Released in 2002, Ice Age was a fun adventure about a misfit herd of mammals
returning an infant to his tribe before the freeze. Its 2006 sequel The Meltdown
follows our trio years later when the ice begins to melt, causing a great flood. During these
prehistoric times, when creatures struggled to survive… heroes and villains were bound
to arise. Which begs the usual question: Who’s the most heroic and most villainous?
I’m Brad with WickedBinge and this is Ice Age Characters Good to Evil.
As usual, we’re going to start with the most noble character and work
our way down to the most vile. These characters are The Good.
Ellie earns the Gold Medal of Good. She serves as the motherly type, or maybe big sister. No one is
certain if it was her sheltered life of believing she was a possum, but she’s without a mean bone in
her body. After her adoptive mother passed away, she stuck by the sides of her little brothers,
Crash and Eddie. As the Meltdown film progresses, she becomes more assertive and finds her place at
the head of the pack with Manny. But deep down, underneath all that thick wholly fur, she’s a
softhearted pushover that looks after everyone. She’s watched over her little stepbrothers,
which certainly has to be a tiring challenge in itself. But years of living as a possum
seem to pay off for her time and time again. That’s a solid sign of adaptability, especially
when half her tasks had size limits strictly for rodents. When compared to the rest of the mammals,
she really possesses a heart of gold that perseveres throughout the entire series.
The Silver Medal of Good goes to Manny, and he made it this high on our list for
a number of reasons. At the beginning of the the first Ice Age film, he held all the cards.
Marching to the sound of his own drum – no obligations, no responsibilities,
no extra baggage to look after. But that all changed when Sid came along and pretty
much refused to leave his side. No matter how much Manny tried to drive it through to Sid,
he couldn’t get rid of him. Maybe it was Sid’s obliviousness that kept them together?
When a pack hunter like Diego shows up as a lone stranger claiming to bring the baby
back to his human tribe, it certainly brought up Manny’s guard. He’s no dummy, and wasn’t about to
get swindled by some predator. Perhaps it was even the baby that started to really break the
ice and get through to Manny’s heart. Whatever it was, he set aside his resentment and anger
toward the humans to do the right thing. To do something like that for the same creature that
took your growing family away, he had a heart of gold buried deep in that furry mountain.
Let’s not forget to mention his entire turnaround from the beginning of the first film.
At first he chose to migrate alone; but over the course of their journey and through risky trials,
he stuck with the herd. The only thing that really kept Manny from first place
was his temper. He tends to fly off with the mouth a bit when he’s annoyed.
The Bronze Medal of Good goes to Sid. Of all our characters from the herd, he possesses a
heart as kind as Ellie’s. Although he wasn’t the most perceptive animal in the kingdom,
Sid made up for his faults with devotion to those he cared about. And he really wasn’t
even intentionally dangerous. More often than not, his most deadly attribute was
clumsiness. How often have we ever seen Sid go beyond annoyance and into a full
rage mode? Though we do have difficulty seeing a Sloth of all mammals having a vicious side.
Granted, it all comes from a place of being a dope; it also comes from a place of innocence.
He only fell this far down our list because intelligence and ability during the Ice Ages
were what proved strength and usefulness. And these two aspects are what help any herd to
survive longest through the challenges of prehistoric frosts. In Sid’s case
– he was more of a liability that came with a few sparks of luck and timing than anything else.
Acquiring the title as Fire King was one of them. I can’t say the same about crushing
the last melon after completing a hundred yard touchdown against the dodos in the first film.
Next, we have Diego: who was one of the better hunters with the pack of saber tooth tigers in
the first film. In the beginning, he was actually quite intimidating – a bloodthirsty killer on
the prowl with a specific appetite for Neolithic tribes. He kind of even scared me playing Where’s
the Baby with Roshan. Big fangs and a devious glare are probably the last things to stop a
baby from crying. After Manfred put himself in danger to save Diego from a lake of lava below,
he began to realize what it meant to travel in a herd. It’s also safe to say there had to be a
sense of comradery bridging the gap between pack hunter and herd member for him to make that kind
of a transformation. This was influenced the more Soto and his pack of sabers slowly lost
faith that Diego would be able to succeed in leading Manny, Sid, and Roshan into a trap.
Once Manny and he both shared a heart to heart about being members of a herd,
it was a little clearer for Diego to realize the secrets of long-term survival.
For example, going together gets anyone further than going alone.
Not to mention, the quality of life is a little better when everyone’s helping with the load.
Next, we have Baby Roshan. What we do know is this little tike doesn’t even know what his
destiny is meant to become. The very creatures that help him survive and reach his father’s tribe
are the same that keeps them alive by being hunted. And yet, there are moments through
the film where Roshan almost acknowledges the herd taking up the duty to get him back to his tribe.
Plus, he’s a baby: infants and children are not born to be evil – they’re taught to be
that way. For all the future could hold with Roshan, he could become leader of
the first human tribe that begins respecting and worshiping the mighty mammoth. Back then,
humans just did what it took to survive in a harsh wilderness and continue their way of life.
But somewhere in that long forgotten history, we continued to work together with what we found
and began domesticating the wild. A connection had to take place in
the distant past where humans looked at mighty hunters of the ancient world and respected them.
Next up, we have both Crash & Eddie who are two peas in a pod – what else can
really be said? However foolish one might act, the other one is sure to top it off.
Their quirkiness was a good way to share a little comic relief
rather than just having Sid look like a fool through the entire franchise.
And they actually have a few strong points ranking them in sixth place on our list. Although they’re
not the sharpest stones in the cave, they certainly make for great sidekicks
and better surprises. These two put teamwork into perspective, where one is never enough
without the other. They’re unrelenting loyalty to their sister can’t be topped,
even after everyone else’s cold exteriors are finally thawed away. The brothers both know one
thing is always more important than anything else, and that’s family sticking together.
Nadia was a natural mother, regardless of her species. Her short role in the first film was
protecting Roshan from the saber pack. She faced against a hungry Diego and Soto filled hungry for
vengeance and sacrificed her life to ensure Roshan survived. Any real mother always puts her child
out of harms way, even if it means at her own expense. It was by sheer luck that she floated
close enough to a shoreline where Manny and Sid wandered. At that moment, she had to trust just
about anything to protect her child. And that motherly instinct inside her spoke loud enough
to trust these two wild animals. We ranked her in seventh place on the good list because
a cave wall’s drawing tells the men of tribes would hunt prey into a trap, often sprung by
the women. That’s a pretty brutal way to kill a baby mammoth and the mother. But we all know
how it goes in the wild; eat or be eaten when the law of the land is survival of the fittest!
Runar was the father of Roshan and the husband of Nadia. The entire migration to Glacier Pass,
he was shown lagging behind his group. With his tribe on the move, we see him occasionally looking
back in pain. Somewhere under that stony face was also a heartbroken father. He has to fall so far
on our list because if we cycle back to survival; all human tribes were trying to accomplish was
outlasting a deep frost. Plus, who’s to say that it wasn’t his tribe to put Manny through so much
pain and suffering? We can’t gather much from him for personality other than being a man of
very few grunts or nods. In the end, we had to put him in last place for morally upright characters.
With the Good section completed, we now move into neutral territory.
These characters fall in the moral Gray Area,
We’ll start with Scrat, who would have been further up the line if it weren’t
for his obsession with storing for the winter. I know, I know – it’s his natural
drive. But he can’t hide behind that when a saber tooth predator can choose to suppress
his own hunger for warm meat. And let’s face facts: he only focused on one nut.
Maybe several nuts of the same flavor, but come on… Find a walnut or something at least, give the
trail mix some variety is all that I’m saying. It also wasn’t his brightest moments to try
burying his finds in some of the worst possible locations. An ice shelf in the
midst of the globe’s temperature rise is a terrible choice for perfect example. This
ultimately split the entire sheet and caused either traveling glaciers or a massive flood.
Dab the dodo bird could have possibly been the least intelligent
character written into the flick. I mean the genesis of his entire existence is named after
their family description – completely dodo. Not to mention they were pretty much militant melon
thieves obsessed with doomsday prepping. And we all know how useful it turned
out to be for them. The majority of their population didn’t even go extinct from the
big freeze: the whole flock practically died out before the first snowfall. Mixing in habitat loss
and rising competition of predators, the odds did them no favors. Their hardiness of overpopulation
was probably why they survived anything at all. Well… at least until the Dutch arrived.
Carl & Frank just wanted to enjoy their last salad before the big frost in the first film.
And the dandelion that garnished the entire dish was the cherry on top that was snatched
away by an obnoxious Sid. With little to no idea of what he just barged all over,
he only added insult to injury. They’d probably have let him off with a good scare at best – if he
didn’t go blabbing off about how dumb they were. Not to mention, he was flinging dung all over the
place trying to clean his foot. Although they had very good reason to have it out for the sloth,
picking a fight with the massive mammoth Sid took shelter behind was pretty foolish.
So maybe Sid was actually on to something after all. Can’t say I could blame them
but they certainly weren’t characters that offered a lot to put them on the good list.
Fast Tony didn’t’ start off on a good foot. And if we’re being honest – what snake
oil-er… shell-selling salesman ever does? He was basically standing on a soapbox like a Jesus freak
trying to sell tortoise shells as canoes. Not only is that sad, but it’s low.
There’s a high demand for essential commodities and he responds with fabricating parts from
another animal specie that can’t outrun much of anything. How many turtles don’t have shells
because of you now Tony? That’s what I thought: the extinction rate was not a hoax folks.
Especially for turtles and tortoises. Guys like him are what we call scalpers and price gougers.
And finally we have our evil characters. From ruthless hunters to wild beasts
without any morals, these characters are our worst of the prehistoric batch:
Lenny was certainly the muscle of the saber tooth pack. But all bronze and no brains with a hungry
stomach proves to be very little help once things start getting dicey. When Soto formulating the
surprise attack for Manfred cornered Lenny, he crouched up like prey that was about to
be dinnertime. He clearly thought more with his hunger than ever his head, and the pack’s leader
Soto concocted whatever plan he happened to be a part of. Lenny lacked foresight and would never
survive the deep freeze, had he no one to lead the way for him. For an evil character, he certainly
had to fall in line if he wanted to eat and live. And that’s kind of a self-destructive
path for anyone to accept. Provided he was just following wherever the food was found,
we had to put him at the top of our list making him the least evil of our villain characters.
Zeke and Lenny, like the possum brothers, were both two peas in a pod. However,
they were more opposite reflections of each other. One being bulky and almost lethargic,
the other was scrawny and sporadic. Certainly with his own personality though,
Zeke was no different than Lenny being next to nothing more than a hungry feline. Preselecting
his cuts of meat before the kill was even made, we can gather that he also lacked the
skills needed for planning a successful hunt. In fact, he was so hungry and desperate for
food that Lenny looked a bit too enticing during Soto’s pep talk for their trap at Glacier Pass.
Unfortunately for Lenny, he could have been another juicy chunk of saber tooth meat.
And that could be about as filling as a thick mammoth cuts and sweet human veal. Far be it from
someone that’s never experienced a food shortage but… cannibalism is a hard no from me cat.
Cretaceous & Maelstrom can be counted as another pair because they never displayed
any characteristic differences from each other. Aside from one being amphibious and
another serving as a battering ram berserker they practically worked in unison. However,
one seemed more determined and vicious than the other given their waddling capabilities.
The two of them were borderline mindless beasts. Well – their mind’s only concern was hunt, eat,
and repeat. Ultimately, these two were not only cool predators to watch but also hungry
for anything to fill their bellies. And that’s why they ranked as third in our evil category.
Soto was without a doubt the most devious and contemptuous of the Ice Age villains.
We learn earlier in the first film that half of them were wiped out in because of the humans.
Consumed by rage and revenge, his main objective was to make the human tribe suffer as much as his
pack did. He was a ruthless hunter that was willing to sacrifice members of his own pack
to either make a point or achieve his goal. This was a realistic and classic style villain
driven by relevant pain that motivated his vicious ferocity. Any alpha that lost most of their
tribe or pack would undoubtedly lurk in nearby shadows waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
His type of cold calculation was never influenced by hunger – it was vendetta.
And that officially wraps up our morality spectrum… But before we go,
let’s go ahead and hand out some sinner medals.
The Darwin Medal belongs to Scrat for pretty obvious reasons. Combined with
his intuition and hunting capabilities – or lack thereof – it’s pretty distinct that one
day his food will only evade him because he chased it between a collision of glaciers.
The Wrath Medal is given to Cretaceous and Maelstrom for their sheer ruthlessness and
cunning skills of hunting. And more than just that, they both possess the horrific
power to drag a mammoth down to the watery depths of a feeding frenzy.
The Sloth Medal once again goes to Sid for being slow. And that pertains more to
mental capacity than physical speed. During these survivalist times of hunters and climate change,
shortsightedness is as dangerous as being willfully foolish.
The Greed Medal is taken by Fast Tony. While everyone is concerned with getting on the
boat before the great flood, his focus was capitalizing to sell turtle shells.
I mean what was even the currency back then besides berries and roots?!
The Gluttony Medal is given to Dab and the dodo birds.
Forget how many melons they actually had – I can’t imagine how many melons they
lost during the gathering process before the herd even crossed paths with them.
The Envy Medal is given to Soto and his vengeful appetite for the humans.
Ultimately for him, eating the human baby was just a prize for avenging his fallen pack members.
The Pride Medal is given to Manny and his “I don’t need anyone” type of ego. It took about
two movies for him to finally realize that more than one will always be better than just one.
But let us know us know if you agree with our ranking. As well as what we should cover nex.
Don’t forget to hit that notification bell and binge our Good to Evil playlist.
Where we break down the morality of the characters in your favorite cartoons,
shows and movies. But most importantly – stay Wicked!