There is an undeniable draw to antiheroes, those lead characters audiences root for but who really should be rooted against. The amount of antiheroes has grown exponentially in the past years, and so did viewers' love for them. In every genre and medium, but especially television, antiheroes have taken the role of the protagonists of the story leaving the good guys to be the side characters for once.

This love and fascination are so grand that psychologists started investigating the phenomenon. In the journal Psychology of Popular Media, Dr. Dara Greenwood published an article, "The dark side of antiheroes: Antisocial tendencies and affinity for morally ambiguous characters," which researches this fascinating cultural trend. The study showed a few of the explanations available today, such as the transportation to a place where a person can experience dangerous events/behaviors without getting hurt or even having their own aggressive tendencies justified. It is still a field that needs more psychological research but, regarding the entertainment industry, it is clear that it works - a lot.

The rise of these characters' appearances didn't happen overnight. There were a few shows in the first decade of this millennium which depicted the potential for popularity that these characters had. Amongst them, one in particular stands out as really solidifying and defining the antihero - and he cooks blue meth.

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The rise of the antihero era

It is safe to say that we are living in the age of the antihero. From Loki in the multiverse to Thomas Shelby in industrial Birmingham, the list of beloved antiheroes is quite long. However, it was not always like that. This change in protagonists was a progressive transformation that happened at the beginning of the 21st Century. Someone had to pave the way for the Deadpool movies and the Game of Thrones characters to be acceptable. A common element between these? HBO.

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HBO

In early 1999 The Sopranos aired. This show is one of the highest quality shows ever made, and it is possible to say that it changed television. At the time, television was not perceived as a 'serious' platform for storytelling. This perception started to change after everyone saw the scripts and acting of the most beloved mafia family. It also raised the question: How can people like a mafia boss? Never hiding who Tony was, The Sopranos started a movement of almost enticing the audience to hate the protagonist, which they couldn't do.

A few years later, in 2002, The Wire aired on HBO. The Wire was a show written by a former police reporter, David Simon. It could have been just another show about crime and drugs, but they changed the POV during the episodes between the police and the drug dealers. So again, we see different kinds of protagonists, people who have deep flaws and do unspeakable acts. It happened again in 2007, with one of the most charming characters in TV history: Don Draper in Mad Men. Don Draper helped set the standards of what writers can make a character do, and yet still have the audience completely in love with them.

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AMC

And then in 2008, to solidify the quality of television as a platform and show how a complex and dark character can become a cultural phenomenon, Breaking Bad aired. The only show in this list that is not an HBO show but learned the best tricks from them, Breaking Bad set a new tone for characters, story arcs, and quality in productions as a whole. Bryan Cranston, who plays the iconic chemistry professor Wlter White, even received a letter from Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins (who knows a thing or two about playing iconic villains, having portrayed Hannibl Lecter), writing, "Your performance as Walter White was the best acting I have seen - ever." Vince Gilligan's show became a model for emerging screenwriters due to the quality of his writing as well as the complexity he was capable of showcasing in his characters. He wsn't afraid to take them to unlikable places.

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The Heisenberg transformation

An element that sets Breaking Bad apart from the other shows is that Walter doesn't start the story as the antihero. He's not hurting people who didn't pay what they owed to him, like Tony Soprano, or having a midnight rendezvous with his younger mistress in the city while his family is at home, like Don Draper. The audience gets to see the complete transformation of a depressed and banal middle-aged man who discovers his lust for power as the story develops. He even calls himself a new name, his drug dealer name: Heisenberg.

Walter is such a strong character because the viewer can deeply sympathize with him from the get-go. Watching him in his second job, cleaning his students' convertible while they make fun of him is agonizing to watch. That's why it is so hard to hate him by the end of the series. The audience roots for him to take control and wants him to get revenge and live life by his own terms. It can be debated that his transformation is so grand that he becomes the villain, and not just the antihero.

Bryan Cranston points a gun off camera in Breaking Bad
AMC

Nevertheless, he is the hero in some situations. That is another element why Walter White became a model to writers for what you could do with a character. When he becomes a father figure to Pinkman (not the moments where he uses his relationship to manipulate him), he gives his family financial security, which was his main reason to start cooking meth in the first place. He has immensely human qualities in various moments. That breaks the black and white view present in most televisual storytelling until these shows came along: no one is good or bad. Every villain is the hero of their own story, and shows like Breaking Bad made them the heroes of bigger stories, as well.

Spoilers below.

Even though the audience gets to see his irredeemable transformation, Walter did - to a certain degree - get his redemption at the end of the last season, when he sacrifices himself. However, that is a small moment for a villainous protagonist to redeem himself. After hours of watching him do unspeakable things while also seeing him attempting to justify his every move without moral responsibility, the so-called redemption happened in a few minutes. The scene of his sacrifice is indeed beautifully shot and deeply emotional to watch but, besides Pinkman (who is nearby), not one character who cares about Walter sees his act of selflessness, nor do they necessarily benefit from it. No one redeems him in the series, and it ends before the audience can see how his death affected everyone around him.

Gilligan decided to do it this way because the show is not about his redemption: he doesn't really get one. Breaking Bad is about how power can corrupt anyone, even a bumbling small-town chemistry teacher with terminal cancer. That is why Walter White is the ultimate antihero: unlike Tony Soprano (who is in therapy), White is past the point of redemption. His story is so powerful because we see the transformation from the sweet Walter to the ruthless drug lord Heisenberg. That is the core of why the show is so deeply horrifying: everyone can relate to Walter to a certain degree, or at least understand how easy it is to slip into bad behavior. Perhaps that's one of the reasons for the antihero's appeal-- we see in them the darkness of our own souls.