One I like quite a bit is Negan, from the walking dead. He's an oppressive ruler, yet he has his moments of reasonableness. And he respects those who deserve it.
For instance, when Carl hid in a truck, and killed one of his men, and demanded that Negan show himself. He said that Carl was adorable, but admitted that Carl scared the hell out of him. Negan was the new world order, and commanded hundreds of thousands of people who were so committed, that they called themselves "Negan".
Carl defied him, and Negan respected that so much, and admitted that Carl scared the daylights out of him. Olivia defied him as well, and he respected her for it, declaring that he wouldn't have chosen her to go.
While I don't like Negan, Rick did kill a whole ton of his men, without provocation, and only killing two of his people, initially, was a rather reasonable response.
As is his killing of a man of Rick's who wanted Negan to kill Rick, and put him in charge. As well as him bringing Rick's son back home safe, after he killed two of his men, and feeding him spaghetti.
And then only killing one person when Rosita tried to kill him. He's pretty reasonable, as I see it
In King stories where you have the standard "gang of bullies" you ALWAYS have one or two guys who either don't particularly care about the fight or actively don't want to be involved, yet are just there for various reasons. They're too scared to desert the clearly insane leader, they're getting some side benefit out of being there (booze/drugs etc.) but they themselves are not only fairly decent otherwise, but probably a little smarter than the rest.
In the novel of Christine there are actually TWO. One, after being established, basically smells evil on the wind, jumps in his car, and gets the fuck outta dodge for good. The other, being the last guy left, is reminiscing about just sittin' around gettin' drunk and bullshittin' with the rest of the gang. Not raisin' hell, not fightin' not goin' after anybody-- just him and the other average joes passin' a bottle and talkin' a bunch of shit. It's also revealed that he even senses what's coming for him, even if he's too scared to let himself think it.
He has a vision of the old gang as corpses, sitting around him in the back of the old gas station, and the old leader goes to pass him the bottle, saying "Catch yourself a drink, asshole-- soon you'll be as dead as the rest of us." Well when the car shows up to collect, the captured spirit of the same guy leans up out of the back seat and extends the bottle, only this time it's actually real. "Catch yourself a drink, asshole!"
Grand admiral Thrawn. Cunning, resourceful, and perceptive, but also reasonable and not consumed by megalomania. He learns from his mistakes, and- critically- allows his subordinates to learn from theirs- IF they show willingness to do so. Had he been leading the defense at Endor, the Rebellion would've been crushed. He's basically everything Palpatine wasn't.
@spartan55 it must’ve been the early 80s or late 70s because I do recall that he played some parts Rick Springfield but I never saw about the doctor but I liked Grant Putnam that character. It was really interesting.
