James the Red Engine (Thomas & Friends)

James the Red Engine is the tritagonist of Thomas & Friends. He is a red mixed-traffic tender engine who is very vain and boastful but has a good heart.

Why He's A Really Splendid Engine

 * 1) He is one of the most iconic engines in the franchise.
 * 2) He has a nice engine design, especially his nice red coat.
 * 3) * Before his red livery, he had some black livery before he had a crash. That design is very nice on him as well.
 * 4) He is a jack-of-all-stats which means he is capable of doing several jobs.
 * 5) After accidentally blowing steam on Sir Topham Hatt's top hat and bumping his coaches and being stuck in the sheds for it, James proves his redemption by successfully pulling his trucks up Gordon's Hill and didn't crash the second time and getting praised for it by Sir Topham Hatt.
 * 6) He is a splendid engine, as shown as he doesn't always boast that he's one, but he proves he is one plenty of times.
 * 7) He has funny moments, especially when he's very accident-prone, such as crashing into tar wagons, sliding into the snow, and crashing into Edward's poster, getting teased for his mishaps, or when he teases other engines.
 * 8) His friendship with Gordon and Henry is very iconic, considering all three of them are arrogant tender engines.
 * 9) Despite his vain and egotistical personality, he proves to be caring and kind-hearted, as shown when he helps his friends numerous times like in "Make Someone Happy", "Dirty Work" and "James Goes Too Far.".
 * 10) When he is rude and insults other engines, he often gets his comeuppance or realizes his mistake and apologizes.
 * 11) Even though he only likes to pull coaches and not trucks, he often learns "he can't always do the jobs he likes to do" and eventually does his assigned jobs.
 * 12) Even when the series went through seasonal rot during Seasons 12-16, 22-24 and the infamous All Engines Go! reboot, he was one of the few characters who hadn’t been flanderized and retained his original personality.
 * 13) * That said, he was the only member of the Steam Team during the Miller Era was never flanderized along with Gordon (who despite suffering a flanderization was still tolerable, and he went back to his original personality in Season 14).
 * 14) His catchphrase as of Season 20: "Here's James!" when he arrives in a station is very neat, which is a reference to Jack Torrance's famous quote in The Shining: "Here's Johnny!".

Not-So-Splendid Qualities

 * 1) He can be rude and insensitive to other engines, especially smaller ones like Thomas and Percy.
 * 2) He was very unlikable in  "Diesel's Special Delivery", "James to the Rescue" and at his worst in "Apology Impossible".
 * 3) In Thomas and the Magic Railroad, his moment where he and Junior were cornered by Diesel 10 and almost pushed back into a smelting pit was very scary.

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