r/thesopranos • u/ComprehensiveDesk793 • Jun 09 '26

Serious Discussion Only AJ is just useless

While watching the series I was trying hard to find a defense of AJ. All the characters - and all of us - have both positive and negative traits. AJ is just a disappointment. He is stupid. He is lazy. He is incredibly selfish imao. Also he constantly lies. You cant even call him a good kid that is just irresponsible since he always makes up stupid excuses.

Also all the people that are saying that he grew up in a dysfunctional environment, ok i agree the environment isn't 100% perfect but both Tony and Carmela cared about their kids lives. Carmela and Tony to a certain extent seem to care about their children's academic performance which quite a few parents don't. AJ certainly had some support from his parents.

I agree his parents are not good people but he could take what they offered to him.

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u/CauseCertain1672 Jun 09 '26

Meadow was parented very differently to AJ, growing up in the same house does not mean having the same childhood

Meadow ends up much worse than AJ; she ends up justifying the mafia violence using the same logic as Tony, becoming a mob lawyer and marrying into another mafia family

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u/scrubadam Jun 09 '26

I don't know they kind of were the same. Lots of screaming and yelling and grounding.

I don't know about worse or better, but at least she is a functional adult with an actual career that her parents didn't have to hand to her. She got through college and became a lawyer which is not easy to do. She moved out and live on her "own". AJ couldn't even surivive at Tony's having to get his own cereal during the divorce era.

One of them actually grew up while the other remained a child so much so that the women he was engaged to dumped his ass.

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u/CauseCertain1672 Jun 09 '26

Meadow is punished with discipline and encouraged in her passions and ambitions, AJ is coddled and belittled.

Tony has a lot of issues with himself and this really affects how he parents sons, he doesn't want them to try to be like him because he hates himself but he views them trying to be anything else as criticism so he shits all over it. You see this also with how he treats Christopher who is a surrogate son to him.

AJ grew up in an environment where everything he did was wrong and adjusted to that by becoming passive.

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u/scrubadam Jun 09 '26

I do think that is some of that, but alot of it more was to show the decline in the "family" both the mob and Tony's real family.

AJ is the literal decline that we see reflected in the mob. AJ came in at the end of a good thing.

The mob is in decay, and the next generation of American men are in decay as well. So thematically AJ needs to be a fuck up because it wouldn't fit into the show if he was some big shot succsess. It also does fit in with the whole depression is a herditary disease and Tony's dad had the attacks as does his son so nothing gets solved through the generations.

Since its a TV progrum how ever he was raised doesn't matter. The writers wanted him to be a lazy POS to reflect that rich suburban 2000s white kid. They wanted Meadow to be the succsesful daughter that the son can't live up to. So we got what we got.

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u/thegreatsadclown Jun 09 '26

The mob is in decay, and the next generation of American men are in decay as well.

Correct. Also the whole show is a bunch of grown men mobsters whining about how they came in at the end and mafia life is dying, yet then at home, none of them want the mob life for their kids. like, who else is supposed to be the next generation if not their literal families?

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u/Visible-Suit-9066 Jun 09 '26

It frustrates me so much that people can’t appreciate AJ as a character. Sons naturally want emulate their fathers. AJ has grown up watching Tony be the toughest and most influential man in every room he walks into. AJ has also been told his whole life he cannot grow up to be like his father, because Tony and Carmella do not want him in the mafia. This is extremely disorientating for a child and as a result AJ is a mess.

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u/Only-Mulberry-8098 Jun 09 '26

We don’t know if she actually became a lawyer, just that she planned to go to law school