while michael corleone excels at being a ruthless motherfucker in part 2, the values instilled in him - family and loyalty - are the gravity that draws him inexorably into the criminal abyss. he spends at least two movies doing his best to stay away from it all or reform. corleone’s story is a straight up tragedy through and through; circumstances are primarily the cause of his fall. it’s hard to ‘hate’ him for that. plus, he’s the protagonist so that makes it extra hard since any sympathies the films conjour lie with him.
i think all the others wanted to be bad to begin with, except vader; his tragedy as shown in the prequels is just… well, it’s a bit shit, innit? very sudden switcheroo.
I voted Heisenberg. It’s not really hard to hate him per se, but since the story is told from his POV, and he starts off at this wholesome nerdy guy who gets shit all the time, you end up rooting for him. The viewer watches his story arc through rose colored glasses, and you get lost in his journey just enough to miss the entire point of Walt being a pos.
Moriarty, as portrayed in Sherlock is an easy character to really, really dislike. He’s not sympathetic at all in my eyes.
I don’t even know what Narcos is and I find the whole italian mafia/mob/organized crime stuff to just be boring. I tried to watch the Godfather once and couldn’t get through it. Never even tried to watch Sopranos.
My choice is Tony. To be frank, he was the character that triggered me to ask this question.
As for my reasoning: I do admit that while Tony Soprano excels at being a ruthless motherfucker in the whole series, the values instilled in him - family and loyalty - are the gravity that draws him inexorably into the criminal abyss. On the other hand, some parts of his soul reminds of my old man (jokester) and sometimes even myself. That sense of relatability makes it hard for me to hate. (not when it comes to racism/crime).
Dr. Phil has a history of intentionally triggering relapses in addicts that come onto his show so he can spike ratings, he has a history of seeing people through the lens of their value to society even if they have disenfranchised, he has a history of sending his troubled youth guests to reform schools like Turnaround Ranch and before that Elan (Elan was so bad there is a public website on it where survivors post graphic novels of their experiences), Dr Phil profits off the maladjusted and disenfranchised the same scummy way Jeremy Kyle or Jerry Springer did/do and if you want to hear more I recommend the Behind the Bastards podcast episodes on him and I also recommend their reading and takedown of True Allegiance by Ben Shapiro. There is no reason why aside from it being hilarious.
I mean the book does seem to drag in the middle judging from the reviews of the book that do exist. That is because Ben focuses on his “characters” more during that period than focusing on things that make him angry (like the first part) or focusing on stupid and poorly-written action (like the last part).
