Hello everyone On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 4:58 PM, Matt Kundert <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hey Dan, > > Yeah, it is interesting. I still think that both of your readings of Dexter > and Walt are very wrong, but I think it punches up just how much > interpolation must be done by the viewer to make sense of the story.
Dan: I think that is what good storytelling is all about... it leaves room for doubt... for each viewer (or reader or listener) to use the sense of their own evolutionary history to complete the tale. A good writer knows that there is more than just the story and a storyteller... there is is the listener, the viewer, the reader who is interpreting what's being told. What i am unsure about is whether (or not) there is a "true" reading of Dexter and Walt... the ambiguous nature of their characters seems to correlate to the ambiguous nature of both LILA and ZMM... we each complete the characters using our own personal histories. Matt: > We see roughly the same evidence, but draw different conclusions, > conclusions that I think might be indeterminate to the evidence. For > example, I think an "inborn sense of morality" is antithetical to the > spirit of the show (and Pirsig's philosophy for that matter), but it's a > sense of the whole, not a little fact lying around that gives me that > sense. And vice versa on your side of it. And for Walt, I don't think > there's anything psychopathic about inadequacy or anger, nor do I > think he was a "bad guy" waiting to happen. I think the > extraordinary pressures of the situation, combined with the mounting > consequences and demands of each successive choice, creates his > course of evolution. But, there's still no evidential silver bullet. Dan: It would appear (to me) that an "inborn sense of morality" is what separates sociopaths/psychopaths from normal people... if indeed anyone can be called "normal." Most of us seem to have a sense of fair play that guides our actions and upon which the foundation of our civilization is built ... it isn't something that's taught, although we all know the Golden Rule. Rather, the sense of fair play is based on feelings of empathy towards others... something that cannot be instilled. We are either born with it or not. It isn't something acquired by taking a pill or going to a doctor and getting treatments. Back to Walt... his character has no compunction about manufacturing and selling an extremely potent product that has massive potential for damage to anyone who uses it. His feelings of inadequacy drive him to produce ever-increasing quantities without any thought to the destruction of lives both known and unknown to him. He feels no empathy towards anyone... not his wife, not his son, not his partners. His new-born daughter is little more than an afterthought. He has no regard for the law other than not getting caught, and to that end he will do anything, including committing multiple murders. If this man is not a psychopathic criminal, then I honestly don't know who is. Just saying... Dan Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
