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"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | Respect my authoritah! | „ |
| ~ Cartman when attempting to assert dominance |
| “ | Because he's a fat, racist, self-centered, intolerant, manipulating sociopath! | „ |
| ~ Kyle explaining to Jimmy why Cartman is no longer their friend in “The Death of Eric Cartman” |
| “ | How would you like to suck my balls, Mr. Garrison? | „ |
| ~ Cartman's most famous quote in South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. |
Eric Theodore Cartman, usually referred to by his surname, is one of the 4 main protagonists of the South Park franchise.
He is a boy between the ages of 8-10 who lives in South Park, Colorado and has been the friend of Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Kenny McCormick throughout the series, although they didn’t truly considered him one. He sometimes manipulatives Butters Stotch for his own gain, too. He is also Liane Cartman's (and also Jack Tenorman's, who he killed) only son, the social rival of Wendy Testaburger, and Heidi Turner's ex-boyfriend.
Although he is one of the series' main characters, and has some heroic roles from time to time, Cartman is best known for usually being a horribly bigoted, sociopathic, egotistical, rude, and manipulative delinquent throughout the series' run. He serves as an antagonist in several episodes, to the point where he can also be considered the main antagonist of the show.
He is voiced by Trey Parker, who also voices Mickey Mouse, Lennart Bedrager , and many other characters in the same show, Kim Jong-il in Team America: World Police and Balthazar Bratt in Despicable Me 3.
His Evil Ranking[]
Debated Validations[]
- In "Kenny Dies," it's unclear whether using the stem cells to create a duplicate Shakey's was his plan all along, or if he actually cared about finding a cure for Kenny and then decided to make a duplicate restaurant because it was too late. Kyle accuses him of the former, and Cartman doesn't correct him, but he is shown tearing up about Kenny, and dialogue implies that he gets the idea during the conversation with the doctor (implying his initial sorrow over Kenny's death is genuine due to there being no ulterior motive). It should also be noted that he makes the Shakey's after Kenny dies.
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
In General[]
- He is best known for being extremely greedy, selfish, self-centered, sociopathic, deceitful, mean, and manipulative.
- He's also shown to be the most foul mouthed out of all the kids in the show, cursing a lot and being the most nonchalant with profanity.
- For a child, he is extremely bigoted towards other groups:
- Most notably, he is incredibly anti-semitic, ripping on Kyle for being Jewish all the time.
- "Ginger Kids" shows he hates ginger people, saying they are the evilest people and don't have souls.
- On top of that, when he finds out his father is the late Mr. Tenorman in "201," he gets more upset over the fact that he has the ginger gene inside of him rather than feeling remorse over the fact that he got his own father killed.
- He also shows signs of misogyny, believing women are dumber and weaker than men.
- He usually has little to no consideration for others, unless it's for his own gain.
- He also generally controls his own mother and makes her do whatever he wants. While it is implied she is the one responsible for Cartman being the way he is as she only focused on giving him love and not discipline, as well as him lacking a father figure to teach him the concepts of kindness, it doesn't count as a tragedy since it's not played for sympathy, nor has Cartman technically been traumatized.
- While he has done his fair share of heroic deeds, they're usually done for his own gain.
- Despite the high heinous standards of the franchise, Cartman easily stands out the most due to usually having less resources, and only being a child.
TV Series[]
- In “Weight Gain 4000,” he cheated on an essay contest by writing his name on a copy of Walden.
- In "Death", Cartman punches Kyle due to his mother making him miss Terrance and Phillip.
- In "Pinkeye," he dresses as Adolf Hitler for Halloween and eagerly copies his mannerisms. Later, he suggests Stan kill Wendy after she becomes a zombie, which he nearly does.
- In "Sexual Harassment Panda," he sues Stan for "sexual harassment" after he calls him an "ass-sucker," and lies about Stan wanting to have oral-styled intercourse with his ass.
- This causes a domino effect, a flurry of other lawsuits regarding "sexual harssment" follow.
- In "The Red Badge of Gayness," during a reenactment of the American Civil War, he dresses up as Confederate General Robert E. Lee and has the drunken Southern Civil War army raid several towns, attack civilians, and burn down buildings. This almost forces President Clinton to surrender to the South.
- In "The Tooth Fairy's Tats 2000,"
- He dresses up as the Tooth Fairy so he can steal Butters' tooth and places it under his own pillow to get money from the real fairy.
- After learning that the money actually came from their parents, he and the other boys later decide to steal money from other kids by placing teeth under their pillows and leaving notes for the parents claiming that their children have lost teeth.
- In "Cartman's Silly Hate Crime 2000," he throws a rock at Tolkien after thinking he called him fat, an act which not only severely injures Tolkien, but is also listed as a "hate crime" due to Tolkien's race.
- In "Cherokee Hair Tampons," he refuses to give his kidney to Kyle, who is suffering from kidney failure, unless he gets $10,000,000 in exchange.
- In "Fat Camp," he sells junk food to all the kids at the camp by having another kid pretend to be a slimmed down and redeemed him, only to steal several candies and bring it to the camp, whilst Cartman gets to escape.
- In "The Wacky Molestation Adventure,"
- He suggests Kyle and all the other children of South Park tell the police their parents "molestered" them, having used that trick on his mother's ex-boyfriend. Soon, the kids try that on all the adults in town, getting them all arrested.
- When the kids take over South Park in the aforementioned episode, he becomes a corrupt mayor.
- While the adults are later released from prison, they go under severe therapy and are convinced they did molest their kids.
- During the events of "Do the Handicapped Go to Hell?" and "Probably," he creates a church to scam kids out of their money so the boys could buy a Dreamcast.
- In "Scott Tenorman Must Die," he feeds the titular bully chili made from his parents' bodies after getting them killed by Denkins, for conning him out of $16.12. Scott's father is later revealed to have also been Cartman's in "201."
- While it's true that Scott was a cruel and manipulative bully who enjoyed humiliating him multiple times, and his defeat isn’t played for sympathy, Cartman arguably went too far with his revenge, as his parents didn’t need to suffer.
- Also, this marked a turning point in his character, as he would become much, much more heinous after this.
- He refuses to let anyone enter his amusement park (especially Stan and Kyle) in "Cartmanland."
- In "Jared Has Aides," he tricks Butters' parents into thinking he was watching television and eating junk food while still being grounded, leading to them physically beating him, to which Cartman enjoys seeing.
- In “Freak Strike,” he and the other boys get Butters to fake a deformity so they can get a gift card on Maury. When it fails, he pretends to be an “out of control” kid for a future episode, even having his mom go along with it.
- In "Casa Bonita," he tricks Butters into thinking there is a meteor heading towards Earth and a zombie apocalypse, later locking him up in a bomb shelter to go to Casa Bonita for Kyle's birthday party, causing the entire town to panic.
- Also, when everyone finds out about his actions, he cowardly tries to hold Kyle hostage and later admits what he did was worth it.
- When the town decides to give money to the Broflovski family instead of getting presents for Christmas because they had Ike taken away from them in "It's Christmas in Canada," Cartman blames Kyle for not getting any presents and tries to fight him.
- In "Up the Down Steroid," he pretends to be disabled to compete in the Special Olympics. Technically, he didn’t break any rules. But it was still extremely dishonest that it got Jimmy to call him out on it.
- In a flashback in "Preschool," he and the three other boys wanted Trent Boyett to light a fire on the carpet, so they could put out with their urine, only for their teacher Ms. Claridge to try putting it out herself and catch fire. resulting in her being in put a catatonic state. He, along with the other boys, blamed Trent, getting him sent to juvenile hall.
- This is what makes Trent Boyett seek vengeance against the boys, and while he does try to mangle and kill them, it's still technically their fault. When the teacher is injured again after Cartman accidentally powers her chair with his taser, they blame Trent again, leading to him being arrested again, rather than owning up to their actions.
- He attempts to have Kenny’s feeding tube removed (which would’ve killed him) in “Best Friends Forever,” just so he can have his PSP.
- In "Ginger Kids,"
- He makes a derogatory prsentation about gingers, causing his classmates to start discriminating against them.
- After the other boys trick him into thinking he has become one, he rallies all the ginger kids in South Park and starts a separatist movement to rise up and become the "master race" they are intended to be, by wiping out all the non-gingers.
- In "Tsst,"
- He forced a student into a Saw-esque situation for mocking his weight by handcuffing his leg to a flagpole and telling him that he had poisoned his lunch milk and that the only way he could get to the antidote would be to saw through his leg using a hacksaw.
- He psychologically breaks the nannies his mother sends over to attempt to improve his behavior, even driving one to insanity to the point where she was eating her own feces in a mental hospital.
- When he runs away, no one is willing to take him and is delusional enough to believe they are willing to take him in.
- He later considers killing his mother in her sleep for disciplining him, although he chooses not to.
- In “Cartoon Wars,” he tries to get an episode of Family Guy banned for showing the prophet Muhammad. While that doesn’t seem bad, his real motive for all of this is to stop comparisons made between his sense of humor and Family Guy's, and he believes that by getting one episode banned, it would eventually lead to the entire show being taken off the air.
- In "With Apologies to Jesse Jackson," he constantly makes fun of Dr. David Nelson, who suffers from dwarfism. Even after Nelson brutally beats him up, he still continues laughing.
- In "Le Petit Tourette," he pretends to have Tourette's Syndrome just so he could be allowed to curse at school without punishment.
- He makes "CP” by making a pictures of him and Butters where he tricks Butters into doing oral sex, in "Cartman Sucks." When Butters' father catches the two at a split second, Cartman runs off with the lack of context, which makes Cartman indirectly responsible for causing Butters to go to Camp New Grace, a Christian conversion therapy camp that makes LGBT children want to commit suicide.
- When Kyle makes fun of him for getting HIV in “Tonsil Trouble,” he retaliates by giving it to him.
- He teaches the students of Jim Davis High how to cheat in "Eek, a Penis!"
- In "Breast Cancer Show Ever," he makes fun of breast cancer, causing Wendy to decide to pick a fight with him, which he cowardly tries to call off multiple times, even by going to Wendy's house and pretending to be an innocent kid that Wendy was bullying as a last resort.
- To make matters worse, when Wendy is forced to call off the fight he gets her in trouble with her parents, Cartman takes advantage of it and repeatedly mocks Wendy by making tasteless jokes about breast cancer.
- Also, her brutally beating him up and heavily injuring him is completely deserved and played for satisfaction. This is emphasized with how even Butters cheers Wendy on.
- He assembles an army of Somalian pirates to plunder ships in "Fatbeard," likely to cause chaos.
- In “The Coon,” he threatens to blow up a hospital if Mysterion doesn’t reveal his true identity.
- He starts a Hit-and-Run Operation by hijacking a NASCAR race car and killing many spectators and pit crew members in "Poor and Stupid."
- In the Coon trilogy, after getting kicked out of his own group, Coon and Friends, he joins forces with Cthulhu, massacring Jewish people, Hippies, Whole Foods, Justin Bieber and San Francisco.
- In "HumancentiPad,"
- When his mother refuses to get him an iPad due to it being too expensive, he starts yelling that she "fucked him in the ass," for everyone at the store to hear, making her look like a child molester.
- While one would assume that he may not have actually meant the term in a sexual way (he likely meant that she "fucked him over"), he even going as far as to tell to a cop that his mom attempted to "fuck" him, and later claims the same thing to Dr. Phil.
- Also, he shows no concern over the fact that Kyle gets mutilated into the HumancentiPad, instead playing with the prototype and reacting hysterically when the experiment would be taken away and surgically reserved.
- He also isn't shown sympathy after getting struck by lightning by God and sent to the hospital.
- When his mother refuses to get him an iPad due to it being too expensive, he starts yelling that she "fucked him in the ass," for everyone at the store to hear, making her look like a child molester.
- In "Bass to Mouth," in order to repeat an incident where someone defacted his pants in class, he gived another student cupcakes laced with laxatives, causing her to defecate in her pants in the middle of class. This later causes her to attempt suicide and fracture her pelvis.
- In "The Poor Kid," he incriminates his mother by getting her arrested for a meth lab that he had set up, all because he was worried that he would be ridiculed for being the poorest kid in South Park Elementary after Kenny left, when in reality nobody would have cared. In that same episode, he also mocks other kids who were poorer than him, but when he's the poorest kid, he mocks his own mother and does it in a way that people are expected to feel bad for him.
- In "Crack Baby Athletic Association," he makes a plan to take advantage of babies who have been affected by their mothers' crack addictions by recording them in order to win a prize from EA Sports make a video game based on them, and rigs the system so that the babies make no money while he makes all of it in. He even goes as far as to offer crack to pregnant women to create more crack babies.
- In "T.M.I," he drives an anger management counselor's wife to commit suicide by sending fake chat logs and a fake police report indicating that the psychiatrist had an affair with a 14-year-old over the Internet, after said counselor "insulted" him.
- He helps Mickey Mouse and the Chinese rig the 2012 presidential election so Obama would win and force Disney to give Star Wars to them just so he could play Luke Skywalker's son in "Obama Wins!"
- In "World War Zimmerman,"
- He forces a plane that was heading for Baltimore to go to Florida because he believed that he had to shoot George Zimmerman to stop a zombie apocalypse.
- He makes Tolkien look like a patient zero, and shoots him when he steps on "his ground."
- In “Ginger Cow,” he blackmails Kyle into doing everything he says in exchange for not publicly revealing the ginger cow was. These demands include indignities such as insulting his own mother Sheila to her face, performing menial tasks, and humiliating himself in public by allowing Cartman to fart in his face and claiming that he enjoys it.
- In the Black Friday trilogy, he tries to manipulate the other classmates into betrayal, by claiming that it’s only about he and them getting Xbox Ones, and everyone else just being there to help them get in the mall.
- In "The Cissy," he pretends to be transgender just so he could use the girl's bathroom all because stalls in the boy's bathroom were occupied.
- He rallies food critics from Yelp to shut down restaurants that don't serve them in "You're Not Yelping."
- He and the other boy's scheme to get PC Principal fired by framing him for molesting Butters in "Stunning and Brave."
- During seasons 20 and 21, he becomes emotionally abusive towards his ex-girlfriend Heidi, with this abuse eventually turning her into a female equivalent of him. He even paints himself as the victim of their relationship.
- He attempts to twist the deaths of several children due to distracted driving into children having sympathy for him in "Put It Down."
- In "Tegridy Farms," he and Butters sell vape pens to the kindergarteners.
- He gets Kyle sent to an ICE detention center in "Mexican Joker."
- After hearing that a vaccine could be made to end the COVID-19 pandemic in "The Pandemic Special," he attempts to kill the pangolin that started the pandemic to avoid going back to school.
- In "City People," he sabotages Liane's job as a real estate agent due to wanting more attention from her (even going as far as to say he's her job). When he succeeds in making her quit, she's forced to sell their home and they moved into an abandoned hot dog restaurant, which stains their relationship.
- Although it was to prevent Stan and Kyle's friendship from falling apart, he and Cupid Ye start promulgating the antisemitic belief to Tolkien and others that Jews control the media, and that Kyle himself runs Hollywood in "Cupid Ye."
- In "DikinBaus Hot Dogs," he gets a job out of jealousy of the money Butters was receiving. When he does end up getting a job at the same place as Butters, he is incredibly lazy, refusing to do the most basic of tasks and said he would start working at home due to the "toxic work environment."
- When he opens a new restaurant, he starts using money from Butters' bank account without his permission to build attractions for his restaurant.
- When Daryl wants to work and said he would need mental health days to deal with the "toxic environment", Cartman declined to accept him and asked, "Where do people get this stuff?" even though he did the same thing when working with Butters.
- When Liane is able to move back into their old house, Cartman doesn't want to and throws a tantrum over wanting to go back to the hot dog restaurant as he had just turned it into his dream home.
- When he opens a new restaurant, he starts using money from Butters' bank account without his permission to build attractions for his restaurant.
Other[]
- In Bigger, Longer, & Uncut, he's the one who makes a bet with Kenny to attempt to fart fire after seeing Terrance and Phillip: Asses of Fire, which indirectly leads to his death and drives the boys’ mothers to wage war against Canada.
- In "The Streaming Wars," he tries to force Liane to get breast implants to attract Talnua Cussler so they would get married and be able to leave the hotdog house. When she refuses, he just gets them himself.
- Throughout the entirety of The Fractured But Whole, he poses as Mitch Conner and acts like he's real to cover up his tracks.
- He puts cat urine in drugs and alcohol to drive adults insane.
- He kidnaps the New Kid's parents and tortured them on-camera before telling the Freedom Pals to do whatever he says or else he will continue to torture (and possibly kill) the New Kid's parents.
- He plots to become the mayor of South Park so that his franchise would be more popular than the Freedom Pals' franchise.
- He teams up with Mr. Hankey and betrays his friends so he can keep the snow day up and not have to go to school in Snow Day!
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- This is South Park, which never takes itself seriously and uses satirical comedy, and thus he is almost always played for laughs and constantly has moments that detract from his villainy, essentially meaning he and all the other IHs and VBs can never be NPE or PE. Some of these moments include but are far from all of them:
- Being frequently incompetent.
- His obesity and poor health being a running gag, such as him repeatedly claiming he is not fat but "big-boned", crying to his stuffed animals after being mocked for his health in "1%," or him struggling to keep up with Stan, Kyle and Butters in "The New Terrance and Phillip Movie Trailer".
- Him wailing hysterically after being lightly slapped by Kyle in "It's Christmas in Canada."
- Believing he has invisibility powers, only for it to turn out he was completely naked in front of a stage audience in "Good Times with Weapons."
- Him being impatient for the Nintendo Wii's release date to the point of freezing himself until the year 2546 in "Go God Go."
- He is also an on & off character, as he has had many anti-heroic roles and done many good deeds throughout the series. These include:
- Helping to save Terrance and Phillip, and going into a swearing powerhouse as a result of power-box electrocution, saving the world from Saddam Hussein's tyranny in Bigger, Longer & Uncut.
- Defeating Osama bin Laden in "Osama bin Laden Has Farty Pants."
- Saving South Park from being infested with hippies in "Die Hippie, Die.”
- Helping Stan, Kyle and Butters save baby cows from being slaughtered in "Fun with Veal.”
- Rescuing ten people who were held hostage in "The Death of Eric Cartman.”
- Hiding several cats in the attic (including his own pet cat Mr. Kitty) after cats were illegalized in South Park in "Major Boobage.”
- Helping Tolkien get past the school shooters to get to his exam on time in "Dead Kids.”
- However, it's still worth noting most of his good actions are for his own gain, so this is a somewhat minor prevention.
- Despite his generally cold and sociopathic nature, he has shown care for his friends and some people (even if it's twisted considering his sociopathy):
- Although he does try to kill the pangolin, he gives it up despite it serving him a purpose to kill it because of how upset it makes Stan, showing that he truly cares about his friends to some extent.
- Despite often abusing his mother Liane Cartman, Cartman still has some love for his mother, and found out he couldn't go through with it when he tried to kill her. He also tried to save her from getting raped by setting up a security system in "Insecurity.”
- Although his other relationships used to be very toxic, his friendship with Chef was completely genuine and was the strongest bond he ever had, being very fond of Chef and almost always respectful towards him, viewing him as a father figure. When Chef died in "The Return of Chef," he was genuinely heartbroken.
- His friendship with The New Kid in the games is also completely genuine, and he hardly ever insults them. Not to mention his friendships with the others is improving.
- Although he gets mad at him a lot, Cartman is very protective towards his pet cat, Mr. Kitty, even risking being arrested to protect him.
- In South Park: Post Covid and it's The Return of Covid sequel, he starts a family and genuinely cares for them in the original timeline. He also redeemed and desires to be forgiven by the older versions of his friends. His fate of losing his happy life with them and becoming homeless can be sympathetic, depending on your view.
- He is an Anti-Villain and extremist sometimes like in “The Return of Covid,” where he tries to prevent Stan and Kyle from fixing the future, with his reason for doing so is out of fear that he'll lose his family if the future is changed as he wants to save his family making it selfless.
- Hes have genuine standards like in "Britney's New Look", he is genuinely shocked and horrified upon witnessing Britney Spears blow her head off, leaving the motel room as a result. In fact, he isn’t seen for the rest of the episode afterwards.
- In more recent seasons of the show, Cartman is also maturing and slowly but surely redeeming himself, with the majority of his heinous traits and moments being dialed down a bit.
Trivia[]
- He is the only South Park Inconsistently Heinous character to also be Inconsistently Admirable.
- Cartman is one of the 4 Inconsistently Heinous characters to be displayed on the background of the wiki along with Galactus, Eren Yeager and Arthas Menethil.
External Links[]
- Eric Cartman on the Villains Wiki
- Eric Cartman on the Heroes Wiki
- Eric Cartman on the Inconsistently Admirable Wiki
- Eric Cartman on the South Park Wiki
- Eric Cartman on the Wikipedia
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 Inconsistently Heinous
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Eric Cartman | Sheila Broflovski | Clyde Donovan | William P. Connelly | Mickey Mouse | Funnybot | Lennart Bedrager | ||
 Inconsistently Heinous
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Animated Features Animated Television Video Games See Also | ||