In the world of WIlly Wonka and the Chocolate factory, it seems like everything is centered
around candy.
The entire world charges to get one of five golden tickets to go see the inside of the
legendary chocolate factory...
But the main question is... in a world of selfishness, greed and gluttony…
Who wanted the Golden Ticket and the prize of a lifetime supply of chocolate for selfish
reasons and who had a heart of gold?
Today we’re digging into the morality of the characters from the classic movie to see
who’s pure and good... and who’s, well…
Evil and selfish.
This is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory: Good to Evil.
As usual, we’ll be starting with the most pure and working our way down…
These characters are The Good…
Now, full disclosure, the “good list” is surprisingly short for this family movie...
The first and only person who we think is eligible for the Gold Medal of Good is Charlie
Bucket.
Charlie works as a paper boy to help provide for his widowed mother and grandparents.
He never complains about his situation and always tries to find the best in things…
He hangs onto hope despite how rough his life is...
Even continuing to look for the final golden ticket when there’s only one left.
He’s the only kid on the tour who’s kind-hearted and actually listens to what Wonka tells him...
Except for the problem with the fizzy lifting drink…
But in reality, who can blame a kid for taking a little taste?
And he makes up for it later by apologizing and returning the everlasting gobstopper that
he took.
This is really what shows Charlie as the honest boy that he is.
He’s promised a huge sum of money in return for the gobstopper by Slumworth…
As much as that money would help him, he has the integrity to turn the opportunity down…
Even after Willy Wonka blew up and yelled at him and his Grandpa Joe.
In all seriousness, I think most people in his situation would have taken the gobstopper,
flipped Wonka the bird on their way out and tried to sell that thing immediately.
Charlie has a heart of gold and cares about everyone in his life and would do anything
for his family... which he eventually can do after he wins the prize of taking control
of Wonka’s factory.
The Silver Medal for Good goes to Charlie’s mother, Mrs.Bucket.
Mrs.Bucket is a widow who takes care of her son, parents and in-laws.
She works hard and is clearly the one supporting the family.
She expresses how she knows that Charlie deserves more… and does what she can to stay positive
for her son.
She is clearly responsible for raising Charlie to be such a good kid.
Our Good section is pretty short, and this is the last entry…
We’re giving The Bronze Medal of Good to Charlie’s teacher Mr. Turkentine.
He isn’t the most important character in the movie, but honestly, he seems like a pretty
rad teacher.
Definitely a bit of a goofball, willing to dismiss class so he can go buy candy bars,
but his science class looks pretty cool.
And that completes our Good section…
With that said, we now move into neutral territory…
This is The Grey Area…
And this time there is only ONE character in The Grey Area this time…
To be honest, we struggled to rank this guy, but we finally decided that this next spot
is perfect for Arthur Slugworth or Mr.Wilkinson.
Mainly because this guy’s motivation is very much a mystery.
Now, he does have a creepy way that he whispers to kids... and corners Charlie to ask him
to steal from Willy Wonka for him.
But I don’t hold this second part against him entirely because one could argue that
the motive of passing the factory onto someone else isn’t inherently bad.
We find out later that he’s just an employee that was used for a moral test to see who
would steal and who wouldn’t.
Now, as you can tell by this being the end of our very short Grey Area…
Willy Wonka is not a good guy (sorry!).
So, if Slugworth is working for him, than he must know about much of the depraved stuff
going on inside that factory.
With how little Willy Wonka seems to care about the Oompa Loompas and the kids inside
of his factory... it might be possible that he knew more about how unsafe that the factory
was going to be…
And maybe that’s why he chose to help Wonka find a replacement.
So that this lunatic would retire and stop endangering people.
But on flip side, maybe he doesn’t care, and is completely okay with how Wonka runs
his place.
The reality is, this guy’s morality is tough to figure out.
And for that reason, we’re keeping him in the grey.
Now then, onto The Dark Side.
These characters are The Bad and The Evil.
Alright, real quick…
I just want to give an honorable mention to this Big Mouth Lady right here…
She’s the one who immediately shouts to everyone in the area to tell them that Charlie
found what is essentially the most valuable item on the face of the earth.
Like, was that really necessary?
An angry mob could have beaten the kid to death over that thing for all she knew.
But yeah, totally make sure to scream and alert everyone to the fact that a defenseless
child found the last golden ticket.
Heck, go ahead and grab his arm and drag him over into a crowd.
Did you really have to make this about you, Karen?
Alright, let’s get to the kids…
We’ve got some bad apples, but the reality is the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
These little jerks are really just the product of poor parenting…
So we give them a little bit of the benefit of the doubt.
They’re just kids…
Rotten kids, but still kids: Augustus Gloop is first.
Augustus is first on the Bad section because he doesn’t really do anything too bad, he’s
just really selfish, gluttonous and greedy.
He doesn’t share with anyone and eats a ridiculously large amount of candy and chocolate.
He ignores the rules about staying away from the chocolate river and because of his negligence
of the rules, he’s sucked in and taken away.
If your hobby is eating, find another hobby.
Perhaps running.
Next is Violet Beauregarde.
Violet is openly rude to pretty much everyone, including her own father.
She has confidence, which would be fine…
But in her case, she has a severely inflated ego.
She has way too much pride in her gum chewing skills and refuses to think that she could
be anything but number one.
Like the other kids before her Violet doesn’t listen to Willy Wonka and turns into a giant
blueberry because of her actions.
Next on our list is Mike TeeVee.
Mike has a bigger mouth than Augustus which puts him lower on the list.
He focuses too much on T.V, which in itself isn’t what puts him on the list, although
it does speak poorly about his parents.
Mike is rude, obnoxious and ignores his parents, his school and Wonka.
He neglects to learn anything new and ends up ignoring Willy Wonka about not messing
with the T.V room and ends up being shrunk because of it.
This kids also really annoying, let’s be real.
Let’s talk about Mr. Beauregarde next.
His fault in parenting is that he eggs his egotistical daughter on.
He constantly brags about how great she is which just proves how she’s almost just
as spoiled as Veruca.
Even when she’s breaking the rules that Willy Wonka tells her not to do, Mr.Beauregarde
is praising her for doing it and being the only person brave enough to do it.
Here’s the reason why I cut him a bit of slack…
Unlike Veruca, Violet seems to take pride in her goofy accomplishments such as gum-chewing.
He encourages her to feel proud about it, even if it inflates her ego…
But he’s not as spineless as Veruca Salt’s father with spoiling his kid.
But, I mean, do you have to plug your car dealership now, dude?
Let’s start with The Candy Man.
Okay, how can this guy who sells candy and sings about it be in the Bad Category, I hear
you ask?
Well, look…
I take issues with this guy.
Some I think are fair all around, others maybe not…
But let’s break it down.
To start, the thing that we can all agree on…
This guy distributes candy in a very unfair way.
Like, during his musical number, he’s giving away free candy like they’re 1999 AOL installation
CDs…
But then he charges Charlie, the poorest kid in town, for a candy bar.
Now, I’m not against Capitalism or anything, but this guy definitely has a weird priority
with giving away Candy for free.
It’s also worth noting he almost KO’s this kid with the counter door and does not
give an F. And that’s the full extent of the main criticism…
But then there’s speculative stuff.
Like, do I have to point out how creepy this dude is?
I know this was a different time, and it’s meant to be innocent and all that, but if
you were singing and giving away free candy to children and picking them up, hugging them
and stuff today…
Ya know…
FBI Open Up.
I’m not saying he’s doing anything monstrous necessarily…
It’s more of an optics thing... but… his behavior is just weird.
Definitely a weirdo.
The second parent on the bad list is Mrs. Gloop.
She continues to let her child rage on his path of gluttony, which not only turns him
into a selfish person, but can lead him down a really unhealthy path.
As a parent, you should be instilling at least some healthy eating habits, otherwise you’re
doing a disservice to your kid…
She’s not as bad as some of the other parents, but get your stuff together, Mrs. Gloop.
Next is Mrs.Teevee.
A mom who just sits her idiot kid in front of the TV so much that the Tv has become his
life…
And she’s even proud of it.
Another example of a parent spoiling their kid in a unique way to the point where the
excess ruins them and turns them into a monster.
She also went onto the tour with her son clearly with the intent of stealing the gobstopper.
Which she alludes to at one point.
Alright, Grandpa Joe.
You’re up.
While he seems like a nice guy at first and just a sweet old man, we see the first sign
that he’s hiding stuff as soon as he realizes that Charlie can go see the chocolate factory
and could win a prize…
He jumps back on his feet after 20 years of not being able to walk which we find a bit
suspicious.
To say the least.
I mean, I’m not a doctor, but this is just not possible, right?
And look, I understand Charlie taking a swig of the Fizzy Lifting drink…
He’s a kid.
Kids do stuff like that.
But Grandpa Joe is an adult.
He A) knows that Charlie could get booted from the tour by breaking the rules and still
tells him to break the rules…
But more importantly, B), he just saw Violet and the fat German kid potentially die from
drowning/furnace and blueberry transformation, not to mention all the other wacky dangerous
stuff around the factory… and is still like “Yeah, grandson, go ahead and take a drink
of this unfinished beverage made by a lunatic who just told us it isn’t ready yet.”
What a dumba**.
Then, when Wonka yells at Charlie, which we admit is unnecessary…
Grandpa Joe plays victim.
I mean, you did sign the contract, guy.
And you intentionally broke a rule.
It really is your fault.
On top of that, after he got yelled at by Wonka, he tells Charlie that they’re going
to go give the gobbstopper to Slugworth out of spite…
Or maybe that was his plan the whole time.
In many ways, Grandpa Joe is responsible for the only moral hiccup that Charlie had (the
fizzy drink)... and technically, you could argue that he and his grandson should have
been bounced (or dead) in third place…
He might care about his grandson but his actions throughout the movie prove that he has a darker
side and is a man of lesser morals.
. Our final parent fits with our final kid.
Mr.Salt is next with the Bronze Medal of Evil.
We put him last of the parents because his daughter is not only the worst kid in the
movie, but she’s one of the worst kids we’ve seen in movies.
He brags about how great she is and that he gets her everything that she asks for.
He tries really hard to get her everything inside of the factory and shows that he’s
sort of just a doormat for her.
He’s a spineless cowardly clown who can’t even control his child.
Our last of the five ticket holders, Veruca Salt is without a doubt the worst kid in this
movie… and gets The Silver Medal for Evil.
You could probably make the argument that the other kids have time to grow up and evolve
as people… Veruca is a monster.
And there’s no fixing her.
Veruca is a spoiled brat who’s father gives her everything she wants.
She’s known for her catchphrase: I want it nowww.
Veruca is cruel to everyone on the tour and unlike the other children who are taken away,
Veruca goes out with a bang, destroying the Golden Egg room and knocking over Oompa Loompas
because she can’t have a golden goose.
She’s a rotten egg and her score on the garbage shoot shows that.
Hopefully she doesn’t crawl back up it like that little girl from The Ring.
Finally, the gold medal of evil goes to Willy Wonka.
Are you really surprised?
This guy is nuts.
Willy Wonka seems like a nice guy just trying to find a good kid to run his factory, but
if you look into things more, we can see that this is 100% not the case.
Willy Wonka endangered all of the kids by letting them fall into these traps without
really trying to get them to stop…
In fact, it seems like these traps were set up intentionally to disqualify these children.
For instance, the vehicle they take after the first three kids are eliminated only has
enough room for two parties…
This is clearly premeditated.
Whenever something happens to a kid, whether it be nearly drowning, being sent to a furnace,
turning into a blueberry or shrinking… he reacts with totally apathy.
I know that we’re supposed to suspend disbelief with it being a family film, but there’s
a solid chance those kids are dead.
I don’t think one recovers from turning into a blueberry or being shrunk down to the
size of an action figure.
This guy is a sadist.
Willy Wonka also doesn’t treat the Oompa Loompas that well, when they are at the chocolate
factory, it doesn’t take that long for Augustus to get taken to the fudge room and there aren’t
any railings there.
The Oompa Loompas work by that river every day and it’s possible that Oompa Loompas
would fall into the river and get taken away... and no one would be there to save them like
Augustus.
After the tour is over Willy Wonka snaps at Charlie about how he lost the game and that
he should just leave.
He seems to have a lack of care for any life and doesn’t really care too much about how
he treats his employees.
While this is just a theory, it’s possible that he pawned his factory on to Charlie to
avoid the bankruptcy that his factory was facing as well as all of the lawsuits that
would be soon coming his way because of the tour.
It’s also interesting to note that Willy Wonka just calmly says that the other kids
and their parents are fine, but we don’t ever see them again... so who knows if they
were really fine or if he was just trying to shut up Charlie and Grandpa Joe.
Honestly, this dude may very well be a murderer.
#CancelWonka But what do you think?
Who’s the most evil character in the crazy world of Willy Wonka?
Let us know in the comment section below.
Don’t forget to hit that notification bell and binge our Good-to-Evil playlist…
Where we break down the morality of the characters from your favorite cartoons, shows and movies.
But most importantly, stay wicked!