Karmi

Karmi is a recurring character in Big Hero 6: The Series. A specialist in biology, she was once the youngest student at San Fransokyo Institute of Technology. Lacking social skills or friends of any kind, Karmi is fiercely devoted to her schoolwork, and recreational obsessions like Big Hero 6, a superhero team headed by Karmi's crush, "Captain Cutie". In an effort to break Karmi out of her shell, Professor Granville arranged for Karmi to collaborate with Hiro Hamada. Although this would spark a heated rivalry between the two, they would eventually find solace in one another and become friends.
==Background==
Karmi, along with Hiro, was the youngest genius at San Fransokyo Tech. According to Go Go Tomago, Karmi doesn't have friends—the only thing she's had going for her was being the youngest genius in SFIT (before Hiro came along).
Karmi primarily spends her time nurturing her organisms at the SFIT biometric lab. On her downtime, Karmi writes fan fiction of Big Hero 6; despite her standoffish nature, it has garnered a dedicated following in the SFIT campus. She is also a talented artist, having sketched Hiro's alter-ego in great detail at one point.
===Personality===
Karmi and Hiro are very much alike. They are both scientific geniuses who attended college at a young age, which Karmi takes great pride in. Whenever she is around Professor Granville, she puts on a forced smile and acts optimistic and engaged, when in actual fact she is the sort of girl who likes to keep to herself. As a result, she is more comfortable in her research than engaging in social interactions. Due to her lack of social interaction, Karmi devotes herself to her work and hobbies, in which she finds comfort. She has an obsessive relationship with her virus samples, seeing them as the only true companions she has. She treats them with affection, even giving them names. When one was destroyed, she reacted in horror.
Karmi's social ineptitude drives her to act snobbish and cold at times, but this is mostly surface level as Karmi, deep down, is quite selfless and heroic. Rather than fleeing with the rest of the crowd in "Big Problem", Karmi stayed behind to assist Big Hero 6 in subduing a mutated Orso Knox and was ultimately responsible for saving the day. Furthermore, in "Prey Date", she was initially against the idea of breaking into restricted areas of Sycorax as it would put her job at risk, but quickly agreed to do so when Hiro stressed that Orso Knox was in need of help.
After being rescued by Big Hero 6, Karmi became a die-hard fan of the team—specifically the team leader (Hiro) whom she developed romantic feelings for. Ironically, Karmi resents the actual Hiro due to having to share the spotlight as the youngest genius in the school. Out of spite, she repeatedly teases Hiro and enjoys watching him be humiliated. She also believes that Hiro is crushing on her, much to Hiro's annoyance. Despite their rivalry, Karmi is not as repulsed by Hiro as she may let on. When Hiro was kidnapped by Orso Knox in "Prey Date", Karmi showed great concern for his safety, going as far as to ask Big Hero 6 about the matter. When "Speed Queen" assured that Hiro was fine (referring to him as Karmi's friend), Karmi made a halfhearted attempt to deny any friendly relationship between the two. Later that same episode, both she and Hiro were able to engage in a civil conversation with one another.
Though intelligent, Karmi has her moments of obliviousness. This includes her mistakenly believing Hiro to have a crush on her, and being unable to recognize Hiro when he is in his superhero garb, despite his face being transparent through his helmet.
===Physical appearance===
Karmi is an adolescent girl and cambodian-american with olive tan skin, long brown hair, and is a little taller than Hiro, although the two are close in age. She ties her hair back in a ponytail, and wears a cream-colored turtleneck, black pants under an orange skirt, and black shoes. For accessories, Karmi wears red earrings and two red and yellow bracelets on her left wrist.
==Role in the series==
===Season One===
Professor Grandville first introduced Hiro to Karmi in "Issue 188" as a means of improving Karmi's social skills. Karmi did not want anything to do with Hiro and treats him with disdain and annoyance. However, Hiro discovers that Karmi has a crush on his superhero identity. Fortunately, Karmi does not realize Hiro's secret and fails to see the resemblance, even when she got a good look at his face during a fight against High Voltage. Hiro actually consults his friends on why Karmi is unable to recognize him when suited up. Fred comes to the conclusion that "people see what they want to see". While filing a report to Granville about their week together, Hiro claims that he learned a lot from Karmi. Karmi is shocked that Hiro did not rat about her behavior and assumes Hiro is crushing on her, which he denies.
In "Failure Mode", Karmi records and takes pictures of Hiro with her phone when his fail attempts in Grandville's earthquake-proof building project causes him to make a fool out of himself and posts them online so others could see. Despite her having a few problems and kinks with her own model. When Hiro finally passes and gets a higher grade than hers, he takes a picture of her reaction as payback.
In "Small Hiro One", Karmi attends a lecture had by Trevor Trengrove. Hiro is denied entry due to his age, which Karmi uses as teasing ammunition. Ironically, Karmi ends up getting kicked out by Trengrove. When Hiro tries to comfort her over the matter, Karmi is genuinely appreciative, hinting at a softening relationship between the two (they both pull away in disgust upon realizing how kindly they're treating each other).
It is revealed in "Fan Friction" that Karmi writes fan fiction about Big Hero 6 with herself depicted as "Captain Cutie's" girlfriend, leaving Hiro feeling embarrassed. However, much of her fanfiction proved useful to the team. Go Go discovered she could skate vertically up walls, Fred and Honey Lemon found it possible to make ice showers together, and Hiro managed to upgrade Baymax with an actual "Overdrive mode". Karmi's stories—and more specifically, her role as "Captain Cutie's" girlfriend—caught the attention of Obake. One night, Karmi was kidnapped by Momakase and taken to Krei's old lab on Akuma Island, which was scheduled for demolition. She was used as bait to lure Big Hero 6 into a trap. Both Karmi and Big Hero 6 were trapped in an impregnable cage, but by using new techniques inspired by Karmi's fan fiction, successfully escaped before everything on the island was disintegrated. Once they made it to safety, Hiro attempted to criticize Karmi for her fan fiction, but, unable to hurt her feelings, commended her instead. Karmi then wrote the next chapter of her fan fiction, which involved herself becoming the seventh member of Big Hero 6 and sharing a kiss with "Captain Cutie".
In "Big Problem", biologist Liv Amara (who is actually Di Amara, Liv's clone) visits SFIT to sponsor a new biotech building that is about to be unveiled. Karmi leaps at the opportunity to meet her idol. She presents her latest invention—extradermal nano-receptors—which impresses Amara so much that she offers to provide funding for Karmi. The two then spend the day together bonding over biology, which unintentionally infuriates a jealous Hiro. At the gala commemorating the new biotech building, Amara gives a special shoutout to Karmi during her speech. Unfortunately, the gala is interrupted by a monster out to attack Amara. Big Hero 6 battles the beast, but they are overpowered even with their new battle armor. While the attendees flee, Karmi stays behind and uses her nano-receptors to sedate the monster. Not only does this save the day, but it also gives Amara further incentive to support Karmi and her endeavors. "Captain Cutie" thanks Karmi for her assistance despite his jealously to which Karmi responds by awkwardly professing her love for the hero.
Her final appearance in the first season is a minor role in "Countdown to Catastrophe". At the SFIT Open House Expo, she shows Amara her final project—inserting an electric circuit inside a rose and making it glow. Both then joke about calling it the new meaning of "power plants".
===Season Two===
By the events of "Internabout", Karmi has been granted an internship at Sycorax, complete with a personal lab. Professor Granville, Hiro, and his friends are invited to the company in support of Karmi's latest achievement, though Hiro becomes jealous to the point of requesting an internship at Krei Tech.
Sometime later, in "Prey Date", Hiro uses Karmi's internship and apparent closeness to Amara to learn more about Orso Knox's treatment. While accessing Knox's restricted containment unit, Karmi concord a formula that can save him. She and Hiro are discovered by Amara, however, who is disappointed to the point of nearly firing Karmi. She holds back upon seeing Karmi's work regarding Knox's cure and declares that she can overlook her intern's mistake. Amara then leaves the lab with Fred, before discreetly locking Hiro, Karmi, and Baymax inside with a loose Knox. Karmi and Hiro find refuge in a lab, where the former hastily works on creating the cure to save Knox. Before she can finish, Hiro is kidnapped by Knox and taken into the city. Amara calls for Knox to be killed, but Karmi advocates for curing Knox using her research. After Knox is returned to Sycorax, Amara's team utilizes Karmi's work to supposedly cure him. Though Karmi refuses to take all of the credit—as a protocol for Sycorax employees—she takes great pride in her contributions.
In "City of Monsters", Amara assigns Karmi with creating a cure for parasynths—special kinds of parasites that were created to destroy viruses inside a human body but started to destroy the healthy zones instead. Amara also mentions about the patient in need of that particular cure but refuses to give Karmi more details about the patient's identity, claiming it to be confidential. After a few unsuccessful attempts, Karmi realizes that biology isn't enough to create a cure and decides to resort to robotics as well, although she's not an expert in it. In a search for needful resources, Karmi secretly sneaks into SFTI's robotics lab but gets caught by Hiro, who immediately becomes unsure of her plans since Karmi lacks any robotic skills. After a brief confrontation between them, Karmi angrily leaves and returns back to her own lab, where she continues her work alone until Hiro comes to her later and offers help, which she agrees to accept. With Hiro's robotic and Karmi's biological skills combined, kids find the way to create a needful cure: nanobots (based on Hiro's microbots) that can physically prevent the parasites from swimming through the patient's body and destroying the latter's health. Joint work also helps Hiro and Karmi to finally stop hating each other and actually form a friendly bond.
Soon after, Karmi informs Amara about her success in creating a cure to help a patient, only to allow the latter to finally reveal her true sinister colors. However, Karmi manages to escape from Amara and hides in the SFTI, where she contacts with Hiro through the phone and tells him that his suspicions towards Amara were true. Soon Hiro approaches the institute and finds Karmi, but before they can leave, Karmi, due to the activation of a biochip that was injected into her sometime between Amara's betrayal and Karmi's phone call to Hiro, suddenly transforms into a monster and seizes Hiro, their nanobots, and Karmi's cure, bringing them to Sycorax. There, Amara finally reveals her true identity as Di (Diane), a clone of Liv Amara that was created to save her from consequences of an unsuccessful attempt to find the source of human's immortality—parasynths. Hiro reluctantly agrees to save Liv, and Di promises to stop all of her monsters, as well as to restore Karmi in that case, but after the parasynths in Liv are successfully eliminated, Di betrays Hiro and attempts to turn him into a monster instead.
When Hiro tries to escape, Di incites Karmi to attack him, but Hiro finds a way to persuade Karmi to resist Di's control and helps her regain some of her consciousness. Then Di sends her assistant Chris, who has transformed into a sumo wrestler-like figure thanks to his genetic enhancements, to finish the job, prompting Karmi to fight back in an effort to protect Hiro. Chris's enhancements enable him to overpower Karmi and pin her to the ground, but then Liv, who has just awoken from her cryo-state, uses Di's phone to first strip Chris of his enhancements. With Chris depowered into an average adult male, Karmi then proceeds to beat him into unconsciousness before Liv reverses the effects of Karmi's biochip, restoring her to normal.
Soon thereafter, Karmi's parents, worried about their daughter's safety after everything that has happened, take her away from the city as well as from SFIT, much to Hiro's dismay. However, Karmi herself still continues to write fanfics about Big Hero 6's adventures, which Hiro finally grows to enjoy.
Karmi appears at the end of "Legacies", where she watches Hiro deliver his speech about Tadashi at the SFIT graduation ceremony on her laptop, smiling at the touching tribute.
===Season Three===
Karmi returns to San Fransokyo in "Big Chibi 6", having become a success developing her Big Hero 6 fanfiction into an animated web series. She openly pursues a friendship with Hiro, having significantly matured since their last encounter, while also implying to have developed romantic feelings for him. She tells "Captain Cutie" that she used to be attracted to him, but now likes "someone else", heavily implied to be Hiro. Also thanks to him, Karmi has developed an interest in technology and programming and uses her newfound abilities to aid the team.
==Gallery==
==Trivia==
*Karmi is at the very least sixteen years old, as she was allowed entry into Trevor Trengrove's workshop, which only allowed students sixteen and older.
*While Karmi is, presumably, two years older than Hiro, her voice actress, Haley Tju, is actually six years younger than Hiro's voice actor Ryan Potter.
*According to Hiro, Karmi always leaves the biometric lab at 7pm.
*Prior to her official debut, Karmi made a cameo appearance in a crowd shot in "Baymax Returns".
*Karmi's monster transformation draws design elements from various monsters Jack Kirby created for Marvel Comics in the 1960s.
*Originally, Karmi had an Arc in Season 3 that would've focus on her returned after she moved, but was later scrapped.
*The name Karmi is of Hebrew origin, but is typically seen as a masculine name. Based on her features, she is most likely of some Middle-Eastern descent, possibly Iranian or Persian.
==External links==
*
pt-br:Karmi
Category:Females
Category:Big Hero 6 characters
Category:Scientists
Category:Students
Category:Disney characters
Category:Animated characters
Category:TV Animation characters
Category:Teenagers
Category:Lovers
Category:Monsters
Category:Mutants
Category:Transformed characters
Category:Neutral characters
Category:American characters
Category:Asian characters
Category:Heroines
Category:Disney Channel characters
Category:Disney XD characters
Category:Artists