Avon Barksdale or Stringer Bell?

[Mendoza]

[Paul]

Ha, ha, ha!!! Brilliant.

[Unrighteous]

ace, mendoza

[Ezekiel 25:17]

Stringer tried to change the game and it's something that could never be done, he lost his way completely and showed just how much when he tried to clip Omah on a sunday.

[Kevin D]

Watching it again(it's a shame that such a great season of TV is an afterthought because of how incredible season 4 was, one of those good problems) and I'm going for Stringer. Although Avon is an interesting character, it's a lot harder to be a Stringer Bell in West Baltimore than an Avon.

 

One thing I'm curious about is how the demise of Avon's brother affected the dynamics of their relationship; with Avon's emphasis on family, I'm sure his brother had an influential role at the top. It's odd they never talk about him.

[RoboRiise]

Great scene, Shakespearean overtones.

 

[YOUTUBE]91CpbRq9Tiw[/YOUTUBE]

 

 

That scene is so good because of the way it highlights the fundamental difference between the two characters. I was talking to a mate about this a few weeks ago and he said the critical difference is that Avon could never get out of the ghetto mentality, he couldn't have ever made it in the world that Stringer wanted to transition into. I disagreed; for me the real difference is that Avon probably could have done but never really never wanted to.

 

I always saw a parallel between their characters and those of Prop Joe and Clay Davis; in another world, Prop Joe could easily have been the politician and Clay the gangster but Joe would never have embraced that life.

 

Spoiler warning - yeah i know it's old but i watched this late and was hit with one.

 

Warning! The following content is NOT WORK SAFE. Click the Show button to reveal.

Anyway voted Avon because in that world there's only one way to judge - who died first...

 

Oh and obviously Omar pwnd all those motherfuckers.

[Kevin D]

]I've mentioned before no doubt that I'm Avon Barksdale on Facebook and have over 6' date='300 fans, occasionally when I'm bored I post an update [/b']and it's both amusing and distressing how many people seem to think he's real.

 

Yesterday I put:

 

 

 

130 like this, 23 comments.

 

Saw the picture of Obama meeting Elba and the comment posted was quality.

 

 

Obama is reported to have told Elba that Stringer was his second favourite character on the show, which pretty much wraps this one up. On one side we have a bunch of internet knobheads picking Avon; on the other we have the world's most powerful man, maybe the most powerful man in history, siding with the more capable men of the forum and picking Stringer.

 

 

And that's the end of that chapter.

[Mendoza]

Damn my picture has vanished. Worth seeing again i think

 

[Ezekiel 25:17]

I think if true fans are walking away from it saying 'absolutely nothing to like about marlo' 'Nowhere near my favourite character', then his part could not have been written, or acted any better.

[lifetime fan]

I think if true fans are walking away from it saying 'absolutely nothing to like about marlo' 'Nowhere near my favourite character', then his part could not have been written, or acted any better.

 

 

His is a brilliant character because he's so unlikeable.

[Tyler Durden]

My favourite part between the two, and funniest, was where Stringer was raging after realising he had been ripped off by Clay Davis and telling Slim he needs to be got while Avon watches on.

 

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC4QtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DOlf8J_z3snM&ei=Vv4TUdeYKceY0QWgyICADg&usg=AFQjCNF8GefPIy-uGA0wJHGhSF-GKR9CZw

 

Forgive my shitness at posting videos from my iphone

[Unrighteous]

I didn't see Marlo as unlikable.

[RobbieOR]

It was Stringer by a mile but killing off Wallace lost him him a lot of brownie points.

[lifetime fan]

How far you through now Rob?

[Remmie]

Yeah I really liked Marlo, his ruthlessness was endearing. Obviously due to it being a TV show, if he was based on anyone real that person is likely a bad cunt.

[Unrighteous]

Yeah I really liked Marlo, his ruthlessness was endearing. Obviously due to it being a TV show, if he was based on anyone real that person is likely a bad cunt.

 

He's a bad cunt, yeah, but I didn't hate him. He just was very straight forward. Meet everything with force. Build fear, and control your territory.

 

Barksdale had a totally different thing going. He was an old-school gangster and had a lot of flash, hustle, violence, familial loyalty, etc. He had a lot in him.

 

Marlo is just emotionally dead, and knows only violence. Look how he reacted to the 'game' exit strategy.

[Pidge]

Stringer all day. He didn't just want to escape his environment he wanted to redefine it and bring it up with him.

[Skidfingers McGonical]

It was Stringer by a mile but killing off Wallace lost him him a lot of brownie points.

 

And the killing of D'Angelo.

[TheBitch]

My favourite part between the two' date=' and funniest, was where Stringer was raging after realising he had been ripped off by Clay Davis and telling Slim he needs to be got while Avon watches on. [/quote'] Slim's fucking ace...

 

"Murder ain't no thing, but this here, this some assassination shit."

[Trucker Paddy]

Slim's fucking ace...

 

"Murder ain't no thing' date=' but this here, this some assassination shit."[/quote']

 

I bloody love that line, Slim is indeed fucking ace

[Skidfingers McGonical]

I used to always back Avon over Stringer.

 

My reasons are mainly because Avon was all about respect and family and when Stringer had D bumped off he lost a hell of a lot of respect from me, and also when he tried to stitch Avon up.

 

Looking back, that is the pure beauty of the character of Stringer. He would do anything within his power to help him and Avon achieve what he thought was their dream

 

Him and Avon may have had a dream, except they never seemed to have actually agreed specifically where the point of success was going to be, or what the end goal was.

 

That scene where Stringer has acquired the boss swanky gaff for Avon and Avon is not interested in Stringer's prophetic speech, is the biggest indication that they were so far apart in what they thought the plan was.

 

Stringer had dreams and aspirations beyond the streets, but was naive in his thinking it would be a quick meteoric rise from ghetto runner to being Kings of Baltimore.

 

I think he above scene was the breaking point for Stringer, all that hard work he had done in looking to go legit, make a better person of himself and also of Avon, was for all things considered, nothing. Absolutely nothing.

 

Another thing that they had in common was greed. And again they both had different interpretations and understanding of what greed was. They always appeared to be on the same page, but never were.

 

It was all for nothing because without Avon, Stringer could never get out of the street. And Stringer knew that and resented Avon for it, hence him stitching him up.

 

Power and respect were what Avon and Stringer wanted, but they both had two very different understandings and interpretations of the meanings of power and respect.

 

Reading back over this thread, I have changed from my original thought of voting for Avon and gone for Stringer.

[Unrighteous]

That's the beauty of Avon, though. He was absolutely narrow in his focus for power and respect.

 

He knew what he was... He was a gangster. A street hustler turned drug kingpin. He accepted that, and was happy in his little microcosm of power.

 

Stringer though, is a completely different story, Stringer followed Avon's coattails up, and he was a clever guy, for a hoodlum, and thought he could continue his rise up the power ranks in the city. Stringer didn't realize that all his hustle, and graft (and a little junior college business course) wasn't going to amount for shit when he got out of the game and into the legit world.

 

Stringer was a man, who became a mark, when he tried to expand his scope of power. Stringer was a total fool, and he knew it when he got killed, because you can't quit the game... you can see it on his face when the shotgun went off and his guy got killed.

[PestiRed]

Avon's like Sonny in that he's happy with life and power outside of the law

 

Stringer is like Michael in that (although not as intelligent and sophisticated) he understands that long-term success has to lie in becoming legitimate. Had he survived long enough, his story arc would be one of the street dragging him back

 

Coppola knows

[A.V.B.]

Bird and I are watching the whole lot again for the 4th time Sec, we finished series 2 last night.

 

It has to be Stringer for me. Just.

 

Omar's comin yo!

 

Oh and Stringer by far. I had such fucking high hopes for us ...

[A.V.B.]

I love to hate Marlo. He's a boss character. He's got everything and he just heads back into the streets, because he loves the game, and loves being a kingpin.

 

I see it differently. Of course part of it was that you can't take the player out of the game and he's just a n* who wants his corners (his words not mine) but the main sense I got from that scene where he goes back to the street from the party was that even though he wanted out, he just didn't have the tools to survive in a far bigger and tougher game where he didn't get the rules.

 

On the street he was the kingpin yeah but in the business world when he went legit, he was no one. In the end it became a bit of a metaphor as well I'd say that even when his life depended on leaving the streets, it was all he knew. He'd perfected the art of not dying but he had no idea of how to live.