Bojack isn't just depressed. He's almost certainly got CPTSD, possibly with a personality disorder (HPD feels right but I haven't watched since the finale was new). His life sucks because he keeps giving in to his worse instincts and desires.

Hrs very relatable as someone who struggles with CPTSD, and had to learn how to do healthy and responsible things instead of just whatever my brain says.

But fundamentally as a character he represents the failure state of managing trauma. He keeps trying and he keeps failing harder and harder, but never seeks the real help he needs or learns to have a setback without spiraling out of control and hurting someone else, usually pretty bad. Hell, he keeps thinking that dependants will make him better and then damages them because of course they won't.

Bojack is a great show because it highlights so many forms of depression and destructive behavior. Everyone in that show has problems, even Mr Peanutbutter, who I think importantly shows you can be a flawed person while most people love you and you're usually happy.

Seeing Bojack act out in so many destructive ways gave me an objective view of a lot of behaviors in myself and it led to me getting help for my major depression. I lead a very different life today thanks to the realistic depictions of broken characters in that show.

Which is a huge shame, because doing what you want without much worry about consequences is actually super doable WHILE still caring about other people

Yeah true, and I think that makes him more authentic tbh. When I worked with domestic violence situations the perpetrators often hit the same vibe, super charismatic and many people around would second guess claims against them. but underneath they had serious anger issues that made them increasingly assholes and eventually straight up dangerous during periods of high stress. The charisma is a cloak that takes a lot of effort. That’s what people ignore with the character and irl too, they rationalize it away to try and make sense of caring about a person who is objectively shitty

God I love the sopranos, I wish I had time to rewatch that glorified crew

White's whole thing was that he wanted power, not just money.

power corrupts. as he amasses more power in the criminal underworld he believes himself to be better than the people around him, that he can change the corrupt system from the inside. it's not until hank dies that he actually realises what he's been doing, but at that point it's already too late.

...and then the season 6 finale ruined the point.

Walt was on an ego trip the entire time - the money was an excuse but the feeling of being in power and in control was always the real reason for his actions. Remember that he torched some guy's car and turned down a generous job offer for personal, functionally petty reasons before he'd started cooking. You could argue that the offer was patronizing, but if his concern was really about taking care of his family instead of wanting to feel like he was the big guy in charge of things would he really have said no?

There were several hints, but they weren't super obvious and I don't think I caught many of them until rewatching the show.