Michael (The Good Place) Character Blog


“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
-Aristotle


What does it mean to be “good”? What does it mean to be “bad”? How can you even dictate those things in the first place? These questions have been postured by millions of humans across history, trying to find an answer, usually to no avail. But what if there was a mysterious force you couldn’t control, that was watching every action you ever did, silently judging you behind your back? Picking and prodding at each tiny detail that not even you could notice. Ladies, gentlemen, and Janets, welcome to the Good Place.


Hello readers! This will be a regular VS blog, just for one character, and at the end I’ll also be talking about possible opponents for them. This time we’ll be discussing…


Michael, the Bad Place architect who rebuilt the afterlife.


Before We Begin…

Since Michael only has one show, we’ll be looking at its 4 seasons for our main source material, and also looking at the show’s official podcast and YouTube channel, to reinforce certain statements made and truly get a handle on the lore. Oh and I should say this now, too. MAJOR SPOILER WARNING FOR THE GOOD PLACE! The Good Place is a show best enjoyed spoiler-free, and I’ll be spoiling literally every single detail of the show here. So yeah, you’ve been warned. Anyways, with everything settled, ready to come on in?


Background


“Eleanor, come on in.”

  • Full Name: Michael Realman

  • Species: Demon fire squid

  • Birth year: 0000

  • Likes: Humans, paperclips, frozen yogurt

  • Dislikes: Kissing, his true form, frozen yogurt

  • Favorite show: Friends

  • An aroace icon

Eleanor Shellstrop was your average terrible adult person from Phoenix, Arizona. Until one day, she died. A penis enlargement pill truck hit her into barreling shopping carts while she was trying to pick up margarita mix. If you can’t already tell by that scenario, she isn’t exactly the most prim of people. Despite this, her soul ended up being greeted by a friendly face known only as Michael, telling her she had winded up in… The Good Place! Not heaven, not quite hell, but the Good Place. A place filled with anything you can ever imagine, for eternity! What’s not to love? Michael introduced Eleanor to her soulmate, Chidi, but something still felt off to her. The memories shown to Eleanor weren’t hers. She wasn’t an activist or a sanctuary worker, she was an Arizona trashbag that liked to harass environmental workers. Someone so tone deaf and annoying that she literally defrauded the sick and elderly for cash. To much of her soulmate Chidi’s dismay, Eleanor was afraid of getting found out amongst the rest of her neighborhood. As she met the nextdoor couple, Tahani and Jianyu, terrible things started happening in the Good Place. Giant animals and plants started to attack the residents of Neighborhood 12358W! Why was this happening? Isn’t this the Good Place!? Michael stated that there was a problem amongst the neighborhood. Something was there that shouldn’t be. I wonder who it is… Even Michael’s all-knowing assistant, Janet, didn’t know Eleanor was the mole. Eleanor tried her best to become a better person through her soulmate, who just so happened to be a moral philosophy professor. As Chidi was teaching Eleanor good people lessons, Jianyu from next door told her that she didn’t belong… And that he didn’t either. He was an amateur DJ from Jacksonville, Florida, named Jason!? So Eleanor isn’t the only one? As the cracks of the neighborhood started to unravel, so did Michael. Tahani and Chidi also had their imperfections. Chidi’s rigidity in decision making led to his actual demise, and Tahani only did good things to impress her parents, making it all in vain. With four total ashholes in one place, how could the Good Place even handle all of it? Wait, this is the… No… It can’t be!

As Eleanor confronted Michael about the inconsistencies, he admitted it. This was the Bad Place all along. Originally, Michael wanted to invent a new method of torture, but less physical and more psychological, involving four already damned souls. Michael’s plan was flawed, and it ultimately failed. The humans were supposed to torture themselves endlessly, forever, and it somehow didn’t work. But hey! There’s always second chances, right? Michael, the now known demon, took this up with his boss Shawn. He had one more try. One small issue, though. The humans kept persisting, and persisting. After every reboot and mind erasure, they all found each other and started to get better. Michael, out of options and lying to Shawn, decided to make a deal with the humans. He wouldn’t erase their memories and continue the experiment, giving them a chance to get into the real Good Place. Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason didn’t have much of a choice, so they accepted. With a caveat. The humans would take ethics lessons from Chidi, and so would Michael. Teaching an actual demon to be good has its hardships, but it actually started to work out. Over time Michael learned morality and befriended these humans he once thought so lowly of. The time had come, and Shawn saw the fake Good Place as a rounding success. Even though he had been being lied to for hundreds of years. Regardless, getting the humans into the actual Good Place was going to be hard. It was so hard in fact that Michael… lied. Again. And to think he was starting to befriend these guys. But wait! There was one more option at stake. An almighty judge that ruled over all realms could potentially give them the save they needed. As the humans made their way up to the Judge’s quarters, Michael having sacrificed himself to fend off Bad Place employees, they were each given tests to determine their worth in the Good Place. While Eleanor completed hers, the others weren’t so lucky. Having agreed to all finish together, the humans would have to suffer the rest of their lives in… Oh shirt! Michael’s back! At the last second, Michael and Janet came back to rescue the four humans. As the Judge was reluctant to have them stay, Michael convinced her to give them just a push in the right direction. Whatever could that mean?

Michael was given permission to meddle with the human realm. On par with the Judge’s agreements, Michael was allowed to save the four humans from death, to see if they’d get better on their own without divine intervention. And it worked! …For a bit. As the humans got better, they got tired of being better and eventually returned to their old ways. So, to remedy this, Michael intervened with human affairs AGAIN! Man, if this guy wasn’t already an interdimensional fugitive enough. Either way, with all the humans together again, they actually did end up getting better! As this happened on earth, the almighty judge started to gain knowledge of it. Michael rushed back into the human realm and decided this was the end of it all. At this point the humans had seen into the afterlife and were told about the points system, rendering them completely void of getting into the actual Good Place. Michael had failed, again. Michael, Janet, and the humans thought about what their purpose could be now that they’re eternally doomed. If they can’t help themselves, why not help others? The Soul Squad went around Earth and bettered friends and family they knew, to see if they could get better instead. Although while this was happening, Michael’s old boss Shawn was monitoring the humans’ actions this whole time. And Shawn was going to get his revenge. In a bar in Canada, demons that weren’t Michael flooded the restaurant to try and fight and kill the humans for good. Stuck between a demon and a hard place, Janet grabbed Michael and the humans and teleported them into a different dimension, killing them on Earth, but saving their souls. This dimension was Janet’s void, tethered to her essence, and the humans had to remain here while Michael tried to find out another option out of eternal damnation. He and Janet decided to take it up with the point accountants of the afterlife, who catalog literally everything that’s ever happened ever. But guess what, they found out that nobody had gotten into the Good Place in over 300 human years. Something was wrong. As Earth was changing year after year, and getting more complicated, the points system was becoming more rigid and hard to follow, impacting every single soul on Earth. Michael took this up with the Judge again, seeing what could be done. Surprisingly, she agreed to yet another task. If Michael were to run another experiment like he did for his original neighborhood, with subjects picked by the Bad Place, and even they could get better under his reign, the entire points system would be re-evalutated.

A fresh start is always nice, right? Michael was ready, but he was also anxious. As the first human arrived at the neighborhood, Michael had a mental breakdown, forcing Eleanor to be the architect this time instead of him. While this plan was… shaky, to say the least, it was actually working quite well. Michael and the rest of the Soul Squad went through an entire year of the fake Good Place, and they were finally ready to be judged. The results came in, and each human in the neighborhood had improved almost ten-fold! Not just that, the friends of the Soul Squad on Earth also had improved after others helped them! Nobody is beyond rehabilitation. Michael’s theory, his leap of faith, was ultimately correct. However, Earth was now cancelled. The Judge, being the bench that she is, made the choice to erase all of Earth with a new points system overall. As other Janets tried to keep the Judge busy, they needed a solution and fast. There was only one moral philosopher that could help them at this time. Chidi Anagonye. With all of the hundreds of reboots in the past, Michael gave every single life of himself back. Chidi, now awoken, decided that it would be best if the afterlife wasn’t decided by how good you could be on Earth (at least not entirely), but instead how much you could get better after the fact. Surprisingly, the Judge agreed to this! And as it turns out, saving every current human soul in existence is worth a point or two. The Soul Squad had finally gotten into the Good Place. For real this time. With positions at the Good Place dwindling, Michael took up the role of leader, and fixed various issues even the previous eternal committee couldn’t. The main issue the Good Place faced was that eternity, going on forever, gets pretty boring. This way, they made a door where you evaporate. Into nothingness, and your essence returns to the fabric of the universe. Michael had done everything he had ever needed to do, far surpassing any demon that came before him. Even Shawn was on his side now! But there was something missing.

Michael had spent his entire eternal life just next to humans. He learned how they worked, how they lost, how they loved, their imperfections and inconsistencies. Everything practically ever. But… he never was one. He had always truly admired them, but had never truly understood them. Eleanor, being the last friend of Mike’s who hadn’t gone through the door yet, asked the Judge for one final request. To make Pinocchio a real boy. Michael was surprised, but he was happy. Michael stepped out of the afterlife, and into the real world. Michael Realman finally became a real man. He could finally live a life that he could fulfill. A life where he could learn. A life where he could… take it sleazy.

Experience & Skill

Not only has Michael existed since the dawn of creation, he’s been working under other architects like himself for eons. He had been an apprentice, likely of Shawn’s, for a while. He taught Michael everything he knew in terms of demon techniques. Reaching into a human’s ashhole and pulling their body out through teeth, flattening the penises of many fallen humans, the works. He became so good at torturing others that he could come up with very nuanced ways to kill multiple people in just a few seconds. Even disregarding his demon origins, Michael’s afterlife experiment lasted almost 300 years. The stamina and endurance to keep going through failure after failure is incredibly impressive, even if nothing was really changing in the long run.

Powers & Abilities


Demon Physiology

Demons in The Good Place have… confusing biology to say the least. Most demons contain their true form in a human skin suit to learn how to best torture humans, and also have implied consciousness in each of their molecules. Somehow. If a demon is harmed, they will grow back over time. When each demon is done reforming they each have their own unique demon form, including Michael.



“I’m a 6,000-foot tall fire squid. I have tentacles. There's teeth everywhere. I'm on fire, and my neck is long. And there's a smell and lots of juice. There's so much juice, Eleanor.”

Yep. This is an actual thing. His true form is a 6,000-foot tall fire squid that he’s pretty embarrassed about. The squid form is never shown in the show physically so it’s hard to tell what he can actually do when unzipped from his human suit. More demon-specific abilities are talked about below.


Omniscience

Looking over the course of human events since the birth of the universe, Michael knows all that there is to know. He’s even stated by one of the writers to have all the knowledge that Janet does (28:18), and afterlife beings are directly referred to by the creator of The Good Place to be “omniscient” (39:55).

Immortality

There’s a few different varieties of immortality that Michael applies to, so we’ll discuss them here.



Acausality

Like his immortality, there’s a specific type of acausality that Michael can be applied to.

  • Type 4: Irregular Causality - As time on Earth moves in a straight line, constantly ongoing, time in the afterlife happens all at once where it loops back around into itself again. Essentially, Michael’s past, present, and future selves are all the same thing. It’s confusing, I know. For more of an explanation, See Cosmology Section.


Regeneration

When a demon is physically harmed enough, a demon will retreat back into their gooey larva form and slowly rebuild themselves from there over a few months. A demon assumedly went through its reformation process also at their conception. It goes larva, slug monster, spooky little girl, teenage boy, giant ball of tongues, social media CEO, then finally the demon will reform into its true self. This implies (since demons existed long before humans) that things like social media CEOs and teenage boys are not just types of people, but also universal constants representing hatred and despair, like what demons are supposed to represent. In conclusion, demons have low-godly regeneration at minimum, and can only be fully killed via destruction to their souls.

Self-Sustenance
While demons like to eat food and such, it’s said that they don’t actually need to consume anything to continue living. Their main form of sustenance comes from torturing others. Although, Michael didn’t torture others for a while and was just fine.

Extrasensory Perception

By seeing into other dimensions and looking at their aura, Michael is able to detect what his opponent is about to do, and also able to see what they’ve previously done up to a few hours before.

Screen Conjuring

By waving his hands, Michael can pull up a screen of whatever he needs at that moment. He can contact other realms like the Bad Place, look at past attempt logs, and other various work-related capabilities. It’s essentially just an iPad but he can pull it up whenever.

Social Influencing

Michael, for as much of a laughing stock as he is amongst demons, is one smart fella. He managed to trick all the humans for an entire year that they were actually in the real Good Place, and even though he fell short of this endeavor hundreds of times, it’s still no small feat. Organizing demons to do complex tasks, convincing them over and over again in general, and so on. In the human realm he’s adept at tricking random people he’s never even met before into thinking he’s someone of high importance. This skill is even grown on Michael over time in the fourth season, when he tricks Eleanor (who now trusts him!) into running the neighborhood by herself. Later on, he admits that this was a lie also.

Reality Warping

Michael, usually with the snap of his fingers, can make almost anything happen instantly. Having control over an entire universe kind of naturally grants this power to you. The powers of his reality warping are listed below.

Creation

Michael can create anything he wants, typically things in relation to the person he’s torturing. He doesn’t wave his hands or speak some kind of phrase to summon objects, he kind of just wills them into happening in his neighborhood, and the same applies for the rest of his abilities. The range of this power goes from large animals like in the GIF, to giant sinkholes that slowly threaten the fabric of the universe. Often the living beings Michael creates are “constructs” and can’t feel pain or love, even though he can make ones that do feel that way. However they are still physically the same as the real versions of these creatures.


Illusion Creation

As Michael snaps his fingers, he can warp himself and others around him into an illusion of whatever he pleases. The people in the simulation can feel pain, but are overall fake, sort of the opposite of his constructs he creates in the fake Good Place.

Animation

Michael can imbue life into inanimate objects that normally don’t move on their own.


Flight

In day 2 of Michael’s fake Good Place he granted everyone the gift of flight, but took it away shortly after. The flight has to start at the designated jumping point, and can only happen by the user conjuring an image that brings them pure joy.


Transmutation

In Season 3 we learn that in a reboot where everyone has pets that Michael turned everyone into their pets for a few minutes. He never transmutes anything else, though.

Sealing
In one of the reboots, Michael trapped Chidi inside a “space bubble” that was impossible to escape from. This is never elaborated on.

Fourth Wall Awareness

Before every episode of the podcast, the character of Michael (not Ted Danson) talks to the listeners about various things.

Speech Manipulation

When people speak curse words in Michael’s fake Good Place, he can make them retroactively change what they’re going to say instead. For example, the F word becomes “fork”, the B word becomes “bench”, and so on. Although this doesn’t just apply to swears, as whenever someone speaks a different language around someone that doesn’t understand it, the words get translated for the person into a language they do understand.


Biological Manipulation

When Michael claimed there was an error in his perfect system, it led to Gary over here. Whose body was turned into this weird Picasso-esque being. The same thing happened to Tahani when she got too close to the universal sinkhole. Although this goes beyond Picasso-related changes, as Michael stated he could give Jason a second mouth.


Weather Manipulation

When Eleanor tried flying instead of cleaning up the mess she made, Michael made the weather into a trash storm. Beyond this, the fake Good Place itself has its own natural weather cycle.


Life & Death Manipulation

As an act of tricking Eleanor into believing she had killed a plant by talking bad about Tahani behind her back, Michael made Tahani’s plant die in front of her. The opposite happened when Eleanor redeemed herself, and the plant (even after being on fire) was able to come back to life.


Fire Manipulation

Remember that dead plant brought back to life that I literally just talked about? It caught ablaze when Eleanor stole Tahani’s diary.


Animal Manipulation

In the past Michael has manipulated various animals. A good example are the giant frogs and shrimp in Eleanor’s second day of the fake Good Place, and those ants.

Explosion Manipulation

KABOOM!

Conceptual Manipulation

Michael took the simple concept of a full cellphone battery, then applied it to being a frozen yogurt flavor. It somehow made Eleanor feel relaxed, as if her phone was just fully charged. This is just one example, as other afterlife beings have been capable of the same exact thing. Take when the Judge used the concept of envy like hot sauce, or when various demons snorted time like cocaine. This is simply just an ability that people from the afterlife have.


Memory Manipulation
With the snap of his fingers, Michael can erase people’s memories and give them back, too. If there’s a large amount of memories in someone though, he has to focus for a few seconds before snapping.


Soul Manipulation
This one will take a bit of explaining. It’s shown in Michael’s retirement explanation that beings like him actually have souls and an essence to be manipulated, and can be ripped out when one demon really forks up. Only other demons are capable of tearing out each other’s souls, so Michael should have this ability too. To add onto this, the humans have been said to have souls also, and Michael would’ve had to manipulate the humans souls to get them to the fake Good Place from the beginning.

Spatial Manipulation


Art by jarrows on Tumblr
It’s unknown the way Michael, a 6,000-foot tall fire squid, can fit into a Ted Danson-sized human skin suit, but he does so anyway. The only way that makes sense is via some type of spatial manipulation.

Arsenal


Human Suit

Michael’s human skin suit. Every demon has one! Which they get randomly assigned and can likely edit, too. These suits are given to demons to learn how to best torture a human. The human suits can only be zipped off by the demon inside of them, meaning there really isn’t a conventional way to get a demon outside of their human suit without some other kind of intervention.

Lie Detector

This cube that looks a lot like Scott Cawthon’s head will blink red or green, indicating a lie or a truth someone says. Michael often hesitates to use it but will in dire scenarios.


Senior Staff Pin


A Bad Place pin awarded to Michael after tricking Shawn into thinking his Good Place experiment actually worked. Allows him to enter trans-dimensional portals to other realms.

Door Button

This button opens up a doorway back to the afterlife. Michael can use it on Earth when he has no powers, and people can only go through it on the other side using the…

Doorman’s Key

Given to Michael by his friend Jeff the Doorman, it allows Michael to get back to Earth in the afterlife. Also others can contact him via the key like a cellphone.

Demon Exploder
Michael can use this to explode demons, reverting them to their larvae-esque goo state. This likely only works on demons, since it was made by a Bad Janet to be a “demon lie detector”.

Tape Recorder
Michael used this to record his process on the next few human attempts he did, lasting up to 800+ attempts in total.

Hoodie
Michael wears this when he’s feeling sad. Poor guy.

Guitar

After figuring out the key to the afterlife and becoming the sole leader of the Good Place, Michael thought it would be a great idea to take up guitar.

Various Human Items

If you couldn’t already tell, Michael loves humans and how they function, so he loves to keep small trinkets of their culture in his office. Also apparently afterlife architects aren’t allowed to keep human items normally, for whatever reason.

  • Paperclips, lots of them

  • Minion plush toy

  • Slingshot

  • Eraser

  • Tape

  • Wax lips

  • Cheese grater

  • Paper football

  • Car keys

  • Band-aids

  • Stress ball with a dumb corporate logo

  • Dr. Oz diet book

  • Bowling ball


Resistances



  • Precognition, Fate Manipulation, Probability Manipulation, Time Manipulation, & Causality Manipulation - Due to the way time works in the afterlife, Michael’s irregular causality makes the past, present, and future, all technically the same to him. (See Cosmology & Q&A Section)



  • Void Manipulation - Michael was completely fine in Janet’s void, so he would likely be fine if brought to another space of non-existence.

  • Battlefield Removal - Using the door portal, Michael can come back to the Neutral Zone at any time. (Note: this is only with the portal button. If Michael loses it, he wouldn’t have a way to resist being BFR’d.)

Support


Janet

Built by the makers of Light, Darkness, and Everything, Janet! She’s not a robot, not a girl, she’s everyone’s favorite walking database, who knows literally everything there is to know about the human world (and all of existence, too.) Things like the origin of the universe, specific details about any person who’s ever lived, and so much more. The only limit to telling her almighty knowledge is talking about what’s going on in the Bad Place. Although she still does, technically, know about it. Michael has access to utilizing her due to the fact that he literally stole her from the real Good Place and would be a part of him at all times. Sure, she’s absolutely her own person, but helping out is what she was built for, after all. Although Michael using Janet in a VS-based scenario is, ultimately, entirely up to interpretation. She should have all the same acausality, immortality, and omniscience that Michael does. Her various powers beyond these are listed below.


Janet Physiology

Janets are genderless, non-human beings that span multiple generations and continue to get better after every Bearimy. She can be incapacitated via a switch in a remote location of the current afterlife she resides in, but she’ll come back after as a smarter version of herself. However, the way to permanently kill a Janet is rather weird. You must take a paperclip and shove it into her ear, while holding down her nose. This is called marbelizing, and will forever kill Janet.


Pain Tolerance

Janet can’t feel pain. That’s all, really.


Creation two women are standing next to each other in a living room . one woman is holding a potted plant .

Any object you need, she can conjure. They don’t range from just regular objects, though, they could be specific things that have never been thought of before. Or even life! She can create living creatures with their own thoughts and sentience. Some like Daisy the horse were so strong it was hard for even Janet to put it down for good.


Teleportation

When one calls Janet’s name, she teleports out of thin air to help whoever needs her assistance. When she’s not helping anyone, she’s waiting in her void for someone to say her name.


Hammerspace

Janet keeps a much larger manual inside of herself that notes down everything about her, including how to fix her if something goes wrong. Supporting this is how Janet just has a… really large emptiness inside of her for some reason.


Enhanced Senses

Janet states here that she’s able to hear every sound in the universe after being drunk on magnets, so this is likely something she can choose to do while sober. Beyond hearing, other Janets have been able to see and perceive specific objects much further away from their current spot.

Fourth Wall Awareness

Remember how I said Michael talks to the listeners of the podcast? Janet does the same.


Sleep Manipulation

By booping someone on the nose, Janet can make her target lose consciousness.


Temperature Manipulation

Janet can heat her hands up, usually for spas and such. Inside Janet though, she’s naturally trillions of degrees in terms of temperature.


Explosion Manipulation

KABOOMBOOM!

Void Manipulation

a woman in a purple dress is standing in front of a couch and holding something in her hand .

Janet can bring anyone into her void at any point she wants, which kills them instantly if they're on Earth. Her void is an infinite space of nothingness, that she can manipulate with ease.

Feats


Overall

  • Worked for eons in the Bad Place under Shawn’s tutorage

  • Tortured humans for thousands of years without fail

  • Tricked Eleanor, Chidi, Jason, and Tahani for hundreds of reboots... even though they all would eventually find out

  • Worked to better himself and his morals to get his friends into the real Good Place... even though he couldn’t at the time

  • Learned that the system judging humanity was ultimately flawed, fixing it with the help of his friends

  • Stood in front of the almighty Judge of the afterlife and his worst enemy, Shawn, showing them that the universe truly is unfair

  • Got him and his friends into the actual Good Place, and even ended up running it

  • Chose to be a human and experience life for himself, for the first time ever

  • Had bad days, had good days, and at the very end of it all, took it sleazy


Power


Durability


Speed


Scaling


Other Demons

All demons should be capable of the same things, since none of them can kill each other and they’re all in normal human skinsuits most of the time.


The Judge

Michael scaling to Judge Gen physically is a tad questionable at first, as we don’t know if Michael and the Judge are even at the same levels of power, but they seem to have the similar abilities of omniscience and creation, so it should be fine.


Weaknesses

While Michael might be a nigh-indestructable being above the human world, he isn’t without his weaknesses. For one, he wasn’t ever the smartest or highest-ranking demon in his league, being outclassed by other demons like Shawn multiple times in the series. Also Michael frequently gets outsmarted by those he underestimates, like what quite literally is happening in the entire first season of the series. Michael often postures in a witty manner against his opponents, but it hardly lasts in the long run. Speaking of his experience, while he does have a lot of it, he’s terrible in a fight and hardly has any actual experience in tactical combat. Physiologically speaking, he can’t really be killed normally, but if he’s harmed enough he’ll start to regenerate. Pretty OP, right? Not quite. While demons do have some incredible regeneration, they can only come back from their goo state after a few months of regenerating, and while they’re technically still conscious in that state, there’s pretty much nothing they can do when they’re like that. Also if somebody can destroy Michael's soul permanently, that also would kill him for good. Janet specifically is also pretty vulnerable. While she’s powerful on her own, if an opponent can either hit her plunger button to turn her off for a short time, or even marbleize her which is hard to come back from, Janet’s pretty much toast. Another thing, if an opponent manages to take the fight to the human world, Janet and Michael will both lose all their abilities they have access to in the otherworldly realms. Michael and Janet would essentially become regular humans, and would be very easy to kill.

Cosmology

Realms

TGP’s verse houses many-a-realms within it, and these are all of them that should be in existence at the end of the series.

Human World

It’s Earth! And the universe. I’m pretty sure you know everything that happens here.

The Good Place


The good ol’ Good Place. Surprisingly we see very little of it over the series, not counting the fake Good Place of course. It’s a realm of angels that spend their eternal lives trying to make their point-getters happy. Although when Michael got there, they all resigned because they were out of ideas. Michael can warp this realm too, now that he became the runner of it.


The Cats & Dogs Good Place


This is an actual place. It’s only been mentioned once in the actual series, by Eleanor as a sort-of joke. But we can confirm its existence via the podcast in which they talk about a Cats & Dogs Good Place existing. At least according to the Good Place Wiki. Is there a Bad Place for Cats & Dogs too? Well, no. It’s never mentioned. Why would you want poor little puppies and kitties to suffer anyways? :(


The Medium Place

A sinbound cocaine-loving lawyer named Mindy St. Clair woke up one morning and decided to invest all of her life savings into a foundation that would help save kids all over the entire world. Advance human rights, revolutionize agriculture, etc., but on the way to the bank she fell into subway tracks, getting electrocuted and passing away. A sad ending, but the Bad and Good Place didn’t really know where to put her, so they gave her a Medium Place, eternal mediocrity forever. Mindy eventually went on to take the afterlife test to get into the Good Place for real, but that’s what this universe exists as.


The Bad Place


The Bad Place exists as a hellish landscape to torture those who sucked in life, each demon getting a human to punish for eternity. Over time though this realm became a place of rehabilitation for those damned souls, forcing demons to learn the new way of the afterlife.


Neutral Zone

The Neutral Zone is a realm in-between the Good and Bad Places, being the locations of the Judge’s quarters, the accounting department, the Janet warehouse, and the I.H.O.P.

Various System Tests

After the points system was fixed by the Soul Squad, demon architects were assigned the new job of giving low human point-getters tests to see if they can get better over time. Since these are similar to the tests Michael and the rest of the demons did before the new points system was in fruition, each of these various system tests should each count as their own realm.

Jeremy Bearimy


Things in the afterlife don’t happen while things are happening on Earth. While time on Earth constantly moves in a straight line, one thing happens, then the next, and so on, time in the afterlife moves in a Jeremy Bearimy. It doubles back and loops around and ends up looking like the words “Jeremy Bearimy” in cursive English, so that’s just what they call it. Not only does this show that the flow of time in certain realms has a distinct, viewable shape, it also shows that everything is kind of happening all at once. And I know what you’re thinking: how can events happen before the ones that can happen before them? Well, that’s just the way it works. Also, the tittle on the “i” is Tuesdays and also July, and sometimes also the time where nothing never occurs. Does it make any sense? Well, I’m sure it doesn’t, but it’s surprisingly consistent as we see in the finale, where they literally count Bearimys like years in the afterlife, even though they’re not really years. Like Janet, people in the afterlife live and experience all times all at once. In case you still don’t really understand this, it’s kind of meant to be very confusing to normal humans who haven’t passed on, since we haven’t transcended this plain of existence yet (unless you’re a ghost reading this, in which case, sorry for your own loss). With Jeremy Bearimy, everything happens at once. Earth time will have an endpoint because it goes in a straight line, and will eventually stop. But Jeremy Bearimy has no endpoint, yet time still exists there. And it would be impossible to compare our universe's time scale to something with no scale: eternity. People in the afterlife are constantly in existence with one another.

Janet’s Void

Janet’s void is slightly complicated. For one, anyone living on Earth brought into it dies immediately, with their essences being reconstituted into a Janet. And it’s completely infinite as stated by multiple characters throughout the show. Her void is a subdimension located outside of space and time at the nexus of consciousness and matter, tethered to her essence. Once the humans are brought into the void it can’t really sustain them for very long, having an effect on Janet. However, later on Janet can hold multiple eternal beings and multiple humans in it, too, having adapted to that pain. She also makes it clear that if her void gets destroyed, she will likely also cease to exist. Think of it just as an external pocket dimension bound to each Janet that she can teleport to whenever. If it dies, so does she.

The Time-Knife


This is a part of the show that we know the least about. As Chidi falls out of the I.H.O.P., he ends up seeing the time knife, which he describes as “a trillion different realities folding onto each other like thin sheets of metal forming a single blade.” Which Michael and other afterlife beings have already seen before. When Michael gives Chidi all the memories of the past 800+ reboots, Michael says that Chidi has "seen the time-knife", implying that Chidi has finally seen and understood it. This is a big part of Chidi’s final arc in the show, letting him determine how the future afterlife system should work. But what is it canonically speaking? Given it holds a trillion different timelines inside of it, then it’s likely something only omniscient beings can see and comprehend, which Chidi essentially becomes when it has all of his memories in-tact. We’re never given an exact elaboration on the Time-Knife, so this is the most we can assume without going into theory territory. However, this does confirm the fact that there are trillions of different realities that Michael and other demons transcend.


Q&A

Since this isn’t a normal VS blog there isn’t a “Before the Verdict” section, but I still wanted to include a couple things that might need explaining.


Isn’t Michael lying in all of Season 1?

This is a fair point, considering he’s lying about the entire experiment being the real Good Place. However, I think it’s fine to take all his words in Season 1 about the afterlife and whatnot as gospel. For one, a lot of the things he states in Season 1 end up being true. Like Michael’s retirement, the way Eleanor died, the fake Good Place being the first neighborhood Michael’s ever designed (and the fact that if it didn’t work out Shawn would be angry), and the list goes on. Also something worth considering is various objects in Season 1 like the universally-destroying sinkhole for example, was stated by Janet to be “55 Emergency Doomsday Crisis” and since Janet was confirmed to not have been lying in Season 1 ever, it’s likely everything bad that happened in Season 1 actually happened physically and wasn’t a lie or illusion either. As we learn in Season 1’s finale, Janet wasn’t in on the Good Place being fake.


How do we know the fake Good Place is an actual universe?

Since the fake Good Place is really just meant to be a facade, there’s a possibility that it isn’t a true universe like what’s been stated in this blog thus far. However there’s a lot of evidence that would suggest otherwise that’s worth bringing up. For one, Michael states that the neighborhood stretches “way beyond” what’s normally seen in the show. This implies that there’s already more than what meets the eye here, and even implies the “neighborhood” is likely an entire planet on its own. As for the sun being an actual star in the fake Good Place, and all the other stars when it’s night, there’s evidence pointing towards it being real. The infamous scene of Michael kicking a dog into the sun implies it’s physical, and therefore a tangible object, and Eleanor even states that she feels heat from the sun as well. Adding onto this, we’ve seen the fake Good Place be destroyed entirely before, not even leaving the skies left. So if it’s not obvious enough, the fake Good Place (as well as all other demon-created realms) are universes.


Did Michael physically create the fake Good Place universe?

It’s made pretty clear in the episode of Janet’s origin that Michael doesn’t create the universes physically, he can only manipulate them. He needs the help of Janet, who can do just that. The same goes for all demons, as they can’t create universes just on a whim, Michael had to get his neighborhood approved before he began constructing it. He can manipulate any aspect of the world he wants, and even create universe-destroying threats, but in no way physically speaking is Michael putting out universe-destroying blasts with each punch. The strongest physical feat we see him do is kicking that dog into the sun, as he does rather casually, so his regular physical AP is likely Moon Level+ and not Universal.

Isn’t The Good Place’s cosmology just made up on the spot for laughs?
While I haven’t really seen this brought up before, I’m sure it could be a point against Michael that I’d like to disprove just in case. The Good Place is a silly show, and its mythology is therefore very wacky, so I can see why this would be thought of. While it’s possible to sit here and type about the various consistencies throughout the show, it’s much better to just state actual writer statements here. The writers specifically kept the show’s lore consistent. Even with certain jokes pitched they had a specific writer to check if the joke was in-line with what was said in the show before (31:15). Heck, they even had a literal book of lore that new information got dumped into whenever a statement was made about a certain thing (9:31). So everything stated in the show is 100% serious, even if it’s kinda silly, that’s just the show’s nature.


Bearimy Resistances

I understand that even after explaining it in the cosmology section there could be some confusion, so this part here will explain the various resistances that people within the Jeremy Bearimy timeline would abide by.

Precognition - This power grants the user the ability to see what’s going to happen before it happens. But it’s kind of hard to do that when the predicted action you’re going to read already has occurred.

Time Manipulation - If a user tried to send someone under Jearimy Beremy back or forward in time, it wouldn’t work because the past and the future are happening at the same time, and are the same thing. You can’t bring someone to the past or the future when you’re already there.

Fate & Probability Manipulation - This has the user manipulate fate itself to achieve a desired (or more likely) result, but everything in Jeremy Bearimy already has a desired result 100% likely to happen, since it already has before.


Causality Manipulation - This grants the power of redirecting any cause to any effect. For example, stomping on the floor could be manipulated to cause a large explosion or hole in the ground. Essentially making anything happen by other events happening. But in Jeremy Bearimy, all events have already happened, meaning this would have no effect.

It should be noted though, if Michael and his opponent were to move to a location with a different spacetime, he, Janet, and the opponent would lose these resistances.


The Good Place’s incalculable speeds
TGP has some incalculable speed feats that I’ve cataloged so far in this blog, and I’d like to go over if they’re consistent or not.


Snorting Time


So these demons snort time. For clarity, Irrelevant speeds means that you exist above the concept of movement and time itself, and therefore are so godly you don't need to move anywhere, because you are everywhere. And snorting time is possibly implying that time is below them, they see it as something to be played with and constructed into something that they can snort. Would this make for Irrelevant speeds? Well, not quite. Turning constructs and abstract concepts into other things is something various afterlife beings have been shown to do, and this is simply just that happening again. Demons are clearly bound by the restraints of moving and time, just a different kind of time. Jeremy Bearimy, to be exact. See the Cosmology Section for more information on that.

Moving Around in the I.H.O.P.

Janet stated that in the Interdimensional Hole of Pancakes, there’s no time nor the present. In fact she reiterates it right after. This isn’t something like a resistance to time stop, since time literally does not flow here at all. This isn’t to be confused with Immeasurable speeds, as Inaccessible speeds involve covering any distance in zero time, and Immeasurable is movement unbound by the flow of time.


Traversing Janet’s Void

Near the finale, we see the Judge going through various Janets to find her garage door button humanity eraser thingy, and Janet’s void is said to be infinite multiple times. While we do see this happen, in the other Janet’s voids we see that she clearly has a device that lets her see where the button is, meaning she isn’t crossing an infinite distance. However if we analyze this more we see that the first time we see the Judge do this it’s in the main Janet’s void, and that’s specifically a void we’ve seen into before. In the episode where everyone goes inside Janet’s void, a device to search for objects is something we never see. We do see a similar device, but it only is shown to contain information on the universe. Also Janet seems physically uncomfortable when this whole process is happening, and we see none of the other Janets having any uncomfortability, implying some kind of physical movement inside Janet’s void is happening. So Infinite speeds should be fine for the Judge to have and Michael to scale to.

Boundless Janet?

Janet’s void is often called boundless, and since this is stated multiple times wouldn’t that make both Janet and Michael in the boundless tier of dimensional hierarchy? Specifically, the “Boundless” tier of dimensional hierarchy is transcending… Well, everything. A type of omnipotence granting the ability to do anything and everything, surpassing material composition as a whole. This isn’t exactly what Janet’s void is meant to represent, as it’s clearly a nonexistent realm tethered to Janet’s existence, but it’s still clearly material in nature. But even beyond that, when Janet’s void is called “boundless”, it’s meant in the traditional sense. As in, it’s infinite, never-ending, no ends, et cetera. The Boundless tier can really only be applied to people, and never dimensions or realms themselves. (In specific circumstances they technically can be, but this is not one of those instances.)

Janet is not Boundless, as her void is still of material existence, and so is she.


Outerversal Michael?

There’s an argument for Michael being in the Outerversal tier of dimensionality, so let’s dive in to see if they hold up. For starters, what does it mean to be Outerversal? In general, it means to be above higher infinite dimensions, at least 13 layers of them. Being in 2 tiers below Low Outerverse, in the Hyperverse tier, means to be corresponding to 12-dimensional higher finite numbers of real coordinate space. In the power section of the feats part of this blog, Michael’s highest dimensionality he can reach is 10, being High Complex Multiversal. He clearly can’t get any higher than this as he states “Hey, they added a 10th dimension”, meaning that’s the cap in the verse. To be Outerversal you need to transcend all dimensions and spacetime, and while he’s way above human ones, Michael is constrained to a demon’s dimensionality and spacetime, not transcending all of it.


Another point regarding Michael being Outerversal is the statement that he “exists above the concept of the human world, which is stated to contain and have a growing amount of timelines.” While the first part is definitely true, as afterlife beings exist above humans, the human realm has never been stated to have multiple growing timelines. It’s stated to just have one timeline that can be interacted with if afterlife beings are given permission by the almighty Judge Gen. Just one simple timeline on Earth, and one continuous timeline in the afterlife that Michael is constrained to.

…However we can’t ignore the trillion elephants in the room, that of course being the Time-Knife. It’s said to contain a “trillion different realities” by Chidi. For this argument, it doesn’t really matter how many realities could exist in The Good Place’s verse, as these could simply just be growing human timelines, or something else. We’re never given a full elaboration on what the Time-Knife even is, so using this as a point for Outerversal Michael is just too shaky.

Michael is not Outerversal, as he is not shown to be superior to all of existence in the way the Outerversal tier demands. While he exists as part of a larger, defined cosmology compared to the human realm, not an existence that transcends it entirely.

Conclusion

“I'll say this to you, my friend, with all the love in my heart and all the wisdom of the universe: take it sleazy.”

  • Attack Potency / Durability:

  • Low Ends - Street - Moon Level (13.4 Kilojoules - 416 Exatons of TNT)

    • Stated he can chuck elephants at people, can kick a dog into the Sun hard enough to cause an explosion

  • Mid Ends - Universal

    • Created a sinkhole that threatened the fabric of the fake Good Place’s universe, and Janet can literally make universes

  • High Ends - High Complex Multiversal

    • Exists above 10 dimensions, physically affecting them like it’s nothing, even moving them away with his hands

  • Speed:

  • Low Ends - Supersonic - Hypersonic+ (1,000 mph - Mach 14)

    • Scales to demons like Gayle who can reach speeds of up to 1,000 mph while flying, can read all human literature in under an hour

  • Mid Ends - FTL+ - MFTL+ (71.5 c - 267 Quadrillion c)

    • Would’ve had to been moving at FTL+ speeds to kick the dog to the Sun that quickly, and scales above Janet who can quickly deconstruct the fake Good Place’s universe in seconds

  • High Ends - Infinite - Inaccessible

    • Likely scales to the Judge who searched Janet’s infinite void in a few seconds, and Michael was able to move around in the I.H.O.P. and the Neutral Zone in general which is outside of time and space


  • Biggest Strengths:

    • Creation abilities are extremely vast and he can summon anything he wants

    • Reality warping abilities likely also stretch into the Multiversal tiers of power

    • Very hard to kill permanently

    • Has thousands of years of experience under his belt

    • Knows all that there is to know about the universe, and can learn knowledge about his opponent with Janet

    • Can get any weapon he needs with Janet

    • Janet’s void is practically and instant win-con against anyone, especially since she can incapacitate them at any time

  • Biggest Weaknesses:

    • Little to no fighting experience

    • Vulnerable to almost any kind of soul hax 

    • If harmed enough, regeneration leaves him in a unmovable state for months 

    • Being BFR’d to the human realm without his door button would make him a sitting duck

    • Frequently outsmarted by those he underestimates

Possible Matchups 

Michael and Janet actually have a couple matchups that are worth talking about, and I’ll be giving my personal thoughts on them here, ranging from what I think are the worst to best. No offense if I diss any matchup you like here, these are just my dumb opinions and try not to take them to heart! :) There are a few other matchups for the characters I’m sure I missed, but most of them I just genuinely don’t have a strong opinion on, so talking about them would be pointless.

Janet Matchups

Nanno (Girl From Nowhere)

“Even love can be used as an excuse for selfishness.”

And to think Elizabeth was Janet’s most unique matchup, I’d like to introduce you all to Nanno. She’s from a Netflix series in which the alleged daughter of Satan, disguised as a girl, transfers to different school districts to try and expose heinous acts going on within them. Both Janet and Nanno aren’t bound by human limits, serving greater philosophical purposes, but as their stories both progress they started to question their own identity and meaning. Despite both being immortal they felt isolated until they gained self-awareness, eventually falling in love with someone they’d have to say goodbye to one day. Also both created life from nothing, which are basically clones of themselves, but worse. This matchup’s very intriguing. While Nanno and Janet don’t necessarily have the most sound connections, I get what a fight between these two could look like. Given Nanno’s seeming dimensional travel abilities, she could possibly find Janet in the afterlife, calling her out for working with an actual demon. One of the coolest parts about a Janet fight is that she’d likely know the person she’s fighting against since she has all the knowledge in the universe, and with Nanno’s careful demeanor contrasting with Janet’s often jolly behavior, the back-to-back banter would be interesting to write. While Nanno is more of a character that tells more than she shows, she definitely still has a lot of powers to compare to Janet’s, even more so in a sense. Janet can spawn anything she needs in combat and Nanno has shown to warp reality and even duplicate herself. Speaking of, how debatable is this? Well, it’s funny. Janet is pretty clearly Universal and incalculably fast, while Nanno is quite literally a physically featless character. Although Nanno has come back from death multiple times before, and could even theoretically come back from effects similar to her existence erasure powers. She can just say “no” to death. She once erased all of the humans from Earth, and that’s not really something Janet can resist, so I’d honestly say Janet would probably lose this fight in the long term. Overall this is a decent option for Janet with a bit of a tonal difference that could be hard to get behind for some. I just can’t help but feel like both have better overall.

Elizabeth (Persona)

“Your fate is in the cards.”

I did NOT expect Janet to have a matchup with a Persona character, but regardless let’s get into the specifics. These two cheery, well-dressed individuals that worked under older men in otherworldly locations have the ability to summon almost anything they desire. Except with Elizabeth it’s almost any Persona she desires. They’re skilled fighters despite their unassuming natures, being associated with large databases of information. Normal human affairs seem quite alien to them, both being non-human (even though they both look like one) and eventually learn to become more human through the help of two young men. As time went on they both would develop feelings for these two people in their lives which put their original duties at risk, and they would eventually separate from their lovers at the end of their stories. Oh and Persona 3 has a lot to do with accepting the inevitability of death, and The Good Place is about death just, in general. For fight potential, this is really through the roof. Elizabeth’s Personas interacting with whatever the hell Janet can summon would be neat, maybe even Janet could summon her own after seeing Elizabeth do it? But that’s probably not something she could do. I imagine during the fight they’d both compliment each other on how skilled they are, like King Mickey VS Yoda. Janet pretty much has the intelligence advantage in any matchup she’s in, but depending on where you scale the Persona series this matchup could be hella debatable. Though Outerversal Persona exists so I’m not sure, as I haven’t truly scaled the series enough to know how viable that is. Not sure why these two would fight in the first place, as Janet only throws hands with conflicting demons in the series, so I’d imagine Elizabeth would be the one drawing first blood here. Regardless this is a really fun matchup all-in-all.


Agent Smith (The Matrix)

“Never send a human to do a machine's job.”

Now this is definitely a matchup I can get behind, and kind of understood immediately. Smith and Janet are both non-human individuals that come from a race of lookalikes in a world beyond Earth, and specifically are the most advanced in their field. Further on down the line they end up getting killed by one of the protagonists only to come back later on, with their powers only being able to exist in the afterlife and in the Matrix. Near the end of their stories, both gather a team of their races to accomplish one final goal, for Janet it ends up working and Smith not so much. This is a good time to mention that this is also a good vs evil matchup. While it’s technically less connection heavy than Elizabeth, I think this fits Janet better in terms of thematics, also Matrix matchups just go hard as hell. You could have the battle start by either of them being “in the way” of one another, and they both try to stop each other from accomplishing their current goals. Stat-wise this matchup is nothing special, Janet gets to Universal and Neo gets anywhere from Wall to Island according to his VS battles page (but it’s VS wiki so take it with a grain of salt). However Smith’s duplication and overall immortality would make it easy for him to stay alive during the battle, and could potentially overwhelm Janet, enough to turn her into an Agent Smith. Scary. While that’s Smith’s main wincon, I believe Janet has what it takes to put Smith down for good, even if she’d need to go about the Matrix and kill every single Smith that’s roaming around, she has teleportation to make that easy for her. This is an all-around great matchup that is just lacking in terms of physical debatability. Now let’s move on to Michael’s matchups!

Michael Matchups

Truman Burbank (The Truman Show)

“In case I don’t see ya! Good afternoon, good evening, and good night.”


Truman Burbank, everyone’s favorite true man from The Truman Show. The main point of The Truman Show as a movie is that Truman has been tricked into believing his life (actually a reality TV show) is just that, his life. It’s a fantastic movie and seriously one of my favorites of all time, but let me talk about what this matchup has going for it first. For one, it focuses on Michael’s intellect more than any other matchup on this list, which is the most interesting part about him in my opinion. Also it’s pretty much the perfect contrast matchup, but that’s it. Physically, Truman is a regular human being and can’t fight on-par with Mikey, making this more of a what-if scenario. Could Truman escape Michael’s fake Good Place? It makes for a really intriguing idea that I’d personally love to read a script about or something, but as for a typical VS matchup, it can’t work that well. Again, it’s a really creative idea! But let’s get into the more traditional matchups Michael has.


Booster Gold (DC Comics)

“I am Booster Gold, the greatest hero you’ve never heard of!”

It’s Booster Gold! I love that dude, seriously an underrated DC character. But how does he relate to Michael at all? This is a fairly connections-heavy matchup, so let’s get into it. Michael and Booster both started out in their stories as selfish, lying, conniving individuals that didn’t really know any better. That is until they surrounded themselves with others to help for their own betterment, even risking their own lives on several occasions along the way. They both also contrast in the progression of their stories and character arcs, as Booster Gold was a human who wanted to become a super powerful hero and became one after learning true morality, and Michael was a powerful demon who wanted to become a human and became one after learning more about humans and their morality. And to top it off, they’re both named Michael. If you ask me, these connections are pretty shaky and can’t amount to much. I suppose Booster’s tech could interact with Mikey’s reality warping slightly well, but beyond that I can’t see a fight being particularly interesting between these two. Debatability for Booster VS Mike is a different story though, as it depends on if you scale Booster to DC heralds, which he probably does, and likely wins with that. I dunno, this matchup isn’t that good in my eyes, again I love Booster Gold but in my opinion he has better options out there.


Alastor (Hazbin Hotel)

“Let the slaughter begin.”

Oh hey! It’s Michael’s most popular matchup! I couldn’t find a full set of connections between these two, but from what I can tell it’s mostly a contrast fight. Both work in hell and wear bowties and uh… is that it? Well, both of their shows have a lot to do with redemption of sinners and these two are kind of at the forefront of all of it, so it definitely makes sense. Personally speaking, I have a sort-of love-hate relationship with Hazbin Hotel. I watched the pilot way back in middle school, and when I did that I kinda felt like I was signing one of Alastor’s binding contracts that keeps me chained to the show for all of eternity. No matter how many harsh critiques I hear about the show and agree with, I'll always come back to it. But that being said Alastor is definitely my favorite character from the show, and the best written if I’m being honest. The banter potential for this fight is really fun, having Alastor’s creepy posh side clash with Michael’s anxious jokey side is very cool. Plus there could be a fight between Janet and Alastor’s summons (which includes Keith David as Husk, I forking love Keith David so much). The conflict could be Michael arriving at the hotel, telling Alastor that there’s a better method to rehabilitation of souls, and the fight starts from there. Both Alastor and Michael have reality-warping abilities that can play off of each other pretty well, and the ending could be Alastor ending up in Michael’s fake Good Place, starting his actual betterment. So with all of this, this matchup does have one glaring flaw besides the lack of connections: the debate is nowhere to be found, lol. Michael is Moon to Universal to even High Complex Multiversal with reality warping. If you take Alastor’s high ends, he’s actually surprisingly strong himself, getting to at least Continental according to this blog, but that’s not enough to contend with Michael like... at all. And I get sinners in Hazbin’s verse can only be fully killed via angelic weapons, but that’s not stopping Michael from asking for one with Janet, and ending the fight there. So yeah, pretty cool matchup interaction and fight-wise, but it’s not debatable enough in my opinion for me to fully enjoy it. But anyways, it’s probably the most likely for both if either of them get on the show! I’ll take what I can get for my glorious king Mike.

The Game Master (Backrooms)

“I am Komo’oide, and I am the final truth."

Wait… Michael has an opponent from the Backrooms? Surprisingly, the Backrooms over the past few years has gained a large amount of mythology and character writing, sort of like the SCP Foundation. Let’s see what this matchup has in store. These two reality warpers, ruling over their respective domains, have tricked their targets through various methods of psychological torture. Through these tests they both gained a fascination with human behavior, but the Game Master specifically doesn’t learn anything from this inquiry, using it to torture humans more, which is where these two start to drift in terms of their story. That’s right, this is a bit of a contrast matchup. Michael starts as being loyal to the afterlife’s flawed points system, but, after learning human morality, works to change it. The Game Master however, also follows strict rules throughout her games, though she frequently cheats to get her way in things. Game Master, unlike Michael, doesn’t work to better herself, kind of acting as an alternate path version of Michael if he never became good. These connections are alright, but what I like about this matchup the most is the interaction and fight potential. I can imagine the set-up happening by Michael arriving in Game Master’s Backrooms level somehow, and trying to change her behavior on being a conniving son-of-a-gun. Both are crazy reality warpers, at least in both of their realms, and that makes for some great Bill VS Discord moments for the fight. A main thing the Game Master is known for is offering the people who wander into her level a game to play, which would make for a great point of intellect between the two even before the fight starts. I have no idea what game Michael would be the best at, but I imagine Michael could offer up a moral quandary in response to this. Think of how he did the same with Chidi in Season 2, making the trolley problem into reality by snapping his fingers. The Game Master likely wouldn’t expect the tables getting turned on her like that, which I think would be pretty amusing. Debatably, I’m not really sure how this could be analyzed. As the Game Master is apparently just the avatar of an infinitely-expanding omnipresent Backrooms god, because of course she forking is. (God damn who decided to give the Backrooms lore??) With that I don’t really see how Michael could compete overall. Though this makes for a very fun alt for Mike, even if it doesn’t accomplish what I’d want for him in terms of story connections.

Iscream (Chikn Nuggit)

"WHAT PITS OF HELL HATH YOU COME FROM?!”

Michael has a matchup from a BuzzFeed cartoon character?? Let’s check this guy out. First off, Chikn Nuggit is a series usually presented in various TikToks and YouTube shorts, following Chikn and his friends all named after fast food-related objects. Chikn apparently turns out to be the Demigod of Chaos and Iscream is sent to deal with him. Michael and Iscream start off as major antagonists from hell, and trick the protagonists into believing their facades, as both are demons that have a suit containing their true essence. However they ended up spending too much time with the main protagonist and their friends, to the point where they actually became good and fought against what they were originally meant to accomplish. Michael and Iscream also both have an adversary from their past that’s essentially a dark mirror of the person they turned out to be. However, Iscream and Michael would finally complete their missions and save the world, through the friendship of the protagonists, and are stripped of their demon rank, getting to live normal lives at the end of it all. Apologies if any of that was wrong, as I’m relatively unfamiliar with Chikn Nuggit as a series. However, that being said, I think this matchup is actually pretty good! Both could act cocky yet nervous around each other, Michael getting frustrated with how he’s seemingly getting bodied by a tiny little bunny would be kind of hilarious. Not sure what the conflict could be, though. Again I don’t know the Chickn Nuggit series that well lol. An analysis for this series would be interesting, as I hear Iscream could scale to Star and Universe level feats, that could contend in a similar sense to Michael. However Michael doesn’t need raw stats or even Janet to win this, as his demon exploder that… explodes demons would be helpful. And since Iscream is a demon they would most likely be vulnerable to this. Overall even though I don’t have much interest in Chikn Nuggit personally, this would make for a really great fight for Michael!


Crowley (Good Omens)

“I didn't mean to fall... I just hung around the wrong people.”

Good Omens is also a lighthearted series that deals with the afterlife and whatnot, so it's only natural that Michael has a matchup from this show. These two are your average non-highly ranking demons who’ve been around since the dawn of creation. Both, in secret, worked against their demon bosses to become better people and stop apocalyptic human events. Throughout their lives they started to meddle with human affairs even though they weren’t supposed to, and both are from weird and silly interpretations of the afterlife. Simple enough, but it works! Crowley doesn’t have nearly as versatile powers as Michael does, but his demon abilities are enough to hold his own in a fight. The set-up is tricky, as both of them are usually just minding their own business, but Crowley as a demon could get word that someone of his kind is up to no good, and therefore needs to be stopped. Banter potential is pretty good, as both series have enough jokes to reference between one another, and Crowley’s played by David Tennant. What more could you need? In terms of debatability, it’s interesting. Crowley has created a nebula before, putting him at Multi-Solar System levels of physicality, but beyond that Crowley doesn’t have much. Demons in Good Omens can’t physically die, and would regenerate over time, but haven’t really been stated to have a specific vulnerability before. I’m unaware if Crowley has any soul hax to trip up Michael, since that would likely be the deciding factor for him. Like Iscream, Michael’s demon exploder could potentially kill Crowley for good, since he’s a demon and all, but physiologically speaking they are pretty different. While the fight potential for this matchup isn't as great as one another reality warper would have, I still really love it. Perhaps the battle could focus more on them traversing different dimensions and spacetimes and whatnot. Plus Crowley's British-ness being correctly portrayed in his dialogue would definitely be neat. While the winner is generally up to interpretation of both verses, making for a weird debatability factor, I think this matchup is great.

Death (Discworld)

“I have many names. Death is as good as any.”


Have you heard of the English literature series Discworld? Discworld is a book series where the world is shaped like a disc, that disc being on top of four huge elephants, and those four elephants being on the back of a giant turtle. It’s… really weird. Well regardless, Michael has a great option within this world via its version of death. The connections between these two is that they’re both supernatural beings beyond normal comprehension, managing the afterlife since humans came to be. However, throughout both of their almighty existences, they gained a fondness for humanity when they started to slightly intervene with their affairs, and befriended two young women that helped open their hearts. They both ended up dropping their positions as afterlife beings, living out their last days as humans themselves, finally experiencing what it’s like to be the thing they always admired. Oh, also, they both play the guitar! Having recently become a fan of this specific personification of Death, I’m a pretty big fan of this matchup. The banter potential is really great, both having such a compassionate nature to themselves, while Michael usually loses himself in his own dialogue. The conflict is a bit tricky, as Death never technically kills people, he definitely can on his own, but typically never likes getting involved in things himself. That’s why I think the perfect conflict could take place during the Season 4 experiment of the Good Place, where one of the people chosen by the Bad Place to be tested on is Death’s granddaughter Susan. Death would want to keep his granddaughter safe and out of the hands of a demon, so it would be the perfect reason for him to intervene. It’s actually more debatable than usual depending on where you place both. Death brought down the Spirit of the Rock by playing a guitar chord meant to resist its influence, and is even comparable to the Hogfather who can create universes at a moment’s notice. Death also has a “timeless void” that he can banish people to and from, so that’s Inaccessible and Universal stats for the reaper, but I’m unsure if he can get any higher. However Death has banished others to the human realm just as easily as he did with his void, and as discussed in the weaknesses section, Michael is completely powerless in the human realm. Death however would have all his powers still in-tact, and have the chance to take away Michael’s door button, finally giving Death the chance to eliminate Michael for good. Though Michael has much greater reality warping which would help to give him the edge in certain scenarios, and Death has shown to be able to perish before, usually via some kind of divine intervention. So despite all of this, this matchup’s biggest flaw comes from the tonal difference. Death is from an old English book series that’s hardly relevant anymore, and Michael is from a funny sitcom. Sometimes I like a good tonal difference in a matchup, but I feel like there’s someone that fits Michael’s mold just slightly better than our boy Death. That of course being...


Beetlejuice (Beetlejuice)

“Let's turn on the juice and see what shakes loose!”

HERE’S THE BIG ONE! My personal favorite Michael matchup, let’s dive in. These two demonic beings of forked-up afterlife systems had the job of torturing humans to make their afterlives worse than they already would be. They’d use their skills of manipulation to trick a group of newly-dead humans for a little while, until the friendship of a young woman changed the way they saw life. Because of these young women, they’d end up changing how they operate and become overall better people. Both would have to end up dealing with someone from the afterlife wanting their new friends’ souls, to which they fought back against but ultimately prevailed. If you’re at all familiar with Betelgeuse as a character, you’ll notice that most of those connections come from the Beetlejuice musical, which is an awesome piece of media btw and you should go check it out. Regardless, the banter potential is great. It’s a Beetlejuice matchup, that dude is hilarious. The conflict could be similar to the one I stated for Death’s, being Beetlejuice sabotaging the Season 4 experiment due to Lydia being chosen by the Bad Place this time, his services being hired by Shawn. Beetlejuice and Michael both have some crazy reality warping abilities that would make for a great fight. Debatably, it’s pretty straightforward with some things to mention. While this matchup does technically focus on the musical version of Beetlejuice, given that specific version is more of a redeemed villain like Michael, I’m sorry but– it’s just not debatable at all if you include just that version. I think if you focus on the story and connections of the Alex Brightman Beetlejuice but also include abilities and feats from the other versions then that would be fine, at least in my book. If you feel differently then I respect it. But moving on, there’s arguments for BJ being at bare minimum, Universal in powers to around Infinite speeds, as according to this blog. Different to Michael in terms of stats, but Michael is High Complex Multi making him stronger overall. Though BJ can come back from almost any kind of physical or even metaphysical damage so AP doesn’t matter too much here. In terms of abilities though, that’s where things start to get interesting. As stated before, both have reality warping powers but BJ has ones that are more built-in to his being. Like size-shifting, sealing, power nullification, subjective reality, time travel, and much more. All that paired with his ghost physiology nullifying physical damage, it would take a lot out of Michael to put BJ down for good. Overall this is a phenomenal matchup that I’d love to see happen one day. In a blog or otherwise. Also I really like the Genie for Beetlejuice, too. Just thought I’d mention that.

Next Time
Dash Fish

Hey everyone! Thanks so much for reading :) The Good Place is one of my favorite things just, ever, and this is sort of my contribution to it as a series. Also I just really wanted to fully scale it all, it was so fun doing it over however long this blog took lol (I kinda lost track) As I’m sure as some of you may have noticed, in Macho VS Godmother, GLaDOS VS One-One was listed as one of the next times, and while that one wasn’t the actual next blog made due to conflicting time constraints, I can promise that one is coming eventually. However the other next time I put at the end of that blog, Majora VS The Core, is cancelled. This is because I recently discovered that this matchup has already been done as a blog, and while it’s true me and other researchers could just give our takes on that matchup, both characters haven’t gotten any new media to scale since that past blog came out, and I pretty much agree with everything stated in it. So go read it if you’re interested in that fight! But yeah, I’d just hate to rehash old stuff, so it’s cancelled unfortunately. However…

GLaDOS VS One-One is still at work!

If you’d like to help with this feel free to message me:

Discord: dashfish

Reddit: Dash_Diamond

Thanks for reading!

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