Moral sympathy and the “Lucifer effect.” Evil and redemption in Breaking Bad

Abstract

Introduction.This article analyzes the dramatic and cognitive mechanisms that activate viewers’ emotional identification with antihero protagonists of serial fiction, taking Breaking Bad as a case study. Methods. The analysis of the mechanisms that enable identification is based on cognitive media theory (Carroll; Plantinga; Smith), and is reinforced through media psychology, applied through a close reading of the last season of the series. Theoretical framework. The notion of “structure of sympathy” (Smith) is used to identify four dramatic strategies that modulate the spectatorial moral judgment against the antihero, while the concept of the “expanded narrative” is used to explain the familiarity established with the protagonist. Discussion. In its fifth season, the story destroys the viewer’s moral sympathy for the character, but rebuilds it in the last episodes of the series through the aforementioned four dramatic strategies. Conclusion. The concept of moral sympathy is proposed as a synthesis of narrative familiarity and moral modulation of the ethical perspective.