This series flanderized several cast members as it transitioned into Total Drama Action, Total Drama World Tour and Total Drama All-Stars.
- In Total Drama Island, Courtney was bossy and uptight, but still one of the more moral characters, and only threatened to sue when she was unfairly kicked off the show (and subsequently lost the lawsuit). In Total Drama Action, she's become a total Control Freak who threatens to "call her lawyers" at any opportunity. Her aggressive competitiveness and reckless disregard for even her closest companions has only grown over the seasons, with her constantly oscillating between civil and well-meaning to downright ruthless in her quest to win, further isolating her from those she has at one point or another shown genuine concern for. This does make some sense, however, given that much of her stubborn competitive rage in Action is motivated by her unfair elimination in Island.
- DJ starts as a genuinely nice guy and sensitive soul in season one; he was slow to anger, but could be mischievous (helping to prank Harold) or tough (throwing Owen off the cliff in the hunting challenge). By season three, he has become a complete Momma's Boy who is reduced to a blubbering wreck because the tundra reminds him of his mama's freezer. By season four, he must be tied down in order to fulfill his part in one of the challenges, and runs away out of sight screaming at the mere sight of a tainted pie.
- Cody was originally a Casanova Wannabe who flirted with all the girls when he arrived on the island; he just eventually settled on Gwen as his preferred girlfriend. By season three, he's a Gwen-sexual who never seems to consider dating someone else as she continually rebuffs him.
- Gwen is an especially perplexing case. Introduced as the Loner Goth Girl on the island, she is isolated and cynical about most everything before gradually opening up to the people around her, learning how to express herself and even developing a crush on Trent. From Action onward, she becomes increasingly entangled in her romantic life and much more impulsive, wrestling with her feelings for Duncan and making decisions that not only makes her an easy target for elimination but also drives a wedge between herself and her friends. It's this impulsiveness that leads to her hooking up with Duncan and destroying her new friendship with Courtney, eventually leading to her own elimination. It carries on through All-Stars, as she suddenly begins to lose interest in Duncan and acts increasingly girly in trying to make amends with Courtney, at one point dreaming about unicorns as the two become uncomfortably gushy between each other. And then she makes no effort to salvage this friendship when it's revealed Courtney backed out of their promise to go to the finale together, showing barely a hint of regret when the latter is eliminated. Finally, she gets herself eliminated right after when she resorts to using bear poop to repair a painting she was retrieving for Chris. It's hardly a surprise at how divisive she's become as time's gone on.
- Justin is a weird example: first he was a Flat Character who apparently was really hot, but during the TDI special he suddenly showed a sneaky side, and the first few episodes of TDA hinted that he would be the new villain. However, that arc was aborted, and soon he was just too concerned about every split end or bruise on his precious face to possibly think about any schemes or trickery.
- Duncan. In TDI he was a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, with Courtney as his Morality Pet. By season two, his bullying of Harold has gone up to eleven thanks to him being responsible for Courtney's unfair elimination on TDI, to the point kicks Harold in the testicles and nearly breaks his spine. By season three he suddenly is able to cheat on Courtney without a single twinge of his conscience and acts like a Jerkass when she finds out and breaks up with him. And then in All-Stars, the "heart of gold" part returns, but is exaggerated to the point where he can't stop himself from being nice.
- Lindsay started out as your typical Dumb Blonde, then in All-Stars she became an exaggeration of the trope who doesn't even understand basic concepts such as the difference between pushing and pulling and also became one of the show's biggest liabilities to their teams. The Heroic Hamsters were lucky she was the first person to be eliminated.
- Much like Duncan, Leshawna's negative traits were heavily Flanderized in Action and World Tour, turning her from an Anti-Hero to an outright villain. In TDI, she introduced herself as being determined to win and unafraid to get physical, but nonetheless, she showed a kind side, as she was loyal and caring to her friends (like protecting Bridgette from Eva's bullying or comforting a heartbroken Gwen) and would not hesitate to oppose jerks and bullies like Heather. In TDA and TDWT, her aggressive tendencies and focus on winning the game were amped up and her positive traits were played down, resulting her in engaging in such actions as using a Wounded Gazelle Gambit to manipulate her teammates into giving her a reward, trash-talking said teammates behind their back afterwards, becoming the Small Name, Big Ego leader of her team in TDWT, and showing no remorse for beating up Heather when she tried to warn her against Alejandro and was proven correct. Incidentally, she also became more and more Out of Focus during this time, with her friendship with Gwen being slowly abandoned as the latter increasingly interacted more with Duncan and Courtney through a Love Triangle.
- Harold had a good number of Butt-Monkey moments during Island, thanks to being the favorite target of the mischief performed by the Power Trio of Duncan, Geoff, and DJ, but he nonetheless was capable of earning the respect and friendships of the other contestants with his "mad skills". However, his misfortunes were taken up to eleven in Total Drama Action, to the point where he became one of the season's resident "pain magnets", almost everyone finds him to be generally irritating and charmless, and Duncan's childish pranks on him transformed into sadistic bullying towards him (although that was somewhat justified by Duncan desiring to punish Harold for rigging the votes against Courtney in the previous season).
- Owen's Big Eater and Gasshole tendencies were heavily flanderized in the transition from Island to Action, to the point of making him a nearly one-dimensional character in the latter season. It probably did not help that this was occurring around the same time his Creator's Pet qualities were becoming extremely blatant, making him all the more insufferable to his haters (to the point, where World Tour started putting effort into having Owen Rescued from the Scrappy Heap, such as giving him an Odd Friendship with Noah and having him break up with Izzy).
- Sierra was introduced as the obsessive fangirl upon her debut in the Celebrity Manhunt TDA special, claiming to have vast personal knowledge about all things Total Drama. Once she properly debuted as a contestant on World Tour, all her knowledge about Total Drama seemed to revolve exclusively around Chris and especially Cody. Once Chris told her off in "Broadway Baby," she dropped her obsession with Chris (as well as the early indications that her knowledge of Total Drama would give her a strategic edge) and was prone to gushing excessively over Cody to the point where he tried to eliminate her due to her possessive tendencies. However, she gradually learns to accept her relationship with Cody as platonic as they spend more time together, and abandons her adoration of Chris as she sees him for what he really is. Upon her return in All-Stars, she snaps when Mal destroys her smartphone, taking away her means to talk to Cody and thus unable to focus on the game without him. She eventually begins hallucinating the other campers' heads replaced by Cody's, and latches onto Cameron thinking he is Cody. Even Chris is alarmed at how unhinged she's become by the time she is eliminated.
- Zoey started out as socially awkward upon her debut in Revenge of the Island, hoping to make new friends by signing on for the fourth season. At first she starts out as naive and easily manipulated by more devious people like Scott, but eventually learns to be careful with her trust and starts to stand up for herself, even briefly taking on a much more aggressive persona as "Commando Zoey" before snapping back into reality. She is soon able to make friends with many of the campers and starts a relationship with Mike. Over the course of All-Stars however, she becomes hopelessly unobservant as Mike is slowly corrupted by his evil alter-ego Mal, and even after many warnings from the others does not recognize his changing nature until the eve of the finale. Mal himself mocks her for her gullibility throughout the season.
- In Revenge of the Island, Scott was one of the season's most cunning contestants when it came to dealing with the competition, but he was also prone to being Book Dumb and making poor decisions. All-Stars flanderized his ignorant and thoughtless qualities significantly, transforming him into a complete dumbass without any of the strategic and manipulative ability he possessed during his career as Big Bad.
- Chris's increasing sadism and lack of genuine empathy has grown since the first season, becoming worse and worse with each passing season. Originally presented as simply a smarmy jokester with a mean sense of humor, he had transformed into a sociopathic maniac obsessed with pain and suffering by the time of the show's original cancellation. Even during the time of the fourth season, the original cast already wanted nothing to do with him and the show in any capacity whatsoever — only appearing in brief cameos due to their legally binding contracts. It's actually been lampshaded a few times, with Chris cheerfully blaming it on the time he spent in prison between the fourth and fifth season. This Flanderization was eventually addressed by the writers however, with the 2023 reboot toning his character back down more to his Season 1 levels of Jerkassery and making him much less obsessed with seeing the contestants potentially die in challenges.
- Geoff is another interesting example as he went through this when he was brought to compete in the spinoff series Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race. He was never the smartest character on Total Drama, but when he was in the spinoff he seemed to lose most of the intelligence he had to the point where he believed that komodo dragons breathe fire because the word "Dragon" is a part of the name for their species.
- His relationship with Bridgette was also hit by this for a while. In Island, we see the two making out in the hot tub when we visit the eliminated contestants in one episode for a single scene that was only there to make it clear the two had officially hooked up (since Bridgette's elimination had left it uncertain). During the special and the first few episodes of Action though, they literally do nothing but make out with each other to the point where they no longer have personalities and don't participate at all in the challenges. Fortunately, they regain most of their characterization (and a bit more in Geoff's case) when they become the hosts of the Aftermath segments, and their relationship becomes more like that of a normal (albeit somewhat drama-heavy) teenage couple.
- Speaking of Bridgette, she underwent a Flanderization of her own comparable to that of Leela from Futurama. She was presented in Island as one of the show's most mature and rational characters and a bit of a tomboy, with the occasional Not So Above It All moment (like making fun of Tyler's fear of chickens or her obliviousness to her own clumsiness). Gwen calls her one of the only sane contestants; she sees past Heather's attempts to manipulate her and wisely chooses to side with Gwen and Leshawna; she is turned off by Geoff's stupidity as he attempts to woo her; and Duncan even considered her a powerful player and thus convinced his alliance to vote her off. However, Action and World Tour flanderized her into a more dysfunctional, less intelligent, and more "girly" character, resulting in her doing things like being unable to stop herself from constantly making out with Geoff, frequently engaging in a Sickening Sweethearts routine with him, almost forgetting to vote due to being too busy putting on makeupnote in the bathroom confessional in "Walk Like and Egyptian - Part 2", and falling completely head-over-heels for Alejandro when separated from Geoff in World Tour. Incidentally, this coincided with her becoming massively Out of Focus and the writers increasingly focusing her character around her relationship with Geoff (to the point where her friendships with Gwen and Courtney were abandoned despite the latter two's continued prominence). Her voice also became higher-pitched around this time, making her sound less collected and more girly.
- Dave from Pahkitew Island is arguably the most interesting example when it comes to this series as he underwent this in the very season he debuted in: His feelings for Sky and status as The Load on his team gets more exaggerated as the season goes on to the point where he's a complete wimp who will do anything to get Sky to love him by the time of the finale and his Deadpan Snarker Neat Freak qualities have been totally abandoned.
- In the second season of the reboot, both Axel and Ripper are reduced to being Make-Out Kids the moment Axel returns Ripper's crush on her for the final three episodes before both are eliminated.
- The first season of the reboot portrays Raj and Wayne as Dumb Jocks who still have enough mental fortitude to come up with clever plans or form deep relationships with other campers. In the second season, they’re so dumb that Wayne and Raj make Lightning look smart in comparison.
