Moving to: m/AskMbin!

I feel like it's because of really good writing. Walter is objectively a bad guy. He's committing crimes, he's making a dangerous and highly addictive drug, he's killing people, just because he's too proud to accept help from his former colleagues. But the writing is great, the acting is incredible, so we see Walter from his own perspective--as the hero of the story. Skylar's not appreciating him as a hero, she's upset with him for putting the family at risk. When Skylar reacts reasonably to Walt's behavior, it makes us mad because it makes Walt mad.

At the core it really is sexism. A male character criticizing the main male character's shitty behavior would not get nearly the rage that Skylar got.

Honestly it is a testament to the writing and the actress on making the character being reasonable so anger inducing.

The show is about a guy going down the crime route, and Skylar is an obstacle to that. From the viewer perspective, Walter is fun to watch, he's doing something cool. Cooking Meth is cool. But then comes that boring character that nags him about "morality". Boooringgggg, who the hell does this chick thinks she is? I came to watch a show about a guy going in a downward spiral, why is she nagging?

Pardon my "monkey brain" thought process description lol. My point is that from what I've seen, people tend to dislike characters that stand in the way of the protagonist doing the main thing that he's supposed to be doing.

For example, Chichi from Dragon Ball, Goku's wife, tends to be disliked because she "nags" Goku. Her "nagging" tends to be basically reminding him that he's a father and has responsibilities, like helping out at home and financially. It's a shounen so it was always overlooked, but technically Chichi is the only one managing finances, and they've been living off only from her father's wealth. Wealth that eventually starts to run out at the end of the Z series iirc. Goku, for all intents and purposes, is a terrible family man.

But, it's a fighting show. It's about Goku and his friends fighting bad guys. So people don't like when characters detract from that objective, so they hate those characters, even if they are actually being the reasonable ones.

Same reason people rooted for Nancy in Weeds. Fictional works don't have the same logic and morality of real life applied to them, since audiences wish for things that they wouldn't wish to happen in real life. Like who says my current life is too boring and these people I like are redundant need to be written out, and there needs to be something tragic that happens because everything is too happy right now.