Is Claude the most overrated protagonist in GTA history?

[billiejoearmstrong8]

Claude is probably the most averagely rated GTA protagonist 

[Yinepi]

CJ and Niko are more overrated than Mr. Fido.

[Fenrill]

On 8/9/2014 at 4:40 AM, don ovdi' island said:

My I ask, why?

Because Nico is kinda a dumbass and a hypocrite. Maybe some people can relate to him. But what was the reason for him to be in liberty? He wanted that things changed. Stuff to be different, still he don't change his habbits, do the same he always did. Kills to many people and did everything that he already got him in this rabbit hole again. He could do things differently. *facepalm* Sry, always when i play gta 4, it hurts my brain and all the moment i can choose, i don't kill if i have the chance. Still he get his girlfriend, or roman killed in the end. You can now say, it was Dimitri in a way. Yes, but this also just happends because he f*cked with vlad in the first place and killed him. He just could have helped roman on a different way. Maybe even give roman a punch for some stuff he did. God damnit, sry. I prefer lad and bogt so much more. 

[billiejoearmstrong8]

22 minutes ago, Fenrill said:

Because Nico is kinda a dumbass and a hypocrite. Maybe some people can relate to him. But what was the reason for him to be in liberty? He wanted that things changed. Stuff to be different, still he don't change his habbits, do the same he always did. Kills to many people and did everything that he already got him in this rabbit hole again. He could do things differently. *facepalm* Sry, always when i play gta 4, it hurts my brain and all the moment i can choose, i don't kill if i have the chance. Still he get his girlfriend, or roman killed in the end. You can now say, it was Dimitri in a way. Yes, but this also just happends because he f*cked with vlad in the first place and killed him. He just could have helped roman on a different way. Maybe even give roman a punch for some stuff he did. God damnit, sry. I prefer lad and bogt so much more. 

 

- He was in danger from Bulgarin where he was from so he had to leave

- The ship he was travelling on while working in the merchant navy happened to be making a stop there

- His cousin who he grew up with like a brother lived there, and also talked up how great it was

- He'd heard one of the men he wanted to track down to get answers from might live there

- Potentially he could live a quieter life since as far as he knew Roman wasn't involved with any criminals and he had no enemies there

 

So even if he had no plans whatsoever being in Liberty City made the most sense for him for multiple reasons. The thing that caused his plans to change was when he arrived he found out Roman had exaggerated about his success and also that he was in debt to and in danger from dangerous criminals. So against what he wanted, he was pulled back into dealing with criminals and having to make some fast money again to help Roman, leading to him back into crime (partly being forced to by Vlad and then Dimitri/Faustin, partly because it's what he's best at making money at). And then once Bulgarin was on the scene he was fully screwed. You're right that he made mistakes that made things worse but I think things could've gone bad anyway whatever he did since Roman was already in trouble and Bulgarin was already there when he arrived. And there's also the element of him wanting answers and revenge so badly clouding his judgement. And that's part of what makes him a good character, he's flawed, doesn't always make the right decisions, and also notices his own flaws and tries to justify them to himself in a very human way. It's just more interesting for a character to be that way than always be perfect. 

 

 

Edited January 1, 2021 by billiejoearmstrong8

[Fenrill]

8 minutes ago, billiejoearmstrong8 said:

 

- He was in danger from Bulgarin where he was from so he had to leave

- The ship he was travelling on while working in the merchant navy happened to be making a stop there

- His cousin who he grew up with like a brother lived there, and also talked up how great it was

- He'd heard one of the men he wanted to track down to get answers from might live there

- Potentially he could live a quieter life since as far as he knew Roman wasn't involved with any criminals and he had no enemies there

 

So even if he had no plans whatsoever being in Liberty City made the most sense for him for multiple reasons. The thing that cause his plans to change was when he arrived he found out Roman had exaggerated about his success and also that he was in debt to and in danger from dangerous criminals. So against what he wanted, he was pulled back into dealing with criminals and having to make some fast money again to help Roman, leading to him back into crime (partly being forced to by Vlad and then Dimitri/Faustin, partly because it's what he's best at making money at). And then once Bulgarin was on the scene he was fully screwed. You're right that he made mistakes that made things worse but I think things could've gone bad anyway whatever he did since Roman was already in trouble when he arrived. And there's also the element of him wanting answers and revenge so badly clouding his judgement. And that's part of what makes him a good character, he's flawed, doesn't always make the right decisions, and also notices his own flaws and tries to justify them to himself in a very human way. It's just more interesting for a character to be that way than always be perfect. 

 

 

It wasn't that simple. In the beginning roman had only problems with those money sharks and maybe vlad on a strange basis, but not in a bad way like what niko made out of it. As soon as niko worked for vlad, it went down the sh*tter. Only because of what he did, even roman got more and more into trouble. Yes, he is flawed. I don't have anything about a flawed protagonist. But he is not only flawed, he makes to many dumb decisions that got him more and more into trouble. Not only him, also people arround him. 

[billiejoearmstrong8]

44 minutes ago, Fenrill said:

It wasn't that simple. In the beginning roman had only problems with those money sharks and maybe vlad on a strange basis, but not in a bad way like what niko made out of it. As soon as niko worked for vlad, it went down the sh*tter. Only because of what he did, even roman got more and more into trouble. Yes, he is flawed. I don't have anything about a flawed protagonist. But he is not only flawed, he makes to many dumb decisions that got him more and more into trouble. Not only him, also people arround him. 

That's true, it didn't start too bad but it quickly spiralled out of control. His decision to kill Vlad made it worse more quickly but any number of other things could've screwed everything up, especially considering Niko was unwittingly already pretty close to Bulgarin (since Vlad worked for Dimitri who was connected with him). He and other characters do make some dumb decisions but like, it's pretty realistic for people to make dumb decisions lol

 

And with Niko I think it works because we can see why he does what he does, he's self reflective so we see his motives and justifications (eg wanting to find the man who betrayed him, justifying bad actions to himself by reasoning that he "needs the money" or "it's the only thing I know how to do"). He even scolds himself for bad decisions he's made and acknowledges his own flaws and hypocrisies at times. We can even decide for him what to do in some cases. So it's more than just watching someone doing dumb things. He's just an interesting and complex character, I don't think not always being a good decision maker takes away from that.

[Fenrill]

7 minutes ago, billiejoearmstrong8 said:

That's true, it didn't start too bad but it quickly spiralled out of control. His decision to kill Vlad made it worse more quickly but any number of other things could've screwed everything up, especially considering Niko was unwittingly already pretty close to Bulgarin (since Vlad worked for Dimitri who was connected with him). He and other characters do make some dumb decisions but like, it's pretty realistic for people to make dumb decisions lol

 

And with Niko I think it works because we can see why he does what he does, he's self reflective so we see his motives and justifications (eg wanting to find the man who betrayed him, justifying bad actions to himself by reasoning that he "needs the money" or "it's the only thing I know how to do"). He even scolds himself for bad decisions he's made and acknowledges his own flaws and hypocrisies at times. We can even decide for him what to do in some cases. So it's more than just watching someone doing dumb things. He's just an interesting and complex character, I don't think not always being a good decision maker takes away from that.

Yes. True that. One of the first cutscenes where vlad is beeing typical vlad and kinda an ass, he still more seemed to look like romans boss, and still niko looked at him like he want to kill him. That was already one point where my good feeling for him stopped in a way. I had a bad feeling, that he will be the first gta protagonist, that i kinda really dislike. What i said. Flawed is one point, but some people even told him to chill.... I mean, i also can understand him in some points, but yeah. You know what i mean. *sigh* GTA 4 was just a pretty depressing  story for me. Not depressing like in lost and damned. More like depressing when you see a dashcam view of somebody dumb races along, crashes and you know, other people got it too. Even they where innocent (like Kate atleast) and maybe died because of the racers dumb decision. Sigh. I also don't liked the brown filters in the game. In Interieurs the filter went away. This even more frustrated me, because I saw how it could look like. 

[Algonquin Assassin]

3 hours ago, billiejoearmstrong8 said:

That's true, it didn't start too bad but it quickly spiralled out of control. His decision to kill Vlad made it worse more quickly but any number of other things could've screwed everything up, especially considering Niko was unwittingly already pretty close to Bulgarin (since Vlad worked for Dimitri who was connected with him). He and other characters do make some dumb decisions but like, it's pretty realistic for people to make dumb decisions lol

 

And with Niko I think it works because we can see why he does what he does, he's self reflective so we see his motives and justifications (eg wanting to find the man who betrayed him, justifying bad actions to himself by reasoning that he "needs the money" or "it's the only thing I know how to do"). He even scolds himself for bad decisions he's made and acknowledges his own flaws and hypocrisies at times. We can even decide for him what to do in some cases. So it's more than just watching someone doing dumb things. He's just an interesting and complex character, I don't think not always being a good decision maker takes away from that.

 

The thing Niko killing Vlad which in turn lead to Dimitri's betrayal actually helped Niko and Roman in the long run.

 

Niko was right that Vlad was a nobody in Faustin's organization so I had no qualms in killing that swine. Sure it wasn't good for them when the apartment and taxi depot got burnt down in the short term, but in the long term Roman got to kick start his business back up again (being more successful than it was before) and they got that nice apartment in Middle Park East so it didn't work out too bad for them. 

 

 

Edited January 2, 2021 by Algonquin Assassin

[atay26]

How many ignorant people are on this forum, how is Claude overrated? I wouldn't say he is underrated either. He is a placeholder for us to play as. Hearing people say he was a brainless, psychopathic dumbass that was praised more then others must have there heads so far up there ass. See it for what it is. There is a reason why CJ and Trevor are overrated. Why? It's because they seem to think those 2 are the only protagonist that matter and we should just totally disregard every other protagonist. On the other note Dam you, I hope you rot in hell

Edited October 2 by atay26

[cant remember]

I think Claude has a pretty cool design he fits the game he's intended to be in very well, that's all he is and that's all he needs to be.

[The Artist]

1 hour ago, cant remember said:

I think Claude has a pretty cool design he fits the game he's intended to be in very well, that's all he is and that's all he needs to be.

He could've been better if he had a voice

[Daz]

On 9/30/2015 at 4:52 PM, Journey_95 said:

Of course its not about the player's story, this isn't a f*cking RPG.

And no the concept wouldn't work now. GTA 1, 2+ 3 were fun for their time but if all the GTA games were like that it would be terrible.

 

What kind of "character evolution" do you want? Just for characters to neglect their backstory etc. and just become blank slates so you can enjoy the game?

 

And what "audience" are you talking about? Most people like having good characters as protags. Funny hearing the word "depth" from you, how would your terrible player self insert have any?

 

Niko, Michael etc.all have depth and especially Niko is well written and certainly not a stereotype, have you even played the HD era games?

 

Claude isn't even a real character, since this isn't an RPG you can't even determine his personality, make choices etc. he is just an annoying f*cking mute.

 

Thank god not more people have this kind of sh*tty opinion. If they would we would be stuck with silly mutes.

Not to bring up an ancient discussion but as I received a notification I thought I would respond to this prior to considering locking it after a large necro bump.

 

1: GTA is more of an RPG now than it ever has been. Stat increases, customization in all areas, character selection (to some extent). It isn't one but its been close for a long time.

2: That is simply just an opinion, some of the most well loved games are ones with characters that do not need to talk. They don't do any worse as games with the player character talking. You don't need the player character to talk during gameplay to have a story told to you. Every other character in the game can fulfill this role, the player character only needs to listen. Half life, Fallout, Skyrim, etc etc, so many have had decades worth of enjoyment with a silent protagonist.

3: The evolution comes via the experiences gained from playing the game and progressing through the missions. CJ was annoying to some degree, but decent in others, as he branched out through the different cities you progressed with him, he learned to shut up and grow up and became something different. This is largely due to them planning on multiple characters back then but couldn't do it. So we get the same character through areas of the game that probably wouldn't be suited for him normally, but it forced his personality to shift. What I don't want is constant reference and talk of events in which you did not experience or deal with being such a centerpoint of the game. Events in which you had no say in. Giving you problems prior to starting the game. I think it is more interesting to make you experience that via missions in the game instead of it being already set up.

4: You are right most people want a good protag, it is a shame Niko, Michael, Franklin and Trevor are terrible and overly annoying and VERY stereotypical, I am not sure how you can't see that, and to that extent I would rather have someone silent as an option.

5: They definitely do not, all Niko did was bitch and whine through the whole game, always sorry for himself. How many times do I have to spawn into GTA5 singleplayer and hear the same damn arguement with michael and his wife or kids. Do I really want to play a videogame where that is something I have to deal with? No. Yes I have played all GTA games to 100%, probably why they become more annoying to me than some random casual that plays the story and ends it.

6: Correct Claude is not technically a character, not until he was added to San Andreas. But the point being that if a silent one is more interesting to me than what else rockstar have offered for characters in the last 15 years, that is saying something about their obnoxious overbearing irritating characters. How can a silent person be annoying? It seems you have some sort of personal issues or struggles with it? It seems to me that all annoyances come from when someone open's their god awful mouth, similar to this discussion. I would love for some people to just shut up.

7: Enjoy my sh*tty opinion 7 years later. I hope yours has evolved by now.

[KINGJulienx]

Claude opinion about this old topic : "                                                      "