Chris McLean is the host and the overall main antagonist of the Total Drama series. He is the one in charge of designing the challenges the contestants have to face. In-universe, it is confirmed that Chris did not create Total Drama by himself, as he mentions producers multiple times in the series. His most important employee and personal pawn is Chef Hatchet, as well as several interns who he torments for fun. He has since became one of the most beloved yet hateable characters of the series.
He openly takes pleasure in watching the competitors suffer, and frequently goes out of his way to make things as difficult as possible for his own amusement.
In addition, it becomes increasingly clear that he has absolutely zero concern for fairness and sportsmanship in the competition, and loves to deliberately and abruptly eliminate contestants who don't deserve it in extremely unfair ways, and on more than one occasion he has out–and–outright broken the fundamental rules of the game. Chris thoroughly enjoys it whenever contestants fight with, bully, exploit, betray and cheat against each other, and sometimes tries to exacerbate the conflicts between them.
However, Chris has shown a caring side such as him feeling sorry for Justin when he was eliminated and when he became disgusted with Courtney for knowingly making a sundae that would make the interns ill, though it's more often for him not to care about the campers' safety. Nevertheless, when Gwen was nearly attacked by the real Chainsaw Killer, Chris went with the other contestants to save her, yet it's shown that he was worried to be sued if Gwen was killed. Even when he left Duncan, Gwen, Heather and Owen marooned for a challenge, he felt pity for them and asked Chef about his opinion about going after them. This niceness, however, seems to have faded away in later seasons, with Chris descending into a sadistic and sociopathic host. One could argue that he was always like this, and simply stopped caring about his image.
On the other hand, he hasn't lost all of his redeeming traits. For example, he does have moments of showing some compassion as when he hugged Harold after Duncan called him "Doris". Furthermore, while he still treats him horribly, he does have a soft spot for Owen and even considers him one of the few contestants he likes.
In the Legacy of Chris Thorndyke, he is a member of the Council of Light, because that he has hosted the Total Drama sextology until that Don had to take over for him in the Ridonculous, but he had to face one condition from a certain supreme leader from the Heavens that she involved the host's sadism to the contestants, it would result him to get a shock for a small bit, and somehow that he got one small detail from the condition, even that he has his bodyguard, Chef Hatchet to get him in check, but he needed someone in his life, which that involves Blaineley and to check the inside and out of Camp Wawanakwa that he just shelled out 500 nonillion bucks or more to establish his island, including the people that are living in his island, and he also lives a large mansion with a large money bin, that is similar to a certain duck from Duckburg.
And he is reprised by the legendary Christian Potenza in the English dub and will be voiced Wataru Takagi in the Japanese dub.