Is Sonny a good person?

[njsoaplover]

For Sonny fans and non fans, In the age of anti heros/heriones there are many characters who we love but who are not exactly good people. Tony Soprano is the most obvious comparison as is Michael Corleone, they love their families and may do good things for those they care for, but they are not good people. So my question is Sonny Corinthos objectively a good person, whether you love him or not? I say no

[Theresa_Fan]

Sonny is grey. I personally see Sonny as an anti-villain, he can have heroic personality traits but he is generally a bad guy since he's a mobster.

[FLPeaches]

This, exactly.

[DayRose]

I see Sonny as a person who can do good things but he is not a classic good person.

[Anna74]

Sonny is a bad person with some good qualities. He can , in his best moments, be kind and generous. He can feel for empathy for other people. But he is also greedy, power-hungery, vengeful and he has a tendency towards violence . He often chooses to let his bad impulses win out over his good ones . I’ve always felt he lies to himself to justify the bad things he does because he knows full well they are wrong .

[Wanda Wolek]

I agree with your entire description of Sonny.

[divamagenta]

I see it the opposite way - Sonny is a good person who sometimes does questionable things.

[RitaMarshall]

No. Not really in any sense. But Sonny is also the worst kind of bad person because he THINKS he's a good person. He's not evil, per se (like say, a Helena Cassadine or a Faison), but he does horrible things and thinks he's entirely entitled and justified to do them. I mean, it's classic narcissism and abusive personality stuff, but the show likes to ignore all that. Lol

I think if the show were more honest about characters like Sonny, Carly, Jason and actually acknowledged that they weren't good people, it might be a lot easier to get on board with them as gray characters - like Ava, Nina, Valentin. Instead, they shove it down our throats how allegedly good they are and how we should believe they're justified in all the horrible things they do. They don't give the viewer any room to actually empathize with them when they are in the right or when something bad is legitimately happening to them. They also never get any kind of comeuppance or punishment for their bad/illegal deeds, and are never contrite or looking for forgiveness. They have zero self-awareness about their misdeeds - which is actually a pathological trait. Meanwhile, other characters seem to only live in a state of constant penance and self-loathing, always seeking absolution.

Oh, and I might be in the minority here, but as someone who was watching 30 years ago, I will never be able to forget that Sonny was a pedophile sex trafficker who drugged teenage girls and pushed them to dance naked in his club. He also drugged and then raped* Karen Wexler when he was in his 30s and she was younger than Joss is now - *they didn't call it rape then, but it would unequivocally be considered rape now.

[BettieCat]

RitaMarshall I LOVE stories where bad people work toward redemption. Every time they stumble or fall back into old habits, they pick themselves up and work on being better again. Neither Sonny nor Carly ever change their behaviors, they just charge ahead, certain that they and only they are right and morally perfect.

[OLTL'69]

RitaMarshall. This is stated so well. Thank you. I do get what you say about the gray characters. We don't have people randomly showing up at the Gallery to tell Ava how wonderful she is. (and they shouldn't) But we seem to at least weekly get someone to sing Sonny's praises. Yes he is generous with his blood money Brando but you could have put his away and you saved Carly

[RitaMarshall]

BettieCat Thanks. Redemption stories are great, especially when they're truly earned. They don't even bother with Sonny and Carly because neither character can ever admit that they're wrong or believe they have reason to need redemption.

The real problem started 20-25 years ago when the show decided to flip the entire show off its axis to make Sonny the moral center. Everything since has been this weird alternate reality where they're constantly bending over backwards to make everyone else wrong and throw all logic and intelligence out the window just to justify this skewered perspective. Somehow, the murderous criminal is always in the right, so the cops have to be incompetent (or go to the criminal for help), and everyone who doesn't agree with them or their POV is automatically the villain. I don't need my heroes to be squeaky clean and pure, but they can't be blatant killers, abusers, and psychopaths. It's gotten to the point where people just openly discuss that Sonny's a criminal and can fix their problems by doing something illegal or using his muscle to threaten someone. And this is what they call normal!? Lol. Give me a Robert Scorpio or a Sean Donely any day. And I thank god for Robert (or TR if he's still ad-libbing) being the sole holdout, who even when he's forced to work with Sonny, makes his animus for him very clear.

OLTL'69 Thanks. It's bad enough that they never admonish these bad characters, but I didn't even think about how they are constantly showering them with praise and talking them up! The way they do it with Sonny and Carly (or before with Jason) is just so extreme that a normal person would feel uncomfortable being talked about that way, Lol. It feels so disingenuous, especially since we keep seeing them engage in just atrocious behaviors, even moments before or after them being talked up. I also find it incredibly weird how Carly is now going out of her way to praise Harmony when Harmony literally just tried to kill her (in a violent and dramatic way) only maybe a week or 2 ago. Haha

[njsoaplover]

No. Not really in any sense. But Sonny is also the worst kind of bad person because he THINKS he's a good person. He's not evil, per se (like say, a Helena Cassadine or a Faison), but he does horrible things and thinks he's entirely entitled and justified to do them. I mean, it's classic narcissism and abusive personality stuff, but the show likes to ignore all that. Lol

I think if the show were more honest about characters like Sonny, Carly, Jason and actually acknowledged that they weren't good people, it might be a lot easier to get on board with them as gray characters - like Ava, Nina, Valentin. Instead, they shove it down our throats how allegedly good they are and how we should believe they're justified in all the horrible things they do. They don't give the viewer any room to actually empathize with them when they are in the right or when something bad is legitimately happening to them. They also never get any kind of comeuppance or punishment for their bad/illegal deeds, and are never contrite or looking for forgiveness. They have zero self-awareness about their misdeeds - which is actually a pathological trait. Meanwhile, other characters seem to only live in a state of constant penance and self-loathing, always seeking absolution.

Oh, and I might be in the minority here, but as someone who was watching 30 years ago, I will never be able to forget that Sonny was a pedophile sex trafficker who drugged teenage girls and pushed them to dance naked in his club. He also drugged and then raped* Karen Wexler when he was in his 30s and she was younger than Joss is now - *they didn't call it rape then, but it would unequivocally be considered rape now.

Your post is so well expressed and dead on. I agree with everything you said. It's not the fact that they aren't 'good' people that makes a lot of us dislike Sonny, Carly, and Jason. It's the fact that the writers try to shove down our throats that they are good! That's why I find it easier to root for Valentine, Ava, and Julian.

[Wanda Wolek]

Yes! It started in the Guza era and has never stopped. I don't mind the characters - well, Sonny and Jason bore me - but I really hate having it rammed down my throat that they are essentially good people when they are not.

[RitaMarshall]

Thanks. It's crazy the amount of gaslighting they use to try to get us to believe they're good people! Good people don't have to tell you they're good, Lol, they show you through their actions. There are DOZENS of characters (past and present) who have gotten to have those redemption arcs because they actually owned the bad things they'd done. And it doesn't mean they're perfect now, but it's part of the process in their journey.

I also can't get over all the stones being thrown by people who live in glass houses. I didn't like Nina calling Bobbie a prostitute (really shameful of the writers to use that word!) but she wasn't entirely wrong with what she said (about her past horrible deeds, not the sex work). Bobbie, Carly, and Sonny have all literally stolen children. Nina's just trying to get visitation rights, Lol. So we get this weird mix of hyperbole, false equivalencies, and pure hypocrisy... all the while Carly's doing secret DNA tests. Haha

[1sbkmcfan]

No matter how much money he donates to charity or gives to others, or how much he "loves" his family I don't see him as a good man. If he has enforces and hit men to bully, beat up and even kill in order to maintain his "territory" or "power" then heck no. He is a gang banger...or mob king pin if that makes what he does sound better.

[LizWebberFan]

I don’t think Sonny is good or bad. He’s somewhere in between. He’s a grey character.

[taramartin]

I'm not so sure any of them are really good people. At least, I can think of many of them who are not. For a long while, in spite of Sonny's business -whatever that really is - he was a pretty devoted family man - it seems now Nina has destroyed him.

[Soapaholic26]

I always saw Sonny as a necessary evil. Sure, he does bad things, but as far as protecting Port Charles and his family, he's your man. Especially when saddled with the inept PCPD.
Now, I have not been watching since Sonny's inception. I missed the "pedophile, sex trafficking, drug pusher" mentioned above. Maybe that Sonny was only intended to be a short arc character, but was so popular (I bet it was the dimples) that he stayed and so his character was changed. But, I think the whole purpose of the Cyrus Renault in Port Charles while Sonny was in Nixon Falls SL was to show us that sometimes the evil you know (Sonny) is better than the evil you don't know (Cyrus).

[Wanda Wolek]

See, I think that the PCPD would not be made to be so inept if the writers didn't need to make Sonny the town hero.

[BlindLiberty]

Wanda Wolek Well, the problem with that is unless it's a cop show the PCPd has to be inept for any of these characters to get away with their plots and schemes. While, I personally would like to have the storyline be shorter and wrapped up sooner, if these writers didn't have filler for most the year we would be on the 39th custody battle of an 17 year old Wiley.

[Wanda Wolek]

@BIndLiberty, omg, I'll put up with Sonny solving any and all crime if it meant Wiley would disappear for good.

[njsoaplover]

I'm not so sure any of them are really good people. At least, I can think of many of them who are not. For a long while, in spite of Sonny's business -whatever that really is - he was a pretty devoted family man - it seems now Nina has destroyed him.

I don't see him as grey because of his business not in spite of it. I see someone like Ned as Grey, as he is always struggling to put his family above his ambition, but his worst impulses often come out and he makes poor decisions. Sonny does not struggle with what he does. He justifies it as 'protecting people'.. But what he does is bully, intimidate, shake down people for money and exploit others. I don't doubt he does many good things, and that he loves his family and is a loyal friend. That does not make him a good person. Just a bad one who loves his family

[EHolland]

ABSOLUTELY NOT! He never has been! I used to love him BC(before Carly) but can’t stand the sight of him now! Never been a more vain, selfish narcissistic character to ever grace the GH screen! NO just NO!

[Bobaloo]

By my real-world definition of "good", no he's not. I can't think of a single adult character really who is - they have all done absolutely heinous things in their time. But by soap standards, while I wouldn't call him a good person or a hero by any stretch of the imagination, but I would call him evil either. We do get to see the kind and loving and protective side of Sonny on occasion and with certain characters.

[TinkerTailor]

Sonny is not a good person. He may have some good qualities, but he is a gangster who has murdered many people. He is violent, greedy, and has no regard for life.

[channyfan]

Sonny is basically glorified human crap

[catster]

This is perfect and the truth. Sonny is not a good guy by any stretch and now he is even worse.