The absence of the child this weekend has led to a rare un-muted appearance by ‘Grand Theft Auto’ in my house, specifically ‘GTA: The Ballad Of Gay Tony,’ a story which features gratuitous use of the f-word, rampant homophobia and the friendly neighborhood brutal murderiness for which the GTA franchise has become known. As I faced down a squad of armored government goons with only explosives and an absurdly large-caliber weapon, I started to realize that what my game avatar was doing was illegal, immoral and pretty much horrific. If I were asked to roleplay such a character firsthand, I don’t think that I could even begin to wrap my brain around the task, but Luis (and CJ and Tommy and, to a lesser degree, Johnny) tend to be very pleasant in their day-to-day psychopathic rampages and bastardry, which somehow led me to ignore their horrible actions. (Nico, on the other hand, is and KNOWS he is an utter monster.) Of course, it might be noted that, over the last few years, Batman has become kind of an inexcusable jerk as well, which leads me into today’s querulous conundrum…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) still thinks that Tommy Vercetti may be one of the greatest, yet most reprehensible characters in pop culture history, asking: Who are the characters that you love the most who are still utterly AWFUL people?
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Mine, gotta be Stringer Bell from The Wire. He’s so bloody smooth. Tries to get out and use his absurd amounts of drug money to go legit, only to be jerked around by people smarter and more powerful than him, ultimately getting double crossed while double crossing his hoodlum partner Avon Barksdale. On that note, Omar Little. Wait, pretty much everyone from The Wire… McNutty!
My wife’s answer: Jax Teller from Sons of Anarchy. Awful person, but she loves him. Whenever I watch that show, I can’t help but hope everyone dies. Not a sympathetic one in the bunch.
Sheldon Cooper, insensitive self-centered jackwagon, love him any way.
All I can think of at the moment is Dr. House. I’ll probably think of more once I’ve had some coffee.
Walter White (Heisenberg) from Breaking Bad. He starts out doing the wrong thing for the right reasons then eventually loses his soul in the process. Somehow you still wanna root for the guy and hope he sells that meth.
Batman’s behavior is always excusable because he is Batman. As we all know everything is better with Batman therefore making it impossible for his behavior to be bad. Its just science.
Hannibal Lector, charming, brilliant, cannibal. Jaime Lannister from A Song of Ice and Fire. You grow to love him. Even though though he is a calculating, traitorous, incest driven SOB, he does what he does for reasons that make sense and are almost noble.
90% of the characters in Quentin Tarantino movies, just so many of them are murderers, robbers, etc. Also John Constantine, I would not want to be around him for an hour, but damn does he generate good stories.
tough question, you know we all have to love Tyrion Lannister of course, and of course, Dr House. In video games, the main characters in the GTA games are top ones, but then there is also Kerrigan in Starcraft. Another character I feel sorry for, but loved cause he was such a sadistic asshole was Alex DeLarge from Clockwork Orange. :P
Dexter Morgan
I love the stories about him but he is one code away from full serial-killer. Thank you Harry!