Simply put, you can’t have a teen-focused reality show without a bit of romance amongst
its characters, and the Total Drama series is no exception! In fact, its shipping community
was pretty big back in the day, given just how many canon couples there were to support. But
which are healthy and loving, and which are drama-filled and toxic?
I’m Brad with WickedBinge, and this is Total Drama Couples: Healthy to Toxic.
A couple quick ground rules before we start. We’re only going to be looking at couples that
were canon for a minimum of at least one episode. No fanon pairings, otherwise we’d be here all day.
Secondly, we are going to be including couples from the Total Drama spin-off, “Ridonculous Race”.
With those rules out of the way, let’s get started with our healthy
and fairly drama-free couples. While there may not be very many of them,
the ones that are healthy are definitely worth acknowledging.
Easily earning our Gold Medal of Healthiness is the Ridonculous Race goth couple,
Crimson and Ennui. Despite their dower and grim exterior, these two
have a truly sweet relationship. Though they aren’t lovey dovey,
they’ll still hold hands and - more importantly - they’ll support each other. When Ennui’s bunny,
Loki, went missing, Crimson put the challenge aside and helped her boyfriend look for his pet,
not caring if they lost the race. Crimson was also willing to take a time penalty during the
Transylvania challenge by giving Ennui the chance to experience what it was like being in a coffin.
How… romantic? Additionally, they’re the only Total Drama couple who have never
fought on-screen, and they were both willing to overlook each other’s preppy de-goth appearances
in Finland. Honestly, we couldn’t think of any couple who deserved this ranking more.
For our Silver Medal of Healthiness, we’re going with Sam and Dakota. Certainly the couple nobody
expected, given that Sam was a gamer nerd and Dakota was a wannabe celebrity, but they were
still sweet together regardless. Though a bit awkward at first, the two of them quickly became
friends once they realized that they actually had a few things in common. Their relationship quickly
blooms, with Dakota trying to help Sam during the mutant-fashion challenge. However, their love
truly starts to shine after Dakota’s mutation, which Sam finds beautiful instead of horrifying.
As such, Dakota uses her mutant form to save Sam after he’s buried alive during a challenge. Dakota
ends up being incredibly protective of Sam, and Sam in turn loves Dakota unconditionally. D’awww.
Getting our Bronze Medal of Healthiness is one of the OG Total Drama couples,
Geoff and Bridgette. Yeah, yeah, we know these two can be a bit annoying at times, but you can’t deny
that they work pretty well as a couple. Although Geoff was sometimes a bit awkward in his attempts
to woo her, it was still sweet in a way, which Bridgette appreciated. Like the best couples,
they ‘ll support each other as best they can. Bridgette was even the one to get Geoff back to
normal after the aftermath show started going to his head in “Total Drama Action”. We’re putting
them below our top two couples due to the few fights and near-breakups that they’ve had,
although the fact that they’re both willing to apologize and acknowledge
their own mistakes helps with their ranking.
Following them, we have Jasmine and Shawn. With both characters having an interest in survival,
it really didn’t take them very long to bond. Though Shawn holds off on pursuing her due to
his fear of not being able to kill her if she ever were to become a zombie, it’s still clear
that he likes her and cares about her. Shawn even tries to make it up to Jasmine when he
accidentally causes her to lose a challenge - not because he wants to woo her necessarily,
but also because he just wants to make things right. He eventually sacrifices himself to save
Jasmine, regaining her trust and leading the two of them to become a couple. As such, Jasmine is
unable to hurt or sabotage him, even when she has the chance to. While we did have to bump
this couple down a few notches due to Shawn’s past confessionals where he briefly bad mouths Jasmine,
the fact that these two are eventually able to work it out keeps them in the healthy tier.
Up next in the healthy tier is the rarely talked about pair, Harold and Leshawna.
If we’re being honest, these two barely count as a couple. However, we feel there’s
enough there that it’s fair to include them. Although they didn’t get off on
the right foot at first, what with Harold calling Leshawna “big and loud”, it doesn’t take him long
to start sending her love letters. While they do kiss, Leshawna admits that they moved too fast,
which is fair given how out of nowhere this couple was. Despite Harold still being in love with her,
they do manage to remain good friends throughout the rest of the series. Harold, naturally, tries
to support Leshawna however he can while Leshawna often defends Harold from Duncan’s teasing.
She also apologizes for snubbing Harold in favor of the suave Alejandro and even says
that he’s “better than a typical man” in her song “Sisters”. Though we never see these two become
official again, the respect that they have towards each other is evident, and that’s enough for us.
Finishing off the Healthy pairs, we have Mike and Zoey. Yeahhh, this is another
couple that quite a few people have issues with, but we feel there’s more good to them than bad.
From the very beginning, these two had feelings for each other, with Mike seeing Zoey as nice
and Zoey seeing Mike as sweet. Things only start to go wrong once Mike’s multiple personalities
start coming out. While yes, Mike was being dishonest by not telling Zoey about his condition,
we can’t really blame him for trying to hide it given how mental health conditions are often
stigmatized. We can also say that when Mike is in control, he’s fully devoted to Zoey and supports
her entirely. What brings this couple down is Zoey’s side of things. Because of how passive
and easily trusting she can be, Zoey often takes Mike’s (or even Mal’s) actions on a surface level,
never really trying to have an in-depth conversation with him to try and figure
out what’s up. However, we do see Zoey hoping to help Mike regain control of himself once she
learns the truth about Mal, so we do have to give her credit for that. Despite all their issues,
the love between these two does seem truly genuine - and that in itself is kind of a feat.
Alright, time to move onto the couples that have some pretty significant issues
but don’t quite fall into the realm of toxicity. These are the Grey Couples.
First up, we have another OG Total Drama couple, Gwen and Trent. If you watched the
first season back in the day, we’re sure that you thought these two would be the couple that
could make it through anything. Unfortunately, it just didn’t work out that way. Things started off
good though, given how supportive Trent was of Gwen. He liked her for who she was, and
the two of them had a really chill dynamic as they naturally gravitated towards each other. However,
it’s in “Total Drama Action” where things start to fall apart. When they’re both put on separate
teams, Trent quickly grows jealous of Duncan, causing him to become jealous and even start
throwing challenges. Keep in mind, he does this without even bothering to talk to her about their
relationship struggles. In response, Gwen breaks it off with Trent and, due to Justin’s blackmail,
tells the Killer Grips to vote Trent off behind his back. Thankfully, despite all the turmoil,
the two are able to forgive each other and remain decent friends. While their communication issues
kept them out of the grey, we’ll say that they’re still probably the healthiest of the grey couples.
From Total Drama to Ridonculous, next is Emma and Noah. While their relationship may have had its
ups and downs, these two were pretty much made for each other personality-wise. After falling
for Emma early on in the race, Noah did his best to try and win her over, and even saved her during
a couple of the challenges. Emma returns the favor during the Air Guitar challenge, but then
breaks his heart once she starts to fear that a relationship could distract her from the race.
But, credit to Emma, she does feel guilty about this and soon tells Noah that she does want to
date him, it’ll just have to wait until after the race. Fair enough! We felt that all the drama and
the ups and downs between these two warranted putting them in the Grey, but we’ll still admit
that this couple’s more admirable qualities keeps them in the upper half of the list.
Next in our ranking, we have Lindsay and Tyler. This couple earns their spot here for
one simple reason: how can you be a healthy couple when one half of the pair is constantly forgetting
who the other is? Yep, for most of their relationship, these two were a victim of Lindsay’s
ever-growing dumbness. While the physical attraction to each other was evident, that was
all there ever really was between these two, with pretty much all of their interactions consisting
of the two of them making out. Eventually, Lindsay is able to FINALLY remember who Tyler is without
just forgetting about him later and the two are able to continue their relationship once they’re
both eliminated from “Total Drama: World Tour”. We’ll hand it to Tyler for being completely loyal
to Lindsay, never getting too frustrated with her and ignoring flirting attempts
from other characters like Courtney. Still, the relationship between these two often feels more
physical than emotional, and realistically we just can’t see them lasting for too much longer.
Up next is another Ridonculous couple, Carrie and Devon. Okay, take the communication issues that
Mike and Zoey had, and multiply them by six. Yeahhh, these two are kind of a mess, though
we will hand it to them that their friendship is incredibly strong. They support each other as they
help each other through their fears, and seem to genuinely love being around each other. It’s only
when romance starts to play a part that things get annoyingly complicated. Both Carrie and Devon
struggle with revealing their true feelings, and would rather dance around their feelings
instead of actually talking them out. We also saw that Carrie seemed to care a bit more about
finally getting her chance with Devon than his distraught at his ex, Shelley,
breaking up with him. As for Devon, once he realized his feelings towards Carrie,
it didn’t take him too long to grow jealous of her friendship with Ryan.
We can’t say they’re the worst couple as, again, their base friendship was incredibly strong,
their communication issues and emotional faults are just too big for us to ignore.
Following the best friends turned lovers is a more quirky couple, Owen and Izzy.
With both of them being pretty silly and strange at times, Owen and Izzy were able
to bond pretty quickly during their time on the island. However, even from the start,
their relationship could be somewhat inconsistent and not very romantic. In a sense, they were more
like a shallow but still fun fling, though they still had some issues - like when Owen briefly
abandoned Izzy when he thought they were being attacked by a serial killer. Owen does try to
push their relationship to the next level during “Total Drama Action”, but by the time the third
season rolls around, things end up falling apart. Due to Izzy often causing him physical and mental
pain with her reckless nature, Owen starts to have second thoughts about their relationship. However,
when a newly intelligent Izzy calls them “incompatible” and breaks up with him,
Owen immediately misses her and wants her back despite all the problems he had with her.
No offense to Owen but we feel these two are probably better off broken up.
One other couple we want to give mention to is Anne Maria and Vito.
While yes, Vito is only Mike’s alter, he’s still treated as another person,
and his relationship with Anne Maria is treated as a genuine threat to Mike and Zoey’s relationship.
However, unlike those two who like each other for their personality,
Anne Maria and Vito’s relationship is strictly built on their physical attraction to each other.
Nothing wrong with that, but we do have to acknowledge that because of this lack
of emotional connection, it really isn’t as healthy as it could potentially be.
Finishing off the Grey is none other than Duncan and Gwen. Really, any couple that’s part of a love
triangle is gonna have some major issues. For the longest time, these two were just friends - even
if their respective partners thought otherwise. Sparks quickly began to fly, however, in the third
season once Gwen began acknowledging her feelings and Duncan began to get tired of Courtney trying
to control him. The two share a kiss before Duncan officially breaks up with Courtney,
which isn’t cool at all. Unfortunately, even after they get together, things aren’t exactly sunshine
and rainbows as Duncan is still attracted to Courtney despite all of their issues.
Basically, all the good qualities these two had as friends goes out the window
due to Duncan’s wishie-washie nature and Gwen’s occasional jealousy and annoyance towards Duncan’s
lingering feelings regarding Courtney. Speaking of Gwen, once she decides that she cares more
about fixing her friendship with Courtney, she pretty much ignores all of Duncan’s attempts to be
affectionate. It’s really no wonder his attention started drifting back to his ex. Ultimately,
this couple is one of the few in the Total Drama franchise that not only break-up but end their
relationship on bad terms. Given how good they were as friends, it really is a shame to see.
We’ve finally made it to
the most drama-filled couples of the series. These are the Toxic Couples.
Just outside our bottom three, we have the briefly in-love Scott and Courtney. Sooo, uhhh… What was
the point of these two getting together? Courtney only started developing feelings for Scott once
they were put on the same team in All Stars, even worrying about him when he’s sent to Boney Island.
Courtney was enamored by Scott’s simple yet charming nature while Scott states
that he finds bossiness attractive. However, it’s soon revealed by Mal that Courtney not
only looks down on Scott (if her drawing of him with a rat tail is any indication) but
planned on using him to win, being confident that if they were to be in the Final Two,
Scott would throw the challenge for her. This breaks them up for good, and given the
lack of mutual respect (mostly on Courtney’s side), we would hope that they stay broken up.
Earning the Bronze Medal of Toxicity is the always fiery pair, Alejandro and Heather.
Being two of the strongest players in the game, they quickly developed not only a rivalry but
also a love-hate relationship. Though they respect each other’s strengths in the game,
they aren’t afraid to manipulate or betray each other if it means getting
the million - as seen in both the World Tour and All-Stars finales. Though their
love seems genuine enough, it’s not nearly enough to overshadow their greed - at least
not permanently. However, as much as they may deny their feelings when it comes to winning the game,
their mutual respect and even occasional affection for each other keeps them from going any lower.
For our Silver Medal of Toxicity, we’re giving it to the Daters/Haters,
Ryan and Stephanie. Much like our previous pair, they’re a couple that just can’t seem to handle
the pressure of the competition. Although they start off incredibly loving towards each
other, once Stephanie’s race rage comes out, things get real malicious real fast. But while
Stephanie may have caused the break-up, Ryan certainly has his own moments of being callous
or cruel as a means of petty revenge. These two fight and scream at each other throughout
most of the season, often berating each other and showing a huge lack of support - that is,
until Darjeeling where Ryan helps Stephanie through the leaf-picking challenge and the two
fall back in love. While it may have seemed sweet on the surface, it feels more like a break from
the fighting than these two actually managing to come back together. The key to any healthy couple
is the ability to work as a team and take on any type of pressure together, and we honestly feel
that any little bit of adversity or conflict would be enough to break them up for good.
Finally, our Gold Medal of Toxicity is going to none other than Duncan and Courtney,
arguably the ship that started it all, even more so than Gwen and Trent. It was a close
call between these two and the Daters/Haters, but ultimately we felt that Duncan and Courtney
just had more examples of toxicity. They started off having a love-hate relationship,
with Duncan often trying to get Courtney to loosen up. With Duncan being a rebel and Courtney being
a perfectionist princess, it was a tale as old as time. Unfortunately, the couple’s best and
most affectionate moments are in the first season, and it’s all downhill from there. In season two,
Courtney is often accusing Duncan of cheating on her with Gwen, and the two end up being rivals
once they’re put on different teams. Although it looks like they’re about to get back together,
Courtney ruins it by showing her controlling side and giving Duncan a list of rules that he
MUST follow. From there, they become very on and off, breaking up and coming back together several
times. This culminates in Duncan actually cheating on her with Gwen in World Tour.
Although Duncan clearly cares about Courney and is still very much attracted to her,
he’s more likely to find ways to avoid their problems instead of actually talking them out.
As for Courtney, she’s very much a “my way or the highway” type of partner,
being incredibly controlling and selfish, even if she does still care about him to a point.
Mix all of those traits together and add in the fact that they’ve both chosen the prize money
over each other and you have what is easily the Most Toxic Total Drama couple.
But let us know in the comment section if you agree with our ranking,
and let us know what we should cover next! Remember to hit that notification
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