User blog comment:Gogogadget831/Character Appreciation - Week 48: Sugar/@comment-4726418-20171129001704

If we're talking the original 52 here, my favorite character ever barring the first generation. Sugar has a huge amount of things going for her I feel get too much pushed to the sidelines and she deserves more credit for. It's hard to say which of these aspects were the best about her, but there's a lot.

First off, Sugar shaped Pahkitew Island. It's a cast known for everyone being either off the rails or involved in something like that, full of narcissistic, dangerous, violent, misguided, delusional, or unaware people. But if you're looking for who was the most narcissistic, the most dangerous and violent, the most delusional, the most unaware, Sugar was the prime example of it, and like her or not, she brought the brand of humor and storyline approach that PI had with it. She doesn't need any storyline like Shawn, Sky, Dave, or Jasmine did. She uses any environment she's in all by herself on her own, and it's easy to recognize, even if you're a hater of her, how hard they tried. Regardless of your view of her that still deserves some credit. And it really shows. Sugar fluently and bodaciously involved herself with dozens of other's storylines, playing off others in either her humor or antagonism, or just being downright hilarious all on her own. She doesn't need any extra support. Put her with anyone and she can carry an aspect of a plot or joke.

Which brings me to her humor. Okay fine if you don't like gross-out humor, or over-eating humor, or bad hygiene jokes. But look harder and you'll see her humor is much more than just that. It's not just that Sugar eats a monkey and has to spit it out, or that she eats poisonous chuggy chunks with ease. Her jokes aren't just "she did something gross, ain't that funny kids??" That was never the joke, contrary to what others think. In fact, gross-out humor is just an extension of what her actual humor is. It's her unfiltered delusional self that's the shape of her jokes. She thinks of herself as a pageant champion, the smartest, most beautiful lady out there, with dozens of impeccable talents and adored by all. She has no off button in how she presents herself, treats people, or speaks. And grossing people out with her terrible hygiene is just one example of that, one I feel gets generalized to be the only side of what her humor is. She's actually mostly childlike, not having any maturity or sense of recognizing any of her flaws. This is why I actually really enjoyed all her jokes, because they had this sense of someone so unbothered, with no inhibitions or cares and who will do whatever she wants, no matter how much it might be looked down on. And that really clicks with me if I'm honest, and using it for comedic effect makes her personality more engaging when used for jokes.

Her humor is also why I'd consider her to be one of the best and unique antagonists. It doesn't usually matter to me about how good you are at your antagonism in this show. Not everyone can be a Heather or Alejandro. It's an aspect to enjoying an antagonist sure, but what's left out is the entertainment factor you could be getting from it. And since they played up Sugar's antagonism for laughs, it makes me more immersed and even makes it look more human and grounded since it's just her doing childish petty things just to get ahead, not really having some kind of secret master plan that looks scripted by the show see: Mal and Scott.

Now as much as I enjoy Sugar on her own, her interactions really set her apart from the rest of the cast. PI was kind of limited in how it made others bounce off each other, mainly due to the 13-episode limit that should never be repeated again. But by virtue of her staggering charisma and ginormous personality, she had many instances of bouncing off others. And all worked spectacularly well for me. Sky's grimacing hatred for her personality but begrudgingly having no choice but to form an alliance with her to stay in the game while Sugar repeatedly childishly harrasses her and takes advantage of Sky's own kindness to use against her? Max's complete intolerance of her mixed in with Sugar's constant laughing at him, his manner of speaking, his terrible catchphrases, etc? Lying to Sky that Dave flirts with every girl before a couple of episodes later where she uses Dave by pushing him to the limit through antagonizing Sky to a huge degree and giggling to herself as he reached tumultuously horrifying levels? Her secret goal of wanting to destroy Topher by getting mad at him for fidgeting in her direction asking where Chris is and threatening to FLING him off the plane just because he'd scuff her pageant shoes? All very classic and exemplify how well she incorporates who she is whilst simultaneously being funny or engaging at it.

Then there's her conflict with Ella, which I personally think gets way too much flack. This is in many ways the go-to choice of showing just how messy, unaware, delusional and dangerous Sugar really is. And no she isn't mean to Ella or bullies her "for no reason" like many of her haters try to push. It's based on the morphed pageant view Sugar has to her and feeling like Ella's whole shtick and routine is reminiscent to fake transparent pageant girls who have regularly beat Sugar at them in the past. I don't get how some people didn't see that, it's right there in her lines. Her whole way of going about things originates from her desire to win a pageant. It's the crux of all her decisions. So when she sees Ella prancing around like a joyfully peaceful figure of grace, she's gonna end up seeing that as threatening and even potentially hostile. Some have argued that it was hard to watch since Ella tried so hard to befriend Sugar only for her to repeatedly reject it, occasionaly with violence. But i'd argue that's what the actual strength of it is. Is it not more refreshing that Ella repeatedly fails at her goal rather than her succeeding it? The reasons behind Sugar's disdain for her means any kind of solution between the two isn't happening. It just wouldn't make sense for Sugar's character and it could have given off the false impression that being nice all the time gets you what you want. Sometimes that's not true, and Sugar's reckless and cruel treatment of her is what I feel is a much better thing to emulate on this show instead of just befriending Ella.

But most importantly I think what sets Sugar apart from a lot of characters is that, even though she's a despicable cretin with terrible morals and a dangerous way of presenting herself to everyone including herself, she still manages to be someone I actually quite empathize, root for, and have some respect for. This is quite a common thing I have with plenty of my favorites, even the protagonist ones and Sugar is one of my favorite examples of it. Her likeability for me doesn't stem from what her actual behavior or treatment of others is. It's the shaping and moulding of her character that's why. As comical and light-hearted as Sugar is, in actuality she has one of the most tragic backstories in the show. Here's her backstory from an objective, unbiased point of view by me without any opinion whatsoever:

''Sugar was born on a remote farm and was born into an unintelligent family. From a very young age, her mother shaped her entire personality and who she was, making her do local little girl beauty pageants. And with each contest Sugar would just get gradually more into it, especially with the implication by her that she's never actually won one, influencing her fearless and merciless drive of trying to get to the top. And not only does it lead to her mindset shifting to treating life like a competitive scene of a beauty pageant, but it also led to her delusions of grandeur of how talented and perfect she claims to be. This all has a harmful effect on her, as it leaves her very unaware of how she comes across, due to a spoiled background and being pushed to succeed and that failure isn't an option.''

This is all pretty sad, but it's her concluding episode that really seals it. It was the talent show episode. Sugar has against all odds reached the final 3 and faces off against Shawn and Sky. The longevity of her time in the season coupled with her success at eliminating Ella & Jasmine, driving a permanent wedge between Dave and Sky, and the pleasure she took in humiliating Sky by betraying her all make her even more motivated to be a heinous over-confident mess. After a brief confessional about her aforementioned mother 'encouraging' her (despite implying that she was actually verbally abusing Sugar), and after Shawn and Sky try out performances liked by the audience but seen as terrible by Sugar, she's all ready to get up. Shawn and Sky are terrified. Talent shows are her thing, she was allowed to pick this to be a challenge in the first place. The signs are that she'll easily win the challenge. Instead she's a ginormous failure, rapping and singing to the huge anger of the judges and causing a humiliating elimination. She bawls her eyes out inside a cannon before being shot in the air. Amazing writing, demonstrating the best example of a combination of glorious hilarity meshed in with a tragic result for someone who honestly was just raised wrong and otherwise would be harmless if she just focused her goals more on harmless things.

Sugar is an outstandingly complex and intricately versatile character in my opinion. Fair enough if you don't like her like around 55-60% of the fanbase do, but to say she was a "floater", "mean for no reason", evil owen", and most importantly "had no development or point to her", then that's just not factually true. She was a huge part to her season, and ignoring the fact she farted in oneepisode, she's far away from being an evil owen and if anything she's the opposite of Owen (ironically he's pretty similar to Ella lol), and she had lots of charisma and development to her. She's just awesome okay?

best moment: "ah wish momma were here. before eve-ree pageant, she always geeves-me the sayme awesome pep talk; "we didn't driiive for two days straight for you to spend all your tiiime playin' with the fancy flush toilets! now get yer dress AWN!!!" this is my thing... and you can count awn that!

best episode: Pahk'd With Talent but loved her in all.