Unforgiven - Characters & Cast

Initially, his motivation is purely financial—to provide a better life for his two children. However, after Little Bill murders Ned Logan, his motivation shifts to pure, unadulterated revenge.

Will Munny begins as a struggling hog farmer, a penitent widower trying to escape a past of legendary violence. Lured back into killing for money, he initially struggles with his age and his rusty skills. After his friend Ned is murdered, Munny sheds his reformed persona, drinks whiskey, and fully reverts to the cold-blooded killer of his youth to exact revenge, culminating in a massacre. His arc is a tragic deconstruction of redemption, suggesting one's violent nature can be suppressed but never truly erased.

His primary motivation is control. He wants to create an orderly town free of gunfighters and assassins, but he achieves this through autocratic and violent means, revealing a deeper motivation to assert his own dominance and authority.

Little Bill presents himself as a folksy, pragmatic sheriff dedicated to maintaining peace by brutally enforcing a "no guns" rule. He deconstructs the myths of other gunslingers while hypocritically building his own legend through fear and violence. His arc reveals him to be a sadistic tyrant who enjoys his power. He shows no development, only a deepening of his cruelty, which ultimately leads to his own violent demise at the hands of the very type of man he claims to control.

Like Munny, he is initially motivated by the money and a chance to relive his past, but his ultimate motivation becomes survival and an escape from the violence he can no longer stomach.

Ned Logan joins Munny for one last adventure, seemingly more capable and grounded than his old friend at the start. However, when faced with the reality of killing again, he finds he can no longer do it; his conscience has truly changed. He abandons the bounty hunt but is captured and tortured to death by Little Bill. Ned's arc serves as the moral compass of the film; he is the one who truly cannot go back to his old ways, and his tragic death is the catalyst for Munny's final descent into violence.

His motivation is to build a reputation and prove himself as a feared and respected killer, just like the legends he's heard about.

The Schofield Kid starts as a boastful, arrogant young man who has bought into the myth of the gunslinger and wants to make a name for himself. He is revealed to be near-sighted and inexperienced. After clumsily killing his first man, he is utterly traumatized by the reality of his actions. His arc is a complete disillusionment; he rejects the life he sought, gives up his gun, and recognizes the horror of killing, serving as the audience's surrogate for the deconstruction of the Western myth.