Rick and Morty/Characters

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Characters from Rick and Morty include:

Rick Sanchez

"You seem to alternate between viewing your own mind as an unstoppable force and as an inescapable curse. And I think it's because the only truly unapproachable concept for you is that it's your mind within your control. You chose to come here. You chose to talk—to belittle my vocation. Just as you chose to become a pickle. You are the master of your universe, and yet you are dripping with rat blood and feces. Your enormous mind literally vegetating by your own hand. I have no doubt that you would be bored senseless by therapy, the same way I'm bored when I brush my teeth and wipe my ass. Because the thing about repairing, maintaining, and cleaning is, it's not an adventure. There's no way to do it so wrong you might die. It's just work. And the bottom line is some people are okay going to work, and some people... well, some people would rather die. Each of us gets to choose."

Dr. Wong

Rick Sanchez is a brilliant scientist who has one of the greatest intellects in any universe. However he is also a cynical, callous, curmudgeonly, amoral lunatic whose need for danger has caused no end of stress and loss of sanity for his teenage grandson Morty and to a lesser extent his close family. Rick travels across time, space and in between universes with his often less-than-willing grandson in fulfillment of his own gratification while rarely paying heed to any consequences resulting from the calamities he directly or indirectly causes.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Above Good and Evil: This is a bit complicated. On the one hand Rick personally doesn't hold himself to conventional moral standards. The fact that there are an infinite number of realities where every possible choice or outcome is accounted for give him the outlook that there is no objective morality or purpose to anything. However he never claims that the idea of good or evil are stupid, isn't real (He once scientifically proved the existence of evil when he encountered the devil in the guise of Mr. Needful), or that he holds no standards for himself (Rick may do things For the Lulz but never exhibits a desire to hurt or kill others for the simple sake of it). Rick just doesn't hold to any standards but his own.
  • Blue and Orange Morality: Rick only holds to his own codes and principles. While he doesn't have many standards, he does have some and chiefly bases his behavior around how well he knows someone and how close he is to them. How he acts towards people also depends of how much he personally respects them and how competent they are at whatever it is they do. What he will or won't do is also affected by who is affected. He has no problems messing up an entire world but makes sure to bring his grandson with him to a near identical earth rather than leave him behind because he feels nothing for billions of unknowns but cares about Morty personally.

Morty: Well, he's not a villain, Summer, but he shouldn't be your hero. He's more like a demon, or a super fucked up God.

  • Nietzsche Wannabe: Rick often pontificates on the meaninglessness of existence and how nothing matters in an infinite multiverse where there are infinite numbers of the same people with some universes being almost identical but for minor differences. However, as the series goes on, it's clear that Rick clings to this less as a belief and more as a justification for his shitty behavior. Rick needs for nothing to matter so he doesn't have to feel the weight of guilt for all of his mistakes and the people he's hurt, often senselessly.

Morty Smith

"Nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everybody's gonna die. Come watch TV?"

Morty

Rick's teenage grandson and a frequent victim to the fallout of his grandfather's hedonistic, whimsical, adventures across the multiverse. Morty looks up to his grandfather as a brilliant man and someone you absolutely want on your side when shit hits the fan. That said he has no respect for Rick's drunken debauchery and devil-may-care attitude when it comes to messing around with people, the world or reality in general.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • The Anti-Nihilist: In contrast to his grandfather Rick, Morty believes that the fact that nothing matters is why it's so important to find something to care about and people you can call friends or family. He, like his grandfather also doesn't believe in standard good vs evil morality but does believe in personal responsibility and trying to make the universe around you at least a little better.
  • Morality Pet: Morty is one of the few, restraining forces where Rick is involved. While for the most part, Rick does what he wants, he will occasionally listen to Morty and tone down his behavior if it is seriously upsetting to Morty or knows it would put Morty in real jeopardy. Notice the word "knows" in the previous sentence? He has no problem with subjecting his grandson to vague, probable, and nebulous danger and only tries to protect Morty from sudden or soon to be specific danger.
  • Seen It All: When your grandfather is a godlike super-scientist who casually toys with the laws of nature and the fabric of reality while dragging you along on many (often horrifying) adventures, very little would surprise you after awhile.
  • Unfazed Everyman: A bit of a Zig-Zagging Trope with Morty. Rick has taken him on a ridiculous number of pants-shittingly terrifying adventures that have push Morty to the brink of his sanity while still finding new things that cause Morty abject terror. However, the result is that Morty's standards for danger and fear have been set so high that he sneers at the President of the United States when he tries to take Morty and Rick prisoner and is not at all bothered to learn that a coach at his school turned out to be a vampire. As time goes on he becomes less concerned with things that, at the beginning of his adventures with Rick, would have had him in a corner curled up in the fetal position sucking on his thumb.



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