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| “ | I'm a motherfucking genius! | „ |
| ~ Ryder bragging about himself |
| “ | Man, you say you down for the homies, but all you do is complain. | „ |
| ~ Ryder |
Lance Wilson, better known as Ryder, is a major antagonist in the 2004 video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the seventh installment of the Grand Theft Auto video game series.
He was voiced by MC Eiht.
Personality[]
Ryder is arrogant, cocky, and extremely proud of himself. He's a self-confessed drug addict who not only uses the very product he sells, but also doesn't seem to care what his drugs do to him and his own Grove Street allies. Constantly tormented by his small stature, Ryder has grown up to be a violent man with a superiority complex that he tries to impose on everyone around him. Despite this, Ryder initially appears to be loyal to his friends, Sweet and Carl, with whom he grew up in Grove Street.
Secretly, however, he works with the Ballas to bring down Grove Street alongside Big Smoke. Ryder was convinced to join the Ballas after Smoke promised him the money and respect he never got alongside Sweet. Still, Ryder shows some remorse over Beverly Johnson's death, as he tries to talk about it while Smoke tries to hide it.
In addition, Ryder helps the gang with weapons and contacts, spending much of the first part of the story aiming to strengthen Grove's arsenal alongside CJ. This shows that despite having betrayed Grove, Ryder still had a certain amount of loyalty and affection for his old friends. Though it could be argued that he was only doing this at Smoke's behest to create a false sense of security for CJ and Sweet. Later in San Fierro, Ryder shows no remorse for his actions. It is revealed that he tried to seduce Carl's sister Kendl or even tried to rape her.
Biography[]
Strongly resembling the late rapper Eazy E by wearing a baseball hat and jheri curl, Ryder is a senior member of the Grove Street Families, who lives in a home neighboring the Johnson House and smokes large quantities of marijuana laced with PCP. In an effort to supply the GSF with new firearms and weapons, Ryder calls in CJ to help steal some weaponry from several locations, including the home of a heavily armed war veteran (Colonel Fuhrberger), a forcibly stopped ammunition train and a National Guard weapons depot.
Ryder has delusions of grandeur and a possible Napoleon complex stemming from his small stature. He fancies himself a "genius" and claims that he did not finish school because he was "too intelligent" and not because of his involvement with the GSF. In The Introduction, Big Smoke approaches him with an offer to betray the Grove Street Families in order to break into the drug trade. After little convincing, Ryder accepts.
When CJ returns and begins his rise in the Grove Street Families, Ryder becomes increasingly jealous even though he is already aligned with the Ballas. Cesar takes CJ to witness both Smoke and Ryder emerging from a garage and talking to Officer Tenpenny; a "Green Sabre" car that is involved in the slaying of CJ's mother is inside. It is implied that both Smoke and Ryder were involved in the hit.
After betraying CJ and accelerating the fall of the GSF in Los Santos, Ryder aids Big Smoke in establishing a drug trade with the Loco Syndicate and thus flooding Los Santos with crack cocaine. He later appears in San Fierro. Ryder, T-Bone Mendez and the Ballas meet for a deal. After CJ and Cesar, along with a squad of Triads, riddle T-Bone with bullets on the pier, Ryder runs away and engages Carl in a speedboat chase, which ends in his death. Alternatively, as he swims to the speedboat, he is killed by CJ's sniper rifle.
In an occurrence of foreshadowing, CJ tells Ryder during an early mission, "One day, you're gonna wish you hadn't pissed me off.". It was later revealed by Cesar Vialpando that Ryder tried to have sex with or kill Kendl (this was most likely a lie to make Carl fell good about killing Ryder). Although CJ reacted as an older brother would and should he still seemingly regret having to have killed a life long friend.
Ryder owns a maroon Coupe Utility (an El Camino look-alike referred to in-game as a "Picador") with a license plate reading "SHERM", a slang term for PCP (CJ calls Ryder "sherm-head" throughout the game). Throughout the game, Ryder has a habit of calling CJ a "buster". CJ also mentions that Ryder has been dealing drugs since he was 10, and once beat up a teacher for wearing purple (Ballas colors).
Quotes[]
| “ | Same old CJ! Busta, straight busta! | „ |
| ~ Ryder's most famous quote. |
| “ | It's 'cause I'm too intelligent for this shit, man. I am the real deal, fool! Oh yeah. A genius! | „ |
| ~ Ryder explains why he didn't finish high school. |
| “ | I got with them motherf-ckers though - showed them ni--az who's gangsta. Ryder Ni--a! | „ |
| ~ Ryder, after he, CJ, Big Smoke, and Sweet manage to get back to Grove Street after getting chased by a Ballas car. |
Trivia[]
- He was based on the real-life late American rapper Eazy-E.
- In the beta for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Ryder was supposed to die on the pier and Carl would chase and shoot down T-Bone Mendez. However, in the final version of the game, their deaths are swapped.
- Like Big Smoke, Ryder aside from the introduction video foreshadowed signs of his betrayal as evident:
- In the first mission, he will not be targeted by the Ballas car like Big Smoke.
- Like Big Smoke, Ryder gets visited by Tenpenny and Pulaski.
- In "Home Invasion", Carl gets fed up with Ryder's trash talking and tells him "One day you're gonna wish you hadn't pissed me off."
- During the Ballas attack in "House Party," he leaves before the fight even begins to pick up Big Smoke and get back up which never shows up.
- Additionally, after the mission Yay-Ka-Boom-Boom, the mission that takes place after Toreno's Last Flight (which, in turn, is the mission after Pier 69), Ryder is not brought up or heard of again. Neither Carl nor Cesar ever tell anyone that Ryder is dead and anyone who doesn't know that Ryder is dead will never ask if he is.
- While it was widely believed Ryder's reason for being underused was because MC Eiht had a dispute with Rockstar and left mid-production of the game, and to get rid of the character they made him betray the Grove Street Families, as his betrayal isnt mentioned until a later mission and he is killed him off later in Pier 69. In reality, Mc Eiht revealed in a brief twitter dm he "recorded the lines rockstar told him to" as well as an Interview revealing Ryder's character was already pre planned prior to him getting the role. This means Ryder's betrayal was simply the plan Rockstar had for the character and not due to a dispute. After that he is mentioned one more time in Yay-Ka-Boom-Boom and never again for the rest of the game's story.
