2. Brian Was Able To Fit Any Situation Or Personality
The more and more I write about Brian Griffin, the more I realise how important and therefore underappreciated he probably was as a character. Aside from being our surrogate and straight man, then, and one of the characters who made all the other characters funnier as a result, Brian was also able to believably fall into pretty much any personality and it still felt true to him. Sure, he's set up as the straight man and as an failed intellectual most of the time, but it was also possible for Brian to be mean-spirited, jealous, scheming, drunk, and just a terrible person. Whereas the other members of the Griffin family seem to switch personality traits on a whim to suit any story or plot point, though, Brian's transformations always seemed more realistic. Why? Because, simply put, he's the show's most developed character. You could find more words to describe his personality than with anybody else on the show. The amazing thing, however, is that although some of those words clash with one another at first glance, they still make sense - Brian can be both "selfish" and "caring," because he was like us: human.