Why Is Walter White Breaking Bad
Walter White: The Selfish Villain
Sociopath, power hungry, determined, unforgiving, these are just a few words that describe Breaking Bad main character Walter White. Walter White is perceived as an antihero to some fans of the show. In an article titled “Stop calling Walter White an anti-hero” Kayla Upadhyaya states that she cringes every time she reads a tweet along the lines of “Heisenberg is such a boss!” (Upadhyaya, “Stop calling Walter White an anti-hero”). To my understanding a man who makes meth, sells it and will stop at nothing to weasel himself out of a situation for the safety of his own is far from being any type of hero and shouldn’t be glorified as a “boss”. Walter White is essentially evil. Todd VanDerWerff explains Walter …show more content…
in a very evil and true way. He states, “He’s a man who pushes further and further into his dark heart, who unleashes all manner of destruction upon the world, both at large and in his own home.
He is a murderer, many times over; he is a man who abuses his wife; and he is a force of fear for everyone who sees his true face. He is, for lack of a better word, Satan.” (VanDerWerff, “Breaking Bad Ended the Anti-hero Genre by Introducing Good and Evil”). Key word, Satan. Urban Dictionary defines an anti-hero as a flawed hero, and therefore, much more interesting then the more traditional heroes. They can be working on the side of good, but with a tragic flaw, or a horrible past, or for reasons that are selfish and not entirely "pure" (Urban Dictionary). Walter White definitely shows the selfish part of an anti-hero but doesn’t show much good, mainly cause he causes so much evil leaving me to believe he is more of a villain. At the start of the first season Walter is a Chemistry teacher who also works at a car wash. He has a fairly attractive wife who loves him, a nice house in a nice neighborhood, a son who looks up to him and a daughter on the way. His life isn’t perfect but it’s far from being terrible, of course that changes …show more content…
when Walter is diagnosed with Lung cancer.
Walt began as a loving character, almost Mr. Rodgers like, mostly because of his clothing, a family man who busts his ass to provide for his family, but his personality quickly changes when he gets diagnosed with cancer. He turns evil and selfish and he finds his new high, that being cooking meth and building up an empire in the process. It first seemed like he started making meth too provide for his family for when he’s gone, so he says anyways, but you soon quickly realize he’s doing it for him self to leave behind some kind of legacy. Walt went into the drug trade knowing nothing about it with the help of an old student, Jesse Pinkman, to manufacture and, more importantly, sell his meth. Walt having knowledge from college and his teaching made him able produce the purest crystal meth on the streets. While making meth, Walt used a different chemical called methylamine, giving his product a distinctive blue color. It was much different and much higher quality than most meth, leading it to be the number one seller on the streets. During the time of his meth making days he ran into several problems. Walt has killed and has influenced many murders over the entire series. He first killed Emilo Koyama, a drug dealer who tried to rip off Walt and his partner Jesse by trapping him in an RV filled with deadly gas. Secondly, he killed another drug dealer who he had tied in the basement, realized the drug dealer had a knife ended up suffocating him to death. Next, he witnessed Jesse’s heroin addict girlfriend choke on her own vomit while overdosing, only because he thought Jane (Jesse’s Girlfriend) was a bad influence on Jesse and he wanted him to remain his partner. Walt then caused a spiraling effect of deaths because Jane’s father happened to be an air traffic controller who still went to work after being so wracked with grief, lost train of thought on his job and made a fatal error causing two airplanes to collide and kill 167 passengers total. He then killed two other drug dealers in the safety of his own and Jesse. As Walt and Jesse worked their selves up, they soon joined a higher up drug dealer who hired Walt and Jesse to cook meth for him. Gus Fring, the higher up drug dealer soon grew tired of Jesse and plotted a plan to remove him with a new lab assistant. Walt soon found out and convinced Jesse to kill the new lab assistant to make sure only Jesse and Walt knew how to make the crystal blue meth, so Gus couldn 't replace them. Gus Fring then went after Walt, but Walt acted first and ended up strapping a bomb to an old man Gus would occasionally visit killing them both and a few others next door. Walt and Jesse of some people in jail confessing he hired people in jail to kill a total of nine inmates, essentially tying up loose ends. Jane and the crashed planes show how Walt ultimately destroyed apart of society in Albuquerque and beyond. Comparing actual anti-heroes such as Dr. Gregory House in the show called House, Dexter Morgan from Dexter, and Nancy Botwin from Weeds you quickly realize Walter is not an anti-hero, but a villain. In the show House, Gregory House is a doctor who is addicted to Vicodin that in spite of his crazy methods and spiteful personality still manages to save lives, although he does sometime lie to his patients and is ultimately a drug addict he still does good to this world by saving lives. And then we have Dexter, who murders people, hold on let me finish, he murders only bad people, people who put others in danger and harms them. Yes, Dexter is a murderer and murdering people is essentially bad, but he still is making somewhat of an impact by killing off all the bad people on the streets. Lastly, Nancy Botwin, similar to Walter White, Nancy is a drug dealer; of course she sells a much safer drug, that drug being Marijuana. Nancy causes a lot of grief and does cause some deaths, but nothing comparing to what Walter has done. Nancy is also supporting her three kids all by herself due to her husband dying. As you can see these three characters are not essentially good people, but they are also helping people, such as, saving lives and providing for their family. Walter White on the other hand is solely doing what he’s doing for his own being. Over the course of Breaking Bad Walter tells his wife countless times that he’s doing what he’s doing for his family, he sates he’s providing for them. Soon Walt makes enough money that his family could not possibly spend in their lifetime. At the last episode Walter finally comes clean and states that he made meth all for himself. He said he enjoyed it; it distracted him from the cancer and made him feel like the alpha male. He started off as a sympathetic character who kept the evil under the surface. Over the seasons this surface weathered away and he slowly began to show who he really is, and who he really is a selfish villain. Again, going back to tweeters calling Walter White a “Boss” or perceiving him as a badass, is being a bad person a person who’s a badass? Bruce Watson of Esquire.com wrote an article asking an ex-drug lord on how real Breaking Bad is. He asked the ex-drug lord, Cavario H if anything in Breaking Bad struck him as being especially realistic. Cavario said, “They really got the evolution of character. In Breaking Bad, Walter White 's morality is changing, because his eyes are being opened to the way the world actually operates as opposed to the way he 'd always been made to believe it operates. It was always clear for him: Bad people do bad things and good people don 't do bad things, so anybody who does a bad thing is a bad person. And anything that happens to them like getting an exorbitant amount of time for their crime, or whatever they 're supposed to get that because they 're a bad person.” (Watson, “An Ex-Drug Kingpin on how Real Breaking Bad is”). In the show Walter White quickly changes from this loving father to a drug lord-killing machine. His own mentality changed because he started doing bad things, ultimately changing him into a bad person. A normal person cant just kill someone or do the things that Walt did, Walter White is evil and has always had it in him, it just took something like cancer to push him over the edge per say. Cavario said he witnessed people like Walt who were involved in the “game”, he called them “weekend warriors” guys who said I only want to sell some drugs for a little bit, just to get some extra cash. It never happens goes that way though, it’s like a drug to them, they want more and more money. Cavario explains, “They don 't realize how, when you do one thing, that leads you to have to do another, and once you do that, you have to follow through with step three. And before you know it, you 're at step ten. Because, once step one is made, there 's no point in not following through, because you haven 't gotten what you needed.” (Watson, “An Ex-Drug Kingpin on how Real Breaking Bad is”). Walter White became consumed to making meth, at one point of the show Walt states he’s not running a business, he’s running an empire, an empire that won’t stop as long as he’s in charge. During the show, as I said before Walter White did a lot of horrific things, of course his partner, Jesse was right along side him. At one point of the show Walter and Jesse use acid to melt a body, disgusting I know. But this kind of stuff happens in real life, surprisingly enough. In an article explaining what Breaking Bad gets right and what they get wrong, about the meth business, Dylan Matthews explains that melting bodies is a common act within the Mexican drug cartel. It’s a common disposal technique that actually has its own nickname, called the guiso, or “stew” (Matthews, “Here’s what Breaking Bad gets right, and wrong, about the meth business”). Another shocking thing about the Mexican cartel is realizing what they are capable of. They’re mainly capable of killing large amounts of people. Matthews states the most violent Mexican cartel is Los Zetas, “which once dumped 49 bodies off a highway in Cadereyta, killed six people cutting out the hearts of three of them and carving "Z"s into the other three in Cancun, and has recruited members by holding up buses, forcing passengers off, and them making them perform "gladiator fights" to the death, with the one survivor joining the ranks of Los Zetas.” (Matthews, “Here’s what Breaking Bad gets right, and wrong, about the meth business”). The Mexican drug cartel are very violent and will stop at nothing to get what they want and if they don’t get what they want they will do something drastic, much like Walter. For example, Carlos Gutierrez, who resides in Mexico, had a run in with the cartel. Before meeting the drug cartel, Carlos had a great life with a wife and two young children, owning a concession business catering to local sporting events. “But like many people residing in northern Mexico, the soft-spoken 35-year-old businessman was unable to fly under the radar of the country’s vicious drug organizations.” (O’Reilly, Fox News Latino). Carlos was ordered to give the cartel $10,000 a month from his business. Unfortunately, Carlos fell short and the cartel wasn’t having that. The drug cartel made an example of Carlos and decided to chop off his legs. Many of these issues presented have been depicted in Breaking Bad, and many of them Walt has been involved with.
Moving away from the horrific truth of Mexican drug cartels, in the fourth season of Breaking Bad Walter and his wife buy a car wash in order to laundry all the money Walt is making, illegally.
This is a very realistic tactic that many higher up drug lords use in order to stash their money a very secretive way. Matthews states "They 're increasingly using trade-based laundering, where they 'll bring in cheap fabrics from Asia and sell those into the U.S., or bring them south to Mexico, and sell them for a much higher dollar value. They 're doing it through mining, construction equipment, quarter horses and gambling, casinos and a variety of different businesses." (Matthews, “Here’s what Breaking Bad gets right, and wrong, about the meth business”). Walter White is a very smart scientist; if you’ve seen the show you’ll know what I’m talking about. David Koepsell demonstrates his smarts for science in his book “Breaking Bad and Philosophy”. Koepsell uses Season Two episode “4 days out” to show off Walt’s smarts. He explains “Walt uses his understanding of chemistry to improvise a battery for their stalled vehicle, after Jesse demands that he think of something scientific.” (Koepsell, “Breaking Bad and Philosophy”). Walter White demonstrates his smarts for chemistry, so why is he using it for evil? Possibly because he is in fact,
evil. At last, is Walter White really an Anti-Hero or possibly just a selfish villain? Walter White is in fact a villain, a pretty smart one I might add. Many fans are led to believe he made meth in order to provide for his family so when he’s dead and gone they have a subnational amount of money. But that was never the case; Walt made meth to fuel the inner evil in himself. I find it a sad reflection on society that so many people still believe that Walt did everything for his family. The man was a repressed time bomb for years and his diagnosis of cancer lit a fuse. An anti-hero is one who does some good for society and Walt is not that. Walt has killed several people in the safety of his own or for the safety of his partner who he so desperately needs. Walter White is not an anti-hero, he is the most detestable fictional villain I have had the pleasure of watching and many others enjoyed watching. Breaking Bad was all in an all a great series that showed us that sometimes the inner evil comes out of people and when it does it’s not pretty. People should not glorify Walt as a “Badass” but yet a villain who was good at what he did and what he did was far from good.
Works Cited
"After Mexican Drug Cartels Took His Legs, Carlos Gutiérrez Cycles For Asylum In The U.S.." Fox News Latino. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2013. .
"For Our Consideration Breaking Bad ended the anti-hero genre by introducing good and evil." AV Club Live. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2013. .
"From Dexter Morgan to Don Draper: TV 's Anti-Heroes." - Zap2it. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2013. .
"Here’s what ‘Breaking Bad’ gets right, and wrong, about the meth business." WonkBlog. Washington Post, n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2013. .
"MD." The Michigan Daily. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2013. .
"Urban Dictionary: anti-hero." Urban Dictionary. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2013. .
Koepsell, David R, and Robert Arp. Breaking Bad and Philosophy. Chicago: Open Court, 2012. Print.
Sociopath, power hungry, determined, unforgiving, these are just a few words that describe Breaking Bad main character Walter White. Walter White is perceived as an antihero to some fans of the show. In an article titled “Stop calling Walter White an anti-hero” Kayla Upadhyaya states that she cringes every time she reads a tweet along the lines of “Heisenberg is such a boss!” (Upadhyaya, “Stop calling Walter White an anti-hero”). To my understanding a man who makes meth, sells it and will stop at nothing to weasel himself out of a situation for the safety of his own is far from being any type of hero and shouldn’t be glorified as a “boss”. Walter White is essentially evil. Todd VanDerWerff explains Walter …show more content…
in a very evil and true way. He states, “He’s a man who pushes further and further into his dark heart, who unleashes all manner of destruction upon the world, both at large and in his own home.
He is a murderer, many times over; he is a man who abuses his wife; and he is a force of fear for everyone who sees his true face. He is, for lack of a better word, Satan.” (VanDerWerff, “Breaking Bad Ended the Anti-hero Genre by Introducing Good and Evil”). Key word, Satan. Urban Dictionary defines an anti-hero as a flawed hero, and therefore, much more interesting then the more traditional heroes. They can be working on the side of good, but with a tragic flaw, or a horrible past, or for reasons that are selfish and not entirely "pure" (Urban Dictionary). Walter White definitely shows the selfish part of an anti-hero but doesn’t show much good, mainly cause he causes so much evil leaving me to believe he is more of a villain. At the start of the first season Walter is a Chemistry teacher who also works at a car wash. He has a fairly attractive wife who loves him, a nice house in a nice neighborhood, a son who looks up to him and a daughter on the way. His life isn’t perfect but it’s far from being terrible, of course that changes …show more content…
when Walter is diagnosed with Lung cancer.
Walt began as a loving character, almost Mr. Rodgers like, mostly because of his clothing, a family man who busts his ass to provide for his family, but his personality quickly changes when he gets diagnosed with cancer. He turns evil and selfish and he finds his new high, that being cooking meth and building up an empire in the process. It first seemed like he started making meth too provide for his family for when he’s gone, so he says anyways, but you soon quickly realize he’s doing it for him self to leave behind some kind of legacy. Walt went into the drug trade knowing nothing about it with the help of an old student, Jesse Pinkman, to manufacture and, more importantly, sell his meth. Walt having knowledge from college and his teaching made him able produce the purest crystal meth on the streets. While making meth, Walt used a different chemical called methylamine, giving his product a distinctive blue color. It was much different and much higher quality than most meth, leading it to be the number one seller on the streets. During the time of his meth making days he ran into several problems. Walt has killed and has influenced many murders over the entire series. He first killed Emilo Koyama, a drug dealer who tried to rip off Walt and his partner Jesse by trapping him in an RV filled with deadly gas. Secondly, he killed another drug dealer who he had tied in the basement, realized the drug dealer had a knife ended up suffocating him to death. Next, he witnessed Jesse’s heroin addict girlfriend choke on her own vomit while overdosing, only because he thought Jane (Jesse’s Girlfriend) was a bad influence on Jesse and he wanted him to remain his partner. Walt then caused a spiraling effect of deaths because Jane’s father happened to be an air traffic controller who still went to work after being so wracked with grief, lost train of thought on his job and made a fatal error causing two airplanes to collide and kill 167 passengers total. He then killed two other drug dealers in the safety of his own and Jesse. As Walt and Jesse worked their selves up, they soon joined a higher up drug dealer who hired Walt and Jesse to cook meth for him. Gus Fring, the higher up drug dealer soon grew tired of Jesse and plotted a plan to remove him with a new lab assistant. Walt soon found out and convinced Jesse to kill the new lab assistant to make sure only Jesse and Walt knew how to make the crystal blue meth, so Gus couldn 't replace them. Gus Fring then went after Walt, but Walt acted first and ended up strapping a bomb to an old man Gus would occasionally visit killing them both and a few others next door. Walt and Jesse of some people in jail confessing he hired people in jail to kill a total of nine inmates, essentially tying up loose ends. Jane and the crashed planes show how Walt ultimately destroyed apart of society in Albuquerque and beyond. Comparing actual anti-heroes such as Dr. Gregory House in the show called House, Dexter Morgan from Dexter, and Nancy Botwin from Weeds you quickly realize Walter is not an anti-hero, but a villain. In the show House, Gregory House is a doctor who is addicted to Vicodin that in spite of his crazy methods and spiteful personality still manages to save lives, although he does sometime lie to his patients and is ultimately a drug addict he still does good to this world by saving lives. And then we have Dexter, who murders people, hold on let me finish, he murders only bad people, people who put others in danger and harms them. Yes, Dexter is a murderer and murdering people is essentially bad, but he still is making somewhat of an impact by killing off all the bad people on the streets. Lastly, Nancy Botwin, similar to Walter White, Nancy is a drug dealer; of course she sells a much safer drug, that drug being Marijuana. Nancy causes a lot of grief and does cause some deaths, but nothing comparing to what Walter has done. Nancy is also supporting her three kids all by herself due to her husband dying. As you can see these three characters are not essentially good people, but they are also helping people, such as, saving lives and providing for their family. Walter White on the other hand is solely doing what he’s doing for his own being. Over the course of Breaking Bad Walter tells his wife countless times that he’s doing what he’s doing for his family, he sates he’s providing for them. Soon Walt makes enough money that his family could not possibly spend in their lifetime. At the last episode Walter finally comes clean and states that he made meth all for himself. He said he enjoyed it; it distracted him from the cancer and made him feel like the alpha male. He started off as a sympathetic character who kept the evil under the surface. Over the seasons this surface weathered away and he slowly began to show who he really is, and who he really is a selfish villain. Again, going back to tweeters calling Walter White a “Boss” or perceiving him as a badass, is being a bad person a person who’s a badass? Bruce Watson of Esquire.com wrote an article asking an ex-drug lord on how real Breaking Bad is. He asked the ex-drug lord, Cavario H if anything in Breaking Bad struck him as being especially realistic. Cavario said, “They really got the evolution of character. In Breaking Bad, Walter White 's morality is changing, because his eyes are being opened to the way the world actually operates as opposed to the way he 'd always been made to believe it operates. It was always clear for him: Bad people do bad things and good people don 't do bad things, so anybody who does a bad thing is a bad person. And anything that happens to them like getting an exorbitant amount of time for their crime, or whatever they 're supposed to get that because they 're a bad person.” (Watson, “An Ex-Drug Kingpin on how Real Breaking Bad is”). In the show Walter White quickly changes from this loving father to a drug lord-killing machine. His own mentality changed because he started doing bad things, ultimately changing him into a bad person. A normal person cant just kill someone or do the things that Walt did, Walter White is evil and has always had it in him, it just took something like cancer to push him over the edge per say. Cavario said he witnessed people like Walt who were involved in the “game”, he called them “weekend warriors” guys who said I only want to sell some drugs for a little bit, just to get some extra cash. It never happens goes that way though, it’s like a drug to them, they want more and more money. Cavario explains, “They don 't realize how, when you do one thing, that leads you to have to do another, and once you do that, you have to follow through with step three. And before you know it, you 're at step ten. Because, once step one is made, there 's no point in not following through, because you haven 't gotten what you needed.” (Watson, “An Ex-Drug Kingpin on how Real Breaking Bad is”). Walter White became consumed to making meth, at one point of the show Walt states he’s not running a business, he’s running an empire, an empire that won’t stop as long as he’s in charge. During the show, as I said before Walter White did a lot of horrific things, of course his partner, Jesse was right along side him. At one point of the show Walter and Jesse use acid to melt a body, disgusting I know. But this kind of stuff happens in real life, surprisingly enough. In an article explaining what Breaking Bad gets right and what they get wrong, about the meth business, Dylan Matthews explains that melting bodies is a common act within the Mexican drug cartel. It’s a common disposal technique that actually has its own nickname, called the guiso, or “stew” (Matthews, “Here’s what Breaking Bad gets right, and wrong, about the meth business”). Another shocking thing about the Mexican cartel is realizing what they are capable of. They’re mainly capable of killing large amounts of people. Matthews states the most violent Mexican cartel is Los Zetas, “which once dumped 49 bodies off a highway in Cadereyta, killed six people cutting out the hearts of three of them and carving "Z"s into the other three in Cancun, and has recruited members by holding up buses, forcing passengers off, and them making them perform "gladiator fights" to the death, with the one survivor joining the ranks of Los Zetas.” (Matthews, “Here’s what Breaking Bad gets right, and wrong, about the meth business”). The Mexican drug cartel are very violent and will stop at nothing to get what they want and if they don’t get what they want they will do something drastic, much like Walter. For example, Carlos Gutierrez, who resides in Mexico, had a run in with the cartel. Before meeting the drug cartel, Carlos had a great life with a wife and two young children, owning a concession business catering to local sporting events. “But like many people residing in northern Mexico, the soft-spoken 35-year-old businessman was unable to fly under the radar of the country’s vicious drug organizations.” (O’Reilly, Fox News Latino). Carlos was ordered to give the cartel $10,000 a month from his business. Unfortunately, Carlos fell short and the cartel wasn’t having that. The drug cartel made an example of Carlos and decided to chop off his legs. Many of these issues presented have been depicted in Breaking Bad, and many of them Walt has been involved with.
Moving away from the horrific truth of Mexican drug cartels, in the fourth season of Breaking Bad Walter and his wife buy a car wash in order to laundry all the money Walt is making, illegally.
This is a very realistic tactic that many higher up drug lords use in order to stash their money a very secretive way. Matthews states "They 're increasingly using trade-based laundering, where they 'll bring in cheap fabrics from Asia and sell those into the U.S., or bring them south to Mexico, and sell them for a much higher dollar value. They 're doing it through mining, construction equipment, quarter horses and gambling, casinos and a variety of different businesses." (Matthews, “Here’s what Breaking Bad gets right, and wrong, about the meth business”). Walter White is a very smart scientist; if you’ve seen the show you’ll know what I’m talking about. David Koepsell demonstrates his smarts for science in his book “Breaking Bad and Philosophy”. Koepsell uses Season Two episode “4 days out” to show off Walt’s smarts. He explains “Walt uses his understanding of chemistry to improvise a battery for their stalled vehicle, after Jesse demands that he think of something scientific.” (Koepsell, “Breaking Bad and Philosophy”). Walter White demonstrates his smarts for chemistry, so why is he using it for evil? Possibly because he is in fact,
evil. At last, is Walter White really an Anti-Hero or possibly just a selfish villain? Walter White is in fact a villain, a pretty smart one I might add. Many fans are led to believe he made meth in order to provide for his family so when he’s dead and gone they have a subnational amount of money. But that was never the case; Walt made meth to fuel the inner evil in himself. I find it a sad reflection on society that so many people still believe that Walt did everything for his family. The man was a repressed time bomb for years and his diagnosis of cancer lit a fuse. An anti-hero is one who does some good for society and Walt is not that. Walt has killed several people in the safety of his own or for the safety of his partner who he so desperately needs. Walter White is not an anti-hero, he is the most detestable fictional villain I have had the pleasure of watching and many others enjoyed watching. Breaking Bad was all in an all a great series that showed us that sometimes the inner evil comes out of people and when it does it’s not pretty. People should not glorify Walt as a “Badass” but yet a villain who was good at what he did and what he did was far from good.
Works Cited
"After Mexican Drug Cartels Took His Legs, Carlos Gutiérrez Cycles For Asylum In The U.S.." Fox News Latino. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2013. .
"For Our Consideration Breaking Bad ended the anti-hero genre by introducing good and evil." AV Club Live. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2013. .
"From Dexter Morgan to Don Draper: TV 's Anti-Heroes." - Zap2it. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2013. .
"Here’s what ‘Breaking Bad’ gets right, and wrong, about the meth business." WonkBlog. Washington Post, n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2013. .
"MD." The Michigan Daily. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2013. .
"Urban Dictionary: anti-hero." Urban Dictionary. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2013. .
Koepsell, David R, and Robert Arp. Breaking Bad and Philosophy. Chicago: Open Court, 2012. Print.