History Characters / TheWireTheNextGeneration

* ICouldaBeenAContender: Michael showed early promise as a boxer.

Unfortunately when Herc is questioning a suspect he gives away that Randy is his source of information and the Stanfield gang spreads the word that Randy is a snitch, which causes him to be ostracized by his peers and makes him a target for retribution. Carver attempts to give him police protection, which isn't enough to stop his house from being firebombed, hospitalizing his foster mother for the foreseeable future. Carver fights to find him another foster parent, even offering to adopt him himself, but nothing can be done to keep him from a group home.

As we see in Season 5, the bullying and abuse break him.

* CreateYourOwnVillain: Randy turns into a thug after being failed by the Baltimore Police.

* ProtagonistJourneyToVillain: Goes from a clever and entrepreneurial youngster with a good heart to a jaded, angry person who seems certain to get involved in the drug trade or other criminal activity.
* TookALevelInJerkass: By the time we see him in season 5, he has lost ''all'' of the kindness and decency he had in the previous season, beginning to(justifiably) disrespect the police and hurt little kids.

* BreakTheHaughty: Starts off as a kid who constantly runs his mouth and pretends to be a lot tougher than he actually is, but a combination of seeing Michael steadily become colder (and getting slapped around by him) and being taught in a class guided by Colvin for problem-students really turns his attitude around.

* TheFriendNobodyLikes: He's kind of TheLoad to the remnants of the Barksdale organization; he's lazy and not a very good dealer, but Wee-Bey's influence is still strong enough that Bodie puts up with him and tries to take care of him nonetheless. Meanwhile, his friends put up with him partly (if not entirely) because he seems well off in comparison.
* FreudianExcuse: Look at both of his parents. His father; a distant psychopath and murderer, his mother; a completely self-absorbed, verbally and physically abusive shrew who sees him only as a meal ticket. If he wasn't picked up by Colvin (thanks to his father at least having an EvenEvilHasLovedOnes moment), one wonders how he would have ended up.

* HiddenDepths:
** Colvin notices an intellectual potential below his obnoxiousnesses and overcompensation.
** That he manages to win a statewide debate championship ''as a high school freshman'' indicates he possesses a rather astounding intellect.

* LikeFatherUnlikeSon: Nay can't live up to his father's rep.

* SignificantHaircut: He is enormously fond of his huge, frizzy ponytail, but is repeatedly encouraged to cut it because it will make him easily identifiable to the police. He tries to make himself do it but ultimately can't, choosing instead to restyle it into cornrows. After being adopted by Colvin, he returns to the frizzy ponytail style.

As we see in Season 5, the bullying and abuse break him until he is just another anger filled thug.

* BreakTheCutie: He may have been a mischievous and somewhat naive teen, but he's also a sweet and likable person that no one wanted to do bad things to. When Randy tells a teacher about the vacant house murders. everyone in the neighborhood gets wind of what Randy said and things start getting really bad for him, very fast. It's mild at first, with the kids at his school not wanting to associate with him, then it escalates into daily fights; enough to the point that his legal guardian forcibly withdraws him until he can be transferred to another school. Unfortunately, that never happens, because several nights later, two random thugs toss Molotov cocktails into his guardian's house and set it on fire. Randy is intact, but his guardian gets horribly burned and is unable to care for him anymore. So Randy has to go to a group home with other volatile neighborhood kids who beat him up everyday for what he did, despite Carver trying to adopt Randy to avoid that fate. When Randy briefly reappears in season five, he has become a hardened, violent individual.

* HistoryRepeats: A kid who loses his mother figure early in life, whose talents go mostly overlooked and unappreciated, is repeatedly screwed over by the system, and winds up adopting a thug attitude. Sounds like Bodie, although we don't see if he ends up the same way.

* ProtagonistJourneyToVillain: Goes from a clever and entrepreneurial youngster with a good heart to a jaded, angry thug who seems certain to get involved in the drug trade or other criminal activity.
* TookALevelInJerkass: By the time we see him in season 5, he has lost ''all'' of the kindness and decency he had in the previous season, becoming a thug who (justifiably) disrespects the police and hurts little kids.

[[center: [- [[Characters/TheWire Main Character Index]] | [[Characters/TheWireBaltimorePoliceDepartment Baltimore Police Department]] | [[Characters/TheWireMajorCrimesUnit Major Crimes Unit]] | [[Characters/TheWireHomicideUnit Homicide Unit]] | [[Characters/TheWirePoliceCommanders Police Commanders]] | [[Characters/TheWireWesternDistrict Western District]] | [[Characters/TheWireBaltimoreUnderworld Baltimore Underworld]] | [[Characters/TheWireBarksdaleOrganization The Barksdale Organization]] | [[Characters/TheWireOmarAndAssociates Omar and Associates]] | [[Characters/TheWireTheGreeks The Greeks]] | [[Characters/TheWireStanfieldOrganization Stanfield Organization]] | [[Characters/TheWireNewDayCoOp New Day Co-Op]] | [[Characters/TheWireCourthouse Courthouse]] | [[Characters/TheWireCityHall City Hall]] | [[Characters/TheWireBaltimoreSun The Baltimore Sun]] | [[Characters/TheWireOtherCharacters Other Characters]] | [[Characters/TheWireHomelessPeopleAndAddicts Homeless People and Addicts]] | [[Characters/TheWireBaltimoreDocks Baltimore Docks]] | '''The Next Generation''']]-]

* KickTheDog: His treatment of Dukie, who Namond looks down on and treats him with contempt. This behavior is completely unprovoked.

* HistoryRepeats: Becomes a stick up man like Omar. In fact, the last thing we see him do is shoot Vinson in the knee while robbing him, just like we saw Omar do during Omar's first robbery in Season 1.

* TraumaCongaLine: Starts off mild. Taken UpToEleven in the WhamEpisode as his house gets burned down, his foster mother gets badly injured, and eventually he is sent back to a group home where is mercilessly bullied and beaten until he becomes just as cruel and hardened as his tormentors.