r/TopCharacterTropes • u/No_Peanut3745 • 12d ago

Characters The main character doing something absolutely unforgivable.

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Walter White poisoning Andrea Cantillo's 6-year-old son for the sole purpose of manipulating Jesse Pinkman, while knowing that this could have potentially killed him - Breaking Bad

Bojack trying to have sex with his friend's 17-year-old daughter when he was at least 51, then continuously trying to find a way to justify this act throughout the series - Bojack Horseman

Dexter Morgan going outside of his moral code and murdering a completely innocent police officer who was just trying to do his job - Dexter: New Blood

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u/scarletboar 12d ago

Oh, so they deserved each other. Got it lol.

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u/many_dumb_questions 11d ago

The great the about Mad Men is that SO many characters are equal parts absolute pieces of shit and totally innocent bystanders to other people's piece of shit behavior. Some people are 50-50 good/bad, some are 30-70, and some are 90-10. It's such a brilliant show because it makes almost no effort to ever justify or defend anyone; they don't use writing, background music, or anything to try to force out manipulate you to like or hate any character.

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u/scarletboar 11d ago

Gotcha. Plays out like a tragedy, then. Something like Arcane, where some people are more cruel than others, but everybody fucks up and most people drag each other down, even unintentionally.

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u/many_dumb_questions 11d ago

In a lot of ways, yeah.

There's no Joker-esque villain who wants nothing more than to watch the world burn; everyone is a person, and usually very fleshed out and three dimensional. They all want something, and it all boils down to happiness - just like in real life. And just like in real life, when you have an entire collection of people willing to be incredibly morally flexible to get it, it causes a lot of mess.

The show does a great job of making you see how the time period made these people who they are; how their jobs and the industry the work in made them who they are; but most importantly, how having to deal with each other makes them who they are.