Carl Johnson (Grand Theft Auto)

Carl "CJ" Johnson
'Grand Theft Auto' character
Carl "CJ" Johnson.
First game	Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004)

Carl "CJ" Johnson is a fictional character in the Grand Theft Auto video game series, serving as the protagonist, anti-hero and player-controlled character in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

CJ is one of the leading members of the Grove Street Families (GSF), along with his brother, Sean "Sweet" Johnson. Sweet suggested that CJ was born in the Johnson House, a two floor home at a Grove Street cul-de-sac in Ganton, Los Santos, which was also the home of the Johnson brothers' mother, Beverly Johnson.

Role

Prologue

After the death of his younger brother, Brian, Carl escaped the pressures of street gang life and moved to Liberty City in 1987, where he worked with Joey Leone in the car theft business and he is once seen mugging a bypasser on the streets.

Initial Role in Los Santos

In 1992, Carl's mother is killed in a drive-by shooting. He returns to Los Santos for the funeral and is immediately confronted by members of C.R.A.S.H. (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums), Officers Frank Tenpenny, Eddie Pulaski and Jimmy Hernandez. Throughout the game, C.R.A.S.H. forces Carl to work for them because if he does not, they have the power to bring harm to him and his loved ones. At the very beginning of the game, they tell Carl that they intend to frame him for the the murder of police officer Ralph Pendlebury, whom C.R.A.S.H. killed to prevent him from exposing their illegal activities.

Early in the game, Carl aids Sweet and the rest of the senior members in reviving the GSF by ridding parts of the neighborhood of crack dealers, acquiring weapons, and regaining lost gang territory. This revival ends, however, after Carl learns that his friends Ryder and Big Smoke, senior GSF members, have betrayed the gang. As CJ discovers the betrayal, Sweet is ambushed by rival Ballas gang members and wounded. CJ arrives to fight them off and likely saves his brothers life, but they are arrested by the police after the battle. Sweet is tried, convicted, and sent to prison on a life sentence. CJ, however, is released by C.R.A.S.H. into a rural area to continue to perform jobs for the team. The GSF, along with Cesar's Aztecas, fall out of prominence. Consequently, their rivals, the Ballas and Los Santos Vagos, are able to take over all of Los Santos.

Exile and subsequent return to Los Santos

After a brief stay in the Badlands, Carl and his remaining associates (his sister Kendl, Cesar and hippy The Truth) head north for San Fierro, where they establish a vehicle chop shop and dealership. CJ also works for the local Triads and infiltrates and destroys San Andreas' largest drug cartel, the Loco Syndicate. After Carl, Cesar, and a number of Triad members ambush a meeting between Ryder, who is representing Big Smoke, and the Loco Syndicate, Carl gains revenge on his former friend by killing him.

After gaining access to Las Venturas and the surrounding desert area, CJ goes to work for undercover government agent Mike Toreno. He then moves into Venturas and works to put the Triad-funded casino on top by eliminating the competition. CJ saves rapper Madd Dogg's life by interrupting his suicide attempt (CJ apparently feels guilty for his part in ruining Dogg's career). He also kills Eddie Pulaski and, after completing another mission for Toreno, is rewarded with Sweet's early release from prison.

CJ wants Sweet to join him in building a new life. Since being exiled from Los Santos, Carl has left gangbanging and the hood behind in favor of larger business ventures and more lavish accommodations, and he wants Sweet to share in his newfound prosperity. However, Sweet's priorities are different: he wants to remain on Grove Street, get rid of the crack dealers and addicts all over the streets, and reestablish the Grove Street Families as a force in Los Santos. CJ is initially reluctant to return to the life he left behind, but Sweet eventually convinces him to go along with the plan.

With Carl and Sweet's work underway, Frank Tenpenny is finally put on trial for numerous felonies, but the charges are dropped for lack of evidence because all the witnesses who could have testified against him are either missing or dead. Most of the jobs Tenpenny forces CJ to do throughout the game involve killing or discrediting people involved in the case against him. Los Santos erupts into a massive, city-wide riot following the news. In this environment, CJ finally confronts and kills Big Smoke and then pursues Tenpenny, who dies in a car crash in front of the Johnson House. In front of the dying and broken man, CJ prepares to shoot Tenpenny with his Desert Eagle, but Sweet, concerned with leaving evidence when Tenpenny would simply die from his injuries, stops him. Tenpenny's death wraps up all the loose ends in Carl's life. The riot then breaks up.

At the conclusion of the game, Madd Dogg visits the Johnson house and announces that he's received a gold record for his new album. Everyone inside discusses how they must now shift their focus to maintaining the gang and their business ventures and otherwise keep a low profile. CJ then gets up and leaves the house. Kendl then asks where he's going, and he says, "Fittin' to hit the block, see what's happening," and the game's main storyline ends.

CJ is portrayed as being highly successful at the end of the game. He has executed a major heist, holds a partnership in a Las Venturas casino, is a successful rapper's manager, owns businesses and real estate throughout San Andreas, and is a licensed pilot.

Additional information

Voice actor and physical appearance

CJ was voiced by Chris Bellard, aka Young Maylay. Rapper 50 Cent has claimed that he was asked by Rockstar Games to voice CJ, but turned the role down, stating that he would only voice himself in a video game (which eventually happened in 50 Cent: Bulletproof).

Character customization

Unlike the principal characters of other Grand Theft Auto games, CJ's appearance is highly customizable, as the player can purchase hair cuts, tattoos and clothing for him. Certain clothes, tattoos and hairstyles improve CJ's standing with his fellow gang members as well as his sex appeal to his selective girlfriends. Changing of clothes, hair and tattoos can also negate a current wanted level.

Cars driven by CJ can also be modified externally and internally. Depending on the condition of the vehicle, paint job, and choice of accessories, the player may find their sex appeal greatly heightened upon exiting the car. As CJ dances, rides bikes, drives cars, and flies aircraft, his skill will improve in each. This allows players to roll backwards on bikes without falling, handle cars better, bunny hop higher etc.

The player may also have CJ build up his muscle by working out at a gym. Doing so improves physical strength, affecting damage done in hand-to-hand combat against opposing adversaries, as well as durability against damage, and sex appeal. There is also the option of exercising on treadmills or exercise-bikes in order to increase stamina. While having no physical effect, this allows CJ to sprint, and power-swim (front crawl), longer distances. Besides the street-style of fighting CJ starts off with, there are also 3 additional types of fighting style which can be learned in the gyms in each of the three cities in game: Boxing from Los Santos, kung fu from San Fierro, and kick-boxing from Las Venturas.

Another key ingredient in San Andreas is respect, the idea of which was previously explored in Grand Theft Auto 2. The player earns respect through various actions such as killing police or rival gangs, and finishing missions. On the other hand, killing fellow gang mates would decrease respect. As more respect is earned, the player is able to recruit Grove Street gang members, up to a maximum of 7 at one time.

The player may also collect horseshoes in Las Venturas to improve luck, and oysters statewide to improve sex appeal. Relationships with the player's selective girlfriends may also be improved through dating (depending on whether the date is successful or not). Before dating, the player may present their girlfriend with a gift of either flowers or a sex toy, which may also be used as melee weapons.

Character analysis

Within the game's storyline, CJ is an anti-hero and a highly sympathetic character. Despite being a criminal, Carl's intentions are often honorable, particularly relative to other characters or other decisions that he could make. While his predecessors Claude and Tommy Vercetti, the player-controlled characters of Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, respectively, are depicted as selfish and antisocial, choosing crime because it affords them the most personal gain, CJ is depicted as a product of his environment, and his criminality and gang affiliation are his best chance to make a life for himself. Similarly, Claude does not appear to have feelings for other people, Tommy prioritizes business over friendship, and neither of them think in terms of right and wrong. CJ, however, puts his friends first, develops meaningful relationships, and tries to do what is right, but his sense of morality is centered on his experiences in the ghetto and on doing what he has to do to provide for himself and his friends and family.

Carl also differs substantially from Claude and Tommy in that CJ rarely commits cold-blooded murder. Though he does assassinate people, they are primarily individuals such as Smoke or Pulaski, who have either betrayed CJ or are a part of the general corruption of San Andreas. In the final missions of GTA III and Vice City, Claude and Tommy ruthlessly kill their former friends and associates who since betrayed them. In similar situations, however, Carl differs from them. He pities his former friends Ryder and Big Smoke even as he kills them. After Ryder's death in Pier 69, Carl was upset of his friend's death, evidenced when he said "Fucking Ryder man! That was my homie. And I've killed him!". As Smoke lies dying after CJ beats him in a firefight, Carl regrets that he had to kill Smoke, who "was like family." At the same time, Carl engages in missions that require him to kill large numbers of people, at one point only for a book of lyrics. In The Introduction, CJ mugs a helpless man on the street, and within the game CJ kills Madd Dogg's manager, a person whom CJ has never met before, strictly to ruin Madd Dogg's career.

Later in the game, however, CJ feels guilty and saves Madd Dogg's life as well as his career by interrupting his suicide attempt, and then CJ personally risks his life to take Madd Dogg's mansion back from a big-time drug dealer. Many of the missions where CJ attacks victims indiscriminately occur toward the beginning of the storyline, before CJ's relationships and motivations are fully developed. As CJ makes money and grows as a person, he no longer attacks innocent people and instead commits crimes strictly to do right by his family and friends. He even saves the lives of Ken Rosenberg, Maccer, and Kent Paul from Salvatore Leone's grasp by making it seem like they were killed during a mission. Throughout the game, most of CJ's criminality is directed at people who are more villainous than he is. Carl also tends to align himself with criminal organizations that are relatively more honorable than their competition. The GSF refuses to conduct or even condone sales of hard drugs because of what it could do to the neighborhood, and Mountain Cloud Boys leader Wu Zi Mu in particular prefers to avoid violence whenever possible in his dealings, in contrast to his competitors, the Da Nang Boys in San Fierro and various Mafia families in Las Venturas.

Carl is usually depicted as being altruistic (in relative terms) and obliging, particularly towards his girlfriends and the character OG Loc. CJ also displays loyalty and mutual respect to his gang and his friends as well as a deeper affection for his family, becoming visibly distraught after he enters his mother's home, rushed with memories of the past. Early on in the game, CJ is depicted as a decent enough person who is forced to resort to crime for lack of legal avenues available to him. He appears a bit out of his depth, and he commits a handful of crimes that target innocent victims at the behest of people he is loyal to. However, as the storyline progresses and CJ gains perspective on his situation, he becomes more thoughtful and moves from following orders to directing his own affairs. Most of the characters who brought CJ into conflicts he had little business in, such as Smoke, Ryder, and OG Loc, become his adversaries later in the game.

See also

• List of characters in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas