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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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[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

It's all very well absolving Jesse of all responsibility just because he openly felt bad about the death, but he would have been held responsible for the death legally as it happened when they all were willingly carrying out a crime. And even after that, Jesse and Mike were still hoping to make a profit by selling their meth and Jesse was asking Walt for his share of the money.

And I think that Vince did intend all of the characters to come across as morally complex, but maybe got frustrated with the Skyler hate and so felt that he needed to emphasise that Skyler has every right to speak out about cooking meth, and he didn't want to then get into the rest of it when he was trying to defend her from irrational hate? I dunno, but I do think that he also has a sympathetic reading of Walt. A lot of viewers assumed that they were supposed to just hate Walt as the bad guy full-stop, but I don't think that Vince saw it that way. Nor do I think he had much exposure to those fans actually, when he was talking about the finale he seemed surprised at critics wanting it all to be a dream. He talked in terms of well that wouldn't be a very satisfying ending, as if he took for granted that most of the audience would want things to end with some closure for Walt.

I get the impression that many of the fans that loathed Walt assumed that he was in their wavelength after he spoke out against Skyler hate, and there was this assumption that he wanted the audience to hate Walt and side against him. I mean I can't speak for him, but I don't think that he ever wanted the audience to hate Walt as much as many of them did, any more then he wanted the obsessive stans to defend everything that Walt did and see him as the hero right up to the end. He mostly seemed interested in examining the character flaws that ultimately brought a once good man down, not telling some black and white morality play

[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