The Title Character
A lot for
Villain Protagonist Mad Scientist Rick Sanchez from
Rick and Morty. Rick is almost a completely
Sociopathic Hero and unrepentant
Jerkass who constantly endangers/traumatizes his grandson and other family members for usually selfish reasons. But even
he occasionally has lines he won't cross.
- After being transported to the perverted dreams of a woman in Morty's math teacher's dream in episode "Lawnmower Dog", (It Makes Sense in Context) Rick has no problem whatsoever in engaging in her fantasies, but even he's disgusted when Summer, his own granddaughter, is revealed to be part of her depraved fantasies.
- Rick in episode "Anatomy Park" also complains about his family spending Christmas on their phones and other devices, on Jesus' birthday, despite not exactly being the wholesome type.
- Despite Rick being happy for any chance to prove Morty's idea for an adventure sucked and win their little bet in episode "Meeseeks And Destroy", when Morty almost gets raped by King Jellybean and admits that Rick was right, Rick immediately tries to cheer him up by conceding the victory to him, before taking him home, and shoots his would-be rapist on the way out.
- While he has no problem hosting a wild party against his daughter's wishes and ignoring Morty's protests in episode "Ricksy Business", Rick criticizes his granddaughter for only wanting to hold the party to increase her standing with the popular kids and later, trying to get rid of her old unpopular friend, instead of just partying for its own sake like himself.
- In general, Rick seems to dislike discrimination, as he has little-to-no issue with helping a cat girl turn the tables on her oppressive and elitist government, despite wanting to leave the planet just minutes earlier, and after Summer criticizes him for looting a (seemingly) abandoned ship and leaving some graffiti to make any police that come by think it was the work of an unrelated alien species, the only thing Rick seems to think is wrong is that the police would on the blame on said species just because they found some graffiti. When he learns that he apparently sometimes goes on rants about Israel while drunk, he's legitimately worried at the thought that he might spout anti-Semitic rhetoric while intoxicated, and is relieved when Morty tells him he just rambles about defense budgets.
- Rape deeply shocks and offends him. In "Meeseeks and Destroy," he's horrified that Mr. Jellybean attempted to rape Morty, and makes a special point to come back and overkill him. In "Rick Potion #9", he calls out Morty for using a Love Potion to "roofie" Jessica and calls him a "creep" (though Morty correctly points out that Rick helped him make the potion when asked, so the point is downplayed.) In "The ABC's of Beth", when Tommy (the antagonist of the episode) rapes an innocent creature he brought in as a "demonstration", Rick yells at Tommy to leave it alone, and then outright bails on the adventure when Tommy states his intentions to eat the resulting fetus.
- In The Stinger for "Something Ricked This Way Comes", it's shown that Rick hates Neo-Nazis, animal abusers, bullies, and homophobes, enough to use his new jacked body to beat them up with Summer.
- Among the multiple universes' Ricks, he is the one of the few Ricks who cares about his Morty as a person. Most others treat theirs as somewhat valuable resources at best and outright disposable nuisances at worst. Not that this stops him from accepting a coupon for a "free replacement Morty" in one episode, but he notably is completely unwilling to otherwise replace Morty for an alternate reality version or clone like he has with Beth or Summer.
- In "Look Who's Purging Now", Rick eagerly awaits the violence of a yearly purge night but gets disgusted by it a few seconds into it, and looks distressed when Morty really gets into it.
- In "Pickle Rick", he seems to be disgusted by the head of a foreign office when he finds out that he lied to Jaguar about his daughter being alive to use her as leverage.
- In "Edge of Tomorty: Rick Die Rickpeat", Rick is visibly disturbed that several of his cloning vat backups are placed in parallel universes run by fascist regimes. His counterpart from one where he and his family are wasps is similarly disgusted by the idea and dislikes his Morty "looking at the wrong messageboards". Earlier, Rick smashes his head on one tube at the idea of meeting a universe of fascist teddy bears.
- In "One Crew Over the Crewcoo's Morty", although Rick is petty and showed up at HeistCon just to upstage Miles Knightly, even he is freaked out when the fans he brainwashed end up literally tearing Miles apart, quickly making it clear to Morty that he did not plan for that to happen.
- In "The Vat of Acid Episode", despite Rick planning everything to get back at Morty for making fun of his fake acid idea, he is clearly disgusted seeing that after undoing the fates of many alternate Mortys, several groups and representatives want Morty's head for the 'pranks' and other Noodle Incidents he pulled during his so-called Save Scumming. He also made sure to do all of this in an alternate dimension from the one where they've been living, as he doesn't consider it to be worth it to potentially burn all their bridges in their home universe and have to hop dimensions again just to teach Morty a lesson.
- Cross-media example: The Cameo appearance in Space Jam: A New Legacy has him returning the Tasmanian Devil to the Looney Tunes on the grounds Taz is too extreme even for his experiments.
- Rick is appropriately grossed out when he learns what Morty was doing with the horse mount in "Rickdependence Spray", and decides that Morty should stew in the consequences.
- With the reveal that Evil Rick was just his puppet, there may be some Ricks that Evil Morty sees as exceptionally vile, with Evil Rick and C-137 Rick being separated by one Rick that Evil Morty (through Evil Rick) calls "super weird".
- The threat of the Omega Weapon, a machine capable of killing a person across infinite timelines at once, is enough to make Evil Morty team up with Rick to destroy it and end Rick Prime's threat towards the multiverse, personally ensuring he doesn't come back to take revenge. Although he keeps the plans, he states it's only as a deterrent to get Rick to stay away from him.
Other Characters
- Zeep Xanflorp in "The Ricks Must Be Crazy" was horrified that Rick had used his whole universe just to power his car battery. He himself enslaved a universe but was using it as a power source for his whole civilization.
- The gangsters in 'The Vat of Acid Episode' might be amoral enough to double-cross and attempt to kill Rick and Morty, but even they are horrified when Rick dives in the (fake, but they didn't know that) vat of acid with his grandson.
- President Curtis is at his worst in the Season 6 finale, as he steals a lightsaber from a 14-year-old boy while acting like he's entitled to have it because of his warped sense of fandom, and then leaves the Earth to be destroyed for his own mistake. However, he does show a couple of moments of this:
