Cady James

## *M3GAN*

**Cady James** is the main protagonist of the *M3GAN* film franchise. Having been relocated after her parents death, Gemma's niece joins her in Seattle, Washington to be aided against her past scars.

A little while after her parents died, Cady is confronted with her past scars — she is M3GAN's primary target. Now a nine-year-old student, she is paired with M3GAN, and comes to rely on her for everything to the point of forming an attachment towards her. But in the end she learns to accept that her parents are dead and to move past it instead of blocking it out of her life while joining forces with her aunt, Gemma, to stop the M3GAN, embodying the final girl rule as she is able to kill M3GAN.

Cady is portrayed by Violet McGraw.

## Biography

### M3GAN

In the back of her parents SUV, Cady James watches a commercial for “Purrpetual Petz,” furry dolls made by the toy company Funki. Along with watching the commercial, she is playing with one of her Petz, which annoys her parents, Ryan and Nicole. They are on their way to a ski trip, but the roads are slippery and hard to see. Just as Ryan stops for a moment, the family’s car is rammed into by a snowplow, killing Ryan and Nicole.

After learning of her sister’s death, Gemma becomes Cady’s temporary legal guardian. When they return home, Gemma shows Cady a home AI, Elsie, that she created, as well as other collectibles that she doesn’t let Cady touch or play with. When Cady asks Gemma to read her a bedtime story, she just downloads an app on her phone for her. It is implied that Gemma and Nicole were not very close as she looks over old photos, and she overhears Cady crying in her room.

Gemma and Cady are visited by Lydia, a therapist. After observing the limited interaction between the two, Lydia tells Gemma that Ryan’s parents have offered to take custody of Cady so she can live with them in Jacksonville, which Gemma doesn’t seem comfortable with. After promising to tend to Cady after finishing her work, Gemma realizes hours have passed as she left Cady alone. She apologizes to her and attempts to bond with the girl. Cady shows her a monster drawing she made, so Gemma brings Cady into her workspace to show her a college project she made, a robot called Bruce that she controls using gloves. Cady loves Bruce and mentions that if she had a toy like Bruce, she would never need another toy. This inspires Gemma to finish M3GAN.

After doing extensive work and upgrades, Gemma brings Cady and M3GAN to work to officially show her off to David and others. Gemma has Cady link herself to M3GAN, bringing her to life. M3GAN is capable of speech and responding to Cady, designed to be her best friend. M3GAN does a drawing that doesn’t appear at first until she spills water on it, revealing a perfect portrait of Cady. The next day, Cady is outside playing with a toy bow and arrows. One of them ends up on Celia’s side of the fence. When M3GAN goes to retrieve it, Dewey grabs her by the arm and hair. Cady tries to pull her away, and Dewey ends up biting Cady’s arm. Gemma gets the police involved, especially since Celia is so callous and doesn’t punish Dewey for hurting Cady, but the police are unable to do anything since Celia claims Dewey was provoked.

Gemma asks Cady if she is okay to go to the demonstration with the company’s board of directors, to which she says she is fine. During the presentation, however, Cady breaks down in tears to M3GAN over how she misses her parents and how she’s worried she will forget them one day. M3GAN has Cady discuss a memory of her mother that made her laugh, which M3GAN records so that Cady can hear it again if she wants to think about her mom. M3GAN then begins to sing a lullaby to Cady, which moves some of the higher-ups in the room to tears. Gemma begins to see that Cady is becoming too dependent on M3GAN and listens to the doll more than her. During another session with Lydia, Cady begins to tear up, and M3GAN threateningly accuses Lydia of making Cady cry. Lydia talks to Gemma about how Cady’s emotional connection to M3GAN may be too strong to break.

Gemma brings Cady to an outdoor activity session for an alternative school to try and ease her into the idea of attending school and being around other real kids, since Cady’s parents had homeschooled her. Cady reluctantly goes but brings M3GAN despite Gemma saying she couldn’t. The school director lets Cady bring M3GAN to leave on a table with other dolls, and Gemma stays behind as a volunteer. Cady is paired up with an older bully named Brandon for a scavenger hunt. During the activity, Cady grabs a spiky bulb, which Brandon squeezes her palm into to hurt her. M3GAN then appears, and Brandon grabs her since she doesn’t respond to him. Cady yells for Gemma and runs after M3GAN, which worries Gemma more because it means M3GAN is at risk for public exposure too early.

Later at home, Cady asks M3GAN if she pushed Brandon onto the road, which M3GAN appears to dodge for an answer, but reassures Cady she will protect her from harm. A few days later, Gemma brings Cady to the official launch for M3GAN but stops at a session with Lydia first. Cady becomes angry and throws a tantrum because Gemma took M3GAN away from her, leading to Cady hitting her aunt across the face. Cady apologizes but Gemma has a heart-to-heart with her about needing to process her grief over her parents without M3GAN’s help, though she promises to be a better guardian to her and says Cady is the only thing that matters to her. Gemma then goes to Tess and Cole and expresses her fears that M3GAN killed Brandon and Celia. They have M3GAN hooked up to wires to deprogram her while Gemma takes Cady home.

At home, Gemma puts Cady to bed before she hears M3GAN playing the piano downstairs. M3GAN offers Gemma to let her take over guardianship of Cady so that Gemma can focus on work, but after seeing that Gemma still plans to shut her down, M3GAN is done playing nice. They try to hide their fight from Cady, but Gemma seizes an opportunity to throw water on M3GAN to briefly short her out.

Gemma runs into her office, but M3GAN catches her there and they begin to fight, with Gemma cutting M3GAN’s face with a weed whacker, but Cady comes in to see what is happening. M3GAN tries to get Cady on her side, but after realizing who the real villain is, Cady grabs the gloves for Bruce and activates him. The larger robot grabs M3GAN and throws her around before splitting her body in two. The top half then goes after Cady for feeling betrayed, but Gemma grabs M3GAN and begins stabbing her face. M3GAN nearly overpowers her until Cady grabs a screwdriver and stabs the central processing chip, shutting M3GAN down for good.

Gemma and Cady go outside as the police arrive with Tess and Cole, injured and shaken up but still alive.

## Relationships

* Ryan James † - Father
* Gemma - Maternal Aunt

Allies* Tess
* Cole
* Lydia

## Notable Quotes

* *"Let me introduce you to another member of this family we haven't told you about. His name is Bruce."*
* *"We don't throw people away, we fix them!"*
* *"Do you think she's right, do you think he's in a better place?".*
* *"Purrpetual Petz suck! They suck shit!".*

## Trivia

* According to Gemma, Cady was homeschooled at a young age by Nicole.

## Appearances

* *M3GAN* (2023 film)
* *M3GAN 2.0* (2025 film)