From left to right: Eric Cartman, Kyle Broflovski, Stan Marsh, and Kenny McCormick.
Click here to see them as adults
Click here to see them as adults
A quartet of foulmouthed elementary schoolers based on the superstitious belief that children will regress into vulgarity and irreverence without adult supervision. They are quite possibly Western Animation's most infamous examples of Kids Are Cruel, but they nevertheless come out clean and learn An Aesop at the end of the day.
open/close all folders
General
- Adorably Precocious Child: All four of them are prone to possessing the knowledge of adults or teenagers in the recent seasons and voicing their opinions on the recent news, but still have that childish side to them nonetheless.
- Aesop Amnesia: Due to Status Quo Is God being played straight prior to Season 18, the boys usually forget whatever lesson they previously learned and are back to their rebellious ways by the next week. Though they did go through Character Development and they sans Cartman did become more mature over the course of the series.
- Anti-Hero: All four boys have different shades of anti-heroism.
- Stan usually varies between a Pragmatic Hero to a Knight in Sour Armor.
- Kyle varies between Pragmatic Hero to Unscrupulous Hero depending on how much he's fueled by his hatred towards Cartman.
- Cartman is usually a Nominal Hero, though this only applies in seasons 1-4 as later seasons portray him more as a Villain Protagonist, though he still takes the role of the Nominal Hero occasionally.
- Kenny could be seen as the most heroic of the four boys, but his numerous deaths have led him to become a Knight in Sour Armor and is definitely The Hedonist.
- All of the Other Reindeer: At the start of the series, they were relatively well-liked by their classmates, and were perfectly willing to bully their less popular peers. However, as the show went on, a combination of Character Development and Characterization Marches On led their social status to become much more fragile. According to Craig, all of the other kids think they're assholes. Even if he was exaggerating, it still isn't all that unusual for their popularity to dip beneath Butters. Though their popularity is constantly in flux, being despised by their peers in some episodes, and having sleepovers with them in others. Generally speaking, Stan, Kyle and Kenny are usually in good standing with the other kids, although they have a rivalry now with Craig, Clyde and Token who have their own little group. The lightning rod of the disdain is, of course, Eric Cartman, who is the most hated kid in school by far. As much as the other kids pick on Butters, their hatred of Cartman is exponentially greater.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Excluding Cartman, they're generally well-meaning, if occasionally troublesome. But if you get on their bad side, you will regret it.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Kenny's the perverted Blonde, Stan and Cartman are the Brunettes, and Kyle's the short-tempered Redhead.
- Boring, but Practical: Stan, Kyle, and Kenny were finally able to defeat Cartman in the revised future by simply cutting ties with him and ignoring him for the rest of their lives. Given what a massive Attention Whore Cartman is, when the boys decide to no longer indulge in his behavior anymore and stop hanging out with him, Cartman goes mad with loneliness and becomes a drunk and miserable hobo who has lost all of his skills as a Manipulative Bastard as a result of them refusing to interact with him. Thus, Cartman is no longer the menace he once was, while the trio are finally able to live happy lives free from Cartman’s influence.
- Butt-Monkey: All four of them have had their own moments of suffering misfortunes:
- Cartman was perpetually on the receiving end of obesity jokes much to his chagrin. In addition, the very first episode is literally about Cartman having been anal-probed by aliens and farting flames before his eventual abduction. While he's still prone to bad luck in the recent seasons, he's become more deserving of it due to his tendency to commit
Moral Event Horizon acts, though this is implied for him to have done so because of his position on the receiving end prior. - Stan was bullied by his sister Shelley, which was slowly phased out over time.
- Kyle is a frequent target for Cartman's anti-Semitic jokes, slur-spewing, and humiliations like having to stick his finger up his ass to activate an anal probe or be forced to literally suck his balls.
- Kenny was the resident butt-monkey and chew toy in the early years, sharing this role with Pip before Butters was introduced a regular character. His abject poverty was a frequent target for Cartman's ridicule. What's more, he had the infamous tendency to die in every episode only to be revived by the following week.
- Cartman was perpetually on the receiving end of obesity jokes much to his chagrin. In addition, the very first episode is literally about Cartman having been anal-probed by aliens and farting flames before his eventual abduction. While he's still prone to bad luck in the recent seasons, he's become more deserving of it due to his tendency to commit
- Characterization Marches On: In the older seasons, they were all average and mischievous foul-mouthed schoolyard kids who targeted the less fortunate and engaged in rebellious behavior for the fun of it. Fast-forward to Season 12, and they've become more opinionated and brutally honest in regards to the world's imperfections. Pretty much reaches its epitome by Season 18, where the show has developed a story arc.
- Childhood Friends: They have known each other since preschool... and even back then, Kyle and Cartman were Vitriolic Best Buds.
- Color-Coded Characters:
- Cartman — Red, blue, and yellow
- Stan — Brown, blue, and red
- Kyle — Orange and green
- Kenny — Orange
- Additionally, the boys who wear blue are voiced by Trey Parker while the boys who wear orange are voiced by Matt Stone.
- Cruel Mercy: This is Stan, Kyle, and Kenny’s decision on how to finally deal with Cartman. Rather than seek revenge on Cartman for what he’s done to them, they just ignore him and leave him alone while they live their lives. However, since Cartman is a massive Attention Whore, this drives him mad with loneliness and misery to the point he becomes a homeless alcoholic who’s done nothing with his life, a fate far worse than anything the boys could come up with, which even causes Stan and Kyle to feel sorry for him.
- Cute Bruiser: With the exception of Cartman (though even he has his moments), all of them have shown remarkable hand-to-hand combat skills; they effortlessly toss around another group of kids in "Faith Hilling"; Kenny (as Mysterion) beats up an older girl in "The Poor Kid"; Kyle knocks out Cartman with a single punch in "Doubling Down"; Stan takes seconds to subdue the other boys fighting over Bebe with a femur almost twice his size in "Bebe's Boobs Destroy Society", among other examples.
- Deadpan Snarker: They all have their moments of witty banter and sarcasm, though Cartman, moreso.
- Depending on the Writer:
- Their intelligence fluctuates by episode. In some, they are capable of taking on adult responsibilities and rant about the wrongs in modern-day society, which has become more prominent in the recent seasons, while in others they can't even tell the difference between TV and real life.
- How close the Boys are also fluctuates on the episode. They can range from being True Companions who are firmly loyal to each other to actively screwing each other over for their own ends. The former is more consistent in later seasons, while the latter was the norm in Season 1.
- The morality of the boys. Cartman is consistently the worst of the four, but Stan and Kyle can either be shown to have a much higher moral standard, compared to Cartman, or be shown to be not much better than him. Kenny tends to be the most heroic of the four, but has acted as Cartman's right-hand man at times, especially in earlier seasons.
- Dirty Coward: At their absolute worst. If their actions unintentionally cause disastrous results and could make them face serious consequences, they will do anything, like lying to the authorities (which is perjury) and throwing anyone (mainly Butters) under the bus, to avoid responsibility and save their own hide. "Pre-School" and "Good Times with Weapons" are two good examples of this.
- Divergent Character Evolution: As kids, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny look no different from each other, and are almost impossible to differentiate by their design if they changed their attire in a way that covered their hair. As adults, however, their facial structures have diverged to resemble Matt and Trey's in Kyle and Stan's respective case, with different designs for their nose, ears, and chin. On Kenny's part, though his facial structure is similar to Stan's, he also has a shaggy beard that differentiates him from the others. Averted with Cartman who was always distinguishable from the others with or without his clothes, both as a child and as an adult.
- Dysfunction Junction: All of their personal lives are heavily flawed at best:
- Stan is prone to having depressive episodes, such as going goth after Wendy broke up with him in "Raisins", or turning to whiskey to cope with his newfound cynicism in "Ass Burgers." His relatives include an impulsive and childish father, a Knight Templar mother in early seasons, an aggressive and violent older sister, a suicidal and forgetful grandfather, and a jingoistic uncle. He has to put up with townspeople, friends, and classmates with ludicrous and often demented trains of thought that clash with his more passive personality. Additionally, despite Kenny's infamously perverted attitude, Stan has to deal with the downsides of romance the most out of the four boys due to his on-and-off relationship with Wendy.
- Kyle deals with daily antisemitic bigotry from Cartman in addition to the latter's ridiculous ploys to humiliate him. His adopted little brother (who's in kindergarten) went through "Canadian puberty" in "Taming Strange" and had a relationship with his teacher in "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy." He has a melodramatic and overprotective mother that went to war with said brother's home country because of a vulgar movie, a father that viciously trolls women on the Internet during his free time, and an extremely stereotypically Jewish cousin that occasionally visits the Broflovskis. Stan, and Kenny to a lesser, are the only people close to Kyle without a toxic need to embarrass him.
- Cartman is frequently, and brutally, insulted for his weight (not that it's undeserved), has several mental problems that can only be broadly defined, and equally complicated views on sex and romance. Both the adults in town and his fellow kids, including his "friends", despise him (again, not without reason), and his physical health is so poor it gave South Park Elementary the worst fitness score in the whole country in "1%." None of this is helped by his mother, who validates her son's awful personality by giving him everything he wants out of desperation for friends. As of Season 25's "City People", Cartman and Liane live in an old hot dog-shaped diner because he made her quit her job, losing their house in the process. This eventually changes in Season 26's "DikinBaus Hot Dogs", when Butters forces Cartman into moving in his old house after he pushed Butters' buttons one too many times.
- Kenny is part of South Park's poorest family, which consists of his alcoholic parents that always fight and abuse each other, his apparently equally alcoholic older brother, and a little sister that he is immensely protective of. His immortality doesn't prevent him from feeling pain when he dies, and to make things worse, no one remembers his deaths. Unlike the other kids, Kenny's superhero persona is not a game and he genuinely tries using his superpower to his advantage for his vigilante work, meaning that Kenny, as Mysterion, is quite possibly one of the few competent "authority figures" in South Park, making the boy's life even more stressful.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Like the rest of the show, the Boys were affected by the earlier seasons' quirks:
- All four of them were much more childlike in the early episodes despite swearing like sailors and getting themselves into absurd, and often adult, scenarios. Nowadays, they are much savvier, and even mature compared to most adults in town.
- Stan and Kyle were the interchangeable voice of reason, but they were nevertheless brats and part time bullies. They were also known for their negative relationships with their siblings. Stan was routinely abused by Shelley, while Kyle regularly played "Kick the Baby" with Ike and disowned him once he found out they're not biologically related in "Ike's Wee Wee". Shelley now tends to direct her ire more towards Sharon and Randy (in typical teen girl fashion), and Kyle and Ike are much closer. In fact, Ike is probably the person Kyle cares for the most aside from Stan.
- Stan was much more neurotic when it came to romance, and regularly vomited in front of his crush, while Kyle's relationship with his Jewish heritage was more ambivalent, especially during Christmas. Nowadays, Stan is as calm as ever around Wendy, and his love for animals, passive nature, cynicism, and frustration with his peers are just as important to his character as his status as the "normal guy", while Kyle's Judaism in modern episodes is only important when the plot revolves around family traditions or Cartman's bigotry. While Kyle's Judaism was his defining trait in the early days, and it still is to an extent, his strong moral compass, book smarts, and short fuse matter just as much now.
- Cartman had a higher and much raspier voice, a plethora of catchphrases, and was generally more obnoxious and spoiled, i.e. he only bothered his mom for food and toys and he only teased Kyle for being Jewish because his family didn't celebrate Christmas. He was also much stupider, even for an eight-year-old. Modern Cartman has a much deeper voice with a more pronounced accent that barely sounds like his old voice. His catchphrases are only used for nostalgic throwbacks and have mostly been replaced with his vocal quirks ("skewl", "I'm seriously"). He is now a capable schemer, but his bigotry has become sincere and targets virtually anyone that is part of a marginalized or minority group. His relationship with his mother is also more twisted, mean-spirited, and manipulative.
- Kenny was originally a Living Prop and a Phrase Catcher known for dying in every episode and being able to have raunchier dialogue than other characters because his parka muffled his voice. After his semi-permanent death in "Kenny Dies" and return at the end of Season 6, Kenny became more of an Advertised Extra, and barely contributed to plotlines. As the show evolved, he kept his perversion and vulgarity, but got more development. The show went from treating his deaths like an iconic Running Gag to actually providing an explanation for their existence. Kenny also became a superhero to both stop crime in South Park and improve his dysfunctional home life. While classic Kenny is more like a mascot, contemporary Kenny is arguably the most heroic character in the show.
- Flanderization: With the exception of Kenny (whose perverted tendencies have been notably toned down), all three of their traits have become more prevalent as the show continues.
- Stan and Kyle's statuses as the only sane men have increased either due to the adults' incompetence or Cartman's ridiculously cruel and sociopathic actions.
- Speaking of whom, Cartman has become more sociopathic and malicious following the infamous "Scott Tenorman Must Die", also becoming more criminal and manipulative in the process. Compare him in the first four seasons, where he was a naïve bully with a good heart, and you'll notice how drastically he's changed.
- Kyle and Cartman's rivalry went from childish teasing to full-blown hatred.
- Four-Man Band:
- Stan — Only Sane Man
- Kyle — Hot-Tempered Smart Guy
- Cartman — Fat Comedic Sociopath
- Kenny — Lovable Sex Maniac Butt-Monkey
- Four-Temperament Ensemble:
- Stan: Phlegmatic. He's calm, sensitive, caring, easygoing, friendly, somewhat shy, and even-tempered, rarely losing his cool.
- Cartman: Choleric. He's a loud, callous, and domineering brat who loves wearing his sociopathic instability on his sleeves.
- Kyle: Melancholic. He's temperamental, morally-driven and the most compassionate and emotional of the group. In earlier seasons, he's occasionally seen as an outcast. Additionally, Cartman's shenanigans often get the best of his mood.
- Kenny: Sanguine. A perverted Dirty Kid who's shown to be light-hearted and hedonistic. Underneath his hood, he's heroically selfless, loyal, and can be surprisingly eloquent.
- Free-Range Children: They're old enough to wander outside without adult supervision and frequently travel outside of Colorado to places like outer space, Peru, and Canada.
- Guile Hero: In their Crapsack World, they tend to save the day by being smarter and having more common sense than the adults (though Cartman tends to border more into Manipulative Bastard territory).
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: They're Vitriolic Best Buds, but they're always on each other's side in the end and are not embarrassed to exhibit their emotional sensitivity should something bad happen to one another. Even Cartman still manages to gain some acceptance from the other three every now and then.
- Ink-Suit Actor: Stan and Kyle's adult selves in Post Covid look just like Trey Parker and Matt Stone, respectively. Kyle no longer having his afro is even similar to Matt Stone losing his afro in later years.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: They're all foul-mouthed, selfish, bratty, and rude, but ultimately, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny are good kids at heart who will go out of their way to help others and protect their town. Even Cartman, the Token Evil Teammate of the bunch, has the odd Pet the Dog moment to show he's not all bad.
- Karma Houdini: Often due to the fact that the adults in town are either useless or just as immature and irresponsible, the boys tend to receive zero comeuppance for their Troubling Unchildlike Behavior.
- Kid Hero: They are (sans Cartman) often the ones who save the day.
- Kids Are Cruel: They are based on the suspicious belief parents hold about how their children would behave without the presence of an authority figure. Technically speaking, the Boys are notorious for using foul language, disrespecting authority, watching vulgar media, and bullying the less fortunate. This becomes Downplayed around Season 12, where the show becomes more up to date in regards to Real Life events and the boys in turn become more culturally adept.
- Mundane Solution: How do Stan, Kyle, and Kenny finally defeat the sociopathic Eric Cartman and put an end to his threat for good? Simply break ties with him and ignore them for the rest of their lives, where Cartman loses what manipulative skills he had and devolves into a screaming, miserable, homeless alcoholic who has done nothing with his life and has gone mad as a result of being alone for so long.
- Never Bareheaded: Except for Cartman (who is frequently seen without his hat), they almost never take off their hats. In Kyle's case, it's to hide a really embarrassing Jewfro. Kenny never took off his hood, so no-one knew what he looked like until he finally took it off in the movie.
- Nice, Mean, and In-Between: Of the three main boys (as Kenny is more Out of Focus than the others), there's the generally easy-going Stan (nice), the racist and manipulative Jerkass Cartman (mean) and the usually morally-correct Kyle who nonetheless has a short temper and sometimes grabs the Jerkass Ball (in-between).
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Downplayed. They are quite small (being pint sized kids) and while they do not possess super human strength, they are able to lift stuff just as big or even much bigger than them. For example in "Margaritaville" Stan was able to carry a mixer about as big as him through town and even to Washington with ease and in "Death" Cartman, Stan and Kyle were able to lift a cow together.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: They are quite an interesting group to say the least and they sometimes go out of their way to save the day. With mixed results.
- Cartman displays a lot of narcissistic and sociopathic behavior, discriminates probably against all possible groups and is also The Friend Nobody Likes. He is very prone to Insane Troll Logic but can also be very manipulative. While he is capable of love and compassion, the usually get overshadowed by his evil deeds.
- Kyle is The Smart Guy and a Nice Jewish Boy with a strong moral code, but he's also Hot-Blooded and his emotions can get the better of him, causing him to fall for certain tricks or overreact big time sometimes. He is also Cartman's Arch-Enemy.
- Kenny is a poor kid who wears a parka that covers his mouth, causing him to sound muffled (though the people close to him have no problems understanding what he says). He is also a Dirty Kid, The Hedonist and a Thrill Seeker. Despite this, he has a good heart and even has a superhero alter-ego named Mysterion. He dies often but always comes back to life without anyone remembering his deaths.
- Stan is the most normal, being The Everyman and the show's biggest Only Sane Man, but he has plenty of Not So Above It All moments. He is the most sensitive from the group and used to be prone to vomit out of stress when meeting his crush. He is also a Knight in Sour Armour and an Unfazed Everyman.
- Relative Button: The boys may find their families annoying, but will still get defensive if anyone badmouths them.
- Stan told a sleazy salesman to kill himself for taking advantage of his grandfather's aging mind.
- Kyle blows up whenever someone calls his mother a bitch or threatens Ike.
- Cartman goes into denial when his mother's promiscuity is brought up.
- Kenny will punch out anyone that bullies his sister.
- Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: They form two pairs for who is sensitive and manly respectively. Zig-Zagged, considering all of them have both masculine and sensitive traits.
- Stan is an animal lover and usually prefers making peace rather than fighting while Kyle holds the highest morals in the group and is generally the most compassionate of his friends (although he has one hell of a temper) (Sensitive Guys).
- On the other hand, Cartman (despite his fondness for tea parties and dress-up) is forceful, aggressive, and sadistic (though he is mostly a wimp, with some exceptions), while Kenny is primarily interested in sex and drugs and perhaps has been seen crying the least among his friends (Manly Men). Kenny did cross-dress as a princess a few times though.
- Within those specific pairs, Stan (Sensitive) is much less willing to get confrontational about things while Kyle (Manly) is pretty hot-headed, and Kenny (Sensitive) is laid-back, good-natured and quiet while Cartman (Manly) is abrasive, loud and inconsiderate. Stan is the most sensitive from the main boys, but he is also the only one of them who never cross-dressed, is good at sports, has plenty of traditionally masculine interests and occasionally acts as the Team Dad.
- Signature Headgear: All of the main four characters wear iconic headgear which are recognizable outside of the show:
- Stan's blue hat with a red poofball
- Kyle's bright green ushanka
- Cartman's teal beanie with a yellow poofball
- Kenny's orange hood.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Notorious for having the mouths of sailors, although Kenny's vulgarity is heavily implied since his mouth is covered by his hood, making his dialogue unintelligible.
- Sweet Tooth: Like most kids, all four of them love sweets and desserts.
- Team Kids: Zigg Zagged with Kyle, Cartman and Kenny. Stan often fulfills the role of the Team Dad, but sometimes he isn't responsible or he is on an equal ground with some or all o them. Also, while the other boys support or call Stan out on occasion, it is never to the point of treating him like a son. The three boys also do not always act like the team children at the same time.
- Kyle would be the "oldest son". He is the most mature and responsible after Stan and finds himself on an equal level with him the most of the time. He is usually the one who assists Stan and he is likely to take charge when the latter is absent or incapacitated (though it is particularly hard for him to work with Cartman). Kyle can also be quite protective and supportive of Stan at times. However, he has a hell of a temper, not helped by his antagonism towards Cartman, which causes him to loose control usually resulting in Stan stepping in to calm him down. There are also instances of Stan scolding Kyle for wrong actions and offering him emotional support.
- Cartman would be the "Unfavorite", The Friend Nobody Likes. While Stan doesn't antagonize him as much as Kyle does, he still clearly dislikes him and isn't usually keen on helping him. However, there have been times when Stan showed genuine empathy towards Cartman and the latter respects him somehow.
- Kenny would be the Baby Of The Bunch. While he isn't weak or innocent, he is the youngest and the most quiet. Unlike Kyle, Kenny for the most part just goes along with the plan without offering his ideas. While Kyle is Stan's best friend, Stan seems more watchful towards Kenny (i.e. offering advice and instructions more often, and doing helpful gestures like putting a coat on his back once, something he never did for Kyle) and he has risked his life for Kenny multiple times, similarly to how he has done it for Kyle. In fact, all the boys had been caring towards Kenny on occasion.
- Took a Level in Cynic: Around Season 12, the Boys become more culturally adept in turn of the show becoming more up-to-date about Real Life events, and start to abandon their childish ways in favor of a more mature outlook on life, especially, and ironically, in comparison to the adults.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Stan and Kyle in Season 6 toward Kenny's replacements (Butters, and later Tweek). It's no surprise that Cartman would manipulate others, but it's unusually cruel for them. Cartman in season 5 big time where he went from being usually a Nominal Hero to usually a Villain Protagonist.
- Took a Level in Kindness: They become notably less hostile to social outcasts like Butters and Scott Malkinson by Season 12, even allowing them into their extended group at times.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Since Adults Are Useless, their main schtick is using foul language, outfoxing authority, watching vulgar media, and even engaging in criminality at times.
- True Companions: Lampshaded in the episode "The Biggest Douche in the Universe", when Chef tells Stan and Kyle that Cartman is their friend whether they like him or not. This trope becomes more apparent in later seasons, once their Weirdness Magnet status has begun to wear old; the boys fall victim to All of the Other Reindeer more often, making it evident that, while their classmates may tolerate them, they don't really have any friends outside of one another. As much as they would hate to admit it, they're a textbook example of this trope. This became a key part of the Pandemic specials; thirty years in the future, the group fell apart during the pandemic, with Kenny in particular missing them so much that he invented a time machine just to give their younger selves a chance to become friends again.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Their most defining trait is using aggression and teasing to portray their friendship. They're also not above shunning individual members out of their group for a bit, only to come back together in the end.
- Vocal Dissonance: Despite being 8 years old (currently 10, except for Kenny who is 9) at the beginning of the series, the boys have always had a more pubescent inflection to their voices making them sound 12 or 13. Stan, Kyle, and Cartman in particular have gotten deeper in the more recent seasons, making them sound more like older teenagers than preteen boys.
- Weirdness Magnet: Lampshaded in South Park "Pandemic 2 — The Startling," when Craig gets sucked into the boys' adventure because they were using his birthday money for their scheme.Craig: That's a shock. I decided to follow you guys, and now I'm in the Land of the Giant Lost World.
Stan: Craig, it isn't our fault! You make it sound like we always wanna be in situations like this but we don't have any choice!
Kyle: Yeah! Stuff just happens!
Craig: "Stuff just happens."
Kyle: That's right!
Craig: You just wind up being sent by the government to take down the city of Lima only to wind up in the Land of the Giant Lost World.
Cartman: That's right.
Craig: You know what stuff happens to most kids? They fall off their bikes. They get in fights with their parents. They get swindled out of their birthday money. - Wise Beyond Their Years: They're all pretty perceptive for their age, albeit in different ways.
- With Friends Like These...: Cartman versus everyone else. He takes this further than most cases of this trope, as Cartman has almost no redeeming qualities. Also uncommon for the trope, the other characters will flat out tell Cartman that he is a monster. Not only do they state he's a horrible person but that they all hate him and the only reason he was ever with anyone was that they thought he was just always following them or that he was with someone else. After realizing this they decided to ignore him completely. The creators stated that Cartman's relationship to the others is based on their assumption that everyone has one friend that they don't really like. It's worth noting that in the early seasons, Cartman was just a Fat Idiot — his supervillainish disposition evolved over time.
Multiversal Variants
Evil Parallel Universe
Debut: "Spookyfish"
Evil versions of the boys from a parallel universe.
- Beard of Evil: The evil versions of the boys all sport goatees.
- The Bully: According to Evil Cartman, both Evil Stan and Evil Kyle are usually really mean to him for no reason. Later in the episode, the two of them endeavor to get their Cartman back, apparently only out of a desire to continue tormenting him.
- Enemy Mine: Despite a rocky start, Evil Stan and Kyle work with mainline Cartman to take Evil Cartman back to their universe.
- Evil Counterpart: How they're designated, though the definition of "evil" is pretty vague to the point of parody. Evil Stan and Kyle are more aggressive towards Cartman, but then again their good counterparts aren't that different. Evil Cartman on the other hand is an unambiguous Nice Guy.
- The Ghost: Evil Kenny was presumably killed before he could cross into the main universe. According to Evil Cartman he's quite affluent since he'd just bought a new car.
- Jerkass: Evil Kyle immediately resorts to wrecking the Indian burial ground pet store and freeing all the evil pets into the town when its owner didn’t immediately give him the information he wanted concerning Evil Cartman. Evil Stan is also quite unpleasant and callously tries to shoot Evil Cartman with a portal gun to get him back, almost shooting the wrong Cartman in the process.
- Nice Guy: Evil Cartman could rival Butters when it comes to this, being genuinely charitable and kindhearted to everyone around him, even mainline Cartman.
- Perpetual Frowner: Evil Stan and Kyle are always shown with angry expressions on their faces.
- Privilege Makes You Evil: Mainline Kenny is dirt poor and a good kid, but his Evil Counterpart can afford to buy a new car, though it is never directly stated that this is the cause of the latter being evil.
- Villainy-Free Villain: Evil Cartman is actually nice outright helpful and much better than his counterpart. In fact, he is Villain in name only. Evil Stan and Kyle meanwhile don't have any greater ambition than to drag Evil Cartman back home.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: When Evil Stan and Kyle cross into the mainline universe to get their Cartman back, the mainline boys vow to defend him, as they like him more than ‘’their’’ Cartman. After defeating their counterparts, the boys then turn the gun on Cartman, who then manages to trick them into shooting Evil Cartman, sending the latter back into his universe where he can be tormented by his Stan and Kyle.
Panderverse
Debut: "South Park: Joining the Panderverse"
Versions of the boys from a unverse where everyone is a woman of color.
- Ambiguously Gay: It's not clear if all four of them are lesbians or if it's just Kenny.
- Badass Armfold: The quartet all assume tough girl poses, with Kenny and Cartman folding their arms as if to establish that these are strong independent women.
- Distaff Counterpart: They are all Gender Flipped versions of the boys.
- Gamer Chick: Panderverse Cartman shares her prime counterpart's love of video games, and similarly puts playing Baldur's Gate III above anything else going on.
- Have I Mentioned I Am Gay?: Panderverse Kenny is confirmed to be a lesbian due to inheriting her mainline counterpart's obsession with titties.
- Hotter and Sexier: They're adults who dress far more stylishly and Panderverse Cartman is a Big Beautiful Woman rather than obese.
- Race Lift: Played for laughs. They come from four non-white ethnic groups. Stan is Latin-American, Kyle is South Asian, Cartman is African-American and Kenny is East Asian.
- Sassy Black Woman: Panderverse Cartman is African American and shares his trademark brattiness.
- Skewed Priorities: Panderverse Cartman doesn't care that she's trapped in another dimension, until she realizes that her progress on Balder's Gate III wasn't saved in this one.
- Soapbox Sadie: Panderverse Kyle complains about white males and the patriarchy, despite neither being visible in their world.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Just like their Prime counterparts, the other three trade insults with Cartman and frequently argue with each other.
