Why are we trying to pass off Ned as the main charscter when the series is named after Jon and Dany.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

As I said, you could consider Gus a main character, but you also could consider him an important side character given virtually every one of the things he does in the show is simply to move forward the story of the clear main characters. That's why you can have a successful prequel show that dives into his storyline in depth. Even the Gus vs. Hector stuff was mostly part of the Walter/Jesse storyline.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Ned was not a main character. He was just "important at the time"

I'm going to treat you as a hostile witness if your next post doesn't name the main GoT characters.

Sounds good.

I'm not going to do it until you admit that Tuco was not a main character.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

At the time of his death, he absolutely was the main bad guy on the show. I dont know how anyone could even begin to argue that.


This is why im asking for your examples, because I dont understand your formula.


Was Marie a main character in BB?

Tuco was absolutely a main character at that point.

Didn't the actor ask to be killed off?

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No. I didn't. That was TP. The examples I gave were of characters in past TV shows that would have been considered central. I even explicitly said that I wasn't talking about "great"--I said that was subjective. In fact, the more important character that was killed even earlier in "The Sopranos" (that wasn't mentioned) was Puss, which was also considered shocking at the time.



You be honest. You literally said great characters dying off is a new thing. I don't "think" you aren't educated, you aren't.

Marie was not.

The clear main characters of the show were Walt, Jesse, Hank, and Skyler. I think the next closest is Mike with Gus right behind. I think a case could be made for both. Saul behind that with no one else close enough to have consideration.

If Tuco is a main character than so is Todd and Todd's uncle.

I think the formula is pretty clear. You either last a majority of the series as an important part of the entire story arc or you dominate a whole season. That's why Tuco isn't close. The whole first season is about Jesse and Walt. He's the main bad guy but it isn't his story.

As for GoT, I'd say that the Stark children besides Rickon are all main characters(with Robb obviously being the closest to not being one), Ned, King Robert, Joffrey, Cersei, Jamie, Tyrion, and Daenerys. There may be others but I'm just going off the top of my head. If Tuco is a main character that list goes up by at least 20.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

If we set Tuco as a main character of Breaking Bad then I can't imagine how many main characters there have been in Breaking Bad.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

As you continue to go personal I'll just drop the conversation with you.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Saul was a main character

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You have no formula. You're just trying to retro fit your original statement now.

King Robert? Are you kidding me? He was in like 5 scenes.

King Robert and Tuco are equals as far as how important they were to the show.

For Breaking Bad its Walt, Jessie, Mike, Hank, Gus, Saul, Skylar, Tuco, and yes, Todd's uncle was the main antagonist at the end.

Lidia and Hector are borderline.


You're all over the place. You began this by questioning Stringer Bell as a main character.

So now you've put King Robert and Skylar in the main character group but not Stringer Bell and Gus Fring.

It depends on your view of what constitutes main characters. Is the villain of a season (or multiple seasons) of a tv show a main character at that point in the series? I think so but maybe you don't.

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Take King Robert out. I don't care. He was in there because him and Ned were the dominant storyline of the whole first season. King Robert was much more important than Tuco especially if you include the things that we learned about him and his rebellion.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I think there is a difference between an important character and a main character. Todd and Lydia were more important than Tuco and I don't think they were main characters either.

To put it another way, describe what Tuco did for the overall storyline of Breaking Bad. The answer will be that his only real accomplishment was setting up other characters being introduced.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I'm not even sure what Rick's arguing for at this point but the argument has changed multiple times as he falls further and further down the rabbit hole.

Basically the main point is: GoT is the only show to ever kill a main character off early in a series when it wasn't related to the character wanting to leave the show. And only he can define what a "main character" is because....Brick.

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That wasn't my point at all. Here it is with context.


As you can see, the idea here is that the final seasons of shows are tough to be great because great characters get killed off earlier than that. My point was that this is a fairly new phenomenon and it is. The fact that some shows had one big death prior to the end times of the storyline doesn't change that point.

People have been twisting and turning it into something else, including you right there.

I haven't even given the best defense I have which is that I was CLEARLY talking about multiple great characters being killed off, so we can cite that Buffy's mom was killed off, and that a guy died in season 1 of the X Files, and someone fell down an elevator, and JR was shot and not killed, and Tuco died after 4 episodes(even though BB probably deserves to be at the very beginning of the relative trend).

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

So why are you fighting everyone that has given you examples of it not being a new thing?

I do agree with your point that just killing people for the sake of shaking things up is a bad idea. Look no further than GoT. As cool as the Red Wedding was, the show and the books have never recovered.

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SPOILERS FOR DEXTER

Rita and Doakes.

Seasons 2 and 4. Main characters.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Most of the examples are pretty bad. That's why.

The good examples seem to be these:
1) Col. Blake in MASH
2) Gus Fring
3) String Bell
4) Charlie from LOST
5) I'll put in Buffy's mom but I really have no idea on this

Now, compare that to GoT, TWD, and to some degree SoA. If we extend main characters to a lower standard that I started with then Justified and Breaking Bad have a lot more too.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I know Hank will be unhappy with this post, but Dexter could be considered fairly recent too.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Dexter Seasons 2 and 4 occurred in 2007 and 2009. Before GoT and before your agreed upon good example of Gus Fring.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Game of Thrones debuted in April 2011. I don't really see the need to argue if 2-4 years in between is a big deal.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Dr Edwards ER. Lane Price Mad Men. Tasha Yar ST:TNG. Over half the original cast of Greys Anatomy. That's top of my head in addition to your "good" examples.

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Yep and as I already pointed out, the LA Law one was huge. So was NYPD Blue.

But then later, the claim was amended to exclude deaths if it was just the actor leaving the show, so we lost Jimmy Smits...again.

Mad Men is clearly a recent show. Greys Anatomy is still on the air.

Dr Edwards is a good one, though he didn't really leave for story reasons, but that's something you don't want me to point out. Looks like Tasha Yar asked to leave the show.

This just gets down to the basic premise that I didn't say that no characters ever died.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I think chronology is very important, as do you. You said nothing before GoT has done it. Dexter did it before GoT. (And other examples provided, but Dexter's I think were the most significant)

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Nothing has come close to what GoT did in terms of killing off main characters especially if you give GoT 4 seasons worth of deaths to compare it to Dexter. TWD has surpassed it now.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

[/quote]
Now we all agree.


Let's do a board re-watch of the Wire.