History Characters / Preacher

* UndyingLoyalty: Jody's only positive quality is his steadfast devotion to Marie L'Angell. Despite admitting that she has never shown him even one-tenth the "kindness" that she has showed Jesse, Jody still swears that he would be willing to die for Marie; he goes on to say that the reason why he never took to Jesse is because Jesse hates and has caused nothing but trouble for Marie, despite her being Jesse's own kin, and disloyalty to one's "own" is something that [[EvenEvilHasStandards even Jody cannot abide]], as he explains to T.C.

'''Jody''' (looking forlorn): .... yes, ma'am.

* VillainousFriendship: With T.C., who is the only person who Jody has displayed any kind of endearment for besides Marie L'Angell. When Jesse interrupted Jody's monologue during their climactic battle to boast that he had bashed T.C.'s head in, Jody notably stopped ranting mid-sentence and just stood there, [[StunnedSilence stunned]], only snapping out of it when he was sucker punched by Jesse.

-->'''Jesse''': I get through with you boy, [[BadassBoast your Daddy is gonna wish he pulled out early']].

* CompellingVoice: The Word, compliments of hosting Genesis, and It has some serious ups and downs. It can only work on somebody or something who can hear and understand him, and has some LiteralGenie tendencies, and God can shield others from its effects for a time. It also works on anything up to and including angels and the Saint of Killers, and can even command a man to die or a a group of men to spontaneously combust.

* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler:After displaying his character growth by tearfully asking Tulip to stay with him, Jesse rides of with her and his dog Skeeter into the sunset.]]

* EyeScream: [[spoiler: After Jesse's SpitefulSpit, God responds by biting one of Jesse's eyes and pulling it out of it's socket.]]

* DestinationDefenestration: She expels an unwelcome Cassidy from her hotel room in this fashion, with a big assed bullet from a big ass gun.

* ButtMonkey: Undergoes a HumiliationConga like no other. At the time of his death, this is the sum total of his injuries (deep breath): [[spoiler: One of his eyes is blind and scarified, one of his ears was shot off, a scar was carved over his head making it look like a gigantic penis, cannibals ate his leg and a Rottweiler bit off his genitals. Oh, and he's bald and has a harsh voice, too. Since childhood. He literally becomes this when he is anally raped by Bill Glover.]]

* ClusterFBomb: John delivers a truly memorable one when he, "Space" and Gonny are ordered into a Vietcong trap that costs Donny his life.

* WouldHurtAChild: Not only cruel to Jesse-[[spoiler:her idea of disciplining Jesse as a child was to lock him inside of a coffin and submerging it at the bottom of a river with only an airhose to keep him alive]], but was to his mother, ''her own daughter'', too.

* JerkassHasAPoint: When Jesse enters a near catatonic state after [[spoiler:Jody kills Tulip]], Jody expresses his utter disgust and disappointment at Jesse's total breakdown and utter capitulation. Even Jesse's own spirit mentor John Wayne comments on and agrees with this, stating "The basterd's sorta got hisself a point."

** Disgusted by the Saint of Killer's complete disregard for human life when he say the massacre the Saint caused at a bar with innocent people literally piled up in a corner all dead. He immediately attempts to beat the Saint to death though obviously failed de to the Saint being NighInvulnerable.

* ExactWords: Upon seeing his opponent in the fight pit: "So when you said you had a 'real gorilla', you meant A REAL GORILLA."

* VillainHasAPoint: Though his actions ultimately lead [[spoiler: to the Grail's downfall and his own death]], Starr wasn't wrong in observing how horribly and fatally flawed from the onset the Grail's 2,000-year-long plan of preserving Jesus's bloodline (by forcing his descendants to only breed with each other) was. In that regard, his plan of replacing the severely inbred and heavily mentally-retarded descendant of Jesus with a more "presentable" person to take up the role of Christ Reborn was a lot more sensible.

* AmbiguousDisorder: He is one of the few completely straight examples of this trope on the entire comic –- though at first he seems like a regular SmugSnake, [[spoiler: it soon becomes obvious that he has many severe mental problems, especially since he often has sex with a grotesque statue made out of meat, and eventually he completely loses touch with reality and turns into a rambling lunatic.]] Even compared to other lunatics, Odin's "lunacy" is most unusual and manifests in various ways.

* {{Deconstruction}}: If nothing else, this series offers a rather scathing rebuttle to the idea of a humanized God; God is supposed to be so inconcievably beyond human understanding that giving Him [[YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm human motivations and form is an excercise in futility]], and blasphamous because it implies limitations that shouldn't apply. In this story God is not only humanized, but suffers from very human flaws such as malignant narcissims. This is exactly why most religions ''forbid'' depicting God in such a manner.

-->'''Saint of Killers''': Good start.\\

!Jesse Custer

-->'''Jesse''': '' I get through with you boy, [[BadassBoast your Daddy is gonna wish he pulled out early'']].

* BlackComedyRape: Was nearly subjected to this by Odin Quincannon's Neo-nazi secretary Miss Oatlash who knocked him out, tied him to a bed, gagged him, cut his hair, and even dressed him in a Nazi uniform.

* CombatPragmatist: He won't hesitate to go for a nutshot in a fight.
* CompellingVoice: The Word, compliments of hosting Genesis,and It has some serious ups and downs. It can only work on somebody or something who can hear and understand him, and has some LiteralGenie tendencies, and God can shield others from its effects for a time. It also works on anything up to and including angels and the Saint of Killers, and can even command a man to die or a a group of men to spontaneously combust.

* DeadpanSnarker: Upon discovering supercop Paulie Bridges in full gimp gear, Jesse quips: "This what they call 'deep cover'"?

* HeroesFightBarehanded: Although he's a crackshot with a gun, he prefers to stick to his fists.

!Tulip O'Hare

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/p2.jpg]]

!Cassidy

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/p3_0.jpg]]

* BaitTheDog: [[spoiler:He spends much of the story as a LovableRogue, with hints about his darker potential that the reader is persuaded to ignore... until his abusive and exploitative behaviour towards Tulip when they both believe Jesse dead reveals how bad a person he actually is, and meanwhile Jesse learns from Sally how monstrously he's behaved towards his partners in the past.]]

!The Duke
[[quoteright:244:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2019_11_30_at_124529_pm.png]]
* AmbiguousSituation: We never find out just what/who the Duke truly is. Is he really the spirit of John Wayne offering Jesse comfort and counsel in hard times? Is he just a coping mechanism that Jesse developed to keep his sanity as a result of the horrific trauma he endured throughout his life? Or is he in fact the spirit of Jesse’s father John Custer looking out for his son from the afterlife?
** Him being the ghost of John Wayne doesn’t seem as likely given that Jesse started seeing him a few years before Wayne passed away.

!Herr Starr

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/p4_8.jpg]]

* ButtMonkey: Undergoes a HumiliationConga like no other. At the time of his death, this is the sum total of his injuries (deep breath): [[spoiler: One of his eyes is blind and scarified, one of his ears was shot off, a scar was carved over his head making it look like a gigantic penis, cannibals ate his leg and a rottweiler bit off his genitals. Oh, and he's bald and has a harsh voice, too. Since childhood. He literally becomes this when he is anally raped by Bill Glover.]]

* CompensatingForSomething: After [[spoiler:losing his genitalia]] Herr Starr feels the need to get a bigger gun. And then stand in front of a mirror with it, [[MadnessMantra muttering]], "''Doom''cock. '''''Doomcock'''''."

* EunuchsAreEvil: He was pretty evil to start with, but after [[spoiler:losing his genitalia to a rottweiler]] Starr becomes even more ruthless and decidedly more reckless, even unhinged, perhaps verging on nihilistic.

* PyrrhicVictory: Herr Starr's career is defined by this. All of his campaigns and endeavors, even the ones that end successfully for him, ALWAYS result in him suffering a horrendous loss of some kind. Starr's kidnapping of Cassidy and subsequent overthrow of Allfather D'Aronique came at the cost of a huge number of resources and personnel, as well as the Grail's sacred Masada fortress, on top of having his ear shot off by Tulip and his head made to look like a dong by Jesse. He survives a plane crash, only to have his leg eaten by cannibals, though he escapes them as well in the end. Starr's thwarting of Grail leader Eisenstein's attempt to kill him resulted in the loss of Starr's genitals at the hands (jaws) of a vicious rottweiler. And finally, [[spoiler:Starr's assassination attempt on Jesse ultimately succeeds, but Tulip blows his head off immediately after.]]

!Arseface
[[quoteright:172:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2019_11_30_at_120408_pm.png]]

!John Custer

[[quoteright:161:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2019_11_30_at_120232_pm.png]]

* BerserkButton: Mocking his hero John Wayne is a good way to get your teeth knocked down your throat.

* UndyingLoyalty: Loves his country deeply, despite the shitstorm of horror he endures in Vietnam.

!Christina L'Angelle Custer
[[quoteright:173:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2019_11_30_at_120217_pm.png]]

!Allfather D'Aronique

* AdiposeRex: The leader of the Grail, and so fat that he needs his followers to help carry him.
** He's so huge that Starr comments the Grail spends ''millions'' every year on ''replacement aircraft'' to transport him.

* ZergRush: His answer to the Saint of Killers problem is to send wave after wave of Masada soldiers to overwhelm the gunslinger. It fails spectacularly.
** Though to be honest, Starr does the same thing himself later in the story, albeit on an even larger scale, and it ends up being even a bigger failure.

!Marie L'Angelle
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2019_11_30_at_113815_am.png]]

* GruesomeGrandparent: As horrifyingly abusive a grandmother as she is a mom, who put Jesse under similar abuse to her own dauhter.

!Jody

* LaserGuidedKarma: [[spoiler:Jesse beats him down, buries a nailbat in his jaw, and then shatters his spine with a FinishingStomp before strangling him to death. Interestingly, he seems to accept this, as he admits he's ''proud'' of Jesse finally taking his revenge.]]

* NoodleIncident: Jody's exploits have earned him a reputation as a near superhuman, mythical figure in Angelville and its environs. Two spectators at one of his fights recall the time he cracked a Mexican man's head skull so hard the skull bone came out through his hair.

!T.C.
[[quoteright:224:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2019_11_30_at_115358_am.png]]

* BaldOfEvil: A murderous pervert who has lost most of the hair on his head since his youth, leaving only whispy residue on the sides.

* MoralEventHorizon: T.C.'s a depraved hick who'd kill or rape anything and anyone, but it's still shocking when he does it to Jesse's childhood best friend simply for having unwittingly witnessed him raping the chicken.

!Jesus De Sade
[[quoteright:106:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2019_11_30_at_123633_pm.png]]

!Odin Quincannon
[[quoteright:310:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2019_11_30_at_122628_pm.png]]

* EvenEvilHasStandards: A minor example, but as horrible a person as he is, even he calls bullshit on Ms. Oatlash's claim that Adolf Hitler wasn't a racist (of course, even given how he derisively refers to him as her "big hero Adolf," it's possible that Odin doesn't like her denying this because he's such a gigantic racist and anti-Semite himself).

* HandCannon: Packs a .357 Magnum toward the end of the storyarc that breaks his wrist when he tries to fire it.

* VillainousBreakdown: [[spoiler:By the time Jesse tracks him down to his private chamber with the God of Meat, Odin has already been struck by lightning, broken his own wrist, been throughly humiliated, and turned into a rambling, infantile shell of a man by his own failure; in his last moments on Earth, he's unable to defend himself or even see his killer coming because he's delirious and sexually spent from humping a woman-shaped meat pile. By that point, Jesse firmly considers breaking his neck with his boot a MercyKill.]]

!Deputy Cindy Daggett
[[quoteright:169:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2019_11_30_at_122352_pm.png]]

!Conan Quincannon
[[quoteright:255:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2019_11_30_at_91627_pm.png]]

!Hugo Root
[[quoteright:214:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2019_11_30_at_120434_pm.png]]
* AbusiveParents: He regularly beat his son whenever he pissed him off.
** His first words to his son after Arseface comes out of a coma following a suicide attempt is to mock him for screwing it up.

* LackOfEmpathy: Has none for anyone, least of all for his son whom he sees as an embarrasment and an unwelcome annoyance. Him mocking his son after the latter comes out of his coma following his suicide attempt is a prime example.

--->'''Hugo Root''': I can't believe I had a fuckin' hand in makin' you, 'less you grew from the sweat of my balls. I'd of known what a asshole you were gonna be, I woulda got your mother an abortion.
* ScrewThisImOutOfHere: Averted. After encountering an actual angel and learning the full scope of what's going on, Root realizes something involving God and a demon-angel halfbreed is well above his pay grade and suggests to Jessie that they both just walk away. Jesse, however, isn't about to let him off the hook for pointing a gun in both his and Tulip's face and tells him to literally "Go fuck yourself!".

!Billy "Space" Baker
[[quoteright:163:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2019_11_30_at_85239_pm.png]]

!Jacob "Jake" O'Hare

[[folder:Saint Of Killers]]
!Saint Of Killers

* BadassBoast: "There ain't worse than me in all of Hell. Go an' look." (Gunshot)

* TheDreaded: Even Jesse-whose entire goal is to find and call out God for the shape of the world-is terrified of him.

* PersonOfMassDestruction: If you take place of the Angel of Death, whenever you draw your guns, this will be the result.

* SuperReflexes: He doesn't travel around very fast (which is one of the few defences his targets have against him), but his reflexes are almost instantaneous - see QuickDraw above. If he can see you, it's entirely his choice whether you're dead or not.

!{{Satan}}
[[quoteright:325:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2019_11_30_at_121626_pm.png]]

!{{God}}
[[quoteright:105:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2019_11_30_at_121859_pm.png]]

* BadPeopleAbuseAnimals: When young Jesse's puppy playfully humps Jody's leg, Jody kills and nails the dog to a fence post. This cruel act launches a series of events that ends in Jesse being locked in a coffin and his mother being dragged away to be killed.
** And then there was the gorilla incident..

-->'''Jody:''' [[VillainousBreakdown '''Aaahhh, BITCH!! Fuckin' little- GODDAMMIT-! FUCKIN' WHORE!!''']]

* UndyingLoyalty: For Miss Marie. He flat out states that he's willing to die for her.