Walter White is an awful person

[JMSA]

I'm on Season 2 of Breaking Bad. I haven't googled the programme at all, so was unaware that Skyler gets a lot of hate online (my daughter has just told me this). Well, what a surprise, the bar is set so much lower for a man!
He's greedy, selfish, unbelievably dishonest and cruel. He has just watched Jesse's girlfriend choke to death on her own vomit!
He deserves everything that is hopefully coming to him.
Team Skyler for me! And Walt Jnr/Flynn is adorable.

The genius of the show is you end up rooting for him.

(See also "The Shield")

That’s the whole point of the show?
He starts off as a nice friendly, caring high school science teacher, finds himself in an untenable financial position through bad luck and a shitty healthcare system and then we watch as he gets more and more morally corrupted as time goes on.
His character is a thing or genius, because every little step he takes into evil you look at and think, I can see why he was driven to do that, I might have reacted the same under the same pressures…

I always hated Walter. Found him thoroughly unlikeable from the start. Agree that his character was driven by circumstance to descend into being morally repulsive. Some of the decisions he took and the way he treated certain characters was absolutely awful. Absolutely loved Breaking Bad though. And loved Jesse.

I think he’s supposed to be an anti-hero isn’t he? You’re supposed to be exasperated with his sheer level of selfishness and criminality but understand the factors that drove him to it?

I also assumed that he wasn’t happy that he’d ‘only’ become a chemistry teacher and hadn’t used his apparent genius doing something more groundbreaking and lucrative so he goes a bit mad when given the power to do so. It’s a horribly tragic mid-life crisis.

Had this discussion with my DP who’s a Walt apologist. I disliked him from the start too. Early doors he tried to coerce/rape Skyler and he does it again at a later date, murdering people left right and centre, and he only cares for Jesse “like a son” when he’s on the same page. The minute anyone shows any independent thought about anything WW will cut them loose or kill them.

But Sklyer is annoying and sings happy birthday to another man. So she’s just as bad!

I do find it challenging that we are supposed to travel with him and to some extend admire and sympathise with him despite accepting that what he does is beyond awful.

I feel uncomfortable about the possibility that we are meant to admire the lengths he goes to "to support his family". Are we meant to see that as something redeeming that is a counterbalance to all his wickedness? Clearly the fantasy that he is helping them by his actions is just a feature of his controlling, narcissistic and self-pitying pathology - and yet I feel that the programme sometimes takes him at his word in this respect.

EDIT: Just to add, I don't think there is anything wrong with being made to feel uncomfortable in this way. It is part of the interest of the programme even though exasperating.

I didn't like either of them but thought BB was brilliant. I'm glad you're enjoying it.

That's kind of the whole point of the show. Most of the Skylar hate comes from people that don't understand that Walter isn't being depicted as the hero.

Tell me what I don’t already know 🤣

You might want to watch some more seasons before deciding Skyler is not just as conniving, dishonest, unprincipled, determined & devious as Walt Sr.

I would find Skyler supremely irritating IRL. it's a personality clash for me. None of them are saints but Hank is by far the most honest and sanest of the adults in the whole show. Walt Jr too is remarkably simple I guess.

Marie on the other hand... I liked her and her many insane flaws. I most enjoyed every scene with Hank in it, though. Hank is my fave character by far.

Like my son says "Walter makes so many bad decisions..." and his pride gets in his own way constantly. It's not hard for Skyler to be a better person than Walt but honestly, this is a franchise that makes you cheer for Saul, Mike, Gus and even Hector at times. Hector is arguably the most psychotic scary evil bastard of the lot so that's no mean feat.

Walter is an archetypal unlikeable protagonist, like MacBeth.

Yes I did not like his character at all either, whereas my husband thought he had some likeable qualities.

You have to watch Better Call Saul next!

Yeah he started off nice and turns awful. Skylar isn't so great either though, you have a lot to watch yet

He was originally meant to give Jessie's girlfriend an overdose but they rewrote as they decided it was a step too far at that point in his character arc.

Hector is arguably the most psychotic scary evil bastard of the lot so that's no mean feat

Wait till "Better Call Saul" ....

You’re on Season Two? Ooh you’ve a long way to go yet. I’m quite jealous of you.

The clue is in the name! Of course he’s terrible.

Hank is my favourite, as well as Mike. Such great characters in the show.

I always thought when he watched Jesse's girlfriend die he partly does it for Jesse because they were no good for each other. Don't get me wrong he does it for his own gain as well but I was glad she died. Walter's biggest problem was his greed, he started off with good intentions (as good as you can get from making drugs I suppose) but couldn't stop because he always wanted more and finally found something that he was good at.

Ultimately the most horrifying of all the horrifying baddies in Breaking Bad is Todd. The other baddies all have complexity and intelligence and some capacity to look at themselves. But he is just animal cunning and psychopathy.

The difference between him and the other baddies is the difference between being shot to death and being brutalised to death with a blunt axe.

Some poor guy was advising me in Currys once and I had to extricate myself from his assistance because I felt so uncomfortable with him. I didn't realise until later this was because he looked a lot like Todd.

He doesn't know it though! In his arrogance, he thinks he's a good guy, doing what he does for good reasons.
He has just cut Gale, his lab assistant, loose. He really is a piece of shit.

If I were unlucky enough to have to study BB as an exercise in English Literature, I'd suggest that Walter White is driven by that "Why me ?" pang that everyone who is diagnosed with a potentially and eventually terminal illness experiences. With the added complication that as a man - a considerable man - of intellect he is less affected by the hope that it's the x% survivable that he has.

Throw in additional pressures of the US healthcare system and you have the origin story for the slow descent into malevolence (is it evil ?) that BB sets out to portray.

I'd probably also suggest that there are little nods to the suggestion that Walter White becomes a cipher for corruption as evidenced by the effect he has on those that come within his orbit.

However because I was shit at English Literature (apparently) I would dream of even trying such an exercise and would probably just quietly get on with my remedial spelling 😀

It’s making you feel stuff, so it’s doing its job 😄Enjoy! I’ve watched it 3 times. You must watch Better Call Saul and El Camino when you’re done.

I found him very unpleasant and can't see the appeal.

Thanks everyone!