A much more plausible one is that BB is a story of, first and foremost, survival in the face of impending/certain death. It is literally the fuse that triggers the story.
“I won” is akin to “I lived”. Gus is a malignant cancer that must be eliminated.
That Gilligan uses the same device to end Season 3 drives this point home.
I don’t think Gilligan is saying “look how evil Walt has become” when he has Jesse kill Gale or blows up Gus. His questionably moral decision to enter the drug world leads to unforeseen consequences and he must deal with them. I don’t think many people here would get on a high horse about anyone dealing/making drugs, and Walt had a much more noble initial reason to make money than most drug dealers do.
See my earlier point. Your experience of a scene like that says something about what sorts of things define your experiences beyond your control.
Lots of people experience that Don Draper moment as great storytelling for a different reason than what you described. Not everyone fist pumps. And as CanadaMatt said, what some people took in BB as a moment of a champion claiming victory was for others deeply horrifying for the same reasons.
I don’t disagree that people view scenes differently based on their experiences. I think most artists don’t put forward a work and say “all must think of it this way”; of course there are shades of objectivity (that can sometimes belie authorial intent) based upon the manner in which information is presented which make some interpretations of a given scene more plausible than others (notwithstanding the lived experience of the subjective viewer).
ETA: I should have defined “anyone” in the above post to “anyone paying attention to the character development and plot”.
I like stories where a villain is presented as an underdog and a protagonist and over time you realise you’re cheering on straight up evildoing. Walt is like that in BB and Tyrion and Daenerys are both like that in ASOIAF (and the show managed to ruin both of them for different reasons).
I like stories in which a protagonist veers between immoral and moral and amoral, and unexpectedly so. Like Raskolnikov—or perhaps a better example from the same story: Porfiry.
You mean like how you think you’re watching a good guy with good intentions who feels obligated to do bad things but it turns out they’re really just a bad guy who wants to do bad things that sometimes have good results? A deontologist might say that anyone who does bad things is a bad person. A utilitarian might say that someone who gets good outcomes is a good person.
One idea I had for a detective show would be for a heroic character who does a lot of good things for the right reasons and is portrayed as a good guy turns out to be the rapist whose storyline has been in the background the entire season. Like get the audience to fall in love with this character and, oops, he’s actually a rapist to the point that some fans feel betrayed by the show. Just really drive home that you can’t tell who a rapist is by looking at them or how they behave in public, that they’re not obvious perverts or creeps or moustache-twirling villains.
Usually the assessment would be more nuanced than that. The utilitarian would say a good thing happened but the ne’er-do-well is still a prick and the action isn’t praiseworhty.
I did say “might”. I meant that to mean that some utilitarians would say that, not that all utilitarians have a chance of saying say. It’s something that could (not would) be said by an act utilitarian but not by a rule utilitarian.
My gf and I watched Severance a couple of weeks ago (like a year late, I know), and we also thought it was quite good from the start. From what I had read here and elsewhere, I was expecting a bit of a slog followed by an amazing last couple episodes, and while it did end nicely and I’m looking forward to s2, I think the ending had been overhyped a bit. My mistake for reading too much perhaps.
Anyway, we will definitely follow season 2 enthusiastically when it comes out.
This comes up often with Walt in BB.
He is SUPPOSED to be evil and you are SUPPOSED to hate what he becomes doesn’t really resonate with me when the show goes out of its way to make him sympathetic and badass and smart and ends the penultimate season with “I won”. He even gets to die on his own terms.
The Sopranos did a much better job at this than Breaking Bad or any of these other shows.
Breaking Bad was 99% cheering Walt on and 1% “Look, actually he’s a monster” parts thrown in for good measure.
