Rick Sanchez

"I'M PICKLE RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICK!"

- Rick, after being transformed into a pickle in the Season 3 episode of the same name. "We're the only friends we got, Morty!"

- Rick "I hate to break it to you, but what people call "love" is just a chemical reaction that compels animals to breed. It hits hard, Morty, then it slowly fades leaving you stranded in a failing marriage. I did it. Your parents are going to do it. Break the cycle, Morty. Rise above, focus on science."

- Rick's prejudgment against love. "WUBBA LUBBA DUB DUB!"

- Rick's catchphrase. "So why don't you do us both a favor and pull the trigger!! Do it!! Do it motherf**ker!! Pull the f**king trigger!!"

- Rick showing his suicidal tendencies to Morty in Total Rickall.

Rick Sanchez (known as C-137 Rick to the other Ricks) is one of the two titular main protagonists (and also the anti-hero) of the Adult Swim cartoon series, Rick and Morty. He is the grandfather of Morty and father of Beth.

Despite being one of the main protagonists, and though he does love and cherishes his daughter Beth and grandson Morty, he is a drunk alcoholic, and is a negative influence on Morty and the rest of the family. He also places his own grandson in very dangerous situations. He is a spoof of Doc Brown from the Back to the Future franchise.

He is voiced by Justin Roiland.

History
Little has ever been revealed of Rick's early life. All that's really known is that he married and had a daughter, but left sometime after that. At one point he was part of an intergalactic terrorist group with several of his closest friends, fighting to overthrow the Federation (the Federation is often totalitarian and oppressive in nature, although this isn't necessarily the motive for their rebellion). He was present for the birth of his grandson.

Eventually, Rick came back into the life of his daughter's family. During this time and previously, Rick had been prone to repeatedly jumping through space and dimensional barriers to alien planets in order to collect the materials needed for his experiments and gadgets or to make money by doing (typically shady) business with his contacts.

His two grandchildren, Morty and Summer, were quickly recruited to help with his adventures. Although initially appalled at first, Morty and Summer have quickly become partially corrupted by Rick, adopting some of his callous and violent tendencies.

During this period, the three have managed to destroy at least one version of Earth, nearly cause planetary or interplanetary destruction multiple times, take down the Galactic Federation, and successfully cause the divorce of Rick's daughter and her husband, whom Rick never approved of.

Because of his dislike for "work", Rick has no formal occupation. Most of his vehicles and workshops are self-powered, and he typically retrieves anything he needs by hand, using his portal gun. However, when money is needed, Rick will act as a bounty hunter, take advantage of golden opportunities (like removing demonic curses from items for a price, or try and cure 'Space Aids') or sell his inventions and weapons to those willing to buy.

Personality
"Rick's not that complicated, he's just a huge a**hole."

- Morty, about Rick. Rick's inner personality is a complicated one. It is implied that he suffers from intense emotional trauma, self-loathing and loneliness, which he copes with through his abuse of alcohol, drugs, and his destructive personality. Rick is incredibly revolutionary, cold, grumpy, nihilistic, violent, anarchic and blunt, as he has displayed some narcissism at times in regards to his inventions. These traits are even acuter when he is intoxicated.

While he cares very little for even himself, he does genuinely love his family and his two closest friends from his rebellion days, despite his typical attitude towards them. He very rarely treats anyone with even moderate respect or politeness and specializes in belittling others and throwing his unwanted two-cents in. One of the few things that will really make Rick lose his temper is theft of his inventions, having harm come to his family and friends, and double-crossing him. Strangely enough, Rick rarely holds grudges against anyone for specific actions, even the aforementioned ones.

Rick's moral standing is even more complex. He will not hesitate to steal, kill, destroy, imprison, or break any number of laws in order to get what he wants, although he has no problem staying within the legal boundaries if it's to his benefit. However, Rick does seem to be sickened by unnecessary violence and torture, though he usually will not attempt to stop it.

The only moral aspect of Rick that is somewhat relatable to normal people is that he acknowledges a woman's consent and usually does not resort to double-crossing. According to versions of himself from other dimensions, Rick actually sits roughly in the middle of his counterparts in terms of his balance of good and evil and is possibly one of the only (surviving) Ricks that actually care about his grandchildren as people, and not just tools.

Rick has a relatively negative and gray view of life and lacks any religious tendencies. He does manage to enjoy himself every now and then, particularly when with his grandchildren.

Powers and Abilities
Despite being only a human, C-137 Rick is easily one of the most (if not the most) dangerous beings in both the universe and the multiverse. He has easily defeated some of the most powerful and dangerous beings and organizations around, sometimes while incredibly drunk. Although in recent times he has had help and luck on his side, Rick has survived his crazy adventures for decades, with very few allies and a lot of enemies.

Intellect
Rick is incredibly intelligent and is frequently mentioned to be the smartest being in the universe. He has made numerous discoveries and invented numerous gadgets and substances. He seems to specialize in robotics above all else, and can easily work through or around most obstacles. Long-term planning, deception, and manipulation are effortless tasks for Rick, and he is skilled at recognizing deception, such as when he saw through a three-layered simulation and pretended to fall for it in order to eliminate his captors, or when he simultaneously destroyed the Council of Ricks, collapsed the Federation, and triggered his daughter's divorce in one fell swoop.

Rick is also incredibly clever, adaptable, resourceful, and capable of turning even a hopeless situation to his favor with nothing but his wits and some basic materials, his best example being him creating a bio-mechanical exoskeleton made of hostile rat and cockroach parts, while he was nothing but a talking pickle. However, Rick can also be surprised, usually when someone goes way beyond his prior expectations of them. Rick also cannot predict or interpret the actions of his drunken self, his alternate versions, or his other forms and clones.

Physical Fitness
Despite his advanced age and unhealthy habits, Rick still retains impressive physical strength and endurance. Rick was shown to have extensive cybernetic enhancements, however, Rick has gone through and swapped multiple bodies, so it is unlikely that they were all enhanced. When in bodies that are not old or human, Rick has displayed near-superhuman levels of strength and agility.

Combat Prowess
Rick appears to be proficient at hand-to-hand combat, and can effectively use just about any melee or projectile weapon that he can get his hands on or build. Rick is also a magnificent and excellent trap builder.

Gear
Being a human scientist and inventor, Rick has both made and bought an extensive and vast arsenal or various weapons, gadgets, vehicles, and other creations, having something for just about any occasion. However, there are a few things he usually keeps with him more often.

Portal Gun
Rick's most infamous and coveted invention, the portal gun allows him to create a green portal that can allow him and others to travel instantly to any part of the universe, and cross into other dimensions. Because of this, Rick is incredibly difficult to capture or track. The gun can also be used as a makeshift weapon if needed. Opening a portal inside an object will slice it in half, and portals can be used as traps by having objects or enemies fall out of them onto pursuers. Rick and is counterparts in other dimensions are the only beings who possess and can make a portal gun.

Space Ship
A ship shaped like a flying saucer, this is the typical form of transportation for Rick in space. The ship is powered by a microverse full of slaves and has numerous weapons, gadgets, and a sentient computer on board. It's implied that the ship has enough weapons and defenses to wipe out a large human army without trouble.

Blaster
Rick often is seen carrying a basic alien side-arm when situations require violence.

List of Antagonistic Moments

 * Pilot: Rick built a bomb and planned to destroy the world. Morty stopped him and Rick claimed he was testing Morty. Later, he froze Morty's bully, Frank Palicky, which causes him to shatter in front of Morty's sister, Summer, who had a crush on Frank. Then after buttering up Morty's parents to let him stay, Rick secretly claimed to Morty that school was a waste of time. In fact, because he frequently pulled Morty out of school, Morty spent only seven hours in two months at school.
 * Anatomy Park: Although he had a good reason to do so (saving Morty), Rick likely traumatized millions of Americans by enlarging a naked Reuben in space to enlarge a shrunken Morty and Annie. Then he reshrunk Annie, even though Morty had fallen in love with her.
 * M. Night Shaym-Aliens!: Threatened Morty with a knife to see if Morty was a hologram.
 * Rick Potion #9: Rick told Morty bluntly that Jerry and Beth's marriage was hanging by a thread. He has also shown disdain for Jerry because Jerry impregnated Beth when the two were in high school. Also, Rick made a huge mistake by giving Morty a serum to make Jessica love him because her flu made the serum spread throughout the school. He tries to fix it using mantis DNA, but makes things worse and accidentally transforms nearly everyone on Earth into mantis/human hybrids that wanted to mate with and then eat Morty. He then uses various DNA in one final serum to fix things but turns nearly everyone on Earth into horrible mutations called Cronenbergs. The mess Rick made was now irreversible, so Rick had no choice but to go with Morty to another universe where the Rick and Morty of that universe die from an experiment and take their place. Rick has even admitted doing it several times before. Morty was traumatized over this catastrophe, while Rick didn't really seem to care about digging their own graves.
 * Something Ricked This Way Comes: Rick starts a store called Curse Purge Plus! solely to anger Summer and Lucius Needful and destroy their business. Later, Rick laughs when Summer states that his actions drove Lucius to attempt suicide and lights his store on fire, with multiple people inside when he grows bored with it. After Lucius betrays Summer and takes n33edful.com for himself, Rick and Summer work out and use steroids, become extremely muscular and brutalize Lucius and several other mean-spirited people.
 * Ricksy Business: Rick sends Morty, Abradolf Lincler and Nancy out to get Collaxion Crystals on an unknown planet, knowing the risk of doing so. After Morty and Nancy return, Rick doesn't care about how Lincler had died during their mission and reveals that he really wanted to use the crystals they had gotten as cocaine, much to Morty's confusion and anger. At the end of the episode, Rick freezes time so Beth and Jerry don't realize that he and Summer's party destroyed the house, and he, Morty and Summer proceed to use the frozen time to cause mayhem without being punished.
 * A Rickle in Time: It is established that, at some point, Rick stole a Time Crystal from the Fourth Dimension.
 * Get Schwifty: Although intending to save the world from the Cromulons, Rick breaks into the Pentagon and turns two federal agents into snakes when they approach him. At the end of the episode, he does the same thing to General Nathan (although the latter was attempting to kill him, Morty and The President).
 * Auto Erotic Assimilation: After being dumped by Unity, Rick unfreezes an infantile alien creature from his fridge and kills it using a death ray before attempting to kill himself, although fails in doing so.
 * The Ricks Must Be Crazy: Rick had built and enslaved an entire miniature universe (microverse) to power his car battery and set back their technological progression once he discovered they'd found a way to generate their own electricity. Then he indiscriminately destroyed two of the microverses, causing the genocide of two separate species.
 * Big Trouble in Little Sanchez: After transporting his mind from his Tiny Rick body back into his original body, Rick decides to abandon "Project Phoenix" and brutally murders his other clone bodies with an axe in front of Morty and Summer.
 * Look Who's Purging Now: Rick takes enjoyment in murdering numerous Cat People when they try to attack him, Morty and Arthricia, and tells Morty that he is justified in killing them due to trying to save a little girl.
 * The Rickshank Redemption: Rick intended to take over the Smith family by getting rid of Jerry, hoping that Beth would choose to divorce him. Rick did so because he felt betrayed since Jerry tried to turn him into the galactic government, so Rick wanted to get rid of both of them. This led to Jerry suffering a low-class single life in a run-down condo.
 * Vindicators 3: The Return of World Ender: Rick felt jealous about Morty idolizing the Vindicators, so he went out for a drink to pull himself together. However, this caused Rick to become so intoxicated, that he becomes a more sinister version of himself called "Drunk Rick"; thusly, he wound up becoming the main antagonist of the episode (alongside Supernova). This led to him setting up a dangerous Saw-esque game where he, Morty, and the Vindicators end up in. This resulted in the Vindicators getting destroyed except for Supernova. Then after Morty solved all the puzzles, he leaves a message from Drunk Rick which was actually intended for Noob Noob (who was the only one who laughed at his jokes) rather than Morty, much to the latter's outrage.
 * The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy: Rick decided to take Jerry on his next adventure out of pity since Morty was worried he might eventually commit suicide. Then after Rick realized that Jerry had accepted a deal from assassins to have Rick destroyed by the Whirly Dirly, Rick felt betrayed by him yet again and left Jerry behind to be eaten by an alien snake. When Jerry scolds Rick for stealing his family from him, calling him a "self-righteous a**hole", Rick volleys back letting Jerry know that he's a "predator" who uses his cowardly and pitiful ways to make others feel sorry for him, like when he got Beth pregnant at 17, causing the latter to give up her life goals. Rick then decided to rescue Jerry, but only because he needed organic bait to have an alien creature to take them back to the resort.
 * Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality: Rick kills a baby alien.
 * Morty's Mind Blowers: Rick erased Morty's memories of him (Rick) screwing up so that he could continue to appear infallible in Morty's eyes.
 * The Rickchurian Mortydate: In the climax, he single-handedly killed several Secret Service agents without even touching them, and killed several more using his gadgets.

Trivia

 * Although his actions affect the Earth multiple times, he somehow manages to evade the authority or the authority is just too ignorant about his activities. The only authorities that actually try to grab him by the throat are the Galactic Federation and the Council Of Ricks.
 * In "The Rickchurian Mortydate", The President explains that the government avoids trying to arrest Rick and Morty because they have saved the world on numerous occasions.
 * Unlike the stereotypical genius that keeps hiding their immense intelligence from family members in most works of the science-fiction genre, his family members are well-aware of his activities and even actively participate in his misadventure, especially Morty.
 * Rick seems to have developed apathy towards his family members as Beth states she is one of infinite Beth with infinite father in the infinite universe, showing that for Rick, the family is replaceable.
 * Rick is obsessed with the Szechuan Teriyaki dipping sauce, the sauce that McDonald's used to promote Mulan in 1998.
 * Rick hints at being autistic, as, while playing Minecraft with Morty, he asks if autistic people love the game and then states that he loves it.
 * However, this is unlikely and is most definitely a stereotype of indie/video game fans, so Rick could've lied.