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I thought he was an alright character, if a bit bland.
Blonde hair, blue eyes, generally a a handsome character and all that.

But I liked him in the film. Closest thing the film had to a villain, but he wasn't evil.

His reaction when he was dangling off the broken bridge at the end was hilariously calm though, my only qualm about his role in the film.

I like the guy, as he's got some kindness to him and isn't a straight up villain. But strangely, that's part of the reason I also don't like him as much. The thing is, his character seems a tad contradictory. He cares about the dogs and yet is trying to replace them, even making a bet about it. I feel the film would've worked better had he been a straight up villain wanting to replace the dogs and being arrogent towards them, not kind. Then when Balto saves him, that's what changed his mind.

The problem I have with Duke is that his personality doesn't make sense. IF he actually liked the dogs, then he wouldn't be trying to put them out of a job. It would've worked better had Balto and the sled team rescuing him been what changed his mind. Just me anyway.

That's a really good point, and would have done a decent job of changing the film dynamic.

I think that Kodi's decision to not help his father would have been a lot more justified were Duke actually a villain as opposed to his sort of middling nice-guy-being-evilish character.

Agreed. Or perhaps split his role in two, have the pilot be the villainous one and someone else involved with it being the nice one. I'm just saying, Duke's role is perhaps the biggest problem with the movie (besides Stella, not to bash her but she didn't seem like a good love intrest for Boris). The movie just couldn't decide rather or not he cared about the sled dogs. The role probably would've worked much better with an arrogant ace who Balto saving turned around.

The two person team (The more villainous pilot, and the loyal co-pilot who follows orders, despite his desire to do the right thing, perhaps?) would have been a pretty neat idea.

Now you mention it, I notice how unattached Duke is. I don't know that he never acknowledges that there's a race, and he doesn't question how his doing might potentially affect the dogs/mushers.

Honestly, I bet that the Mr. Conner character in the film is the real villain.

Picture it - Mr. Conner. An employee of the Nome Post Office. And Allergic to dogs, especially the shed-heavy Siberian Husky.

Duke flies into town with a bush plane, and Mr. Conner discovers an opportunity to rid himself of the dog allergen ONCE AND FOR ALL.

He casually asks Duke if he'd like to deliver the mail as a job opportunity, which he accepts most eagerly. One of the mushers overhears him and confronts him about it later, and he comes up with the idea of a "race" to deliver the mail, knowing full well that there's practically no way for the dogs to win.

Meanwhile, Duke simply thinks that the townspeople (at the beginning of the race) are interested in seeing a plane taking off, and only casually wonders why a dogsled team appears to be following him on his ventures from Nome to White Mountain.

I think that Duke was probably just an unknowing pawn in Mr. Conner's schemes, which is why he expresses practically zero drive or emotion, and doesn't acknowledge that there's even a race going on.

That would be intresting, too bad there wasn't too much focus on it. But seems like a fickle reason to do that. Still, not a bad idea.

Heh, it was more or less a joke, poking fun of how non-involved Duke was with the whole thing.

That evil Mr. Conner, scheming to put the mail dogs out of work. Now THAT's a villain!

His hair do was kinda like Stella's, well so I'm okay with him cuz he'z respectful.