Donald Love

"Nothing drives down real estate prices like a good old fashioned gang war, apart from the outbreak of a plague, but that might be going too far in this case."

- Donald Love to Claude.

Donald Love is a character in the Grand Theft Auto videogame series that serves as the tritagonist in Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and a main character in GTA III; he is also a minor character in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. He is depicted as a wealthy media mogul with macabre hobbies.

In GTA III, he was voiced by Kyle MacLachlan, who also played Cliff Vandercave in the 1994 live action film The Flintstones, and King Claudius in Hamlet.

Synopsis
Love is a wealthy tycoon real estate who was the protégé of another entrepreneur with ruthless methods named Avery Carrington (who was Tommy Vercetti's partner in Vice City). Love eventually moved to Liberty City in 1998 where he built relationships with mobsters Toni Cipriani and Salvatore Leone in order to win the elections.

He lost not only the elections but his wealth as well. Bankrupted, he has Toni Cipriani kill his former mentor Avery and steal his re-development plans for Fort Staunton. Then, he has Fort Staunton destroyed, and used this opportunity to make even more money than before.

He severed his ties with the Leone and later hires Claude to kill the Yakuza's leader in a Cartal car, thus provocating a gang war between the Yakuza and the Cartel. Donald Love eventually disappears and is not to be seen again in later GTA's games.

Personality
Donald Love has painted himself as an energic, charismatic, wealthy bachelor, but his true personality is hidden to all but his closest associates.

While appearing well-mannered towards the protagonists and Salvatore Leone, Donald is actually deranged, sly, clever, manipulative, egotistical, power-hungry and eccentric. He appears quite childish and immature in Grand Theft Auto: Liberty Stories, but became more like a composed mastermind in Grand Theft Auto III. He is rather optimistic, but sometimes loses his cool and even berates Toni Cipriani for his failures, especially when he was nearly ruined.

Donald is a cannibal, which disgusts Toni. He doesn't seem to have any qualms on what person he decides to consume, as he ate his own mentor, Avery Carrington at one of his "parties". While in Grand Theft Auto III, his bizarre tastes are implied, but not confirmed, in Grand Theft Auto: Liberty Stories Donald shows his true colors.

Love has no boundaries and is willing to do everything in his quest of fortune. An opportunistic sadist, he happily orders the annihilation of Fort Stauton without a second thought (obviously knowing it would end hundreds and hundreds of innocent lives), and orders his associates to bring corpses for his "morgue parties", during which he presumably rapes them.

Appearance
He appears with a suit in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories. He was more flamboyant in those games than in Grand Theft Auto III, in which he got an older and sterner look.

Crimes

 * In order to win the elections, he orders Toni Cipriani to murder several of his opponents and their supporters.
 * He also has Toni destroys evidences of his links with the Leone Family.
 * He orders to kill his mentor Avery Carrington as well as the corrupt reporter Ned Burner. He also asks Toni to deliver their bodies to him for his "morgue parties".
 * In one scene he is seen eating a human torso. He also humorously told Toni that it has a good taste and asks Toni if he wants a piece of flesh, but Toni, horrified, politely declined.
 * He orders Claude to murder the leader of the Yakuzas, so it will trigger a war between the Cartel and the Yakuzas.
 * However, Love's worst crime is masterminding the bombing of the heavily populated Fort Staunton (which is also a Forelli strong hold), just so he can head the reconstruction of the neighborhood and make millions of dollars. This act (committed by Toni under heavy pressure by Love) has probably taken the lives of thousands innocent people, even thought the true amount of victims is never revealed. This also explains the existence of the construction site in Grand Theft Auto III.

Probably, Donald Love is one of the characters in the Grand Theft Auto series that has committed the worst atrocities, especially with the destruction of Fort Stauton. Oddly enough, he never serves as an antagonist in both GTA III and GTA: LCS. This may explain why Love was so successful, since he would have been easily killed if he was at any point against the protagonist.

Trivia

 * Donald Love is one of the two Grand Theft Auto villain to be Pure Evil, alongside Avon Hertz.
 * His name, the fact that he owns multiple companies and he wants to be mayor suggests that he is a parody of real-life retail tycoon, billionaire and United States president.