History Characters / Borderlands2Enemies

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!!Hyperion

[[folder:In General]]
One of the leading corporations in the galaxies, Hyperion is currently being ruled over by Handsome Jack who has set its sights on Pandora for its Eridium deposits and hidden selection of Vaults. Its private army is comprised of robotic units and workers under orders to fend off intruders, and, if the situation escalates beyond what they can handle, dedicated military personnel and combat focused robots.
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* EvilInc: About as lacking in morals as the other companies, but it took itself to new levels of depravity when Handsome Jack turned it to a new objective: the Vaults. Specifically, they torture people for information, experiment on live humans and animals alike with Slag, issue curfews that when broken are punishable by death, and seems to encourage KlingonPromotion as a valid way to advance up the corporate hierarchy.
* MegaCorp: Hyperion was already one that contended with other Mega-Corps like Atlas and DAHL, but under the control of Handsome Jack it has set its horizons farther than before.
* RobotSoldier: Hyperion loves to deploy Loaders to fight their battles, though it's worth noting that the standard Loader is not quite meant for combat: first and foremost they're fixers and construction workers who were given guns to fend off attackers. It's only later into the game where you start to see Loaders that were actually designed with combat in mind.

!! Loaders
The bulk of the Hyperion army, Loaders are the mechanical soldiers and workers that come in a variety of configurations and sizes to match the situation. The standard GUN Loader comes with an assault rifle and an unwavering march towards their opponent, occasionally chucking grenades out, calling for help when injured, and is by far the most common model seen on the field. Other Loader configurations include: [[ActionBomb EXP]], [[KillItWithFire HOT]], [[ShockAndAwe ION]], [[GiantMook WAR]], [[StuffBlowingUp RPG]], [[EliteMooks SGT]], [[AirborneMooks JET]], [[AttackReflector PWR]], [[BullfightBoss BUL]], [[MetalSlime LWT]], and the [[TinCanRobot JNK Loader]].
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* ActionBomb: EXP Loaders are nimble and fragile robots that sprint at their targets when they've seen them, before overloading their power cores to explode on top of them. While they don't use it as an attack, HOT Loaders explode on death, which can be problematic since they tend to fight at close range.
* AirborneMooks: JET Loaders are Loaders built to transform into miniature jets and swoop by to blast you with an electric bolt or a barrage of missiles.
* AIIsACrapshoot: Most Loaders are completely obedient to Hyperion with only a very vague degree of free will/consciousness. The few that have broken out of their control one way or another, such as Mal, Innuendobot 5000, and Loader #1340, are 'eccentric', to say the least.
* AlwaysChaoticEvil:
** Played with, all Loaders are programmed to kill everything in Pandora because they're under [[OmnicidalManiac Jack's]] programming. When he's out of the picture, all Loaders evidently mellowed out and even developed their own personalities, as seen with Loader-Bot from ''Tales From The Borderlands''.
** Also PlayedForLaughs throughout the quest ''Out Of Body Experience''.
---> ''(After Loader #1340 tried to kill you when its core was plugged into a Constructor):'' '''Sorry for attempting to murder you, force of habit. Please help me. I still require a new body. Please, insert me into the broken WAR Loader at these coordinates. I will not attempt to murder you again.'''
---> ''(Later)''
---> ''(Immediately after being inserted into a WAR Loader):'' '''Thank you. I will now attempt to murder you.'''
* CyberCyclops: Like all Hyperion robots, Loaders only have a single eye.
* DeflectorShields: ION Loaders can deploy a shield around themselves that blocks all forms of gunfire. You could walk into the shield to attack the Loader inside - if you don't mind getting painfully shocked, that is.
* EasilyDetachableRobotParts: The shoulder joints of most Loader variants and the leg joints of weaker ones serve as weakpoints, and the attached limb will fall off if the joint takes enough damage. Shooting off their arms deprives Loaders of firepower, while blasting off their legs reduces them to crawling along the ground.
* EliteMooks: SGT Loaders are dedicated combat units who lack some of the weaknesses their regular Loader counterparts have: namely, their joints are protected by heavy armor and they sport more health and better weapons. Badass Loaders are, as their name suggests, the Badass version of Loaders; they pack the amount of health and firepower you'd expect from such an enemy, and unlike their smaller counterparts, their legs are not detachable. And if that wasn't enough, there are ''Super'' Badass Loaders...
* EyeBeams: All Loaders can fire an electric bolt from their eye if they're out of options. Angelic Guards come with a more traditional laser eye beam that does continuous damage on their target.
* GoForTheEye: All variants except Super Badass Loaders take critical hits from bullets to their optic. While their joints are also weak points in many variants, shooting the eye always deals more damage.
* HumongousMecha: All Loaders are quite a bit taller than the average person, but WAR Loaders and Badass Loaders tower over humans by twice their height. Super Badass Loaders are about the size of a 2-story building.
* ItsRainingMen: Well, robots anyway. They're very frequently deployed in large numbers via moonshot.
* KillerRobot: Originally designed as workers, but the events of ''The Pre-Sequel'' made them prove themselves to be an easy to mass-produce robot army, leading to the robotic onslaught that ''Borderlands 2'' became.
* KillItWithFire: HOT Loaders lob balls of napalm at their enemies from a distance and switch to immolating them with their built in flamethrower when they're close. WAR Loaders and Badass Loaders have huge cannons on their shoulders that fire flaming hot bullets at their enemies, which can ignite them for DamageOverTime.
* MachineMonotone: Nearly every Loader speaks like this, and the ones that don't are very likely insane.
--> ''(When on fire)'' '''[[AC: Ow. No no no. Stop it. Please.]]'''
* MetalSlime: LWT Loaders have walking Hyperion weapons lockers that, when defeated, kneel down and can be opened for some weapons.
* MiniMook: They have variants called Loot Midgets, very short Loaders that hide in treasure chests to ambush people. They come in GUN, JET, and WAR configurations with the fabled Jimmy Jenkins being a rare opponent to find.
* PraetorianGuard: Angelic Guards are a unique, powerful Loader variant with a deadly heat ray that are only found protecting Control Core Angel.
* PunnyName: EXP Loaders are designed to explode.
* RedEyesTakeWarning: Most Loaders have red eyes to make it clear that they're here to kill you, rather than, say, throw a birthday party for Claptrap.
* WhatAPieceOfJunk: The JNK Loaders' haphazard appearance does nothing to change the fact that they're still endgame enemies with deceptively high amounts of firepower.

!! Constructors
Constructors are heavy support units that are deployed to construct and deploy a constant stream of Loaders and Surveyors into the field. Gigantic and stationary, they pose a significant threat to any Vault Hunters who need to get past them.
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* BeefGate: They're not usually blocking the way ''entirely'', but thanks to the threat they pose and the amount of obstacles they bring to stop you, just getting past one is a challenge on its own, or even a death sentence if it's a Badass Constructor. As such, they are usually scripted to be deployed at narrow chokepoints or important areas you need to pass.
* CallingYourAttacks: It's hard to hear thanks to their deep voices and the general chaos they bring, but they like to announce what attack is coming/is in progress.
--> '''Preparing missile barrage.'''
--> '''Nuclear bombardment commencing.'''
--> '''[[MemeticMutation I'm firing my lazer.]]'''
--> '''Deploying protector turret.'''
* DeflectorShields: Constructors can project an orange energy shield around their vulnerable eye that returns bullets to sender. The rest of it's still vulnerable to attack, though. When a Badass Constructor does this, that's your sign that it's preparing a nuke.
* EyeBeams: Constructors can fire an orange/white beam that does continuous damage to anyone too close to them.
* GroundPound: Getting close to them for a better shot is in your best interest, but getting right up in their 'face' will cause them jump into the air and land with a fiery shockwave.
* MachineMonotone: They sport voices even deeper and more robotic than Loaders.
* MacrossMissileMassacre: In two variants, no less: a barrage of missiles fired directly at the target, or a salvo launched overhead to bomb you from above. Badass Constructers particularly like to spam missiles like there's no tomorrow, forcing you to keep your head down.
* MookMaker: Their primary role is to digistruct Loaders, Surveyors and Turrets to attack you, but their Badass variants become more involved when they can start bombarding enemies with missiles, lasers and nuclear drops. Shooting them in the eye is the only way to cancel their building progress.
* NukeEm: Badass Constructors have an uncommon attack where they'll stop what they're doing to open their top compartment and unleash a nuclear missile that homes in on a target's last known location. The blast radius is gigantic and is obviously fatal. Fortunately, you can shoot the ([[PainfullySlowProjectile very slow]]) missile out of the air, making it far less threatening than you'd expect.
* TinCanRobot: To Jack anyways, who calls the first Constructor he sees a 'Dumpster wrapped in sadness'.
* TheTurretMaster: Constructors will occasionally chuck a deployable turret in front of them if a Vault Hunter gets the idea to close the distance on them. Badass Constructors can do the same, but also come with an arsenal of built in turrets that fire constantly at anyone who gets in visual range.

!! Engineers
The Hyperion workforce that does much of the manual labor needed to construct Hyperion installations, they're all overworked, underpaid, abused and under orders to open fire on any intruder that gets too close to their construction area. They're separated between Engineers and Combat Engineers, the former utilizes construction tools such as jackhammers and cutting lasers to fight while the latter uses traditional guns instead (sometimes imbued with elemental effects).
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* BaldOfEvil: They're all bald.
* CannonFodder: To drive the point home on how little Hyperion cares about their human workers, Engineers are advised to let the Loaders handle the heavy lifting of construction while they distract the local Bandits by drawing gunfire away from the robots to themselves instead. Compared to the other Hyperion mooks, they can be torn up like wet tissue.
* TheEngineer: They're the construction workers for Hyperion, but it has no glamor or respect to the title, and so they're expected to go from working to dying in a gunfight in an instant.
* GroundPound: Engineers are capable of using their built in jackhammers to make the ground rumble, damaging Vault Hunters who are too close to them.
* PunchClockVillain: By all means they're ordinary people who work for the villain's corporation, but they're still rather ruthless and sour thanks to being under orders to either fight the Vault Hunters or face whatever punishment Hyperion has for a disobedient worker.
--> ''Come on, now I gotta deal with BANDITS?!''
--> ''If I kill you I'll get promoted off this hellhole!''
--> '''(Dying)''' ''I didn't sign up for this, damn it...''

!! Hyperion Military
When the regular GUN Loaders and Engineers can't fend off a threat, Hyperion has their actual military to deploy, comprised of specialized and deadly Loaders and trained personnel. Aside from the Loaders, the soldiers fighting are well armed and well protected with advanced body army and technology that suits their roles. These soldiers include the [[MasterOfNone Hyperion]] [[{{Mooks}} Soldier]], [[ColdSniper Hyperion Sniper]], [[AirborneMooks Hyperion]] [[StuffBlowingUp Hawk]] and the [[ShotgunsAreJustBetter Hyperion]] [[{{Invisibility}} Infiltrator]].
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* AirborneMooks: Hyperion Hawks come equipped with a jetpack that allows them to soar through the air and get a great vantage spot to bomb you away.
* ColdSniper: The Hyperion Sniper is just that; an enemy sniper gunning for you.
* EliteMooks: They're not fought very often until you reach the very end of the main game, but it's made clear that this is the fighting force sent in when things get serious.
* LaserSight: Hyperion Snipers have a very visible laser that tracks where who he's going to shoot. This is your warning of big damage coming your way if it's set on you.
* ShotgunsAreJustBetter: Infiltrators wield shotguns into battle, and as you can expect they hurt bad once they get close enough to use it.
* StuffBlowingUp: Hawks come with a rocket launcher to blow you away if you can't shoot them down in time.
* TheTurretMaster: Hyperion Soldiers can deploy a turret to help them out, much like an EvilCounterpart to Axton.
* VisibleInvisibility: Infiltrators are still pretty visible despite their cloaking technology, at best their invisibility is a problem if you're in a thick battle and you can't notice that subtle bundle of transparent white-ness getting closer to you.


[[/folder]]


[[folder:Jack]]
!Handsome Jack
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Jack_intro_390.png]]
->''"Hey kids, do you know what your mommies and daddies gave up to live here in Opportunity? Literally nothing! You're paid to be here! I'm the one who feeds and protects everyone. [[{{Narcissist}} Remember, we should all love our parents, but love me more."]]''
--> An announcement in [[{{Egopolis}} Opportunity]]
--->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/DameonClarke

The main antagonist of ''Borderlands 2''. After taking over the Hyperion corporation (via strangulation of his boss), Jack has made it his goal to "bring order" to Pandora by wiping out every undesirable on the planet. To do this, he needs what is inside the second Vault, and is having his armies drill into the planet and mine Eridium for this purpose.

''The Pre-Sequel!'' expands upon his past, showing how he rose to take control of Hyperion while trying to save the people of Elpis and Pandora from the Lost Legion. In the process, Jack's progression into megalomania and madness is shown as he faces intense stress, makes morally questionable decisions, and deals with the consequences of his own greed.

He isn't very nice, to say the least. To say the most, he's selfish, petty, rude, manipulative, violent, narcissistic (just look at his friggin' ''name'') sociopathic, psychopathic, and megalomaniacal.

So yeah, not a nice guy.
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* HundredPercentAdorationRating[=/=]ZeroPercentApprovalRating: Manages to somehow combine elements of ''both''. While he does openly make his employees' lives a living hell and scientists such as Dr. Samuels are only working for them due to him threatening their loved ones, the middle-management suits such as Vasquez and Rhys seem to idolize him and see his poor treatment of them as some weird sort of affection. After his death, his office on Helios was made into a memorial museum, with [=VIP=] only access, with visitors wearing his mask. The general pattern seems to be that if he wants to hurt someone [[ItAmusedMe for his own amusement]], they seem to see it as nothing special because he's successful and he does it to everyone. If Jack hurts someone with an intent in mind, ''God help them''.
* AccidentalMisnaming[=/=]MaliciousMisnaming: It was done to him by his boss when he worked for Hyperion, and then does it to his own employees after taking over the company. Even before then, he could never get Nakayama's name right though he still hated him for being incompetent and annoying.
* ActionSurvivor: Sure he helped design the place, but surviving on a space station for several hours with hundreds of ex-Dahl soldiers and the base's own weapons trying to kill him was probably no small feat.
* {{Abusive Parent|s}}:
** [[spoiler:Keeps his daughter Angel locked up and pumped full of Eridium because her Siren powers can power the Vault key. She's been that way for so long that cutting the Eridium flow would kill her, so she literally has no release but death from her torment]].
** He apparently had an Abusive Grandparent too, as you can find a ''buzz-axe'' in his grandma's home, which is labelled a "disciplinary tool". As revealed in ''the Pre-Sequel'', said grandparent also beat him regularly and ''drowned his cat'' when he didn't make his bed.
* AlmightyJanitor: Despite being described as a "low-level programmer" in the ''Pre-Sequel'', he's actually the guy in charge of Helios, having control of all its resources [[spoiler:including being able to somehow preserve The Destroyer's eye and using it as a weapon]], a massive office and answering directly to Tassiter. Canonically, he even has Blake, who is the VP of his own department, as a personal lackey at that point. Of course, [[spoiler:having a Siren serving as your personal supercomputer]] is a hell of an advantage to have. It's clarified later on that Jack ''was'' a lowly programmer before the Pre-Sequel, but worked his way up to being the head of Helios Station, which is presumably a relatively remote position as far as Tassiter's concerned.
* AmbitionIsEvil: He's got bigger plans that go beyond making money and killing for sport (though he still likes doing both). Naturally, he's got the brutality to match the scope of his schemes.
* ANaziByAnyOtherName: He's often called a fascist by most characters, and for good reason. CultOfPersonality around him, SigilSpam everywhere, a private army fiercely dedicated to him, funding huge building projects to create an {{Egopolis}}, ruling the planet in a totalitarian and ruthless manner, and a burning desire to kill all Pandorans for being "bandits", even herding them into a wildlife preserve for horrific slag experimentation.
* ArchEnemy: While it's mostly Vault Hunters in general, it's ''especially'' Lilith for [[spoiler:permanently scarring him with the Vault Symbol.]]
* ArmCannon:
** In his FinalBoss fight, his two wristwatches become laser cannons.
** In ''Videogame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'', he uses wrist-mounted guns that shoot electric blasts that his Doppelganger can also use.
* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking:
** It's a ''Borderlands'' game, it'd be more of a surprise for this not to happen.
** Averted initially in ''The Pre-Sequel'' as, while he does try to fight, he gets his face punched in by a few Mooks that he later orders you to handily dispatch moments later. He gets better as the story progresses though.
* AuthorAvatar: Burch pretty much describes Handsome Jack as all the pent-up rage he has with humanity except he is "handsome". For bonus points, Anthony Burch voice-acted a body double of Handsome Jack... [[BadBadActing extremely badly]].
* AxCrazy: While it's much more subtle than other examples in the series, Jack is still very volatile, capricious, sadistic, and generally mentally unstable, and some points in both ''Borderlands 2'' and ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'' imply that he is a genuine psychopath. This side of him shows up the most after he just goes off the deep end in ''The Pre-Sequel'', and [[spoiler:is discussing how he will wipe out all the bandits on Pandora in [[OmnicidalManiac omnicidal subtext]] while LaughingMad.]] So considering his [[FauxAffablyEvil present day demeanour]], it seems that he has taken great pains to keep this side of him at least [[MaskOfSanity much less obvious than it really is.]]
* BadassNormal:
** Amoral as he is, he definitely qualifies. The few times he steps into the field himself, he proves himself capable of handling quite a few threats through merely anticipating the actions his foes may take. Even as early as the ''Pre-Sequel'' he's pretty capable with his Arm Cannons, and was capable of holding his own and surviving solo against the Lost Legion for quite some time.
** By ''Borderlands 2'' he's regarded as the biggest badass on Pandora, to the point where just seeing him in person and living through Jack's ambush causes the new batch of Vault Hunters to gain a godlike reputation. His skills aren't exactly overrated either;[[spoiler:he kills Roland and takes down Lilith, both extremely powerful former Vault Hunters]], in the span of a few seconds. Heck, even during his boss fight, he's pretty skilled and he ''will'' get you into FFYL if you aren't quick enough. He's quite the bruiser too, if other dialogues have any merit; ripping out throats, strangling people who talk too much, and punching people so hard he chips their teeth (in Vasquez's case) seem to be pretty common things for him.
* BadBoss: It ''sucks'' to work for Hyperion. Jack makes the Atlas Bosses look nice by comparison. He even treats Blake, Hyperion's vice-president and his long-time personal lackey, more as a butler than anything.
** He also used his own employees as punching bags, to the point that Vasquez thought he had a special standing with Jack ''because'' Jack hit him every time they met. Apparently this was so common that Jack literally couldn't remember who Vasquez was until a more unique form of torture was brought up: [[spoiler:that Jack would stick money between the then-cheap hair implants on Vasquez's head and called him "Wallethead."]]
** Life as a Hyperion employee under Jack and his succesors is so bad that in ''Tales From the Borderlands'', most of the Helios workers consider [[spoiler:Rhys destroying the Helios power core, killing countless workers as it crashes, and stranding them on the DeathWorld of Pandora where they have almost no survival skills]] to be such an improvement that they [[spoiler:start worshipping Rhys as a god for liberating them.]] We get a terrifying glimpse of Jack's true treatment of his employees early on in Episode 5, where Fiona and Sasha run onto the sight of [[spoiler:Jack holding a Stalinist show trial on his own employees, where he asks them if they know Rhys or where he is. If the unlucky sap can't give Jack the answer he wants, Jack takes control of a turret and guns them down. By the time Fiona and Sasha, alongside August, get to Helios's ship bay, Jack's already killed dozens of his employees as the remainder try to run away]].
* BeardOfEvil:
** A symbolic example - the metal clip on his chin holding his mask in place resembles a goatee. He had a real one before the mask.
** He occasionally does this with Tassiter's severed goatee, pretending to be an ''even eviler version of himself'' while doing so.
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: In ''The Pre-Sequel'', Nakayama creates a questionnaire for Jack so that he can make an A.I. with Jack's personality. Jack's answer to the question "[[spoiler:How would you like to die]]?" is "[[spoiler:[[ExactWords Somewhere warm, with a hot chick nearby]]]]." Jack is eventually [[spoiler:killed in the middle of a LethalLavaLand, standing next to Lilith, and is killed by either her or the player]].
* BelievingTheirOwnLies: [[spoiler:Anthony Burch has stated that Jack has convinced himself that he imprisoned Angel for her own safety rather than to satiate his own greed and ambition, and genuinely believes he's making Pandora a better place.]]
* BeneathTheMask:
** It's clear from the beginning that he's wearing a mask, with the paler tone of the mask compared to his forehead and arms, and what look like staples keeping the mask in place. [[spoiler:Underneath it, he's been branded by a Vault symbol, which has also taken out his left eye.]]
** The ''Pre-Sequel'' reveals why he wears a mask. [[spoiler:He was scarred after Lilith punched the symbol of the Vault into his face. His disfigurement made him obsessed with his vanity, covering it up with a mask, and inspiring him to take the nickname "Handsome" Jack.]]
* BenevolentBoss: Though he's primarily a BadBoss, [[spoiler:the A.I. version of him]] admits that, as shown in ''The Pre-Sequel'', he always watches out for his team, that being the people who work alongside him directly on missions. For instance, he gave Nisha an entire town and was prepared to make good on his offer of money to Athena, and never betrayed them. However, this is purely situational as shown by [[spoiler:his eventual poisoning of Wilhelm]], and God help you if you aren't on his team.
* BerserkButton:
** [[spoiler:His unnamed wife, and Angel apparently killing her with her Siren powers.]] Bad enough that when an aide mentions it offhand, Jack immediately begins strangling ([[InsistentTerminology not choking]]) the man to death.
** A more subtle one: profanity and littering. He regularly mandates ''death'' for both of these offences. The only ones who get away with it are [[spoiler:Angel]] and [[{{Hypocrite}} himself]].
** He's deeply narcissistic and will go ballistic if you destroy his prized monuments in Opportunity, namely his construction site, and the giant statues of himself.
** As shown in the ''Pre-Sequel'', betrayal doesn't go well with him. [[spoiler:Just ask the Merriff.]]
** He absolutely ''despises'' Claptraps, and one of the very first things he did once he took over Hyperion was discontinue their product line and destroy every single one of them except for the "main" one.
* BigBad: Technically of both games, due to [[spoiler:being behind the unsealing of the first Vault]]. He's also the villain of Tiny Tina's RPG campaign as The Handsome Sorcerer.
* BigGood: In the ''Pre-Sequel'', where the player characters are all his henchmen and serve to help him accomplish his goal of saving Elpis and later on hunting the Vault. [[SanitySlippage This changes later.]]
* BigNo: [[spoiler:When the Warrior is defeated.]]
* BigStupidDoodooHead: The scene where he considers naming his diamond pony "Butt Stallion" and "Piss-for-Brains" in "honor" of the Vault Hunters being the prime example. [[spoiler:When his opinion of the Vault Hunters goes from amused disdain to genuinely murderous hatred, his insults become much less casual.]]
* BlackAndWhiteInsanity: Combined with a nasty case of ProtagonistCenteredMorality - that is, he's convinced he's the one the story centers on, so what he does is okay. He considers anyone that opposes him a "bandit", regardless of whether or not they actually ''are'' bandits.
* BigBrotherIsWatching: Oh, so very much. He had Helios constructed for the purpose of watching Pandora at all times. His personal office actally faces Elpis, though.
* BoomerangBigot: Has open contempt for the people of Pandora, but there are several hints that he was raised and grew up there in some capacity, or came from a similar environment.
* BreadAndCircuses: He implements a particularly wasteful example of this in Opportunity. People are evidently paid to be in the city and people willing to listen to his mural of BlatantLies get a sizeable tax refund.
* BreakoutVillain: A rare example where this trope applies to a BigBad. Handsome Jack is regarded as one of the most memorable video game antagonists in recent years since the commercial and critical success of ''Borderlands 2''; players love to hate him for his disturbing yet hilariously twisted morals, his bombastic personality, his bizarre sense of humor, his strangely emotional nuances (that don't de-fang his cruelty or megalomania in any way), his distinctive design (especially his mask), and that his cunning moments still make him a threatening and competent villain in a game where most of the bosses are little more than gags. He's so popular that ''The Pre-Sequel'' is all about him and his rise to power, and even though he dies at the end of ''Borderlands 2'' he still manages to crop up in the [=DLCs=] (one in the ''Pre-Sequel'' including [[PromotedToPlayable a body double of him as a playable character]]) and [[spoiler:as a digital ghost]] in ''Tales from the Borderlands''.
* BrightIsNotGood: His favorite color is bright yellow, almost to the point of obsession. When he takes control of Hyperion's assets, he promptly makes it the corporation's signature color (previously they used black with a red stripe) and paints it on absolutely everything that stands still for long enough. Net result: the vast majority of the things trying to kill the Vault Hunters are Jack's favorite shade of yellow.
* BrilliantButLazy: He's actually exceptionally intelligent and is a master of machinery and engineering, to the point of being able to control robotics purely with his mind in ''Tales'', [[spoiler:though this probably has something to do with being turned into a sentient computer program.]] Throughout most of ''2'', however, he prefers to sit around snacking on pretzels while repeatedly taunting the Vault Hunters and their friends, despite demonstrating on more than one occasion the ability to wipe them out pretty fast if he chose to, justifying it as them "not being worth his time". When he gets [[BerserkButton angry, though...]]
* ButForMeItWasTuesday: In ''VideoGame/TalesFromTheBorderlands,'' Vasquez says he had a "special rapport" with Jack. Admittedly, that rapport was that Jack punched him in the face every time they met. Holo!Jack sees things differently and literally cannot remember Vasquez at all because he just ''punched that many people every day.''
-->'''Jack''': I punched my mom, for Christ's sake!
* TheCaligula: While he's definitely brilliant, and ''has'' to be a good businessman to run an intergalactic multi-trillion dollar MegaCorp, he's also a deranged sociopath that [[WouldHurtAChild killed a random Hyperion worker's kids]] ForTheEvulz, and that's not even the limit of his insanity. Some of the stuff he spends corporate money on, by the way, is a bit... [[ConspicuousConsumption questionable]], such as a Turbo-Mansion (don't ask, we don't know), a live pony made of diamonds, and the city of Opportunity, which from a city planner's perspective is not that big or planned out all that well.
* CatchPhrase:
** "Heeeeey, Handsome Jack here!"
** "KIDDO!"
* TheChessmaster: As of the beginning of the ''Pre-Sequel'', Jack is presented as just some guy in over his head with heroic aspirations. Yet, those who have completed ''Borderlands 2'' know that he has already [[spoiler:wired his Siren daughter up to Hyperion's A.I. and used her to trick the original ''Borderlands'' Vault Hunters into opening a Vault filled with "nothing but tentacles and disappointment," causing the mineral eridium to emerge on the surface of Pandora]]. He's hired another gaggle of Vault Hunters to come find another Vault on the moon, he's built a massive orbital laser cannon into Helios, and he's commissioned a surgical body double. All this while still a "low-level Hyperion programmer." In a position where others might be content to pilfer office supplies or make personal long-distance calls on company phones, he's already meddling with the destiny of the galaxy. In fact, there's a good chance he's playing ''you'', too.
* ClassicVillain:
** Representing {{pride}}, {{greed}} and eventually wrath as he undergoes a VillainousBreakdown, as well as having the storybook traits of being rich, bullying and cowardly. He also [[spoiler:dies]] after a BattleAmongstTheFlames, and you can [[spoiler:kill him with a Hyperion weapon if you have one, or pick one off the ground.]]
** He's also an incredibly Orwellian ruler, which is ''the'' standard for any fictional dictator. His totalitarian rule over Pandora is relentlessly violent, he has posters with his face plastered everywhere, lots of people, and all Hyperion personnel stationed there either see him as a near-godlike figure or an outright god, and he is willing to torture anyone who opposes Hyperion. And finally, Opportunity is simply just a shiny, over-exaggerated parody of Airstrip One-people have to listen to his twisted version of history, there are statues of him ''everywhere'' and he even demands that children love him more than their parents.
* ConspicuousConsumption: He spends his money on... odd things. Justified in that he went straight from being a programmer to running the entire company, and canonically, he is [[TheCaligula completely out of his gourd]].
* ConsummateLiar: Of the "Truth Twister" variety. He has no trouble misleading, telling the part of the truth he wants you to hear, or telling his own incredibly biased version of the truth. However, almost everything he says [[spoiler:except about his grandmother]] is true to a degree.
* ControlFreak: He ''has'' to be in control. Ironically, though, he has little control over his own temper or emotions, as he is prone to buying silly things and committing ridiculously sociopathic actions on a whim.
* CorporateWarfare: Hyperion fields its own massive army of personnel and spacecraft, along with an even larger army of robotic soldiers, under Jack. He's surprisingly very successful in this. Though Hyperion still has competition, it has the largest and most prolific market on Pandora. Jack also completely took over the megacorporation Atlas and integrated its shares.
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: He took over Hyperion, declared himself Dictator of Pandora, blocked the light by building a base right in front of the planet's moon, and claimed credit for finding the Vault and [[spoiler:slaying of The Destroyer]]. He tricks potential Vault Hunters into coming to Pandora, then has them killed after they board his monorails. His environmental, employment, safety, advertising, motivational and building practices are all either astonishingly careless or totally evil.
* CreateYourOwnVillain: While [[spoiler:Lilith and Roland]] don't exactly ''create'' Handsome Jack in the ''Pre-Sequel'' (Jack was already on the path to becoming a villain regardless, having admitted to wanting to use a KillSat on Pandora, among other things), their actions do lead to him turning into a full-blown lunatic hell-bent specifically on killing them and everyone they've ever known. Really, it's more like pressing a BerserkButton, making a bad situation worse, and pointing it straight at them.
* CutHisHeartOutWithASpoon:
** Jack is fond of making threats that would be... ''impractical'' to carry out, at best.
--->'''Jack:''' I swear, you take one more step, every soul back in Sanctuary will die staring at their own lungs as I rip them from their ''chests.''
** According to one of his rants, during Jack's attack on New Haven, a man tried to kill him with a spoon. Jack took the spoon and [[EyeScream scooped the man's eyes out with it]], while his kids watched. A random NPC in Sanctuary apparently still has the spoon.
* DeadpanSnarker: Boy, is he ever.
-->'''Jack:''' I can actually see why you'd want to tear that particular statue down. Clearly, you are illiterate and the image of me enjoying a good book just makes your head hurt something awful.
* DeaderThanDead: By the end of ''Tales'', assuming that [[spoiler:Rhys crushes his cybernetic eye containing his VirtualGhost]], Jack is presumably about as dead as he can be with little to no chances of coming back.
* DespotismJustifiesTheMeans: Everything Jack's ever done [[spoiler:since he was a code monkey and murdered his way to the top of Hyperion]] was so he could awake [[spoiler:The Warrior]] and use it to take over... Only, he really didn't need to. He was already the leader of the most powerful and successful corporation in the galaxy since the demise of Atlas. Yet all the atrocities, all the death was so he could amass even ''more'' power and put ''everyone'' under his heel.
** DystopiaJustifiesTheMeans: While in his eyes, it's [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans the other way around]], judging by Opportunity his vision of Utopia is simply an Orwellian society that all but outright deifies him and enforced by [[AllCrimesAreEqual the death sentence for such crimes as littering or "verbal" littering]].
* DirtyCoward:
** According to Angel, Jack is a coward who relies on backstabbing and minions to do his dirty work and will not deal with problems personally without overwhelming manpower (Wilhelm to be exact). Other sources do support this - he almost never enters a fight unless he's got a big surprise up his sleeve (such as a personal cloak, lots and lots of robots, an actual army, on-command orbital bombardment, a few tonnes of explosives, some unforeseen huge technological advantage, dozens of decoys and so on). [[spoiler:However, after Angel's death, he wants nothing more than to kill the Vault Hunters with his bare hands and will fight them himself, albeit with some back-up at the end.]]
** Averted in the ''Pre-Sequel,'' where Jack is surprisingly hands-on and helps you out in combat a lot more than any previous quest-giver in the series, even going as far to you help you out when you fight Zarpedon face-to-face. Granted, this is before he became a big shot and also before completely losing his mind. At the ''end'' of the game, he has the pawns go first.
* DoNotCallMePaul: His name ''is'' actually Jack, but President Tassiter (as well as Tassiter's assistant and at least one engineer who reprimands him for tampering with Claptrap) refers to him as "John", which he hates. All the same, he later go on to do the same thing to his own Vice President by calling Jeffrey Blake "Jimmy", despite his protests.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment:
** You collect some ECHO recordings in Liar's Berg that describes him confronting [[spoiler:Helena Pierce]], [[KickTheDog making fun of her appearance]], [[HeroKiller shooting her in the head]], laughing at how BloodyHilarious it was, before [[KillEmAll ordering the massacre of a trainload of civilians she was trying to take to Sanctuary.]]
** There's also trying to kill the Vault Hunters in the opening scene by luring them onto a train that he's loaded with explosives.
** And if you skipped the intro, he introduces himself by arrogantly taunting you over ECHO, laying out "how things work" and telling you to kill yourself.
* EvilCannotComprehendGood: He has no real understanding of the concept of "good". In his eyes, a hero is something you can just say you are and enforce using the right words. ("Because that's what heroes do. We're merciful." "You don't do things because they're easy, you do them because they're right!") [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality ...Or he just thinks of good in a self-serving way, i.e, "a hero" is him.]]
* EvilFeelsGood: In the ''Pre-Sequel'', while he's certainly less murderous towards subordinates than he is in the future, when he does actually have to kill them (either because they shot first or he suspects them to be traitors) he finds it extremely exhilarating. He comes to like doing it over the course of the game, finding more and more minor reasons to engage in murder, whether himself or by proxy.
* EvilerThanThou: For all his altruistic motives, Jack still manages to be the biggest bastard on a planet loaded with unrepentant mercenaries, thieves, lunatics, slavers, monsters, pirates, sadists, grifters, and cannibals.
* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas:
** Mentions in the ''Pre-Sequel'' that he loves his grandmother. Due to the entry in AbusiveParents above, it becomes a little sad to remember that she beat him so horribly as a child.
** Averted with his ''actual'' mother in ''Tales from the Borderlands''.
--->'''Jack:''' I punched my mom, for Christ's sake!
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Played with.
** [[spoiler:{{Subverted}} when he sends the Vault Hunters to check up on his grandmother, and seems genuinely worried. Once you get there and find she's been murdered by bandits, Jack reveals that he's the one who hired the bandits to kill her, and sent you to her house to make ''absolutely sure'' she was dead. ]]
** Played straight with [[spoiler:Angel]], which makes how he [[spoiler:treats her all the worse. He becomes genuinely terrified when Angel begs you to kill her, reduced to sincerely pleading with the Vault Hunters not to harm his "baby girl." After she dies, he refuses to take any responsibility for her death, calling off the bounty on your head so he can kill you himself, apparently not aware (or outright denying) that Angel herself chose death to escape him.]] In the ''Pre-Sequel'', [[spoiler:he keeps a [[http://38.media.tumblr.com/956ce048f54fb0d4d9f4669c7035127d/tumblr_ndi72zPdiJ1ryaargo1_1280.jpg picture of Angel as a child]] on the desk of his office.]] In Episode 4 of ''VideoGame/TalesFromTheBorderlands,'' the same picture is still on his desk, and you can choose for Rhys to comment on it, to which Holo!Jack suddenly becomes very solemn and asks if Rhys could bring him to visit him after dealing with taking over Hyperion, [[HarsherInHindsight completely unaware that she's been dead for a while.]] After Helios crashes, Jack says that he went through the Hyperion database and learned that she was dead all over again, and [[HeelRealization admits that she didn't have a choice but to choose death over staying with him.]]
** Zigzagged in regards to his girlfriend, Nisha. [[spoiler:After you kill her, he actually seems ''surprised'' that he's "a little pissed off" that his girlfriend's dead.]] For her part, Nisha likes Jack just fine, but doesn't share his grand vision.
* EvenEvilHasStandards:
** In one instance on his Reddit AMA, someone asked if gay marriage was legal on Pandora, and he answered in the affirmative, and seemed confused at the idea that it might not be legal in other places.
** If in ''VideoGame/TalesFromTheBorderlands,'' if you choose have Rhys sympathize aloud with the recently-murdered Henderson, Holo!Jack asks him if he was aware (he wasn't) that Henderson was a "massive racist," and partook in dog-fighting ''with kittens.''
* EvilGenius: Jack designed several of the most powerful weapons in the Hyperion arsenal, and [[spoiler:designed the collars that control both Angel and Lilith]]. Before becoming the President of Hyperion, he was also a "code-monkey" who controlled Hyperion space-deployment assets assigned to Pandora, and as the game goes on, it turns out that he's the ''Head'' of R&D, and almost singlehandedly programmed the entirety of Helios.
* EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor: In general, he's prone to deriving amusement from murdering people in the most immature way possible, such as laughing hysterically at the sounds Helena Pierce's head made when he blew out her brains and when reminiscing about the time he blinded a man with a spoon [[spoiler:and mocking Bloodwing's death by playing the violin extremely badly]].
* EvilIsPetty:
** Evidently Jack has nothing better to do with his time than annoy the Vault Hunters with insults, threats, and bragging about how awesome he is. As the game progresses, he gets more and more serious, with his ECHO transmissions only coming when you catch his attention or he gets ''angry''. At the same time, he upgrades from taunting you to gradually mounting determination to kill you to eventually screaming in periodic outbursts of fury.
** One optional mission has him hire you to kill [[ContractOnTheHitman yourself]], and for quite a genuinely nifty reward. Of course, you'll immediately come back via the Hyperion New-U station. He just wants to watch you do it, and even pays the promised amount. Refuse and you get nothing, and a suicide hotline will call you a coward, but you'll get more XP (and piss him off).
* EvilOverlord: He has aspirations to become one of these to Pandora (and if we're going by the cut content, the entire galaxy), but with the "evil" part removed, at least in his head.
* ExpressiveMask: It's never explained by what mechanism Jack's mask retains all the expressiveness of his flesh-and-blood face, especially considering the metal clips that hold it on suggest the mask to be relatively low-tech.
* {{Expy}}: He has an uncanny resemblance to [[Film/RepoTheGeneticOpera Pavi Largo]] - a masked, murderous egomaniac convinced all the ladies want him and involved with a corporation that effectively holds power over life and death.
* FacialHorror: His face is quite obviously a mask, what with the two different skin tones, its almost ''too'' handsome appearance, and the friggin' ''bolts'' holding it to his head. [[spoiler:And that's not getting into why he wears it; he has the Mark of the Vaults (aka the logo on the box) branded across his face. It is a bright blue color and appears to have a part of it ''[[EyeScream etched across his left eye]]''.]]
* FallenHero: ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'' shows that he was at one point genuinely heroic to an extent before becoming the megalomaniac with delusions of heroism that he is in ''Borderlands 2''. Athena even makes a distinction between Jack the Hero who saves her life early in the game, and Handsome Jack the insane megalomaniac.
* FantasticRacism: He doesn't seem to have much regard for robots or artificial intelligences.
* FascistButInefficient: Opportunity is not only an incredibly costly and poorly planned project to build (as well as having wasteful BreadAndCircuses elements to it), since it's located in [[DeathWorld Pandora]], no sane person would be willing to move there. When this is pointed out to him by an employee, Jack hints that he'll have said employee's children killed.
* FatalFlaw: {{Greed}}, always demanding more, {{Pride}}, making him too egomaniacal to stop, and the vital bit [[spoiler:{{Wrath}}, fuel with revenge after all the betrayal he's been through, that branded him with a Vault symbol on his face. With largest bone to pick on, Lilith]].
** On a broader scale, his obsession with Pandora. Pandora is only one planet in what is implied to be a ''vast'' galaxy. Its only notable resource worth controlling is Eridium, which does propel make Hyperion plenty of money through it's monopoly on E-tech weaponry and licensing thereof, he wastes vast amounts of the stuff in order to wake up a monster that, while impressive, can be taken out by one particularly resourceful person on foot. For as obsessed as Jack is with the Warrior, it doesn't provide Jack with anything that the Helios moonbase doesn't already grant him. This tunnel-vision causes him to spend a ludicrous amount of resources (Eridium, money, manpower, materials, [[spoiler:his own daughter]]) for an end-goal that is of no practical use whatsoever.
* FauxAffablyEvil: He's well-spoken, energetic and charismatic, but he's also a petty, sociopathic monster who does nothing but verbally abuse you in conversations. And his composure doesn't just break, it shatters into powder.
* TheFettered: In the ''Pre-Sequel'', Jack isn't fully aware of his sadistic tendencies, doesn't indulge them and endangers his own life to be "a hero" by saving Elpis and Pandora (specifics to be determined). He has big ideas and believes that what he wants most is to protect innocent people and fight evil. However, the thrill he gets from killing people coupled with his basic LackOfEmpathy eventually lead him to becoming Handsome Jack, where he's a whole lot less discerning about "evil". [[spoiler:Moxxi even tries to kill him after Colonel Zarpedon's been dealt with, realizing that underneath his ideas of heroism is a dangerous absence of humanity. Unfortunately, it doesn't work, unhinging him even further.]]
* {{Fiction 500}}: Jack has money and he has no qualms taunting you about it. Early on he calls you up just to tell you that he bought a pony. Made of ''diamonds''. 'Cause he's ''rich''. And not a diamond ''statue'' of a pony, but an actual living creature. Later you can find an audio log where he tells some bandits that if they can find Lilith for him, he'll pay them enough money to build a mansion "made of other, smaller mansions." ''Tales from the Borderlands'' also reveals that he technically owns Atlas Corporation as well, having bought their majority stocks for chump change after they went under.
* FlunkyBoss: When he does directly fight the player, he makes ample use of his illusory decoys and body doubles to confuse and attack the player.
* {{Foreshadowing}}:
** [[spoiler:Regarding the truth behind Angel.]] During the "Assassinate the Assassins" quest, ECHO logs reveal that he knows that only 6 Sirens can exist in the universe at any given time, and he already directly knows three. Let's see... Lilith, Maya, and... [[spoiler:nope! Not Steele! Steele's dead, remember?]]
** During the same quest, he claims he can handle Lilith, while the bandits will just get themselves killed. [[spoiler:This is because he has a SlaveCollar he can use to control Sirens]].
* ForTheEvulz: Sometimes it seems like his only motivation. However, he never sees it that way, believing that he is a hero and anyone he kills/torments is evil and deserves what they get, and/or necessary sacrifices to save the world, usually both.
* FreudianExcuse: A whole bunch of them, actually. While they shouldn't excuse the things he's done, they do show how miserable Jack's life has been up to ''Borderlands 2''.
** [[spoiler:According to a late-game mission, as a child Jack lived with a highly abusive grandmother who used a ''buzz-axe'' as a disciplinary tool.]]
** Some of his {{Jerkass}} behaviour towards his own employees are things that were done to him by Mr. Tassiter back when he was an employee.
** In ''The Pre-Sequel'', Jack starts off with genuinely heroic aspirations (though even by that point [[AbusiveParents he'd locked Angel up to use her abilities for his own gain]], had her manipulate the events of the first game and taken the Eye of the Destroyer to make a WaveMotionGun with intent to kill anyone he doesn't like), but when [[spoiler:the Meriff]] tries to shoot him in the back after Jack says he was going to spare him, Jack learns not to show mercy to anyone anymore, and he [[SlowlySlippingIntoEvil slowly gets worse from there]]. Getting betrayed by [[spoiler:Moxxi, Roland, and Lilith]] later in the game [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope speeds up the process]].
* FromNobodyToNightmare: He started off as a relatively low-level programmer before his ascent to power.
** [[spoiler:At Hyperion, anyway. He had Angel and the technology to use her abilities for his benefit long before he started climbing the ranks, and several ECHO logs in The ''Pre-Sequel'' (and not to mention stealing the eye of [[EldritchAbomination the Destroyer]] and mounting it to a [[KillSat space station]] without anyone noticing) imply he had resources and possibly backers that not even his bosses in Hyperion were aware of.]]
** It should also be noted that low-level programming is machine code, and may not imply a low rank (except relative to a President/CEO).
* TheGeneralissimo: A corporate example rather than a military one. Jack regularly bills himself as a hero and claims to be civilizing Pandora, which is a planet comparable to a third-world nation (if not even worse), throughout the game. He rules over the planet with an iron fist, suppresses dissent by sending his army to destroy any resistance, cultivates a cult of personality from both Hyperion workers and Pandoras, and puts up statues and posters of himself everywhere. His ideal city for Pandora is also a massive {{Egopolis}} dedicated to himself and telling everyone what a great hero he is. The final episode of ''Tales'' also hints that he regularly kills his own employees, with [[spoiler:AI Jack interrogating his workers to find Rhys's location, and casually gunning them down with a turret if they can't answer immediately]].
* GiverOfLameNames:
** "Butt Stallion" for the diamond pony.
** Jack is the reason why Hyperion guns use corporate buzzwords like synergy, networking, face-time, and so on (his justification being that they are "weapons for smart sons of bitches made by smart sons of bitches").
** Nisha even acknowledges the fact that he's terrible at naming things, stating that were it up to him, Lynchwood would be named "New New Haven".
** This extends even beyond the fourth wall, with Jack claiming in the Pre-Sequel trailer that he came up with the word "Pre-Sequel."
* GloryHound: Everything in Opportunity has his face printed on it. He has giant statues of himself wherever they'll fit. He even built a mural recounting the story of the first game, but with himself in the place of the Vault Hunters as a wise, all-seeing hero working to bring order and prosperity to Pandora. In fact, he sees the whole world as a story being told with him as the protagonist, incapable of doing any wrong.
* AGodAmI: Some unused dialog has him talking about how he has plans to use The Warrior to achieve godhood via galactic conquest.
-->"Y'know what? Call me old-fashioned but... being a god sounds like a helluva lotta fun!"
* GoodIsNotNice: According to ''him'' and him alone. Handsome Jack believes he is the hero of the story no matter how much of an asshole he is, and believes all of the atrocities he has committed are simple ShootTheDog moments.
* GoodScarsEvilScars: Under that mask, he has a giant [[spoiler:Vault symbol]] burned across his entire face, [[EyeScream including one of his eyes]]. The ''Pre-Sequel'' reveals that [[spoiler:Lilith was the one who scarred him, which only amplified his hatred of her and the Vault Hunters.]]
* GreaterScopeVillain: In the first game, where he made no appearance but was manipulating things behind the scenes.
* HasAType: He has a thing for women with {{Nice Hat}}s such as Nisha, Moxxi and Fiona, who he ranks 9/10 on his hotness scale because of her hat.
* TheHero: Inevitably saved both Elpis and Pandora from being [[ColonyDrop smashed into each other]] when Zarpedon tries [[spoiler:drill into the core of Elpis in order to lose its orbit]], which is called out by Athena in the Pre-sequel. To the point, when he loses complete morality, where bandits deemed Pandora a "Jack-forsaken planet".
* HeroAntagonist: That's what he thinks. In fact, [[spoiler:it's [[GreyAndGrayMorality unusually debatable]]]]. In his mind, the heroes are the bad guys, who turns out to be just really treasure hunters and mercenaries looking for an ancient alien vault, [[spoiler:that would inevitably became the so-called Eridian war once it opened, by the end of the Pre-Sequel]]. While none of them have completely reliable moral compasses, they're paragons of virtue compared to him, [[spoiler:even in the Pre-Sequel, considering he'd enslaved and immobilized his daughter as a WetwareCPU by then]]. Pandora ''is'' a crime-ridden, dangerous, chaotic planet, but the solution probably isn't shooting/burning/torturing everyone who won't submit to his idea of order.
-->'''Jack:''' ARGH, this is so frustrating, see, this is what I don't get about you bad guys. You know the hero is going to win, but you just don't die quickly!
** Becomes more of a true HeroAntagonist in ''Tales'', where he has a major role in helping (and, depending on player actions, ''tormenting'') Rhys.
* HeroBall:
** Related to the above: He is so convinced that he's the hero that he will occasionally do stupid things because "[[ContractualGenreBlindness that's what heroes do.]]" Such as when he tortures [[spoiler:Tannis]], but lets her live, thinking he's being "merciful."
** In the ''Pre-Sequel!'', Jack is actually grasping the HeroBall to the point that its detrimental to him, at first. He willingly lets the traitorous [[spoiler:Merriff]] go after barely any questioning at all, and is promptly [[spoiler:betrayed by the greedy, selfish, idiotic bastard the moment his back is turned]].
* HeroKiller: He shoots [[spoiler:Helena Pierce]] off-screen, mutilates and kills [[spoiler:Bloodwing]], and then kills [[spoiler:Roland]]. All essentially in cold blood.
* HeroicSacrifice: In the Pre-Sequel, he volunteers to stay behind on Helios to man the moonshot cannon so the Vault Hunters he hired (including a body double who ought to be doing the whole staying behind thing) can get to Elpis and hopefully shut down the jamming signal that's subverting all the base's defenses. While he has no real intention of dying, all the characters in the story and those hearing it liken the act to be suicidal and strangely noble given the fact that the station is crawling with soldiers that want Jack dead.
* HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood: His grandma used a [[ChainsawGood buzz]] [[AnAxeToGrind axe]] as a spanking stick, for one thing.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard:
** Jack developed the Vaulthunter.exe program that would enable Claptrap to become the Fragtrap. [[spoiler:The functional core of that programming was what would become Shadowtrap]]. When Jack [[spoiler:betrays and shoots Claptrap and dumps him in the frozen tundra, Shadowtrap manages to keep Claptrap functional until Sir Hammerlock saves him]]. And in the end, Claptrap is the key to the Vault Hunters in ''Borderlands 2'' being able to both [[spoiler:shut down the gates that lead to Angel]] and reach Jack himself. So effectively, Jack wrote the program that would lead to his own destruction.
** Similarly, [[spoiler:Jack lured the new Vault Hunters to Pandora in order to use them as pawns to expose and destroy Sanctuary.]] Yeah, that ended poorly for him since [[spoiler:the old and new groups of Vault Hunters teamed up to stop Jack in the end]].
* {{Hypocrite}}:
** He views [[spoiler:Angel's suicide-by-vault-hunter]] as the the murder of an innocent girl, and regularly calls the Vault Hunters "child-killers" after it happens, but he himself has implicitly, and in one case very explicitly, killed children, including those of his ''own employees''. In addition, he ruthlessly mocks [[spoiler:Helena Pierce's facial scars]], in spite of the fact that [[spoiler:he himself is scarred under his mask.]] Also, despite disliking his former boss calling him John, [[MaliciousMisnaming he does the same thing when referring to Jeffery Blake as "Jimmy"]]. And, as mentioned above, he considers death a perfectly suitable punishment for swearing and often chastises [[spoiler:Angel]] for doing so. This does not stop him from throwing the odd swear word around.
** He quotes "Did you know some people on Pandora still believe in silly superstitions like angels, demons, and ancient alien warriors? We like to call them bandits." This statement is obviously hypocritical on Jack's part because his primary goal is to control "The Warrior" which is literally an ancient alien warrior.
* IconicSequelCharacter: While he made his appearance in the second game, Jack is without a doubt the most famous character of the series.
* IsThisThingStillOn: He accidentally called his boss an asshole within his boss's earshot at the beginning of the ''Pre-Sequel'' because after "[[FakeStatic losing the connection]]" he forgot to actually end the call.
-->'''Tassiter:''' What?!\\
'''Jack:''' I called you an asshole, because I thought I'd hung up? My bad.
* ItsAllAboutMe: Sees himself as the hero of his own epic, and couldn't care less about what happens to anyone else [[spoiler:other than perhaps his daughter Angel]].
* ItsPersonal:
** The death of [[spoiler:his daughter]] does not go over well.
--->'''Jack:''' ''(on the planet-wide ECHO)'' People of Pandora... [[spoiler:my daughter]] is... dead. Murdered. By [[spoiler:the Vault Hunter]]. So I've decided -- I am rescinding the bounty on [[spoiler:the Vault Hunter]]. If you should kill that child-murdering sonofabitch [[TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou before I do]]? I will find you. And you will regret denying me my vengeance.
** Also, the ''Pre-Sequel'' reveals that [[spoiler:Moxxi, Lilith and Roland destroying his superweapon as well as Lilith scarring him]] is why he hates them so much.
* InsistentTerminology: He likes to strangle people. Not choke, strangle.
-->'''Jack:''' No no, Jimmy, choking is what happens when you eat too fast. As I'm ''crushing'' Mister Moorin's windpipe with my watch chain, what I'm actually doing is referred to as strangling.
* {{Jerkass}}: And that's the ''nicest'' way to describe him. Other ways used in-game: douche, tool, asshole, fascist, sociopath, maniac... The jerkassery was a pre-existing condition, but it used to be tempered by rationality. Now it...isn't.
* JerkassHasAPoint: He's right about Pandora being an uncivilized planet filled to the brim with bandits and in desperate need of order and stability. But then again, he's just as bad, if not ''worse'', than plenty of them. He even acknowledges this in ''Tales'', believing he should've tried to be more diplomatic while sparing those who weren't actually all that bad.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: In ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'', he was still kind of a jerk, but ultimately heroic and genuinely DID want to save Elpis and it's inhabitants. This aspect of his personality gets obliterated by the end of the game, though.
* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'' shows how he went all the way down (though following the "Getting to Know Jack" sidequests in ''Borderlands 2'' gives the context that he was already too far gone even before that - having locked up Angel for his own gain and manipulated the events of the first game - and later in ''The Pre-Sequel'' it's revealed he used the Eye of the Destroyer to make a WaveMotionGun with intent to wipe out 'bandit camps'. Moxxi even says that part of the reason she dumped him was that she saw under his mask of heroism that he was ''already'' a psychopathic monster), starting from a heroic-minded programmer who was in over his head and gradually descending through one questionable moral decision to another, pushed by the need to save Elpis from certain destruction. One event leads to another: Watching the Lost Legion massacre the Helios personnel leaves him angry and desperate, [[spoiler:being betrayed by the Merriff]] leads to growing paranoia and vindictiveness, [[spoiler:forcibly tearing apart Felicity's mind]] leads to a willingness to make morally-questionable calls for the greater good, and both rear their ugly heads when [[spoiler:Jack throws his own scientists out an airlock on the suggestion that one of them ''might'' be a traitor]]. Then he is [[spoiler:betrayed by Moxxi, who tries to destroy Jack and the Eye of Helios together because she believes Jack is a deep-seated psychopath with too much power, and his questionable actions and megalomania have only confirmed that suspicion]], which drives him from desperate paranoia to outright hatred and rage, and culminates in [[spoiler:Lilith scarring him when she destroys the Vault relic]], which finally drives him over the deep end. Throughout the story this gets highlighted by the sidequests he gives out: at first he just wants you to help retake Helios, but then he asks you to [[spoiler:deface the Merriff's memory]], then he has you help him create new weapons on Helios, including a mission where he outright uses a defecting Dahl soldier as a test-dummy for his Moonshot cannon. This is followed by a mission to [[spoiler:rebuild the Eye of Helios]] were Jack is ranting and shouting at the player in fury and frustration. Finally, late in the game, he's consumed by nothing but rage and greed, and is ordering the player to execute surrendering Dahl soldiers and telling them to stop and kill ''everything'' in their path, screaming down their objections by telling them that they can't leave any enemies alive to stab them in the back.
* KickTheDog: Like its a football game with puppies in ''Borderlands 2''.
** For starters, there's his EstablishingCharacterMoment (see above).
** Later, when its shields are down, he opens fire on Sanctuary with multiple mortar barrages, with all of its civilians still inside.
** Pretty much everything he's done at the Wildlife Exploration Preserve.
** Then there's his [[spoiler:murder of Bloodwing right in front of Mordecai]], followed by a [[MoodWhiplash hilariously badly played violin]], which was meant to be played in a sarcasticly sad manner. Even afterwards, [[spoiler:he puts what's left of her mutated body on display in Opportunity.]]
** If the player chooses to kill Sheriff Nisha (who happens to be Jack's girlfriend) in Lynchwood before completing the game, while Jack is a tiny bit miffed that she's dead, he's much more surprised that the Vault Hunters actually managed to anger him at all, showing just how little he cared for his own girlfriend.
** In Opportunity, one of the ECHO logs you can find details that he ''[[WouldHurtAChild murdered one of his employee's children]]'' [[DisproportionateRetribution simply for]] [[CantTakeCriticism pointing out flaws in Jack's plan to build Opportunity]].
** In one ECHO call to the player, he explains how he and Wilhelm tortured Tannis by beating her for hours and then taking the Vault Key from her, only sparing her because "that's what heroes do. They're merciful."
** His treatment of [[spoiler:Angel]] in general.
** [[spoiler:Killing Roland]].
** And then there's [[spoiler:his ColdBloodedTorture of Lilith after her capture.]] However, considering [[spoiler:Lilith]]'s actions in ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'', this might fall under KickTheSonOfABitch territory, depending on your stance.
** According to the ancillary material, he sent Sanctuary a box with the heads of Pierce and Roland, and what was left of Bloodwing's. The only time he could have done this was when he had Lilith captive.
** He even had a few of these in ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'', which was before he even became Handsome Jack in the first place. While most of them (such as [[spoiler:wiping Felicity]] and [[spoiler:spacing the scientists]]) can be considered [[ShootTheDog shooting the dog]] considering the situation at the time, late in the game he orders the player to [[spoiler:execute a surrendering Dahl soldier]].
* KilledMidSentence: This can be his final fate should the player choose. Don't want to listen to Jack's VillainousBreakdown when you finally beat him? Put a bullet in him to shut him up for good. You'll get an achievement for it too.
* KlingonPromotion: He became the president of Hyperion by murdering his boss. If Tales of the Borderlands is anything to go by, evidently this is a pretty common way to move up the ranks
* KnightOfCerebus: While he's [[LaughablyEvil a much funnier example than most]], Jack is shown to be a [[spoiler:horribly [[AbusiveParents Abusive Parent]] to his daughter, Angel]], manages to kill [[spoiler:Helena Pierce, Bloodwing, and Roland]] and captures/tortures [[spoiler:Lilith]] at one point. His tone of voice also changes to become much colder after [[spoiler:Angel's death]].
** In a franchise built on ComedicSociopathy, Handsome Jack manages to stand out as a genuine monster to most.
* KnightTemplar: Utterly convinced that he is doing the right thing by trying to kill "bandits" (read: anyone on Pandora who opposes him) and imposing a fascist state of pure order and obedience to him.
* KnightTemplarParent: [[spoiler:When Angel is trying to kill herself, he screams that everything he's done -- all the people he's manipulated, all the bandits he's killed -- has been to protect her. She is...not exactly overcome with gratitude.]]
* LanternJawOfJustice: Jack starts ''The Pre-Sequel'' with a cleft chin, which slowly "falls" throughout the game and goes completely flush when Lilith scars him.
* LargeHam: He's quite over-the-top, to say the least.
* LaughablyEvil: Is incredibly petty and vain, leading to amusing sections where you hear about the pointless crap he uses his power for.
-->'''Jack:''' Just bought a pony made of diamonds, because I'm rich. So, you know. That's cool.
* LaughingMad: [[spoiler:Occasionally breaks out into maniacal laughter during the fight against the Warrior -- another illustration of how much [[VillainousBreakdown he's lost it by this point]].]]
* LeaveNoSurvivors: He ends up adopting this stance after suffering numerous betrayals in the ''Pre-Sequel'', starting from [[spoiler:the Meriff]] to [[spoiler:Roland, Lilith and Moxxi destroying the Eye of Helios]]. When encountering the [=RK5=] in the endgame, despite his minions telling him that they could easily bypass it he orders them to destroy it since to him, leaving survivors means a chance that they'll backstab you.
-->'''Jack''': [[BigNo NO!]] You let your enemies live, and they'll shoot you in the back! I don't want any surprises! I DON'T WANT ANY SURVIVORS!
* LoveMartyr: Towards Pandora itself. The natives of the planet would very much like to leave it, the mercenaries and corporations that willingly go there are only fond of it for its resources and by virtue of being able to leave it at their leisure, and then there are those poor exiles that despise the world so much that they'd prefer death to spending one more second on it. In contrast to all of the above, Jack honestly believes that Pandora can be salvaged and repurposed into a utopia of safety, peace, and order. No one in the franchise shares this sentiment.
* MadScientist: Jack is a talented engineer and computer programmer in addition to his skills as an administrator. The mad part comes from the fact he made the Fragtrap.
* TheManBehindTheMan: After the player dispatches of Wilhelm, it is revealed that Jack manipulated [[spoiler:the player and the Raiders into going after the Vault Key directly, with the help of Angel, who orchestrated Roland and Co.'s hunt for the vault during the events of the [[VideoGame/{{Borderlands}} first game]].]]
* ManipulativeBastard: Loves using people to further his ends, then offing them for shits and giggles. He tried it with the Vault Hunters but failed. [[spoiler:Or so one thinks at first glance. Turns out he was using Angel the entire time to control the Vault Hunters.]]
* MiddleManagementMook: In ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'', Handsome Jack is just plain old Jack, a middle-management upstart in over his head during the attack on Elpis.
* MirrorBoss: When you finally get to fight him, you expect him to climb into some big robot. Nope, he fights you, man to man, as a strange mix of ''four of the classes at once.'' Specifically, he dual-wields his Arm Cannons similar to Salvador's gunzerking, he tosses down turrets like Axton, he uses an invisibility cloak like [=Zer0=], and calls robots to his side like Gaige.
* MismatchedEyes: One green, one blue, due to the Gearbox artists and their fondness for asymmetry. ''The Pre-Sequel!'' indicates he always had them, so we're talking [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterochromia_iridum heterochromia]]. [[spoiler:Towards the end of that game, the horrific brand he receives takes one out, leaving it milky-white, but his mask makes them look they way they used to - mismatched colors and all.]]
* MommyIssues: He has "deep-seeded" grandmother issues. She was abusive towards him, if the "disciplinary" buzz-axe in her house is anything to go by...
* MonsterSobStory: Implied through a complicated set of clues and Echo recordings throughout both games where he usually dominates. [[spoiler:They stated that Jack reached MoralEventHorizon through constant betrayal, by [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder co-workers, "friends" and even his own grandmother]] whom he was supposed to trust. Even to the point where Moxxi destroyed the Eye of Helios only because she sees Jack as a threat, even if the threat is known to be... [[CrapsackWorld everywhere]].]] Knowing this and the fact that the Vault Hunters are really just mercenaries hunting for loot, even from [[GraveRobbing graves]], may give you the idea that he was a truly WellIntentionedExtremist as one might think.
* MoralMyopia: Paired with ItsAllAboutMe, he doesn't seem to understand that other people are even ''people''. If you kill his girlfriend Nisha, he's less upset and more ''surprised'' that he's upset. [[spoiler:But the death of his daughter -- even though technically it was suicide and also his fault -- is what finally makes him declare ItsPersonal]]. This is even worse than it sounds, because it's clear that his attempts to convince you he's done a good thing [[spoiler:for Angel,]] as well as the fear, loss, grief and rage he displays as the event plays out, are ''genuine,'' which means he is literally incapable of comprehending that he has not done good things.
* MysteriousPast: The "Get To Know Jack" sidequest as well as the ''Pre-Sequel'' gives us some details on his backstory. It is known that he [[spoiler:orchestrated the events that led to the opening of the Vault]], and somehow knew enough about Vaults and Eridians to do so, that he was married and his wife "disappeared" after [[spoiler:the Siren they fathered did... ''something'' to her (it's suggested that Angel accidentally killed her)]], that he somehow rose through the ranks of the company after somehow [[spoiler:redirecting a satellite containing Angel to Pandora]] and starting the Eridium rush, and that his sanity steadily decreased in his attempt to save Elpis, particularly after [[spoiler:Roland, Lilith and Moxxi destroyed the eye of The Destroyer that he was using as a superweapon]]. And then there was the [[spoiler:ironic hideous facial scarring, which was caused by none other than Lilith, who punch an Eridian artifact right into his face]].
* {{Narcissist}}: Extends far beyond his self-aggrandizing handle. He's such a narcissist that in ''The Pre-Sequel!'' he'll actually come onto ''his own body double.''
-->''' Timothy Lawrence/Jack''': “How egocentric does this guy have to be to hire body doubles? The dudes just a programmer. That’s like a grocery store clerk wearing kevlar. You’re not important enough to kill man, hello.”
* NeverMyFault: [[spoiler:He blames the Vault Hunters for Angel's death, refusing to acknowledge the fact that he drove her into [[DrivenToSuicide desiring death]]]].
* TheNicknamer: He's fond of calling people people condescending pet names such as "Kiddo", "Pumpkin" or "Cupcake". In the case of the Vault Hunters, he generally calls them Bandits or later on, "[[spoiler:Child-killers]]".
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: After confronting the Meriff about his betrayal, Jack decides to let him go. [[spoiler:The Meriff takes the chance to shoot him once he turns his back on him, which teaches him to never take a chance and show mercy.]]
* NothingPersonal: When he first "welcomes" the Vault Hunters to Pandora via exploding monorail, he actually prints these words on a sign for them to see before they die. His continued attempts to kill them and everyone they associate with develop gradually from that motive to ItsPersonal as the plot unfolds, and his attitude develops accordingly from a sort of amused disinterest to icy, homicidal fixation.
* NotSoDifferent: Compare his threats [[spoiler:when you kill Angel]] to those of Brick [[spoiler:after he kills Roland]].
-->'''Jack''' But I swear, you take one more step, every soul back in Sanctuary will die staring at their own lungs as I rip them from their chests.\\
'''Brick''' We kill Jack, his associates, his friends, his FAMILY -- EVERYONE HE'S EVER MET! WE SKIN 'EM WITH THEIR OWN GODDAMN TEETH!
** And Brick calms down. Jack does not.
** In ''The Pre-Sequel'', after he [[spoiler:kills Gladstone and the other scientists]], Zarpedon calls him up and compliments his willingness to do what it takes, stating that the two are the same. Jack simply ignores her words and considers her a lunatic.
** Jack claims to be on Pandora to overthrow the local bandits and create order. The way he runs Hyperion (and, if ''Tales from the Borderlands'' is anything to go by, the way others will run it thereafter) is not terribly different from conditions on Pandora itself. {{Klingon Promotion}}s are observed and you get to the top by being a bigger bastard than everyone else.
** Taking off his mask reveals that he has [[spoiler:a vault symbol burned into his face]] which makes him resemble the masks of the typical deranged Psycho, arguably the lowest form of bandit. [[spoiler:Lilith put it there, by the way.]]
** His barely-restrained enjoyment of murder doesn't place him that high above either Vault Hunters or bandits.
* OffscreenVillainy: He's mentioned to have done horrific slag mutation experiments against Pandoran citizens in the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve, burned down New Haven, massacred whole towns as his army swept across Pandora and launched a 3-year-war against Sanctuary and the Raiders... but we don't get to see any of it, and only hear it in ECHO logs.
* OlderThanTheyLook: While he looks to be roughly mid-30's, [[spoiler:Jack is at least old enough to have a daughter in her late-teens at the least]]. According to Moxxi, he's had plastic surgery. The mask probably helps.
* OmnicidalManiac: He has no problem personally calling airstrikes or sending in his army to raze any Pandoran settlements that don't accept his twisted view of order. He even threatens to burn the entire planet to the ground with an Eridian gryphon construct, just because he wants everyone to fully accept his rule.
* OnlyOneName: His last name is never stated in the series. Even his company ID simply refers to him as "Jack". In the [=AmA=], he says his middle name is "Newustationsarentcanon," and allegedly German. Though this should probably be taken with a grain of salt.
* TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou: [[spoiler:After Angel's death, Jack rescinds the bounty on the Vault Hunters because he wants to kill them himself.]]
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: As shown by Maya's echo recordings, mentioning a siren to Jack will make him drop all of his theatrics. His tone changes from interested to infuriated determination.
* OrcusOnHisThrone: Throughout almost all of the game he's content at sitting back and letting his minions fight the new Vault Hunters (albeit while ''heavily'' taunting them the whole way). Despite having enough firepower to wipe out a continent, his Helios Station very rarely launches direct attacks.
* PapaWolf: Extremely protective of [[spoiler:Angel]], which just makes [[spoiler:all the horrible things he's done to her even ''worse''. He goes so far as to rescind the bounty on you after you help her to die, just to kill you personally. The fact that she's a LivingMacguffin and necessary for him to open the Vault is a factor, but he does love her in his own twisted way, and doesn't seem to understand that the abuse he put her through led to her wishing for death to escape him.]]
* PreAssKickingOneLiner:
-->"Hey, you're right on time - Key's nearly ready! But before I cleanse this planet for good, I am gonna avenge my daughter!"
* PromotedToPlayable:
** In a sense. Jack's body double is the first DLC character of ''The Pre-Sequel''. However, the two are completely different characters and Timothy proves to be much more moral and sane than the real Jack.
** In an indirect sense in ''Tales from the Borderlands'', where he is imbued in the protagonist Rhys' consciousness.
* ProtagonistCenteredMorality: [[ItsAllAboutMe In his own head]]. Jack sees himself as TheHero and has no problem pointing out the [[AntiHero Vault Hunters']] more dubious actions, while at other times casually joking about ''worse'' crimes he's committed against Pandora's "bandit" citizens. He also has a habit of denying things that would be inconvenient to his view of himself as a hero.
* ProperlyParanoid: This saves him when [[spoiler:Moxxi Has Lilith and Roland destroy the Eye of the Destroyer. If it wasn't for him insisting on restarting the eye remotely, he and his crew would have died with the Eye's destruction.]]
* PunchPackingPistol / BlingBlingBang: He and his holographic doubles in his boss fight carry a purple-rarity Hyperion Vision that is also made of all Hyperion parts, which gives the gun bonuses to weapon damage, reload speed and magazine size. He also one-shots [[spoiler:Roland]] with it.
* PsychopathicManchild: Type C. Despite being the powerful CEO of an NGOSuperpower that presumably spans several galaxies, he insists on randomly calling up the Vault Hunters just to hurl insults at them.
* RealityIsUnrealistic: [[ShownTheirWork Low-Level Programming]]. Considered by the majority as a low-class job, which is ironically not true. Low-Level programming is basically code-within-hardware, coming from the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-level_programming_language other wiki]], sophisticated by machine code all by itself, while high-level programming are already translated code to human language that makes common programmers today easily considered competent, but surprisingly as well, they're not.
** [[FridgeBrilliance Which means Jack knows a lot more about the coding more than most people in Hyperion]], which resolves him a respectable position in Hyperion as a whole, such as being the command of Helios station.
* RedRightHand: The face-mask that he wears. [[spoiler:Underneath that mask, he has the Vault symbol branded upon his face.]]
* RefugeInAudacity: He took over his company not because he was the greatest businessman (he's much too crazy), or the smartest cookie [[spoiler:(he has a living computer intelligence in the form of his daughter helping out there)]], nor even because he got a hot tip that Pandora was about to turn into an Eridium bonanza (though that helped), but because he's so vicious, violent and unpredictable that the pencil-pushers at the top of the company must either fold or die before him. He literally [[InsistentTerminology strangles]] people to death in his own board room and has children of his own employees executed in passing because one of them brings up a minor problem with one of his plans.
* SanitySlippage: While it's difficult to tell, [[spoiler:as wiring your daughter into an Eridium injector and forcing her into a lifetime of painful servitude]] is not exactly an indicator of sanity, there's some progression in Get To Know Jack. By the time of the third ECHO log, he's clearly lost what little stability he ever had. The ''Pre-Sequel'' details the process, though making this somewhat disturbing, some of the ECHO logs
* ScrewYourself: When interacting with his body double in the ''Pre-Sequel'', Real Jack can't help but admire how sexy he is ([[StupidSexyFlanders to the point of being distracted by his body double's good looks]]), which seriously creeps out Fake Jack.
* SchmuckBait: After [[spoiler:you MercyKill his daughter Angel]], Jack gives you a quest where he will reward you handsomely if you literally kill yourself. When you go to the objective point, you can see a bandit jumping to his death in hopes of getting the reward.
* SealedEvilInACan: Wants to release one, the Warrior, from a Vault and control it.
* ShadowDictator: He is ''very'' similar to [[Literature/NineteenEightyFour Big Brother]] in many ways, but overall he's an Inverted version, due to him being an AttentionWhore who plasters his [[MalevolentMugshot face]] everywhere and keeps his PropagandaMachine going through his monologues to Pandora and the Vault Hunters.
* ShutUpHannibal: After you [[spoiler:defeat The Warrior]], a bloody Handsome Jack starts going on a last, desperate BreakThemByTalking. [[spoiler:The game actually doesn't kill him off, it gives you the honor of choosing what weapon you wish to use to kill him]]. Of course, [[spoiler:if you wait a while after he's done ranting, Lilith will offer to do it herself]].
* SkunkStripe: Has a streak of white hair on the left side of his head. [[spoiler:It's an indicator to his actual age]].
* SmugSnake: Manipulates everyone in the game to get his hands on the Warrior, but his downfall comes from his inability to understand that he can lose.
* TautologicalTemplar: The way Jack sees it, he's the hero that Pandora needs, and therefore everything he does is for Pandora's greater good. Even if it involves massacring innocents, ColdBloodedTorture, and abusing and manipulating his own daughter, it's all to make Pandora a better place and ridding it of bandit scum (read: anyone not living under Hyperion's banner).
* TechnoWizard: While his business skills are questionable, he's insanely talented in the fields of robotics, programming, and general technology.
* TheSociopath: Handsome Jack has all the qualifications. He doesn't care about anyone, uses people for his own ends, and is incredibly impulsive, as evidenced by his bizarre ConspicuousConsumption (seriously, Turbo-Mansion?!) and creation of Opportunity. [[spoiler:He is capable of long-term planning up to a point, but after that point defaults back to "melt all dissenting voices using overwhelming firepower"; and while he does love Angel, it's possessive and controlling]].
** What's most unsettling about him is that the more someone deviates from his expectations, the more enraged he gets. And he ''never lets it go''. [[spoiler:This is shown in the ''Pre-Sequel'', where Moxxi tries to kill him because of what a dangerous bastard he is... which causes him to declare a massive case of [[ItsPersonal "It's Personal"]] and take a step closer to being the utter psycho we see in ''Borderlands 2'']].
* ThatManIsDead: According to Athena, Jack was a hero who was willing to stay behind to ensure his team made it to Elpis and was unwilling to resort to torture or murder outright. When [[spoiler:Lilith scarred him and he went insane with hatred and revenge]], however, she says that the hero who saved Elpis had died. Exemplified in Jack's title cards: when he's first encountered on Helios, he's just Jack, an executive who's in over his head. At the end, he's ''Handsome'' Jack, and murdering his own boss in his own office. [[spoiler:Though in fairness to Athena, [[AbusiveParents she never found out what]] [[WetwareCPU he did to his daughter]].]]
* TheStarscream: Get To Know Jack reveals him to be a successful version of this, with Tassiter calling him a "hideous little code monkey". In other words, low-ranking, treated like dirt by his bosses, and a NoRespectGuy. Near the end of the Pre-Sequel, he loses all patience with Tassiter and begins openly threatening him.
-->'''Jack''': "You say one more word, and I promise to make your death slow."
-->'''Tassiter''': "What are you-"
-->'''Jack''': "That was three. I'll be seeing you soon."
* TortureTechnician: It's made clear by several characters, including Jack himself, that Jack relishes torturing his enemies and giving them as painful a death as possible. [[spoiler:When Lilith is captured, he took advantage of her Eridium-induced HealingFactor by stabbing the hell out of her while she couldn't fight back, knowing she wouldn't die from the treatment.]]
* TotallyRadical: His video featuring tips on surviving Elpis for ''The Pre-Sequel'' is peppered with strained attempts at being current which are made doubly hilarious given that his presumed audience for it consists of three (or five) gritty adults and a weathered robot.
* TranquilFury: For the midpoint of the game, Jack will periodically start [[VillainousBreakdown screaming in frustration]] at the Vault Hunters and their allies because he just can't kill them or they're sabotaging his operations/defacing his city. Then [[spoiler:the Vault Hunters kill Angel]], and immediately afterward, everything he says is in his casual, mocking, trollish tone. However, behind that forced calm, you can sense the pure, undiluted ''hatred'' in him as he mocks you with infinitely crueller barbs and insults. But hey: he's back to cheerful when he describes how much he's anticipating killing you...
* {{Troll}}: He is constantly taunting and belittling the Vault Hunters, but a number of his later barbs, like the the jokes he cracks relating to the deaths of [[spoiler:Bloodwing]] and later [[spoiler:Roland]], are just cruel for their own sake. There's a subtle but definite shift in his trolling as the game progresses. He starts off with petty insults, moving up to mocking the player, then cruelly twisting the knife as he starts hurting and killing people close to the Vault Hunters just for his own amusement. From there he starts getting angrier and more frustrated that he can't kill you, and the trolling shifts to angry, petty insults (noticeable especially in Opportunity). Then, when [[spoiler:Angel is killed]], his trolling becomes much more vicious, as his cruelty becomes less the amusement of playing with a toy and more the vicious satisfaction in hurting someone you personally despise and want to die screaming.
* TheUnfettered: After becoming Handsome Jack, he does pretty much whatever he feels like, reasoning that he's a hero, and therefore anything he does (no matter how twisted or depraved) is heroic.
* UnholyMatrimony: His relationship with Nisha turned out to be remarkably happy and stable, and they were together for 3 years. She outright says that she loves him during a Lynchwood PA announcement (although she hates his way of naming things.) That said, though, he's surprised that he's angry at all when you kill her.
--> '''Aurelia''': "The sex must be horrifying."
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: His quest for the Vaults unknowingly set into motion [[spoiler:a war that could potentially threaten to kill billions]], and even worse, [[spoiler:Jack flat-out ignored all the attempts by Zarpedon and the Lost Legion]] to warn him of the danger, [[spoiler:shooting Zarpedon in the face before she could tell him just how bad it'd get]].
* UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: A big believer in it. Killing bandits, making his own ridiculously wasteful city, invading and occupying Pandora with a hostile military... in his own mind, it's all necessary to civilize Pandora, and bring order to a lawless world (and possibly galaxy). Unfortunately, he has several character tropes in this entry that make this problematic, namely his own belief in ProtagonistCenteredMorality, (the protagonist being him) ItsAllAboutMe, and his barely-restrained enjoyment of killing.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: He even has his own propaganda service thanks to Hunter Hellquist. Although it's Inverted at least on Pandora, where everyone knows that whatever he has published is [[ZeroPercentApprovalRating absolute bullcrap]].
* VillainousBreakdown: Once you [[spoiler:kill his daughter]], he ''really'' starts to lose it. It's quite jarring, watching the gigglesome sociopath melt down into a greiving father. The full extent of his breakdown kicks in at the grand finale [[spoiler:and leads into ''another one'' when the Warrior is defeated.]]
-->'''Handsome Jack:''' No, no, no... [[spoiler:I can't die like this]]... not when I'm so close... and not at the hands of a filthy bandit! I could've saved this planet! I could have actually restored order! I wasn't [[spoiler:supposed to die]] at the hands of a [[spoiler:child-killing]] psychopath! You're a savage! You're a ''maniac!'' You are a bandit AND I AM A GODDAMN HERO! [[spoiler:The Warrior was practically a God. How -- HOW in the hell have you killed my Warrior?]] You idiots! [[spoiler:The Warrior could have]] brought peace to this planet! No more dangerous creatures! No more bandits! Pandora -- could have been PARADISE!
** Jack has several other breakdowns as the game progresses. The sidequest "Statuesque" even opens with him calmly taunting you and gradually becoming angrier and angrier, eventually screaming at you and shouting "HERE'S YOUR PRIZE!" while launching Super Badass Loaders. He also gets ''extremely'' pissed at the end of "Bright Lights, Flying City" when he realizes Angel is [[spoiler:disobeying his orders to stop helping you.]]
--->'''Handsome Jack''': Send in the Constructors, I want those bastards dead ''now!'' (...) I'm sending EVERYTHING I have at you. '''Everything!'''
** Jack has several breakdowns in the ''Pre-Sequel'' as well:
*** The moment when [[spoiler:he is going to spare the Meriff but the man attempts to shoot him in the back]] is a turning point that Jack finds "exhilarating."
*** [[spoiler:Moxxi and the original Vault Hunters sabotaging the Eye of Helios]] is when Jack starts to become the psychopath we know in ''Borderlands 2,'' complete with raving that they're all no better than bandits.
*** He has another right after when Tassiter tries to contact him [[spoiler:about the Eye of Helios blowing up.]]
---->'''Jack''': '''[[BigShutUp SHUT THE HELL UP, TASSITER!]]''' '''''[[PunctuatedForEmphasis SHUT! THE! HELL! UP!]]''''' [[spoiler:My ex-girlfriend and her two [=BFFs=] just tried to kill me, and]] THE LAST THING I need right now is your senile ass '''WHINING IN MY EAR!''' If I get ONE more message from you that isn't "Addaboy, Jack" or "I'm sending you a big bag of money", then I'm gonna reach through my ECHO communicator and '''GOUGE YOUR EYES OUT WITH MY PINKIES!''' '''''ARE WE CLEAR?!'''''
*** He finally loses it completely when [[spoiler:when Lilith punches him in the face after he learned of the Vault of the Warrior, scarring him to the point where he must wear a mask of his former handsome visage from that point forward and now armed with the knowledge of a new doomsday weapon to wreak his vengeance]].
* VillainousLegacy: Due to Jack's actions on Pandora, the bandits have banded together to become The Children of The Vault and under the leadership of the Calypso Twins.
* VillainsNeverLie: Jack rarely tells an ''outright'' lie. He loves to distort the truth, lie via omission, or simply spin his extremely twisted view of reality, but out-and-out lying is very rare -- which makes the moments when he does do it all the more potent.
** He isn't even really lying when he claims he was chiefly responsible for the Vault Hunters' actions in the first game as [[spoiler:he was the one that tricked them into performing said actions.]]
* VisionaryVillain: Dreams of a Pandora cleaned of bandits and instead serving as a bright shining beacon of civilization. Of course, "bandit" is "anyone who doesn't bow down and worship him" and "civilization" includes laws mandating death for littering, profanity, or complaining about the laws (which is considered verbal littering). Even back when he was a supposed "low-level programmer" he had grand ambitions, up to even commissioning a surgical body double, something that does get lampshaded.
-->'''Janey Springs''': What's a low-level Hyperion employee doing making body doubles of himself?\\
'''Timothy''': He's got big dreams, and I have student loans.
* VoiceWithAnInternetConnection: Seems to be able to track you over your journey through his info network, and will regularly call you up over the [=ECHOnet=] to berate and insult you.
* WarmupBoss: In the final battle, he serves as a light boss fight before facing off against the Warrior, the tougher FinalBoss. However, on higher difficulties, he's a WakeUpCallBoss.
* WeaponOfChoice: His arm cannons, of course. However, in'' Borderlands 2'', he [[spoiler:kills Roland]] using what looks like a purple-rarity Hyperion Vision pistol, made up of only Hyperion parts, and it appears in Episode 4 of ''VideoGame/TalesFromTheBorderlands'', in the display case inside his office.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: Deconstructed. His intentions to clean up Pandora are good, but the means he uses are horrible. Assuming he even wants to clean up Pandora out of something remotely resembling altruism, instead of so he can say how awesome he is for cleaning up Pandora, which would be entirely in-character.
* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: In the ''Pre-Sequel'', [[spoiler:Jack is already on his way down the slippery slope by the time he interfaces with the Elpis Vault's "computer", but the Eridian knowledge downloaded into his brain (coupled with being branded by Lilith at that moment) are what cause him to finally go full Handsome Jack.]]
* WouldHurtAChild: In addition to [[spoiler:enslaving Angel as a child]], he's not above the outright murder of children -- Sir Hammerlock mentions so, and an ECHO recording heavily implies that he had a Hyperion colleague's children killed for pointing out that Opportunity is FascistButInefficient. Also, if you listen to Helena Pierce's echo logs, [[spoiler:you can clearly hear women and children screaming when Jack orders Wilhelm to open fire.]]
* WrongGenreSavvy: He believes he's the hero and at least one ECHO message he sends you suggests he believes his victory is assured simply because the hero is supposed to win while the bad guys die. [[spoiler:It thus comes as something of a shock to him when he loses.]]
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness:
** He generally prefers to kill folks rather than pay them, as demonstrated by him sending bots after Roland and the Bloodshots after the former was captured. [[spoiler:He also does this with some bandits he sent to kill his grandma by sending you to kill them, though he does at least end up paying you in the end. He attempts to do this to the Vault Hunters after breeching Sanctuary, but repeatedly fails (no thanks to Angel helping them out).]]
** The Claptastic Voyage DLC of ''The Pre-Sequel'' shows that after obtaining the H-Source, the first thing he did was to use it to destroy all Claptrap units before personally executing Fragtrap himself out of frustration for putting up with his crap. He first foreshadows this when his team reaches Eleseer, telling Fragtrap that his new robot army is making him look incredibly redundant.
* YouKilledMyFather: [[spoiler:Inverted; the heroes assist his daughter's suicide. He's ''pissed.'']]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Nisha]]

->See: ''Characters/BorderlandsThePreSequel''

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Wilhelm]]

->See: ''Characters/BorderlandsThePreSequel''

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Hunter Hellquist]]
!Hunter Hellquist

The DJ of ''This Just In!'', a radio show that serves as Hyperion's main propaganda machine. He constantly broadcasts the events of the main story, but always in a way that demonizes the Vault Hunters and makes Handsome Jack seem like the good guy. Late in the game, Mordecai finally has enough of it and orders you to take him off the air. Permanently.
----
* BlatantLies: ''This Just In!'' is chock full of them, either skewing events to make Jack sympathetic or making things up outright. Once the Vault Hunters ''finally'' go to shut him up, they catch him in the middle of perhaps his most blatant lie of all. [[labelnote:*]]Not only can the Borderlands 2 Vault Hunters not go to Old Haven, but it most ''certainly'' doesn't have an orphanage.[[/labelnote]]
-->'''Hunter Hellquist:''' This just in, Pandora - the bandit scum who [[spoiler:killed Jack's daughter]] has just set the Old Haven orphanage ablaze, and... (Vault Hunters enter his broadcast shack)
* InfinityPlusOneSword: He's best known as the guy who drops The Bee, considered by most one of (if not ''the'') best shield in the game.
* NotSoHarmlessVillain: While he isn't as dangerous as Jack, Wilhelm or the Warrior by a long shot, he's still dangerous on his own.
* PropagandaMachine: Constantly lies about you and the Crimson Raiders, to make raving sociopath Jack look good and you look bad. Of course, everyone knows it's utter bullshit.
* SmallNameBigEgo: One of his lines during the battle that follows when you break into the station is "DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?"
* StrawmanNewsMedia: Runs a combination of Type 1 and Type 2 for Hyperion.
* {{Tuckerization}}: Partially named after Paul Hellquist, the creative director of the game.
* WrittenByTheWinners: He's basically drafting Hyperion's version of the events of the game as they occur.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Saturn]]
!!Saturn

A giant loader that appears near Fyrestone and tasked with protecting the Hyperion Information Exchange.
----
* DamageSpongeBoss: Saturn is one of the few enemies in the game with ''no weak spots'', and comes with the expected health total of a building-sized robot. Hope you brought a healthy amount of spare ammo.
* GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere: What precisely it is doing is never explained, and it spawns with no warning.
* HumongousMecha: A several-story-tall Loader.
* KingMook: Saturn is pretty much the lord of all loaders, and essentially a ''very'' large Badass Loader with extra health and weaponry.
* WalkingArmory: Saturn has four turrets on it, uses electric cannons, rocket barrages, explosive drones, and its own legs.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Warrior]]
!The Warrior
[[quoteright:350:[[labelnote:Click to see picture.]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/The_Warrior_9886.png]][[/labelnote]]

Much like the Destroyer, the Warrior is an ancient monstrosity sealed away in a Vault. However, whereas the Destroyer was, [[UnreliableNarrator maybe]], an otherworldly entity that was sealed away by the Eridians, the Warrior is a bio-superweapon of Eridian Origin. Handsome Jack plans to unleash the Warrior and use it to "cleanse" Pandora of what he considers to be "undesirables".
----
* AttackItsWeakPoint: The large glowing spot on its chest pretty much screams '''WEAK POINT'''. In fact, there's a Badass Rank challenge you can obtain by ''not'' attacking that spot. Its other weak point is the mouth, which won't make you fail the challenge but is much harder to hit.
* BewareMyStingerTail: The Warrior's tail fires a beam that slags you, but it also uses it like a scorpion's stinger.
* BreathWeapon: It breaths fire/napalm.
* CoolButInefficient: The Warrior is essentially Handsome Jack's pride given form; it's big, it's awesome, it burns things down, and as far as he cares it's his best bet at taking over Pandora. The problem is that his obsession with the beast costs him his supply of eridium, his money, his army, his engineers, and [[spoiler:his own daughter]]. In the end he's left with a glorified artillery unit - a role the presently-accessible Helios space station already accomplished.
* FinalBoss: The last enemy you fight in the main campaign.
* ForgottenSuperWeapon: He's a leftover bioweapon of the Eridians empire, buried for centuries.
* OurDragonsAreDifferent / OurGryphonsAreDifferent: Resembles a massive cross between a dragon and a griffin made out of lava and slag.
* OlympusMons: Its defining traits are that it can obliterate all life on the planet and that the first person to make contact can control it. When you finally fight it, it doesn't do much beyond what its told, to the point that the fight sounds like a ''Videogame/{{Pokemon}}'' battle.
-->'''Jack''': "Protect your chest, Warrior!" "Fire breath! ''Now''!" "Back into the lava!" "Smash 'em, Warrior!" "Don't let 'em shoot you ''[[AttackItsWeakPoint there]]''! ''Goddamn!''"
* SealedEvilInACan: [[spoiler:Zigzagged. It's sealed away, yes, but it turns out the Warrior ''is'' the can.]]
* SequelEscalation: The Destroyer, despite its huge health pool, was a StationaryBoss that only had a handful of attacks and roughly a third of it was composed of weakpoints. The Warrior, by contrast, constantly moves around the arena, has many different and hard-hitting attacks, and its weakpoints are harder to target.
* ShieldedCoreBoss: You can blast off the cracked pieces on its chest to gain access to a nice big glowing critical hit zone. However, they regenerate every time it goes back in and out of the lava. There is also a Badass Challenge for killing it ''without'' doing this. Luckily, its mouth is also a critical hit zone, although it's much harder to hit.
[[/folder]]

!!Bandits

[[folder:In General]]

The vast criminal population of Pandora that were left behind when DAHL abandoned the planet and ditched their massive workforce on the planet, Bandits come in many shapes and sizes and fight under varying gangs and ideologies, but they almost universally share an intense [[BloodKnight blood lust]] and a less than [[StupidEvil average IQ]] thanks to their lifestyle.
----
* AlwaysChaoticEvil: You'll almost never meet a Bandit who isn't interested in killing or stealing from a passerby, and the very few you do probably aren't far from trying to kill you where you stand if they didn't have their reasons for talking to you.
* AssKickingPose: When first spotting you, many Bandits will often adopt a rallying pose to alert their fellow Bandits, sometimes dramatically pointing their finger at you to sic the whole gang. This of course leaves them wide open for some easy headshots.
* TheCavalry: For ''you'' in ''2'' when you're doing the mission "Where Angels Fear To Tread". You've finally reached the top of the mountain and you look at the sky to see Brick's Bandits in Buzzards bombing and distracting the Hyperion defense on your behalf. In levels where Bandits can receive Buzzard support, they will cheer in excitement [[AttentionWhore (or curse them for stealing the action from them)]] for the incoming air support and be very disappointed if they get shot down.
* FacelessMooks: Nearly every single one is sporting a mask, a face wrap, a large helmet or a hood to cover their faces, with a few special exceptions.
* IdiotSavant: For what it's worth, Bandits aren't half bad when it comes to building their own guns out of whatever parts and junk happens to be around, and while their quality may vary (Bandit brand weapons can be anywhere between inaccurate pea shooters to obscenely powerful light machine guns), they're still viable weapons in the most situations. Explained by them being not only the convict workforce, but also formerly sane DAHL engineers.
* MobWar: Two clan wars take the focus in ''Borderlands 2'':
** First, the Bloodshots are mounting an assault against the Firehawks when you're out searching for a kidnapped Roland, and you happen to walk in the middle of their invasion for both sides to be gunning for you.
** Then, after Brick has you join the Slabs, you invade a Bandit clan called the Sawteeth to steal their explosives and torment their leader on behalf of the clan called the Slabs.
* MiniMook: Every variant of Bandit with the exception of the Bruisers has a Midget variation to them.
* StupidEvil: With the exception of the Nomads, all Bandits are either violently insane, hopelessly dumb, or both.

!! Marauders
The human populace of any Bandit clan, Marauders form the bulk of their clan's fighting force, heading into battle with a variety of weapons and varying levels of toughness.
----
* AirborneMooks: Buzzards are armored and well armed flying machines that are piloted by Marauders (their pilot share the health bar with their Buzzard, but they're clearly Marauders).
* FromCamouflageToCriminal: Some of them are former Crimson Lance soldiers. Many of them are still wearing the old armor and several audio logs from Roland refer to Lancemen who decided not to join the Crimson Raiders and join the bandits. This generally doesn't make a difference gameplay wise, but most Badass Marauders you see are more likely to have Lance Armor (and much more likely to be former Lancemen).
* GrenadeSpam: If a Nomad issues a grenade order, all Bandits in the area will begin to toss a massive amount of explosives your way to flush you out of cover.
* MiniMook: The Shotgunner Midget, a somewhat slow and hobbling Bandit that falls backwards when they fire their shotguns at you.
* {{Mooks}}: They're the basic and most numerous Bandit type you'll be facing in most situations, and typically aren't a huge challenge in comparison to other threats.
* OhCrap: Sometimes it's their reactions to seeing a Vault Hunter using their action skills (if it isn't foolhardy taunting in the face of it), but what does consistently get them worried is [[BerserkButton shooting a Goliath's helmet off]], which causes most of them to beg you to stop or remind you why that's a terrible idea.
* ShotgunsAreJustBetter: Plenty of Marauders brandish shotguns as part of their arsenal, but one voice variation you can hear a Marauder sport in ''Borderlands 2'' takes this to an obsessive and CompanionCube degree.
--> '''SHOTGUUUN RHINOPLASTY!'''
--> ''I'll let my shotgun do the talkin'!''
--> ''You lookin' at my shotty?!'' '''Don't look at my shotty!'''
--> '''(While dying)''' ''Bury me with shotty...'''
* StupidEvil: It's a universally shared trait for most Bandits, but one voice variation a Marauder takes it to a new level in battle.
--> '''(When a live grenade lands at their feet)''' ''Hey, is that a grenade? / Weird. Grenade. / Hey what are you throwing rocks at me for?!''
--> '''(Allies are getting shot all around him)''' ''Why is everybody dying?! / They killed one of us! That's bad right?''
--> '''(Following a Nomad's cover/focus fire/grenade order)''' ''Cover! Right! What's cover? / I didn't hear that! Focus on who?! / How long do I wait after pulling the pin?!''
* SuicidalOverconfidence: Many Bandits are foolhardy, attacking even the famous and notoriously dangerous Vault Hunters despite the low odds of them winning, for no good reason other than a sincere belief in their skill.
* ZergRush: Averted most of the time, as most Marauders prefer keeping at least a little bit of distance normally, but if a Nomad issues a charge order, then all Bandits in the area will puts their weapons away, pull a buzz axe out and rush you down. This can be a little deadlier than it sounds because unlike Psychos, they're protected by both better HP and shields.

!! Psychos
The insane and motor mouthed sociopaths among the Bandit ranks, all Psychos share the combat philosophy of charging directly at their targets at high speeds to hack them apart with their buzz axes with no sense of personal safety.
----
* ActionBomb: Suicide Psychos will either bomb you with an endless grenade supply, or run up to you to blow themselves up on top of you for a massive amount of damage.
* AxCrazy: Completely off their gourd and they're brandishing axes to boot.
* BodyHorror: Badass Psychos have mutated to gigantic sizes, with one arm becoming muscle bound and twice its length while the other has atrophied considerably.
* TheGoomba: Psychos aren't very tough at all, they go down in a few hits and if they do manage to beat you into a Fight For Your Life they're easy Second Wind targets thanks to their habit of standing within gunfire range to ineffectually toss axes at you. Later on into the game/playthroughs the game throws special variations to up their threat levels, such as [[LightningBruiser Badass Psychos, Armored Psychos]], Slagged Psychos, and [[ActionBomb Suicide Psychos]].
* MascotMook: The Psycho is featured prominently on all three games' box cover art (even in The ''Pre-Sequel'' where you don't even find any in-game), and as such they're one of the series' most iconic enemies.
* TalkativeLoon: They're loud, motor mouthed psychopaths who babble bizarre or violent threats at you while they hack you apart with their axes.
* ZergRush: Their favorite tactic and is shared across all variants. Many battles against Bandits will have you have to deal with a wave of Psychos rushing you down at some point or another.

!! Bruisers
The giant and muscle-bound heavy hitters of the Bandits, Bruisers march forward in a slow but steady pace towards their targets while filling them with lead from their assault rifles/shotguns, and sometimes in the first game, [[StuffBlowingUp with an endless supply of rockets.]] Their positions as the local leaders of Bandit clans was usurped by the Nomads in the sequel.
----
* GiantMook: They are bigger and bulkier than typical bandits.
* GlowingEyesOfDoom: Badass Bruisers in the first ''Borderlands'' had a helmet that glows white around the eyes, marking them as dangerous foes. In ''Borderlands 2'', this is one of their default helmets.
* GutturalGrowler: All Bruisers speak in a gruff and boisterous voice that constantly shouts death threats at you.
* MightyGlacier: Bruisers will never move beyond their steady marching, but they have the health to back up their strategy of constantly pushing forward towards you.
* {{Nerf}}: Their overall toughness and potential arsenal was decreased between the first game and the sequel, have some of their innate resilience taken away and can no longer wield rocket launchers to bombard even the toughest of players to death. That position was taken by the Nomads instead.

!! Nomads
Introduced in ''Borderlands 2'', Nomads are the commanding presences that organizes the Bandit rabble into something resembling a fighting force, shouting orders at their subordinates to change tactics on the fly while slowly pushing forward. Basic Nomads are comparable to Bruisers in toughness and tactics, but later variants bring elemental specialization and even giant shields into battle to make them impervious from the front.
----
* AttackAttackRetreatRetreat: Capable of doing both interchangeably, they can command their men to either storm your position with full throttle or shout at them to fight defensively.
--> '''CHAAAARGE!''' '''/''' '''Overrun 'em!'''
--> '''Take cover boys! / Get behind something you morons!'''
* BadBoss: They're very cruel to their men, but they hate Midgets in particular, to the point where they either torture them endlessly or tie them to the front of their shields to cover up the hole in their defense they can't be bothered to fix properly.
* DrawAggro: Not to themselves (it'd still be a wise idea to take them out first though), but among their many commands is for them to call out one player in particular for all Bandits in their area to focus fire on. If you hear your Vault Hunter's name or description get called out, expect a lot of pain to suddenly be drawn to you.
--> Get that Assassin!
--> Men! Shoot the Siren!
--> Somebody take that Commando down!
--> The little girl![[note]]The Mechromancer/Gaige[[/note]] ''Kill her!''
* FantasticRacism: Again, they ''hate'' midgets and find any excuse to torment them, and in battle they love comparing their opponents to those horrible and worthless midgets.
--> You're worse than the ''midgets''!
--> ''Die'', midget lover!
--> Midget lovin' taint-sack!
--> ''(If their midget escapes from their shield)'' '''I. FREAKIN'. HATE MIDGETS!''' / ''You're not getting fed this month!''
* GrenadeSpam: One of their commands is to get all Bandits to hang back and start chucking grenades like there's no tomorrow in order to flush you out.
* GutturalGrowler: They speak in a deep, gruff and southern drawl.
* HumanShield: Nomad Torturers use midgets to cover their shield's weak spot, partly out of cruel pragmatism, but mostly due to their sheer hatred of midgets.
* InTheBack:
** The advisable strategy for dealing with the shield bearing variations, and is practically a requirement for killing a Badass Nomad because their shield has no weaknesses from the front.
** In the case of Pyro and Shock Nomads, shooting them in the back will case their fuel tanks to explode and damage everyone around them for the former and cause the tesla coils on their backs to shock everyone indiscriminately for the latter.
* PragmaticVillainy: What do they most want you to do besides die and let them take your gear? Leave their territory, and they definitely won't object if you decide to scram off their property.
--> JUST ''LEAVE!''
--> '''(If the player runs away and disengages from combat)''' Aaaand stay out! / Stayin' back here!
* KillItWithFire: Nomad Pyros wield incendiary bullet spewing machine guns that can double as a traditional flamethrower if you get too close.
* MightyGlacier: They're all rather slow (but the unshielded variants can enter a full sprint for a full body tackle if they feel like it), but their HP means you'll need to put in a little more effort to take down their basic variants, and need then later have to adopt entirely new strategies for dealing with their special versions.
* MookLieutenant: Nomad Torturers and Taskmasters can give commands to fellow bandits, such as ordering them to focus one specific player, charge, or take cover. Inexplicably, they feel the need to wave their shields around while doing so, giving you an opening to shoot them in the face.
* ShieldBearingMook: Their toughest variants come equipped with giant shields that block the front of their bodies. In the case of Nomad Torturers, they have a hole in their shields that they were too lazy to fix, so they used it as an excuse to tie a midget up over the hole to block it. Get rid of the midget and you can fire through that hole to hurt them.
* ShockAndAwe: Shock Nomads have giant tesla coils on their backs that will shock you if you get too close.
* StuffBlowingUp: The Heavy Nomad goes into battle with a rocket launcher, and seeing how enemies can't run out of ammo, you can expect to be dodging a lot of rockets if you don't take him down.
* ZergRush: Not by themselves, they're too slow for that, but they cause one by commanding all Bandits to charge you with their axes.

!! Goliaths
Introduced in ''Borderlands 2'', Goliaths are very large and muscular simpletons who hobble slowly towards their enemies with dual assault rifles, making childish threats. Their most peculiar trait lies in what's under their bulletproof helmets though. For one reason or another, their Bandit allies have tamed the Goliaths by placing a heavy helmet over their heads, but if it were to ever get shot off, the Goliath will fly into a screaming rage, pop their skulls and spine from their skin and begin attacking everything indiscriminately. The more kills they earn, the stronger they will get, increasing in level, size and power.
----
* AGodAmI: When reaching the level of God-liath:
--> '''BOW TO YOUR NEW GOD!'''
* BodyHorror: The Goliaths' mutations has caused their skulls and spines to pop out from their necks, which enrages them to a bloodthirsty rampage. This can apparently be solved by shoving their skull back in and preventing it from popping back out via a heavy helmet, but anyone who wants to incur their wrath is free to shoot it off.
* TheDreaded: Among Bandits, who will plead and helpfully let you know why shooting a Goliath's helmet off is a terrible idea and promptly freak out if they start getting too powerful. For the players though, Goliaths can be a fun distraction to take the edge off of themselves in a gunfight.
--> '''(Nomad)''' ''G-Goliath! I order you to stop!'' / ''We're all gonna die!''
--> '''(Psycho)''' ''This isn't fun anymore!''
--> '''(Marauders)''' "Head for the goddamn hiiills!'' / (Speaking to it like a pet dog) ''No Goliath, bad!''
* GatlingGood: Badass Goliaths wield miniguns (actually those stationary turrets you can sometimes find in Bandit strongholds).
* GroundPound: When enraged, Goliaths can wind up a powerful ground pound that kill many targets at once and will probably [[BlownAcrossTheRoom blow away a Vault Hunter]].
* InASingleBound: When enraged, Goliaths can jump massive distances to reach their target, doing a GroundPound when they land.
* ItemFarming: It's not a bad idea to try and protect/help the Goliath level up to their full potential. Whatever they kill, they multiply their EXP value by x2 and add it to their own EXP, and the higher of a level they reach, the better chances they have of dropping rare loot and valuable items such as Eridium. Just know you'll have to put him down yourself (as the enraged Goliath [[FriendlyFire can be killed by other enemies]]) if you want that payout when you're done.
* LargeHam: Without a doubt sports the largest ham of any Bandit when their helmet is off.
--> '''I'M GONNA GOUGE YOUR EYES OUT!'''
--> '''MURDERING YOU IS GONNA FEEL SO RIGHT!'''
--> '''YOU BETTER GOD DAMN SCREAM FOR ME!'''
* MetalSlime: The rare Loot Goon Goliaths and the One Armed Bandits are these. The former is a Badass Goliath with a large Dahl weapons chest strapped onto their backs, killing them lets you open the treasure chest, and farming the Goliath himself by letting him rampage lets you reap the rewards of both the Goliath's drops and his treasure chest. The latter is a Goliath with a slot machine strapped to his back, killing him allows you to play the slot machine for however long you wish, complete with all the rewards they normally give back at Sanctuary.
* SimpletonVoice: When not enraged, Goliaths speak like simpletons and make equally as simple threats.
--> Squish you!
--> Let's make face gravy!
--> Prepare for die!
* TurnsRed: Literally. Shoot their helmet off and their skin turns blood red in rage.

!! Rats
A variant of Bandits that can commonly be found either fighting alongside them or nearby in optional areas that split off from Bandit camps, the Rats are degenerated and emaciated opportunists who are, above all else, desperate for a meal. Specifically, human flesh.
----
* BanditMook: Nearly every Rat is capable of stealing items off the floor. Did you see a nice, blue or purple rarity weapon fall onto the floor? Better grab it before any of the Rats can, or else you’ll have to kill them to get it back.
** Playing this more straight is the Rat Thief, a small and mutated Rat who sneaks up on the Vault Hunters to pickpocket their money. If you just saw a couple thousand dollars suddenly vanish from your wallet, check behind you and you’ll see a Rat Thief making off with your cash. Kill him before he reaches his burrow to get it back or else your money is lost for good.
* BodyHorror: No human being should be that thin. A more straight forward example is the Lab Rat: a person who presumably fell under Hyperion experimentation and has grown a single gigantic arm and a gauntly tall and bloodied body.
* CurbStompBattle: Rats are seen ambushing Maya in the ''A Meat Bicycle Built For Two'' cinematic, and might’ve come close to killing her, but they’re no match for a [[TheBerserker rampaging and lovestruck Krieg]] [[BigDamnHeroesrushing in to save her]].
* EyeBeams: For one reason or another, Lab Rats can fire a blue ray from their eyes when they get close enough. It hits devastatingly hard, and is one of the strongest attacks in the game as far as Mook-tier firepower goes.
* FragileSpeedster: The majority of Rats fought are nimble and weak opponents who go down easy under gunfire. The exceptions to this are the Field Rats and the Lab Rats.
* FrightDeathtrap: While cutting down Rats in ‘’A Meat Bicycle Built For Two’’, Krieg grabs a Rat and starts shouting insanity into his face, making him fall over in fear. Given that he doesn’t get up later, it’s a safe bet to think he died from terror.
* GasMaskMooks: Unlike the Bandits who prefer face masks, nearly all Rats don gas masks.
* GiantMook: Lab Rats are larger and more durable than most bandit enemy types and prefer to slowly limp towards you before blasting you with their Eye Beams.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Lab Rats are being tortured by visions of ‘’something’’, which judging from their quotes are glimpses into whatever alternate dimension The Destroyer came from. Worst yet, they slip into sheer panic if Maya uses her Phaselock on them, causing them to apparently get a deeper look into their visions.
* ITasteDelicious: A variant if you burn them alive with fire.
--> '''I SMELL DELICIOUUUUS!'''
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: For a loose definition of "hero", but the events of ''The Pre-Sequel'' go into how the Rats might've came to be. [[spoiler:Colonel Zarpedon of the Lost Legion introduced a disease known as Space Hurps into the Hyperion Moonbase, getting their work force diseased with symptoms that are almost identical to the Rats from ''Borderlands 2''. The Vault Hunters get infected with the disease while working under Hyperion CEO Tassiter to quarantine the area and its victims, and find out that the disease can be vented by leaving the infected area before it can settle to its final stage. Had Tassiter and the Vault Hunters not quarantined the Infected, they likely would not have led to the condition spreading down onto Pandora and creating the Rats.]]
* NoodlePeople: They're unnaturally thin, down to the bone.
* ToServeMan: All of their quotes and taunts make it clear that they want to eat you. And if they die, they beg their Rat allies to eat them to gain their strength. Naturally they’ll oblige; if they get near a dead body a Rat can begin eating them to regain health.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Flynt]]
!Captain Flynt
!!''Burn, Baby, Burn''
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_flynt_7872.png]]
->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/JoelMcDonald

The leader of the Ripper clan of Bandits and the brother of Baron and Zane Flynt, Captain Flynt's ship ended up trapped in a glacier, stranding him and his crew in Liar's Berg. He was also the former owner of Claptrap, often using it as his personal torture doll.
----
* AxeCrazy: Has a rather unhealthy obsession with torture, fire, and gruesome acts of mutilation and murder. He even considers sending assassins after his younger brother Zane as a way of "keeping in touch".
* AnchorsAway: He carries an anchor as his melee weapon, fitting for the captain of a ship. He pounds it against the ground to create huge shockwaves if he wants to create some distance.
* AvengingTheVillain:
** In a cut dialog, he states that he has a bounty out on whomever killed his brother.
** In the Son of Crawmerax DLC, his son Sparky tries to avenge his father along with six other individuals with a beef with each of the Vault Hunters.
* BadBoss: He loves to hurt people, and since his ship is frozen in place at the moment, the only people in reach are his own men. So, uh, guess what he does.
* BattleAmongstTheFlames: Invoked in his boss battle, where he will sometimes command his ship to starting exhausting pillars of intense fire all around the deck, incinerating anyone who's standing on a vent, restricting player movement, and also warning when Captain TurnsRed.
* {{Diary}}: Apparently kept an audio diary he'd regularly speak to about his day. The part we get to hear is about the time he got the heads of his assassins sent back to him by Zane Flynt, his younger brother. [[spoiler:Turns out his diary was actually just Claptrap, and when he's talking to his diary he expects an answer back.]]
--> '''Captain:''' Sending assassins after him is just my way of keeping in touch, a little more personal than a Mercenary's Day card, you know? ''You know?!'' ({{Beat}}) '''HEY I'M ASKING YOU A QUESTION, DIARY!'''
--> '''Claptrap:''' I'm so sorry Captain! I got distracted!
* HeavyMetalUmlaut: As seen above, his BossSubtitles use these. Over the "n"s, too, so it's a [[Film/ThisIsSpinalTap Spinal Tap]] thing.
* HisNameReallyIsBarkeep: The official strategy guide confirms that his first name actually is "Captain" and lampshades the Flynt family's odd naming methods. According to him, [[WhoNamesTheirKidDude his parents were douchebags]]. Averted in the case of his brother Zane and son Sparky Flynt.
* InsistentTerminology: Forgetting the "Captain" is a good way to get him to torture you. Not that he needs much of an excuse to do that.
* KingMook: He's essentially a gigantic Pyro Nomad in fighting style, though he brings an anchor to deliver a GroundPound unlike them.
* OlderThanTheyLook: You never see his face, but he's still a fit and powerful combatant. However, he has an adult son, and is the ''older'' brother of Zane, whose hair is fully gray.
* {{Pirate}}: Ostensibly, he and his men are this, with the obvious clue being Flynt's [[AnchorsAway weaponized anchor]], but also with their ship stuck on the Southern Shelf thanks to a flash freeze, [[TortureTechnician they obviously have to find]] [[RapePillageAndBurn other ways to entertain themselves.]]
* PyroManiac: His ship has a giant dragon head attached that breathes fire, the arena you fight him on has several vents that shoot out fire, he uses an incendiary pistol to fight you, and he likes to cover himself in flames. As such, he's also highly resistant to fire damage.
* StarterVillain: The first bandit leader you encounter in the game before the plot really starts kicking off.
* TheyCallMeMisterTibbs: Seriously, call him Captain Flynt. You have little excuse not to, though, since it's both a title ''and'' his first name.
* TortureTechnician: Really likes his torture, especially if Claptrap is the one on the receiving end.
* TurnsRed: Sometimes in battle, he will cloak himself in flames and become impervious to damage while shouting in anger. The only things that can damage him during this event are headshots and explosive weapons.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Boom-Bewm]]
!Boom-Bewm
!!''Boom... and his brother Bewm''
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Boom_bewm_4485.png]]
->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/EricVale

The lieutenant of Captain Flynt, Boom-Bewm consists of explosive-loving bandits Boom and his midget brother Bewm.
----
* {{BFG}}: Boom begins the fight on a huge cannon aptly named "Big Bertha". After shooting it enough, he'll get down and fight you directly.
* DualBoss: Boom mans the cannon, while Bewm flies around on a jetpack.
* EarlyBirdBoss: Both brothers and the cannon are all armoured, and it's unlikely a corrosive weapon will have generated on a first playthrough, making them soak up vastly more gunfire than any enemy before. Balanced by the fact the player will likely have a level advantage on them.
* FlunkyBoss: Defeating one of them causes Psychos to spawn in pairs periodically until the other one's dead.
* JetPack: They don't seem to grant full flight, but boost jumps quite a bit.
* MadBomber: They're complete nutjobs who love warship cannons and grenades. Both also use Torgue shotguns when on foot, and they have a chance to drop the Bonus Package, a Legendary Grenade Mod that spawns a ridiculous amount of child grenades.
* PostApunkalypticArmor: The pair of them are the first armored bandits the player sees (and the only ones in the first playthrough), and their armor is clearly made of scrap metal welded together.
* SiblingTeam: "Boom-Bewm" is the team of explosives expert Boom and his midget shotgunner brother Bewm.
* ThisIsForEmphasisBitch: "Light the fuses, bitches!"
* VerbalTic: Boom loves saying the word "boom!" Claptrap lampshades this out after you defeat him.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Flanksteak]]
!Flanksteak
->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/JohnSwasey

The leader of the Bloodshot bandits that antagonize the town of Sanctuary, and is later seen waging a turf war against the Firehawk.
----
* ComicallySmallBribe: Inverted: Comically Small Ransom. He captures Roland and tries to ransom him to Hyperion for millions of dollars, but Hyperion would much rather send killer robots to retrieve Roland themselves than pay money to the bandits. Flanksteak keeps trying to lower the bid on the ransom, until it's just twenty bucks, doubly humorous if you've [[NewGamePlus gotten to a point]] in that game where any cash pickup can give you four-digit sums.
* CutHisHeartOutWithASpoon: Flanksteak is fond of really graphic and esoteric threats.
* TheUnfought: Flanksteak is never fought or even seen in person, even when you storm Bloodshot headquarters; apparently [[spoiler:he was killed when Handsome Jack sent Hyperion forces to kidnap Roland.]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Bad Maw]]
!Bad Maw

The key keeper and guardian of the Bloodshot Stronghold's front gate.
----
* ThreePointLanding: His dramatic entrance ends with this when he [[RuleOfCool jumps on a drawbridge that has not even been fully drawn]].
* KingMook: He's a massive Nomad Torturer who's twice the size of a regular one and sports 3 chained Midgets instead of 1 on his shield. Other than that, he's identical to them in fighting style and weaknesses.
* PeninsulaOfPowerLeveling: He is one of the bosses who always spawns near a Fast Travel Station (just the outside entrance of the Bloodshot Stronghold), making him a good boss for farming Eridium early in the game. This also makes him a good target for the "Short Chained", the "Badass Bingo", or any weapon-specific Badass Challenges.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Face [=McShooty=]]]
!Face [=McShooty=]
->'''Voiced by:''' Chris Cason

A member of the Slabs clan of bandits you encounter on Thousand Cuts. Face [=McShooty=] just wants you to shoot him in the face.
----
* AchillesHeel: The only way to kill him, or even hurt him, is to shoot him in the face.
* BoomHeadshot: His calling in life.
* DeathSeeker: He ''really'' wants you to shoot him in the face.
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: His name is Face [=McShooty=] and he gives you a quest called "Shoot This Guy in the Face". Try and figure out what the objective is.
* FamousLastWords: "THANK YOU!"
* LargeHam: He screams everything he says to you with extreme glee.
-->'''Face:''' SHOOT ME IN THE FACE! IN THE FAAACE! NOT ON THE ARM, NOT IN THE SPINE, IN THE FAAAAACE!!!
* MadeOfIron[=/=]NoSell: Shooting him in the face is the ''only'' way to kill him. Shooting him elsewhere just angers him.
* MeaningfulName: His name is exactly what he wants you to do to him.
* NoIndoorVoice[=/=]MotorMouth: Doesn't shut up about how he wants you to shoot him in the face.
* OverlyLongGag: Just about anything describing this guy (from the quest, to his name, to ''this very entry'') makes it abundantly clear what he wants you to do (shoot him in the face).
* SophisticatedAsHell
-->"I NOTICE YOU DIDN'T SHOOT ME IN THE FACE YET! CURIOUS AS TO WHY! Maybe you are weighing the moral pros and cons, but let me assure you that OHMYGODJUSTSHOOTMEINTHEGODDAMNFACE!!!"
* SuicideByCop: Doesn't want to shoot himself in the face. Wants ''you'' to shoot him in the face.
* TalkativeLoon: Hoo boy.
-->"IT HAS TO HAPPEN! HNNNG! FACEY FACEY FACE FACE! TIRED OF WAITING! NO MORE WAITING! NEED A FACESHOT! BOOM! SQUISH! YAY!\\
"AT THE SOUND OF THE BELL IT WILL BE FACESHOOTING O'CLOCK! BONG! KNOCK KNOCK! WHO'S THERE? SHOOT ME IN THE FACE! END OF JOKE!
* ZeroEffortBoss: You just gotta shoot him in the face. Lampshaded by the achievement/trophy for the mission: "Well, That Was Easy".

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Flesh-Stick]]
!Flesh-Stick
->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/SonnyStrait

A Psycho bandit who is encountered in the Tundra Express. Tiny Tina wants you to "invite" him as the "guest of honor" for her tea party....
----
* AintTooProudToBeg: His final words are him screaming "I'm sorry!" in a desperate and futile attempt to get Tina to spare him.
* AssholeVictim: He thoroughly ''deserves'' what Tina does to him.
* AttackAttackRetreatRetreat: He goes from angrily threatening Tina to taunting rants to pathetically begging for his life within a matter of minutes as the Vault Hunter guns down his flunkies.
* AxCrazy: Being a Psycho automatically qualifies him, though he's saner than most. Note that by "saner" we mean "not spouting constant nonsense that usually involves meat and fluid".
* DelinquentHair: The only thing distinguishing him from generic Psychos is his mohawk.
* TheDreaded: Just ''seeing'' him again makes Tina terrified due to the trauma she has due to him.
* ElectricTorture:
** Tina repeatedly zaps him while the tea party progresses, culminating in him being ''vaporized''.
** In the Tiny Tina DLC, rolling Flesh-Stick in the Tina slots causes an electric grenade to drop out with Tina screaming "Flesh-Stick? DIE!"
* IWantThemAlive: On the receiving end; in a departure from most quests, Tina requests that you ''not'' kill Flesh-Stick so that she can do the honors herself.
* KickTheDog: He actively taunts Tina over the deaths of her parents when she's holding the tea party, only stopping once it's clear his fellow bandits won't be able to save him.
* NotSoDifferent: He compares Tina to himself, saying that the deaths of her parents made her ''strong''.
* PeninsulaOfPowerLeveling: It was formerly possible for players to grind Flesh-Stick for a good chunk of experience for the sake of power-leveling by continually killing him and respawning him by restarting the quest he was involved in. [[ObviousRulePatch It has since been patched]], with Flesh-Stick giving ''no'' experience upon death.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Assassins Quartet]]
!!Assassins Oney, Reeth, Rouf and Wot
----
Four assassins hired by Jack to investigate whether an old Vault Hunter really is alive.

* BossRush: You fight all four of them in succession in the same area.
* DeathByIrony: Each has a WeaponOfChoice, or at least a weapon type. An optional objective is to kill them with their favourite type of weapon.
* DumbMuscle:
** Jack considers them as such, although whether they're genuinely stupid is left ambiguous.
** Tannis notes that at least Reeth, Rouf and Wot's names are anagrams of the numbers they chose. Oney... is a lot less creative in this department.
* KingMook: Functionally, they're beefed-up versions of different bandit types. Wot is a Marauder, Oney is a Nomad, Reeth is a Psycho, and Rouf is a Rat.
* ThemeNaming: As mentioned before, their names are anagrams of the numbers One, Two, Three, and Four. Or rather, everyone's but Oney's is.

[[/folder]]

----

* AttackAttackRetreatRetreat: He goes from angrily threatening Tina to taunting rants to pathetically begging for his life within a matter of minutes.

* DelinquentHair: The only thing distinguishing him from generic Psychos is his mohawk.

* MetalSlime: It was formerly possible for players to grind Flesh-Stick for a good chunk of experience for the sake of power-leveling by continually killing him and respawning him by restarting the quest he was involved in. It has since been patched, with Flesh-Stick giving ''no'' experience upon death.

** Played straight with [[spoiler:Angel]], which makes how he [[spoiler:treats her all the worse. He becomes genuinely terrified when Angel begs you to kill her, reduced to sincerely pleading with the Vault Hunters not to harm his "baby girl." After she dies, he refuses to take any responsibility for her death, calling off the bounty on your head so he can kill you himself, apparently not aware (or outright denying) that Angel herself chose death to escape him.]] In the ''Pre-Sequel'', [[spoiler:he keeps a [[http://38.media.tumblr.com/956ce048f54fb0d4d9f4669c7035127d/tumblr_ndi72zPdiJ1ryaargo1_1280.jpg picture of Angel as a child]] on the desk of his office.]] In Episode 4 of ''VideoGame/TalesFromTheBorderlands,'' the same picture is still on his desk, and you can choose for Rhys to comment on it, to which Holo!Jack suddenly becomes very solemn and asks if Rhys could bring him to visit him after dealing with taking over Hyperion, [[HarsherInHindsight, completely unaware that she's been dead for a while.]] After Helios crashes, Jack says that he went through the Hyperion database and learned that she was dead all over again, and [[HeelRealization admits that she didn't have a choice but to choose death over staying with him.]]

* GoForTheEye: All variants except Super Badass Loaders take critical hits from bullets to their optic.

--> ''(When on fire)'' '''Ow. No no no. Stop it. Please.'''

** If in ''VideoGame/TalesFromTheBorderlands,'' if you choose have Rhys sympathize aloud with the recently-murdered Henderson, Jack asks him if he was aware (he wasn't) that Henderson was a "massive racist," and partook in dog-fighting ''with kittens.''

-->'''Jack''': I punched my mom, for chrissakes!

** Mentions in the ''Pre-Sequel'' that he loves his grandmother. Due to the entry in AbusiveParents above, he probably means his ''other'' grandmother.

--->'''Jack:''' I punch my mom for Christ's sake!

** Played straight with [[spoiler:Angel]], which makes how he [[spoiler:treats her all the worse. He becomes genuinely terrified when Angel begs you to kill her, reduced to sincerely pleading with the Vault Hunters not to harm his "baby girl." After she dies, he refuses to take any responsibility for her death, calling off the bounty on your head so he can kill you himself, apparently not aware (or outright denying) that Angel herself chose death to escape him.]] In the ''Pre-Sequel'', [[spoiler:he keeps a [[http://38.media.tumblr.com/956ce048f54fb0d4d9f4669c7035127d/tumblr_ndi72zPdiJ1ryaargo1_1280.jpg picture of Angel as a child]] on the desk of his office.]] In Episode 4 of ''VideoGame/TalesFromTheBorderlands,'' the same picture is still on his desk, and you can choose for Rhys to comment on it, to which Holo!Jack suddenly becomes very solemn and asks if Rhys could bring him to visit him after dealing with taking over Hyperion, [[HarsherInHindsight, completely unaware that she's been dead for a while.]] After Heliois crashes, Jack says that he went through the Hyperion database and learned that she was dead all over again, and [[HeelRealization admits that she didn't have a choice but to choose death over staying with him.]]
* In one instance on his Reddit AMA, someone asked if gay marriage was legal on Pandora, and he answered in the affirmative, and seemed confused at the idea that it might not be legal in other places.
* If in ''VideoGame/TalesFromTheBorderlands,'' if you choose have Rhys sympathize aloud with the recently-murdered Henderson, Jack asks him if he was aware (he wasn't) that Henderson was a "massive racist," and partook in dog-fighting ''with kittens.''

* ButForMeItWasTuesday: In ''Tales'', Vasquez says he had a "special rapport" with Jack. Admittedly, that rapport was that Jack punched him in the face every time they met. Jack [[spoiler:or rather, the Handsome Jack AI in Rhys's head]], sees things differently and literally cannot remember Vasquez at all because he just ''punched that many people every day.''

->''"Hey kids, do you know what your mommies and daddies gave up to live here in Opportunity? Literally nothing! ''You're paid to be here!'' I'm the one who feeds and protects everyone. [[{{Narcissist}} Remember, we should all love our parents, but love me more."]]''

** [[spoiler:{{Subverted}} when he sends the Vault Hunters to check up on his grandmother, and seems genuinely worried. Once you get there and find she's been murdered by bandits, Jack reveals that he's the one who hired the bandits to kill her, and sent you to her house to make ''absolutely sure'' she was dead.]]
** Played straight with [[spoiler:Angel]], which makes how he [[spoiler:treats her all the worse. He becomes genuinely terrified when Angel begs you to kill her, reduced to sincerely pleading with the Vault Hunters not to harm his "baby girl". After she dies, he refuses to take any responsibility for her death, calling off the bounty on your head so he can "avenge" her himself, apparently not aware (or outright denying) that Angel herself chose death to escape him.]] In the ''Pre-Sequel'', [[spoiler:he keeps a [[http://38.media.tumblr.com/956ce048f54fb0d4d9f4669c7035127d/tumblr_ndi72zPdiJ1ryaargo1_1280.jpg picture of Angel as a child]] on the desk of his office.]]
** Zigzagged in regards to his girlfriend, Nisha. [[spoiler:After you kill her, he actually seems ''surprised'' that he's "a little pissed off" that his girlfriend's dead.]] For her part, Nisha likes Jack just fine but doesn't share his grand vision.
** In ''Tales'', Jack [[spoiler:or rather, the Jack A.I. in Rhys' head]] flat-out admits that he's punched his own mother.
** Also in ''Tales'', one scannable item reveals that there was one person who became depressed when Jack died: [[spoiler:Butt Stallion, who went into an AngstComa and became an inert statue.]]

* ActionBomb: EXP Loaders are nimble and fragile robots that sprint at their targets when they've seen them, before overloading their power cores to explode on top of them.

* EliteMooks: SGT Loaders are dedicated combat units who lack some of the weaknesses their regular Loader counterparts have: namely, their joints are protected by heavy armor and they sport more health and better weapons.

* MacrossMissileMassacre: Badass Constructors can launch a volley of homing missiles to their opponents.

* NoSell: Badass Constructors will place an energy shield in front of their eye that reflects attacks when they're preparing a nuke.
* NukeEm: Badass Constructors have an uncommon attack where they'll stop what they're doing to open their top compartment and unleash a nuclear missile that homes in on a targets last known location. The blast radius is gigantic and is obviously fatal.

The Hyperion workforce that does much of the manual labor needed to construct Hyperion installations, they're all overworked, under payed, abused and under orders to open fire on any intruder that gets too close to their construction area. They're separated between Engineers and Combat Engineers, the former utilizes construction tools such as jackhammers and cutting lasers to fight while the latter uses traditional guns instead,

* HumanShield: To drive the point home on how little Hyperion cares about their human workers, Engineers are advised to let the Loaders handle the heavy lifting of construction while they distract the local Bandits by drawing gunfire away from the robots to themselves instead.
* PunchClockVillain: By all means they're ordinary people who work for the villains corporation, but they're still rather ruthless and sour thanks to being under orders to either fight the Vault Hunters or face whatever punishment Hyperion has for a disobedient worker.

-->See: ''Characters/BorderlandsThePreSequel''

-->See: ''Characters/BorderlandsThePreSequel''

See: ''Characters/BorderlandsThePreSequel''

See: ''Characters/BorderlandsThePreSequel''

* AvengingTheVillain: In cut dialog, he states that he has a bounty out on whomever killed his brother.

* {{Pirate}}: Ostensibly, he and his men are this, but with their ship stuck on the Southern Shelf thanks to a flash freeze, [[TortureTechnician they obviously have to find]] [[RapePillageAndBurn other ways to entertain themselves.]]

* ComicallySmallBribe: Inverted: Comically Small Ransom. He captures Roland and tries to ransom him to Hyperion for millions of dollars, but Hyperion would much rather send killer robots than pay money. Flanksteak keeps trying to lower the bid on the ransom, until it's just twenty bucks, doubly humorous if you've gotten to a point in that game where any cash pickup can give you four-digit sums.

* KingMook: He's a massive Nomad Torturer who's twice the size of a regular one and sports 3 Midgets instead of 1 on his shield. Other than that, he's identical to them in fighting style and weaknesses.
* PeninsulaOfPowerLeveling: He is one of the bosses who spawns near a Fast Travel Station (just the entrance of the Bloodshot Stronghold), making him a good boss for farming Eridium early in the game.

* ElectricTorture: Tina repeatedly zaps him while the tea party progresses, culminating in him being ''vaporized''.

** Tannis notes that at least Reeth, Rouf and Wot's names are anagrams of the numbers they chose. Oney...is a lot less creative in this department.

Introduced in ''2'', Goliaths are very large and muscular simpletons who hobble slowly towards their enemies with dual assault rifles, making childish threats. Their most peculiar trait lies in what's under their bulletproof helmets though. For one reason or another, their Bandit allies have tamed the Goliaths by placing a heavy helmet over their heads, but if it were to ever get shot off, the Goliath will fly into a screaming rage, pop their skulls and spine from their skin and begin attacking everything indiscriminately. The more kills they earn, the stronger they will get, increasing in level, size and power.

* ItemFarming: It's not a bad idea to try and protect/help the Goliath level up to their full potential. Whatever they kill, they multiply their EXP value by x2 and add it to their own EXP, and the higher of a level they reach, the better chances they have of dropping valuable items. Just know you'll have to put him down yourself if you want that payout when you're done.

* CurbStompBattle: Rats are seen ambushing Maya in the ‘’A Meat Bicycle Built For Two’’ cinematic, and might’ve come close to killing her, but they’re no match for a [[TheBerserker rampaging and lovestruck Krieg rushing in to save her.]]

--> ‘’’I SMELL DELICIOUUUUS!’’’
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: For a loose definition of ‘hero’, but the events of The Pre-Sequel go into how the Rats might’ve came to be. [[spoiler:Colonel Zarpedon of the Lost Legion introduced a disease known as Space Hurps into the Hyperion Moonbase, getting their work force diseased with symptoms that are almost identical to the Rats from Borderlands 2. The Vault Hunters get infected with the disease while working under Hyperion CEO Tassiter to quarantine the area and its victims, and find out that the disease can be vented by leaving the infected area before it can settle to its final stage. Had Tassiter and the Vault Hunters not quarantined the Infected, they likely would not have led to the condition spreading down onto Pandora and creating the Rats.]]
* NoodlePeople: They’re unnaturally thin, down to the bone.

* GrenadeSpam: If a Nomad issues a grenade order, all Bandits in the area will begin to toss a massive amount of explosives your way to flush you out.

* ShotgunsAreJustBetter: Plenty of Marauders brandish shotguns as part of their arsenal, but one voice variation you can hear a Marauder sport in ''2'' takes this to an obsessive and CompanionCube degree.

* MascotMook: The Psycho is featured prominently on all three games' box cover art (even in The Pre-Sequel where you don't even find any ingame), and as such they're one of the series' most iconic enemies.

The giant and muscle-bound heavy hitters of the Bandits, Bruisers march forward in a slow but steady pace towards their targets while filling them with lead from their assault rifles/shotguns, and sometimes in ''1'', [[StuffBlowingUp with an endless supply of rockets.]] Their positions as the local leaders of Bandit clans was usurped by the Nomads in ''2''.

* GlowingEyesOfDoom: Badass Bruisers in ''1'' had a helmet that glows white around the eyes, marking them as dangerous foes. In ''2'', this is one of their default helmets.

* {{Nerf}}: Their overall toughness and potential arsenal was decreased between ''1'' and ''2'', have some of their innate resilience taken away and can no longer wield rocket launchers to bombard even the toughest of players to death. That position was taken by the Nomads instead.

Introduced in ''2'', Nomads are the commanding presences that organizes the Bandit rabble into something resembling a fighting force, shouting orders at their subordinates to change tactics on the fly while slowly pushing forward. Basic Nomads are comparable to Bruisers in toughness and tactics, but later variants bring elemental specialization and even giant shields into battle to make them impervious from the front.

* InTheBack: The advisable strategy for dealing with the shield bearing variations, and is practically a requirement for killing a Badass Nomad because their shield has no weaknesses from the front.

* AlwaysChaoticEvil: You'll almost never meet a Bandit who isn't interested in killing or stealing from a passerby, and the very few you do probably aren't far from tryin to kill you where you stand if they didn't have their reasons for talking to you.

* TheCavalry: For ''you'' in ''2'' when you're doing the mission ''Where Angels Fear To Tread''. You've finally reached the top of the mountain and you look at the sky to see Bricks Bandits in Buzzards bombing and distracting the Hyperion defense on your behalf. In levels where Bandits can receive Buzzard support, they will cheer in excitement [[AttentionWhore (or curse them for stealing the action from them)]] for the incoming air support and be very disappointed if they get shot down.

* MobWar: Two clan wars take the focus in ''2''. First, the Bloodshots are mounting an assault against the Firehawks when you're out searching for a kidnapped Roland, and you happen to walk in the middle of their invasion for both sides to be gunning for you. Then, after Brick has you join the Slabs, you invade a Bandit clan called the Sawteeth to steal their explosives and torment their leader on behalf of the clan called the Slabs.
** An optional series of sidequests from Ellie lets you provoke one between two rival clans, the Zafords and Hodunks. One of the later Headhunter DLC packs lets you help Moxxi patch things up between them again.

* LanternJawOfJustice: Jack starts the Pre-Sequel with a cleft chin, which slowly "falls" throughout the game and goes completely flush when Lilith scars him.

* NeverMyFault: [[spoiler:He blames the Vault Hunters for Angel's death, refusing to acknowledge the fact that he drove her into desiring death]].
* TheNicknamer: He's fond of calling people people condescending pet names such as "Kiddo", "Pumpkin" or "Cupcake". In the case of the Vault Hunters, he generally calls them Bandits or later on, [[spoiler:Child-killers]].

* NothingPersonal: When he first "welcomes" the Vault Hunters to Pandora via exploding monorail, he actually prints the words on a sign for them to see before they die. His continued attempts to kill them and everyone they associate with develop gradually from that motive to ItsPersonal as the plot unfolds, and his attitude develops accordingly from a sort of amused disinterest to icy, homicidal fixation.

** In the Pre-Sequel, after he [[spoiler:kills Gladstone and the other scientists]], Zarpedon calls him up and compliments his willingness to do what it takes, stating that the two are the same. Jack simply ignores her words and considers her a lunatic.
** Jack claims to be on Pandora to overthrow the local bandits and create order. The way he runs Hyperion (and, if Tales from the Borderlands is anything to go by, the way others will run it thereafter) is not terribly different from conditions on Pandora itself. {{Klingon Promotion}}s are observed and you get to the top by being a bigger bastard than everyone else.

* OffscreenVillainy: He's mentioned to have done horrific slag mutation experiments against Pandoran citizens in the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve, burned down New Haven, massacred whole towns as his army swept across Pandora and launched a 3-year-war against Sanctuary and the Raiders...but we don't get to see any of it, and only hear it in ECHO logs.

* PreAssKickingOneLiner: "Hey, you're right on time - Key's nearly ready! But before I cleanse this planet for good, I am gonna avenge my daughter!"
* PromotedToPlayable: In a sense. Jack's body double is the first DLC character of The Pre-Sequel. However, the two are completely different characters and Timothy proves to be much more moral and sane than the real Jack.

** What's most unsettling about him is that the more someone deviates from his expectations, the more enraged he gets. And he ''never lets it go''. [[spoiler:This is shown in the ''Pre-Sequel'', where Moxxi tries to kill him because of what a dangerous bastard he is... which causes him to declare a massive case of [[ItsPersonal "It's Personal"]] and take a step closer to being the utter psycho we see in Borderlands 2]].

* TotallyRadical: His video featuring tips on surviving Elpis for the Pre-Sequel is peppered with strained attempts at being current which are made doubly hilarious given that his presumed audience for it consists of three (or five) gritty adults and a weathered robot.

* VoiceWithAnInternetConnection: Seems to be able to track you over your journey through his info network, and will regularly call you up to berate and insult you.

* WeaponOfChoice: His arm cannons, of course. However, in Borderlands 2, he [[spoiler:kills Roland]] using what looks like a purple-rarity Hyperion pistol, made up of only Hyperion parts, and it appears in Episode 4 of ''VideoGame/TalesFromTheBorderlands'', in the display case inside his office.

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: He generally prefers to kill folks rather than pay them, as demonstrated by him sending bots after Roland and the Bloodshots after the former was captured. [[spoiler:He also does this with some bandits he sent to kill his grandma by sending you to kill them, though he does at least end up paying you in the end. He attempts to do this to the Vault Hunters after breeching Sanctuary, but repeatedly fails (no thanks to Angel helping them out).]]
** The Claptastic Voyage DLC of the Pre-Sequel shows that after obtaining the H-Source, the first thing he did was to use it to destroy all Claptrap units before personally executing Fragtrap himself out of frustration for putting up with his crap. He first foreshadows this when his team reaches Eleseer, telling Fragtrap that his new robot army is making him look incredibly redundant.
* YouKilledMyFather: Inverted; the heroes assist his daughters suicide. He's ''pissed.''

* GiverOfLameNames: Aside from Butt Stallion, Jack is the reason why Hyperion guns use corporate buzzwords like synergy, networking, face-time, and so on (his justification being that they are "weapons for smart sons of bitches made by smart sons of bitches"). Nisha even acknowledges the fact that he's terrible at naming things, stating that were it up to him Lynchwood would be New New Haven. This extends even beyond the fourth wall, with Jack claiming in the Pre-Sequel trailer that he came up with the word "Pre-Sequel."

* HeroBall: Related to the above: He is so convinced that he's the hero that he will occasionally do stupid things because "[[ContractualGenreBlindness that's what heroes do.]]" Such as when he tortures [[spoiler:Tannis]], but lets her live, thinking he's being "merciful."

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Jack developed the Vaulthunter.exe program that would enable Claptrap to become the Fragtrap. [[spoiler:The functional core of that programming was what would become Shadowtrap]]. When Jack [[spoiler:betrays and shoots Claptrap and dumps him in the frozen tundra, Shadowtrap manages to keep Claptrap functional until Sir Hammerlock saves him]]. And in the end, Claptrap is the key to the Vault Hunters in ''Borderlands 2'' being able to both [[spoiler:shut down the gates that lead to Angel]] and reach Jack himself. So effectively, Jack wrote the program that would lead to his own destruction.
** Similarly, [[spoiler:Jack lured the new Vault Hunters to Pandora in order to use them as pawns to expose and destroy Sanctuary.]] Yeah, that ended poorly for him.
* {{Hypocrite}}: He views [[spoiler:Angel's suicide-by-vault-hunter]] as the the murder of an innocent girl, and regularly calls the Vault Hunters "child-killers" after it happens, but he himself has implicitly, and in one case very explicitly, killed children, including those of his ''own employees''. In addition, he ruthlessly mocks [[spoiler:Helena Pierce's facial scars]], in spite of the fact that [[spoiler:he himself is scarred under his mask.]] Also, despite disliking his former boss calling him John, [[MaliciousMisnaming he does the same thing when referring to Jeffery Blake as "Jimmy"]]. And, as mentioned above, he considers death a perfectly suitable punishment for swearing and often chastises [[spoiler:Angel]] for doing so. This does not stop him from throwing the odd swear word around.
** "Did you know some people on Pandora still believe in silly superstitions like angels, demons, and ancient alien warriors? We like to call them bandits." This is obviously hypocritical because his primary goal is to control "The Warrior" which is literally an ancient alien warrior.

* ItsPersonal: The death of [[spoiler:his daughter]] does not go over well.
-->'''Jack:''' ''(on the planet-wide ECHO)'' People of Pandora... [[spoiler:my daughter]] is... dead. Murdered. By [[spoiler:the Vault Hunter]]. So I've decided -- I am rescinding the bounty on [[spoiler:the Vault Hunter]]. If you should kill that child-murdering sonofabitch [[TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou before I do]]? I will find you. And you will regret denying me my vengeance.

** JerkassHasAPoint: He's right about Pandora being an uncivilized planet filled to the brim with bandits and in desperate need of order and stability. But then again, he's just as bad, if not ''worse'', than plenty of them. He even acknowledges this in ''Tales'', believing he should've tried to be more diplomatic while sparing those who weren't actually all that bad.
** JerkWithAHeartOfGold: In ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'', he was still kind of a jerk, but ultimately heroic and genuinely DID want to save Elpis and it's inhabitants. This aspect of his personality gets obliterated by the end of the game, though.
* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'' shows how he went all the way down (though following the 'Getting to Know Jack' sidequests in ''2'' gives the context that he was already too far gone even before that - having locked up Angel for his own gain and manipulated the events of the first game - and later in ''The Pre-Sequel'' it's revealed he used the Eye of the Destroyer to make a WaveMotionGun with intent to wipe out 'bandit camps'. Moxxi even says that part of the reason she dumped him was that she saw under his mask of heroism that he was ''already'' a psychopathic monster), starting from a heroic-minded programmer who was in over his head and gradually descending through one questionable moral decision to another, pushed by the need to save Elpis from certain destruction. One event leads to another: Watching the Lost Legion massacre the Helios personnel leaves him angry and desperate, [[spoiler:being betrayed by the Merriff]] leads to growing paranoia and vindictiveness, [[spoiler:forcibly tearing apart Felicity's mind]] leads to a willingness to make morally-questionable calls for the greater good, and both rear their ugly heads when [[spoiler:Jack throws his own scientists out an airlock on the suggestion that one of them ''might'' be a traitor]]. Then he is [[spoiler:betrayed by Moxxi, who tries to destroy Jack and the Eye of Helios together because she believes Jack is a deep-seated psychopath with too much power, and his questionable actions and megalomania have only confirmed that suspicion]], which drives him from desperate paranoia to outright hatred and rage, and culminates in [[spoiler:Lilith scarring him when she destroys the Vault relic]], which finally drives him over the deep end. Throughout the story this gets highlighted by the sidequests he gives out: at first he just wants you to help retake Helios, but then he asks you to [[spoiler:deface the Merriff's memory]], then he has you help him create new weapons on Helios, including a mission where he outright uses a defecting Dahl soldier as a test-dummy for his Moonshot cannon. This is followed by a mission to [[spoiler:rebuild the Eye of Helios]] were Jack is ranting and shouting at the player in fury and frustration. Finally, late in the game, he's consumed by nothing but rage and greed, and is ordering the player to execute surrendering Dahl soldiers and telling them to stop and kill ''everything'' in their path, screaming down their objections by telling them that they can't leave any enemies alive to stab them in the back.

** Later, when it's shields are down, he opens fire on Sanctuary with multiple mortar barrages, with all of it's civilians still inside.

* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: Mentions in the ''Pre-Sequel'' that he loves his grandmother. Due to the entry in AbusiveParents above, he probably means his ''other'' grandmother.

** [[spoiler:Subverted when he sends the Vault Hunters to check up on his grandmother, and seems genuinely worried. Once you get there and find she's been murdered by bandits, Jack reveals that he's the one who hired the bandits to kill her, and sent you to her house to make ''absolutely sure'' she was dead.]]

** In ''Tales'', Jack [[spoiler:or rather, the Jack AI in Rhys' head]] flat-out admits that he's punched his own mother.
** Also in ''Tales'' one scannable item reveals that there was one person who became depressed when Jack died: [[spoiler:Butt Stallion, who went into an AngstComa and became an inert statue.]]

* EvilIsPetty: Evidently Jack has nothing better to do with his time than annoy the Vault Hunters with insults, threats, and bragging about how awesome he is. As the game progresses, he gets more and more serious, with his ECHO transmissions only coming when you catch his attention or he gets ''angry''. At the same time, he upgrades from taunting you to gradually mounting determination to kill you to eventually screaming in periodic outbursts of fury.

** TheUnfettered: After becoming Handsome Jack, he does pretty much whatever he feels like, reasoning that he's a hero, and therefore anything he does (no matter how twisted or depraved) is heroic.

* ArmCannon: In his boss fight, his two wristwatches become laser cannons. In ''Videogame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'', he uses wrist-mounted guns that shoot electric blasts that his Doppelganger can also use.

** It's a Borderlands game, it'd be more of a surprise for this not to happen.
** Averted initially in the Pre-Sequel as, while he does try to fight, he gets his face punched in by a few Mooks that he later orders you to handily dispatch moments later. He gets better as the story progresses though.

* BadassNormal: Amoral as he is, he definitely qualifies. The few times he steps into the field himself, he proves himself capable of handling quite a few threats through merely anticipating the actions his foes may take. Even as early as the ''Pre-Sequel'' he's pretty capable with his Arm Cannons, and was capable of holding his own and surviving solo against the Lost Legion for quite some time.
** By ''2'' he's regarded as the biggest badass on Pandora, to the point where just seeing him in person and living causes the Vault Hunters to gain a godlike reputation. His skills aren't exactly overrated either;[[spoiler:he kills Roland and takes down Lilith, both extremely powerful former Vault Hunters]], in the span of a few seconds. Heck, even during his boss fight, he's pretty skilled and he ''will'' get you into FFYL if you aren't quick enough. He's quite the bruiser too, if other dialogues have any merit; ripping out throats, strangling people who talk too much, and punching people so hard he chips their teeth (in Vasquez's case) seem to be pretty common things for him.

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: In ''The Pre-Sequel'', Nakayama creates a questionnaire for Jack so that he can make an AI with Jack's personality. Jack's answer to the question "[[spoiler:How would you like to die]]?" is "[[spoiler:[[ExactWords Somewhere warm, with a hot chick nearby]]]]." Jack is eventually [[spoiler:killed in the middle of a LethalLavaLand, standing next to Lilith, and is killed by either her or the player]].

* BeneathTheMask: It's clear from the beginning that he's wearing a mask, with the paler tone of the mask compared to his forehead and arms, and what look like staples keeping the mask in place. [[spoiler:Underneath it, he's been branded by a Vault symbol, which has also taken out his left eye.]]

* BenevolentBoss: Though he's primarily a BadBoss, [[spoiler:the AI version of him]] admits that, as shown in ''The Pre-Sequel'', he always watches out for his team, that being the people who work alongside him directly on missions. For instance, he gave Nisha an entire town and was prepared to make good on his offer of money to Athena, and never betrayed them. However, this is purely situational as shown by [[spoiler:his eventual poisoning of Wilhelm]], and God help you if you aren't on his team.

** He's deeply narcissistic and will go ballistic if you destroy his statues in Opportunity.

* BreakoutVillain: A rare example where this trope applies to a BigBad. Handsome Jack is regarded as one of the most memorable video game antagonists in recent years; players love to hate him for his disturbing yet hilariously twisted morals, his bombastic personality, his bizarre sense of humor, his strangely emotional nuances (that don't de-fang his cruelty or megalomania in any way), his distinctive design (especially his mask), and that his cunning moments still make him a threatening and competent villain in a game where most of the bosses are little more than gags. He's so popular that ''The Pre-Sequel'' is all about him and his rise to power, and even though he dies at the end of ''Borderlands 2'' he still manages to crop up in the [=DLCs=] (one in the ''Pre-Sequel'' including [[PromotedToPlayable a body double of him as a playable character]]) and [[spoiler:as a digital ghost]] in ''Tales from the Borderlands''.

* TheCaligula: While he's definitely brilliant, and ''has'' to be a good businessman to run an intergalactic multi-trillion dollar MegaCorp, he's also a deranged sociopath that [[WouldHurtAChild killed a random Hyperion worker's kids]] ForTheEvulz, and that's not even the limit of his insanity. Some of the stuff he spends corporate money on, by the way, is a bit...[[ConspicuousConsumption questionable]], such as a Turbo-Mansion (don't ask, we don't know), a live pony made of diamonds, and the city of Opportunity, which from a city planner's perspective is not that big or planned out all that well.
* CatchPhrase: "Heeeeey, Handsome Jack here!"

* TheChessmaster: As of the beginning of the ''Pre-Sequel'', Jack is presented as just some guy in over his head with heroic aspirations. Yet, those who have completed ''Borderlands 2'' know that he has already [[spoiler:wired his Siren daughter up to Hyperion's AI and used her to trick the original ''Borderlands'' Vault Hunters into opening a Vault filled with "nothing but tentacles and disappointment," causing the mineral eridium to emerge on the surface of Pandora]]. He's hired another gaggle of Vault Hunters to come find another Vault on the moon, he's built a massive orbital laser cannon into Helios, and he's commissioned a surgical body double. All this while still a "low-level Hyperion programmer." In a position where others might be content to pilfer office supplies or make personal long-distance calls on company phones, he's already meddling with the destiny of the galaxy. In fact, there's a good chance he's playing ''you'', too.
* ClassicVillain: Representing {{pride}}, {{greed}} and eventually wrath as he undergoes a VillainousBreakdown, as well as having the storybook traits of being rich, bullying and cowardly. He also [[spoiler:dies]] after a BattleAmongstTheFlames, and you can [[spoiler:kill him with a Hyperion weapon if you have one, or pick one off the ground.]]

* DirtyCoward: According to Angel, Jack is a coward who relies on backstabbing and minions to do his dirty work and will not deal with problems personally without overwhelming manpower (Wilhelm to be exact). Other sources do support this - he almost never enters a fight unless he's got a big surprise up his sleeve (such as a personal cloak, lots and lots of robots, an actual army, on-command orbital bombardment, a few tonnes of explosives, some unforeseen huge technological advantage, dozens of decoys and so on). [[spoiler:However, after Angel's death, he wants nothing more than to kill the Vault Hunters with his bare hands and will fight them himself, albeit with some back-up at the end.]]

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: You collect some ECHO recordings in Liar's Berg that describes him confronting [[spoiler:Helena Pierce]], [[KickTheDog making fun of her appearance]], [[HeroKiller shooting her in the head]], laughing at how BloodyHilarious it was, before [[KillEmAll ordering the massacre of a trainload of civilians she was trying to take to Sanctuary.]]

[[folder: In General]]

* ActionBomb: EXP Loaders are nimble and fragile robots that sprint at their targets when they seem them, before overloading their power cores to explode on top of them.

* AIIsACrapshoot: Most Loaders are completely obedient to Hyperion with only a very vague degree of free will/consciousness. The few that are broken out of their control one way or another, such as Mal, Innuendobot 5000, and Loader #1340, are 'eccentric', to say the least.
* AlwaysChaoticEvil: Played with, all Loaders are programmed to kill everything in Pandora because they're under [[OmnicidalManiac Jack's]] programming. When he's out of the picture, all Loaders evidently mellowed out and even developed their own personalities, as seen with Loader-Bot from ''Tales From The Borderlands''.

* EyeBeams: All Loaders can fire an electric bolt from their eye if they're out of options. Angelic Guards come with a more traditional eye beam that does continuous damage on their target.
* HumongousMecha: All Loaders are quite a bit taller than the average person, but WAR Loaders and Badass Loaders tower over humans by twice their height. Super Badass Loaders are about the size of a 2 story building.
* KillerRobot: Originally designed as workers, but the events of The Pre-Sequel made them prove themselves to be an easy to mass-produce robot army, leading to the robotic onslaught that Borderlands 2 became.

* BeefGate: They're not usually blocking the way ''entirely'', but thanks to the threat they pose and the amount of obstacles they bring to stop you, just getting past one is a challenge on its own, or even a death sentence if it's a Badass Constructor. As such, they usually deployed at narrow chokepoints or important areas you need to pass.