Headscratchers / Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

As a Headscratchers subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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• Catalina didn't make a good impression on CJ when he first met her, so why does he go to her house afterwards knocking on the door and literally begging her to give him another chance? Did he fall in love with her based on her looks alone and Love Makes You Stupid? I had read her Character page entry after playing through Grand Theft Auto III and thinking I'd seen all of her appearances, so I got spoiled for her appearance in this game and was dreading what I knew was coming. I was also thinking "Good lord CJ, STOP and run. Run far away!" What's more, why does he tolerate her constant barrage of verbal abuse (along with the physical/sexual abuse that happens inside her cabin) without either getting the hell away from her or doing something about it (as Claude would do years later)? It isn't as though CJ was shown to be a weak man up to that point, either physically or emotionally; before getting dropped out in the boonies by Tenpenny and Pulaski, he was shown to be a huge badass in the two missions before that by fighting off hordes of cops and Ballas in order to save a surrounded Sweet, even when people were telling him to forget it and save himself. But in his interactions with Catalina, serious Badass Decay sets in for no apparent reason. He says he needs money, but he's been established as a guy who does not need Catalina's help to make money. As Sweet said at the start of The Green Sabre, CJ had been kicking all kinds of ass pretty much single-handed.
  • He was desperate for money to get Sweet out of jail. He probably didn't enjoy her company, but CJ does a lot of crazy things over the course of the story to get Sweet back.
  • To be more specific, CJ needed the money to pay The Truth for the weed Tenpenny ordered him to plant on the DA (555-We-Tip). At the start of Are You Going to San Fierro, we actually see CJ handing over the money (in fact in beta versions of the game, the player actually needed $10K to start the mission). CJ needed money fast. Los Santos was dangerous at that point, so he figured the quickest way to make money was to rob the towns Catalina mentioned. Since Catalina had already done the groundwork i.e. casing the joints and planning, plus she was local and knew the area, CJ probably thought it was best to hang with her.
• Why does CJ consider the Truth a friend, going so far as to tell him that "[his] credit's good" when he asks for yet another favour? Sure he introduced Carl to Jethro, Dwaine and Zero, which was nice of him. In every other interaction he only seeks to further his own agenda. He dumps Carl outside a military base without giving him any sort of plan or intel. When Carl succeeds he simply drives off without giving him a lift. He refuses to tell Carl the secret of the green goo when he delivers it. Hell, in his very first cutscene he asks Carl to kill his neighbours for him. He's a selfish prick, yet Carl always treats him as a close ally and lets him hang around all the time.
  • Just like most of Carl's other friends. The Truth is one of the few people Carl knows, especially at this point in the story, who is legitimately nice to him. This makes him leagues better than the 'friends' Carl is used to at this point (Sweet, Big Smoke, Ryder, OG Loc, and Catalina). The only better friend CJ has at this point is Cesar. It's also easy for CJ to write off The Truth's selfish behaviours as quirkiness and forgetfulness coming from his age and lifetime of recreational drug use, which has as much a chance of being true as not.
• In the mission Burning Desire, CJ sets fire to a house by throwing molotovs through the windows. Once it catches fire, a woman (Denise) on the upper floor starts screaming and CJ goes in to rescue her. She is very appreciative for saving her life when you get her out of there... why doesn't she ever acknowledge that you were the one who started the fire that almost killed her?
  • She doesn't know you started it.
• In the Mission Madd Dogg's Rhymes, why do some guards carry Silenced Pistols (instead of the alerting, noisy Micro Uzis others carry)? That's just begging for an intruder (e.g., CJ) to have an easier time.
  • Anti-Frustration Features?
  • The Watsonian explanation could be that it's because they are securing a music recording studio, after all. Notably, the guards carrying the silenced pistols are the ones nearer the recording room, while the ones with SM Gs are farther away from it. "Why would someone keep recording music during a home invasion?" might be overthinking it, or maybe Madd Dogg is really that gangsta.
  • In real life, suppressors are often used to reduce the risk of hearing loss from discharging firearms in an enclosed space. Considering that Madd Dogg's mansion has some pretty tight corridors, it makes sense to use suppressed pistols to not risk blowing your eardrums if you ever have to fire at an intruder. The other alternative is to use ear plugs, which would obviously reduce their awareness.
• In the mission Sweet & Kendl, why does Sweet say "That's another funeral you ran away from!" to Carl when he shows up late at their mom's funeral? Even if Sweet was just being angry at Carl for being late, Carl obviously flew all the way from Liberty City to Los Santos just to attend said funeral. That's nowhere close to "running away". Wouldn't it have made more sense if he said "I almost expected you to run away from this funeral like you did Brian's!" instead?
  • Sweet is being unfair to CJ, who only now just shows up after five years in Liberty City, but I suspect it's at least partly because the grave is a visual in-your-face reminder of how far the Families have fallen with Sweet having to see the whole thing with his own eyes (as opposed to CJ, who had thousands of miles of distance between him and the situation). To Sweet, the Families are everything (compare that to Kendl, who is just happy to see her brother again and doesn't care much for Sweet's grudge with the Azteca to the point where she's dating Cesar) and CJ's singular act of running away five years ago meant he ran from two funerals that illustrate the bad state of the GSF: Brian's and their mother's.
  • Sweet may not have meant 'run away from' in an entirely literal sense. He may have meant it as "This is another funeral that happened because you only look out for yourself". Also, Sweet, Kendl, and Ryder appear to be just visiting their mom's gravesite, the funeral may be over already anyway.
• At the end of Cut Throat Business, why didn't OG Loc spill the beans about CJ stealing Madd Dogg's rhymebook for him earlier in the game?
  • Would Madd Dogg or anyone else believe his words at that point? He'd just look even more like a desperate punk trying to weasel his way out. Also, his own ego of wanting to be "the guy" may have prevented him from acknowledging in the heat of the moment the true source of his material.
• In the mission Ice Cold Killa, why does CJ say he's gonna approach Jizzy low-key, but then goes right up to him and threatens him at gunpoint(in front of his bodyguards, nonetheless)? The use of a silenced pistol was also redundant, as there is absolutely ZERO stealth involved in the mission.
  • Probably his desire for revenge at Jizzy B being the source of the crack that got his friends Big Smoke and Ryder to turn on him and Sweet overrode the plan. Getting that close would be point blank, and CJ likely revelled in the smell of impending victory a little too long.
• Early on Officer Hernandez calls CJ and tells him that Tenpenny said not to leave town. Of course if CJ tries anyway he gets a 4 star wanted level, probably from Tenpenny pinning the death of Officer Pendelbury on him and calling in backup for a known cop killer. That makes sense. What doesn't is if CJ gets his hands on a plane and flies over the forbidden areas, fighter jets are sent to shoot him down. How does Tenpenny, a street cop, have enough power to scramble fighter jets?
  • He'd need to lean on exactly one air traffic controller. Scrambling fighters to intercept stolen, hijacked, or unauthorised aircraft that won't communicate with or are ignoring air traffic control is standard procedure post-9/11, especially near major population centres. Up until you get access to the whole map, and the Airstrip, the only way CJ has to acquire a plane is to steal one, so all that Tenpenny would have to do is get an air traffic controller to point that out and fighters would get scrambled.
  • Except the game is set in the early 90s, about a decade before 9/11. This one is simply a case of Gameplay and Story Segregation.
  • Or, going better than copping out to a trope like that, even pre-9/11 in this whacky and often-not-too-realistic universe Tenpenny can still lean on that air traffic controller. Maybe he has a cop stationed directly inside the LSX ATC tower as a lookout who can immediately alert the controller to CJ's theft, but note that the jets only scramble once he leaves the boundaries of Los Santos' surrounding rural townships (or if he should somehow be able to take off with a serious wanted level). There's probably a transponder on every plane (due to the crazy level of crime people such as Tommy Vercetti can get up to in this universe with a helicopter, much less a plane) which triggers as soon as one of those things happens, which in conjunction with the cop and the controller sends airborne heat after him accordingly.
• How come whenever Tenpenny gets CJ to take care of a witness or DA, he actually goes along with it instead of recruiting them and faking their deaths? Like just kill someone else like the FBI guards, and get them to lie down in the blood pool. Then when Sweet's out of Tenpenny's reach (eg when Carl picks up a new sponsor in Torino), he's got political weapons too.
  • CJ's got some smarts, but he's not the type of person who could come up with a scheme like that. Too much effort, has no bravado. And before you say "he planned that heist," need I remind you that every guy has planned a heist in their heads at some point.
• In the beginning of Cesar Vialpando, we see Sweet arguing with Kendl about who her boyfriend (Cesar) is, even wrongly guessing what his name is. Did he forget that Kendl literally said she was going to see Cesar in "Sweet and Kendl"?
  • There are racist overtones whenever Sweet spoke about Cesar. Most racists willingly make no effort to learn or remember details like people's names when said people are The Other. Of course he forgot.
  • When Sweet and Kendl were arguing about Cesar, Sweet was guessing Cesar's last name, along with a first name for a hypothetical baby Cesar and Kendl might have some day. Leroy Lopez or Leroy Hernandez I believe. At this point, Cesar's last name isn't yet given, at least to the game player.
  • Also, let's be honest: Sweet is an abrasive asshole, especially near the beginning of the game. It's entirely possible that he did know Cesar's name, and was just pretending like he didn't in order to antagonize Kendl (see the "Sweet is a racist" note above).
• In Burning Desire, Tenpenny sends CJ to kill a Vago and burn down his house. Who exactly was the Vago that you had to kill, and what happened to him? He seems to have been completely forgotten about when you have to rescue Denise.
  • Regarding who was the Vago, Tempenny never gives details about him, but he seems to be using CJ (either directly or through Big Smoke) to get rid of any member of the Ballas and the Vagos that choose to operate independently of Tempenny and Big Smoke's organization, so that all crime in Los Santos is under their control. So we can guess why Tempenny wanted that Vago dead. Regarding what happened to him, immediately after bombing the last window, there's a cutscene where a Vago is seen running out of the house while on fire, only to die shortly after, then the cutscene with Denise is played.
• Up, Up, And Away!: as pointed out by Woozie, they could just steal any armored truck anywhere in the state - it wouldn't even have to be the one from Caligula's, as they were going to repaint it anyway - but Carl shoots down the idea due to it attracting too much attention... then goes in to break into a freaking military compound to steal a massive, loud cargo helicopter, use it to lift the truck from a bank, then carry it above the entire city to an abandoned airport on the other side. And all of that after stealing four police bikes in the broad daylight with help of a packer truck, in what was rather clearly an organised action. How is that not raising suspicions? For that matter, how is that easier and quieter than just breaking into the parking and stealing the truck outright?
  • Well, what CJ actually says is "I don't want to get the crew caught up in some street-level jacking - it could get ugly", which makes sense, considering that the people driving the armored trucks (especially ones that are filled with money, as Woozie mentions: "That way, we can make some money too.") are probably armed, so trying to carjack them runs the risk of possibly turning into a prolonged shootout in the streets, etc. That's the level of attention you don't want when planning a heist. CJ stealing the cop bikes and and the sky crane happened on the outskirts of Las Venturas, so while there were no doubt some people who witnessed it, it still probably didn't attract the same level of attention as a street-level shooutout would have.
• During the early Grove Street missions, Ryder keeps constantly insulting CJ about how bad of a driver the latter supposedly is, making it sound like CJ Drives Like Crazy. Where does this come from, considering that whenever we see CJ drive in cutscenes, he seems to be a perfectly adequate driver at worst? It would make sense if Ryder wanted to give CJ a hard time for being a "buster" who left Los Santos for five years, but why focus specifically on his driving?
  • Ryder is a villain and doesn't really make the foreshadowing of said villainy too subtle when he's cosplaying as one of the good guys. Most of his insults come during gameplay. The creative team are trying to seed a rivalry between Ryder and CJ (or more specifically CJ as the avatar for you, the player). Presumably most players fall into one of two major categories here. Either they practice safe and skilled driving (in which case Ryder is a bullshitter and these false insults lead to antagonism towards him) or they aren't very good at driving but are presumably trying to improve (aided by the various vehicle skills mechanic, and I'd hazard to say even people who deliberately drive recklessly try a bit harder during missions because the vehicle's well-being is often critical to the mission, you and allied characters). In the latter case then Ryder is making honest but harsh and aggravating comments, thus also insults, which likewise sets him at odds with CJ and the player.
• After the mission Madd Dogg's Rhymes, CJ gets a phone call from Tenpenny telling him to meet him at a specific donut shop. However, when CJ gets there and starts the mission (Burning Desire), the cutscene that plays apparently shows CJ already being inside the donut shop and being headed for the exit (considering he's facing the door, with his back towards Tenpenny and his goons, and reaching for the door handle) before Tenpenny tells him to come over and take a seat, to which CJ reacts with apparent surprise and irritation. As if, he was visiting the donut shop on other business and just happened to randomly bump into Tenpenny, rather than CJ deliberately being there because Tenpenny had told him to.
  • Perhaps CJ was fed up of running errands for Tenpenny, pretended to look for him in the donut shop but on this occasion said to himself "screw it" and tried to leave to see to better things, but not before Tenpenny beckons him back over.
• After the mission The Green Sabre, Tenpenny tells CJ that Sweet is recovering inside a prison hospital, somehow getting Sweet out of prison serves as a major overarching plot point for most of the rest of the game, and when Sweet calls CJ after the mission Saint Mark's Bistro, Sweet mentions that he's apparently received a life sentence ("I'm in for life!"). All of which begs the question: what crime did Sweet get charged with and sentenced for, that he apparently received a life sentence?
  • Does it really matter? He's a gangbanger who's been depicted in-game as committing many murders up to that point. Any one, or multiple of them would work. And even if the cops can't find legitimate evidence to tie him to them? They are corrupt as hell, so will easily conjure up fake evidence to implicate him in crimes real or imagined.