Did anyone else find Saddam very likable in the last 2 episodes?

Qusay didn't have a conscience as much as he knew what was stupid and what was not, and that made him a likeable character when you are seeing where this is going and why, because even in this setting, it is instinctive to dislike when incompitence is not punished. He came out as a smarter guy than his older brother AND his father.

That is probably the best way you could sum up the life of Saddam Hussein and those around the man. His life was more closely related to that of a Tony Soprano more so than it was to a man of great religious belief and practice. Many faults could lie in his upbringing as that is usually the case when a child is abused or not cared for enough. I can't say exactly what it was that caused this man to believe in his heart that genocide against an ethnic group of people was the right path to take, but somewhere along the line he lost all rational thought and believed stealing, murder and torture were what was expected of him.

I believe like most world leaders throughout the ages, his ideas for the people of his country as a whole started off with the right goals in mind, atleast that's what I've picked up when reading the history of many infamous world leaders. But in essence all those goals and moral thoughts seem to go down the tubes whenever these guys actually get that taste of the true power they now contain. It goes to their heads and that's when they believe they can do as they please, regardless of who it affects and what the consequences down the road may have in store for them.

Saddam Hussein was a human like me and everyone else who has posted on these forums and there's no doubt in my mind that he had a decent side to him that could have been expressed if only certain things in his life had been different.

You are probably right, the actual saddam was not likeable, but to tell a story, sometimes you have to embelish a bit. If they just read a timeline of events, or made him completely unsympathetic, no one would watch.

The kid thing was interesting in that it showed a warped sense of care for Iraq. Kind of like seeing a guy kill another guy, and then risk his own life to rush his victim's dog to the hospital because it got hit in the crossfire.

I think it was not so much to show us Saddam as a kid as it was to see how he saw himself as a kid.

The boy is merely a tool to allow us to see the warped logic he used. I think it was an interesting view, and I would have liked to see more scenes between the two.

Well maybe at some point you just somehow get use to the blood, destruction and murder that basicly are recurring into that enviromment so you end up juding one character by different standard than the one you are use to