[nkrisc]

I only watched the first few seasons of IASIP, but I don’t remember them being sympathetic characters at all. The whole concept, and what made it funny, I thought, is that they really are all terrible people who just drag each other down.

[sanderjd]

Yeah, the conceit of Seinfeld was that the characters were crappy, but you liked them because they were funny. But they didn't actually lean into that as hard as, say, the finale would suggest. All of the characters have something sympathetic that you can like about them, even if you can buy the thesis that they are unsympathetic broadly.

The genius of IASIP is to just lean all the way into this trope. The characters are never sympathetic and never redeem themselves. It's almost an experiment in whether you can make people feel sympathetic toward awful (but entertaining) characters just through long familiarity with them. (Yes.)

[lotsofpulp]

It would be disturbing to find out people sympathize with the IASIP characters.

[cogman10]

They were more human and relatable in the very early seasons. It was just a bunch of people dicking around trying to run a bar (for the most part).

As time went on, they become more and more awful.

I'd say it has a pretty decent parallel with Breaking Bad. In season 1 almost anyone can relate to and cheers for Walter. By the last season, you hate him and are happy he dies.

[lotsofpulp]

They were committing various felonies in the first season, if I recall. It couldn’t have been more clear that these characters are bad people who will do almost anything to get what they want. The humor lies in the arbitrary and inconsistent boundaries they set for themselves and each other.

Contrast with the initial good intentions of Walt in Breaking Bad. The IASIP characters never had good intentions.

[watwut]

Walt never really had a good intentions. That is what first season done - he had an out and legal access to money. But he was likable and all of the consequences were not yet known.

[dyauspitr]

I don’t believe most Americans would hate Walter, even at the very end. Americans hate Skylar.

[sanderjd]

No way. Everyone hates Walter at the end. If he had plausibly maintained the "I was doing it for my family" pose, then maybe, yeah. But the whole point of the last season was putting that idea to bed, demonstrating that it was always destructive selfishness.

[dyauspitr]

Yes rationally he should be hated, it just doesn’t appear he is from a lot of discussions and forums online.

[sanderjd]

It's just not gonna generate a lot of discussion to say "the intended interpretation of the character is correct". The reason Skylar gets a lot of discussion is that there's a lot of disagreement on the interpretation of that character.

[simoncion]

> Everyone hates Walter at the end.

Hate? Nah. He's tragic.

Does he do evil, despicable things? Absolutely. Are most of those things done because of jealousy, rage, or a failure to bother to understand the context in which he's operating? Definitely. But, like, unless you've never been jealous, blindingly angry, foolish, or far too hasty, you can see where (assuming turning yourself in to the cops isn't an option [0]) you might end up making similar choices. [1]

Is he prideful, wrathful, did he do many evil things? Yes, yes, and yes. It's not unreasonable to call his (in)actions -on balance- monstrous. But he's also relatable/understandable in a -er- "Greek tragedy" sort of way. He's a blunderer and a wrecker who probably deserved far worse than he got, but I find it dreadfully difficult to hate him when I consider the entire story.

[0] Which it pretty much immediately absolutely was not. Even at the start, all the money he made would have been forfeit and (because the USian "Drug War" is batshit crazy) prosecutors probably would have found a way to take the house and cars, leaving his family way worse off than if he'd done nothing at all.

[1] Having said that, there are so many points of decision that the odds that you'd walk his path exactly are approximately zero.

[sanderjd]

Hate at the end, yes. Tragic, also yes. There's no contradiction here!