History Characters / TheKarateKidJohnKreese

* TheNarcissist:

* TragicVillain: Yes, really. While it's '''definitely''' no excuse for all the horrible things he's done (and will do), Kreese's whole life has been marred by pain and in many ways shaped by it. [[spoiler:He grew up lonely and in poverty, constantly bullied and unappreciated by those around him, which no doubt fed into his desire for respect. His mother (and himself) also had mental health issues that went unchecked or flat out unnoticed, which resulted in his mother's suicide. He ''finally'' gained some semblance of love when he met Betsy, but he became a POW in Vietnam. His commanding officer also turned out to be a conniving asshole who's responsible for his merciless attitude to life and even [[KickTheDog gloated to Kreese about Betsy's death.]] All this combined led to the man we see today. The tragedy really hits home when you realize that if he'd gotten some help or even just been treated better, he may have been a different person.]] It's fairly safe to say that Kreese is so obsessed with war because he never had the chance to experience peace.

* WhatYouAreInTheDark: Kreese could have [[spoiler:let Turner live, in spite of it being a KickTheSonOfABitch moment. He chose to kill him, and it's affected everything he's done since]]. See: clearly expecting Miyagi to kill him in the same type of situation.

* SadistTeacher: It should be a given since he choked out Johnny while taunting him about second place and and broke his trophy but it he's gotten worse in present day. If a student displeases him, he'll not only kick them out but he'll find the most humiliating way to do it so he can shame them in front of their peers then he'll encourage said peers to continue that humiliation outside of the dojo.

* SoftSpokenSadist: Unlike the movies, where he was as loud as he could be, his voice softened a lot with age, possibly because [[spoiler:he was much quieter as a young man and prior to founding Cobra Kai]]. He still enjoys inflicting pain or watching his students inflict pain on beaten opponents.

* StupidEvil: A recurring flaw of Kreese's is that he continually indulges in committing evil actions even though they make no sense and actually impede his long-term goals.
** Alot of his actions in Season 3, like letting Hawk cave in Brucks' face to the arcade fight would've resulted in a lawsuit if the characters wouldn't act on impulse.
** Throughout his appearances, he's only ever interested in teenagers who already have a "killer instinct," meaning that he will never be able to grow his school all that much. Furthermore, as students like Kyler demonstrate, even if those teenagers do possesses that quality, they often have several character flaws (which in Kyler's case includes arrogance, stupidity, etc.) that prevent them from actually becoming elite fighters.

** Finally bites him in the ass completely in Season 4. [[spoiler:He brings in Terry Silver to help run Cobra Kai and take it to the next level, which Silver is able to do by bringing in vastly improved equipment and merch, alongside a nice contrasting counterpoint in teaching which helps to advance the training of the students. Silver is also able to get into the head of Daniel enough to help trigger yet another blowup between him and Johnny, leading to the dojos imploding at the worst possible time. You would think that Kreese would be overjoyed but instead, he notably gets agitated when Silver implies that Kreese has a weakness just like everyone else and constantly feels undermined. So he constantly berates Silver and pushes his PTSD button multiple times... which ends up leading to a MistreatmentInducedBetrayal in the Season 4 finale as he's framed and sent to prison. Once again, Kreese's ego lands him in hot water, and Silver even warned him much earlier in the season about this very issue he keeps repeating.]]
* TheSvengali: Particularly in ''Cobra Kai'', Kreese sees the students he teaches as his own personal army to aid him in accomplishing whatever goals he has, whether it be to spread his teachings or get revenge on Daniel and Mr. Miyagi.

* TheUnfettered: Kreese remains committed to his "no mercy" philosophy, and doesn't give a damn about the consequences of that philosophy, be it for himself, his students, or their victims.

** After sending his students to the [=LaRusso=] home to attack the Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang students there, he receives a brutal and vicious beating from Johnny (including blood flying out of the mouth) and then a fight and paralysis from Daniel ... and both could've killed him had Robby not stopped Johnny punching him or Sam and Miguel hadn't shown up with her calling out to Daniel before he was about to deliver Kreese the final blow after immobilising him.

** In 1965, he defended Betsy from her [[DomesticAbuser abusive boyfriend]], David. (Although in fairness, Kreese wasn't evil ''yet'' in this one.)

** [[spoiler:This ''finally'' gets played straight with Tory in season 4. After Amanda accidentally gets Tory fired from her waitressing job, he confronts Amanda about the incident without telling Tory, explaining her family troubles and demanding that Amanda leave Tory alone. Later, when she wants to win the grand finals cleanly, Silver wants her to win at all costs. Kreese urges Tory to do what she wants, as he finally realizes the damage his style has done to the one student he actually cared about: Johnny.]]

* PhonyVeteran: Zigzagged. Kreese ''did'' indeed serve in the special forces during the Vietnam War, but the experience was [[WarIsHell horrifying and not glamourous]], leaving him something of a ShellShockedVeteran. After his failures in the original films, he attempted to rejoin the service to find purpose again, but was rejected as mentally unfit. Perhaps as a coping mechanism, he subsequently began making up [[BlatantLies flagrantly untrue stories]] about his service during and after Vietnam, including claiming to have participated in conflicts he knows nothing about (for example, claiming to have fought in the Battle of Mogadishu despite not knowing what country Mogadishu is in).

** After sending his students to the [=LaRusso=]] home to attack the Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang students there, he receives a brutal and vicious beating from Johnny (including blood flying out of the mouth) and then a fight and paralysis from Daniel … and both could’ve killed him had Robby not stopped Johnny punching him or Sam and Miguel hadn’t shown up with her calling out to Daniel before he was about to deliver Kreese the final blow after immobilising him.

** After sending his students to the LaRusso home to attack the Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang students there, he receives a brutal and vicious beating from Johnny (including blood flying out of the mouth) and then a fight and paralysis from Daniel … and both could’ve killed him had Robby not stopped Johnny punching him or Sam and Miguel hadn’t shown up with her calling out to Daniel before he was about to deliver Kreese the final blow after immobilising him.

* EtTuBrute: [[spoiler:His reaction to realizing that Silver has framed him for aggravated assault and set him up to be arrested is a minute-long progression from astonishment then betrayal to rage.]]

** In season 4, Silver espouses how everyone has a weakness, and he knows exactly what Kreese's is. He's not wrong either; what is it? [[spoiler: Well, not what, ''who:'' Johnny Lawrence. Despite Kreese's AbusiveParent treatment of Johnny, the whole reason he does so is because he treats Johnny like the son he never had and genuinely thinks he knows what is best for him. In his youth, Kreese saw Johnny for the lost, confused teenager he was, and he realises things haven't gotten much better into adult hood (even if Kreese doesn't realise he's part of the reason Johnny is so messed up). Even after multiple falling outs, stealing the dojo from him, and [[KickTheDog kicking the dog]] enough that most people would rightfully have placed a restraining order on him, Kreese ''still'' keeps coming back to Johnny and trying to win him back like an estranged father, treating Cobra Kai as if it's a legacy he will gladly hand back over if Johnny only embraces it's philosophies. If it wasn't for his constantly trying to win back validation from Johnny, Kreese could easily win his war against him and Miyagi-Do. Silver - understanding all this about Kreese and how his twisted love for Johnny throws a monkey wrench in all their plans - knows that this is what is ultimately holding Kreese back from truly dominating the valley, and is the more pragmatic motive behind his betrayal.]]

* FinishHim: This is still Kreese's signature expression. [[spoiler:He ironically finds himself on the receiving end of this in the Season 3 finale -- when he is completely at Daniel's mercy, Johnny nods to Daniel to end Kreese once and for all. Had Miguel and Sam not arrived at the scene, Daniel would have gone through with it.]]

* ALighterShadeOfBlack: Though Kreese may be a deranged FallenHero, he is shown to have hints of redeemable qualities. In Season 4, his co-villain is Terry Silver, who turns out to be worse than Kreese.

* MyGreatestSecondChance: Kreese sees Robby as this in Season 4 for his failure with Johnny. However, it eventually becomes apparent that his mentoring of Tory is what drives him to be a better teacher and perhaps even a better individual overall. [[spoiler:A defining moment is during the All Valley Girls Final where Kreese witnesses Terry instruct her to use underhanded tactics to defeat Sam -- Kreese realizes that she is being put right in Johnny situation during the tournament final in 1984. Refusing to let history repeat itself, as well as out of genuine care for a student he hasn't had since Johnny, Kreese intervenes and encourages Tory to fight how she wants to.]]

** He also fought his own bully David for harassing Betsy, and stuck up for Tory against a creepy landlord attempting SexualExtortion against her. He also [[WouldNotHitAGirl does not physically retaliate]] against Amanda [=LaRusso=] when she slaps him for encouraging violence and thug-like behavior, though this is a downplayed example since he then takes advantage of the situation to [[PragmaticVillainy file a restraining order against her]] and paint himself as the victim of ''her'' assault to the outside community.

* AFatherToHisMen: Subverted. Unlike Johnny who genuinely cares about his students (enough to accept anyone who joins his dojo and can tough out their training), Kreese does not have the same compassion even if he pretends otherwise. A student can give him their UndyingLoyalty, but he'll still kick them out of the dojo the second a better fighter comes along. And even when he's throwing his students a bone (settling things with Tory's landlord, letting Hawk beat up Brucks, letting Robby stay as long as he likes, etc), he's just grooming them for further indoctrination into his brutal creed. [[spoiler:However, in seasons 4 and 5, this gets played completely straight with Tory. Kreese lets Tory fight on her own terms, regardless of whether she wins or loses the finals match in the All Valley tournament against Sam. Later in Season 5, his last piece of advice to Tory is to win the Sekai Taikai to further her own opportunities in life, prioritizing her own needs over his revenge on Silver for putting him in prison to begin with.]]

** He seems to have some knowledge of animal behavior and terminology, as he compares his absence to a cobra entering brumation and accurately corrects Johnny when the latter calls it hibernation, which is only done by warm-blooded animals.

* OvershadowedByAwesome: Because he only fights Miyagi and loses badly twice you would be forgiven to think he is just an abusive teacher who can only pick on people weaker than him. Thing is... that's far from true. Kreese is not only a competent martial arts master but also a Vietnam War veteran with plenty of experience in real life fights. And his Cobra Kai karate is brutal but also extremely efficient, he just can't compare to the skills, experience and wisdom of Mr. Miyagi, who fought in WWII and even earned the Medal of Honor. Thirty years later, ''Cobra Kai'' shows that without somebody like Miyagi around to keep him in line Kreese is an almost unstoppable karate demon who can easily play everyone like a fool. It says something that both Johnny and Daniel (who learned from Miyagi himself) have a hard time fighting despite both being more skilled and experienced than before. That being said, it's notable that he never beats either Johnny or Daniel. While he is a very good fighter, he's not quite good enough to beat them.

** However, this trope is zigzagged given that he does show some subtle CharacterDevelopment regarding [[EqualOpportunityEvil his unquestioning acceptance of female dojo members such as Tory and Aisha in what had previously been an all-male dojo]] (a [[DeliberateValuesDissonance hang-up]] that even Johnny initially struggled to get over). Also, he's more educated on mental illness than Johnny in calling his mother's mental illness "a disease" as opposed to Johnny who simply told Hawk to "get off it" when the latter said he might be on the (autism) spectrum. He also stands up for Tory against her perverted landlord, which could be argued comes from his childhood disdain of thugs sexually harassing women. Enlisting Piper in Season 4 is the epitome of this zigzag. At a glance, she is nearly everything that someone like Kreese would hate: LGBT, AmbiguouslyBrown, feminist to the hilt and very caring about how things like gender fluidity are taken. However, she's extremely athletic in being an exceptional gymnast, and Moon alludes to her having a nasty streak which is more than enough for Kreese to take her in. Cobra Kai is incredibly diverse in this day and age because Kreese doesn't really care beyond your ability to fight viciously, and be loyal under him. Although Silver's recruitment may have also played a role.

* OvershadowedByAwesome: Because he only fights Miyagi and loses badly twice you would be forgiven to think he is just an abusive teacher who can only pick on people weaker than him. Thing is...that's far from true. Kreese is not only a competent martial arts master but also a Vietnam War veteran with plenty of experience in real life fights. And his Cobra Kai karate is brutal but also extremely efficient, he just can't compare to the skills, experience and wisdom of Mr. Miyagi, who fought in WWII and even earned the Medal of Honor. Thirty years later, ''Cobra Kai'' shows that without somebody like Miyagi around to keep him in line Kreese is an almost unstoppable karate demon who can easily play everyone like a fool. It says something that both Johnny and Daniel (who learned from Miyagi himself) have a hard time fighting despite both being more skilled and experienced than before. That being said, it's notable that he never beats either Johnny or Daniel. While he is a very good fighter, he's not quite good enough to beat them.

[[Characters/TheKarateKidDanielLaRusso Daniel [=LaRusso=]]] | [[Characters/TheKarateKidJohnnyLawrence Johnny Lawrence]] | '''John Kreese''' | [[Characters/TheKarateKidTerrySilver Terry Silver]] | [[Characters/TheKarateKidMiguelDiaz Miguel Diaz]] | [[Characters/TheKarateKidRobbyKeene Robby Keene]] | [[Characters/TheKarateKidSamanthaLaRusso Samantha LaRusso]] | [[Characters/CobraKaiEliMoskowitz Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz]] | [[Characters/TheKarateKidToryNichols Tory Nichols]] | [[Characters/TheKarateKidDemetriAlexopoulos Demetri Alexopoulos]] | [[Characters/TheKarateKidKylerPark Kyler Park]]\\

* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: He knows very well how to exploit this trope. He finds angry disaffected youths and manipulated them by making them think he’s the only one they can trust. He’s shown doing this to Hawk, Tory and eventually Robby, all of whom are at their lowest points at the time.

* BrokenPedestal: This is his biggest character flaw. He is very good in gaining loyalty from people, especially impressionable teenagers. However, he is very bad at returning that loyalty if he feel he no longer has any need for that person. In the first movie, Johnny and his friends were utterly devoted to him and he managed to turn it into a life-long hatred of him. When Johnny tried to give him a second chance, Kreese promptly betrays that. In Season 3, [[spoiler:Hawk, Mitch, Bert and others]] realize Kreese doesn’t actually care about any of the students beyond what they can do for him as fighters and pawns in his revenge schemes. They ultimately [[spoiler:join Johnny and Daniel’s new dojo to take the man down once and for all]].[[spoiler:It bites him in the ass big time in Season 4 when even his life long friend and former war buddy, Terry Silver, has [[MistreatmentInducedBetrayal had enough of Kreese's mistreatment]] that he has him framed for assault so that he can take over Cobra Kai for himself]]. Then in Season 5, he manages to even alienate [[spoiler:Tory, who had been his most loyal student and considered him something of a father-figure after he looked out for her, when it becomes clear her concerns are secondary to his own interests. Ironically, the thing that turns Tory away from him is when he gives up on his revenge plot against Silver and tells her to help Cobra Kai win the Sekai Taikai so she can make the money she needs to help herself and her impoverished family, when Kreese intended to be a [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished completely selfless act of self-sacrifice for Tory's benefit]].]]
* TheBully: To Daniel? [[DisproportionateRetribution Of]] [[NeverMyFault course]]! To his students? [[SadistTeacher That’s a given]]. But this also extends to his friend who he coerces back to the dark side then prods his TraumaButton when he feels he’s stepped out of line. The first time he manages to soften from this in almost ''forty years'' is at the [[spoiler:end of Season 4, when he grudgingly allows Tory to "fight how she wants"]].

* CharacterDevelopment: [[spoiler:In Season 4, Kreese takes on a genuine fatherly role with Tory and politely warns Amanda [=LaRusso=] against causing any further damage to Tory's already difficult life. He also demonstrates he really cares for Johnny by stopping Terry Silver's plans to seriously injure him before the tournament to demoralize Miguel. By the end of Season 4, he realizes how pointless his "win at all costs" bullying style of teaching is and how it cost him his relationship with Johnny. When Silver urges Tory to fight dirty to win the grand finals while Tory wants to win clean, Kreese tells her to "do what she wants". This even extends to his relationship with Kenny; whereas he'd previously ridiculed and turned away potential prospects who didn't immediately meet his standards, Kreese cared well enough for Robby to trust his decision to train Kenny and eventually came to respect the kid's genuine determination to be a skilled fighter.]]

** Zigzagged in regards to Tory. In Season 5, he tries to convince Tory to [[spoiler:go along with Silver's cheating to gain entry into the Sekai Taikai in order to get money for her family. This [[BrokenPedestal destroys her respect for him]] and she abandons him. While he was trying to help her do what is best for her family, Kreese does not understand that Tory is trying to become a better person and wants to prioritize honor over victory, and that letting Silver continue to get away with his bribery destroys the reason why she was talking to Kreese in prison in the first place.]]

* AFatherToHisMen: Subverted. Unlike Johnny who genuinely cares about his students (enough to accept anyone who joins his dojo and can tough out their training), Kreese does not have the same compassion even if he pretends otherwise. A student can give him their UndyingLoyalty, but he'll still kick them out of the dojo the second a better fighter comes along. And even when he's throwing his students a bone (settling things with Tory's landlord, letting Hawk beat up Brucks, letting Robby stay as long as he likes, etc), he's just grooming them for further indoctrination into his brutal creed. [[spoiler:However, in seasons 4 and 5, this gets played completely straight with Tory. Kreese lets Tory fight on her own terms, regardless of whether she wins or loses the finals match in the All Valley tournament against Sam. Later in Season 5, Kreese's last piece of advice to Tory is to win the Sekai Taikai to further her own opportunities in life, prioritizing her own needs over his revenge on Silver for putting him in prison to begin with.]]

* FreudianExcuse: It's scarcely touched on compared to his later experiences, but Kreese obviously had a shitty childhood; [[DisappearedDad no dad in the picture]], being poor, looked down upon and treated as a freak, the caretaker of his mentally-unstable mother, and saying he's "been in fights his whole life". He never came from anything remotely secure or forgiving and it's not surprising it helped fuel some of his later views, or that the GenerationXerox GenderFlip Tory takes most strongly to what he espouses.

** Issue 3 of the comic series seem to imply this. Kreese had a sweetheart named Betsy sometime before he was deployed to Vietnam. However, Kreese said she became a distraction to his duties and had to end things with her. Kreese was about to go into details with young Johnny, but then decides against it after an apparent look of sincere forlorness.

* HeelRealization: In Season 4, at the All-Valley Tournament, [[spoiler:Johnny calls Kreese out for [[OrderedToCheat ordering him to fight dirty]] against Daniel, then nearly killing him when Johnny lost anyway. When Tory is put in a similar situation and Silver starts offering her similar advice, Kreese sees Johnny and his disgusted look as he accurately predicts what Tory is being told. Kreese flashes back to the events of that night, and realizes that Johnny has some very good reasons to hate his guts, and he's about to send Tory down the exact same path. This inspires Kreese to overrule Silver, telling Tory to fight the match however she wants, with as much or as little honor or mercy as she sees fit. He also had one earlier when Terry Silver beat up Johnny which makes him see first hand how he treated Johnny when he lost in 1984.]]
* HeWhoFightsMonsters: Volunteered for Special Forces duty mainly to serve his country, with some promises of being a hero. Ended up [[spoiler:internalizing so much of Turner's "no mercy" philosophy that he even smokes the same cigars, more than fifty years later]].
* HiddenDepths: He seems to have some knowledge of animal behavior and terminology as he compares his absence to a cobra entering brumation and accurately corrects Johnny when the latter calls it hibernation which is only done by warm-blooded animals.
** Despite what his experiences in Vietnam turned him into, he reveals he had a hard but idealistic view of Cobra Kai not too unlike Johnny when he opened it. He was disgusted by the lack of sympathy he got by the counter culture movement after the war and wanted to create a generation willing to fight back if need be.

* IgnoredEpiphany: In the third movie after his life has been destroyed he seems to understand that seeking revenge will just make things worse for him but allows Terry to persuade him otherwise. He also has a tendency to impose this on others like Robby, Tory and Terry.

** Despite seemingly having a HeelRealization at the end of Season 4, Season 5 has Kreese declare that he's done nothing wrong and doesn't deserve to be in prison, though it's unclear whether or not he actually believes this. He also opposes Silver and forms a brief EnemyMine with Johnny and Daniel, but he does this for entirely selfish reasons (namely revenge for Silver framing him and in exchange for Daniel falsely promising to help him get out of prison respectively) and is openly apathetic to Daniel being viciously assaulted by Silver as collateral damage to one of his plans gone wrong. [[spoiler:In the finale, an apparent moment of sincere regret expressed to his therapist turns out to have been a ploy to pick-pocket her key card as part of an escape plan.]]
** The one exception to this is his relationship with Tory, for whom he seems to display genuine affection. Kreese even allows Tory to fight fair in Season 4's All Valley instead of ordering her to cheat, which is of no real benefit to him. However, Kreese is still very much a tough love mentor towards her, and in Season 5 he enlists her to act as TheMole in Cobra Kai for his revenge plot against Silver, forcing her to stay in a dojo that abuses her run by a man she hates for his own purposes. When he eventually selflessly gives up on this plan and tells Tory to make her own decision for her future, she is not happy as she now believes everything she went through for Kreese was pointless.

* KickTheSonOfABitch: When Kreese gets into an EvilVersusEvil situation it can be quite satisfying to see his brutality directed towards someone else who's a jerkass.
** In 1965, he defended Betsy from her abusive boyfriend, David. (Although in fairness, Kreese wasn't evil ''yet'' in this one.)
** In Season 3, he threatens to slice off the fingers of Tory's creepy landlord with a cigar cutter to ensure he'll leave her alone and she'll return to Cobra Kai.
** He lets Hawk beat Brucks into a pulp in retaliation for his bullying and destroying Hawk's mental health and self-esteem back in Season 1.
** Though we don't see it onscreen, the final words he spoke in that scene ("I ''just'' cleaned the blood off that mat... oh, well.") indicated a PreAssKickingOneLiner toward Zakarian, Erik, and Grigor.
** [[spoiler: His fight against the gang of prisoners giving him a hard time counts too]].

* LazyBum: In terms of being a sensei. Season 3 shows Kreese has no patience for training any students that don't immediately meet his standards, makes zero effort to help them improve and sometimes kicks them out of the dojo right off. Even if they show a lot of potential, like Mitch or the girl Tory fought, he prefers to focus more on refining the skills of already strong fighters rather than take the time to build up a student's athleticism and skill set.

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler:The final match of the final episode of season 4 finally makes him realize how horrible his training style is. He thinks back to how he treated Johnny and regret finally hits him. When Tory argues with Silver over how to win, Kreese urges her to win the way she feels is best.]]
* MyGreatestSecondChance: Kreese sees Robby as this in Season 4 for his failure with Johnny. However, it eventually becomes apparent that his mentoring of Tory is what drives him to be a better teacher and perhaps even a better individual overall. A defining moment is during the All Valley Girls Final where Kreese watches Terry instruct her to use underhanded tactics to defeat Sam -- Kreese realizes that she was being put right in Johnny situation during the tournament final in 1984. Refusing to let history repeat itself, as well as out of genuine care for a student he hasn't had since Johnny, Kreese intervenes and encourages Tory to fight how she wants to.

** Defied in season 4, when Silver's unethical instructions to Tory clearly bother him, and he overrides Silver to allow Tory to fight her way.

** He does this again with Tory in Season 3 in a true gray area. On one hand, what he does for Tory is a legitimately good thing and something the poor girl desperately needed (getting her out of dealing with rent issues as she was juggling two jobs and her GED) and putting a thrashing on a perverted landlord outright propositioning her (a MINOR) so she won't get evicted. And since it resembles an experience from his own youth (when he confronted a couple of hoods harassing Betsy), there's probably some [[EvenEvilHasStandards sincere disgust and/or protectiveness]] on his part. On the other hand, it's quite clear he's only doing this to obtain Tory's UndyingLoyalty and secure one of Cobra Kai's best fighters for the long haul. It's what makes Kreese so dangerous. You know that basically everything he's doing is in service of his own benefit, but there's still quite a few times that the advice or help he offers is still useful and appreciated despite that. Like a true cult leader, it's the desperate and the down-and-out who are the most vulnerable to Kreese.

** [[spoiler:This ''finally'' gets played straight with Tory in season 4. After Amanda accidentally gets Tory fired from her waitressing job, without telling Tory he confronts Amanda about the incident, explaining Tory's family troubles to her and demanding that Amanda leave Tory alone. Later, when she wants to win the grand finals cleanly, Silver wants her to win at all costs. Kreese urges her to do what she wants, as he finally realizes the damage his style has done to the one person he actually cared about...Johnny.]]

** Interestingly, unlike most sociopaths, [[spoiler:Kreese seemingly used to have some empathy and compassion. But during his time in Vietnam, WarIsHell challenged his values and twisted them for survival]]. Ultimately, Kreese's sociopathy is a result of him still being stuck in the kill or be killed mentality that was instilled in him during the war.
** However, Kreese claimed way before Vietnam [[spoiler:that he'd been in fights his whole life, he's relatively unemotional the entire time, and even prior to his worst experiences in Vietnam he showed and claimed he had a lack of fear (of dying, anyway). Taken together, all of these are strong hints of sociopathic traits already there, just exacerbated by what he went through. He might have spared Turner and managed to be a different person, otherwise]].

* StupidEvil: A recurring flaw of Kreese's is that he continually indulges in committing evil actions even though they make no sense and actually impede his long term goals.

* SympathyForTheHero: Kreese offers his sympathies to Johnny for Miguel's accident and points out that the "mercy" philosophy is also what got him injured, and if Miguel followed the true Cobra Kai way of No Mercy, he probably would not have ended up in the hospital.

* UsedToBeASweetKid: He was [[spoiler:a quiet, kind, hopeful young man who protected his future girlfriend Betsy from some violent {{Jerk Jock}}s. Then he joined the military and met Captain Turner who, along with his time as a POW in Vietnam and death of Betsy, was the cause of his StartOfDarkness.]]
* TheVietnamVet: He served as a Green Beret during his time in the UsefulNotes/VietnamWar, and the experiences he went through warped him into a ruthless man who treats every facet of life imaginable as a war zone.

** When trying to patch things up with Johnny at the Diner, Kreese claims that society has gotten weak is a broad generalization at best, but his bemoaning that today's children "receive trophies just for showing up" actually somewhat resonates with Johnny, even if it doesn't convince him to let Kreese back in.
** Kreese repeatedly points out to Johnny that he should be the one training Robby rather than Daniel. While he's mostly doing this because he believes Robby will make a valuable "soldier" due to [[InTheBlood sharing Johnny's karate prowess]] and he dismisses Johnny's genuine LikeASonToMe feelings towards Miguel by calling Robby Johnny's "real" son, he is right that Johnny's poor relationship with Robby is a failing on his part and he should be making more of an effort to reconcile with his son.

** Whilst he said it in a cruel manner, Kreese was right to not let [[{{Manchild}} Stingray]] rejoin Cobra Kai because the latter is a 35-year-old adult and his students are in the middle of training for the All Valley Under-18 karate tournament with relatively high stakes and therefore, the dojo wouldn't have time to train him. It's also worth mentioning the fact that Stingray's role in the West Valley High School brawl in Season 2 and his subsequent arrest has made him a liability. Kreese is also absolutely correct in his assessment of Stingray as an embarrassment and a buffoon.

** In Season 4, he blames [=LaRusso=] and Mr. Miyagi defeating Johnny at the 1984 All Valley for the downward spiral Johnny's life took afterwards. In reality, Johnny was fine with coming in second place and what really sent him into a spiral was Kreese ordering him to fight dirty before nearly killing him because he lost and called Kreese out on being a SoreLoser.

* NotMeThisTime: [[spoiler:Ironically, the aggravated assault against Stingray that led to his arrest was actually the one crime he was completely innocent of. Silver committed the deed and framed Kreese for it out of revenge for Kreese's mistreatment of him throughout the second half of the season.]] [[spoiler: When Daniel visits Kreese in prison, Kreese admits that Silver attacking Daniel at Stingray's apartment using the hint delivered to him of who actually assaulted Stingray was not part of his plan.]] [[KickTheDog It doesn't stop him from holding it over Daniel's head that it was a good consolation prize]].

* VillainProtagonist: Season 3 heavily focuses on things from Kreese's perspective with flashbacks to his start of darkness playing throughout the season.