Your's and Ivan's comments are really at the heart of understanding Claude Rains' portrayal of Captain Renault and feel very lucky to have strayed across your site to have read these things. I would only add that I think you could just as easily construe his character as pragmatist of the first order, a survivor, and not simply just a trickster. Renault has always been my favorite character in this movie for that reason and perhaps that is why I have used his image (as in your first photo above) often as my avatar in the internet ~ I felt that I could identify with that streak in Renault's personality and character - that pragmatism. That Renault eventually commits himself to doing an ultimate and life changing act at the end to save Rick's life speaks to something inside of himself that propels that pragmatism from perhaps a less shallow and venial level and on to a more altruistic one. There is an easy shift for him once the deed is done to cover Rick, a shift honed by a lifetime of pragmatic choices. I don't see a great agonizing over his choice, but rather a choice made, consequences accepted, and new paths to taken on to the next iteration of Captain Renault. Trickster? Perhaps in a Native American sense.