tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401830411147364284.post7276619998767856440..comments2024-03-18T19:05:39.072-07:00Comments on Morphosis: Terry Eagleton on EvilAdam Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15803399373213872690noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401830411147364284.post-15931906849064003752015-03-09T02:29:54.962-07:002015-03-09T02:29:54.962-07:00No argument from me on the magnificence of BREAKIN...No argument from me on the magnificence of BREAKING BAD as a study in evil. I think there's a reason why the 'I am the one who knocks!' moment from series 4 has become so iconic: up to that point there's this very carefully drawn sense of WW as sliding, caught up in circumstances greater than he can control: our sympathy is still with him. This is enhanced by the sense we have that he's not doing all this for himself; he's doing it for his family. He's not interested in the big car, the bling, the trappings of wealth. And the narrative so often humiliates him (I mean: leaves him standing, literally or figuratively, in only his underpants at the side of the road) that we feel he is more sinned against than sinning. What's so great about that moment ('I am not in danger; I AM the danger') is that we suddenly grasp, as if a veil is withdrawn, that he is 'in' it for something: not bling, but power; not material wealth but ego. Much more dangerous. Adam Robertshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15803399373213872690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401830411147364284.post-59475112737285684202015-03-08T15:39:18.060-07:002015-03-08T15:39:18.060-07:00What I find most impressive about Breaking Bad is ...What I find most impressive about <em>Breaking Bad</em> is the way, in its first two seasons, it shows Walter White make one small but ethically dubious decision that leads him to another slightly larger and slightly more ethically dubious decision — which he could avoid, but only at the cost of owning up to the first decision, and who wants to do that? Surely it will be possible somewhere two or three steps down the line to find an exit, a discreet door back into his former respectable life ... but no. That door never shows up. And so without ever being forced to confront, directly and without evasion, the character of his decisions, Walt finds himself a drug lord and a murderer. And someone who needs, then, to cover up his drug deals and his murders. <br /><br />It’s a remarkably convincing and compelling portrayal, I think (and by the way, the kind of thing that can only be done over a great deal of screen time or in a pretty substantial novel). And the story embodies in narrative the very points you’re making here. Alan Jacobshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06777218862490842180noreply@blogger.com