Total Drama Pahkitew Island TDPI Rankings!

Well, yeah. Easily the best season the show has had since at least World Tour, and possibly the best season ever. Guess they can work with the 13-episode format. Really, ranking the contestants this season was far more difficult than it was with Revenge of the Island, where I had much more mixed feelings about that cast. If I ever do that 54-character meme, this season is going to be overly represented near the top.

14:  Beardo.  For what it's worth, I liked him. Sure, he was useless, but he was a lot more entertaining than Ezekiel or Staci. He would have gotten old fast, but he left in the first episode, so he didn't. He was funny for his short stay, so even if he is in last place, there have been a lot of characters worse than Beardo, so I can't complain.

13:  Leonard.  Like Beardo, he was pretty useless, but I suppose his gimmick gave him a bit more to do with a second episode than Beardo could've done, so yeah. Before the season started, I expected him to be some nerdy LARPer. I did not expect him to actually believe he had wizard powers, so that was a different take than I was expecting.  He'd have gotten annoying had he stayed around too long, but he didn't, so it's all good.

12:  Rodney.  Another guy who was pretty much there for one joke.  A joke that had a bit more going for it than Beardo, for sure, but it was still limited, and he still left around the right time, before it got annoying. Not really a whole lot else to say about him.

11:  Topher.  On one hand, I do think Samey could've benefited from lasting a little longer, with him being the most obvious character to trade places with. On the other hand, he was legitimately entertaining, and I liked his plot. Might've been nice to see him interact more with the other contestants, but still, enjoyable for what he was.

10:  Amy.  She was a lot of fun, and just mean, and there's gotta' be way more backstory there... but I can't really count any hypothetical backstory.  She was entertaining, but "the mean twin" is about all there was to her. I love her, but there's just not enough there for me to put her higher. Not this season, at least.  I defintitely appreiate her role in the story, but it was more about Samey than it was Amy.

9:  Max.  I like Max. I just can't put him higher than this.  He was just so... well, existing. He pretty much existed for most of the season, mostly to hide Scarlett as the true evil. He was pretty hilarious throughout, though, but he didn't seem to have his heart all the way in it: he wanted to be more evil than he actually was.

8:  Shawn.  I liked him a good bit.  There was more to his character than zombies, making him surprisingly less of a gimmick character than he first appeared. He's likable and dorky and thoughtless at times, but he was still sweet with Jasmine, or tried to be (I'm only not sharing the money because I love her!), and I dunno', there was a lot to like . 

7:  Scarlett.  She's tough for me to put this low, but I just can't put her higher than this . While it was clear pretty early on that she was the brains behind Max, and it wasn't much longer before it became clear that she was the true evil one, the sudden shift in episode ten was still very out of left field. Evil, sure, that wasn't a surprise, but her whole deranged-ness kinda' was. I can only assume though, falling for the Chris-bot, that she did need those glasses. I can appreciate her more openly psychotic side, but I still prefer her quieter self.

6:  Sugar.  She's a terrible villain. Really, what did she do? Sure, she got rid of Ella... a move which made no logical sense, but spite! Spite can be powerful. Sort of like when Courtney was trying desperately to get rid of Gwen, exept Courtney's motive was more understandable ("she stole my boyfriend" versus "she's annoying"). I suppose she did get Jasmine out, though. Accidentally. Real mastermind material there. But that's just it. She thinks she's amazing in pretty much every way, but she isn't. It's kind of sad, really. It's like she's trying to be the new Heather, 'cause everyone loves Heather, but she just doesn't have the charisma, the smarts, or the talent to pull it off, but you have to love her for how she tries her hardest, anyway. She could also be sweet and happy and lovable at times... you get the feeling she's someone who'd be more pleasant outside the competition. I didn't care as much for the Owen-ish aspects of her character, but honestly, it was only a small part of who she was.  I can forgive it .

5:  Dave.  I'm surprised by how many people don't "get" him. Yes, he was stereotyped as the normal guy. That was a lie. Early on, he seemed like the normal guy, or at least, relatively normal. That was deception on the writers part. That's not a complaint, by the way. The setup was perfect: paint Dave as the "normal" guy, falls in love with the (relatively) normal girl, cute little love story, Mike and Zoey all over again. But hooray hooray, it didn't happen that way ! He originally seemed like the sane man trying to herd his team of loonies... sure, he had his own "quirks," like his fear of dirt, and his panic attack... well, that's more medical condition and less quirk, but that's just it:  something wasn't right. Sure, at first it seemed right, but as time passed, Sky seemed to like Dave, but Dave really, really, really liked Sky, and did not really handle things well. He started getting needy, and whiny, and obsessive, and mean, and Sky dropped him. Harsh, yes, but for her own well-being, probably the nicest thing she could've done, if not necessarily the nicest way to get it done. Dave goes nuts and gets petty and cruel, votes himself off, in a state of mind at this point where he was clearly forgetting why he signed up for the show in the first place. Sky tries to make up so she has a chance to win in the finale, then he finds out Sky had a boyfriend and goes nuts. Forget the money, he just wants Sky to suffer at this point! Sky really missed out not getting together with him . It's a tragic tale, and I'm surprised the show went this route with him. Show had a lot of surprises this season, but it made for an excellent, albeit tragic, love story this season. He was an asshole, but you can still pity what he became.

4:  Ella.  The saccharine sweet princess who loved singing and animals. Doesn't even matter if said animals are real or robotic. It's just really hard not to like her. She's so sweet, and genuine, surprisingly enough... this seems to be the real her. Her story is largely tragic, the way everyone craps on her all the time, Sugar and Chris in particular. Heck, Chris made up a new rule for the mere sake of taking away that which gave her joy, since he otherwise had trouble keeping her miserable. Emotional cruelty... kind of an overlooked way Chris has gotten more sadistic over the seasons, really. While Chris mostly hates her because he can't make her miserable, Sugar hates her because... something... it's never that clear, really. Because she sees her as her fiercest competition, I guess. Doesn't really make sense, but then Sugar doesn't always make sense XD In retrospect, it's probably for the best that Dave wasn't interested in her. She might've seen that he wasn't that much of a prince charming after all. She did go out on a wonderful note, though, and on her own terms, and let's face it, no one cares that Chris didn't like it, probably hoping she'd be a weeping puddle or something, instead of going out on such a literal high note .

3:  Samey.  On one hand, she's a lot closer to Zoey 2.0 than Sky could ever hope to be (just replace Mike with Jasmine ). Not saying she is Zoey 2.0, but it makes a little more sense than with Sky, at least. I liked her story, and I feel she could've offered more, but at least it's not another Dawn-like case, where she was kicked off early so the people who sucked could suck harder, so it's more forgivable. Still, I very much enjoyed her story. Her awful time with her sister, her awesome time with Jasmine that she kinda' accidentally got suckered into but then started legitimately enjoying it, and how no one else on her team liked Samey (though let's face it, Scarlett hated Amy, too), and how she she actually didn't poison her sister, but let her sister poison herself (so let's stop with the "Samey's evil for poisoning her sister" talk, no she didn't!)... nice to see her sticking up for herself more, but also tragic, as she had to start pretending to be Amy, and learn that most of her team prefered Amy to Samey (Rodney loved Amy, Max probably liked Amy because she was evil, Topher probably liked her more for causing more drama, and Scarlett, let's face it, hated them both). It was sad, as well as getting eliminated when her sister came back, though at least by that point she was sticking up for herself more. I guess it's a bittersweet ending. Hopefully after the show, she'll continue to be able to stick up for herself more.

2:  Sky.  She's the strongest, she's the quickest, she's the best! Well, maybe not, but still pretty darn good. She's our season's relatively normal person (keeping in mind that Dave was never anything resembling normal). The Dave storyline is sad on her end, too. She clearly liked Dave, but wasn't looking for a relationship. And Dave eventually got too creepy, anyway. But still, out of necessity, she tried to give Dave another go in the finale, and... well, we know how that turned out. It's tragic, but love doesn't always work, and in the world of Total Drama, it gets more extreme than usual. Sky could've handled the situation better, yes, but that just means she's not Zoey perfect. Just a normal, albeit athletic girl. And regardless of whatever mistakes she made, she did not deserve the reaction she got from Dave either after telling him she wouldn't date him, or after finding out she had a boyfriend. And there was also poor Sky versus Sugar's insanity and inanity, and Sky's looking up to Jasmine, and being altogether the voice of reason for much of the season. Had to be someone, so might as well get a kickass character out of 'em !

1:  Jasmine.  She's Jasmine. What more needs to be said? I'll try anyway . She's the really tall, capable Australian girl, and honestly, far less gimmicky than she sounded like she would've been. She is intimidating, and bossy, but it's not really shown as being bad (what show am I watching ). She feels she might be falling for Shawn, he goes a bit zombie-crazy, and she realizes "uh, no." She can't resist his charm forever though, since unlike Dave, Shawn actually has charm, as opposed to creepy obsession. Charm works better. Saving Jasmine from "zombies" and Chris-bots probably helped, too. So she keeps up a cute little thing with Shawn, and a nice friendship with Samey which, let's face it, Samey needed. If only Samey had ever bothered telling Jasmine her name. Jasmine's going to feel bad when she realizes, watching the show back home, that Samey wasn't her actual name. But yeah, as nervous as Samey was about the whole friendship thing in the first place, it's not surprising that she never bothered to let Jasmine know it wasn't her name. Might've felt she'd lose her only friend if she corrected her . And she was good toward Sky too, and even if her advice to Sky about Dave was largely coming from her own issues with Shawn, it kinda' turned out she was accidentally right about Dave anyway, even if not for the right reasons. But whatever, Jasmine rocks!