Which Gruber brother was worse?
Which Gruber brother do you think treated John McClane the worst? The "shoot the glass" thing or the "I hate niggers" sign McClane was forced to wear?
shareTwo perspectives when comparing the two: one dealing with John and one dealing with their criminal methodology.
When dealing with John, the two brothers had different motivations. For Hans, John was just, "the fly in the ointment and the monkey in the wrench." There was nothing personal in his attacks, he just wanted John out of the way. This was evidenced by the first time they had John trapped, and Hans told Karl to simply, "lock him up" and he could go back and kill him later. Shooting the glass was obvious strategy since he saw John barefoot and thought this was the quickest way to end this pain-in-the-butt from mucking up the works and getting away with the detonators yet again. Simon, on the other had, was seeking pure revenge and wanted John to have a long, drawn-out, brutal end. He would have loved to have seen John have the tar slowly beat out of him. Where Hans wanted a quick end and to move on, Simon wanted John to suffer for what he did to his brother. So, in the way, Simon definitely treated John the worst of the two.
As far as their criminal methodology, Simon was a veritable saint when compared to Hans. Remember: Hans easily, and without remorse, blew two people away when it fit his needs, and was ready to blow every person at the party (including a pregnant woman) to smithereens to carry out his plot. Simon, on the other hand, went out of his way to use tranquilizer darts, never put an actual bomb in a school, and tried to come up with a clever plan to get away with the gold while keeping the body count as low as possible. Of course, there were some that had to die, but his plan was to keep that to a minimum... I forget the exact line, but I do believe he said something along the lines of, "we are not barbarians" when John found out they were using tranquilizers.
So... Simon was definitely the worst to John, but his motivations were entirely different, so that is understandable. But when it comes to their criminal schemes, Hans was definitely the more brutal and psychopathic of the two... definitely the worst of the two!
Sounds about right. The only thing I have to add is Simon agreeing with John that Hans was an asshole. Even he seemed to think Hans was worse.
shareI look at that "Your brother was an *******." scene differently. Simon knew John was trying to get a rise out of him so they'd fight and John would have a chance of killing him. So he agreed with him and laughed cause he wasn't going to underestimate John like his brother did. I will agree Hans was worse. Simon did his best to reduce civilian casualties. Hans planned to blow up 30 or more people in order to get away with what he was doing.
shareI like that. Sounds about correct.
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