Perhaps this is what people really expect when it comes to character development – that a character will change rather than refine their motivation? This is definitely something I’ll keep in mind moving forward as I listen to people discuss character development. To put it another way, Sean exchanges one motivation for another. The emotional climax isn’t the final car chase, but the scene that instigates it in which Sean reaches out to the local gangster, apologises for his destructive behaviour, and offers a diplomatic solution that will peacefully end the violence. His arc is one of developing a community, connections, and sense of honour and respect. At the beginning of the story, Sean is a ne’er-do-well who happily burns up every community he falls into because he has no interests beyond chasing the next car chase and the next adrenaline high. It was watching, of all things, Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift that cleared up my confusion, because it really does show a character who changes his motivation. If his pride is stable, it’s the only stable thing about him. Walt is fundamentally a scientist who approaches his descent into evil the exact same way he does cooking meth – testing a hypothesis, examining the results, and taking up ideas that work while discarding ones that don’t. I get that what people mean is that he was always motivated by bitterness and pride, but even then, his leaning down on that is an active process of change. Walter at the start of the story is a milquetoast, passive-aggressive high school chemistry teacher Walter just past the middle is a violent, brash, openly arrogant drug dealer Walter at the end is a quietly confident murderous drifter. I always thought this was nonsense on a superficial level, almost none of Walt’s behaviour towards the end of the series resembles any of his behaviour at the start outside of his propensity for lying. For years, people have been saying that Walter White’s arc is not one of change, but of either decline or revelation – that he is a fundamentally static character whose sense of change comes from the audience’s perception of him shifting.
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