Characters / Cyberpunk 2077: Johnny Silverhand

Cyberpunk 2077 Main Character Index
V | Johnny Silverhand | Allies | Corpos and Corporations | Criminals, Fixers and Gang Members | Phantom Liberty

In the City of Dreams, anyone who has more than three brain cells to rub together in their skullsponges can tell you who Johnny Silverhand is—or rather, who he was.

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Johnny Silverhand/Robert John Linder

"Wake the fuck up, Samurai. We have a city to burn."

Voiced by: Keanu Reeves (English), Dennis Lyxzén (singing voice), Michał Żebrowski (Polish)^note Other Languages: Benjamin Völz (German), Toshiyuki Morikawa (Japanese), Ilya Bledny (Russian), Jean-Pierre Michaël (French)

"I saw corps ... transform Night City into a machine fueled by people's crushed spirits, broken dreams and emptied pockets. Corps've long controlled our lives, taken lots... and now they're after our souls! ... I've declared war not 'cause capitalism's a thorn in my side or outta nostalgia for an America gone by. This war's a people's war against a system that's spiralled outta our control."

Soldier. Rockerboy. Terrorist. Johnny Silverhand was many things, but above all else, he was a legend. Earning fame and fortune as the lead guitarist of Samurai, the most influential "chrome rock" band of the 21st century, Johnny's musical passion was fueled by a deep hatred for the Mega-Corps that dominated the world, particularly Arasaka. While the world believes he died in a suicide bombing at Arasaka Tower in 2023, in reality his consciousness was forcibly downloaded into an experimental Arasaka biochip that V is hired to steal.

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A-F

• Ace Custom: He has a one-of-a-kind custom Hand Cannon made to order by famed gunsmith Eran Malour, the Malorian Arms 3516.
• Actor Allusion: Twice over!
  • The most iconic role of Keanu Reeves, the voice actor and face model for Johnny, is Neo from The Matrix. When V is possessed by the spirit of Johnny, they receive two bottles of pills. The blue pills suppress Johnny. The red pills bring him out faster.
  • Keanu Reeves also played the lead role of Johnny Mnemonic, another cyberpunk story where the protagonist must cope with a neural implant that is slowly killing him.
  • In the "Happy Together" sidequest, when V discovers the friend Barry is mourning is a pet tortoise which was the last souvenir he had from his long dead grandmother, if V comments with an insensitive option Johnny retort with a sermon explaining why Barry is right to be so upset. One of Keanu Reeves famous roles is a hitman who goes on a rampage after his dog's death (the character is a widower and the dog was the last gift he received from his late wife).^note Cyberpunk 2077 got released in the meantime between the third and fourth John Wick movies
• Adaptational Badass: Played With. In the tabletop game, he’s hardly weak but it’s nothing compared to his feats in the game. He’s a One-Man Army that’s considered the rival of Adam Smasher and even leads multiple assaults against Arasaka. Notably, in the tabletop game, Smasher gibs him in half with an auto shotgun before having his duel with Morgan Blackhand. In 2077, Johnny survives that confrontation (albeit offscreen), and the main reason Johnny was left behind and beaten by Smasher was because he was hanging off the side of a helicopter and thus couldn’t defend himself. It's Played With because we're only getting his recollections of the past and Alt points out in one scenario that his recollection of events is not what actually happened, which explains why Johnny is so unstoppable in certain cases.
• Adaptational Dye-Job: In the tabletop game, he's consistently depicted as blonde, here he's Tall, Dark, and Snarky. The Fall of the Towers short story in the Cyberpunk RED corebook reveals that it is indeed dyed. Mike Pondsmith also confirmed it in a Reddit post.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Johnny's relationship with his friends and acquaintances is considerably more abrasive than in the source material. While he was a fanatic who wasn't afraid of causing collateral damage to accomplish his goals in the PnP game, his charisma and magnetic personality made it very easy to see him as a knight in shining armor. In the video game it's a miracle that he had any friends left, at all, considering how he treats them in the flashbacks. This shift in tone is most likely due to how his 2013 assault on Arasaka ended up just breaking him.
• Affectionate Nickname: Alt calls him "Lover" in one of his memories.
• All for Nothing: How Johnny views his career as a Rockerboy and Edgerunner. It's not that Night City has changed, it's that it hasn't.
• Amazon Chaser: Despite his misogyny and promiscuity, his deeper relationships were all with extremely strong, capable, and independent women: his main love interest, at least in the game, is Rogue, a fixer who has no problems with fighting Arasaka goons alongside him. While Alt isn't exactly a classic Action Girl like Rogue, she's very independent and constantly challenges Johnny. He will also encourage male V to get together with Panam, implying that he would chase her himself if he could. Depending on the player's reading, he might also find female V attractive (however, it is important to note that all of his lines commonly perceived as romantic toward female V are also said to male V as well).
• Ambiguously Bi: Averted if V goes to Dicky Twister, a male strip club. Johnny will appear and say that the last time he was here was with Kerry, and will start to fondly reminisce about the ass of the dancer they've hired. V, clearly surprised, will say "I thought you preferred girls", to which Johnny will respond with "Mostly. Now and then I've swung both ways. The more the merrier." And lest we forget his "impressive cock" comment.
  • You can also find a shard written about Samurai, where the author says it was rumored Johnny was sleeping with both Kerry and Henry, their bassist. The author then just outright states that Johnny was 'sleeping with everyone, though his heart wasn't always in it.' This shard being reprinted in the SAMURAI section of the Official Cyberpunk 2077 Game Guide removes the speculative aspect of the original and presents it as fact, confirming that Johnny has indeed slept with every member of the band— thus canonically disproving the implications that he only likes women.
  • In a dialogue with Rogue, Johnny can answer "I'd do Kerry" when she asks him what would he do differently if he could go back in time.
  • During the quest "Rebel! Rebel!", there's Johnny's reaction to Kerry blowing up the van with US Cracks' concert gear (with a little help from V).
    Johnny: Fuck me, Kerry.
  • It's worth pointing out too that if you sleep with River, Johnny complains about V making him sleep with a cop, and says nothing about it being with another man.
  • If you as the player choose to interpret his feelings towards V as romantic, his behavior towards V is the same regardless of V's gender and he's not more emotional or affectionate towards any particular "type" of V.
• And I Must Scream:
  • Johnny describes the 50-odd years he'd been in Mikoshi as both not-quite-conscious yet trapped in a void, losing track of time while never truly having a moment's respite. It's only when his engram "awakens" in V that he's even able to proverbially breathe.
  • In Phantom Liberty, he notes how being "muted" by Songbird, to keep both the Relic and V's brain from frying, is akin to being put underwater and just barely able to gasp for air. All the while still conscious of everything V's experiencing, yet unable to do anything about it until after So Mi's gone.
• And the Adventure Continues: "The Temperance" ending has Johnny leaving Night City with his new lease on life, aiming to live a better, more peaceful one elsewhere. Whatever he actually does next, whether he succeeds or one day restart his Rockerboy exploits through less violent means, is left up to interpretation.
• Animal Motifs: Johnny seems to have a bit of a cat motif going on. During V's talk with Takemura in the mission "Gimmie danger", they spot a stray cat that sits on a railing next to them. Takemura comments that the animal is a "bakeneko", a cat spirit who is tied to misfortune and bringing the dead back to life. As the conversation continues, Johnny will appear on the wall next to the cat. As V and Takemura finish talking, Johnny gets frustrated with Takemura's support for Arasaka and drops down the building they're on as the cat flees, with V commenting that "The bakeneko got sick of us, it looks like". One shard in the game specifically mentions that the bakeneko can walk on its hind legs, talk and dance, and even assume human form and devour their owner to take their place, and that they visit people in their sleep and can wake the dead, all of which heavily parallels Johnny and the effect the biochip he's on has on V. You can also spot two cats when Misty is leading you to the roof where you have to make the final decision about yours and Johnny's fates. Cats are usually used to symbolize independence and going one's own way, something that definitely applies to Johnny. They're also often linked to the supernatural and bad luck, as they're rumored to see ghosts (which Johnny is, in a way). The cat model used in a game is a sphynx, so while it doesn't have black fur, it has dark, pigmented skin, and Johnny brought V misfortune by the sheer fact that his construct is overtaking V's mind, no matter if he wants it to or not. He's not exactly a lucky charm to his old friends like Alt, Kerry or Rogue, either.
• Anti-Hero: To an extreme, as this guy was willing to use a nuke for vengeance against Arasaka in the middle of Night City. He's downright unpleasant to basically everyone (not that they can see him), disparages about the lives people let themselves fall into, has an undying hatred for the corporations, and is just generally an awful jerk — but he does mean well in his resistance mindset, and beneath the violent and crass exterior is a man that still hangs onto his morality and human side as a dying ember of an old age.
• The Atoner: In the "Temperance" ending, Johnny is determined to make the best out of his second chance at life V's sacrifice gave him, and lead a calmer, kinder life. He even quits smoking out of respect for V's body.
• Arch-Enemy: Adam Smasher. Their rivalry is clear from his first playable flashback and he even tells V that with Saburo's death Smasher is the only real enemy he has left and he'll have to make do with killing him instead. He even asks V to kill Smasher as a Last Request.
• Artificial Limbs: He sports a mechanical chromed left arm, from which he draws his stage name.
• Attention Whore: Johnny tends to get annoyed, and even jealous, whenever V pays attention to someone other than him, especially one of their potential love interests, and frequently butts into conversations or tells V to leave and stop talking to that person.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Despite all their bickering, Johnny does seem to honestly care about V's health. He encourages them to sit down and catch their breath on multiple occasions when the relic malfunctions. During "Pyramid Song" he seems honestly distressed when V lost their consciousness when they were diving with Judy. After the concert in "A Like Supreme", Johnny can say that he regrets the concert because V had to take the pills that worsen their condition. V will be surprised and say that Johnny said that this concert was important to him and Kerry. Johnny's response is "It was. But not more important than you."
• Badass Normal: Apart from his aforementioned silverhand (that lacks any offensive capabilities and seems to function like a normal prosthetic) he doesn't appear to have any actual cybernetics besides what everyone else in the world has. It doesn't stop him from taking down Arasaka goons by the dozens or being strong enough that he has a longstanding rivalry with Adam Smasher.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: In life, Johnny sought to make Arasaka remember his name even as he sought to burn the MegaCorp down. He eventually succeeded in making it personal for none other than Saburo Arasaka himself but because of that, became a target for Soulkiller and was trapped in Mikoshi for over 50 years.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: If you give Johnny his last chance during the grave conversation, he becomes much nicer to V, because Johnny felt like they were the only one who still was willing to forgive him. From then on he becomes much more caring and kind towards V, and he's willing to help them get to Mikoshi (by getting Rogue's assist or just storming the Arasaka tower with them). In The Tower ending, he has a bittersweet herat-to-heart with them where he tries to comfort them by staying relatively cheerful, and saying that he doesn't hold a grudge over V asking FIA for help. He also tells them that he's proud of them, asks them to never change who they are and that they can always call themself his friend.
• Big Brother Mentor: Briefly acts as one to his neighbor Steve in the Temperance ending. He stands up to his dad for him, buys him an expensive guitar and encourages his drive to be a musician. It's clear Steve is sad to see him leave Night City.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: His famous artificial arm has a short, forked blade on its elbow. While we never see a situation where he puts it to use (since he normally has access to his Hand Cannon's flamethrower instead when he gets into a fight), it's presumably quite handy in close-quarters brawls.
• Bomb-Throwing Anarchists: He's a violently anarchistic rockstar who was willing to take up arms against the corporations. He also gets frustrated if V sleeps with River since it involves screwing a cop.
• Break the Haughty: Pretty much the whole game is this for him. After living his life as a toxic friend, bad partner, cheater and terrorist with the blood of thousands of innocents on his hands, he's unceremoniously killed, with his body being tossed like garbage and his psyche being stored on a chip that he compares to a limbo. Then he's slotted into V's head and is pretty much at their mercy, since he has no control over their body and actions. He has to grapple with the fact that he's slowly taking over their body and can't stop it, which disgusts and repulses him. After meeting his old friends pretty much nobody has anything positive to say about him, and the goal he fought so valiantly for didn't pan out. All this culminates during the grave scene, with him seriously questioning his past behavior and choices, and asking V for a second chance. If they'll grant him that, he's clearly incredibly grateful and eager to make V proud.
  • Phantom Liberty is very similar- Johnny is first forcibly and seemingly painfully silenced by Songbird and can only struggle to reach V again while watching them fight a giant war robot called the Chimera. When he finally takes his old place again, he is pulled, together with V, into working with a government he fought for and lost his arm for despite wanting nothing to do with it. He even admits to V that this whole situation makes him re-live his war trauma again, after years of pushing it down mentally. He sees Reed, who he can relate to struggle with Songbird, who reminds him of V and a bit of himself. At the end of the story in every ending except sending Songbird to the orbit he has a heart-to-heart with V about how he feels and how he notices some of his own flaws more and is clearly humbled. V can even congratulate him and say that he has changed.
• Bring My Brown Pants: According to Smasher's right-hand man Grayson, Johnny ended up pissing himself when he was hit with Soulkiller. He doesn't specify if it was the result of Johnny realizing the extent of the Fate Worse than Death that he was going to be given or if Soulkiller was just that painful/neurally disruptive, though given Grayson's dickish behaviour towards Rogue who was present for the interrogation, he may have said it just to get a rise out of her.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: Despite his standoffish, rude and abrasive behavior, Johnny can show a suprising ammount of heart and kindness, especially to V and especially if you chose a corrrect dialogue tree during the oil fields scene. V can tease him about it in one of the conversations after finishing Phantom Liberty:

  V:No, just... didn't realize that under that prick rockerboy exterior you're nothin' but a big ol' softie.

  Johnny, smiling fondly:Yeah, fuck you too.

• Bulletproof Vest: His default piece of clothing, likely what he was wearing during the 2023 raid where he died. It serves both to showcase his reputation of a violent rebel and his closed off, guarded nature; in certain scenes where he becomes more open and relaxed, he's shown in a visually similar, but much more casual tank top.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He's impulsive and egotistical, which often causes him to end up in bad situations, but he (usually) manages to get out in one piece due to his skills with firearms and merc intuition (attacking an Arasaka agent with a Tequilla bottle to distract them in "Never Fade Away").
• But Now I Must Go: He leaves Night City in the Temperance ending determined to live a more peaceful life away from all the violence and chaos.
• Byronic Hero: Johnny went through his life completely unbothered by what others thought about him, fighting against the Arasaka corporation, willing to do everything he could to achieve his goal, including detonating a nuclear bomb, killing thousands of people. He was dismissive and abrasive towards his friends and lovers, addicted to alcohol and drugs, and has a Dark and Troubled Past relating to being a soldier. He's self-centered and cynical, but also undoubtedly smart, perceptive and cunning, and is capable of being absolutely devoted to someone, like he's shown to be towards V, especially if the player treats him well.
• Came Back Strong: Depending on V's build, Johnny can be far stronger when they take over their body during "The Sun" endgame compared to his playable flashbacks. At the very least he's able to take on Adam Smasher head on, rather than being forced to retreat.
• Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them: During the "Temperance" ending, it's revealed that Johnny still talks to himself like V is there and they can hear him, and can openly admit to missing them, despite their constant bickering and disagreements when they were alive. In "The Tower" ending, if you have a high relationship with him, in one dialogue tree, he says that he's sad that he won't be able to watch V grow and change as a person, but the thought of them gone and him staying behind scares him more than his own death.
• Can't Take Criticism: Johnny does not take criticism well. His reaction to people criticism vary from snarking at them dismissively, to outright insults.
• Cassandra Truth: When Rogue learns he's riding shotgun inside V's head and undergoing some well-needed Character Development, she's initially skeptical. The "Blistering Love" sidequest has her question V if Johnny has ulterior motives for taking her out on a date, though she's quick to realize he is trying to change for the better. She's similarly skeptical about Johnny's reasons for raiding Arasaka to reach Mikoshi, believing him to once again on a crusade when he's really trying to save V's life.
• Casual Kink: During the gig "Serious side effects", V has to investigate a dingy motel. Johnny will appear and say "Man, last time I got choked in a hotel room I had to pay for it. You know how it is."
• Character Development: Near the end of Act 2, Johnny can admit to V that he's come to realize and regret how much his It's All About Me attitude hurt and ended up pushing his friends away and how he used and betrayed most of them.
• Child Soldiers: Assuming the dates present in the tabletop RPG are still canon, Johnny was one of these, being only 14 to 15 years old when he served in the Second Central American War, lost his arm, deserted, and founded Samurai. ^note In the tabletop RPG’s timeline, the Second Central American War took place from January 2003 to sometime in 2010. Samurai was explicitly founded after Johnny's military service and signed to Universal Records sometime in 2003. Johnny was born November 16th 1988, making him 14 years old throughout most of 2003.
• Comically Missing the Point: After Johnny returns control to V "Chippin In", if V, who immediately voids their guts upon getting out of bed, chooses to berate Johnny for his actions while in control, he will comment that he didn't know that "the pills" would do that to V, instead of, you know, the drug, sex, and alcohol-fueled bender that Johnny had just embarked upon in V's body. This can, of course, cross into Dramatically Missing the Point depending on how seriously V takes Johnny essentially having a joyride in V's body.
• Continuity Snarl: Invoked. Johnny Silverhand's memories of 2013 and 2023 seem to contain some discrepancies, be it mentioning Night City locales like Watson before they were named such at the time, or his Army of One exploits at the raid on Arasaka Tower. There are not only a hint at how biased his own memories are, but also of how far the line between his and V's consciousness is blurring.
• Composite Character: His death and rivalry with Adam Smasher were originally Morgan Blackhand's. In the 2020 sourcebook, Johnny had had no interactions with Smasher prior to getting dismembered by Smasher's autoshotgun in the Arasaka raid.
• The Conscience: Oddly enough, he functions as this to V. In a lot of side missions he advocates for the more moral option rather than succumbing to the temptation of an easy evil or looking away in exchange for a payday. V even calls him this as an insult if they refuse to beat up a Corrupt Cop in one side mission.
• Cool Car: As revealed in the "Rides of the Dark Future" featurette, he once drove an all-time classic: a 1977 Porsche 911 Turbo. V himself can obtain this gig in a side mission, provided they spare Grayson and take the key that opens the freighter containing Johnny's car or take the key from Grayson's corpse and find the correct container by themselves.
• Cool Shades: Wears a pair of red-tinted aviators, in true cyberpunk fashion.
• Cop Hater: Being an anarchist he hates the NCPD and will complain if V ends up sleeping with River. Nonetheless he's capable of showing empathy towards cops as individuals, being very sympathetic towards Barry's grief over losing his tortoise.
• Cultured Badass: In addition to being a Warrior Poet who sees little meaningful distinction between being a rock star and being a terrorist, he's quite well-versed in other forms of art and literature, and while he's not a fan of philosophy, he's read enough of it to be able to express his disapproval with detailed specifics when the subject comes up.
• Cuteness Proximity:
  • He may be a cynical hardass, but he's very clearly of the opinion that Male V's romance with Panam is absolutely adorable. You'll often see him looking at you two with a gentle smile on his face, or otherwise expressing unusually sincere approval.
  • He seems enamored by Nibbles, the cat V can adopt. When it appears for the first time he will call V to look at it. After they bring it to their apartment, Johnny will kneel down next to the basket V made into its bed and stare at it until you leave.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Edgy, Suppish, No-Compromise Badass kind. Johnny is a hardass who doesn't take shit from anybody, casually pisses off everyone he meets, and refuses to back down from any fight against the corrupt corporations that rule the world, even when it involves literally dropping a nuke on a city. As a direct result of his toxic actions, his remaining fans are aging man-children who worship Silverhand as a god but don't take up his fight themselves, and his corpse is buried under unmarked concrete because all his "friends" wanted to forget the asshole they were forced to prop up. It takes the whole game for him to realize how miserable and self-absorbed he was, but it hits hard and can turn him into The Atoner.
• Deep Sleep: If you ask Rogue for help in "The Sun" ending, Johnny (in V's body) sleeps through 20 hours straight while Rogue is planning the raid. It's likely because V was exhausted due to their worsening condition and that they were neglecting their needs to find the solution for the relic problem quicker.
• Defrosting Ice King: He goes from actively wanting to kill V when they first meet, to trying to help V figure out a way to safely remove the relic.
• Deuteragonist: The version of Johnny inside "The Relic" is your constant companion after the prologue, and his backstory and undying Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Arasaka drive the plot of the game the most after V/the player's own story and growing network of relationships in Night City. He can also fully take over V's body if they allow him to, leaving him as the sole playable character.
• Did Not Get the Girl: The game seems to prop up Rogue as Johnny's main love interest, but they will never get together, either because Rogue dies ("The Sun" ending), Johnny gets wiped from the chip ("The Star", "(Don't Fear) The Reaper", "The Devil") or Rogue doesn't believe that V gave their body willingly and thinks that Johnny tricked them, and doesn't want to see him ever again ("Temperance").
• Didn't Think This Through: Even had Johnny's plan gone the way it intended and simply destroyed Arasaka Tower rather than the nuke blowing up prematurely in the elevator shaft, he didn't think much on what would happen next. The outcome by 2077 would have likely still have been pretty similar.
• Ditzy Genius: He's a walking demonstration of the gap between being experienced and educated and actually being wise. He's a well-read, articulate guy who's learned a great deal from a varied and interesting life, but none of that prevents him from being a bone-headed brute with a short attention span and a shorter temper. His heart may often be in the right place, but his brain rarely is, and unquestioningly trusting his advice is often a swift route to disaster.
• Does Not Drive: Despite having owned a vintage Porsche, Johnny conspicuously refuses to drive throughout the game proper, both in the flashbacks and whenever V lets him take over, instead letting others drive him around^note Rogue in "Never Fade Away", Ruby in "A Cool Metal Fire", Steve in "New Dawn Fades". This may be an expression of his overblown ego and a belief that he deserves a personal chauffeur... or it may be symbolic of his position as a permanent passenger in V's body.^note From a Doylist perspective, this was probably implemented by the devs to gently constrain the player from running off into the open world and breaking the game while Johnny is active.
• The Dreaded: Even long after his body's death, Johnny's memory lingers on within Arasaka as a grim warning. For Saburo Arasaka in particular, it's still enough to make him hesitant to visit Night City even by the 2070s.
• Edgy Backwards Chair-Sitting: Sits this way if V is in control when they plug into Mikoshi. Otherwise he sits in one of the booths. He also sits like this during their chat in "Tapeworm".
• Enemy Mine: For all his anti-corporate rhetoric, he doesn't seem to notice that his nuking of Arasaka was backed by Militech. He prefers to not remember it, though.
• Erudite Stoner: He's heavily into drugs, and in his more mellow moments veers straight into this trope, waxing philosophic about the world of Cyberpunk and Night City.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • For all his nastiness he's equally as appalled as V about their situation and while he does occasionally threaten to forcibly take control of V to take revenge on Arasaka, he ultimately never acts on it despite being given ample opportunity to. The only times he does take over are when V is in danger and needs to be led to safety, or when V gives their explicit consent for him to do so. In the finale he immediately rejects Alt's suggestion to take over V's body once it's made clear the Soulkiller's damage is irreversible, and will only go through with it if V either gives their blessing or forces him to.
  • He seems to place a great deal of importance on free will and despises those who try to control it. One reason he hates Arasaka and Mikoshi so much, besides Alt’s death, is because the Secure Your Soul program traps people’s entire beings for Arasaka to control. They can’t even die as themselves since death isn’t an option for engrams. He realizes that this is exactly what he's doing to V, though unintentionally, and this is the main reason why he wants to help V with separating them.
  • Averted, then somewhat played straight when V and Johnny come upon Judy discovering that Evelyn committed suicide in her bathtub. Johnny, being, well, Johnny, will make a snide remark at Evelyn's expense, to which V can tell him on no uncertain terms to shut the fuck up. Normally, Johnny would see this as a challenge to get even more snide but instead, he wisely keeps his trap shut for the rest of the scene, and his next words, regarding the futility of Judy's decision to move Evelyn to the bed, are with a much grimmer tone in his voice, implying that even he thinks he might have gone a bit too far with that one.
  • During "Sinnerman", he stands in quiet contemplation when V is crucifying Joshua Stephenson, sparing his usual sass. He also doesn't say anything when V talks with and prays with Joshua in his dressing room. It's possible that he sees a little of himself in a violent criminal who is willing to die to send a message.
  • Johnny is also uncharacteristically quiet if Barry commits suicide over the death of his pet tortoise. In spite of being a cop-hating hardass, he understands perfectly why someone would do that.
  • In the same gig as above, if V visits Andrew's niche and finds out he was a tortoise, Johnny will spell it out to V that this isn't a joke, it's fucking sad and that Barry is clearly suffering with 100 percent seriousness in his voice.
  • Johnny also might have been willing to detonate a nuke in a major urban center but his original plan was to minimize civilian casualties. The nuke was supposed to fall into the fortified basement of Arasaka Tower to contain the blast and cause the tower to fall in on itself without affecting the surrounding area too much. However, the elevator the bomb was on got stopped or jammed a few hundred stories above street level, resulting in the blast radiating outwards laterally; as a result, the shockwave demolished everything in the immediate vicinity, and launched irradiated debris all over the city, causing tens of thousands of casualties rather than only a few thousand and limiting the bulk of the damage to just the vicinity of Arasaka Tower.
  • In the gig "Talent Academy" he's absolutely fuming when he sees kids as young as 12 having implants installed into them and being trained to become future star athletes. Given his past, the place probably reminded him a lot of being back in the military.
  • After Alt's death, he takes his rage out on Thompson by beating him to near death because the latter wanted to record Alt's death for posterity. As much as Johnny wants to get back at Arasaka, he's not going to exploit the newly deceased to do it. It also doesn't matter if V lets the timer run out - he will attack Thompson regardless.
• Evil Hand: According to Pondsmith, Johnny suffered from cyberpsychosis on some level due to his cybernetic limb and blamed his worst impulses on his titular hand.
• Excellent Judge of Character: ONLY in Phantom Liberty. He is a pretty lousy one in the main story, but in Phantom Liberty he is spot on in regards to what Myers, Reed and Songbird are really like. It's partially because Johnny himself used to work for NUSA's armed forces and because of that he understands how they think. The other reason is because he is used to getting orders from someone like Myers (a former officer), used to BE someone like Reed (an agent who is used and abused by his higher-ups) and he was reckless and determined in regars to his goals like Songbird (who will do anything to get away from Myers).
• The Extremist Was Right: Still a heated topic of in-universe discussion over fifty years later. It's accepted by everyone (including Johnny) that his war against Arasaka failed, dealing no long-term damage and only succeeding in getting himself, a bunch of his friends, and thousands of innocent people killed, but there are plenty of people who believe that he wasn't wrong to try, and that his methods, while brutal, were proportionate and appropriate to the evil he faced. According to them, he was the leader the struggle needed, and just got unlucky against an incredibly powerful, cunning, and dangerous foe. In the story itself, meanwhile, he may be a bitter, washed-up wreck of a human being wallowing in rage and despair, but his fanatical hatred of Arasaka is both justified and sensible more often than not.
• Face Death with Dignity: After getting to know V and befriending them, he considers the possibility he might get deleted (and will be in "The Devil" ending) and accepts it so long as V gets the chance to help him settle his grudge with Smasher. If you have a good relationship with him and you choose to help Hanako, he's more concerned he won't be there to help V and less angry about the fact they're relying on Arasaka to help at all. This is especially poignant in "The Tower" ending, where Johnny is all but guaranteed to "get wiped" by the FIA, but accepts his impending death with somber acceptance and considers it a fair trade if it means V will get to live a long life.
• Failure Hero: How Johnny views his career and activities. 50 years later and the Corps are just as powerful as ever and his few fans are just cranky old men screaming at how the corporations ruin everything while not actually doing anything about it.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: His Malorian Arms 3516 houses a short-range flamethrower, which functions as the quick melee when it gets used by either Johnny or V when they find it in the present day.
• Fire-Forged Friends: At first Johnny will treat V as just a step towards his goal, caring little for V's condition beyond just making sure the body will move towards what Johnny wants, as the story goes, however, and the player chooses to humor some of Johnny's wishes through side quests, more options will pop up in which V and Johnny can have friendly conversations, and Johnny will show sincere concern for V's health to the point Johnny will open himself up to V, remarking that due their odd forced partnership V might as well be the closest friend Johnny ever had and the one he didn't manage to push away from his life by being a major pain in the ass.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Averted, to his own chagrin. He's well aware of this trope and that he should be 50 years out of date, but if anything he's even more disturbed at how little Night City has changed since he died. The shops are different but many of the same faces are still in charge.
• Foil:
  • To V. Johnny is an embittered idealist who has spent most of his life trying to shake up the status quo, V is a (relatively speaking) optimistic materialist who is determined to make the status quo work for them. The way they treat their friends also differs. Johnny is a toxic jerk who drives away most of his friends and his relationship with Alt Cunningham was strained at best. Meanwhile V has a group of True Companions and their potential relationships with all their love interests are far healthier and built on mutual support.
  • Carried over from the tabletop game is his being a foil to Saburo Arasaka. Both men are military vets who fought on the losing side and lost limbs that cybernetics would eventually replace. Saburo retreated into his nationalist views after being wounded and discharged, devoted his life to making Japan a superpower that could dominate the world and built his father's company into a MegaCorp that could do just that. Johnny returned from his service with a distrust for authority figures, corporations and even power as a concept, and became one of the world's pre-eminent anarchists. Also notable are their respective character arcs; Saburo, despite looking much more the picture of health than he was in 2020, remains unchanging and is still very much the same man he's been for a century. Johnny, meanwhile, is unchanging in appearance due to his status as a digital ghost, but spends the game having his worst behaviors hammered home until, with V's help, he finally lets go of the angry, toxic man he'd been and becomes The Atoner.
  • To Kerry. Johnny was fervently against corporations and working with them, ultimately dying a free man (relatively, of course. He probably didn't count on the engram). Kerry was more willing to work with corpo labels, and ends up exploited by them in the current times. As a result, Samurai is barely remembered by anyone, while Kerry's solo music is listened to all around the world. You can also see that with their romantic relationships: Johnny's relationships with Alt and Rogue were strained at best, and toxic at worst, with Johnny frequently cheating on them both. In comparison, Kerry's relationship with his ex-wife is decent enough, and his potential relationship with V is very loving and devoted on Kerry's part.
  • To Jackie. Both Johnny and Jackie are V's closest companions throughout the game, and both are responsible for writing in V's questlog. Where Jackie is friendly, affable and approachable, Johnny is aloof, distant and much harder to like. Johnny's relationships with Alt and Rogue were strained and tense, while Jackie's relationship with Misty is very harmonious and loving. Jackie's ofrenda in "Heroes" is a community event, with Jackie's mom, friends and (possibly) girlfriend in attendance, with everyone reminiscing about how much Jackie meant to them and how great of a guy he was, while Johnny died alone in Arasaka captivity, his identity stripped away from him and his body unceremoniously dumped in an empty oil field.
  • To Solomon Reed. Johnny openly admits that he would probably become just like Reed if he didn't deserted the army, given his loyalty. While Reed seems to be forcing himself to believe the NUSA ideals and serve them despite their own objections, Johnny deserted and chose to fight corporations who pulled him into the world of warfare in the first place. Solomon truly cares about his teammates (Alex and especially Songbird), Johnny was arrogant and toxic towards Rogue, Alt and members of Samurai (especially Kerry). Solomon's guilt towards everything he did to Songbird and how far he is willing to go to get her the help she needs mirrors how Johnny feels towards V in the end of the game, especially given that both Songbird's and V's deadly condition is, in a way, Reed's and Johnny's fault, respectably. While Reed trusts NUSA doctors and wants Songbird to recieve care in a government facility, Johnny wants V to have nothing to do with corpos like Arasaka, and instead is willing to help them get to Mikoshi through anti-corpo means like Rogue's help or storming the Tower with V.
• Friendship Moment:
  • The heart to heart he and V have at the end of "Chippin' in", over his grave, is certainly very touching and really shows how far they've come from wanting to kill each other when they've first met.
  Johnny: Sometimes, when I wake up, feels like I'm back for a while. (...) Well, like I've got this body for myself. Like I'm free. Seconds later, I feel like I'm missing something - something really important. Then I realize you're there, always were, and this stupid wave of relief washes over me.
  • There's a subtly sweet instance of this in the journal entry for "Don't Lose Your Mind" (written by Johnny):
    Your buddy Delamain appears to be having some personal issues. How else do you explain his cabs standing in the middle of the road and blocking traffic? better give him a call. Besides, you're short on friends (present imaginary company excluded).
  • The Tower ending adds a new one if V and Johnny have a high relationship. He chooses his last moments alive to be with V and keep them company, all while being uncharacteristically calm and polite. As V loses consciousness due to a relaxant, Johnny gives them a last goodbye:
  Goodnight, Vincent/Valerie. Today was a good day.
• From Camouflage to Criminal: Before the Collapse, Johnny was a soldier who fought under the original American government. Cut to Cyberpunk 2013 and Johnny has become a radically anti-corporate activist who's willing to kill to achieve his goals after going AWOL during the Central American Wars.
• Functional Addict: Johnny is a heavy drinker, and back when he lived would both take pills and inject stimulants into himself - something Alt is reproachful for. If he's allowed to take over V's body for day to talk to Rogue, he goes on an epic night long bender, that includes a ton of drinking to the point of vomiting several times, and buying drugs. Deconstructed in that while Johnny could function passably while drunk, high, etc. the erratic behavior that came with it contributed significantly to destroying his friendships with others and a long streak of poor decision making that got him killed in the end.

G-L

• The Gadfly: When he's not berating V or philosophizing about corps and their subjugation of all life in Night City, he's making snide comments and wry jokes just to needle V and the player.
• Genius Ditz: Manages to be this AND a Ditzy Genius. He spends so much time being impulsive, bone-headed Dumb Muscle that it's often legitimately difficult to remember that he's one of the greatest musicians of the century. Get him talking about his art, though, and he'll quickly remind you that this is one subject he really does know back to front.
• Grand Theft Me: Johnny's consciousness starts taking over V's after they insert the Relic into their slot, slowly rewriting their mind with his. It is a lengthy process that neither of them can stop. There are also moments where V can allow Johnny to directly control their body.
• Good Adultery, Bad Adultery: Definitely bad. Rogue states that he cheated on her with multiple women while they were dating and he shows absolutely no remorse for it when she calls him out on it. The dialogue to bring it up even has him ask her if she's still mad about 'that thing', indicating that he doesn't see his actions as a big deal despite how she's clearly hurt by it. A major point in his romantic relationship with Rogue in the year 2077 is convincing her he's changed, or at the very least genuinely willing to try again and do it right this time.
• Good Is Not Nice: Johnny is an Anti-Hero idealist who has a goal of stopping corporations from taking over people's lives, which he believes in with his whole heart. However, he is not above detonating a nuke, causing massive civilian casualties. He was also far from pleasant in his personal life, being a toxic influence on all of his friends, fans and mistreating his partners.
• Godzilla Threshold: As far as he's concerned, taking the FIA's deal to remove the Relic is this. Like "The Devil" ending, Johnny isn't happy about it in the least, but if he has a high relationship value with V, he knows they are running out of options and V will do what they have to if it means they can survive.
• Guardian Angel: After V collapses following their (in-person) talk with Hanako near the end of the game, Johnny will take over V's body to drag them to Viktor's clinic, because they're too weak to get there by themselves. As V wakes up on Viktor's operating table, he tells them that V pretty much pulled Viktor's previous patient off and demanded to be treated, and that they acted very strange and unlike themselves. V can then hear Johnny whispering to tell Viktor that it was their "guardian angel".
• The Gunslinger: Unlike V, Johnny's playable flashbacks have him using his customized Hand Cannon and nothing else. Averted in The Sun ending where he has access to V's entire arsenal and even receives a unique assault rifle from Rogue.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: How much is somewhat up to the player in the memory segments, but Johnny always shows to have a temper. When allies criticize him or his actions, he's prone to being dismissive, snide and insulting. If he's mad, he's perfectly willing to harm everyone around him. When Alt tells him she's leaving him, his reaction is to declare that he only cared about the sex they had. When Kerry questions Johnny pulling giant dangerous stunts (shooting into the audience) without the band's foreknowledge or approval, Johnny's answer is to declare he's the only member of the band with vision and to toss Kerry aside. When Alt dies, Johnny will end up beating Thompson in rage, stopped short of killing him by Rogue. His immediate reaction when activated in V's mind is to swear to kill them. Even the final raid on Arasaka tower is essentially an extraordinarily violent temper tantrum over Alt's death.
• Hand Cannon: Johnny's Iconic Weapon, the Malorian Arms 3516, is a massive chromed handgun that can penetrate walls and release a fiery blast as its quick melee. V can obtain it for themselves in a later sidequest though chances are it won't be nearly as impressive as any other weapon in their current arsenal. Word of God says that it started out as a Desert Eagle with reinforced chambering to handle a .577 Nitro Express equivalent round. And Johnny always wanted revisions. By the time of the 2023 Arasaka Tower raid, it was pretty much an anti-tank rifle in handgun form, kitted out with an onboard smart system that linked to a cybereye sight and a nerve dampener that "made you rock steady while firing it".
• Handicapped Badass: Johnny stands out among other characters who sport Artificial Limbs in this setting, because he actually lost his left arm during the war and didn't just replace it out of his own free will. Goes doubly so, because his left hand is actually his dominant one, so losing it must've been especially difficult. The UI color change when he takes over V's body seems to imply he has color blindness. None of that stopped him from raiding the Arasaka Tower twice.
• Has a Type: He seems to like women (or people in general) who refuse to bow to his ego. His former flings Alt and Rogue are only too willing to let him know when he's being a dick, not that it changes his behavior. He also seems to like strong-willed and ambitious women; again, this includes Rogue and Alt, but notably Johnny will tacitly approve of a male V's decision to pursue a romance with Panam. Depending on how you choose to read it, he might also feel this way about V themselves, eventually becoming quite fond of their shared brainspace despite (or perhaps because of) the constant back-and-forth banter and bickering Like an Old Married Couple. There are implications that Johnny enjoys the idea of being challenged by someone who would push back against him, perhaps explaining why he is much more dismissive of Judy as V's partner.
• I Hate Past Me:Should you choose the Devil ending and meet him in Mikoshi, Johnny will chew you out of for your choices, because in his eyes you are exactly like he used to be: A selfish person who abandons his principles and the people around him for the sheer sake of pushing forward.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Although he'd be the last person to admit it, you get an impression that a large portion of his anger was born after his impulsive decision to disconnect Alt from Arasaka's network, killing her and trapping her consciousness as an AI.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Wears a pair of leather pants.
• Heroic BSoD: At the end of the Chippin' In quest, you go and visit Johnny's "grave" after managing to find out where it is. And when you get there, Johnny is hit hard by the reality of his fate, and that this is where all his Jerkass behavior and violent activism got him, his legacy: unceremoniously dumped in an unmarked grave in the middle of a random oilfield, the spot completely erased by the garbage that's piled up over the decades. No name, no marker, nothing. And it manages to hit him so hard, he realizes how little a difference his life and death had actually made to the world, and how he wasted that life, entirely by his own conscious choice, being a violent, alcoholic, drug-addicted asshole to literally everyone, including those he actually cared about. How much he's pulled out of it depends on your dialogue choices in this scene.
• The Hero's Idol: After Lizzy Wizzy's performance in "You Know My Name" he will mention that he looks up to a famous "rockergirl" named Wendy O'Williams who committed suicide when he was nine, and how he would give every party he's ever been to, including the one he's to now, to see her live just once.
• Hidden Depths:
  • He seems to know a lot about art, being able to properly identify an artwork that fell from space during the "Space Oddity" side mission, apparently thanks to having a psycho artist ex-output.
  • He also recognizes a drug addict's manic ranting as a quote from Dante's Inferno.
  • He seems to have a pretty good grasp on the noir genre trappings, since he can improvise a properly stylized narration about V in "Raymond Chandler Evening".
  • In "Dream On", he gives V advice about some old machinery, since he reveals he had to often deal with it back when he was a soldier.
  • Phantom Liberty explores a lot of his feelings towards his experiences as a corporate soldier and being a deserter. He's clearly deeply traumatized from that time and he has never really worked through his emotions, only stuffing them deep inside and never coming back to them. The events of the expansion bring them back to the forefront, clearly making him suffer.
  • After the events of Phantom Liberty V gets to have a frank conversation with him about what has transpired, and it's clear that the events of the story shook him deeply, with V even saying that he has changed, with some pride in their voice.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: The journal entry for "Heroes":
  I don't usually give advice, but... fuck it, here goes. Don't make the same mistake I made - say goodbye to the people you love. You know what I mean, right? Jackie Welles was your best choom, and you don't find a lot of straight-up peeps like that in NC. Best thing you can is remember them. Oh, and one more thing. If anyone asks, I didn't just say all that to you. Got it?
• Historical Hero Upgrade: From his own perspective in-universe. To say that Johnny massively plays himself up on his memories of the Arasaka Tower raid of Firestorm Shockwave would be an understatement, effectively writing himself in to be the One-Man Army protagonist of the whole mission as a nigh-unstoppable Action Hero while leaving out a lot of important details, such as Morgan Blackhand being the real Solo hero of the raid, the Militech backing of the op, or that Johnny himself got casually bisected by Smasher's autoshotgun in less than a second as far as the original book went. While V never gets the knowledge nor opportunity to confront him on it, it's not just the tabletop canon that clashes, as Alt can point out that Johnny's mind-copy trapped in an engram for fifty years likely did a number on the consistency of his memories and psyche. Even then, it's completely in-character for him anyway.
  • This also counts for his reputation. As far as the world knows from Arasaka's reports, Silverhand is one of the worst terrorists in history and went down as a legend for trying to destroy Arasaka in such an over-the-top and excessive manner. The reality is that Arasaka simply recovered his body from the carnage and brought him into the Soulkiller program against his will, with Saburo hoisting all of the blame on him since Militech managed to hide their involvement in the incident. If things really are embellished from Johnny's perspective, then he ironically covered up for the real hero of the event while he took a dirtnap in no time flat, making him a Fake Ultimate Hero that earned nothing but a pointless blaze of glory for his part.
• His Story Repeats Itself: In "The Sun" ending, Johnny is once again tasked with raiding the Arasaka Tower to save the one person he loves/holds dear (first it was Alt, now it's V). This time, however, it's not for his ideals or an ego boost, but because he genuinely wants to help V and save their life.
• Humble Pie: He thinks that calling the Aldecaldos in to raid Arasaka Tower is a terrible idea, especially if your Relationship Values are high and he's ready and raring to do it with Rogue instead. If you indulge in a little friendly gloating after reaching Mikoshi in the Star route, he'll sheepishly apologise and congratulate you on a job well done.
• Hypocrite:
  • He maintains an air of apathy to how others think of him, and even mocks who is possibly his only remaining hardcore fan for being stuck in the past by trying to keep his memory alive, yet is left despondent on learning that his 'grave' amounts to an unmarked slab of concrete buried in a derelict oil field, leaving him without even a gravestone for people to remember him by, and his friends are all either dead or having long ago moved on from him. Him owning up to this hypocrisy and realizing just how badly his behavior hurt and alienated his friends from him is part of his Character Development.
  • Despite allegedly fighting the Corpos for the small man's sake, he is extremely dismissive of sex workers, who are still one of society's lowest rungs and need someone to stand up for them more than anyone else. He spends pretty much the entirety of Judy's questline trying to get V to stop helping her and the Moxes in the rudest of terms. Among his first words to V in "Playing For Time" is assuming they're some kind of "joytoy."
  • Rails against the Corpos for the suffering they commit to the populace but similarly brushes off the tens of thousands of people, many of them innocent, that he killed with his terrorist attack. Aside from a brief statement of how he didn't want an Arasaka scientist's husband to die he feels seemingly no guilt for all the lives he took.
  • At one point he complains about dealing with the "clusterfuck" that are V's hormones (regardless of V's gender) despite having spent pretty much his entire life acting like an overgrown teenager.
  • He mocks Kerry when he says that after Samurai fell apart, he went to the Philippines to "find himself", by saying that he probably went there to get high and have sex with everything that moves, despite the fact that drugs and sex were Johnny's own coping mechanism when he was alive.
  • He scoffs with disgust when he talks to V about Nancy's abusive husband, despite the fact that he has an option to grab Alt by her hair and threaten her in his memories. Worth noting, however that there's also a non-violent option, and later in the argument when he tries to grab her to stop her from leaving, he immediately releases her arm when she pulls away and doesn't try it again.
  • Johnny dislikes Judy due to her tendency to not think things through and act on impulse, despite the fact that both 2013 and 2023 Arasaka tower raids were done with little to no planning on his part, and him not sticking to Rogue's plan in the 2023 raid is what led to his death.
  • When planning for the final mission of the game, he urges V not to call a romanced Panam for help, as they shouldn't bring their loved ones into their troubles... and then immediately suggests letting him take control and recruit his old flame Rogue.
  • In the description for the mission "Shoot to Thrill", he says that he doesn't like it when people treat guns like toys, despite his trademark reload technique for his Malorian being incredibly reckless and dangerous. He also would wield and fire his pistol during concerts.
  • He shames Rogue for working with corporations, insisting that she betrayed her old ideals. That is, despite the fact that their Arasaka nuking raid was actually backed by Militech, who are no less ruthless and evil than Arasaka.
• I'll Take That as a Compliment: During "Chippin' In", Johnny at one point asks V what epitaph they would write on his tombstone. If you reply "Terrorist And Raging Asshole", Johnny is less than thrilled at first... but then adds that if he saw that on someone's grave, he'd at least want to meet the guy.
• I Love You Because I Can't Control You: Seems to be his thing. Both Rogue and Alt were more than happy to criticize him and call him out on his toxic behavior. V is the same way, so no wonder he could be possibly attracted to them.
  Johnny (to Rogue): I love it when you get mad! Gets my southern blood pumpin'!
• Implacable Man: During the segments where you play as him, he is essentially an iron wall. While V, depending on your build, will generally need to be more agile and evasive to avoid getting filled with lead, Johnny can just walk straight into a hail of fire while gunning down his enemies one by one. Gameplay even somewhat encourages this as Johnny has no real dash as a V with even a low amount of invested agility can obtain.
• Ink-Suit Actor: His face and voice are identical to that of his actor, Keanu Reeves.
• Insanity Immunity: According to Mike Pondsmith, Johnny's unstable and rage-filled nature meant that his presence in V's mind made V a lot more resistant to Cyberpsychosis since he's already partially a Cyberpsycho himself.
• Instant Expert: Has access to all of V's skills - including netrunning - even though he only used a pistol in the flashbacks. Justified since the Relic likely fed him that info in order to make taking over the body easier.
• In the Back: Gets stabbed through the back by a pair of Mantis Blades during Alt's kidnapping. If not for that, he might have been able to prevent her abduction. Though given that the "drunken groupies" that attacked him were actually Arasaka ninjas in disguise, Johnny's defeat here was almost certainly a Foregone Conclusion.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: In the "Psychofan" quest, when V inspects posters about Samurai concerts, Johnny notes how he can't remember his show from April 2007 very well. When V says that he probably forgot due to drinking so much vodka over the years, Johnny gets angry at V, though not in the way you'd think:
  Johnny: Let's get one thing straight, I never touched vodka. Bourbon, whiskey, and tequila - that was my crowd.
• It's All About Me: Natch for a rockerboy's lifestyle. In life, he was rather arrogant, particularly where his grudge with Arasaka was involved. When Alt Cunningham, his off-and-on girlfriend, gets kidnapped by Arasaka and he gets shanked in the back, he immediately believes that she was kidnapped to get to him, despite the fact that she's a brilliant netrunner who wrote the Soulkiller program that eventually gets used on Johnny by Arasaka. Even after he's told this, he still thinks that he was Arasaka's target rather than collateral damage.
  • Subverted by the end. When finally faced with the possibility of taking over V’s body completely and starting anew, he stubbornly refuses and instead resigns himself to life as an AI, living beyond the Blackwall with Alt and encouraging V to keep fighting the good fight. If V instead sacrifices themselves to give Johnny a new start, he refuses to let their sacrifice be in vain.
• Irony: Whether or not Johnny detonated the nuke inside Arasaka Tower, the blame was placed squarely on him. At least Saburo, as revealed by his diary, was convinced it was Johnny and his team were acting alone. Thus, when Johnny died, Arasaka considered itself avenged. Consequentially, Arasaka considered the war more trouble than it's worth if the world was destabilized enough that any terrorist with a grudge could get their hands on a nuke and destroy a fifth of their company. Saburo never made the connection with Militech, with the latter successfully distancing themselves, as if he had he would have retaliated resulting in mutually assured destruction of both companies; and probably the world. Thus, despite hating Arasaka with every fiber of his being, Johnny saved Arasaka from total destruction.
• Kick the Dog: Johnny has a number of these moments that underscore as heroic as he can be, he is an enormous prick.
  • Johnny will mock the groupies following him around as wasting their lives.
  • Johnny dismisses the collateral damage that will happen because of the riot he started attacking Arasaka Tower. Not to mention the nuke.
  • When he confronts quite possibly the last major Samurai fan, now in his sixties without cyberware, Johnny just mocks him for being obsessed with the music but not the band.
  • Attempts to discourage V from helping out Judy and her plan to stop the abuse at the Clouds dollhouse, even sneering that V can't honestly be expecting them to risk their lives for 'a bunch of whores.'
  • Upon finding Evelyn killed herself from the trauma of whatever was done to her, rather than offer any words of comfort or regret, Johnny's first words are of snide anger that she made all their efforts to save her All for Nothing.^note Though if V cuts him off and tells him to shut up, he wisely shuts the fuck up, implying even he thought he might have gone too far with that comment.
  • Despite promising V he’ll just take over for a bit to talk to Rogue he proceeds to go on an all-night bender and even takes the acceleration pill again to extend his hedonistic spree. While he did also have a reason for it, namely getting information, it still comes across as a blatant violation of trust. V can call them out on it in the proceeding mission and, to his credit, he does approve of being called out.
  • During "Pyramid Song", he advocates for leaving Judy alone in an abandoned shack outside of the city limits when she's having a nervous breakdown over Evelyn's death. Granted, Johnny himself is essentially on edge for the entire quest due to his...anxiety about going under water, which was made worse when V has a Relic Malfunction during the dive and nearly drowns, so he likely was just trying to get as far away from the whole diving experience thing as he could, but it still comes off as pretty callous towards Judy.
  • In Dowgtown, should the player work with Nele Springer, Johnny is unsympathetic to the crisis of conscience she has over her past as a terrorist, and even considers her squeamishness regarding the innocent lives Crimson Harvest has taken to be weakness. Should V call out Johnny on his own fruitless past as a terrorist, he'll go as far as to claim that he only failed because the people who followed after him were too soft-hearted to do what was necessary.
• Killed Off for Real: The Devil and Tower endings are what end Johnny for good. Either Arasaka disentangles his engram from V and erases him, or he's destroyed outright.
• Kiss Me, I'm Virtual: If you believe the subtext that points to Johnny actually falling in love with V during the course of the story, anyway.
• Knight in Sour Armor: 90% of Johnny's bad attitude comes from the fact he wanted to make a difference, yet nothing he does ever seems to change anything.
• Known Only by Their Nickname: Nobody refers to Johnny by his birth name, Robert John Linder, instead using his stage name. Only his memorial in the Columbarium uses it.
• The Lancer: Tends to play this role in many sidequests, encouraging caution or outright abandoning the mission altogether rather than risking his and V's lives on needless risks for the hope of a payday.
• The Last DJ: Johnny carries this attitude, believing himself to be one of the only people who hasn't sold out to the corporations and still fights the good fight.
• Leitmotif: The Rebel Path, which plays during his assault on Arasaka Tower in 2023.
• Lemony Narrator: Most of V's questlog entries are written by Johnny's hand, and it comes with all of his typical sass. He even narrates what's happening in one quest as if it were a Film Noir, much to V's annoyance.
• Like an Old Married Couple: During one of V's relic malfunction scenes, V can mockingly imitate Johnny by saying "Blah blah blah, fuck Arasaka, blah blah blah, smash Mikoshi". Johnny will laugh and say that "[they] really are turning into [him]" and then state that the two of them bicker like an old married couple. Worth noting that while he only uses that specific wording for a feminine V in English, he uses it for both masculine and feminine V in the Polish version. ("Kłócimy się jak stare małżeństwo.") In English, he says to a masculine V that they're "bickering like a couple of geezers on a park bench".
  • When he and V are discussing their options on dealing with the Relic, they'll go back and forth mocking each other and their situation, but in a very fond and warm tone.
• Locked Out of the Loop: In the Temperance ending, none of V's friends and associates are aware Johnny has taken over their body and their voicemails even asking V what they're up to. The only ones who do know are potentially Rogue and Panam, but they're under the impression Johnny forcibly took V's body and are not happy; the former tells Johnny to never come back to Night City with the implicit threat she'll kill him otherwise while Panam angrily tells Johnny she'll hunt him down to rip him out of V's head. In any case, Johnny himself doesn't contact or talk to any of them to explain what happened as you'll find messages from Mama Welles, Viktor, and Misty on V's phone when he decides to leave the city, none of which you can reply to.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Has shoulder-length, voluminous black hair, just like his Ink-Suit Actor, Keanu Reeves. He also has quite a lot of admirers, in- and out-of-universe.

M-R

• Madonna-Whore Complex: Despite being a rockerboy, Johnny's attitude toward women involved in the sex industry remains toxic. While happy to work with female soldiers and criminals, his opinion of female prostitutes as well as groupies is utter contempt. He even discourages V from attempting to rescue them from horrifying conditions.
• Magnetic Hero: Somewhat surprisingly, give what a jerk he is much of the time, but this does apply. Johnny has a way of getting people to do what he wants even when they hate him. In particular Rogue and Alt, both exes of Johnny's with every reason to hate him, will put themselves at serious risk on his behalf (and in Rogue's case possibly die) just because he asked for their help. To his credit, Johnny does recognize that he tends to mess up people's lives as a result of this trait, but this doesn't stop him.
• Manchild: A more subdued variation. While Johnny is a worldly and cynical individual, it's clear that he's extremely immature and selfish, as seen in his flashbacks (and his early scenes with V). His worldview is simplistically black and white, and he often acts like a moody teenager who is unable to just let things go or accept responsibility for his own actions. It's telling that through his interactions with V he starts growing more responsible and accepting of the world around him.
• Middle Name Basis: Everyone refers to him as "Johnny", like his middle name. He's not called Robert once during the entire game.
• Morality Pet: Can function as an unorthodox one to V. He generally argues for the more moral options in side quests and is always happy (in his own way) if V follows through and disappointed if they don't. One of these included killing a Corrupt Cop client and voiding the payout they were supposed to get just because Johnny argues he doesn't deserve to get away with his crimes, although he's just as happy if you simply knock the man out and let your fixer use the evidence to blackmail him (which does still let you get your money).
• Must Have Nicotine: Johnny was a prolific smoker during his lifetime, and his engram occasionally appears with a lit cigarette. He'll also often beg V to light one up for his sake.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Has a brief moment of this when an Arasaka tech reveals her husband died in his attack on the Tower, leaving him silent until he offers a weak apology in response.
• My Greatest Failure: Has two; the first is his failure to rescue Alt and lead to his Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Arasaka. The second is the destruction of Arasaka Tower; see O.O.C. Is Serious Business.
  • Finding his "grave", has him quietly mention the above two incidents before he mentions a third. The relic slowly killing V since as he puts it, it continues the trend of him hurting those close to him.
• Never My Fault: Johnny hates being put at fault for anything and every single time he'll deflect or insult the person blaming him. When Kerry gets on his case for shooting into the crowd during a concert he just sneers that he's the only one with a vision and if V calls him out on beating Thompson to near death despite the help he gave him Johnny will fire back that Thompson wanted Alt to die for his scoop and thus deserved it. Nevermind that Thompson saved Johnny's life and risked his own by participating in Alt's rescue mission.
  • He'll also admonish V should they get duped by Placide in to acting as a suicide bomber against NetWatch, despite the fact that he's the one who told V the NetWatch agent was lying as he was trying to warn them that they were being played.
  • For all of his anger at Arasaka, he was the one who killed Alt. Arasaka kept her imprisoned, but she was still alive, until Johnny decided to pull out her plug without making sure she had a line out first.
• Narcissist: Johnny is the kind of narcissist who would rather look at himself in the mirror while having sex than at his partner.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Carried over from the fiction in the 2020 rulebook. Alt's "death" (the separation of her mind from her body by the original Vacant Soulkiller that she herself designed) is due to Johnny unplugging her cyberjack during his rescue attempt. (Had he been a few seconds slower, Alt would've been back in her body and probably on her way out the door.) Alt herself ends up pointing this out to him when they talk near the game's end.
• Not So Above It All: Despite putting on a mask of complete disinterest and apathy he can also get caught up in the moment:
  • At one point he discourages V from involving himself in the affairs of a politician but after they find out a possible Corpo conspiracy he immediately starts egging V on in excitement that they might crack said conspiracy.
  • Johnny also heavily insists that V goes along with Joshua Stephenson's odd requests simply because he wants to see where this goes.
  • Johnny is positively giddy testing the repaired rollercoaster in Pacifica. It's one of the very few instances in the game where you can see him genuinely smile.
  • In "Rebel, Rebel!", he appears in the middle of the road to get hit by a swerving car, knowing that it can't hurt him.
  • While he's annoyed at V's insistence to follow Swedenborgs' trail, he bursts out in genuine laughter when he and V find out that it was just a fortune teller AI whose occult-ish sounding phrasing was crossed with anticapitalist rhetoric by a prankster, and gets a kick out of a Netrunner-savvy V deciding to dial the ridiculousness up to 11 on the tampered bot to really confuse the 'net followers that Swedenborg has.
  • In "Run This Town" he gets very into V using their new personality imprint tech to impersonate Aguilar Nubiola and manipulate Dogtown politics at Mr Hands' request, commenting excitedly (for him, at least) and appearing at almost every step of the way.
  • During Corpo V's personal questline in which they get embroiled in business involving some old co-workers, rather than treat them with contempt Johnny instead jokingly chides V for "still being in the rat race".
  • In the repeatable races added with update 2.1, Johnny will wait at V at the starting line next to their car and accompany them while riding shotgun and commenting as V is driving.
• Nuke 'em: In his flashback, he is delivering a miniature nuclear bomb into the Arasaka Tower in 2023.
• Odd Couple: The Corpo V with Johnny Silverhand as they're pretty much everything Johnny hated in life. Downplayed Trope, though, given V is at that point an ex-Corpo and can express their own hatred of Arasaka Corporation.
• One-Man Army: Just like V. The flashbacks show he has little issues mowing down Corpo goons by the handful and even survives a confrontation with Adam Smasher. He proves his chops again in 2077 if V lets them take control during the final assault against Arasaka.
• One Last Job: Once his initial antagonism of V wears off, he expresses a genuine desire to help them out, and only demands one thing from them; that they help him destroy Mikoshi, both to get back at Arasaka for using Soulkiller on him, and because he considers the entire place an abomination. Even then, though he protests and potentially even disapproves if V picks another option, he never tries to force their hand even though by the endgame he very well could. And should V do things his way, he proves true to his word; after destroying Mikoshi he plans on giving V back their body and leaving with Alt, and if V instead surrenders their body in the "Temperence" ending, Johnny has no further plans of waging war against Arasaka and goes off to live a quiet life instead.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Johnny's reaction to the destruction of Arasaka Tower is not triumph, but a hollow admission of guilt, especially when finding out that the person torturing him lost her husband in the destruction.
    "I didn't want him to die."
  • Whenever betrayal or lies are involved, Johnny is usually the one who advocates popping lead into the offending party's skulls, such as when V gets flatlined after being used as an unwitting suicide bomber by the Voodoo Boys. This isn't the case with Songbird, as he's more impressed by her convictions and determination to get the hell away from Myers and the NUSA by any means necessary, including betraying everyone around her. It's possible that, when Johnny sees Songbird, he sees V, who he wants to help with everything he can, which impacts his view of her.
• Pet the Dog: Asshole that he is, he still has a good number of moments that shows off his better side.
  • A very minor example that may be the only reason Johnny doesn't leap over the Moral Event Horizon in his introduction. He makes sure to sound the evacuation order for Arasaka HQ before detonating his nuclear weapon. Johnny also expresses that he didn't want to actually kill anyone in the attack aside from the guards he shot up. His goal was property damage that would hopefully cripple the organization.
  • Of all things, he shows a lot of understanding to Barry, an NCPD officer that quit for psych reasons. He doesn't even mock him when turns out the friend he was mourning was his grandmother's pet tortoise. He actually spells out exactly why a man would mourn a tortoise and how just close he is to ending it all. Given that Johnny is a vet from American Central War himself, he's certainly not a stranger in being exposed to PTSD, and if all the drugs and booze that followed are any indication, it probably also fucked him up more than he'd like to admit as well.
  • He does advocate for moral options a lot of the time during side quests. Examples include encouraging V to not let a murderous Corrupt Cop go free and telling V not to accept a corporate payout but rather keep accompanying a penitent prisoner who plans to be crucified in atonement for his crimes.
  • Despite barely recovering from being Impaled with Extreme Prejudice he immediately decides to go rescue Alt.
  • Outside of their first initial fight he never actively harms V (and that was mainly due to confusion about his situation, thinking he was still an Arasaka prisoner) and even tells them that he's perfectly fine dying so V can keep going, albeit he does ask them to at least kill Adam Smasher as a last request. One of his conditions when they meet the Alt A.I. is that she saves V's life.
  • Assuming he doesn't encourage V to leave, he does occasionally provide good advice to V during certain side missions that helps them think up solutions they couldn't have otherwise. One example is the Peralez quest chain where he advises V on how to track a signal source using his wartime experience with old tech.
  • Unlike every other love interest, he actually encourages male V to be with Panam and even tells him that if circumstances were different he'd encourage V to chase after her. He even tells him not to involve her in the Arasaka Tower assault so her life and those of the Aldecaldors won't be on V's conscience.
  • After hearing news about how his old friend and former bandmate Kerry is depressed and suicidal, he asks V to check up on him and later goes along with Kerry's plan to get the remaining members of Samurai back together to help cheer him up.
  • Assuming The Devil ending isn't picked, Johnny is supportive of V's ending choices, even if it's being Driven To Sucide. In that ending he even warmly tells V that it was good working with them and calmly accepts dying alongside V rather than forcibly taking control. ^note Johnny idolized Wendy O. Williams, the lead singer for The Plasmatics. Williams committed suicide in 1998, and her suicide note indicated that she felt the right to end one's own life was one of the most important choices a person can make in a truly free society, which likely explains why Johnny is so respectful of V's decision.
  • He's quite supportive of multiple young/novice musicians you meet. During "I Don't Want to Hear It", he says that Kerry must be blind if "he can't see that (Us Cracks) have potential". In "The Ballad of Buck Ravers", he compliments a street musician (that is to say he absolutely trashes his technique, but also calls out V should they criticize his style and admires the man's passion), and in "The Temperance" ending he buys a guitar for Steve and encourages his dream of becoming a musician.
  • Before setting up the bomb in Arasaka Tower in 2023, he made sure that Spider Murphy activates the alarm to give the civillians a chance at escaping before the blast.
  • If the player doesn't choose to have V to shut down any chance to talk, Johnny will tend to have some very honest conversations with V and at times let V know some very personal things about him. Phantom Liberty adds his conversation about being a deserter and the two discussions you have with him after each ending of the expansion.
  • While he's understandably wary and pissed that V is working with the NUSA and will happily take any opportunity he can to criticize the hell out of his country and its leadership, he speaks little ill-will of Solomon Reed. If anything, he actually pities him because he realizes Reed is constantly at war with himself since his loyalty to the NUSA demands he sacrifice or ignore his own feelings, principles, and values to the point of self-destruction. He treats Reed's death in Songbird's story path solemnly as well; a far cry from how he treated Evelyn's.
  • Although he has a bad opinion of all institutions of power, he comes to admire Jefferson Peralez — a city councilman running for mayor — for taking a firm stance against the corps and pursuing a quixotic quest to clean up the city despite all the overt and covert threats against him and his family.
• Platonic Life-Partners / Heterosexual Life-Partners: With V, if you'll manage to keep up a good relationship with him. By the end of the game Johnny is literally ride or die for V and offers to take their body to Mikoshi himself with Rogue's assist. No matter the ending picked, V's and Johnny's farewell is geniuinely heartbreaking, with neither wanting to leave the other behind. Even if you'll treat Johnny harshly and won't forgive him during the grave conversation, it's clear that Johnny holds a deep affection for V and understands why they wouldn't want to forgive him and still wants them to survive even at the cost of his own life.
• Player Character: Johnny is the 2nd playable character after V. Aside from flashbacks, there are points throughout the game where V has the option to let Johnny take control of their body.
• Plot Coupon That Does Something: The prototype Arasaka biochip V is hired to steal contains a copy of Johnny Silverhand's mind.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: Despite being the lover of some of the world's most dangerous women (Alt Cunningham and Rogue), Johnny Silverhand is possessed of a noticeable misogynist streak. He is dismissive of his groupies, is offended at helping sex workers, unsympathetic to women involved in sex work in general, and regularly cheated on his girlfriends. This does not apply to a female V and doesn't keep him from working with female Edgerunners but underscores why Rogue's opinion of Johnny wasn't all that high at the end.
  • During "Talking 'Bout A Revolution", if the player plays as male V, Johnny will say that Judy's "got taste", referring to her vinyl collection. V will ask "That all you have to say?", to which Johnny will respond "And she's nice. Six outta ten.".
  • In the official Cyberpunk 2077: Your Voice TP comic, when he finds out that Yishen, the edgerunner he hired to get him a package from the Zetatech convoy, didn't show up, and his order was delivered by another person who he's never met before, he asks "Where's that nice piece of ass [from Prothero], the one I've ordered?" and asks if Yishen "Didn't like it the last time."
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: Delivers one in the "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" ending, where V chooses to raid Arasaka by themselves rather than ask for help.
  Johnny: Time to party like it's 2023.
• Properly Paranoid: Given his own experiences with the NUSA back during his days as a soldier, Johnny is not thrilled in the least to deal with them in Phantom Liberty and warns V not to trust them. He's off-base; the NUSA isn't stringing V along, Songbird is, but siding with Myers to get V cured comes with major moral and personal compromises, such as letting Myers's dangerous experiments on the Blackwall continue unabated, and V losing their abilities as an edgerunner after being cured.
• Psycho Supporter: Johnny occasionally suggests some questionable solutions to V's problems, such as forcefully dragging out a confession from a traumatized Evelyn and encouraging V not to help out Judy in her quest to help 'a bunch of whores'. He also suggests not trusting NetWatch despite the increasingly obvious proof that the Voodoo Boyz plan to use V as a suicide bomber. Then again NetWatch does the same exact thing to V going the other direction.
• Purposefully Overpowered: When playable in flashbacks, Johnny comes with a massive regenerating health pool, and a handcannon that can shoot through walls and deals 10k headshots. It's heavily implied that this is a result of Johnny's narcissism warping his memories to make him look like an unstoppable badass.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Downplayed. If you look closely at his right hand, you can notice that his fingernails seem to have pearl nail polish on them.
• Really Gets Around: Other than Rogue and Alt, Johnny frequently recounts his various escapades with groupies, talks about another ex-girlfriend in "Space Oddity", and the straw that broke the camel's back for Rogue was that he was cheating on her with three different women when they were still a couple. If his voicelines in Dicky Twister are any indication, he also had multiple flings with men in his past.
• Returning War Vet: You can see him wearing dog tags. This ties into the original tabletop game where Johnny is actually a veteran of the USMC before he became a rockstar. He claims they originally belonged to a soldier who sacrificed his life to save Johnny during the Second Central American War, but the tags have the name Robert John Linder on them. While one might assume this is the result of the engram's falsified memories, a conversation in Phantom Liberty makes it clear that Johnny remembers his birth name quite clearly; in that context, he likely meant that Robert John Linder died to give birth to Johnny Silverhand.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: 50 years later, Johnny is still hell-bent on destroying Arasaka, as shown by flashbacks to the Arasaka Tower assault in 2023 known from the official tabletop game campaign. Flashbacks show that he infiltrated Arasaka Tower in order to rescue Alt after she was kidnapped by Arasaka goons. After she dies, Johnny returns to the tower to plant a bomb, killing an untold number of people to get back at the corporation.
• The Rock Star: Like the original tabletop, Johnny is a popular rock star and part of the Rockerboy movement before his 'death' during the Fourth Corporate War.

S-Y

• Self-Serving Memory: Alt tells V that the version of his memories they (and the player) saw were the result of this and wildly inaccurate.
• Series Mascot: He has a major role in the game to the point of sharing the status of main character with V. The Samurai jacket V's shown wearing in promotional materials and acquired in-game is even stated to be a replica of Johnny's own jacket.
• Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll: Flashbacks to Johnny's life show that he regularly partook in drugs and alcohol, often consuming both at the same time. He and Alt are shown having sex, and Rogue mentions that he slept with other women while he was dating her.
• Sexual Euphemism: He will tease female V about her crush on River by saying "Oooh... I think someone might actually want to polish Mr. Policeman's badge".
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Possibly. A lot of Johnny's jerkish behavior could be attributed to his experiences as a soldier during the American Central War. A corrupt US-led conflict that not only led to the loss of his arm, but the complete betrayal and abandonment of the American veterans who fought in it. Phantom Liberty all but confirms it, as during a conversation in "Lucretia My Reflection" he outright states that he shoved his trauma relating to his military days deep into his mind without actually confronting it, and V getting tangled up in NUSA's business is making it bubble up to the surface.
• Shipper on Deck: Unlike with the other love interests, he explicitly supports a male V getting together with Panam. He's surprisingly good natured and joking before the two stay at the makeshift 'motel' and even tells V that if circumstances were different, he would've encouraged him to chase after her. It's possible she reminds him of Rogue.
• Ship Tease: Despite not being an official romance option, he has quite a lot of moments like that with V. The mission where they fix a rollercoaster and take a ride together is titled "Rollercoaster of love" (after the name of a song, like most mission names, but still). During "Chippin' in", Johnny can tattoo a heart with a cupid's arrow and words "Johnny + V" on V's right arm, though this might have been more to Troll V than a romantic gesture. In one instance, he can liken his and V's dynamic to an old married couple. The achievement for completing the relic heist is called "The Lovers" (after an arcana that represents human relationships, not only romantic ones). Dummied Out voicelines found in the code indicate that Johnny was supposed to say "Sleep well, my prince/princess." before taking control over their body in "The Sun" ending, likely if the player achieved a high relic compatibility with him. His attitude towards Judy and River can be read as jealousy towards V. See the entry under Guardian Angel above as well. The hidden ending where Johnny and V storm the Arasaka Tower by themselves is named "(Don't Fear) The Reaper", after a song which is about eternal love that persists after death, and uses a lot of Romeo And Juliet imagery with two lovers committing suicide together. Johnny and V's entire relationship is ambiguous enough that the player can pretty much read it however they wish, either romantically or platonically.
  • He receives a fair amount of this with Kerry as well. Despite his insistence he wasn't interested in Kerry (who held a torch for him while in Samurai) because he was a man, he also receives some Ambiguously Bi characterization, especially in regards to Kerry. He can mention going to a male strip club with Kerry and getting a lap-dance from a male dancer, seemingly to purposefully make Kerry jealous. Of all of the love interests, if V gets together with Kerry Johnny will remain uncharacteristically silent about it except for right before the ending, where he'll seemingly express jealousy towards V calling Kerry before deciding their fate. In-Universe people also apparently shipped him and Kerry together, as V can find fanfic about them from a Samurai fangirl, with their ship name being "Jorry".
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: He usually appears wearing a bulletproof vest of some kind when talking to V. There are times, however, where he wears his old tank top instead and this comes when he’s much more open and emotional with V. He’s literally removing his armor.
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Subverted. Johnny never let go of his ideals, but is also extremely jaded, cynical and embittered, far moreso than V, a cheerfully hedonistic materialist.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: Wears either a bulletproof vest or a black tank top with the Samurai logo.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Utterly convinced he was the one man who stood as a wall against Arasaka and that Alt's kidnapping by them was because they wanted to get back at him. When Thompson tells him that she was a gifted netrunner and that Johnny was the collateral damage he scoffs and argues that the only reason they'd want Alt was because 'he was boning her'.
  • Kerry points out that much of Johnny's resentment of Kerry's fortune comes from the fact that Kerry's career flourished when Johnny was out of the picture, and that by 2077, Samurai is all but forgotten while Kerry's still a respected artist that sells millions of albums. Johnny himself admits he has no response to that.
  • Among the only people who didn't see Johnny as such was none other than Saburo Arasaka himself.
• Smoking Is Cool: Almost always shown with a cigarette in his mouth and one of the first things he does is demand that V goes to buy him a pack (since V isn't a smoker and doesn't have any at their home).
• Smoky Voice: Johnny was a lifelong smoker and the first thing he asks for when he wakes up in V's body is a cigarette. In result, Johnny has a raspy, deep voice befitting a snarky, cynical rockerboy.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: This exchange, further cementing the Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
  V: You're a dick, y'know.
  Johnny: And you're a cunt. Maybe we'll fit together after all?
• Something Only They Would Say: In "Chippin' In" and "Holdin' On", which involve Johnny reconnecting with Rogue and Kerry respectively by asking V to let him take control of their body for a short while. With Rogue, Johnny didn't have to do much at all; by her own admission, Rogue recognized Johnny by the way he moved and acted, stating she would never confuse V with him. With Kerry, Johnny convinces his old bandmate it's him by playing one of three Samurai songs with a guitar hanging on the wall. Kerry, who is intimately familiar with how Johnny plays, is stunned before asking what Johnny said to him before he left for his ill-fated mission against Arasaka in 2023.
• So Proud of You: He tells V that he's proud of them in The Tower ending if they've achieved high Relic compatibility.
• Sour Supporter: Because he's stuck in V's head he has no choice but to be there regardless of what V does. Particularly pronounced in some side quests where he's actively attempting to get V to forget about the whole thing and bail.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: In the 2023 assault, jumping off a tightly planned special ops mission for undisclosed additional personal beef doesn't work very well and "precision" nuclear terrorism proves to be an oxymoron. Johnny is mostly remembered not as a heroic freedom fighter who crippled Arasaka's property and rallied the public against it, but as a deranged terrorist responsible for the deaths of the better part of a million people, most of whom had nothing to do with Arasaka. Also, the demolition of the Arasaka Tower ultimately did little to hurt Arasaka, a MegaCorp with global assets and influence.
  • His first "death" by Adam Smasher also counts. Smasher is a horrific opponent even in a fair fight, but he caught Johnny while the latter was hanging from the side of a chopper and unable to defend himself. This let Smasher shoot Johnny in the back, leaving him too injured to have any hope of defeating or escaping Smasher.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: The first two come from having Keanu Reeves as his Ink-Suit Actor, and he's more than happy to engage in some Snark-to-Snark Combat with V.
• Tarot Motifs: Has multiple that reflect certain aspects of his story arc and personality:
  • "The Magician": Before the Konpeki Plaza heist, V can ask Misty for a tarot reading. Among the cards she pulls out, one of them is The Magician, with Misty saying that V will meet a "Charismatic figure" who they might "grow to love", clearly talking about Johnny. The card represents inspired action, resourcefulness, power, great talent and confidence; reversed, it means manipulation, poor planning, untapped talents and immaturity; both strengths and flaws of Johnny are represented by it.
  • "The Lovers": You can find the graffiti for it in the Silver Pixel Cloud cinema, where Johnny promised to take Rogue on a date to in the past. It represents love, harmony, human relationships, choices or values; reversed, it can mean disharmony, imbalance, misalignment of values, missed connections and fear of commitment. No matter how much Johnny wishes things were different, he can't just pretend nothing has changed between him and Rogue in the past 50 years. It's also the name of the achievement for completing the Konpeki Plaza heist, since Johnny and V's relationship is the crux of the story from Act II onwards.
  • "The Hanged Man": The graffiti can be found near Johnny's unmarked grave in the oil fields. It symbolizes pause, surrender, letting go, new perspective, feeling trapped but being able to release yourself, needing release or lack of directions; reversed, it symbolizes delays, resistance, stalling, indecision, discontentment, apathy, detachment and rash decisions. The grave is where Johnny has his big epiphany about how much he hurt the people who were close to him, and decides to make it up to them. It also symbolizes Johnny's state as an engram; of being "suspended in time", but also "being able to release himself" by taking over V's body.
  • "Temperance": This is how the ending where Johnny takes over V's body is called. It represents balance, moderation, patience, purpose, grace under fire, tranquility, harmonious relationships or soulmates; reversed, it can mean imbalance, excess, re-alignment, lack of purpose, discord, hastiness, antagonism and self-indulgence. The regular meaning symbolizes Johnny's more tranquil and contemplative outlook on life. Reverse meanings show the vices, flaws and habits he'll need to overcome to atone.
  • "The Tower": One of Johnny's arm tattoos◊ is of this card. Aside from the obvious allusion to Arasaka Tower, The Tower represents major upheaval, change, chaos, and destruction. Simply put, it can be described as the 'crumbling of the status quo'— something Johnny has a lot of experience with, in both life and as an engram.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
  • Unless V makes a conscious effort to befriend Johnny, the two don't get along, and will spend a significant amount of time in Snark-to-Snark Combat.
  • He also gets very frustrated when V gets along with Takemura since he's Saburo's personal bodyguard and constantly tells them not to trust him.
  • Johnny doesn't enjoy V's partnership with River, because he's a cop. Doubly so if V is female and she decides to flirt with him.
  • He complains the entirety of Judy's questline and doesn't like her idea of starting a coup to help the Dolls at Clouds. He's also frustrated by her tendency to not think things through. However, if V decides to call Judy before choosing her ending, Johnny will say that "Even (he)'s grown to like her", though it's unclear if he's serious or just saying this to cheer up V.
• Too Much Alike: Seems to be the root of why he doesn't like Judy very much. They're both impulsive, don't like to plan their schemes and tend to bring harm to those who agree to help (even though their heart is in the right place). It's possible that Johnny encourages V to not help Judy with the Clouds coup because she reminds him of himself from back when he was alive and stormed the Arasaka Tower, and he doesn't want V to end up like Alt or Rogue. They're both fans of the "Bushido" movie series, but while Johnny likes the surface aspects like the action and scantily-clad women, Judy has a shard titled ""Bushido" and Neopostmodernism" in her apartment, implying she's more interested in the text for the cinematography, themes and the like. They're also both associated with the "Magician" arcana.
• Trauma Conga Line: Pretty much the entirety of Phantom Liberty. Johnny gets forcibly separated from V, the only person he can talk to and is steadily building a bond of trust with by Songbird, then he sees said person take on a secret, very dangerous mission by the shady government which brings up his own unresolved trauma from his military days, and then he can only watch as the person he sees himself in (Reed) fails the person he cares about the most (Songbird) that is also an analogue to the person Johnny cares about, who he makes ill and suffer and will do everything in this power to cure (V). Regardless of your decisions, he's clearly very shaken up by the end, with V being able to say that he has changed.
• That Man Is Dead: Downplayed. Robert John Linder died on the battlefield and at the hands of corporate abuse. What remains of him is Johnny Silverhand.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: While he did have friends who cared about him, very few actually liked him due to his toxic and narcissistic personality. Rogue was justifiably put off with him being a cheater and Kerry was constantly annoyed with his egotistical and selfish behavior. It doesn't help that every time someone calls him out on it, he either acts like he did nothing wrong or, more often, insults anyone who criticizes him (however justly).
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Gives a scathing one to V in the "Devil" ending, accusing them of having betrayed everything both him and V used to stand for, and that no matter what V claims, they're still the exact same pathetic opportunistic nobody that they were at the landfill.
  • Gives a downplayed one in the "Tower" ending if V hasn't maxed out their Relationship Values with him, as he'll chastise V for picking the safe option and dooming him to be wiped to save themselves. However, he still respects V's determination to survive, and holds himself responsible for not being a good companion as well, with his last words musing whether he or V can ever forgive each other for everything they've done to each other.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Downplayed, as Johnny is more of an Anti-Hero than a fully fledged villain, but his main color scheme is black and red, and he has plenty of traits, quirks and behaviors that are far from what most people would consider "heroic".
• Take a Third Option: Seems to prefer these kinds of decisions. Some quests have two basic outcomes, one Johnny prefers and one he disapproves of. Having the right ability scores allows V to come up with a better solution that raises V's relationship with Johnny higher than if they just did what Johhny wanted.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Well, relatively, Johnny is still an asshole. But as an engram, he does genuinely seem to want to help V even though his personal flaws frequently get in the way. And if V tells him that they simply can't trust him after all of his deceptions, he seems genuinely sad that he failed to gain their trust (or that he fucked up and abused the trust V already granted him). This is best seen in some of the more depressing ends like "The Devil" and "The Tower": If you haven't completed Johnny's questline and reconnect him with Rogue and Kerry, he's angry and insults V for either selling out to Arasaka or trusting the NUSA. If you have completed Johnny's questline and have a high relationship value with him, he's more concerned and worried for V than angry as he knows the situation really has gotten that bad, though he is still clearly disappointed in them in "The Devil" ending. In "The Tower" ending, Johnny even gives V a heartfelt goodbye while calling them by their real name (a privilege V only gives to people close to them^note Note that they never extended this privilege to their romance partners or even Jackie).
• Tragic Keepsake: He used to own the dog tags of a man he claims took a stray bullet for him back when he served as a soldier.^note In reality, they're his dogtags, as they have his original name (Robert John Linder) on them. It seems to be the engram merely misrembering things. They're hidden in the abandoned Pistis Sophia motel, and Johnny later gives them to V as a sign of trust. In the "Temperance" ending, he inherits the bullet lucky charm necklace from V, that he decides to leave in their niche in the Night City columbarium.
• Troubled, but Cute: Despite his less than stellar way of treating others, his massive ego and penchant for aggressive and impulsive behavior, he had a lot of admirers when he was alive. With time, he can change for the better thanks to V, and become kinder and more selfless.
• Undignified Death: He died in Arasaka captivity, after a raid that killed thousands of civilians despite his plans, and by having his brain fried, with his consciousness trapped in a limbo for fifty years, and his body being dumped unceremoniously in an abandoned oil field. If Grayson is to be believed, he also pissed himself out of pain, fear or simple neural/muscular failure when he was hit with Soulkiller. In actuality, he died from getting bisected at the waist by Adam Smasher during the 2023 Arasaka raid.
• Unreliable Narrator: Alt's construct will open this can of worms if V tells her to treat Johnny a little better, for he tried everything he could to save Alt 50 years prior; Alt will say that all of what V knows of the past is through Johnny's memories, on a construct that laid in stasis for 50 years, which is highly likely to be biased towards himself. This is supported by other sources of information regarding the past found in the game, Johnny wasn't the solo-man-act he sees himself as, like the original backstory for the tabletop RPG placed him.
  • Johnny didn't survive his initial encounter with Adam Smasher on the roof of Arisaka HQ, nor was he attacked while hanging off of a helicopter. In truth, Adam Smasher cut him in half with his automatic shotgun when Johnny tried to draw Adam's fire, and Shaitan was the one that took advantage of that distraction to deal heavy damage to Smasher.
  • Johnny never met Saburo Arasaka, and it wasn't Saburo that used Soulkiller on Johnny - that was actually Spider Murphy, who slotted Soulkiller into Johnny as he lie dying on Arasaka's rooftop, meaning everything he recalls about the meeting with Saburo is either a fiction created by his own subconscious, or an artificial memory left by Arasaka. Given what we know about the Relic, it's possible the real Saburo did interrogate Johnny's engram while it was in Mikoshi, and Johnny's subsconcious simply created the memory as a way to explain how such an interrogation could take place.
  • There are other smaller inconsistencies as well, such as Thompson referring to the Watson district by name during the raid, despite the fact that the raid took place in 2023. In 2023, what is now Watson would still be part of North Oak, and wouldn't be renamed to Watson until after the end of the Fourth Corporate War, which didn't end until 2025. Considering Johnny was already dead by then and the Johnny we meet was an engram in Mikoshi at the time, the most likely explanation is that this is another false memory, either implanted or retconned by Engram!Johnny's subconscious.
  • In Johnny's depiction of second Arasaka raid, he is portrayed as the ultimate man behind the whole attack as well as main attacking asset, conveniently leaving out Morgan Blackhand's role and the fact that raid was supported by Militech, of all people. More blatantly, Johnny's pistol in these flashbacks causes ridiculous amounts of damage to everyone you hit with it.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Despite all the things he comments on he has absolutely no reaction to a male V romancing Kerry. Doubly odd since he does have something to say to V romancing Panam, Judy, or River. He will only talk about it if you start the conversation with him at V's flat.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: As it becomes evident, the Night City Holocaust, as the Arasaka Tower bombing is also known, was not what Johnny had in mind when he launched the raid in the first place.
• Virtual Ghost: His engram is recorded on the Relic V steals from Arasaka, and since they occupy the same brain in the process, V is able to see Johnny appearing in the world.
• Wake Up Fighting: What his attempts to kill V when he first appears in V's apartment seems to be. The last thing he knew was being captured and experimented on by Arasaka. He thinks V is one of Arasaka's goons and is treating V as such. He stops trying to kill V a couple of days later once he processes everything.
• Warrior Poet: Well, terrorist rock star. He may be crasser and more brutish than most examples, but he's an excellent fighter and a bona fide artistic genius who's surprisingly well-read and sees both his music and his acts of violence as part of the same struggle.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Gets one from both Rogue and Panam in the Temperance ending. Rogue is disgusted with Johnny as she assumes that he either forced or coerced V into giving up their body for him and tells him to get out of Night City and never come back. Panam is even angrier, telling Johnny that she is going to hunt him down and make him pay for taking V's body, and that is if she isn't able to remove him first to bring V back.
  • He has numerous opportunities to call out V throughout the main game, but Phantom Liberty is when he can really rip them a new one. The earliest example is Rosalind Myers gives V a token making them a recruit for the FIA and offers to make it feel more official by having them recite the oath. While refusing will have Johnny comment how V was smarter than he was when he enlisted, accepting to take the oath has him making his feelings on the matter very clear. If you hand over Songbird to the NUSA in exchange for a potential cure, Johnny will also make it very clear to V they were wrong to do so, no matter how desperate they are.
    Johnny: Y'know, taking that oath...? Bad idea.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Johnny seems afraid of dark, cold, confined spaces. He will urge V to not go diving with Judy in "Pyramid Song", because the cold, deep lake makes him feel uncomfortable. Whenever V finds themselves in a basement or the like, he will ask them to leave as fast as they can. He says that this fear came from his time in Mikoshi.
• Would Hit a Girl: He attacks V after waking up in "Playing For Time" regardless of V's gender, can rough up Alt (push her by grabbing her jaw, grab her by her hair to threaten her and grab her by her arm to stop her) and says that if he was on V's place, he'd splash some water on Evelyn's face when she's unresponsive after "Disasterpiece".
• Younger Than They Look: He was 32 when he died, but he looked about 10 years older. Ironically, Keanu Reeves has the opposite reputation. Even more so in the flashback that takes place 10 years prior to the Arasaka Tower assault where he appears identical despite being 22 at the time.
• You Can See Me?: In the Phantom Liberty expansion, Songbird contacts V and tells them she has the means to cure their condition; a claim she almost immediately proves by hacking directly into the Relic. To Johnny and V's shock, this also means Songbird is the only person in the entire game who can not only see Johnny, but physically interact with him.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Downplayed when you talk to an older hardcore fan of Johnny from his rock days. While the guy clearly has a lot of respect and admiration of Johnny even today, Johnny himself sounds disappointed, remarking that the fan has become just as static and unchanging as anything touched by the Corporations.
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: See The Extremist Was Right above. His legacy is a matter of considerable debate, fueled by the conflict between decades of corporate propaganda and decades of resentment of those exact same corporations.

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