Sometimes in life you come across people who confuse your emotions. It's like, you want to hate them, but you just can't. Or conversely, you know objectively that you really should like someone, but they somehow rub you the wrong way. Or maybe it's a weird combination of the two. This goes double for television characters, the people that we as audience members develop a weird sort of relationship with over the years. Film is all about story, but television relies almost entirely on the strength of its characters. Where else can you develop either an intense love or a virulent hatred of a character with only one hour a week? Depending on the actor and the writing, quirky character traits can be either grating or endearing. But there are some television figures the the jury's still out on. These are those happy few.
10. Walter White - Breaking Bad
Walter White is a unique television character in that he's one of the few protagonists who goes from being the hero of the piece to the villain. At the beginning, he's just a sad little chemistry teacher with cancer who decides to start making meth to create a nest egg for his family when he dies. And while on paper that's bad, we can all identify with the desire to take care of the people we love, even if it means doing something immoral. But over the course of the show, he falls deeper and deeper into the crime world until he's virtually unrecognisable as the mild-mannered high school teacher he once was. He's not really Walter White anymore -- he's Heisenberg. As we follow him on this journey, we go from feeling sympathy for his plight and supporting his actions, to being surprised at the lengths to which he'll go in his career as a criminal, to feeling genuine discomfort at the person he's become. By the end of the show, we're left struggling with this idea of Walter White. Do we like him because of who he used to be, or do we hate him because of who he is now?
Audrey Fox is an ex-film student, which means that she prefers to spend her days in the dark, watching movies and pondering the director's use of diegetic sound. She currently works as an entertainment writer, joyfully rambling about all things film and television related. Add her on Twitter at @audonamission and check out her film blog at 1001moviesandbeyond.com.
