Adventuretimefantic's longer updates

Plurality in Total Drama

Ok so I remembered a while ago that the first ever depiction of plurality I've ever seen was in total drama as a kid. And it sent me down a rabbit hole. I need to gush about it so I'm making an analysis post!

How accurate is Mike's system? Let's look into that.

Full disclaimer I'm obviously not a psychologist but I AM a system. Not a DID system, more likely an OSDD/UDD system but still, there's some overlap. Take everything I say with a grain of salt but let's get into it.

First let's actually introduce the system in question for those who've never seen the show or haven't seen it in a while and need a refresher. We can all agree that the first three seasons of total drama (island, action and world tour) are the best and if kinda went down hill after that. The character were talking about here is from revenge of the island which isn't exactly bad but could definitely be better. It's the first season with a new cast and Mike's system show up again later in all stars with some of the original cast.

This lawn chair looking guy is Mike and his alters

Obviously since this is a pre-teen aimed cartoon the slight changes in appearance are all to visually differentiate who is fronting. Obviously he's not gonna magically have lipstick appear as soon as Svetlana fronts but that's all fine, we can ignore the stuff that's just a cartoon visually portraying something. Although it is absolutely possible for the alters to manually change hair and makeup etc when they front, they just can't magically change in a second flat like the show make happen.

The alters consist of:

Mike: the host
Obviously he's the one shown the most. He's the one portrayed as a normal teen boy (second on the right) and is a pretty standard fairly nice person who at first keeps his disorder a secret, but over the course of the show people figure it out.

Chester:
I'm going to assume he'd be a caretaker of some form, as he's an grump old grandpa type (third on the right). He usually fronts when people annoy the system and pulls a "back in my day" ramble. I assume he's a caretaker of some kind since he could possibly an introject of a grandparent formed to take care of the others when they were younger, it's not that uncommon for much older grandparent type alters to be caretakers.

Manitoba:
(The one on the hat) An Australian adventurer probably inspired by the absolute legend Steve Irwin (*Australia tears*). We don't see him often, so it's hard to tell what his role would be, I'd guess maybe a protector since an adventurer would make for a good protector and he has a kind of older brother type vibe.

Svetlana:
(The lipstick one) The only girl in this bitch, a Russian gymnast who usually fronts when the body is in a physically dangerous situation and quite literally backflips out of it. I'd assume she's probably a soother, as she clearly exists to indulge in something she loves and gets joy from it. I'd guess that as a kid the system did gymnastics and used it as an escape and she formed from that, to use gymnastics as a de-stressor.