Tuco, who they said was a murdered and a "rapist of a virgin of the white race" (I don't belive Tuco was a rapist), Tuco still got half the gold. Blondie was the good, he got half, the bad got nothing but was in position to get it all, he just was slower on the draw. Say what you wil about Tuco he got just as much doing things HIS way as anyone else.
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What age is a minor back then.
I know 15 and 16 year olds were routinely married off.
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I actually thought Tuco came across as a total douche in the scene with the priest. I don't really care about whether or not he's morally superior to Blondie (they both torture each other out in the desert pretty damn cruelly--Blondie was about to make Tuco walk 70 miles on foot!!!) but I don't see how Tuco is morally superior to his priest brother, who was right to slap Tuco in the face when Tuco talks down to him and tells him he was too much of a coward to be a thief like Tuco. I don't know that the movie is really endorsing his behavior though.
shareOne of the unspoken points about this film is that the labels of "good", "bad" and "ugly" are applied almost arbitrarily.
Case in point: where Clint, who is the lead that we are supposed to be rooting for, is labeled "the good" on screen, just after he abandons his partner in crime IN THE DESERT in what must be 100-degree heat...with his hands tied, presumably to die. (Remember, it's "seventy miles" to the nearest town.) And this guy is called the "good" guy??
In the old westerns, it was clear that the good guy/sheriff wore the white hat, and the villain wore black. But the director chose not to give the audience a hint regarding who wore the "white hat" and who wore the black. In his mind, for the most part, the three characters are all capable of betrayal and violence at the drop of a hat. But the guys who survived the movie get to describe who was bad and who wasn't.
This reflects, I think, some cultural uncertainty at the time. In the mid-1960s, there was growing doubt about whether America was purely a force for good in the world; there was discontent about the lack of civil rights, and there was doubt about the growing involvement in Vietnam, and about CIA involvement in coup d'etats throughout Latin America. Yet most Americans would label America as a force for "good", without really examining history all that clearly.
As for Tuco, it is possible that he was accused of these things but the crimes were not proven. It is also true that the crimes seem less offensive when mentioned, rather than depicted. (I suspect the scene where Angel Eyes beats "Maria" was more shocking than what Tuco is alleged to have done, because we see the beating firsthand.)
I assumed Blondie was the good only because he didn't have a price on his head...neither did Angel Eyes, but Angel Eyes wasn't a good guy so to speak, but he really wasn't that "bad" either. He made Blondie a partner and we really don't know if he would have given Blondie a fair share of the gold if they both ended up with it in the end. Angel eyes brought his cronies along to keep a watch on Blondie, which means they were expecting to get paid too. So there was no way Angel Eyes would give Blondie half aand then pay his goons out of his own half. Blondie would have gotten screwed or killed. Now, at the end had tuco gotten killed and just Blondie and angel eyes been left standing I belive it would have ended fair. Had it been tuco and angel eyes standing, and Blondie killed, who knows if they would have figured out the riddle of no name on the rock. Angel eyes probably could have figured it out. Tuco no way in hell he could have. Funny though that Blondie rides a good distance before shooting tuco down to free him he still didn't trust tuco to be near him with all that gold around.
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