ICarly/Analysis

Several tropes have a lot of 'work' required to explain how a certain trope or character has been built up on the show. As such, to avoid long lists of justifications, they have been moved here. Keep in mind that a YMMV trope is still a YMMV trope here, and you may not agree with the analysis, avoid justifying edits and Natter as neither are wanted on YMMV tropes of which this page contains expanded examples of.

Sam

Sam is a Jerkass Sue.

• Jerkass Sue: This analysis goes through the various tropes that describe a Jerkass Sue as well as Common Mary Sue Traits and how they apply to Sam.
• Sam Puckett follows her own rules and that's just the way she is.
• Ill-spirited. Yes.
• Confrontational. Yes.
• Downright mean. Yes.
• Has Jerkass Dissonance. Yes.
• Draco in Leather Pants. Yes.
• Gets away with being a bullying Jerkass. Constantly.
• Canon Sue - Has all the following Common Mary Sue Traits:
  • Personality: Stubbornness and a bad temper. A complete Jerkass to anyone who isn't named Carly, Spencer or Principal Franklin. Is never called out on her behaviour in any long-term permanent fashion and any punishment is either weak, not adhered to or completely ignored or subverted by Sam herself, like in iPromise Not To Tell where after an entire plot dedicated to the repurcussions of Sam hacking the school's computer, she does the exact same thing in the final part of the episode to massively reduce her detention time.
  • Skills: Poorly defined, continually updated as the plot requires, all at very high levels. These include but are not limited to drawing, dancing, singing, rapping, lockpicking, computer hacking and painting. Doesn't need to learn anything to be good at it or if they are lapsed they are just as good as they were years ago. Incredibly skilled at martial arts/fighting despite not training for it. Absurd natural ability with her strength.
  • Physical Appearance: It's Jennette McCurdy to start with so qualifies for She Cleans Up Nicely. About the only thing that's less than impressive is her height. Sam eats like a pig and never gains weight. Has sparkling blue eyes compared to the brown/black of the rest of the cast. Pure blonde curly Rapunzel Hair called "magical" by the fandom. Her body is both slim and curvy in both the right places. The colour purple has come to be associated with her and her Fan-Preferred Couple pairing Seddie.
  • Canon Character Relationships: It might have taken a while, but by god she eventually upset the Carly/Freddie applecart despite her treatment of Freddie and that Freddie was in love with Carly for 4 seasons. She gets special treatment in-universe, with Principal Franklin generally letting her off in ways no real principal would. Carly is a massive enabler of her behaviour, bailing her out of pretty much every negative situation she gets involved in and refusing to clamp down on her behaviour towards Freddie. Spencer lets her do whatever she likes in his father's home, despite her behaviour to Freddie being something the Shay's father would unlikely tolerate due to his military nature. Freddie has specifically said that it wouldn't feel right if she didn't make him miserable.
  • Story Elements: She's a one man Spotlight-Stealing Squad. Sympathetic Sue / Jerkass Woobie through Abusive Parents / Hilariously Abusive Childhood, Fatherly Parental Abandonment and angst about her "perfect" twin sister Melanie. Is Easily Forgiven by everyone. Never loses contests: Locker 239, beauty pageant, paintball assassin, the iFence reading bet. She loses a Cupcake Slam competition.. but it doesn't matter since she likes the pickle juice 'punishment' anyway. All events warp in her favour: Freddie building her website then quitting after she drives him nuts with changes. Immediately after Sam sells it meaing Freddie isn't entitled to profit from his work. Freddie pays Sam for Locker 239, only for Sam's mom to destroy it and drive off waving the cash in his face. Carly and Freddie work their ass off to secretly give Sam the $500 Sam owed them, only for Sam to turn around and waste the money on a trampoline.
  • Author Investment in the Character: She's overtaken Carly as the star on a show named iCarly. The first part of Season 5 is basically dedicated to her Seddie ship, with Carly shoved off to B or C plots involving Gibby or as a Seddie cheerleader/sidekick on her own show.
  • There have been approximately two occasions where she has not 'won'. iSpeed Date ended as a Humiliation Conga for her after her stubbornness resulted in not getting a date to a school dance, with Freddie and Carly together having a good time without her. The other is arguably at the end of iStage An Intervention where Freddie eventually tricks her into going to a mall to meet a guy. Although she did destroy an expensive laptop of his so he probably got the worst of that deal.
  • Freddie goes from running away from Melanie after Melanie kissed him (he was thinking it was Sam) and telling Carly their First Kiss meaning nothing for him, followed by iSpeed Date and iSaved Your Life which solidified his feelings for Carly which existed only a few episodes earlier than iOMG (in iDo) to liking and then kissing Sam three days after she reveals she likes him.
  • iDate Sam & Freddie and iCan't Take It again prove her as a massive Jerkass Sue, because despite being in what is essentially a dysfunctional relationship, Carly manages to fix it both times, and Freddie just ignores what she did and kisses her again. He actually hasn't even said why he likes Sam. He just does.
  • iLove You has Freddie end up being a mule for Sam at prison, get caught, and somehow it's his fault. Sam and everyone else acts like it's equal to her getting him kicked out of the train club. The breakup even has shades of this. Freddie has done almost nothing wrong during the relationship and would be well within his rights to have a non mutual breakup, and instead it ends up being said that Freddie is too 'normal' for Sam while Sam is too 'abnormal' for Freddie. The reality is Sam is just too insane for a guy to date with the way her character acts and Freddie is almost the perfect boyfriend and has far more patience than most guys would.

Jerkass Dissonance

• Sam hits 7 out of the 9 requirements for Jerkass Dissonance. Qualifies for 1, 2, 3, 4, semi-qualifies on 5 through being an Anti-Hero, 6 as a Draco in Leather Pants, 7 with Comedic Sociopathy, 8 through her fans applying heavy Subtext based on her Freudian Excuse's and only avoids 9 because she's not a literal villain on the show.
  • 1) Wish Fulfillment. Check. Who wouldn't want to go around abusing teachers, hitting people, failing in school and never getting punished for it, along with having an awesome friend like Carly and her brother Spencer to really take care of you?
  • 2) Fictional. Duh.
  • 3) Freudian Excuse. Yes, Yes and Yes.
  • 4) As part of the Power Trio she is drawn in far greater detail than the rest of the world.
  • 5) The Villain Makes the Plot.. well, she's not a villain, but her villainous actions do drive the plot quite often.
  • 6) Draco in Leather Pants. A textbook example of a Jerkass protagonist getting this treatment.
  • 7) Comedic Sociopathy. Against Freddie, Gibby, random strangers, anyone who is a villain in an episode... basically everyone but Carly.
  • 8) As a Jerkass Sue in a comedy her writing is quite shallow, but her fans apply extreme levels of Subtext through what detail she does have about 3, which then apply to her being a Draco In Leather Pants and as a justification for her Comedic Sociopathy.
  • 9) Not a villain so it doesn't quite apply to her.

Carly

Carly has not been a Purity Sue since Season 1.

• Carly had aspects of being a Purity Sue in Season 1 mostly due to her suffering Designated Protagonist Syndrome and being The Straight Man. Season 2 starts off with her getting a very jealous and competitive streak in iSaw Him First which she is called out on, and follows it up with episodes like iLook Alike where she disobeys Spencer and is punished for it, iGo Nuclear where she screws up her school project, when iDate A Bad Boy rolls around and she dumps Griffin for extremely minor reasons it basically cements her status as a regular teenaged everygirl who screws up sometimes and not a Purity Sue like her predecessor the title character Zoey from Zoey 101. She is roughly an unintentional subversion of Purity Sue (having people expect her to continue as being perfect like Zoey), by way of Character Development.

Fandom/Meta

• There is some meta analysis that compares the fandom's reaction to Sam, Jade West and Helga Pataki when compared to Megan, Tori Vega and Carly. It is at Nickelodeon/Analysis.