I'll try to write this without spoilers, the ending mostly, as I know a lot
of people are at various stages of the show. Some unconvinced by the early slow
pace of development, some turned away by the more lurid scenes of drug use and
violence, some just not caught up in the same thrall of the more ardent
viewers.
Whatever the reason for the limited acceptance, I don't wish to spoil any potential future commitment.
What I do wish to explore is a thought I had towards the end of the show, and how it coincided with a prominent fall from grace of another former American hero.
I guess it is true of most narrative structures that they will have blurred lines to other events, fact and fiction will combine to lead to a new creation, a new story.
Perhaps there are no new stories, nothing can ever truly be original when it is created under the influence of everything around you.
My comparison centres around Walter White and Lance Armstrong.
There are enough tangible aspects of both characters' actions and attitudes that made me see them together in a similar fashion.
The first aspect is the premise of the entire series, the prompt for everything that occurs in Albuquerque, the justification at least in early moments for what follows.
I mean of course, cancer.
The threat to life.
The knowledge of something alien within one's body that will end your existence.
To read from White's story, this comes as a freedom that permits him the bravery and assurance to do anything to provide a future for his family. His character slowly develops into Heisenberg, his bravado and lack of fear are extended by the knowledge he has nothing to lose. The ultimate thing we have to lose is our life, and he knows his is gone.
This frees him, but also enables a level of deception to his family and friends.
By being given the role of victim, he exploits and justifies irrational, abusive and ultimately criminal behaviour because he has been given a death sentence.
It's ok.
I have a free pass.
That attitude permeates into all his actions and what is from outset a necessity - must provide for my family - it quickly moves into a hunger for more power.
Power corrupts, absolute power absolutely corrupts.
But what of Armstrong in this situation? For anyone who has read his autobiography there can be no doubting the sympathy and power of feeling for his situation in this moment.
When he describes the awful, almost inhuman experience of donating sperm prior to commencing his course of treatment you cannot help but feel the emptiness he must have been overcome by.
His world had just been ended, or at least forever altered. His chances of having a family, let alone living to see it develop would have been slim to none.
But can we imagine similar motivations at that point of diagnosis in 1996? Are there echoes of that same feeling that White had?
At a point of his life where he had not achieved a great deal, Armstrong faced the end and survived. As did White.
The next element I feel has the same sense in both stories stems from the deception and casual relationship with the truth, and what is used as justification.
As a fictional television show we are far closer to White and his mood swings, we are given a full account of the lies he tells to his family, his associates (I hesitate to say friends, as I don't believe he has any), and ultimately himself.
In Armstrong's case we have seen unfold the myriad of ways in which he was untruthful through those around him, his team-mates and staff, and in an interview with Oprah, himself.
And the factor that I believe brings the closest comparison between the two characters is the charm and persuasion to both themselves and others when dealing with the reasons for deception. They have a noble cause, they are evangelists who are fighting for others (in White’s case it is his family, in Armstrong’s it is other cancer survivors).
And on this point it is hard to argue at times with the motive of helping others, perhaps you even find yourselves drawn in by that sentiment and for Armstrong it is hard to look past the enormous funds raised for charity through LiveStrong, a brand completely in tatters now.
The question will always be, do the means justify the ends? Does the great deception and tactics for winning races tarnish every penny donated to eradicate cancer?
And in the end of Breaking Bad, no spoilers I promise, can viewers accept what White did when viewed alongside his desire to create a better life for his family?
His wife and his son are interesting prisms for our own reaction; they go through the moral questioning internally to decide whether they can abide by what they now have and what was done to give it to them.
Then there is the relation of those in close working proximity to the two figures, the mixture of hatred and loyalty that feuds within that dynamic. Jessie who comes to despise his clinging reliance on White, and Emma O’Reilly who has publicly spoken about the contrasting emotions she felt while working with Armstrong, and even now how she reacts to him as a person.
It is a theme throughout much of modern culture, film, television, books, music; the charm of the scoundrel. The illogical and uncomfortable drawing in that results from those we understand are bad, but we cannot look away. For Walter White read Tony Soprano, read McNulty, Frank Underwood, Rust Cohle. In film see Henry Hill, see Travis Bickle, Michael Corleone, Patrick Bateman. In music the Stones, Sex Pistols to Eminem and Snoop Dogg.
Those that conform are, by and large, boring. Those that challenge, and often act in a way we understand to be wrong, are interesting. We are drawn to the bad, we are intrigued by their actions and what gave them rise to do such things.
Compulsion to slow down when passing a car crash is part of that instinctive nature.
From Paradise Lost to Richard III there is a sense of the devil taking the best lines, crafting an outsider narrative that is prevalent in everything from Marlon Brando and James Dean, to Elvis gyrating his hips.
Being wicked is far more exciting.
It's important to note that you cannot make comparisons of the levels of criminality of White, a fictional character, and Armstrong, a living and breathing sportsman.
But in the methods of deception, the rationale for the behaviour, the demonstrable change in psyche, and the essence of their stories, there is quite a similar quality that struck a chord in my analysis.
What I find most disturbing in looking at both White and Armstrong is the number of people who are rooting for Walter despite all his despicable acts, and while real life changes everything, far fewer seem to be on the side of Lance for his actions.
Much of that must come down to the narrative devices of television, and the storytelling from the perspective of the protagonist.
I make no judgement about either, merely seek to highlight the similarities in their circumstances.
Whatever the reason for the limited acceptance, I don't wish to spoil any potential future commitment.
What I do wish to explore is a thought I had towards the end of the show, and how it coincided with a prominent fall from grace of another former American hero.
I guess it is true of most narrative structures that they will have blurred lines to other events, fact and fiction will combine to lead to a new creation, a new story.
Perhaps there are no new stories, nothing can ever truly be original when it is created under the influence of everything around you.
My comparison centres around Walter White and Lance Armstrong.
There are enough tangible aspects of both characters' actions and attitudes that made me see them together in a similar fashion.
The first aspect is the premise of the entire series, the prompt for everything that occurs in Albuquerque, the justification at least in early moments for what follows.
I mean of course, cancer.
The threat to life.
The knowledge of something alien within one's body that will end your existence.
To read from White's story, this comes as a freedom that permits him the bravery and assurance to do anything to provide a future for his family. His character slowly develops into Heisenberg, his bravado and lack of fear are extended by the knowledge he has nothing to lose. The ultimate thing we have to lose is our life, and he knows his is gone.
This frees him, but also enables a level of deception to his family and friends.
By being given the role of victim, he exploits and justifies irrational, abusive and ultimately criminal behaviour because he has been given a death sentence.
It's ok.
I have a free pass.
That attitude permeates into all his actions and what is from outset a necessity - must provide for my family - it quickly moves into a hunger for more power.
Power corrupts, absolute power absolutely corrupts.
But what of Armstrong in this situation? For anyone who has read his autobiography there can be no doubting the sympathy and power of feeling for his situation in this moment.
When he describes the awful, almost inhuman experience of donating sperm prior to commencing his course of treatment you cannot help but feel the emptiness he must have been overcome by.
His world had just been ended, or at least forever altered. His chances of having a family, let alone living to see it develop would have been slim to none.
But can we imagine similar motivations at that point of diagnosis in 1996? Are there echoes of that same feeling that White had?
At a point of his life where he had not achieved a great deal, Armstrong faced the end and survived. As did White.
The next element I feel has the same sense in both stories stems from the deception and casual relationship with the truth, and what is used as justification.
As a fictional television show we are far closer to White and his mood swings, we are given a full account of the lies he tells to his family, his associates (I hesitate to say friends, as I don't believe he has any), and ultimately himself.
In Armstrong's case we have seen unfold the myriad of ways in which he was untruthful through those around him, his team-mates and staff, and in an interview with Oprah, himself.
And the factor that I believe brings the closest comparison between the two characters is the charm and persuasion to both themselves and others when dealing with the reasons for deception. They have a noble cause, they are evangelists who are fighting for others (in White’s case it is his family, in Armstrong’s it is other cancer survivors).
And on this point it is hard to argue at times with the motive of helping others, perhaps you even find yourselves drawn in by that sentiment and for Armstrong it is hard to look past the enormous funds raised for charity through LiveStrong, a brand completely in tatters now.
The question will always be, do the means justify the ends? Does the great deception and tactics for winning races tarnish every penny donated to eradicate cancer?
And in the end of Breaking Bad, no spoilers I promise, can viewers accept what White did when viewed alongside his desire to create a better life for his family?
His wife and his son are interesting prisms for our own reaction; they go through the moral questioning internally to decide whether they can abide by what they now have and what was done to give it to them.
Then there is the relation of those in close working proximity to the two figures, the mixture of hatred and loyalty that feuds within that dynamic. Jessie who comes to despise his clinging reliance on White, and Emma O’Reilly who has publicly spoken about the contrasting emotions she felt while working with Armstrong, and even now how she reacts to him as a person.
It is a theme throughout much of modern culture, film, television, books, music; the charm of the scoundrel. The illogical and uncomfortable drawing in that results from those we understand are bad, but we cannot look away. For Walter White read Tony Soprano, read McNulty, Frank Underwood, Rust Cohle. In film see Henry Hill, see Travis Bickle, Michael Corleone, Patrick Bateman. In music the Stones, Sex Pistols to Eminem and Snoop Dogg.
Those that conform are, by and large, boring. Those that challenge, and often act in a way we understand to be wrong, are interesting. We are drawn to the bad, we are intrigued by their actions and what gave them rise to do such things.
Compulsion to slow down when passing a car crash is part of that instinctive nature.
From Paradise Lost to Richard III there is a sense of the devil taking the best lines, crafting an outsider narrative that is prevalent in everything from Marlon Brando and James Dean, to Elvis gyrating his hips.
Being wicked is far more exciting.
It's important to note that you cannot make comparisons of the levels of criminality of White, a fictional character, and Armstrong, a living and breathing sportsman.
But in the methods of deception, the rationale for the behaviour, the demonstrable change in psyche, and the essence of their stories, there is quite a similar quality that struck a chord in my analysis.
What I find most disturbing in looking at both White and Armstrong is the number of people who are rooting for Walter despite all his despicable acts, and while real life changes everything, far fewer seem to be on the side of Lance for his actions.
Much of that must come down to the narrative devices of television, and the storytelling from the perspective of the protagonist.
I make no judgement about either, merely seek to highlight the similarities in their circumstances.
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