CHUCK as HERO: the Real Good Man.

I still don’t know why so many people are obsessed with the idea of Chuck-as-Villain and yet seem to overlook what his brother becomes. When Kim says, “But you made him this way,” she knows that she is lying; she is just being a lawyer, and in that moment she is being Jimmy’s kind of lawyer. This corruption of Kim attains its consummation in the Court Room scene that follows the Climactic Conclusion of Season Three, Episode Five. Kim describes Charles as “irrational”, even though she knows that his vendetta against his brother is absolutely justified, in the same manner as she knows that Jimmy OBVIOUSLY saboutaged his own brother for her alleged benefit. If Chuck is smart enough to even CONCEIVE of a narrative such as the switch from “1261” to “1216”, then he surely knows his brother well enough to be CERTAIN of it. But Kim’s lie goes deeper than that. She blames the victim – Charles – in part because she wants to save Jimmy, as though she OWED HIM ONE (the second-lowest rung on Kohlberg’s Moral Hierarchy), in part because she is apparently moved by his beau jest, which Chuck sees through, and in part because she wants to keep the client instead of doing her legal duty to sue her boyfriend and long-time friend for forgery.

But what alarms me most is the blatant disregard that redditors and the like have for the Law. To Charles McGill, the Law is Sacred; his only motive is to uphold it. Admittedly, this is all so less than Ideal; after all: Social Institutions comprise only the FOURTH rung of Kohlberg’s Seven-Rung Hierarchy. But beyond that rung things rule even moreso in Chuck’s favour. For instance, there is the concept of Kantian Deontology, or the notion of SOCIAL DUTY. Chuck has chosen a role for himself that he must fulfill, and he does. His choice was not arbitrary; it was informed by Reason and a longing for Justice, not only for himself but for all Rational Beings. His Justice is only tempered by his mercy for his brother, who skews Justice in an act of vengeance that ultimately traumatizes some children who become innocent victims of a vindictive and immature prank. Yes: the McGill who felt wronged by marital infidelity and took action in Absurd Protest is more SYMPATHETIC AND CONSCIENTIOUS THAN the Goodman who tells Walter White to “grow up” and to accept the “cruel world”, (an other push in the Heisenberg direction*), reciting that same story of marital infidelity, minus the fecal details that follow from it.

*In this sense, Saul “makes Walt that way”, but only because Saul refuses to redress an injustice, despite being an officer of the court. Chuck, conversely, never flinches in his own pursuit of that ideal that all lawyers are SUPPOSED to uphold.

Redditors who hate Chuck hate more than the Law, but Humanity Itself. To be human is to have the inalienable right to UPHOLD AN IDEAL AS SACRED. This is again why Joseph Campbell said that we became human when we first started hoarding stones with ornate patterns on them. These stones had no utilitarian, survival value. They were simply BEAUTIFUL.

To Chuck, the Law is Beautiful. But its beauty goes beyond both utility AND aesthetics. Chuck recognizes that Jimmy’s attempts at asserting Justice are not only self-interested and barbaric; they all so HURT PEOPLE. These are Chuck’s exact words when he last sees his brother in Season Three. Chuck, conversely, does not hurt people; he simply sets the stage for them to HURT THEMSELVES AND EACH OTHER. But he never spares them an opportunity to ESCAPE by doing the RIGHT THING. Is this merely an arbitrary imposition of his own Will? Demonstrably: no. At every corner Charles McGill demonstrates not only a surpassing intellect as a strategist but all so as a Saint. As Jung said: morality is a type of intelligence. If people can adore Heisenberg for his wile and cleverness, even in spite of the countless deaths in his wake, each of which was only ostensibly guilty of his or her involvement in the same drug trade that Walt is exploiting for monetary benefit, then how can ANY one have anything less than reverence for Charles McGill II? The simple answer is that people are, on average, immoral degenerates. At least on Reddit.

Ultimately, Jimmy wins a victory against Chuck in the manner that Walt outwits Fring: through innovation, quick thinking, and chicanery. The whole piece can be read as Vince Gilligan giving the Aquarian finger to the entire archetype of Capricorn that finds its consummation in the Law. But then we remember that Vince did not write Saul alone; Saul is apparently every bit as much Peter Gould’s brain-child as he is Vince’s. Their custody is joint. And I’m not sure if Peter’s an Aquarius as well. I have no reason to suspect Vince of hiring only people of like temperament; despite the fact that Beneke, for instance, totally epitomizes the Pisces stereotype (down to the fact that his birthday is in March, only a few days prior to Holly White), his aggressive adversary proves to be played by Bryan Cranston.

At every corner, Chuck McGill justifies himself. This makes him menacing only because he has the entire force of Truth and Virtue ON HIS SIDE; he is every criminal’s worst nightmare, to such an extent that what he represents, the Planet Saturn, has become synonymous with the Devil in contemporary post-Christian society. Keep in mind: Saturn, the ruling planet (God) of Capricorn, is the origin of the loan-word “Satan”.

But Charles is in no respect a Satanist. Gilligan shows sympathy (or maybe that’s Gould?) for Charles extensively. We see Charles at his shadiest moments and his brightest, from the secret phone call to his reception at the Firm that he founded near-single-handedly. We know that he suffers from an illness which doctors cannot trace the cause of because science has not produced an explanation for it that can surpass his own brilliant self-diagnosis, a virtue that can only belong to those individuals who are capable of self-reflection to such a degree that neither the Scientific Community nor the Medical Community can offset their judgement. Devoid of partisan bias, he lives a hermetic existence, relying only on a few people who OWE HIM A FAVOUR, entirely former or current employees of his law-firm of Hamlin-Hamlin McGill. Instead of settling for a generous stipend, he demonstrates an unyielding determination to the Law, which has been his career of choice since long before he had any visible reason to hate Jimmy, and in the wake of Jimmy’s not only illegal but immoral and amoral behavior that hatred could only be EXPECTED to grow, and must be allowed to, of natural course. By far Chuck is the most SYMPATHETIC of any of the characters because he represents the Hero that each of us wants to be. He is Totally Human, not devoid of envy; his envy is simply directed towards his INFERIORS, who would rob him of his station and its sanctity, rather than his Superiors, which apparently are non-existent. His Cause is the very definition of a Noble One and a Just One, because it is the ultimate consummation of Man’s Potential to express Heaven in terms of Earth: the Law. The Law to him is that Diamond that Capricorn Yogis are said to strive for constantly. It is yet earth-bound, hence imperfect. But to that same extent Chuck is DOWN TO EARTH, challenged only by the wayward tendencies of inferior men who have their heads in the ground and can be uprooted by coercion and blackmail. When he finally decides to sue the firm, it is not a breakdown but a breakup, and he was the partner who was wronged, because his subordinates do not respect his wishes. These wishes are never arbitrary; Chuck is BEYOND THAT. At every step he finds justification for his actions. But unlike Jimmy, his attempts at justification are not merely RATIONALIZATIONS but rather REASONS, because only his pious subservience to these same ideals could produce his line of successes.

So WHY THE FUCK do people HATE him?!?

We KNOW that Jimmy is a con artist and an embarrassment to the family name, totally deserving of both his brother’s hatred and his condescension. This is made CLEAR to us as the Observers. My only explanation for the ongoing hatred that auditors and redditors feel for Chuck is in the principle of Participation Mystique. When we watch a show or even a legal proceeding in real time, there is a tendency for the Witness (be it Legal, Spiritual [as in the Hindu Godhead], or as a Television Auditor) to LOSE HERSELF in the Role. So simply because Jimmy is presented as the recognizable “Hero”, and because Chuck is working AGAINST Jimmy, Charles becomes a “Villain of the Sow”. Our sympathy for Jimmy is so powerful a form of narcissistic self-identification that we forget to self-identify instead with the character who actually DEMONSTRATES VIRTUE. This is in part because, as I have reflected, we RELATE TO Jimmy, but we want to BE Chuck. Chuck is what we would all LIKE to be; Jimmy is what we HAVE to be. And it is only because we live in so fallen a world wherein “have to” no longer is synonymous with “should” that the Rational Animal must choose between his own Rational Nature and his Animal Side.

Charles McGill represents that rich tradition that only people of surpassing moral and intellectual intelligence can truly uphold: the Law. Never once does he step outside of EITHER the Law nor “common decency” in his “vendetta” against Jimmy. He never USES his feelings as an excuse; when Kim describes him as being “irrational”, or having an “irrational” vendetta, she is transparently lying. Everyone in the Court KNOWS that Chuck is the most RATIONAL person that they have ever met. But without the Spirit of the Law informing it, the mechanics of the Court Room result inevitably in his demise.

If he does not use his feelings as an excuse, neither can we, lest we stoop to Jimmy’s level. When Jimmy tries to manipulate Chuck into extortion, he demonstrates a certain degree of narcissism. He PRESUPPOSES, without WARRANT, that Chuck is just as arbitrary and manipulative as Jimmy himself is. But we know that this is not true. When Chuck makes the phone call to Howard, he does not ACTUALLY BREAK THE LAW. The phone was in Chuck’s own mailbox, after all, so it becomes Chuck’s legal property. Don’t think that our “genius” writers didn’t catch that. Beyond that: Chuck is willing to endure PHYSICAL PAIN in order to do what is necessary to keep the Wrong Kind of Lawyer – Saul Goodman – OUT of practice.

It is shocking, even triggering, to read some of the sewage that runs through the veins of Reddit in this respect. One poster shamelessly CONDEMNS Chuck for tape recording Jimmy and using the tape even in the wake of Jimmy’s “well-meaning” confession. But Jimmy never had a CHOICE in the matter; he was simply doing the Honourable thing, for once*, and it is only honourable insofar as it can attain the END of having him punished. This end is no merely PRAGMATIC end; it is intrinsic to the very CONSISTENCY of Honesty as a Virtue. Jimmy falls SHORT of this consistency because he believes, wrongly, that he can GET AWAY WITH IT. His perception of Human Goodness is SKEWED by personal interest and that sense of shelter that we call Public Opinion; Chuck’s is not. Chuck finishes what Jimmy starts. Jimmy’s exit lines for the Season are that it’s “[Chuck’s] word against [Jimmy’s]”. But Chuck gets the Last Word, for it was Chuck’s Plan All Along, and UNLIKE either Jimmy or Jimmy’s victims, who suffer a fate WORSE than Death, which is Dishonour, Chuck is not swayed by petty sentimentality.

*Keep in mind: Jimmy only DOES the honourable thing BECAUSE he thinks that he can get away with it.

Redditors such as the aforementioned project their own emotive preferences onto Jimmy; IN HIS PLACE, they would PREFER not to be treated in this manner. But Chuck is not breaking the Categorial Imperative by treating his brother in the way that he himself would “not” want to be treated. Chuck is treating a Criminal in the manner that a Criminal SHOULD be treated, and Chuck would himself WANT to be treated this way IF CHUCK WERE A CRIMINAL. Jimmy incessantly tries to PROVE that Chuck would NOT want to be treated in this manner, so as to accuse Chuck of breaking the Categorical Imperative. Jimmy wants to be Chuck’s equal, but he does not want to put in the work to GET there. But first: Jimmy must PERSUADE CHUCK TO BECOME A CRIMINAL. And that is impossible; his brother is incorrigible. So Chuck only treats people in the manner that he would theoretically want to be treated if proven wrong. He never IS ACTUALLY PROVEN WRONG. And that is why people who are pathologically, terminally wrong hate him. They project their OWN irrational biases ONTO him. Chuck is the scapegoat; he is free of sin and a victim of not so much his own virtue as its saboutage by the vices of others. He is made to BEAR the sins of Jimmy. And Jimmy is misrepresented as the Scapegoat TO THE SAME DEGREE that his identity as the Sinner (and hence the Bane of the Goat [Capricorn] that must bear the burden for his sins) endears him to other sinners who SEE their own Evil WITHIN him. Some might argue that any one who is able to IDENTIFY Evil in Jimmy but to OWN UP TO the Projection of her own sins UPON him is operating from a position of objectivity that is SUPERIOR to that of Charles McGill. But in fact it is only because people like Kim EXPRESS their own Evil sides in Conscious Life that they identify with Jimmy. They do not hate Jimmy [only] because they CANNOT project their Shadows upon him. What WOULD be Shadow in a DECENT person (such as Charles) is made into Ego, and that Ego enjoys the comforts of a crooked lawyer and an entire Kafkaesque Kangaroo Court that sings his praises incessantly as Law Himself dies in a state of legal madness. (An ironic turn of plot and phrase is that Charles is “legally insane”, in both the sense that the Law deems him Crazy and that his Love of It DRIVES him “Crazy”.) So where do they project their Shadowed Goodness? They project it UPON CHUCK, whose Ego is in its Right Place, as is his Heart. They PRESUME that NEITHER Chuck’s Ego NOR his Heart is In Its Right Place, only because he seems to be mentally ill (again: a criminal misconception; by far the most hated villain of the series is his Doctor, who BREAKS THE LAW when she subjects him to an M.R.I, replying to his knowledge of his own rights with the Fascist statement “I don’t think this applies”.). In truth, it is the Sinners who are Mentally Ill. Foucault transcribes in Madness and Civilization an entire list of attributes that were FORMERLY regarded as Insane in a more Civilized Age. EACH of them, from Marital Infidelity onward, are MORAL shortcomings, rather than shortcomings of OBJECTIVITY. To be crazy is not to react in an unusual manner to stimuli. It is not to have “unusual perceptions”. It is simply to be a BAD PERSON. Ironically enough, when this definition of mental illness was SEVERRED from the treatment of mental illness by an impersonal Scientific Community, to be “crazy” no longer had any thing to DO with being Virtuous or Vicious. Yet because people who WERE immoral and amoral wanted to GET AWAY WITH being so, they began to define “Being Right” and “Being Sane” as “Being Relatable”. So as emotivism grew in power, backed by Fascism on the Right and the proto-Fascistic FEAR of Fascism* on the Left, an Immoral Majority (which called itself a Moral Majority, on the Right, and which produced the punk rock reactionaries of the Left, just as Pluto was entering Scorpio) came to abuse Morality as a Scapegoat. This is what happens to Chuck, both on screen and off screen, and it happens to everyone and every THING that he represents with unyielding fortitude and consistency. The crazy people call him crazy because they think that he is projecting his own repressed Evil onto Jimmy. But in fact THEY are projecting their own repressed GOODNESS ONTO CHUCK, and they are CALLING it Evil. Between the Ethical Egoist (in the sense not of a Consequentialist but rather a Deontologist who is not without the sin of Pride, even if only in semblance) and the Degenerate Egoist (Represented by the W.M. logo of Wexler and McGill, which is incidentally all so in the shape of a STOCK MARKET CRASH) the RIGHT choice is clear. Chuck has won the right to hate his brother. But we have not even BEGUN to hold a candle up with which to burn him down.

*An other symptom of Neurotic Projection: one becomes what one hates most.

I could go on. But all of 2884 words in, it would be no more than elaboration. There are countless ways that I could have made my point. Any digression I might account for [in the form of a rebuttal]. But the Devil lives in the Details. And I am tired. So I shall cap this off at 3000 words instead.

Chuck represents the archetype of Lawful Good. But Saul Goodman is the Unlawful Good that turns to Evil. Who pushed whom? We can only make the matter relative if we see them as Characters rather than People. In the words of Winston Wolf: “You are a character. But that doesn’t mean that you HAVE character.”

Dm.A.A.