Robert McKee’s The Substance of Story expands on the inner psyche for developing and understanding the protagonist. This explains why “the audience identifies with deep character, with innate qualities revealed through choice under pressure” (Mckee, The Substance of Story, p. 142) no matter how “unsympathetic” the character may be. Mckee further elaborates on empathy; being the connection between the audience and the protagonist while sympathy is basically liking the protagonist. Yes, empathy creates that relationship with the audience but it doesn’t necessarily equate to asking the character to like them, per se.

SPOILER ALERT

Let me elaborate on the main protagonist of the television program Breaking Bad, Walter White. For those of you haven’t heard A SINGLE THING about this show, chemistry teacher Walter White resorts to making and dealing meth in order to financially support his family after being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. At the beginning, we sympathise the “underdog” persona that Walter possesses: a loving family and a secured job. It is until he is diagnosed with the disease, do we begin to empathise with his personal struggle of finding a way to secure his family’s future. Despite breaching the law, we still empathise with Walter because we know his intentions.

When he crosses over that moral threshold of killing Krazy-8, we still know that it was self-defence for both himself and his family. It is only when he progressively murders and manipulates others to kill, for the sake of his own authority, do we realise that he has essentially become his own self-destruction through his development as his alter-ego, Heisenberg. Furthermore, missing the birth of his daughter, continuing the business despite earning millions, and poisoning a child confirms his transformation as the anti-protagonist.

So would you say we still “liked” / empathised the guy? No, not particularly at all. Walter was infatuated with “a self-contradictory unconscious desire” (Mckee, The Substance of Story, p. 138) for self-fulfilment from the outset. His life consisted of a loving family and stable occupation but it was obvious that he wasn’t particularly satisfied with his life. Why did we continue to watch this show if we stopped empathising with Walter? He finally financially secured his family’s future, but didn’t find his own happiness, even though he did murder quite a few people and put his family’s life in constant jeopardy. For me, it was the progression in empathy that I had for Jesse. We were all sceptical of him at the beginning but then we witnessed his stark contrast in character from Walter’s as he matures, in aiming to escape from the drug world and realisation of his self-worth. If it weren’t for Jesse, there would’ve been a (slight) chance that I would’ve discontinued to watch the rest of the series. Breaking Bad would’ve been stuck in an endless loop with its sole focus on Walter’s gain and loss in the drug lord hierarchy, the life of an unlikeable / love-to-hate character, Heisenberg and continually pondering on what in the world happened to that underdog we were all rooting for.

Reference: McKee, Robert. (1997). ‘The substance of story.’ In Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting. New York, USA: HarperCollins, pp. 138, 142