Johnny Klebitz Appreciation Thread

[billiejoearmstrong8]

I played V before TLAD so there wasn't a chance for it to change my opinion but I do think seeing what happened to him made me appreciate the character more when playing TLAD than I would have otherwise. He is a good character anyway but I think I would've seen him as less multi dimensional and wouldn't have noticed/cared about his rather complicated relationship with Ashley as much. Knowing how it would go down later added an extra edge to the character and an extra sombre/bittersweet tone to the game.

 

I also agree that if that scene in V got people's attention and made them rethink Johnny/TLAD and appreciate them more it isn't a bad thing, even if they hated the scene. People are allowed to change their minds when they look at things from a new perspective. 

Edited May 8, 2020 by billiejoearmstrong8

[.Ryan.]

10 hours ago, universetwisters said:

No, I'm saying that it's interesting how Johnny, one of the least liked protagonists of IV's trilogy, suddenly gets a reaction (if this thread and surely any similar one is anything to go by). I swear before V came out I saw some threads about how TBOGT was universally the better DLC than TLAD in terms of gameplay and replayability, so it's no surprise Rockstar thought "Johnny is our least favorite IV protagonist, it wouldn't be too bad killing him off".

 

If that was really R*'s reason for killing him off then they screwed up big time. If anything I think the fact people care points more towards that Johnny already had a dedicated fanbase before GTA V. It might not have been as big as Niko (and probably roughly on par with Luis), but it was still there. If R* decided Trevor had to kill a minor character from GTA IV then I doubt anyone would've cared so much. There are actually a number of characters from GTA IV/EFLC who get killed throughout GTA V that don't raise an eye brow so I guess I'm on the ball on that one. 

 

Anyway lets also not undermine that it was the first time a protagonist killed another protagonist too so it would've been a big a big deal either way regardless of who it was. Maybe it made people more aware of just how good of a character Johnny is, but I hardly see that as a bad thing. It just seems like arrogance of the behalf of the writers because they probably thought that it would've been brushed off like it was no big deal yet as it turns out it gave Johnny/TLAD free exposure.

 

Needless to say I doubt it's a mistake R* will repeat again. 

[Niobium]

11 hours ago, universetwisters said:

 

No, I'm saying that it's interesting how Johnny, one of the least liked protagonists of IV's trilogy, suddenly gets a reaction (if this thread and surely any similar one is anything to go by). I swear before V came out I saw some threads about how TBOGT was universally the better DLC than TLAD in terms of gameplay and replayability, so it's no surprise Rockstar thought "Johnny is our least favorite IV protagonist, it wouldn't be too bad killing him off".

that thread was started by the same dipsh*t who just said in this thread that he loved johnny from day 1 and not when he was killed. and most of the people in that thread still did not care. the only people who cared back then were myself, drunken cowboy, bdawg, and other diehard IV/TLAD fans. i was such a big fan of TLAD, the reason i made an account in the first place was to bitch about rockstar's treatment of johnny, terry & clay, and the lost

Edited May 8, 2020 by Niobium

[.Ryan.]

4 hours ago, Niobium said:

that thread was started by the same dipsh*t who just said in this thread that he loved johnny from day 1 and not when he was killed. and most of the people in that thread still did not care. the only people who cared back then were myself, drunken cowboy, bdawg, and other diehard IV/TLAD fans. i was such a big fan of TLAD, the reason i made an account in the first place was to bitch about rockstar's treatment of johnny, terry & clay, and the lost

The thing is it's not like GTA V's a sequel to TLAD anyway so Johnny's fate and the rest of The Lost didn't need to be explored. Many characters throughout the series have fates that are left as ambiguous so it's not as if it was needed to be brought to the forefront for a sense of closure.

 

When you think about it you could rip this entire part of the story out and it doesn't change anything significantly. I mean it's never really explained why Trevor and The Lost have a rivalry in the first place. I've always felt that even if they did decide to go down this path they could've made Johnny one of the antagonists (who would've been way better than that Wei Cheng clown no one even remembers or talks about). 

 

As quickly as The Lost are introduced they're wiped out like lambs being led to slaughter and it makes NO sense no matter how many times people try and make it seem so. Even when The Lost were more in shambles at the end of TLAD they still fought to the bitter end. Make no mistake there's no smart or intelligent storytelling here with deep meaning being employed.

 

It's to serve two purposes..

 

1) To solidify Trevor's position as unpredictable and volatile and quite frankly it wouldn't have had the same impact if he just killed some random person. It had to be a former protagonist regardless of his popularity. I wouldn't be surprised if R* were seriously considering Niko at some point, but the backlash would've been far more extreme.

 

2) To give people who liked Johnny/TLAD the middle finger, but as I said it kind of backfired and if anything it probably made some people curious to see what he was like before GTA V and sympathize with him more.

 

Anyway Johnny, Terry, Clay etc are served up as literal cannon fodder for a few minutes of madness and for anyone who loved TLAD it's no wonder some people feel it was a betrayal of his character, but at the very least they could've made something compelling out of the opportunity.

[ROCKSTAR MANIC]

I wouldn't have mind if Johnny died, but more how the way he died. Meth took a toll on him because a woman's scorned life brought his demise. Id imagine a war between Trevor and the lost would have brought a more sense of how they could have killed him off. He was weak, but because he cared about a human being. Let his guard down and lost his life. In a sense we could say the LC chapter of the Lost doesn't exist anymore.

[Niobium]

whenever star trek wanted to establish something bad happening in the beginning of their episode by having someone die, they would just kill off a nobody that the audience has never seen before. that's what rockstar could have done. they could have had trevor stomp a redshirt, instead of a fan favorite character. but nope

 

[Nappy]

If this keeps goin i may start liking Trevor for Killin Johnny

[billiejoearmstrong8]

4 hours ago, Niobium said:

whenever star trek wanted to establish something bad happening in the beginning of their episode by having someone die, they would just kill off a nobody that the audience has never seen before. that's what rockstar could have done. they could have had trevor stomp a redshirt, instead of a fan favorite character. but nope

 

Then no one would give a sh*t though. Love it or hate it can't deny it caused a stir and provided a lot of discussion and entertainment  

[WXSTER]

i might start over and play that now after this topic

[.Ryan.]

41 minutes ago, billiejoearmstrong8 said:

Then no one would give a sh*t though. Love it or hate it can't deny it caused a stir and provided a lot of discussion and entertainment  

But we're led to believe that Johnny wasn't that popular or well liked before GTA V's release.

 

To be honest if hypothetically say TLAD never existed and Johnny was killed on the basis of his couple of appearances in GTA IV then I wouldn't have cared at all. Infact I remember when I first played GTA IV I was rather pissed that he kind of screwed Niko over when he bolted with the diamond money and he just came across as some random biker to me. He still had a cool stigma about him, but nothing more.

 

However playing TLAD and seeing him way more fleshed out and his relationships with Jim, Terry, Clay etc put things into perspective. At the end of the day I know they're just video game characters, but like in many games where developers have killed off beloved characters for whatever reason I can't help, but feel bewilderment at times.. I don't like Johnny quite as much as Niko, but on a whole I think he's a cool guy and possibly underrated compared to some other protagonists who got much longer games to develop them.

[Niobium]

3 hours ago, billiejoearmstrong8 said:

Then no one would give a sh*t though.

good

[universetwisters]

8 hours ago, Algonquin Assassin said:

When you think about it you could rip this entire part of the story out and it doesn't change anything significantly. I mean it's never really explained why Trevor and The Lost have a rivalry in the first place. I've always felt that even if they did decide to go down this path they could've made Johnny one of the antagonists (who would've been way better than that Wei Cheng clown no one even remembers or talks about). 

 

I thought it was kinda explained by proxy in Online. Yeah, I agree that Trevor and the rest of the gang being there was kinda shoehorned in without much explanation, but like was said before, it's not much of a surprise that a dude who didn't have much else to live for (and one of the least popular protagonists of the IV trilogy) would die in an undignified way. 

 

9 hours ago, Algonquin Assassin said:

1) To solidify Trevor's position as unpredictable and volatile and quite frankly it wouldn't have had the same impact if he just killed some random person. It had to be a former protagonist regardless of his popularity. I wouldn't be surprised if R* were seriously considering Niko at some point, but the backlash would've been far more extreme.

 

Exactly! Even if he's been onscreen for less than five minutes, it's an interesting way to show that this guy's so f*cking wack, he can take out a former protagonist who did even crazier things (notwithstanding the fact he was depressed af at the time and couldn't fight back but, y'know, gameplay/cutscene segregation) 

 

9 hours ago, Algonquin Assassin said:

2) To give people who liked Johnny/TLAD the middle finger, but as I said it kind of backfired and if anything it probably made some people curious to see what he was like before GTA V and sympathize with him more.

I feel like they're sympathizing with him for the wrong reasons, like yea he wasn't a sh*tbag like Billy, but he did rip off Ray for no reason. One could look at this whole thing as karma coming back around for that.

 

2 hours ago, Algonquin Assassin said:

But we're led to believe that Johnny wasn't that popular or well liked before GTA V's release.

 

Honestly I legitimately don't remember many people liking Johnny before people started parroting DrunkenCowboy and the TL;dr fancy text guy after V came out. Everyone either loved Niko because he was the true GTA 4 OG with a great story, or people loved Luis because hahahaha tanks and f*cking chicks at da clubbb. 

[billiejoearmstrong8]

I mean I think it's pretty believeable that a significant amount of people liked Johnny before GTA V, he's a badass and likeable character and every GTA protagonist has literally millions of fans. Just because some extra people might have started appreciating him after GTA V doesn't mean there weren't already a lot of fans or that anyone in this thread is in that group. 

Edited May 8, 2020 by billiejoearmstrong8

[Niobium]

why do you love that dumbf*ck ray so much

[universetwisters]

2 minutes ago, billiejoearmstrong8 said:

I mean I think it's pretty believeable that a significant amount of people liked Johnny before GTA V, he's a badass and likeable character and every GTA protagonist has literally millions of fans. Just because some extra people might have started appreciating him after GTA V doesn't mean there weren't already a lot of fans or that anyone in this thread is in that group. 

 

I'm not saying that's not the case, I'm just saying it wouldn't surprise me if the Housers were sitting in their office looking at forums and saying "Looks like Johnny is the least popular of the three, let's get his head stomped in"

Just now, Niobium said:

why do you love that dumbf*ck ray so much

 

I don't like him, I just think Johnny was in the wrong for having stolen from him when Ray, for being a sleazy dude, never really did anything bad to Niko or Johnny (at least until he found out Johnny was the one who stole from him)

[billiejoearmstrong8]

9 minutes ago, universetwisters said:

 

I'm not saying that's not the case, I'm just saying it wouldn't surprise me if the Housers were sitting in their office looking at forums and saying "Looks like Johnny is the least popular of the three, let's get his head stomped in"

Ehh, I think it was just easier to write him and The Lost into the story. Johnny having a depressing ending to the previous game and a methhead ex still hanging around was easy to turn into a meth addict, a biker gang who lost their clubhouse and lived in squalor by choice was easy to put living in a sh*tty desert trailer park. A biker gang makes for good enemies to have a desert meth feud with. Harder to come up with a reason why Niko or Luis would have any business being in that location or (particularly in Luis' case) have become a mess/easily defeatable.

Edited May 8, 2020 by billiejoearmstrong8

[universetwisters]

7 minutes ago, billiejoearmstrong8 said:

Ehh, I think it was just easier to write him and The Lost into the story. Johnny having a depressing ending to the previous game and a methhead ex still hanging around was easy to turn into a meth addict, a biker gang who lost their clubhouse and lived in squalor by choice was easy to put living in a sh*tty desert trailer park. A biker gang makes for good enemies to have a desert meth feud with. Harder to come up with a reason why Niko or Luis would have any business being in that location or (particularly in Luis' case) have become a mess/easily defeatable.

 

Yea but you could argue that they could've made their own biker boss boy. Weren't the Angels of Death supposed to be big in San Andreas, having formed there?

Not saying I disagree with you, though. You do make a decent point

[billiejoearmstrong8]

3 minutes ago, universetwisters said:

 

Yea but you could argue that they could've made their own biker boss boy. Weren't the Angels of Death supposed to be big in San Andreas, having formed there?

Not saying I disagree with you, though. You do make a decent point

Oh yeah they could, but I think the main reason for doing it was to introduce Trevor in a shocking way and make everyone be like oh sh*t he killed a former protagonist. And Johnny was the easiest option to do that with.

[WXSTER]

18 minutes ago, billiejoearmstrong8 said:

Oh yeah they could, but I think the main reason for doing it was to introduce Trevor in a shocking way and make everyone be like oh sh*t he killed a former protagonist. And Johnny was the easiest option to do that with.

well huang was in the hd era he could've been killed and thats way easier 

[billiejoearmstrong8]

3 minutes ago, Lucas wester said:

well huang was in the hd era he could've been killed and thats way easier 

Less easy to think of a reason for him to be out in the desert and messed up on drugs though

[WXSTER]

29 minutes ago, billiejoearmstrong8 said:

Less easy to think of a reason for him to be out in the desert and messed up on drugs though

maybe niko was easy to put in that role since kate died

[Niobium]

like i said, just use a redshirt...

 

"b-but it wouldn't have the same impact if a nobody died!"

 

as if we need cheap shock value

[universetwisters]

34 minutes ago, Niobium said:

like i said, just use a redshirt...

 

"b-but it wouldn't have the same impact if a nobody died!"

 

as if we need cheap shock value

 

>Trevor brutally killing a redshirt in cutscenes is supposed to mean something
>Trevor brutally killing a redshirt in normal gameplay is just normal gameplay

 

I think the shock value of Trevor killing Johnny did it's job well.

[billiejoearmstrong8]

1 hour ago, Lucas wester said:

maybe niko was easy to put in that role since kate died

Yeah could've been possible to spin him being an addict/messed up. Still not as good a fit to randomly be living in a desert though, and no gang to bring with him. Unfortunately for Johnny he was the best fit for the role

10 minutes ago, universetwisters said:

 

>Trevor brutally killing a redshirt in cutscenes is supposed to mean something
>Trevor brutally killing a redshirt in normal gameplay is just normal gameplay

 

I think the shock value of Trevor killing Johnny did it's job well.

The fact that we're still talking about it 7 years later and that it's spawned all kinds of entertaining debate, commentary and memes from people who liked and and disliked it alike proves this I'd say. Even if you think it was cheap at least it was memorable, not to mention it made loads of people appreciate Johnny and TLAD more as a side effect.

[.Ryan.]

10 hours ago, universetwisters said:

 

I thought it was kinda explained by proxy in Online. Yeah, I agree that Trevor and the rest of the gang being there was kinda shoehorned in without much explanation, but like was said before, it's not much of a surprise that a dude who didn't have much else to live for (and one of the least popular protagonists of the IV trilogy) would die in an undignified way. 

 

I don't play GTAO, but the point I was making is the story doesn't do a really good job of explaining Trevor's rivalry with The Lost. "Shoehorned' is actually a perfect way to describe it meaning it wasn't necessary to GTA V's story in the first place.

 

10 hours ago, universetwisters said:

Exactly! Even if he's been onscreen for less than five minutes, it's an interesting way to show that this guy's so f*cking wack, he can take out a former protagonist who did even crazier things (notwithstanding the fact he was depressed af at the time and couldn't fight back but, y'know, gameplay/cutscene segregation) 

I think it would've been more interesting if it was Johnny how he appeared at the end of TLAD or like I said he could've been Trevor's antagonist in place of Wei Cheng. Having him weakened by meth is a complete betrayal of his character. Realistically there are countless scenarios R* could've went with if that's what they were going for, but IMO weakening him on purpose was a sh*tty way of going about it.

 

10 hours ago, universetwisters said:

I feel like they're sympathizing with him for the wrong reasons, like yea he wasn't a sh*tbag like Billy, but he did rip off Ray for no reason. One could look at this whole thing as karma coming back around for that.

 

I suppose you could look it like that and obviously Johnny's no saint, but that's one of the unique aspects of the GTA series. We're able to sympathize with characters who for lack of a better word are kind of terrible people. 

 

10 hours ago, universetwisters said:

 

Honestly I legitimately don't remember many people liking Johnny before people started parroting DrunkenCowboy and the TL;dr fancy text guy after V came out. Everyone either loved Niko because he was the true GTA 4 OG with a great story, or people loved Luis because hahahaha tanks and f*cking chicks at da clubbb. 

I have a slightly different view about Luis. I really don't remember anyone praising him and even if some people were "parroting" Drunken Cowboy then no one (that stands out anyway) was doing the same for Luis. Guys like Drunken Cowboy, B Dawg, Niobium etc and other TLAD OGs were/are doing their bit for the fanbase, but can you seriously name anyone by name from the Luis fanclub? Because I can't and I've been here longer than you and basically everyone else that's posted in this thread so far.

 

Luis is alright, but I don't see how he was any more popular than Johnny. I think we can all agree that out of the trio Niko is definitely the most popular one, but between Johnny and Luis it seem to be basically level. I've been looking through the TBOGT forum and I'm hard pressed to find any specific examples of people "loving" Luis or at the very least more than Johnny.

 

Of course that doesn't mean that people don't. It's just nothing springs to mind like it does with Niko and Johnny.

 

 

[billiejoearmstrong8]

Yeah I think the new features of TBOGT (new weapons, tank, parachuting etc) and the clearer graphics and more over the top missions would've had a lot of praise and fans. But Luis himself has never got a lot of praise. I definitely think less people would've been bothered by him being killed, not just because of the characters themselves but also because a lot of people love The Lost and the whole "brothers for life" biker bond thing and Luis isn't attached to anything like that. 

Edited May 9, 2020 by billiejoearmstrong8

[.Ryan.]

3 hours ago, billiejoearmstrong8 said:

Yeah I think the new features of TBOGT (new weapons, tank, parachuting etc) and the clearer graphics and more over the top missions would've had a lot of praise and fans. But Luis himself has never got a lot of praise. I definitely think less people would've been bothered by him being killed, not just because of the characters themselves but also because a lot of people love The Lost and the whole "brothers for life" biker bond thing and Luis isn't attached to anything like that. 

Those are my feelings too.

 

TBOGT itself may have got a lot of praise when it was new because people loved the change of tone, missions etc, but I don't remember much fandom for Luis. Even now most people just think he's a cool and laid back guy at the most, but he pales compared to the series' juggernauts like Niko, Tommy, CJ etc in terms of popularity and such.

 

To be honest even if Luis is far from being one of my favourite protagonists I still don't think I would've liked seeing him get killed like Johnny did. This is why I'm hoping for GTA VI unless returning characters have a reason to be included in the story they just stay away.

 

In GTA V it felt like R* were trying desperately trying to rid of as many surviving characters from GTA IV/EFLC as they could even though their inclusion mostly didn't matter to the story.

[Niobium]

i always found it so bizarre how there were so many IV characters in los santos. yeah they did it in EFLC, but crossovers were the gimmick of the game and what made it special. here it's just... unnecessary. there should have been like two IV characters in los santos, max.

[billiejoearmstrong8]

Agreed. I did like how they made use of some of them (Johnny , Karen now being a hardened ruthless IAA agent, and also Marnie turning up as a cult member was an inspired unexpected twist). But the rest were overkill imo. There was no point whatsoever to the ULP guy being there, total waste of a good character. And although it was kind of nice to see Packie again I didn't really enjoy him going from one of the best GTA characters ever with some of the best dialogue ever to just being a "generic goon" who's mostly silent or repeating random phrases, it just feels wrong. They didn't make very good use of Rocco either and his death is the lamest in the game.

Edited May 10, 2020 by billiejoearmstrong8

[Ryo256]

On 5/9/2020 at 3:46 PM, Algonquin Assassin said:

In GTA V it felt like R* were trying desperately trying to rid of as many surviving characters from GTA IV/EFLC as they could even though their inclusion mostly didn't matter to the story.

I used to think this as well but I realized now that the scene where Trevor kills Johnny is more about Trevor than it is about anything else. Heck even Trevor regretted killing him (he expected Johnny to get up and when he realized he killed him, he said f*ck in a regretful tone).

Also if you look at the newspaper with Johnny's picture on it, the gun store owner talking about how he likes Johnny or Ron trying to tell Trevor that Johnny was a serious man back in Alderney shows evidence that Rockstar did care about Johnny and didn't want him to just fade away like that. The issue is that the new development team of Rockstar has proven to be extremely unprofessional and clumsy in handling these kind of things, heck I think Rockstar did more disservice to Micheal, Franklin and Trevor than they did to Johnny, Johnny actually has a solid personality for starters, although some people may dislike him but at least there is something to like or dislike.

Edited May 10, 2020 by Ryo256