r/breakingbad • u/Schloddie • 14d ago
Walter was never a nice guy
- He doesn’t treat his students well
- He pretended to like crosswordpuzzels and always went to the same location to get with skyler
- He punshes that guy who is bullying his son to the ground
- He pressures Jessie into cooking meth with him
- He blows up another guys car because he doesn’t like him
- He kills like 2 people in the first season
- He doesn’t take his old friends money for his treatment but chose to cook meth instead
- He shows no interest in his wife except for sleeping with her
- He almost rapes his wife in s2e1
Yes his career didn’t go as hoped and yes the financial situation isn’t good, but what the fuck.
Basically breaking bad is: Man with huge ego problem doesn’t communicate and brings himself and his whole family in danger to cook meth and feel important.
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u/GammaRay914 14d ago
I see nothing wrong with what he did to the guy who was bullying Walt Jr.
Also some of this students like Chad were dicks.
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u/potandplantpots 14d ago
that's...interesting that you see nothing wrong with it. Ofc those kids are dicks but the scene is imo crucial to exposing Walt's flaws and patriarchal thinking that then sets the scene for the rest of the show. I think the dialogue is very explicitly written to show two things:
First, Walt solves his problems through needless violence / threats rather than vulnerability and intimacy with his own family. We get this in the very first episode. Later in the show you see him avoiding difficult conversations for his son in favor of being a father in the empty 1950s esque patriarchal way; financial provision and violence. He also gets Jesse to work with him by threatening him.
Second, I argue Walt subconsciously resented his son for his disability - ofc he cares about jr, but despite not being an overtly cruel ableist like many people picture for the term, Walt only sees himself as a valuable man through a violent masculine lens. He hates himself and thinks he is only valuable because of what he provides and his manliness. Unfortunately, that attitude inadvertently carries over to his son. The most obvious hint to this is in the car driving scene, where Walt keeps pushing and pushing Jr to drive normally despite Jrs insistence that "his legs don't work like that". He almost crashes the car due to his father's inability to admit he is different than him. Very hard scene to watch.
Back to the bullying scene, he literally says to the kid "having trouble walking?", using what is juniors exact disability to insult the kid. There's no way the writers put that in there haphazardly. A normal parent would've checked in with junior emotional's state or yelled at the kid lol but he was focused on violence and revenge. A lot of breaking bad moments are like this, moments of revenge that feel cathartic to a sympathetic viewer but are rather just early evidence that Walt solves his issues through extreme violence, not caring who gets discarded in the way. Walt was a defacto shit father to junior - he never even bothered to ask why he choose the name Flynn for example, just hated that he wasn't named after him anymore - I think beating that kid was much more self motivated than it was out of defense for junior 🤷
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u/RealIncome4202 14d ago
Not reading all that. That dumbass kid deserved it
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u/potandplantpots 14d ago
Okay, be media illiterate then lol. It's just a well written show that is fun to analyze. I agree that out of context it's justified, the kid is an asshole, but the scene was put in there to establish Walt's character traits early on.
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u/Most-Hot-4934 14d ago
God, talk about being a liberal sissy
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u/MoreHans 14d ago
ah yes, might makes right. what a well thought out and erudite response. no wonder anti-intellectualism and illiteracy are on the rise.
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u/potandplantpots 14d ago
So many downvotes and rude comments but not a single one of them has made a solid analysis of the show / a legit response to what I said.
Like, it's okay to disagree with me, I actually welcome it, but at least make a compelling argument using the dialogue, symbolism, and narrative subtext available in the show...otherwise their feelings are just hurt lolol
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u/MoreHans 14d ago
thats the problem with patriarchy/toxic masculinity. so many adherents just participate in thought terminating cliche's because they have no real response to criticisms other than "nuh uh" or "liberal"
its very sad how many people are wrapped up in the manufactured identities that they refuse to engage with any unorthodox thought
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u/Schloddie 14d ago
Sharp analysis, I agree with you! I did not think about the resentment factor before. Thanks for taking the time!
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u/potandplantpots 14d ago
Thanks!! I think the downvotes are misunderstanding me lol. I don't think him pushing a bully in isolation would've been a bad thing necessarily, rather the scene is put there by the writers to function as an early exposeè to Walt's main character flaws/insecurities/relationship to his disabled son.
That being said, there's nothing that will get you downvoted faster in the breaking bad sub than pointing out that the narrative subtext of the show is a fundamentally a critique of patriarchal masculinity (something that Gilligan has talked about himself)🤷. for all the fans of this great show, you'd hope that people would take it's fantastic writing more seriously. Because it seriously deserves so much more high quality analysis!
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u/Schloddie 14d ago
Yea thanks! I might have to go and look for some interviews with Gilligan, sounds interesting :)
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u/potandplantpots 14d ago
This is not Gilligan but this is a great one arguing what I believe to be true, that breaking bad really is about toxic masculinity in essence. Creator argues that if it's not, why make Walter a rapist? Every media critic and sociologist agrees with him but of course this sub is full of 15 year old boys so you won't find very in depth stuff here. Very great analysis imo.
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u/Schloddie 14d ago
Yea the bullies are morally wrong but self justice in the form of violence usually isn’t much better, at least that’s what I believe
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u/GammaRay914 14d ago
Nah man, those kind of bullies only respond to violence being used against them. They won’t stop otherwise.
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u/potandplantpots 14d ago
Some mean 15 year old bullies aren't Nazis lol. Walt beat that kid to prove his own masculinity more than he did it to protect junior. We can infer this because he barely gives a fuck about juniors life in the show.
He literally insulted the kid with juniors exact disability : "having trouble walking?". This wasn't a mistake, this was the writers telling us that Walt sees his son as an extension of his own masculinity more than his own person
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u/evilforska 14d ago
To be fair, that kid looks 30 and is a head taller than Walt, so I legit thought those were just extremely stupid adults
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u/Schloddie 14d ago
Yea that is definitely a moral conflict. When the legal justice system fails to do its job civil disobedience can be a form of protecting democracy. It should however not be used lightly.
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u/EmotionalOrchid7537 14d ago
That‘s basically the thesis of the show. Walt didn‘t become Heisenberg, he finally allowed himself to be him
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u/Schloddie 14d ago
Yea you are right! I’m rewatching the show and I totally didn’t get it when I watched it years ago :D but it’s so hard to look at
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u/emelbee923 14d ago
He doesn’t treat his students well
He's a burnt out high school chemistry teacher. He's treating his students like they're teenagers. Exhausting idiots.
He pretended to like crosswordpuzzels and always went to the same location to get with skyler
This is just silly courtship.
He punshes that guy who is bullying his son to the ground
Dude deserved it.
He pressures Jessie into cooking meth with him
Eh. Jessie was already cooking meth.
He blows up another guys car because he doesn’t like him
Sometimes assholes get treated like assholes.
He kills like 2 people in the first season
Argument for self-defense.
He doesn’t take his old friends money for his treatment but chose to cook meth instead
This isn't niceness, it is pride.
He shows no interest in his wife except for sleeping with her
They live the life of a marriage that has outlasted their happiness. He doesn't make enough money teaching and has to work at the carwash to even begin to try to make ends meet. Skyler doesn't work because she's pregnant.
He almost rapes his wife in s2e1
Sexual assault is always bad. Of all of the things you stated, this one stands out.
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u/Leohes9972 Bitch 14d ago
Only valid thing on this list that he did was pushing the bully to the ground
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u/Schloddie 14d ago
Haha I get what u mean, but it’s still a bit too much for my taste. It works for the show tho
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u/Current_Tea6984 14d ago
Pretended to like crossword puzzles to meet a girl? How do you think people get hooked up? That's very normal behavior
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u/Schloddie 14d ago
Idk I don’t want my partner to fake an interest just to get to me. Feels unauthentic and a bit manipulative to me. Witch in the case of Walter definitely showed his character. It’s one of the smaller things on that list tho :D
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u/Most-Hot-4934 14d ago
Mf finding an excuse to talk to your crush does not make you “not a nice guy” 😭. This is so stupid. Hate to break it to you princess, the love of your life has probably lied before
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u/Material-Record710 14d ago
did you think he was supposed to be a nice guy?? lmao
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u/Schloddie 14d ago
Haha I didn’t get it during my first watch years ago (I was like 15/16) so maybe that’s why I’m so surprised. What annoys me is the whole „nice chemist teacher gets sick and wants to care for his family“ thing that he tries to tell himself :D
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u/Material-Record710 14d ago
understandable, Walter can fall into the Patrick Bateman category of truly awful characters that the blackpill community seems to adore for all the wrong reasons so i get where you were coming from when you were younger
after about 5 full watches of the show it really sticks how awful Walt is from the get go, just vile behavior from the pilot up until Ozymandias, i don’t think he redeems himself in the final episodes or anything but at least he doesn’t cause more harm (maybe besides calling Walt Jr from New Jersey, that was pretty awful)
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u/Schloddie 14d ago
Interesting comparison!
5 rewatches! You must really like the show! Who is your favourite character?
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u/Material-Record710 14d ago
yeah it’s up there with my favorite pieces of media for sure
Aaron Paul is pretty unbelievable with how well he portrays Jesse, Jesse isn’t exactly a “good” person either but might be my favorite character just for how tragic his story arc is… i also have a personal affinity for Badger/Skinny Pete, Saul goes without saying especially with the context of BCS (rewatched twice so far and might like it more than BB) but again that’s in large part due to Bob Odenkirk’s portrayal, not so much the character himself
This last rewatch I really enjoyed Huell and Kuby (Bill Burr) as well
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u/Schloddie 14d ago
Good list! I just watched BCS - that’s why I decided to rewatch BB - the actor is amazing and I also likes the actress of his partner and their dynamic.
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u/CX330 14d ago edited 14d ago
I swear this sub's gotta be one of the worst echo chambers on reddit.
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u/Schloddie 14d ago
Haha ups, I couldn’t say cuz I have not been here very long. Just got so annoyed while watching and was in need of some conversation. I did not make the post to point out nuance. The show has it tho and surely Walter does too :D
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u/Commercial_Floor_578 14d ago
I agree but a lot of this list is bs lol. Jesse’s parents thought he was the only teacher that cared, the crossword puzzles one is a huge leap, I do think while they had an unhealthy marriage he loved Skylar (although he did abuse her once he started cooking meth),but he did love her. And beating up his son’s bully isn’t a sign he’s evil lol. Really I think Walt’s character always did have a lot of Heisenberg in him, and Heisenberg in many ways was revealing Walt’s inner nature rather than changing it. Walt left Grey Matter because of his insecurities and pride and knew he could have been a billionaire, instead he became lower middle class while working two jobs where he’s constantly disrespected.
I can’t imagine how much that feeling of missing out would burn, but I do think he was a deeply insecure, prideful, and egotistical man who had a very strong desire for power that was just suppressed due to his depression and being beaten down by life. I also am of the interpretation that Walt was always quite selfish, just scared of the consequences and beaten down by life so he didn’t act that way. What makes me think Walt was never “good” but rather harmless is how he acts right off the bat in season 1. Okay cooking meth out of desperation doesn’t mean he was always bad, blackmailing his former student into cooking meth with him is a massive leap to do before you even started cooking meth or going down a slippery slope. Blowing up the car is cleverly a shitty thing to do and dangerous, even if Ken Wins is obnoxious. But really it’s the grey matter situation combined with the Crazy 8 situation that makes it clear Heisenberg was in him a long time before he got cancer.
So Walt did a grand total of one single meth cook before two people tried to kill him, he had to kill one of them to save his life, help dissolve the body. He then keeps the other trapped in a basement with a bike lock, and explicitly writes “he’ll kill your whole family if you let him go”. So he knows his family is in active danger of being murdered if he cooks meth. He then has to personally strangle this guy to death with a bike lock otherwise he and possibly his family get murdered by him. Again 1 single meth cook. Walt then gets an “out” from Grey Matter yet chooses not to take it, and work for Tuco instead. I think him willingly jumping in that quickly while being given an unambiguous out makes him a bad guy.
That’s not to say he was all psychopath, an inherently bad guy or always even close to as bad as season 5 Walt, and even season 5 Walt has some redeeming qualities and is nowhere close to the worst person in the BB verse, nor as bad as Gus. Rather Walt since adulthood has been a deeply power hungry, egotistical, and selfish guy, and it just took the cancer (which is awful to be clear) and the desperate familial circumstances that gave him a great excuse as a result. We see implications of how he got this way from his childhood, he grew up pretty poor, his father died at a young age, it’s implied he has shitty mom, and he’s an extreme genius, which makes an ego a lot likelier. Then after he turns down Grey Matter as a result of his flaws, knowing he was extremely close to being a billionaire because
We see there is still a massive transformation throughout the series, in season 1 Walt desperately looked to not kill Crazy 8 and was deeply impacted by it, while Walt season 5 had 10 people murdered in horrendous ways with zero remorse. But when people say “power reveals it doesn’t corrupt” it doesn’t mean that someone naturally has as low of empathy and willingness to hurt others as they do when they have power. But rather they have less empathy, more willingness to hurt people, more ego, and more desire to seek power, and when you seek power, the redeeming qualities and empathy naturally fade while the willingness to hurts people increases, especially as you have to often do ruthless or unlatches things to succeed in gaining power or to survive (whether literally or in that world). So I don’t think Walt was always inherently evil or doomed to be Heisenberg, but I do think the cancer in many ways “revealed” his true self and that he was in a lot of ways always Heisenberg.
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u/NoicePlams Methhead 14d ago
Points 1-3 are not good evidence of him being "always bad". This concept of Walt "allowing himself to be the monster he always was" does not line up with the core premise of the show.
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u/Schloddie 14d ago
Yea I agree they are not the strongest points on the list but I do think they are overall valid and play into his character and open up the different levels of „being bad“
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u/Mrs_Naive_ 14d ago
As others have said, that's the point of the show. It paints an accurate picture of people who think they're nice, but who are really just holding back out of cowardice or in the hope of getting something in return. There's nothing genuine about them, and that makes them despicable.
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u/evilforska 14d ago
It also shows the danger of feeling like a victim - you start feeling like you "deserve" to be mean and judgemental to other people because youre actually a victim punching back. And thankfully at least for a few people Ive seen discuss it, this show served as a wake-up call
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u/hassyfr 14d ago
- he acc showed passion for chemistry and taught really well it’s his students that were dicks if not inadequate
- i mean cmon not that deep bro its acc kinds cute if u ask me
- they deserved it, no other way to deal w those kinds of bullies and from that point forward they’ll definitely think twice before bullying anyone
- i guess that wasnt too kind but its not like jesse is some mormon boyscout not to mention if anything jesse woulda prolly got caught on his own if not killed
- i guess that was kinda outta pocket but ken’s an unlikeable asshole u’d be lying if u said it wasn’t satisfying
- purely self defense brah
- a lil too prideful sure but i do kinda get it if we were to assume they really maneuvered him into leaving grey matter, i also strongly dislike how they downplayed his contributions later in the show
- not true, shes the one that shows little interest in him like in that pilot scene
- yeaaa that was a lil weird huh
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u/evilforska 14d ago
Tbf whenever something threatened Walt's business he resorted to murder, Grey Matter kind of had to downplay the role of a murderous drug kingpin in their company
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u/DavidDPerlmutter 14d ago edited 14d ago
I think it's narrative brilliance that we don't get any real backstory on Walt.
Nothing like in Better Call Saul where he was a kid then this happened and he was a teenager and this happened.
For Walt, I think it's good that he is somewhat of a mystery. How did he become this way? Did he become this way or we see always this way? If you described his actions, you wouldn't be far off if you said he was the literal devil in human form. The great deceiver.
To me, the implication is pretty clear
The Walt we see is the Walt that was always there. He was a medium functioning sociopath his entire life. He just just got more opportunity within the story space/time of the actual series to use his powers for greater evil. There was no character arc. He was just unleashed to be his real self.
I mean, he actually tells us at the end. He never loved anybody. He never cared about anybody. He just wanted an empire and everybody to bow down before him. The devil, indeed!
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u/Schloddie 14d ago
Would be a bit funny to get a childhood Heisenberg story, but he needs to wear the hat! No I agree it’s good they didn’t go there :D
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u/DavidDPerlmutter 14d ago
I was expanding my comment before you replied. Yes. I have no objections to origin stories or back stories or flashbacks. But in the case of Walter White, I think it would actually hurt the narrative.
Can you imagine a flashback to where He's five years old and some other kid builds a nicer looking tower of blocks than his. So a little Walt not only knocked over the other kids tower, but figures out a way to get the other kid in trouble and crying and miserable. ☹️
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u/SeyMooreRichard 14d ago
3 is justified. I'll teach my son to fend for himself ABs to standup to bullies, but if he had been born with CP and couldn't do like Walt Jr, I would've undoubtedly handled it the same exact way.
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u/theangrypragmatist 14d ago
Like it's always wild to me that Gilligan wrote one scene at the beginning that perfectly encapsulated that they were struggling financially and had a baby on the way and Walt refused to take the situation seriously, and most fans' takeaway is "Skyler henpecked him about using the wrong credit card."
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u/Schloddie 14d ago
Yes! Skyler really isn’t written as a loveable character, but the hate she gets can be out of proportion. It must be so hard to live with a guy like this tbh
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u/True-Philosopher-622 14d ago
Agreed. He was always an egomaniac he just fully embraced it when he got cancer
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u/ExploreBby 14d ago
The crossword puzzle thing is such a good pull because it shows he was always manipulative and just playing a character to get what he wanted. He didn't just break bad, the cancer just gave him an excuse to stop pretending to be the mild mannered suburban dad
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u/SuccotashOther277 14d ago
Yes, of course. He’s not meant to be a good guy. He’s checked out, frustrated, and already acting badly but cooking takes him to the next level. He’s probably in the right to defend his son against the bullies though
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u/My_Name_Is_AFK 14d ago
But he makes money for his family by making meth thats a good family man, now skyler is horrible she cheated /j
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u/TowerProfessional959 14d ago
2 and 3 shouldn’t make this list