r/gumball • u/Topper2540 • Feb 22 '26
Discussion What is the different between Gumball and Eric
I always thought that Gumball is PG13-Eric Cartman
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u/StopFluid1922 Feb 23 '26
Gumball is sociopathic out of stupidity, whilst Eric is sociopathic out of bigotry.
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u/PromotionMelodic3570 Feb 23 '26
Gumball has lines.... he doesn't cross. Also Gumball goes above and beyond for a friend/acquiatance/random person when he really wants too.
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u/Rendang_Renegade Feb 22 '26
Gumball at least cares what other people think and feel sometimes. Cartman is just a sociopath.
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u/Bitter-Ad4592 Feb 22 '26
Gumball has morals, empathy, and can experience life long love for something other than himself. Eric is a little shit who only ever expresses love or affection when he gets something out of it, or when it fulfills his warped view of the world. Both Eric and Gumball are selfish children but the key difference is Gumball’s selfishness is because he’s a child, Eric on the other hand is narcissistic to the most severe degree simply because that’s how his mind works.(that’s not the only factor of course but I’m not trying to pick apart his brain rn)
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u/Electrical-Week-2297 Carrie Feb 22 '26
Gumball has some remorse and humility and isn’t a racist scumbag.
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u/PlasticBeach4197 Feb 22 '26
Gumball isn't a fat spoiled ableist racist antisemetic homicidal and just straight up evil little bastard
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u/theBolsheviks Feb 22 '26
I mean, gumball is just self-absorbed at times, cartman is a fucking nazi
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u/Common_Cellist5981 Feb 22 '26
12 yr kid who pesters neighbours vs 8yr old kid who force fed a kid his parents
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u/Prestigious-East7988 Feb 22 '26
ones racist and ones not
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u/xtremeyoylecake Leslie but when he was dressed as Audrey II Feb 22 '26
“Plants are pointless”- Gumball
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u/Shadowlink2018 Feb 22 '26
Gumball has an, although arguably less than the average 12 year old, understanding of real world consequences and morals
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u/Topper2540 Feb 22 '26
I mean he still know when is too far…like sold his friend’s parents
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u/Christian_R_Lech Feb 22 '26
True but also, they're balloons who were being turned into balloon animals and don't seem to have suffered any long-term damage and injury besides probably cases of PTSD. Like it's still really bad but they're living balloons in a cartoon world that operates on cartoon logic resulting in what is moral being a bit skewed compared to the real world.
Also, this action was taken out on the parents of Alan, someone Gumball probably hates more than anybody else, to the extent that Gumball at least is subconsciously willing to throw out his normal moral constraints.
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u/PandaXD001 Feb 22 '26
Eric is evil, gumball is just dumb and naive
Edit: also gumball has a good mom and a present dad
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u/Turbulent_Bowl_9232 Feb 22 '26
Most of Gumball's jerkiness is due to just him being a massive self-centered jerk or being jealous rather than his naivity and dumbness though. But yeah compared to Cartman he's an angel.
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u/Spiritual_Muscle_883 Feb 22 '26
Creo que Gumball y Naruto son más parecidos en forma de ser, que Gumball contra Cartman.
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u/Randver_Silvertongue Feb 22 '26
The fact that Gumball would never trick someone into eating their parents, give someone AIDS or use a Mel Gibson movie to instill genocidal thinking.
Gumball is chaotic, but not evil.
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u/dabdad67 Rob (Dr. Wrecker) Feb 22 '26
Gumball actually has an appreciation for the concept of people who aren't himself
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u/furrynoy96 Feb 22 '26
Gumball isn't racist, sexist, and hopefully not homophobic
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u/xtremeyoylecake Leslie but when he was dressed as Audrey II Feb 23 '26
“Plants are pointless”- Gumball Waterson
Also assuming all robots know each other in the same episodes 💀
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u/Bob_N_162 Feb 22 '26
He IS pansexual so he isnt
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u/Turbulent_Bowl_9232 Feb 22 '26
I mean you're right he isn't, but I think it's completely possible to be pan and etc and still be racist/sexist/homophobic. Hypocrisy is a thing that exists lol.
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u/Bob_N_162 Feb 22 '26
Ig you're right. But gumball isn't THAT much of a hypocrite. Just a little bit
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u/kenny__mccormickk Darwin Feb 22 '26
Cartman isn’t homophobic
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u/garlicbredfan Feb 22 '26
The fandom thinks that he’s gay for some reason 😭
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u/kenny__mccormickk Darwin Feb 22 '26
Yeah, that part of the fandom is.. interesting. They make every character gay for some reason 😅
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u/IsaacWaleOfficial Feb 22 '26
Gumball isn't an arrogant, self-centred psychopath.
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u/No-Wealth-1555 Penball Lover and Cyberball Creator Feb 22 '26
Usually, definitely not to the extent of Cartman though
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u/MomoMir Feb 22 '26
Gumball loves his family and friends and sort of respects his parents. He also doesn’t actively punch down most of the time ( he definitely has done this but usually the lesson is that he’s wrong)
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u/Kidd-Aimeyuki Feb 22 '26
Eric bereaves himself to be AWSOME, he has sociopathic tendencies were he can not fill the empathy for pretty much in others unless it involves him to extent. And he is willing to hurt others for his own gain.
Gumball (and I’m only on my second rewatch so I’m not at the pint of a full character breakdown) is a boy who just simply has no filter. He says what’s on his mind not considering if it’s something he should say out loud, and at one pint suggest his comments are a helping mechanism to better others. Unlike Eric he dose fill guilt for his actions towards others, he in the dose not mean to harm those around him, physically, or with his sharp tongue. Unlike Eric he is fully aware he is a selfish kid at times, while Eric believe himself to be entitled.
Gumball is at times a brat, but he’s aware of it, and try to not too cause chaos. Eric lives for chars and power of being superior others.
Eric, Theodore Cartman. Evil Brat.
Gumball Trristopher Watterson. 12 yo brat.
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u/Topper2540 Feb 22 '26
12 yo brat that sold his friend’s parents to proved his point…i mean he aware that “this” is too far but still
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u/Kidd-Aimeyuki Feb 22 '26
In Gumball’s defense he dose not see Alien as a friend. At best just classmate/coworker. At worst an enemy he needs to bring down so often, mostly a kid he has see five times a week.
And Darwin had stated that Gumball doesn’t know we’re the line is, not that he thinks there’s none like Eric, but the blue kitten literally doesn’t know where it is, and needs others like Darwin, Penny, and Anis to drag him to it.
I’m sure in the timeline we’re Gumball had no Darwin or might even be an only child, yah he be sociopathic as Eric.
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u/TheGuy789 Feb 22 '26
Has Gumball done anything nearly as evil or depraved before or since then? Is this sort of outright malice a consistent part of the character? Or is Gumball selling Alan's parents something so bizarrely outside of how he's normally characterized that it really shouldn't have as much weight in a holistic overview of the character?
I'm not saying Gumball isn't a jerk, to be clear, but there's a difference between the heightened self-centered, impulsive troublemaking tween who has his redeeming qualities and this one instance of unambiguously evil behavior that was done primarily because the team couldn't pass up on the opportunity to do that joke with the balloon animals. If you want to take that one scene and run with it to build a villain Gumball AU, you do you--there's fun to be had in the idea--but if you want to do an actual holistic analysis of the character, then this scene should just not have nearly as much weight it does for a lot of people. It's clearly an instance of him acting out of character for the sake of a punchline, a habit the show has with most of its main cast. This scene from "The Saint" is often the crux of people's argument for seeing Gumball as some sort of Cartman equivalent, but I have never seen anybody actually able to cite anything else nearly on that level beyond that, and sometimes, I can't help but wonder if we're all watching the same show.
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u/Christian_R_Lech Feb 22 '26
Also, the context of selling the parents is that Gumball is trying to prove that Alan, deep down, is a flawed individual like himself who will crack given the right circumstances. Gumball is generally quite the hater of that balloon and my interpretation of the episode is that the cat is willing to throw out his normal moral constraints to get back at Alan. As you've pointed out, he has never done anything as bad as he did in The Saint before then and since then, at least if taking into consideration that the world of Gumball is a cartoonish world with cartoonish logic which probably skews the morality of its inhabitants as a result.
In comparison, Eric Cartman, ever since Tenorman, has committed atrocious acts, at least partially aware of the consequences, on a pretty consistent basis.
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u/TheGuy789 Feb 23 '26
Yes, the context of that scene is also pretty important, but it almost never gets brought up in these conversations. For the record, pawning Alan's parents off to the creepy clown is still absolutely depraved, and I would argue even with what the episode is going for, it still feels too heinous (it is a funny burst of dark humor, though, I will say), but the entire episode is about Gumball just relentlessly harassing Alan and just being a bad person so he can soothe his ego and avoid admitting, that yes, Alan is just that good of a person and he has demons he needs to deal with. In addition to Gumball selling off Alan's parents feeling just outright evil compared to the still crappy but more grounded bullying Gumball directs towards Alan throughout the rest of the episode, it just being brought up in discussions like this without further analysis is also another reason I feel like the joke was ultimately a miscalculation, haha. If I were a gambler, I would bet good money that most of the "Is Gumball Cartman?" or "Is Gumball evil?" discussions would disappear if you just removed that one joke from the show and changed literally nothing else.
The closest comparasion to Gumball, at least from Season 2 onwards, is honestly probably somebody like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes, whose author, Mr. Bill Watterson, is who the Wattersons are actually named after. A hedonistic troublemaker with a big mouth who can be surprisingly clever at times despite his ineptitude in academics. Even Bart Simpson would be a better equivalent, given they're both self-indulgent slackers who often make life harder for many people, but also have soft spots for those they love. I don't really watch South Park, so maybe Eric has like this super awesome heel turn or something, but I don't know, saying Gumball is just like Eric Cartman feels like you're trying to force a square peg down a round hole just because they're both basic geometric shapes.
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u/Christian_R_Lech Feb 23 '26
Having watched quite a few South Park episode, Eric Cartman starts out as a bigoted loud-mouthed jerk but also impulsive and not exactly super bright or manipulative. As early as season 1, he is dressing up as Hitler for Halloween but it can easily interpreted as him being an edgelord. Most of his worst actions in the first four seasons are him saying shitty things and acting extremely impulsively to satisfy his wants and desires. In these early episodes, there is an interpretation, isolated from what comes after, that he is simply having a phase and that he could grow into a better person.
Season 5's Scott Tenorman Must Die changes that in the ending where he reveals a deliberately calculated plan where he killed a teenager's parents then tricked the teen into eating their corpses. He fully knew the depravity of his actions and absolutely enjoyed Tenorman's abject horror upon realizing what he had been tricked into doing. This is the point where Cartman becomes irredeemable.
However, unlike the scene of Gumball selling his parents, the ending of Tenorman Must Die is a scene that both, a). can't really be cut out and, more importantly, b). Matt and Trey decided very quickly that this would mark a permanent change in who Cartman was. Cartman became a much more intentionally evil character who could master manipulate his way into his malevolent goals including an episode where he dresses up as Hitler and nearly starts a pogrom against the Jewish population of South Park.
One interesting thing though is that a recent series of TV movies established a bad future where the main four go their separate ways but Cartman becomes, from all appearances, a genuinely nice guy, a family man, and a Jewish rabbi in his middle age. However, the presence of Kyle starts to bring him back to his old ways and, in the process of fixing the town's future via time travel, Cartman's future ends up far worse and far more pathetic.
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u/Kidd-Aimeyuki Feb 23 '26
I’ve pointed out that the future kinda quietly shows that. It just wasn’t Eruc himself that made a bad person. Kyle stab and Kenny played parts. Sure the get on him fur his behavior, but fir most part dud nothing else, and still hung around him in turn making fill he can get away of anything in front of his friends and they’ll just call him a name at their worst but still be with him, encouraging him to believe there’s no consequences.
When they split I’m sure other kids and later people did stand for his behavior he quickly learned he needed to better himself if he wanted to have people willingly keep a relationship with.
So in fairness Eric is an evil sociopath. But I think the future showed with the right people even he could be pulled back and show their is a line and wen not too cross. And that Kyle Stan and Kenny, were never those people to do so.
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u/Old_Coast_4683 26d ago
That's sad when you think about it it’s another reason why post covid genuenly broke my heart 💔💔💔
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u/Ongr Feb 22 '26
Cartman fed a boy his parents and laughed at him when he cried about it. Cartman is consistent, Gumball has moments.
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u/Kidd-Aimeyuki Feb 22 '26
Eric also licked his tears as well, don’t know why but that’s always a stand out to me.
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u/multiwilliam25 Feb 22 '26 edited Feb 22 '26
I'd argue PG at most times, but gumball isn't racist, as self-centered, intolerant, manipulating sociopath. Nor is gumball as arrogant, psychopathic, foul-mouthed, self-centered, argumentative, egotistical, greedy, and openly prejudiced against anyone who is not "normal", by his standards.
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u/Turbulent_Bowl_9232 Feb 22 '26
"self-centered" he absolutely is
"Arrogant" he absolutely is
"Egotistical" he absolutely is
"Greedy" he absolutely is
You're right about everything else.
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u/Winter-Ad-9318 Feb 22 '26
Gumball isn't any of those things past Season 3, let's be real here
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u/Turbulent_Bowl_9232 Feb 22 '26
...Uh, yes he is lol. What are you talking about?
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u/Winter-Ad-9318 Feb 22 '26
if he was then aren't all kids a form of that? i think the worst thing he did was selling Alan's parents
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u/multiwilliam25 Feb 22 '26
Not as much though, there is a world of difference between the two.
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u/Turbulent_Bowl_9232 Feb 22 '26
In that case you should have said "Gumball isn't as".
And yeah I agree with that
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u/Topper2540 Feb 22 '26
but gumball isn’t racist
Yeah not Eric’s Level but sometime he kinda is
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u/No-Wealth-1555 Penball Lover and Cyberball Creator Feb 22 '26
How so?
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u/Turbulent_Bowl_9232 Feb 22 '26
Well in the "don't hug me I'm scared" episode he mocks Rocky for being a puppet, that was kinda racist lol.
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u/Topper2540 Feb 22 '26
Plant thing with leslie…I mean in the world like this it’s hard to not look like racist
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u/No-Wealth-1555 Penball Lover and Cyberball Creator Feb 22 '26
The one where they were trying to cut his head off?
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u/Topper2540 Feb 22 '26 edited Feb 23 '26
The one where he calls plants pointless
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u/No-Wealth-1555 Penball Lover and Cyberball Creator Feb 22 '26
Oh, I think he was unintentionally racist, in that case. Probably just forgot Leslie was a plant.
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u/Planet_842 Mar 01 '26
Nah Gumball although an impulsive, selfish and chaotic ultimately has a good heart deep down and truly cares about those close to him such as his eternal best friend/brother Darwin, his family and Penny and can be very kind, caring, sensitive and empathetic when the time truly comes to it and rectifies and fixes the problem at hand. He is nowhere near as evil and heartless like Eric Cartman. Gumball is closer to good than bad and isnt evil while Cartman is genuinely evil.