Carmen Sandiego
Carmen Sandiego character
First appearance	Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (1985).
Created by	Broderbund Software (Gene Portwood, Mark Iscaro, Dane Bigham, and Lauren Elliott)[1]
Portrayed by	Janine LaManna (Time; season 1)[2][3] Brenda Burke (Time; season 2)
Voiced by	Rita Moreno (Earth)[4] Mari Devon (Word Detective and Math Detective) Christiane Crawford (Treasures of Knowledge and The Secret of the Stolen Drums) Gina Rodriguez (Netflix animated series)
Information
Nicknames	The World's Greatest Thief The Miss of Misdemeanor The Queen of Crime The Black Sheep Le Femme Rouge The Crimson Ghost The Lady in Red The Scarlet Outlaw The Red Rogue Fedora the Explorer The Crimson Shadow The Red Snapper The Scarlet Ski Demon The Red Sneakeroo The Crimson Phantom Red (by Player)
Species	Human
Gender	Female
Occupation	Ringleader of V.I.L.E.
Family	None known (Malcolm Avalon may be her father in the Earth series)

Carmen Isabella Sandiego^[5] is a fictional character featured in a long-running edutainment series of the same name created by the American software company Broderbund. As an international thief, a criminal mastermind, and the elusive nemesis of the ACME Detective Agency, Carmen Sandiego is the principal villain of the video game series and the head of ACME's rival organization, V.I.L.E. She is depicted as a stylish, fashionable woman whose signature look features a red, matching fedora and trenchcoat. Most of her crimes in the games involve spectacular and often impossible cases of monument theft, which are used as a pretext to teach children geography via the simulated process of tracking Carmen, the stolen monuments, and her accomplices all over the world.

Carmen Sandiego's authors were Gene Portwood, Lauren Elliott, and Dane Bingham. Writer David Siefkin, who was involved early in the project, left before the first game was released in 1985. The character’s identity as a Hispanic woman has remained a consistent and integral part of her character.^[6]

Character overview[edit]

There are numerous discrepancies in the various media depicting Carmen Sandiego, and no official or correct canon has been designated or established. However, the following seems to have remained consistent throughout all Carmen Sandiego media created since around the mid-1980s:

• In most Carmen Sandiego media, it is stated or implied that Carmen is a gentleman thief in that she steals only for the challenge of it, although some of her V.I.L.E. minions seem to be more traditionally motivated. She often describes her schemes and the user/protagonists attempts to stop them as being a game, which they ironically are, regularly gloating that she is impossible to capture or that her plans are infallible and acting as though any efforts made against her are extremely trivial. Sometimes, she asserts that it is impossible for anyone to understand her or her motives and seems to revel at how difficult she can make it for anyone trying to figure her out.
• In the original 1985 Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? game, Carmen is characterized as a former spy for the Intelligence Service of Monaco and that she is 'an agent, double agent, triple agent, and quadruple agent for so many countries that even she has forgotten which one she is working for,' but this background seems to have since been abandoned.
• Starting with Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase Through Time (formerly Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego?), it is explained that she was an ace detective for the ACME Detective Agency who found catching criminals too easy and decided that outsmarting ACME itself would make for greater challenges. This origin story was consistently maintained for over a decade, with one of the protagonists of Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Treasures of Knowledge being Carmen's former partner.
• In both the animated TV series Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? and in the video game Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Treasures of Knowledge, it is heavily hinted that, despite her thieving ways, she may still have some goodness left in her. The character has, however, never been depicted turning back to the good side outright, although she has often been encouraged to do so. Nevertheless, Carmen tries to maintain a reputation as a 'thief with a conscience' in the Earth series and ACME agents who used to work closely with her are often shown to have mixed feelings about imprisoning her.
• In other media, however, the character seems more than willing to bring chaos and destruction upon the world. For example, many of the thefts committed in the Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? game show, such as stealing the history of medicine for example, would quite clearly cause millions to die, although this is never specifically stated. In Word Detective and Math Detective, she appears to be particularly fiendish, plotting to steal the concept of natural language in the former and to make herself invincible in the latter. This inconsistency in her portrayal is never explained, but it seems reasonable to assume that not all Carmen media is set in the same fictional universe.

Backstory[edit]

In the games, ACME Headquarters is primarily located in San Francisco and the leader of ACME is called 'The Chief'. Carmen Sandiego was a brilliant agent for the ACME Detective Agency until she left and formed the Villains' International League of Evil (V.I.L.E.). V.I.L.E. seeks to commit incredible thefts and/or cause chaos in other ways, while ACME tries to thwart them and capture their agents. In the computer games, the thefts of the minor henchmen are almost always meant to keep ACME occupied before Carmen herself pulls off the real crime, usually something monumental and significant to the theme of the game. Carmen is incredibly, at times almost supernaturally, elusive and her permanent capture would be ACME's holy grail.

Carmen Sandiego was voiced by Rita Moreno in the Earth animated series. This animated television series reveals a unique backstory about Carmen Sandiego. According to the show, Carmen Sandiego was an orphan raised at the Golden Gate Girls' School in San Francisco. The Chief gave her a home at the ACME Detective Agency and, by age seventeen, she solved more cases than any other ACME agent. However, she then disappeared and turned to a life of crime. Her partner when she was at ACME was a Japanese man named Suhara, who left ACME after she did and appears to now be retired. Unlike in most of the rest of the series, the reason for Carmen leaving ACME is not specifically stated, although it is speculated by Suhara ('Déjà Vu'). In the latter seasons of the show, Carmen began to be portrayed as more of an antivillian than a proper villainess, even teaming up with the show's protagonists to defeat criminals more unscrupulous than herself on several occasions. Additionally, it was made clear that she makes a point of refusing to steal something if the theft will cause anybody harm—a vow she frequently breaks outside this canon.

The Earth series gave the franchise a timeline, with the mid-1990s (the time the show was produced) being the present. According to this timeline, Carmen joined ACME in 1985, placing her birth in approximately 1968. Her birthday is on March 1 ('The Scavenger Hunt'). In the two-part finale, Carmen Sandiego attempts to rob millionaire Malcolm Avalon of a statue but finds a portrait of someone who she believes is her mother based on a locket she owns and sparks the possibility that Avalon might be her father. Avalon refuses to believe that she is his daughter due to her propensity of being a thief and that he believes his daughter died in a hotel fire along with her mother in San Francisco. However, later on in the episodes he accepts the possibility that she might be his daughter. Before finding out the ultimate truth, Avalon falls from a roof during a battle with former ACME agent Lee Jordan and has selective amnesia of the events that have transpired. At the end of the final episode, Carmen hires a hypnotist in order to remember what happened the day of the fire. It is discovered she picked the locket off the ground, but cannot recall if it was because she dropped it, or if she found it while the hotel was burning. The finale ends with her saying, 'But maybe there are just some things we aren't meant to know for sure.'

CommonSenseMedia explains:

Carmen breaks the law at every turn, but her thefts are somehow forgivable in light of the fact that she does it more for the challenge and the thrill of it than for any personal gain, and her main concern is always the preservation of the artifacts. In fact, she even concerns herself with the kid detectives’ well-being and is known to step in on their behalf when there’s danger.^[7]

DVDTalk determines:

Carmen, bless her heart, is a thief only in the sense of her love of a mental contest; she's not out to hurt anybody, often leaving valuables behind, and, in one episode, attempting to save Ivy from harm. The teens, then, give their brains a workout with every adventure, obviously taking great delight in solving Carmen's geography riddles.^[8]

According to the episode 'Hot Ice', Carmen has been gone from ACME for 10 years, 3 months and 7 days.

Unlike in most of the rest of the franchise, the reason for Carmen leaving ACME is not specifically stated in the Earth series, although it was speculated by Suhara ('Déjà Vu'). In the episode 'Hot Ice', Carmen points out she didn't have all the high-tech hardware Zack and Ivy have back when she was an ACME detective. In the episode 'Retribution, Part 1' a scene shown in flashback shows how justified she was. This is further enforced in another episode, where Carmen is dared to try something without any of her high-tech equipment. She agrees to this, and actually pulls it off, hijacking the Orient Express with only conventional tools. Carmen is sometimes depicted as genuinely liking Zack and Ivy, and enjoying the ongoing battle of wits she has with them to the point where she will often congratulate the two for their successes regarding them as worthy opponents. Carmen thievery skills are highly complex as she has managed to steal the Mona Lisa's smile, technology to steal musical talent and even the entire beach of Kaimu Beach in Hawaii. Despite her nature as a thief, Carmen does have her nice moments. In one episode, Carmen eludes every ACME Detective at once, the detectives find that she has left them all a doll of herself that teases that it is the only Carmen that they'll catch, and wishes a Merry Christmas as a Christmas gift. In the episode 'Trick or Treat' Zack and Ivy find Carmen's Halloween party. They see Sara Bellum handing out candy to trick-or-treaters, on Carmen's orders so her theft wasn't going to wreck the holiday for children. Although a villainess Carmen operates on her own brand of morals, such as being a thief in the strictest sense of the word and not killing Zack and Ivy despite gaining many opportunities to do so. She has even saved the Chief’s life when he was suffering a viral malfunction and did not want to lose him and only had Manny 'kidnap' him so she could get to play chess with him like they did every Christmas when she was an ACME agent.

The six Carmen Sandiego games produced from 1996 through 1999 (Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, Where in the U.S.A. is Carmen Sandiego?, Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego? (Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase Through Time), Carmen Sandiego Word Detective, Carmen Sandiego Math Detective and Carmen Sandiego's ThinkQuick Challenge) seem to form a loose canon as they feature some of the same characters. However, characters as well as some other elements often appear differently between the games due to the use of different animation styles. It is only in Word Detective and Math Detective that substantial information about Carmen is given. In this universe, Carmen's partner when she was at ACME was Chase Devineaux and one of the last cases they worked on together involved the mythical 'Prometheus Rock.' Although Chase and Carmen apprehended the thieves responsible for stealing it, the rock itself was not found. When Carmen left ACME, Chase was forced to leave ACME as well since he had worked so closely with her. However, Chase began working with ACME again to stop Carmen's plan to steal language with the Babbel-On Machine, as depicted in Carmen Sandiego Word Detective. In Carmen Sandiego Math Detective, the whereabouts of the Prometheus Rock became all too clear when Carmen tried to use it to make herself all-powerful, although her plans were thwarted by Agent 9 (the player) and Chase. As of Carmen Sandiego's ThinkQuick Challenge, Chase is again working for ACME.

In the Carmen Sandiego Treasures of Knowledge canon, Carmen was a child prodigy, who won a substantial amount of money on a game show called It's a Wise Child (a reference to J. D. Salinger's Glass family in Franny and Zooey and many of his short stories) when she was ten years old. She used the money to travel extensively around the world until she was twelve. Her partner when she was at ACME was Jules Argent, who still works for ACME and appears to be in her early twenties. Jules specifically notes that Carmen never talked about her childhood, and aside from the mention of her winning the aforementioned game show, no details of it are given. (Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Treasures of Knowledge) The game show Carmen wins may be a reference to the game shows the character herself starred in.^[9]

According to Where in Universe is Carmen Sandiego?, her favorite writer is Ursula K. Le Guin and her favorite astronomer is Nicolaus Copernicus.^[10]

In Carmen Sandiego: Junior Detective Edition, the third version of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Treasures of Knowledge, Carmen owns a red helicopter. In Junior Detective and in the 1996 versions of World and U.S.A., she owns a pet cat named Carmine.

In the 2019 Netflix animated series, Carmen was an orphan Argentine girl code named 'Black Sheep' who is recruited to V.I.L.E. 20 years ago. But when she learns the organization's true goal, she turns against them and seeks to dissolve it by stealing back from them. In this series, Carmen has no personal connection to The ACME Detective Agency, but they have parallel goals in opposing V.I.L.E. and the agency pursues Carmen to investigate the agenda of her crimes which appears to have some connection to their primary enemy.

Portrayals[edit]

Carmen Sandiego has always been created through animation techniques in most of the games, either with various forms of computer graphics or traditional animation. The Time game show is the only time the character has officially been portrayed in live action, aside from photographs in early game manuals.^[11]

Carmen Sandiego's voice was heard for the first time on Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe Edition during her trial after she is captured by the player. Her voice was featured regularly in the World game show, though only during the phone tap skit. Carmen had little personality on the World show, aside being constantly exasperated by her crooks' incompetence and showing sarcasm. No voice artist was credited; however, later performers maintained the distinctive slightly dusky voice she was given on World.

In the Earth animated series, Carmen Sandiego also had a much larger role and was voiced by actress Rita Moreno.^[12] Moreno would later voice Carmen for the game Junior Detective and the planetarium film Universe. In the games Word Detective and Math Detective, Mari Devon took on the title role. Most recently, her voice was provided by Christiane Crawford for Treasures of Knowledge and The Secret of the Stolen Drums. On Time, Carmen Sandiego also had little personality and was generally portrayed as a straight villain. Furthermore, her face was never fully visible and all images of her were posterized, giving her a stylized, unreal look. Although the actress portraying Carmen in the show was not directly credited, it has been confirmed that she was played by Janine LaManna in the first season, and later Brenda Burke until the show's cancellation. LaManna and Burke also portrayed minor characters, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Eleanor Roosevelt.^[13]

Efforts were made at least once, in 2006, to produce a film featuring the character, possibly starring Sandra Bullock as the titular thief.^[14] In 2011 or 2012, there was talk that Jennifer Lopez would play the titular thief. In 2019, a Netflix animated series presents an intimate look into Carmen Sandiego's past where viewers not only follow her escapades but also learn her origins. She was an orphan taken in and raised by V.I.L.E. at their secret Canary Islands headquarters. When she learns the truth, she turns on them and seeks to undo their thievery. Gina Rodriguez is the voice of the character for the series.^[15]

Cultural impact[edit]

Despite being loosely based on the Brazilian singer and actress Carmen Miranda, Carmen Sandiego is commonly considered to be of Hispanic descent. According to Frances Martel of The Mary Sue, this has been considered an important part of her identity, as she has had a major 'cultural impact [on] Latin American girls' in particular.^[16] Martel further states that 'Sandiego has a particular impact on girls...because she was a symbol of cultural rebellion. She is the first major American pop culture example of a mischievous yet beloved hero who also happens to be both a woman and a [Hispanic] American.'^[16] Julie M. Rodriguez of Care2 said: 'There are so few examples of what a competent, successful Latina woman looks like in the media – and it’s wonderful to realize that, even in the infancy of the video game industry, there was at least one game working to remedy that problem'.^[17]Animaniacs made a reference to Carmen Sandiego in an episode.

Attire[edit]

Carmen Sandiego is almost always portrayed as a woman who often wears a red trench coat, a matching fedora (though often portrayed similar to a sombrero cordobés), and long brown hair, although her hair color was given to be 'auburn' or 'black' in some of the earlier games of the franchise. Her hat is often shown leaving her face in shadow and obscuring her eyes. When her eyes are visible, they are usually brown, although they were blue in the Earth animated series and in the Math Detective game. In many appearances, she also wears gray or black leather gloves.

In the original Broderbund games, Carmen Sandiego wore a yellow or orange dress under her trench coat, with a matching stripe on her fedora, and red high-heeled shoes (best recognized in this outfit). She also seemed to have a flair for elegance, being described in the 1985 classic game as having 'jewelry' as a feature and in its accompanying manual as wearing a famous necklace known as the 'Moon of Moldavia'. In the later games created under The Learning Company, her appearance was rebooted so that she wore a grayish black catsuit under her trench coat, with the stripe on her fedora changed to match, and more practical footwear.

In the canon depicted in the Earth animated television series, her hair is black, rather than the usual brown, as are her normally gray gloves. Her hat band on Earth is orange, matching a turtle neck and skirt she wears under her trench coat in this series. Frances Martel of The Mary Sue described her as having a 'keen but conservative fashion sense'.^[16]

In the Netflix animated series, she wears black clothing under her trench coat and a black stripe on her hat, as well as a choker with a triangle pendant. Her hair is red and her eyes are gray.

Reception[edit]

The character has had mostly positive reception. St. Cloud Times described her as 'glamorous', 'shifty', 'smart', and 'great fun to chase'.^[18] Kokatu described her as 'mysterious', 'clever', 'dashing', a 'mastermind', 'cunning', 'sly', 'sneaky', 'smart', and fashionable, summing her up as the 'perfect childhood villain'.^[19] What drew Brittany Vincent of ScyFy Wire to her most was her 'grandiose attitude and infallible confidence'.^[20]GameDaily elected Sandiego as the 21st 'evil mastermind' in video games of all time,^[21] and also included her among 'the smartest video game babes'.^[22] In 2011, Complex ranked her as third on the list of 'most diabolical video game she-villains',^[23] and in 2012, they ranked her as the 27th coolest video game villain of all time^[24] as well as the tenth on their 'The Most Evil Women In Video Games' list.^[25] In 2013, they placed Sandiego eleventh in a list of '12 Old School Video Game Characters Who Were Style Icons'.^[26]GamePro also included the character on its list of 'The 47 Most Diabolical Video-Game Villains of All Time', placing her 44th.^[27] She was included in GameSpot's 'All Time Greatest Video Game Villain' contest and lost to Sweet Tooth in 'Round 1b'.^[28] The same site included her in their 'The Ten Best Female Characters'.^[29]IGN placed Carmen Sandiego 62nd on their list of 'The Top 100 Videogame Villains', saying she 'is one tricky end boss'.^[30] In 2012, GamesRadar included her on their 'Mediocre Game Babes' article and in 2013 they ranked her as the 71st best villain in their 'Top 100' list.^[31][32]

References[edit]

1. ^Martin, Douglas (2000-07-30). 'Raymond Portwood Jr., Computer Game Pioneer, Dies at 66'. The New York Times. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
2. ^Luling, Todd Van (16 August 2016). 'My 20-Year Quest To Find Carmen Sandiego' – via Huff Post.
3. ^'Who In the World Was Carmen Sandiego? We Finally Know the Answer'. 18 August 2016.
4. ^''Educating Rita'. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved October 2, 2010.
5. ^'Top 100 videogame villains'. IGN. Archived from the original on May 11, 2010. Retrieved May 13, 2010. According to one game, by the way, the villain's full name is Carmen Isabella Sandiego.
6. ^'Carmen Sandiego, the World's Most Iconic Latina Super Villain, Is Back'. Fusion.net. Retrieved 8 December 2016.
7. ^'Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? TV Review'. CommonSenseMedia.org. Retrieved August 18, 2014.
8. ^'Where On Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? : DVD Talk Review of the DVD Video'. DVDTalk.com. Retrieved August 18, 2014.
9. ^'Carmen Sandiego: Secret of the Stolen Drums'. IGN. Retrieved October 2, 2010.
10. ^'Screenshot from 'Where in Space is Carmen Sandiego?''. Retrieved January 15, 2013.
11. ^'Carmen Sandiego Actress Janine LaManna Found After 20 Years'. People. 17 August 2016. Retrieved 8 December 2016.
12. ^Mangan, Jennifer (1994-05-04). ''Educating Rita'. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved October 2, 2010.
13. ^Van Luling, Todd (2016-08-16). 'My 20-Year Quest To Find Carmen Sandiego'. The Huffington Post. Retrieved August 16, 2016.
14. ^Cox, Dan (1997-12-03). 'Bullock on road to Sandiego—Entertainment News, Film News, Media'. Variety. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
15. ^'Carmen Sandiego With Gina Rodriguez Is Officially Happening'. 18 April 2017.
16. ^ ^abc'Carmen Sandiego: CEO, Intellectual, Positive Latina Role Model'. The Mary Sue. 2012-02-28. Retrieved November 7, 2013.
17. ^'Carmen Sandiego: America's Most Positive Latina Role Model?'. Care2.com. Retrieved November 7, 2013.
18. ^'St. Cloud Times from Saint Cloud, Minnesota on August 28, 2000 · Page 8'. Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2017-04-18.
19. ^Alexandra, Heather. 'Why In The World People Love Carmen Sandiego'. Kotaku. Retrieved 2017-04-20.
20. ^'How Carmen Sandiego made me want to play the villain'. SyfyWire. 2017-04-19. Retrieved 2017-04-20.
21. ^'Top 25 Evil Masterminds of All Time'. GameDaily. Archived from the original on December 9, 2008. Retrieved July 26, 2013.
22. ^'Babe of the Week: Brainy Babes'. GameDaily. Archived from the original on March 17, 2009. Retrieved July 26, 2013.
23. ^'3. Carmen Sandiego, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Series — Bad Girls Club: The 25 Most Diabolical Video Game She-Villains'. Complex. June 30, 2011. Retrieved July 8, 2013.
24. ^'26. Carmen Sandiego — The 50 Coolest Video Game Villains of All Time'. Complex. November 1, 2012. Retrieved January 15, 2013.
25. ^Welch, Hanuman (March 23, 2012). '10 Of The Most Evil Women In Video Games'. Complex. Retrieved July 22, 2013.
26. ^Welch, Hanuman (May 23, 2013). '12 Old School Video Game Characters Who Were Style Icons'. Complex. Retrieved July 22, 2013.
27. ^Sterbakov, Hugh (March 5, 2008). 'The 47 Most Diabolical Video-Game Villains of All Time'. GamePro. Archived from the original on October 3, 2008. Retrieved May 6, 2013.
28. ^'All Time Greatest Video Game Villain'. GameSpot. Retrieved April 20, 2013.
29. ^'The Ten Best Female Characters'. GameSpot. Archived from the original on August 28, 2003. Retrieved January 24, 2014.
30. ^'Carmen Sandiego is number 62'. IGN. Retrieved April 20, 2013.
31. ^Antista, Chris (June 23, 2012). 'Mediocre Game Babes'. GamesRadar. Retrieved July 25, 2013.
32. ^'100 best villains in video games'. GamesRadar. May 17, 2013. Retrieved July 8, 2013.

External links[edit]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Carmen Sandiego

• The Elusive Carmen Sandiego: A Community based on the Carmen Sandiego universe
• The Sandiego Manor: Carmen Sandiego's Dossier at kyranthia

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/CarmenSandiegoWordDetective

Go To

An Edutainment Game made in 1997 as part of the Carmen Sandiego franchise by Brøderbund Software and featuring the titular villain in a scheme to cause a worldwide communications breakdown using her 'Babble-On Machine'.

The story opens with the latest agent in a line of failed missions being captured by one of Carmen's surprise traps. This leads the chief and ACME agent Chase Devineaux to turn to the player character, dubbed Agent 13, to rescue the captured agents and destroy the machine. The gameplay centers around locating the keys to the agent's cells using 'password decoders', in the form of various language puzzles hidden in various VILE hideouts around the world (and even beyond).

Carmen Sandiego: Word Detective displays the following tropes:

• 13 Is Unlucky: Inverted. The player as Agent 13 is the only one to successfully take Carmen down.
• Alphabet Soup Cans: The puzzles in this game have no relevance to the environment whatsoever, and are all about language and its construction.
• America Saves the Day: Averted. In an agent list from various cultures with a villain plan made to scramble language worldwide, the American agents are captured just as easily as the rest. Though Chase is also American, the game never gives any identifying features to the player, leaving their nationality completely up to the imagination.
• And I Must Scream: The fate of the captured ACME agents; they get shackled, hit by the Babble-On Machine, and then somehow get frozen in a standing position and put under a spotlight, making it look like they're trapped in tubes. Fortunately, once you free them, they can talk normally.

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• Biblical Motifs: In addition to being a Punny Name, the Tower of Babble references the Tower of Babel in the Book of Genesis, which a large group of prideful people intended to build high enough to reach Heaven. God decided He didn't want that to happen and threw a Spanner in the Works by way of giving each person a different language, meaning that they could no longer collaborate on the massive project and were forced to stop, naming the unfinished tower so because of it.
• Bittersweet Ending: On the one hand, all of ACME's agents escape and are relatively unharmed, and the Babble-On Machine is toast. On the other hand, Carmen has escaped, and none of her villains are captured.
• Continue Your Mission, Dammit!: The game's radar starts going off once all the passwords in a hideout are found to warn you of an approaching villain, but you can remain in the hideout for as long as you want without any ill effects. Even opening and closing the Transport menu won't do anything (opening it when the radar is beeping moves and locks your view of the hideout into a certain position in preparation for the outgoing cutscene, and closing the menu is all that's needed to unlock it again); the villain won't even appear until after you click the Launch button and actually start teleporting away.
• Curse of Babel: Carmen plans to steal the power of speech by invoking this trope on the whole world. Fittingly, the tower she uses as her headquarters is named the Tower ofBabble.
• Darker and Edgier: As far as you can go within this genre (and series). The art style isn't anywhere near as colorful as in previous games, the music is much less upbeat, and this is the first game where VILE agents will actively attempt to harm the player as they try to make their escape from the lair. Depending on which VILE agent is housing the key at the time, they can actually get surprisingly close to harming the player.
• Faux Affably Evil: The blatantly mocking concern for Agent 12 when she's been reduced to babbling nonsense is Carmen's Establishing Character Moment in the game.
• Fetch Quest: The game centers around solving puzzles to decrypt passwords, which are required to unlock and secure keys that free the captured agents so that you can obtain their part of the code to destroy the Babble-On machine. It's a fetch quest inside more fetch quests.
• Hard Boiled Detective: Nick Furtive appears to be an evil variant.
• Intangible Theft: By scrambling the sounds that people articulate, the Babble-On Machine effectively allows Carmen to steal speech.
• Interchangeable Antimatter Keys: Every key you acquire can only be used to free a single agent. Justified as they're all made to fit the same lock and you can choose which agent you want to free before using the key (although it has no effect on the plot or gameplay).
• Karma Houdini: Carmen's plan might have been ruined, but she escapes scot-free. For that matter, so do all of the other villains you encounter in the game.
• Mad Scientist: Dr. D. Ranged.
• Mythology Gag: Some of the captured ACME agents resemble Good Guides from the 1995 versions of World and USA.
• Noodle Incident:
  Carmen:[to a henchman] Take these keys and hide them. And not under your pillow like the last time.
• No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: The Babble-On Machine.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Agent 12 says 'Uh oh,' right before falling through a Trap Door in the opening.
  • For the first two times you collect all of the passwords in a hideout, Chase sends you an e-mail alert to leave before a villain spots you.
• Punny Name: Carmen's underlings, of course (consisting of librarian Otto Readmore, ship captain I.I. Captain, and Egyptian tomb dweller Queen Notalotenkammen, among others), but also the Babble-on Machine, which is a play on the ancient city of Babylon. This ties into the name of the tower it's housed in, which is named for more than just a pun (see Biblical Motifs above).
• Right-Hand Attack Dog: Esther Odious has one, which she attempts to sic on the player after obtaining her hideout's key.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: Occasionally Carmen and Chase have a verbal sparring session when sending messages to Agent 13.
• Supervillain Lair: The Tower of Babble serves as Carmen's, and all of the environments of the game involve traveling to those of other V.I.L.E. villains.
• Towers of Hanoi: Variation, where you have to stack words in alphabetical order and can never stack them unalphabetized. Math Detective features an identical game, only with numbers instead of words.
• Trap Door: Agent 12 falls through one at the top of the Tower of Babble in the opening, leading to her capture.
• Worthy Opponent: Carmen comes to consider Agent 13 this.