The most mistreated character rant collaborative analysis

As many of you know, I've made multiple comments and two posts ranting and reviewing about the season. Here is [Part 1, check it out if you missed it.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Totaldrama/comments/1978mwx/total_drama_2024_review_rant/) And for a certain character, look no further than how screwed over they were, so much that he wasn't even in the theme song. Their plot looked great as they progressed through the series, even if rocky, and were prepared to reach stardom, but were hit and bamboozled without a moment's notice. This is the worst elimination in this season of Total Prileb, my mistake, Drama, and honestly of the whole reboot. These two seasons were the first that I had watched live, so seeing our robbed king being treated is utterly disgraceful.

My man Damien (best drip and rocking design), the guy that we all wanted to win or to at least go deep, with the great buildup from season 1 elimination (thought it was stupid myself, but he did do it to himself) where he can come back and not cower from his fears anymore, had one of the most disgraced eliminations that this sub and fandom has ever seen. It's so bad that it went to the point that Damiens haters have called out the elimination because what the actual hell was what unfolded in front of our eyes? Some comments that said it better than myself from other great users on here, starting with a comment that I have used to reference a lot by u/luxanna123321:

"What bothers me is that Total drama writers had so many years to actually research what fans enjoy, what we dislike, and yet they proceed to make the same mistakes that they made years ago like they haven't learned a thing. We want more interactions, we don't want boring relationships to take 80% of the story, we don't want a winner from the previous season to make the top 4/5 again because it makes the whole show way too predictable"

The romance thing especially for this season for Caleb and Priya hogging all of the screentime was the worst in this franchise so far. A whole decade for the writers to see what we like and don't like and what mistakes shouldn't be made again, yet not only are some of these being made, but they are arguably worse, such as Damiens elimination that fits right into AS. In the past, we've had issues with Owen making top three in action, or Gwen making top 4 in AS after they had already won, yet they do the same thing with Priya again, this time being worse than other times in the past since more characters actually suffered, including Priya herself, and people like Caleb only existing as Priyas BF. A fan favorite being treated like a turd in a dumpster is unbelievable and makes it AS quality. We will discuss later in this review so lets start with the beginning of his journey. I'd even argue that he should've gone further in the first season.

In season one Damien starts as an excited camper not knowing what the show is, but then he later wants to quit when he finds out what Total Drama is about, then when he wants to play Damien gets voted out. This was one of the more frustrating eliminations even though he did it to himself with the trope of "If I want it, I don't get it, but the moment I don't want it, it happens (credit to u/Caesars_Seraph)." He was someone this season who brought something new since the original Island since Damien has never seen or known about the show, to begin with, which makes his reactions great to watch. This is what leads to a campaign of Damien wanted to be voted out.

In what was the worst episode of the season, Jurassic Fart, Damien was a shining bright light that couldn't be dimmed even in the shows. He saved Ripper, Millie and Priya from the raptor. He shoves a pot of beans in a raptor's mouth, saving his team and causing the kitchen to blow up. This gives him enough confidence to be more willing to play the game for the money. Unfortunately, he forgot to tell his teammates this and he was voted out that night as gratitude for saving them. The boot was annoying but at least it was building into the next season, with everyone in the sub and online having him in the finale and going deep into the game. Hell, due to some scenes, Damien had a ship set sailed with Priya. All in all, he was one of the fan favorites even with his early boot, and so many positive posts came along with how pure and excellent of a character he was with high hopes.

u/Hault99 brought up a great point about Damien in a post stating, "I finished watching the new season & my favorite character is Damien. One of the things I admired about him is his quick-thinking and intelligence, he explained the science of certain phenomena and used that to help his teammates in certain challenges and even saved their lives. I really hope Damien wins next season, he is my favorite." We all expected him to be some wannabe rapper but they subdiverted our expectations and made him the normal guy of the season. u/nope96 also shows how well they combined him not knowing much about the show and his smarts, saying: "I like how they found a way to mix the fact he had no idea wtf was going on with the fact he’s legitimately smart, you usually don’t get that. Everything he said about why sharks shouldn’t be in freshwater checks out, but because this is Total Drama none of that matters and there are sharks anyway."

Now lets get started with Damien for season 2, where he has a bit of an underwhelming beginning since he had little to no screentime and was the same as the previous season in the first episode. This leads to the fandom being a little disappointed and his stock fell down a little. I kept faith that he would step it up after that pathetic first episode, and boy did he pick things up. Luckily it picked up the next episode where he gets cold heartedly pushed down the four pointer by Millie, his friend after a wonderful idea to go blindfolded so he wont second guess himself. The whole team even respects the effort he's doing, yet Millie pushes him down for a sick joke. They patched things up but Millie gets eliminated. He coasts for the next two until episode 6 he wins invincibility in an amazing fashion, taking out Zee, Julia, and Bowie against all odds. He then shows to be a leader in the cooking challenge and to be a excellent competitor in the pinball challenge. At this point in the season, out of 16 contestants and 8 challenges, Damien wins two of them which is an excellent showing.

Now we reach what I call, the AS episode of the season. Over the last episodes, Caleb and Priya absolutely hogged all of the screentime, taking out other plots and characters for their bs. Unfortunately, Damien was the next boot and it was awful to watch. Only for things to be even stupider than I imagined. I’ve never been so crushed by an elimination like this before. Things were looking great for him with the rivalry building and it was so miserable to watch, and Julia’s taunting pissed me off here. What’s worse is who they decided to keep him in for, tell me why Priya lasted past episode 10. From u/___Bee_____: "Zero scenes on Julia finding out and stealing his idol and felt like a way to drag on Priya for 2 more episodes even though her arc could've reached a good conclusion at ep 10. This closed the doors for a potentially great rivalry between Damien and Julia." This was such an a**pull here and honestly a cheap and weak excuse. At that point, while I was still going to watch, most of my interest had just drained after watching that abominable elimination. Another comment from u/bitchimback69 speaks big facts: "I don’t even want to speak of his elimination. man was done so dirty so the writers could keep around Priya and Caleb and their boring plot that no one gives a shit abt."

An intriguing thing is that on YT, after the episode of Damien's elimination, the views drastically went down. It's even crazier that even Damien haters called out the elimination. The best candidate for the finalist was thrown away for this hella weak plot. Hell, even u/asherthephoenix had some excellent rants about this.

This was my breaking point this season. A crack showed in episode 4 with emma being mocked and Nichelle and Bowie getting booted because of offscreen bs. Hell, even Zee getting a mean spirited exit by making him reveal secrets when the poor guy was hounded just to keep Caleb in the game. But this, AS level writing really takes the cake.

Wayne, who I wanted to win, goofed off for half the finale and had no interactions with the other finalists. It felt like it was Caleb vs Julia the whole time until Wayne came back at the last second. Also, Raj should've been booted earlier if they were to make Wayne do more by himself. Side note, I believe that Wayne should've won the challenge in episode 12 since he faced his fears well. His win would be much better received in that case. The writers definitely should've given it to him as well. Caleb was very inconsistent to the point in the finale, "emotionally mature" gets tricked by Julia again and again. Julia does everything offscreen, which u/Ace_TD brought up.

"Not a fan (Damien's elimination), I thought he was to idol Priya that would been better but no, idol stolen as everyone expected, it wasn't as bad as being idoled himself, but close enough.

Which brings my problem with Julia: She does too much offscreen that feels plot armorish, getting the fake contract? Off-screen Talking everyone to boot Bowie? Off-screen Talking Caleb to a blackmail alliance? Off-screen Getting a bucket of bacon grease? Off-screen, with the added offender of knowing where Priya was.

and of course, locating and stealing Damien's idol? Off-screen"

No hate to Priya but she had no business going as far as she did instead of Damien here and at this point, her character was redundant and got much worse into freefall over these next two episodes. Weird that people are even trusting Julia in the first place. Last season, there were multiple ongoing plots and bowie and julia had a rivarly that kept each other on check (Bowie initially planned to keep emma till the end but when things didn’t work out, there were adjustments to keep us on our feet, such as when he was going to drop the notebook and how was he going to juggle two alliances.)

While this season caleb and priya were stretched out at that point in the final 6 and julia would always have a plan to no fail and all rivals were taken out in the same episode. The idol plot simply wasn’t enough and really anticlimactic at the end of the day. They rehashed the same plot but pulled a Mal with Courtney's chart, since there were no scenes of Julia finding or seeing that Damien had the idol in the first place. They pretty much stripped away Julias flaws and turned her into Bowie as brought up by u/chinchirakingu, except the schemes have no adjustments and work flawlessly and offscreen. u/lilacempress brings up a great comparison about how Julia feels "a bit too much of Lila from Miraculous Ladybug. The writers want you to think they're competent schemers, but in reality they just dumb down everyone's IQ so they can get away with the same low-effort plans over and over again." That comparison there is absolutely spot on, characters around them are dumbed done just so that the villains can have an easier time with them.

Even Damien's detractors disliked the elimination. u/1ohokthen1 says it well here on Part 1: "I feel the same way. As someone who didn't really like Damien that much, I literally froze for like a minute after watching his BS elimination cause what was that?" I mean look how heartbreaking and miserable it was to watch for anyone showing him running to find his idol, because oh my goodness this was insulting after all the buildup in season one. Had to stop watching for a few minutes just to process what the actual hell happened there on one of the worst eliminations in these past few seasons, easily taking the top spot for the reboot. They didn't even allow him to leave with his head held high since he was running looking for his idol (not even Damien's fault). This AS writing is unacceptable simply put, especially when there was an episode about FEARS. Nobody is even going to laugh at him for this as well.

In that episode from u/Annoying_Sprout_Main, "Damien just got tossed around the whole challenge, got his idol stolen, got his face stung by bees, humiliated and just looked so miserable in his elim when he realized he didn't pull out the statue and ran away to look for it just for the drone to pick him anyways. He didn't just get robbed, but got done dirty and got killed by Julia and Priya's plot armor. Like bruh, even the reason for why the hockey bros voted him out was just for an unfunny ass joke and for Priya to overstay the shit out of her welcome." They severely honed in too much on the humor this season to justify the long plot of Prileb and Julia and tried to be unpredictable and failed. They couldn't even allow Damien who's very pure to leave with his head held high and cut out an epic rivalry. This is simply poor writing. u/chikory pointed out: "Everything feels like a bunch of missed opportunities to reach an unsatisfying ending during which I didn't want to cheer for anyone because none had a story arc worth rooting for over the other; Julia was the villain with nothing at stake if she lost (in comparision to Heather, Alejandro and Lightning in their respective seasons), Wayne had done nothing of note and we're supposed to root for Caleb to... stick it to Julia? Something he doesn't even seem keen on doing himself.

Humour is subjective, but to me this whole season felt like a joke that the writers should've dropped by episode 4, except they took it to the finale and crowned humour as the victor over decent story writing and consistent character behaviour."

This whole boot really pissed me off, and my good friend u/ExtremelyFunName as well whose made some excellent posts about it. They could've done something completely different to throw us off our tracks, yet they don't. u/suh-niff even says, "Exactly! I was waiting the whole season for him to use the invincibility statue. Could have had Julia steal it in the episode she made the threatening letters, not like 4-5 episodes later." It's so anti-climatic that they did the same thing AGAIN and made it worse, after years of seeing what we don't like. Personally, I don't give a damn about Caleb being a pussy or Priya being a maniac with goofy faces. Priya felt like the show was deliberately keeping her on when she should've been out early on, and was easily the worst of this past winner syndrome. The roaring rivalry that could've kept us fresh and intrigued was thrown away, especially with the interesting dynamic it brings. And why even kick Damien over Priya, you know, the girl that won the last season.

To close this out, this season was full of missed plots only to support a plot that was never good in the first place. For YEARS we said that we didn't want to have a romance to hog all of the screentime yet they do it even worse than previous seasons, to the point its egregious in the final 7. As a character who brought fresh energy to the series, Damien faced an unfortunate demise that left fans, even those who might not have been staunch supporters, bewildered. The flaws in this elimination go beyond personal preferences; they echo a broader sentiment of dissatisfaction with the storytelling choices made in the season. This roar from the community, including Damien's detractors, attests to the universal feeling he deserved a more dignified exit. If there is a third season with this gen, which i doubt will happen as Terry seems to be ready to move on to a new cast, then I hope that Damien is treated much better.

​

(u/LunasticPlastic, u/Bowlingbroke, )