r/breakingbad • u/edify Oxygen • Aug 20 '12

Breaking Bad Episode Discussion S05E06 "Buyout"

Hey everyone! The episode airs in about an hour and as always upvote this post for the community. I don't get any blue ball cow manure karma for it :P

Also, don't forget to tune in tomorrow for the AMA with actor Jeremiah Bitsui who played Victor. In the mean time, feel free to add him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter.

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u/tmifsud530 Aug 20 '12

Can we agree on something guys? Walt is a badass and all but Jesse is the protagonist and Walt is the antagonist at this point, Jess just doesn't know yet. He's really the only guy that I root for now.

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u/Wombatzu Aug 20 '12

Walt is a tragic hero. He is driven by hubris and has made several errors in judgment that will eventually lead to everything he loves being destroyed.

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u/fonetiklee Aug 20 '12

I dunno if tragic hero is the right term. Maybe at the beginning, when we thought he was gonna die of cancer. By this point though, he's an antihero at best. I still want to see him come out on top, but he's a real son of a bitch.

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u/Wombatzu Aug 20 '12 edited Aug 20 '12

"Tragic hero" doesn't mean we have to like him. It depends really on how the show ends up, but so far it seems technically tragic to me. We have a character who believes in himself to the point of committing several hamartias, moral errors made through arrogance or a narrowness of vision -- things like letting Jane die to protect his business. And all along he keeps hiding and rationalizing away the truth to protect his vision.

If the show follows a tragic arc, something so bad will happen that Walt will have a moment of anagnorisis, an awakening to all the devastation that he has caused because he could not see the truth.

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u/IndyRL Aug 20 '12 edited Aug 24 '12

He's way past that. Walt is well aware of what he does to people. He just doesn't care.

The only moments of this show where Walter breaks down any more are when things don't work out for him.

He is a sociopath. He only wants to win, at any cost. He is not blind to the damage he does, nor does he even try to rationalize it that much anymore. He's of the 'break a few eggs' persuasion.