#if someone wants to psychoanalize me real quick

[total-drama-brainrot]

father ophe shall you psychoanalize courtney

specifically her Problems™️

You know, as much as I'd like to say Courtney deserved better than she got, for the most part I think a lot of her suffering in Total Drama was easily predictable for a person with her characteristics.

And I don't mean that in a "Courtney earned everything she got by means of being a Bad Person™" kind of way. Because she's not - a bad person that is. But the fact remains that Courtney's depiction in the show, and most of her unfortunate actions/decisions, are a direct result of her character aspects. Her personality and drive. Her priorities.

In a more realistic show, she'd experience the same tragic outcome simply because she's too invested in winning, and that investment blinds her to the unsightly actions she can and will take to win.

So I'd like to preface this analysis with that; Courtney's actions in the show are easy enough to ignore as "poor writing choices", but they do make sense for someone with her particular temperament, chronic need for commandership, and perfectionism.

Let's start with season one Courtney (or Island Courtney).

At the beginning of the show in its entirety, we're introduced to a Courtney who's a lot less intense than the one we eventually come to know and love. In fact, Courtney in the first two episodes of the show is significantly different from how she's portrayed throughout the rest of the show; she's compassionate and caring (her concern for Izzy during her introduction), and she's far more rational and level-headed than her later depictions. That's not to say she's not the same competitive and managerial girl, she's just... more subdued.

Even her speech patterns are different - I remember there being some confusion about who her voice actress was in the first couple of episodes, simply because her voice is so much softer (and slightly nasally), though this can be excused by the fact that the VA was likely still getting a feel for her character and how she wanted to portray Courtney.

Of course, at the end of episode two, we get to see a glimpse of Courtney's competitive (and slightly unhinged) spirit in the little monologue she gives to the camera. A sign of things to come.

One thing I find particularly ironic for Courtney is this confession she makes about Eva, where she states that someone's strength doesn't excuse their "psychopathic" actions/behaviour. Given how she acts in later seasons, this really highlights either a complete lack of self awareness in Courtney herself, or a major shift of her priorities prompted by her deep-rooted need to win.

Episodes three and four seem to be where the real Courtney comes into play. She starts showing off the characteristics we'll eventually come to associate with Courtney's personality, most notably her quick temper and her need to be in charge/control of the team. Whereas previously Courtney had calmly cited her experience as a CIT to justify taking control, from Dodgebrawl and beyond she starts simply utilizing sheer assertiveness (and her team's unwillingness to challenge her authority, outside of Duncan) to order the Bass around. And it works. For the most part.

Then her romantic subplot with Duncan begins, and we get to see the less obvious aspects of Courtney's character come into play.

Her confidence issues and the value she ascribes to "strength" (in Phobia Factor, when she can't face her fear), her repressed rebelliousness and impulsivity spurred on by Duncan's influence (pretty much the secondary focus of episode 12, Basic Straining) and, in relation, her secret desire to be free from the constraints of being a "rule follower" and the lack of knowledge/confidence to seek said freedom.

And then she's eliminated. And something in Courtney shifts.

Which, to be fair, I'd probably snap too if I was unfairly eliminated via rigged votes from a competition I'd dedicated myself to winning, especially if the votes were rigged against me for the actions of my kind-of boyfriend.

In the interviews we get with her in Haute Camp-ture, Courtney is hell-bent on revenge against Harold for her elimination, and she's violent with her threats against him. And her acts against him - she literally attacks him with a light pole and then bends the metal of the pole around him.

People who are mentally sound don't trap people in light poles.

They also don't fixate on winning reality TV shows to the point that their relationships deteriorate underneath their competitiveness and drive, but I digress.

Action happens, and it's. A thing. Courtney's played as the second and more threatening antagonist of the season, and she fits into the role well. They really ramp up her self-entitlement this season to play into the whole "I'm a CIT and a lawyer in training" deal, to the point where she literally sues her way back into the running. And her louder personality traits are amplified to make her more objectively villainous - not in the sense that she herself is villain, more so that her actions and behaviour work as the catalyst for a lot of conflict within the show. None of the other girls can stand her, she actively suffocates her boyfriend under her perfectionist standards, so on so forth.

It's still Courtney, just more. Like someone dialled up the Courtney-meter to an eleven, and sprinkled in some extra temper issues.

It's not like this shift in personality came out of nowhere though. As I said before, she's already showcasing this new aggression and overbearing will to win in Haute Camp-ture, so we know that her initial elimination in Island is what prompted her mental descent into antagonism. Though at this point, she doesn't recognise her actions as unreasonable. To Courtney, everything she's doing is entirely justifiable, and anyone who disagrees with her is trying to sabotage her.

Just like Harold did.

Courtney's competitiveness and her willingness to do anything to win and, in part, innate aspects of her temperament, but they're also symptomatic of the trust issues her Island elimination instilled in her. Trust issues that cause her to alienate herself from the people around her, holding others to impossibly high standards and/or disregarding them as not worth her time, in a subconscious effort to prevent them from hurting her.

Her relationship with Duncan becomes rocky at this point because she's overbearing and distrustful, and he's averse to authority and flaky. Courtney's perfectionism and trust issues work directly against Duncan's own problems, and their romance crumbles under the pressure.

Or at least it would, if they'd stop getting back together.

And then World Tour happens.

Courtney is initially distrustful and avoidant of Gwen, because she sees everyone else in the competition as a direct threat towards her and her acquisition of the million, but slowly comes to see Gwen as an ally. And then a friend.

And then Gwen breaks that trust by kissing her boyfriend. The trust issues come back into play with this betrayal, and Courtney's more aggressive personality traits come into play once again. This time though, her intenseness is a defence mechanism against the people who've hurt her, not a means to fuel her desire to win.

Eventually she gets eliminated for putting what little fragments of trust she had left into Alejandro of all people, but to be fair she doesn't really seem that bothered about losing World Tour - if her continued support of Alejandro in the finale means anything.

And then, I've heard, All-stars is an awful season for her. I haven't watched it, so I can't comment there.

-

That about wraps up the summary, let's get into her mindset.

Courtney enters the show itself as a seemingly demure and responsible person. She's proud of her status as a CIT and future lawyer, and she strives to lead her team to victory.

From the get-go, we see hints of her internalised need for leadership, and glimpses of her perfectionism. As the series progresses, we get to see her character grow from someone who follows rules and regulations to the letter, to someone who isn't afraid to take risks and break rules to her own advantage - which directly opposes her perfect "goody two-shoes" mindset and feeds into that suppressed desire for freedom I mentioned earlier. We also get to see her temper come into play, as she becomes a lot more assertive and quick to anger as the season progresses.

The Duncney plot in Island could have been good for the both of them, had their eventual fate been written differently. Duncan taught Courtney how to let loose and be reckless, and Courtney could've taught Duncan the value of structure and control in day-to-day life. They balanced each other out.

Her elimination is where Courtney's Problems™ come into play. For the most part she was a bossy but bearable presence on the Island, and it isn't until she's booted off the show that her more manic and unreasonable behaviours start surfacing.

We know from her whole "uptight CIT" deal that she struggles with perfectionism, and confidence issues that stem from said perfectionism (since no one can ever be perfect all the time, that's just human nature), so she disguises her insecurity underneath a layer of fake emotional strength that usually manifests itself as pride. It can be assumed, given her track record of overachievement, that her parents are probably the ones that enforced the standard of flawlessness within her. To the point it became less of a suggestion or a goal, and more of a constant standard she has to live by.

Her unfair elimination hits her hard, not just because it gives her some trust issues (that are only exacerbated later on) but because losing the competition goes against her standards of perfection. She was supposed to win, and not doing so is falling short of her expectations.

Her perpetual need to be the leader is likely a symptom of control issues, which often times go hand-in-hand with perfectionism - it's easier to make sure things are exactly as they should be when you're in complete control of them. It's also probably a result of her upbringing as an overachiever or "Type-A", as leadership skills are seen as a desirable trait to cultivate.

You mix together her control issues, her perfectionism and her competitiveness and you have yourself a very volatile molotov cocktail of emotions ready to blow upon her elimination.

Another thing I want to touch on is how unaware Courtney is when it comes to other people's needs and desires. She's very egocentric in her perception of the world, and oftentimes ignores or just doesn't realise how her own actions can impact other people. The biggest example of this is her treatment of Duncan throughout Action, where the impossibly high standards she holds him to take a huge and visible toll on his health, but she doesn't seem to notice. Or care. Because she's so caught up in the idea of having a "perfect boyfriend" that she doesn't think to consider how said boyfriend feels about it.

This egocentrism also plays into her control/leadership issues, since she oftentimes sees herself as the only person qualified to lead a team of people.

So, to summarise:

Perfectionism instilled within her (probably by her parents) that lead Courtney to holding herself to impossibly high standards she can never hope to achieve.

Confidence issues because of these unachieveable standards that she compensates for with a "large and in charge" personality, feigning emotional strength by supressing her feelings, and getting as many academic and extracurricular credentials as she can get.

Despite the confidence issues, she sees herself as inherently better than other people, either because of her own achievements and "good qualities" or because the people around her don't meet her standards.

Competitiveness and ambition aplenty, fuelled by the perfectionism.

Trust issues thanks to the repeated unfair betrayals against her, that feed into her delusion of not needing other people, being better than other people.

Control issues that feed into her desire to always be in positions of power and/or leadership.

Egocentrism and a lack of awareness of others' thoughts and feelings, especially in relation to how her behaviour can affect others.

... Courtney has NPD.

Courtney has NPD and the stress of Total Drama acerbated it until Courtney herself became volatile and unstable.

But that's not the point of this post. Though it does explain the gradual shifting of her personality from a functional CIT to a semi-funcitonal Reality TV washup.

Her issues lead her to make decisions that seem rash and irrational, but to Courtney herself she's fighting tooth and nail against a cast that are actively praying for her downfall, so her ruthlessness is entrely warrented. She's a victim of her own delusions and trust issues, and a bigger victim of the horrors of Total Drama that led her to becoming the person she was shown to be.

Therapy and a lot of time away from competitions would do her a world of good. Getting herself out of the climate of Reality TV entirely could save her.