"It's good to be in something from the ground floor. I came too late for that, I know. But lately I'm getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over."
Indeed, the end of an era approaches. But how will it end? For Tony, and for us, the audience. Clearly, the most obvious end for Tony is death, after all, he's made it very clear that that's only 1 of 2 possible endings for a guy like him.
But Tony does not have to die, and he doesn't even need to be punished. It's weird that this is the question on so many people's minds, will the epic end with Tony's death. Our whole past conditioning has taught us that death or some worse punishment is destine. Within the Soprano's world, Tony is merely a soldier, he "may not have morals, but [he] does have rules." Tony believes this, and I think, while certainly there is ambivalence among the audience, generally, we feel the same way that Tony feels. We love him, we feel sympathy for him, we somehow identify with him. Logical deduction here. A show simply cannot exist or remain as popular as the Sopranos has unless we love the protagonist, which we do, because he's a soldier, and we forgive our soldiers.
So the Sopranos, I think, has no moral absolutism. Chase is a relativist, and so relative to others in the Soprano universe, Tony is a decent guy. Just like Bobby Bacala.
So if not death, then will Tony escape merrily along his way as he did in the finale of season 5? Difficult to say. That's because the Sopranos is tragedy in the classical sense. Most tragic tales end tragically, and what's more tragic than watching Tony, our hero, destruct?
