Support NeoGAF

[Mike Works]

I went into Breaking Bad after the series had ended, and while I was trying to go in blind, the internet had let me know time and time again how much of a bitch Skyler was.

So I started watching it and kept an eye on her character and was all ready for her to be a bitch.

But she was the fucking normal one. Walter White was the bitch.

It dawned on me that - and this is painting with a pretty broad brush - the majority of people calling her a bitch on the internet were probably men who probably were confusing "bitch" with "character who provides obstacles for protagonist who is being an asshole, but a fun asshole to watch".

Skyler wasn't a super fun character or anything, but she wasn't a bitch. She wasn't perfect, but if anything Walter was the bitch.

Seeing the showrunner bring up misogyny when it comes to the internet's reaction to Skyler is unfortunately probably dead on.

 

[uncelestial]

Whoever blocks the protagonist from getting their way is going to be disliked by a portion of the audience. Not really all that revelatory. That's just basic writing.

And yes, Walt was the protagonist. Even at the end when he was "full Heisenberg" they showed him crying and saying goodbye to his baby, cleverly throwing the cops off his wife's trail during a monitored phone conversation, and scheming to leave his family millions of dollars after he was gone.

Skyler didn't really achieve anything close to these things, which were very interesting to watch. Mainly she hated and fought with Walt, while either being a money launderer for him, or being an adulterous book-cooker with Ted, and she ends up giving all Walt's (i.e. her own family's) money to Ted for really no reason at all. The show starts with Skyler being pretty damn icy and bossy towards Walt even before she knew he was doing anything wrong, and after she knew he had terminal cancer.

(shrug) Maybe now you can fathom the Skyler hate. I personally didn't hate her - but she frustrated Walt's machinations frequently and I was rooting for him in an anti-protagonist Tony Soprano kinda way.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

I think saying it was "toxic masculinity" that drove Walt to do what he did is misguided. He didn't want a better station for himself because of sociocultural forces that had taught him that he, as a man, was supposed to be "in charge". He did what he did because he was basically a sociopathic egotist who secretly harbored contempt for basically everybody and everything around him, because he was drunk on his own internal fantasy of himself being a genius who deserved more than what he actually got. He didn't culturally learn those fantasies, they arose organically from inside himself.

That's the very definition of the concept of toxic masculinity.

 

[A Link to the Past]

I think saying it was "toxic masculinity" that drove Walt to do what he did is misguided. He didn't want a better station for himself because of sociocultural forces that had taught him that he, as a man, was supposed to be "in charge". He did what he did because he was basically a sociopathic egotist who secretly harbored contempt for basically everybody and everything around him, because he was drunk on his own internal fantasy of himself being a genius who deserved more than what he actually got. He didn't culturally learn those fantasies, they arose organically from inside himself.

Edit: Skyler is kind of a piece of shit, though. Standing by your husband being a dealer is one thing, but once it became clear he was involved in MUCH more, failing to turn him in was utter weakness and selfishness.

There's tons of things to do with the idea. (spoiler marking because I guess I dunno how deep we've agreed to go into spoilers!)

Spoiler

1. Multiple scenes of him trying to exert sexual force upon women
2. His desire to be a provider
3. His desire to be the patriarch, where before he just kind of followed in line with his wife
4. His desire to be a man like his brother (and in fact to be a bigger man). This ties into him trying to protect his brother from the Nazis, because it represents his failure as a man that it happened.
5. His desire to achieve what he could have achieved if he stuck with Grey Matter, and the jealousy and anger that resulted from the fact that the people who remained did achieve that
6. His refusal of support from people (this is textbook toxic masculinity)
7. As another user mentioned, he hated that he was weakened by his disease
8. His steadfast efforts to be in control of everyone and everything, often using violence or intimidation to achieve this
9. His eagerness to show his old boss that he wasn't shit
10. That he killed Mike for what I like to think of emasculation - either way, he was basically going alpha on Mike
11. His kidnapping of Holly, which to me expresses his desire to control

And a bunch of other stuff.

You're right about his contempt for people, but I do not agree that he is sociopathic - he clearly establishes authentic concern for those around him. Pretty much all of his family he cares dearly for, and I will say that by the end of it, warts and all, Walt tried to make up for what he did to his family. Jesse to him was also basically family, even if he represented a family member he was constantly at odds with. I believe that he holds a contempt because he is a genius who is working on a car wash. He once was with a person who was his intellectual equal (Gretchen), but is now with someone who is not, yet undermines him anyway (Skyler). Surely growing up, Walt heard many a tale of people working hard and living great for it. And yet, all that hard work and he has cancer, works two jobs, and settled.

 

[peanutbutterlatte]

It's a secret test to find out which of your friends would become dangerous assholes if they became terminally ill

 

[prag16]

I said it as a means to discount its existence. As evidenced by the fact I continued to argue that there are obviously varying viewpoints regarding the negative reception of her character.

I said it to call attention to how useless it was to cite it in any way as a means to strengthen your argument. You're kneecapping yourself by even referring to the idea, is what I'm saying. It's a fairly obvious element, so complaining that people are going to reference it, and have referenced it, is dumb. Of course they have. Of course you saw it. It's fucking there. Making a bad joke about how unsurprised you are doesn't do any of the things you actually want it to do. Nobody should be surprised by seeing it, anymore than you'd be surprised to turn on headlights and see a road in front of you, much less whatever animal is about to dart onto it.

If you're not part of that they, it's going to become apparent pretty quickly, because the absence of sexism/misogyny will be all that much more clear in direct comparison to the stupid, thoughtless, grunting male power fantasy rooting that rears its head and howls about it inarticulately.

I didn't see you condemning all the drive by "lol women haters" type posts. You don't see it as "problematic" (another popular word here) that many people have this kind of cynical base assumption in so many situations? And now you seem to be leveling a thinly veiled misogyny accusation at me. That's productive. At minimum you seem to be asserting that the burden of proof is on me to demonstrate that I'm not a misogynist.

 

[A Link to the Past]

I didn't see you condemning all the drive by "lol women haters" type posts. You don't see it as "problematic" (another popular word here) that many people have this kind of cynical base assumption in so many situations? And now you seem to be leveling a thinly veiled misogyny accusation at me. That's productive. At minimum you seem to be asserting that the burden of proof is on me to demonstrate that I'm not a misogynist.

That's a poor argument, a person doesn't need to call out all problematic arguments in order to call out one of them.

What is being said to you is that you're laser-focused in on making this thread about misogyny, even more so than anyone else. It's the common situation of a person guffawing at the discussion of misogyny while also talking about it as it relates to the discussion at hand almost as much as the people that person is targeting.

 

[uncelestial]

If you're not part of that they, it's going to become apparent pretty quickly, because the absence of sexism/misogyny will be all that much more clear in direct comparison to the stupid, thoughtless, grunting male power fantasy rooting that rears its head and howls about it inarticulately.

Ah yes, the "sexist until proven innocent" canard. Always engenders a good-faith, productive discussion.

 

[prag16]

What is being said to you is that you're laser-focused in on making this about misogyny, even more so than anyone else.

This topic is full of people who think the Skyler hate is rooted significantly in misogyny. I express exasperation at that, therefore I'm the one making this about misogyny?

Sense not made.

 

[A Link to the Past]

This topic is full of people who think the Skyler hate is rooted significantly in misogyny. I express exasperation at that, therefore I'm the one making this about misogyny?

Sense not made.

For instance?

 

[Einchy]

What is being said to you is that you're laser-focused in on making this thread about misogyny, even more so than anyone else.

wut

 

[Bobby Roberts]

Ah yes, the "sexist until proven innocent" canard.

Is there something in it for you to take that reading of what is very obviously the opposite intended meaning?

I don't get why you'd try to play it like that otherwise. I'm literally telling you that a good faith argument is going to separate itself from the sexist ones pretty readily/easily. Not that it's going to get agreed with automatically on its own merits, but that people worth talking to are going to notice pretty quickly that the argument isn't rooted in protecting the existence of toxic masculinity.

I'm arguing for giving you, and prag, and anyone else choosing to enter the discussion, credit for being intelligent human beings and you're trying to reframe it as "sexist until proven innocent."

Why

 

[A Link to the Past]

wut

The user's only contributions in this thread have been to talk about misogyny as it relates to the discussion.

Is there something in it for you to take that reading of what is very obviously the opposite of that?

I don't get why you'd try to play it like that otherwise. I'm literally telling you that a good faith argument is going to separate itself from the sexist ones pretty readily/easily. Not that it's going to get agreed with automatically on its own merits, just that people worth talking to are going to notice pretty quickly that the argument isn't rooted in protecting the existence of toxic masculinity.

I'm arguing for giving you credit for being an intelligent human being and you're trying to reframe it as "sexist until proven innocent."

Why

Seriously, I was about to go to bat for you, because it totally was literally saying that good faith will generally prevent you from being targeted with such accusations.

 

[The One and Done™]

God I hated Skyler when I watched the show.

 

[Chichikov]

Skyler threads always seem to devolve into an argument about whether or not the character was a good person or were her actions justified, and I always find it weird.
Hans Gruber is a terrible human being, he's greedy and murderous, but he's a great character that I love him dearly.
J-Law Hungergamesbowlady is a good and moral person, but I found her character to be bland and boring.
[don't get hung on these specific examples, this is subjective after all and it's not really the point]

I like characters that are compelling and fun to watch. And I always found most of Skyler scenes, especially in the early seasons to be not that great. I never though that show did a particularly good job with the family drama, and to me, the main appeal of the show was always crime side of things, you know, the Breaking of the Bad, so whenever her scenes came along (and again, this is mostly in the early seasons, her character got much better in seasons 4 and 5) I couldn't help but wishing that they go back to cooking meth, melting bodies in tubs of acids or crushing fools with arcade machines.
Now of course it's fine to disagree with that, and if you liked the family drama scenes that's great, but I'm not sure how arguing that she was "in the right" for "nagging" to Walt makes her a good (or bad for that matter) character.

 

[Snowman Prophet of Doom]

That's the very definition of the concept of toxic masculinity.

The concept of toxic masculinity is incontrovertibly linked to the idea that it is something that men as a group learn culturally, though, and that it's something that can basically be corrected if we make certain changes to the way we raise boys and the kinds of images and stories we expose them to. My point is that for Walt, it doesn't have shit to do with culture. He doesn't want to be on top because he's socioculturally absorbed the notion that men are supposed to be on top, and that he's bad and a failure for not being so. He wants to be on top because he, Walt, conceives of himself as some kind of Nietzchean ubermensch and is upset because his life is basically the opposite of what he internally conceives it should be.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Watch, in 5 years, there will be a shocking article where Vince Gillian reveals that Walter was a bad dude.

 

[0coolclimate0]

I just think she is a terrible actor. She kind of has that "light on but nobody's home" look.

 

[Snowman Prophet of Doom]

There's tons of things to do with the idea. (spoiler marking because I guess I dunno how deep we've agreed to go into spoilers!)

Spoiler

1. Multiple scenes of him trying to exert sexual force upon women
2. His desire to be a provider
3. His desire to be the patriarch, where before he just kind of followed in line with his wife
4. His desire to be a man like his brother (and in fact to be a bigger man). This ties into him trying to protect his brother from the Nazis, because it represents his failure as a man that it happened.
5. His desire to achieve what he could have achieved if he stuck with Grey Matter, and the jealousy and anger that resulted from the fact that the people who remained did achieve that
6. His refusal of support from people (this is textbook toxic masculinity)
7. As another user mentioned, he hated that he was weakened by his disease
8. His steadfast efforts to be in control of everyone and everything, often using violence or intimidation to achieve this
9. His eagerness to show his old boss that he wasn't shit
10. That he killed Mike for what I like to think of emasculation - either way, he was basically going alpha on Mike
11. His kidnapping of Holly, which to me expresses his desire to control

And a bunch of other stuff.

You're right about his contempt for people, but I do not agree that he is sociopathic - he clearly establishes authentic concern for those around him. Pretty much all of his family he cares dearly for, and I will say that by the end of it, warts and all, Walt tried to make up for what he did to his family. Jesse to him was also basically family, even if he represented a family member he was constantly at odds with. I believe that he holds a contempt because he is a genius who is working on a car wash. He once was with a person who was his intellectual equal (Gretchen), but is now with someone who is not, yet undermines him anyway (Skyler). Surely growing up, Walt heard many a tale of people working hard and living great for it. And yet, all that hard work and he has cancer, works two jobs, and settled.

That he "cares" for his family doesn't necessarily make him not a sociopath. What matters is whether he authentically cares about his family, as people, or whether he cares about his family as an extension of caring about himself. Judah Rosenthal in Woody Allen's "Crimes and Misdemeanors" was "genuinely" broken up when he realized that he'd ordered a murder, but once he realized there would never be any repercussions and it wouldn't actually affect him, he was happy as a clam. Given he doesn't mind manufacturing death threats against his brother-in-law, risking divorce with his wife, kidnapping his daughter when he's dying with cancer, putting his family in danger from the most powerful drug lord in the Western U.S., and other such things, I'd argue he cares about his family because he conceives of himself as a failure if they're not taken care of, despite the fact that virtually nothing he does evinces actually care for their personal or psychic well-beings. Shit, once he beats Gus, he basically throws all caution to the wind.

Goddamn, this show sure sounds stupid when you just list its plot points.

 

[prag16]

I just think she is a terrible actor. She kind of has that "light on but nobody's home" look.

Unreal Engine 3 dead eyes? That's actually a thought I had while watching the show at some points, haha.

 

[ThisGuy]

Spoiler

10. That he killed Mike for what I like to think of emasculation - either way, he was basically going alpha on Mike

I never understood why he killed Mike. I like your assessment of tying toxic masculinity into his character. It makes sense with Mike in a way. He wouldn't fall inline with Walter.

I almost forgot about Mike. That brooding stole the show for me.

 

[Spinluck]

Congrats, you're just like me.

Yeah, Skylar was vile at times, but it was a necessity due to having Walt as a husband. Yes, she made things worse at times which forced Walter to do even more fucked up shit. But everything she did was to protect her family, which was also Walt's initial motive, but he later became engrossed by his own selfishness and ego.

 

[Shaanyboi]

I didn't hate Skyler as such, but I just couldn't like her. As mentioned already, she's a buzzkill. Walt only started cooking meth to earn money to look after his family in the event the cancer killed him. Yet, for some reason, he was looked upon as an evil, scumbag husband for lying to his family. Yes, he did lie, but did so to protect them. And what does Skyler do? She treats him like shit. Walt should've left her to scrape on by with what they had.

Yeah, she's such a buzzkill for the fucking Machiavellian murderous drug dealer... Walt had plenty of 'outs', but his own pride took him down a darker and darker path that he could've avoided easily without being an evil piece of shit.

Skyler, at worst, cheated on her dickhead husband. At worst, she did what she needed to to keep her family above water. Walt's arrogance didn't give an ounce of a shit for those around him.

 

[cj_iwakura]

She could have easily saved Schrader from his fate had she helped him out, but noooooo.

That cemented my loathing for her. She only ever thought about herself.

 

[riotous]

She's a better character if you marathon the show IMO.

 

[unempLLOYD]

I hated Marie Schrader more tbh

 

[SaviorX]

The first couple seasons Skyler was annoying because before Walter became a wormy killing machine , she would dote on his every move and emasculate him sometimes.

Then when he went full Heisenberg she was just trapped in a very precarious and awful situation. I think by that point the tide turned to where you could sympathize with her. Walt brought around people who could've easily killed her family several times because he was so in over his head and sloppy.

 

[Freshmaker]

Most people disliked Skyler because they identified with Walter. He's someone who thinks that, if he's given the chance, can be the smartest and most successful guy but gets "screwed over" by his colleagues, who get rich screwing him over. The cancer just gives him the chance to act out his power fantasies recklessly. That's what people want. They want to live their little power fantasies where they are the greatest thing that ever happened to their little world. Of course they hate the person who tries to ground them in reality.

I'll caveat this by saying I only watched the first three seasons...

I think what mainly bugged me about Skyler was that she's completely directionless in the first two seasons. She just kinda drifts around not really committed to anything.

Walt's working two jobs, and she's... Maybe writing a short story collection? While freaking out over the finances?

That aimlessness never really goes away. She's pure reaction the whole time. It's hard to identify with a character with no clear goal.

Walt becomes worse and worse, but you know what he's doing at least.

 

[Sheroking]

People caring more about goonery isn't Vince and co's fault, no matter how much "better" (I loved the domestic stuff and Skyler is my third favorite character after Hank and Walt) it was written in your view, vitrol would have been thrown at it.
It was a necessary component for the show to work, though i'm biased because it has some of my favorite moments.

I'm definitely not going to speak for everyone, but that was my reason for disliking the character.

I kind of feel like Breaking Bad is the single most over-rated show in TV history, not because it isn't really good, but because it gets away with a little goofy, stupid things that everybody is too in love to criticize. Everything Skyler does in Season 5 and the bugs bunny level death scene of Gus chief on that list.

Would have been a better show if Anna Gunn was in half the episodes she was actually in IMO.

 

[Monocle]

It seems the problem a lot of viewers have with Skyler is that she distracts from the most enjoyable part of the show, which is the crime element and Walt doing his thing. Driven largely by emotional logic, she presents a direct obstacle to a much more entertaining character.

Now personally, I find Skyler's actions understandable in light of her values and place in life, and the whirlwind of challenging events Walt's actions brought down on his family. She is a flawed person, at times selfish and irrational like anyone else, whose life was turned totally upside down by a husband who was far out of her league even before he was a kingpin. I can't say I enjoy her nearly as much as Walt—she certainly can be annoying—but she's an important ingredient to the show and the actress Anna Gunn did a fine job.

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

I found her annoying. Like extremely annoying. This is not new contrast where the male lead actor is out of bounds with reality (in some way) and the female, in whatever capacity is his ancor.

In Dexter, Dexters sister Debra (in the earlier seasons) is the voice of reason, and everything is about Debra not finding out what Dexter is. Debra is not annoying. She is preachy, she has morale superiority, but she is not annoying.

In House, Cuddy is the no-fun stopblock to whatever insane ideas House wants to commit to, but Cuddy is not annoying. She is opinionated and a direct contrast to House, but not annoying.

In Walking Dead, Ricks wife, Lori IS annoying. About as annoying as Skylar. Going between endless hot-and-cold, to leaving your kid playing alone in the woods in the zombie apocalypse, to engaging in the worst cocktease triangle love affair with the psychotic idiot that is Shane, I am not sure if Rick and Loris relationship belongs in outskirts of Atlanta or on jerry springer.
Like Skylar, Lori goes bananas on the bad judgement calls, but doesn't process through the miracle of self-critical analysis, that maybe, leading a pack of humans during Armageddon, or trying to leave some sort of economic safety net for your family, amass in a ton of unforgivable situations, but 100% ignoring the precedent that extreme times calls for extreme measures.
Lori is a mismash of a dozen womens hysteria, like her personality and emotional spectrum was cut out of a ransom note.
She has shane babies, won't tell rick, but tells shane to give him shit about it, as she watches two men killing each other over her when the world is literally falling apart.
Skylar completely ignores the bad things that happened to Walt, and doesn't question the motives. It's just the act- fuck you walt, and that's all there is to her frame of reference. Both female leads are annoying.

I don't think Skylar is a bad character. I think she was realistically portrayed and a lot of marriages are like that. Walter who is a spineless shell of a man, and skylar, the nagging wife who essentially fell out of love, and into being a good mother person and nothing else.
So even if she is annoying, and even if Walt is frustrating, they are good characters.
If a character makes you feel anything, it is a good sell. When I watch Navy CIS I don't feel anything. I don't think. It's like watching thin air. Not a single character does, or says anything with charisma or in a way that makes you feel something. That's the worst position you can have for entertainment.

 

[MilkBeard]

Love Skyler but she wasn't much of a character in the first season, just another potential foil for Walt to out wit and another reason for the audience to sympathize, maybe even identify with his character--after all no one likes a nag. And yes, she was a nag. She was written to be an unlikable shrew of a wife that heaped shit on Walt right along with the rest of Universe and some people never got passed that.

The character blossomed from S2 on, though, and Anna Gunn's performance made the show what it was in a lot of ways.

Yeah, once the show started focusing on her personal reactions to what Walt was doing, her character blossomed. She had her own depth and in a lot of ways was a good compliment to Walt. I said in my past post that in the beginning, she was painted as the sort of goody-goody, American Christian wife. Once shit hit the fan, her character progressed in ways not much different to Walt's. They were both unlikeable, boring people before the events in the show.

 

[CloudWolf]

People defending Walt are the worst

 

[ginger ninja]

I got one word for you buddy, misogyny.

Spoiler

I ain't even a feminist or anything but it was plain simple a lot of the hate was driven because of the gender.

 

[A Link to the Past]

I never understood why he killed Mike. I like your assessment of tying toxic masculinity into his character. It makes sense with Mike in a way. He wouldn't fall inline with Walter.

I almost forgot about Mike. That brooding stole the show for me.

Yeah, I really enjoyed their interactions. Mike was an awesome foil to Walter.

I didn't hate Skyler as such, but I just couldn't like her. As mentioned already, she's a buzzkill. Walt only started cooking meth to earn money to look after his family in the event the cancer killed him. Yet, for some reason, he was looked upon as an evil, scumbag husband for lying to his family. Yes, he did lie, but did so to protect them. And what does Skyler do? She treats him like shit. Walt should've left her to scrape on by with what they had.

Totes McGoats wrong!! Walt clarifies at the end of it all that it was for his own ego. Walt doesn't even agree with you. The idea that he was trying to provide for his own family was a lie, because he did have opportunities at his disposal that didn't involve drug dealing.

That he "cares" for his family doesn't necessarily make him not a sociopath. What matters is whether he authentically cares about his family, as people, or whether he cares about his family as an extension of caring about himself. Judah Rosenthal in Woody Allen's "Crimes and Misdemeanors" was "genuinely" broken up when he realized that he'd ordered a murder, but once he realized there would never be any repercussions and it wouldn't actually affect him, he was happy as a clam. Given he doesn't mind manufacturing death threats against his brother-in-law, risking divorce with his wife, kidnapping his daughter when he's dying with cancer, putting his family in danger from the most powerful drug lord in the Western U.S., and other such things, I'd argue he cares about his family because he conceives of himself as a failure if they're not taken care of, despite the fact that virtually nothing he does evinces actually care for their personal or psychic well-beings. Shit, once he beats Gus, he basically throws all caution to the wind.

Goddamn, this show sure sounds stupid when you just list its plot points.

That's a pretty good point - his family coming into harm's way reflects poorly upon him, though I don't know that I'd argue that he was entirely without compassion - while protecting Hank goes with your argument that losing him is a personal failure, the extent that he went to to try and save his life I think gives him some humanity.

Going on my point of toxic masculinity, the scene of Hank dying really speaks to me on the level of masculinity. Where Hank is actually a "man" (putting it in quotations for a reason ), Walt just can't handle the situation. Even as Hank is ready to die, he feels more powerful than any one person at that scene, while Walt is handling the situation about as well as Fantastic Four was handled.

 

[Rembrandt]

Skyler threads always seem to devolve into an argument about whether or not the character was a good person or were her actions justified, and I always find it weird.
Hans Gruber is a terrible human being, he's greedy and murderous, but he's a great character that I love him dearly.
J-Law Hungergamesbowlady is a good and moral person, but I found her character to be bland and boring.
[don't get hung on these specific examples, this is subjective after all and it's not really the point]

I like characters that are compelling and fun to watch. And I always found most of Skyler scenes, especially in the early seasons to be not that great. I never though that show did a particularly good job with the family drama, and to me, the main appeal of the show was always crime side of things, you know, the Breaking of the Bad, so whenever her scenes came along (and again, this is mostly in the early seasons, her character got much better in seasons 4 and 5) I couldn't help but wishing that they go back to cooking meth, melting bodies in tubs of acids or crushing fools with arcade machines.
Now of course it's fine to disagree with that, and if you liked the family drama scenes that's great, but I'm not sure how arguing that she was "in the right" for "nagging" to Walt makes her a good (or bad for that matter) character.

it's a really weird argument and this opinion has been said and ignored several times so people can keep saying posters hate women for not liking Skyler. a character's ethics alone doesn't make a good character.

 

[Dr.Acula]

It's weird how little hate Jesse gets compared to Skyer, despite being a legitimately wretched and all-around stupid person, unlike Skyler. Of course you still felt sorry for him by the end of the series because, even though he was a complete idiot, he was still a victim. But yeah. Quite telling.

I think it's due to Skyler not having "fun" storylines. Jesse has wacky friends and zany catch-phrases. So even when he was being shrill and arguing with and trying to interfere with Walt, he would still be dressing up in silly lab suits or throwing drug fueled pizza parties.

 

[JDeluis]

God I hated Skyler when I watched the show.

Same. I was hoping they killed her character towards the end of the show. Would have been a satisfying ending.

 

[TCRS]

I couldn't either, it was stupid. She was great and all her decisions understandable.

 

[Rembrandt]

Totes McGoats wrong!! Walt clarifies at the end of it all that it was for his own ego. Walt doesn't even agree with you. The idea that he was trying to provide for his own family was a lie, because he did have opportunities at his disposal that didn't involve drug dealing.

idk why anyone takes this as absolute bond when he's been shown to lie constantly to hurt peoples feelings or to avoid doing so. just because he said it doesn't make it true. and if it is true, it doesn't have to be just one or the other, it could be both.

 

[A Link to the Past]

idk why anyone takes this as absolute bond when he's been shown to lie constantly to hurt peoples feelings or to avoid doing so. just because he said it doesn't make it true. and if it is true, it doesn't have to be just one or the other, it could be both.

Couldn't the same be said that he just said that his motives were virtuous in order to not be a bad guy?

 

[Phased]

I guess I can see the misogyny angle a little bit, but at the same time I didn't like her either. I also didn't like Walt by the end of it though, so there's that.

I think a lot of people don't like her because she's just a huge buzzkill and always seems like an afterthought to the story. She has a character arc but I never clicked with her because she never seemed as fleshed out as Walter, Jesse or any of the others.

For me she's really one of the few downsides to the story overall. Lots of missed opportunity I think.

The only sympathy for any of the characters I had coming out of the series was Jesse and Hank.

 

[Rembrandt]

Couldn't the same be said that he just said that his motives were virtuous in order to not be a bad guy?

and it wouldn't be true either, which is my point. why take anything he says as fact when he's shown to be a manipulator and why believe it has to be ego or family and not both?

 

[Coffee Dog]

The audience is more receptive to Jessie because we are allowed to see Walt and Jessie bond. We see them laugh together. We are given a more in depth exploration of his character, for good and bad.

The show shits on Skylar from the getgo, opening with Walter in a doomed marriage with no chance at redemption with a wife that has no empathy for his emotional state or respect for his autonomy. The show puts her in this antagonist role and keeps her there until she gets involved in Walt's operation, where she shifts to being one of the protagonists involved with the core narrative, and a knowing victim of Walt's operation. At all points in the narrative she is never presented as anything other than an obstacle, and frankly I think it's a massive failing of the early seasons to not present her in a more nuanced manner. The viewers needed a chance to grow to like her like they did Jessie, but the show was never as interested in exploring her character before she directly became involved in the main plotline.

 

[A Link to the Past]

and it wouldn't be true either, which is my point. why take anything he says as fact when he's shown to be a manipulator and why believe it has to be ego or family and not both?

That's my point though - even if he is legitimately doing it for family, deep down he's also doing it to feed his ego.

 

[Rembrandt]

That's my point though - even if he is legitimately doing it for family, deep down he's also doing it to feed his ego.

it seemed like you were saying he only did it to fuel his ego, which i don't believe.

 

[Frost_Ace]

Skyler is not a good person but I still managed to empathyze with her.

Spoiler

I really miss Breaking Bad threads

 

[A Link to the Past]

it seemed like you were saying he only did it to fuel his ego, which i don't believe.

I think he did it for his family for his ego.

 

[Joyful]

at least skylars story went somewhere
marie was pointless
s5 spoils:

Spoiler

i thought shed become important when hank died or something but nope

 

[Rembrandt]

I think he did it for his family for his ego.

you're being difficult and trying to tie this into the toxic masculinity thing again, i'm assuming.