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Was Walt a victim or always bad
- Thread starter Jeffapp
- Start date
At every step of his life, Walt let his own arrogance, pride, and sense of self-importance ruin the lives of himself and the people around him.
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I mean, dude turned down a job with fantastic benefits that would've fully covered his treatment because he's a egomaniacal shithead and that was in the fourth episode.
Walt is the epitome of egocentrism and narcisism. He started the series with a great job, friends who wanted to help him and a relatively easy path forward. He made decisions for selfish reasons every time - from his family, to Jesse, to Mike, to everyone else. From episode 1 to the season finale. He was a bored middle-aged dude who felt powerless throughout his life and decided to wreck some lives just to make him feel better.
But....that's the point of the show. It's not a thing that the show was about a narcissist. It's a good way to demonstrate how narcissists try to justify their selfish actions as being ritious despite constantly being faced with the truth that they're not.
But....that's the point of the show. It's not a thing that the show was about a narcissist. It's a good way to demonstrate how narcissists try to justify their selfish actions as being ritious despite constantly being faced with the truth that they're not.
Yes, it's easy to justify anything based on the pain we endure. Good people don't inflict their own pain on the innocent, no matter how much they've suffered.
Pretty much this. Reducing it to victim or not kind of entirely misses the point
Both of them had plenty of care given to them.
Well no, because that particular issue was settled in the 4th episode. Walt turned it down.
OP, this was all spelled out in the penultimate episode when Walt confesses to Skylar that he always liked what he had become. He wanted to be a powerful asshole. The greatest moment in his life wasn't his wedding day, the birth of his son, etc... It was when he stood in the desert with that fucking hat on and told a hardened criminal to "say (his) name." He thought he was so fucking cool and powerful and important then.
He broke up with his first girlfriend and left the company he founded out of arrogant spite.
He was a victim of his own pride and stupidity.
He was a victim of his own pride and stupidity.
Walt destroyed everything on his own. At any point that he could have stopped, found some peace with a way out, he ignored it. His success only enabled his own arrogance, and drove him to take another excessive step.
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He was an actual genius chemist who preferred to live a life of destitute obscurity than accept being anything less than a Titan of industry.
And he didn't care about the strain that was put on his family as a result. In fact, he resented them for it.
Walt never broke bad.
This. The flashbacks are there to provide this exact context. Anyone who thinks Walt is a "victim" isn't paying much attention, or worse, decides to self-identify with the baddy.
Jessy is a tiny bit more complicated though, since he does build up sincere relationships and regrets. He's not a victim either, but arguably served his time for it too.
Oh wait, no, I just remembered John de Lancie's role. Nope, Jesse deserves a needle too. Damn show, you almost got me there.
Jesse was also a 23 year old drug addict with severe emotional problems, the complete lack of a support network, and "friends" that constantly took advantage of and manipulated him.
He did a lot of terrible things, but he's infinitely more sympathetic than Walt.
He was never a victim. In the pilot he turns down money for his treatment, cooks meth and then kills a guy all because of his pride.
Walt's a piece of shit and always has been. He just had an excuse and the means to let that side of him out.
Not really considering he actually had the means to cover all of his costs without taking a penny out of his own accounts.
Walt's meeting with Gretchen in "Peekaboo" really solidified the fact that Walt was always kind of a piece of shit. I've seen people watch the show and still think that he was screwed out of his position at Grey Matter, but Gretchen seems legitimately shocked at his interpretation of events, and even when he's telling Jesse about the situation way later in "Buyout", he does the whole "I won't bore you with the details" thing that someone would use when the situation doesn't really reflect well on them. He always had to be the smartest person in the room, which meant that he probably burned a lot of bridges in any industry where he could put his skills to use.
It wasn't really his fault that he was brought to the island. But he was definitely the victim of poor parenting.
How
He even says in the finale that he did it just because he liked it and liked the feeling of it.
So then he would just be a guy living far below his potential for the sake of his pride, to the detriment of his family.
Walt initially was cooking as a silent partner, wanting no bloodshed and no hand in the dealing. He wanted to protect his family financially and compartmentalize everything for protection. When he cut the deal with Tuco: that's when he first used the name Heisenberg. He made the show of strength with the fulminated mercury explosion and strong armed Tuco in negotiation for double his asking price. It was at that point that it became about his ego and about himself more than his family. You see him have that adrenaline rush for the first time from that victory and that's the turning point.
This is bullshit from the moment he rejects offers from his friends to cover the costs.
He would've gotten a better job too.
It's been a while since I've watched the show, but I remember that relationship having them both as enablers for their drug use. It was a shitty situation all around.
While later on, Jesse went to sobriety meetings specifically to sell drugs to people struggling to stay clean.
And then with his bravado earned from that victory, has forceful sex with his wife.
He was a narcissist before the events of the show, and a full blown psychopath by the end. I wouldn't call him a victim. He was given opportunities that he turned down because it wounded his fragile ego.
When he got out of some serious shit without getting caught and immediately said "ok, back to cooking" I stopped watching.
Im just saying that because this thread seems to be fairly consistent on this forum and its always everybody stating how hes bad as though its some rare take lol.