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     Adam Conover 
Our host.

  • Character Development: He starts to learn to stop ruining once in a while.
  • Fatal Flaw: Ego, when Adam feels the need to be morally outraged or provide a lecture, he shames people first before explaining his point. Which aggravates his audience before they give him a chance to speak his mind. For these reasons, Adam lacks friends in the show because people won't put up with a killjoy who spouts trivia at any prompt.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes: Because he’s always spouting off facts about different things, people tend to not want him around.
  • Friendless Background: He didn't have any friends growing up. Even in his adulthood, he struggles to make friends because he's always ruining things.
  • Geeky Turn-On: Likes people who also like to prove others wrong and know things he doesn't.
  • Insufferable Genius: While genuinely a lot nicer than most examples of this trope, Adam tends to frustrate a lot of people with his trivia, often ruining things that people love for them just to satisfy his need to teach people something.
  • Reality Warper: He is shown possessing amazing abilities, being able to teleport, create life, time-travel, make guests appear and a host of other powers. He claims that he has "taken a vow" to only use it for edutainment purposes, implying that the power was either given or taught to him. In "Adam Ruins Sex", he claims that all it takes is having knowledge about a subject that he doesn't know for anyone else to use his abilities, other characters having adopted this ability whenever they know something he doesn't.

     Recurring Characters/Victims 

In General

Emily Axford

By far the most frequent of Adam's victims and probably the only one willing to call him a friend. High school teacher. Victim in "Adam Ruins Giving", "Adam Ruins Sex", "Adam Ruins Restaurants", "Adam Ruins Having a Baby", "Adam Ruins Drugs", "Adam Ruins Prisons", "Adam Ruins Malls", and "Adam Ruins Death". She takes over segments in "Adam Ruins Sex" and "Adam Ruins Malls", and she gets an entire episode to herself in "Emily Ruins Adam". She also hosts the "Same Time, Different Place" segments in Reanimated History, where she talks about other historical events that aren't usually talked about in history class.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Pretty much all the time, but one standout example is when she explains hymens and Adam suggests bringing in an expert. She giddily agrees and steps away for a split second... only to come right back with a dry look on her face and the subtitles "Emily: Human Woman".
  • Hidden Depths: She actually knows quite a bit herself.
  • The Lad-ette: Is into UFC, bulking up, and getting "nooched." Also, unlike Murph, she has not been planning for or anticipating her wedding day for her whole life, and states that she doesn't really care about the trimmings and trappings of weddings, or even the concept of marriage in general.
  • My Biological Clock Is Ticking: Is worried that she's reaching the end of her fertile years, despite being only in her early 30's and in fairly good health.
  • Pregnancy Scare: Has one at the beginning of the "Having a Baby" episode. She's not actually pregnant.
  • Reality Warper: On the occasions that she takes over segments from Adam.

Brian "Murph" Murphy

Emily's eventual husband. Gym teacher at Emily's school and not the brightest tool in the shed. Victim in "Adam Ruins Giving", "Adam Ruins Sex", "Adam Ruins Weddings", "Adam Ruins Having a Baby", and "Adam Ruins A Plate of Nachos".
  • Glurge Addict: His views on love and romance in the "Weddings" episode.
  • Bridezilla: A male variant. During the "Weddings" episode, he has quite a few freak-outs, including one that could be considered a Heroic BSoD. He even says that he's been planning for this day his whole life, and wants it to be perfect! Somewhat justified in that Adam really is trying to ruin his and Emily's wedding. note 
  • Strong Family Resemblance: Has a dim-witted brother named "Durph," who looks just like him and is played by the same actor.
  • Stylistic Suck: The video he made for his students about herpes.

The Narrator

Narrator for the show "Animated History". Victim for all episodes of Reanimated History.
  • The Faceless: He doesn’t physically appear in the series. He’s just a voice reciting history.
  • Interactive Narrator: Although he’s reluctant to do so, he regularly interacts with Adam when he shows up and ruins whatever piece of history the narrator is discussing. He sometimes flips pages on Adam and closes the book on him several times.
  • Ambiguously Gay: Has a masculine-sounding voice and seems to have a thing for John F Kennedy, repeatedly commenting on his attractiveness.

Patty and Ray

Murph's parents and football fans. Victims in "Adam Ruins Football".
  • Obnoxious In-Laws: Subverted. They like Emily enough and mostly expressed annoyance at their son because he didn't get floral centerpieces or a Catholic priest, as well as Patty defending Emily's choice to formula feed her baby in "Adam Ruins Having A Baby"

Rhea

Adam's sister and district attorney. Victim in "Adam Ruins Christmas" and "Adam Ruins Justice", which she takes over for one segment in the episode.
  • Bifauxnen: She has a more masculine fashion sense
  • Crusading Lawyer: Rhea genuinely wants to help her clients.
  • Sibling Yin-Yang: Rhea is reserved, cool, and fun to hang out with while her older brother is talkative, nerdy, and annoying to deal with.
  • Tomboy: She likes flannel and apparently spent 5 years restoring her vintage car

Melinda

Adam's internet girlfriend who he moves in with at the end of "Emily Ruins Adam". Victim in "Adam Ruins His Vacation", "Adam Ruins the Future", and "Adam Ruins Conspiracy Theories".
  • Conspiracy Theorist: She's convinced that the Moon Landing was fake. Even after Adam shows her all the ways it would have been impossible to fake it in 1969, she insists it could still work despite her reasoning clearly sounding crazy.
"Stanley Kubrick": Forget it, Lady! It'd be easier to put a man on the moon!
  • Differing Priorities Breakup: She and Adam initially worked well together in their first episode together. However, when Adam discovered that she’s a conspiracy theorist who refuses to change her perspective about the Moon Landing, they breakup in the next episode.
  • Geeky Turn-On: Like Adam. They met when debating what source to use while editing a Wikipedia article

Kendra

A woman Emily befriends while she is in prison. Helps Adam out in "Adam Ruins Prisons" and victim in "Adam Ruins Justice".
  • Reformed Criminal: She used to sell drugs on the street to get by, but since "Adam Ruins Justice", she has become part of Emily's group of friends.

Hayley

One of Emily's friends who Adam falls for. Victim in "Adam Ruins Restaurants" and "Adam Ruins Hygiene". Get's Killed Off for Real during "Adam Ruins Death".

Veronica

Emily's other friend. Victim in "Adam Ruins Restaurants" and "Adam Ruins Animals".

Uncle Sam

The personification of America, for better or worse.
  • Character Development: While he mostly represents America's bad aspects, "Adam Ruins America" has him being the victim for once, and he ends the episode recognizing America as a flawed country with potential that it still needs to live up to.
  • Eagleland: Usually represents the boorish, playing the role of the American government whenever they do something stupid (which is often).
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: At times he represents more reasonable actions taken by the government, such as stopping Gutzum Borglum's project when he became too ambitious.

     Adam's Other Victims 
AKA anyone who's become the one being taught by Adam.

In General

  • Audience Surrogate: They typically represent anyone who likes something and are subjected to Adam’s informative deconstruction of the subject.
  • Victim of the Week: The people Adam interacts with change every week and never return to the show. Sure, it's non-lethal, but you can't help but think they're being dealt a punishment...

Ms. Dazzle and Her Students

The main victims of "Adam Ruins What We Learned In School". Ms. Dazzle is a teacher who she takes her students on learning journeys in her TV show "The Magic Van". The students that go with her in the episode are Tommy, Tanya, and Ronald.

Dr. Todd Bodd

The victim of "Adam Ruins Nutrition". Host of the TV show "Doc Talk", which is a parody of Dr. Oz.
  • Does Not Like Spam: Sugar in his case.
  • Mr. Fanservice: Pretty much the main reason his show is popular. Adam gets the audience to watch his show by forcing Todd to take off his shirt and even mentions he used to be a stripper.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: He's obviously based on Dr. Oz.
  • Stage Names: He later reveals at the end of the episode his real name is Rodney and goes by Todd because the studio executives thought "Rod Bodd" wasn't catchy enough.

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