By Robert Scucci
| Published
Cain and Abel, Batman and the Joker, and Jerry Seinfeld and Newman all come to mind when you think of classic rivalries across our collective history, but there’s one rivalry that needs to be unpacked that I finally have an explanation for. I’m talking about Eric Cartman and Wendy Testaburger from South Park – two characters who on paper absolutely hate each other, for good reason, and will always find new ways to antagonize each other. When you unpack the origins of this now decades-long rivalry, however, there’s an obvious underlying reason why they’re constantly at each other’s throats.
Eric Cartman loves Wendy Testaburger, and doesn’t know how to handle his emotions, which can be confirmed with the Season 4 episode, “Chef Goes Nanners.”
A Budding Romance
Feeling sympathy for South Park’s Eric Cartman isn’t an easy thing to do because he’s a textbook sociopath who once fed Scott Tenorman chili made from his ground up parents over a dispute that amounted to $16.42. But beneath Cartman’s rage is the heart of an 8-year-old boy who secretly pines for Wendy, only to be shot down when his feelings become apparent.
In “Chef Goes Nanners,” Cartman and Wendy are forced to work together on a debate about the historical significance of South Park’s flag, which involves a hate crime being committed, much to the dissatisfaction of Chef, the only person of color aside from Tolkien living in the small mountain town.
Though Cartman and Wendy have always had an adversarial relationship from the very beginning, their dynamic is fully explored in “Chef Goes Nanners” when they both let their guard down, Cartman makes Wendy laugh, and she catches feelings for him. They also share a bond over their love for “quadruple stuff Oreos,” which culminates in both of them reaching for the same cookie, locking eyes, and blushing. Confiding in her best friend, Bebe, Wendy figures that she’s experiencing a heat-in-moment obsession with Cartman, and that he’s the last kid in South Park that she should be romantically involved with.
From Misguided Flirting To Unbridled Hatred
At the end of “Chef Goes Nanners,” everything goes back to normal and lessons are learned in the typical South Park fashion. Cartman, however, learns the most devastating lesson of all, which is that Wendy will never love him, which she makes clear when she says, “I can’t believe how right Bebe was about feeling under pressure with somebody. As soon as it was over, all my feelings for you just vanished.”
On its face, this exchange would be pretty innocuous if Wendy didn’t passionately kiss Cartman just moments before. Cartman, who never shows emotions in South Park aside from rage, and a distinct lack of rage from time to time, looks truly devastated when his feelings are written off. In one of the only sequences in South Park canon that I can remember, Cartman looks genuinely upset over this rejection, and it changes him forever.
A Broken Heart At Work
What once started as what I could only surmise as Cartman bullying Wendy because he had a crush on her becomes one of the most frustrating and saddest recurring character arcs you’ll ever witness on South Park.
Throughout the rest of South Park’s run, Cartman is relentless in his pursuit to make Wendy as miserable as possible whenever they’re seen interacting with each other. From Cartman’s muckraking against Wendy in “Dances with Smurfs” to the epic fight between the two in “Breast Cancer Show Ever,” tensions remain at an all-time high to this day, but I don’t think it’s coming from a place of hatred on Cartman’s end.
After getting severely attacked by Wendy during the latter title (during a fight that he tried desperately to avoid after pushing things too far), it’s easy to think that getting mercilessly beaten, in Cartman’s mind, is the only way he can get her to pay attention to him, which helps him compartmentalize his feelings for her the only way he knows how.
