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take the money and run by taranoire moodboard .⋆♱ 🎵 heart-shaped box 🔗 [take the money and run]

-planned pseudo-incest: humbert meets dolores & marries her mother to get closer to her and groom dolores, walt is jesse’s former teacher & seeks him out as a protégée/son figure and begins to groom him.

-inadvertent killing: humbert gets dolores’ mother killed, walt gets jane killed, both leave them to die and comfort dolores and jesse during their grief afterwards

-vengeance on abductors: walt kills todd and the brotherhood after they kidnap jesse, humbert kills clare quilty after he kidnaps dolores, both are very hypocritical in their care for jesse and dolores and mirror their abductors

-manipulation: both walt/humbert gaslight and withhold information from jesse/dolores to control them and keep them dependent. dolores and jesse are young and emotional while walt and humbert are calculating academics that use this status and education as part of their power over jesse and dolores

-doting fathers: both humbert and walter hide behind the personas of kind, caring fathers to get away with their crimes and use these roles to further manipulate and control dolores and jesse

Jesse listening about Walt’s death and his reaction is something that stays with you. He is trying to listen, you can see that. He is not blocking it out on purpose. But at the same time he looks numb, like the words are reaching him but not fully settling. His expressions sit in between everything. Not relief. Not anger. Not even proper grief.

What I find so distinct is that he doesn’t look satisfied. After everything Walt did, after all the damage, you would expect at least some kind of release. But there is none. It’s almost like hearing it doesn’t free him. It just reminds him.

The person he admired, the one he went through so much with, is gone. And it’s not the death itself that hurts him. It’s what that person became. It’s the betrayal mixed with the memories. It’s caring so deeply about someone who also destroyed you.

He is sitting there and it feels like he can’t even properly process it because the pain is layered. It’s not “he is gone.” It’s “the man I once looked up to crushed my soul.” And when someone does that, their death doesn’t fix anything.