Logan Echolls

He doesn't have your standard leading man good looks. He was dubbed the "obligatory psychotic jackass" of Neptune High. He can be an arrogant, smug, racist, vindictive bastard, rubbing his wealth and privilege in the faces of those less fortunate. He's done really evil things sometimes. So why, oh why are so many of us smitten with Logan Echolls?

Is it the sob story? Beaten and cuckolded by an abusive father, left behind by both a suicidal mother and a murdered girlfriend, set up to take the fall for a crime he didn't commit, abandoned by his first best friend...twice, innocently alienating a long-lost half-brother. The list goes on.

Is it the shining knight streak a mile wide running through him that led him to the Camelot Motel and a kiss that stopped time, to the roof of the Neptune Grand to distract a mass murderer long enough for good to gain the upper hand, or to a dark garage where the girl he loves lies unconscious and in peril? Is it the desperate need for unconditional love? Maybe.

Is it the sharp wit, the bad boy charm, the manly arms, the tendency to screw up spectacularly? It could be any of those things.

As Logan starts college even he seems to be reassessing his assets, going a little emo, a little introspective, a little truant from classes as he works through the consequences of events to date of his life, like fleeing from a burning Tijuana motel with fellow bad boy, Mercer Hayes, who carelessly set the blaze. Girlfriend who won't trust him, check. Best friend number two, check. Trust, be it the fund that pays for his lavish life style or in human nature, dwindling. Availability of helpful distractions like alcohol and gambling, plenty.

For those only getting to know him now, the attraction may not be obvious. Give it time.