Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/02/10/watch-how-to-make-breaking-bad.html
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Maybe I can’t identify with a single character on that show, maybe I’m just not as into celebrating the anti-hero as the rest of the nation seems to be lately - but breaking bad turns me off entirely. I really don’t understand emulating it. Anyone have ideas to help a poor cartoon villain understand?
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Emulating Walt isn’t really my thing, but I can tell you why I appreciate the show.
They manage to run all five seasons without any character acting uncharacteristicly “because plot”. That isn’t to say they don’t do dumb things, but there is a sense that they do them for reasons other then plot. Events in the show seldom happen & vanish. They have lasting effects.
They also manage to bring the main character slowly from someone sympathetic to someone evil. You can also tell a lot about how people think with the question “when did Walt turn evil”?
(& if I don’t want to emulate Walt why did I click through? I like candy!)
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It’s bad enough that w.w. is held up as a folk hero and not the murdering tyrant he became but this emulating of crystal meth through candy (i know it’s not a new thing) is on another level of disturbing. Candy cigarettes are no longer sold and quite rightly, so why is this fine?
I don’t know if everyone understands him as a folk hero, though. I’m not sure that’s how he was meant to be understood. I saw him as someone whose negative traits of selfishness come out over time, and his inability to change kills him in the end.
But I guess that lots of people see him as a hero, but I’m not sure that was the intent.
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also
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No, i would have to say that was certainly not the intent if vince gilligan is anything to go by which i seem to remember him commenting on him long ago losing any sympathy for walter. All the terrible shit he’s done is like a litmus test for when you get off the walter white sympathy train but a hell of a lot of people probably never did.
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Shops in the UK stop selling them over 20 years ago.
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Can’t buy them in brick and mortar stores though, certainly not over here in the UK (generally, though you might find some tucked away). Doesn’t surprise me in the least that amazon sell them considering the shit you can get on there. Libertarians eh!
Man I dunno what it is about Binging with Babish but I love it so much. His voice or something, but I just dig it so much.
How timely.
I love Breaking Bad and I watched all five seasons with varying levels of wanting to throttle Walt. IMHO, liking the main character is entirely unnecessary to liking the show. It’s a tragedy. You’re not expected to root for Hamlet or Captain Ahab, but they’re still compelling for millions.
I’m not sure there was an intent. I think the showrunners/writers just wanted to show Mr. Chips become Scarface and it was up to the audience how to feel about him. Personally, Walter infuriated me almost nonstop, and in way that as part of the appeal. It was like watching a movie character who you scream at not to do the wrong thing, but of course if they listened to you there’d be no story. For me, Breaking Bad’s genius was sustaining that frustration for five straight seasons with almost continuous escalation.
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Humbug!
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Butter in a spray can? sigh
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I do get the sense that there were some who saw it as a man taking back what was rightfully his, especially his dignity from his overbearing wife. That’s bullshit, of course. But that’s what some people took away.
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I also suspect it may just be that we don’t get very many well written villains, much less well written villains who are the star. Walt is a bad person, no doubt, but I don’t remember any points where he’s necessarily “I’m going to be evil because it’s fun”", like someone said above, everything in the show makes sense for the character.
@Stripes I’m not sure I can say when Walt turned evil, if only because it’s been a long time since I watched the show…
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Well, but at the end, it may not have been the excuse, that it was fun, but he certainly did it for himself and he tells Skylar as much when he comes back. He spent 5 seasons claiming he was doing for the family, and at the end of it all, he admitted he wasn’t. He clearly enjoyed being able to game the system like he did and feel like a bad ass, all at the expense of the family he was supposed to be saving.
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I am a vendor at most major comic con events throughout the West. A few years ago, I discovered a little candy company in Albuquerque that sells official “Breaking Bad” candy, which is simply blue raspberry rock candy. We have a BB beaker sitting by our cash register filled with tiny baggies of the stuff, guarding by a Funko Pop figure of Walt in his “cooking” gear. They’re giveaways for customers who notice and inquire, and you can’t believe the giggling delight of these folks who walk away, waving their baggies at their friends, and acting like junior high kids who have just had their first sip of PBR.
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I told my friend that Skyler is fine and that Walt is an asshole.
He had no idea what I was talking about.
It would seem that to him that anyone that smart can’t be an asshole.
I failed, at the time, to disabuse him of this thinking with real world examples.
I may at some future date.
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Maybe point out Ted Bundy, who was supposed to be quite smart… I mean if a serial killer doesn’t fit the definition of an asshole that we can all agree on, then I think we have to give up.
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