List of Scott Pilgrim Characters - Main Characters - Scott Pilgrim

Scott William Pilgrim is the 23-year-old (24 in volumes 5-6) protagonist. He is the bass player for the band Sex Bob Ombs with his friends Stephen Stills and Kim Pine, He plays a Rickenbacker 4001c64, 4003 in the film. Though initially an unemployed freeloader, he later gets a job as a dish washer (and food prep trainee) at The Happy Avocado vegetarian restaurant. The character's name was inspired by the song "Scott Pilgrim" from Plumtree's 1998 album Predicts the Future. He believes that smoking is evil, drinks "only on occasions", and doesn't hit girls. Scott seems to suffer from memory problems, which his friends chalk up to his stupidity, though the memory problems began after his break-up with Envy Adams whom he dated through college. The series also references a mysterious "dark side" of Scott's personality which he avoids as much as possible. He is initially devastated by his break-up with Envy Adams and begins dating Knives Chau before meeting Ramona. The two begin dating, but Scott is plagued by Ramona's elusive past and her "7 evil exes" led by the mysterious "Gideon", all of whom challenge him in succession for the right to date her. Despite his limited intelligence and poor memory capacity, Scott has on occasion managed to defeat his opponents through cunning rather than brute strength: in volume 2, he manages to goad Lucas Lee into performing a dangerous skateboarding trick and in the film adaptation, he successfully tricks Todd Ingram into consuming dairy products in spite of him having psychic powers. Scott is a surprisingly skilled fighter in unarmed combat and sword fighting. His hair is usually "messed up" for when Scott sees Ramona with his hair straight, she laughs. He often dreams of stupid games until Ramona tells him to get a job.

Scott Pilgrim has received great reception as a comic book character. He was ranked as the 85th greatest comic book character of all time by Wizard magazine. Empire magazine also ranked Scott Pilgrim as the 40th greatest comic book character stating that Scott "is one of the most authentic twenty-somethings ever committed to comic booky paper." IGN also ranked Scott Pilgrim as the 69th greatest comic book hero of all time stating that they love Scott not just because he is a tried-and-true nerd who battles villains in epic fashion, but because he went through a dramatic character arc over the course of his series.

O'Malley said that Scott was not based on any one person in particular, and that there was a small visual similarity to one of O'Malley's old friends, a bassist in his bands. O'Malley said that the friend "is the only guy who has any claim to inspiration for Scott, and it’s purely visual — the personality is all fiction." In terms of Scott's height, O'Malley said that Scott is "a little taller than Ramona".

Film adaptation

Scott is played by Michael Cera in the film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Shortly before filming began, Cera received a list of secrets (some of which are already in the books, some of which are neither in the books nor the film) about the character. Cera has revealed at least one of these secrets so far, which pertains to Scott's world view: "The one that really stays in my head is that Scott, in his mind, is the star of his own movie. This movie is, in a way, existing in his own mind. This is his weird perception of the world around him."

Cera also voices Scott for the animated short Scott Pilgrim vs. The Animation.