Quarterly Review of Film and Video

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Myth, Relative Evil, and Anti-Hero in Narcos and

Fariña

Ruth Gutiérrez Delgado, Maritza Ceballos-Saavedra & Jerónimo Rivera-

Betancur

To cite this article: Ruth Gutiérrez Delgado, Maritza Ceballos-Saavedra & Jerónimo Rivera-
Betancur (2023) Myth, Relative Evil, and Anti-Hero in Narcos and Fariña, Quarterly Review of
Film and Video, 40:8, 925-951, DOI: 10.1080/10509208.2022.2052709

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10509208.2022.2052709

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QUARTERLY REVIEW OF FILM AND VIDEO
2023, VOL. 40, NO. 8, 925–951
https://doi.org/10.1080/10509208.2022.2052709

~a
Myth, Relative Evil, and Anti-Hero in Narcos and Farin
Ruth Guti
errez Delgado , Maritza Ceballos-Saavedra , and
nimo Rivera-Betancur
Jero

Introduction
The real events that make up the plot of the first two seasons of Narcos
(Dynamo, Netflix, 2015–2016) and Fari~ na (Atresmedia/Bamb u, Netflix,
2018)—the establishment of the Medellin Cartel in Antioquia, Colombia,
with Pablo Escobar as the main figure and the introduction of cocaine
into Europe by the La Ros clan led by the Galician Sito Mi~ nanco, respect-
ively—reinforce the cultural character of these two hit TV series. This
metaphorical turn can only be understood by the adoption of a myth-based
perspective, because, as stated by Eliade: “myth always refers back to real-
ities” (1968, 19). In this case, the criminal nature of these realities repre-
sented by myth should not seem strange, as this is part of the history of
both regions. Despite how “heinous, instinctive and monstrous” the histor-
ical facts may be, they lose that unbearable quality, “to reveal themselves as
cultural events” (Eliade 1968, 16).
In particular, we will see how these stories have traits that enable their
mythification and provide evidence of the existence of a narrative-based
paradigm with its own conventions, where the main characters develop
their actions in the framework of a universe dominated by relative evil.
Laroussi points out that this mythification is achieved through the banaliza-
tion of the stories and their impact:
This questionable ethics tern of commercializing an (un)existent (a)cultural model is
debated in academic circles, since it promotes wrongdoing under different guises,
and (does not) reflect a true social conjuncture of some regions of the world, in this
case, Hispanic America and Spain. (Laroussi 2021, 129)

Ruth Gutierrez Delgado is Lecturer in Screenwriting for TV series and Epistemology at the University of Navarra;
she is part of the Communication Doctorate Program (Universidad de los Andes) and the research group Myth,
knowledge and action (Universidad Panamericana). Her research interests can be situated in Poetics, Myth
and Heroism.
Maritza Ceballos-Saavedra is a professor of Audiovisual Analysis at the Department of Audiovisual
Communication, Universidad de la Sabana. She studies different audiovisual representation systems as specific
fields and as combined forms, particularly how representations have the quality of being product and process in
the construction of social reality, reflection and producer of cultural order and subjectivity.
Jeronimo Rivera-Betancur is a professor in Audiovisual History at the Faculty of Communication, University of La
Sabana. His interests can be situated in Audiovisual narratives, film studies and Latin American cinema.
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of
the article.
ß 2022 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted
Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
926 R. GUTIÉRREZ DELGADO ET AL.

Part of the attraction of these stories comes from their being inspired by
or directly adapted from real events. Furthermore, there is considerable
relevance in the social impact they have had. These reasons have spurred
an interest to disentangle the violence from the complex interwoven net of
human relations driven by relentless greed, whose origin is found, paradox-
ically, in social strata marked by want and calamity. Concurring with
Amaya and Charlois, these stories
Begin from a play between reality and fiction, between a renowned historical
discourse and its potential to appeal to transnational audiences, in order to make
commercially viable the stories in a present that is taken as a result of these
explanations, at the same time being chronologically and spatially removed from
the situations portrayed. (Trujillo and Allende 2018, 40)

Both series present broadcast news clips with the real characters that
inspired the fiction, as a resource to emphasize the idea of telling a “true
story.” Along the same lines, Britto (2016) argues that Narcos has an over-
abundance of archive footage, especially when it displays disfigured bodies
and faces in close-ups and other stylistic choices that trample on the privacy
and respect of the real protagonists and their families:
The show employs real names and biographies, and consistently uses images of
actual people struggling through dehumanizing situations—with no consideration for
their identities, memories, or traumas. The series uses Colombia as its backdrop but
fails to help viewers understand how rural and urban worlds interacted to construct
a complex geography of illegality. In other words, real places, histories, and politics
become a mere landscape. (Britto 2016, 180)

Narcos (Colombia) was created as a Netflix Original Series as a commis-

sion made by the Colombian production company Dynamo, under the cre-
ative leadership of Eric Newman, Chris Brancato, Doug Miro and Carlo
Bernard. The series now includes three seasons and a total of 30 episodes:
10 per season. The first two seasons focus on the fight against the Medellin
drug-trafficking cartel, whereas the third focuses on the Cali cartel. The team
of Narcos included the directing skill of the Brazilian Jose Padilha and the
work of Dynamo, a company with an impressive track record for audiovisual
production in Colombia and South America since its inception in 2010.
Padilha had been renowned for the “narco-film” Tropa de elite (2007), based
on the book of the same title written by Luiz Eduardo Soares.
For the series, Brancato (2015) mentions that in preparation, he and his
team read dozens of books and watched many documentaries made in
Colombia, also using a great deal of journalistic material as key sour-
ces (2017):
We had the life rights to Steve Murphy and Javier Pena, DEA … they gave us
transcripts of wire intercepts and phones calls from the narcos. … We had the
 QUARTERLY REVIEW OF FILM AND VIDEO 927

archival footage, we had tons of research, and I had a great team of writers who
would write scenes for me. (Brancato 2015)

Brancato recognizes that the story of Pablo Escobar was nothing new for
Colombians, but that it was interesting for audiences in North America,
Europe and other South American countries. Regarding the portrayal of
Escobar, Brancato was in favor of humanizing him, without forgetting,
nanco, “none of this end well for any of these
though, just like Sito Mi~
guys” (2017):
This was a guy who was in the right place at the right time to take advantage of
the American appetite of cocaine, found himself a billionaire without having to
work that hard – other than getting the coke into the country. … . this is the
first gangster in the history of the world that single-handedly tried to fight a war
against two different countries at once and for quite a long period of time he
was kind of on the winning side. So, finally he was defeated … . (Brancato 2015)

In contrast to Narcos, Fari~

na’s beginnings as a project were 15 years ear-
lier, before the Atresmedia groups mediated between Bamb u and Netflix.
According to Fari~na’s content head and scriptwriter, Gema Neire:
For a long while Ramon Campos and myself wanted to make a series about drug-
trafficking in Galicia. We had tried to sell the idea while we were working there, but
no one was interested in buying it. Television was at a different spot [back then] and
it seemed as though you could not have an “anti-hero” as a main character. The idea
was left there, resting, until the arrival of Nacho Carretero’s book. (Personal
communication, October 14, 2020a)

na is a series linked to “el terru~

Fari~ no” [the local turf]; very specifically
focused, with careful research done by Carretero, which shows common-
place reality by giving a human perspective within the cycle of anti-heroic
protagonists to both Pablo Escobar and Sito Mi~ nanco. In fact, Neira attests
that one of the most important decisions, alongside the research, was
“deciding that the main character would be Sito Mi~ nanco, a man who, des-
pite what he did, was always held in high respect and loved by his people”
(personal communication, October 14, 2020a). The popularity of the lead-
ing character explains the sympathy with which his criminal actions are
judged, while at the same time, the series highlights “the Galician imprint
in everything that happened” (G. Neira, personal communication, October
14, 2020a).
The link between Galicia and Colombia is less casual than it might seem:
the historical evolution of the drug trafficking phenomenon in Colombia is
very similar, because the South American country also went from whiskey
and tobacco smuggling to drug trafficking, albeit on a different timescale.
That said, contrary to Narcos, for Fari~ na the internal factor was also
important: “Smuggling was not only a way to import very scarce items and
basic needs, but also a way to make a living that was respected, prestigious
928 R. GUTIÉRREZ DELGADO ET AL.

and not at all immoral” (Rodrıguez 2017). According to Neira (personal

communication, October 14, 2020a):
I believe that beyond being another narco-series, there are not many similarities. For
us, the most interesting aspect of the book Fari~ na was that it was focusing on what
we wanted to tell: there are no drug lords like those from Galicia elsewhere in the
world, because the Galician trait plays a central role in the story.

Thus, the real events these two series are based on, the popular appeal of
the main characters, and the trauma that their actions brought to the civil-
ian population brings to the fore a narrative need to interpret and compre-
hend phenomena and material facts: that is to say, to showcase the reasons
why these two phenomena remain part of the collective memory.

Methodological Approach to the Analysis of the Narco-Series

This study hopes to link real-life experiences with fictional representations,
from a phenomenological standpoint, to explain the metaphorical relations
through which reality is thus emulated. In this way, it is hoped that a rela-
tionship can be established, from a hermeneutical perspective, the narrative
and main character models the first two seasons of Narcos (2015–2016)—
those which feature Pablo Escobar—and Fari~ na (2018) from the viewpoint
of the myth and Aristotle’s Poetic with the aim of providing intelligibility
to the narco-series genre. In summary, as both series are analyzed via the
mythic perspective, the genre conventions of the narco-series will
be explored.
This area is of interest because, in the current context, it would appear
as though the drug trafficker is accepted despite their anti-exemplary
behavior, evincing that the main character need not be the hero of their
(own) story (Gutierrez Delgado 2012). The epic tragedy of the narco-series
bases its epic aspect in transforming the clandestine economies into a
heroic achievement and making its main character seem, based on this feat,
to be on a heroic path, “as a hero.” The demise or capture of the drug traf-
ficker only “renews the world,” including the tragic element through to the
end of the cycle, “the dissolution” (Eliade 1968, 75).
Although literature on myth is abundant and there is not a single defin-
ition that encompasses it, Mircea Eliade (1968) values myth greatly, as an
existent and active part of historical reality. The so-called mythic action
in the stories requires certain specific narrative conditions to ensue —a
paradigm— which have a bearing on the starting point, the perspective, the
traits of the main character, and the goal of the story. On the other hand,
the danger that comes from this audiovisual phenomenon is that, in the
process of mythification carried out by the story, it may culturally normal-
ize a status of relative evil, where the boundaries good and evil are blurred.
 QUARTERLY REVIEW OF FILM AND VIDEO 929

With the intention of developing this perspective, Narcos and Fari~ na

are studied in accordance with Aristotle’s Poetics: characteristics of the
main protagonists and antagonists; space and spheres of actin (universe
and the two societies); the type of plots that determine their rise and fall
(plot typology); the thoughts expressed that set up the moral and tem-
poral framework of the narrative. This is mainly an analysis of the char-
acters, expanded by the description of the narrative structure to arrive at
the discursive paradigm offered by the series and their temporal
organization.
Secondly, an analysis of Narcos and Fari~ na is carried out from a narrato-
logical perspective. This includes the structure, mood and narrative voice,
the construction of the main character and their transformation and moral
environment. In narrative structure the main events and their relationship
are established through narrative logic (Bordwell 2013), paying special
attention to the sequences before the opening credits (previously on … )
and those before the end credits. These are key pieces in the construction
of the discursive paradigm whose function as narrative links provides evi-
dence of the focus of the story (Bort 2012, 265–279). In the analysis of the
mood and narrative voice, the proposal of Gerard Genette (1989) is a use-
ful reference, with the aim of recognizing the focalization—the degree of
knowledge of the events and the perspective—and the narrative voice—who
tells the events, the time and level: extradiegetic, diegetic or metadiegetic.
The characters are studied in terms of their identity, their way of being and
way of doing; and the links between them and each of the spheres in which
they perform, from the social to the intimate milieu, according to the classifi-
cation suggested by authors such as Lajos Egri (2004) and Linda Seger (1990)
when addressing the physical, psychological and sociological dimensions of
characters. This refers to the environment in which the characters perform,
the spheres of action: (personal/family, drug trafficking, the law; politics and
victims) they represent and their affinity—closeness or distance—or participa-
tion in each of these spaces. The character’s evolution arc is addressed from
the plot typology presented by Friedman (1955), who offers three main
types—fortune, character and thought types—defined according to the devel-
opment of the plot. Also, dramatic patterns in the plots, as presented by
Roland Tobias (1999) and Antonio Sanchez-Escalonilla (2004) are observed
and the review of the dialogue that highlight the thoughts, personal or ideo-
logical stance, the moral positioning and the emotive tone of the characters
in their processes of rise and fall from fortune.
From that narrative analysis, framed by the principles in the Poetics
(Aristotle 1974), the proximity of the two series is determined and the
mythification process is rendered evident as one of the main traits of
the genre.
930 R. GUTIÉRREZ DELGADO ET AL.

Narcos Narrative Context: Realistic Patterns, Narrative Perspective and

the Crime World
The narrative of Narcos offers a fictional take on historical events. Each
episode is constructed in the same manner: a disclaimer text, a credits
sequence with archival footage, the start of the voice-over narration and
the transition to fiction. Throughout the episode (S01E01) fiction is con-
nected to real events through archival images and includes, at various
points in time, voice-over narration to connect the dots. The disclaimer
text reads “This television series is inspired by true events. Some of the
characters, names, businesses, incidents and certain locations have been fic-
tionalized for dramatic purposes. Any similarity to the name, character or
history of any person is entirely coincidental and unintentional.” Thus, the
series wavers between “inspired by true events” and “the real story,” for it
is a construction of reality: the events are mostly true, interwoven with fic-
tion (Trujillo and Allende 2018, 11–12). It is only in the first episode
(S01E01) that another text follows the disclaimer: “Magical realism is
defined as what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded
by something too strange to believe. There is a reason magical realism was
born in Colombia” (emphasis in the source material). The events are so
strange that they appear to be fiction (Rodrıguez-Blanco and
Mastrogiovanni 2018, 98).
The credits sequence seeks to summarize the environment and characters
involved in the events and to portray some of the most striking situations
in the war against drugs in Colombia. Using archive footage and pictures,
the map and the mountains around Medellin are shown, along with the
infamous Hacienda Napoles, Pablo Escobar on a bike with friends, a pic-
ture of Ronald Reagan, corpses on the street, and a picture of two DEA
agents. As mentioned by Perez and J odar (2018), the opening sequence
strives “to become a synthesis of the identity and brand of the product
itself” (32). Although the authors claim that the piece, this audiovisual col-
lage of Narcos, has a creative rather than a functional purpose, the opening
sequence offers a variety of referential elements about the Colombian con-
text and the series narrative (53). It sets the tone, offers a glimpse at the
narrative genre and establishes the show’s relationship to reality.
Authenticity is also highlighted by the use of real people’s names with
recognizable physical characteristics, as seen in the images of Pablo
Escobar, the then-President Cesar Gaviria and agent Murphy, and via
the presentation of various tragic images from Colombian history, such
as the storming of the Palace of Justice, the attack on the Avianca air-
plane, the bombings in Bogota, Cali and Medellin, and so forth. These
events are shown mixed in with archive photographic images of the
people involved combined with the characters played by actors. Contrary
 QUARTERLY REVIEW OF FILM AND VIDEO 931

to what has been mentioned by Rodrıguez-Blanco and Mastrogiovanni

(2018, 98), this does not produce an incomplete reading of reality, but
rather an interwoven quilt, with real-life events sewn together by fic-
tional stitches.

Mood and Narrative Voice

The narrative of the series is delivered by a single narrator, Steve Murphy,
a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent, who arrives in Colombia
with the intention of fighting drug trafficking at its source. This character-
narrator provides the bridge between true and fictional events. The first
sequences (S01E01) describe the massacre at “La Dispensarıa” dance club.
The DEA informs agent Murphy that two contract killers will be there. He
decides to contact Colonel Carrillo, renowned bloodthirsty head of the
“bloque de b usqueda” [Search Bloc], who arrives at “La Dispensarıa” and
kills everybody: contract killers, drug traffickers, and prostitutes. The narra-
tor justifies his own actions, saying that the contract killers had already
murdered many people. Murphy says: “I wouldn’t blame you if you held
me responsible for this bloodbath. Yeah, I pushed the buttons. But don’t
call me a bad guy just yet.” Although the English language narration by
Murphy apparently places him on the side of justice, the DEA, the
Colombian government and the US, it relativizes evil by showing that
everyone has to undertake evil deeds to weed out the ultimate evil,
Escobar himself.
The violent scene at “La Dispensarıa” sets the mood and narrative voice
for the series. This is an introduction to the main narrative, a macro-story,
defined by Murphy who, as the narrator seeks to explain all the events that
led to these murders. From that point onwards, all the events presented
until the last episode of the season (S01E10) will be addressed from the
DEA agent’s own experience, and always set in the past through a large
narrative ellipsis. There is a premise in the narrator’s voice “If there is
something I’ve learned in the narco world … it’s that life is more compli-
cated than you think. Good and bad … they are relative concepts. In the
world of drug dealers, you do what you think is right … and hope for the
best” (S01E01).
The narrator-character of the story assesses the situations and thoughts
of other characters from within and even prepares the audience for the
events’ fatal resolutions. In terms of Genette (1989), it is a narrativized dis-
course, ordered and oriented by Murphy’s moral perspective. This is a
metadiegetic narrator who tells not only his story —the macro-story— but
also the stories of the other characters, pretending to be objective in the
description of these events. The point of view is defined by the place and
932 R. GUTIÉRREZ DELGADO ET AL.

time of the narrator. Murphy describes the events he has experienced, and
due to being close to them may rightfully assess them. He is a narrator
that questions the role of “the good guys” because his own moral degrad-
ation is the starting point for his tale. The first episode (S01E01) is called
“Descenso” [Descent]: whose? Agent Murphy’s or Pablo Escobar’s? Murphy
arrives in Colombia to fight drug trafficking for his country. Yet, at the
end the narrator claims: “One year later … all that patriotic bullshit was
right out the window.”

Spheres of Action and Moral Environment

The Medellin drug trafficking cartel is a paradigm of contemporary crim-
inal activity. It is characterized by moral frailty; every person or group has
their own purpose and acts in their own benefit. Alliances between the
members of different sides take place when common interests arise, but
when there are no more common benefits or when other agreements better
serve the end goal, rupture, betrayal and even murder ensue: “it is the spot-
lighting of unsympathetic, morally questionable or villainous characters,
often male, that is, anti-heroes, characters whose behaviors and beliefs lead
to an ambiguous, conflicting or negative moral relation” (Trujillo and
Allende 2018, 81).
In Narcos various spheres of action can be perceived: (a) Outside the
law: the drugs business sphere, guerillas and paramilitaries, (b) The
sphere of law: Colombian police and the DEA, who use more or less
bloody or legal methods, establishing alliances with Medellin or Cali car-
tel members and with paramilitaries, and (c) The political sphere on the
Colombian side, where the President, the Ministers and the Senators—
even the Attorney General—are cornered by Pablo Escobar and must
find a way to stamp out drug trafficking while keeping the peace. On the
US side, there is the Embassy and the CIA, who pull the strings. This
organization is embodied by agent Bill Stetchner, a dark character whose
goal is to halt communism and to that end is aligned with the paramili-
tary and either supports or limits the DEA’s actions, as the case may be.
Then there are (d) The victims who are receivers of the actions of the
other spheres, whether because they are killed as a consequence of the
war, or because they act with deceit and manipulation. Initially anonym-
ous, they number into their hundreds, like those who died in the bomb-
ings: There are also however those who are named, thus making us part

of their ordeal. There is, for instance, Elisa Alvaro (M-19 guerilla mem-
ber), Jaimito (who places the bomb in the Avianca airplane) and his girl-
friend Natalie with her baby, or Rodrigo Lara Bonilla (Minister of
Justice). Lastly, (e) The intermediaries, who enable connections between
 QUARTERLY REVIEW OF FILM AND VIDEO 933

Figure 1. Spheres of action in Narcos (2015–2016).

the spheres. Characters such as Valeria Velez, Pablo Escobar’s lover, pro-
vide a link with the public sphere through her news items, themselves
responsible for his local “Robin Hood” appeal.
As can be seen in Figure 1, in the drugs business sphere led by Pablo
Escobar and the Medellin cartel, one may also find his unconditional fam-
ily, the contract killers, the crop growers and the drug traffickers. This car-
tel establishes an alliance with the Cali cartel by creating the MAS (Muerte
a Secuestradores [Death to Kidnappers]) group to fight against the M-19
guerilla movement following the kidnapping of a family member. Later, the
Medellın cartel and M-19 become allies in favor of helping those in pov-
erty, leading Escobar to finance the storming of the Palace of Justice
(S01E04: Palacio en llamas). Similarly, the Cali cartel, which was previously
allied with Escobar, creates the group Los Pepes (Perseguidos por Pablo
Escobar [Persecuted by Pablo Escobar]), in alliance with the right-wing par-
amilitaries, and dedicated to hunting down and murdering guerilla mem-
bers, but who, under pressure by the CIA, joined the hunt for Escobar
(S02E04: El bueno, el malo y el muerto). This constant change in alliances
shows the instability of the agreements and the fragility of the characters’
motives. But it also describes the narrative arc of the protagonist, who
swerves between one allegiance and another in the quest for power and
recognition, providing further degradation.
Narcos presents a protagonist in the world of crime. Someone who elicits
sympathy toward his goals, be it when he gifts money to the poor, or when
he colludes with his associates in crime. But when a chaotic environment is
set up and negatively impacts his allies, it elicits a desire for punishment.
This type of fortune plot is called punitive plot (Friedman 1955, 249).
Pablo Escobar will give money to the por and then use those same people
as hired assassins or to blow up a commercial flight, turning them
into victims.
934 R. GUTIÉRREZ DELGADO ET AL.

Figure 2. Pablo Escobar’s transformation arch in Narcos (2015–2016).

The Evolution Arc of Pablo Escobar: Narcos and Moral Imagination

Narcos establishes a mood of moral imagination in two ways. On the one
hand, the framing of the actions through the statements of the characters,
delivered in dialogues; on the other hand, by providing for justice through
the actions of those who defy and stand against Pablo Escobar’s actions.
As a character, Pablo Escobar takes on a variety of roles and goes through
various phases in the story: smuggler, drug trafficker and head of the
Medellin cartel, the benefactor of the poor, congressman and renegade. In
each role or phase, he has the power of money, information, weapons
and cruelty.
Escobar’s motive can be found in the words of his mother Hermilda, who
explains how she had stolen some shoes in town because they had made fun
of Pablo’s scruffy shoes at school. She says: “Being poor is no excuse for
looking poor.” La Tata says to her: “You have always taken what you’ve
wanted, right?” Hermilda: “And so has Pablo” (S02E05); in Narcos we are
shown a fully developed protagonist, Escobar is already the head of the
Medellin Cartel at the beginning of the first episode, his power quickly
increases (S01E2) by becoming the head of the alliance with the Cali Cartel
and the emerald traders, and he even sketches his plan to become
Colombia’s president.
The arc of the protagonist’s transformation is summarized in Figure 2.
Pablo’s relentless spirit, his greed, takes him into politics, but also leads
him to step away from his own remit to “fight” for the common good. As
a candidate for the House of Representatives, he attains public support by
giving money away and building houses for the needy: clearly populist
strategies. “I am a poor man with money”—he states (S01E02). With his
cunning he knows when to shift his strategy: he advises his contract killers
that whenever they are stopped along the way, they should “hand over
some bills and proceed: without violence” (S01E03). That is his rise to
prominence. He is known as Don Pablo and his picture as a drugs boss
appears in many a shrine in the houses of Medellin. This is a figure which
 QUARTERLY REVIEW OF FILM AND VIDEO 935

commands fascination. This desire to obtain recognition in the legitimate

public life, sets up the plot of demise or fall (Tobias 1999, 243). Escobar’s
narrative arc would fare worse every time, more violent, untrusting, chal-
lenging tan before. He is a weathered villain.
When he wins the elections, his power goes beyond the material, but his
cousin Gustavo makes him realize he will not be leaving the underground
to appear in the light so easily. “You cannot be going around showing off,
giving people stuff for them to love you. We … are bandits” (S01E03).
In both narcoseries humiliation is the trigger, in Narcos the fully-fledged
war against the establishment and in Fari~ na drug smuggling to increase
profit. The fall of Escobar begins with the humiliation orchestrated in the
Chamber of the House of Representatives by the Minister of Justice,
Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, who tells him “You do not belong to this House, you
don’t belong here” (S01E03). Moral defeat makes him feel like a victim of
the political elite. This is the birth of Escobar thinking of himself as a victi-
mized hero, and the beginning of the war: Escobar is set on revenge for
this humiliation. Confrontation is imminent, and the drugs trafficker has
unlimited resources at his disposal as well as a total lack of scruples. As he
states: “Sometimes I am God. If I say that a man has to die, he dies that
same day” (S02E03). Once the extradition treaty is signed (S01E03),
Escobar responds with the storming of the Palace of Justice (S01E03 and
S01E04) and the bombing of the Avianca airplane aimed at killing the
presidential candidate Cesar Gaviria (S01E06), followed by further bomb-
ings, kidnapings and murders (S01E07). The narrator describes the profile
of a semi-divine monster: “He bought whoever could be bought, and he
would scare with threats those he couldn’t buy. The others, he would kill.
When the pen failed, Pablo used the sword” (S01E04).
Beyond the narrator’s perspective, moral judgment is present, in par-
ticular, in two dialogues: one with journalist Diana Turbay, kidnapped by
Pablo Escobar; and another one with his father, when he is hiding in the
country house. In the former, Pablo complains that the government does
not cower to the bombs and kidnapings. Diana Turbay replies: “What did
you expect? To walk freely into Congress? Regardless of the fact that you
smuggle drugs?” Escobar replies, “I wanted respect.” Escobar argues that
his humiliation is based on him being a “paisita de Medellın”1 with more
money and intelligence. He says, “I was going to do wonders for this
country.” Diana Turbay responds, “Yes, you would have done great
things. That’s really sad” (S01E08).
Finally, Pablo Escobar wants to change, have a peaceful life, and buy a
country house next to his father’s. But his father, Abel, tells him: “you are
a murderer” (S02E09), revealing his true colors and the shame he brings
him. In the final episode, the image of the Capo’s dead body on the
936 R. GUTIÉRREZ DELGADO ET AL.

rooftop of a house in Medellin alongside a lone thug is iconic “The idol

has fallen” and with him, comes the destruction of the mythical world.

~ a: At the End of Smuggling, Drugs

Farin
Fari~
na exhibits a central difference to Narcos in terms of the focus of the
story: it is told without a narrator and the element that threads the series
together is chronological development, as each of the episodes coincides
with a year from 1981 to 1990. Despite this linear chronology, its narrative
structure is circular: the series begins with journalistic images at the end of
the police investigation, and this contextualizes the plot and also works as
a device that links reality and fiction. In the first episode we are able to
identify what will become of the characters, which foretells the series mak-
ing the audience into witnesses of the rise and fall of the protagonist. The
news piece in the first episode (S01E01) explains the geographical features
of Galicia that render it appropriate for drug trafficking and that provide
grounds for the moral behavior of the Galician:
the way drug traffic is understood today is very different from how it was
understood by Galicians at the time. They saw in it the possibility to become rich in
a land with few opportunities. The fish market was on a downward trend and the
expansion of drugs was slowly being accepted by the people, leading some to look
the other way while others profited from a booming business.

The Nemesis of the Victim Hero

According to the typology of plots developed by Friedman (1955, 249),
which defines three great forms —fortune, character and thought— deter-
mined by the narrative arc of the protagonist and the evolution of the
story, it can be ascertained that Fari~ na’s plots is concerned with fortune.
More specifically, it deals with a punitive plot, whereas the transformation
arc of the character includes some of the traits of a degeneration plot. This
means that the story shows a protagonist who breaks the law and whose
objectives are questionable, yet he is someone who arouses empathy and,
in a way, can be considered a victim of their own ambition. According to
Friedman, however, in the punitive plot, although the objectives and moral-
ity of the protagonist may be put to the test, drawing sympathy to them,
the fact that their actions negatively impact truly good characters leads to a
desire for those actions to be punished. In this process, the character expe-
riences moral deterioration, becoming a worse individual. This can be seen
when Sito Mi~ nanco condemns and chastises the use of force by the mem-
bers of his clan, yet, by the last episode, decides who to save and who to
 QUARTERLY REVIEW OF FILM AND VIDEO 937

~anco’s transformation arc in Fari~na (2018).

Figure 3. Sito Min

turn in to the authorities, accepting even that some of them kill

one another.
In fact, the musical theme in Galician that precedes each episode justifies
these actions by the protagonist: “What I must do to avoid going to sea,
plenty of fish to sell and flour to knead.” The song presents the link
between the two main activities in the region: fishing and drug trafficking
(hence the flour).

~ anco
Evolution Arc of Sito Min
One could think of the character of Sito Mi~ nanco under the idea of the
hero’s forge Sanchez-Escalonilla (2004). Unlike Escobar in Narcos, Mi~nanco
is not an already developed protagonist. Throughout series one we are wit-
ness to the dramatic construction of the character. The narrative arc
presents him at the start as a young fisherman who works side by side with
his father and who, like many youngsters his age, is frustrated by the little
money he makes through this activity and the restrictions the government
puts on his job. In contrast, the power held by the members of
“cooperativa de la Rıa de Arousa” is evident, as they use their commercial
activities related to the fishing market to cover up their true money-making
business: tobacco smuggling. These criminal activities are well known in
the area, but no one cares to confront them. Their large wealth is difficult
to conceal, as can be seen in the introduction of the second episode
(S01E02) when, after heavy rain, the streets of Cambados are overflowing
with the money that was clogging up the sewage system.
The following diagram illustrates the transformation of the protagonist
(Figure 3).
Sito is unhappy with the life he leads, and this pushes him to become
ambitious. However, he is looking for recognition, rather than money, to
quench his inferiority complex.: “If [we] the poor want fish, we need to
get our asses wet” (S01E01). Terito, the cooperativa boss, shows him it
does not have to be that way. Later, in the same episode, Sito and his
938 R. GUTIÉRREZ DELGADO ET AL.

family are turned away at an elegant restaurant they had booked to cele-
brate his daughter’s first communion because their table had been taken
by the smugglers. Sito tries to bribe the ma^ıtre D, who, scared, tells him
“there are people you can’t say no to” (S01E01). That would be the trig-
ger for his drive to make more money to avoid any further humiliation.
That is the same reason expressed by a police officer who admits to tak-
ing a bribe, concealing a strong feeling of envy: “Do you know how it
feels to see a beardless kid rubbing their Mercedes in our
faces?” (S01E04)
Although he joins the smuggling world to square up a debt, Mi~ nanco
realizes that, in this way, he would no longer be poor and he would be
able to achieve the power he craves. Unlike in Narcos, in Fari~ na power is
evenly distributed between the cooperativa members, even though the pro-
tagonist wants to hoard it all, to become like his idol: Pablo Escobar. This
leads to a narrative crossroads between both series. Just like in The
Godfather (Coppola and Puzo 1972), drug trafficking creates the rift that
distorts the balance within the cooperativa, leading the boss to quit, and
providing a power vacuum that fosters a feud between the remaining mem-
bers: an opportunity seized by Mi~ nanco to become a de facto leader. The
former boss, Terito, represents the old school, where members of the coop-
erativa worked and got rich breaking the law, but adhering to a code of
ethics that included, for instance, an avoidance of violent acts and a reduc-
tion of the harm they could inflict upon others. The arrival of the new gen-
eration, led by Mi~ nanco, but also represented by Charlın’s sons and niece
and Bustelo’s son, signals a new direction in which “anything goes”: from
cheating on their partners to attacking the police, and even killing rivals.
Sito becomes a cold-blooded and commanding figure, although he does not
leave behind some of the principles he had prior to his life of crime: at the
start, he is loyal to his friends, thankful to his parents and firmly against
the use of violence within the group. However, as the series progresses, he
becomes more ambitious, egotistical and sidelines his family. He challenges
the foundation of the association of mothers of victims of drug trafficking,
but he is against attacking them and shows respect for his rivals, even though
he uses a complex network of informants and civil servants to avoid law
enforcement. In the final episode, he is captured by sergeant Castro, who
rejects a bribe stating he would never let a killer loose. Sito claims he has
never killed anyone. “That’s what you think,” is the sergeant’s reply.

Protagonist’s Spheres of Action

Sito Mi~
nanco is introduced as a new drug trafficker, ambitious and charis-
matic, who cares little for the opinion and acceptance of others and who
 QUARTERLY REVIEW OF FILM AND VIDEO 939

Figure 4. Spheres of action in Fari~na (2018).

develops an admiration-disappointment relationship for the mythic Pablo

Escobar and the style of the Medellin cartel drug traffickers. The spheres of
action for Mi~ nanco, like those of Escobar, are divided between legal and illegal,
allies and enemies. Contrary to Escobar, Mi~ nanco’s family and second partner
go from allies to enemies throughout the series. In addition, all politicians are
corrupt and, therefore, his allies. However, there are similarities regarding the
ambivalent role of law enforcement (he has cops, lawyers and judges as both
allies and enemies) and the victims, who become one of the main contenders
in this tale and a significant pressure group that defies his control (Figure 4).
In his drugs sphere, Mi~ nanco begins as a helping hand who admires
the wealth of his future partners and, thanks to his ambition and cour-
age, becomes the de facto leader who settles scores and lays down the
rules of the union while keeping some ethical and moral limits which set
him apart from the brutal actions of the Medellin cartel. In his family
sphere, Mi~ nanco is careless and puts his business first, leaving his daugh-
ters, his wife and his parents on the sidelines. As time goes by, he also
pushes back his second wife, who had brought him in contact with the
Medellin cartel. In the family sphere his two best friends have center
stage, and he is protective and accommodating with them. Regarding the
victims, Sito shows some compassion but realizes they are a threat
because of the pressure they put on public opinion through their media
presence. Finally, in the sphere of the law, Sito and his accomplices
manipulate legal loopholes to avoid police action and, similarly, keep
judges, police officers and civil servants in their payroll. Judge Baltazar
Garz on and sergeant Castro are presented as his two main enemies, as
are the values they personify.
940 R. GUTIÉRREZ DELGADO ET AL.

Relations of Benefit and the Forging of a Leader

Unlike Narcos, where group belonging is changeable and highlights a behav-
ioral trait, in Fari~
na the characters stick to their group and are generally
coherent with their actions from the beginning. This allows for them to be
analyzed via Greimas (1973) actantial model, in which there are three clearly
defined axes: the communication between sender-receiver; the desire between
subject-object; and, the help between helper-opponent. Taking Sito Mi~ nanco
as the subject, his allies are the helpers in his mission to become a rich drug
lord, and the police are the opponents to this goal. Thus, the cooperativa is a
group of “businesspeople” who undertake “front” operations, but who actu-
ally control the tobacco contraband. At the beginning of the series, the group
is led by Terito, Mi~ nanco’s first opponent, who is the keeper of tradition
and reluctant to embrace the new morals and drug trafficking. Under this
typology, the grouping of “representative characters” made by the series cre-
ators was fundamental. To this effect, Gema Neira (personal communication,
October 21, 2020b) states that the amount of people implicated in the drug
network forced them to provide a dramatic summary of this group, bringing
together certain psychological profiles for a smaller group. Aside from that
reduction, they had to show real people and their kin, to ensure they
observed their memory and public standing.
Also, as the group needs legal counsel to cover up their crimes, it hires a
lawyer, who becomes an ally of the criminals. As in other drug trafficking
stories, the lawyer is key to ensuring success with impunity and his tasks
vary between dealing with local civil servants to getting minimum sentenc-
ing for members of the group as a tradeoff for support in the elections, or
even setting some of them free on the grounds that they were nothing but
ignorant farmers. This way, as has been mentioned, it becomes important
that the drug trafficker presents him/herself as a yet another businessper-
son, despite criminal activities, as presented by Terito when he stops some
of his activities.
Finally, it is worth highlighting the moral integrity of the antagonist:
Sergeant Castro. Despite all the attempts made by drug traffickers to offer
bribes and other gifts to dissuade him from going after them, and in spite
of his own team members suggesting illegal actions to combat their ene-
mies, Sergeant Castro remains incorruptible. Furthermore, Castro shows
his own humanity when facing the death of his fellow police officers or
that of a drug trafficker who was a childhood friend, and he worries about
the safety of the witnesses. The conflict between Mi~ nanco and Castro
becomes a central subplot in the series, with the relationship balanced in
favor of the criminal, despite his outlaw status: “He has the law on his
side … I have something even better: power, people love me,” as Mi~ nanco
says. Then, when in prison, “any of us did more for our people than those
 QUARTERLY REVIEW OF FILM AND VIDEO 941

judges and police officers together, people look up to us” (S01E04). Thus, it
can be said that the search for power by Mi~ nanco is linked to a patriotic
interest in belonging to his own community, the one he believes he is serv-
ing, in his own manner.

~ a: Narrative Commonalities and Differences

From Narcos to Farin
With Fari~ na and Narcos there is evidence of a shift in the narrative trajec-
tory of the genre, displayed in the choice of the main character and in the
presence of State apparatus as an institution to oppose. The DEA agent,
Steve Murphy, is a qualified witness and narrator of the story, and through
him Escobar is in focus. Through this cross-focus, Murphy plays the role
of the antagonist. This difference sets the scene for the conflict and, thus,
places the main plot in both fictions in the criminal environment, a vital
characteristic to understand the ultimate meaning of the story.
Fari~
na connects with the paradigm of Narcos, in this aspect: the exaltation
of the “charismatic” drug trafficker hero and his criminal enterprise to later
present his fall through a web of relationships built on greed, which, accord-
ing to Sotelo, another one of the scriptwriters for Farina, is insatiable. In
contrast to Narcos, Fari~ na is not classified “exactly” as a narco-series, whose
genre logic tends to concentrate on an explanation of the criminal network
structure, placing the emphasis on the operational network on which its effi-
ciency rests (Personal communication, November 22, 2019a). As he sees it,
Fari~na instead extends visually and narratively when addressing the “local.”
Under this framework, the human and folk aspect of smuggling activities is
expanded, as the business meant that people close to the border with
Portugal could live from contraband, and namely tobacco traffic. That same
hazy spirit of drug trafficking logic, as a local evil, shapes Nacho Carretero’s
(2018a) book, the one that inspired the series by Bamb u Producciones.
However, as pointed out by Perez Moran (2018), Narcos excessively simpli-
fies the messages and the roles of Colombian drug lords, adapting them to
the flattened expectations of a global, rather than local, audience. Thus, the
series focuses on the human reasons that moved simple people toward the
business of drug trafficking, rather than individual or national goals, as is the
case in Narcos: that is, the move from smuggling tobacco to drugs. Since
smuggling was an accepted and admired livelihood, it became stable work
that multiplied investment quickly and exponentially. By being a way to earn
a good living which people had taken for granted without much ethical
debate, civil authorities, the police and even some armed forces of the State
coexisted with it, sometimes providing protection or becoming accessories.
In Fari~na, instead, the State is spread through different levels, with diverse
implications in the fight against crime or taking bribes, through judges,
942 R. GUTIÉRREZ DELGADO ET AL.

district attorneys, political parties and through the Xunta (Carretero 2018a,
235–241). Instead of victims of the drug traffickers, the agents that managed
to remain true to their fight against drug trafficking in defense of justice
ended up victims of a corrupt system that stopped them from fulfilling their
job; a system meant to protect them placed them in more danger. This
shows how narco-series have inverted police thriller logic, by setting the effi-
ciency of their law-enforcing work and their available means in crisis.

Protagonists and Antagonists: Who Is the Hero?

As mentioned, the transformation of agents of the law into witnesses
becomes complex by providing the only access to the true protagonists:
Pablo Escobar in Narcos and Sito Mi~ nanco in Fari~ na. Steve Murphy in
Narcos and Sergeant Darıo Castro in Fari~ na are the authorized witnesses
that hunt down each “monster” and certify their ferocity, their power, and
the extent of their blackmail capabilities. Yet, they are alone. An analysis of
the phenomenon of access to the active protagonists in these series suggests
a Copernican turn in serial fiction, exclusive to its genre. Narco-series are
not about the persecution of criminals, which is the main theme of police
procedurals and thrillers (Vasquez Mejıas 2017), but about their activities.
From this standpoint, Steve Murphy and Darıo Castro offer the central stage
to the criminal, placing the action in humanizing the drug trafficker and
from that perspective, perhaps unconsciously or inadvertently, almost justify-
ing their criminal actions. Thus, narco-series have become an “anti-example”
narrative. Although they end with a lesson, the result is controversial: the
protagonist is exalted and the mythification of the tale acquires a guise of
“truth” by being based on real events, maybe even leading to confusion in its
reception. The cause of this change is explained clearly by Abad-Faciolince
(2008): “We suffer from a sort of fascination with evil; we honor the con-
spicuous heroism of murderers; we suffer the hypnotic charm of contract
killers, as if their deadly weapons were, instead of simple murderous bullets,
divine rays of domination. There used to be a reverential fear of their crim-
inal acts; now it is worse, their words are read avidly” (518). This has been
dubbed the esthetics of evil, as established by these tales.
Both narcoseries share the same process of the characters’ rise to power
and recognition through drug trafficking.

RISE
Smuggler - Drug trafficker - Revered (loved) by the people - Business leader – Congressman

Humiliated---» Seeking recognition----» Drug Trafficker ---» Achieves power and recognition
 QUARTERLY REVIEW OF FILM AND VIDEO 943

This genre has caused divisions in society because it presents a shift in

the moral and narrative paradigm, where there does not seem to be any
room for heroes or villains (Vasquez Mejıas 2015). Similarly, Baltasar
Garzon, a judge and expert in the matter, has commented: “The life of
these individuals may be what it may, but what is unforgiveable in these
series and films is that they command admiration for the evildoer and they
do not bring the spectator to think about the victims” (Belategui 2018).
Notwithstanding, the creators have often argued that their intention goes
beyond entertainment to present a story “which has touched us very deeply
and which has been so tough for Galicia” (Ram on Campos, producer,
quoted in Belategui 2018). Carretero (2018b) has also commented that a
TV series is not required to have journalistic rigor. But, be that as it may,
as shown by Gema Neira, apart from recounting the role of dramatizing
chronological events in a meaningful structure, there was a recall effect
linking back to the events lived in Galicia prior to “Operaci on Necora”
(October 14, 2020).
Both series tell the humble origins of the main characters from their rise,
but also their final descent into the world of drugs, as is the case for Pablo
Escobar who ends alone and finally shot dead on a rooftop. Or in Fari~ na,
where, according to S otelo, “the structure is divided as follows: episodes 1
to 5 we show the rise of the protagonist, and in the following five we show
his downfall from the apex, when Mi~ nanco becomes estranged from family
and friends” (Personal communication, December 18, 2019b). Both protag-
onists lose their fortune and recognition for different reasons: Pablo
Escobar for the betrayal of his associates and for his bloodthirsty acts and
Sito Mi~nanco as a result of the abandonment of his family and the efforts
of the police.

FALL
Persecuted by the law - Imprisoned - Free (by escape/release) - Persecuted by all - Loses is
fortune - Dead/imprisoned

Persecuted ---» Loses recognition and fortune---» Dead or imprisoned

Another main esthetic trait of the narco-series protagonist is their com-

munity leadership or standing. This leadership—based on freedom achieved
with money and power exerted through violence—instills fear in all around.
It is a tainted kind of popularity. As such, the protagonist Sito Mi~
nanco, of
the La Ros clan, Manuel Charlın from the Charlines clan, Laureano
Oubi~ na, from the namesake clan and Terito, of the Terito clan, make up
the “capos” [heads] of the community that led the way in Arousa and in
the links between Galicia and Colombia (Carretero 2018a, 89). They also
944 R. GUTIÉRREZ DELGADO ET AL.

sport a shared destiny: apart from financing political campaigns (in the
case of Pablo Escobar, including also Spanish politicians) and going to
prison, these drug traffickers from different sides of the Atlantic were later
released and their followers have continued looking for sophisticated ways
to keep the business going. The fall of these “heroes” is not the end of their
business (Carretero 2018a, 351). Others follow their footsteps, taking it
upon themselves to continue the legacy, thinking they will not get caught.

The Mythification Process

According to Zabala (2016), “narco literature has created an epic and
romantic mythology about drug trafficking, with a death wish and hyper-
sexuality. At times, the drug trafficker becomes a global economy of sym-
bols ( … ),” which “include an official background,” by looking for an
increase in the budget of the State’s armed forces. It would seem that, on
the background of the challenge, there is the old myth of “Robin Hood,” as
a tale of a “prince of thieves,” savior of the poor, who corners those cor-
rupt in power (deserving of punishment) and distributes the spoils among
the less well-off. They act in the name of justice, rather than in the name
of the law. The latter is seen as an element that those in power wield for
their own benefit. Thus, the drug trafficker’s actions are justified. In this
way everyone, generally speaking, looks at them with sympathy. Characters
such as Robin Hood belong to a category of “villains,” under “benevolent
outlaws,” who, according to Clouet (2016, 219) have been redubbed by
Hobsbawn as “social bandits,” accruing everyone’s admiration in times of
social and economic crisis, as a reward for a certain philanthropic spirit;
and turning them into role models when they become myths. Part of the
mythification of outlaws stems from the western genre, where those who
stand on the sidelines of the law are actually the heroes.
Narco-series turn a culturally controversial reality into myth through
the mythification of a character who has some of the “social bandit”
traits. This process is enabled, as Calabrese points out, because “the
mythological background of some cultural content keeps on showing up
as a cultural constant” (2019, 1). The myth rationally translates “the
material content of culture into narrative resources that work as means
of conservation and a base for the ideological and material foundations
of society” (Calabrese, Esparza, and Junco 2019, 2). But, on the other
hand, through the myth, reality’s controversial contemporaneity (which
may or may not recall traits based on inherited cultures), finds its new
aspect in “fruitful alchemy,” according to Gutierrez Delgado (2019,
9–11), which demands a new symbol for the new century. According to
Levi-Strauss, we can state that the mythic tale offers a creative approach
 QUARTERLY REVIEW OF FILM AND VIDEO 945

to the complexity of human experience by offering meaning

(2002[1987], 33). The drug trafficker receives the cultural inheritance of
the smuggler, the highwayman, the outlaw or the renegade, inasmuch as
they operate outside the law and share their bounty with many, to begin
with. However, it is a new character that gives meaning to a new world.
At first, the drug lord is the benefactor of the community. They erase
their origin and develop an idealized image, perhaps immortal. But
through blackmail and blood-filled violence, they unmask their criminal
nature, demystifying as fallen idols.
Finally, the mythification based on the vital upward and downward arc of
the protagonist, are clearly marked by suffering from a nemesis (Canas
Quiros 2000) which is moral punishment for their actions. That is why,
within the framework of the esthetics of evil—the reading-code pact between
narco-series and spectators—unconsciously the “hero” considers themself a
victim and, not as often, cause and executor of the crimes they have com-
mitted. At the close, the cycle of the anti-hero in the narco-series has a
limit—either prison or death at the hands of other drug traffickers—and an
end—provide a lesson about the outcomes of criminal organizations.
In the current context, it would seem that the drug trafficker is accepted,
regardless of his/her anti-exemplary nature, highlighting that a protagonist
may not be the hero of the story (Gutierrez Delgado 2012). The epic-
tragedy of the narco-series bases its epic trait on making the transformation
of a clandestine economy into a heroic feat and making its protagonist per-
ish in the process “as a hero.” Death or capture of the drug trafficker only
“resets the world,” introducing the tragic element through the closure of
the cycle, “the dissolution” (Eliade 1968, 75). The hero myth implies a nar-
rative cycle and an origin of the protagonist (Gutierrez Delgado 2019), but
it also demands that the universe where the action takes place have as a
referent a reality that is at once complex and difficult to explain. In these
series, the origin of an obscure and tight criminal network with its own
inside rules and almost unlimited power is made “sacred.”

Elements for the Construction of Narcoseries as a Genre

According to Aristotle’s Poetic, it is through a mimesis of praxeos that it
is possible to find pleasure in fiction even when this is distasteful in real-
ity (1448b, 10–13), simply because everybody likes to learn, and identify
each thing that is represented. Applying this general law of mimesis to
the case of the narco-series, the representation is of evil individuals
whose actions have vilified the world. But, following the Poetics, this
representation of evil receives a comic treatment (1448a, 3). Thus, as
narco-series portray people of a “low level”; “evil” men whose actions are
946 R. GUTIÉRREZ DELGADO ET AL.

Table 1. Narco-series genre conventions according to the principles in Aristotle’s Poetics.

Main character Drug trafficker/smuggler: criminal, Origin: humble.
conman, thief, delinquent.
Goals: gain power, riches and establish a
criminal empire. Control others. Establish
the rules of clandestine economics.
Conflict: overcome personal and
family ethics.
Antagonist Agent of the law: warrantor of justice. Origin: unknown.
Goals: capture the drug trafficker/dismantle
the criminal operation and the
clandestine economy. Exert justice.
Conflicts: distrust in the legal system,
Loss of hope in their mission.
Universe Crime (secondary characters are members Relative evil. Clandestine economy.
Two societies of the mafia: traffickers, snitches; fall Financial justification.
guys/corrupted officers: politicians and
other law enforcers)
Civil society: families. Fear and silence. Survival.
Plot typology Main character: drug operations/dual Ascent and descent: physical violence and
personal life. punishment/loss of personal identity.
Antagonist: crackdown on drug Persecution/struggle against the institutional
operation/undercover infiltration/solve establishment.
a social problem.
Thought/Mind Sick neurosis Delusions of grandeur
Fixation; madness; sadism; Disorders and frustrations
suicidal tendencies.
Opponent annihilation Thirst for revenge
Giving orders Lust
Strategy Verbal violence
Format Drama-Telenovela Thriller/melodrama
Space Local-regional-enclosed Definition of community
Time Historic-reconstruction Flashback as explanatory

“vice,” they deserve serious comedy (1448a, 1–5). Simply put, they
deserve to be the story’s antagonists. However, this genre also simultan-
eously presents characteristics of both the epic and the tragic: the epic
comes from the temporal extension of history, and the serious consider-
ation of the action and the people who undertake it. Except for the
extension of history, the other traits are also part of tragedy (1448a).
Tragedy also deals with catharsis, the act of natural recognition of the
“ailings” represented, produced “by means of compassion and fear” and
the pathetic feelings of hopelessness (1452b, 10). What is meaningful
here is that the genre shift already demonstrates a substantial change in
the Aristotelian paradigm: it assumes, at the end, that vileness is treated
with seriousness, rather than with comedy (as corresponds to the moral-
ity of these characters), or by providing such gravity to the actions of
evil characters that they may be lifted in their moral evaluation by the
treatment given to “those above the median”: honest people with virtue
who tragically suffer due to a lack of moderation. The assessment of the
drug trafficker changes. And, as has been mentioned, so does the choice
of the main character. The inversion of the crime genre becomes
 QUARTERLY REVIEW OF FILM AND VIDEO 947

manifest in Narcos and Fari~ na when the typical main character trans-
forms into its opposite: the agent of the law is replaced by the criminal.
To classify and illustrate the conventions of these two narco-series, the
classic categories of the “bible” or “TV format” of the series are presented.
The conceptual origin of this working document (Moran and Malbon
2006) can be traced to the components of tragedy, according to Aristotle’s
Poetics, and to drama, in general, bearing in mind the considerations pre-
sented regarding the action: plot, characters, thought, elocution, music and
spectacle (1450a, 8–11). With those categories in mind—following the trad-
ition of the Poetics—and the analysis of Narcos and Fari~ na, the transform-
ation in the hero’s journey and the appearance of tragic aspects in the plot
can be pointed out (Table 1).
First of all, as the table summarizes, the categories chosen allow for an
understanding of the symbioses of two formats and genres through the
psychology of the main character. The thriller combines with melodrama
in the plot of the personal rise of the character, and how it affects the
family environment, its main hurdle and catalizer of the character’s con-
science. Secondly, the protagonista retains his humble origins. This fact
links his figure to the heroic archetype, in a general sense. However, his
goal, set upon self-preservation and quest for fame veers away from the
heroic archetype. The sacrificial mission turns into a fatal empowerment
that leads to the disappearance of any heroic trait and the deprecation of
the common good, in terms of social justice. The egotistic goal of these
type of protagonist faces against both the family as well as those closet o
them: these become the main antagonists, from a melodramatic perspec-
tive. Thus, by pursuing the fatal course of action, the protagonist heads
for certain doom. Thirdly, and regarding the police thriller genre, the
antagonists are the law enforcement agents, but in their least conven-
tional form. There is a figure that seems tied into the outlaw/outsider.
As a “law enforcement agent” we find a character who finds justice by
straying from the usual paths, at the edge of law. Aside from opposing
the immoral stance of the protagonist, the antagonist seeks to redress the
legal establishment, delegitimised by corruption. In this universe, the
antagonist straddles between two similar worlds that modify the classic
good vs. evil paradigm. They offer a universe of relative evil: that of
organized crime, on the one hand, and the “legal” world, made up of
corrupt politicians and law enforcement agents.

Conclusions
The narco-series studied, whether produced for a local or global audience,
build on the context of drug trafficking, which seems to enable corruption
948 R. GUTIÉRREZ DELGADO ET AL.

and degradation on all levels of society, where the difference between good
and evil is blurred and, thus, brings about a state of relative evil. Colombia
and Galicia become part of the same “narco-geography” (Lander 2008).
The tragic epic of these narcoseries is a productive narrative to explain
current events. By representing these historical events though fiction, the
traumatic experiences caused by the real events are transformed into a nar-
rative that orders, qualifies and connects with viewers in their search for
understanding. The narrative, therefore, brings together scattered and trau-
matic events and provides a meaning to them beyond their real-
life occurrence.
From a formal point of view, the arc of the rise and fall of the protago-
nists helps to construct an esthetic of evil. The humiliation received by
Escobar and Mi~ nanco in the origin, triggers the actions to achieve power
through the clandestine economy of drug trafficking—process of ascent—
but the protagonists received prison or death, thus becoming victims—
fall—hence it is considered a heroic deed, where responsibility vanishes.
However, from the point of view of the character himself and the events
surrounding him, the protagonist is responsible for his fall. The universe of
drug trafficking has its own inner workings, when the protagonists betray
their own rules and affiliations, they reach the highest moral degradation
generated by extreme ambition; thus, they go from the approval of all to
rejection. There are no heroes or villains. The esthetics of evil support the
development of an anti-hero protagonist and does so through the perspec-
tive of a witness—Murphy or Castro—who, rather than chasing them or
hunting them down, clarify and almost justify the actions of the drug traf-
ficker. They shine a spotlight on the leadership and entrepreneurial skills of
the protagonist, achieved through money and fear, which enables the rise
of the drug trafficker, while it also foretells their demise. In the specific
case of the series analyzed here, the anti-hero protagonists follow narrative
arcs that lead to their downfall and moral degradation.
The mythification process is used as a narrative resource of the social bandit.
The drug trafficker becomes myth by erasing his/her origins, helping the poor
and bending those in power to their will. But their bloody actions show their
true colors and cause their fall. The protagonists see themselves as victims.
Both series analyzed here provide indications to the genre’s shift, as
shown in the proposed table, since they invert the logic of the classic
police thriller or crime genre, as summarized in the table presented, by
focusing on the criminal structure, instead of on the persecution of the
criminal, and by introducing the State as a central character in the sto-
ries. In narco-series the drug trafficker is exalted through an exploration
of the human reasons behind their motives, which fosters complicity
with the spectator.
 QUARTERLY REVIEW OF FILM AND VIDEO 949

Although the study is limited to the analysis of Narcos and Fari~

na, some
aspects can be observed in other narcoseries such as "Breaking bad"
(Gilligan, 2008–2013), where the honest schoolteacher Walter White
becomes the self-appointed drug baron "Heisemberg." The exploits and she-
nanigans of the drug lords in their struggles against the government pro-
duce as much repulsion as awe, as in the case of “Lavaperros" [Dog
Washer] (Moreno, 2020) and "Escobar el patr on del mal" [Escobar, the
patron of evil] (Uribe, 2012). Therefore, it is necessary to extend the ana-
lysis to other narco-series, to similar genres such as the gangster and to
explore other representative figures of relative evil.

Note
1. Paisa (or in this case paisita) is the term commonly used in Colombia to describe
someone from Medellin or the neighboring areas.

ORCID
Ruth Gutierrez Delgado http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7258-3466
Maritza Ceballos-Saavedra http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2765-8385
Jeronimo Rivera-Betancur http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1013-0154

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