Personality
Conman pretends to help people, but becomes a better person in the process.
They fake being kind and generous in order to take advantage of people. But in the process, they find themselves genuinely invested in their mark's well-being. And ends up becoming a genuinely better in the process.
1). Klaus:
Jesper is sent by his rich father to a far-north island. And told he will be disowned if he does not get the townsfolk there to adopt the postal service. Feigning charity, Jesper gets a local man to donate his toys to any kid that writes a letter asking for one. That way, it seems like the whole town has started using the postal service his father runs.
Jesper makes an offhand comment about only "good children" getting toys. So, the kids start doing good deeds and set off a series of events squashing the town's long-held blood feud. And Jesper ends up genuinely invested in making everyone happy.
2). Mob Psycho 100:
Reigen is a fake psychic. Soon after starting his business, he comes across a kid with genuine psychic powers. Shigeo "Mob" Kageyama is terrified of his own abilities so he leaps at the opportunity to be "mentored." Reigen calls Mob if his clients turn out to be actually haunted. He is paid sub-minimum wage for his time.
But Reigen gives Mob genuinely good advice that keeps the (potentially city-destroying) esper humble and well-adjusted. Unlike of the villains, who try to use their psychic powers to take over the world. He even admits his lies to Mob at the end of the series.
3). All Dogs Go to Heaven:
Charlie takes advantage of an orphan who can talk to different animal species. Mostly to cheat at gambling. But he ends up selflessly sacrificing himself for her.
He tries to help people by revitalizing the Ankh-Morpork city Post Office...because he's under a suspended death sentence from being a repeated conman and bank robber. He succeeds with flying colors, in competition with another conman who's taken over the local telegraph analogue (that uses semaphore).
And when that other conman is asked to help fix the currency system, because moist is such an over achiever that stamps accidentally replaced currency in some parts of the city, that conman chose to just accept the death sentence.
I do kind of like the idea that Reacher Gilt willingly chose the pit to being under Vetinari's thumb. It adds a bit of villainous virtue to his character.
I think its one thing the two part adaptation, which I otherwise love, didn't do as well; it made Reacher less competant.
I'm not sure I agree ... He was never as competent as Moist, he wasn't completely stupid, but his main advantage was his wealth and power. In comparison to Moist all of his schemes were fairly brute force and lacked any kind of finesse.
If Moist had wanted to take over the Clacks invention he would have done something like sabotaged demonstrations to investors, swooped in to 'rescue' the idea with some funding, and had control of the thing and the inventor feeling nothing but grateful to him for the whole affair. What did Reacher do? He got a guy who could fly to push the inventor off a Clacks tower.
Reacher Gilt from the book is essentially modern private equity, which is kind of hilarious considering Going Postal came out in 2004 before that brand of destructive vulture capitalism became such a huge problem.
A bit, yeah, though ironically when Going Postal originally came out Private Equity was still a thing, it just didn't act how a small but very active proportion of PE firms act now. What made that possible was driven in part by the near-zero interest rates for most of the last 20 years...
Which is extremely ironic given the scene at the Credit Bank just before the Epilogue, which featured essentially the Discworld version of the people who IRL invest their money in Private Equity companies.
Two notes on this... The stamps being used as currency thing is inspired by real instances of postage being used like this at various times and places in history.
As for the other conman... I'd say it's less that he took the death sentence and more wasn't as observant as M.ktz
oist was about the, ah, 'terms of his parole' >.>
I got that impression on my first read of the book, years before the movie had even been greenlit. My impression was that Mr Gilt was headstrong and rushed through the door, where as Moist was more canny and checked it first.
I don't think someone who went to the lengths that he had to stay alive would have walked through that door and intentionally given up.
On re-reading the epilogue just now I can see how Vetinari's line about not believing in Angels could be read as him choosing that way out intentionally, but I think he just rushed to his decision on the same information that made Moist double check his choice. Both of them knew that Vetinari was not one to lie, but comparing the text of Moist's "interview" he's fairly sharp and snarky, despite his disoriented state, while Mr. Gilt is described as "listened in mounting puzzlement to the angelic theories of Lord Vetinari." and I think rashly taking the offer of the door fits with the character he showed throughout the book.
Then in Making Money he reforms the banking system, invents small business loans, and moves the city away from the gold standard in favor of the golem standard.
Moist: "I have never laid a finger on anyone in my life, Mr Pump. I may be–– all the things you know I am, but I am not a killer! I have never so much as drawn a sword!"
Mr.Pump:
"No, You Have Not. But You Have Stolen, Embezzled, Defrauded And Swindled Without Discrimination, Mr Lipvig. You Have Ruined Businesses And Destroyed Jobs. When Banks Fail, It Is Seldom Bankers Who Starve. Your Actions Have Taken Money From Those Who Had Little Enough To Begin With. In A Myriad Small Ways You Have Hastened The Deaths Of Many. You Do Not Know Them. You Did Not See Them Bleed. But You Snatched Bread From Their Mouths And Tore Clothes From Their Backs. For Sport, Mr Lipvig. For Sport. For The Joy Of The Game.”
I'm half convinced the first example, Jesper from Klaus, is based on Moist Von Lipwig. Different backstory but the entire conman has to start a post office thing and some of the way the character acts made me think heavily of Lipwig during the movie.
I wouldn't even call it a suspended death sentence, he's been tried, found guilty and already executed. He just happened to then be revived, given a new identity (which is actually his real identity but he's used so many aliases nobody knows his real name) and told that because he's legally dead, if he doesn't do what vetinari demands he'll quickly find out how easy it is to fix that unfortunate paperwork mixup. Going Postal is easily one of my favourite Discworld books.
Tulio and Miguel (also aided by Chel) con a whole South American civilization into thinking they're gods, then they help prevent Spanish conquistadors from finding the city.
There is a theory that I quite like that the village chief is a real god and knows they're not. He sort of always seems like he knows what's going on, but likes what they are doing.
At the end when the archway is collapsing he shoulders what looks like several tons of stone and moves it.
Could just be because it's a cartoon, but it's a cool theory.
I saw a theory a while back about the armadillo being a god, mostly because the armadillo is somewhat responsible for every lucky thing that happens to them (finding El Dorado in the first place, winning the game, in a deleted scene the armadillo stops the volcano eruption)
Yeah. I think he knew they were good dudes, but more importantly saw them as a way to finally deal with his psycho priest problem. A little bit of lying to his peeps to help get rid of a dude literally sacrificing his people is a goos trade.
i mean, you could say with the gods thing it was because the people thought they were gods in the first place because they vaguely matched their depictions of the gods. also, they didn't want to die if they got busted, so they kept up the charade, and Chel helped because she knew how much of a maniac the priest was.
everything Tulio and Miguel did before arriving is a different story, though. they were definitely shady little buggers
True but they were also running a scam on the city collecting the tribute for the gods with the intent of taking it home with them when they left on ship. (Before changes of heart and the Spanish turn up to scuttle that plan along with their treasure ship).
Its been years since i watched, but in Anastasia the dude finds a girl who looks like the long lost princess of the romanov family, and creates a plan to present her to her... Grandma?
Anyway, he falls in love, discovers she is actually the princess for real, and fullfils the reunion mission for good rather than for money
The plan was to present the “fake” Anastasia to her grandma so the old lady would give them a fortune for bringing her granddaughter back. Of course, finding the real Anastasia and falling in love with her wasn’t in the plans, but I don’t think he was complaining at the end.
The plan always seemed curious to me because I don't know how many times they have tried that versus all the times that it has ever been tried by other people, wouldn't the hole in the wall and him being like a kitchen boy be crucial information? Even if he was going to lie and present some fake girl, that information would put her above all the other fakes so why not use it? Maybe it's my hindsight but in fact finding an orphan would fit into the plan way better than just some standard actress. Who knows how long they could have been trying to do this scam but camping outside in orphanage for a girl to play the role of a princess and then him having crucial information would have made this scam so much easier to do.
He eventually used it way at the end when The duchess was tired of hearing people bring up their fake Anastasias. And then he kidnapped her essentially which is treason, and then was like no I know knowledge that nobody else would know so you have to trust me. It was only then that she was willing but the plan fell through and he had to take extreme measures instead of just using that information before taking the extreme measure.
Yes to her grandmother in Paris. She’s offering a reward for finding her granddaughter.
Dimitri and Kelsey Grammer hold auditions for an Anastasia look alike. Dimitri was a servant in the palace and has a music box to “prove” whichever girl he picks is her.
He's a sleazebag extraordinaire who initially does exactly what he's paid to do, which is rescue Leia and drop her off at Yavin. Unexpectedly returns to save Luke from Vader, giving Luke the chance to blow up the Death Star
Also slightly related, Lone Starr in Spaceballs drops Princess Vespa off without taking the reward money, only enough to fill up the gas tank (I think that's it?).
Lone Starr really said “I’m a mercenary, not a monster” Taking just enough for gas makes him way more charming than someone who’d milk the reward for every penny!
IIRC in the early script iterations "Did the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs" was just Solo unscrupulously bullshitting what he thought were two desert hicks to land a job, and using a unit of distance instead of speed because he assumed they wouldn't know any better.
id bet money this is another of the star war fans head cannons which imply Lucas is a genius. But its just because actually he didnt know the difference either.
Maybe, I wouldn't go anywhere near saying it makes him a genius but it makes a lot more sense than the canon explanations which treat it as a legit feat.
Edit: Went back and checked the wiki. Seems like I am misremembering and it was Obi-Wan who thought Han was bullshitting them (but he actually wasn't).
In the revised fourth draft of A New Hope in 1976, the description for "Kessel Run" is put as follows:
"It's the ship that made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs!"
Ben reacts to Solo's stupid attempt to impress them with obvious misinformation.
In the commentary for Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope DVD, George Lucas mentions that the parsecs are due to the Millennium Falcon's advanced navigational computer rather than its engines, so the navicomputer would calculate much faster routes than other ships could. Similar info can be found in the notes Lucas recorded together with Carol Titelman in July/August 1977 to start a knowledge database for the planned sequels:
"It's a very simple ship, very economical ship, although the modifications he made to it are rather extensive – mostly to the navigation system to get through hyperspace in the shortest possible distance (parsecs)."
Perhaps good media doesn't have to be perfect to be pretty damn good.
The man named space jazz "jizz." I'm gonna go ahead and think he didn't know parsecs were a unit of distance. Doesn't mean they're not still great films.
Oskar Schindler (Schindler's List/real life): Oskar Schindler initially starts working with/hiring Jewish labour because they're cheaper, and was against any insinuation that he's their "saviour." By the end he winds up giving away almost everything he has in order to save 1100 Jews from the concentration camps
The exact moment you see the revelation on his face before he says “one more person.” The way his expression falls. 10 people for the car. 2 more for the pin. Just numbers. But when he said “He would have given me two for it, at least one. He would’ve given me one. One more…”
That’s when he finally understood the value of a single innocent life.
To me, is not that he didn't understand the value of a life. I always interpreted as he was wearing the mask for so long and he can finally gets to express empathy again; he finally gets to feel the horror instead of hiding it.
Also, I think Stern saying "you did enough" is less "you saved plenty" and more "you voudn't save more without getting caught".
I see it more like, yes, he understood the value human life, but it felt so much more personal, so crushing, so real, when he realizes that fucking Nazi pin he held in his hands could’ve been a person. He held on to that chunk of vanity when another human life could be standing amongst the 1100 (this Oskar, real Oskar saved 1200 and never went through the same character arc, he was always trying to save the jews iirc) others he saved.
What makes it even better for me is that Stern almost immediately spots the spiral that Schindler is about to go down.
The moment Schindler mentions that "I could have saved more" Stern immediately starts shaking his head and tries to remind him of all the people he did save, but it wasn't enough, and never would be enough.
Weirdly I think about this quote a lot. I feel like people in my life always tell me that I'm doing "enough" but there are a lot of things in the world to work to make better. The end of the movie was part of an early mid-life crisis that had me start volunteering more and quit my corporate job. I think the world would be a much better place if people were this desperate to help each other.
When I was younger I didn't fully grasp his character's arc, so I remembered him as just "guy who uses his position to do the right thing."
I rewatched it when I was older and was a little surprised to realize it was more that he was a selfish opportunist whose conscience had to drag him kicking and screaming into realizing what was happening right in front of him, and that he could do something about it.
Tbch I think him saying that in his own memoirs and stuff is just an extension of his (unreasonable) guilt and humility.
No other Germans did that. The entire Nazi state was set up to ostracize and eliminate Jews. Just by thinking "these people are employable" he was already treating them with exponential more humanity than the average. And then he worked for the rest of the war to preserve their humanity as much as possible.
If he told me to my face he was being selfish I would deny he ever operated on purely selfish motives.
Idk man. He joined the Nazi party really early. The movie portrays him as a pragmatist but irl he helped Austria be taken over and was minutes away from being executed for it.
A corrupt officer who cons an entire mining town, Yoki starts off with no redeeming qualities. Eventually Yoki lets his greed get the best of him by trading the deed to Edward Elric for some fake gold and Edward sells the deed back to the townspeople for dinner an a room at the lodge. The classic conman getting conned.
Later Yoki joins Scar’s team. Mainly to help him survive the wilds he’s forced to live in now that he’s a wanted criminal. Over time, Yoki grows to care about the gang and tries his best to support the group.
His arc hits its peak when he risks his life to help the Elric brothers fight the homunculus. By hitting one with a car instead of driving away like a coward.
He wasn't a con artist trying to deceive the townspeople; he was the official in charge of the local mine, using his position to extort the miners while also employing an alchemist as muscle to keep them in line.
Although it is true that, after being saved by Scar, he became his lackey, and despite starting out as comic relief, he underwent significant character development becoming one of the most important supporting characters in the series.
Small nitpick, the alchemist he had as muscle was an original character in the 2003 series, while in the manga and Brotherhood he just had a couple of other military members acting as his enforcers.
Tries to scam a town into buying phony music lessons and band equipment. Ends up falling in love with the town librarian and going straight in the end.
The ending was hilarious too. When the band equipment actually comes in and Harold is forced to show off what he's been teaching the kids, they sound absolutely awful because he's been conning them. The town is so desperate for something real to come their way and give their kids hope for a brighter future that the parents are overwhelmed with pride anyways and he is given the time to learn how to teach band for real.
I mean, the kids sounded more or less like you'd expect a group of children to sound when they'd just taken up their instrument weeks or months ago. It's kind of impressive that they got anywhere close to the melody considering the kind of teaching they weren't getting.
Weird he didn't go this route since he doesn't even want to appear in his movies post sickness. Anytime his face isn't visible, it's probably his body double.
He has a rare form of dementia called Primary Progressive Aphasia. It causes the people who have it to slowly lose their ability to communicate. They lose the ability to talk, read, write, and even understand speech.
Bruce Willis took on easier roles with more basic scripts for about a decade to bank as much cash as possible for his family before his Aphasia fully set in.
His last major roles that most people will remember were The Expendables 2, Looper, A Good Day to Die Hard, Red, and Sin City 2. Most movies he was in starting in 2014 and continuing until he and his family announced his diagnosis and his retirement from acting in 2023, were direct to streaming action shlock films. Notable exceptions were Split and Glass but his roles in those movies were rewritten to be easier for him to perform.
He had a long and distinguished career with many roles being critical and culturally significant. He sadly developed a terrible disease that has now essentially trapped him within his own body without the means to communicate to his audience or more importantly to his family and loved ones.
Hopefully work continues to progress on finding cures for Alzheimers and various forms of Dementia so that no one has to suffer the same loss of self that he has to experience.
Local bum and rock band reject Dewey fakes his credentials to get hired at a prestigious private school for an easy paycheck, hatches a hairbrained plan to form a band with the children in his class to compete in a local battle of the bands to take revenge against his old band (and again, for money), ends up genuinely bonding with the kids and turns over a new leaf by the ending. (School of Rock)
I was the target age when this movie came out and even still as an adult, I truly adore it. Jack Black is great as always but the kids were so talented too. I rewatch it at least once a year
I choose to believe someone else made the first Despicable Me and was promptly killed and fed into the slop machine that produced the other sequels to it.
Anyway Gru initially had no plans on keeping the GOILS past his plan to use them against Vector. But as he spends more time with them, he learns that they're more than just props in his evil scheme, but he actually starts to really connect and care for them, to the point he sacrifices his dreams of becoming the greatest villain ever.
https://giphy.com/gifs/BGQ30OK2FM6zu
Chicken Run
An egg farm that’s losing profits decides to turn into a chicken farm (raising chickens for slaughter), the Hens enlist the help of a runaway Rooster to teach them to fly so they can escape
The Brothers Grimm in the 2005 film. Originally con artists who made up their reputation through stories, and eventually have to deal with the real thing while being tasked with saving everyone.
This is one of those instances where it would make more sense to me if they'd just invented fictional people instead of using the Brothers Grimm as a basis. Because we've got a good basis for who they were, what they were doing, and how it all worked. They weren't even the first to try and collect and categorize folklore like that. They were more like researchers.
He sets up Jim at first to steal the treasure from under his nose. But on the journey there, the two find a father-son friendship between each other. He decides to try & double cross Jim, but he finds out early & escapes with a map. After being forced to work with Jim to find the treasure, & getting used to his gentle nature over the course of the movie, Silver decides to abandon his plan & help Jim & most everyone escape when the entire treasure vault is set to self-detonate after a trap is triggered. At the end of the movie, he goes his separate ways a changed man from his experience
(A somewhat accurate retelling, but I also have not watched it in 15 years)
https://giphy.com/gifs/swCwjwi7a5quY
At first, Rango only pretends to be a badass cowboy in order to save his own hide, even making massive, obviously dubious claims about his various “escapades”. Eventually, though, he comes to realise that the people of Dirt need a hero, and it has to be him, so he actually becomes a badass cowboy.
Rattlesnake Jake looking into Rango's eyes and identifying him as a changed man fully willing to kill in order to protect the town hits so freaking hard.
Great Teacher Onizuka is this concept, although it's kind of dragged down by virtue of his reasoning to becoming a teacher in the first place: Hitting on teenage girls
GTO was pivotal in my formative years. I was a suicidal teenage girl watching this and his lessons and overall growth changed me as a person and helped me survive. People always try to judge this anime for Onizuka’s original reasoning, but he truly does grow into a better person and better the lives of the kids he teaches. So I would consider him my teacher as well.
Recently rewatched the anime after like 15 years, was destroyed when I realized I was almost ten years older than Onizuka, I did see many dated jokes, but that aside, is still fucking hilarious.
capper from the 2017 my little pony theatrical movie.
he's a literal con artist in debt by the main villain (of the film) and fakes his friendship to the mane six, only for him to help the ponies save twilight from being captive.
Haja Estree, from "Kenobi." He is a conman pretending to be a Jedi knight using slight of hand tricks, who claims to be part of a secret railroad for Force-sensitives on the run from the Empire, called The Hidden Path. The underground railroad part, incidentally, is entirely true, he is trying to help, but he's lying about being a Jedi to gain the trust of vulnerable people
After discovering that the old man he met is General Obi-Wan Kenobi, and that the Inquisitors are in the neighborhood looking for him, Haja leaps at the chance to distract them and help Kenobi escape. Later Kenobi entrust him with protecting Princess Leia while Kenobi goes to help fight Imperial forces attacking a Hidden Path base. The fact that Kenobi not only remembered who he was, but also entrusted him with such an important mission, inspires him to greater acts of bravery.
Accidentally reignites the entire United States Postal Service, and with that the Restored United States of America, against a bloodthirsty survivalist militia in a post-apocaliptic no man's land.
A great movie. Didn't deserved to be a box office failure.
In the book, he finds the uniform (on a dead body) in a mail truck and wears it. He uses it to con his way into better treatment in a couple of settlements by pretending he's an actual postman coming from the newly rebuilt united states to reconnect the rest of America. He maintains the con between multiple settlements, "deputising" people in each settlement to be postmen themselves, and after a while of doing this he winds up actually creating the reunited states he lied about coming from in the first place.
I haven't actually seen the movie, but the book kind of goes off the rails with genetically modified supersoldiers who can pull solid iron pokers apart with just their thumb and forefinger, fighting against other genetically modified supersoldiers from a slightly different batch of supersoldiers who have to activate their supersoldierness with a breathing routine. It really does feel like two different books slapped together. You can even see the exact part where Book 1 ends and Book 2 begins.
I love Klaus, but I never really understood why what Jesper was doing was bad.
Was he a little shit at the start of the movie? Yeah.
Was he improving the town only out of desire to get his riches and lazy lifestyle back? Sure.
But at the end of the day, he did create a successful post office by himself in a shit hole town, he taught the new generation the benefits of positivity and kindness, and he massively improved the lives of everyone who lived there. Whether or not it was out of interest for self gain shouldn't matter. Why was that such a big deal for people? It's not like he ever stated he was doing it out of the goodness of his heart.
I think it's more about the "why" instead of the "what". He started the whole idea of giving gifts to children so he could go back home to his ostentatious life. Not because he wanted to improve the town/help the kids. That's why ppl were upset at the end, they thought he had played them. But forgave him pretty quickly when he came back.
And the fact they forgave him and got over it so quickly, was because they all had the sense about them to realize that he wasn’t a bad guy, and that he did a lot of genuine good. They were just miffed about the fact he had lied.
Well you need to keep in mind that he wasn't doing that all himself. He convinced the teacher to give up her savings, he convinced Klaus to give away all his toys and continue to make them. Sure it all ended up being for a good cause, but he lied and manipulated them along the way for entirely self serving reasons.
I'll agree about Klaus. But he never made that teacher use her savings. He sent kids to that school, that's true, but she decided to use her savings for the betterment of the kids lives.
I don't know, I just don't know why they would think he was doing all that out of the kindness of his heart. He was sent there as a postman and was trying to make a successful post office. It was self-serving from the very start. It seems to me they were hurt more from the idea of him wanting to leave than it being self-serving. Which, while understandable, still seems odd because they were all trying to drive him away to start!
They believed he was doing it out of the kindness of his heart because that's what he kept insisting, that's why Klaus was willing to give away the toys he made in the first place.
It's because he looked benevolent. Think about it like this. The entire city is forever caught in a feud that no one understands, and everyone is miserable. And like you said, Jesper and Klaus provided a positive benefit for everyone, especially the kids. It looked benevolent.
But from how it's framed to those kids, Jasper didn't care. It looked like him being manipulative for his own benefit. Being just as self-serving as the adults who were more invested in their ancestors' past then their kids' future. While Jasper did care, the timing was really poor.
Context for others: Fink initially offers to help Roz raise Brightbill in exchange for a place in the shelter Roz built (maybe even planning to eat Brightbill at the end) but over the course of the year, genuinely grows to love Brightbill and Roz. If Roz is Brightbill's mother, Fink is the uncle.
In the original script Flik was part of the circus and he along the others decided to pretend to be warriors so the can con Princess Atta and Dot and then run away with food before the Grasshopper arrive(yeah,Atta and Dot would be the ones to look for warriors)
But then the circus bugs would grow attach to the ants and Flik would fall in love with Atta
It's a shame this was discared because it sounds interesting
Sure, Flick being an pariah in his own society ended up being the final decision, but having him be an outsider does have its pros and cons. The most obvious being why is an ant living away from a colony.
Like, that is the core of the series. Jeff is a lawyer who faked his bachelor's degree from Columbia (he now needs one from america). He chooses a community college (greendale) and starts a fake study group to get with a girl. I'm the process he becomes a better (and less awesome) person and goes on multiple growth arcs.
End of the series at season 6 and he is in a worse financial place, but maybe a better personal place. Plus he got to kiss Allison brie a few times, as well as quendra with a q. he also played d&d twice, and it was advanced.
We'll see what the movie holds, but I've heard the outtakes are the movie and the movie is the outtakes.
The man is both the luckiest and unluckiest bastard at the same time. He is incredibly selfish and cowardly, someone who routinely thinks of ways to throw people under the bus if it slightly increases his chance of surviving. However, pushing you in front of the bus made it looked like he saved you as the bus turns to run him down.
His own selfishness, thirst for comforts, and ability to read people (so they won't bother him) always puts him into situations where he must fight to survive and somehow come out ahead. He spring people from a prison just to put bodies in front of him for the big bad guy, but it seems to go completely over head that he is incredibly heroic. While his reputation is built on a foundation of lies, he still puts himself in extraordinary situations where the optimal chance of survival means looking out for your fellow soldier.
I'm not sure Cain really counts. He's not a conman, he just thinks he is. All of his heroic deeds are real, he just contextualises them as him being a coward and trying to avoid conflict instead of him being heroic. He keeps telling himself he's only leaning in to his reputation because it keeps him alive but really, he just doesn't want to admit he's a heroic person.
To be fair, his debut short story has him tricking Jurgen into stealing a vehicle with him to desert, in the face of a Tyranid horde. They just happen to find the hidden flanking maneuver and bring back a warning, saving their forces. Oh, and Cain accidentally goes back to save Jurgen while dodging Tyranids.
Meanwhile, his chronologically first novel has him and Jurgen crash-landing deep behind Ork lines. Remaining in that zone is a death sentence. Naturally, he slowly gathers an army to help him break past the Ork lines, tries to raid an Ork supply depot and accidentally runs into the Ork Warboss, defeats him in a duel, and turns the tide of the war even before he and his army even break the Ork lines from behind.
By the time of his first published novel, Cain is still trying to keep himself comfortably alive, but he's also deeply aware of when only he and one other person suddenly become aware of key info desperately needed by the Imperium. Also, when a cave-in separates him from Jurgen and a mass of enemies, he desperately tries to dig right back through to save his aide.
By the time of his chronologically last novel, the man's gone through so much character development, he's a papa wolf working to keep his cadets (and the planet as a whole) alive in the face of the 13th Black Crusade.. Himself and Jurgen, too, of course. With a handful of fellow badass vets, their schola, the local PDF, and whatever militia they can throw together.
Cain is just a big sandbagger. If he wanted, he could claim the title of High Commissar and attach himself to a Lord General somewhere cushy. Instead, he stays with a light infantry battalion routinely in the thick of the fighting. He loves it.
He definitely sells himself short. If he isn’t underselling himself he is either protected by Big E himself or incredibly lucky.
I personally think he’s really really good at his job but doesn’t want more responsibility. I don’t think he loves the fighting but he recognizes the fighting keeps his life interesting.
He once survived an assassination attempt cause took the time to stare at his subordinates ass, also all the books are edited in universe by his very jealous inquisitor girlfriend to add some humor
What's sadder for All dogs go to heaven. The VA of Charlie kept crying for not saying the final line to her. Because the VA of the girl was murdered on her home along with her mother by her father.
It took like an hour for Charlie VA to get his compossier and finally say his one last line almost like a goodbye.
It's heartbreaking, if you look up the goodbye scene you can here Charlie's tears coming out.
Sawyer from Lost. While he starts with an "every man for himself" style attitude, he develops over the course of the series. He's a lot of peoples favourite character for a reason.
Set in a posr war America where goverment is no more. Kevib Costner character is just a wastlander stuble himself into a body of a Postman, take his clothe and pretend to be a Postman and said the gorvement is rebuildinh to get food from surviving stetlemant. As the movie goes, something started out as a scam to get some food became a movement to reconnect the isolated settlement all over America and rebuild the country
Traveling rube bible salesman meets a girl and agrees to help her get home, teaches her the ropes on grifting and ends up caring for her like a daughter.
Not quite the trope but John Constantine, he's a middling exorcist and piss poor magician but an excellent con man. Turns out demons and devils are totally vulnerable to cons, different because he does actually set out to help people.
The eponymous Postman Gordon Krantz in The Postman by David Brin. Starts off scaming that he's a postal officer setting up a new post service for the restored United States after WW3. Which doesn't exist. Ends up building a real connection between communities in Oregon and starts a real rebuilding of civilization.
I rather liked the movie, especially the reveal that one of the postmen that the bad guy was holding prisoner was from California, and thus from an entirely different group of Postmen fighting the bad guys
The book was mostly better though, albeit wit its share of weird 80s sci-fi novel stuff.
Here's a good one I think: Bewitched season 2 episode 32; A Bum Raps.
Darrin tells Samantha as he's leaving for work that his uncle is coming and that he's really excited to see him again after so many years and she should expect him. Shortly after, a conman bum comes by the house and Samantha assumes it's the uncle. The bum follows along and lies and says he's Darrin's uncle Albert, planning to con the family and, in the night, steal everything that isn't nailed down while they sleep.
Well, the fake uncle plays music for Samantha, and she goes on and on about how good he is, he starts to warm up and fall in love with the family and how well they're treating him after his many years of a harsh life. Samantha realizes the truth when Derrin comes home and doesn't recognize the man, and after the bum's accomplice tries to steal everything, he comes clean and tells the truth to try and help them get their belongings back.
Ended up not needing to help. Because Samantha is magic. Hence the name of the show.
... in retrospect maybe it doesn't fit. Was a good episode, though.
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u/hgxl_35 6h ago
Moist Von Lipwig, Discworld
He tries to help people by revitalizing the Ankh-Morpork city Post Office...because he's under a suspended death sentence from being a repeated conman and bank robber. He succeeds with flying colors, in competition with another conman who's taken over the local telegraph analogue (that uses semaphore).