#I mean Mike as a character was originally written for a TV-MA Total Drama spinoff that never happened (Reloaded)

[irlwakko]

so prev said Mal is impossible to take seriously in the context of the show and YEAH!!!! (I don’t know much about Pahkitew so I’m just going with that one part)

one of Mal’s major problems is that the show can’t seem to decide what kind of tone they want to set for him or how seriously you’re supposed to take him. It seems like most of the time, they want you to take Mal VERY seriously, not JUST as a formidable force in the competition, but also as a real threat to the other competitors’ lives

But just… NONE of that comes through in what he does or how he acts. They try to plant it here and there— showing him about to presumably kill another contestant only for him to be stopped at the last second (or for his plan to fail, as with Gwen and Cameron), having even Duncan and Chris be terrified of him— but then the rest of the time he’s just. Goofy.

he’s constantly spouting silly little one-liners. for example, the emotional gravity of him trying to kill Gwen (and we KNOW he was trying to KILL her, because he groans in disappointment when she reveals that she’s alive) is immediately shattered by him going “whoopsies! :3” in his deep villain voice. speaking of his villain voice, there’s clear evidence that that’s just put on, that it’s something he practices (how much his voice changes from his first appearances to the rest of the season, how he occasionally lets his real laugh slip when he’s caught off guard by something he finds funny). his plan with the million dollars is to buy a TOWER overlooking a VOLCANO so he can “live like a real villain”

The show literally DOESN’T KNOW whether it wants us to treat him as a serious threat or as a goofy cartoon villain and it’s seriously to his detriment as a character. If they picked one direction or the other for him, it obviously wouldn’t have fixed all (or probably even most) of his problems but it WOULD have made him a better villain (no matter which direction they chose) and make the whole thing more cohesive

HELP MEEEEEEEE yeah i doubt mals wacky hijinks were staged i do think he cranked his EVIL up to 11 when he was suggested to do the evil alter trope. bro went "ah you want me to be EXTREMELY EVIL huh? alright but ill be so camp and over-the-top while doing it and im going to have a damn fucking good time"

regardless of who wins all stars mal tries to intimidate mike/zoey into getting him a tower overlooking a volcano and thinks this totally isnt something hed get laughed at for

-🌙

i'll seriously never be over the tower overlooking a volcano thing. it's one of my favorite Mal lines just ever because like. he's just a cartoon supervillain atp