/lit/ - Literature

This show really is like a great American epic. It's divided into three separate, but equally important sections...

Section 1 - Season 1 and Season 2: This section sees Walter White, an average, underachieving high school chemist, get diagnosed with cancer, and pick up an old partner and some gas masks to cook meth. Here is where we see the problems Walt faces in his naive plan, in regards to his partner, getting his product moved, and holding on to the money he makes. By the end of the second season, Walter has technically achieved what he set out to accomplish, but at the cost of the only reason he ever opted to accomplish this goal in the first place.

Section 2 - Season 3 and Season 4: This section sees Walter White becoming increasingly addicted and fascinated by the meth business, in which he and his partner begin to have even more success under the wing of a powerful benefactor, Gus Fring. He is making more money they he ever did when he was independent, and his relationship with Jesse is at its best. But, we also see the paranoia and distress that is befalling Walter, which leads to his season-long war with Fring, until ultimately, Walter comes out as the victor. At the end of Season 4, the show could've ended there and it would've been absolutely perfect.

Section 3 - Season 5: In all seriousness, Season 4 is the real "ending" to the story of Walter White. After a dangerous and seemingly uphill battle with a nearly impenetrable foe, Gus Fring, Walter finally defeats him, keeps his family on a road to financial success, and leaves things with his partner on the best note possible. But, Breaking Bad was never about easy exits. Season 5 acts as the greatest (and, darkest) epilogue ever written for television. The main enemy is defeated, but Walt can no longer escape from his personal demons. He also encounters the greatest enemy of all, Uncle Jack, a powerful neo-nazi, who acts as Walt's bodyguard. That said, Uncle Jack was also driven by money and power, and his manipulative ways seem to mirror Walt's ever move. While Gus Fring was the villain that Walt needed to defeat, Uncle Jack was what Walt saw when he looked in the mirror. Ultimately, Walt's pride got the better of him, and as a result, he loses everything near and dear to him. In the end, he rights every wrong he can, and he saved the most important thing to him all along: Jesse.

Breaking Bad is firmly planted as one of the greatest television dramas of all time. It's not difficult to see why.


Quoting a person whom I whole heartedly agree with.

to the white sea

>>5349898
poe nigger

>>5349898
>defined a new genre

A Sopranos rip-off without anything interesting to say about art/culture/society and nowhere near as funny?

It's been done

How is showing the progression from normal guy to criminal a new genre

>>5349907
Uh what? Sopranos is about gangsters, this was about a normal everyday man.


t. haven't watched sopranos yet


>>5349908
? The series redefined the entire "bad guy as main character" genre, with Fargo following up on it, solely due to BB.

>>5349898
Infinite Jest

>>5349911
You are the kanker that has killed Krautchan.

>>5349915
What is krautchan?

>>5349902
>evil neo-nazis
>greatest (and, darkest) epilogue ever written for television

season 5 was awful

>>5349921
What? Part 1 of S5 was GOAT season.

Part 2 had to tone it down, since they can't start new plots so late. Also it had ozmynadias.

>>5349898
oh fuck this bait.
Sopranes was the whole kickstarter for "gritty" TV-drama.
Breaking Pleb is overhyped as fuck.

>>5349911
>The series redefined the entire "bad guy as main character" genre

Well then the answer is anything by Christopher Marlowe

>>5349939
Thanks, any specific work?


>>5349930
It's not about gritty, u fucking retard. Read the thread before posting your hypothesis.

>>5349898
>A book that defined a new genre, and no book has yet to live up to it.

new tripfag pls go

>>5349940
Breaking Pleb didn't define anything.
It's enjoyable, but genre-defining?
plebbity pleb

>>5349943
>>5349930
lol, quite obvious.


>>5349943
Also, nice contribution to the thread. Just hide it if you dislike it.

>>5349911
>edgy criminal anti-hero
>struggles to balance family and life of crime
>nagging wife is a pain in his ass: they fight, the split up, they get back together
>attempts to challenge how the audience views violent characters by making you sympathize with a man who is ultimately cold heated and evil
>leading men struggle with feelings of inadequacy due to events in their past
>both of their sons are somehow deficient and struggle to find their own identity in the shadow of their fathers who have trouble connecting with them
>younger protege who struggles with drugs, ultimately they lose patience with them and have them killed (BrBa subverted this, barely)
>large egos create many enemies, and they die in the final episode

Is there even one plot point from BrBa not directly lifted from The Sopranos?

>>5349948
Yes it did. Fargo came out just some years after, and we could notice the clear inspiration that series had drawn from Breaking Bad.


The, anti-villain type of character, and this genre, was defined by BB.

>>5349959
As I have stated, I have not yet watched sopranos so I can not argue with you there.

>>5349960
Fargo was a (somewhat hamfisted) satire on the anti hero trend that has been beaten into the ground for past 10 years.

>>5349898
where are the janitors when you need them?

>>5349960
that was not a genre, it's just normal Drama.
why does everything need to be a new genre?
i'll just make a TV-series about a gay muslim donkey and call it a new genre.
sure

>>5349968
What? How was it satirical?


>>5349975
This is related to literature, this is a literature image board. Where are we doing something wrong?

>>5349977
Yes, if you do that then you have created that genre. That does not mean that that specific genre will take off.

>>5349988
lol Breaking Bad ended this year.
who says it will take off?
also, Sopranos is just like Breaking Bad therefore, the Sopranos were genre defining, BrBa only jumped on the hype-train.
now stop b8ing

>>5349988
pssst: books don't create "genres", a good book contains everything in the world

>>5349983
Malvo was an exaggeration of the 'nihilist super bad ass killer' archetype, and Lester was an exaggeration of the 'bumbling suburban loser thrust into a life of crime' archetype. Both had their characters taken to such an extreme and had their stories play out in such a way that it was clear the writers were being self aware and sharing a knowing wink with the viewer about how ridiculous these characters were.

>>5350010
Then why did they play with Malvo being a supernatural force so much?

>>5349898

Pick any book that is incredible for 95% of its length and then just flops the fuck out of the last paragraph (not chapter).

Still an incredible book. Just sucks at the end.


Breaking Bad should have ended with "Granite State," when he put the glass on the bar and the theme song started to play as he walked out.

>>5350000
this year? What year are you living in?


>>5350003
What.. No it doesn't. Go back to your shakespeare.

>>5350010
But it was based on the movie and the news stories, so it wasn't made as a reaction to the increasement of these kinds of shows.

>>5350022
>Go back to your shakespeare.
is this supposed to be an insult?
are you a fantasy/YA fictions reader?

>>5350022
b8. seriously guys, stop replying to this tripcancer

>>5349898
oedipus rex

>>5350024

Now, now, Billy Shakes was low culture for his time too. Let's not forget that.

>>5350042
"literature" as a whole, except for poetry, was low culture up until the end of 19th century.

>>5350024
No, I am just saying that he is a bit too mainstream for me, and I think that he tries to fit in every genre.


>>5350029
Hide the thread, u assblasted faggot.

>>5350054
ohh shit now the b8 is obvious
>likes BrBa
>Shakespeare is too mainstream for me

>>5350054
Shakespeare is mainstream, but Breaking Bad isn't?

>>5350019
Just think of that as the original ending and the author added an afterword as fanservice in later editions.

>>5350060
>>5350061
What?


Shakespeare was required reading in high school, but BB was never required for me to watch.


I believe that more people have read shakespeare, than watched BB. Fuck off.

>>5350046

I'm not a history major, so correct me if I'm wrong, but from my understanding, the theater was viewed as being towards the bottom of that spectrum of (your quotation) "literature."

Not sure how you exclude poetry from that bunch, though.

>>5350074
Seriously? Go to any random person and ask them what they think of Shakespeare and BrBa. Almost every single one will give you a "OMG BrBa was so epic! Jesse is my favorite character!" in contrast with "Lol who reads Shakespeare? I read Romeo and Juliet when I was 14 but couldn't understand it xD"

>Lord of the Rings is too mainstream, I read ASOIAF.

>>5350074
>but BB was never required for me to watch.
pretty much in the same way that you are not required to eat at mcdonald's, you fat american

you ask for books, but you don't even have a proper understanding of literature and how it works.


>>5350075
Depends on the kind of theatre. Tragedies were considered high art in the classical era, especially in France (see Corneille, Racine).
Literature was considered low brow because it was seen as a form of pure entertainment, where spiritual needs were fulfilled by religion, religious paintings, music, and poetry. That changed with secularisation - at least that's how i understand the whole thing.

>>5350086
>LE I WAS BORN IN THE WRONG GENERATION


What retarded social circles do you hang out in, where any random person has not read Shakespeare?


PS, Working class need not apply.

>>5350093
"reading" Romeo and Juliet, moreso, pages of it, doesn't mean that you have read Shakespeare, you big pleb.

>>5350086
agree with you, but the LOTR/ASOIAF argument doesn't really fit there.
>reading LOTR is too mainstream, i watched the movies instead works better IMO

>>5350091
I am not american though, nice ad hominem.


>>5350095
My class was required to read Othello, Hamlet and R&J, then some read even more.

Fuck off with your stupid arguments.

>>5350095
b8 b8 b8 b8 b8
stop replying

>>5350100
so you voluntarily adhered to the basest form of mass consumption and even came to praise it as "new art"? fuck you must be stupid

>>5350108
>>5350060
>>5349943
>>5349930
Why are you sticking to my thread, if you are only bringing negativity to it?

>>5350109
Where did I state that? Fucking retard. Argue with stupid people of your ilk, before you try me on.

>>5350117
>where did i state that
>Shakespeare was required reading in high school, but BB was never required for me to watch.

>>5350120
Yes? That means more likely less people have watched BB than read Shakespeare, which was my claim.


Holy fuck, you're quite the retard, aren't you?

>>5350093
That's what you got out of the post?

Work on your reading comprehension m8.

>>5350123
it also means that you have voluntarily chosen to watch a shit show and believe in all your idiocy that isn't good, or even "art"
do you think about things you write, or are you always in denial?

>>5350124
OMG BrBa was so epic! Jesse is my favorite character!

>>5350131
Why is it not good? I have given my argument for why I think it's great, now it's your turn.

But of course you'll just fail, yet again.

>>5350091

>>5350091

Thank you for reminding me. It's been 9 years since my Humanities courses and I forgot all about the significance placed on art as worship etc. I agree with you entirely, just, on my end, I was grouping poetry with literature. I agree with you.

Still, more to my point was just that today, BB is more or less as culturally relevant as the plays were doing good ole Will's time.

>>5350137
It's about as good as a quarter, which is delicious.

>>5350146
So is Nicki Minaj, Lady Gaga and Ebola.

>>5350157
>a quarter pounder

>>5350067

HA! This is exactly how I try and think of it. I will admit, my inner fanboy was pleased when I totally knew who the "two best assassins west of the Mississippi" were. But other than that I really try not to think about the last episode ;x

This remind me to that fella who wrote two lines about a guy being angry because his wife was dead and he was going to kill people and he believed he was better than Pynchon or Joyce.

>>5349902
>>5349921

I think it was somewhere in-between these two. The neo-nazis were opaquely evil, and that was disappointing. If anything, Walt's ending was perhaps too happy if anything. I did like how the epilogue was reminiscent of the epilogue of the Odyssey though.

>>5350168
he must be trolling, no one can be this stupid

>>5350157

I agree with you on that too.

>>5349959

Damn, I never realized how much of a rip off BB is.

Probably because I didn't watch it, because I'm not a pleb.

>>5350171
They needed some evil just for evil men, there are a lot of people like that in this business, and they didn't have those yet.


>>5350172
If by "he", you mean me, then no.

First season was pretty mediocre, I think.

Have to keep watching, though.

>>5349898
>defined a new genre
READ
A
FUCKING
BOOK
10/10 YOU GOT ME GOOD

>>5349914
top lol m8

>>5349959
>Is there even one plot point from BrBa not directly lifted from The Sopranos?
yes, not sucking and not being boring.
>philosophically implying there is even something as 'new'

>>5350019
Breaking Bad should have ended with Hank on the toilet, discovering the book.

>>5349926
Ozymandias is the supreme overrated episode

>>5350479

I don’t think is overrated. For me it is the best episode of the show; every major character is forever destroyed in it. All the luck Walter White had until now to fix things in the last minute suddenly vanishes, and the real tragedy that, sooner or later, catches the ones who live in the drug-dealing world finally comes down his head. To see him crying and moaning like a child, lying in the ground, facing Hank’s body was one of the most devastating and gut-torturing things I have ever seen on TV or cinema. And then Hank’s corpse (the body of a character we know for a long time and have learned to love) being dragged like a sack of rotten potatoes and buried in a shallow grave in the desert ... this is terrible, almost unbearable.

But that’s only the beginning of Hell. We still all hell Walter coming home and having to confront his family. His sister in law discovers that her husband is dead; his son finally learns the truth about his father; his wife (already ravaged and mutilated) finally gets the final blow on her conscience; Pinkman is disinherited once and for all by his adoptive father (who now hates him and even allows it to be taken to a torture session) – there is no stone left unturned. This episode shows the real end of a criminal’s life; this is the nightmare in which the joys of your life will finally sink if you choose this path.

>>5350566
Congrats, you can summarize the episode. Much like any other episode of any other show.

Every dramatic show is going to have an episode like Ozymandias. Within the context of itself, it will be a very dramatic and plot-progressive episode with not a few suprises. In that sense, it's very entertaining, but as some end-all-be-all of dramatic television? No way.

your summarization of the plot of the episode does nothing to uphold it higher than anything but just the expected dramatic turning point of the show itself. But why is it any better than all the others, within the context of television as a whole?

And anyways. Walters reactions werent even believable. Neither were his families, particularly Walt Jr. The tone was all over the place.

>>5350566
>>5350601
>>5350479
>>5350213
>>5350208
/tv/, fuck off.

>regular good man slowly becomes sociopathic gangster for the sake of his family
What is The Godfather?

>>5350673
>for the sake of his family
lol no

>>5350677
Which of the two do you not think was driven initially out of concern for his family?

>>5350687
Walter White. In the first season, he is offered a way out through Gray Matter funding all of his expenses, which he turns down. Why? The central question of the show. But the reasons lay in his own ego, not in his family.

>>5350673
The last conversation he has with Skylar he straight up tells her that he now admits it was always about his selfishness. That's the fucking big revelation, that it was all about him, his ego. I just want to repeat that THIS WAS IN THE SHOW, WITH WALTER SAYING IT DIRECTLY, NOT FIGURATIVELY. HE LITERALLY SAID THIS.

>>5350696
He wasn't initially putting aside money for treatment, he was putting aside money for his family after he died. He might have turned down treatment because of his ego, but treatment wasn't a guaranteed cure and it didn't leave anything to his family.

>>5350726
Why did he keep making meth after he had millions of dollars?

>>5350756
Why did Michael keep being a gangster after he already saved his family?

Can someone please explain why Skylar was such a bitch?

>>5350761
He had to, Also this >>5350702 which you are conveniently ignoring.

>>5350771
because she was a contrarian piece of shit unable to see Walter's psychological problems

also her face was just bitchy

>>5349902
>not interpreting each season as an act in a Shakespearean tragedy
Oh come on man. You were so close too

>>5349898
>defined a new genre
What genre did Breaking Bad define?

>>5350891
nth for GOAT soundtrack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzKFWz-tDD4

>>5349902
The only worthwhile part of season 5 was hanks death and the ensuing fallout. Best two fucking episodes since crawlspace.

The ending was forgettable, the nazis were just filler bad guys. The season should have either tried to fully develop a new arc or just give us a good 6-8 episodes of Walt getting cut down after season 4 ending. What we got was a lazy way of redeeming Walt by making him kill nazis to save a dog murderer.

>>5350189
What does the autobiography of a pizza franchise owner have to so with breaking bad?

>>5350891
the aspie professor who cooks meth genre