So he won.
Is that okay? I’m genuinely asking myself that…
Winning/losing is not the issue. The issue is understanding/not understanding; authenticity/inauthenticity. It’s tragedy, not a game.
I took Walt falling on Jesse to save him from the machine-gun fire as simply his father instinct kicking in. Once he saw how they had enslaved Jesse to cook for them - rather than Jesse being a willing participant - and how utterly broken Jesse was Walt felt that paternal instinct again and just did what any good father would do - save his “son”.
I like to think that Jesse was smart enough to stash some money away and that he drove to get that money, then got cleaned up and kept on driving all the way to Alaska where he became a lumberjack. (<-- heh.) Once safely in Alaska he sent an anonymous letter to Drew Sharpe’s parents with the details about how their son died, just to give them closure. And he invested some of that stashed money for Brock so Brock is taken care of for life.
Belize? 
Well, I’m writing songs these days, so where we should deviate from standard forms is a question I think about quite a bit. In the context of writing stories, the generational blood feud doesn’t apply to the modern world very much. A person can divorce themselves from their parent’s legacy fairly well in the modern world, even if we are somewhat psychologically driven by our parents.
Well, as far as a terminal cancer patient could “win”, I think he came close. He comes closer to self realization than most of us do, takes care of his family in the long term, and he seems to be fulfilled in his last moments as much as anyone probably is. However, unlike the character in El Paso, he does have other things than his “Felina” that he cares about. Like that character, he lost everything for “her”. He also didn’t redeem himself in the eyes of anyone but Skyler. So, it depends on how you define winning. I think it’s a win, but just barely.
That’s what I’m trying to pick away at. Greek tragedies feature heroes who are authentic but still at the whim of the gods - Oedipus, Antigone. They suffer far more greatly than Walt.
Walt got in touch with his authentic self - integrated with Heisenberg. He died leaving his loved ones in reasonable shape, given how much worse it could’ve gone for them.
Just trying to think about it…
As long as he wasn’t under arrest he could always sell his house too.
I know, just suggesting that modern, American aesthetics aren’t a lot of help, whereas a more Grecian aesthetic is, IMO.
Wouldn’t you say that living well would have been the best revenge?
Well, it’s the difference between a story *ending *and simply stopping. Maybe Walt could/should have gotten out of the business earlier, or someone could/should have killed him before that, but the Walt/Heisenberg personality split is Walt’s story, and the story couldn’t have ended without that resolving.
But, yeah. He could just as well have died at the end of Granite State with basically the same realizations about himself (I think the merging of the two personalities is pretty much complete at the end of his stay in New Hampshire, and the *anagnorisis *takes place during the course of that episode, even though we only hear him spell it out to Skyler in this one). Only then, he would have died miserable, alone, with the Nazis on the loose, his family penniless and Jesse still enslaved.
So, in a sense, for a much bleaker ending, it’s OK to stop watching at the end of Granite State, before the Gray Matter interview. Everything after that is power trip fantasy. This way, we got the “happy” ending, but with the bitter irony added that it really could or should have been the horribly unhappy ending, one that we’ve already seen played out.
That’s what I’m asking myself too.
He won in the sense that he sacrificed everything he cared about to get what he wanted. In that sense they were asking if it’s worth it to gain the world if you lose your soul. Having realized he’d already given his soul away Walt seemed satisfied that he was able to tie up some loose ends - you could call this a solution in the chemistry sense and the sense of fixing a problem - and protect his reputation while trying to stop things from getting any worse. I think if you call this a clear-cut victory you’re kind of losing sight of where he came from.
It’s shorthand, really.
More like translation, which is always a distortion.
How about this: his victory - his ability to tie off all his loose ends, even at such cost - seems to suggest that a human can exercise free will and defy the gods. In Ancient Greek Tragedy terms, that is 
Subterraneous; Martian Bigfoot - you seem to know this stuff - is that a fair way to frame BB in terms of Tragedies?
I just think it is interesting - trying to figure out how much significance to assign it. It could be nothing; it could be a sell-out to appease us with a sense of heroic closure; or it could be a deep commentary on what we can and can’t control…
…regardless, it sure was entertaining.
I’m evaluating the show based on what Walt deserves because Walt’s downfall due to his arrogance and price and has been in the making since nearly the beginning. What we got was a simple ending to a complicated story. You have it backwards.
Well, Walter White exists in a world without gods. Only chance and laws of nature apply in their world.* Whether you suffer greatly or live in peace is largely due to chance. Walter increased his chances of suffering by deciding to engage in a part of humanity that is largely indifferent to human suffering. Some might say that world requires it, but that might be generated by the same impulse that lead to the creation of gods.
Rather than die at the whim of a god, Walter pushed his chances with both the underworld and cancer until one of them was certain to get him. Any victory he would have would be a Pyrrhic one.
*I can’t resist: “science, bitch!”
And Marley, he “won” because in his own words “he felt alive.” He got to live out this crime lord life, leave his family a ton of money, take out a bunch of scumbags, and not let cancer take him. He checked out on his own terms. He didn’t deserve a sliver of redemption at the end or any peace of mind.
Free will is not a Greek notion. Accepting one’s fate is.
I’m not suggesting this is purely Grecian stuff–it’s more variegated than that–but that when discussing Grecian aesthetics we need to avoid the temptation to translate them into something else. Better to speak the original “language” than to mangle it with translation, IMO.
I feel Jesse will live a long and fruitful life. Sire many children. And when his time comes at a ripe old age, his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be gathered around his deathbed, his final words will be: “Science, bitch!”
I agree with all of that - within Walt’s world, those are his beliefs.
My question is, stepping back: is there an intentional “moral arc” to the story, and if so:
- What is it?
- Is it in line with a Classical Greek Tragedy moral arc? If so, how?
- If it is NOT in line with a CGT moral arc, then what’s different and what does that tell us about Gilligan’s intent and/or about ourselves?
…bitch
(sorry, just being a fanboy idiot…)