#manco

Yes, he's played by the handsome and mysterious Clint Eastwood. Yes, he's the "good" one (I'd argue he's actually a pretty bad person, though not as bad as Angel Eyes or Tuco). Yes, he's cool and the ultimate winner in the movie.

But there is someone else who's on the screen almost all the time, pushing the plot forward, pretty much causing most of the movie's major events, a man whose perspective dominates throughout the story. Someone we get to know pretty well, someone we get to see at his most bombastic and most vulnerable. A person both sympathetic and repulsive, clever and naive, violent and oddly affection-starved.

F*cking Tuco. Come on. It's not exactly subtle. Tuco is the protagonist. Yeah, he's a criminal accused of a long list of nasty acts, with questionable morals and intellect that constantly switches between "I'll make it work in a way no one else could pull off" and "I'm a complete idiot". Duh. He doesn't have to be a hero to be the main character - Ryunosuke Tsukue, masterfully played by Tatsuya Nakadai in "The Sword of Doom", is a violent sociopath with no empathy. A completely deranged, horrible person. I'd argue he's even worse than Tuco actually, because he doesn't even seem to feel anything. Still the protagonist.

Similarly, I do believe col. Mortimer to be the actual protagonist of "For a few dollars more". Manco is a key character, but he doesn't have much of a motivation throughout the movie. To him El Indio is just another criminal, the only difference being the ridiculous price for his head. To Mortimer, it's the person who hurt him deeply, the monster who caused the death of his sister. Without Mortimer, the movie would feel hollow. It would be a very basic story about a cool gunslinger hunting down a bad, bad bandit and winning.

Tuco is easily the most complex and interesting character. I love Lee Van Cleef, but I think he himself knew Angel Eyes wasn't there to be a psychological wonder. He's just cold and cruel, if not straight up sadistic. Blondie exists to look awesome, smoke his cigars and shoot like he is permanently using the "Dead Eye" feature from RDR games. He's mostly reactive. Tuco is the one who fluctuates constantly, sometimes genuinely sympathetic, sometimes slimy and mean. He has a believable backstory that can make you empathize with him a little, but doesn't excuse his actions. This is how real people are.

If you take Tuco out of the equation in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", you are left with:

The cool-looking cowboy who is a somewhat decent person and doesn't change much throughout the story,

The badass, cold villain with an unparalleled facial structure who wants to have a lot of money,

Pretty much zero connection between the two,

Little to no emotional development.

Tuco is the engine of the story and - yes - the heart of it. Get rid of him and said story collapses.

Tuco is the protagonist, I'll die on this hill.

Silly doodle I made last night