Excellent analysis!!! Even if you only used season one as evidence, you’ve pointed out the things that are less discussed when critiquing how the show wrote Charlie’s character. While season one was better for Charlie’s character compared to season two, it still had the moments you described above which weren’t the best. Season two’s reasons have been discussed multiple times, pointing these things out from season one is important too! While the book had aspects of Charlie that were questionably morally worse than TV Charlie, these are far and few, at least from what I’ve seen.
The whole thing with Mittens I thought was stupid too. I theorize that Charlie ends the lives of certain animals to prevent them from suffering and dying slowly (putting them out of their misery before they are met with a terrible fate). This relates heavily with a theme following Charlie: preventing those from falling into an even worse fate, like his kids. Perhaps Mittens would’ve been hit by a car and left to suffer as road kill had Charlie not put him out right then and there. This is only a theory, of course, as I’m sure the writers’ true intent was as you described, to make Charlie an even worse villain. This sort of thing, however, happened occasionally with book Charlie as well. If I remember correctly, there was a scene where he randomly hits over a hedgehog. I think this is a lazy part on Joe to make him look like an even worse villain, and the writers, wanting to make Charlie as bad as possible, latched onto this concept. I still think my theory could hold up tho, even if it isn’t canon, but that’s just me lmao.
I definitely noticed book Charlie and TV Charlie’s differences in humor. Book Charlie I find pretty funny. He’s louder than TV Charlie, which can be annoying. I’m kind of glad they made TV Charlie quieter and almost smarter, but with this, he does lose some extra charm as you described. I’m mixed on this myself, because I love how funny and goofy book Charlie is (even if at times he could be annoying), but I also love how serious TV Charlie is. He can still be funny, yeah… but it’s weird lol. I agree with you tho 100%. If they had made Charlie worse, but given him more of an upbeat nature, it might’ve been just a bit better, but they added insult to injury by making him less comical. (I still love both Charlie’s oddly enough XD).
I’ll be honest that I kind of like the change to having Charlie have an interest in Vic, as burning his house down (which, btw, regardless if he was doing it somewhat randomly like in the book, or out of heartbreak in the show, I always still found the idea of him deciding to burn his house down a little overkill lol), it makes just a bit more sense for him to do it out of spite for someone who broke his heart, but still, I think it could’ve maybe be written better too. He seems to be a little rushed with asking her, which isn’t gentlemanly (he is a gentleman for sure). I could see why he did it, because he wanted to try something different as far as romantic interests go, but at the same time, it is a little awkward. He was a bit of a bachelor in the book, which I kind of really liked too 😂 His comment on perhaps him and Vic getting to like each other had they met under different circumstances was certainly funny and kinda sexy XD I’m a little mixed with this myself, but I see where you’re coming from and agree that it probably could’ve been written just a bit better.
All in all, great analysis! Both the book and show (especially show) aren’t perfect, but I agree with you that one thing that is near perfect from the book is Charlie being a morally gray villain with a strict moral code that the show failed in multiple different areas to present successfully, and as you said, he’s almost unlikable. But we will always have him written as the villain he truly is through our fanfiction! The writers won’t take that away from us! ❤️❤️❤️