Kyle Broflovski

Kyle Broflovski, voiced by Matt Stone, is one of the four then five main characters of South Park. Matt Stone has said that Kyle is loosly based on his early days of childhood. He was born on May 26th, and is the youngest of the original four; and second youngest of all five mains.

Appearance


He wears a bright green hunting cap (or ushanka), a bright orange jacket with black trimmed pockets and dark green collar, dark green pants, and lime green mittens. He is rarely shown without his cap, but underneath it, he sports an auburn, curly afro-like hairstyle called a "Jew-fro", first seen in the episode "How to Eat with Your Butt", a hairstyle which he seems to resent. He is later seen again without his cap in "Lil' Crime Stoppers", "Quest for Ratings", "Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina" and "The Losing Edge"). This is a nod to Stone's character in Cannibal! The Musical in which he wears the same style hat with an afro underneath. A photorealistic version of Kyle's appearance was produced as a police artist sketch for the episode "Free Willzyx"; however, his mother, Sheila Broflovski, comments that it's "kinda a bad drawing". In "Preschool" and "Make Love, Not Warcraft", Kyle's curly hair hangs out below his hat. In "The List", Kyle was voted the ugliest boy in class, out of sixteen students. Kyle lets this debilitate his confidence, as he stoops down to the level of the misfit ugly kids at school. Eventually it was found out that the list was a compromise, technically relieving Kyle of his place of ugliest kid. His actual ranking is unknown. Though Cartman was rated the ugliest.

In "Good Times With Weapons" his anime self is shown to have either brown or violet eyes.

Personality
When angered or frustrated, Kyle has a tendency to clench his fists and growl or yell angrily. Kyle and Cartman share the AB negative blood type, as revealed in the episode "Cherokee Hair Tampons". It was also revealed in this episode that Kyle is a diabetic.

Kyle typically displays the highest moral standards of all the boys, even though he lies in "Are You There God? It's Me, Jesus". Kyle also usually gets higher grades than his associates, and often provides the sober thought to plans or ideas made by the other boys. As Kyle is the most rational of his peers, he is usually acts as the protagonist to Cartman's antagonist. Kyle is on better terms with Stan Marsh, although they occasionally argue. Apart from Butters, Kyle is the most caring and compassionate of the boys. It is also revealed that he has no rhythm in "Rainforest Schmainforest"

Religious beliefs
Kyle is of Jewish religion, but this detail is not officially revealed until "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo", despite having been mentioned briefly in the second The Spirit of Christmas short (which pre-dates the television series), and in "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride". Eric Cartman one of Kyle's classmates is known to makes derragatory remarks about the Jewish people, making comments such as "Shut your goddamn Jew mouth!"

Kyle appears ambivalent toward his Judaism, and there are conflicting clues as to the religiosity of his family - for example, while they dress similarly to many religious Jews (Gerald, for example, always wears a yarmulke), they apparently do not keep the Sabbath or follow very strict sexual lives (Sheila Stone, mother of Matt Stone, was herself a secular Sephardic Jew). Kyle's basic indifference to religion may be part of his effort to fit in with his friends, who are Roman Catholic. Kyle is often more defensive than proud of his Judaism, and though he regularly attends such functions as "Jew Scouts", he often has a poor grasp on the history, traditions and rituals of his religion. This could also be the fault of his parents, who, in a misguided attempt to shelter their son, generally refuse to discuss with him the finer points of their religion. For example:
 * When he heard that his brother Ike was going to have a bris, he was under the misapprehension that it involved cutting off the entire penis rather than just the foreskin. This was despite the fact that Kyle got circumcised himself.
 * After seeing Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, he told Cartman that Cartman was right about Jews all along and stood up in his synagogue to demand that Jews apologize for the death of Christ. Ironically, he killed Jesus personally in a later episode, though the act was not due to malice but Jesus' own request, so that he could resurrect himself and save Stan and the "Hare Club for Men" from being boiled alive like rabbits, but this act, at the request of Kyle, was only done because Jesus promised to never let Cartman know about it.
 * When he learned of Catholicism's conditions for getting into Heaven, he renounced his faith on the basis that if the Jews were right about the matter, it would make no difference if he were a Catholic, but if the Catholics were right, he would go to hell for not accepting Christ (see Pascal's Wager).
 * In "Chickenpox", when his dad told him about how society works, he thought of a "better idea", which involved sending all the poor people to concentration camps so only rich people would live. Kyle's father promptly realized he was being intolerant of people less fortunate than himself and stopped this. He therefore at least in this episode did not have a very clear grasp of the Holocaust or other forms of genocide.

Family
His mother, Sheila, is known to be extremely overprotective as she instigates a war between the USA and Canada in the feature-length movie South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut because of (Canadian natives) Terrance and Phillip's extremely scatological R-rated movie. Sheila is prone to making a mountain out of a molehill whenever something threatens her son. Even so, in "Cherokee Hair Tampons" she turns to holistic and nature medicine when Kyle almost dies of kidney failure because he is diabetic, although his diet is the same as the other kids. Stan is very upset about the possible death of Kyle (much more than about the many deaths of Kenny, much to Kenny's annoyance), and ultimately saves him by tricking Cartman into donating one of his kidneys to Kyle (Cartman asked for ten million dollars for it). Cartman had to because he was the only other one with the AB negative blood type.

Kyle's father Gerald is a lawyer, but, Kyle reiterates, they are not as wealthy as the Black family, also headed by a lawyer (probably either because Gerald isn't a very good lawyer or because of his gambling problems). Kyle has an adopted younger Canadian brother, Ike. He also has a cousin from Connecticut, Kyle Schwartz, who is a Woody Allen-esque Jewish stereotype.

Within his family, Kyle seems to have a strong relationship with his brother Ike. Ike follows Kyle around and generally imitates his older brother whenever possible, despite actions such as playing "kick the baby" (which features Kyle punting Ike like a football, usually through a window).

Catch Phrase
Kyle's most notable catch phrase is to exclaim "You Bastard(s)!" following Stan's catch phrase "Oh my god, they killed Kenny!" whenever their friend Kenny McCormick gets killed.

Name Dispute
Kyle's last name has been alternately given as Broslovski, Broflofski, Broflovski, and Brovlofski in the series, though the characters say "Broflovski" or "Broslovski" the most often. The name comes from the maiden name of Matt Stone's mother, Sheila Belasco (Broslovski had been changed to Belasco when her ancestor immigrated to America). In "Spontaneous Combustion" there is a shot of Kyle's father Gerald's law office - on the facade it says 'Brovlofski'. In "Sexual Harassment Panda" his name is shown as 'Broflofski'. The various spellings may be due to some confusion in trying to transcribe the Cyrillic surname Бровловский into the Latin alphabet; the letter в is normally transcribed "v" but when voiceless is often written as "f" in English, like in the name "Rachmaninoff". Parker and Stone have confirmed that Kyle's last name is indeed Broflovski, which is also the spelling used in the "4th Grade" intro.

Stan Marsh
His friendship with Stan is very strong, and has been asserted on the show many times. He's had his life saved by Stan three times, however he did help to save Stan's life in "Fantastic Easter Special". Though they have broken up or had serious fights six times (in the episodes "Prehistoric Ice Man", "Douche and Turd", "Super Best Friends", "South Park is Gay!", "Follow that Egg!" and "Guitar Queer-o"), they have always reconciled in the end. He sometimes becomes angry with Stan because of differences in belief, mostly due to outside influence, or to Kyle's rivalry with Cartman, which Kyle often becomes preoccupied with, worrying Stan. The depth of their friendship is taken into account on several occasions, arguably most so in "Guitar Queer-o", where their falling-out creates the major conflict of the story. Generally, they are seen together on the show, standing next to each other as well as sitting together on the school bus. In the episode "The List", he is voted on a "corrupted" list ugliest. This depresses him a great deal and even inspires him to turn to arson, but Stan, seeing this, tries to get the girls to change the list. In "Imaginationland Episode III", Kyle goes to various extreme measures, including breaking into the Pentagon, to stop the government from nuking Imaginationland, being the only one to hear Stan inside it.

Eric Cartman
While most of the South Park kids dislike Cartman, Kyle particularly dislikes him; the feud between the two has been a recurring theme. Cartman and Kyle often exchange insults, with Kyle the target of Cartman's antisemitism, and, in return, Cartman being taunted about his weight. Whenever making a point, Cartman will often try to outsmart Kyle but usually winds up the loser of the argument. There are exceptions, however, as in "Die Hippie, Die", Cartman saves the town from a hippie music festival, and Kyle is forced to watch Cartman play with his new Tonka bulldozer in the school parking lot every day. In "Smug Alert" it was revealed that without Kyle to irritate, Cartman's life is empty to the point that Cartman actually goes and saves Kyle and his entire family from the Smug Storm. In "Kenny Dies", Kyle seemed to show empathy towards Cartman, suggesting that despite being easily angered by Cartman's teasing, he still considers him a friend. However, at the same time, he does not invite Cartman to his birthday party at Casa Bonita because he naturally doesn't consider Cartman to be a friend. He does, though, state that Cartman is his friend in "Up the Down Steroid", and he refers to Cartman as "my sort-of friend...ish," in the episode "The Entity."

Despite his obvious outrage towards Cartman, in "Up the Down Steroid", Kyle showed that he was really concerned about him going to hell if he goes to the Special Olympics. Kyle has even saved Cartman's life once in "Manbearpig" where Cartman swallowed fake treasure and became ill when the four boys were stuck in a cave. Cartman brings Kyle back to life in "Imaginationland Episode II" when Kyle was attacked by Manbearpig.

Kyle has trouble accepting that Cartman is never sincere and keeps falling for his seemingly good intentions time and time again. This is seen in "Casa Bonita", "Cartoon Wars Part I", "Kenny Dies", and other episodes. Perhaps it is Kyle's idealistic optimism that there is some good in everyone, even in Cartman. Sometimes, in episodes like "Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes" and "Fat Butt and Pancake Head", Kyle will make it very clear that he knows Cartman is manipulating before finally giving in.

Kenny McCormick
Kyle's friendship with Kenny is not as strong as his friendship with Stan, nor is it adversarial (like that with Cartman) but is clearly existent, as he invites him to various arrangements of his and promptly beats up Cartman in defense of Kenny following his "permanent" death.

Butters Stotch
His friendship with Butters is fairly decent, as Kyle treats Butters more nicely than the other boys. However, he is not against using Butters as a "guinea pig" when it comes to experiments or undercover jobs.

Girls
Next to Cartman, he seems to be the least interested in girls, of all five main characters. Bebe Stevens, however, fell in love with him in the Episode Clubhouses. She was especially turned on by his ass. He didn't share her feelings, though, and fled in terror after she kissed him. The only time he ever showed any interest in her was when she began developing breasts.

In Hooked on Monkey Phonics, he got a crush on a home-schooled girl named Rebecca Cotswalds. She didn't understand his ideas of love, though, but was interested in him nonetheless.

Health
Kyle becomes sick more often than any of the other boys, possibly due to his diabetes. He experiences a painful infectious hemorrhoid when Cartman inherits $1 million dollars from his grandmother and uses it to buy his own amusement park in "Cartmanland". He also needed a kidney transplant (that only Cartman could provide) in "Cherokee Hair Tampons". In the episode "Guitar Queer-o", sickness apparently prevents Kyle from practicing playing Guitar Hero as much as Stan does. However, in the episode "Chickenpox" he is the only person in his class who does not easily catch chickenpox, even after playing a game in which Kenny (who had chickenpox) spat into his mouth and he had to swallow it while saying "ookymouth" (an activity suggested by his mother in hopes that her son would catch chickenpox). He does catch it in the end, collapsing onto the ground melodramatically, though this only occurs after prolonged exposure to the sick Stan and Cartman.

Death and revival
Kyle is killed in "Imaginationland Episode II" by asphyxiation due to ManBearPig strangling him while being electrocuted by the imagination portal. He is revived quickly by Cartman, who performed CPR on him. In the next episode, "Imaginationland Episode III", Kyle is killed again when a nuclear warhead exploded within Imaginationland, killing everyone but Butters who then imagined everyone and everything in Imaginationland back to life.