Eric Cartman

"Screw you guys! I'm a-goin' home!"

- Cartman "Respect my authoritah!"

- Cartman   Eric Theodore Cartman, more commonly known simply as Cartman, is one the main protagonists of South Park, and one of the main villains/antagonists in the series.

Biography
Cartman has an intense rivalry with Kyle Broflovski due to his constant scheming and disrespect for other cultures - the rivalry has intensified over the course of the series and the struggle between Kyle and Cartman can be seen in some ways as a struggle between good and evil in some later episodes. Also, no matter how much Kyle keeps telling Cartman the truth, he refuses to believe the Jewish boy. Cartman is shown to be delusional, which makes him believe that he is awesome and better than anyone, but he is too ignorant and arrogant to see that he is sociopath. He's always been in denial about the fact that he is really fat. However, he was truthful about the fact that he loves being a racist (making fun of Jews and ripping on black people, and doesn't care if he's being rude) It is also shown that he worships Adolf Hitler as seen in the episode, "Pinkeye".

Cartman is often portrayed as very immature and quite cowardly, being reduced to tears once with a single passive hit from Kyle - however despite this he has also shown remarkable knowledge when he wants to, sometimes verging on the role of an evil knowledgeable and master manipulator as he has managed to gather large crowds to his will via impressive speeches and charisma.

Cartman's plans vary from story to story but are often small-scale and petty, such as cheating someone out of money or obtaining a new toy/gadget - though he has also had grander plans, some of which have verged on world-domination, though he always fails to achieve his goal (with one notable exception).

Cartman is mostly portrayed as a spoiled brat who will do anything to get what he wants-denying Cartman of his goal is a dangerous game as he easily develops obsessions over such things and can be extremely vindictive when he feels wronged and if sufficiently annoyed he can develop an almost psychopathic glee in destroying his perceived enemies, despite this Cartman has no qualms about whining, begging and manipulating people as well and he has a foul temper that can explode at any moment.

The cause of Cartman's seemingly endless list of flaws seems to be a product of his environment, having been given everything from an early age he has come to expect such treatment and his lazy, selfish behaviour is often rewarded rather than punished by his mother - who also seems incapable of disciplining her demonic child regardless of the abuse she receives.

Unlike the other central characters (Kyle, Stan and Kenny), Cartman doesn't seem to learn from his mistakes and thus continues to do things that often backfire and blames everyone except himself for the results.

Another recurring theme in the series is that if Cartman is ever seen doing something good or selfless it is almost always a cover-up for some selfish plan - the effort put into these masterplans show that Cartman is not as stupid as he often acts but are usually doomed to failure due to either the actions of the other characters (especially Kyle) or some other factor.

In the Season 17 premier episode called Let's Go, Let's Gov, he dies after being struck by a lightning bolt. However, at the season finale Kyle was able to go back in time using Kenny's portal and save Cartman.

Personality
"He's a fat, racist, self-centered, intolerant, manipulating sociopath."

Despite being one of the four main characters on the show, and arguably the most popular, Cartman is foul-mouthed, lazy, selfish, openly prejudeced against anyone who is not a heterosexual caucasian male and very close to being, for lack of a better word, evil. Cartman usually does and says dispicable things for fun or a higher self-serving purpose, such as theft, lying, slander, even tourture and murder. He once calmly said that other peoples pain and suffering amuses him, seemingly not realizing that this was a bad thing. On ocassions he embraces the negative side of life, such as willingly and knowlingly being a fearmonger for petty, selfish reasons. He is constatnly making nasty remarks at the expense of Hebrews, African Americans and flatly thinks females are automatically inferior to males in everything. He also steryotypes every race and religion (positively and negatively) without hesitation or shame. Due to the messed up nature of South Park, his steryotyping usually turns out right.

Possibly due to being spoiled rotten by his mother, Cartman has a ridiculously excessive condition of superiority complex. He knows in his heart of hearts that he is a cruel, overindulged, obese beast of a child but it seems no human discovered method will make him actually see it. He constantly denies being fat except once when he used his weight to abuse the rights of mobility scooter rideres and never seems to realize that just about everyone hates him (no matter how obvious they make it). Cartman's ego also makes up preposterous alternatives to things that happen so he always sees himself as an awesome hero who everyone loves. This also causes him to think that he is indeed humble and that everyone who challanges this delusion are the ones with the ego problems.

There are more episodes that focus on Cartman than any other chracter but he is never presented as a hero in these cases (at least not a hero with nothing to repent for). When an episode focuses on Cartman it is usually because he has or is about to do something terrible for personal gain and the other boys attempt to stop him or resolve it. Even when Cartman is fighting along side his friends for what is right, he goes about it in a moraly dubious way.

Though Cartman seems generally stupid academically, he has demonstrated surprising cunningness and intellegence for his age in all other situations. He seems to know how to speak Spanish and German and understands enough about ecenomics, politics and religion to manipulate them with little effort. Cartman is also a powerful leader and has easily rallyed his classmates and even large groups of adults to follow him in missions. Despite seeming to be rather lazy in most cases, Cartman has demonstrated a great passion for method acting. When he thought he was of Native American and then African American heritage, he flawlessly took on the steryotype of both cultures, adopting their mannerisms, atire and gestures perfectly. He also showed this talent whilst temporarily acting as a police officer, Adolf Hitler, a mentally handicapped child, a Christian Rock Musician and Gandalf the Wizard among many others.

Cartman has an uncanny habbit of sneaking into peoples houses at night and spontaneously bursting into song to express his deepest feelings. His racism stems from an obsessive paranoia that all other ethic groups are xenophobic towards the caucasian race and will attempt an uprising as revenge for years of oppression. Another interesting note about Cartman is he one of the few South Park residences with a southen accent. Due to this, he mispronounces several words in the first few seasons: Mum as "Myem" or "Meeeem", guys as "Geyz", hey as simply "I" or "A", here as "Myau" and most words that end in ity as "ah". I prime example of the final one is Cartman's famous catchphrase of "Respect my authoritah!"

Cartman's sanity is a thing of question too. In addition to obviously being a psychotic child, Cartman has split personality. This is demonstrated when he was doing the voices of his stuffed animals, making them all compliment him immensly but then having one of them insult him. He also thinks that his make-up hand puppet, Mitch Conner, is another person entirely. Despite doing Conner's voice, Cartman seems to be oblivious to the fact that is just his hand.

There are instances where Cartman's long supressed ethics manage to surface, such as


 * When he fully redeemed for a few hours at the end of 'Tsst'.

While being simply foul-mouthed and nasty in the earlier seasons, Cartman has gotten considerebly worse as the show has progressed, but ocassionaly becomes more laid back and then goes right back to being villain throughout the episodes. Cartman also can not seem to make up his mind if he likes Stan, Kyle and Kenny or not, as he is always saying he hates them, sometimes even singing about it, but ocasionally says he loves them and is always hanging out with them. In addition he usually seems horrified when Kenny dies.
 * When he made up for everything he had done wrong in 'The death of Eric Cartman' (though this was for self-serving reasons)
 * When he attempted to help the other boys stop everyone from playing the brown noise in Word Wide Recorder Concert
 * When he saved Terrence & Philip from excecution in the movie and even single handedly fought of Saddam Hussein.

Criminal Record
Cartman is notable for having a very large criminal record. Although he has committed many atrocities and crimes, he has only or rarely been arrested six times. Cartman's criminal record includes but isn't limited to:
 * Murder: In "Butt Out", Cartman stabbed Rob Reiner, essentially killing him. This can be considered self defense; Reiner had been trying to lynch him by gathering a mob. However, Rob Reiner does appear in a later episode proving he did not actually die. When he flash-backed to 1776 in "I'm a Little Bit Country", he brutally murdered a messenger boy with a log, although this was in his imagination, and therefore was not a real crime. He was also indirectly responsible for the murder of Mr. and Mrs. Tenorman in "Scott Tenorman Must Die", and many others in "Poor and Stupid". He shot and killed two members of the Chinese Mafia in "Wing" but that was in self-defense. He murdered dozens of people while they were zombies which was unnecessary as all he had to do was kill Kenny. He also electrocuted several Mexicans to death with a taser after soaking them in water in "The Last of the Meheecans". He accidentally bashed Kenny's skull in "Timmy 2000" with a frying pan while trying to hit a bug on his face. Though it was the Ritalin side effects and a hallucination, he did not mean to legitimately murder Kenny. When he tried to kill Timmy's turkey with a stagelight, it accidentally killed Kenny instead due to the fact that he rigged the wrong one.He attempted to kill Kyle, and later Kenny and Stan in "Toilet Paper" using a wiffle bat, not comprehending the stupidity of the plan. He also attempted to fire on the President of FOX in Cartoon Wars Part II, without realizing his gun wasn't loaded. In "Tsst" he conspired to kill his own mother because he felt oppressed by her after she hired the Dog Whisperer Caesar Milan to deal with Cartman's spoiled and bratty behavior. He also attempted to murder Butters in "The Last of the Meheecans" in order to prevent him from crossing the U.S-Mexican border. He also killed Justin Bieber.
 * Vandalism: He mentions in "The Death of Eric Cartman" that he had broken a man's fence without telling him about it. He also destroyed most of the stuff in Butters' room with a baseball bat in the same episode. He even did this in "AWESOM-O" when he messed up the entire Stotch house while trying to find a videotape Butters had. He T-p'ed a house in "Toilet Paper" and "The Ring" and since Butters was put in jail for it Cartman would have but he was praised instead for being honest.
 * Genocide : In "The Passion of the Jew" he tries to exterminate the Jews, and in "Ginger Kids" he tries to get people to wipe out the Gingers. When he becomes one, he instead plans to kill all non-Gingers, not wanting to live out his whole life as a minority. In "Coon 2: Hindsight", "Mysterion Rises]", and "Coon vs. Coon and Friends", Cartman along with Cthulhu attempt to wipe out the Jews by attacking assorted Jewish Temples.
 * Smuggling: He became the leader of a fried chicken cartel in "Medicinal Fried Chicken". However this does not count as a crime because the KFC was not really illegalized and really had some of the restaurants shut down.
 * Drug Dealing: In "Crack Baby Athletic Association", Cartman gave some crack to the babies that were diagnosed with fetal cocaine syndrome and then videotaped them playing with the bag of crack and put it on the internet. He also gave crack to a women who was addicted to cocaine and was pregnant with her child. The crack he possessed may had come from his mother and she was seen smoking it after having sex with two men in "Jakovasaurus"
 * Theft: Cartman stole the dead bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Tenorman off a crime scene while Barbrady was investigating. It is also mentioned in "About Last Night...", where Cartman had stolen everyone's televisionswhile they were out getting drunk on the streets.
 * Armed Robbery: in "Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow", Cartman gets Kyle into a stickup. Cartman was pointing a gun at Kyle and demanded that Kyle give his Jew Gold to Cartman. Kyle gives Cartman a bag of rocks first and then presumably throws another fake bag into the fire. in "Go God Go Part 2" He robs two kids of their Prank Time Phone with a laser gun which was presumably expensive.
 * Kidnapping and false imprisonment: He locked Butters in a bomb shelter for three days in "Casa Bonita" and kidnapped 63 hippies and trapped them in his basement "Die Hippie, Die". He also held the Hakeems prisoner in "The Snuke" (though this was government-sanctioned.) and he took Butters from the mental hospital without permission from officials in "The Death of Eric Cartman".
 * Terrorism: Cartman admits to this when he is trying to get Family Guy pulled, both through threats from Islamic bombers and through threatening the FOX President with a hand gun. He also formed an anti-Chinese organization with Butters in "The China Problem", and held an entire building full of hostages on the gun point, with Butters wounding 2 police officers and a civilian with badly aimed gunshots. His attempt to split up the U.S. through manipulating a drunken army of southerners to plunder towns and march on D.C. might also count, although this was not for political reasons so much as it was for making Stan and Kyle his slaves. In "The Coon" he tries to bomb a hospital to lure out Mysterion by planting dynamite on it. He managed to set the explosives, but ditched the plot and decided helping Mysterion would be more preferable. In "Coon 2: Hindsight", "Mysterion Rises", and "Coon vs. Coon and Friends", Cartman along with Cthulhu perform numerous terrorist actions against assorted groups, cities and individuals. He also participated with his anger management classmates and Randy Marsh in "T.M.I." in terrorizing a Fed-Ex building and threatened to not release the hostages until their demands were met. Most Recently,Cartman has caused numerous plane crashes to happen in World War Zimmerman.
 * War Crimes: The Drunken Southern Civil War army he led is seen looting, pillaging, attacking civilians, and burning down buildings. He also employed at least two other child soldiers, Kenny and Butters.
 * Child Abuse: In "Crack Baby Athletic Association", Cartman made some babies diagnosed with fetal cocaine syndrome play a game of basketball with a bag of coke and videotaped it. This counts as child abuse, because Cartman was making a profit out of this and did not give the babies any credit, which counts as slavery.
 * Torture: In "The Snuke", he used farts to torture the Hakeem family. However this does not count as actual torture because Cartman does not use any weapons but rather his own gas to annoy and provoke the Hakeem Family. What Cartman did to the Hakeem family was actually government sponsored and therefore is not branded into his criminal record. Unfortunately, in "Tsst", Cartman kidnapped a student named Billy Turner and forced him to play a Jigsaw game. Cartman secretly spiked poison into Billy's lunch milk and handcuffed him to a school flagpole. Then, Cartman forced Billy to torture himself by cutting off his own leg in order to get the antidote. In a recent episode Ginger Cow, he has made Kyle torture himself by cutting all his hair and farting in Kyle's face while forcing him to enjoy it because he threatened that he will make the christians, muslims, and jews disband their mutual peace.
 * Vigilantism: Due to Cartman's attempts at crime fighting in "The Coon" and his violent methods of dealing with crime, he is technically in violation of the law regarding vigilante actions. However, due to his constant ineffectual attempts, this is overlooked by South Park Authorities.
 * Blackmailing: In "The Red Badge of Gayness " The Drunken Southern Civil War army demands the Confederate States of America to be a separate country and almost achieve this by blackmail President Clinton by threatening to release a (bluff) video of him with Marisa Tomei.
 * Fraud: He stole many voter ballots from the election in Obama Wins.

Cartman's Redemption

 * Although rarely, Cartman sometimes becomes aware of his evil deeds, if it was self-redemption in the episode "The Death of Eric Cartman" where he thought he had died and had left on earth like a lost soul because of his wrongdoings, he made every effort to do good, more specifically it suggests in his song: Make It Right.


 * Incredibly, Cartman has become much more sympathetic and light in their wickedness in the 16 season, particularly in the episode "Jewpacabra" where his hatred of Jews seems to have been completely removed, and eventually [apparently] converts to Judaism for the rest episode until "I Should Have Never Gone Ziplining" when he unintentionally blamed Kyle for killing Kenny which he dies from boredom and herpes and rest the ziplining trip, unintentionally or likely re-converting back to Roman Catholicism for unknown reason after the events of the episode.
 * And he originally disclaimed he's not fat but he snaps in "Raising the Bar" when he rethinks then tells Kyle he'll spend his life in a scooter leaving him. Thinking to himself but instead of weight loss, he wants a scooter to make fun of Kyle and everyone else who aren't fat.

Villains similar to him

 * Ren Höek - Like Ren, is also a greedy, aggressive and selfish. Both have friends who are his opponents: Cartman has Kyle as antagonist hero and Ren has Stimpy as antagonist hero. Both are also very intelligent when it comes to material things or money. And both have crossed the Moral Event Horizon; Eric killed the parents of a child and turned them into sauce, Ren as torturing children and killing tiny animals for fun, after his psychologist does not support his sadistic madness, he challenges him to fight and Ren kills him by pistol whipping him to death.
 * HIM - Although not share many similarities, Cartman certainly shares similarities with HIM. Both are the only villains of the show that are rarely adequately are punished for their evil deeds, also both prefer act covertly rather than fight directly with the heroes, and both have machined the more sinister tricks to destabilize its enemies psychologically (although Cartman he succeeds in "Scott Tenorman Must Die", but HIM has not succeeded). And also, both became less evil villains in recent episodes.

The Coon
The Coon is the superhero (or rather, supervillain) alter-ego of himselt. He first appears in the self-titled episode, "The Coon". He was also the leader of Coon and Friends in "Coon 2: Hindsight", but he was kicked out by the other members because he was beating them up and blackmailing other heroes.

The Coon eventually went to the evil side when he formed an alliance with Cthulhu in "Mysterion Rises". He embarks on a killing spree with Cthulhu, eventually making Cthulhu level the entire city of San Francisco. In "Coon vs. Coon and Friends", he continues on his killing spree, making Cthulhu destroy the Burning Man festival, slaughter Justin Bieber and most of his fans, and banish his friends to the sunken city of R'Lyeh.

However, Cthulhu is eventually defeated when Mint-Berry Crunch uses his super powers to seal him back into his own dimension. The Coon is made powerless and captured by the new Coon and Friends, who put him in the cell with Professor Chaos.

Coon is itself a racist term, Cartman's raccoon costume aside.

Trivia

 * Unlike other villains, Cartman is the only villain who can be considered as Protagonist Villain, other than possibly Mr. Herbert Garrison and Sheila Broflovski
 * Cartman has much parodied the character Tony Montana in the 1983's film Scarface, the first time was in a play imitating him, and the second was in the episode "Medicinal Fried Chicken", parody in the character completely.
 * Cartman's death in Let's Go, Let's Gov is considered the most shocking South Park moment.