Sandbox / Total Drama: Courtney

Courtney, the 'Type A'

"I'm the only one with CIT camping experience here!"

Voiced by: Rochelle Wilson ("Not So Happy Campers"), Emilie-Claire Barlow (all other episodes)

Teams: Killer Bass, Killer Grips, Team Amazon, Heroic Hamsters, Villainous Vultures

A haughty, uptight, and perfectionistic overachiever who will do anything for success. As the only contestant with CIT (counselor-in-training) experience, Courtney is a natural leader with many strengths, but her bossy demeanor and ruthless drive to win makes her a polarizing individual.

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Tropes that apply to her

• Academic Alpha Bitch: A haughty perfectionist overachiever whose motto is "If you can't come in first, don't come in at all." She gets worse as the series goes on.
• Academic Athlete: She is both scholarly and athletic.
• The Ace: As part of being a perfectionist she prides herself in being a straight 'A' student. Her Island bio claims she's a published author, having written the award-winning book Total Triumph for Teens and that her bedroom is covered with trophies, ribbons, and plaques; she's apparently never lost anything in her life before Total Drama.
• Action Girl:
  • Especially in Action. Courtney has exceptional athletic abilities and is also capable of lifting amounts of weight much greater than her own.
  • Averted in Island where she generally did poorly in challenges, though she did rip a light post out of the ground and swing it as a weapon pretty easily.
• Aesop Amnesia: About how bad an idea it was to try and change Duncan to make him "perfect".
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Duncan until he left her for Gwen. Later on, in All-Stars she gets close to Scott, the former antagonist of Revenge of the Island.
• Alpha Bitch: On the Killer Bass, Killer Grips, and Heroic Hamsters. She became the show's main Alpha Bitch in Action and All-Stars after Heather's elimination. On Team Amazon, however, she clashes with Heather for the position.
• Ambiguously Brown: Todd Kauffman confirmed that Courtney is Hispanic. However, Tom Mc Gillis previously stated that Courtney is Asian. The confusion comes from her biography from Total Drama Action and Total Drama All-Stars which states that she is Asian but was later confirmed to be a mistake.
• Ambition Is Evil: Courtney is an ambitious, competitive and determined young woman and she's also a ruthless, aggressive and antagonistic person to be around.
• Anti-Hero: Island and in the first half of World Tour, see Pragmatic Hero below. But then something causes her to snap, and she becomes a villain.
• Attention Whore: Any time she mentions that she was a CIT, it's practically a cry for attention.
• Ax-Crazy: When she gets enraged, she becomes extremely violent. In World Tour, Heather says that Izzy has been replaced by Courtney.
• Arc Villain: During the second half of Action, after she boots first half baddie Justin.
• The Baroness: During the second half of Action. While she dresses more conservatively than Heather, Courtney is very much of the Sexpot subtype.
• Being Evil Sucks: Courtney might be one of the show's strongest, most determined competitors who will do anything to win, but at the end of the day, her over-aggressiveness, arrogant attitude, and willingness to betray everyone and anyone in her pursuit of the million dollars eventually makes her hated by the entire cast, including her former friends and boyfriends who really did care about her, but broke things off as soon as it came out she was plotting to take them down too. When she can't win the prize in spite of all her efforts, she's ultimately left with nothing and no one.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: In contrast to Heather, Courtney comes off as civil and polite when she was introduced. However, as the series progressed, her being a Control and Competition Freak has alienated her from virtually everyone on the show.
• Brainy Brunette: She's pretty intelligent and scholarly, especially when it comes to legal matters. Heather specifically brings this up in Action when she's looking to steal someone's hair.
  Heather: I'm too smart to be Lindsay-blonde, but Courtney's? Hers would be perfect.
• Break the Haughty: Repeatedly, usually having something to do with Duncan. She ultimately does herself in in All-Stars when her selfish intent gets the better of her, and ultimately runs out of excuses when the others make sure she knows they've had enough.
• Broken Ace: For all of her various talents, such as her intelligence and athleticism, as well as her perfectionist mindset which motivates her to succeed in everything she does, Courtney's complete lack of social skills, desire to control everyone around her, ruthless ambition, and simply unpleasant (sometimes even psychotic) behavior ruin her chances of winning, and ultimately result in her having nothing and no one by the end of the series.
• Broken Bird: Possibly counts as this as of her downfall in All-Stars.
• Can't Take Criticism: Any time anyone calls her out on something, expect Courtney to whine about how she was a CIT.
• Catchphrase: "I was a CIT!" or some variation thereof.
• Characterization Marches On: In the first season, Courtney was a bit of a Control Freak who just needed to lighten up. This went out the window during the second season, where she Took a Level in Jerkass (though she was already showing signs of it by the end of Island with her behavior in Haute Campture and especially the special).
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Much like Heather, Courtney too has her fair share of betrayals throughout the series, ranging from friends, enemies and even love interests:
  • In the special for the first season, Courtney briefly teams with Duncan but after she manages to retrieve the money and Duncan gets injured, she instantly abandons him without missing a beat.
  • Near the end of All-Stars, Courtney plans to betray Gwen some way along the way despite their promise to go the finale together. Instead, she plans to bring her new boyfriend, Scott, with her, believing that he will throw the match for her. Unfortunately for her, Mal reveals her plan to the others before she could carry it out. What makes her horrible is that after giving all sorts of crap to Gwen for her own betrayal two seasons ago, Courtney was all too happy to do the same.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: She tends to get rather possessive of boys that she's romantically interested in.
  • She was suspicious of Gwen and Duncan's friendship (though she was proven right in that regard).
  • She got possessive and defensive of Alejandro when she suspected (correctly) that Heather was also into him.
• The Comically Serious: Courtney is very uptight, ambitious and no-nonsense but she's also extremely energetic and crazy which is oddly amusing.
• Companion Cube: Her PDA in Action.
• Competition Freak: She's hellbent on winning, and has no qualms with plowing through anything or anyone in her path.
• The Complainer Is Always Wrong: When she comes back in Action, she is frustrated and harsh with her teammates because she really wants to put an effort in winning while her team normally doesn't try, resulting in her teammates trying to vote her off for being too bossy.
• Control Freak: So much that she drew up a 32-page contract for Duncan to follow in order to mold him into her idea of the perfect boyfriend. You can imagine how well that went over.
• Cute and Psycho: Courtney is an attractive young lady, but she is mentally and emotionally unstable.
• Cute, but Cacophonic: Courtney's childish and high-pitched voice doesn't mesh very well with her uptight personality.
  • In "Get a Clue", she whines to Chris about wanting a prize after she solves his first riddle then after she brought in two samples of DNA, with Chris giving her his bag of cheese puffs to shut her up.
  • In "The EX-Files", she laughed rather obnoxiously when Duncan got zapped with a laser while pretending to flirt with Tyler. Earlier in the same episode, she was throwing a tantrum like a kindergartener when she broke up with Duncan.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Go-Getter Girl and Determinator. Courtney is defined by her strong-willed ambition and her determination to win every challenge she's in, making her one of Total Drama's top competitors. However, while she sells herself as The Ace in terms of intelligence and athleticism, she is severely lacking in people skills, which is a massive handicap in an environment where teamwork is crucial and having a bad reputation can get you booted from the game. She alienates her teammates with her bossy attitude and seems to have little understanding of personal relationships, constantly expecting others to comply with her demands and getting upset when they don't. She has also betrayed or abandoned her friends and/or boyfriends multiple times, as well as endangered her fellow contestants, for personal gain. Her single-minded ambition costs her nearly every friendship and romantic relationship she has over the course of the series.
• Demoted to Dragon: While she took the role of Arc Villain in Action, after her breakup with Duncan in World Tour she takes the role of Alejandro's number-one supporter both before and after her elimination.
• Determinator: When she wants something, she will fight to the death to get it. However, sometimes her determination ultimately leads to her own destruction.
• Detrimental Determination: Courtney will go to any length to get what she wants, no matter what it is, and no matter what it costs her. And it costs her a lot; she backstabs or screws over her allies, friends, and love interests multiple times in pursuit of the million dollars, only to always lose in the end and come away with nothing.
• Dirty Coward: Used Sam as a Human Shield against the Villainous Vultures' leech-shots in "Saving Private Leechball". This promptly results in her being switched to the Villainous Vultures herself.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Usually does this to Duncan, especially in Action. She has kicked him in the crotch numerous times because he annoyed and provokes her.
• Drama Queen: She behaves this way after the second half of Action, especially when she breaks up with Duncan for the last time in "The EX-Files".
• Early Personality Signs: She's so obsessively organized that she was making her own to-do lists while she was still in diapers. Her control freak tendencies also emerged at a young age as she deemed herself a "counselor in training wheels" and gave trike-riding kids speeding tickets at the park.
• Easily Forgiven: Despite her anger issues and controlling behavior, to the point of going to custody battles, Duncan can't stay mad at Courtney in "Celebrity Manhunt" and makes out with her on the bus. However, he subverts it in World Tour when he cheats on her with Gwen, seemingly sick of Courtney's controlling attitude.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Courtney and Gwen's mutual dislike for Heather makes them bond in the first half of World Tour.
    • Ironically, the roles are switched once Courtney finds out Gwen had kissed Duncan behind her back, with her siding with Heather (and Sierra) to eliminate Gwen instead.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Even she thinks that Heather stealing Gwen's diary and reading it out loud to the whole world is "so uncalled for."
  • While at her worst in Action, there's a challenge where she has to make a shark act like her. During the challenge she implies she turned her shark into sushi, but when Chef questions this she says she would never do anything that cruel. Instead she made him cough up his lunch.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: In All-Stars, she thinks she deserves to be on the Heroic Hamsters despite her actions in the past seasons. During her short tenure on said team, she has little patience for her team's niceness and pretty much acts as a villain. When she was transferred to the Villainous Vultures, she protests.
• Evil Feels Good: Is tempted into breaking the rules by Duncan and once she did so it felt so good she just wanted more, leading to her Start of Darkness.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Whenever she's on the Heel side of the Heel–Face Revolving Door.
• Fallen Hero: She started out a civil contestant who always followed the rules but as the series progressed she started going back and forth on the Heel–Face Revolving Door. This invoked in All-Stars, she starts out on the Heroic Hamsters but gets switched to the Villainous Vultures after she gets caught using Sam as a human shield.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • Pride. Courtney expects others to follow her unquestioningly, gets dangerously angry when they don't, and is constantly trying to elevate her social status. This has led to her downfall in every season she's in. Two other flaws that lead to her downfall are her need for control and greed.
  • Control. The reason Courtney has never made it to the final two despite being such an effective competitor is because winning is so important to her that she views other contestants as tools or pawns to further her own goals, rather than people. Unfortunately for her, she can't stop her "pawns" from using the show's most crucial weapon against her: the voting booth (and unlike Heather, she doesn't know how to manipulate people out of using it against her). Her own desire to win ultimately sealed her fate in All-Stars.
  • Greed. Whenever Courtney has a choice between another person or the prize money, she always chooses the money, no matter how important that person is to her (as Duncan, Gwen, and Scott can attest to). Not surprisingly, this has been the nail in the coffin for all of her relationships, romantic or platonic.
• Fighting Your Friend: Courtney is rigged to box with Gwen in All-Stars just as their friendship seems to be repaired. This actually proves cathartic for both of them as their punches let out all the anger they've had for each other and ultimately strengthens their friendship.
• The Finicky One: Courtney was very fussy and had Type-A personality especially in season 1 and in the later seasons, she becomes an short-tempered, controlling and psychotic Drama Queen.
• Foil:
  • Parallels Heather. Both girls are Alpha Bitches who serve as the Arc Villain of a season, both formed multiple alliances (notably both with Beth), and both garnered a lot of hatred from their fellow campers. However, while Heather was a Card-Carrying Villain who knew fully well what she was doing was bad, Courtney had a case of Moral Myopia and believed her actions were justified while having trouble processing that she was the villain. Heather started off unrepentant and ruthless in her crusade to win, before she gradually mellowed out and had a Hazy-Feel Turn. Courtney started off as a harsh but well-meaning girl, before being corrupted by Duncan and turning to the dark side. Their antagonistic approaches are also quite different; Heather playing The Chessmaster and manipulated others to orchestrate eliminations, while Courtney exploits Loop Hole Abuse in conjunction with her lawyers, and demonstrates physical prowess to dominate in challenges that Heather fell short on.
  • To Trent. Both of them were major characters in Island who had major romance arcs with one of the final four, with both being eliminated in the same way. Both of them promptly break up with their respective love interests, with said love interests (Gwen and Duncan) later ending up in a relationship with each other. However, Trent is substantially more considerate of Gwen's feelings and wants her to feel happy, while Courtney is more assertive and demanding in her relationship with Duncan. Both end up with their relationships ending, however Gwen and Trent remain on good terms after the breakup, Courtney becomes immensely hostile towards Duncan and constantly antagonizes him.
• Foreshadowing: Her attitude in the season 1 special "Total Drama Drama Drama Island" provides a little preview of her characterization and relationships to come: she outright challenges Chris, getting "behind the scenes" and commandeering an air balloon that was only supposed to be for staff; she goes from being sweet and "in it together" with Duncan to abandoning him as soon as he sprains an ankle (and after he just wrestled an alligator for them); when DJ, Cody, Tyler, and Owen are in danger, she wouldn't hesitate to let them die; and the episode ends with her being a very Sore Loser over not being on season 2, vowing that Chris and company will be in huge trouble:
  DJ: You wouldn't let us fall to our deaths!
  Courtney: Oh yes I would! I don't even like you very much.
• Forgot About His Powers: In the All-Stars episode "Sundae Muddy Sundae", she refuses to eat her own sundae (which had burnt chocolate and bird vomit) because it was too "gross". But in Season 3's "Chinese Fake-Out", Courtney reveals she has a cast iron stomach, and was eating far worse meals for Alejandro.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Even in Island, when she is at her most civil, she doesn't get along with most of the other contestants due to her bossy nature and neuroses. When she protests that her elimination was unfair because Harold rigged the votes, the other eliminated campers give her No Sympathy.
  Eva: Didn't see it. Don't care.
  Lindsay: You just would have been kicked off in another episode. No one liked you that much.
  Noah: You're here. You lost. Get over it.
• Flanderization: Her competitive nature is greatly exaggerated in Action onward, often flip-flopping between her more civil self in Island and this by the end of each subsequent season; needless to say, her inconsistency is baffling.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Courtney may be a cultured preppie, but she has shown that she can kick butt.
• Go-Getter Girl: She's a perfectionist who has ambitions to get into law school.
• Graceful Ladies Like Purple: She wears a purple princess dress in "The Princess Pride".
• Green Is Gross: She hates green jelly due to its resemblance to snot.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Courtney started off a bit sane but she develops some extreme anger issues the more she gets invested in the game show.
• Hated by All: She is considered to be one of the most hated contestants, considering how she treated the others and the number of times she betrayed those who are willing to put up with her. This is best shown at the end of Sundae Muddy Sundae where after her deception is revealed to the others, she gets No Sympathy from almost anyone when she's flushed down.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: She supposedly had some degree of redemption in World Tour and All-Stars, but it's questionable just where her morality gets placed after that.
• Her Own Worst Enemy: Courtney shows many times that she has a chance to reach the finale but at the end, her pride and selfishness tends to be her downfall. She can be a team player but her necessity to be the team leader leads everyone else to find her bossy. She also is capable of being civil and make friends as well as being in romantic relationships but her tendency to betray everyone makes her one of the most hated contestants.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Eventually she becomes this with Gwen in All-Stars. And then came "Sundae Muddy Sundae".
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Face in Island, Heel in Action, went back to face for the first half of World Tour, then switched to Heel in second half, stayed Heel for part of All-Stars, went back to Face after reconciling with Gwen, and finishes off as Heel again.
• Hot-Blooded: She can be a little too passionate and competitive as she's too high-strung and neurotic to relax until she wins.
• Hypocrite: It seems that Courtney has a big case of Moral Myopia, not exactly holding herself to the same standards as she does everyone else.
  • She spends most of "Phobia Factor" yelling at her teammates for not conquering their fears, but when her own turn comes around she's too scared to even attempt facing it. This incident seems to result in subtle Character Development, as when Bridgette, Duncan, and Geoff later mock Tyler for failing to overcome his fear, Courtney tells them to stop.
  • In Action, Courtney unfairly gets herself put back into the show. Then she complains about how Owen returned "unfairly", but Chris gets it shoved in her face that he came back the same manner as she did, so she's in no position to criticize.
  • In World Tour she flirts with Tyler (Lindsay's boyfriend) to make Duncan jealous right after criticizing Gwen for being a boyfriend-stealer.
    • For that matter, she and the rest of the cast treat Duncan cheating on her as the worst betrayal ever, while conveniently ignoring the times Courtney has betrayed Duncan (starting back in "Total Drama Drama Drama Island"), flirted with another guy (Justin) in front of him, and been fairly abusive to him (kicking him regularly in the kiwis, making lists of the ways he needs to change himself, etc) during their relationship.
  • After giving Gwen a hard time for betraying her friendship, she intends to betray her in All-Stars. It doesn't end well. She also tries to actively conceal the whole kissing fiasco with her, Cameron, and Scott from Gwen, while acknowledging that she's been giving Gwen a hard time about "the whole kissing thing" with Duncan.
• I Can Change My Beloved: In both Action and World Tour, she makes lists of all Duncan's faults, insisting that "he will be perfect" once she corrects them.
• Iconic Item: Her PDA in Action.
• Idiot Ball: Gets hit by this big time in All-Stars where she makes a chart showing her elimination order for the other contestants, which includes betraying her boyfriend and her bestie, then leaves it lying around for Mal to find.
• Informed Ability: Courtney's Island bio claims she's a published author, having written the award-winning book Total Triumph for Teens, and that her bedroom is covered with trophies, ribbons, and plaques; she's apparently never lost anything in her life before Total Drama. You would be forgiven for not believing that with her performances in Total Drama Island. In Season 1, Courtney refuses to jump off the cliff into shark-infested waters as part of the first challenge; she claims to have a medical condition. When Chris warns her that she's risking the possibility of elimination, Courtney accepts the risk, believing the majority of the members on the opposite team won't jump. She was wrong, and the only people that didn't jump were DJ and Beth. Later, Courtney elects herself as project manager to lead the team in building the hot tub, but fails to get her team to build it, and as Duncan points out Courtney's management skills have demonstrably fallen flat. It was clear that Courtney was going to be voted off and she was only saved by Ezekiel angering the whole team and getting voted off instead. In the "Phobia Factor" episode where the challenge was to face their fears, Courtney gave each of her teammates a hard time when they have trouble facing their fears, but when the time comes for her to face hers, she can't even go through with it. Yet for some reason she was not voted off, and Tyler was sent home, despite the fact he at least tried to overcome his fear.
• Insane Troll Logic: Sometimes, when her strategies are failing. She calls Lindsay selfish for voting herself off since it left Courtney with only one other girl to try and ally with... but Lindsay wouldn't have been eliminated if Courtney hadn't voted for her too. Also pops up in World Tour when she argues about leading Team Amazon:
  Courtney: I happen to like winning and being in first class, which happens to make me an ideal leader.
• Insufferable Genius: Constantly boasts about her various skills and CIT experience.
• Iron Stomach: Zigzagged. In "Chinese Fake-Out", she claims to have a strong stomach, which Alejandro exploits to help him get past the gross Chinese food challenge, but in "Sundae Muddy Sundae", she can't bring herself to eat a sundae with bird vomit and burnt chocolate on it.
• It's All About Me: She gets more and more self-absorbed with her domineering nature and brattiness becoming some of her worst traits.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's hostile, egotistical and violent, but she can also be kind and helpful when she's not on the other side of her mood swings.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: In ‘’Action’’, she treats Lindsay to a spa day after berating her earlier, only to reveal that she only treated her to get ahold of her DNA sample for the challenge, and continues to treat Lindsay like dirt the rest of the episode with no reason to hide her true colors.
• Karmic Butt-Monkey: Much of Courtney's misfortune is often brought upon herself by her own arrogance.
• Kick the Morality Pet: There are a few people who are willing to be friend with Courtney and while she cherishes them, she will not hesitate to stab them in the back in order to win.
• Knight Templar: Unlike most antagonists, Courtney isn't a Card-Carrying Villain. She genuinely thinks of herself as a hero and will usually make an attempt to justify her actions.
• The Lancer: On Team Amazon.
• Large Ham: When Courtney is angry, she makes sure everyone knows it, like when Harold's vote-rigging got her eliminated in Island.
  Courtney: I do not concede! I do not concede! I was your only hope! I was a Counselor in Training!
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • She eliminates Sadie for accidentally pelting her with crabapples, then gets eliminated herself when Harold rigs the ballot box in a misguided attempt to get revenge on Duncan.
  • Happens in Action too. After spending the whole episode bossing Duncan around and making him memorize a 32-page essay, karma bites her in the butt when a shark steals her PDA, making her spend the rest of the episode trying to get it back. And when she finally does, the challenge is over and in the end, she ends up getting betrayed and voted off by Duncan.
    • This can also be a case of delayed karma: in "Total Drama Drama Drama Island", she and Duncan team up to retrieve the case of money, up until Duncan sprains his ankle. Even though he just wrestled an alligator for them, Courtney promptly leaves him to fend for himself, saying the opportunity for her to win the money is more important than sticking with him.
• Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: Played with. Depending on which side of the Heel–Face Revolving Door she is on, Courtney can either be Light or Dark.
• Limited Wardrobe: Her bio mentions that for Island, she packed five identical copies of her main outfit.
• Living Emotional Crutch: To Duncan in a very warped way. He's fine with her loving him, he's fine with her hating him but when she shows apathy to him in All-Stars, he has a complete breakdown.
• Love Cannot Overcome: Ultimately, her relationship with Duncan doesn't work out because they're just too different and can't compromise or agree on how much one of them has to change to please the other.
• Love Martyr: To Alejandro. Even after he admitted he was just using her, she still supports him.
• Ludicrous Precision: She apparently outlined three hundred and sixteen minor transgressions in the 32-page "how to be a perfect boyfriend" contract she drew up for Duncan to follow. Later she makes another "small list" of an additional 46 things she wants to change about him.
• Male Gaze: Courtney gets a bunch of butt shots for no other reason besides Fanservice in every season in which she participates.
• Manipulative Bitch: Not to the extent of Heather or Alejandro, but she has her moments, especially in Action and All-Stars.
• Mood-Swinger: She can go from sweet and civil to devious and violent, or vice versa, on a moment's notice.
• Ms. Fanservice: As mentioned above, she gets a lot of Male Gaze. It's especially noticeable when she does her Cheerleader bit. Her superhero outfit as the "Human Cricket" is also notable.
• Nervous Wreck: She gets super obsessive and uptight over everything, especially with game rules and relationships and if things don't go well, she freaks out.
• Never My Fault: She rarely accepts her own failures, and when she does it's usually out of self-preservation rather than genuine remorse. Her profound lack of humility and constant excuses ultimately comes back to bite her in the ass.
• New Friend Envy: In All-Stars, she becomes jealous of Zoey's friendship with Gwen.
• Nice Mean And In Between:
  • In terms of the love triangle mess in World Tour, she is the mean to Gwen's nice and Duncan's in-between.
  • In All Stars, she is the mean to Zoey's nice and Sierra's in-between on the Heroic Hamsters before Courtney gets switched over to the Villainous Vultures, where she is the in-between to Gwen's nice and Heather's mean, similar to their dynamic on Team Amazon in World Tour.
• Nightmare Face: In her angriest moments, she sports one of these, and it's usually a sign that things are about to get violent.
• No Social Skills: She may be an effective competitor, but she doesn't really understand how to interact with people or make them like her. In Island, her bossy and uptight attitude only served to irritate her teammates until Harold rigged the votes to have her kicked off. When she later protested her unfair removal from the competition, Lindsay straight-up told her that she just would have been voted off later, because nobody liked her anyway.
• Obliviously Evil: Judging by her reaction when Chris transfers her to the Villainous Vultures, Courtney has no idea that her actions throughout the three episodes she is in the Heroic Hamsters (or the past seasons) make her unfit to be a hero.
• Oblivious to Hatred: She is shocked to hear from Lindsay in Haute Camp-ture that the rest of the contestants are no more fond of her than they are of Heather.
• Obsessed Are The List Makers: She has a habit of obsessively making lists whenever she's stressed.
  Courtney: (furiously writing on a notepad) Okay. "Eliminating Heather" is now number 1, 2, 3, and 5 of my top 5 goals. "Ripping out Duncan's eyebrow ring" is number 4.
• Operation: Jealousy: She attempts to make her former love interest Duncan jealous by flirting with Tyler, then Alejandro. It doesn't work.
• Opposites Attract:
  • With Duncan. Deconstructed in that their personality clashes and constant fighting make their relationship so unstable that it eventually breaks apart.
  • During All-Stars she finds herself attracted to Scott, a simple-minded Farm Boy with little care for etiquette, heavily contrasting the strict and prim Courtney. Scott himself is very similar to Duncan, so it sort of makes sense that she would be drawn to him. This doesn't last either.
• Opportunistic Bastard: In three out of the four seasons she competes in, she at least attempts to find some way to get some money regardless. In Island she sues the show, in Action she convinces Duncan to split the money in his ending and plans to sue again in Beth's, and in World Tour she tries to talk Alejandro into giving her 1/5 of the million in exchange for her help during the finale.
• The Perfectionist: She ain't called "The Type A" for nothing.
• Pet the Dog: She surprisingly has quite a few moments.
  • Her friendship with Bridgette in general.
  • She defended Tyler when the other Killer Bass were taunting him after his elimination, even though she clearly didn't like him very much.
  • She hugged Harold when he won the talent show challenge.
  • She was one of the more vocal about liking Leshawna when the eliminated contestants were talking about her.
  • In Action, she nicely asked Beth if she and Duncan kept her up with their relationship talk.
  • In Jamaica Me Sweat she was concerned for Owen and Izzy when they got crushed by the plane.
• Pimped-Out Dress: Her princess gown in "The Princess Pride" and her wedding gown in "Niagara Brawls".
• Plot Allergy: In "Dial M for Merger", Courtney claims to be lactose intolerant when she's sent on a trip to a local cheese factory. And in "Heroes vs. Villains", she starts sneezing as an allergic response to flowers. Neither allergy comes up in any other episode.
• Pom-Pom Girl: Briefly in "Action" when, for a challenge, she tries to teach her shark to cheer and start a dancing with two pom pom like example.
• Pragmatic Hero: In Island and the first half of World Tour. She strictly follows rules and order, but she can be very mean and aggressive.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Sometimes Courtney will make rational decisions to further her goals. For example, in "The Ex-Files", Courtney sees Heather getting sucked into what seems to be a portal to a different dimension, but she decides to pull her out of the portal because Heather would be useful to her to vote off Gwen.
  Courtney: Hmm, she is a pain... ugh, but I need her vote to get rid of Gwen. (proceeds to pull Heather out of the portal)
• Pride: Her defining trait, and her Fatal Flaw.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: Her entire moral outlook.
• Psychopathic Woman Child: Courtney doesn't seem this way at first, due to her prim and uptight exterior, but as time goes on she shows many signs of psychopathy such as an inability to learn from her mistakes, a disregard for the feelings and even the lives of others, and having extreme difficulty prioritizing long term relationships over short-term gain. She resorts to leveraging people's lives for her own gain rather often: threatening to kill DJ, Cody, Owen, and Tyler for the million dollars in the first season special, holding the only means of escape from an exploding building hostage until the others agree to split the money with her if they win, and offering to feed one of the other contestants to a shark in exchange for it returning her PDA. As for the man child part, she has a tendency to throw destructive temper tantrums and whine childishly whenever things aren't going her way, most notably whining about wanting a prize for so long that Chris gives her his snacks just to shut her up.
• Punny Name: She often threatens to sue the show, and her name's Courtney.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Her short temper and overachiever personality make her 100% red to Bridgette's blue
• Relationship Revolving Door: Her past relationships with both Duncan and Scott:
  • Has an on again off again relationship with Courtney, throughout Island and Action, until World Tour where Duncan becomes more interested in Gwen and end up forming a love triangle, causing animosity with Courtney.
  • When she competes in All-Stars: upon switching to the Villainous Vultures, she starts bonding with Scott, and they eventually hook up after an accidental kiss in "Zeek and Ye Shall Find". However, this relationship is short-lived when they break up after only two hours due to Cameron (manipulated by Mal) kissing Courtney. Scott forgives Courtney in the next episode and they become a couple again, only to break up an episode later due to Mal exposing Courtney's elimination chart.
• Revenge Before Reason: Her primary motive in the second half of World Tour is to get Gwen eliminated any way she can, as revenge for Gwen betraying her and stealing her boyfriend. She eventually resorts to throwing her team's challenges, risking herself being eliminated in the process.
• Rich Bitch: A couple episodes imply that she's rich or at least well-off, such as when she hires a team of lawyers to sue her way back into the competition in Action. "One Million Bucks, B.C." shows her indulging in lobster and Belgian chocolate. Also, in "The Princess Pride", Leshawna explicitly refers to Courtney as a "skinny rich girl" in her note to Harold as he was singing Courtney's princess song in the confessional.
• The Rival:
  • She often clashes with Heather, particularly during World Tour.
  • In All-Stars, Courtney feels threatened by Zoey.
• Running Gag: In Island, going on really long tangents in the confessional about how she can't stand Duncan, listing everything she hates about him, and denying that she would ever like him.
  Leshawna: (from outside the confessional) Yo! You still protestin' in there, or are you gonna let someone else have a turn?!?
• Samaritan Relationship Starter: She finds out that Duncan is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold when she sees him tricking DJ with a replacement Bunny so DJ wouldn't be sad.
• Schedule Fanatic: Courtney reveals in an Action confessional spot, that she schedules ordinary daily activities years in advance.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Her use of her lawyers on Action, which has gotten her multiple immunities and preferential treatment by the producers. As the show goes on, though, they eventually start to tire of her attitude. Her lawyers stop returning her calls near the end of the season.
• Second Place Is for Losers: She practically lives by this rule. According to her official bio for the first season, her personal motto is, "If you can't come in first, don't come in at all."
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Around the halfway mark of Action was when she started accusing Gwen of stealing Duncan away from her. Ultimately, she was partially responsible for making this come true herself by abusing Duncan so much that he cheated on her with Gwen anyway.
• Sixth Ranger: For the Killer Grips.
• Skewed Priorities: She desperately wants to win, and will do anything to achieve that, even if it means endangering her own friendships if it is convenient to her plans. Ironically, it's the fact that she places such little value on the well-being of her teammates that she ultimately screws herself over in the game, as her aggressive attitude and selfishness inevitably leads to her fellow competitors rallying against her every time victory seems within reach.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: With Duncan in Island and Action. She ends this in World Tour.
• Slapstick: Whenever Gwen's involved in All-Stars.
• Slasher Smile: She sports one in the All-Stars opening when she's seen fighting Gwen and Duncan with a burning jousting stick.
• Small Name, Big Ego: As part of her Action persona. Duncan even calls her "a high maintenance chick with a superiority complex."
• Smug Snake: Courtney is incredibly power-hungry, egotistical and bratty and while she's very ruthless and competitive during competitions, she never wins because of her worst qualities and the fact she gets on people's nerves especially in Total Drama Action and Total Drama All-Stars.
• Soapbox Sadie: She does genuinely try to be a polite girl, and thanks to some character development in the first half of World Tour she does come across as genuinely nice at times. At the same time, she's overly preachy, blindly follows the rules, and tends to be an intolerably condescending and whiny brat.
• Sore Loser: She sues her way into Action after being disqualified from the competition in the final episode of Island.
• Spicy Latina: According to Word of God, she is Hispanic, though her attitude isn't really spicy so much as uptight and shrill.
• Spoiled Brat: She's egotistical, annoyingly entitled and gets whiny when she doesn't get her way. She uses her lawyers when she doesn't get her way. This trait gets even worse when she's in Total Drama Action when she gets more privileged than the other contestants and still behaves obnoxious and bossy.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad:
  • She becomes one in Action after she re-enters the competition under questionable means and serves as the new Arc Villain.
  • She also becomes a more notorious Spotlight Stealer when she and Gwen get involved in a Love Triangle with Duncan in World Tour.
  • Her ultimately failed rekindled friendship with Gwen is a major plot point in All-Stars.
• Stepford Smiler: Tries to become one after Duncan cheats on her in season 3. It doesn't work.
  Courtney: (confessional) Well, at least I still have my...pride. (tries to smile at the camera, but then breaks down in tears)
• Surrounded by Idiots: Her reaction whenever she's paired with contestants like Lindsay or Owen, especially in "Heroes Vs. Villains" where she screams in frustration when Lindsay forgets how to push.
• Tantrum Throwing: Completely loses it in "The EX-Files" after finding out Duncan cheated on her, lying on the floor, sobbing and kicking her legs while throwing a bowl of spaghetti at him.
• Team Killer: She attempts to throw challenges several times in World Tour just to get rid of Gwen.
• Team Mom: Subverted. She sees herself as one, but she overdoes it to the point where she's viewed as being obnoxious.
• Throwing the Fight: Once she finds out about Duncan and Gwen's kiss in "Greece's Pieces", she intentionally tries to lose the challenge so she can vote out Gwen.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • In "Top Dog", she lunges at a man-eating shark because she was annoyed at it, and ends up in crutches.
  • In "Sundae Muddy Sundae" not only does she betray her closest friends (Gwen and Scott), but she fails to secure her crudely-drawn chart showcasing her strategy to defeat her four remaining opponents. Her continued aggression in that same episode does absolutely nothing to dissuade the others from voting her out, and for her selfish act she leaves completely empty-handed.
• Took a Level in Badass: Back in Total Drama Island, Courtney's had a poor record in challenges, even failing to compete in the very first challenge. Subsequent seasons shows that her gaining many skills such as martial arts, acrobatics, cheerleading and among others and is tied with Gwen for winning the second most number of invincibilities. As for her leadership skills, she fails to lead her team properly in the first season but in the second, the manages to break the Killer Grips' poor record and win the last two challenges prior to the merge.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In Action she went from being a slightly stuck-up and haughty girl who was still civil enough to be the Team Mom, to a scheming, spoiled princess who uses her lawyers to cheat her way to numerous advantages on the show. She basically transformed from a significantly better version of Heather to a straight up Expy.
• Took a Level in Kindness: She's actually quite nice during the first half of World Tour (at the very least, she was more tolerant of failure). It all gets ruined when she finds out Duncan cheated on her.
• Token Evil Teammate: In All-Stars, she's this to the Heroic Hamsters. Fitting, considering Gwen can (possibly) pass off as a hero but is with the Villainous Vultures instead. She is forced to swap teams with Duncan, making her a villain.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Girly Girl to Gwen's (and to an extent, Bridgette's) Tomboy.
• Tsundere: Type B in Island, Type A in Action, with VERY heavy emphasis on the "tsuntsun" part.
• The Unfettered: When the chips are down, she will resort to any tactic in order to win, including betrayal, physical violence, and attempted murder.
• Ungrateful Bitch:
  • Duncan wrestles an alligator to retrieve a case of money for the two of them. Courtney promptly runs off with the money when, moments later, he sprains his ankle, saying that he'll just slow them down.
  • In "Total Drama All-Stars'', Gwen put a lot of effort to mend their broken friendship, which includes saving Courtney from an angry deer and breaking up with Duncan. While Courtney cherished their reformed friendship, she also has no qualms in betraying Gwen for the sake of winning the season. Gwen is not happy when she finds out about this, even lampshading in the confessional how all of her efforts have gone to waste.
• Uptight Loves Wild:
  • For Duncan... at first.
  • For Scott in All-Stars
• Well, Excuse Me, Princess!: To Duncan.
• We Used to Be Friends: Admits in All-Stars that she's extremely bitter over what happened between herself and Gwen in World Tour, even after the entire mess with Duncan. Unfortunately, even after they finally buried the hatchet she still tries to pull the rug out from Gwen when it is revealed she doesn't intend to take her to the finale as they promised; Gwen is quick to return this sentiment to her and Courtney is unable to talk her way out of elimination.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Fails to get over her fear of green jelly, costing her the much needed triple score and more importantly the challenge. Comes up again in "Food Fright".
• Woman Scorned: A major plot thread in the latter half of World Tour focuses on her vendetta against her boyfriend Duncan and friend Gwen after finding out that the two kissed.
• Worf Had the Flu: Alejandro admits that manipulating her would've normally been very difficult... save that Duncan cheating on her and causing the end of their relationship has made her shaken and desperate.
• Youthful Freckles: Has a few on her nose.
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: When angry enough, her strength gets enhanced enough to rival Eva and (mutated) Dakota's. In Island, as part of the first challenge, she had problems moving a crate that Eva carried effortlessly, but later in the same season, when finding out that Harold cheated to get her eliminated, she rips off a light post and bends it around Harold's body to make him a human pretzel. In Action, this strength-enhanced rage becomes more evident as she fights 3 sharks bare-handed and, before that, lifts a bed (with Lindsay on top) over her head.