems to acknowledge he is a horrible person. In the "Coon Saga", he leads Cthulhu on a mass murdering spree, massacring the entire burning man festival, Justin Bieber and most of his fans, and the whole city of San Francisco, all while thinking he's doing good.
  Cartman: [Coon and Friends] will continue to fight for good and justice!
  News Reporter: Good and justice? Justin Bieber and most of his fans have just been massacred!
  Cartman: Yes, Coon and Friends are glad to help! No need to thank me.
• Lack of Empathy:
  • He usually only cares about himself and getting whatever he wants, and is perfectly willing to lie, cheat, manipulate, and commit mass murder to do so. In "Cherokee Hair Tampons", when Kyle is in dire need of a kidney transplant and Cartman is the only match, Cartman blatantly refuses to do so unless he's paid $10 million for it, forcing Stan and the other people of South Park to resort to trickery to get said kidney.
  • Even after his Heel–Faith Turn as an adult, he's unable to comprehend why Kyle would still hold a grudge against him.
• Large Ham: He's known for being an extremely campy character and he disturbs class all the time.
• Laser-Guided Karma: He receives this on a semi-regular basis. The biggest example of him getting this is at the end of "Return Of Covid" where his horrible and toxic behavior has drove everyone who knew and use to care about him away leaving Cartman a drunk, lonely and miserable hobo who can only watch as everyone else get their to live their happy lives while having moved on from Cartman's influence.
• Last-Name Basis: Most of the kids in town refer to him as Cartman (Butters and Jimmy are the exceptions). The adults in town either call him Eric, or by his full name (when he's in trouble). There is one instance when Randy says "That's our Cartman", however. Cartman doesn't seem to mind being addressed by either name, only getting angry if you call him fat.
• Laughably Evil: Needless to say, Cartman is a psychopath to the core... though that hasn't stopped the audience from laughing at his antics for over 25 years.
• Lazy Bum: In the earlier seasons, Cartman spent much of his free time on the couch in his living room eating junk food and watching Terrence and Phillip, whenever he wasn't hanging with the boys.
• The Leader: For the boys, though he alternates with Stan. Almost always when it’s a scheme that puts him at odds with the boys or one where the entire fourth grade class has the same goal. For example, in "Pajama Day", when PC Principal asks Wendy to organize the students, she then immediately delegates that duty to Cartman who hosts the subsequent meeting.
• Likable Villain: Easily one of the funniest, most entertaining characters in the series, in spite of the fact that he spends a large chunk of his screen-time being a sociopathic little brat.
• Loony Fan: He loves Mel Gibson to the point of viewing him as a god and praying to him. He's also a massive fan of Hitler, having cosplayed as him multiple times and citing him as an idol.
• Love Redeems: In "Post Covid", Cartman seems to have become a better person due to Yentl and his childrens influence, but there are moments where that's put into question^note Such as having noisy sex just across the hall from Kyle from the other side of the hallway while reciting stories from the Torah for no other reason than just to spite Kyle and the ending where he outright turns on Stan and Kyle. The sequel, "Return of Covid", confirms that his care for his family was genuine and that his efforts to stop Stan and Kyle were due to not wanting to lose them.
• Loving a Shadow: What his feelings for Heidi amount to. He hooks up with Heidi simply because he found someone who enjoyed being the victim as much as he does. Thus, when he Took a Level in Jerkass by Season 21, he decides to convince her to continue Playing the Victim Card and become more like him, rather than try to know her more.
• Made of Iron:
  • Usually played for laughs, but keep in mind, this kid has survived getting run over by cars, getting beaten to a bloody pulp more than a few times, falling from buildings, and even survived getting struck by lightning!
  • Taken to the point of parody in "Joining the Panderverse", where he jumps out of several two-story windows in a Kathleen Kennedy-induced panic and gets up each time without so much as a bruise.
• Malicious Slander: When given the bully pulpit. For example, he writes an entire book dedicated to slandering Wendy.
• Manipulative Bastard: Frequently manipulates the other kids and especially the adults. Since all the adults are naturally stupid, Cartman constantly monopolizes on it to further any of his plans to get what he wants. Apparently, he's gotten so good to the point where he can control the dark god Cthulhu. It's gotten to the point where Kyle can instantly tell that Cartman is up to no good and is only scheming to better himself should he start to act differently. Kyle is usually right.
• The Matchmaker: Cartman and Cupid-Me ship same-race couples, and he actively works to get them together.
• Mini-Me: Cupid-Me is a smaller, winged cherub version of Cartman who only he can see, due to being part of his imagination.
• Minor Injury Overreaction: Cartman begins wailing over a punch in the arm by Kyle as if he was seriously hurt. Though it's implied that he purposefully exaggerates them to gain sympathy.
• Mistaken for Gay: Happens a few times, mostly with Kyle or Butters.
  • In "Tonsil Trouble", Cartman gets AIDS from a botched blood transfusion and then passes it on to Kyle intentionally. Throughout the episode, people repeatedly assume that Cartman and Kyle are gay lovers (see the page quote) when they find out that they both have AIDS. Earlier, the doctor who diagnoses Kyle asks him repeatedly if he's absolutely sure he hasn't been having unprotected anal sex.
  • Happens again in "Cartman Finds Love" between Cartman and Kyle. To keep Kyle from going out with the new girl for a few naïvely racist reasons, Cartman spreads the rumor that he and Kyle are (or at least were) dating. Funny enough, everyone seems to believe it pretty easily.
• Mocking Sing-Song: He used to mock others this way in the earlier seasons.
• Moral Myopia:
  • In the "Coon and Friends" trilogy, he thinks the rest of Coon and Friends pulled a Face–Heel Turn because they kicked him out. He also states that being a superhero means you're making the world a better place for yourself, not others, and sees him himself as a superhero even though his "heroic" actions consist of having Cthulhu kill thousands of people for no reason other than the fact that he hates them.
  • In "The Poor Kid", he had no problem mocking others for being the poorest kid in school (to the point of performing a twenty minute song and dance number directed at the poorest kid at his new school), but when he was revealed to be the poorest kid in South Park after Kenny left, he immediately started acting like such mockery was the lowest thing to do.
  • He is utterly convinced that Butters "deserves" all the torment he inflicts on him.
  • In "Mexican Joker", he demanded that Kyle apologize for "always being a dick" to him, disregarding the many, many more times Cartman has gone out of his way to insult and/or humiliate Kyle.
• Moral Sociopathy: While he lacks natural empathy and impulse-control, he can actually become a pretty nice guy when he follows a code. The best example would have to be in the Post-Covid two-parter; he still has narcissistic and manipulative tendencies, and passive-aggressively bullies Kyle; but his sincere love for his family and commitment to the laws of Judaism have turned him into effectively as good a man as Cartman is capable of becoming.
• Motor Mouth:
  • During the "Kyle's Mom's a Bitch" song from the movie.
  • Also in "Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut"; once he hears "Come Sail Away", he stops everything to finish it in order to finish in the fastest way possible.
  • Invoked when attempting to explain a very long string of fabricated events in "Toilet Paper".
    Cartman: Okay. Last night, all four of us were at the bowling alley until about 7:30, at which time we noticed Ally Sheedy, the goth chick from the Breakfast Club, was bowling in the lane next to us, and we asked her for her autograph, but she didn't have a pen, so we followed her out to her car, but on the way we were accosted by five Scientologists who wanted to give us all personality tests, which were administered at the Scientology Center in Denver until 10:45, at which time we accidentally boarded the wrong bus home and ended up in Rancho de Burritos Rojos, south of Castle Rock, and finally got a ride home with a man who was missing his left index finger, named Gary Bushwell, arriving home at 11:46.
• The Mole: Attempted. He pretends to help the other boys take down the Wall-mart so he can be The Millstone for them. He fools no one and they continually call him out on the fact that he's on the Wall-Mart's side. He later reveals himself to be a mole.
• Mr. Imagination: He probably has the most active imagination out of the four boys, and leads the crew when they play pretend.
• Narcissist: One episode has him coming to the (rather short-lived) epiphany that maybe the world doesn't revolve around him; the mere thought almost causes him to Go Mad from the Revelation.
• The Napoleon: "T.M.I." highlights this. Not regarding Cartman's height, but the length of his penis. In "Make Love, Not Warcraft", Cartman is the only character with a dwarf avatar.
• Near-Villain Victory: Often. It is usually undone by his own doing.
• Necessarily Evil: It’s revealed during the "Post-Covid" Duology that Cartman needs to remain friends with Stan, Kyle, and Kenny during their childhood, despite being a terrible friend to them, and remain a bigoted Jerkass because if he ceases to be friends with them and changes his ways, Earth will become a Crapsack World, even by South Park standards, with everyone except Cartman becoming miserable. It's only upon adulthood that the trio can finally break off their friendship with Cartman, where the world has become a better place to live in and the trio can finally live out happy lives, while the only person who truly suffers and is miserable in the revised timeline is Cartman himself.
• Never My Fault: In true sociopathic behavior, Cartman refuses to take any responsibility for anything bad that happens, even when it bites him in the ass. He drove a student to commit suicide after humiliating him over pooping his own pants, and his response is that it was the student’s own fault. He was kicked out of his own superhero team because he was being, in their words, “a dick”, and believes they had turned evil.
• Nice Guy: Deconstructed in "Post Covid". As an adult, he's become the most affable of the four boys, being respectful and sensible to everyone he meets, and showing genuine devotion towards his wife and his three kids. However, it's clear that by then he's done so many horrible things as a child that it's impossible for some characters (read: Kyle) to see his display of kindness as anything other than a ruse. Notably, he still easily falls back into villainy when under pressure, and he never fully understands Kyle's resentment towards him. Despite this, he finally cements himself as this after his wife's influence triggers a Heel Realization, and he travels to the past to save Kyle's life and help fix the future, at the cost of his happy life. Since this future is erased, however, the Cartman of the revised future never manages to become this in his life, and likely never will.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Even serving as the page image for the show's nightmare fuel page.
• Noble Bigot: In "Cartman Finds Love", he seems to really believe that he is doing the right thing in setting Token up with Nichole despite his entire basis being his racism.
• Noble Demon: In "Major Boobage", Cartman risks serious trouble or imprisonment to protect the town's cats. He is apparently unaware of the parallels when Kyle asks pointedly whether he noticed the obvious historical parallel, after Cartman had risked arrest by harboring felines in his attic, despite him earlier lampshading it by suggesting his cat could "write a diary" while in hiding.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Cartman eventually decides to help Stan and Kyle fix the past to ensure that everyone gets a better future. Unfortunately, this act of selflessness greatly costs Cartman as he loses his family and becomes a miserable and homeless drunk in the new timeline.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Delivers one to Mosquito (Clyde) because Mosquito wanted to help people in the Gulf instead of blackmailing fellow heroes.
• Nominal Hero: He'll sometimes do good deeds like save the town from hippies or save some crack babies, or stop a terrorist threat. Don't expect his motivations to have anything in common with the rest of the team.
• Non-Standard Character Design: His body and face shape is much more exaggerated compared to the rest of his peers (excluding disabled ones). He also has a notable double chin. Also, rather subtle, but Cartman's eyebrows are actually triangular, as opposed to other characters' more rectangular eyebrows. Cartman's body type would not be used for another character in the series until the Season 7 episode "Raisins" which introduced the overweight goth girl Henrietta.
• Not Me This Time:
  • In a case of Dramatic Irony, he is NOT Skankhunt42.
  • He's also not responsible for the school shootings and Manbearpig's rampage as Yates claims he is (along with Kenny).
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: While often appearing as nothing more than an ignorant, lazy, gullible Jerkass, he sometimes shows to be much more dangerous and manipulative than he first seems. The most notable example is the episode "Scott Tenorman Must Die".
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: He'll often claim that his latest immoral scheme is somehow well-intentioned, but his motives are always obviously self-serving and/or petty. It's most notably demonstrated during the Coon arc during an exchange for Kenny when he calls Cartman out in his and Cthulhu's rampage.
  Cartman: I'm making the world a better place!
  Kenny: For you!
  Cartman: Right, that's what superheroes do.
• Obfuscating Disability: In "Up the Down Steroid", he pretends to be mentally challenged so that he can win the Special Olympics. Unfortunately, he doesn't take into account that while not disabled, he's by no means athletic like the other contestants are, resulting in him getting last place in every event. Later, in “Le Petit Tourette”, he pretends to have Tourette’s Syndrome so he can curse and verbally abuse people without any repercussions. However, he becomes so used to saying whatever comes to his mind that he begins saying embarrassing secrets involuntarily.
• Obliviously Evil: Cartman will sometimes genuinely try to do the right thing, but he's so twisted he'll wind up doing horrible things anyway in pursuit of this.
  • The most notable instance is in the "Coon" arc, he really thinks he is making the world a better place by disposing of the people he doesn't like. Ends up getting defied later on; when Mysterion calls him on this, it turns out he's perfectly aware of how self-centered and monstrous he's being, only being surprised that no one else wants to be a "hero" to make the world a better place solely for things that they like.
  • In "It's A Jersey Thing", he views anyone with Jersey blood as a parasitic monster. While his hostility towards them has plenty of actual merit, he genuinely thinks blaming the whole thing on Kyle (who was conceived in Jersey) and locking him in a freezer solely because the former gave him a mild scratch is going to solve everyone's problems, to the point where he actually cajoles several kids into doing it, rather than ambushing Kyle himself like he normally would.
  • While trying to help Stan get revenge on his parents for pulling off an elaborate, mean-spirited lie in "My Future Self n' Me", he's confused at how Stan thinks smearing poop on the wall isn't extreme enough, yet killing his parents and feeding them to his dog is somehow too extreme.
  • In "Cupid Ye", he spreads anti-semitic conspiracy theories throughout the school as part off a scheme to destroy Kyle and Tolkien's friendship. Surprisingly, rather than doing it to screw with Kyle as he usually does, Cartman actually does this as a favor to Stan, who was jealous Kyle was spending more time with Tolkien than him. For his part, Stan winds up horrified when he learns what Cartman's doing.
• Official Couple: In Season 20, he gets with Heidi Turner, which deceivingly starts off as a very sweet and romantic relationship to horrifically abusive and disturbing one in typical Cartman fashion that eventually ends in “Splatty Tomato”
• Only-Child Syndrome: Cartman is the only one of the four main boys who's an only child. He's also a narcissistic Spoiled Brat because his mother never says "no" to him, feels outright horrified by being the odd man out in any fashion (no matter how minor), and, with some exceptions, can't expand his social skills to having conversations like a normal person and not just bossing those closest to his vicinity around. Additionally, while he's very emotionally immature, he often shows a desire to be seen as an adult, chastising his friends as immature in "Cartman Joins NAMBLA" and killing all his toys in a symbolic effort to grow up in "1%."
• Out-of-Character Moment: "You're Getting Old" and "Ass Burgers" has Cartman acting nice towards Kyle and not doing it to manipulate him for anything. The niceness act is due to Stan being a cynical asshole and being unbearable to be around. Naturally, Status Quo Is God and Cartman resumes being a jerk to Kyle afterwards.

P-T

• Patricide: Unknowingly killed his father and turned him into chili. When he finds out, he's horrified... that his father was ginger.
• Paper Tiger: For all his shit-talking and threats to kick ass, he's a complete coward when threatened. This makes the occasions where he does get effective revenge on someone even more terrifying.
  • On at least two occasions, Kyle has made him cry from punching him in the arm and busted/broken his nose with a shovel with no retaliation when Cartman threatened him.
  • During one episode, he made several misogynistic comments about Stan's sister when it was revealed that she abuses Stan on a routine basis, and when she's within earshot of one of those comments, he's very quick to pin it on Kenny.
  • Stan made him hang up the phone and back away in terror after identifying him as the person trash-talking to him in "The Passion of the Jew".
  • And, of course, there was the epic fight he had with Wendy, in which Wendy pretty much busted his head open.
• Phrase Catcher: "GODDAMNIT CARTMAN!"
• Pet the Dog:
  • When Skyler mistreated Shelly in "Cat Orgy", Cartman helps Shelly exact revenge on Skyler, due to both discovering a mutual bond for making those they hate suffer (and also because even Cartman thought that a twenty-something dating a twelve-year-old was just wrong).
  • In "Major Boobage", he shows a lot more love to cats than he ever has to any human.
  • In spite of his racist tendencies, Cartman actually looked up to Chef as one of the only trustworthy adults in town and never discriminated against him for being black. However this could perhaps be justified by the fact that Cartman loves food, and calling Chef a racial slur would likely lead him to spitting in his lunch.
  • In the video games, The New Kid is perhaps the only person in South Park that Cartman has consistently treated with at least some level of respect and kindness, regarding the New Kid as a good friend and his protege rather than a mere pawn. Cartman even (mostly) puts aside his bigoted viewpoints and disregards whatever player-chosen demographics (race, ethnicity, etc.) the New Kid is given when addressing them. It's implied the New Kid sees Cartman as their best friend as well and gives him their loyalty and trust as their way of returning the favor.
  • In a deleted scene of "Reverse Cowgirl", he is one of the kids that genuinely tries to help Clyde laugh and even looks saddened at Butters's joke about Clyde accidentally killing his mom.
  • In Season 20, he is shown to a surprisingly sweet boyfriend to Heidi Turner and treats her far better than any other human being. Sadly, this does not last, and by Season 21 he becomes an emotionally abusive one to her.
  • He carries Kenny's coffin during the bike parade in the Season 22 finale, with a sign saying "Remember Kenny".
  • Subverted in regards to Kyle: Cartman will seemingly perform a good deed for him, but it's always for a personal gain of sorts. He helped Kyle save his brother from being in a relationship with his teacher, but only because the two didn't have a hall pass (therefore not listening to Cartman's authority, who was the hall monitor at the time). He also attempts to help Kyle get more Facebook friends, but a few scenes before shows him deliberately trying to get his followers to dump Kyle as a friend.
    Cartman: That's all the time I have for today. Remember, update that profile, and steer clear of Kyle! [smiles]
    • That said, he does have one genuine Pet the Dog moment, as well as being extremely out of character with Kyle at the end of "You're Getting Old". The two smile at one another while playing video games, no ulterior motive to be found. Unfortunately, Status Quo Is God, and this is quickly reverted back to the usual dynamic at the end of "Ass Burgers."
    • In "Smug Alert!", he goes out of his way to save Kyle and his family from the smug storm in San Francisco. While he justifies saving Kyle on the basis that he's fun to torture, he also saves the rest of Kyle's family despite having nothing to gain from doing so.
  • In another surprisingly genuine moment, during the "Pandemic Special", he is willing to kill an animal who might provide the vaccine for COVID-19 just so that he wouldn't have to go back to school, but after seeing Stan crying over his uncertainty surrounding the future and wanting for things to go back to normal so he and the other kids can enjoy life and have fun again, he relents and doesn't go through with it.
  • Also, during the "South ParQ Vaccination Special, he and the other boys are trying to make amends with Mrs. Nelson for the prank Cartman and Kenny pulled on her by getting her a vaccine. Subverted as they are only doing it so she will continue to be their teacher and not have Mr. Garrison be their teacher again. However, Cartman and the other boys all treasure their friendship with Kenny and try to work out an arrangement that keeps him happy when they decide to split up as a group and hang out with Kenny individually.
  • In "Cupid Ye", he becomes genuinely invested in getting Stan and Kyle to be best friends again for the former's sake, even if the way he goes about it completely ruins the latter's reputation.
  • In "Joining the Panderverse", after learning that Kathleen Kennedy only doubled down on her pandering because she wanted to combat his barrage of racist messages, he apologizes to her for driving her insane and admits that harping on woke stuff so much was quite lazy of him, and they eventually depart in peace.
  • In "Not Suitable For Children", he covers for Clyde after learning the latter had lied about having cred and had tanked the reputation of their affinity group. At the end of the special, Cartman hands Clyde a bottle of cred after noticing he still didn't have any and keeps him in the group with no hard feelings.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Initially served as the blue boy to Heidi's pink girl. Cartman regularly wears a blue hat, while Heidi dons a pink one as of Season 20.
• Playing the Victim Card: No matter what awful things Cartman has done, he will always try to twist the situation around so that he is the one who suffered from it. This becomes a recurring plot point in season 21; He sees himself as the victim in his and Heidi's relationship, in spite of the fact that he is distant, emotionally abusive, and at one point, even tried to get Heidi killed by a witch. By the end of the season, Heidi finally sees this, and calls him out on it.
  Heidi: You were hurt! You were the victim!
  Cartman: Yes. I'm glad you understand that.
• Plot-Irrelevant Villain: His only role in the "Imaginationland" trilogy is to make Kyle suck his balls but otherwise contributes nothing to the ongoing plot.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Jews, hippies, blacks, Asians, poor people, girls... They all get the hate from Cartman at least once. Of course, in the video games, he plays the Politically Incorrect Hero due to his Adaptational Heroism. One example is when he's attacked by Butters' Mexican Chaos Minions:
  Cartman: [as the Coon] Their Chaos Powers are preventing me from understanding their speech!
• Practically Joker: Cartman is often described to be the Joker if the latter was an obese child and it definitely has some merit:
  • Cartman is Laughably Evil and sporadically commits appalling crimes for either petty reasons or his own amusement, is a notorious sociopath whose actions disturb even other villains, and had a girlfriend whom he emotionally abused (though per his Bitch in Sheep's Clothing routine, he did call her funny and probably had her explain some jokes), leading up to her eventually becoming his Distaff Counterpart.
  • His relation to Kyle is also comparable to that of The Joker's relationship to Batman, especially since at the end of the day, he doesn't truly want to kill the Batman of this scenario (despite what he may claim) because tormenting him, screwing up his love life, blackmailing him with the threat of other people dying, having lackeys lock him in a freezer and going The Fagin route in an inner-city school just to prove him wrong about not being able to blend in is all just too much fun.
  • Cartman also shares cues with the Joker from Harley Quinn (2019) in that he tries to become a better person after finding his Second Love and becoming a family man, only to go back to his villainous ways with little resistance.
  • Cartman will eventually meet a similar fate to the Arkhamverse's version of The Joker in that, for all the horrific crimes that he has committed for the sake of attention, he will ultimately be forgotten by society, with everyone he used to torment having moved on from his past deeds and are now ignoring and shunning him (including his Arch-Enemy), while Cartman himself has faded into obscurity, only being sparingly recognized out of pity at best and as a bad memory at worst. Just like with the Joker, being ignored and forgotten is the one fate that Cartman truly fears, and it ends up being the one thing that has officially broken him and made him so miserable.
• Psychopathic Manchild: What Cartman becomes in the new timeline. He still wears his childhood clothes, lives on the road as a hobo, and screams obscenities at people.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "This. Is. Bullcrap!"
• Real Men Love Jesus: As the Dawg in "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy".
  Cartman: Go with Christ, brah.
• Redemption Equals Death: A non-lethal variant of this trope happens to him in the ending of Post Covid, Future!Cartman really managed to turn his life around when he entered his 50s, having finally gotten over his bigotry towards Jewish people (even becoming one himself), starting a family and being surprisingly Good Parents along with his wife to his children. However, he is forced to either keep it and let COVID continue its rampage or sacrifice it all for a Bad Future for himself while his friends get their happy endings. He chooses the latter, realizing that saving the world from the COVID plague was more important than his family, this result in Good!Cartman's conceptual death and replaced by the homeless version of him.
• Redemption Failure:
  • Cartman did attempt to change his behavior in Season 20, having gotten into a romantic relationship with Heidi Turner and treating her far better than anyone else. However in Season 21, Cartman returns to being a Jerkass who decides to abuse Heidi and corrupts her into becoming another version of himself.
  • Zig-Zagged regarding his second attempt to redeem himself in South Park: Post Covid. This time, he has converted to Judaism and becomes a family man with a wife and children. However, Kyle remains convinced that Cartman hasn’t truly changed, with Cartman eventually going back to his evil ways to stop Stan and Kyle from changing the Bad Future in fear that he’ll lose his family, until his wife, Yentl, convinces him to let them change the past. However, this results in a future where Cartman doesn’t choose to redeem himself upon reaching adulthood resulting in him becoming a homeless alcoholic who’s done nothing with his life and is considered to be Beyond Redemption.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Red Oni to Butters' and Kyle's Blue Oni whenever Kyle isn't playing the Red Oni to Stan's Blue Oni.
• Refuge in Audacity: Cartman is so popular with the fans because of his extreme tendencies and over-the-top personality.
• Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: On a few occasions, Cartman becomes rich, such as in "Cartmanland", where he inherits one million dollars from his grandmother, or in "Christian Rock Hard", thanks to his very successful Christian rock band Faith + 1. However, due to his pettiness and lack of understanding of economics, he wastes all of his money on petty and absurdly high expenses such as an amusement park just so he can be the only one to enjoy it, or a ridiculously lavish award ceremony to make winning a bet against Kyle the sweetest possible. It always ends with him losing his fortune by the end of the episode.
• The Rival: Alternates between this and Arch-Enemy with Kyle.
• Robosexuals Are Creeps: This doesn't apply to Cartman himself because he's not robosexual, but he gets freaked out by a robosexual in the "AWESOM-O" episode while disguised as a robot. One of the producers in a film studio mistakes Cartman as a "pleasure robot", so Cartman freaks out and flees the studio's boardroom.
• Rousseau Was Right: "Tsst" definitely puts this into perspective, suggesting there still is a core of innocence under all of that hate and bile building up in Cartman's psyche, but remains suppressed largely due to his upbringing. As Trey Parker puts it, Liane's ineffectual parenting skills molded Cartman into The Sociopath he is today, and so long as she's looking for a friend in her son, he has no hope of recovery.
  Parker: Cartman's basically doomed.
• Running Gag: People have mistaken him for Bruce Vilanch multiple times.
• Sadist: Cartman is frequently shown to have a horrific sense of humor at the expense of others. He laughs at several of Kenny's deaths, delights in torturing Kyle relentlessly (and revels in the idea of actually killing him), and is revealed at one point to have bullied a classmate to the point of being Driven to Suicide. And probably, one of the most sadistic moments in the entire series was in the ending of "Scott Tenorman Must Die".

  Mr. Mackey: Well, what did you use to think was funny?
  Cartman: You know, all the usual stuff. Dirty jokes, funny movies, seeing someone die...

• Satanic Archetype: While the series does have an actual Satan character, Eric is the closest equivalent of the Devil. For starters, Eric is a Machiavellian who is motivated by his selfish desires, and makes deals that ultimately only benefit him and screw everyone else involved over. Last but not least, Cartman's personality embodies all the Seven Deadly Sins, further enhancing his Satanic qualities.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: "Screw you guys, I'm going home."
• The Scrooge: He is miserably and completely scrooged, determined not to give up the slightest amount of money, such as refusing to give a dollar to Afghan children in "Osama bin Laden Has Farty Pants", "I'm not giving a dollar to those towel-heads!" Craig Tucker observed in "Fishsticks" that Jimmy was lucky Cartman was only asking for half the money that would be made from patenting a joke that Jimmy had come up with, and Cartman was intent on taking credit for (he had actually lied on the couch eating chips, offering no input).
• Self-Made Orphan: Halfway there, having arranged the death of his father Jack Tenorman. Came close to fully becoming one in "Tsst".
• Self-Serving Memory: Especially prominent in "Fishsticks" and the "Coon and Friends" trilogy.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Manly Man to Butters' and Stan's Sensitive Guy. Zig-Zagged. Cartman, while being abrasive and trying to be authoritative, is actually mostly a wimp both mentally and physically (excluding some badass and sociopathic moments), who is no stranger to doing traditionally feminine things like playing with dolls, and crossdressed more than once. Meanwhile, Stan is a mostly quiet guy, and while he's probably the most sensitive of the group, he's usually The Leader and a Determinator who has played in multiple sports. Also, Stan is the only one from the group who never cross-dressed and the only time he acted (somehow) effeminate was in the "South Park Is Gay!" episode, where he became metrosexual to fit in and he was not his normal self.
• Serious Business: Anything involving food, stuffed animals, or cartoons. And that's just the more well-known examples...
• Seven Deadly Sins: His Greed and Gluttony are the most obvious, but he's a pretty nasty cocktail of all seven; he's bigoted, short-tempered and never hesitates to tell people he hates them (Wrath), a sadist with rather... disturbing hobbies (Lust), loafs around the house and has his mother do everything for him (Sloth), has a Self-Serving Memory and a tendency to shift blame (Pride) and loves watching and causing other peoples' misfortune, especially Kyle's (Envy).
• Shadow Archetype: He's this to Heidi Turner. Both have their Jerkass moments while also having potential of becoming awful, with Heidi becoming an obese bigot like Cartman in the back half of season 21. However Heidi is at least capable of recognizing how awful she became before deciding to genuinely grow and change to become a better person earning herself a second chance at happiness, while Cartman never learns his lessons, blames his faults on others, and progressively gets worse until he becomes a lonely, miserable, and homeless alcoholic with Butters deeming Cartman Beyond Redemption. In short, Cartman is who Heidi could become if she never learned to take responsibility for herself.
• Shipper with an Agenda: In "The Streaming Wars", he tries to set up his mom and the millionaire Mr. Cussler, after learning that the latter owns a full size movie theater. Though he wouldn't have succeeded anyway, the idea is completely destroyed when Mr. Cussler is killed by Manbearpig.
• Shipper on Deck: When Cupid Cartman is around, Cartman shows off this side of him.
  • For Token/Nichole. He goes to ridiculous feats to get them together.
  • Also for Tweek/Craig. Though he admits to not understanding what being gay is like, he still tasks Cupid Cartman to encourage them to make the first move, even agreeing to date him in exchange.
  • If "Cupid Ye" is any indication, he became this for Stan/Kyle as well, though he's also happy to ruin the latter's reputation in order to make it happen.
• Shock and Awe: He temporarily gets the ability to shoot lightning out of his hands near the ending of Bigger, Longer, and Uncut using the V-Chip in his head.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: With Heidi Turner. Much to the annoyance of the other students.
• Signature Headgear: He's usually seen with his trademark blue beanie with a yellow pompom, although out of the four boys he is also the one most likely to ditch it for whatever reason.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: This trope applies to his friends as well, but to him more than anyone else.
• Skewed Priorities: A common gag with him is that he goes ballistic over minor things (e.g; trying to make Kyle suck his balls due to a bet) but takes actual crisis in stride.
• Small Name, Big Ego: The walking personification of the trope. Cartman acts like he is better than everyone else and knows more than anyone else, but when people actually start fighting back by hitting him (even if it's a weak tap), he starts bawling like a baby. "Breast Cancer Show Ever" has the trope in spades where Cartman pushes Wendy's buttons too far and she vows to beat him up, causing Cartman to plead with her to not fight him while at the same time, he acts tough in front of the school to keep up his image.
• Smart Jerk and Nice Moron: The smart jerk to Butters' nice moron. Although nearly as ignorant, Cartman is a Manipulative Bastard of a Jerkass who often exploits the latter for his many schemes; Butters is a naïve Wide-Eyed Idealist whose overly nice demeanor makes him gullible to those using him.
• Smug Snake: While Cartman is capable of forming many complex plans, his own arrogance usually serves as his own undoing.
• The Sociopath: He's a perfect example of a sociopath with particularly poor impulse control. First of all, he displays a Lack of Empathy for any living person, nor has he ever shown any feelings of guilt for anything. His list of crimes is vast, but he has committed them frequently just to alleviate boredom, or for an immature personal gain. When he thought he was dead and a ghost, he endeavored to atone for his sins, but only did so to stop being a ghost — he didn't consider he might otherwise go to Hell. He showed no sympathy for the suffering Butters went through for helping him, and once he realized he hadn't been a ghost, he considered all these acts of atonement a waste of time. Cartman has one exception to his otherwise total lack of empathy; he doesn't like it when somebody hurts his mother. Regardless, Cartman manipulates and bullies her mercilessly himself, so he effectively thinks of her as a possession of his, rather than somebody with feelings.
• Sociopathic Hero: When he is on the good side, he'll still insult and suggest violent methods. He seems to be the default leader of the fourth grade boys in the case of a crisis, e.g. "Make Love Not Warcraft", "Marjorine", "The List". That said, his Character Development has made him an Heroic Comedic Sociopath.
• Son of a Whore: His mother is a former crack whore who had slept with the entire named adult population of South Park.
• Spoiled Brat: He constantly demands his mom give him everything he wants without ever showing gratitude; she caters to his every whim (with a few exceptions) because of how lonely she is.
  Cartman: Mom, can you get me some Weight Gain 4000?
  Cartman's Mom: Okay Eric. I'll get you some at the store tomorrow.
  Cartman: But mom, I need it for tomorrow!
  Cartman's Mom: But, tomorrow is grocery day, Eric.
  Cartman: Mooooooom! [whines incoherently]
  Cartman's Mom: Okay, okay. Well, I guess I'll be going to the store now, then.
  Cartman: [smiles] Sweet.
• Starter Villain: For season 23, where his only role as the major antagonist of an episode is in the first episode of the season "Mexican Joker". Afterwards, he relegated to the role of supporting character while Randy Marsh replaces him as the main villain for much of the season.
• Stout Strength: Several episodes imply that, for all his lethargy, he has a decent amount of strength. He uses Kyle as a shield and quickly chucks him away in "Casa Bonita" to go to the titular restaurant, he's able to carry Sheila back to South Park along with the rest of the Broflovskis in "Smug Alert!", and he (physically) bulldozes a bunch of hyperactive kids in "Not Suitable for Children". How well he can actually defend himself, though, is subject to Rule of Funny.
• Straw Character: Cartman is primarily used to satirize far-right and white supremacist talking points and public figures, and his politics are used to emphasize how entitled, spoiled, and moronic he is. He does have the occasional point, but he's more often than not the butt of the joke.
• Straw Hypocrite: Cartman is usually a major bigot and all-around jerk, but he occasionally takes up social causes and guilt trips anybody who doesn't side with him. However, it's almost always just a way to make himself feel superior and avoid responsibility for his actions. For example, he campaigns for suicide awareness in "Put It Down", but all he really cares about is that people stop laughing at his breakdown and phony suicide threat over Heidi dumping him, and outright tells Heidi that he doesn't care about other kids who supposedly feel the same way.
• Straw Loser: Cartman is often used to make the other Boys look reasonable in comparison. Where Stan, Kyle, and Kenny tend to be well-meaning for the most part and genuine in the causes they represent, Cartman is a bigoted, lazy Spoiled Brat whose arguments are almost always in bad faith.
• Strong as They Need to Be: His fighting prowess is pretty inconsistent. He varies from so frail that he's reduced to tears/whining/fainting after a punch or two from someone else his age ("It's Christmas In Canada", "Doubling Down", "Christian Rock Hard", "It's A Jersey Thing", "Cartman Sucks", "Nobody Got Cereal?"), to roughly fighting on par with the other boys ("Cartoon Wars", "W.T.F."), to being able to easily beat up Kyle ("Damien"), Clyde ("Coon II: Hindsight"), and Craig ("Tweek vs Craig"), to being able to beat up adults ("Chickenlover", "With Apologies to Jesse Jackson"; the latter adult was a dwarf, though still one with a black belt), all the way up to being nearly inhumanly strong for a nine year old (kicking a kid clear across a room in "Miss Teacher Bangs A Boy" and outmaneuvering a larger, much more athletic teen by restraining him with nothing but a cane in "Eek, a Penis!"). It's also shown in "It's A Jersey Thing" that he often whines and exaggerates his injuries so he can avoid as many physical confrontations as possible.
• Stupid Evil: Cartman may be cunning and manipulative, but he’s also extremely petty and short-sighted in his planning which causes Cartman to make very stupid decisions that would eventually backfire on him. Examples include "Christian Rock Hard", "City People", and "The Streaming Wars".
• Sudden Name Change: The 1992 short The Spirit of Christmas: Jesus vs. Frosty gave him Kenny's name, but it would later be changed to his current name in the following short.
• Teeny Weenie: In "T.M.I.", it is revealed that he has an exceptionally tiny penis (even for a boy of 9 years old), and the insecurity of that seems to a leading or at least additional factor driving his psychotic rages. When the school posts height measurements in the hallway for the boys, Cartman assumes it to be penis sizes and demands all the boys measure their sizes to disprove the original measurements. His rage in this particularly incident leads him to getting Anger Management, during which his doctor attempts to insult him to produce an angry reaction. Cartman oddly enough does not demonstrate his rage vocally, but rather in a coldly sadistic manner by manipulating the doctor's wife into killing herself through a simple set of text messages. Cartman is then put in a group anger management session, during which he several like-minded individuals with small penises go on a rage-driven rampage.
• Tell Me About My Father: He finally asks his mom about who his father is at the end of season one, where it's revealed his mother is actually his father. "201" reveals this is a lie; his real father is Jack Tenorman.
• Thin-Skinned Bully: Cartman is an incredibly sociopathic case of a bully for comedic media, but still routinely presented as a tantrum throwing wimp in the face of return fire. In one episode, he repeatedly threatens to beat up Kyle. After Kyle relents to a fight and reluctantly taps him on the cheek, he's left bawling indignantly for a lengthy amount of time. Wendy puts him on the spot for this in "Dances With Smurfs" after he leads a relentless hate campaign on her run as school council president, her response is to grant him the role. After less than five minutes of the same harrassment, he runs out of school sobbing from the pressure.
• That's What I Would Do: Uses his skills in getting out of trouble by making up some huge lie to figure out that a kid teaching the parents of South Park how to play Minecraft is lying.
• Token Evil Teammate: In the main group, because he's a sociopathic and racist bully. This really applies from season 5 onwards. While sometimes his friends were worse than him in the earlier seasons, in later seasons, even at their worst, his friends aren't as bad as him.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • As The Coon in the "Coon & Friends" trilogy. However, even in his normal persona, he does admittedly have moments where his cunning and manipulation come off as genuinely badass.
  • A Running Gag throughout the show his him threatening to beat up Kyle, only to run away wailing when Kyle lightly slaps him. In "Return of Covid", this looks like it's about to happen... but after a pause, Cartman wipes the blood from his nose and jumps him. Though their ensuing fight is brief, they actually fight on equal footing until Cartman pins him down. If Yentl's intervention hadn't spurred a Heel Realization, Cartman would've beaten Kyle to death.
• Took a Level in Jerkass:
  • In Season 5. He was at worst a stupid Spoiled Brat Jerkass from the beginning, but on several occasions his friends came off even worse as they would occasionally bully him when he hadn't even bothered them and for the most part came off as an Anti-Hero or Jerk with a Heart of Gold. However, from Season 5 (more specifically the Scott Tenorman episode) onwards, he's become a cold, calculating, sociopathic Jerkass, his friend can never reach his cruelty, and he's normally a Villain Protagonist.
  • In Season 21, after several seasons of gradually mellowing out, he becomes an abusive boyfriend to Heidi. Notable because she's the only person he treats exceptionally poorly (at least until he molds her into his perfect girlfriend, whereupon the abuse becomes mutual), as he still helps his friends out in "Hummels and Heroine" and "Splatty Tomato" without any prompting.
• Took a Level in Kindness:
  • He temporarily acts kinder towards Kyle beginning with the episode "You're Getting Old". This is quickly reverted during the episode "Ass Burgers" and Cartman resumes his former behavior to his rival. "1%" shows a more affectionate side rather than kind after he's told to "grow up" and some of his stuffed animals are killed, then he bids farewell to the last of them. Even Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Token watch as he shoots Polly Prissypants and cries while doing it. Though this is more about his sanity finally breaking than anything...
  • In Season 20, he makes some sincere effort to try being a better person (the sincere part begins after his revelation of looking upon Heidi's vagina- originally, it was to preserve his bullying ways under a PC radar) and is less antagonistic than before. He even gets a girlfriend. Subverted in season 21. It's also implied towards the end of season 20 that he never really changed.
  • It's played straight in both Seasons 22 and 23, when Cartman has undergone a more significant amount of Villain Decay along with more prominent Pet the Dog moments, such as backing up Clyde when the latter demands Kyle to get Father Maxi out of his birthday party and in the last two episodes of the season, where Cartman actually laments that he, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny never do anything together anymore, prompting all of them to participate in the bike parade, and when they do at the end of the season finale, Cartman is seen carrying Kenny's coffin after he is killed by Amazon Alexa. It's subverted in the Season 23 premiere episode, "Mexican Joker", when he gets Kyle and his family detained by I.C.E. just because Kyle insulted him in front of a girl whose bra he was going to snap, and threatens to do the same to Jimmy for telling the teacher he was texting in class. It's double subverted and played straight once again from every episode afterwards when Cartman is detained by I.C.E. himself after Stan heard about what he did to Kyle and did it to get revenge for him, with more Pet the Dog moments, such as expressing his condolences to the Whites when their son, Jason White, was run over and Killed Off for Real in "Season Finale", and working with Stan and Kenny to steal a sample of Sheila's feces for a copy of "Jedi Fallen Order" in "Turd Burglars".
  • Perhaps his most defining moment of his newfound level in kindness is during the "Pandemic Special", when he is willing to kill a pangolin who might provide the vaccine for COVID-19 just so that he wouldn't have to go back to school, but after seeing Stan crying over his uncertainty surrounding the future and wanting for things to go back to normal so he and the other kids can enjoy life and have fun again, Cartman relents and decides to give the pangolin back to the scientist, raising hopes for a vaccine that will end COVID-19, until President Garrison comes out of nowhere to burn the pangolin and the scientist to death just so he can take advantage of the pandemic to kill off all the Mexicans.
  • Afterwards, in the "South ParQ Vaccination Special", when he and the other boys are drifting away from each other due to the pandemic, he's willing to help give the vaccinations to Mrs. Nelson as a way to make up for the prank he and Kenny pulled on her, leading her to leave the school and quit her job. Not only that, but he, along with Stan and Kyle, all treasure their friendship with Kenny and try to work out an arrangement that keeps him happy when they decide to split up and hang out with Kenny individually.
  • This eventually became a pattern in his life to the point of undergoing a Heel–Face Turn and maturing into a benevolent Jewish family man who is even willing to sacrifice his own happiness for his former friends after some prompting from his wife.
  • Unfortunately, this is all ruined when the future is revoked and his progress is completely erased, eventually devolving into a homeless alcoholic Manchild whom everyone takes pity on at best. Despite this, Seasons 25 and 26 (both of which set in this revised future) have him display several Pet the Dog moments that show that, even though he'll likely never reach the heights he did in "Post Covid", he still might not be completely lost. "My Future Self n' Me" also reveals that in the South Park universe, the future is constantly shifting based on the present, so he might still redeem himself.
• Toxic Friend Influence: Cartman is this to his everyone living in South Park where his influence would bring the worst of their personalities with one example being Heidi Turner who become a female version of Cartman after dating him for so long only to return to her Nice Girl self after breaking up with him. Butters, Clyde, and Scott Malkinson also Take a notable level in Jerkass after years of hanging out with him, and he's even managed to sway Kenny, Stan, and even Kyle to his side on occasion. Sure enough when everyone decides to cut Cartman out of their lives entirely the town is finally able to grow in a positive direction with the townsfolk living genuinely happy lives while Cartman is stuck being a homeless and miserable alcoholic whose all alone because no one wants to deal with his influence.
• Tragic Hero: He actually becomes this in "Return of COVID". In order to ensure that everyone gets a better future, Cartman is forced to sacrifice his family and happy life. After some resistance, Cartman eventually decides to carry out his sacrifice, which results in Cartman becoming a homeless and miserable drunk in the new timeline.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Pot Pie and Cheesy Poofs in the earlier seasons. In later seasons, Kentucky Fried Chicken seems to be his new favorite food.
• Troll: With a large degree of blur with Manipulative Bastard. He does seem to thoroughly and sadistically enjoy the suffering his actions cause. However, in Season 20, it's revealed that he is NOT Skankhunt42.
  • Cartman's trolling is so next-level that in Post Covid — when he's revealed in adulthood to have become a caring, peaceful family man and an ordained Ortodox rabbi — Kyle doesn't buy it for a second, convinced that it's a forty-year scheme just to annoy or trick him somehow. And he's not unjustified in those suspicions.
• Tuckerization: His name is based on Trey Parker's high school friend Matt Karpman.

U-Y

• Understanding Boyfriend: Parodied. His attempts at being this to Heidi consist entirely of repeating "You're smart and funny" over and over again. Though it's ultimately subverted as he had never changed in the first place and it soon becomes clear how horrible he actually is.
• Ungrateful Bastard: In "Up the Down Steroid", Kyle pleads with him not to go through with his plan to pretend to be handicapped to win the Special Olympics, convinced that this will condemn Cartman to Hell. Rather than by touched by Kyle's compassionate plea, Cartman instead claims that since Kyle's a Jew, he will be the one going to Hell for what his people did to Jesus.
• Unexplained Accent: His voice has a vaguely southern twinge that shows up in certain lines ("Respect my AUTHOR-ITAH", "Fuck you KAHL!", etc.). His mom doesn't have such an accent, nor do any of his friends, though in one episode it's shown that his extended family talks the same way.
• The Unfettered: To comedic and sometimes horrific extents.
• Unsportsmanlike Gloating: Whenever he wins a bet with Kyle (such as crapping out his mouth or getting a platinum album in a music band), he'll take every possible opportunity he can to rub it in Kyle's face. In fact, it's shown that he actually likes gloating about the win more than the reward itself; for example, in "Christian Rock Hard", when he discovers that Christian rock bands only give out myrrh albums and not platinum ones, thus meaning he won't be able to win the bet, he flies into a rage in public and ruins the band's success.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: He is willing to do things like feed a kid his own parents or even cause the end of the world to get revenge for minor wrongdoings against him. Despite his Jerkass tendencies, Cartman is clearly meant to be entertaining and funny.
• Verbal Tic:
  • "You guys... seriousleh..."
  • Lots of blithering Angrish.
• Villain Ball: He probably would've been successful in getting the Family Guy episode pulled in "Cartoon Wars" if he hadn't confessed to Kyle (whom he had already managed to convince of his good intentions) that he was doing it to get the show cancelled.
• Villain Decay: Starting with Season 16, his overall intentions, while still greedy and sociopathic, are less frequently played against the rest of the boys (although there are exceptions). It gets exaggerated beyond belief in season 20, where he doesn't commit any schemes nor does he behave like his usual evil self.
  • Subverted in season 21 where not only does he revert back to his old self, but his abuse towards his girlfriend Heidi Turner has brought in a whole new more realistic level of evil.
  • Double Subverted and played straight once again in Season 22 where he still acts like a Jerkass and comes up with various schemes to improve his own life, but they don't come across as particularly vile compared to his role as an abusive boyfriend last season, with the worst of them being that he and Butters sold vape pens to kindergartners and convinces the townsfolk to wear Buddha Boxes. It's also shown that he's acting much nicer than in other seasons, such as when he backs up Clyde when the latter demands Kyle to get Father Maxi out of his birthday party and in the last two episodes of the season, where Cartman actually laments that he, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny never do anything together anymore, prompting all of them to participate in the bike parade, and when they do at the end of the season finale, Cartman is seen carrying Kenny's coffin after he is killed by Amazon Alexa.
  • Subverted once more in the season 23 premiere, where he gets Kyle and his family detained by I.C.E. just because Kyle insulted him in front of a girl whose bra he was going to snap, and threatens to do the same to Jimmy for telling the teacher he was texting in class. It's double subverted and played straight once again from every episode afterwards when Cartman is detained by I.C.E. himself after Stan heard about what he did. His actions afterwards are far less evil, since he's merely protesting against the school lunches switching to more sustainable foods, trying to avoid getting his shots however he can, and protesting against having girls in the boys' board game club, as his sexism in season 23 stems from his failed relationship with his ex-girlfriend Heidi in the season 21 finale, leading him to stand against the girls and rallying any other boys who feel the same. Still, the rest of Cartman's actions after the season 23 premiere are much more toned down than what he did during then.
  • Double Subverted once again in Season 24 and onward, to the point of becoming a Jerk with a Heart of Gold (to an extent). Though his initial reasoning is always selfish (he wants an everlasting Pandemic so that he doesn't have to go back to school, and he tries to sell the COVID vaccines to the highest bidder to make himself and his friends rich), he's willing to give it all up for Stan and Kenny's sake respectively, and when both outcomes end up working in his favor, he's still left unfulfilled. Even in Seasons 25 and 26, he's far from an outright villain and he's portrayed as a Jerkass at worst, with the worst things he manages to do being giving himself breast implants with his friends' money and ruining his mother's job (which ends up affecting him just as much).
• Villainous Breakdown: Tends to fly into a ballistic rage or burst into tears whenever things don't go his way. The most notable of these include "Cartmanland", "HUMANCENTiPAD", "Christian Rock Hard", "Splatty Tomato", and "DikinBaus Hot Dogs".
• Villainous Glutton: In one episode, it is shown that making him thin would actually make him a nicer person.
• Villainous Rescue: Rescued Kyle and his family from the smug-covered city of San Francisco, the "Getting Gay with Kids" choir from the rainforest, the whole town from a Hippie Jam Festival... the list goes on.
• Villain Protagonist: If he isn't this, he functions as a Nominal Hero.
• Villainous Valour: While he'll normally wuss out before he can actually get there, he does have a handful of surprisingly ballsy moments. "Fatbeard", the "Coon and Friends" trilogy and "Obama Wins" really bring out his "wingin' it" mentality, having him spending most of his time doing things completely on his own with the knowledge that he has to actually work to get the odds in his favor.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With everyone, especially Kyle. Although in later seasons, the two are rather archrivals than friends. Even after all their back and forth insults, Cartman still goes to watch Kyle's basketball tryouts and goes with him and Stan to grieve over Kenny's frozen corpse, while the other boys try to console him after they mistakenly think he's upset for killing his father. Cartman is also seen regularly shown playing with the other kids, and often becomes a leader for them in their causes.
• Vocal Dissonance: Even with the pitch-shifting technology utilized for virtually all the children on this show, he sounds way older than he actually is.
• Vocal Evolution: He had a higher and more grating, raspy voice in earlier seasons. Season 4 marks the point where his speech started becoming much more clear to understand as a result of the trope.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: In the "Return of Covid" special, future Cartman is revealed to be this. While it's initially ambiguous whether he truly became a better person and loved his wife and children, or if he was just playing a Long Game to prank Kyle, this special strongly suggests that his positive changes were genuine and his plot to kill Kyle was to prevent losing his family due to a timeline change.
• With Friends Like These...: His relationship with the other kids. He takes this further than most cases of this trope, as Cartman has almost no redeeming qualities. Also uncommon for the trope, the other characters will flat out tell Cartman that he is a monster.
  • The creators stated that Cartman's relationship to the others is based on their assumption that everyone has one friend that they don't really like. It's worth noting that in the early seasons, Cartman was just a fat idiot - his supervillainish disposition evolved over time.
  • It's summed up in four lines when Stan and Kyle tell Scott Tenorman about Cartman's plan to have a horse bite off Scott's penis:
    Scott: How do you know?
    Stan: Because we're his friends.
    Scott: So why are you telling me?
    Kyle: Because we hate him.
  • Both sides have used (and rebuffed) the "I thought we were friends" line several times over. They also frequently abuse or manipulate the other in a scheme or convenience and show out and out apathy when they get into trouble. Granted the boys' animosity towards Cartman is far more justified, but still they are willing to ignore all the horrible things he's done if they can profit from it at times.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: It's strongly implied that the cruel treatment Cartman receives from his schoolmates for being fat, his Butt-Monkey status in previous seasons (abducted by aliens and being teased by Scott Tenorman), and the fact he never met nor knew his father made him the sadistic Ax-Crazy psycho we know today.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: While he tends to exaggerate any injuries he receives a lot, this trope reaches its apex in "HumancentiPad", where he lies to the public about being sexually abused by his mom so he can receive an iPad from them. They naturally fall for it.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: He views himself as a plucky, adorable child who goes on whimsical adventures. He's shown to completely block out the way everybody who's not his mother ACTUALLY sees him.
• X Must Not Win:
  • There are plenty of occasions Cartman comes out with amazing success and fame due to a bet with Kyle, but brushes it all off because he didn't win the bet in particular. In "Christian Rock Hard" for example, Cartman bets Kyle he can make a Platinum album before him. Cartman succeeds in making a highly successful Christian rock band, gaining enormous popularity and wealth. However, once he finds out that Christian record labels don't give out Platinum albums (thus he can never win his bet with Kyle), he flies into a rage in public, destroying the band's career.
  • In "Fat Butt and Pancake Head", Cartman pretends he (or his hand, at least) is Jennifer Lopez. "Ms. Lopez" creates a hit album, gets affectionate with Ben Affleck, and enjoys the wealth and fame of celebrity life via Xanatos Speed Chess. The reason is to make Kyle admit the possibility that the hand is an independent living being from Cartman and calls the whole thing off when Kyle makes even the tiniest admission. In the episode "200", the hand is proven to be an actual separate entity.
  • Even when he does win, he's still not satisfied unless he can rub the victory in Kyle's face indefinitely. In "Red Hot Catholic Love", after spending most of the episode gloating over winning their bet (about if it's possible to crap out of your mouth), Kyle being a Graceful Loser makes him so angry he storms off and even leaves the money behind.
• You Are Fat: No matter what absolutely atrocious things Cartman does, "fatass" or variations of which are nearly always the key insult dished at him.
• You Are What You Hate:
  • In the 200th episode, Cartman is agonized to learn that Scott Tenorman's dad, the guy he murdered by proxy and force-fed to Scott — is Cartman's own father... but not out of any guilt for what he did to him. Cartman's only upset because this means that he's "half-ginger".
  • Cartman hated Jewish people as a child, to the point he attempted to start his own Holocaust, only to become Jewish himself in the original future.
  • Cartman despises poor people, only for one of his schemes to drive him and Liane into poverty for several seasons. That’s not even getting to his revised future-self becoming homeless.
• Your Mom: In "The Poor Kid", he throws out countless "Yo Mama so poor" jokes - including towards himself.

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