"Breaking Bad"...

[Crackpot]

That is is the new golden age of television so they say. People have found that making a story with a finite arc and a story with a point can be good. I think this is because at least in part of the rise in popularity of anime many series started evolved complex characters and had a satisfactory conclusion and even (gasp) left room for enough ambiguity to let the viewer engage and interpret things their own way.

Eventually people got the idea that type of storytelling might actually work over here as well.

[MajGenl.Meade]

...something that British TV has been doing since before anime was thought of

[Crackpot]

But British TV (outside of comedies) has largely been boring as fuck.

[Lord Jim]

Well, they've also got some good police procedurals, (though the cops-with-no-guns thing can frequently create some pretty ridiculous situations...) and I've seen some excellent Brit dramas on Masterpiece Theater and Mystery over the years...

[MajGenl.Meade]

But British TV (outside of comedies) has largely been boring as fuck.

I don't think you are doing it right.

[Econoline]

[Lord Jim]

X2

[Lord Jim]

The Strange Case of Walter White and Mr. Heisenberg




Like Jekyll and Hyde, it’s easy to misinterpret Breaking Bad as the story of a good man who slowly becomes evil. In the pilot, after all, Walter White has all the outward signs of decency. He has a respectable, but non-threatening job as a high school chemistry teacher. He has a supportive wife and loving son. He’s well liked by his friends and neighbors. Even his official motive for beginning to manufacture methamphetamine is the noble intent of securing his family’s financial future before he dies.

But the show quickly undercuts White’s facade of decency. For one thing, he’s very quick to turn to murder to solve problems. In only the third episode, Walter lists “post-traumatic stress,” and “won’t be able to live with yourself” as reasons not to kill a potential threat to his family. But PTSD and an inability to live with oneself do not matter to a man who is about to die, leaving Walter free to strangle the man to death.

And even if you say Walter only does terrible things for the sake of his family, the fifth episode, “Gray Matter,” removes that motive entirely. Old business partners offer to give Walter a high paying job, or just pay for his medical bills no questions asked. If Walter were truly more concerned about his family’s future than he is about his own freedom, he’d swallow his pride and accept their charity. But Walter doesn’t, because that would take away Walter’s excuse for his bad behavior. It would be Henry Jekyll giving up his transformation formula, before he really had a chance to play with it.

http://www.tor.com/2013/09/09/the-stran ... eisenberg/

[Lord Jim]

Like Jekyll and Hyde, it’s easy to misinterpret Breaking Bad as the story of a good man who slowly becomes evil.

I think that really sums it up...

The story of "Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" isn't the story of a good man who falls to evil against his will...

It's the story of an amoral man who creates a character that is supposed to take all of the punishment he deserves while "the Good Man" facade he has created is able to live a life free of the consequences...

Just as with Henry Jekyll, the true evil was always within the seemingly mild mannered and well intentioned Walter White...

Not a "good man gone bad"....

A morally empty man, a sociopath, a malignant narcissist, who did an impersonation of someone who cared about something besides himself...

but really didn't...

[BoSoxGal]

I just don't buy that reading of the character. Granted we don't get a lot of backstory on Walt, but certainly enough that he doesn't come off as a malignant narcissist. That's not something that just kicks in at 50, and it's obvious that Walt was highly regarded and well liked by nearly everyone in his circle of family, friends and colleagues until he started down the path of breaking bad. And even at the end, there was still good in him. Lots more gray than that article's analysis suggests. It's that complexity that makes him so utterly fascinating.


Speaking of complex characters, I just finished bingeing the first two seasons of BCS. I really, really like Jimmy McGill, who also has a very good heart and a penchant for playing fast & loose with the rules.

I truly believe we are all capable of bad acts, and of justifying them to ourselves. Certainly it takes a psychopath or sociopath to engage in really horrific behavior, but Milgram proved that ordinary law abiding folks are willing to follow orders that result in basically torturing other ordinary law abiding people, so really anything is possible even from the behavior of decent, moral folks.

[Lord Jim]

I just don't buy that reading of the character. Granted we don't get a lot of backstory on Walt, but certainly enough that he doesn't come off as a malignant narcissist.

There was an enormous amount of seething bitterness in the man...

For reasons that are never well explained, he sold out his interest in what became a multi-billion dollar company for $5000 dollars...

But the point in the show where he becomes completely mad, is when he refuses to take the five million dollar buy out that he can get by just turning over the chemicals he's acquired...

As Jesse points out, "Mr. White, you only wanted 746 thousand dollars. You figured it all out, that's all you wanted...Five million dollars...that's way more than what you ever wanted"...

To which White responds;

"It's not about money; I'm building an empire..."

[Lord Jim]

Speaking of complex characters, I just finished bingeing the first two seasons of BCS. I really, really like Jimmy McGill, who also has a very good heart and a penchant for playing fast & loose with the rules.

I agree with you there...

Jimmy McGill's a fantastic character...(I love the line he used when the character was first introduced into Breaking Bad, when he said, "I'm Irish. I just use this Jewish sounding name because people expect Jews to be really good lawyers"... )

'sal good man...

(I hate Chuck....terrible human being...)

[BoSoxGal]

I agree that Walt was arrogant and foolish and had a chip on his shoulder, but he was also a loving father and husband who clearly didn't engage in the kind of interpersonal behavior typical of raging narcissists. When he has the talking pillow in the cancer treatment intervention he talks about wanting to choose for himself for once; narcissists are not the kind of spouses who subsume their own desires to the other spouse's desires, they don't become 'hen pecked' to the degree that Walt clearly was.

I think if he was deeply evil, he wouldn't have struggled with that first murder the way that he did, only bringing himself to do it when it was clearly a matter of self defense. He also wouldn't have cared so much for Jesse; although he had a self interest in Jane's demise, I really got the sense that his primary motivation for acting (or not acting) as he did was to save Jesse's life.

Yes, at some point he really lost his moral compass - well before the refusal to sell his share of the methyl-amine, when he put the little boy's life at risk to motivate Jesse. But even then considering the Monster he was trying to eradicate, I can kind of see how he might've justified it in his own mind.

I agree with you about Chuck, I have a hard time seeing any redemptive qualities in him and don't feel much sympathy for him despite his mental illness. Having a sibling who is cold and judgmental can be just as painful as having a parent like that, and it seems clear that Jimmy is deeply affected by that - yet he keeps going back and being Chuck's doormat, desperate for any crumb of affection or approval.

[Big RR]

Like Jekyll and Hyde, it’s easy to misinterpret Breaking Bad as the story of a good man who slowly becomes evil.

I think that really sums it up...

The story of "Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" isn't the story of a good man who falls to evil against his will...

It's the story of an amoral man who creates a character that is supposed to take all of the punishment he deserves while "the Good Man" facade he has created is able to live a life free of the consequences...

I haven't seen Breaking Bad, but wasn't one of the themes of Dr Jekyll... that we all have both good and evil within us, and that the two struggle for control. The elixir he made gave his 'evil" side free reign, and that began to affect his of goodness as it pervaded into his life even when he wasn't under the influence of the potion. Indeed, I always thought that the book was a bit pessimistic, showing how evil will eventually win out even if it gets a toehold (unless you choose a "Nuclear Option" to destroy it. Jekyll wasn't originally "morally bankrupt", but became so as he slowly gave way to his evil nature; I didn't see his goodness as a façade, but more like a portion of his personality that may well have prevailed in the struggle for control of him had he not given his evil nature an accelerant. In a world of snap moral judgments and true belief that some people were just eil (or all good), that was pretty revolutionary.

I think you assessment of the creation of a character who is supposed to ake all the punishment is more akin to the Picture of Dorian Grey.

BSG--what is BCS?

[Lord Jim]

what is BCS?

Better Call Saul...

[Big RR]

that's one I have heard of. A spinoff of Breaking Bad I think?

[MajGenl.Meade]

Full marks to LJ. The link is worth a full read to support the conclusions below:

The fundamental mistake most versions of Jekyll and Hyde make is not understanding that Jekyll wants to do all the things he does as Hyde. He loves being Hyde. He revels in the freedom of being Hyde and it’s only when the consequences catch up to him anyway that his duel personality becomes a problem for him.

This fundamental mistake leads to further misunderstandings. First, Jekyll is not good. He’s not bad, either, so much as Jekyll is a deeply repressed man who has hidden his violent and sexual urges. His biggest sin is that he wants to face no consequences for anything he does.

Second, Hyde is not the accidental result of an unrelated experiment. Hyde is the absolutely intended result of Jekyll’s experiment. Hyde is not Jekyll’s punishment for playing God. Hyde is Jekyll’s reward.

Third, Jekyll is not unaware or out of control when he’s Hyde. He does not wake up with no memory of what happened the night before. He remembers perfectly everything he does as Hyde, because he was in control the whole time.

And finally, Hyde is not a monster.... He’s a nasty, brutish, and short ape-like man whose great advantage over Jekyll is that he’s young and seemingly lower class, and therefore can get away with a lot of shit.

http://www.tor.com/2012/06/22/what-ever ... -and-hyde/

[Lord Jim]

that's one I have heard of. A spinoff of Breaking Bad I think?

A pre-quell, focusing on the story of Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman...

[Lord Jim]

The fundamental mistake most versions of Jekyll and Hyde make is not understanding that Jekyll wants to do all the things he does as Hyde. He loves being Hyde. He revels in the freedom of being Hyde and it’s only when the consequences catch up to him anyway that his duel personality becomes a problem for him.

That's precisely the point I was attempting to make...

The film versions of the Jekyll/Hyde story (most famously the Spencer Tracy version, but also the Jack Palance version and others) tend to portray Henry Jekyll as a well meaning person who goes astray. A scientist who wants to apply science for good purposes, starts experimenting on himself, and everything goes downhill from there...

That may have been his original rationalization, but it wasn't his real motivation...

One of the elements that's missing from most of the film versions, that's in the original story, is that Hyde is considerably younger than Jekyll...

That no doubt is a part of why Jekyll finds being Hyde so compelling...

Hyde is younger, and he's also lower class, so he suffers from none of the upper middle class Victorian standards that Jekyll finds repressive; being Hyde is liberating and invigorating to him...

As Meade's article says, "He loves being Hyde"...

The story is an allegory and cautionary tale for many things, (drug addiction, over-arching hubris, etc.) and to truly understand it you have place it in the context of the time and social milieu during which Stevenson wrote it.

[Big RR]

I don't think he "loves" being Hyde, but I think there are things in Hyde he finds attractive, even seductive, to the point where he chooses to end his repression of that side of him. Hyde was always part of him, but it was a part he chose to ignore and refuse to give any voice to, fancying himself above all that. I still think Stevenson wanted to that there is a Hyde (and a Jekyll for that matter) inside of each of us, and that we must decide our own course; I think he was also cautioning about taking that step toward the darker side, as embracing it, even for a short time, makes it that much easier to continue on that course. Again, I think much of the Victorian ideal was that there were good people and bad people--Stevenson said people could be both and we had to struggle against the natures within us to remain objectively good. I think what Stevenson was saying is that the same thing could happen to anyone, which I think it pretty revolutionary for the time.