Re: Tony's morality and Junior in the penultimate scene

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Hal Holbrook as a neighboring patient (Schwinn) to Tony in the hospital talked of the concept that things that appear to be opposite are actually the same but are percieved differently, while a group watched a boxing match.The rapper summed it up as "Everything is everything."
Subsequently, Schwinn and Tony are talking alone and Tony mentions Heaven and Hell, eliciting the response: "That pre-supposes a duality of good and evil and you know where I stand on that".
Good and evil are not separate entities but are different perceptions of the same whole; Tony is both good and evil.

Re: Tony's morality and Junior in the penultimate scene

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Actually the whole grey stuff is just an excuse to commit evil.

Chase shows this with the dinner of the good and educated italians.

Melfis ex husband says after all is said and done melfi will finally give up all bullshit excuses and ideas and come down to just good and evil.

In the end she does this.

Tony protects children and animals to hide his nature. This is textbook and what melfi finally reads in the rport from her peers. Tony always acts like this. In the end he does not care if bobbys children are orphans etc but he will act like he does to a point.

Junior is the same way and he fake fathered tony and then tried to whack him.

Re: Tony's morality and Junior in the penultimate scene

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It seems that Dr Melfi and her ex-husband are being assumed to be purely or nearly-purely "good" and that Chase presents them as examples of such.
I disagree. I think Chase used them as examples of seperate points-of-view but not necessarily as opposites to Tony on a spectrum of "right" and "wrong".
Melfi was wrong to provide, persuade and lead Tony on a theraputic path that may have done more harm then help, that was wrong for someone with his issues. And she was wrong to unsympathetically abandon him after realizing her own mistakes and partially out of her own embarassment at being taken in by his attractions.
Chase shows the "grey stuff" as the area where most people live, one way or another, and also clearly presents the point of view that good and evil may be different perspectives of the same thing.
Viewers can chose to interperate aspects to thier liking but I don't see where Chase takes such definitive stances on "right" and "wrong", "good" or "bad".

Re: Tony's morality and Junior in the penultimate scene

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tennisgolfboll wrote:Ah yes we seem to agree but let my clarify what i meant anyway.

When i first watched it my thoughts was tony is a terrible person but with some good sides.

But when i rewatched it with the final advice from chase i saw that those good sides is just tonys way of immitating more normal human feelings.

Tony has learned he does not care about anything really. Just like his mother incapable of love. He hides this in manipulation always resorting to pretending to love animals, children, mother.

He acts as if he does care because he has learned to do it that way. That is why he gets so angry at melfi when she suggests he hates his mother. He must hang on to these things to manipulate and show human emotion. When he realises he can show his hate to melfi for his mother and for a moment drop his false face he does so finally. But he keeps his false face up on other things. Remember the clue in the college searchinh episode with meadow. Tony can barely seperate himself from the face he shows the world.

So when AJ tries to kill himself he seems to care right? But at times his false face and guard drops. He complains at the cost of treatment when he is rich and gambles for more. When they talk with AJs shrink in order to pass for normal human emotion he brings up his mother and not only wont talk about his only son and his great trouble but wants to talk about himself and issues decades before.

Remember melfis comment about his mother. Other people are not truly real but only extensions of oneselves ego and paranoia. He is like his mother but much more skilled at manipulation etc. The audience in great part misses this. They see the darkness but also see redeeming qualties. But in truth he has no redeeming quality. Its always just an act and in the end those he pretends to care about are just extensions of his own ego.
I couldn't agree more. Every time I rewatch the series I find Tony to be more and more despicable. I do not believe Tony really has any redeeming qualities whatsoever.

As far as his efforts to see to it Baccala's kids get the money ... I think it has as much to do with Tony putting the screws to Janice as doing the right thing.
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