I think I might make a topic on the discussion of Diana's point here regarding depicting shitty protagonist sympathetically. Because part of the problem is that this is somewhat out of the writers hands.
Take Walter White. For everybody that talked about what an amazing dude he was and were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt at every instance except the undeniably awful (and sometimes even then), there were as many who were pushing back on that interpretation. And, clearly, the show itself went out of it's way to defeat, humiliate, scorn, and condemn him. What we ended up with is a highly complex character. When the show was airing, I often thought to myself that no one seems to incorperate the full picture of walter white. In character analysis pieces, they'd often omit something or another to make their interpretation of Walt's morality feel stronger. Honestly, though I haven't discussed anything about the new season, I felt this same thing was happening with Jimmy of Better Call Saul. In fact, it's almost worse with BCS because Jimmy's shittiness doesn't come out in extreme examples such as murder or drug dealing and instead it's dickishness and white collar crime.
Anyway, my point is, in my view, Breaking Bad didn't just prop Walt up, but tore him down, just to build him up again greater, then tear him down again. And I mean this in his status as a drug dealer, as a family man, as a human being. It was a compelling story that made him sympathetic, but did nothing to sugarcoat his monstrocity. And being this well rounded, sympathetic character is the necessary byproduct of a story that's trying to be complex and emotionally realistic. People generally don't do things that aren't justified to themselves, and Walt saying he did what he did for his family and believing it is the entry point and primary motivation for what his character would go on to do.
This is to contrast something like Jack Bauer, who does stuff like torture but is then justified because it helps save lives and the narrative supports this. In contrast to Walt, Jack Bauer's anti-heroic qualities are not so much moral quandries as they are discomforts - he doesn't WANT to torture anybody and everyone agrees it'd be a bad thing to do it just to cause pain, but the terrorist knows the identity of the 63rd mole to infiltrate the anti-terrorist place, so he NEEDS to torture the guy, and no one else wants to do it, so he's actually heroic for carrying the burden of torturing a guy on our behalf to save the innocents.
For me, that's a stark difference of what constitutes flaws and making them sympathetic....but for all that, there are people who got the same message out of this, that despite shitty qualities, guys like them are cool and even good.
And to contrast Diane's point a bit....well, yeah, the point of art is, often, not just an escape to a fantasy land, but even to let you know you're not alone. For me, Bojack Horseman is not a heroic figure, but it is a deep comfort to know that there is someone who understands depression and writes the character wiht that kind of authenticity. I don't want to be like Bojack and there is obviously no condemning some of his unforgivable actions, but if you ever had the kind of self hatred that Bojack feels for himself and have his character goal be to get himself to a place where both he and the world offer him some measure of forgiveness and peace, yeah, I want Bojack to succeed and find that peace. Maybe he doesn't deserve it, but what else am I supposed to say here? That he shouldn't find peace and spend the rest of his life in the self imposed misery that itself perpetuates the terrible shit he does?
That people look at characters like Walter White and Bojack and the rest and think "Wow, they're shitty like me, but they still get their happy ending, so..." is a problem. I just don't know how ot solve it. You can't ignore the sympathy angle without destroying what makes the core of those stories work. In fact, without sympathy, I know exactly what happens: What happened with me and Don Draper watching Mad Men. That show didn't resonate with me, and I had pretty much zero interest in Don Draper's justifications or lies or...well, story. Everyone praises Mad Men as one of the best character studies, and I don't even dispute that it might very well be that in terms of the craft of storytelling....but I do not give a fuck about Don Draper, so I stopped watching. If there is no pathos, there is no point, which makes the story all but pointless.
It's not the story that is at fault in this case, it's the audience who pay attention to the power fantasies and ego trips, but then go on to ignore the take downs. How do you fix that?
