Carmen Sandiego

**Carmen Sandiego**, also known as **Black Sheep**, is the titular main protagonist of the *Carmen Sandiego 2019* series.

A former V.I.L.E. student turned professional thief, Carmen has made it her mission to damage V.I.L.E's global operations and keep them from hurting more lives.

In the AWA fics, Carmen is set to appear in a future AWA storyline.

## **Appearance**

Carmen is a young woman with reddish-brownish hair, blue grey eyes, and wears red lipstick. When her hair isn’t up in a messy bun, it is usually down and very wild looking. She usually wears her signature red coat and hat along with a V.I.L.E. jumpsuit underneath. When our of her their wear, Carmen usually puts her hair up into a messy bun and wears a whole assortment of fashionable outfits, which helps Carmen be “dressed for the occasion.” When she was younger, Carmen‘s hair was much shorter, in contrast to its current style, to the point of being chin-length and slightly curly.

Being a professional super anti-thief, Carmen requires a range of attire and disguises for her missions and situations.

#### **Trench Coat and Wide Brim Hat**

* Arguably her most iconic and commonly used clothing in the series, it stores a wide range of hidden gadgets that Carmen uses on her mission, including a built-in hang glider. It also offers adequate protection against Stockholm's chilly weather.
* Due to its bright color and strong association with Carmen, she has on numerous occasions allow her crew members to wear them as a distraction to any unwanted attention.

## **Personality**

Carmen is seen as intelligent and knowledgeable due to her incredible education since her infancy, swift from the physical training under Coach Brunt and playing pranks growing up, innate athletic skill, as well as quick-witted from her training to handle high-pressure situations. She isn't fazed by difficult situations as her education in V.I.L.E. Academy prepared her for similar, if not, exact scenarios. But due to her inexperience and eagerness, she can still be prone to missteps, as when she was in Ecuador, she forgot to acclimate to the altitude change and fainted; or in Mumbai when fighting Paper Star, she didn't notice the ACME card she swiped off Chase Devineaux was missing until after she returned the Magna Carta.

Carmen is also empathic of others, as seen when she fought off her graduate classmates to save a dig-site crew after developing an appreciation of art. Or when she learned of the cultural value of Uluru to the native peoples of the Outback, and how a V.I.L.E. plan would be devastating to them. As well as the time when Doctor Pilar Marquez explained the 1830 Ecuadorian 8 Escudos doubloon's historical value, Carmen did not want to deprive the Ecuadorian people of a cultural treasure; something resonant to her, as she herself knows nothing of her past. Carmen raced to retrieve it and directly gave the coin to Marquez out of trust that she'd keep the coin safe in a museum.

She is also a humanitarian, donating to children's hospitals, orphanages, museums, and various other charities. Carmen is sympathetic to these causes as she knows nothing of herself, and wants to ensure others have opportunities in and knowledge of the world which she believes is their right to know and have a chance to appreciate.

Carmen is also shown to be selfless, as when Devineaux is kidnapped by V.I.L.E. believing him to be her secret partner, Carmen risked her own safety to rescue him, even though she knew it was a trap as Coach Brunt and Shadow-san were in the area hunting for her.

## **Abilities**

Due to spending the majority of her early life at V.I.L.E. Academy, learning from her large pool of nannies, and being personally tutored by the V.I.L.E. faculty members, Carmen has an assortment of relevant combat gear and skills relevant.

* **Martial arts -** Carmen is also shown to be very agile and a skilled fighter, being agile enough to free-run across steep rooftops, perform complex acrobatic maneuvers with considerable ease and defeat many experienced V.I.L.E operatives.
* **Thievery -**As a professional thief, Carmen steals items without her opponents knowing or sensing the act. She was even praised by Shadowsan to be one of his finest students and best in the class by Graham.
* **Stealth -**Carmen is skillful in stealth, given her ability to sneak into multiple high-security complexes to perform her heists and disappear in broad daylight, allowing her to evade capture by Interpol, A.C.M.E., and V.I.L.E.
* **Driving skills -**Carmen can operate a wide range of vehicles, including but not limited to cars, motorcycles, and boats. She even engages in a high-speed chase using her motorcycle against a veteran car thief stealing an electric supercar.
* **Multilingualism -** Due to her exposure to various cultures due to her upbringing, Carmen is able to speak and understand various languages, including Mandarin, Portuguese and Italian.
* **Master tactician -** Carmen's strategic planning and mental prowess seem to be her greatest asset. Whether it be her strong leadership skills, her ability to adapt to a situation in a fight, she almost constantly being able to triumph in difficult positions or against foes who are numerically superior.

### **Weaknesses**

In spite of her confidence, Carmen does have her weaknesses. Due to her mysterious past, she has shown to be insecure when she tried to avoid the topic when Graham asked for her real name during her academic year, or experienced visions which caused her to be distracted when she learned it was Shadowsan who discovered her as a baby, not Coach Brunt as she had assumed. Professor Maelstrom had tried to take advantage of this by getting Coach Brunt to reveal details of her past, hoping to sow discord between her and Shadowsan's partnership. She also has difficulty in facing foes who are vastly superior in strength and durability, such as facing Coach Brunt in France.

## **Trivia**

* Carmen enjoys sushi and coffee.
* The red coat Cookie Booker first wears, and Carmen steals, is reminiscent of Carmen Sandiego's design in the 1994 cartoon.

## **External Links**

* Carmen Sandiego (2019 character) at Carmen Sandiego Wiki