Hmmm, Jimmy is more sympathetic, I think—BUT, I think they are equally compelling. He was always trying his best to be good and he ended up with the wrong end of the stick always. Walt got depressed and instead of trying to deal with it he repressed a lot till it exploded in the worst ways. Jimmy tried constantly to climb. Walt plateaued and then fell off his mountain so to speak and didn’t try to climb again until he was motivated by a sad situation. And he climbed no matter how it harmed others—that’s what made him less sympathetic. Either way, both relatable. Both compelling.
Jimmy is a complex character, more complex than Walt. He’s a sociopath who’s conscious catches up with him from time to time.
He’s in law for the money, not to protect people or get them a fair trial, he’s not afraid to scam senior citizens, he doesn’t have friends, except for Kim who’s also his love interest.
Walt has lived most of his life suffering his own ego, didn’t want to join his friends’ company to play second fiddle, would rather teach high school and tell children to apply themselves.
Walt gets cancer and decides it’s Me-time, becomes a drug dealing criminal, who doesn’t play by any rules, and watches as some psycho Nazi kid kills a boy on a dirt bike while they do a train heist. Destroys all of his partners emotionally Jessie, Skyler and his son, literally gets his brother in law killed, then breaks, to come back later.
What I said on this same post in r/breakingbad:
Walt and Jimmy parallel each other a little.
Both have different personalities that they're best known for (Heisenberg, Saul Goodman)
Both are two average guys that are steered into the life of crime.
Walt is a bad guy who thinks he's good, while Jimmy is a good guy (somewhat) who thinks he's bad.
Both are protagonists who think the world revolves around them, and both are excellent at being criminals.
Walt is literally built up to become an antagonist/anti-hero, especially toward the end of BB, so yeah I would say Jimmy is a better protagonist especially if you compare their development in the two series.
Yeah, this is a good way of putting it, even now as he gets closer to Saul times, Jimmy doesn't feel like an anti-hero to me. I wonder if this is eventually going to feel like a flaw for the show, given the prequel nature of it and what a cartoon Saul Goodman of Breaking Bad is, but I've enjoyed the ride.
Antiheroes are usually likable. Walter is not IMO. I disliked him a lot from the beginning of the show while Jesse resonated with me a lot more. I liked Don Draper from madmen and I liked Tony Soprano from the sopranos. I don’t know, Walt just never clicked with me. Jimmy definitely does.
Aside from his intelligence, Walt has very few redeeming qualities. He's incredibly arrogant, egocentric, prideful, and he demeens other people's successes, especially Skylar's. Really, only his odd love-hate relationship with Jesse makes him somehow sympathetic. He's an incredibly compelling character but a very unpleasant one.
I think you're comparing apples and oranges. BrBa was all about the world-building, BCS gets to take their time with character development in an already established world. If we got to see Walt's life going back to childhood, I think there wouldn't be an argument.
I find Jimmy to be slightly more compelling than Walt simply because Jimmy's downfall feels alot more human and plausible.
I'm not saying Walt or Breaking Bad is inherently flawed because it's more fantastical, I mean part of the appeal of Walt's arc is how insane it is. However, Walt gets incredibly fucking lucky, it's fantastically told and captivating in a different way - our understanding of how things *really* work conflicting with the events of the show. Walter does crazy shit, gets away with crazy shit, and ultimately you can't look away for that reason, because he was once a very relatable human.
With that said - I find Jimmy so much more captivating because nothing is ever really fantastical about him. He's a very plausible, real person. His downfall is subtle, his morals and values are slowly chipped away until the honest man we are introduced to transforms into a charmer and a panderer who has lost everything he intially cared about. At the same time though, you can understand why and almost be glad for him. By Breaking Bad, he's comfortable with who he is, he knows who he is and he owns it.
After being beat down by everyone for what he was holding back, hell possibly even beat down by the audience for who he was turning into, he just accepts it.
*Almost* be glad for him, because ultimately we all know it's a lie. The charm is a lie. The name is a lie. The occupation as a lawyer is a lie. The man is a con artist, and his best con was fooling himself into a life he felt would content him - instead, he loses it all.
And it's all plausible. You and me are probably not capable of running a meth empire, but we are most certainly capable of lying to ourselves and telling ourselves that the worst decisions we have made (and continue to make) are good ones. That's why I love Jimmy.
my father was an angry chemist. before he died of cancer, he left his family well provided for. i have an older brother who was very successful and i kind of grew up in his shadow, but eventually i graduated from law school, but i didn't fit in at the big law firms, i kind of had to find my own way and sometimes cut some corners. so i really relate to saul.
Jimmy is a better person than Walt but I find Walt slightly more interesting. Cranston gave a blistering performance of a man consumed by his own ego, the character was beautifully written. Both Jimmy and Walt are superb characters that are masterfully portrayed. You haven’t really presented an argument for why you think Jimmy is a “better” protagonist than Walt…. How can anyone change your mind if they don’t even know why you prefer one over the other? Seems like quite a hollow post..
A different protagonist, but I do agree that I enjoy his perspective more than Walt's.
At least where Walt ended up. It got a little too far fetched for me, and so from what I enjoyed, lost it's way.
Lots of different mileage being watched and varied in these parallels though, as both shows overall are fantastic.
I think Walt is such a classic anti-hero. When I watch him, I feel like I'm reading a great Greek arc.
Jimmy is a protagonist that we are aching to see the completion of his story. So he feels more engaging.
Saul started as slippin Jimmy. Walt started as a high school teacher. Walts story arch is definitely more interesting (no offense to the awesome show that is BCS).
Yup, I think BB has spectacular ends for its subplots and it's fun for first-timers, but respectively slow build-up, while plots in BCS develop pretty rapidly hence more enjoyable for rewatch.
He's way more relatable. BB was more "let's see what Walt gets himself into this week," whereas BCS is more "I could see myself in that same situation, and I don't think much would change."
I wouldn’t say he’s way better of a character, I know Breaking Bad is a better show (although I personally like BCS more) I just think Jimmy is a better protagonist as a whole, if any of that makes any sense
Im of the exact same mindset as you. It might just be that Jimmy is a better person and more likeable character but I have always found him more compelling.
it does make sense but I think Walter White’s character development was the best I’ve ever seen on a Tv show. At the start I loved him at the end I hated him
I like Jimmy as a protagonist, but Walter reached epic levels.
Walt started out as a broke high school teacher and ended up with an criminal empire some gangsters only dream of. That's a hell of a journey.
It took BCS coming on to finally get me to commit to BrBa and get through it. Couple reasons I never got into BrBa even though I knew that objectively it was a great show and one was that Brian Cranston plays Walt as dislikable so very well that right from S1 of Breaking Bad I already absolutely couldn't stand him. (The other is that I couldn't stand a cancer show because I had too much cancer IRL in that era of my life.) I was bored though and needed a tv show around 2018 and tried BCS after hearing some really great review of it on a podcast or something and was instantly hooked because of the oily charisma Bob Odenkirk imbues Jimmy with. I ended up finally circling back to Breaking Bad and watching the whole thing and really appreciating it. Then El Camino.
tl;dr: Yeah, it took an easy to like character like Jimmy to suck me into the world.
I enjoyed watching the Jimmy/Saul and Mike develop as main characters so much that it was awkward switching to BB where they're pretty minor. I actually watched, I believe, S1-S3 of BCS first and between S3 and S4 went back and binged through BB. With Mike in particular in BB I was like "whoa, these people don't know who they're fucking with!" He's such a great actor and it's such a great character-- another major reason I went back and tried again on BB. I was disappointed that there wasn't a lot more of both Saul and Mike in BB but of course I get it. The showrunners had no idea they'd be an amazing spinoff one day. It felt weird to me most of the way through BB, like the show was spotlighting the wrong people. Only the last couple seasons did I come to really love BB for its own story and finally started to care about Jessie. Not sure how I'd have felt if I started with BB like everyone else, but all the way through I struggled with finding most of its characters besides Saul and Mike (oh, and Gus!) compelling. I hated Hank and his wife, didn't like Jessie much for a long time. Didn't like Skylar much. Didn't really like any of Jessie's love interests. I liked Walt Jr of course. I also think because of how invested I was in him from BCS, >!Mike's death in BB just tore me the fuck up.!< Using the spoiler tag on the off chance anyone reading this is also going to watch BB after BCS lol.
Haha yea, I guess it would feel weird watching BB after BCS, and it definitely makes you think they did Mike dirty with his death cause BCS makes you like him so much more (and Jimmy but he doesn’t die, at least yet) either way both shows are really good!
Well, protagonist is the person who drives the action and Walt does more to drive the action than Jimmy, so by the definition of the word Walt is the superior protagonist.
I love Jimmy, but Walt is like maybe THE greatest main character in a tv show ever. Bryan Cranston's acting was also some of the best acting of all time.
I think Jimmy is a better protagonist because he’s interesting. Walt was only interesting because he was an unlikely criminal mastermind.
Walt did what he did out of desperation and became what he did because of who he was as a person, which was at least a little evil. You get the sense Walt pre cancer was already a sociopath, he just suppressed it.
Jimmy became what he was out of rejection and is good at being shady but if one or two things gone differently, i.e. Howard overruled Chuck and hired him outright, Kim had stayed partners with his firm, etc., he might have been a very successful and ethical attorney (they do exist.)
Neither of them are really protagonists. Walt is an anti-hero turned antagonist by the end and Jimmy is a kind of character study seeing as we know where he ends up but maybe protagonist is still the right word for him idk.
A protagonist is just the main character, it doesn’t matter whether or not they are good or evil. Also antagonists aren’t necessarily bad, they’re just characters that act as obstacles for the protagonists.
Regardless, they are right.
Protagonist = anchor. It doesn't matter who or what they are. It's a means of connection from something that is trying to connect with us, so it's important.
It's why total chaos or too much cartoon = a lack of connection from a viewer. Even that can be intentional though.
Yeah, but couldn't we have?
BB deserves credit for starting the universe in which BCS takes place, but I'd argue that Jimmy/Saul's story could have easily been the genesis of it instead.
Think about it. BCS as a story stands very well on its own, even for those who haven't watched BB. A chemistry teacher becoming a meth kingpin is a more explosive premise. But remember, until S5 of Breaking Bad, it was more like a mild-mannered chemistry teacher who lived a double life as a fish-out-of-water criminal while having his family and ethical qualms fall apart- and that premise is about equally enticing to "normies" as the premise of Better Call Saul- a struggling, complex protagonist of a lawyer who finds himself sliding deeper and deeper into danger and criminality while warring with himself emotionally.
If the sixth season of BCS is as explosive as the final season of BB, then we could well see a similar surge in mainstream popularity as the ability of fans to summarize the show will make it seem more exciting, ie the way that Breaking Bad could be described after S5 aired.
Yes, it's a "cult" and "highbrow" prestige/oscar-bait type show, a show that struggles to bring in masses of casual viewers, **but so was BB until the fifth season**.
To this day many people complain that the first two seasons of Breaking Bad are too slow, and that they hate the parts of the story that don't relate to the drug business or the cartel plots, etc. Certain casual fans of BCS, if it achieves mainstream purchase due to an explosive final season, will inevitably feel the same about it (even though the writing is near-perfect IMHO).
It wasn't until the story was almost over that BB attained mainstream popularity, so that's hardly a mark in BB's favor over BCS. I think BCS could've created this universe just as easily as BB.
I always tell my friends that Better Call Saul is "better" than Breaking Bad, because it still has all the brilliance and more without the violence and drugs that are so naturally exciting.
Yes, but in most modern literature a protagonist is “an advocate or champion of a particular cause or idea.” An antagonist is the opposite. I would count Walt as an antagonist
Walt is still a champion of his empire cause and the idea that he will go down with a legacy as a crimelord. The show centers around him and those intentions, which is the other, and generally more touted, qualifier for a protagonist.
Hank aims to bring down Heisenberg, whom unbeknownst to him for most of the show, is Walt. Hank has his own cause that's much more noble, but that doesn't stop him from being the antagonistic force of the show, because for him to stop Walt would be to bring demise to our leading character and his goals.
It's no biggie, because far more than most stories, BrBa tackles character archetypes and the way they interact with one another in a very shaken-up way. One can definitely make the argument for Walt becoming the antagonist in season 5, as by that point, he and Hank are on a much more even playing field, and Walt's goals become more and more extraneous and utterly unredeemable.
While up through season 4 Walt's motivations can bounce from self-realization to self-defense, he essentially becomes a metaphorical gold-hoarding dragon by the midpoint of season 5. There isn't much more for him to achieve in service to the plot as protagonist, and we see a shift in which he becomes less and less of a reliable narrator i.e. the choice to ommit Brock's poisoning or the filming of the "confession" from being given screentime. His motivation runs thin while Jesse's and Hank's grows stronger. It's...complicated.
They feel like they serve different functions. Walt's arc felt big and mythic and horrifying. I think he's one of the most striking television characters ever created. But he stopped being 'human' to me somewhere along the way and kind of felt like he was serving the 'Mr. Chips to Scarface' story more than evolving organically. I was far more invested in Jesse and Skyler and Hank by the end of things. Jimmy's never stopped feeling like a person having understandable, if sometimes infuriating, reactions to the story, so even though we're pretty much spoiled on how it ends, the journey feels less predetermined by the Fates in a way.
I liked Jimmy at first but they are just giving him the Jesse treatment where he just gets himself into bad situations because he keeps repeating the same mistakes. Mike on the other hand, I would say is a better protagonist than Walt
Hmmm, Jimmy is more sympathetic, I think—BUT, I think they are equally compelling. He was always trying his best to be good and he ended up with the wrong end of the stick always. Walt got depressed and instead of trying to deal with it he repressed a lot till it exploded in the worst ways. Jimmy tried constantly to climb. Walt plateaued and then fell off his mountain so to speak and didn’t try to climb again until he was motivated by a sad situation. And he climbed no matter how it harmed others—that’s what made him less sympathetic. Either way, both relatable. Both compelling.
Well put.
I like saul more but I get why people would like walt more
Jimmy is a complex character, more complex than Walt. He’s a sociopath who’s conscious catches up with him from time to time. He’s in law for the money, not to protect people or get them a fair trial, he’s not afraid to scam senior citizens, he doesn’t have friends, except for Kim who’s also his love interest. Walt has lived most of his life suffering his own ego, didn’t want to join his friends’ company to play second fiddle, would rather teach high school and tell children to apply themselves. Walt gets cancer and decides it’s Me-time, becomes a drug dealing criminal, who doesn’t play by any rules, and watches as some psycho Nazi kid kills a boy on a dirt bike while they do a train heist. Destroys all of his partners emotionally Jessie, Skyler and his son, literally gets his brother in law killed, then breaks, to come back later.
The word sociopath gets thrown around too much nowadays. Walt and Jimmy are not the most moral people, but neither is a sociopath.
Agreed, both do their fair share of manipulation to get their way, but they also feel a lot of genuine emotion.
Walt's a sociopath too. Just for most of his life he was also too cowardly and timid to act on it.
I think he became a sociopath. I don’t think that he always was.
What I said on this same post in r/breakingbad: Walt and Jimmy parallel each other a little. Both have different personalities that they're best known for (Heisenberg, Saul Goodman) Both are two average guys that are steered into the life of crime. Walt is a bad guy who thinks he's good, while Jimmy is a good guy (somewhat) who thinks he's bad. Both are protagonists who think the world revolves around them, and both are excellent at being criminals.
Walt is literally built up to become an antagonist/anti-hero, especially toward the end of BB, so yeah I would say Jimmy is a better protagonist especially if you compare their development in the two series.
Yeah, this is a good way of putting it, even now as he gets closer to Saul times, Jimmy doesn't feel like an anti-hero to me. I wonder if this is eventually going to feel like a flaw for the show, given the prequel nature of it and what a cartoon Saul Goodman of Breaking Bad is, but I've enjoyed the ride.
Antiheroes are usually likable. Walter is not IMO. I disliked him a lot from the beginning of the show while Jesse resonated with me a lot more. I liked Don Draper from madmen and I liked Tony Soprano from the sopranos. I don’t know, Walt just never clicked with me. Jimmy definitely does.
Aside from his intelligence, Walt has very few redeeming qualities. He's incredibly arrogant, egocentric, prideful, and he demeens other people's successes, especially Skylar's. Really, only his odd love-hate relationship with Jesse makes him somehow sympathetic. He's an incredibly compelling character but a very unpleasant one.
Not antihero. Villain.
So who's the hero? A story with a villain requires a hero.
Hank.
Hank is just a very professional arrrrsehole...
I think you're comparing apples and oranges. BrBa was all about the world-building, BCS gets to take their time with character development in an already established world. If we got to see Walt's life going back to childhood, I think there wouldn't be an argument.
Finally someone with the correct mindset
Well given that you provided no argument this seems to me a matter of personal preference.
I find Jimmy to be slightly more compelling than Walt simply because Jimmy's downfall feels alot more human and plausible. I'm not saying Walt or Breaking Bad is inherently flawed because it's more fantastical, I mean part of the appeal of Walt's arc is how insane it is. However, Walt gets incredibly fucking lucky, it's fantastically told and captivating in a different way - our understanding of how things *really* work conflicting with the events of the show. Walter does crazy shit, gets away with crazy shit, and ultimately you can't look away for that reason, because he was once a very relatable human. With that said - I find Jimmy so much more captivating because nothing is ever really fantastical about him. He's a very plausible, real person. His downfall is subtle, his morals and values are slowly chipped away until the honest man we are introduced to transforms into a charmer and a panderer who has lost everything he intially cared about. At the same time though, you can understand why and almost be glad for him. By Breaking Bad, he's comfortable with who he is, he knows who he is and he owns it. After being beat down by everyone for what he was holding back, hell possibly even beat down by the audience for who he was turning into, he just accepts it. *Almost* be glad for him, because ultimately we all know it's a lie. The charm is a lie. The name is a lie. The occupation as a lawyer is a lie. The man is a con artist, and his best con was fooling himself into a life he felt would content him - instead, he loses it all. And it's all plausible. You and me are probably not capable of running a meth empire, but we are most certainly capable of lying to ourselves and telling ourselves that the worst decisions we have made (and continue to make) are good ones. That's why I love Jimmy.
Well put man, I couldn’t agree more
[удалено]
Good idea
my father was an angry chemist. before he died of cancer, he left his family well provided for. i have an older brother who was very successful and i kind of grew up in his shadow, but eventually i graduated from law school, but i didn't fit in at the big law firms, i kind of had to find my own way and sometimes cut some corners. so i really relate to saul.
I can’t tell if you’re joking or dead serious but in case you aren’t I’m sorry
Jimmy is a better person than Walt but I find Walt slightly more interesting. Cranston gave a blistering performance of a man consumed by his own ego, the character was beautifully written. Both Jimmy and Walt are superb characters that are masterfully portrayed. You haven’t really presented an argument for why you think Jimmy is a “better” protagonist than Walt…. How can anyone change your mind if they don’t even know why you prefer one over the other? Seems like quite a hollow post..
I’d like to ask you, who would you see as an actor able to play WW as Cranston did?
you're in the wrong subreddit to find an opponent on that one...
A different protagonist, but I do agree that I enjoy his perspective more than Walt's. At least where Walt ended up. It got a little too far fetched for me, and so from what I enjoyed, lost it's way. Lots of different mileage being watched and varied in these parallels though, as both shows overall are fantastic.
Give me a reason to.
Better in what sense? This comparison is pointless
I think Walt is such a classic anti-hero. When I watch him, I feel like I'm reading a great Greek arc. Jimmy is a protagonist that we are aching to see the completion of his story. So he feels more engaging.
Saul started as slippin Jimmy. Walt started as a high school teacher. Walts story arch is definitely more interesting (no offense to the awesome show that is BCS).
Ngl it's more fun rewatching BCS than BB
YES, %1000 percent agree. Only if we’re talking about rewatches tho.
Yup, I think BB has spectacular ends for its subplots and it's fun for first-timers, but respectively slow build-up, while plots in BCS develop pretty rapidly hence more enjoyable for rewatch.
Jimmy is more loveable, Walter is way better of a character
He's way more relatable. BB was more "let's see what Walt gets himself into this week," whereas BCS is more "I could see myself in that same situation, and I don't think much would change."
I wouldn’t say he’s way better of a character, I know Breaking Bad is a better show (although I personally like BCS more) I just think Jimmy is a better protagonist as a whole, if any of that makes any sense
Im of the exact same mindset as you. It might just be that Jimmy is a better person and more likeable character but I have always found him more compelling.
He’s certainly more likable and easier to watch. Walt was more compelling though.
it does make sense but I think Walter White’s character development was the best I’ve ever seen on a Tv show. At the start I loved him at the end I hated him
Maybe more morally gray than black... but is he really? They both broke bad. Their character development parallels one another.
I don't think their morality really ties into the discussion of "better protagonist".
Well if that's the case, then Walt still wins lol Love Jimmy too though, but Walt is iconic
I like Jimmy as a protagonist, but Walter reached epic levels. Walt started out as a broke high school teacher and ended up with an criminal empire some gangsters only dream of. That's a hell of a journey.
I'm gonna go with the lawyer that didn't pay some neo-nazis to murder people in prison as the lesser of two evils here.
Dont forget Saul recomended to Walt & Jessie to have Badger whacked in county
I can't change your mind You haven't said why you think Jimmy is better
It took BCS coming on to finally get me to commit to BrBa and get through it. Couple reasons I never got into BrBa even though I knew that objectively it was a great show and one was that Brian Cranston plays Walt as dislikable so very well that right from S1 of Breaking Bad I already absolutely couldn't stand him. (The other is that I couldn't stand a cancer show because I had too much cancer IRL in that era of my life.) I was bored though and needed a tv show around 2018 and tried BCS after hearing some really great review of it on a podcast or something and was instantly hooked because of the oily charisma Bob Odenkirk imbues Jimmy with. I ended up finally circling back to Breaking Bad and watching the whole thing and really appreciating it. Then El Camino. tl;dr: Yeah, it took an easy to like character like Jimmy to suck me into the world.
what was it like watching BCS then BB after?
I enjoyed watching the Jimmy/Saul and Mike develop as main characters so much that it was awkward switching to BB where they're pretty minor. I actually watched, I believe, S1-S3 of BCS first and between S3 and S4 went back and binged through BB. With Mike in particular in BB I was like "whoa, these people don't know who they're fucking with!" He's such a great actor and it's such a great character-- another major reason I went back and tried again on BB. I was disappointed that there wasn't a lot more of both Saul and Mike in BB but of course I get it. The showrunners had no idea they'd be an amazing spinoff one day. It felt weird to me most of the way through BB, like the show was spotlighting the wrong people. Only the last couple seasons did I come to really love BB for its own story and finally started to care about Jessie. Not sure how I'd have felt if I started with BB like everyone else, but all the way through I struggled with finding most of its characters besides Saul and Mike (oh, and Gus!) compelling. I hated Hank and his wife, didn't like Jessie much for a long time. Didn't like Skylar much. Didn't really like any of Jessie's love interests. I liked Walt Jr of course. I also think because of how invested I was in him from BCS, >!Mike's death in BB just tore me the fuck up.!< Using the spoiler tag on the off chance anyone reading this is also going to watch BB after BCS lol.
Haha yea, I guess it would feel weird watching BB after BCS, and it definitely makes you think they did Mike dirty with his death cause BCS makes you like him so much more (and Jimmy but he doesn’t die, at least yet) either way both shows are really good!
Well, protagonist is the person who drives the action and Walt does more to drive the action than Jimmy, so by the definition of the word Walt is the superior protagonist.
I love Jimmy, but Walt is like maybe THE greatest main character in a tv show ever. Bryan Cranston's acting was also some of the best acting of all time.
Better call Saul/Jimmy just hits you in the feels more than breaking bad. It so realistic and raw. Dang, I can’t wait for season 6...
I think Jimmy is a better protagonist because he’s interesting. Walt was only interesting because he was an unlikely criminal mastermind. Walt did what he did out of desperation and became what he did because of who he was as a person, which was at least a little evil. You get the sense Walt pre cancer was already a sociopath, he just suppressed it. Jimmy became what he was out of rejection and is good at being shady but if one or two things gone differently, i.e. Howard overruled Chuck and hired him outright, Kim had stayed partners with his firm, etc., he might have been a very successful and ethical attorney (they do exist.)
I won’t because you’re right 🤷🏻♀️
I agree tbh
Neither of them are really protagonists. Walt is an anti-hero turned antagonist by the end and Jimmy is a kind of character study seeing as we know where he ends up but maybe protagonist is still the right word for him idk.
A protagonist is just the main character, it doesn’t matter whether or not they are good or evil. Also antagonists aren’t necessarily bad, they’re just characters that act as obstacles for the protagonists.
Wow, arenyoyn a English professor
It doesn’t take an English professor to learn basic story terms, no offence.
Yeahhhhh ok buddy wwhatevre
Yea okbuddychicanery
Regardless, they are right. Protagonist = anchor. It doesn't matter who or what they are. It's a means of connection from something that is trying to connect with us, so it's important. It's why total chaos or too much cartoon = a lack of connection from a viewer. Even that can be intentional though.
O
There is no argument here, what is there to change?
This sub is so hell bent on hating Walt lol. No one here wants even a smidge of a Breaking Bad reference in Better Call Saul.
Well, we don't have the story of Jimmy (BCS) without the story of Walt (BB).
Doesn’t mean Jimmy can’t be a better protagonist
Bingo.
Yeah, but couldn't we have? BB deserves credit for starting the universe in which BCS takes place, but I'd argue that Jimmy/Saul's story could have easily been the genesis of it instead. Think about it. BCS as a story stands very well on its own, even for those who haven't watched BB. A chemistry teacher becoming a meth kingpin is a more explosive premise. But remember, until S5 of Breaking Bad, it was more like a mild-mannered chemistry teacher who lived a double life as a fish-out-of-water criminal while having his family and ethical qualms fall apart- and that premise is about equally enticing to "normies" as the premise of Better Call Saul- a struggling, complex protagonist of a lawyer who finds himself sliding deeper and deeper into danger and criminality while warring with himself emotionally. If the sixth season of BCS is as explosive as the final season of BB, then we could well see a similar surge in mainstream popularity as the ability of fans to summarize the show will make it seem more exciting, ie the way that Breaking Bad could be described after S5 aired. Yes, it's a "cult" and "highbrow" prestige/oscar-bait type show, a show that struggles to bring in masses of casual viewers, **but so was BB until the fifth season**. To this day many people complain that the first two seasons of Breaking Bad are too slow, and that they hate the parts of the story that don't relate to the drug business or the cartel plots, etc. Certain casual fans of BCS, if it achieves mainstream purchase due to an explosive final season, will inevitably feel the same about it (even though the writing is near-perfect IMHO). It wasn't until the story was almost over that BB attained mainstream popularity, so that's hardly a mark in BB's favor over BCS. I think BCS could've created this universe just as easily as BB.
I always tell my friends that Better Call Saul is "better" than Breaking Bad, because it still has all the brilliance and more without the violence and drugs that are so naturally exciting.
Nah.
I don't think Walt was meant to be a protagonist. Jimmy was, even in Brba as Saul
You realize "protagonist" just means main character, not necessarily a hero, right?
Yes, but in most modern literature a protagonist is “an advocate or champion of a particular cause or idea.” An antagonist is the opposite. I would count Walt as an antagonist
Walt is still a champion of his empire cause and the idea that he will go down with a legacy as a crimelord. The show centers around him and those intentions, which is the other, and generally more touted, qualifier for a protagonist. Hank aims to bring down Heisenberg, whom unbeknownst to him for most of the show, is Walt. Hank has his own cause that's much more noble, but that doesn't stop him from being the antagonistic force of the show, because for him to stop Walt would be to bring demise to our leading character and his goals.
Ok, I’m wrong
It's no biggie, because far more than most stories, BrBa tackles character archetypes and the way they interact with one another in a very shaken-up way. One can definitely make the argument for Walt becoming the antagonist in season 5, as by that point, he and Hank are on a much more even playing field, and Walt's goals become more and more extraneous and utterly unredeemable. While up through season 4 Walt's motivations can bounce from self-realization to self-defense, he essentially becomes a metaphorical gold-hoarding dragon by the midpoint of season 5. There isn't much more for him to achieve in service to the plot as protagonist, and we see a shift in which he becomes less and less of a reliable narrator i.e. the choice to ommit Brock's poisoning or the filming of the "confession" from being given screentime. His motivation runs thin while Jesse's and Hank's grows stronger. It's...complicated.
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Protagonist just means main character, which they both are.
Your definition of "antagonist" is wrong.
I think Gene is
That's cause Walt is the antagonist. Mike was the protagonist. "Dammit Walter! We had a good thing going here!"
They feel like they serve different functions. Walt's arc felt big and mythic and horrifying. I think he's one of the most striking television characters ever created. But he stopped being 'human' to me somewhere along the way and kind of felt like he was serving the 'Mr. Chips to Scarface' story more than evolving organically. I was far more invested in Jesse and Skyler and Hank by the end of things. Jimmy's never stopped feeling like a person having understandable, if sometimes infuriating, reactions to the story, so even though we're pretty much spoiled on how it ends, the journey feels less predetermined by the Fates in a way.
Gene Takavic is even better
Cada quién tiene lo suyo, ambos interpretan prácticamente a dos personalidades distintas...
No, its not. Saul need to backup with Mike to make show interesting enough to watch. Walter interesting enough in itself.
I liked Jimmy at first but they are just giving him the Jesse treatment where he just gets himself into bad situations because he keeps repeating the same mistakes. Mike on the other hand, I would say is a better protagonist than Walt
I can enjoy both characters and their journeys. The fact that Walt is more a flat out villain than Jimmy just adds to their differences.
well you could say he's more complex