Characters / The Karate Kid: Demetri Alexopoulos

The Karate Kid Main Character Index
Daniel LaRusso | Johnny Lawrence | John Kreese | Terry Silver | Miguel Diaz | Robby Keene | Samantha LaRusso | Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz | Tory Nichols | Demetri Alexopoulos | Kyler Park
Dojos and Others
Miyagi-Do and Associates | Cobra Kai and Associates | Eagle Fang and Associates | The LaRusso Family | Other Characters

Demetri Alexopoulos

"I'm at peace with my depression. Last thing I need to be is suicidal."

Played By: Gianni DeCenzo

Appearances: Cobra Kai

"I was perfectly happy playing Dungeon Lord after school, but you put me in a situation where I had to join a dojo. And you know what? It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I got stronger, gained confidence, got the girl of my dreams... Even if she ends up leaving me for some hot Aussie dude she meets there. Hell, I'm actually excited about the All Valley tournament."

A sarcastic nerd who Miguel befriends during his first day of school, Demetri is another victim of Kyler's bullying. He attends only one lesson at the Cobra Kai's dojo before quitting, but remains a part of the Cobra Kai clique until going over to Miyagi-Do to learn karate instead.

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A-J

• Academic Athlete: Seeing how he has shown himself to be a very smart kid who takes karate.
• Accentuate the Negative: Demetri is a negative person in general and complains a lot, but Daniel later points out to him that it's a good trait of his, because that means he is always prepared for the worst. Which plays into his fighting style as he's fairly good at predicting and intercepting attacks.
• Affectionate Nickname: Chris starts calling him "Meet" (possibly 'Meat') when they become friends.
• Analogy Backfire: A Running Gag through his time at Miyagi-Do. Whenever he makes a comparison to a specific action on Game of Thrones, Daniel neatly counters it.
• Apologetic Attacker: When Hawk fights him in the finale of Season 2, Demetri manages to defend himself and whispers, "No hard feelings", before throwing him against the school's trophy cabinet and kicking him right into it. Afterwards, he apologizes again.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Daniel calls Demetri "the most neurotic person [he] [has] ever met," then states that this can be turned into a positive: Demetri notices things, sees tiny details everyone else misses, and this can be applied to give hyperaware insight into what an opponent is about to do. When Demetri finally commits to actually learning (and defending himself) with karate, he proves capable of reading his opponents. Daniel compares it to the "Spidey-Sense" (which Demetri immediately corrects to "Spider-Sense").
• Badass Bookworm: Downplayed initially. He's still a beginner and pacifist at the end of Season 2, but he knows enough to fend off Hawk's attacks and send him into a trophy case. He truly becomes this in Season 3 when his newfound confidence helps his skills improve dramatically and he fights Cobra Kai more directly.
• Badass Decay: In-Universe. His brief popularity stint is short-lived as Hawk beating him in their rematch and breaking his arm in the process reduces him to a laughingstock.
• Bad Liar: He's a terrible liar. His attempt to act all "buddy-buddy" with Hawk when Counselor Blatt catches his Miyagi-Do group and Hawk's Cobra Kai group staring each other down clearly doesn't convince her, nor does his attempts to claim not to know Sam when she lashes out at Counselor Blatt after the soccer game. Later, he awkwardly tries to claim they're doing "study group" when Amanda catches Sam training the Miyagi-Dos in secret. When Sam and Miguel catch him making out with Yasmine, he nervously tries to deny his attraction to Yasmine but gives up any attempt at it once she's out of sight.
• Bash Brothers: After he and Hawk reconcile, the two prove to be a highly effective fighting team as they dispatch several Cobras with their combined skills.
• Beauty Is Best: Demetri knows exactly what kind of Alpha Bitch Yasmine is in Season 1, and remains attracted to her anyway. Although being a slightly perverted Dogged Nice Guy to her seems to be paying off as of Season 3, the trope gets subverted since Demetri also seems to finally value for her for something other than her looks.
  Demetri: I don't care if Yasmine is the meanest girl in school, I'd kill both of you just to get her to spit in my face.
• Big Brother Instinct:
  • While everyone else is defending themselves in the Season 3 brawl at Sam’s house, Demetri pulls double duty by also protecting Nathaniel and Bert from the much larger Cobra Kai assailants. He does pretty well at first.
  • He also protects Anthony alongside Miyagi-Fang while Anthony is uploading a video exposing Silver's bribery to the Cobra Kai YouTube channel in the Season 5 finale.
• Bromantic Foil: To Miguel. His complete lack of any social skills and hilariously inept attempts at flirting contrast Miguel's growing confidence and ability to develop a relationship with Sam. When he and Yasmine form a Beta Couple, their Slap-Slap-Kiss dynamic contrasts Miguel and Sam's more affectionate interactions.
• Bullying a Dragon: He simply can't help mouthing off when Cobra Kai are involved.
  • His bragging that Johnny works for the students because they pay him earns him a swift asskicking.
  • His telling Kreese his cobra tattoo (a memento of fellowship with his war buddies) was anatomically incorrect was equally dumb (though more Innocently Insensitive than deliberate provocation).
  • And his lengthy speech humiliating Hawk, who'd kicked his ass once already by this point and was only holding back after a telling-off from Johnny, leads to Hawk going after him during the school brawl and nearly kicking his face in.
• Butt-Monkey: Almost all of his training at Miyagi-Do leads to him getting beat up.
• Cannot Talk to Women: In Seasons 1 and 2, he's completely hopeless at flirting due to his awkwardness and pessimism. This changes in Season 3 when his newfound confidence makes him much better at it and he's even able to woo Yasmine.
• Cowardly Lion: He's still terrified of Hawk, and rightfully so, but once he runs out of running room...
• Curb Stomp Cushion: He doesn't score a single point against Robby when they face off at the All-Valley in Season 4 but still gives a pretty good showing and manages a rather impressive takedown on his opponent.
• The Cynic: Demetri is pessimistic and always finds something to complain about.
• Deadpan Snarker: A good chunk of his Establishing Character Moment is him making snarky quips. It's eventually Deconstructed in Season 2; a lot of the things Demetri brings up are accurate and sensible, but his deliveries are so snide and condescending that people shut him down out of not entirely undeserved spite (or in Kreese's case, sock him in the nose).
• Defector from Decadence: Demetri joins Miyagi-Do in Season 2 after Kreese punches his face in when he goes to sign up for lessons at Cobra Kai again.
• Demoted to Extra: While still prevalent in Miyagi-Do, Demetri's role in Season 5 is reduced compared to the previous three seasons, which is evident as he's demoted to series recurring here.
• The Dog Bites Back:
  • After Hawk rebukes Demetri's sincere attempt at helping him move on from Moon (which included Hawk spilling his drink all on top of Demetri and spitefully chiding him for still being a "pussy"), Demetri proceeds to humiliate Hawk in front of the whole party by going on a lengthy diatribe of embarrassing secrets and trivia about Hawk that he learned when they were still friends. Come their confrontation during the school brawl, Demetri endures Hawk's relentless assaults and wins when he kicks his opponent into a trophy cabinet. Once everyone's suspensions are over, Demetri has gained a lot of social standing at Hawk's expense.
  • In Season 5, he manages to take down Kyler, his longtime tormentor and his goons. For an added bonus, he relishes how good it felt and calls him a bitch.
• The Eeyore: Demetri tends to expect the worst to happen and generally acts pessimistic even when things are going good. Daniel flat out tells Demetri he's the most neurotic person he's ever met.
• Entitled Bastard: When Miguel tells him to stop mouthing off to Johnny during the Cobra Kai lesson, he refuses and says Johnny can't do anything about it, believing that since the kids are paying him, he works for them. Naturally, this earns him a flip throw from Johnny. Saying something like that in any dojo will likely get you kicked out, as a very important aspect of martial arts is respect, whether it be towards the dojo, sensei, or students.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • His lack of self-confidence. He spends the better part of the first two seasons constantly complaining about the things he can't do, and generally tries to drag down his friends to his level. Once he takes out Hawk in the Season 2 finale, he gains some confidence and starts quickly excelling more at karate and catching Yasmine's eye. By Season 4, he's at his most confident but he still doesn't think too highly of himself, even calling himself a "side character" compared to Miguel or Eli being The Ace. Even so, he gives an impressive performance in the Skills Competition and makes it to the semifinals of the All-Valley. Demetri is highly competent when he puts his mind to something, showing he can be an effective leader, an excellent fighter, and a great catch for a girl but the only thing that holds him back is his continued belief in being below others. The show subtly implies that if Demetri were to ever get over these last mental blocks, he'd be one of the best fighters in the entire cast, with his reach and predictive abilities being standout attributes of his.
  • To a lesser extent, being Too Clever by Half. Demetri takes a lot of pride in his intelligence and, as such, often tries to solve his problems through a clever solution rather than just accepting he needs to fight it head-on. Best shown during Chozen's egg exercise in Season 5. Demetri decides to protect his egg by designing an elaborate covering for it and displays the egg while assuming it will be safe from harm. He winds up being the first student eliminated when Chozen pierces the covering with a knife.
• Fire-Forged Friends: With Chris. Demetri's rightfully the least trusting of the former Cobra Kai students when they join Miyagi-Do. But through working together to help clean up the Dojo after Hawk vandalized it, they’re able to overcome their differences. Exemplified when Hawk and co. try to attack Demetri at a party after the latter embarrasses the former and this time Chris comes to his defense, in contrast to when he followed Hawk in his assault on Demetri at the mall. They’re also seen briefly agreeing to get an authority teacher involved early in the school brawl rather than escalating it further. By Season 3, both Chris and Demetri are rarely seen without each other, whether they're training, hanging out, or preparing for a fight.
• First-Name Basis: Demetri continues to refer to Hawk as 'Eli' well after his transformation, both to spite his former friend and to show his disapproval of what Eli had allowed himself to become.
• Foil: To Hawk in general. The two start out as best friends, with Demetri being a mouthy Insufferable Genius while Eli is a Shrinking Violet who prefers to let Demetri do all the talking. Demetri discourages Miguel's attempts to stand up to Kyler, feeling he's better off keeping his head down and avoiding bullies, while Eli is impressed by his bravery. When the two join Cobra Kai, Demetri is put off by Johnny's Training from Hell and quits, while Eli embraces it and takes on the "Hawk" persona. Demetri is Proud to Be a Geek, while Hawk tries to bury his nerdy past, and starts to view Demetri as the embodiment of everything he hates about himself. In terms of their fighting style, Hawk focuses on attack, while Demetri is almost purely defensive.
• Fragile Speedster: If Daniel is to be believed, Demetri's speed (when pressured) can match some of the best Olympic athletes.^note All-time 100-yard dash records for men are just under ten seconds.
  Daniel: I heard you ran the hundred-yard dash in under ten seconds.
• Genre Savvy: Being Book Smart and a huge geek, Demetri immediately recognizes the purpose of Daniel's Wax On, Wax Off training. It doesn't make him any less happy about it, though.
• Good Counterpart: To Eli/Hawk in Season 2.
• Good Is Not Nice: At first. Note how most of the tropes here pertain to his negative qualities. Demetri never seeks any self-improvement and encourages Eli and Miguel to do the same. He has no problem bringing down other people he deems lower than him, no matter how bad an idea it is. Later, he gets to show more of his compassionate side.
• The Heart: Yes, believe it or not, the Mouthy Kid who most people want to punch ends up becoming this for the kids. It’s his speech that gets the students from Eagle Fang to cooperate with Miyagi-Do when Miguel and Sam’s attempts fail, and seeing him in distress is the final catalyst in turning Hawk to their side. In Season 4, he convinces Hawk to return to Miyagi-Do and not give up karate by giving him a pep-talk and reminding him of how important their friendship is. In the following season, when Robby and Hawk get into an argument over their past history, he defuses it by pointing out that they're both "ex-assholes".
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • Calling Eli "Lip" is totally uncalled for and a Nazi move. Calling Sam the "blowjob girl" is fair game.
  • When he attempts to join Cobra Kai for the second time, he tells Kreese that he has a lot of personal space issues that the other students are just going to have to deal with... then notices Kreese's arm tattoo and starts touching it. As you could predict, Kreese punches him in the face.
• I Just Want to Be Badass: After Demetri continues whining during training, Daniel asks him why he decided to join Miyagi-Do. Demetri says it's because all of his friends are training in martial arts and he felt pressured to learn just so he could show them that he wasn't weak. But his real motivation is...
• I Just Want to Have Friends: The only friends he has (Miguel and Eli) are up to their necks in Cobra Kai, and Demetri has tried and failed twice to adapt to their new social activity. Finding Cobra Kai completely unsuited to him, Demetri came to Miyagi-Do, hoping less to learn badass martial arts and more to find new friends to hang out with.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Despite their falling out in Season 2, Demetri continuously attempts to reach out to Eli even as Hawk repeatedly snubs and bullies him. Demetri finally succeeds at the end of Season 3 during the house brawl.
• I'm Not Afraid of You: When Hawk confronts him in the mall in Season 2, Demetri isn't intimidated and calls him by his real name to make a point. Then Hawk kicks him...
• Inadequate Inheritor: Demetri acknowledges he is this in Season 4 upon learning that the All Valley tournament will be having separate gender divisions, knowing that he is far from Miyagi-Do's best hope at winning the male division if it means going up against Cobra Kai's Robby Keene. This is what spurs him to convince Eli to join Miyagi-Do so that they have a fighting chance against Cobra Kai.
• Insistent Terminology: Demetri will only refer to Hawk as Eli. At first, it's because they're lifelong friends and he's confused by the latter's new look and attitude. Later on, it's to remind the now bully that he remembers how his life was before Cobra Kai.
• It Runs in the Family: During Moon's party, Demetri mentions his family's spare air mattress, which his mother dubbed "Eli's waterbed" due to the other boy's chronic bedwetting. If Demetri is telling the truth, he may have picked up some of his Innocently Insensitive tendencies from her.
• Jerkass Has a Point: While he is clearly not cut out for Cobra Kai's intense training methods and should have known better than to keep contradicting Johnny in the middle of class, Demetri is still correct that verbally and physically abusing new clients isn't exactly a good business practice. This leads Miguel to give Johnny a dressing-down, which in turn causes Johnny to change his approach and focus more on the Dare to Be Badass aspect of the Cobra Kai philosophy. This eventually becomes Deconstructed, in that even though Demetri's correct on what he says, he's so snide and condescending that even people who know he's right will ignore or shut him up just out of spite.
• Kick Chick: Gender-Inverted. Being rather lank and fairly tall, Demetri is able to pull off some pretty impressive kicks.

L-Y

• The Lancer: With Daniel being preoccupied with other things during the season and Robby in juvie, he becomes the de-facto second-in-command for Miyagi-do as Sam takes up the leadership position. Notably, he's the first one to agree to her and Miguel's proposal of combining forces with Eagle Fang to take down the corrupted Cobra Kai.
• Martial Pacifist: Despite training at Miyagi-Do, when he's targeted by Hawk during the school brawl, his first instinct is to run rather than fight. When cornered, he focuses on blocking rather than attacking. It's only after Hawk refuses to let up that Demetri takes him down with a kick through a glass trophy case.
• Minored in Ass-Kicking: While he is loyal to Miyagi-Do and takes its philosophy and teachings to heart, Demetri's biggest passions will always be with his nerdy interests and geeky cultural fandoms.
• Morality Pet:
  • He becomes this to Yasmine in Season 3, as she takes pity on him when she sees him being bullied by Kyler and proves that she's Taken a Level in Kindness by fixing the embarrassing drawing that Kyler put on his cast.
  • Hawk makes a Heel–Face Turn in the Season 3 finale when he sees Demetri in trouble during the house brawl and decides to help him instead of breaking his arm again.
• Mouthy Kid: His penchant for snarking can cause him to veer into this, especially during his one lesson at Cobra Kai. Johnny does not take kindly to his attitude. At all. He even remembers him as "that mouthy one" when Miguel tries to warn him about Kreese's increasingly violent behavior.
  Demetri: I say a lot of things, which tends to be a polarizing attribute of mine.
• Nervous Wreck: Demetri is by nature a pretty neurotic person and he whines about the minimal things constantly.
  Daniel: [to Demetri] You are the most neurotic person that I know.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The one time Demetri goes out of his way to antagonize Hawk in retribution, by telling embarrassing stories at a party, ultimately ends up being the powder keg to egg on the rest of Cobra Kai during the brawl.
• No Full Name Given: Until Season 4, Demetri is the only main cast member whose last name is not revealed, with the only clue being that he's grouped with Miguel as part of the "Last Names A-G" cohort for their SAT practice test. It's finally revealed at the All Valley tournament, when the MC announces his last name is "Alexopoulos".
• No Sense of Personal Space:
  • He starts touching Kreese's arm without an invitation to examine his snake tattoo, just after explaining that he needs other students to respect his boundaries while he's taking karate lessons.
  • When the Miyagi-Do students are sheltering under a tree from a heatwave, he wipes the sweat on his forehead off on Sam's shoulder, which she is visibly disgusted by.
• No Social Skills: A lot of Demetri's awkwardness stems from his lack of social awareness. He doesn't seem to realize just how snide and condescending his lecturing can come across as and he's absolutely hopeless when it comes to flirting with girls. He also decides to bring Trivial Pursuit to Moon's party, clearly missing the point that most of the teens are going to be drinking.
• Not So Above It All: Demetri is a true Miyagi-Do pacifist, usually apologizing to people he physically hurts. But when he gets the chance to take down his long-time tormentor Kyler and his goons in the Season 5 finale, he can't help but revel in how great it felt. And despite preferring to refrain from swearing, Demetri insults Kyler as a "bitch" for good measure after taking him down.
• Offing the Mouth: While Johnny only bodyslams him for talking out of turn, the argument can easily be made that Demetri brought Johnny's wrath upon himself. Later episodes show Demetri's mouth getting him into trouble more than once.
• Only Sane Man:
  • The only one in Miguel’s group to consistently display common sense, particularly during Season 1. He tries in vain to rein them in when they start turning into jackasses. The tournament proves him right.
  • In Season 2, Demetri is the one student of both schools who actively tries to avoid hostile confrontations. When the brawl between the two schools breaks out, Demetri's response is to run and get a teacher to try and diffuse the fight. It's only when Mr. Palmer gives up and Hawk targets Demetri does the latter resort to fighting.
  • In Season 4, he's well aware that despite Daniel's optimism and encouragement, Miyagi-do is truly at a disadvantage with the All Valley's new male combat division format. Thus, he convinces Eli to join up.
• Out of Focus: It really says something when he's demoted to "guest starring" in Season 5, especially when you compare his role to the other next-generation fighters with main star billing (including the recently-promoted Kenny). He doesn't even make an appearance in the Sekai-Taikai arc!
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Demetri has made incredible progress in his karate skills by the time of Season 4, and puts in a very impressive performance to reach the All Valley semifinals. Unfortunately, he's not on the level of the other three semi finalists, namely Miguel, who Demetri explicitly acknowledges has never been beaten in a fair fight, Hawk, whom he considers the Batman to his Alfred, and Robby, whom he treats as The Dreaded. He ends up being defeated by Robby in a 3-0 shutout, though Daniel is still proud of him for how far he has come.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: A self-admitted nerd that frequently makes references to popular sci-fi and fantasy franchises who is also a skilled karateka.
• Proud To Be A Nerd: In contrast to Eli who rejects all of his old "nerdy" interests during Seasons 2 and 3, Demetri is open about his interest in comic books, computers, science, and other similar subjects even after he takes up karate.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Subverted. When the characters are introduced, loud, abrasive and opinionated Demetri is the Red Oni, to quiet, timid Eli's Blue Oni. However, these roles are reversed after Eli joins Cobra Kai and takes on the "Hawk" persona, with Demetri as the rational and intellectual Blue to Hawk's reckless, passionate and brutish Red.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Demetri prefers an eloquent way of talking, occasionally peppering his speech with SAT-level vocabulary.
• Shadow Archetype: Hawk grows to view him as one, seeing his more pacifistic and meek tendencies as an embodiment of all the "nerd shit" he wants to reject. Demetri doesn't seem to realize this at first, viewing it as his friend just acting weird until Hawk goes so far as to try and violently assault him for a Yelp review and the two grow to be enemies.
• Sinister Scythe: Well there's hardly anything "sinister" about Demetri, he puts on a particularly good showing in the All-Valley skills competition with a pair of kamas.
• The Slacker: Demetri isn't one for physical work, and quits the Cobra Kai after only one lesson. That said, he is very diligent when it come to his academic work. On the other hand, despite his complaining, he sticks solidly with Miyagi-Do, and it paid off in a big way during the school brawl.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: Up to Kyler drawing a penis on Demetri's cast, Yasmine continued to treat Demetri with contempt, with Demetri only occasionally teasing her back. One thing obviously lead to another, and now Miguel and Sam have found them making out with each other.
• The Smart Guy: His dedication to physical training is inversely proportional to his dedication to his academic studies and is the most inclined to use his head in a fight. He is also the only character in the franchise to immediately understand the purpose of Miyagi-Do's unorthodox training methods. He's usually the one in charge of strategy for the kids, as he plans the logistics of the Miyagi-Do/Eagle Fang team-up at the end of Season 3, and uses his tech skills to hack into Cobra Kai's servers and download the video of Silver admitting to cheating in the All Valley in the Season 5 finale.
• Stealing the Credit: To Hawk's annoyance, Demetri piggybacks off of Cobra Kai's victory at the All-Valley Tournament when two girls pass by him and ask him about Cobra Kai after noticing his towel bearing the logo of the dojo.
• Stone Wall: Downplayed. He's a defensive fighter who focuses on blocking and intercepting attacks. Normally applicable to those built like Aisha or Chris, his training enabled him to deal with Hawk's persistent attacks and eventually capitalize on his sloppiness.
• Stronger Than They Look: When properly motivated (i.e. fearing for his safety), Demetri is capable of performing some praiseworthy physical feats. During the school brawl, when cornered by a bloodthirsty Hawk, he is able to skillfully block Hawk's wild barrage of punches and then sends him flying back into a trophy cabinet with a single inside crescent kick.
• Techno Wizard: Demetri is very well-adept with computers and other electronic devices; it was how he able to ID Terry Silver after seeing him for the first time.^note He snapped a quick photo of Silver when the latter confronted Daniel at the Miyagi-Do dojo and ran it through a facial recognition software. In Season 5, he gets a summer job with TechTown as a tech assistant, which helps him and the Miyagi-Fangs take down Terry Silver as Demetri can access the server at the Cobra Kai dojo.
• Tell Me How You Fight: Season 2 on, he combines Cowardly Lion and Stone Wall. Being as weak as he is, he needs to play a thinking man's game. When faced with a confrontation, his first response is to run for assistance, run and hide afterward, and engage only when he has no room left to run. Then he takes a page out of Aisha's book: turtling and soaking attacks until his opponent lapses, upon which he settles the matter with one or two shots.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: After beating Kyler in Season 5, Demetri calls him a "bitch" for good measure.
  Demetri: Man, that felt good! Bitch!
• Token Good Teammate: While he's still snarky and mouths off to people, Demetri still counts as one to the Cobra Kai students after they start succumbing to He Who Fights Monsters. However, in Season 2, he turns against them completely after Hawk reacts poorly to his bad Yelp review for Cobra Kai.
• Took a Level in Badass: Learning karate has made him this, obviously, but he's still considered a newbie at the end of Season 2 since he greatly focused on defense.
  • His karate skills improve dramatically between the end of Season 2 and Season 3, and he's able to take on several Cobra Kai members head on without relying entirely on defense. During the house fight, he's the last Miyagi-Do fighter to go down and it's primarily due to being outnumbered. By the end of Season 3, it's safe to say that next to Sam, he is the best student in Miyagi-Do (and the best in applying Miyagi-Do's philosophy of "fighting only when needed").
  • In season 4, he makes it to the top four in the males division of the All Valley Tournament. The other 3 are Miguel, Eli, and Robby, the latter of whom delivers his defeat (though he does make Robby work for it a bit).
  • In the Season 5 finale, to show how far he's come from the beginning of the series, he manages to single-handedly defeat three Cobra Kais at once compared to the Season 3 house fight where he struggled and lost against two of them. For the cherry on top, he finally gets to kick his longtime tormentor Kyler's ass, which he clearly relishes in.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Probably the only person in history that falls under this trope by way of becoming more outwardly aggressive. In the first two seasons, as seen in the tropes above, Demetri is, to put it quite bluntly... a negative, passive-aggressive asshole who hates the fact that Hawk changed his persona away from being his whipping boy (albeit...becoming a gigantic Jerkass in the process) and has no problem being a massive coward when it suits him. Come Season 3 though, off the heels of beating Hawk in a skirmish, he's FAR more confident in himself. While it does make him a little grating still, this actually serves to make him far easier to be around as he's more comfortable in his skin and more accepting of how everyone else functions. Then, once he's humbled a bit by Hawk breaking his arm, he comes to a good middle ground. He's the one helping to lead the charge at the end of the season to merge the two dojos and he doesn't try to turn it into an All Take and No Give situation like he's accustomed to. In fact, it's his swagger that allows it to really work. That's right, friends — somewhere along the way, Demetri actually became cool.
• Turn the Other Cheek: Despite being continuously antagonized by Hawk throughout Season 2 and 3, Demetri still seems to want him to return to being his friend. Even after Hawk breaks his arm during the laser tag fight, Demetri is neither angry or vengeful and persists on getting Hawk back. This culminates in the brawl at the LaRusso house where Hawk saves Demetri and the two amicably work together to neutralize the rest of the Cobra Kai fighters.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In season 2, Demetri's negative Yelp review in response to Kreese assaulting him is what starts the chain of events that culminated in the school brawl, as in response to it, Hawk brings a gang to assault Demetri at the mall. When he's defeated by Sam and Robby and dumped by Moon for what he did as a result, he is encouraged by Kreese to vandalize Miyagi-Do in response, which includes stealing Mr. Miyagi's Medal of Honor. Robby subsequently lies about the medal when Miguel returns it to Sam, which leads to her kissing Miguel while drunk when she finds out the truth from Aisha, which is seen by Tory, who decides to respond by picking a fight at school.
• We Used to Be Friends: His friendship with Eli goes out the window completely following the latter's commitment to Cobra Kai and its teachings. Demetri finally exploits this after Hawk's rejection and bullying of him goes too far at Moon's party, promptly proceeding to tell all the guests embarrassing things about Eli. Despite this, Demetri still seems sorry they aren't friends anymore, even when he kicks Hawk into a trophy case at the end of Season 2.
  Demetri: No hard feelings.
  • Despite things in Season 3 escalating to the point where he was willing to break his arm, Hawk ultimately sees the error of his ways, and passes up the chance to take down Demetri by attacking his captors instead, apologizing to him afterwards. Demetri seems more than happy to take up his offer of dealing with the remaining Cobra Kai students. By the end, they're finally back to being a Power Trio with Miguel.
  Eli/Hawk: Look, man, I'm sorry. For all of it. Do you wanna help me win this thing?
  Demetri: ...Yeah.
• Wedgie: When Yasmine mentions her "front wedgie" to him, he laments that he's had "several from the other end" which were no joy either.
• What Does She See in Him?: Miguel, Sam, and Hawk are all perplexed as to how the geeky Demetri managed to land Yasmine as his girlfriend. Even Demetri admits he has no idea how he did it.
• The Worf Effect:
  • Inverted. Though Hawk is a top student of Cobra Kai, come their fight during the Cobra Kai/Miyagi-Do school brawl, the pacifistic and amateur Demetri persistently endures Hawk's relentless assaults and wins when he kicks his opponent into a trophy cabinet. This emphasizes how poor Hawk's defense is compared to his attack.
  • Unfortunately played straight in the Golf n' Stuff fight in which Hawk, now able to utilize Kreese's "fighting smart" technique, pins down Demetri in a matter of minutes, to the point where he can do nothing but beg for mercy as Hawk breaks his arm.
  • After making it to the final four of the All Valley in Season 4, he gets demolished 3-0 by Robby in the semi-final to demonstrate how formidable of an opponent he will be for Hawk in the final.
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me: When Hawk accosts Demetri at the mall and threatens to take him down, Demetri says, "You'd actually hurt me?" when he realizes that Hawk's not backing down from his word.

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