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[frelling_tralk]

Skyler is still one of the most controversial topics of conversation for Breaking Bad and viewers seem to either fall into loving her and Skyler being the best and most flawlessly badass character of the whole show, or being the worst ever and a total bitch of a wife. I'm frustrated though that some of her actual morally ambiguous acts are never

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[infinitewhale]

And she was a far more interesting character than either side want to simplify it down too. Interestingly Vince and Anna also seemed to very much fall into the category of defending Skyler as always the one in the right, even though Vince's writing and Anna's performance made it clear that Skyler was in a lot deeper than that and that, after her initial protestations at Walt dealing drugs, she did end up working alongside Walt.

Ugh. Yes. They do the same with Jesse. I was listening to the Peekaboo commentary the other day and they made a comment about the morality Walt allows Jesse to keep. Are you kidding me? Walt, Jesse, Skyler, Saul, all of them made their own choices.

I think trying to boil these characters down to all good or all bad or as all being some kind of puppets to Walt demeans them completely. They were so much more than that. I wonder if maybe that's why the finale made so many uncomfortable because it didn't play to that end.

[frelling_tralk]

Yeah I think a lot of fans had quite a one-dimensional view of Walt by the end, and so they ended up letting other characters off easy and blaming everything on Walt. I love Jesse as much as anyone, but he did cause an awful lot of his own problems and it seems like that's rarely acknowledged. I commented during my season 3 rematch that it frustrates me a little bit when viewers take his speech to Walt in the hospital as a total character truth and representative of making him some kind of woobie victim, but in the context of the episode I didn't see it that way at all. Yeah Walt had treated Jesse like crap when he cut him out of the business and Jesse was railing against that, but to blame all of his life up to then on teaming up with the great Heisenberg seems like a stretch when you look at where Jesse was already heading in the pilot episode. I always saw his speeches in that episode as meant to contrast with Hank confessing to the beating and taking full responsibility for it, while Jesse is coming up with elaborate revenge

[infinitewhale]

while Jesse is coming up with elaborate revenge schemes and blaming Walt for his having nothing in his life.

Yeah, I saw it more as an angry rant than anything. I mean, Jesse is the one who caused all that. He's the one who started cooking again. I feel sorry for him because he tended to be the one who took the beatings, but he wasn't innocent in it all.

But it's rather common. The same sort of things went down when I dipped my toe in the Sopranos fandom. And you definitely see it in Buffy/Angel fandom. It's just annoying when the writers play to it, too...assuming they do. I wonder sometimes if Vince doesn't just say things to assuage the voice. He'll say on thing then immediately say it's open to the viewer. I usually much prefer Schnauz's take on things.

[frelling_tralk]

Honestly I think that some viewers were almost hoping that Hank and Marie would recognise Jesse as a tragic figure and take him in, so they were quite taken-aback when Hank shrugged Jesse off behind his back with he wouldn't be crying if a junkie criminal did get killed while trying to bring Walt down. Jesse was definitely manipulated by Walt and his life was horribly tragic by the end of the series, but at the same time he was just as at fault for the death of that kid as Walt (well actually Mike was most at fault for bringing in the Nazi Todd in the first place...), but many viewers seemed to forget that and only blame Walt for what went down simply because he had a colder and more contained reaction and Jesse is more loveable

[infinitewhale]

Oh, I don't think Vince has any direct involvement with fans. My impression was he learned his lesson with the X-Files. I remember Schnauz once mentioning he went online after an ep and Vince just blurted out "Always a mistake. *Always* a mistake."

But I don't think he was unaware of it either, just because I know Kelly Dixon was aware of the fandom hate and thus made him aware of it. They talked about it in some of the podcasts.

He never seemed to make a conscious effort to put that onscreen, though. Were that the case, no way would Sky have suggested killing Jesse. He'll always have props in my book for not catering to one side or the other. Unlike some people who shall remained unnamed. :P

[frelling_tralk]

Yeah I got that impression from when Vince was talking about the finale and puzzling over well a dream wouldn't be such a satisfying ending for Walt, even though much of fandom *did* want Walt to suffer and be humiliated for the way that he treated the other characters and Vince seemed unaware of that. I guess that other people just tell him in general terms what the fans are saying when it comes to the widespread stuff like the Skyler hate

And yep Skyler remained very consistently written right up to the end thankfully, and there was never an attempt made to soften her, or fullfill the wishes of fans who wanted her to team up with Jesse against Walt when that would have made no sense whatsoever