#sp analysis

This is a four part essay in which i explore Cartman and Kyle's relationship, focusing primarily on Kyle's perspective. As said, i have broken it down into four different parts titled:

Sense of Identity

Martyr Complex and Competitiveness

Cartman

Their Relationship

There will be an extra chapter where i will make some additional commentary.

Hope you guys enjoy.

1. Sense of Identity and Selfishness

In the show Kyle is always concerned about “doing the right thing”, at least that's what he likes to tell himself. Though in reality, he is extremely selfish when push comes to shove and the reason for that stems from his constant questioning of his own identity and his stance in things. This makes him come off as rather inconsistent in a lot of ways. As a result, Kyle feels very lost. So what does he do? He decides to base his opinions and feelings and thoughts off of his environment because his own existance overwhelms him so much (eg. the "Tooth Fairy Tats 2000" episode). This puts him into this vicious cycle where he keeps getting lost even more due to not being able to pinpoint his own frame of thought and latching onto the external world that consists of many different people who have found their own way in life who also keep changing constantly and thus leaving all kinds of contradicting impressions on him. Throughout the series we see him try to change his apparence, religion, even his personality for the sake of fitting in (this also correlates to his martyr complex which i will get to). He creates this moral code for himself that he conditions himself to stick to in order to find his own identity and feel a sense of belonging but the sheer inconsistency of said moral code causes him to come off as indecisive, sometimes as a people pleaser and sometimes a hypocrite.

His defiance of a stable frame of mind pushes him to act on instinct and his momentary emotions while his refusal of self-acceptance causes him to distance his true self from others he considers close to him (Stan), hence the selfishness. It makes sense because how could someone get close to another when he can't even make peace with his own identity?

The reason i am mentioning this is to point out that since Cartman is so extreme in his beliefs and deliberately commits so many evil and selfish deeds, Kyle is obsessively drawn to him because it is so easy to call out and oppose him. Their polarity makes Kyle feel a sense of self he doesnt allow himself to truly make peace with and sugarcoat how fucked up he can be just like all the people in South Park that have wronged him but not enough to channel these feelings into. Cartman keeps Kyle grounded. Just like basically every other kid in the show, Kyle has done terrible things but he is so concerned about being right that he has to have Cartman by his side to make him escape from his own inner conflicts by reflecting it directly onto Cartman, the one person he is actually much more similar to more than he likes to think but he can only subconsciously acknowledge it.

2. Martyr Complex and Competitiveness

Another very essential aspect we need to pay attention to is Kyle's martyr complex. Kyle feels the need to not only to do the right thing but also to “sacrifice himself” for it. He is so self righteous to the point that not only does he not acknowledge his own flaws he also thinks he has to be and is some kind of heroic figure to others (eg. "Ginger Cow"), though this is more subtle compared to the other aspects of his personality.

The martyr complex causes Cartman to be seen as an even easier target than he already is and Cartman is more than willing to exploit Kyle for it hence feeding his very own complexes. They mutually feed off of each other to the point they are obsessed with each other and need each other. I would also like to point out that Kyle often shares some of his most vulnerable moments when Cartman is by his side in a suprising way (eg. choosing to stay by Cartman's side in the "You're Getting Old" and "Ass Burgers" episodes as an escape from Stan's depression at the time, crying with Cartman in "Kenny Dies" etc.) and vice versa. Though this is hard to notice on Cartman's side because Kyle conveys his vulnerability via confusion, sadness and desparation whereas Cartman does so via anger, jealousy and revenge.

3. Cartman

Cartman chastising Kyle like this most likely stems from how he believes Kyle was the catalyst to how fucked up he turned out to be due to his constant agression and bullying towards him in the earlier seasons, where he was mostly just a spoiled brat and nowhere near as bad as he is now. His pent up fury leads Cartman to also feel an extreme amount of envy towards Kyle with the reason of Cartman being a little more capable than Kyle at recognizing how him and Kyle share many similarities (being very emotionally driven, selfishness, neuroticism, stubbornnes, a habit of denying their own mistakes) who is in full denial of it on a conscious level. Cartman does try to get closer to Kyle and also the rest of his friends and seek their validation in the earlier seasons but as time goes by he realizes more and more that Kyle does not get the same treatment as him regardless.

Therefore, Cartman blames Kyle for his suffering and takes it all out on him in various disgusting ways because he thinks that Kyle deserves all the terrbile things happening to him.

It is very important to take into consideration how abhorrent Cartman's upbringing was and how influential it is to the way he feels towards Kyle. All of his childhood; he was raised with all kinds of abuse, neglect, extensive bullying and was depraved of almost all positive emotions. The result of this is Cartman ending up percieving positive emotions in a very traumatized, distorted and disturbing way. With this gradual build-up and "Scott Tennorman Must Die" being his breaking point by spreading fear to all of South Park and feeling an overwhelming amout of attention on him that he craved so much, Cartman ultimately comes to the conclusion that he can only and only validate himself by inflicting negativity on others. Independent from being conventionally "positive" or "negative" emotions, post-Scott Tennorman Cartman correlates all of his emotions to seeking attention and asserting himself as much as he can in means of a defense mechanism and in means of validating his own existance. His real feelings are filtered through a broken perspective, of which are conveyed intensely to the people he feels strongly about like Kyle or Liane.

How this all comes back to Kyle lies in the fact that Cartman also "benefits" from the way Kyle caters to his own problems via their seemingly very polarized relationship, not only does Cartman keep Kyle grounded as mentioned but Kyle does keep Cartman grounded as well.

At this point, their individual vicious cycles have become one, a constant play of cat and mouse; with both of them unable to differentiate which one is which, ever chasing.

4. Their Relationship

Describing their feelings towards each other as solely hate wouldn’t do justice to the times they tried so hard to keep the other in their lives (eg. the "Smug Alert" and "Skank Hunt" episodes) not only for the sake of just existing in each others lives or keeping in touch etc. but also to keep each other in their individual loops they are in, of which they cannot maintain with anyone else.

As a consequence Kyle and Cartman’s mutual obsession with each other leads them to go such lengths as saving each other multiple times. However, since there is a perpetual competitiveness between them due to Cartman's evny towards Kyle and Kyle's insatiable need to prove himself to be better than Cartman, they simply cannot stand each other’s happiness, especially if it involves someone really close to them, like a partner. Cartman ruining Kyle's potential romantic relationship with Nicole in "Cartman Finds Love" and Kyle trying to ruin Cartman's relationship with Heidi in "Doubling Down" and Kyle being unable to appreciate Cartman finally changing his ways for good and having a loving relationship and family in the Post Covid specials are all examples of both of them selfishly trying to involve the other in their own issues they should be able to deal with on their own, only have they not been such self absorbed people.

Their rivalry brings out the best and the worst in each other and they both know deep down that they are just like each other and they both hate it and feel an odd sense of comfort in it. That is exactly the reason why they simply cannot stand when the one of them goes on to have a happier life than the other. Not only do they feel as if they have lost some kind of battle but they also feel abandoned when it happens.

Extra Thoughts:

I find their relationship to be extremely complex and honest to god it has my multi media overthinker ass climbing up the walls and shitting furnitures. They are my favorite characters in the show and analyzing both of them was such treat to me. Due to some things i have mentioned in this essay especially on the last chapter, you can interpret some of them in the same vein as some kind of shipping subtext, even though this essay is essentially written in means of sheerly exploring this dynamic as it is. I honestly like keeping things really ambigious without necessarily categorizing relationships as romantic or platonic but if written properly i can enjoy both renditions of this relationship.

In order to clarify some things, i can enjoy romantic kyman ONLY AND ONLY in the condition of Cartman bettering himself over the years. I know it would be really difficult and may seem impossible to most of you but i find it an interesting and challenging story to think about and create content for. I believe that Eric is forever gonna stay as an asshole and i do not expect him to become an angel in the future. However I also think of him to be a really traumatized 8 year old, who is a really fucked up product of his really fucked up environment, a child who is smart enough to learn to be a better person, especially to those he values as his friends if given the proper opportunity. I do not think that their relationship will ever be a conventionally and classically an ideal one, especially from an outsider's perspective but Kyle and Cartman (and the entirety of South Park's cast) are both very far from being ideal human beings in the first place. At the end of the day, relationships can be very complex and unhealthy in real life, they always come in different colors and shapes. It is okay to explore a relationship in fiction without thinking it is the ideal relationship or the relationship you want to have in your own lives. It is okay to explore a relationship because it is interesting and well-written. This is what media literacy is all about.

As a disclaimer before some dumbass ship discourse happens, there are ofc some lines not to cross like the romanticization of inc*st, p*dophilia, r*pe and things like ww2 aus and shit btw. That being said, if you cannot separate fiction and reality to the extent i talked about in the previous chapter, this is your stupidity. Stop making it everybody's fucking problem.

anyways im gonna be extra deadass rn if someone gave me a 100k word long collage au that is written properly i would eat that shit up like theres no tomorrow. it doesnt even have to be romantic i just want more of them they are so interesting 😭😭😭 they also funny as fuck so the 2012 yaoi becomes even funnier. what a great dynamic godzamn 😭😭😭😭

The FACT that the only people in town who were upset by their "second" breakup was 1) Tweek 2) Craig 3) Both's parents because they were worried about their sons.

NOT THE WHOLE TOWN.

They had NO REASON to go back to being in a fake romantic relationship. The pressure wasn't there anymore. The town didn't care anymore.

So when they made up, they both got their good friend back but also unnecessarily made up as a romantic couple. Why do that?

People have been talking about this expressing nostalgia for the olden days of the boys hanging out together with the way they've grown apart in recent years

They're still friends but more as classmates than a group at this point and I don't think it's ever going to go back organically to the way it was. It's an interesting progression that I don't think is ever going to be explored satisfyingly sadly!

But I think at the core of it what gets overlooked is that it's just not as rewarding to see them coexisting anymore even when they're together in a scene because they're just. So normal now.

For the majority of the show's run the joke was contingent on each boy representing a token feat of the standard friendgroup(at least according to Matt and Trey)taken to their bizarre extreme, and as characters in the show the gag was that they stuck with each other because they were so outlandish in their bizarre antics relative to peers they ended up outcasts all which gets put into words in Craig's pandemic episode

The series moving past the 4 main boys as main characters happens parallel to the show becoming almost more 'grounded'/closer to reality tonewise. Compare with alien abduction + turkey takeover + the boys ending up in the global south through hijinks spiralling out of control and the majority of recent plotlines become downright mundane so there's also less of a reason for them to stick together when you think it like that.

It feels artificial now whenever they're meant to act as a group in a scene now because there's no magnetism holding the fabric of the dynamic together, 9/10 when they're paired up it reads a mixture of fanservicey and self aware (they've done the 'we never hang out together anymore guys'/'remember when we used to hang out?) as the premise of an episode like 9/10 the times they're near each other at this point like salt on the wound) but in all of these it's the meta aspect that dominates and predetermines the narrative, nothing inherent about them as characters reflecting on their relationship with one another but rather the recognition that the story prioritizes other elements these days and so it's part of the same 'characters evolving independently from their established interpersonal drama' thing that bothered me as south park overthinker.

Being isolated from their peers thus having no alternatives for socialization was the driving force for nearly all of the internal drama amongst them which also made them feel closer to each other.

Not only this but the boys poor moral character that used to be emphasized as well and caused them to play off each other's flaws and strengths.

The conditions just are not there anymore but I honestly think they could still make it work in the new grounded setting if they were more creative with it (as fangirls have done for years) but probably they are bored of those constraints as comedy writers and preferr more ample room to write stories between different configurations of characters, but to me it largely feels like wasted precedent and also like character consistency has become the tradeoff at times. Consider how the neuroses that were core to the main 4 and by extension their mutual dysfunction have now been redistributed amongst the larger cast and as such, there is really no need for either Stan, Kenny, Kyle, Butters or Cartman to fulfill a certain role in a given episode that is not interchangeable with say, Scott or Clyde's potential.

I usually despise gross out humor, but I think it's because the episode did a good job at using it to convey that this is litteraly how Stan is seeing the world, so rather than grossing me out, all that shit just kinda made me feel bad for him. The thought of just not being able to appreciate life, and not because you don't want to but because you literally can't just seems so debilitating. Like when the guys were arguing about assburgers and vacines, seeing him just disassociating from that whole situation and being so disinterested and done when I personally find amusement in their conversation. The dichotomy between my view and the characters just made me feel really bad for him.

And then what I found really interesting. The whole time Stan wished everything would go back to the way it was, thing changing without him was what was causing this problem of his. Stan is happy when he finally comes to terms with the idea of change, he has accepted it, and to be told that things are going to be returning to the status quo after accepting that, it's like a bird being thrown into a cage right as it learns to fly. Stan doesn't hear shit on his alarm when he wakes up, his world is "back to normal" but he then takes a swig from the bottle of alchohol, because he is now the one that has changed. And being stuck in the same old same old feel suffocating once you've discovered a want, or better yet a need for change. The "good old ways" are treated like a rut that feels suffocating to stay in, but it's what they "know best", so they must return to them.

This entire storyline very much felt like the writers expression of creative burnout. From the very on the nose explanation of exactly that through Randy and Sharon's divorce discussion, to everything Stan goes through.

Even Kyle and Cartman become friends. Something that is very out of left field for this show to do. It's different, it's probably the biggest change this friend group that is the crux of the show could go through. But for the show to work, it needs to go back to it's formula, to the same old same old. And one of the last scenes being Cartman yet again scheming something, Kyle getting angry, that scheme falling through. That's probably the best symbolism you can put in this episode that things can't really change. Especially since the whole time, it was already set up how Cartman made these burgers.

And therefore it had to be delivered on.

Cartman needs someone like Kyle around who will fight him back. All the other boys either avoid fighting with Cartman altogether, or try to stand up to him but can’t handle how intense he gets. But Kyle can hold his own against him, and he can get just as angry and intense as Cartman does. And that’s what Cartman wants! Because he’s childish! He sees everything as a game, even when a situation is actually very serious, so he likes it when Kyle fights back because he sees it as a challenge/part of the fun.

oh babe

to be fair the concept of craig being whipped is more explicit in fanon perceptions than canon, but, they do have basis in canon craig’s attitude towards tweek i.e. fanon perceptions of him can seem hyperbolic or out of character at times, but they weren’t pulled out of the abyss, they’re there because canon craig has very strong affections for tweek as well, it’s just that fanon craig’s and canon craig’s affections aren’t always displayed in exactly the same way. canon craig’s whipped attitude is shown more through various types of gestures, but of course in fandom culture fanon craig’s whipped attitude is shown a lot of the time through physical affection, which is why it can often seem like there’s little correlation. with fanon craig’s affection all you have to do is train your eyes in the direction of some art and see them making out, with canon craig’s affection it’s a question of looking more closely at what happens and understanding the reason and symbolism behind his gestures (some of these gestures are of course physical, like holding hands and hands on backs, so but they’re not as arguably hyperbolic as the fanon physical affection (again another sign that fanon perceptions have basis in the canon reality of it))

(i’m not gonna go into tweek x craig in great detail in this cus that’s a whole other post altogether, but i’m going to look at pretty much everything else)

the first thing is identifying the most basic fact, which is that it’s obvious that craig actively likes tweek’s company (a privilege not many people have since not many people have the ability to not bore or annoy craig, already placing tweek amongst some of craig’s favourite people)

it’s something that can be seen before tweek x craig:

and after tweek x craig, even more so since they’re now officially a couple:

keep in mind that in all of these they’re not required to be seen together for the main plot of that scene in the same way that they may be seen together in scenes revolved around them, however considering it’s matt and trey this show holds no coincidences — what you can interpret from all this is that they’re shown to be with each other for a reason, however it’s not because the script itself requires it for the main plot of that particular scene to move forward, so it must be something else

basically what i’m saying is that, it’s obvious they have at the very least a base-line liking for each other (both with their friendship and their relationship). this on its own of course is not enough to prove that craig is ‘whipped’, but it’s enough to show that he does regard tweek as someone he wants in his life (and vice versa of course)

what really shows how much affection craig has for tweek is through his gestures, both physical/verbal and wider-scheme gestures

with his physical/verbal gestures, there are a few key things about his character to keep in mind: he is not a compassionate or affectionate person by nature. what three newer seasons and a game show about how he acts with tweek doesn’t erase the fact that, by classic nature, he’s an asshole. an insensitive apathetic unfeeling asshole who previously wouldn’t be caught dead giving anyone any sort of affectionate nickname and has a history of targeting kids and leading bullying campaigns (as in he’s the one leading the act of bullying other kids) and is never seen willingly giving anyone any sort of physical reassurance of any kind. all of this is the direct opposite of how he acts around tweek — willingly holding hands, touching his back both as reassurance and just as a sign of pure affection (for example in the second last screenshot above), calling him “honey” and “babe” basically all the time (even when no one else is around), trying his best to calm down tweek and help him feel better in any way he can, trying his best not to ostracise tweek for his emotions (again all keeping in mind how extreme tweek’s emotions can be, which would be taxing and draining for basically anyone to have to deal with). craig is not typically an affectionate or caring person, exactly the opposite in fact, and yet he devotes himself to tweek’s comfort and happiness (only stopping when he either has literally no visible way to help, or when he succeeds in helping tweek feel better). instead of causing pain to others and caring nothing for others’ emotions, he tries to bring tweek a state of being content and happy because he genuinely wants tweek to feel so, showing that tweek is his personal exception.

(this is gonna be exploring his wider gestures, specifically in Put It Down, in more detail) i personally think that his ‘wider’ gestures go further in showing his genuine care for tweek because they’re not nearly as quick or easy as putting a reassuring hand on his back or saying “go home and make some cupcakes, honey” (an actual quote from him), and they’re certainly not something he’d even dream of doing for any other character. throughout the entire episode he was trying to help tweek feel more secure: advising him to try and appeal to Kim using his strengths, buying him a fidget spinner (which yes did nothing to help admittedly, but he tried on the grounds that he really did think it would help and in this context that’s what counts), not getting annoyed with him for coming into his room at whatever hour at night that was and literally screaming into his ear and STILL trying to listen to him despite being sleepy, taking him out on a theme park date in denver to try and help him feel better and trying to appeal to his favourite ride, trying to reason with tweek even when it was clear he was running out of patience (and we know his logical reasoning wasn’t the right approach, but at the time he had no idea at all and tweek was literally the first human he’d ever put substantial effort into supporting, and keep in mind they’re only ten-year-olds who aren’t supposed to have much experience in relationships, so you can’t blame the poor boy for having no previous experience and knowledge of what to do. he’s an apathetic science and maths nerd, he’s only ever had to deal with logic before getting together with tweek) (seriously though he really was trying, i feel for him) (plus compare it to how quickly he ran out of patience with the main gang in the pandemic episodes of s12, so he really is trying to keep his cool here for tweek’s sake), only giving up when in his mind he had tried absolutely everything, BUT when he heard heidi’s speech he immediately left the school with a big smile on his face and all previous annoyance at tweek vanished, turned up at tweek’s house and without hesitation got tweek to think through all his emotions despite tweek’s initial annoyance and confusion, and ON TOP OF ALL THIS he willingly sang a solo for part of an original song with tweek even though he has no interest in dramatic arts or music or performances at all (not to mention his voice isn’t exactly ideal for singing, but he would have known this and willingly went along with it anyway) and then continued to sing throughout the rest of the song at the front of the stage in front of hundreds of adults hand in hand with tweek. this is all remarkably out of character for someone who normally is just a plain old dick, and it’s only ever tweek he shows this amount of regard and concern and effort for