There are people who think Stringer Bell was smart

>There are people who think Stringer Bell was smart

his attempt at legitimacy was sad more than anything else really. it's like he really believed having any kind no matter its source would be enough to fully distance himself from his origins

WE

>Nothing more dangerous than an nigger with a library card
Bell wasn't a genius, he just understood basic economics (hence why they showed him going to Business class) when retarded niggers only knew about "defending theys cornerz"

Thats kinda of the point though. Its faux intelligence that he got from the street.

He was enterprising and ambitious, not necessarily smart. He fucked with exactly all of the wrong people. That ordeal with Clay Davis shows how "smart" he really was.

His commitment to understanding business made him the best drug pusher around, but that commitment was borne out of a desire to escape drug dealing. He understood business in terms of numbers, but never understood the politics. The same ruthlessness when it came to dealing with D'Angelo in one field, translated to naivety when it came to dealing with Clay Davis in a different field. He underestimated the importance of the personal and political side of doing business. Nigga had his eye on the ones and zeroes up until he got got.

So, the important question is, was it autism

Smart for a gangster I guess.

i think he was, for his environment - perhaps the smartest person out of the entire group of criminals?

but as avon said

"not hard enough...but not smart enough for them out there."

you need standards of comparison. objectively, he was smart, but far from the smartest.

literally the black Gatsby

Smart for his environment. That's enough

The point was he couldn't make it out of the hood, despite being very powerful in it and actually trying in earnest to learn business and become legitimate.

There is no escape once you're deep in it. Only guys like Poot who realize it's not worth it and get out early have a chance.

In what sense was he smart for his environment, though? He was book smart for his environment, sure, but he didn't ultimately have what it took to maintain lasting control over that environment. He was too focused on the numbers to fully recognize how much posturing and social politics go into surviving as head of a gang. He lacked Avon's sense of loyalty, and he couldn't compare to Marlo's tyrannical ruthlessness. He was just a nerd who thought as long as he made enough profit, that's all that mattered in business, disregarding that business is a people game, not just a numbers game. So this leads me to wonder, was it autism

Plus he owned a katana, lawl.

>literally drawing cartoons in the first episode

It wasn't really about smart right

I mean the guy is smart enough to improve on the domain he's been in a while, actually participate in the rise of Barksdale but he was naive about the inner workings of proper society.

More a commentary of the state of the modern negro than anything man

>the state of the modern negro

in this case, it was more of a commentary on autism

...

This.

>Smart for his environment.
Both Avon and Slim Charles could see that killing Clay Davis was an insanely retarded idea.

I wonder who drew this.

it doesn't seem like you're being serious, given the whole autism thing, but consider for a moment that just about every criminal that doesn't turn informant either ends up dead, or in prison, or struggling to make it. the only one who made it out? marlo...and all he had was money, which he didn't care about. the whole point of the show was regardless of how people try to play the game to win, they can't outwit the system. the only ones that go on unaffected are the people that run the system itself: like the newspapers, the police officers, and politicians. the losers of the game continue losing - even the guys who, given different circumstances, might've ended up high achievers (think Neymond).

honestly, i don't know what you're trying to get at here. most of the characters in the show think stringer his smart. hell, mcnulty and freamon are the de facto smartest detectives on the show, and they considered stringer the big khauna.

WE

When it came down to it, Barksdale was smarter than Bell.

Marlo can't live that long. He's too much of a psychopath.

>h-hey Avon... i have a question...
>what is it string?
>there are all these... giant LEGOs outside...
>what? where?
>o-outside in the projects... i see people going in and out of them... but when i try to take the legos, they're... they're stuck...
>string...
>what is it?
>those are buildings, string. they're made out of bricks.

Holy Shit I forgot about that!

Ultra kek

Stringer was a great businessman when it came to dealing drugs, but he had a downfall for a reason, which was essentially that he alienated everybody he derived power from. I mean, he thought he could murder Avon's nephew, tell him to his face and avoid retribution, while at the same time throwing in with Clay Davis, a complete stranger who will obviously fuck him over. McNulty and Freamon saw all the clever shit Stringer did for Avon, but didn't know him personally. He had a huge blindspot, which almost certainly was autism

Stringer applied basic economics principles to drug dealing, and it worked well. Overall he was good at what he did, and it was an interesting perspective. He had a huge advantage over his competition by behaving less criminally.

In trying to go legitimate, he was extremely naive, like the competition he had the advantage over in his world. Business/politicians being criminal/untrustworthy and his lack of consideration and foresight that the political/corporate world can be unjust was his undoing.

It comes back to one of the show's take aways, and it is absolute

POTTERY
O
T
T
E
R
Y

The sort of discussion this show creates shows how great is was.

Most threads on Sup Forums are basically
>MUH WAIFU
>TFW SHE WILL NEVER SIT ON MY FACE
>A CUTE. A CUTE!
>IS HE GAY?

I love how Clay Davis was a comic relief character and yet he still managed to outsmart Stringer. It showed how people skills were just as important as business savvy, and if you'll notice his interactions with virtually everyone he meets, he's completely emotionless. His only true friend was Avon, but when he burned that bridge he was alone. He worked well as a lieutenant because Avon handled the people skills and Stringer handled the numbers. He thought he could do it himself, that Avon was holding him back, but he didn't realize that Avon was half the reason they were there in the first place.

not that but bell underestimated everyone around him because he was used to dumb niggers

Clay Davis was crucial, and I think he had to be a comic character because, as the perfect corrupt politician he embodied the absurdities of the "game" and was an absurd man. Great character, Whitlock did an excellent job playing him without memeing too hard. He's like fate laughing at the ambitions and dreams of everybody around him.

It speaks to the awesomeness of the show when it creates discussions like this. Good replies in this whole thread.

>>A CUTE. A CUTE!
That's some Sup Forums shit, fuck off back there.

Stringer made one fatal mistake. Not consulting Maurice Levy before he started trying to go legit. Which in itself wasn't a matter of not being smart, it was hubris.

>The same ruthlessness when it came to dealing with D'Angelo in one field, translated to naivety when it came to dealing with Clay Davis in a different field.

Yea this is a really good point. He didn't understand Davis' tricks and got shafted. Then he wanted to kill a Senator.

How did he know McNulty was going to be there? Wasn't even his arrest. McNulty was keeping tabs on Avon Barksdale's crew so maybe he went to all of his goons trial to find any patterns. Not sure though. Also, why did they pay off witnesses when they also threatened them with death?

He's downfall didn't come from trying to go legal. I saw more as you can't escape the game type thing. Yeah Davis fucked him over ( which I found stupid) but he would have bounce back from it if he was alive. it's the drug game that claimed him in the end.

>Who is the best waifu in The Wire and why is it Beadie?

Do you really not understand "silver or lead"?

Or was it stupidity? All the gangstas really only ever thought of lawyers when dealing with cops and being arrested. Why would you call a lawyer when some guy just says that a bribe will get it done, when that's probably how it would work on the street. Maybe not stupidity, but certainly inexperience.

we was business smart

>All the guys at the bar, Jimmy, all the girls; they don't show up at your wake. Not because they don't like you. But because, they never knew your last name. Then a month later, someone tells them, "Oh, Jimmy died." "Jimmy who?" "Jimmy the Cop." "Ohhh," they say, "him". And all the people on the job, all those people you spent all the hours in the radio cars with, the guys with their feet up on the desk, tellin' stories, who shorted you on your food runs, who signed your overtime slips. In the end, they're not gonna be there either. Family, that's it. Family, and if you're lucky, one or two friends who are the same as family. That's all the best of us get. Everything else is just...

I don't think anyone thought Stringer Bell was smart except Stringer Bell.

That's the whole point. He was born a streetrat, and he died a streetrat. It was impossible for him to elevate himself out of that situation.

I blame the show for that, it's almost too stupid for someone like stringer to fall for.

>m-muh I'm a business man

FOH strang

It's like when McNulty was banging that girl who ran Carcetti's campaign, and he realized she belong to a different socioeconomical class where he was virtually worthless. His cleverness, his charm, his work, none of what he thought made him unique mattered, and was kinda depressed about it.

Stringer was a smart motherfucker in his element. Move him up, and he's lost because he doesn't know how that works. He really fucked up by not talking to Levy first, thinking it was like the street where he could handle things on his own and people wouldn't fuck with him out of respect.

The drug trade, once all the violence stops, is quite possibly the easiest way to make money in existence. The yield is so high, the demand so permanent, and the supply is nearly limitless because, at the end of the day, you're selling plants. Plants that aren't even difficult to raise.

Stringer even says it himself, how no matter how much they diluted their products, they kept making more money. Then later, they lose almost all their territory, and they still make more. The only way it was possible for him to fail was by his own actions. The problem is he didn't recognize this. He thought the success of the drug trade was his accomplishment, and, therefore, he would be able to succeed elsewhere. But since he didn't actually know any business beyond having kids sell cheap plant products at a huge markup, he was never able to actually make any progress, anywhere else.

...

Freamon's big bootied, big lipped stripperfu is best girl.

This is a good thread.

I hope this is still up when I get home from work.

Sheeeeee-it, even Black Politician Man kept telling him to slow the fuck down, he wasn't ready, these things take time. String didn't want to listen to anybody.

Stringer was smart, but the problem is you can take a nigga out the hood, but not the hood out the nigga.

Oh yea she's a good one.

>take business class at a community college
>go back and talk smart to hoodrats thinking he's smart

that politician chick mcnutty was banging

Stringer was smarter than your average thug but he was still stupid

He took like one class of community college level business and then all of the sudden he spouts crap like supply and demand and thinks hes Machiavelli

Him getting jipped in business just shows that.

Are you a corner boy?

It is like they give them the silver and then say I will shoot you if you talk. Wouldn't it be easier to just keep your money and threaten to kill them if they snitch? I understand it would be easier to bribe a politician or policemen than it would be to kill them, but for the random black person in Baltimore I imagine it would be easy.

There are some very smart criminals out there ya dingus.

Did any of you think Pryzbylewski would become so likable? I think he redeemed himself of his mishap earlier on.

Where is that punished Pryzbylewski picture with the beard?

Nah. Unsupervised wagecuck.

>he was still stupid

He obviously wasn't stupid, but I guess stupid on here is any person who doesn't demonstrate intelligence on the level of Einstein.

The show never even tried to portray him as that either, he went to one class at a fucking community college.

No. But that's what's great about the characters of the Wire.

They're not two dimensional or caricatures. They're people.

I thought it was pretty cool how initially they set him up to be this pretty badass character who has it all figured out, then over the next few seasons it becomes pretty apparent that he's actually rather ineffectual.

Campaign manager for sure

>people unironically go to work

he went from my most hated to the character I related with the most. I was so happy when he walked into the school office

was meant for

Have to senpai. Otherwise I'd unironically be homeless.

You can be homeless ironically?

Not all criminals are gangsters user.

Stringer Bell is a tragic hero.

Not hero in the modern sense, but hero in the traditional dramatic sense.

He's a great character, a man who tries to rise above his station, but fails because of his naivety and ties to his old life.

He was alot more likeable than marlo

Avon and Stringer were a lot more likable than marlo

Because marlo was a retarded thug with no personality

That was a heat of the moment idea, but it doesn't make Avon or Slim Charles smarter than Bell.

Avon was a soldier and a natural leader, but he didn't have the smartest understanding of business.
Slim Charles, well, we didn't really see all that much from him but I do think he'd have bee a compromise between the two; studying from both Barksdale and Joe.

Bell didn't quite grasp what was acceptable in terms of being a gangster, but he knew how to run a drug empire better than any one else, at least on the business side.

>the only ones that go on unaffected are the people that run the system itself: like the newspapers, the police officers, and politicians.
>the police officers
But the police officers don't run shit, they are just as much pawns as the corner slingers usually. Except for Rawls (who was basically a politician anyway), none of the cops really "won" anything. Even Daniels, who was actual poh-leese, has moved up but is in a shitty position where he can be a political scapegoat like his predecessor Burell.

So replace "police officers" with "lawyers" and you have a much more accurate statement.

Did anyone really win as much as Clay Davis and Maurice Levy? Maybe Carcetti but who knows what happens with his political career. Clay Davis isn't that high up (state senator), but he found a niche he could milk for atleast another decade, plus is well insulated. Shifty fucking bastard for sure, definitely one of the biggest surprise runners-up for best character: goes from a recurring comedic relief character to briefly showcase local corruption, into someone who completely plays one of the most sophisticated criminals shown, and winds up with the best arc of season 5.

>rather ineffectual
The thing that pisses me off in this thread is that you blame Stringer like he messed up somehow playing some arcane drug game. No, he simply riled up the two legendary class characters in the series. One is a mysterious straighlaced muslim assassin from literally no where, the other is Omar who is a antihero who gets mocked the entire series for basically not getting killed and existing. They corner Stringer in his literal castle he's building against a window, and its the first time you see Stringer act like a thug in the entire series. At his last moments, he felt like the people on the street felt everyday, entirely hopeless against impossible unstoppable forces that he doesn't understand. I don't think Stringer wanted out of the game, he just wanted to go up and he didn't see what was wrong with that. He thought he was above the streets, and in his final scene they literally bring him down to street level from his perch.
He was simply arrogant and above it all. Nothing to do with being smart, it was all just power to him. There was a reason they chose to have both Omar and the Muslim guy confront him at the same time, to show that he wasn't the untouchable god he thought he was. Muslim is literally standing above him in that scene, while Omar is on his level.

If you can go to work ironically then yeah, I guess you can.

String could used Dirty Harry's "man's got to know his limitations" as a credo and maybe, just maybe he'd stay alive during S3.

>his lack of consideration and foresight that the political/corporate world can be unjust was his undoing.

This.

All he had to do was think of them as he thought of his drug dealing competitors, but be polite and smile. He would have made it.

>but he didn't have the smartest understanding of business.
Avon knew immediately Clay Davis was bullshitting.

He was smart.
He just wasn't as smart as the big fish in the big pond.
But for your average projects nigger, he was extremely smart.

yeah dude, all those trust fund crust punks

I never heard of crust punks until my cousin went to a punk show. He told me what they were and I was disgusted. How can you not bathe and think its cool?

I loved how in the end, Marlo got everything Stringer wanted, but turned his back on it.

Fuck off normie

Ok, enjoy your rank smell

He was smart, but Prop Joe was by far the smartest.

>someone calling out hipsters is a "normie"
Don't ruin a perfectly good Wire thread.

I would agree with but he knows better to completely trust Davis like he did. All that time he never got a second opinion. I find to stupid of a mistake for someone like bell to make.

>Except for Rawls
Rawls, Carcetti and Burrel seemed to me like they were cut from the same cloth, they had an idealistic streak (at least once ipon a time) and were just cogs caught in the system and eventually crushed by the system (they may have been in influential positions, but they couldn't influence shit because there was always someone they had to answer to, to preserve the influence they obtained).

Rawls, Burrel and Carcetti understood that they had to play the game to succeed in it, even if it meant abandoning any kind of idealism, while Daniels quit the game out of principle. All four of them thought at one point that if they played the game and succeeded that they could change the system itself.

like burrel said:
>You might think it'll be different when you sit here, but it won't. You will eat their shit. Daniels too, when he gets here

so, i don't know if anyone won anything in the end, considering that those that 'won' something had to throw their principles out of the window (the cops and politicians) or were criminals themselfs (the lawyers)

I was about to say crust punks in response before I saw someone did before me. Why is that so consistently true? Season 6 about dirty panhandling crust punks taking/selling advil as actual drugs when?

I won't let this thread die, faggots.

Fuck you all.

Every fucking body knew McNutty's last name, ho.

>captain Africa
lmao

>mysterious straighlaced muslim assassin from literally no where

magical negro

Wow that was cringy to read
Please don't try to be funny my man