Carmen Sandiego (character)
| Carmen Isabela Sandiego | |
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| First appearance | Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? |
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| Portrayed by |
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| Information | |
| Nickname(s) | "The Lady in Red" "The World's Greatest Thief" "The Miss of Misdemeanor" |
| Species | Human |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | Ringleader of V.I.L.E. (current) A.C.M.E. detective (former) |
| Family | None known (Malcolm Avalon may be her father in the Earth series) |
| Nationality | American |
Carmen Isabela Sandiego is a fictional character featured in a long-running edutainment series of the same name. As a criminal mastermind and the elusive nemesis of the ACME Detective Agency, Sandiego is the principal villain of the series and head of ACME's rival organization V.I.L.E. She is central to the series, which originally focused on teaching geography and history (although the series later extended to mathematics and English). The character later appeared in a series of books and many other licensed products. Most of her crimes involve spectacular and often impossible cases of theft.
Carmen Sandiego writer David Siefkin first thought to base his game’s titular character on Carmen Miranda, a Portuguese-Brazilian singer and actress who found mainstream success in America in the mid-20th century. Miranda was known for being one of the first artists to bring the sound of Brazilian (and, by extension, Latin American) music to the US, a distinction that both made the artist famous and sometimes resentful of her place in the pop cultural canon. Even though Siefkin left the Carmen Sandiego project before it was released, the character’s identity as a Latina woman has been a consistent and integral part of her all throughout the three decades that she’s been around.
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-1990s:
In all canons, ACME Headquarters is located in San Francisco and the leader of ACME is called "The Chief". Carmen 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 .
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