Eric Cartman

"Respect My Authoritah!"

- Eric Cartman's catchphrase

Eric Cartman is one of the main characters from South Park. He has the distinction of being one of the few characters in the show to be both a mostly protagonist, but occasionally he plays as the main antagonist.

Biography
Cartman's personality varied for years, and still now isn't quite settled. But one thing never changed: he is the most horrible brat you can imagine, and worse. He is known to be a spoiled, rude, selfish, and aggressive racist, and to never, ever feel sorry about his acts. His antagonistic role can go from a simple jerk to an actual villain, as he killed, or attempted to kill, many people, even his friends. His most iconic crime is to have Scott Tenorman's parents killed and fed them to him in chilli.

If Cartman's antagonistic side varies, so does his heroic side. Even if he keeps insulting Kyle, Stan and Kenny, he hangs around with them all the time, at least until they get tired of his antics, though they always get back together afterwards. When having adventures together, Cartman is at times helpful to them when they have a common ennemy. In extremly rare occasions, Cartman saved their lives, even Kyle (twice), though it is often for selfish motives. He also helps his friends to save South Park.

When he is the main protagonist of most episodes, Cartman is a crazy and clueless antihero, who often gets into trouble.

Also, despite having little to no quality at all, Cartman is the most popular character of the show, and all his crimes and antics are considered hilarious.

Heroic Acts

 * Perhaps the most heroic act of Cartman is in the film, "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut", his frequent use of vulgarity, after getting electrocuted by a power box, coupled with the experimental V-chip implanted in his brain to stop him from swearing (which gave him temporary electrostatic powers), deliberately helps save the world from Saddam Hussein.
 * In "Major Boobage", he hides his pet cat and other cats in his attic so they won't get taken away, at first he refuses to hide them because he didn't want to get in trouble, but his love for cats got the better of him and decides to hide them.
 * In "Follow That Egg", he and Hedi are paired for a project. They had to raise an egg like it was their child, Cartman went up to Garrison, brought her a broken egg, and said that he broke it and Heidi didn't, and told Garrison to give him an F and Heidi an A, that way the grade will be C-, he was taking full responsibility for breaking the egg.
 * In "Fishsticks", when Kanye West and his friends confronted Cartman and Jimmy because he thinks that they say he's a gay fish even though it was quotes to a joke, Cartman tells Kanye and his friends to let Jimmy go and that he was the one who came up with the joke. He knew Kayne wanted to hurt and/or kill the person who came up with it. He was trying to take Jimmy's place so that Jimmy would be alive and well.
 * In "Rainforest Shmainforest", Cartman asks the construction workers to save Miss Stevens and the remaining children from the tribe of natives called the Yamagapa.
 * In "Die Hippie, Die", his intolerance of hippies saves South Park from a drug-filled hippie music festival.
 * In "I'm a Little Bit Country", by filling his TiVo with the history channel and dropping it and himself into a pool, he able to travel back in time to 1776, where he is able to institute the American tradition of Ice Cream Thursdays and return to South Park with a special 100th episode message about war and peace.
 * In "The Snuke", Cartman's intolerance against Muslims and his use of racial profiling save the day.
 * In "Grey Dawn", Cartman is the boy that figures out that by shutting down Country Kitchen Buffet, the Elderly won't have anywhere to get food, this being one of the few occasions where the boys rely on Cartman's planning (but only to an extent; Cartman wanted Kyle to suicide bomb the Buffet, but Stan over-ruled that and said they would only lock the doors.)
 * In "The Death of Eric Cartman", Cartman is under the belief that he was a ghost trapped on Earth until things were made right. He distracts three escaped convicts who were holding ten people hostage at the Red Cross while Butters lets them escape. Also in this episode Cartman makes up for all his previous wrongs such as the Sally Struthers incident ("Starvin' Marvin"), feeding parents to their child ("Scott Tenorman Must Die"), and crapping in the Principal Victoria's purse (seven times), however this was only to get in to the afterlife (Even though he wasn't dead), he didn't feel that way, and was not sorry to any of them at all.
 * In "Smug Alert!", he saves Kyle's family from a smug storm (however, this is due to the fact that Cartman had no one else to taunt and insult).
 * In "Make Love, Not Warcraft", Cartman, Stan, Kyle and Kenny logged into World of Warcraft together to kill the player killer Jenkins' character. First, Stan retrieves the Sword of a Thousand Truths from his dad. Second Kenny shoots his arrow and Kyle uses magic to paralyze Jenkins' character. And finally, after Cartman says, "Looks like you're about to get pwned", he crushes the player killer's head with his war hammer.
 * In "The Succubus", Cartman helps his friends to save Chef from unknowingly marrying a Succubus. Unfortunately, he doesn't prove to be very useful because at the time he was recovering from laser corrective surgery for his eyes.
 * In "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy", Cartman helps Kyle to save his brother Ike from his Kindergarten teacher Ms. Stevenson, whom Ike was having an unhealthy sexual relationship with. Although Cartman was doing it mainly because the two were making out in the school hallways while he was the hall monitor (A job he took very seriously), he proves extraordinarily helpful and Kyle thanks him.
 * In "Roger Ebert Should Lay Off the Fatty Foods", Cartman, angry at the other boys for missing his commercial debut, kicks the star projector, sending the full blast of the mind control machine into Dr. Adams' brain, saving the kids, Mr. Mackey, and Nurse Gollum from being put under mind control.
 * In "Osama bin Laden Has Farty Pants", Cartman repeatedly outsmarts, injures, and humiliates Osama Bin Laden until he is executed by a US soldier.
 * In "Cat Orgy", Cartman helps Shelly get back at Skyler for dumping her. When Skyler tries to get his revenge towards them as well, Cartman throws the box of catnip at his face, making the cats try to rape him and rip his pants off in the process.
 * In "The Poor Kid", Cartman told on the abusive foster parents to his councillor. If he didn't tell on the foster parents, Mysterion wouldn't have been able to save Karen and the foster kids as easily.
 * In "Imaginationland" ManBearPig kills Kyle and Cartman is devastated. Cartman then starts to punch the chest of Kyle's dead body. Kyle's body starts to cough and starts breathing. (Although, Cartman probably did this to get Kyle to suck his balls.)

Quotes
"You're right, guys. I'm gonna Tom Brady this thing!"

- Cartman after his friends convinced him to form a scheme to resolve the problem of PC Principal in "Stunning and Brave"

"I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say "You're not giving me four day of detention! You're only giving me one!""

- Cartman in "Stunning and Brave"

"NO! No, to hell with that! "You're giving me NO days detention! And then I'm gonna go home and fuck my hot wife! Who's not even that hot, kinda looks like a dude!""

- Cartman in "Stunning and Brave"