| “ | Last time on Total Drama ... | „ |
| ~ Chris Mclean |
Chris McLean is the host and the main antagonist of the Total Drama series, and the one in charge of designing all the obstacles each and every one of the contestants has to face. In–universe, it is confirmed that Chris did not create Total Drama by himself, as he mentions producers multiple times in the series. His most important employee is Chef Hatchet, and he also has several interns.
Biography
In the first season, it could be argued that Chris was just doing his job by making things "interesting" for the contestants, but as the series progresses he has become more and more sadistic and actively cruel, caring less and less for the well-being of the contestants and giving them increasingly life-threatening challenges, to the point that many of the ones in Revenge of the island could be considered outright death-traps. He openly takes pleasure in watching his competitors suffer, and frequently goes out of his way to make things as brutal as possible for his own amusement. In World Tour onward, Chris even provides unsafe eliminations for eliminated contestants. Chris abuses the show's intern crew even more, forcing them to test all of the show's dangerous challenges, resulting in countless deaths. It is implied that he deliberately continues the testing, even after certain things have clearly proven to be unreasonably dangerous, until all the interns are dead, simply for his amusement.
In addition, it becomes increasingly clear that he has absolutely zero concern for fairness and sportsmanship in the competition, and loves to deliberately and abruptly eliminate contestants who don't deserve it in extremely unfair ways, and on more than one occasion he has out–and–outright broken the fundamental rules of the game. Chris thoroughly enjoys it whenever contestants fight with, hurt, bully, exploit, betray and cheat against each other, and tries to exacerbate the conflicts between them whenever possible, no matter how severe and painful they are.
Villainous/Injustice Acts
- Allowing Harold to outright cheat by falsifying his teammates' votes to wrongly eliminate Courtney, which he meant as revenge against Duncan.
- When Eva, Izzy, and Ezekiel return to the island after being previously eliminated, Chris says that when he claimed that eliminated contestants could not come back, "EVER", he reveals that he "lied".
- Sending Lindsay home for being the last person to "cross" the finish line in the bicycle race, when she came in right after Heather and the other people didn't finish the race at all.
- Forcibly eliminating Leshawna because the other eliminated campers kept saying her name while trying to vote someone else out, not meaning to vote for her, and counting multiple "votes" from a random parrot in the room.
- Sending Heather home after her head was shaved in a dare challenge, simply because the razor accidentally fell onto her and she technically didn't "accept" the dare, however the show depicted her as "deserving" it.
- In the Total Drama Island ending where Gwen wins the contest, Chris forces her to relinquish her winnings to instigate a scavenger hunt for one million dollars, which ultimately ended up leading to the second season, even when she flat–out refuses the "offer" (in owens ending, Owen willingly accepts the extra challenge). It is implied that this had been his intention from the very beginning, meaning that the entirety of Total Drama Island was in fact completely pointless. Had Gwen been allowed the choice to keep the money, the entire contest would have ended, and she would likely have turned out a much better and happier person with no foreshadowing of bad things about to happen to her in later seasons.
- In the second special, Chris seemingly abandons all the teens and gives no credit whatsoever when he wins an award for best reality show host, claiming to have a new version of the show called "Total Drama Dirtbags" with different people. At the end it is revealed that this was all a complex scheme to lure them all into seeking to compete in the real third season.
- Forcing eliminated contestants to jump off of Chris' plane in Total Drama World Tour.
- In the first episode of World Tour, he informally "eliminates" Ezekiel for no reason other than him being annoying, and would have abandoned him altogether if he hadn't managed to stow away on the plane (granted, he was legitimately eliminated shortly after, and his refusal to give up then resulted in his eventual degradation into a feral).
- Declaring "Team Chris is Really Really Really Really Hot" (which it goes without saying was named as such to flatter him) the losers in the London episode even though they successfully found "Jack The Ripper" (Ezekiel) and had won the challenge as he instructed it to them, just because the other team happened to find Duncan. The result of this was Noah's unfair early elimination.
- On several occasions during World Tour, he abruptly announces that the episode does not have an elimination after telling the contestants the opposite throughout the challenges and even having them vote. In more than one of these instances it is implied that Chris had not even planned this but is making up the rules as he goes along.
- Chris deliberately broke the bathroom door's lock at the time of Gwen and Duncan's adulterous kiss, allowing Tyler to witness it and later revealing it to Courtney and everyone else, incurring her recklessly brutal wrath against them. Throughout this entire series of events and the prolonged drama following in its wake, Chris makes it clear through his behavior that he has no empathy for any of the involved parties, and rather enjoys seeing them fight as much as ever for the sake of ratings.
- Breaking the rules of the contest and declaring Sierra eliminated even though she had won the day's challenge and had "invincibility", due to her accidentally destroying his plane. If Chris had not done this Alejandro would have been eliminated then and there instead.
- In the finale, Chris attempts to leave the entire cast for dead in the wake of a volcanic eruption, saying that he'll just get new ones.
- Imprisoning the badly–burned Alejandro in a crude Darth Vader knockoff mechanical body for the sole purpose of having him sign a waiver absolving Chris and the show of responsibility for his injuries, and laughing at Alejandro's despair of being told that the money has been destroyed.
- In Alejandro's ending, he declares Alejandro the winner of Total Drama World Tour just because Heather accidentally threw the wrong pineapple dummy into the volcano, even though she had clearly defeated him. In Heather's ending, she throws her own dummy in the volcano and wins.
- Turning Camp Wawanakwa into a deadly toxic waste dump.
- Forcing eliminated contestants to ride a catapult in Total Drama: Revenge of the Island.
- In the first episode of Season 4, Owen appears, oblivious to the fact that he and the rest of the real cast are no longer competing, and Chris responds by putting a C–4 explosive on his face and detonating it.
- Gives the Mutant Maggots the win, just because they blew up the Toxic Rat's cabin, even though they clearly won.
- Confiscated Sam and Dakota's electronic devices, putting them in tech withdrawal. Even Scott thought that was harsh.
- At the end of the fourth season, he attempts to detonate a bomb he planted on the contestants' departure boat for no reason. However, the bomb is removed by Chef and put under the dock right under Chris, blowing himself up and landing him in the water.
- Forcing eliminated contestants to be flushed down a gigantic toilet in Total Drama: All-Stars.
- In one episode of the fifth season, he did a "rigged" wheel game and as Gwen spinned, he purposely made the wheel land on Courtney so that they would fight each other. Not to mention that Chris showed Courtney videos of Gwen making out with Duncan, causing Courtney to get mad just as their friendship was finally starting to work out.
- Forgot to feed his interns, so he thought of a challenge where the contestants had to make ice cream sundaes by going through hazardous areas. Later, rather than "actually" giving the interns the sundaes, Chris decided to make the contestants eat their sundaes instead, thus not feeding the interns again.
- In the season finale of "Total Drama All-Stars", Chris had the previously eliminated contestants trapped into giant fart bubbles. Zoey was able to free Gwen and Cameron and Mal freed Heather and Alejandro. Chris forgot to tie the bubbles, causing Jo, Lightning, Courtney, Scott, Lindsay, Sam, Sierra, and Duncan to float in the air, they were never seen or mentioned again afterwards. Also, Chris showed no remorse in letting the All-Stars contestants (except for Zoey, Mal, Gwen, Heather, Cameron, and Alejandro) float in the air.
- Using eliminated contestants as human cannonballs in Total Drama: Pahkitew Island.
- Eliminating Amy in "Twinning Isn't Everything" despite Samey getting the most votes. However, this could have just been an honest mistake, as Amy and Samey are identical in appearance.
- Put the contestants in a challenge that involed eating juggy chugs that expired almost 40 years ago.
- While Scarlett revealed her true evil identity and threatened to blow up the island, Chris watches the contestants from a helicopter rather than helping them himself.
- Drove Dave to insanity by repeatedly showing him Sky's audition tape, which revealed that she still had a boyfriend back home. In the end, he forgot to pick up Dave in the helicopter, leaving him stranded on the island with a robotic bear.
It could genuinely be argued that Chris is the sole true cause of everything bad that happens in the series.
Karma catches up
Until the fourth season, Chris was mainly a Karma Houdini, but in the fourth season onward, he had started to get a lot of bad luck:
- Heather threw his awards at him from a blimp, giving him repeated head injuries.
- Duncan blew up a statue of Chris' head, which likely cost Chris a lot of money.
- In Eat, Puke & Be Wary, Chris was actually going to give the campers an easy, harmless challenge, but then falls into one of Scott's shark traps, and crashes into one of the restroom toilets. Chef becomes the host while the interns try to get Chris out. At the end of the episode, Chris is still stuck because the interns decided to let him stay in there.
- Planned to blow up the boat the contestants were on after season four ended, but Chef placed the bomb under the dock Chris was under, launching him into the water. He is then arrested by the Mounties for hosting a show on a radioactive island at the end of the 4th season. He is also quarantined to the island.
- Chris' mansion is destroyed when Duncan tries to overcome his identity crisis.
- Gwen smears his portrait with bear poop when looking for a dark brown.
- Ends up with a frozen smile on his face after applying botox, even being unable to make a terror face when a bear attacks him.
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