Start here. (0.464 Mbyte .pdf.) This was the text I used this past summer. I included the material on BPD because it is such a common topic of conversation around here. Although sociopathy is not distinguished from psychopathy in this text, the instructor did differentiate between the two and treated them as distinct disorders. A psychopath or someone who has APD is usually your typical chronically marginalized shithead criminal, like Spooge or his old lady. A sociopath is somebody more like Hermann Göring.
Huh. A Facebook friend of mine - someone I went to high school with, and haven’t seen since - works on the show, and just posted a bunch of set pictures that she wasn’t allowed to put out until the episodes had aired. Yes, she knows how it ends, and no, she hasn’t told me.
This may not be news to most of you, but it’s a story I hadn’t heard. I guess Aaron Paul, on Twitter, gave out the phone number of a public pay phone near where they were filming and encouraged fans to call and chat. When he had down time, he would go talk to random people who called in. My friend said that some of the conversations got pretty deep, as people told him how the show had changed their lives.
Sorry, but I’ve published articles and book chapters on psychopathy, APD, and conduct disorder. I assure you that, at least in psychology and psychiatry, the term sociopathy is not used (which is also suggested by the chapter you linked to). It definitely does not exist as a diagnosis, and as far as I know, has no commonly accepted definition that would distingiish it in the manner you suggested.
When you say “published,” you mean that you’re the author?
Yes.
While he was thoughtful and professional, it wasn’t just business to Gus, as I described before. His motives were different from Walter’s, but both were motivated by much more than money.
I’m not expecting to be disappointed by this show because that almost never happens. And I’m not suggesting that the first scene of Sunday’s episode needs to be Uncle Jack sipping on cocktails in front of his new mansion in Aruba, awesome as that’d be. I am suggesting that if Uncle Jack’s crew of lowlifes stumbles into $70 million, then shrugs and gets right back into business as usual - cooking meth in New Mexico to deliver to Lydia’s Czech connection - meaning that they face arrest for trafficking at any moment, as well as the heat from missing DEA agents, and will have to keep a low profile with their spending since they have no fronts in place that we are aware of (possibly Vamanos Pest), it will strike me as both unrealistic, and a disservice to the characters who have a reason beyond greed or stupidity for persisting in an illegal venture long past the point when the cost/benefit analysis is on the happy side.
I’m checking Adrian Raine’s publications and some of James Coleman’s earlier texts for verification; I’ll get back to this in a few days after midterms are over. Your model may the accepted one. If you look up ‘sociopath’ in Raine’s The Psychopathology of Crime, it says “see psychopath.”
Hank Schraeder’s obituary:
And Gomie’s too!
That was great.
<facepalm> Yeah, Uncle Jack.
Don’t understand it either. The agent was there, right there, we all saw him. He was not a ghost. But that doesn’t mean Huell is stranded. Eventually it will be noticed that Hank and Gomez have disappeared. Eventually Huell will be let go … unless they think he may be involved in whatever made them disappear.
I’m also confused about the confusion over Walt’s intentions with his phone call to Skyler. It looked pretty clear-cut to me – and the wife – that it was purely an act to absolve Skyler from blame. And seeing Walt’s reaction when the kid started crying for Mama, he clearly just then regretted his decision. I don’t think snatching the kid was a planned strategic move.
Agreed.
Very well said. I have been expressing similar disheartening sentiments the past few days about how people in the industry will probably take the lesson from this that they need to be more blatant in their exposition. In this case, what: have Walt muse to Holly that it was time to call her mother and pretend to be really angry so as to clear her name? Sigh.
The scene where Walt keels over when Hank is shot is almost like a death scene. Then, the shot with the reflections of multiple Walts, where one has a bullet hole right in his forehead, is another hint that part of Walt is dead, or dying. I wonder if it’s the Heisenberg persona.
In that case, it’s ironic that the people listening to that phonecall - Marie, Junior, the police (Skyler understands that’s it’s a ruse) - gets to see the pure Heisenberg, the ravings of a complete egomaniac, just at the point where Walt is no longer that person, and is putting it on as an act.
For a couple of days I’ve been tempted to speculate that Heisenberg is the one who died - not when Hank was killed, but somewhere over the course of this episode. When Skyler and Jr. stood up to him or when he heard Holly crying for her mother, maybe. But we also don’t know what he’s going to do next, so I’m not sure we can say that part of Walt is gone.
I wonder if there’s some significance to the way Walt gives Holly back, by leaving her at the fire station. Of course, he can’t just go back to the house with her directly, unless he wants to be arrested - there are police waiting (not to mention a pissed-off family). Still, leaving her in the fire truck means giving her back to ordered society, to an institution that is above, and more rational than, the individual, the family unit and the tribe (which have been ordering principles so far). Along with the police who have invaded Walt’s house, it represents another possible ending: Individual desire and tribal warfare are both replaced by the rational order of society, in the same way that the ending of the *Oresteia *breaks the unending cycle of doom with the establishment of a court where Orestes is put on trial.
For this ending to be acted out completely, though, Walt must turn himself in to the police, and again, he’s not about to do that (even though he does give up his Heisenberg persona and his evil deeds to the police with that phone call). Also, the problem with that ending, of course, is that it’s just too much of a boring-ass, happy, conventionally moral and frankly reactionary conclusion (there’s a reason why everyone’s favorite part of the *Oresteia *is Agamemnon and not The Eumenides).
And if there’s one thing this show doesn’t do, it’s boring, so I don’t think this version of a conclusion will go further than the hints we’ve seen. I’m expecting the finale to be a heck of a lot more explosive.
I wonder if this is the longest episode discussion thread in SDMB history. One of the game of thrones season 1 threads may have gone longer, but it would’ve been half bickering and not actual substantial discussion.
I remember when Lost was in its heyday, the threads seemed to reach amazing lengths before the episode even finished airing on the West Coast.
I did a search - longest Lost thread is 9 pages, average was about 4-5. Even the GOT season 1 threads with all the bickering only got into the 7 page range. So I’m actually surprised, this may be the longest episode thread by far.
That’s pretty impressive; and almost all real discussion too.
I can’t watch tonight’s episode until tomorrow. It’ll take me another hour to catch up with the discussion after I watch it.