The Total Drama series

The justification Chewbacca made for claiming Bowie is the villain for Island 2023 Part 1 was "No, Bowie was the Arc Villain of S1. S1 Bowie got Caleb, Julia, Millie, Chase, and Zee out. S1 Julia only got MK and Chase. Her role is not particularly different than Ripper's"

Though I wouldn't even say Bowie directly got Zee out. Sure he suggested the revote, but nothing was stopping the other five from voting for someone other than Zee and it was ultimately more on Chris for allowing said revote in the first place.

And Julia's more a case of the Big Bad being eliminated by someone else.

Even Chase's elimination is kind of a stretch. Sure Bowie voted for him and prevented a tie, but it's not like he went around telling Julia, Priya, and Millie to vote him out, Chase pretty much dug his own grave after he knocked everyone off their poles and showed what a horrid boyfriend he was with Emma.

I think Bowie is a more effective antagonist in season one, but Julia is the one depicted as actually evil, while Bowie is more of a strategic Anti-Villain (by TD standards).

Season 1 Julia was more focused on staying alive and saving her own skin. The one thing she did was get everyone to vote off MK, and that comes across more desperate than evil.

It's now been over a day and, with possibly one exception, everyone seems to agree that Julia is the Arc Villain of Island (2023) Part 1. So I'm now gonna go revert the pages again.

Edited by CorvusIX on Feb 4th 2024 at 2:26:03 PM

Corvus IX, I would like to deeply apologize for the brief edit war. I should have come here instead of using edit summaries as a form of discussion. My thought process was this: in addition to causing way more eliminations, Bowie is the one who becomes a pariah in Part 2, similar to what Heather went through. In episode 9, Julia was in an alliance with Priya and Millie, the designated heroes, while in episode 12, Bowie is double crossing everybody. He also describes himself and Julia as villains and double crossers, so to claim Bowie isn't evil doesn't make sense. It also doesn't make sense to claim Julia is the villain of both parts when she only half-served that purpose in Part 1 and the same could equally apply to another character; she didn't show her true colors until episode 5 of 13.

So I'd like to kindly ask you to consider waiting for more discussion; I don't believe a day is enough time for a consensus. Correct me if TV Tropes consensuses are meant to take less time than Wikipedia ones though; the amount of people who agreed with you in a short time does point in your favor after all.

Edited by Chewbacca on Feb 5th 2024 at 8:54:47 AM

Julia only teamed up with Priya and Millie in an Enemy Mine situation, not because she liked them.

Plus, Bowie had more genuine friends than her with Raj, Wayne, and formerly Emma (even then this friendship ending was more from Bowie voting off Chase and Emma refusing to believe him on how awful Chase is rather than Bowie backstabbing her like other villains). He also never really got the villain Humiliation Conga treatment like the main villains. I'd say Bowie's closer with Duncan and World Tour Heather in that end.

Maybe it's just safer to say that the first season of the reboot doesn't have an Arc Villain in the traditional sense. Even Priya and Millie's conflict is mostly internal; Bowie just exacerbated it.

Julia also never got the Humiliation Treatment until Part 2. I also never really got the idea that Bowie actually cares for Wayne, rather he tolerates him because he's his boyfriend's best friend. Wayne cares for Bowie because he cares for Raj, but Bowie is pretty often shown exhausted with Wayne's stupidity in the finale and exasperation at picking Wayne. I don't want to be rude, I just want to understand how people don't see Bowie as a villain.

This might be a good compromise to say Part 1 doesn't have an Arc Villain, as its own page says Pahkitew doesn't have one either (the Total Drama page says it's Sugar, I might remove that if it's okay, as Phakitew has Sugar, Dave, Amy, Scarlet, and Topher serving as villains at different points and neutral when they're not villains). That, or we can simply list both Bowie and Julia for Part 1 instead of just Julia.

Once again, I'd like to deeply apologize for the edit war, and will be using forums like this, discussion pages, PM's, and Ask the Tropers more often.

Edited by Chewbacca on Feb 5th 2024 at 10:37:09 AM

Bowie was pretty supportive of Wayne in the season 2 finale, rooting for him over Caleb and actively helping him by acting as a hockey coach to motivate him even though he had nothing to gain from it. He also shows concern when he tries to pole vault his way across a gorge, bringing up how impossible and dangerous that is and begging him not to do so

So Bowie definitely sees Wayne as a good friend. Heck, his annoyance with Raj asking him to choose Wayne on his team likely came more from wanting more time to make a more strategic pick and likely planned to pick Wayne at some point, rather than implying he didn't want Wayne on the team at all.

Hm, you have convinced me that Bowie does care for Wayne, especially with that pole vault example where he's worried for Wayne's safety. I'm still not entirely comfortable of putting all of the Arc Villain designation onto Julia though, as I see either Bowie or both him and Julia as it, mainly due to the sheer number of eliminations Bowie caused. I obviously won't be changing that part of the page until a consensus though; I've learned that lesson.

However, I'm open to the compromise mightymewtron suggested that Part 1 has no Arc Villain due to Priya and Millie's internal conflict. I'm also willing to admit defeat over the listing of content here if there is a consensus, depending on how long that is supposed to take or if it's a "not a vote" system like what Wikipedia uses (since it's 4 Julia, 2 Bowie, 1 neutral currently). Let me know if a day was enough time. Once again I'm deeply sorry I didn't find this thread sooner.

Edited by Chewbacca on Feb 5th 2024 at 10:49:54 AM

Was Scarlett meant to be a Knight of Cerebus? I always found her to be Laughably Evil because of how over the top she was.

She openly talked about how evil she was being at the end, I'm pretty sure she was supposed to be a parody supervillain like Max, just better at hiding it.

It's kinda hard to tell how seriously they want threats to be taken (given Mal was... that), but Scarlett definitely felt more comedic due to being a Large Ham. Kind of a Saturday morning cartoon vibe.

I can understand why Zoey might be a bit divisive, but I never thought the hate would be that big. What did she do to deserve this?

I don't believe any character deserves intense hate, but when I did a full-series rewatch in 2022, Zoey was the first character I just actively did not have any fun watching. Her introduction and most of her arc was so tied to Mike, she barely got to show off her individual personality. The I Just Want to Have Friends and "weird indie chick" angle was undermined by scenes of her badmouthing other contestants she found off-putting (while also totally trusting Scott?) and even her friendship with Cameron felt tacked onto her Mike arc. The Commando Zoey thing could've been interesting but it's hard to base the conflict off her "suddenly" being mean when her niceness to those besides Mike, Cameron, and Brick was mostly informed. I also really dislike the Anne Maria love triangle and the Poor Communication Kills of it all — it's played out at this point to complain about the oxygen tube thing, but wow it's hard to believe we're meant to see her in the right there and not see her priorities as laughably skewed. There's a few cute moments, like her costuming and her and Anne Maria referencing Star Wars, but she just didn't feel fully realized as a protagonist to me. In fact I'm the one who wrote her Unintentionally Unsympathetic entry — and I'm not alone in that opinion by far. I only liked her when I was a child and she felt like a blank slate upon which I could project my own insecurities.

I'm in the minority that actually prefers her in TDAS. Her friendship with Gwen feels actually authentic (the "blow out the candle" scene is like, one of her best) and she gets some interests related to her archetype, like tarot. The Mal stuff is annoying, but in some episodes, she seems less stupid and more actively in denial, which is more compelling. I also think Millie (who coincidentally shares the same VA) does a lot of aspects of Zoey much better — she also has a "not like other girls" shtick but it's criticized and she develops past it, and her I Just Want to Have Friends personality is both the actual center of her arc and, again, people kinda call her out for acting holier-than-thou yet still being upset she doesn't have friends.

Edited by mightymewtron on Feb 12th 2024 at 2:38:53 PM

I think that as a character she's fine, but her and Mike's dynamic takes up a huge chunk of two straight seasons. All Stars is more divisive because by definition every character in that season is someone we care about and want to see go far, and also Sam.

So seeing guys like Alejandro or Sierra get sacrificed to show how cool and epic Mal is is really frustrating, and the whole time Zoey is just kinda not doing anything to stop the main villain until the finale.

I think the most glaring part is them writing her out of "Suckers Punched." It was a perfect opportunity to give her some depth via another "What Do They Fear?" Episode and they just... had her do literally nothing, as a team reward.

I watched a video where a guy argued for an hour and a half that the redhead was not crazy, and now I'm curious about this show.

Is Wayne actually a polarizing character? I know him making the finals in season 2 was divisive, but I don't see anyone ever stating they think Wayne is by any means bad and he still ranks pretty high among the Gen 4 rankings.

Sure his win is divisive, but Wayne as an actual character is pretty well liked (Compared to other divisive winners like Beth, Sky, and Mike and divisive finalists like Millie and Cody).

The best comparison to Wayne would be Beth, but Beth had other reasons to be disliked aside from making the finals, like her weird boyfriend plot.

The hate for Wayne mostly comes from the fact that he doesn't really have a plot or interact with any characters but Raj for two thirds of the season. He's a side character suddenly shifted into the main character role.

This could sorta apply to a lot of characters this season where the character dynamics did feel a lot more isolated, not just Raj (after Bowie's elimination) and Wayne.

Like when looking at those who made the top half:

• Caleb and Priya don't interact with anyone else in the top half in a major way outside of each other and Julia (plus Millie briefly for Priya in pre-merge).
• MK never interacts with Caleb, Damien, Priya, and Zee, only interacted with Raj and Wayne in relation to the cheating plot pre-merge (even then, it's only when Julia's around), and only interacted with Julia among the top half.
• Zee only interacts with Priya, Caleb, and Julia in a major way, with hardly anything with Damien, and nothing with Raj, Wayne, and MK.
• Damien (as big of a fan favorite he was) didn't interact with Caleb and MK, barely interacted with Zee, Raj, and Wayne, and only interacted with Julia in the same episode he was eliminated in.

Julia's the only one who did have a variety of character dynamics in the top half.

If ya'll are gonna discuss the reboot it'd be nice if you spoiler tagged it. I got spoiled on one of the winners coming here. The show isn't even out everywhere yet and not everyone is pirating the show.

I thought it was okay to not have the spoiler tag since the tropes stuff for season 2 is showing up without spoiler tags on the pages.

I don't get why some fans have an issue with the more unrealistic parts of the show (aliens in World Tour, toxic waste island, half of the Pahkitew cast...) I mean, the show was always a slapstick comedy from the very first season.

What's been wondering me is the gender of crew member Miles Smith. Miles was named after them but I don't seem to find the face of Smith. Is Smith a woman or did the Ridonculus Race crew couldn't think of another female worker for the show to name her after aside from Laurie Elliot? Miles could've been named Terry (yes, it's a unisex name).