ALIGNMENT CHART WEEK! The Wire

I was about to dub the Arrested Development one as the winner, but this one is nearly perfect. As with pretty much all of them when related to complex characters, all of these are relative – and it’s cool to see Evil mixed up with non-Street characters appropriately.

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Awesome doesn’t even begin to describe it, just re-watched the series last month, you could easily do two charts with all that The Wire has to offer in its range of characters.

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Hey, Broyles from Fringe is there! 🙂

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Like Stringer, Avon definitely deserves a place on the chart, but for my money the best CN right down to “how people actually played the damn alignment” on the whole show is Ziggy Sobotka. Too many good characters, not enough alignments.

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Perfect.

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I have a hard time seeing Avon as either chaotic or neutral. This is a guy who drops witnesses to his crew’s murders; he’s also a guy who’s appalled when Stringer calls a hit on a Sunday. I see him as more NE.

I don’t see him ordering murders as proof of evil given that he’s simply living up to societal norms and needs as his subculture defines them. Drug dealers kill threats to their existence; to be evil you need to be particularly callous about it (eg Stringer having his best friend and partner’s little brother killed to protect the business). Omar kills a lot of people too, but I wouldn’t call him evil, nor Proposition Joe for that matter (who would do anything Avon does to protect his business).

As for Avon’s horror at the church shooting, I think that gets outweighed by his willingness to conduct his business how he sees fit even when he knows full well it’s a bad idea. I think he’s N with strong C tendencies. I agree that Templeton is a better fit at CN, but 1.) I couldn’t find a good image of him and 2.) I couldn’t find a good quote either and 3.) Avon’s a more important character.

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No Bubbles?!

He’s RIGHT THERE.

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“He’s RIGHT THERE.”

Doh! Is that a picture of him from The Wire? I was looking for more hair and my eyes skipped right over him. I think I’ve gone blind!

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What? No Prop Joe? Sheeeeeit! He should be placed in Neutral Evil. Any man who’s willing to set-up Stringer Bell for a hit all the while taking the man’s money and his drugs while setting up a suppose peace summit between Stringer and Omar, now if that ain’t pure evil I don’t know what is.

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“I don’t see him ordering murders as proof of evil given that he’s simply living up to societal norms and needs as his subculture defines them.”

Thank you Professor McFeelyheart. As much as the show is great about explaining exactly where the Bodies and Michael Lees and D’Angelos of the world come from, it’s also great about explaining just how socially corrosive the drug trade is. And it shows plenty of characters who turn their backs on it (Cutty), express serious misgivings about it (D’Angelo), or try to run it in less violent and confrontational ways (Prop Joe, Stringer to some extent). Avon is none of those. He’s a guy who kills anyone who crosses his path, from rival dealers to his own runners to witnesses to ex-girlfriends he got sick of. The guy’s straight-up evil, and it’s part of the horror of The Wire that just when he goes down we realize there are others who are even worse.

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Because THE WIRE has such an incredibly large and diverse cast, it is clear that it needs two charts.

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See, you could make multiple charts for “The Wire.” Maybe like, a secondary character alignment chart? I think mine would go like…

Lawful Good – Rhonda Pearlman: Everything by the book. A little career minded, but actually had an interest in taking bad guys off the street.

Neutral Good – Kima and Bunk: It was too hard to separate the two, so I just put them in together. They both had their faults; philandering, alcoholism, stubborness, but in the end, they stopped short of taking shortcuts. Highpoints, Bunk’s speech to Omar, Kima refusing to finger her shooter.

Chaotic Good – I’m going with Prezbo, seasons 1-3. He was capable of fine detective work, but eventually his flaws would catch up to him. Sometimes in the same episode. He was a passive aggressive McNulty for a while.

Lawful Neutral – Randy Wagstaff/Wallace: Once again splitting the difference. They were just stupid kids, trying to make it through their adolescence while tip toeing around the game. Unfortunately they both witnessed something they couldn’t shake, and out of some sense of duty, told the truth and paid the price.

True Neutral – Slim Charles: Watching the Wire again, I was captivated by Slim Charles’ rise through the game. Unlike most of his generation, he respected the rules of the game. He occasionally asked questions (The Clay Davis?) , he didn’t fly off the handle, and handled the business in the mold of his mentor, Prop Joe.

Chaotic Neutral – Herc: What an asshole. Through his action or inaction, cases were made or unmade, lives and careers were lost, Marlo was arrested and freed. Through it all, Herc was oblivious to the damage that he caused.

Lawful Evil – Stanislaw Valchek was the epitome of evil in the Baltimore police department. No wonder Herc went to him after the blowjob incident. He knows all the rules (Within his sphere of influence) and uses that knowledge to railroad anyone who stands in his way. He even outwitted Irvin Burrell, who was the grandmaster of political survivors in the Police Department

Neutral Evil – The only thing that mattered to the Greek was the accumulation of money, and anonymity. You never got the sense that things were personal for him. If you did good for him, you would make your money. If you screwed up, he’d have you killed. No hands, no face. Simplicity.

Chaotic Evil – This one might be easy, considering he’s the descendant of Marlo, but Kenard was a little bundle of evil. In two seasons, he busted Dukie’s balls, stole Namond’s stash, tried to light that cat on fire, and killed Omar. All out of boredom (That’s my theory) and disrespect. Baltimore better watch out when he gets out of Baby Booking.

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I’m not fully willing to get behind McNulty as Good, especially considering Season 5. I’d put him at a firm CN with very slight and occasional G tendencies, and leave him off the chart.

I’d also put Bubbs at CG rather than neutral. He’s got plenty of chaos in his life, and snitching against the dealers is not lawful enough to balance that out [it balances out to mostly neutral itself, being supportive of the larger social order but dramatically against the code of his subculture.] That leaves a hole at NG for Beadie, which lets you represent season 2 and at least one of the show’s females in the chart.

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The simplest answer is to do separate charts based on the various faction.

One for the police/lawyers.
One for the politicians.
One for the reporters.
One for the docks.
One for the streets.

Because that way we can get all the characters involved.

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This is great. Shows the depth of The Wire from a whole new direction. I would have swapped Avon and Clay Davis. Avon is a cold blooded killer and I would put him down as evil. Also makes his partnership with Stringer more sensible. Clay flaunts the rules but is not a killer.

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Freeman and McNulty definitely need to be paired somehow, it’s almost tossup as to whether that’s NG/CG or CG/CN but I lean to the latter: both are aiming at the same place, but Freeman prioritizes properly, McNulty rebels even when he knows full well it’ll make things worse. Doug’s suggestions for the evil row are all perfect, but the Greek embodying the evil in the show is straight on, especially with his FBI links.

Slim Charles is way too comfortable with killing not to slide a little into NE, but Bodie is as TN as it gets, he does exactly what’s expected of him by society, and expects it to stay the same even though he’s aware that parts of it are fucked up, he only stands up when it starts to change and the stability of the system is threatened.

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Deadwood works really well for this idea (I think I’m going to actually make this poster):

LG: Bullock
NG: Sol Starr (or Ellsworth or Doc Cochran, if you like, but I’m going with Sol)
CG: Calamity Jane
LN: Merrick (although I would be tempted to go with Commissioner Jarry in order to use the “you do not fuck the future, sir, the future fucks you” quote)
TN: Wu (although my first thought was Richardson and it would be hilarious to have him at the center of it… screw it, I may need to make two posters)
CN: Al (it took me a while to place him, but the more I think about it, the more it works)
LE: Hearst
NE: Tolliver
CE: Wolcott

You could also put Farnum in Neutral Evil if you didn’t want to leave E.B. out and shift Tolliver over to Chaotic Evil, but Wolcott is/was one of the scariest fucking characters in television history and pretty much the definition of “Chaotic Evil.”

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[…] [via MightyGodKing] […]

Absolutely friggin’ PERFECT.

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although this series and its characters are complex and intricate, there are overarching parallels between the different modes of society that pervade the show. while each mode in nature seems radically different, there is bureaucratic manipulation and distorted agenda are of the same mold in all of them. thinking in terms of these parallels and how each character operates within his/her respective infrastructure makes this kind of categorization easier. anyway, i agree with each of your placements. well done.

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[…] ALERT* Uma análise interessante que encontrei de alguns personagens. Mostra claramente como é cinza a linha entre o bem e o […]