Given the morally ambiguous nature of the game, fans are bound to have differing views on the characters in Grand Theft Auto IV.
- Niko Bellic is perhaps one of the most complex characters Rockstar has ever created. He's a hypocritical man who's just as bad as the other GTA protagonists, or a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds given his tragic backstory. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
- The decisions you make during the game also give us interpretations.
- Niko letting Ivan live (if you took that option). Was it for a purely moral issue? Or did he just intentionally do it to piss off Vlad? Niko is not exactly the type of person who does everything that they tell him. Besides, it was pretty obvious from the start that he didn't like Vlad.
- Niko killing Francis and letting Derrick live (if you took that option). Again, was it purely moral? Or did he just not want to risk murdering Packie and Gerry's beloved brother (with Francis being the least liked of the siblings)? For one thing, Niko says "fuck you" to Francis when he orders him to kill Derrick. On the other hand, Niko is not interested in what Derrick has done (It's not my business") and Gerry warned him from the start ("Nothing personal, but don't fuck with my family, or I will fuck with yours.")
- The "Deal" option near the end of the game can count as one too. Is Niko only making the deal with Dimitri for the money? Or is it a genuine attempt to allow bygones to be bygones so that he can escape from this cycle of revenge and move on with his life?
- Is he truly a good man turned bad because of the trauma he has been through over the course of the war, or has he always been a bad person with a hidden, dark side? Some moments in the game seem to suggest that he's not much different from your average GTA protagonist. For example, when he is ordered to kill some bikers in the final mission, he willingly shoots Jim's partner and taunts his death. Also, his actions in free mode can be fully canon. In fact, if you wreak havoc with the cops, your agency contact will call you saying to stop. Niko's response? He just responds sarcastically.
- Darko Brevic's dialogue gives us a few more interpretations about Niko, more specifically the quote: "You say I ruined you? You were always a killer! I just helped you see that".
- How bad was Niko Bellic before he got to Liberty City? Some dialogue during your hangouts with your friends seems to suggest that Niko may have been worse, or at least, more ruthless than what he is portrayed in the game. Special mention deserves a dialogue that he has with Packie. We really don't know exactly what Niko meant by that dialogue, and the interpretations can be diverse.
Packie: You seem like a solid guy, Niko. I know you talk about this bad shit that happened to you, but I think you can get over it, you know. You're a survivor.Niko: No one but me can see what is in my head when I try to sleep at night. No one has the dreams I do. And you only know this Niko, the one here in Liberty City. There are very few people in Liberty City who met me before the war. - The decisions you make during the game also give us interpretations.
- Is Mikhail Faustin Properly Paranoid given Dimitri turns out to be a major snake in the grass and his daughter's boyfriend is a pimp or is he just insane from overusing coke?
- Dimitri Rascalov. Was his first façade genuinely affable, and that him turning on Niko was due to how Mikhail's insanity just wore him down? Or was he a psychopathic bastard from the start? An analysis of his character seems to indicate the latter
. - Does Playboy X actually intend to help the neighborhood with the millions he'll make from legitimate enterprises, or he's just an hypocritical jerkass totally consumed with the wealth from his lifestyle?
- Francis McReary, an (anti)heroic Knight Templar using unethical tactics to fight crime, or just an hypocritical, delusional Dirty Cop?
- Derrick McReary is known to have ratted out his friends in the IRA, despite his claims to the contrary. With this on mind, a theory is that the reason why Gerry ends up going to jail, despite all of his precautions, is that Derrick became an informant again, this time against his own family.
- Darko Brevic, a man motivated by drugs, greed, or revenge against the people who murdered his friends?
- There's also the question of who's the real Big Bad. While Dimitri spends most of the game being the Big Bad to Niko, he only takes this position when Mikhail Faustin is killed. On the other hand, Ray Bulgarin, while he is a major threat to Niko, he is not much involved in the story. And Jimmy Pegorino becomes the Big Bad almost by the end of the story, especially if Niko kills off Dimitri before Pegorino as part of the Revenge ending, so he is an invoked example. If Darko Brevic had not been reduced a nihilistic drug addict, he could very well have been the Big Bad of the whole story.
