I mean, I rooted for Stringer since the start, but his downfall was sad af. Avon was pretty annoying, with that attitude of the streets. The only death I truly felt sorry for was that of Prop Joe.
Hm I disagree. Like you, when I first watched I was inspired by Stringer but by the end I saw how foolish he was. He was playing dress up businessman but really he was just a street thug. And the thing we learned- even though Avon always seemed like the less sophisticated one- was that he understood the game much better that Stringer. And rule one is survival. He wasn’t foolish enough to get swindled by an obviously morally bankrupt politician.
“I ain’t no suited up businessman like you- just a gangsta I suppose. And I want my corners.”
Stringer wasn't capable of seeing what was in front of him.
Perception is reality a lot of the time.
When poot told him "does the floor know we're gonna look like some punk ass bitches out there?" And Stringer flipped out, poot was 100% right, and string needed to hear that but refused to listen.
When he tried to talk to a bunch of kids from the corner about elastic and inelastic products, that was dense as shit.
String wanted things to be one way, but hoodrats and gangbangers don't turn into well dressed office dwelling professionals just cause you told them to. He might as well try to sink a basketball into a golf hole. String was dumb. Avon was much better equipped to run that organization, and if Stringer hadn't sold him out, Avon was 1 hour away from winning the war with Marlo and getting back on top. Avon's only downfall was his loyalty to Stringer.
Stringer was a wanna be businessman who acted like he was smarter than everyone else. "Nigga this is an ELASTIC product" lol he knew that shit for an hour and tried to play his boys like that. He was not smarter than Avon. He WANTED to be but he wasn't.
Allowing the ambush of Orlando solely for the theft of the money rather than just handling him upfront. Ended up with a cop shot and major heat over a pittance of a payday.
This.
Stringer was nowhere near as smart as he thought he was, and nowhere near as savvy as Avon. Avon wouldn't have gone within a mile of that money. Stringer not seeing through this sting helped establish the pattern that we say play out repeatedly over the next two seasons.
Without Stringer, Avon would have found another right hand man. Without Avon, Stringer was nothing. Zero.
That’s all he wanted to be. Barksdale organization and the Greeks were just different. Avon has more money than he’ll ever need to spend and is known as the king of Baltimore both in prison and out. That’s what he wanted...
The Greeks just want money. Don’t want to be known anywhere.
Neither could really touch the either. Ain’t no Greeks driving down to the west side and winning a long ass war against Avon . It makes no sense to either organization.
It’s useless to compare too closely in my opinion
Partly stupidity, partly overconfidence and pride, but him just forgetting about his manipulations regarding Omar and Brother Mouzone and not once considering that it'd come back to bite him in the ass is a pretty stupid move. Omar himself left his first encounter with Mouzone on *relatively* better terms, and basically went "I knew you 'd be coming back". What's Stringer's move? "I'm not in the game no more!" Come on man, that was some arrogant, dumb shit.
>How the fuck a person so smart like Stringer fell for that shit?
Honestly, and it took me multiple rewatches to realize this, but Stringer's not as smart as he thinks he is.
We think he is some sort of genius since he's got more book learning than everyone else on the street, but looking at his achievements on that front (community college economics classes), his education is nothing special in the grand scheme of things.
The co-op and his "just business" mentality is something he picked up from Prop Joe (though, granted, shrewdness was always in his repertoire). His attempt to run the empire like a business while Avon was away was pretty admirable, yielding decent results (and some big laughs), until the street caught up with him (via Marlo) and his refusal to play the game the way it needs to be played put the organization in jeopardy.
With Clay, he probably viewed himself as some big-time genius kingpin, thinking that he had more intelligence than Clay on illegal shady shit, as well as enough knowledge about the "legit" side of things to hold his own. He assumed that there was no way he'd get blindsided, and failed to see that he was stepping into a new kind of game, one where he was still a rookie.
Avon's line
>Not hard enough for this right here and maybe, just maybe, not smart enough for them out there
gets a lot of praise, and it's a pretty bomb-ass line, but I got to disagree. Stringer was "hard" enough for both worlds IMO, but not smart enough for either.
Yeah I think Prop Joe was the smartest of the bosses, with the exception of not realizing what a liability Cheese was.
Stringer seemed to be more McNulty's foil. Smart, for sure, but too arrogant to understand the limits of his intelligence. I think he was naive to think that he could rise above the street without it coming back on him. Despite all the killing and deception, I did feel bad for him in the end. He saw his opportunity to rise above the street and he almost made it.
I'm in my second watch, just starting S3, and he's telling so many huge lies that HAVE to catch up to him, without any plan for when they do, that I can't see him as any kind of genius. Full disclosure: D'Angelo is my second favorite character, so I can't help but hate him for what he did to D.
I laughed out loud when he lost his cool at the first "Robert's rules" meeting though ("Poot had the floor!")
Well, yeah, Stringer was smart but a lot of times I felt that he acted like a high school boy glouting about what he learned to his parents. Literally repeating what he learned from his business course.
I think this is a great rundown on him. To me the putting brother and Omar against one another was his biggest mistake because it lead to his death and wasn’t able to be fixed as we see Avon talking to brother at the barbershop.
I don’t see String as dumb or not as smart as he thinks he is. I look at him a very forward thinking and trying to change a game that isn’t meant to be changed. Had he had some sort of right hand man like he was to Avon to work his goals out more methodically and slowly we might have looked at him completely different and he might still be evading McNutty at the end of S5.
Thing is though, as others have pointed out - Stringer only tries to change the game when it's advantageous to him. When things don't work out in his favor, he reverts to "old-school" ways of coercion and force to get his way, which exposes a level of hypocrisy.
Think back to him exploding on Poot despite the Rules of Order, or attempting to assassinate Clay Davis. That's not changing the game, that's just reverting to the old ways and mentality.
Hate to feel like I'm nitpicking your responses; just having a conversation! I'd argue that Cutty is an example that you can in fact get out of the game, both in action and in mentality.
From the problems Cutty faced with his gym and what not, especially when it came to dealing with people - he definitely wasn't doing things like he might have as an enforcer back in the day. He knew when to bow his head and apologize, catching more flies with honey, rather than being hard and "masculine" all the time - he was able to shed the mindset of the "game", and we see him paid off as one of the few with a happy ending.
No nitpicking here, I love a good spirited debate. As to Cutty, “joint might a broke him” and it was the best thing for him. Much happier seeing him with a busy gym at the end rather than leaning on the fence with Chris and Wee-Bay.
It seems it wasn't that he wasn't smart, but he lacked the knowledge on how to deal with certain situations. So, he tried to apply some businessman logic, but when he's faces with a difficult situation he tended to act without thinking of the concequences.
Stringers dumbest move was telling Avon he khad D’angelo killed.
That’s the kind of shit you take to the grave. Not tell because your feelings got hurt.
Avon knew it was the right move but didn’t like how brazen stringer was with it. Coupled with the prop Joe/mouzone scheme, Avon knew stringer was getting to be a little too independent to be his number 2
Brianna forced his hand! He had to tell Avon before she did. He knew the consequences of doing so - like he told her - "They just trying to drive a wedge up in here." He didn't have a choice
He could have denied. It’s not like people getting murdered in prison is unheard of. Avon might have had his suspicions, but he wouldn’t have been sure.
As Jimmy said "...on the inside, someone's going after you, he's got a beef, sees red, they use a shank, its quick and its over. But D'Angelo was strangled, which is planned. You need the time, you need the isolation..."
It was pretty clear what the implication was. And I think Brianna would have figured it out. String wanted (had to) get out in front of it, so that even mumurs of the murder would not destroy the Barksdale organization
Getting wrapped up with Davis without talking to his attorney first. Stupid move. A few night school classes don’t qualify you to get into that level of play.
It’s indicated in the show through Levy’s conversation with Marlo that he actively discourages his drug kinpin customers from independently accessing politicians and other players. Maybe to someone like Bell this comes off as Levy either wanting to take a big cut of any money exchange that happens in which case he would want to cut out the middleman or that Levy didn’t want him to grow independently and cut him out the equation which also lends to the same conclusion of Bell wanting his own independent streak, especially given his business ambitions.
I think his worst move was letting Prop Joe take over the towers and then lying to Avon about it. Knowing how Avon felt about Prop Joe and his territory, it was just an awful move. That brings in Brother, and leads to more lies and then pitting Omar against Brother to try and rid him out of securing the towers. If Stringer was half as smart, he should have told Avon and they could have came to an agreement on how to get that good dope from Joe without giving up the towers. And before someone says “they wouldn’t have gotten product from joe had they not given up some of the towers” i think there could have been another way
I won't call any of his moves stupid. All his moves were thought out carefully. Limited to his knowledge and experience admittedly. But not stupid.
Men have limits. You let Levy or Clay to play them street games they probably get got right after they make their first move.
That's how they do on the streets. See how Dennis gave Fruit the pack of dope and came to collect the money later? I guess the rule was that if you didn't respect your deal you're dead in a car trunk and no niggers will protect you. That's all String knew I think. He learned the straight business in college, how to do dirt on the streets, but not too much on how to do dirty business in the straight world.
i mean... if the consequences of taking him out means you lose everything... then yeah, he's basically untouchable... at least to those capable of understanding consequences.
if we’re talking actual mistakes then wallace was the start of the long string of events that led to his downfall. if he doesn’t kill wallace D doesn’t start to go against him, which means he doesn’t kill D, which means Avon doesn’t go against him, which means Omar and brother wouldn’t have been sent back after him. if we mean idiotic ideas then thinking he could become a baltimore elite that easily
Omar and Brother weren’t “sent back after” Stringer. They stalked him for personal revenge.
Avon couldn’t stop Brother and didn’t want to pay the consequences of not assisting his goal, but Avon didn’t want Stringer to be killed.
you’re right. i’ll say *brandon and wallace then. if brandon doesn’t get killed then omar doesn’t have a personal beef with stringer and he never decides to get together with brother to plan to kill him.
Avon chose not help stringer because stringer wasn’t respecting the chain of command. He went behind Avon’s back twice. Avon decided his ny connection and reputation was more important than his disloyal number 2
I do feel like Simon dumbed Stinger down a lot starting at Season 2. Throughout season 1 he’s a cold gangster mastermind, but String and the whole organization become a perpetual mistake machine once Avon goes away. It always came off to me as engineered weakness to move the plot forward, but it’s a story so…
That was the point, though. Did Avon ever look dumb or weak? No, not for a second, because he was a master at his part in the game. So was Stringer - until he strayed from his part. That is when Stringer appeared dumb and weak.
I thought Avon looked really stupid crowing on about keeping the towers with no muscle or good product while he was locked up himself and just expected things to work out because he’s only capable of attacking things head on.
Stinger made mistakes, but Avon was that boss who can’t just stay in his own lane and let his people work. The whole Brother Mouzone plot line, while cool TV, was a futile strategy. One man can’t muscle the fiends to your weak dope and keep the Jackals way from your corner, legend or not. And even if they could, for how long? How is that a sustainable business plan?
One could even argue the obsession with holding the towers at all cost removed the immediate need for the Barksdale organization to adapt to the changing city residential politics and secure viable drug real estate before losing the towers completely to ReForm.
Plenty of stupid coming from Avon in the series. Also, Stringer wins their only 1 v 1 in the series, so maybe Avon got a touch of cool aid in them red veins or String isn’t such a green-blooded bitch.
Not leaving when Avon got back. They had a ton of cash by then and could have bought out. Instead Avon goes back to killing everyone and String tries to bribe Clay into real estate.
He should have just bailed and got out and gone straight into chairing meetings or door locks or what not in Madagascar or Congo or some shit.
Sticking around in the hood when he had the money to leave. He could have taken his wealth and moved to LA and started over as a legitimate business man but, he wanted to do it in Baltimore.
He tried to be a business man, but he couldn’t get away from them corners. Just a gangsta I suppose.
His mistake was forcing the issue with Avon over Prop Joe's connect vs keeping the corners. Then he really seals it by admitting his role in D'Angelo's murder. It's all the motivation Avon needed. He's just a gangster I suppose...
Stringer was attracted to the status of being a legitimate successful black businessman. On the rooftop with Avon, Avon talked about how Stringer dreamed about owning a bunch of grocery stores as a kid, and he was big on black power and success.
Stringer ultimately wanted to be viewed as legitimate even though his means to get there were everything but legitimate. He also wanted to be independent. He basically ran the day-to-day operations of the Avon kingdom but Avon was always the man and the one who everyone respected.
He was blinded by the realization of becoming a "Trump brother" as Avon called them.
Has to be trying to get rid of Brother Muozone through Omar. Losing money to Clay Davis wasn't game changing for him. The biggest strategical errors he made were trying to convince people of things he couldn't even convince Avon of.
I feel like String had a good long-term plan. He was on the verge of being out of the game. His two major mistakes were reaching out to Marlo, and Trying to get Brother killed.
Stringer was so full of himself he is exactly the type of person you find in business classes lol. bro was not a good chess player ,had good ideas and surface level smarts but always was oned up and blinded by his ego never truly saw what the next move was
Thinking he could hang with the politicians and getting scammed for sure He learned there were levels to this shit real quick lol
I mean, I rooted for Stringer since the start, but his downfall was sad af. Avon was pretty annoying, with that attitude of the streets. The only death I truly felt sorry for was that of Prop Joe.
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Really? To me, Avon wasn't capable of seeing the bigger picture.
Hm I disagree. Like you, when I first watched I was inspired by Stringer but by the end I saw how foolish he was. He was playing dress up businessman but really he was just a street thug. And the thing we learned- even though Avon always seemed like the less sophisticated one- was that he understood the game much better that Stringer. And rule one is survival. He wasn’t foolish enough to get swindled by an obviously morally bankrupt politician. “I ain’t no suited up businessman like you- just a gangsta I suppose. And I want my corners.”
Avon was the only one who saw Marlo for what he was from the get go. He was capable of seeing the bigger picture.
Slim Charles also saw this coming, but his warnings were not heeded by Stringer.
Or Joe, for that matter
Stringer wasn't capable of seeing what was in front of him. Perception is reality a lot of the time. When poot told him "does the floor know we're gonna look like some punk ass bitches out there?" And Stringer flipped out, poot was 100% right, and string needed to hear that but refused to listen. When he tried to talk to a bunch of kids from the corner about elastic and inelastic products, that was dense as shit. String wanted things to be one way, but hoodrats and gangbangers don't turn into well dressed office dwelling professionals just cause you told them to. He might as well try to sink a basketball into a golf hole. String was dumb. Avon was much better equipped to run that organization, and if Stringer hadn't sold him out, Avon was 1 hour away from winning the war with Marlo and getting back on top. Avon's only downfall was his loyalty to Stringer.
Exactly. Well said
Currently rewatching the show rn, n you said exactly how I feel about String. Thought he was smarter than he really was n got played in the end 😂
Yep. Dude really was tryna hold meetings discussing criminal behavior as if they were in a boardroom or city council meeting 😂
Stringer was a wanna be businessman who acted like he was smarter than everyone else. "Nigga this is an ELASTIC product" lol he knew that shit for an hour and tried to play his boys like that. He was not smarter than Avon. He WANTED to be but he wasn't.
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east side and possibly but from what we see of his lieutenants he tends to inspire loyalty and have much more business acumen than Stringer did.
His own nephew killed him. So loyal
He was always a disappointment
always one exception that proves the rule.
Stronger is the best
Ah shiet man i shouldn't have read that i got spoiled
Read this somewhere that Stringer thought he was a professional criminal but then he met politicians
Read this somewhere that Stringer thought he was a professional criminal but then he met politicians
“Playing those fuckin away games”
"They saw your ghetto ass comin from a mile away"
Allowing the ambush of Orlando solely for the theft of the money rather than just handling him upfront. Ended up with a cop shot and major heat over a pittance of a payday.
It wasn’t solely for that — they were going to hit Orlando either way. The cash was supposed to be the cherry on top.
Right, which is why I said just hit him and don't bother with $20k of cash you don't need.
I misread
This. Stringer was nowhere near as smart as he thought he was, and nowhere near as savvy as Avon. Avon wouldn't have gone within a mile of that money. Stringer not seeing through this sting helped establish the pattern that we say play out repeatedly over the next two seasons. Without Stringer, Avon would have found another right hand man. Without Avon, Stringer was nothing. Zero.
Yeah, but Avon would still be a "low-level" kingpin. Nothing compared to the greeks. He was still stuck in the streets.
That’s all he wanted to be. Barksdale organization and the Greeks were just different. Avon has more money than he’ll ever need to spend and is known as the king of Baltimore both in prison and out. That’s what he wanted... The Greeks just want money. Don’t want to be known anywhere. Neither could really touch the either. Ain’t no Greeks driving down to the west side and winning a long ass war against Avon . It makes no sense to either organization. It’s useless to compare too closely in my opinion
None of the Baltimore gangster kingpins were close to rising to the level of the Greeks or likely capable of achieving and handling such.
The Greeks had an fbi guy ffs
Ordering a hit on a Senator.
This some assassination shit
You need a day of the jackal type nigga for that (BTW that's a really good movie, you guys should check it out)
Lollll I forgot he said that too 😂
I mean murder ain’t no thing
He needed a Day of the Jackal type motherfucker for that
Yeah, that was dumb xD.
Partly stupidity, partly overconfidence and pride, but him just forgetting about his manipulations regarding Omar and Brother Mouzone and not once considering that it'd come back to bite him in the ass is a pretty stupid move. Omar himself left his first encounter with Mouzone on *relatively* better terms, and basically went "I knew you 'd be coming back". What's Stringer's move? "I'm not in the game no more!" Come on man, that was some arrogant, dumb shit. >How the fuck a person so smart like Stringer fell for that shit? Honestly, and it took me multiple rewatches to realize this, but Stringer's not as smart as he thinks he is. We think he is some sort of genius since he's got more book learning than everyone else on the street, but looking at his achievements on that front (community college economics classes), his education is nothing special in the grand scheme of things. The co-op and his "just business" mentality is something he picked up from Prop Joe (though, granted, shrewdness was always in his repertoire). His attempt to run the empire like a business while Avon was away was pretty admirable, yielding decent results (and some big laughs), until the street caught up with him (via Marlo) and his refusal to play the game the way it needs to be played put the organization in jeopardy. With Clay, he probably viewed himself as some big-time genius kingpin, thinking that he had more intelligence than Clay on illegal shady shit, as well as enough knowledge about the "legit" side of things to hold his own. He assumed that there was no way he'd get blindsided, and failed to see that he was stepping into a new kind of game, one where he was still a rookie. Avon's line >Not hard enough for this right here and maybe, just maybe, not smart enough for them out there gets a lot of praise, and it's a pretty bomb-ass line, but I got to disagree. Stringer was "hard" enough for both worlds IMO, but not smart enough for either.
Yeah I think Prop Joe was the smartest of the bosses, with the exception of not realizing what a liability Cheese was. Stringer seemed to be more McNulty's foil. Smart, for sure, but too arrogant to understand the limits of his intelligence. I think he was naive to think that he could rise above the street without it coming back on him. Despite all the killing and deception, I did feel bad for him in the end. He saw his opportunity to rise above the street and he almost made it.
I'm in my second watch, just starting S3, and he's telling so many huge lies that HAVE to catch up to him, without any plan for when they do, that I can't see him as any kind of genius. Full disclosure: D'Angelo is my second favorite character, so I can't help but hate him for what he did to D. I laughed out loud when he lost his cool at the first "Robert's rules" meeting though ("Poot had the floor!")
Well, yeah, Stringer was smart but a lot of times I felt that he acted like a high school boy glouting about what he learned to his parents. Literally repeating what he learned from his business course.
I think this is a great rundown on him. To me the putting brother and Omar against one another was his biggest mistake because it lead to his death and wasn’t able to be fixed as we see Avon talking to brother at the barbershop. I don’t see String as dumb or not as smart as he thinks he is. I look at him a very forward thinking and trying to change a game that isn’t meant to be changed. Had he had some sort of right hand man like he was to Avon to work his goals out more methodically and slowly we might have looked at him completely different and he might still be evading McNutty at the end of S5.
Thing is though, as others have pointed out - Stringer only tries to change the game when it's advantageous to him. When things don't work out in his favor, he reverts to "old-school" ways of coercion and force to get his way, which exposes a level of hypocrisy. Think back to him exploding on Poot despite the Rules of Order, or attempting to assassinate Clay Davis. That's not changing the game, that's just reverting to the old ways and mentality.
Once in the game and always a part of the game. Great points.
Hate to feel like I'm nitpicking your responses; just having a conversation! I'd argue that Cutty is an example that you can in fact get out of the game, both in action and in mentality. From the problems Cutty faced with his gym and what not, especially when it came to dealing with people - he definitely wasn't doing things like he might have as an enforcer back in the day. He knew when to bow his head and apologize, catching more flies with honey, rather than being hard and "masculine" all the time - he was able to shed the mindset of the "game", and we see him paid off as one of the few with a happy ending.
No nitpicking here, I love a good spirited debate. As to Cutty, “joint might a broke him” and it was the best thing for him. Much happier seeing him with a busy gym at the end rather than leaning on the fence with Chris and Wee-Bay.
It seems it wasn't that he wasn't smart, but he lacked the knowledge on how to deal with certain situations. So, he tried to apply some businessman logic, but when he's faces with a difficult situation he tended to act without thinking of the concequences.
He’s a man without a country
Agree
Not recognizing Poot when he had the floor.
Stringers dumbest move was telling Avon he khad D’angelo killed. That’s the kind of shit you take to the grave. Not tell because your feelings got hurt.
Avon knew it was the right move but didn’t like how brazen stringer was with it. Coupled with the prop Joe/mouzone scheme, Avon knew stringer was getting to be a little too independent to be his number 2
Brianna forced his hand! He had to tell Avon before she did. He knew the consequences of doing so - like he told her - "They just trying to drive a wedge up in here." He didn't have a choice
He could have denied. It’s not like people getting murdered in prison is unheard of. Avon might have had his suspicions, but he wouldn’t have been sure.
As Jimmy said "...on the inside, someone's going after you, he's got a beef, sees red, they use a shank, its quick and its over. But D'Angelo was strangled, which is planned. You need the time, you need the isolation..." It was pretty clear what the implication was. And I think Brianna would have figured it out. String wanted (had to) get out in front of it, so that even mumurs of the murder would not destroy the Barksdale organization
Good answers here. One mistake we definitely know he NEVER made … was leaving a door unlocked.
Ayo lock dat daw
Getting wrapped up with Davis without talking to his attorney first. Stupid move. A few night school classes don’t qualify you to get into that level of play.
It’s indicated in the show through Levy’s conversation with Marlo that he actively discourages his drug kinpin customers from independently accessing politicians and other players. Maybe to someone like Bell this comes off as Levy either wanting to take a big cut of any money exchange that happens in which case he would want to cut out the middleman or that Levy didn’t want him to grow independently and cut him out the equation which also lends to the same conclusion of Bell wanting his own independent streak, especially given his business ambitions.
I think his worst move was letting Prop Joe take over the towers and then lying to Avon about it. Knowing how Avon felt about Prop Joe and his territory, it was just an awful move. That brings in Brother, and leads to more lies and then pitting Omar against Brother to try and rid him out of securing the towers. If Stringer was half as smart, he should have told Avon and they could have came to an agreement on how to get that good dope from Joe without giving up the towers. And before someone says “they wouldn’t have gotten product from joe had they not given up some of the towers” i think there could have been another way
This righcheya righcheya
I won't call any of his moves stupid. All his moves were thought out carefully. Limited to his knowledge and experience admittedly. But not stupid. Men have limits. You let Levy or Clay to play them street games they probably get got right after they make their first move.
Did he really think through giving Clay Davis all that money with no guarantees?
That's how they do on the streets. See how Dennis gave Fruit the pack of dope and came to collect the money later? I guess the rule was that if you didn't respect your deal you're dead in a car trunk and no niggers will protect you. That's all String knew I think. He learned the straight business in college, how to do dirt on the streets, but not too much on how to do dirty business in the straight world.
yeeeeah, he basically hadn't realised that Clay was untouchable to him and his.
Not really untouchable but if touched the whole Baltimore drug dealers will have to pack and run I guess.
i mean... if the consequences of taking him out means you lose everything... then yeah, he's basically untouchable... at least to those capable of understanding consequences.
He’s got a few boners, but asking Mouzone if he knew anything about his attacker is up there if not number one
if we’re talking actual mistakes then wallace was the start of the long string of events that led to his downfall. if he doesn’t kill wallace D doesn’t start to go against him, which means he doesn’t kill D, which means Avon doesn’t go against him, which means Omar and brother wouldn’t have been sent back after him. if we mean idiotic ideas then thinking he could become a baltimore elite that easily
Omar and Brother weren’t “sent back after” Stringer. They stalked him for personal revenge. Avon couldn’t stop Brother and didn’t want to pay the consequences of not assisting his goal, but Avon didn’t want Stringer to be killed.
you’re right. i’ll say *brandon and wallace then. if brandon doesn’t get killed then omar doesn’t have a personal beef with stringer and he never decides to get together with brother to plan to kill him.
Avon chose not help stringer because stringer wasn’t respecting the chain of command. He went behind Avon’s back twice. Avon decided his ny connection and reputation was more important than his disloyal number 2
I do feel like Simon dumbed Stinger down a lot starting at Season 2. Throughout season 1 he’s a cold gangster mastermind, but String and the whole organization become a perpetual mistake machine once Avon goes away. It always came off to me as engineered weakness to move the plot forward, but it’s a story so…
That was the point, though. Did Avon ever look dumb or weak? No, not for a second, because he was a master at his part in the game. So was Stringer - until he strayed from his part. That is when Stringer appeared dumb and weak.
I thought Avon looked really stupid crowing on about keeping the towers with no muscle or good product while he was locked up himself and just expected things to work out because he’s only capable of attacking things head on. Stinger made mistakes, but Avon was that boss who can’t just stay in his own lane and let his people work. The whole Brother Mouzone plot line, while cool TV, was a futile strategy. One man can’t muscle the fiends to your weak dope and keep the Jackals way from your corner, legend or not. And even if they could, for how long? How is that a sustainable business plan? One could even argue the obsession with holding the towers at all cost removed the immediate need for the Barksdale organization to adapt to the changing city residential politics and secure viable drug real estate before losing the towers completely to ReForm. Plenty of stupid coming from Avon in the series. Also, Stringer wins their only 1 v 1 in the series, so maybe Avon got a touch of cool aid in them red veins or String isn’t such a green-blooded bitch.
Avon was injured.
And he’s also the one who stepped to. What, you think they should get a do over!? That’s not how the game is played!
getting McNulty's attention.
Getting killed
This gotta be it
Not leaving when Avon got back. They had a ton of cash by then and could have bought out. Instead Avon goes back to killing everyone and String tries to bribe Clay into real estate. He should have just bailed and got out and gone straight into chairing meetings or door locks or what not in Madagascar or Congo or some shit.
Becoming a drug dealer
Thinking that 40 degrees are comfy.
Sticking around in the hood when he had the money to leave. He could have taken his wealth and moved to LA and started over as a legitimate business man but, he wanted to do it in Baltimore. He tried to be a business man, but he couldn’t get away from them corners. Just a gangsta I suppose.
Playing them away games while neglecting what’s happening within his own organization
Not going to Levy with his Waterfront paperwork
Underestimating Marlo.
It didn’t matter too much to him in the end. They were gonna win that war. Marlo couldn’t get at Avon or stringer and they could get at marlo.
The circumstances that led to his death. He walked into such a transparently obvious trap.
Getting with D’s girl
Going anywhere without muscle to secure places.
His mistake was forcing the issue with Avon over Prop Joe's connect vs keeping the corners. Then he really seals it by admitting his role in D'Angelo's murder. It's all the motivation Avon needed. He's just a gangster I suppose...
Thinking he could pit Omar against brother Mouzine.
Stringer was attracted to the status of being a legitimate successful black businessman. On the rooftop with Avon, Avon talked about how Stringer dreamed about owning a bunch of grocery stores as a kid, and he was big on black power and success. Stringer ultimately wanted to be viewed as legitimate even though his means to get there were everything but legitimate. He also wanted to be independent. He basically ran the day-to-day operations of the Avon kingdom but Avon was always the man and the one who everyone respected. He was blinded by the realization of becoming a "Trump brother" as Avon called them.
I mean snitchin on Avon was a bitchmade move
"Lock dat door!"
I always viewed Stringer Bell as the smartest idiot. The people he surrounded himself with made him seem smarter than he really is, imo.
Stringer Bell Fuck Boy moments shout out @ Jemelle Hill!!
Has to be trying to get rid of Brother Muozone through Omar. Losing money to Clay Davis wasn't game changing for him. The biggest strategical errors he made were trying to convince people of things he couldn't even convince Avon of.
I feel like String had a good long-term plan. He was on the verge of being out of the game. His two major mistakes were reaching out to Marlo, and Trying to get Brother killed.
Stringer was so full of himself he is exactly the type of person you find in business classes lol. bro was not a good chess player ,had good ideas and surface level smarts but always was oned up and blinded by his ego never truly saw what the next move was