Mal (Total Drama)

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Evil-doer
Full Name	Mal
Alias	The Malevolent One Pipsqueak Evil Mike Mike Evil Mal (by Zoey)
Origin	Total Drama All-Stars
Occupation	Mike's alter-ego
Powers / Skills	Accessing all of Mike's personalities Complete control over Mike's subconscious Disguising his voice to sound exactly like Mike Super strength Intelligence Manipulation Experienced combatant Multilingualism
Hobby	Whistling "In the Hall of the Mountain King". Causing havoc and chaos for the other contestants.
Goals	Win one million dollars and gain full control over Mike, Chester, Svetlana, Vito, and Manitoba Smith forever. Spreading chaos to everyone for his own sadistic amusement (all failed).
Crimes	Assault and battery Sabotage Brainwashing Identity theft Fraud Murder (likely) Animal cruelty Destruction of property Abuse Defamation Enslavement (of Mike's other alters) Torture
Type of Villain	Sadistic Alter-Ego

“	Cameron doesn't know what he's in for. None of them do. If I have my way, and I will, everybody loses.	„
	~ Mal about his plans for the contestants.

“	With a "friend" like me, who needs enemies?	„
	~ Mal planning to betray his alliance with Alejandro Burromuerto.

“	No. NO! It's MY time! MINE!	„
	~ Mal's last words.

Mal, known as The Malevolent One, is the main antagonist of Total Drama All-Stars, the fifth season in the Canadian animated franchise Total Drama.

He is an evil personality of the Total Drama contestant Mike, who appeared as one of the former's alternate personalities sealed up in his mind, being released after years of mental imprisonment during the fifth season's second episode after Mike accidentally suffers a concussion thanks to Scott. This reawakens Mal, who finds his way into taking over Mike's body and impersonating him to scheme his way to victory through the season, while taking the chance to try to severely hurt or kill anyone who gets on his way. He is Mike's eternal foe and arch-nemesis.

He was voiced by Cory Doran, who also voiced Andrew Baumer and Captain Ron in Stoked and Dabio, Rex and Shabio in Wild Kratts.

Appearance

Mal bears a resemblance to Mike, except that his hair drapes over his left eye. There are also darker circles around his eyes and smaller black pupils in his eyes. He also speaks in a deeper voice than he has in his normal Mike persona. Despite his slim figure, he is deceptively strong as he was able to injure Alejandro Burromuerto simply by crushing his wrists and overpowering various other contestants with ease.

Personality

Mal is cunning, manipulative, ruthless and sadistic. As Duncan said, he enjoys causing trouble for the fun of it. He is practically more evil than the members of the Villainous Vultures. This is mainly because while he mostly commits some harmless yet mean pranks at first, he is one of the few people in the series that are willing to kill. He does this while hiding his true nature behind the voice of the harmless, friendly Mike. However, he has a habit of breaking character but at the same time can immediately tell when someone's not trusting him and come up with a lie on the spot. Even the most intelligent and imaginative manipulators on the show have called his manipulation skills impressive. Until the other contestants started putting two and two together, few knew of his true nature aside from Duncan.

He also seems to be very violent. Examples of this include (but are not limited to) trying to push Zoey off a cliff, beating Izzy up brutally, crushing Alejandro's wrist for trying to blackmail him before sabotaging him for trying to warn everyone about the threat, breaking the confessional camera, and trying to hit Cameron off a cliff inside Ezekiel's hideout with a boulder out of sheer malice. Duncan even comments on this when he says that when they were in juvie together that he was running the place. Another thing he seems to enjoy is whistling "In the Hall of the Mountain King", as he can always be seen doing this when he is causing pandemonium and mayhem. His violent outbursts, although mostly the result of losing his temper, also show how sadistic he is. For example, he showed delight at Chris McLean not feeding two of his interns or while attempting to drown Zoey so he could win the money.

Mal also shows that he is/has the negative traits of Mike's personalities except even worse. For example, he is violent like Vito, rude like Chester, crafty as Manitoba Smith and overly competitive like Svetlana. Unlike them, he has little to no redeeming traits to balance them out and never shows any remorse for his actions. In addition, whereas Mike's other four personalities do care for him despite their occasional arguments with him, Mal has no true respect for his host body, often ridiculing his tone of voice and admitting to Zoey that pretending to be Mike is so boring, totally ungrateful that if it weren't for Mike, he would not even be "alive" so to speak.

History

Mal is an alternate persona of Mike, who have dissociative identity disorder, which means he has been with him for the rest of his life. He was heavily feared by Mike and the other personalities due to his malicious nature. Mike hints Mal was in control most of the time before his temporary defeat since he went as far back as getting stuck in juvenile detention with Duncan, who used to know Mal back when he was a lowly punk as well.

According to Duncan, Mal used to run the place with an iron fist. For this, Duncan stayed far away from the latter to avoid the trouble, but came to recognize Mal's presence with the latter's habit of whistling "The Hall Of The Mountain King". However, Mal's reign of terror temporarily ended after his sentence in juvie, in which Mike somehow managed to conceal Mal far into his conscience, hoping his evil persona would never resurface again. Despite never making an appearance nor is he mentioned by Mike and his other personalities in TDROTI, a brief glimpse of Mal's silhouette makes an appearance in the background of Mike's conscience when Mike confronts his personalities and regains full control of his body, unknowingly foreshadowing his eventual return.

Mal is first seen in the episode "Evil Dread" where he was accidentally released due to Scott hitting Mike (in his Manitoba Smith persona) over the head with a shovel. Mal's picture soon appeared where Mike's was, scaring the personalities as they refer to him as the "Malevolent One". Near the end of the episode, Mal makes his first appearance, saying that all of the other contestants will go down. He disappears when Zoey nearly notices him.

In "Saving Private Leechball", he appeared in the beginning of the episode where he broke Sam's handheld game console. He also appeared when Mike is using the confessional while talking about Courtney. Mike mentions how scary Courtney and this is when Mal takes over and says he likes scary.

In "Food Fright", the Malevolent One is seen in a flashback breaking Sierra's phone which causes her to go insane and see everybody as Cody. He appears in the confessional and laughs evilly at this. He later appears when he sabotages the spinner, which almost kills Courtney. It is also revealed that Duncan may have met this alternate version of Mike sometime in the past, hinting that this personality used to be a prominent part of him.

He appears again in "Moon Madness" when the Blue Harvest Moon causes him to emerge. He impersonated Mike throughout the episode. He almost caused the deaths of Zoey and Cameron in this episode while showing no remorse or concern for them. At one point, Duncan comes across him and becomes suspicious of him after hearing his voice, Mal pretends to push this off by telling him of his past Total Drama experience but Duncan does not buy it, correctly confirming he remembers him from "somewhere else but couldn't put his finger on it". To shoo him off Mal releases a bird. At the end of the episode, he reveals that he will have his way in the end and that when he does, everyone loses. What that implies has yet to be determined.

In "No One Eggspects The Spanish Opposition", Mal sabotages Duncan's knife near the beginning of the episode. Mike attempts to awakens his other personalities by smashing a large rock over his head but this only traps Mike in his own mind and Mal officially takes over. At the end of the episode, after he was whistling, Duncan finally remembered that Mike went as "Mal" back in juvie and practically ran the place.

In "Suckers Punched", Chef Hatchet went to Boney Island to retrieve Mal, until he was trampled by the animals and then Mal emerged and stepped on his hand. Later on, Mal appeared to Mike in his subconscious to show him of his return. Mike was shocked to learn that Mal was responsible for his shifts and thought he got rid of him after juvie, when Mike was released. However, Mal taunts him and reveals that he was just laying low, conserving his energy to seize his moment and gloated it worked since head control. Mal leaves while telling Mike he isn't finished causing trouble. Soon Duncan told Zoey that it turned out that Mal caused a lot of trouble and made himself go to juvie for no reason. Later, Mal faces Izzy who he is surprised senses him being evil and of his name. Deciding to handle her, Mal cuts Mike off from seeing what's going on and defeats his opponent too perfectly during his match; Chef Hatchet started to get suspicious too. It was also revealed that back in juvie, after Mike was released, Mal told him that he had to rest until the "upcoming day".

In "You Regatta Be Kidding Me", Mal continues to manipulate Zoey into thinking he is the real Mike. During the challenge, Mal sabotages some boats and makes off with the only boat that has a motor that was available at the time (since Alejandro already took one beforehand). Mal continues a steady lead until Zoey gets into trouble. As Zoey calls out for Mike, Mal suddenly loses control and Mike takes over. However, Mal quickly gains back control but was forced into rescuing Zoey due to things looking suspicious. At the end, the challenge was won by Alejandro. Mal decides to form an alliance with him. At the elimination ceremony, it turns out that Mal actually rigged the votes so that Cameron would go home (since Mal believes Cameron is getting suspicious), but Cameron was safe from elimination due to Duncan being arrested for destroying Chris McLean's mansion (which he keeps calling it a cottage). At some point after Duncan's elimination Mal puts the rigged votes in Alejandro's loser cabin bed.

Mal as Mike.

In "Zeek and Ye Shall Find", Alejandro stumbles across the monitor room and watches a DVD called Mal's greatest hits, he watches as Mal breaks various belongings to other contestants and sees him plant the rigged votes in his loser cabin bed in order to frame him. Now knowing "Mike" is isn't who he seems, Alejandro quickly plants the votes under Mike's bed while Mal was busy with Zoey and Cameron to try to look for the "culprit" and watches with pleasure from the monitor room as Cameron suspect his best friend, causing him to lost trust in everyone. In the challenge Mal chose to pair up with Cameron to save Chris. At one point, he told Cameron to kiss Courtney after falling, but had to make it look like she kissed him, which made Scott upset and caused the two to break up. When Cameron was about to fall down a big hole, Mal abandoned him and stated that he was no more of use to him. He tried to use a big rock to end him, but Cameron already fell down; he thought it was another problem off his back. Like everyone else, Mal was also captured by Ezekiel. After the rescue operation, he scares Chris out of the confessional by imitating Ezekiel and Cameron was eliminated due to his injuries. Mal softly told Cameron the truth about himself, since it was too late for him.

Mal finds out that Alejandro knows who he is in "The Obsta-Kill Kourse" (in the previous episode, Mal accuses him of "leaving Cameron hanging there," but Alejandro didn't mention he was hanging). When Alejandro tries to blackmail Mal, Mal was unfazed and grabbed his wrist. Mal shows he has some knowledge of the Spanish language when he questions Alejandro's family saying. During the challenge, Mal would either try to sabotage Alejandro or convince others to vote him off. Mal has displayed the ability to partially summon a personality, as shown when he needed Svetlana's skills to shake Alejandro off of him during the "snapping bars." He was surprised when she escaped his influence, after Mike broke the chain Mal used to keep her restrained in his mind, and is determined to get rid of Mike once Alejandro is gone. He sacrificed himself so Zoey could win and so he could try to find out where Alejandro hid the DVD of him.

In "Sundae Muddy Sundae", Mal was trying to look for the DVD after hearing from Alejandro that "the truth is in the art". Zoey wonders why Mike is doing that and Mal replies that he was watering plants. Mal also begins to suspect that Zoey may start to catch onto him and still plans on getting rid of Mike for good. At one point, Mal revealed an elimination chart that Courtney made up that upset the other characters most namely Gwen and Scott. During the challenge, Mal gets an early lead and even messes with Gwen before getting slowed down by the Drama Machine. However, Mal manages to get the Drama Machine to go after Gwen and leaves the mess hall. Mal eventually gets to the flower that spits fire and it soon starts to blow fire at him. Mal manages to dodge the shots and plugs up the flower with a rock causing it to explode and dry up the fudge it was in (much to his pleasure). Mal is excited to hear that Zoey won the challenge but got angry after Chris said that Zoey couldn't take anyone with her into the Hotel meaning that Mal cannot search for the DVD.

Mal knows he has to win the challenge in "The Bold and the Booty-ful" because of everyone's suspicions. He realizes Zoey is losing trust in him after he accidentally said that he gave her a bracelet and not a necklace. Instead of trying to find his treasure he decides to sabotage the other contestants in their search. He first tries to smack Gwen in the head but then buries her under the rubble of the McLean cottage. He goes over to Scott but lets Fang attack him. Mal brings an injured Scott to Chris and said that an injured contestant is one of Chris's favorite things to which Chris agrees to. Afterwards, Mal is chosen by Zoey to head into the finale possibly knowing that Zoey is trying to find a way to bring back the real Mike despite Scott telling Zoey "she doesn't know what she's in for".

Mal being erased from Mike's mind for good.

Mal is confident he will finally win in "The Final Wreck-ening", despite being aware that Zoey knows who he is. He mockingly states that he is touch by this action and states Mike is still trapped within the subconscious. He still pretends to be Mike until Zoey tells him to drop the act. Mal taunts Zoey that Mike will never return to her. During the first part of the challenge, Mal manages to get Alejandro and Heather as helpers, but does not care for either of them, as in his words, they are there to help him, but not the other way around, as he demonstrates when Chris shows them the Moats of Doom, a dangerous four-level circuit with moats of toxic waste, lava and water: all Mike and Zoey must do is to survive all dangers, reach the last level and defeat the "Mad King", who is actually a disguised and armed Chef Hatchet.

During the second part of the challenge, Mal tries to throw Heather in the toxic waste moat so he could use her body to float across until Alejandro stops him and offers a pole vault. Mal uses it but ungratefully leaves the villainous couple behind, leaving them to their own devices to seek for another means to keep assisting him. Mal reaches the lava moat, but finds out that Zoey, Gwen and Cameron have also reached it, so he knocks Cameron and Gwen down a level to prevent them from helping Zoey, who nearly falls into the lava when the fumes burn the ladder Gwen used for her to cross the lava. With a pogo stick at his disposal, Mal jumps with it to attacks Zoey by knocking her into the water moat, intending to drown her so he can win the competition as she struggles to hold her breath. While underwater, however, Mal gets sent back to the subconscious where he finds out his tower has been destroyed and Mike tells him that it's gone for good. Mal demands to know how Mike did that and Mike tells him that with the help of his other personalities, they worked together and shows him a flashback of what happened: he was actually scared to push a reset button inside the tower as it meant it would destroy all his other personalities within him. However, they still wanted what was best for him and insisted that they would still be a part of him, pushing the button together.

Shocked and realizing that the reset button symbolizes his doom, a furious Mal tries to attack Mike, but gets quickly blocked with a mental hand-shield. As he begins to fade away, Mal starts to get scared and begs for mercy, pleading Mike to let him stay with the promise that no one will ever cross their host body with him in charge, assuring Mike that he is part of him like the other personalities. However, Mike bluntly responds that Mal is a part that he doesn't need anymore and starts to move on by walking away, saying goodbye to his evil self. Mal protests this, though Mike ignores him as the latter screams that it was his time before Mal is finally erased from existence with the rest of Mike's Alternate Personalities, fading into oblivion for good and bringing his threat to an end once and for all. While Mike later implies that some traits of Chester, Svetlana, Vito and Manitoba are still embedded to him, none of Mal's traits are shown to similarly embedded, proving that he is truly gone. With this, Mal never won the million dollars, lost the war and could not regain control of Mike ever again.

Relationships

Enemies

• Alejandro (former ally and pawn)
• Cameron (former pawn and attempted victim)
• Chef Hatchet
• Courtney
• Duncan (former jail mate)
• Ezekiel
• Gwen (attempted victim)
• Heather (attempted victim)
• Izzy
• Mike (former host, archenemy, attempted victim, and killer)
  • Chester (hostage)
  • Manitoba Smith 
  • Svetlana
  • Vito
• Scott (attempted victim, temporary ally and former pawn)
• Zoey (other archenemy and attempted victim/former pawn)

Trivia

• Mal's name means "bad" or "evil" in Latin, as well as in Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and French.
  • Mal may also be short for his full name, "The Malevolent One". One of the roots of malevolent is the Latin "mal", as stated above.
  • Mal might also be short for "Malice" since malice means intention to do evil or ill will, which fits with Mal's character.
  • Ironically, his real name being the Latin root of a few words might explain why he understands Latin fluently.
• The tune he whistles is "In the Hall of the Mountain King", a famous piece written by Edvard Grieg as incidental music for Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt.
• Though most antagonists of the series have received punishments for their actions (Heather becoming bald, Justin breaking most of his bones and losing his good looks for a brief period of time, Courtney earning deserved comeuppances and losing most if not all of her hands, Alejandro getting trampled by a volcano in Hawaii, Scott getting mauled by Fang after already being injured by Zoey, Scarlett getting shot out of a cannon with Max after being pelted by Chris with marshmallows, the Ice Dancers ranking 3rd place, Julia possibly being left with financial problems and Bowie losing the finale), Mal suffered the worst punishment of all: not only dying, but being snapped out of existence forever with no chance of ever coming back (though, considering Mal was just an alternate personality, one can argue that he never really existed).
  • In contrast to how everyone celebrates in-universe that Mal is finally gone, however, Mal's death has received a lot of criticism due being yet another innacurate portrayal of the Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), specifically how to deal with conflicting alters. In real life, like many mental disorders, the DID isn't curable, so many took Mike and his alters pressing the mental "reset button" to defeat Mal as something offensive and insensitive to people with the disorder, which coupled with the mixed reception that the portrayal of Mike's DID has received during his run of the show, making Mike one of the most controversial Total Drama characters.
    • However, some psychologists have interpreted that the mental "reset button" may have been intended to represent how someone who has the disorder in real life can deal with his alters by accepting them as aspects of themselves that are natural to their personality through the process of "integration", which seems to go in line how Chester, Svetlana Vito and Manitoba Smith assured Mike that they would always be a part of him. If that was the show's intention, it's possible that Mal may not be really gone.
• Mal is the third antagonist to cause a strain on a relationship, in which he forced Cameron to kiss Courtney and this led to the breakup between her and Scott (though this might be questionable, since Courtney had later admitted that the relationship wasn't real, anyway). The first is Heather when she kissed Trent, which leads to him and Gwen temporarily breaking up, and the second is Alejandro, where he forced Tyler to tell Courtney that Duncan and Gwen kissed, which lead to Courtney breaking up with Duncan.
• Mal is the first and, so far, the only, villain to die in the series.
• Surprisingly, Mal's true intentions were never outright stated nor confirmed in the series despite being depicted as wanting to win the million dollars. However, it is clear that he wanted complete control of Mike's body, even going as far as to pretend he was the original personality and Mike was another alternate persona.
• A common theory about Mal's backstory with Duncan is that maybe Mal is why Duncan became a bully in the first place, as Duncan was shown to be deeply scared of him and made his best to avoid him while the two served time in juvie. If this were true, it would make Mal partially responsible for Duncan's villainous acts, like him cruelly picking on contestants like Harold, Cody and Tyler.
  • In fact, it's possible that one of the reasons for which Duncan targeted Harold in the first place, aside from his nerdy and know-it-all personality, is because Harold and Mike share a similar lanky body build, which could mean that one of Duncan's reasonings to go after Harold was because he physically reminded him of Mal.
• Ironically, despite being the fifth season's main antagonist, Mal was always part of the Heroic Hamsters instead of the Villainous Vultures, though that's only thanks to Mike, his host body, being a heroic and good person.
• Mal is strong resemblance of Yami Marik from Yu-Gi-Oh!.