In Breaking Bad (2008-2013) Skyler has a natural reaction to finding out her husband is a sociopathic drug manufacturer, but this isn’t ok because she is a woman.

the people who love Skylar and hate Walt would never run a successful methamphetamine business, and it shows.

Because the people who hate Skyler thought Walter was this flawed hero while they misunderstood why he was actually a horrible person.

I am rewatching the show after just having a child and have a whole different perspective of her character. Outside of the affair (which honestly seems weird for her), she is not wrong on pretty much anything. She is fairly justified and not the b-word I thought she was the first time. Walter is nuts. He could have had his treatment paid for except he hated the people.

She is completly right most of the time (except the affair, that was a bitch move).
But she is (by intention) written like the stereotypical suburban mom who constantly complains about anything and isn’t really supportive of her husband (even before cooking drugs).
Walt and Skylar are both very flawed charakters, but we see things from Walts perspective most of the time, so we understand his struggle, while we see Skylar mostly as an obstacle to the plot.

Bro is acting like this is a hot take

People hate Skylar because she’s a Bitch at the start before she has any reason to be. She controls Walts life, even his potential death, in many ways. She’s passive-aggresive, selfish and mean initially, judging Walt for what she believes to be a genuine medical emergency, bullying him into chemo, makes his illness all about her.

By the time she gets genuine reason to be angry with Walt, the audience has already made up their mind on her and choose not to sympathise with her. As Walts becomes worse, she becomes much better, but people are stuck with their first impressions.

It’s much easier to loose a reputation than repair one.

This show has literal nazis and drug dealers,but the most hated character is a woman who doesn’t like his husband having a drug empire

Honestly I don’t think it’s because she is a woman.

I think it’s because watching Walter achieve mastery and be super competent in something – even if illegal – is quite simply fun.

You see it time and time again when the main hero of a movie or a tv show is someone who breaks the law. Movies about con artists, assassins, master thieves etc. – it is enjoyable to watch them in their prime, when they are so cool even if we know that it’s wrong.

In my opinion she is hated not because she is a woman but simply because she is a party pooper. She brings harsh reality to this cool fantasy and we, as the viewers, don’t want it to stop. We want to see Walter expand his empire, dance around other criminals and escape justice. It’s fun to watch and bringing out consequences is being a downer.

If the genders on the show were reversed and it was a husband who started off as ‘normally supportive, plus normal problems’ and understandably spiraled down into unhappy lashing out, cheating, etc due to his wife’s behavior I probably wouldn’t like him either. I really don’t believe it’s a gender thing. It isn’t fun to watch and makes me cringe during their screen appearances.

It has nothing to do with whether it’s justified or not. And, in Skyler’s case, she made enough bad decisions – under great stress, yes – that her morality/justification is…complicated. IMO she made the leap to unredeemable when she refused to help Hank in the end. Game over, Skyler.

Is that really why people hate Skyler? It’s not why I dislike her.

On rewatch- Skylar’s very first moments in the show, her introduction to us, is the exact trope of a nagging, mean, no fun bitchy wife. I hate it. She was set up to be disliked. A cheap thing for the writers to do. She could have been so much more interesting and sympathetic to us but the writers wanted us on Walt’s side as much as we could be from the get go, rooting for him and irritated with her, making her the false antagonist of the show. The actress did a phenomenal job but I think she was miscast looks wise. I don’t believe them as a couple, can’t imagine how they got together in the first place, (I know you can argue that that’s on purpose) but if it is it never really pays off. They are so wrong together. I wish they had written and cast a more sympathetic character/actor as Skylar.

Skyler defenders seem to forget she had countless opportunities to turn Walt in and protect their kids, but decided she’d rather attempt to live with the lie and the money. Most egregiously when her lawyer tells her the clearly right thing to do and she doesn’t do it.

Skyler was sort of a victim of Season 1’s setup. The whole point was that they made Walt’s family be such extreme assholes to him in season 1 to make the viewer understand why he wants to get away from it all and make meth. Nobody in his life respects him, at home or at work. This setup comes off as cheap in hindsight, as his family isn’t as shitty as the series goes on. I still love breaking bad, but they really do make Walt’s family comically evil in Season 1, only to make them develop into decent people out of thin air after that. Except Walt Jr. Walt Jr. can still go hobble himself off a bridge 😂

I mean she could have respected his wishes which was to die. But no lashed out at anyone for it and guilt tripped him when she didn’t even see how much one treatment costs. Her sister was like we should respect his wishes and she went after her because she didn’t do as she wanted. Skylar is selfish as hell, and they should never have gotten together, hell the writers knew it that’s why falina was the finale song, coming back to be killed.

I think she missed the point that Walter was providing for his family. Yes, he was trying to roll the hard six, but it wasn’t like he had a 20 year old girlfriend on the side. The money was for her and their son.

You hate Skyler because she wouldn’t let Walt sell drugs. I hate Skyler because of her half-a**ed birthday tuggie. We are not the same.

She totally overreacted.

Everyone’s got a hobby, what’s a little meth and a few murders between spouses?

Skylar’s reaction isn’t quite as black and white as you’re trying to claim. She’s not exactly Carmela Soprano, but she’s not her sister either (which makes it even worse considering who her sister is married to)

Growing up means understanding that Walter was not a chad or some kind of badass, he was just a loser that destroyed everything just for proving himself that he was not a loser.

Nah, she’s just annoying…

Maybe she shouldn’t have married a drug dealer? Skill issue on her part

Her reaction to Walt is understandable, but other than just being the upset wife, her biggest play in the series involved her almost getting the family killed because she was fooled into giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to her crooked boss she was fucking. The writers did her a bit dirty there IMHO.

She has flashes of brilliance and development, but only enough to undo the original mess. It wasn’t really enough to outpace that initial flub, and she was just kinda *there*.

I don’t think the character deserves any hate, but I personally would’ve liked to have seen her evolve a bit more.

Istg, both Writers and Anna Gunn did excellent job on this topic. It’s hard to not hate Skyler the first time you watch the show, when you are duped into rooting for Walter. Only on consecutive rewatches you start noticing that her reaction is absolutely valid and that Walter – a chemistry teacher turned Drug Lord – is the real evil here.

Audiences generally favour the more libertarian streak kind, probably because they get to romanticise about doing whatever they want, and in fiction this is not only entirely possible, but also easier to portray as rightful, even though they’re actually single minded arseholes.

It is a trend that seems to have been especially popularised in the past 20 or so years in action/anti hero type films/tv… Examples of such characters include: Rorschach, Joker (whatever one you want to pick), Tony Soprano, Don Draper, Bateman etc.

Skyler is an antithesis of this character I guess. Plus she’s a bit passive aggressive, which no one likes; irrespective of your husband moonlighting as a murdering local drug Lord kingpin.

When you watched BB week to week it was easier to see Walt as a protagonist anti-hero. He’d do a bad thing but then also some good things and seem conflicted about it. It’s actually interesting how when you watch it binge, multiple episodes back to back, you just see it all laid out. Walt became a monster, Skyler was wildly supportive but she became trapped in a world she did not want. The same effect happens in the Sopranos.