Courtney

**Courtney** is the winner of *Total Drama: All Stars* along with finalist, Scott. She was originally a contestant on *Total Drama Island*, *Action*, and *World Tour*.

Her character as Type A and a control freak is first established in *Island*, where she was widely perceived as the *anti-hero* as opposed to her unlike yet chemical love interest of the season, Duncan, the *anti-villain*. After surviving several close calls, Courtney is eventually a victim of Harold rigging the votes to spite Duncan and eliminates her unfairly. Though her *anti-hero* status became conflicted in *Action* where she played the role of a more ruthless and competitive *kingpin.* Her oppressed treatment to her fellow competitors (especially a confrontational conflict with Lindsay and an abusive relationship with Duncan) and manipulative gameplay moves earned her status of an antagonist in the *Total Drama* series. Unlike other antagonists, she was confirmed to be delusional about not being well liked by the others, and was confused when Lindsay said nobody liked her.

Courtney returned for *World Tour* and starts off as a more calm player, though still disliked by the other competitors. Courtney eventually finds out at the half-way point that her boyfriend has cheated on her with Gwen, which leaves a major dent in Courtney's self-esteem and causes a huge toll on her character - becoming in toto more merciless and borderline psychotic than she was in *Action*. Despite being outnumbered 3-2, she gets the last laugh in her conflict with Gwen through a stroke of pure luck after Gwen is eliminated due to a tiebreaker produced by Cody voting incoherently.

Already canonized as one of the best players and most distinct characters on the show, she then returned in *All Stars* and put forth yet another impressive performance. She made several key moves (including making amends with Gwen and forming a strong alliance with her and forming a new relationship with Scott) that showed off her qualities not only as a cutthroat competitor but also as a keen forecaster of behavior and persistent force in the face of long odds. Thereby, she pulls the strings and steers herself to the final two, although thanks to Mal meddling with a fake chart, her alliance with Gwen shatters and leaves her alone with only Scott to work with. At the final tribal council (a new addition from Chris), she and Scott work there ways to convincing the jury to vote for them. Undeterred by Scott's popularity in the season, Courtney is crowed the *Total Drama: All-Stars* winner and attained the million-dollar victory by a single vote. Her clean sweep in the season put an end to an era where overtly villainous contestants were considered virtually unable to win the game.

Due to these exploits, Courtney has become a byword for competition, entertainment, villainy, and high-level strategy, and remains in many respects a touchstone of *Total Drama* culture.

## Personality

Courtney thinks of herself as a born leader, which often leads to her not letting others have a chance to take control. Although she is extremely bossy, competitive, critical and even manipulative at times, she can be genuinely civil and polite to her fellow competitors. Such an example is in Jamaica Me Sweat, when Courtney is the only one to acknowledge the injured Izzy and Owen. As an overachiever, she has a tendency to overreact when things go wrong and drives herself crazy in order to get what she wants. She has become notorious among the contestants for constantly reminding them of her C.I.T. experience, resulting in their constant annoyance.

Throughout her first three competing seasons, the severity of Courtney's behavior ranged from generally easygoing to extremely antagonistic. When she wants something, she will fight to the death to get it. However, sometimes her determination ultimately leads to her own destruction. Courtney has exceptional athletic abilities and is also capable of lifting amounts of weight much greater than her own. She has displayed in several instances that she values the prize money over even her closest relationships. Her skewed priorities coupled with her harsh tendencies have resulted in her becoming a very disliked contestant among her fellow competitors, which she ironically is delusional about, believing everyone liked her.

Upon her return in *All Stars*, it is clear the love triangle drama from *World Tour* took a drastic change on her personality, at first she starts off as very selfish, whiny, prissy, useless, unlikable, and flat out pathetic - allowing the contestants to take all the bullets flying in the leechball challenge, but still a dirty coward underneath as she uses the already severely-injured Owen as a human shield to spare herself from the leeches, then immediately making up several excuses for it. However as the season goes on changes in her personality are shown, especially when she reveals in Suckers Punched that the reason she was more angry at Gwen than Duncan is because she trusted Gwen more than she trusted him, knowing deep down all along that her relationship with Duncan wasn't going to last forever. Courtney becomes more mature and gets her life back on track as the season forages on. Such examples include mending her friendship with Gwen, making peace with Duncan, accepting Gwen and Duncan's relationship, forming her own with fellow contestant, Scott, and being generally friendlier and loosening up. Because of her new likable personality and maturing into a more calm, but still hardworking player, Courtney earns the title of the winner of *All-Stars*.

## Background

Courtney was abandoned by her parents in a coinlocker when she was a baby and because of this, she was handed no advice from anyone and she became tough and independent. However, this also caused her to have a lonely childhood, both wanting and was afraid of forming a family. Because of her past, this made it extra difficult to form a healthy and stable relationship with Duncan, and is the main cause of why she was so controlling of him to make him "perfect" in *Action* - not understanding what true love is, and causing a toxic relationship that set herself up for a crushing heartbreak.

She also ventilates to Gwen when they bond in You Regatta Be Kidding Me that as she got older, so did her responsibilities. She was handed nothing in life because of having no parents, and no free advice or a guide on how to grow up because of it. She admits she never felt as tough as she lets on, and feels like a small child who wants someone there to be the leader instead of her, but she is also afraid of relying on other people, because she feels that makes the outcome impossible to predict and she never felt good not being in control.

Courtney mentions that Duncan is the first person she ever opened up to and genuinely trusted (before he cheated), and that after *Island*, for the three days he had before *Action* started Courtney snuck off with Duncan to ditch a staff meeting for the student council after she successfully won student council president (a nod to her election in her audition for *Total Drama*) and they would go make graffiti together in the sewer system and talk for long periods of just small talk.

However she let her fears of other people take over her, which is why she got so demanding in *Action* over Duncan, which eventually set herself up for a heartbreak. Courtney was hurt and scared, which was why she pushed everyone away. She fled from her personal relationships and the potential judgment of her peers and committed herself completely to her work and winning the game, but that just made her situation worse. The only way she’s able to escape is with the help of Gwen, who also lost her father and was generally lonely a portion of her life, and while the two of them aren’t able to completely eradicate the negative feelings plaguing Courtney, having someone to express her negative feelings to allows Courtney to break free from the prison she’s built inside herself by knowing she isn't all alone.

## Total Drama All Stars

Courtney is one of the ten first generation cast members invited back for the *All Stars* season. Because of the fifth season of the show, Chris announced they will be heroes vs villains. Courtney is placed on the heroes team and when she is everyone else is confused, as she was seen as an antagonist in the past. Noah even asks why Courtney was placed on the heroes team, which Courtney didn't seem to be too happy about. Chris confirmed in the confessional that Gwen and Courtney were originally on the opposite teams, but he flipped them at last minute to stir up more drama and simultaneously make Gwen feel worse about what happened in *World Tour*. Bridgette (Courtney's only friend left) tries to cheer Courtney up by jokingly telling her that she thinks "Duncan wants you to yell at him for old time sake" which Courtney reacts surprisingly calm to - saying that Duncan is a bad boy and their relationship wasn't going to last forever, but also adding that she thought Gwen was her friend, calling that thought to be a mistake. At that very moment Lindsay (who was in front of them) stops abruptly and asks Courtney to "teach her how to stop making mistakes" causing Courtney and Bridgette to exchange confused glances. Although her team loses and she isn't well liked by most of her teammates, Courtney is not eliminated because of Lindsay's struggling work ethic in the game causes more people to vote for her over Courtney.

## Final Tribal Performance

In a new element of *Total Drama*, Chris had the seventeen eliminated contestants have a jury vote in order to pick who they wanted to win. For the opening jury statement, Courtney, prepared for a speech, stated that in order for her to win this game she couldn't play like she used to, because in her last three tries she relied on physical and strategy gameplay alone, and didn't care about the social game, and all three times it cost her dearly since people voted her out. She said that for this time she wanted to play more strategically and also focused on building strong relationships with the jury members so she could understand them as people. Then she went down each individual from the jury and told them something about them that she learned from her time on the show (work, family, culture, etc) to prove that she actually wanted to understand them. She said that she saw herself as a better person, and was much more happy with who she was, and said "ask me anything and you'll get an honest answer." Meanwhile Scott was comically unprepared for his speech, stating in a confessional he had never did one before. He flubbed up his speech several times, and even caused his own girlfriend to cringe. However he was still well liked so didn't have to fight as hard as Courtney did for his votes.

The jury was torn with who to chose, but in the end the voting was:

### Scott voters

* Noah voted for - **Scott**. Their friendship, and he already doesn't really like Courtney.
* Owen voted for - **Scott**. For their friendship they formed in the season and being his wing-man for his relationship with Courtney.
* Lighting voted for - **Scott**. Despite Courtney's powerful jury speech, he still was upset by her bossing him around throughout the season.
* Brick voted for - **Scott**. Same reason as Lightning, he believed he was most suitable for leadership on the Heroic Hamsters and she literally beat him into letting her have it which went nowhere.
* Zoey voted for - **Scott**. Despite disliking him before, she votes for him because she thinks he is nicer now.
* Sierra voted for - **Scott**. Only because she hates Courtney more.
* Lindsay voted for - **Scott** (his ending only). Nothing on-screen about her voting is shown.
* Anne Maria voted for - **Scott**. When Courtney was transferred to the villains, their personalities clashed (similar to Anne Maria and Jo).
* Alejandro voted for - **Scott**. While believing himself to be the best player ever like Heather and Jo, unlike them he is still believing her to be undeserving, mostly because of his friendship with Scott though.

### Courtney's voters

* Heather voted for - **Courtney.** Heather says in her speech that none of those two would stand a chance if she was with them in the final two, claiming she is the best player ever, but also said she respected Courtney's gameplay (even though they aren't friends) more than Scott's, and that's what she based her vote on.
* Bridgette voted for - **Courtney**. They're friends, in fact she is her only friend pre-*All Stars*.
* Dawn voted for - **Courtney**. She hates Scott much more because of *Revenge of the Island*, and liked how much Courtney grew in the season.
* Jo voted for - **Courtney**. Like Heather, she believed she stood the best chance at winning, but also like Heather she respected Courtney's strategic gameplay in the season much more than she respected Scott who was just the comical relief of the season.
* Dakota voted for **Courtney**. Her jury speech
* Mike voted for - **Courtney**. He felt horrible for his personality almost costing her game and voted for her out of guilt.
* Gwen voted for - **Courtney**. She found out the chart was fake so voted for Courtney because of their rekindled friendship in the season and her gameplay.
* Lindsay voted for - **Courtney** (her ending only). To everyone's surprise, Lindsay tells the others that life is too short to hold grudges (obviously targeted at Courtney for how poorly she treated her in *Action*), and that she is going to take the time she has and be happy and surround herself with the people that are worth it, so she is going to base her vote on who she feels played the best game. Once again proving that Lindsay isn't as dumb or immature as she seems.
* Duncan voted for - **Courtney**. The vote that shocked everyone and the swing vote that gave Courtney her victory. He revealed in the exit interview he secretly regretted hurting her after *World Tour* ended, even after she abused him in *Action*, so he felt like he owed her, and felt she played a much better game than Scott and deserved the million dollars. Because of this he and Courtney all make peace after *All Stars*.

## Trivia

* Of all the winners in *Total Drama* Courtney has caused the most controversy. Her victory has occasioned impassioned debate, as some commentators find her strategic gameplay and personality too annoying to root for, and still despising her even after her maturity in *All Stars*, while others emphasize what they perceive as the subtle quality of her moves and the importance of maintaining strong social bonds with eventual jury members, a gameplay element which Scott neglected that cost him the money (in her ending).
* In a red carpet interview after her win in *All Stars*, Courtney confirmed that she had her lawyers force the contract she and the other contestants had with Chris invalid, and thus none of them ever have to return to the show again if they don't want to (which none of them do). In addition, she also added in her lawsuit that for the future third generation contestants the contract Chris gives them a promise they do not have to return if they don't want to. Courtney also added that now she is done with *Total Drama* for good.
* When asked what she will do with her money, Courtney confirmed she will be using it to travel across the world and for her law schooling intuition after she finishes high school.
* Courtney is one of two contestants that has been both a protagonist and an antagonist of a season.
	+ Heather was the main antagonist of *Island* and Courtney was the main antagonist of *Action*.
	+ Heather was the main protagonist of *World Tour* and Courtney was the main protagonist of *All Stars*