"Morally ambiguous" tv characters

By "morally ambiguous" I simply mean characters that are not an outright villain or an outright hero. These are characters that definitely have a dark side to them but they will also do the right thing when push comes to shove. Which ones from TV have really stood out to you? I have 3


1. Gaius Baltar (reimagined BSG)


2. Lord Bailish/Little Finger (Game of Thrones)


3. Londo Mollari (Babylon 5)

Pretty much the entire cast of Stargate Universe with the exception of Eli. Especially Dr Rush and Col Young.

Riddick. I guess he's not TV, but he's certainly been on TV enough with how old the films are now.



As for Petyr Baelish, I'm not sure he counts. He always does what is right for him, but his selflessness only ever extended to Cat and Sansa, and even there he betrayed Ned (which hurt both of them).



The Jedi Master

Sgt. Schultz

LOL That's a creative pick.

Any politician on tv.

I think Tywin Lannister might be the most morally ambiguous character in GOT. Sometimes he'll seem like a very hard, strict, but fair person (like Stannis Baratheon) and then do something that's not cruel but just shows his total indifference to everyone that's not a Lannister.

Jaime Lannister. His popularity has been fluid, from being the bad guy who pushes little kids out of tower windows, to the hero who saves an enemy from rape.

I'll just say that if you believe for a second that Littlefinger in GoT is an "ambiguous" character, you lost the trail of bodies at some point. He has a very definitive goal and will do all it takes to achieve it. Just ask Ned Stark.

Just ask Ros.

Coming up with this list, it's interesting how not only the characters, but the actors that play them become fan favorites. They're always fun to root for and hope they do the right thing. Disappointing when they don't choose right, but it's always interesting no matter what.


SAMCRO. (Sons of Anarchy)
Very protective of their town, but they are definitely criminals. Just too stupid to see that they invite all the trouble and are the root of it.

Kublai Khan, on Marco Polo.
He's motivated by being progressive, fulfilling his grandfather's vision and wanting to unify Asia for peace and "freedom", but to him the end justifies any means.
He'll kill off a village but take in a child survivor and raise him with love as one of his own, not understanding why it ends in betrayal. BRILLIANTLY portrayed on the show by Benedict Wong. Check out his IMDB page, he's been right in front of us, a relatively unrecognized talent for a while now. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0938950/?ref_=tt_cl_t2

Jayne, Firefly. You could argue Mal too, but he's less ambiguous.
On one hand, he'll (Jayne) turn on a crew member out of habit for profit, but ultimately he does care and is fairly protective. (Ariel episode)

Spike, Buffy and Angel.
He had an interesting development arc on the shows. Gotta like James Marsters.

Methos, Highlander.
Fan favorite character for this very reason. Started out one of the Four Horsemen, the worst of the worst and the oldest immortal. Over time he changed to a pacifist. He develops during the time of the show, but is a reluctant to be a hero or to even help oftentimes since he feels guilty or that he'd return to his old ways.

The Punisher, Frank Castle on Daredevil.
He isn't so much a hero since he's motivated out of revenge and specifically targets organized crime rather than any criminal. Usually. In the end his hearts in the right place, but as with most, the end justifies the means. Usually with a lot of collateral damage.

I've only seen him in Caprica but what I saw I really liked. He has that intangible "screen presence" that can't really be taught.

Han Solo in SW Ep IV... until the special editions.

Han didn't just shoot first, he's the only one that shot, thank you very much Lucas! Han wasn't stupid.

Can't think of any others to add. Sgt Schultz was a great pick !

As to Littlefinger....he is a rotten to the core bastage and admits it himself.....I hop one of Danni's dragons fries him......or Arya guts him

Yeah, I guess Baelish is more dark than light. I think his decision to help out Jon Snow at the battle of the bastards in season 6 made me a bit sympathetic to him.

He just had a very good excuse so the Knights of the Vale would be invited to occupy the Bolton's lands in The North.

It was no coincidence he arrived at the end of the battle...definitively it was not for dramatic effect. If Ramsey had won over John Snow's men, he would just had offered Sansa to him like ... hey dude..here, I found your lost Queen!

Can't believe I forgot Jayne! Technically Mal was the same way, for people who weren't part of his crew. Of course, he was rather generous about who he called his crew.

It's been too long since I watched FF and Serenity last. Almost done with my B5 universe rewatch. Well, I'm almost done with the series, only Sleeping in Light left. I still have 4 TV movies (including Lost Tales) and Crusade to rewatch.

Maybe I'll rewatch FF before I dive into ST again.



The Jedi Master

Dwight Schrute on "The Office"

Nearly anybody from Deadwood.

Don't forget Farscape Jedi, it's still one of the best. I doubt PM has watched it YET.
In fact, we could add Capt Crais to the list. You have to watch a few seasons in to see it though. Great character.

How about Titus Pullo from "Rome?"

Dr. Smith, Mr. Howell, Homer Simpson, Al Bundy

That's an outstanding pick!!

Deep Space Nine's Garak seems to fit here too

Lucifer Morningstar




Wiki Link

Quark should too.
Oliver Queen from Arrow

The Smoking Man from the X-Files might fit in here. The actor who played him, William B. Davis, once said that he tried to put himself in the character's shoes. He tried to see the world from the Smoking Man's point of view. "After all", he said. "Villains don't see themselves as villains."
That certainly makes him ambiguous. He was evil, but thought that right was on his side.

Bronn in Game of Thrones.

LOL David. How come we haven't had a remake of that show yet?

Excellent pick and I really hope he survives the show. There's just something about him that I admire a lot.

Especially the first season.

General Zod in Man of Steel was a great character. Much better and more complex than in the old movie. In his mind, he was doing his job preserving Krypton and saving a culture, DESPITE them not listening to him about killing their planet and also despite being sentenced to the phantom zone. He stayed true to his job even after all of that. He didn't understand why Clark would fight that. Although in the intro he threatened to find Kal El for revenge, I think that was just the heat of the moment. He never lied to Clark or tried anything until he got in his way. He didn't go purely violent until he lost the means of doing his job and couldn't handle not being able to do what he was genetically designed and bred for. I thought Michael Shannon did an excellent job of bringing a complex character to life.

The character as written was better in "Man of Steel" but IMHO Shannon didn't quite have that same on-screen gravitas as Terrence Stamp.

We can blame PanzerMeyer now.

http://www.themarysue.com/alf-reboot/

Farscape was indeed full of those types of characters. Not just Crais, but many of the others too. There was even the period when Scorpius was on the ship and that was truly unusual for that genre.

Can't believe I forgot Elim Garak, humble tailor (formerly of the Obsidian Order). Andrew Robinson's best work and one of the best characters in ST.
Quark could be there at times, but he was overall a good person at the core that just had a lot of greed. He would cheat anyone, yes, but he would never hurt someone to make a profit. Garak would and did do things that were outright immoral for a purpose, although not for fun.

Lucifer is interesting because of the take on the character. The idea that he was manipulated into being who he is by his father is certainly fresh. I might classify him as more amoral though.



The Jedi Master

Maybe Peter Dinklage can be cast as Alf?

I see him more as being amoral, in that right or wrong depends entirely on the person paying him. I don't think I've ever seen him do anything good for anyone simply because it was the right thing to do.

I think he's one of the few truly likable characters on the show. He never whines or complains, he's loyal as long as the money keeps coming and tells his employer so in no uncertain terms, and you just gotta like someone who can do everything he says he can do.

Jack Bauer in Day 8 of 24 when he went rogue.

Walter White in Breaking Bad... Jesse too...heck, EVERYONE IN THE SHOW! (Except for Hank. He was straight as a bullet).

And I don't know if there are many watchers of the show here, but Don Draper in Mad Men. If there was any character study that came close to my father's younger years, this was it.

Phew, came here to say just THAT ^

Luther Sloan, Section 31 (DS9). Has - well, had - a rather Machiavellian approach to things.

Marquis de Valmont and Marquise de Merteuil - captivating in their manipulative Dangerous Liaisons.. Glen Close and John Malkovich were good foils for each other in their destructive relationship.

Marguerite de Valois, and her mother Catherine de Medici - played by Isabelle Adjani and Virna Lisi in La Reine Margot. Marguerite is an fairly 'good' character despite being one of the de Medicis but Catherine is not at all pleasant as portrayed - you do feel for her when she accidentally assassinates her son though, especially since all her other plans have largely failed as well.

Lucifer Morningstar was the character who immediately popped into my head for this topic.

Interestingly to me, the expectation is that he is completely immoral and, of course, evil (being the Devil and all). Certainly, as portrayed in the show, he's extremely self absorbed, and "human rules" are largely to be ignored, in favor of whatever he's interested in getting for himself at any particular time.

Despite that, as the show progresses, he keeps doing the "right thing" (although, often enough for the wrong reasons), but more importantly, he's even beginning to question himself, and his behavior.

Contrast that with his "mother", who is clearly only kept in the slightest check by Lucifer himself, and I think we see in Lucifer a character who is becoming much more "Morally Ambiguous" over time.


Regards,
4 <S!>

Bester on B5. To him, everything he does is in service of his people and for their greater good. To him, non-telepaths are a lower life form, so it isn't really even an issue if they get hurt while pursuing the interests of the telepaths.

To date, that was Walter Koenig's best role IMHO.

Yep.

one that will date me.. and mainly only the UK crowd will know them...

Sapphire and Steel


a pair of interdimensional agents (or Elemental? we never find out...) that will sacrifice anything for their mission.. if that's a single life, a ship full of passengers, or a city, they will.

Vic Mackey.

[/micdrop]

That article is from 2012.


Wheels

I loved that program. I think Sapphire and Steel are probably (in D&D terms) lawful-neutral: they have a mission to fix stuff and restore the balance of the time corridor. Hang the consequences.