History Headscratchers / TheGoodTheBadAndTheUgly

*** This could also be a case of SeinfeldIsUnfunny. The Good The Bad and the Ugly may not look like a deconstruction compared to say, Unforgiven, but when you compare it to the average American western circa 1966, the conduct of the protagonists looks considerably more morally ambiguous.

** They were conscripted for as long as that bridge was there- they were let go because the bridge was gone. Plus crossing up or downriver carries several dangers (eg. running into troops, running into Angel Eyes, stray mortar, etc.). But aside from all that, the battle for the bridge was "a senseless waste of human life", and Blondie at least has something of a conscience; Tuco less so, but he agrees that it would be better for everyone if the bridge vanished, and Blondie might just be a [[JustForPun good / bad / ugly]] influence on him in that respect.

** Blondie doesn't really seem to do anything that would put a bounty on his head, other than helping Tuco escape (and, as noted, that's from a distance, where few can make him out). There's a reason he's identified as the "Good", after all; he's not exactly a law-abiding paragon, true, but he doesn't really go out of his way to commit crimes against other people either, and most of the people he does come into conflict with are themselves rather horrible (and usually worse than him).

** Blondie doesn't really seem to do anything that would put a bounty on his head, other than helping Tuco escape (and, as noted, that's from a distance, where few can make him out). There's perhaps a reason he's identified as the "Good", after all; he's not exactly a law-abiding paragon, true, but he doesn't really go out of his way to commit crimes against other people either, and most of the people he does come into conflict with are themselves rather horrible (and usually worse than him).

** Blondie doesn't really seem to do anything that would put a bounty on his head, other than helping Tuco escape (and, as noted, that's from a distance, where few can make him out). There's perhaps a reason he's identified as the "Good", after all; he's not exactly a law-abiding paragon, true, but he doesn't really go out of his way to commit crimes against other people either.

** It's perhaps a bit more simple than we're making out here. Prior to the rise in popularity of the Spaghetti Western, the heroes of westerns tended to be the Roy Rogers / John Wayne / Gary Cooper / etc. model; lawmen, sheriffs, marshalls, rangers, etc. There was a clear delineation between the good (the forces of law) and the bad (the outlaws). Even when the hero was more of a mysterious drifter type, they still tended to be clearly established as the good guys -- they were the ''Shane'' types who, though they might have been willing to get their hands dirty in a good cause, at least recognised and stood for the good cause. They'd wander from town to town protecting the innocent and bringing frontier justice to the guilty. Now look at Blondie, the "good". He's a mysterious drifter, but he's in it for himself. He doesn't stand for justice or the law, but lives outside of both. He's a bounty hunter, a man who pursues criminals purely for the gold (and he's a corrupt one at that). He's pretty close in nature and personality to the outlaws who, in classic westerns, would be unambiguously the bad guys. He does have a moral code of sorts, he's not completely void of compassion, mercy and decency, and those he tangles with tend to be worse than he, but overall he doesn't really seem to have many principles higher than what he can gain from any situation. And perhaps most importantly, he has little compunction about killing if it'll serve his interests. Despite the labels, the "good" is clearly shown to be closer to the "bad" and the "ugly" than classic westerns tended to admit. And yet, he's still our hero. The movie deconstructs the classic western hero by suggesting that a man who wandered the west shooting people who got in his way would probably not be the upstanding moral paragon that the classic western tended to depict him as.

** Blondie doesn't really seem to do anything that would put a bounty on his head, other than helping Tuco escape (and, as noted, that's from a distance, where few can make him out). There's perhaps a reason he's identified as the "Good", after all; he's not exactly a decent man, true, but he doesn't really go out of his way to commit crimes against other people either.

** Blondie doesn't really seem to do anything that would put a bounty on his head, other than helping Tuco escape (and, as noted, that's from a distance, where few can make him out). There's perhaps a reason he's identified as the "Good", after all; he's not exactly a decent man, but he doesn't exactly go out of his way to commit crimes against other people either.

** [[spoiler: I don't think Tuco was blessed with the abundance of brains to figure the ploy, so it would make sense that it would never occur to him. As for Angel-Eyes, he was never directly involved when the information was being parsed out, and therefore didn't have all the pieces to the puzzle to figure it out. Maybe.]]
** [[spoiler: It wasn't just anyone else. Blondie told Tuco the gold was in Arch Stanton's grave. In actuality, the dying soldier had told him it was next to Arch Stanton's grave, in a grave marked unknown. This way, even if Tuco begins digging in the false grave, Blondie would at least know he's in the right graveyard.]]
** Related question: What's Blondie supposed to write ''with'', and why would Angel Eyes trust him to write anything at all? [[spoiler: As, indeed, he does not.]]

** For all they know, the dying soldier told Blondie the name of the grave it was buried in, but added that it was next to Arch Stanton's grave to make it easier for him to find.

*** [[CompletelyMissingThePoint Wrong, wrong, wrong]], he deliberately aggravated a group of men who wouldn't hesitate to shoot him, basically outright stated he was going to kill them before even approaching them (''"Get three coffins ready"''), and then proceeds to kill them, and all for a offhand comment about his mule.