Poll of the Day > Who is your favorite GTA V character?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'd probably go with Trevor. Because

1) I really like his tattoo (RIP Michael 'Brother')
2) In the last mission, if you pick to kill Trevor, Michael does help you, wherein if you choose to kill Michael, Trevor doesn't help you.

Sure he can be loud and be a little hard to tolerate at times, but he's the most entertaining character as well.
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Trevor, because he embodies the mayhem I love about the series. Whenever I want to just go on a killing spree wreaking havoc, I use Trevor, and his character makes it more fun and engrossing.
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spooky96 posted...

2) In the last mission, if you pick to kill Trevor, Michael does help you, wherein if you choose to kill Trevor, Michael does help you.

?
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corrected, lol
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Not Trevor
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None of the above.

I prefer my GTAO character.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

None of the above.

I prefer my GTAO character.

This. I didn't like any of the main characters in 5, but liked them in other GTAs. Having 3 you're forced to switch between really hurts how invested you get in the characters.
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SlashmanSG posted...

ParanoidObsessive posted...

None of the above.

I prefer my GTAO character.

This. I didn't like any of the main characters in 5, but liked them in other GTAs. Having 3 you're forced to switch between really hurts how invested you get in the characters.

I think he meant GTA online, not GTA Others
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SlashmanSG posted...

Having 3 you're forced to switch between really hurts how invested you get in the characters.

I'm not even sure that's entirely the problem. It's more that, because they're trying to tell a specific story, each of the main characters are painted into very specific roles, but those might not be roles you as the player have any interest in identifying with.

Franklin, most of the time, just feels like a more naive, less interesting version of CJ from GTA:SA. His narrative role is as the motivating factor that brings Michael and Trevor back together and sort of pushes them back into "the life", while simultaneously experiencing his own mini-arc of being someone who gets everything he ever wanted (the money, the house, the cars, the clothes), but who winds up feeling more alone than ever (he basically loses the girl he wanted, the only family he had left, and almost/does lose his best/only friend as well). The problem is, BECAUSE his screen time is split with two other people, there never feels like there's any meaningful development, and you never actually CARE about him all that much. Worse, because they go out of their way to portray his aunt and Lamar as being incredibly shitty people, you don't really see "losing" them as a bad thing, and since he's already broken up with his girlfriend before the game even starts and she has zero interest in him, him still pining over her just makes him feel like a punk anyway (and then when she does show up, she's pretty much trash herself, and you feel like he's been better off without her the whole time regardless).

Franklin's main contribution to most missions is acting incredibly stupid, and having NPCs shit on him for being stupid. This removes a lot of player agency, and leaves the player just sort of seeing Franklin as a bit of a chump most of the time.

Michael's story arc is pretty clearly the old criminal pulled back in for "one last score", who has discovered to his sorrow that the only thing he's really good at is crime. While he's committing crimes all he really wants is to get out, but once he gets out, he has no idea what to do with himself, and basically spends all of his time being miserable and having his entire family treat him like shit. But that leaves Michael's character depressing as fuck, and while it might be interesting to watch in a movie like The Godfather 3 or Goodfellas, most people don't really want to BE the massive fuck-up.

Michael's main contribution to most missions is being the only intelligent, effective member of the trio, but that's contrasted by constantly getting shit on by his family with no real repercussions. This mostly leaves the player just sort of seeing Michael as kind of a loser most of the time.

Trevor is pretty much the avatar of the usual GTA player, so comes across as the most ridiculous of the three, because he does the sort of things the average GTA player would do. But he's also a parody of those sorts of players, so the game spends a lot of time deliberately shitting on him for being that sort of person, and by proxy, telling you, the player, that you're terrible for liking him.

Trevor's main contribution to most missions is acting insane (and screwing things up because of it), and having people call him out for being a psychopath (and having him mostly prove them right by beating the shit out of them or killing them for saying it). This makes him the most fun for a lot of players, but can also annoy people who realize that he is Rockstar's way of shitting on you, the player.


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(cont)

In a sense, Trevor is like being the Boss in Saints Row, but without the playful sense of fun and the feeling of lightheartedness that goes with it. NO ONE likes Trevor (the only people who really associate with him at all are themselves completely broken), nothing he does ever really matters, and he'll never really "succeed". Even after the big heist, he's still the same loser he always was. Even finally getting closure with Michael doesn't really change him.

Franklin could maybe benefit from having full screen time rather than only 1/3rd of it (though even then, he'd mostly just feel like a retread CJ), but Michael and Trevor suffer more from the type of characters they are. And they're those type of characters because Rockstar loves having their reputation for telling deep stories, and lacing it all with biting social commentary and satire. But while those characters might tell an incredibly interesting story, they aren't necessarily LIKEABLE, and they aren't necessarily people the player themselves would ever want to BE.


The GTAO protagonist, on the other hand, can ironically have a more interesting arc (a nobody straight off the plane, you slowly build yourself up via networking and small jobs here and there, ultimately working up to running major heists, going into business for yourself, and potentially becoming a fucking super-villain). Depending on how you play them they might just be an empty personality-less drone who wears funny clothes and shoots people (which, admittedly, is how most people definitely play them), or they might be an empty canvas on whom you project whatever personality traits or backstory you want onto, with a very distinct persona shaped by what jobs you choose to do, what vehicles you choose to own, clothes you choose to wear, and how you choose to play the game.

Ultimately, I think Saints Row (more specifically, 2 and 3) handled your main character's personality better than any of the GTA games do, but unfortunately it also seems like we're never getting another Saints Row game like that again, so GTAO and the eventual GTAVI may be all we have in that regard.


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Michael
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Michael is the only semi-realistic one. Trevor is cartoonishly chaotic evil, and Franklin just seems like he knows he's in a video game with how consistently easy going he is all the time.
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Difficult to vote because I have only played the prologue thus far and I have no idea who is who at the moment.
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spooky96 posted...

SlashmanSG posted...

ParanoidObsessive posted...

None of the above.

I prefer my GTAO character.

This. I didn't like any of the main characters in 5, but liked them in other GTAs. Having 3 you're forced to switch between really hurts how invested you get in the characters.

I think he meant GTA online, not GTA Others

No I know.
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I instantly hated Trevor the moment he killed the guy from The Lost and Damned. I wanted to nope out of playing home immediately.
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Michael, I hated Trevor and Franklin was just really boring.
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Franklin. I just connect with him a little more though none of the PCs were that good.
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I honestly didn't like any of them except for Trevor, who was occasionally funny, though I found his character annoyingly over-eccentric most of the time. I hope they give us a really cool character for GTA 6
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or you don't kill either of them....
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Trevor easy.
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