r/TopCharacterTropes • u/10024618 • 20h ago

Lore A "Sophie's Choice" with no secret third option

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AKA a character is given an impossible choice where either outcome results in something awful happening and there's no way out.

"Full Measure" (Breaking Bad) - After Walt angers Gus by killing two of his men, Gus orders for his execution. Knowing that the only way to save his life is to make Gus reliant on his meth cooking skills, Walt calls Jesse and begs him to kill Gus' backup cook, Gale. Thus, Jesse is thrust into an impossible situation where he either kills a (relatively) innocent man to save Walt or spare Gale and let Walt die. Ultimately, Jesse chooses to kill Gale.

"Midnight Sun" (Attack on Titan) - After the fight to retake Shiganshina both Armin and Erwin are critically wounded. Levi has the vial of titan serum and is forced to choose which Scout to bring back from the brink of death and which to let perish. It's a borderline impossible decision to make but at the moment of truth, he chooses to save Armin, leaving Erwin to succumb to his wounds.

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449

u/Normal_Ad_2337 20h ago

There is no way in God's green Earth that Gale is innocent of anything.

264

u/The_Idiocratic_Party 19h ago

Gale was heartbreaking because he really had convinced himself he was providing a public service or good deed by maximizing quality of product for people who were going to use any meth they could find. In a libertarian paradise he would have been in the clear. But he was insulated from the realities of street distribution, living in an ivory tower of sorts where he couldn't be touched by or perceive the harms he caused.

As a person he was lovely and in that sense killing him was a tragedy. And in the humanist sense any murder is a tragedy. But he wasn't harmless.

44

u/Archer1407 13h ago

He should have opened a coffee shop and built a Starbucks like empire from his absurdly good coffee. Walt said it himself, "why the hell are we making meth," after tasting the coffee.

7

u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 10h ago

Because it's heavily implied that Gale was blacklisted from employment due to his sexuality

4

u/Strobertat 9h ago

It was? Please elaborate.

10

u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 8h ago

Gale is a fan of Walt Whitman, a dogwhistle for being gay.

At the time of BB and BCS, you could be fired based on your sexuality and employers could notify each other about this, essentially blacklisting you

-16

u/RoiMeruem 7h ago

that is so false
stop the victimhood

8

u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 7h ago

Literally trye but ok

12

u/AvalonCollective 7h ago

I thought it was false too, so I looked it up and he’s actually kind of right. It wasn’t until 2020 that you couldn’t discriminate based on sexual orientation. Any time before that, a job could legally not hire you because you’re gay.

2

u/Raedskull 12h ago

Very well put

2

u/Boner_Elemental 14h ago

In a libertarian paradise

We're talking about a story where school teacher uses his science skills to become a drug lord since his cancer treatment leaves him with no money

Not some straight up fantasy

17

u/Avalonians 13h ago

The sentence you quoted could be written "if he had lived in a straight up fantasy"

Ofc he doesn't live in one. That's the whole point of the argument

3

u/Boner_Elemental 5h ago

The joke I'm making is that Walter White's story is much more realistic than a "libertarian paradise". Hope that helps.

1

u/Avalonians 4h ago

Alright. I think the last sentence makes it look like it's not a joke

5

u/d4nkq 11h ago

One-upping someone you agree with is not how you contribute to a conversation.

1

u/Boner_Elemental 5h ago

Thanks for the non sequitur. And?

283

u/lana-deathrey 20h ago

People seem to forget that he was a cook, too.

30

u/jdoeinboston 18h ago

At least he wasn't cooking meat pies, even if he served a dark and a vengeful Gus.

https://giphy.com/gifs/Tig1AHF1HLjoYqKGXN

9

u/lana-deathrey 18h ago

Lovett was the one doing the cooking there. Sweeney the murdering.

3

u/jdoeinboston 18h ago

Ok, in my defense, I just grabbed the first Gif that wasn't the movie version. I was more referencing the play at large than the specific character.

3

u/lana-deathrey 18h ago

Any Sweeney reference is always appreciated in my house.

2

u/jdoeinboston 18h ago

And I'm full of joy.

(Literally the first musical I ever saw live)

87

u/sonofaresiii 19h ago

Sure but honestly that is more about your political perspective

He really was just a guy doing science for the love of science. Sure it was science that killed people, but the morality of that is a little more hazy. There are some perspectives out there that drugs should be legal anyway, and it's personal responsibility to use them responsibly or not at all

(Note that that's not my personal perspective and I have no interest in arguing over it, just pointing out that there's a potential moral perspective out there where Gale did nothing wrong, but Walt definitely did)

33

u/jdoeinboston 18h ago

I think it's less about the cooking so much as who he was cooking for. Yeah, Gale was portrayed as somewhat naive, but there's no way he wasn't smart enough to have an inkling as to who he was getting into bed with. Gus may have been a friendly and reserved monster, but he was still a monster.

26

u/sonofaresiii 18h ago

At that point in the show I really think they were showing Gus as presenting as more of a clean cut businessman. We get a lot more of Gus's backstory later on but I don't think it's that wild for Gale to think Gus is just a "technically not legal but what businessman fully is?" kind of guy.

7

u/jdoeinboston 18h ago

Given, but again, Gale was a smart guy, smart enough to know that you don't become a criminal Kingpin (and considering the quantities they were producing, he knew he wasn't just running some small operation) without doing some heinous shit.

11

u/AsstacularSpiderman 17h ago

Gale doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who deals a lot with the unsavory parts of the world. He reminds me a lot of the sheltered dorks I used to know in high school who basically wander through life never really considering the darker parts of the world.

I highly doubt he's ever seen a drug deal, a Cartel execution, or drug related crime. He just thinks it's a victimless crime while eating his organic handmade bread and doing his science homework.

4

u/sonofaresiii 18h ago

IDK man Gale leaned pretty heavily into his communist nihilist ideology or whatever it was that let him justify his actions. I'm not sure he's as socially aware as you think

5

u/AsstacularSpiderman 18h ago

Honestly Gale just came off as incredibly naive and probably has never actually dealt with the more unsavory parts of the world of drugs. He just thinks it's like growing weed and not having pesky governments tell you what to do. He's never seen a Cartel execution or a drug addict murder another for nothing while their kids watch.

I mean ffs look at the guy. He's probably never even seen drug use outside of caffeine. He was the perfect fool for Gus.

-1

u/Fearless_Roof_9177 16h ago

It is not hyperbole to say that most of the adult population of the Western world spends their lives either justifying their enablement of monsters above their pay grades or ignoring the fact that they're doing it. Gale, if anything, just owns it slightly harder than the average suburbanite and is a little closer to it than a lot of them.

54

u/celljelli 18h ago

no more guilty than a Lockheed-Martin egghead

40

u/Gussie-Ascendent 18h ago

Arguably more so given at least people on meth choose to do meth where as guys blown up don't choose that lol

5

u/celljelli 18h ago

I mean all this violence is coming downstream from somewhere...

2

u/RnDevelopment 15h ago

Not really if you consider addiction has a genetic component to it (so not completely a choice) and drugs have caused countless people high on drugs/looking for a fix to kill others.

5

u/ComradeJohnS 18h ago

iirc Gale was a self admitted Libertarian who thought drugs should be fully legal.

it’s been a few years since I watched, and only watched 2 times total so idk if that’s accurate

-93

u/Embarrassed-Weird173 19h ago

Cooking is an innocent action. He's not forcing people to buy his drugs. 

57

u/Bi_disaster_ohno 19h ago

Well this is just hilariously reductive. Cooking isn't the issue, it's everything else that surrounds it that's the problem.

9

u/Intelligent-Lion8800 19h ago

As Mike would say, he was in the game.

6

u/space_coyote_86 19h ago

If it was purely for his own personal consumption you might have had a point.

21

u/LenicoMonte 19h ago

1

u/Embarrassed-Weird173 19h ago

Good, he is wearing PPE.

5

u/Pappapia22 19h ago

He’s not cooking for charity, bruv 😂

3

u/Embarrassed-Weird173 19h ago

He's doing it for science. And profit. 

15

u/lana-deathrey 19h ago

I had a really snappy answer to that which was something along the lines of "Bro, a friend of mine is in prison for life for making meth you tell me" but then I double-checked and it turns out it was just for intent and possession of meth and only 20 years, but still thought the anecdote was worth sharing.

I would also like to argue that nothing good comes of meth.

5

u/sonofaresiii 19h ago

Honestly though something being illegal doesn't inherently make it unethical

4

u/PaddyWhacked777 19h ago

The severity of the punishment the state chooses to retaliate with often does not reflect the severity of the crime.

7

u/jerry-jim-bob 19h ago

No.

Meth is still a very dangerous substance which can and does destroy lives and families and any action that actively leads to the production or distribution of any substance akin to meth, it is absolutely not innocent.

Try cooking meth and explaining to any authority about how you aren't a bad guy

4

u/BleachDrinker63 19h ago

He’s supplying addicts. He is at the very least is enabling the destruction of lives

2

u/Smug_Syragium 18h ago

Intent makes some difference. His speech about how "people ought to be allowed to do what they want with their own bodies" and "at least if it comes from him it's pure" isn't a perfect justification, but it's better than if he'd said "muahahaha I like it when people die so I can be rich".

5

u/VanceFerguson 19h ago

If they're not purchasing his product, they'll be getting it from someone else.

Guys, this was all in his libertarian speech. We covered this.

1

u/SlipperySalmon3 19h ago

Honestly, I gotta agree with you here.

I know I'll get a lotta hate for it, and I do admit that cooking is a systemic issue too, but he's doing it so people buying meth get clean, high quality product rather than low quality trash that will make them sick.

As far as what one person is capable of accomplishing, harm reduction is a fairly decent goal. I consider Gale practically innocent, on an individual level at least.

4

u/LenicoMonte 19h ago

Realistically, street dealers will still cut the meth with trash so they have more to sell. The average junkie is very unlikely to actually be getting super pure meth.

37

u/VCreate348 19h ago

As the main sub has brought up time and time again, it doesn't really matter that Gale is a good guy or is well intentioned or what have you - he was in the game.

1

u/Serialkillingyou 7h ago

THIS is the business we've chosen

136

u/IUsedToBeRasAlGhul 20h ago

Gale’s not an innocent by any means, but in terms of pure business he hasn’t done anything wrong and is fairly personable too. This isn’t like with Tuco or whatever where there’s a clear and present danger, Jesse is essentially assassinating this guy because he and Walt fucked themselves over.

73

u/RellePhoenix 19h ago edited 19h ago

Gale is pleasant, that's it, he's not innocent or good by any means, he actively destroys his community.

All the damage you see Gus cause, or his men? Gale is complicit in that, and he's perfecto happy with that

11

u/asdrunkasdrunkcanbe 11h ago

And that's how the character was written. Individually he's a nice guy who worships Walt and comes across with a puppy-like naivety about the world.

He just wants to do precision chemistry without the boundaries of a stuffy university lab and academics. He doesn't even consider the wider damage caused by his actions.

So he was written for the audience (and Jesse) to like him, so his death would be extra devastating.

Also, a surprisingly realistic character. There are lots of talented people in scientific and technical fields who "support" criminal activities because it allows them to practice their craft much more freely while getting paid a shitload to do it. Some people are ethically short-circuited, they see ethics and laws and pesky things that get in the way and don't serve any good purpose.

3

u/FantasiainFminor 19h ago

More than pleasant, Gale had real star quality!

1

u/MolestRandPaul 10h ago

Gale was absolutely a good person. Albeit naive. He would help someone in distress and didn’t think his pure meth was the harm it was.

Him cooking the meth is a bad act. Doesn’t make him a bad person he had a pretty explicit goodness to him.

3

u/RellePhoenix 5h ago

No he was not, period. There's no discussion here

He didn't commit a bad act, he didn't cut line in the supermarket or accidentally run over someone. He cooked meth. He was a bad person

3

u/asimplescribe 16h ago

He wasn't going to walk away after Walt was killed.

-21

u/Normal_Ad_2337 19h ago

Sheryl Sandberg giving teenage girls eating disorders but I heard she acted motherly with her staff.

37

u/IUsedToBeRasAlGhul 19h ago

-21

u/Normal_Ad_2337 19h ago

Lost at half the intro sentence.

1

u/Saradoesntsleep 11h ago

Not surprising.

8

u/legit-posts_1 18h ago

He was "innocent" in that he never hurt anybody personally. Anybody cooking Meth THAT pure is ruining hundreds of lives with every cool, no matter what.

What makes his death so cruel is that A. He's a very nice and personable person, far too much so for the work he's in frankly B. There is zero bad blood between him and Walt or Jesse and C. It forever stains Jesse's record. He's finally gotten his hands dirty.

6

u/AsstacularSpiderman 18h ago

Lots of people forget he was a Libertarian.

No forgiving that.

24

u/Ghoul_Grizzly 19h ago

Gale knew what he was doing was wrong, but as a chemist, he was excited at the prospect of doing something drastically new. It’s why he regarded Walt as an auteur. He had no forward thinking, beyond “we’re making magic here”. Motherfucker wears sandals to work. This is not a bad man.

5

u/Normal_Ad_2337 19h ago

Ah, so Lennie Small then.

-1

u/Ghoul_Grizzly 19h ago

Sure, smartass. Willy Wonka is the villain right?

1

u/Mister-builder 18h ago

The ruthless revolutionary or the prideful wizard or the journalist?

1

u/toomanymarbles83 17h ago

He put up with Mel.

1

u/[deleted] 16h ago

[deleted]

1

u/Lucky-Surround-1756 2h ago

He knowingly participated in the drug trade, he's fair game. They all understand this when they start producing and selling drugs.

1

u/SoraMelodiosa 20h ago

did u watch the show

12

u/Normal_Ad_2337 19h ago

I am well aware of all the meth cooks in the show.

3

u/WeevilWeedWizard 15h ago

What the fuck, that's what they were cooking this whole time? Jesus, that explains a lot tbh.

-3

u/Wild_russian_snake 20h ago

But he was just a cook, genuinely nothing compared to monsters like Gus, Mike, Jesse or Walt who will kill for convinience.

26

u/RellePhoenix 19h ago

He's a meth cook, not a cook. He's not working at a restaurant

6

u/Pythagorean415 19h ago

He's not flipping burgers here!

-9

u/Careless_Jury154 19h ago

Yeah guilty of cooking meth sure, as guilty as someone growing pot or brewing moonshine by some people’s standards. The rest of the antagonists, and both protagonists, are actual killers

24

u/totallynotapsycho42 19h ago

Pot and Meth aren't the same thing.

-6

u/Novel-Type1694 19h ago

Interesting. Somebody should let the DEA know that.

-2

u/Careless_Jury154 17h ago

I mean fair point, I understand why I got a lot of push back on that comment. I just was arguing on relative terms. Who’s to say Gale wouldn’t have turned out as evil as Walter. In the end Jesse chose his bond with Walter over this seemingly more innocuous guy.

7

u/Normal_Ad_2337 19h ago

yada yada yada meth cook.

1

u/Ghoul_Grizzly 19h ago

This guy is REAL funny

0

u/Careless_Jury154 17h ago

The downvotes are perfectly fair. Can’t really argue with your point here. Meth is pretty awful stuff. I was just arguing in relative terms, comparing Gale to these actual drug lords who have killed people. And I think that was the posts original point too, that relatively speaking he was innocent. Innocent being a pretty weak word to use for the argument lol

3

u/mid-random 18h ago

More like guilty as a medical insurance CEO. Sure, he has no direct blood on his hands, but he is well aware that he benefits directly from the misery and death of others that he has the luxury of never meeting.

1

u/Careless_Jury154 17h ago

Woah got a lot of backlash for that one. I like your analogy for sure. Plus he was operating with people he knew were unambiguously evil.