A moment of silence for the days where I could actually come up with creative/clever titles for my fanfic chapters.

whoops some Better Call Saul thoughts about Chuck I gotta write out, I can't stop thinking about this guy. Note im halfway thru season 4 rn so some spoilers for those who aren't caught up like meee

I find Chuck to be a fascinating character. I think in a lot of ways he's far worse than Jimmy. Like, Jimmy absolutely isn't innocent and has done a lot of harm to his brother but Chuck feels far more malicious and cruel all under the guise of being "morally just" in his actions. In a funny comparison, he reminds me a lot of Michael Bluth from Arrested Development, acting like he's the only moral one when he's just as shitty and selfish as the rest of his family but Chuck is just so much more hurtful.

It's very clear that Chuck has had beef with just the concept of Jimmy since he was born. He's the classic older brother jealous of the attention his baby brother gets and he never got over it. A notable event to me is when their mother dies calling for Jimmy, he doesn't tell him and I don't believe for a second it was out of kindness to the fact it would have hurt him that he wasn't there. He didn't tell him out of pure spite. Here he was when Jimmy wasn't (which you can not blame him for, he could not have known) and he sees this as his family still prioritizing Jimmy over him. He is selfish and he doesn't see it that way.

Like, This fucking guy really defined what his brother was at a young age and then just decided that's what he was for the rest of his life. How fucked up is that? to your own brother?? He actively worked against Jimmy in secret!!!! because whatever Jimmy did to better himself wasn't good enough for him. and all the while he acts high and mighty b/c he's the "proper" lawyer, he's passionate about morals and justice. Ignoring the fact that actually law and so called court justice is horribly flawed and often contributes to more pain and misery in the world. I feel he's willingly naïve in that way, would rather blindly trust a broken system than confront its faults.

It's no wonder he develops his electro sensitivity, he needs an reason to explain why he feels so shitty. It cant be healthy to have that much family conflict go unspoken for years. He's so self-absorbed he can't confront his inner turmoil without looking for an outside source. It can't ever be him, it has to be something else that he can control. It's honestly sad like, everyone enabled him years b/c that is such a difficult thing to confront. I don't fault them, but also he would never get better b/c of it. His pain is real but he's also the source of his own pain. He avoided people who could really help him and in the end his final spoken words to his own brother is "you never really mattered all that much to me" and I think he meant it. I'm sure on some level his final letter has truth, that Jimmy is his family at the end of the day but not once are we ever shown that they were ever particularly close beyond when they were very young. Chuck decided that Jimmy was unredeemable early on and never let go and that absolutely fucked their relationship without Jimmy ever realizing.

Anyway that's my Chuck thoughts. I love him, I hate him, he's an excellent complex character and I will miss him.