Peter Griffin

"Remember what I always tell you, if I come home in the middle of the day and catch you having sex with someone, I'll kill you both."

- Peter Griffin (to his wife Lois).

Peter Griffin is the main protagonist of the FOX animated comedy series Family Guy; however, he is not as nice a character as some may imagine - in fact throughout the course of the series, Peter has caused much misery for those around himself: often this is due to stupidity but there have been times when Peter has deliberately caused harm or misfortune on others to better himself, which only backfires, leaving Peter the raw end of the deal (see below).

Peter is not alone in this respect as he is shown to have an "evil" brother known as Thaddeus Griffin, suggesting antagonism runs in his family, that explains about his son, Stewie (though in fairness, Peter does have some moments of being a caring individual, though they are rare).

His great uncle was Adolf Hitler's brother so he also has some Nazism in him.

Villainous Acts

 * In "E. Peterbus Unum", he proclaimed independent a micronation that involves the ownership of his home as soon as he knew that this does not formally belong to the United States and calls it as "Petoria". He became anti-american and proceeds to invite the leaders of several countries hostile to the United States (including Slobodan Milošević of Yugoslavia, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, Osama Bin Laden of Al-Qaeda, Kim Jong-il of North Korea, Fidel Castro of Cuba, and Ali Khamenei of Iran) over for a pool party and barbecue using his stolen pool from Joe.
 * Probably his most villainous act was in "Tales of a Third Grade Nothing"; his attempt to get a promotion at work by blowing up a billboard advertising a rival brewery. Unfortunately, he had placed the explosives in the wrong building, which just so happened to be a children's hospital. When Peter had his boss, Angela, look out the window to watch the billboard explode, he had caused the destruction of the hospital instead. Though Peter was initially shocked by what he had done, he quickly got over it when the resulting fire began to burn the billboard. By the end of the episode, when Peter had passed the third grade and was eligible for a promotion (so he can use the Executive Bathroom), Angela refused to give it to him. Her reason was that nobody had forgotten the burning of the children's hospital, which had resulted in fourteen deaths. The FBI had eventually learned that it was Peter, but he was only sentenced to seven days in prison.
 * Peter constantly abuses his teenage daughter Meg, whether talking down to her, farting in her face, beating her up, telling her to shut up, carelessly nearly drowning her, and, in a cutaway gag from "Peter's Daughter", shoots her simply because she says, "Hi Dad."
 * In "The Story on Page One", he even went to Meg's school to create a false story that Luke Perry was gay and burned Meg's story about Mayor Adam West. However this was in order to help Meg get more readers as he believed that the Adam West story would put people to sleep.
 * There's even some occasion where Peter even forgets Meg. In "Screwed the Pooch", Peter and Brian bring up a man named Stan Thompson who they claim is Meg's real father.
 * Occasionally seen in cutaway gags of trying to abandon Meg.
 * Another person that Peter abuses is his wife Lois. He sometimes shows little to no respect towards her. He would sometimes ignore her, and would make her do several things against her will.
 * One example is in "Baby, You Knock Me Out" when Peter and his friend are attending a woman's boxing match on his birthday. After watching the match, and the announcer asked if any woman wanted to fight the champ, Peter forced Lois to enter the ring and fight. After witnessing Lois beating the champ, he then forces her to enter into more boxing matches, so he can get rich.
 * In "The Courtship of Stewie's Father", Peter was beginning to bond with Stewie; both he and Stewie were pulling deadly pranks on Lois (such as smashing a glass jar of pickles on Lois' head, spraying Lois with a gardening hose while she's going to the bathroom, which caused to to fall down the stairs, and pushing her unconscious body into a lake, nearly drowning her),
 * In "Dammit Janet", he convinces Lois to keep a flight attendant job which she hates due to uptight passengers only because he gets free plane flights.
 * Peter once wrote hate letters to his family, though on that occasion, he did not realize what he was doing was wrong.
 * In "Death Lives", Peter was attended a golf game during their anniversary, but to prevent Lois from knowing, he set up a fake anniversary scavenger hunt so he can play a game a golf with his friends. This one moment nearly ruined their marriage, but with the help from Death, Peter managed to save their marriage.
 * In "Family Goy", he attempts to shoot her while imitating Amon Goeth when he learns she is Jewish.
 * He crosses the Moral Event Horizon in "Brian Griffin's House of Payne" when he threw an unconscious Stewie with heavily infected head wounds underneath Lois' car so she would run him over, after weeks of no medical treatment, just so she wouldn't ask how Stewie got hurt.
 * Peter also abuses his teenage son Chris as well:
 * In "If I'm Dyin', I'm Lyin", Peter pretended that Chris was dying so he could save a cancelled TV show, and after being confronted by the city, claimed he cured Chris, causing everyone to call him God, which arouses the anger of the real God who plagues the Griffin House. Peter would have crossed the Moral Event Horizon if he plead forgiveness.
 * In "Long John Peter", Peter made Chris lose his girlfriend by giving him bad advice on how to date a girl and how to act around her.
 * In "And the Weiner Is...", Peter always thought that he's better that Chris in every way, but when he found out that Chris had a bigger "junk" that he did, Peter got jealous and tried to prove that he has the bigger "junk," and even unintentionally tells Lois that Chris' "junk" was the reason why he's trying to become the bigger man.
 * In "He's Too Sexy for His Fat", Peter and Chris try to lose weight and find out about liposuction. Chris refused to take the procedure, but Peter takes liposuction to make himself skinnier. At first he was still interacting, and helping his son lose weight, but when he used the liposuction to add some muscle, he began to forget Chris several times, especially when Peter joined the Handsome Guys Clubs.
 * In "Hannah Banana", Peter attempted to ruin Chris' life by disguising as Chris and saying that he's gay, all because the Evil Monkey was more of a father figure toward Chris than Peter is. Chris retaliates by luring Peter into a log trap using a hat as bait. Of course Peter falls for the trick, causing Chris to cut the rope restraining the logs which brutally smashes Peter's face.
 * In that same episode, before they found out the Evil Monkey was real, both Peter and Quagmire placed Chris' fingers into a bowl of water, causing Chris to urinate in his pants.
 * In "Petarded", Peter found out he was mentally retarded, and also found out that no charges would be held against him if he did anything wrong, he decided to take advantage of the situation. He went into the ladies' room and kick the doors while women were going onto the bathroom and destroyed some of Lois' plates after he finished dinner. When he went to a fast food restaurant, he grabbed a fryillator and burned Lois.
 * And because there was no mentally sane adult, Meg, Chris, and Stewie had to live at Cleveland's house. So Peter put seven prostitutes into Cleveland's house so he can get his kids back, only to be put on trial for custody of his kids which he loses.
 * In "Jerome Is the New Black", Peter is angry in finding out that Lois slept with Jerome, Cleveland's replacement; he flies into a jealous rage and spends the rest on the evening drinking. Stopping by Jerome's house, Peter throws his bottle through a window and hits a lamp, accidentally causing a fire which burns the house down.
 * In "420", Quagmire gets a cat, Peter, Joe, Cleveland, and Brian sneak into his house while he is out and decide to shave his cat as a prank. But Peter kills the cat with a straight razor (this was an accident, but he is unconcerned about it) and he adds further insult by stealing Quagmire's beer afterwards. At the end of the episode, Quagmire asks where his cat is outside of the Griffin household, and before Peter slams the door on him, he says rather apathetic, "I killed your cat.", in the same episode Peter does a cutaway gag saying that he used to lure sailors to their deaths with his siren songs while dressing up as a mermaid.
 * In "April in Quahog", Peter's comment seconds before the supposed "end of the world", expressing shame and disgust for his children ("I just hate being around the kids"), uttered deliberately in thinking that he will have no price to pay. How sadly mistaken he is once the "April Fools Day" hoax passes without incident ... and even Peter's heartfelt apology is fruitless — Meg, Chris and Stewie are still very mad at their father. In the end, he buys back their love with an Xbox 360.
 * In "No Meals on Wheels", the Griffin family run a restaurant, but Peter refuses to allow Joe and his other cop friends in because they are "gross cripples", to which they respond by forming themselves into a giant robot which attacks/destroys the restaurant which falls on Peter, breaking his legs.
 * In "Stew-Roids", he put Stewie on steroids after Stewie was beaten up by Susie Swanson.
 * In "The Tan Aquatic with Steve Zissou", when he finds out that Chris is being bullied by a teenager named Kyle, he decides to go to Kyle's house to try to talk to him but he takes things too far and beats up Kyle after losing his temper. This is a serious crime because Kyle is only 13.
 * In the same episode, upon realizing how good it feels to bully people, he then starts bullying his family and friends.
 * When he realized that he's like his high school bully, Randy Fulcher, he went to see Fulcher to bully him. However, it turns out that when Fulcher was growing up, he was suffering with multiple sclerosis which lead him to be physically disabled. But instead of feeling sorry for Fulcher, Peter attempt to beat up a disabled Fulcher, only to be beaten up by Chris.
 * In "A Fistful of Meg", he continuously torments Brian with his nude body. He only stops when Brian shaves his fur to reveal his hideous bald appearance, which he uses to scare Peter and convince him to put his clothes back on.
 * In "The Juice Is Loose", Peter accidentally murdered the fourth Griffin child (who was a baby at the time) by shaking him to make him stop crying. This seems more of a misdeed since Peter didn't mean it.
 * In "Peter Problems", he kills and eviscerates a beached whale with a forklift, trying to get it back in the ocean. To add insult to injury, he then carefully and gently picks up a seashell with the same forklift and says "You're whalecome" to a horrified crowd.
 * It is shown in "Fresh Heir", Peter is holding a hairless twin hostage in his storm shed, feeding him garbage. The main plot of the episode involves Peter attempting to marry Chris, who is made the heir of Carter's will.
 * At the beginning of "Herpe the Love Sore", he menaces numerous people (including Meg, Stewie, and even Cleveland) with a whip he received from the mail which was supposed to go to Quagmire.
 * In "Meg Stinks!", it was revealed that he pays off his shenanigans by (frequently) robbing a bank. After Meg accidentally kills the bank manager, Peter tells her to kill everyone else.
 * In "He's Bla-ack!", when Lois and Donna had an argument on parenting, the two banned Peter and Cleveland to see each other again. To try to get Lois and Donna to be friends, so Peter and Cleveland can continue their friendship, they performed various, and rather questionable, stunts to bring their wives together. One of them was show Lois and Donna multiple pictures of babies. However, Cleveland questioned why Peter had all these picture of babies in questionable positions, in which a lot of them were taken long before they made this plan. This indicated that Peter may have been a pedophile at one point. After realizing this, Peter burst into tears and admits that he has problems.
 * In "The Simpsons Guy", he got into an extremely long and violent fight with Homer Simpson that destroyed much of Springfield and killed several residents (although this may be non-canon). However thankfully the two made up by the end of the episode.
 * In "Brian the Closer", Peter desperately tries to get Brian's old toy rope, to the point when he ties the rope to his car and drives off in an attempt get it away from Brian. This greatly injures Brian, causing him to collide headfirst on a fire hydrant, making him lose all his teeth and break his nose. Peter uncaringly gives Brian the rope back, having grown bored of it.
 * In "Turkey Guys", Peter, as usual, gets drunk and ends up eating the entire Thanksgiving turkey with Brian. The two head out to find a replacement turkey. Through Peter's stupidity, the two encounter bad luck and misfortune, some of which endangers Brian. When Brian can't take anymore of Peter's stupidity, he yells at him, to which Peter reveals Brian had nothing to do with eating the turkey and he just framed him so he didn't have to take all the blame. He furthered this insult by telling Brian that he's a dog and that he could throw him off a bridge, and unless it hits a person, he's fine.
 * In "Finders Keepers" he presumably beats an innocent boy to death with a shovel because he thinks he's after the treasure.
 * In "Lottery Fever" he torments Quagmire and Joe Swanson for his own amusement after becoming richer than them, he forces them to perform for him while he criticizes them and repeatedly shoots them with a BB gun with one pellet blowing out Joe's eye forcing him to get a glass eye, he tries to justify this behavior by saying that the money caused him to do it.
 * In "A Shot in the Dark" he shoots Cleveland's son, Cleveland Brown Jr. in the arm and is arrested and charged with a hate crime. However he didn't mean to shoot Cleveland's son because while he was in the neighborhood watch, it was dark and thought Cleveland Jr was a robber trying to rob Cleveland's house since was trying to get into the window. Though at the end, Peter confessed that he did something stupid and Cleaveland confessed that he shot his son in the arm.
 * In "The Peanut Butter Kid", he and Lois forced Stewie to do a commercial, which tired him, and they kept giving him drugs to keep him active and pressuring him to succeed, as well as using Stewie's earned money they planned for his college fund for themselves instead.
 * In "Padre de Familia" Peter becomes a patriot and convinces his boss to check workers if they are legitimate USA citizens, only to find out he is an immigrant himself, after which he is fired. He starts looking for a new job. He cycles through many jobs and a scene of his job as a nanny is shown. In it he falls through a window killing two children by falling on them and shows no remorse, and he is only disgusted as he pukes. After which he proceeds to push the children's corpses under the bed in the room with the top of his umbrella. And in an earlier scene, when he was doing his job as a maid, he enters a motel room even though the person specifically tells him not to enter.

In many respects, Peter Griffin is similar to Homer Simpson, and seems like an 'average Joe.' However, there are differences, as while Homer has a tendency to feel guilt and remorse, Peter Griffin does not do so as often. He helps others for personal gain, abuses his family, most notably Meg. He has at one point abuses pretty much every other character in his vicinity. The worst incident was in the episode 'Shut Up, Meg' where he seemed to have befriended his daughter, only to arrive home and tell her he needed to abuse her to 'keep up appearances' with the rest of his family. While early episodes depicted him as a good-natured oaf, and occjernal scenes depict him as such in later seasons, this is not the case. He is at the crunch a child-like, selfish jerk, whose destructive influence, and violent, homicidal tendencies pretty much make him irredeemably bad. In the cruel and bizarre world of Family Guy, every character has had their share of maliciousness, however Peter Griffin takes the cake in being a bully. The few scenes where is is portrayed as sympathetic pail in comparison to his nastiness.

In the recent season, there an episode called "Peter's Sister" that explained why he's so abusive to Meg: his own sister Karen Griffin had abuse and bullied him like he does with Meg but she goes too far like almost breaking his arms in her signature wrestling move "The Toxic Shock". After defeating Karen in the ring, Peter apologizes to Meg and said that he realizes all these years he never got over the pain Karen caused him and how his parents didn't do anything to stop it. From this episode onwards, Peter stops abusing Meg.