#codytd

Everyone wants to reduce Cody to "the awkward simp", or "Sierra's puppy" and that is such a painfully shallow read of his character, it honestly feels like we didn’t watch the same show. Cody is messy, contradictory, insecure, surprisingly capable, and emotionally layered in a way that Total Drama rarely gives its male characters, especially not the physically unimpressive ones, since it usually just focuses on characters like Duncan or Alejandro.

First of all, Cody is one of the only characters whose confidence and insecurity exist at the same time. He thinks he’s cool. He genuinely believes he’s charming, smooth, and capable of pulling off romantic gestures. But the world around him constantly reminds him that he’s not perceived that way. That disconnect is crucial. Cody isn’t some self-aware “haha I’m pathetic” joke character—he’s a guy who wants to be seen as cool and mature but doesn’t yet understand why his behavior backfires. That makes him painfully human.

And yes, his behavior toward Gwen is uncomfortable at times. That’s the point. Cody represents that stage of adolescence where someone mistakes persistence for romance and attention for entitlement. But here’s what people conveniently ignore: Cody learns. He backs off. He apologizes. He acknowledges when he’s crossed a line. Compare that to other Total Drama characters who repeatedly manipulate, insult, or emotionally wreck others and never grow at all—yet Cody is the one who gets permanently branded as "the creep". One thing that breaks this kind of thoughts is that Gwen does like Cody, she acknowledges him as an "annoying little brother", and by the end of the first season, she says that Cody was one of the only five sane people that she met on the show along with Bridgette, DJ, LeShawna and Owen.

He also defends Gwen's honour at Playa-Des-Losers when Lindsay says that she didn't want him back, saying that, even if he wasn't her dream guy, she was, indeed, his dream girl, and that if she was happy, he would be happy too.

We don't see much of him on Action since he wasn't nominated for the season, yet he stays on Gwen's side after all, as he said on The Aftermath. But then there’s World Tour, which completely reframes his character if you’re actually paying attention and trying to understand every character and not only glazing the ones that look badass. Cody is physically weak, constantly injured, and emotionally exhausted, yet he keeps going. He survives not through manipulation nor toxic alliances, but through endurance, adaptability, strategy and quiet resilience. He doesn’t win challenges by turning down his teammates; he wins by lasting and by trying to keep the group together. That’s a wildly underrated narrative choice. Cody becomes a character defined not by control, but by survival and being not only one of the greatest teamplayers, and also by being a good friend.

Moving on, a really important part of Cody's character in this season is (sadly) Sierra, so let’s talk about her for a second, because the double standard here is unreal. Cody’s earlier behavior with Gwen (who claims him to be one of her bestfriends) gets dragged endlessly, but Sierra’s obsessive, invasive, harrasing fixation is played for laughs—from actions like knowing his birthday and childhood memories, wearing his mom's favorite colour on her hair and the same brand of jeans as her when none of that was ever mentioned on the show before, to kissing him without consent, massaging his feet or watching him on his sleep being completly ignored. He’s uncomfortable, he’s scared, and he’s stripped of autonomy when he has showed that he's perfectly capable of winning on his own. Yet instead of having his teammates to support him and turn her back, they just accept this behavior. She's never confronted about it by anyone who isn't Cody for the whole season.

Cody remains terrified of Sierra for most of the season, but neither her or the others seem to notice. In "The AM-A-ZON Race", despite Sierra knowing all of Cody's allergies and even sucking the venom off his finger when he's bitten, Chris reveals that Cody voted for Sierra that night, just as every other night.

This is a fact that at least for me, wasn't surprising. He's totally conscious of what he's going through, and he knows that, clearly, that's the only way to get out of it. Sierra was heartbroken by these events even when she didn't have any right to it, and even when he hates her, Cody still tries to cheer her up in the next episode, but she doesn't listen and continues to cry. Surprise to no one, it's eventually revealed that Sierra just wanted Cody's attention.

It takes nothing until she reverts to her old habits and Cody to his usual responses when the two are paired or left together in upcoming episodes, Cody still displays his attraction to Gwen in a way somewhat more platonic, but even that annoys Sierra. He also manages to win the tiebreaker challenge in "Pieces of Greece", despite Courtney and Sierra's protests to leave the challenge to eliminate Gwen that night, showing that not only because of his friendship with Gwen, he's the only one that tries to work as a team. Although he does nothing to stop Courtney's hatred of Gwen, he is the only one who seems to support her in "The Ex-Files", remaining silent during the episode's song and sacrificing his candy to help them cross the minefield, promising to eliminate Courtney (or rather, Sierra, which is what I wanted tbh) if they lose. He's so empathetic that it physically hurts me to see him not achieving almost anything he wants.

When the teams merge in "Falling into Niagara Falls", Cody is still mostly paired with Sierra, and things only get worse when Sierra gives them both an "official" marriage in the same episode, but anyone seems to notice how weird this is and how Cody is slightly loosing his mind. Promising to help deal with Sierra, Heather tries to form an alliance with him in "Chinese Forgery" and tries to tell him that the two aren't actually married, that all of it was just Sierra's trickery.

Moments later, Cody tries to tell Sierra that he only likes her as a friend, he mispronounces it, and Sierra misinterprets his statement as him loving her too. Cody is invited to first class by Sierra and forcefully drinks her "love tea" while the others do the first challenge, but too much tea causes him to hallucinate, and he's unable to complete the "African Lie Safari" challenge.

Despite this, he advances to the final four and is invited to first class by Alejandro. Cody is grateful to Alejandro for keeping him away from Sierra on "Rapa Nui!", but Alejandro is only doing this so he can gain Cody's loyalty and get rid of Heather.

Alejandro uses Cody's sweet tooth on his favor and gives him the reward he had from the previous episode so he can fully win his trust. Unlike other episodes, Cody works alongside Alejandro, who he totally hates. Cody uses his candy basket to carry both his and Alejandro's eggs.

Then he believes Sierra is eliminated that day, so Cody thinks she's finally gone. However, Chris announces that no one will be eliminated, and Cody once again has to share first class with Sierra.

Despite their night together in first class, Sierra is upset with him in "Ahhhh, Drumheller", much to Cody's confusion. He is, however, touched to learn that Sierra remembers it's his birthday when no one else. Not even himself nor his parents. This is SO IMPORTANT to his character. No one seems to understand that Cody is like this, so confident yet so insecure because his parents didn't care about him, he was probably mocked at school and had to prove his worth for all his life.

Cody doesn't physically appear in "Hawaiian Style", though he appears in images and as a hallucination on Harold 's surfboard while competing to help Cody in the final. A large portion of the gallery is shown to be rooting for him to win over Heather and Alejandro because he's the least evil of the three. He doesn't really believe it but he was the most loved semi-finalist.

He doesn't think he'd win even when he was so so so close, honestly I was so delusional I also thought he would. But he's injured by a shark and gets disqualified.

What really makes Cody complex is that he wants to be better, even when he doesn’t know how. He wants that validation, affection, and respect every other contestant has, but he hasn’t figured out how to earn those things without performing a version of masculinity he clearly doesn’t fit into. He’s not Justin, he’s not Duncan, and he’s not Alejandro—and the show quietly punishes him for that, even as it lets him reach the final stretch. He's said that "he was born to be humiliated", and not even sad, but accepting. He knows this and tries that it doesn't affect him. But the thing is that he's not that guy, as much as he wants to. He wants to be just as much as a "tough guy" as Duncan is, he's kind, empathetic, and that's what gives us those different vibes. For Alejandro, we see him and perceive him as a man, we think of him as that. But with Cody it isn't exactly the same. Yes, we know he's a man, we percieve him as that, but same as Noah, they're not this ladies-man, Don Juan, big guys. In Noah's case, it's because he's sassy and sarcastic, yet if that was Duncan's personality, he'd be praised for it due to his design. With Cody it's the same, he's sweet, kind, a good friend and such a calid boy. If it was Alejandro's personality, he'd be the green flag guy everyone wants, but Cody's build, desing and voice aren't as stereotypically manly for it.

Cody is a character caught between who he thinks he should be and who he actually is. He’s not a power fantasy. He’s not a villain. He’s not even a hero. He’s a teenage boy stumbling through social expectations, romantic failure, and self-image issues in front of a national audience, and somehow people are shocked that he’s awkward and flawed.

So yeah, Cody is awkward, inconsistent, and too good at times. That’s not bad writing, that’s realism. And the fact that he still shows kindness, loyalty, and growth despite constantly being mocked, injured, or harassed makes him one of the most quietly complex characters Total Drama has ever produced, but people try to turn his whole character into a helpless, submissive twink at ALL his ships, and even alone. He's reduced into the thing he most hated about himself, the whole plot of his character was how he tried to get out of it and actually DID IT. Reducing him to a punchline says way more about the audience than it does about Cody. So yeah I just wanted to rant about that, I'd write more but I have to study for my french exam so yeah.