I used to argue that Breaking Bad was a modern example of the American naturalist literary tradition. The on-paper definition there was stories that attempt to depict life in a given historical moment as realistically as possible, but often the author had an idea of what that moment entailed which poisoned their realism. I can't remember my argument now, and I can't remember breaking bad well enough to reconstruct it, but the gist is that naturalist novels usually depicted their characters as being caught in something much bigger than them, and their choices are constrained by it. The guy from Falling Down is a good example, you can say what you want about him but the movie is pretty clearly placing him as someone who never really had a chance. Something like Native Son would fall into this as well, and the new Joker (I've said, only half-shitposting, that the joaquin phoenix Joker is a Native Son pastiche)
Anyway, I'm digressing, but, like, yeah V is fucked, but did he actually have a choice of not being fucked? In two of his stories he's born into poverty and violence with no prospects for escape aside from becoming a solo. In the other, he is successful but his ouster isn't something hubristic he did, like stealing from his boss or something. His boss tells him do this extremely dangerous thing or die, and it turns out the target of the plot knew about it and pre-empts him. He's minor piece in a game other people were playing. I guess you could argue different things, but I think the game itself is making the argument that V never got to pick a different life path. It was laid out for him, all he could do was follow it.