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"Mature Content Warning!" |
This picture says it all. He is a total Karma Houdini in the show while his idiotic son gets himself sent to jail for his stupid self-destructive behavior.
Okay so I’m doing a removal for a character I proposed. I was already hesitant about him staying here when I approved him and after talking with some friends we’ve decided too axe him. I feel like he was written with the intentions of being a pathetic pinhead but failed (the opposite of his son who was meant to be a three-dimensional and sympathetic villain but ended up here anyway due to the incompetent writers of the show.) Thanks to my good friend Accounty the Sequel for permission.
Original Proposal[]
Gonna leave my original proposal here that should give a basic sum-up of who he is and why I thought he qualified. I want to say first that I have no regret in making the original proposal and Monty's dad at least does meet a lot of the criteria. He is easily pathetic enough for this trope since he’s a blatant homophobe Hate Sink who beats his son. He has no likable qualities and no redeeming ones other than two possible vague ones of caring about his wife or claiming he "busts his ass off for his family" (though this is likely an abuser tactic.) Even though he’s a very terribly written plot device meant to make his son more sympathetic, he’s still is horrible as both a person and a villain.
He doesn’t even really have any smart feats, competence or charisma either. He’s just an alcoholic bum who abuses his son and it seems like the show wants us to see him as a pinhead, but unfortunately my revelations have made me consider he isn’t dumb enough for the following reasons.
Removal Reason[]
Lack of Stupid Feats[]
While he has no actual smart feats or charisma, he’s not really stupid enough to be here, which is generally bound to happen when you are a plot device who only has like two minutes of screen time. And yes, I got minor villains like the bike gang leader from Death Note and Nukesaku from JoJo’s but that's primarily because they exist to show off the main characters power and end up failing miserably with their plans, which Mr. de La Cruz never gets because he’s a Karma Houdini and a plot device who just exists to exist.
Now why don’t I go through my original points and debunk why he isn’t dumb enough?
- " He doesn’t even bother to cover up his son’s injuries and openly leaves him wandering around with a scarred eye or broken arm, which obviously traces back to him. People like Bryce are aware of how abusive he is because it’s blatantly obvious and he could easily get found out (yet somehow doesn’t.) He never shows any skill in covering up his crimes or attempts to do it and the only reason he never got arrested is pure luck. It’s not like he comes from royalty like Bryce and can just use that to get away with his crimes."
- While giving his son obvious injuries sounds stupid on paper, unfortunately like the case with Jeffery Fecalman who I removed, he is clearly able to get away with his abuse and we never see him remotely get in trouble for it. Unlike his son, he never gets in any trouble whatsoever for his actions (even when the police come to their house.) Since the abuse is primarily offscreen, we don’t know what methods he did to cover it up and he gets away with it it’s not stupid. It doesn’t help that the other three PPs from 13RW get in trouble for their stupid actions. And it’s not like Mr. de La Cruz is some respected authority who is risking his reputation by doing the potential of being discovered for his crimes. He’s just a random alcoholic bum with nothing to lose. In fact the narrative makes it clear that nobody really cares what happens with those kinds of people in the show. Since Monty is a “thug” nobody really cares to interfere with his life.
- "Every time he is onscreen he’s a drunk mess and one time we see him belittling his son and psychologically abusing him, which leads to Monty grabbing a nightstick and beating him to a pulp. This was completely stupid on his part and he is aware his son is a violent person (thanks to him) and the fact he always carries a weapon around him."
- Simply being drunk isn’t stupid. Heck, I do it on the weekends and I still have good grades and stuff at school. And the things is is that like I said he only taunted his son when he was black-out drunk so he wasn’t thinking straight at the time and we can’t call people stupid for stuff they do when their brains are affected like that. Also I did mention that he knew Monty had a nightstick however after rewatching the scene nothing seems to specifically suggest he knew Monty had a nightstick at that moment. We do know that Monty carries a nightstick on him at all times because he himself says his father always beats him and he carries it for safety, but nothing outright states Mr. De La Cruz knows this in general or during the specific scene we see Monty beats him. And unlike the case for his son, we never see any scars on the father so nothing indicates he gets beaten by Monty.
- " He’s also poor and works a terrible job so he’s likely not a competent worker. And additionally as aformentioned, it is said Monty had to take care of the house by Estela, since Mr. de La Cruz is a manchild."
- This isn’t really given much depth looking back and relies a lot on speculation. We don’t get any details about Mr. de La Cruz's working situation and all we know about him is that he is poor. Nothing seems to really state that he’s poor because he’s a bad worker and if anything it could be because he is a modern Mexican-American, whom often get poorly paid thanks to America's society, not because of their own incompetence. As a matter of fact Tony is also Mexican in the show and his parents are genuinely nice people yet struggle with poverty like Monty and his dad. And about him not taking good care of his house, it’s more pathetic and lazy to show he doesn’t care than him actually being stupid.
Wtih all of this said I don’t think he is stupid enough since him being stupid is largely speculation, stuff he gets away with successfully or is done under the influence of alcohol.
The Setting of the Show[]
If his lack of stupid feats isn’t enough to say he doesn’t count here, then the setting of the show is a problem for him counting (in a similar case to Jeffery Fecalman from Family Guy (who I removed a while back) and Patrick Bateman from American Psycho.)
To put it bluntly 13 Reasons Why has an extremely low intelligence standard that nearly rivals that of Family Guy where nearly every character, even the more heroic and well-rounded ones, are idiots who make self-destructive choices that create problems for themselves. This is valid because the theme of the show is exploring poor choices made by teens and the consequences of their actions.
And before anyone asks, teens aren’t much dumber than adults because they have almost fully developed brains and even the adults are stupid in this show so age isn’t an excuse.
To list off stupid feats made by other characters:
- Monty is self-explanatory and has a rap sheet of "evil is stupid" acts longer than a PE villains crime list which includes but isn’t limited to raping a guy in a public bathroom, leaning in to taunt a boxer, trying to run over Clay, beating up a guy at a party, speeding in a school parking lot, beating up people in school hallways, saying Clay's name wrong, taking his shirt off at a movie theater, failing his classes, molesting a girl at the dance and much more.
- Kenneth and Taylor assist Monty in taking Tyler in the public bathroom.
- Dean Holbrook molests a girl in public and gets his entire football team in trouble, which was AFTER he called out Bryce for being a rapist.
- Marcus Cole tries to molest Hannah in a public restaraunt, where’s a light-up sombrero while trying to sneak into Tyler's house at night, makes out with a prostitute on camera and gets himself blackmailed over it then causes his own suspension
- Diego Torres (who is actually meant to be smart) thinks he can stop a school shooter with a baseball bat.
- Justin Foley shared a picture of Hannah's crotch that spread around school when Bryce took it, thinks Gatorade is sold at a coffee shop and tries to go outside when he’s a wanted criminal.
- Tony Padilla lets his anger get him in trouble all the time, like assaulting a man who insulted his brothers (then gets charged for it because the man pressed charges) and a man who called him a queer.
- Justin Foley's first stepfather was a druggie who repeatedly sexually assaulted a five year old Justin and is implied to have been arrested for it.
- Zach Dempsey becomes dumb in Season 4, where he stops caring about his grades, gets drunk during the daytime and tries to rape his date during prom.
- Tyler Down stalks Hannah and takes pictures of her at her house and leaves the flash on, which leads to him getting caught when Hannah tricks him into taking a picture of her making out with Courtney, then later fires a gun in public property (which almost gets him caught by police), ejaculates when his crush touches him, gets himself suspended for vandalizing the baseball field and bragging about it online (which lead to Monty r*ping him as revenge then almost took it out by shooting up the entire school.)
- Clay Jensen, the main protagonist himself, takes nude photographs of Tyler at his house that he texts around the school, makes his instability obvious to everyone and causes bullies to target him. He goes through a sanity slippage in season 4 where he ignores his college applications, grabbed a gun from a police officer to provoke him (which got him detained), got in trouble for trying to rape a girl at a frat party, crashed a car while drunk driving bought a gun to a hospital and threatened everyone.
- Jeff Atkins got himself killed by drunk driving.
- The incompetent lawyer think Bryce is innocent in raping Jessica just because Justin didn’t physically see it happen, even though there is multiple evidence like Hannah's testimony and Justin hearing it.
- Alex Standall ruined his own relationship with Jessica and Hannah by incriminating Hannah for trying to get in the way of their relationship, then making a hot or not list where he says Hannah has the best ass, instead of his girlfriend, which leads to him being dumped.
- Bryce Walker pretty much causes his own downfall for raping Jessica in front of Justin (which at least got him in prison and expelled even if he got away with his other crimes.) He also accidentally got Chloe pregnant after raping her. In season 3, he accidentally breaks into the wrong house when he’s trying to break into his father’s house and ends up scarring a boy on accident. He also pretty much causes his own death by provoking Alex when he is bleeding and claiming he will kill Zach.
- Rick Wlodimierz got himself fired for founding the clubhouse since his students left photographic evidence.
- Pirnicipal Bolan thought an unannounced school shooter drill was a good idea, but caused everyone immense stress and trauma.
- The entire baseball team takes photos of girls they lure into the Clubhouse and leave photographic evidence of women they rape, which almost gets them all in trouble.
- Some random guy on the streets homophobically insults Tony for no reason and gets himself brutally beaten.
- All 13 tape subjects caused their own incriminations by ruining Hannah’s life in some way.
This whole list should tell you how dumb every character is and that Cruz doesn’t stand out at all in this regard. While intelligence standards aren’t inherently an issue like heinous standards, it becomes a problem when you are a slightly-below average IQ character in a show full if bigger idiots. It doesn’t help that his own son is a billion times dumber than him.
Verdict[]
Leaning cut but up to you. Not sure anyone will really miss this guy if he goes. At least his son will remain here forever and always no matter what though.