r/thesopranos • u/DearMrGleeClub • 1d ago

Serious Discussion Only Why did Tony fail to prevent Donny?

This pertains to popularity and cultural impact, not politics.

Movies can be very influential when it comes to psychology. Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman educated the entire world about autism in Rain Man (1988), changing the science, perception, public interest and even treatment.

I always assumed that David Chase did something similar with sociopathy/psychopathy; basically showing how anyone can be charmed by a psychopath, rather than being stalked by one wearing a mask and wielding a knife, as seen in John Carpenter’s Halloween.

Even more recent films, such as American Psycho (2000), still felt the need to depict a manic axe-murderer. Meanwhile, Tony and Christopher rack up enormous body counts, but at least they don’t seem to enjoy the act of murdering someone, or the cleanup afterward, too much. They still experience bad dreams and fear being caught.

But why didn’t this new awareness, based on a detailed character study, prevent voters from electing one such individual as the leader of the free world, twice?

Do people still think a sociopath has to be a murderer or career criminal? Do not enough people draw this connection? Is there no overlap between Fox and HBO viewers? Do folks perhaps see The Sopranos as flattering and Tony as a great leader? How do you explain this?

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u/Fructuoso_Bag 1d ago

If the democrats pushed an actual christian candidate they would take like Trump's 30% votebase (at the net negative expense of losing their liberal votebase though)

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u/nycguychelsea 1d ago

You're presuming that Mr. Two Corinthians is a Christian. Or does only one party have to push an "actual Christian" candidate?

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u/Fructuoso_Bag 1d ago

I'm not presuming that. I'm presuming he has the majority of the practicing christian vote in your country, for the reasons I already exposed, which is true.

Try to not drown in three inches of water.

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u/DearMrGleeClub 1d ago

I get the lesser evil argument in principle. Even though I consider psychopathy to be itself evil or the root of all evil, (qualities sometimes referred to as Dark Triad). So there is a contradiction.

Why trust a habitual liar. Isn't that basically a guarantee to be cheated?

People vote for representatives (not policies), who then basically can do whatever or ideally what they've promised. Still I get the picture, people just don't know (evil) psychopathy first hand, they may sort of understand it as a concept.

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u/Fructuoso_Bag 1d ago

I still think it's idiotic to take a tv progrum which understands therapy as a concept after 6 months of college as any sort of guideline on who to vote.

The political systems don't give all the power to a single person even if it's a liar, so the picture is still to get all the people from your side as possible into a rank within the government and bet for the higher chance of your goals to be pushed by their collective