History Characters / BreakingBadGustavoFring

[[WMG:[[center:[-'''[[Characters/BreakingBad Main Character Index (Breaking Bad)]]'''\\
[[Characters/BreakingBadWaltsFamily Walt's Family]] ([[Characters/BreakingBadWalterWhite Walter White]]), [[Characters/BreakingBadHeisenbergsEmpire Heisenberg's Empire]] ([[Characters/BreakingBadJessePinkman Jesse Pinkman]], [[Characters/BreakingBadSaulGoodman Saul Goodman]]), [[Characters/BreakingBadDEAAndPolice DEA and Police]], [[Characters/BreakingBadJuarezCartel Juarez Cartel]], [[Characters/BreakingBadSalamancaFamily Salamanca Family]] ([[Characters/BreakingBadHectorSalamanca Hector Salamanca]]), [[Characters/BreakingBadLosPollosHermanos Los Pollos Hermanos]] ('''Gustavo Fring''', [[Characters/BreakingBadMikeEhrmantraut Mike Ehrmantraut]]), [[Characters/BreakingBadMadrigalElectromotive Madrigal Electromotive]], [[Characters/BreakingBadAryanBrotherhood Aryan Brotherhood]], [[Characters/BreakingBadOtherCriminals Other Criminals]], [[Characters/BreakingBadOtherCivilians Other Civilians]]-]]]]]

[[WMG:[[center:[-'''[[Characters/BetterCallSaul Main Character Index (Better Call Saul)]]'''\\
[[Characters/BetterCallSaulLawyers Lawyers]] ([[Characters/BreakingBadSaulGoodman Jimmy [=McGill=]/Saul Goodman]], [[Characters/BetterCallSaulKimWexler Kim Wexler]], [[Characters/BetterCallSaulChuckMcGill Chuck McGill]], [[Characters/BetterCallSaulHowardHamlin Howard Hamlin]]), [[Characters/BetterCallSaulLawEnforcement Law Enforcement]], [[Characters/BetterCallSaulCartel Juarez Cartel]] ([[Characters/BetterCallSaulNachoVarga Nacho Varga]], [[Characters/BreakingBadHectorSalamanca Hector Salamanca]], [[Characters/BetterCallSaulLaloSalamanca Lalo Salamanca]]), [[Characters/BetterCallSaulLosPollosHermanos Los Pollos Hermanos]] ([[Characters/BreakingBadMikeEhrmantraut Mike Ehrmantraut]], '''Gustavo Fring'''), [[Characters/BetterCallSaulOmaha Omaha]], [[Characters/BetterCallSaulPettyCriminals Petty Criminals]], [[Characters/BetterCallSaulOtherCharacters Other Characters]]-]]]]]

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!!Gustavo "Gus" Fring

!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/GiancarloEsposito
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Series/BreakingBad'' | ''Series/BetterCallSaul''

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gdx7p3m.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''[[DevilInPlainSight "I hide in plain sight. Same as you."]]'']][[caption-width-right:300:[[labelnote:As he appeared in 1989]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rjyhkbl.png ''"<I merely took the initiative. I meant no insult.>"''[[/labelnote]]]]

->''"When you are at Los Pollos Hermanos, you are under'' my ''protection."''
An enigmatic Chilean-American entrepreneur. Gus is the proprietor of Los Pollos Hermanos, a highly successful fried chicken restaurant chain. Gus is also a public booster for the DEA office in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as well as a member of the hospital board. Despite outward appearances, Gus is a major drug kingpin who uses his restaurants as a front for methamphetamine distribution throughout the American southwest.
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* TheAce: Gus is a successful businessman, respectable worker, crafty planner, and a stern and commendable leader all wrapped into a figure who has been a leading figurehead in New Mexico's drug and cartel industry. He's also very socially controlled and flexible, being very receptive and perceptive of others' thoughts, showing him to be very good in social interactions when the situation calls for it, which furthers just how good of a leader he is. These, combined with his cold pragmatism, and effective management of his employees both in his legal and illegal activities make Gus among the most formidable and talented characters in the franchise.
* AffablyEvil: Gus is a polite and reasonable man, even behind his public mask. His politeness isn't an [[FauxAffablyEvil act]] (at least not at first), either; he genuinely believes in running his meth empire as professionally as any other company and shows some disdain for the blood-soaked gangland-style StupidEvil management of the South of the Border Cartel and Salamancas. If you respect him and abide by the rules, he'll be fair to you. [[BewareTheNiceOnes But if you cross him]], he will absolutely destroy everything you are.
* AffluentAscetic: He's, at the bare minimum, a multi-millionaire, but you'd never know it by looking at the way he lives.
* AlasPoorVillain: Gus' death is cast in a somber light due to how tragic it is that he never got his final revenge on Hector, the man who killed his partner (and possible lover), and the calmly melancholic music that plays as Gus walks to his death.
* AlmightyJanitor: Even disregarding his status as a drug lord, he's the ''owner'' of Los Pollos Hermanos and still finds time to do some menial work around the place.
* AmbiguouslyBi: There was something between him and his late partner Maximino, confirmed by [[WordOfGay the creators themselves]] on the Ringer Podcast. However, when he makes dinner for Walter and Jesse, it appears that he has an unseen family: a wife and children, presumably. Whether they exist at all is another matter, and if they do exist, it's unclear whether he actually loved the hypothetical wife or if she was just TheBeard.
* AmbiguousSituation:
** [[spoiler: Whether or not he did in fact order the execution of 11-year-old Tomás Cantillo after Jesse was willing to kill the two adults using him to deal meth is never revealed. On the one hand, his dialogue with Walt in the desert implies he only heard about it rather than ordered it, and he seems truly offended when Walt suggests he might have done so. On the other hand, he does threaten to kill infant Holly later on, so his innocence is definitely in question.]]
** What is his familial situation? Are the kids that he mentions real? Is he married? When Jesse and Walt visit his house, there are toys laying around. Gus mentions that his kids are picky eaters and out of town but they're never shown or mentioned again. This could be interpreted as him making something up to manipulate Walt because in context he's talking about how men are supposed to provide for their families. As for the married part, he never mentions a spouse. It's heavily implied and eventually confirmed that he and Max were more than friends and he's still never gotten over his death 20 years later so it would seem a bit odd of for him to have married someone else, let alone a woman. If you believe he's gay and not bisexual, it's also not hard to imagine someone as meticulous and obsessed about keeping up the legitimate businessman front as he is would marry a woman and have kids for appearances.
* AmbiguousStartOfDarkness: While we know the event that turned him against the Cartel - that being the murder of Max - it's all but confirmed that he was already a well-known criminal before that. Hector and Eladio imply that Gus was somehow involved in Pinochet's regime in Chile (and that this association makes Eladio spare his life), and Lalo references ''some'' event in Santiago that proves to Bolsa that he shouldn't be underestimated (an event that, by Gus's own description, almost cost him his life until Peter Schuler saved him). Gilligan and Gould mentioned that they thought about including some more overt references to his actions with Pinochet, but they chose to keep it ambiguous.
* ArchEnemy:
** The Juarez Cartel, but specifically Hector Salamanca is this to Gustavo. Having been responsible for the murder of his close partner Max, Gustavo has wanted nothing but to extract his vengeance against Hector and his family, which he does over the course of many years. In turn, Hector comes to hate Gustavo as well for stealing his business, ensuring that he becomes permanently disabled and confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, and ultimately causing the death of his entire family, all while he's unable to do anything about it. It's no wonder that Hector is willing to form an EnemyMine with Heisenberg to finally destroy Gustavo once and for all.
** Over time, Walter came to view Gustavo as his greatest enemy, due to having pretty much everything he wants and because of the threat he presents to Walter's family and Jesse Pinkman. This is entirely one-sided, however, as Gustavo [[UnknownRival never held Walter in any regard other than being a great pest.]] In fact, Gus thinks ''so little'' of Walter that he never suspected that it could ultimately be his undoing.
* AssholeVictim: He had it coming after he tried to kill Hank and threatened to kill Walt's family if Walt interfered. The overall tense atmosphere the narrative has had since ''Crawl Space'' makes his demise relieving. His actions on ''Better Call Saul'' further amplify this, most prominently being when we see what he did to Nacho, culminating in Nacho calling him an asshole in his final moments.
* AxCrazy: Normally averted as Gus tends to be dismissive of excessively violent acts, but when he ''has'' to kill, he makes sure to give his victims a [[CruelAndUnusualDeath particularly cruel, drawn-out, and painful death]], as shown with Arturo and Victor. The tale about him torturing a coati instead of letting it die also hints at Gus having a more violent side since his childhood.
* BadassBoast: After murdering the entire Juarez Cartel, he says this:
-->'''Gus:''' Don Eladio is dead. His capos are dead. You have no one left to fight for. Fill your pockets and leave in peace, '''or fight me and die!'''
* BadassInANiceSuit: He's always sharply dressed and takes care to make himself presentable. He's a fearless badass in the face of danger from Hector Salamanca and even personally shoots Lalo Salamanca.
* BadassLongcoat: Gus will occasionally don a black peacoat that reaches his mid-thigh, such as when he calls a Cartel Sniper's bluff by walking straight out into the open, complete with his hands up.
* BadBoss:
** He is this when people under his employ make great mistakes, or if he is just in a ''really'' bad mood. His version of firing someone is ''killing'' them (and their loved ones if they're somehow a liability), and if he does the killing himself, it's drawn out to be as painful as possible.
** From 2003, he was this ''exclusively'' to [[TheChewToy Nacho,]] constantly controlling him through fear and intimidation when he makes it a point to never resort to such means other than as a last resort. When Mike brings this up, Gus points out that Nacho has betrayed every single boss he's had, so he needs the stick instead of the carrot. In truth, however, it's all but stated Gus treated Nacho poorly out of pettiness [[TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou that he came close to killing Hector]]. This ends up being deconstructed when Gus refuses to listen to Mike's warnings about this, and it ends up leading to Nacho being stranded in Mexico with no incentive to keep his mouth shut about Gus's activities once the Cartel catches up with him. The only reason Gus is able to get out of this situation is because Nacho agrees to work with him in exchange for his father's safety.
** While he usually treats his Los Pollos Hermanos employees with great respect and gracefulness, the night where Gustavo is forced to relinquish $700,000 dollars as part of a MortonsFork situation [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness upsets him so much]] that he actively belittles and acts passive-aggressive towards Lyle, forcing the poor guy to clean an air fryer for several minutes despite it being spotless already.
* BadGuysDoTheDirtyWork: He's the one who ultimately takes out both [[spoiler:[[GreaterScopeVillain Don Eladio]] and [[ArcVillain Lalo Salamanca]], along with launching the operations that cripple the Cartel's influence in New Mexico in general.]]
* BadPeopleAbuseAnimals: He tells a story to an unconscious Hector about how growing up poor, he snared a coati that was eating the fruit from a tree he cultivated, and despite it having a broken leg that would have made killing it more merciful, kept it alive to draw out its suffering.
* BadLiar: He puts up a very elaborate smokescreen to explain Werner's death to Lalo, namely that Werner stole cocaine from him, and his crew was definitely NOT working on a secret basement but on a new blast chiller for his warehouse. Lalo doesn't buy it for a second [[ActuallyPrettyFunny but finds it hilarious.]]
* BaitTheDog: He first appears in [[Recap/BreakingBadS2E11Mandala Mandala]] to be no more than the pleasant, mild-mannered proprietor of a fried chicken franchise. This continued for the first half of Season 3. Then [[Recap/BreakingBadS3E7OneMinute One Minute]] and [[Recap/BreakingBadS3E8ISeeYou I See You]] came along.
* BatmanGambit:
** His ploy to have two attackers come after Jesse and Mike causes Jesse to spring into action and then start questioning his loyalty to Walt. It extends even further because Gus allows Walt to do much of the damage to their relationship himself, which he proceeds to do so through his {{Jerkass}} behavior driven by his massive ego.
** Before that, granting Leonel and Marco permission to go after Hank instead of Walt. This played into Gus' plans perfectly: if Hank dies, the police turn up the heat on the cartel's operation, allowing Gus to corner the market; if the attack fails, Walt is safe, and two of the cartel's biggest hitters are down, and Gus can force a sitdown. When the plan goes slightly wrong because Leonel survives, Gus throws a big party for the police in the lobby, distracting them with good food and joy while Mike sneaks in to finish him off.
* BatmanGrabsAGun: Gus is generally a behind-the-scenes player and rarely gets his hands dirty himself. The only exception is against [[spoiler:Lalo Salamanca, who backs Gus into such a corner that all he can do is cut the lights, grab a hidden gun, and fire as many times as he possibly can]].
* BeingEvilSucks: As much as Gus seems to revel in being evil, it's clear from his final scene in ''Better Call Saul'' that his life's unhealthy pursuit of revenge deprives him of forming any meaningful relationships or finding genuine happiness. For a moment, he even contemplates this after seemingly finding real pleasantries with the sommelier David: to pursue a relationship with him would mean discarding his life's work of avenging Max and, therefore, his criminal life forever. He chooses revenge, and the way the scene is conveyed clearly illustrates he takes the worst path possible.
* BenevolentBoss: Gus genuinely treats his employees well, both his legitimate ones and his criminal ones. When Hector takes his restaurant hostage, he commends everyone afterward for how they conducted themselves, promises to pay for counseling if anyone asks, and even gives them a full day's worth of overtime. On the criminal side, a big part of his empire is ensuring hazard pay for his employees should he be killed and a fund dedicated entirely to Mike's granddaughter, funded through his offshore accounts; he even lets a day's batch go forsaken when Jesse has to stay in the hospital with his girlfriend's son ([[spoiler:and the fact that Walt poisoned Brock means there's no ulterior motives]]). On the other hand, the moment you become [[TheMillstone a liability]] like Walt does, your life is 100% expendable.
* BeneathTheMask: An ExaggeratedTrope. A mild restaurant owner is secretly a ruthless and two-faced drug kingpin.
* BerserkButton:
** Denying Gus his revenge against Hector Salamanca. During Gus' confrontation with Nacho, this is one of the few times we ever see an extremely angered Gus and one who acts physically at that, he is livid at the thought of having his revenge taken away from him and makes it clear to Nacho that the only reason he is alive is that he has the perfect leverage over him.
** A lack of loyalty or professionalism, unpredictability, or general instability are all surefire ways to get under Gus' skin; he claims to justify treating Nacho poorly because he sees that [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder has a tendency to betray all of his bosses.]] He's willing to murder his own employees if they act untrustworthy or unprofessional. He's a much better boss towards Mike, whose loyalty and professionalism win him over.
* BestServedCold: His driving motivation in life against the cartel that took Max from him.
** Gus drags out his revenge against his ArchEnemy Hector Salamanca across twenty years, slowly picking off all of his relatives (save for Tuco, who was solely Hank's doing) as he wastes away in a retirement home.
** Whatever Gus was when he originally lived in Chile, it was scary enough that Don Eladio spared his life at the cartel manor. The Don instead killed his partner, then reminded Gus to restrict his business to chicken. Gus would pitch the same deal decades later, whereupon Eladio fell dead at the exact same spot where Max was shot.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: He's nicer and more stable than [[HairTriggerTemper Tuco]], but more lethal due to his professionalism and superior business intelligence -- enough to match [[ScienceHero Walt]] for a time.
* BigBad: The biggest one in Breaking Bad. He's introduced late in Season 2 and holds the position from the end of Season 3 until his death at the end of Season 4.
* BigBadEnsemble: With Don Eladio Vuente in Season 4. After the departure of Tuco, the Cousins, and Juan Bolsa, it is Don Eladio's cartel that causes problems for Gus during the season, and his tensions with Gus solidify again.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: To the public, Gus is a very respectable and compassionate entrepreneur who does much to give back to the community. In reality, he is a cruel and ruthless drug lord who has no qualms with ordering murders and [[ManipulativeBastard callously manipulating those around him]] to maintain power and get revenge.
* BlackAndNerdy: He's an intelligent, manipulative drug kingpin and businessman, as well as Afro-Chilean. The nerdy part is {{Justified|Trope}} by the glasses and hyper-competent business acumen.
* BlofeldPloy: Pulls this in "[[Recap/BreakingBadS4E1BoxCutter Box Cutter]]" by slitting Victor's throat in front of Walt and Jesse with a boxcutter. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in that Walt has him at a standstill so that Gus can no longer kill him, and Victor had been seen at the site of Gale's murder, which could potentially lead the investigation back to Gus.
* BrokenAce: While he is a multitalented man and a respected leader and businessman, Gus is still emotionally plagued and stunted by the death of his lover, Max, and much of his ambition is based around his desire to avenge him, showing that he's never gotten over his affection.
* CantGetAwayWithNuthin: Gus makes it a rule to always be calm, composed, and think about what to say and do ahead of time. He breaks this rule in his interactions with Hector, a mistake that directly leads to his demise.
* CharacterTic: Straightening his tie, to the point that when he takes his tie off, it's an OOCIsSeriousBusiness moment.
* ChekhovsGunman: The seemingly polite and legitimate owner of Los Pollos Hermanos is actually a drug kingpin.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: A brief and dark bout of this is when Gus is forced to give up $700,000 to the DEA as a result of Lalo's machinations. He spends a night with his mind awkwardly spaced out and going back and forth into his office and his restaurant's friers. Lyle, who insists on helping out over time, even notes that Gus seems [[VillainousBreakdown incredibly distressed.]]
* TheChessmaster: If he does anything, there are probably far more layers to his decision than you would originally think.
* ColdHam: He rarely, if ever, raises his voice or loses his cool, which doesn't stop him from having a commanding presence in nearly every scene of his.
* ConsummateLiar: On par with, if not surpassing, Walt himself. Gus is incredibly meticulous in protecting his double life and effortlessly spins lie upon lie to the DEA, most of whom believe every word coming out of this [[SarcasmMode mild-mannered good Samaritan's]] mouth.
* ConsummateProfessional: Holds himself and his employees in the meth business to the same high standards of professionalism as he does his employees in the chicken business. {{Subverted}} at the very end when it turns out it's ''not'' all business to him, but a very [[BestServedCold long-term]] plan for revenge.
* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: To Tuco in Season 2; in fact, both are '''complete''' opposites. While Tuco was explosive, [[AxCrazy deranged]], emotionally unstable, [[PsychopathicManchild childish]], openly {{sadist}}ic, rude, blunt and unsophisticated; Gustavo was characterized for being calm, cool, collected, polite, sophisticated and [[MagnificentBastard professional]].
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: This fast food tycoon secretly moonlights as a drug kingpin, using his chain of fried chicken restaurants as a front for a massive meth trafficking operation.
* TheCorrupter:
** He takes both Gale and Jesse under his wing in order to turn them into his ideal subordinates: loyal, grateful, and beholden to no one but him.
** He also is this with relation to Walt: before meeting Gus, Walt ''might'' have backed out once he reached his set goal without any of his future empire plans. Meeting Gus and seeing the full scope of his own meth empire accelerated Walt's fall into an irrecoverable situation, with Walt crossing several {{Moral Event Horizon}}s just to stay out of Gus's radar while attempting to outsmart him.
* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: Walt wouldn't have been able to use Hector to kill Gus if Gus had just let Hector die from his heart attack six years earlier. Nacho even points out before he kills himself that Hector was "dead and buried" before Gus chose to resuscitate him.
* CrazyPrepared:
** He has a secret hospital set up with medical staff on his payroll to revive him when he [[SelfPoisoningGambit self-poisons]]. Not only that, the hospital is supplied with matching blood types for himself, Jesse, and Mike (and they even know Jesse's entire medical history).
** He made arrangements for his entire meth operation in the event of his death, including hazard pay for any employees that might be sent to prison. The only evidence that could destroy it is hidden in the interior of an encrypted computer that the police can't crack, meaning that if Walt, Jesse, and Mike hadn't tried to destroy the evidence they thought the DEA had, the police never would've tracked it all down.
* CreateYourOwnVillain:
** Though Walt was by no means a pure-hearted hero beforehand, Gus' influence and Walt's exposure to his money and power hastened his transformation into a VillainProtagonist that ultimately outwits and destroys Gus.
** This arguably goes both ways. Gus was perfectly happy to be a reasonable employer for Walt at first, but as Walt and Jessie go off increasingly half-cocked, it doesn't take long for Gus to rethink Walt's usefulness.
* CruelAndUnusualDeath: While Gus doesn't involve himself in direct violence, the few times he actually does so result in his victims dying a long, yet painful, horrifying death with the intent of intimidating and scaring others into submission.
** He kills Arturo by placing a plastic bag onto his head, tying it up, and then ziptying his hands and feet, leaving Arturo to fumble around and wriggle helplessly as he loses his breath and dies from a lack of oxygen. What makes this cruel is how this is done right in front of Nacho, who is held at gunpoint by Tyrus and Victor as he is forced to watch Arturo die, unable to help his friend out of shock by Gus's ruthlessness and cruelty.
** Slitting Victor's throat is a grisly move by itself, but what makes it nightmarish is how Gus grips his subordinate to a proportionate angle where his blood gushes out under higher amounts of pressure. Victor tries desperately to free himself, but not only is Gus's grip stronger and is clearly drawing out Victor's last moments, but he does this all whilst giving out a haunting DeathGlare to Walt, Jesse, and Mike, all as a way to how them the consequences of slighting him.
* CrusadingWidower: After his lover Max was killed by the cartel, he spent the rest of his life building up a massive drug empire as well as a highly successful legitimate front fast food business, solely for the purpose of overthrowing them and avenging Max.
* CulturedBadass: Gus is one of the most intelligent and cultured characters in the series. He also gets himself AloneWithThePsycho that is Lalo Salamanca, makes him drop his guard and then personally shoots him after a chaotic, intense gunfight. It also takes balls to poison himself to take down the Cartel leadership. An episode before ''that'', he walks straight into sniper fire, daring Gaff to kill him.
* CutLexLuthorACheck: He's a successful legitimate businessman through the Los Pollos Hermanos restaurant chain, which operates at least 14 restaurants in several states across the southwest. Gus could live a perfectly comfortable life on that alone, but the only reason he built up the chain was to use it as a distribution network for his meth empire--which, in turn, he built to exact revenge on the Salamancas. Ironically, to maintain his disguise as a mild-mannered restauranteur, Gus lives a very modest lifestyle below his means.
* TheDandy: Generally very well dressed. Even when stuck in his garish yellow shirt at the restaurant, his clothing is always as neat and impeccable as always. On the rare occasion when he personally gets his hands dirty, he will even take the time to remove as much outer clothing as possible (hanging it up neatly) so as not to mess his outfits up. This even includes stopping to place a towel on the floor before he kneels at a toilet to induce vomiting, [[SkewedPriorities before the poison he took kills him.]]
* DeathGlare: A master of this when he needs to be intimidating or control his weaker-willed subordinates like Gale.
* DeadpanSnarker: He is not above being this under specific circumstances, having a dry sense of humor, [[PayEvilUntoEvil mostly when he's left alone with Hector.]]
* DecapitationStrike: His ultimate gambit against The Juarez Cartel. [[spoiler:With their entire leadership dead, there's no one left for cartel members to fight for, and all but [[UndyingLoyalty one]] [[TakingYouWithMe of]] the remaining members fled.]]
* DevilInPlainSight: He is a minor public figure, a well-known businessman and philanthropist who gladhands with high-ranking DEA agents, none of whom suspect a thing until Hank manages to figure him out.
* DiabolicalMastermind: A friendly, wealthy, and philanthropic businessman running the largest crystal meth empire north of the border, with hundreds of accomplices and assassins at his beck and call, all gained through sheer cunning and strategy.
* DifficultButAwesome: His plan is to build an underground meth lab beneath a laundromat to produce his own product. Not only does it involve contacting architects from Europe (who have to be hooded when brought to Albuquerque, to keep them from knowing the location), the one hired to oversee the construction, Werner Ziegler, spells out the difficulties of building such a thing: taking into account the budget and material needed, the structure could collapse, not to say cause enough noise to attract attention. [[spoiler:This, of course, without taking into account human resources like the rabble-rousers like Kai or the increasingly homesick Werner.]] However, the work moves forward per Gus' instructions since once finished, it'll allow him to produce his own product without relying on the Cartel, avoid possible detection, keep a stable space for everyone to work without any restraints, and provide him yet another money-laundering front for his crew.
* DidntThinkThisThrough: [[spoiler:It's abundantly clear that he didn't take into account what to do with Nacho carefully after Lalo's hit. His plot to make the Cartel silence Nacho falls apart completely because he fails to account for the motel having an improvised backdoor and the Salamancas being disciplined enough to not kill him right away.]]
* DisproportionateRetribution: He more or less enslaves Nacho because he almost killed Hector before Gus could have completed his revenge. He also said he tortured a coati to death as a child because it ruined the tree he cultivated.
* TheDon: A white-collar version of this trope. As the undisputed leader of a large criminal organization whose illicit businesses are money laundering and meth distribution, he's incredibly professional in keeping a low profile and presenting himself as an honest businessman and philanthropist who gladhands with high-ranking DEA agents. Basically, he's ''everything'' Heisenberg ''wants'' to be: Feared, powerful, rich, and one of the biggest drug kingpins in the region, with state-of-the-art infrastructure.
* DragonInChief: Technically, he's an employee of Peter Schuler, his partner-in-crime at Madrigal Electromotive. However, from their interactions, it's clear that Gus is the dominant personality, and Schuler has little to do with the day-to-day operation of Fring's drug empire.
* TheDreaded: He is this to many in New Mexico's drug cartel and especially to those who dare to either cross his path, threaten him, or defect him. While Gus may appear to be a nice and easygoing man publicly, his cold pragmatism, sheer ruthlessness, and not above threatening the lives of loved ones to assert dominance allow him to strike terror towards anyone who comes into contact with his meth business. Best shown when he kills Victor with a box cutter right in front of Walt and Jesse, which shakes them up considerably for the next few episodes, especially Jesse who spends the following nights partying hard to drown out what he witnessed, while Walt becomes increasingly desperate and panicky over his thoughts on killing Gus.
* {{Eagleland}}: He invokes this in his speech to his demoralized Los Pollos Hermanos employees after Hector stirs trouble to get his attention.
* EmbarrassingNickname: Those who don't respect him often refer to him as "The Chicken Man" because he runs several fried chicken fast food restaurants.
* EnemyMine: He initially meets Mike forming an alliance out of the realization that their hatred of Hector Salamanca is mutual.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Much of his actions against the cartel are to avenge the death of his business partner and lover Max Arciniega. He also seems to be genuinely fond of Gale, though he has no qualms manipulating him in order to further his own ambitions. Gustavo's final scene in ''Better Call Saul'' has him chatting up a wine dealer who is implied to have a crush on him, and while Gustavo seems to contemplate reciprocating it, [[LoveIsAWeakness he ultimately chooses not to pursue it.]]
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Gustavo is not without standards given his ethics and ideals of professionalism.
** He finds Hector's decision to take his restaurant hostage to be a bit excessive. Given those are ''his'' employees, this is understandable. The tone of his voice when meeting Mike, suggests even he found Hector's ruthless killing of a civilian distasteful.
** His professionalism shows up again when he refuses to take a 'commission' from the money Mike wants to launder for this family, as his stated objection is that he will not steal from Mike's family.
** Though Gustavo is as cautious and careful as can be when conducting/building his business, even he shows visible irritation towards [[TheParanoiac Lydia Rodarte-Quayle]] and her overly emotional behavior when dealing with situations.
** Invoked in "[[Recap/BreakingBadS3E13FullMeasure Full Measure]]" when he gets offended at the implication that he ordered the death of a child. Though it's later subverted as he threatens to kill Walt's entire family, including his son and his infant daughter, and shows no qualms with doing so.
* EvilGloating: He's generally too smart and cautious to indulge in it, [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness which makes it telling when he begins to do so late in Season 4.]]
* EvilIsPetty: When he is forced to sacrifice $700,000 (due to Lalo) to throw the DEA off his trail, he takes out his anger on his employee Lyle by saying that he is doing a bad job with the cleaning of the chicken fryers.
* EvilMentor: Largely an unintentional one to Walt, who clearly envies his success and business style. The writers have admitted that, while he'd never admit it, Walt looks up to Gus and sees him as a role model for his criminal behavior.
* EvilSoundsDeep: He's got a very intimidating baritone, though he softens it whenever he's in his restaurant manager identity to make himself appear friendly and approachable.
* EvilVersusEvil: With the Cartel and more specifically the Salamanca family. He is a cold-blooded kingpin while they are hot-headed drug lords with little care about who gets hurt in their schemes.
* EvilVirtues: Stoic, professional, rational, pragmatic, hardworking, fiercely determined, generally a BenevolentBoss and genuinely AffablyEvil unless you hit his BerserkButton or he's in a ''really'' bad spot at time, and unafraid to put himself into the line of fire directly or get his hands dirty, with many of his biggest victories achieved personally rather than by underlings.
* FaceDeathWithDignity: After a bomb literally blows half his face off, Gus walks calmly out the door, and straightens his tie, then falls over dead.
* FacialHorror: Walks away after an explosion and straightens his tie with ''half his face blown off'' right before he dies. He'd make [[ComicBook/{{Batman}} Two-Face]] proud.
* FailedASpotCheck: It never quite occurs to Gus that an actual DEA snitch would never be left unattended, no matter how much he appears to be.
* FamilialFoe: Gus spends decades scheming to bring about the deaths of the nephews and grandson of his rival drug lord Hector Salamanca (who killed Gus' best friend and possible lover) before killing Hector himself.
* FascinatingEyebrow: He'll occasionally do this when speaking to employees who aren't ''exactly'' treading on thin ice yet, but still need a reminder of whom they're talking to.
* FatalFlaw:
** Gus tends to underestimate his opponents. Although he is wary of Walter, he still only sees him as a minor annoyance, which leads to his downfall. This trait can be seen in the prequel as well, where he underestimates Lalo's tenacity and as a result fails in having him killed quickly.
** For all of his pragmatism, his [[RevengeBeforeReason obsession with personal revenge]] against Hector proves to be the death of him. It also dovetails with his other flaw -- he takes such satisfaction at having physically broken his old rival that Hector's final move, using what little strength he has left, catches him off guard.
* AFatherToHisMen: Part of his public figure (and arguably one of the only aspects of his personality that translates both in his private and personal life). Gus insists on maintaining a healthy workplace environment and tries to keep a good relationship with his employees, offering legitimate advice and training. This serves him well as a motivating productive factor -- happy workers mean better production, and [[PragmaticVillainy there's no profit to be made in treating his employees badly]]. But it's also a personal ethos: when you're under his wing, you're safe. Anything less than that is unacceptable.
* FauxAffablyEvil: When it becomes a personal matter Gus will try to maintain his casual tone and demeanor even as he gloats about having killed someone's entire family. He keeps a good elocution even when torturing or gruesomely killing people touched his nerves and won't use profanities when issuing threats.
* {{Foil}}: To Walt, as the framing frequently accentuates. He and Walter are similar in that they are both (ostensibly) reasonable men hiding their criminal enterprises in plain sight, but this ultimately serves to highlight the differences between them -- namely, Gus being much, much better at this than Walter. See [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jhCCIzfe5ic this video essay]] on the subject.
** On a side note, their abilities as a leader are quite the opposite. Walter is a great tactician, [[DitzyGenius but a poor strategist]]. Gus, on the other hand, is [[TheChessmaster a great long strategist]], but is somewhat lacking in his tactics on the military aspect. As shown in the prequel, Gus depends on [[TheDragon Mike]] to figure out a lot of the short-term plans, due to his experiences as a soldier and cop. When Mike isn't around to do this, Gus flounders more, and this ultimately leads to his demise.
* FourEyesZeroSoul: For a cold-blooded killer he manages to look utterly unassuming, and his glasses add to that effect:
-->'''Lalo Salamanca:''' "This guy? He's a housecat. Black, medium height. Short hair. Glasses. He kinda looks like a librarian. But don't be fooled. Even a housecat can scratch."
* FormerRegimePersonnel: Several hints are dropped that Gus was involved in some way with the [[UsefulNotes/AugustoPinochet Pinochet]] regime back in Chile. Hector mockingly refers to him as the "generalissimo", and Eladio warns him that, despite his preceding reputation, "you are not in Chile anymore". [[WordOfGod Gilligan and Gould]] on the ''Inside the Gillverse'' podcast confirmed that they had a few ideas about Gus being a part of Pinochet's dictatorship at some point, but left his backstory open to interpretation.
* FromNobodyToNightmare: From what he discloses, Gus grew up in what was essentially a shack on the outskirts of a remote village in South America. From there, it's implied he managed to gain a spot in Pinochet's regime, and after the Cartel kills his lover, he gradually grows into the undisputed meth kingpin of the southwestern United States [[spoiler:and takes out the entire Cartel while he's at it]].
* FrozenFace: The most striking difference between Gus the restaurant manager, and Gus the drug kingpin, is that he completely ceases showing [[TheStoic any emotive tendencies]] so as to not give any psychological advantage to his enemies. When Walt first meets Gus, his transition from one persona to the other is communicated by the gradual relaxation of his day job's expressive facial features, and his voice lowering by quite a few octaves.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:G-L]]
* {{Gayngster}}: The ambiguity of Gus' relationship with Max is enough for Hector and Lalo to make disparaging remarks about it in ''Better Call Saul'' and the WordOfGod confirms that their mutual affection was of the romantic nature.
* AGlassOfChianti: ''Better Call Saul'' reveals that he is very knowledgable about wine, and naturally he prefers the red stuff.
* GutFeeling: Has very good intuition and a sense for when he's in danger, occasionally bordering on SpiderSense territory. It even saves his life when he decides not to leave the hospital in the car he arrived in, somehow detecting that something was wrong (Walt had put a bomb on it). Unfortunately for him, it fails him at the worst possible time, resulting in his death.
* HorrifyingTheHorror: He texts the Salamanca Brothers with a single word, "Pollos" when they're waiting at Walter's home to ambush him. While the looks they exchange are as [[TheStoic stone cold as ever]], they ''immediately'' bail before Walter even knows they're there.
* HiddenDepths: He is incredibly sophisticated and cultured for a drug lord, a far cry from [[StupidEvil Eladio and the Salamancas.]] When Mike bluntly insinuates Fring is just some drug dealer, Lydia implies there is so much more to him than meets the eye.
** He takes a lot of pride in running his restaurant franchise as genuinely as possible. While nominally this is to keep up his front as a mild-mannered store owner, he still puts a lot of extra effort into making his restaurant good. He even stays overtime to clean the equipment, works menial labor in his locations whenever he's around, and has a great relationship with his employees.
** Though he initially seems to write Jesse off as a liability, Season 4 sees him slowly come around on him. While part of this is due to [[spoiler: his plan to pit Jesse and Walt against each other so he can safely dispose of the latter]], he does seem to genuinely admire Jesse at certain points. For instance, when Jesse is getting set up in the cartels lab in "Salud", [[https://youtu.be/4kyxZI1UCKM?t=120 he starts to smirk]] when he sees Jesse rip the cooks a new one for their poor sanitation of their lab.
* HiddenInPlainSight: A big-time drug kingpin who runs a hugely popular chain of fried chicken outlets and is well-known as a major philanthropist in the ABQ area. As another example, his Volvo station wagon is a perfect representation of respectable executive car, which lack any "cool" qualities, being as boring and unimpressive, as possible.
* HiddenVillain: Jimmy only knows Gus as a friendly staff member at Los Pollos Hermanos, and even when he's Saul, only knows him as the man behind the curtain as Mike seems to ensure they never meet again.
* {{Hypocrite}}:
** He wants revenge on the Juarez Cartel for the murder of his lover Max. In the process, Gus takes great pleasure in taunting Hector over the slow destruction of his family and later tells Walt he will have his brother-in-law killed, and if he intervenes he will also kill Walt's entire family.
** He's disgusted with Walt for having Jesse as a partner because he's a junkie and initially refuses to do business with Walt for that reason; Gus is a drug kingpin building his empire on the money of people just like Jesse, and he later adopts Jesse as his primary cook, claiming he "sees something in him".
** He's surprised that Walt would be willing to kill two of Gus' low-level street dealers to protect Jesse, since Gus still sees him as just a junkie. In the very same episode, Gus orders Walt killed over this incident.
** When Walt suggests that the Pinkman reacted rashly towards Gustavo's hitmen because he believes Gustavo ordered the death of the kid that killed Combo, he enters a state of TranquilFury, clearly pissed that Walter would insinuate such a thing. Cut to the end of Season 4, and Gustavo actively threatens to murder both Walt Jr and Holly simply to spite Walter should he get in his way.
** He tells Mike that he doesn't believe fear to be an effective motivator. Except, in both this series and the prequel, he's shown to have no trouble intimidating his employees, as Walt and Nacho find out the hard way.
** He considers Nacho a backstabber for trying to kill Hector nevermind that not only Gus is planning to destroy everything Hector and the Cartel made by faking submission but also keeps Mike as trusted enforcer even though he tried killing Hector after taking his bribe.
** At several points Gus expresses a dislike for civilians being hurt by the Salamancas but he has no probelm with using Nacho's father against him and would have had Werner's wife killed if Mike didn't send her back to Germany. He further compounds this hypocrisy by threatening to have Walt's wife and children killed if he interfers with an attempt on Hank's life.
* IconicSequelCharacter: One of the show's most iconic characters and doesn't appear until the very end of season 2.
* IgnoredEpiphany: A common interpretation of the wine scene, his last in the franchise, is that he [[spoiler: realized he could be happy as the front he puts up for the world and was starting to become to mask. He seems horrified by this revelation and leaves before the sommelier can get back, committing himself to revenge.]]
* ImpliedDeathThreat: He makes a serious one of these towards Mike when he becomes increasingly belligerent after Werner's death. While Mike isn't dumb enough to fully tell Gus where to stick it, [[DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu he does blow him off harshly.]]
* ItsAllAboutMe: He is pretty angry to find that Nacho was responsible for Hector's heart attack. It doesn't occur to him that Nacho's father's safety may be more important than Gus getting his revenge for Max's death, which was arguably a direct consequence of them making the decision to deal meth in Don Eladio's territory. In other words, "business as usual." Even before he had Mike's car bugged in case he had the audacity of trying to kill his mortal enemy and even snarks at Mike's sense of justice when his reasons are similarly petty. While viewing Max's death in ''Breaking Bad'' may have caused viewers to sympathize with Gus, his actions on ''Better Call Saul'' arguably make him less sympathetic by showing how self-centered his revenge quest really is.
* IWillPunishYourFriendForYourFailure: [[spoiler: As a variation of his infamous BlofeldPloy. He and Victor murder Arturo Colon in front of Nacho Varga and hold him as he sees his life fade away to highlight three points: 1) No unwarranted posturing on the Cartel's part (Arturo demanded a bigger supply by brandishing a gun as a way of peacocking); 2) Nacho made a huge mistake by trying to off Hector Salamanca on his own and will step in line, even if he won't die today; 3) As punishment, Nacho will follow every single one of Gus' orders or else he'll serve him to the Salamancas as a gift. This way, Gus punishes Arturo for his cockiness and has Nacho under his thumb to act as a double agent within the Salamanca organization.]]
* KarmicDeath: Hector's bomb destroys half of Gus' face, making him [[TwoFaced resemble]] [[ComicBook/TwoFace a certain supervillain]]. The camera focuses on his uninjured side (the "legitimate" fast food mogul which everyone sees) -- and slowly pans around to his disfigured side (representing the blood-soaked meth dealer). His death is also a reference to how a chicken will continue to walk around for a bit even after it's beheaded.
* KickTheDog:
** How does Gus react when Nacho is proving incapable of prying Lalo for more information? He gets his goons to take him on a road trip in the middle of the night, then shows him he's on the verge of murdering his father.
** His threat to Walt that he would murder his entire family, including his infant daughter, should Walt interfere with Hank's murder. But it may have just been a bluff, since if Walt's family was suddenly wiped out, Jesse would probably figure out that Gus was responsible. Then again, Gus had no problem having Jesse kidnapped and forced to finish a batch, implying that Jesse's loyalty was no longer needed to keep him in line.
* KnightOfCerebus: Granted, Krazy-8 and Tuco were quite dangerous, but the show still retained a prominent comedic element. However, after Gus is introduced, the show starts to gradually take a much darker turn.
* LackOfEmpathy: Downplayed. Gus is very good at manipulating people because he ''can'' read people's intentions, but that doesn't mean he ''understands'' them. While he is able to bring Walt back into the meth business by exploiting his ego and desire to provide for his family, he cannot grasp why [[EvilCannotComprehendGood Walt would want to save his partner,]] who Gus views as a "contemptible junkie". Later on, he also cannot understand Jesse's (the guy he wanted dead not too long ago) desire to keep Walt alive, only recognizing this as a minor obstacle to his plans. Basically, Gus empathizes with people only when it suits his interests. When it doesn't, he just doesn't care.
* LatinoIsBrown: Zig-zagged; despite being Hispanic and Creator/GiancarloEsposito being light-skinned enough to potentially pass as ambiguously Mestizo, Walt specifically refers to him as black when asking about his whereabouts early on. This may indicate that he's specifically intended to be [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Chileans Afro-Chilean]], despite them making up a very small minority of Chileans ([[AmbiguousSituation assuming his claims about being Chilean are even true]]).
* ALighterShadeOfBlack: Make no mistake, Gus is one evil dude. He runs a massive meth empire, cares little about civilian casualties, and has a ruthlessly single-minded devotion to his plan to destabilize the cartel. He's also a BenevolentBoss, fairly reasonable and polite to his workers, and is willing to be both pragmatic and sympathetic to the people working under him. This makes it very easy to root for him against the [[AxCrazy bloodthirsty and psychotic]] Salamancas.
* LuredIntoATrap: At the climax of Season 4, Gus visits Hector at the nursing home to put him down after the latter went to the feds... only Hector didn't tell the feds anything (he was [[BeAsUnhelpfulAsPossible just trolling the feds]]) and the trip was made to coax Gus to get close to him and the pipe bomb Walt strapped to his wheelchair.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:M-R]]
* MachiavelliWasWrong: Gus refuses to accept Mike's suggestion that he use the threat of the Cousins coming after Walt in order to scare him into working for him, stating that "I don't believe fear to be an effective motivator." Subverted in season 4, where he's not above doing things like brutally killing Victor, or threatening to kill Walt's family in order to keep Walt in line. DoubleSubverted when his very ruthlessness proves to be his undoing. If Gus hadn't outright threatened Walt's family, Walt might not have been desperate enough that he was willing to poison Brock -- a new MoralEventHorizon for Walt -- to win Jesse back.
* ManipulativeBastard: The essence of his being and all of his actions throughout the series (not to mention over the last twenty years) are directed toward cornering the cartel while letting them ''think'' they're forcing him into it. He runs Albuquerque for them and pays them well for the privilege, bringing in so much money they can't risk disrupting his operation. He sabotages Hector's trucks, so Hector 'forces' him to move Salamanca product, which Gus does so well that he becomes the sole transporter for all cartel product into the US. All of this time, he's busily constructing a hidden superlab in secret, giving him both a choke-hold on meth coming from Mexico and his own source of product north of the border.
* MaskOfSanity: Gus is a cold-blooded killer motivated by revenge alone, he wants Hector to suffer and die by his machinations and will not accept anyone interfering. All the professionalism and politeness are just a cover for his obsession.
* MasterActor: His ability to remain in character as a polite, honest, and low-key restaurant owner. Best demonstrated when he successfully convinces George Merkert, Steven Gomez, and Tim Roberts that he's innocent in Hank's investigation.
* MoralSociopathy: He isn't personally empathetic towards anyone, but he knows that he should at least pretend to care and avoid engaging in acts of pointless cruelty in order keep his business running smoothly.
* TheMourningAfter: Despite his mutual attraction with David the sommelier, and being in a relatively comfortable position to start a romance with him after several personal victories including [[spoiler:getting away with Lalo's murder]], he turns the opportunity down due to his steadfast loyalty to Max as well as his fear that anyone who gets close to him would be at risk of ending up the same way as Max did.
* MysteriousPast: All we know for certain is that he spent a part of his early life in Chile, and did something down there during the [[UsefulNotes/AugustoPinochet Pinochet]] dictatorship to make Don Eladio spare his life. The Chilean government has no record of his being born or living in that country, and Mike's investigations have turned up nothing. At least one fan theory surmises that Gus was linked with the Chilean secret service or even military intelligence, and was bailed out of the country with CIA assistance.
* NiceJobFixingItVillain:
** His plan to take out the twins and Bolsa by sending the former after Hank was brilliant. However, Hank was on the outs with the DEA at that point, with his mental health deteriorating and his beatdown of Jesse getting him suspended. Even if Hank wasn't fired, he was seriously considering retirement at that point. His battle with the twins restored his reputation and, combined with him having more free time during recovery, has him brought on as a consultant for Gale's murder, which allows Hank to deduce Gus's true nature. Gus eventually tries to eliminate Hank as a result, which leads to Walt sacrificing the last of his scruples to successfully kill Gus.
** He intimidates Walter and Jesse by [[spoiler: killing Victor]], hoping that he can scare them into submission. He does scare Walter, but he manages to scare him enough where [[spoiler: Walt decides to plan to kill him, and eventually succeeds]].
** After wiping out the Cartel, he could have killed Hector without fear of reprisals, but keeps him alive so he can torment him. Had Gus not spared him then Walt may not have been able to kill him as getting Hector's help was instrumental in him accomplishing that.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Gus is loosely based on [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Testa Philip Testa]], a real-life mob boss who used a chicken restaurant as a front for his operations and was similarly assassinated by a rival gang member with a bomb.
* NonActionBigBad: Like Walt, he seems far from any kind of physical threat. Even when he was younger and driven by adrenaline and rage, a middle-aged mobster was able to restrain him without much trouble. He doesn't bother to carry a weapon, either. [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness Usually.]] Subverted when he is revealed to be quite capable in the gunfight, albeit still understandably nervous from the near-miss.
* NonIdleRich: This is part of the image he cultivates. Despite owning a fairly large restaurant chain, he chooses to work alongside the employees at the flagship location, assisting them in running registers and cleaning floors. This gives him the cover of a kindhearted businessman to help hide his status as a meth kingpin.
* NonProtagonistResolver: In ''Better Call Saul'', despite it being Jimmy's story, he is the one to finally put an end to [[spoiler:Lalo Salamanca, whose actions had cemented him as [[BigBad the biggest threat]] to all the protagonists on the criminal and legal side of the tale]]. Notably, this actually ends up being a ''bad'' thing, as [[spoiler:his efficient disposal of Lalo and Howard's bodies afterwards in an undisclosed location to Jimmy left him paranoid that Lalo was still alive and preparing to seek vengeance on him, even years later, contributing to him becoming an [[TheParanoiac emotional wreck]] afterwards and sinking deeper into his 'Saul Goodman' persona as a coping mechanism, which of course, led to the rise of Heisenberg and the destruction of ''everything'' he and Mike worked so hard to accomplish in this series, including their deaths and exposure as the leaders of a drug-dealing front. With his and Mike's deaths, Howard's body cannot be recovered by the present day, leaving Jimmy and the rest unable to achieve closure over his passing despite their best efforts]].
* NoodleIncident: [[TheSpook His whole past]] is chock full of these, but notably, when Bolsa claims Fring is an impersonal man all about business, Lalo retorts he did ''something'' in Santiago that speaks volumes of the opposite. [[NothingIsScarier Bolsa does not have an answer for this.]]
* NotSoDifferentRemark: As Walt goes further off the deep end, he becomes more and more like Fring; deceptive, manipulative, and leading a double life. This trope was invoked by Saul when Gus is first mentioned:
-->'''Walt:''' Well, what's his name?\\
'''Saul:''' No idea... he's very low profile, he's careful like that... ya know, from what I ''do'' hear about him, he sounds a little like you.
* NotSoAboveItAll:
** He has a rare goofy moment in ''Better Call Saul'' where he throws the paper with Hector's shoe shit into the bin - and nails it in one shot all while wearing a smile on his face!
** He lets his guard down in front of Mike saying a bullet to Hector would be far too humane - showing just how deeply he desire revenge against the man for killing Max.
** For all his stoicism and professionalism, Gus would often take the time out of his day to visit Hector in the nursing home solely to bully him in a rather childish way.
* NotSoSimilar: While they have personality similarities, Gus himself does not believe that he and Walt are very similar at all due to what he perceived as Walt's carelessness; Walt, with his pride and ego, believes that he and Gus are ''very'' similar -- criminal equals, in fact -- and that he can run a meth empire just as well as Gus. This is ultimately one of the things that lead to Walt's own downfall. In the end, it turns out that Gus was right; Gus cautiously and successfully ran a massive multi-million dollar meth empire with not a single lead on himself for over ''twenty years'', only falling because of the unavoidable DoomMagnet Walt screwing him. Walt's careless mistakes led to him being [[spoiler: outed as Heisenberg after spending just a ''little over a year'' as a criminal and then died a few months after that]].
-->'''Mike:''' Listen, Walter. Just because you shot Jesse James, don't make you Jesse James.
* NotSoStoic:
** He drops his stoic nature when he talks about a bullet to Hector's head being far too humane when meeting Mike for the second time.
** He absolutely can't stand Lydia's nervousness, and his response to her complaining to him about Mike is to tell her "Then I suggest you give the man a badge", with a tranparently irritated tone.
** The revelation that Lalo survived his assassination attempt has his paranoia leak through his stoic expression, showing slight nervousness even when changing clothes in his own house.
** Seconds before Hector's pipe bomb goes off, his calm exterior [[OhCrap finally crumbles into confusion and panic]]. His last act is to recompose himself from this, stoic to the bitter end.
* NotWorthKilling: His general opinion of Hector Salamanca - or rather, "Not Worth Killing Quick and Painless". Why waste time and ammo in having quick revenge on a man too despicable for such compassion instead of giving him the slow, painful demise he so richly deserves without raising any suspicions?
-->'''Gus:''' A bullet to the head would have been far too humane.
* OnlyBadGuysCallTheirLawyers: Plays this straight when he's asked questions for a police investigation by the DEA.
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness:
** Gus usually treats his employees well enough, which makes it all the more shocking when he kills Victor out of nowhere. Even Mike, his long-time henchman, is so caught completely off-guard by this sudden shift in mood that he briefly points a gun toward his own boss.
** The first time we see Gus's mild-mannered facade crack, it's because Walt calls himself cautious and says that [[NotSoSimilar they're alike in that way]]. The mask immediately goes down so that Gus can correct that assumption.
** It becomes clear that Lalo is the only cartel member that Gus genuinely fears as his presence has a tendency to unnerve him. The realization that Lalo survived his assassination attempt sends Gus into a spiral that sees the normally superhumanly stoic and calm drug lord become a NervousWreck. [[spoiler:And you know shit has hit the fan when he actually pulls a gun out and successfully shoots him to death.]]
** Uses this to his advantage during [[spoiler: his shoot-out with Lalo]] where he uncharacteristically goes on a rant with more energy than when he loses his calm. [[spoiler:He was copying Nacho's own final moments where used his final insults to the Salamanca to buy enough time to turn the tables]].
** When forced to relinquish over $700,000 dollars in cash as part of a MortonsFork situation in Season 5 of ''Better Call Saul'', Gustavo takes out his anger over the situation out on one of his Los Pollos Hermanos employees, forcing him to clean an air fryer over and over again despite it being spotless already. Given how [[BenevolentBoss respectful Gustavo acts towards his Los Pollos Hermanos employees]], seeing him act downright ''abusive'' to one of them emphasizes just how bothered he is about the current situation.
* TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou: Goes to great lengths to ensure Hector lives long enough to receive the comeuppance ''he'' had prepared for him, such as thwarting an assassination attempt, giving the old man CPR when he collapses, and flying in specialists from Baltimore to get Hector the best treatment.
* OutGambitted: By Walt, in the end.
* OvershadowedByAwesome: At least in terms of his VillainousLegacy. When Gustavo's crimes become public after the events of "Face Off", the DEA is initially focused on trying to catch his known associates, shell companies and business partners in what little they have to go on. However, after Heisenberg goes public himself, Gustavo is all but forgotten as the entire United States government attempts to hunt down Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, Saul Goodman and their respective associates, due to their criminal actions and influence being far more damaging and immediate.
* PayEvilUntoEvil:
** His business strategy regarding the Twins.
** Mass-poisoning the cartel.
** Works both ways during his conflict with Walt; on the one hand, it's satisfying seeing the arrogant chemist be brought down a peg after having [[NiceGuy Gale]] murdered as well as being an UngratefulBastard towards Gus' at first reasonable management style, but on the other hand, it's equally satisfying seeing Walt get his revenge on Gus after the latter threatens to have Hank murdered as well as Walt's whole family -- including the [[WouldHurtAChild infant daughter]].
** Tormenting Hector about his victories against the Juarez Cartel. Although the scenes are conveyed in such a way to inspire some measure of pity for Hector, the prequel series makes sure he absolutely has all of it coming.
* PetTheDog:
** Compensates his employees after Hector pays an extortion visit.
** Promises not to take money from Mike that he could use for his family.
** Also appears to have warm relations with [[spoiler:Gale Boetticher]].
** He also tells Nacho to leave one of the Los Pollos restaurants in a rather fatherly tone, prior to blowing it up.
** Gus may not give a shit about Saul, and only met Jimmy once when he was terrible at playing undercover, but he and Mike in "Green Light" decide that Saul doesn't need to know that the Salamanca contract-killer twins are around, knowing [[spoiler: just how traumatised he is over Lalo Salamanca]].
** When he learns that Jesse is visiting his girlfriend's son Brock in the hospital, he decides that the day's batch can be forgiven and lets him stay with no repercussions. [[spoiler:The reveal that Walt actually poisoned Brock and thus Gus genuinely had no idea what was happening removes the possibility of any ulterior motives]].
* PerfectPoison: He uses the same bottle of tequila to dispatch Don Eladio and all his capos at once.
* PosthumousCharacter: Even after his death at the hands of Hector Salamanca and Heisenberg, Gustavo Fring's presence continues to influence the events of ''Breaking Bad'''s fifth season. His meth empire and offshore accounts are discovered by the DEA, allowing his criminal side to be exposed to the public, and Heisenberg spends the first half of the season trying to run the empire that he left behind and deal with the people Gustavo once knew personally.
* PlayingBothSides: Plays the US and Mexican governments against the Mexican cartel to seize control of the West Coast meth trade. Also pulls this by telling the Cousins that they can kill Hank in place of Walter -- since Hank is the one who actually shot Tuco -- but then proceeds to anonymously tip Hank off so that he can get the jump on them and take them out of the equation.
* PragmaticVillainy: One of the things that makes him a BenevolentBoss at Los Pollos Hermanos. He listens to his employees, treats them with respect, and even does menial work around the restaurants when he has to. Gus does all of this because there's no money to be made in treating his employees badly; the opposite would cause him to rapidly lose money if word got out that he was a BadBoss or a PointyHairedBoss. However, all of this only lasts as long as an employee is productive and helps the bottom line of his business. The moment that they're costing Gus money, [[ResignationsNotAccepted they have a tendency to vanish]]. He's also very careful and meticulous about his base of operations, reputation, and the well-being of his supporters and employees and uses a string of manipulations and backups to ensure that they're well managed and under his thumb. It's his pragmatic approach to ending potential threats, secure his drug empire's success, and earning the loyalty of his followers that makes Gus as successful as he is deadly.
* ProperlyParanoid: In the end, it turns out that he really ''should'' have turned Walt away as soon as he saw trouble. Played with, however, in that ''Jesse'' was the one Gus was more worried about, and while he does initially prove a major loose cannon, he ends up becoming arguably even more loyal to Gus than he is to Walt by late Season 4.
* PullingTheThread: In spite of Mike giving him the excuse that Hector threatened his family, Gus, deductive as ever, points out that Mike was already willing to let bygones be bygones when he stole Salamanca's money and made him look like a fool.
* PyrrhicVictory: Gus's decades-long quest for revenge against the cartel has some pretty bright highlights: over time, he kills every head honcho besides Hector, becoming the de-facto new don. He left Hector for last on purpose, with Hector being a near-vegetable who needs a bell to communicate for years. But as the last shot of him in Better Call Saul illustrates, he had to give up anything resembling love or joy in pursuit of his revenge. Plus, Walter White teams up with Hector to kill him not long after the cartel poisoning, meaning he was only top dog for a week at most and was killed by the one who started his revenge quest anyway.
* TheQuietOne: Gus is very soft-spoken, calm, and collected even in the most stressful situations. He is also very, ''very'' [[BewareTheQuietOnes dangerous]], precisely because he knows how to remain quiet, unnoticed and strike without warning.
* RagsToRiches: Possibly. Gus himself monologues to a comatose Hector that he and his family were "quite poor" when he was young, but by the show's present he is a wealthy business owner and drug kingpin. Of course, this is [[UnreliableNarrator Gus]] saying that, so it may or may not be entirely true.
* RealMenCook: He's often seen cooking more than fried chicken in his home, like when he has Walt over for dinner and prepares paila marina.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: He prefers to motivate his employees by appealing to their higher natures (Gale's love of science, Walt's desire to provide for his family) and only uses fear as a last resort. He also makes allowances for the personal situations of his employees and does his best to make sure that everyone is nice and happy under his employ.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: [[spoiler:When Lalo has him dead to rights, Gus finally gets a chance to air out his true opinions on Don Eladio and the Salamancas while stalling long enough to catch Lalo off-guard so he can kill him]]:
--> '''Gus:''' ''[in Spanish]'' Eladio... you greasy, bloated pimp. You talk of honor, but you have none. A pack of stray dogs fighting for scraps has more honor. ''Jackals.'' That's all you are! No vision. No patience. No thought. Stupid and impulsive! [[BadassBoast That is how I did all this! You couldn't see it, couldn't even conceive of it!]] And you Salamancas...you're the worst vermin of all. You say you believe in "blood for blood" but you only understand blood for money! You're whores! ''[in English]'' ''I'' understand blood for blood. Hector? I kept him alive. Kept him broken. I will save him to the last. Before he dies, [[Recap/BreakingBadS4E11CrawlSpace he will know I buried every one of you]].
* RevengeBeforeReason: One of the main reasons for his war against the Mexican cartel is his desire for revenge. This turns out to be his FatalFlaw in the season 4 finale when he chooses to kill Hector himself.
* RiddleForTheAges: Who exactly ''is'' Gustavo Fring? We know that he is a Chilean immigrant who likely fled to Mexico during the Pinochet regime, we know the origin of his vendetta against the Cartel, and that's about it. We don't know who he was beforehand, how he met Max Arciniega and Peter Schuler, what happened to his relatives, or ''why'' he fled Chile to begin with. We never even figure out if "Gustavo Fring" is his real name! A story he tells to a comatose Hector about Gustavo's youth subtly suggests he might not even be from Chile.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:S-Y]]
* {{Sadist}}: {{Downplayed|trope}}. He doesn't really gain pleasure from the pain of others, and dislikes the Cartel's StupidEvil brutality, especially when innocents are involved. ''But'', if you cross him, even if you didn't mean to, he ''will'' make you suffer. His very drawn-out murder of [[spoiler: Arturo]] stands out as one the cruelest deaths in ''Series/BetterCallSaul'' , and if his story about the coati is to be believed, he has been seeking prolonged vengeance on his enemies since he was ''seven''.
* SavedByCanon: He's a major player in ''Breaking Bad'' until [[spoiler:"Face Off"]] so he cannot die during ''Better Call Saul'' despite several close brushes with death (i.e, Lalo). [[spoiler:He even alludes to this shortly before shooting Lalo in the neck]].
* ScarilyCompetentTracker: He's got his men bugging the cars of anyone who could become useful or are a liability to his organization. It says a lot that he could track Mike with little notice, someone who's just as pragmatic and cautious as Gus. Additionally, as a child he once waited hours to catch an animal that had eaten the fruit he cultivated and sold to support his family, having tracked it and trapped it earlier.
* ScaryBlackMan: While he doesn't look that imposing at first glance, he can be very intimidating when he needs to be and can turn downright vicious when crossed.
* SecretTestOfCharacter: He's been doing these for a long time, secretly testing Mike's abilities from the shadows.
* SelfMadeMan: Gus is able to cover the distribution of drugs by simply using the refrigerator trucks that were used to deliver supplies to the Los Pollos Hermanos restaurants, rather than hiring "mules" to distribute the product (although "mules" would be used to get the drugs from the restaurants to the dealers). Mike makes it very clear to Walt that Gus was so successful with his business because Gus handled so much himself and started with nothing 20 years prior. In Gus' own words:
-->"I grew up quite poor. We lived in the hills. In a place my brothers built from things they found. Metal sheeting, plywood. When it rained, it smelled like hay. We were always hungry."
* SelfPoisoningGambit: How he dispatches the heads of [[TheCartel the Juarez Cartel]]. He brings an extremely rare and expensive bottle of tequila as a peace offering to his meeting with Don Eladio. TheDon insists that Gus drink first, so Gus does, tricking the Don and the rest of the capos into believing that the tequila was safe and thus also drinking. Unlike the others, Gus has the advantage of having taken some pills first and then going and inducing vomiting, which helps slow down the poison long enough for him to get medical attention.
* SeriousBusiness: The restaurants he owns might be a front but he maintains and demands only the most excellent quality and service from them and their civilian employees. While it's partially meant to be a metaphor for stealing drugs, money, and machinery from his illegal narcotics network, the segment in his Loss Prevention employee training video about workers being tempted to "skim" fries from the meals they prepare for customers goes into elaborate detail about how unacceptable the literal act is for him (complete with a drooling chef and Gus tying him up).
* ShadowArchetype: Inverted. He's everything Heisenberg ''wants'' to be. Feared, powerful, rich, and is one of the biggest drug lords in the region, with state-of-the-art infrastructure. But as Mike later puts it in his TheReasonYouSuckSpeech, Heisenberg's no Fring, what with his ego and pride clouding his judgment. Needless to say, when Heisenberg kills Fring and tries to take over the operation, it all goes downhill.
* SilkHidingSteel: Male example. He cooks meals for guests he invites for dinner in his home and performs chores like throwing out the garbage at his fast food restaurants, then as a drug kingpin, he is brutally killing his own employees for their failures.
* TheSociopath: [[MoralSociopathy Generally only with what naturally comes with being a drug kingpin,]] [[{{Sadist}} unlike Eladio.]] It should be noted that a large part of Fring's motivation for even remaining in the drug trade (despite being rich) is to avenge his fallen lover, Max (though this is undercut by him continuing his operation after he gets revenge). Eladio himself seems to be aware of Fring's bottled-up feelings and spitefully suggests he dispose of them. For his criminal line of work, Gus is genuinely an affable and fair boss, but he won't hesitate to violently and remorselessly dispose of anyone that's become a liability to his operations.
* SpottingTheThread: When Kim tells him that Jimmy talked Lalo into sending Kim to assassinate Gus instead of sending Jimmy, Gus realizes that whichever would-be assassin was only supposed to serve as a distraction and Lalo's real target is elsewhere.
* StartOfDarkness: The death of his partner Max turned him into the cold, ruthless meth kingpin we all know and love, although it's implied that he had some dark history in Chile before ever coming to North America. A story of his childhood that he tells in ''Series/BetterCallSaul'' suggests that [[spoiler:he may have always had a taste for vengeance, given that he snared a coati, accidentally wounded it, and kept it rather than mercy killing it, all because it was eating fruit from a tree that he had cultivated]].
* StepfordSmiler: Type C and terrifyingly so. That which lies under the smile is NightmareFuel-inducing. Arguably the depressed type as well where [[TheMourningAfter Max]] is concerned.
* TheStoic: Not even the terror-inducing Salamanca Cousins scare him at all. Then there's his absolutely cold-blooded murder of Victor, one of his most loyal enforcers. He kills the man in a painful and drawn out manner, casually drops the body in front of three men paralyzed with fear, cleans himself off from all the blood, and puts his suit back on; all without a single change in expression.
* StraightEdgeEvil: Gus lives quite comfortably, but apart from that has few visible vices and even expresses distaste for the addicts who buy his product. His one real indulgence in life [[spoiler:ends up getting him killed]].
* StraightGay: When Walt visits Gus's house to discuss business matters he takes his statement about having a wife and kids at face value, and his sexuality is quite ambiguous for most of the show to the point that, without other characters lampshading it, one would not necessarily realize he and Max were more than just business partners.
* SupremeChef: Gus has ''standards'': from the best goddamn spicy-fried chicken in the state to a carefully prepared gastro-foodie delight cooked at home... to producing the highest standard of meth in the business. If he can't do it all himself, he makes sure to train and supply the people who can with the best available ingredients.
* TauntingTheUnconscious: A rather grim, twisted example: Besides paying for his treatment, Gus visits Hector in the hospital. He tells him a story about the way he made a creature suffer beyond any reason by keeping it alive for having crossed him. As such, he's determined to keep Hector alive... since he's not done with him.
* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Part of his perfectionism nature is that Gus tends to go all in, be it the construction of the superlab, his revenge against the cartel or hiding himself from Lalo's potential attack he takes huge amount of time and money to completely destroy his enemies and run his empire like clockwork.
* TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse: Invoked, and implied to be why he dresses like middle-aged middle-management.
* TragicVillain: Downplayed as whilst the murder of his closest friend made him a worse man, it was still pretty naughty of him to deal drugs in Don Eladio's territory. Although he hides it well, underneath all his ruthlessness and professional exterior, Gus is an empty, miserable man who has let his obsession with vengeance destroy any possibility of him finding a happy life.
* TranquilFury: He never gets openly enraged; when Gus is more quiet than usual, be very afraid. This can be seen when he and Walt have a very intense discussion in the Season 3 finale, in the wake of Tomas's death and Walt killing the two dealers supposedly responsible. Gus looks like he is trying his hardest not to strangle Walt himself.
* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: He ensnared and tortured a coati when he was ''seven'' just because the small creature decided to eat from a fruit tree he was cultivating.
* TwoferTokenMinority: He's Chilean and gay.
* UndignifiedDeath: Gets killed by the man he hated the most who was stuck in a wheelchair, and after he had tried to kill that same man. That said, he subverts this as much as he's able to in his final moments, [[FaceDeathWithDignity walking out of the room and fixing up his tie]] despite missing half his face and his skull being clearly visible, out of [[{{Determinator}} sheer willpower]].
* TheUnfettered: Obsessed with avenging Max's death, and not above harming innocents along the way.
* UnflinchingWalk: Into a hail of sniper bullets. And again in his death scene.
* VerbalTic: Tends to say "Unfortunate", a lot.
* VillainBall: Brings Jesse along when he taunts Hector over Joaquin's death and wiping out the Juarez cartel, even though he doesn't actually say or do anything and Gus probably could have just shown Hector a photo. This lets Walt learn about Gus and Hector's enmity and ultimately leads to his death.
* VillainHasAPoint:
** A sociopathic murderer who is ultimately proven correct about Walter, whose carelessness destroys both of their empires and gets himself killed not even a year and a half into the business.
** Mike defends attempting to assassinate Hector Salamanca with the fact that he pushed the RelativeButton. Gus makes the valid point that he'd already let that go by taking the man's money.
* [[VillainProtagonist Villain]] {{Tritagonist}}: He gets more and more screentime as ''Better Call Saul'' progresses from Season 3 onward and is pretty firmly in {{Tritagonist}} territory [[spoiler:when Nacho leaves the [[CharacterDeath position vacant]]]] at the beginning of Season 6, where dealing with the fallout of the [[spoiler:failed hit on Lalo]] shows us some more of Gus's personal life when he is also at his most paranoid.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: He's the well-respected owner of the successful Los Pollos Hermanos chain of chicken restaurants, who publicly supports the DEA at fundraisers and sends in free chicken to all the cops waiting by Hank's hospital bedside. He even contributed to Walt's cancer treatment fund.
* VillainousBreakdown:
** An [[TranquilFury eerily calm]] example in Box Cutter, knowing he's been OutGambitted by Walt and Jesse, he theatrically strolls around the room before ultimately slashing Victor's throat and then telling Walt and Jesse to [[PragmaticVillainy get back to work]].
** When Hector has a stroke, Gus rushes to his aid and goes to great lengths to keep his enemy alive and conscious so he can execute his vendetta, while frantically cursing at him not to die under his breath. He also personally kills [[spoiler: Arturo]] in a gruesome manner to show Nacho his displeasure of almost being robbed of his revenge.
** After the Werner incident, Gus is in a perpetual state of this. His expression is a perpetual DeathGlare and he is simmering with TranquilFury in every scene he's in.
** A [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] example with his death scene as his breakdown is brief and he [[FaceDeathWithDignity Faces Death with Dignity]] immediately after, but noteworthy due to the complete shattering of his usually stoic exterior. Right as he's about to inject Hector and kill him, he looks at him...and sees Hector ''finally'' looking back at him...with an almost apologetic and remorseful expression. Gus' lip quivers slightly at the sight, and as Hector's face twists into a visage of pure ''fury'', he leans back in shock, as if trying to see if he's seeing this right. And then when he looks at Hector's hand, and sees the wiring leading to a pipe bomb under Hector's wheelchair... he gapes at Hector in shock, realizing then and there that he was tricked, and he had been led right into a trap. All he can do at that point is firmly break his usual SoftSpokenSadist front by letting out a ''loud, raw, wordless shout'' of anger, confusion, and fear, as he leaps from his chair in a vain attempt to escape.
* TheVillainKnowsWhereYouLive: He's got no qualms with threatening Nacho's father to force Nacho's cooperation. And of course, there's his famous threat to Walt's family.
* WhosLaughingNow: The Mexican cartel killed Gus' partner and mocks him about it. He ends up killing all of them.
* WickedCultured: Knows his wine, even if he doesn't allow himself to enjoy it very often.
* WeUsedToBeFriends: With Walter. They used to have genuine respect for each other at the beginning of their relationship, but that completely vanishes once Gus realizes how much of a reckless egomaniac Walt really is and conversely when Walt realizes how sociopathically ruthless Gus is.
* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: After killing the cartel in ''Salud'', Gus goes to Hector Salamanca to gloat to him. At that point he could have just killed him there after informing him of the cartel's demise (along with Joaquin) but he clearly wanted Hector to suffer first. This gave Hector the opening needed to team up with Walter White and ultimately bring about Gus's demise.
* AWolfInSheepsClothing: Oh boy, is he ever. Under that concerned, upright citizen's face hides a world of hurt for people who cross him.
* WouldHitAGirl: "I will kill your wife. I will kill your son. I will kill your infant daughter."
* WouldHurtAChild: When he promises to stop using children in his drug business, it's implied he has the children under his employ (including the kid brother of Jesse's girlfriend) killed. Later, when he fires Walt, he warns him not to interfere in his dealings with Hank, promising to murder his son and infant daughter.
* XanatosGambit: Sending the Twins after Hank. No matter who loses, he wins.
* YouHaveFailedMe: Initially, he appears to be a nicer, stabler person than other drug lords Walt and Jesse have encountered (and by comparison, he arguably is), but he soon starts showing his more ruthless side:
** He first pulls this on both Walt and Jesse after they kill a couple of his drug dealers in revenge for their murdering Tomás Cantillo, and quickly begins plotting to eliminate them both and bring Gale back into the fold as the lab's sole cook, with things going FromBadToWorse when Jesse kills Gale on Walt's orders. While Gus eventually warms up to Jesse again, he remains permanently soured on Walt.
** When Victor screws up and is seen leaving Gale's apartment after possibly leaving evidence there, he shows himself to be just as willing as Tuco to violently dispose of an employee who has become a liability.
** Walt and Gus's tensions come to a head in "Crawl Space" after nearly driving Hank to their Super Lab, narrowly avoiding by causing an accident. Walt is abducted and "Fired" in the desert with Hank being marked for death. Gus doubles down and threatens Walt's entire family should he attempt to interfere with his operations or the hit.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: It's indicated that he only ever intended Walt to be a temporary solution while Gale (and later Jesse) was trained up to precisely duplicate his formula, but was content to let Walt stick around until his cancer inevitably returned and he either died or become too ill to work. However, Walt ends up causing him to pull the trigger prematurely when he proves to be too much of a liability.
[[/folder]]
----
->''"Last chance to look at me, Hector."''

* MysteriousPast: All we know for certain is that he spent a part of his early life in Chile, and did something down there during the [[UsefulNotes/AugustoPinochet Pinochet]] dictatorship to make Don Eladio spare his life. The Chilean government has no record of his being born or living in that country, and Mike's investigations have turned up nothing. At least one fan theory surmises that Gus was linked with the Chilean secret service or even military intelligence, and was bailed out of the country with CIA assistance. Another one is that he is actually an ''Italian'' who moved to Chile and then Mexico, to explain Giancarlo Esposito's accent.

* MysteriousPast: All we know for certain is that he is Chilean, and did something down there during the [[UsefulNotes/AugustoPinochet Pinochet]] dictatorship to make Don Eladio spare his life. The Chilean government has no record of his being born or living in that country, and Mike's investigations have turned up nothing. At least one fan theory surmises that Gus was linked with the Chilean secret service or even military intelligence, and was bailed out of the country with CIA assistance.

* MaskOfSanity: Gus is a cold-blooded killer motivated by revenge alone, he wants Hector to suffer and die by his machinations and will not accept anyone interfering. All the professionalism and politeness are just a cover for his obsession.

* NonProtagonistResolver: In ''Better Call Saul'', despite it being Jimmy's story, he is the one to finally put an end to [[spoiler:Lalo Salamanca, whose actions had cemented him as [[BigBad the biggest threat]] to all the protagonists on the criminal and legal side of the tale]]. Notably, this actually ends up being a ''bad'' thing, as [[spoiler:his efficient disposal of Lalo and Howard's bodies afterwards in an undisclosed location to Jimmy left him paranoid that Lalo was still alive and preparing to seek vengeance on him, even years later, contributing to him becoming an [[TheParanoiac emotional wreck]] afterwards and using 'Saul Goodman' as a coping mechanism, which of course, led to the rise of Heisenberg and the destruction of ''everything'' he and Mike worked so hard to accomplish in this series, including their deaths and exposure as the leaders of a drug-dealing front. With his and Mike's deaths, Howard's body cannot be recovered by the present day, leaving Jimmy and the rest unable to achieve closure over his passing despite their best efforts]].

* TragicVillain: Although he hides it well, underneath all his ruthlessness and professional exterior, Gus is an empty, miserable man who has let his obsession with vengeance destroy any possibility of him finding a happy life.

** Gus tends to underestimate his opponents. Although he is wary of Walter, he still only sees him as a minor annoyance, which leads to his downfall. This trait can be seen in the prequel as well, where he underestimates Lalo’s tenacity and as a result fails in having him killed quickly.

* RiddleForTheAges: Who exactly ''is'' Gustavo Fring? We know that he is a Chilean immigrant who likely fled to Mexico during the Pinochet regime, we know the origin of his vendetta against the Cartel, and that's about it. We don't know who he was beforehand, how he met Max Arciniega and Peter Schuler, what happened to his relatives, or ''why'' he fled Chile to begin with. Hell, we never even figure out if "Gustavo Fring" is his real name!

* BlackSheep: Juan Bolsa claims that deep down, Gus will always be this to the Juarez Cartel and that he will never really be one of them. Of course, he couldn't care less.

** He has a goofy moment in ''Better Call Saul'' where he throws the paper with Hector's shoe shit into the bin - and nails it in one shot all while wearing a smile on his face!

** Gus usually treats his employees well enough, which makes it all the more shocking when he kills Victor out of nowhere. Even Mike, his long-time henchman, is caught completely off-guard by this sudden shift in mood and even briefly points a gun toward his own boss.

** Compensates his employees after Hector pays an extortion visit and promises not to take money from Mike that he could use for his family.

** Gus doesn't give a shit about Saul, and only met Jimmy once when he was terrible at playing undercover, but he and Mike in "Green Light" decide to not tell the lawyer that the Salamancas are around, knowing [[spoiler: just how traumatised he is over Lalo]].

* TotallyNotACriminalFront: The laundry that runs above his meth lab is inconspicuous enough that nobody has bothered to investigate it for illicit activities, but only stays under the radar until Hank starts investigating Gus' businesses more closely.

* LegitimateBusinessmensSocialClub: The laundry that runs above his meth lab is inconspicuous enough that nobody has bothered to investigate it for illicit activities, but only stays under the radar until Hank starts investigating Gus' businesses more closely.

* UndignifiedDeath: Gets killed by the man he hated the most who was stuck in a wheelchair, and after he had tried to kill that same man. that said, he subverts this as much as he's able to in his final moments, [[FaceDeathWithDignity walking out of the room and fixing up his tie]] despite missing half his face and his skull being clearly visible, out of [[{{Determinator}} sheer willpower]].

* BadLiar: He puts up a very elaborate smokescreen to explain Werner's death to Lalo, namely that Werner stole cocaine from him, and his crew was definitely NOT working on a secret basement but on a new blast chiller for his warehouse). Lalo doesn't buy it for a second [[ActuallyPrettyFunny but finds it hilarious.]]