2018 Words:

In response to: http://breakingbad.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:24701

"The World is a rich tapestry, but believe me: you don't want to see it."

The thanks I get for using the Internet whilst intoxicated.

This stops now. I don't personally care what you "think" and why you would waste any one's time explaining it. As far as I'm aware, you are part of a degenerate wave of mentally imbalanced and amoral people. So instead of telling you what to think, I will educate you on the facts. If it appears anecdotal and therefore dubious (as though that were ever the case) I assure you of this: that it is the experience of one of your moral superiors. And by that I mean of course that any moral person is superior to you. You have  not yet earned the right to call any one by a vulgar and demeaning name.

I have watched this series in excess of three times now. The more I watch it, the more clear it becomes. My last impression of Charles McGill is the same as my first one: an uncanny image of moral perfection. As the story unfolds, the audience has repeatedly the opportunity to sell out and to side with Jimmy, the con artist. I have even found myself at times exhibiting attributes resembling the ever-slipping Jimmy, and I have found myself, as any decent person would, trying to rationalize these impulses for hours on end, still uncertain by the end of it as to my own integrity, for it was all internal. It is only upon further reflection that I discover that even this bad conscience was the product NOT of moral authority but rather pseudo-moral ejaculations by people of lesser virtue than my own. So there's that.

Charles "Chuck" McGill has an idealized image of the boys' father that only Chuck himself lives up to. At some point Chuck seems so systematic in his own convictions that he is threatening, especially when he points out that Howard does not want him as an enemy, and we know that he will be ruthless in the pursuit of Justice in place of Used Karma. But not only does our sense of insecurity fail to qualify as any sort of moral justification whatsoever. (OBVIOUSLY, ESPECIALLY compared to the sheer clarity of Chuck's outspoken and beneficent conscience.) We all so do not possess the RIGHT TO FEEL IT.

As time goes on, not only does Chuck demonstrate his own integrity by putting every conviction into ruthless practice. From the very beginning, Jimmy himself admits that doing so invokes ACTUAL PHYSICAL PAIN in Charles, since he suffers from a condition of which Science fails (as it does in all cases when it refers to any thing it can't explain as being "merely" mental) to accommodate him, and one that FORCES the Lawman to become dependent upon Jimmy. Breaking Bad had a Deal with the Devil, and so does Better Call Saul. Only it's not hard to see who the Devil is in that prison cell.

Most of the CONFLICTS that Chuck finds himself in with Jimmy would have been prevented if Jimmy had been able to do any one of several things:

1. Abide by Chuck's will and Chuck's authority as an experienced and dedicated, moral law practitioner.

2. Justify his own actions according to some appeal to virtue, duty, or necessity.

3. Demonstrate the ability to operate on a POST-conventional rather than a PRE-conventional moral level, as he is CAPABLE OF doing, but that he is too lazy (despite Chuck's generous praise) to educate himself on how to express, in place of endearing himself to people through a series of clichés, consumeristic pop vulture [sic] references, and lies. (A formal violation of Universal Ethics on TOO many levels to list.)

But it is not only physical pain and moral necessity that produces sympathy for Chuck. It is all so that as the series progresses, he grows MORE SYMPATHETIC as we discover his back story. Not ONLY was he ALL ways a gracious host and considerate husband, never allowing the one to upset the other. He was all so the less favoured son, (for no apparent reason) the less amusing entertainer, (through a fault that we can ascribe to some combination of intrinsic human sadism and a failing entertainment culture) and fundamentally a man who must live in his brother's SHADOW all because his brother blocks out the Sun of Truth at every angle. To say nothing of the relatively petty (but contextually triggering) fact that Jimmy MAKES FUN OF HIM FOR BEING A LAWYER.

Now: Chuck is hardly the be all and end all. Obviously, he represents the virtues of Deontology, and his conflict with Jimmy the Pragmatist sets the tone for the INTERNAL tension that all empathic, sympathetic audiences will feel for generations to come upon watching this masterpiece. (Though I mean never to demean Breaking Bad by any sort of "adversarial situation".) We would not feel this tension (As I've stated: for hours of time furiously reviewing our own mental records of moral theory, which is in every man's charge since birth.) were it not for the redeeming qualities of Jimmy McGill IN AN EVIL WORLD. But playing with fire entails the risk of catching fire. We know where this path leads: Saul Goodman becomes Don Heisenberg's consiglieri, by his own device, (for once, the cliché film and television references ring true, oddly enough in Saul's First Appearance) and he succeeds in turning the language of the law and of morality itself against the very Spirit of Goodness that Chuck alone represents. Add to this the irony that Saul has "Good" in his very NAME. Any way, this is the warning in the back of every man's mind upon watching the Prequel: that pragmatism begets Fascism. You don't believe me? Just look at where Heisenberg ends up. Spoilers end here, I guess.

Jimmy invokes our empathy. But Chuck alone invokes our SYMPATHY, because he alone does EVERY GOD DAMNED THING RIGHT. His "irrational" vendetta against his brother is absolutely unassailable: Chuck is unequivocally the better son, lover, and -- most IMPORTANTLY -- lawyer. His most tear-jerking and sympathetic moment is the most Kafkaesque scene in Vince Gilligan's career: when he finds the Law, his one true God, to have turned on him. He is put on display in a Kangaroo Court that misconstrues his moment of unassailable Humanity as though it were some sort of madness. He alone bears with his illness, which only reaches a fatal pitch when he tries to ignore it. The illness for which he is condemned (and all most [in the traditional sense of "all but"] committed!!) is the ideal metaphor for his CONSCIENCE: overbearing, inconvenient, seemingly self-induced, and the ONLY TRUE AUTHORITY ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH. Chuck is Rational, both Practical and Idealistic (small wonder he is played by a Libra Genius) and fundamentally KIND AND WELL-MEANING. He extends this owlish precision to FOOD even. If Jimmy can endear himself to people through his Individuality-as-a-Consumer, imagine what a charmer Charles was as a CONNOSSIEUR. It's not like he has not earned the right to choose what kind of apples Ernesto should get, as most Americans enjoy (including those who have done less for America). Jimmy even says in the first episode: "A third of those Danishes are Chuck's". He isn't being "nice", and neither is Ernesto. He's simply doing his job. And a duty does not make a man exceptionally virtuous; it simply makes him rightfully obedient to those who are. Without this sort of obedience to TRUE authority we would have to live in a state of total amoral chaos, and this would likely harden into an authoritarian state. Besides: Chuck gives us the opportunity to do what every man wants to do: to be the Best Person Possible. Jimmy just can't seem to catch the ball his brother throws to him.

The more I watch this show, the more I think about it, and the more that I encounter this degenerate horse manure online attempting to defame Charles McGill, the more I find that Chuck is the only character in the entire series that truly mirrors me and whose BEHAVIOUR MAKES HUMAN SENSE. Every one else is just some sort of competitive, self-entitled crook. True entitlement only rests with those who are truly accountable. Our privileged look into his SOUL arouses in me only further LOVE for him, as I am reminded of the woes that invariably plague a Good Man living in an Evil World. Jimmy McGill only manages to show us how to DEAL WITH and SETTLE for an Evil World. Charles, conversely, is the very FORCE OF Good. And if you judge him only by holding him to your own standards, remember: unless those standards are Morally Universal, unless you are willing to go to the very GATES OF HELL in order to uphold them, and unless you would DIE upon the realization that the world thinks you are CRAZY for them, they are absolutely useless, as are you. Jimmy is not useless. But Chuck has EVERY REASON to treat him as such.

In the end, Chuck can't even keep the electricity out of his own house. His fears of an amoral and immoral outside world are turned inwards by the very system of which he was the staunchest servant. This happens to the most brilliant of martyrs. He dies a martyr, burning to death in his home, which represents his personality, destroyed by the degeneracy that surrounds it. And with it dies Jimmy McGill and any hope of saving him. It dies with CHUCK. So why the joke? Jimmy was never the hero. He only barely scrapes by as a "sympathetic" (really empathetic, because it takes a Saint to pardon him) anti-hero, worthy of a prequel only insofar as he is entertaining and unpredictable, pardonable only to the extent that Justice can allow. Not all of us can do what Chuck does, but that's what makes Chuck the ideal to live up towards. We forgive ourselves for being Jimmy. We congratulate ourselves for being-Chuck. Charles is truly his father's son; Jimmy is the half-formed man. Charles is the force of Good. But Jimmy is the archetype of the trickster. Even Joseph Campbell himself said this: that if any man behaved as a trickster, he would be put in a lunatic asylum. So whom do you real want to commit? And whom do you want to commit TO?

Every thing that Chuck ever did he did for the Law, for his Family, (UNLIKE Walt, ostensibly) and for his Firm. And he did it all beautifully. He was sabotaged and betrayed by his closest friend, his brother, and then put on trial for the betrayal. Jimmy only ever did what Jimmy was SUPPOSED to when it was convenient to Jimmy, such as the confession, which to this day is haunting because of how SHAMELESSLY he admits to it. Chuck did what Chuck was supposed to, as far as we're aware, from Day One, without fail. Chuck is no more a "villain" in any world than Gus Fring is; he is even less so, because the jaded Gustavo seems to believe that the problems that Chuck has given his life to solving cannot be solved, and that Power is the only potent antidote.

Frankly, it does not matter that people find Chuck crazy. It does not matter that I find THEM crazy. It does not matter that Vince and PETER (GOD DAMN IT. GIVE CREDIT WHERE IT'S DUE.) write this stuff so that we can see the REALITY of Chuck's situation, only to have their efforts thwarted by people who fall into the same ruts as do the supporting characters and call it "relating". Chuck got the Death that he Deserved: a noble one. Maybe Jimmy will still have a Guardian Angel watching over him. But if the Ghost of Charles McGill haunts Jimmy to the point of madness, rest assured: Jimmy had a predisposition to insanity to begin with. And it was NOT the dominant trait in the family genes.

Dm.A.A.