The way I always saw it, Walt wasn’t secretly a brutal drug lord the whole time, but from the beginning of the series he had that tiny seed of pride in him. Maybe at one point, during the business with gray matter and his engagement to Gretchen it was grown a bit more, but through whatever events in his life since then, that pride had been beaten down and retreated into the recesses of his character. And then just that tiny seed just slowly grows and grows as the show goes on until it envelopes him. That’s what both BB and BCS are about to me. The protagonist starts off as a completely normal person with a normal set of flaws in their character sheet same as every other imperfect human. But there’s just one flaw, one trait, that they give into a few too many times and it begins to spread throughout who they are and change them like a sickness.

I was on Walt’s side from the beginning to the end. It wasn’t until I watched it a second time that I realized that he became a terrible person. That’s how good the writing is. Like a cult member I just needed him to succeed.

Heisenberg was born when he successfully "negotiated" with Tuco. You could see the thrill and power he feels on his face when he returns to his car. This was where the addiction for power started. He immediately feels pride and feels himself by getting down to business with Skyler soon after. He feeds off creating a one of a kind product, deceiving others, having control, and outplaying his competition or anyone that stands in his way.

Walter White is most people. Most people have seeds of resentment inside them and with the right environmental factors, they’ll become monsters.

As Brian said himself, Walter doesn't know who he is. He wants both to be seen as morally upstanding as Walter White but also feared, respected and valued as Heisenberg.

I always felt the “I am awake” line made this question pretty clear. Episode 1 is the beginning of the transition into some perceived “untapped potential” of himself, which is also why he takes Jesse on as a ward-which ultimately leads to his pride and ego that he has decided to embrace destroying him and all around him in the end.

Oh no, I was also wrong!

Excellent point.

The capacity for evil and monstrous behavior is within all of us. Walter White makes a series of decisions that cultivates and magnifies those capabilities. Coupled with his immense intellect and resourcefulness, he finds great success while acting like a monster, which only encourages him further. He's not a monster at the beginning, but he could be, and as he continues to "get away with it," he slowly transforms (or realizes his potential to be) something horrendous. Lots of people go down that path, but few manage to make it as far as Walter does.

I hate the idea that Walt was always bad and that his family was never part of his motivation. It removed any and all complexity from the character. Him genuinely starting out with good intentions to provide for his family (whilst also doing kinda doing it for his ego to prove that he could provide for them in his way) and slowly transforming into a ruthless drug lord desperately clinging on to/believing the family excuse makes it a far better watch

I agree!

Positivity and support to all involved!

bro asked a question then just became the center of attention

He was a person with great intellectual potential who didn’t achieve a lot and others used his research making fame and fortune and that drove him become what he later became

For me, I think everyone has the capacity to become monsters. You just need to put them in the right circumstances.

This is great !

Viewing Walter White as a psychopath all along just removes completixity of the character. Sadly, so many people especially the reddit users see that way, which downgrades the show by a lot. How i view it is that It's a show about a decent (not saint) middle age man breaks bad under environment inputs and his flaws in personality.

Walter always had enormous ego. He had to be the smartest person in the room. When he realized he wasn’t the smartest at Gray Matter, he left. He took a job as high school chemistry teacher, something he was way too qualified for, because he knew he’d always be the smartest person in the classroom. He got along with Gale, lots of the same interests, pure love of the science of the cook, but Gale was just as intelligent as Walt, if not smarter. So Gale had to go.

All of this... Under our noses! ❤️

He was resentful that he almost had something incredible and let it go. He was dying for the opportunity to put that right, even while he was too depressed to act on it. That's my take anyway.

Well said. Love you all and hope life treats you, and those you care about, well.

Excellent point a AGREE 👍💯🙂

‘Reverse purge’ Can you only imagine… Maybe one day tho

excellent point

I think the core of who Walter White is not so much his story but his anchor as an outline is fascinating the fact that Vince conceived this character personified as ‘starting the series as Mr Chips and ending it as Scarface’ to me is brilliant and a true testament to Gillian as both a writer and creator

Excellent point, I agree!

We did it boys.

I was wrong

Imo I think years of not feeling like he had control of his life and feeling so much pain of regret and especially with the Cancer diagnosis just made him implode and changed him forever. And whatever darkness there was in him took over. It just seemed like life kept on hurting him more and more then he went nuts.

Reverse purge would be Pay It Forward.

My interpretation of breaking bad is that its a story about walt learning to accept who he is. Walt always kept lying to everybody including himself he needed to prove to himself he could of done it all himself or that it was actuslly selfless. The reason he changed so much is because he couldnt accept his need for greatness. Walt felt disgusted when he killed krazy 8 somebody who was despicable and manipulated walt. But his last kill lydia he was cold. It shows he did change but the pride and ego kind of showed he always had it in him to change for the worst. Walt only did it for the family when he accepted that he did it for himself.

It all goes to show, unassuming people can make abhorrent decisions when cornered

To be fair, we ALL are capable of becoming a monster. The key point here is whether we are also capable of taming our dark side.

Walter was a good guy who embraced his bad side, Jesse was a bad guy who realized he wasn’t such a bad person after all

Bravo Vince

Oh no, I’m the asshole!

Is this a recent clip/interview?

Ur telling me this is truly the moment Walter white became Heisenberg?

This is what makes Walt so compelling. Had the circumstances been different, it’s unlikely that Heisenberg would have ever fully revealed himself. He would have gone on being a chemistry teacher. A bit pompous and still somewhat self loathing, but mostly functional.

I once commented that Walt rarely cared about Jessie if at all and got hundreds of hate comments disagreeing which just goes to show how well the show wrote the downfall of WW

I have a question if someone can answer me because i don’t find any answers on internet, what happened between Walt and Gretchen/Elliot when they founded Grey Matter, why did Walt leave ? In the show he said for personal reason but it’s never clear about why he did that

I like it, this is good!

And people still argue and look up to Walter White as a character.

So... There were both things! His own personality/trauma, and the enviroment!! Like in psychology!!!

'He could lie better than anyone else'. What? Walter was the most obvious and pathetic liar ever.

Ofc this fly over the fanboys head, ofc cheating a criminal husband it's worse than making everyones life arround you a living hell

When you look at Walter White, I see a man who strangles himself and those around him. Most intellectually gifted people destroy the benefits of their own gift. Walter created a whole world where the existence of himself became less important. Even in the drug trade, Mike said it best 'You and your ego...." . The benefits of intelligence is to help others. Walter is the person who should get, ask and want help. I've watched the show a million and sometimes foolishly think 'why doesn't this guy try something else?'

they litterally spent a quarter of the vid talking about toxic comments and theres non to be seen lmao

Here is the way i see it. We dont really know what walter’s life between the age of ____ to his rather awkward 50th birthday but there are certainly a few clues ….. we know that they move into the house when he is about 34ish and that’s roughly when he started teaching at the high school. But we also know he wasnt teaching when he met skyler but working in some lab…… So we can track a downward spiral where he has been tracked OUT of the scientific community and is peering in from the outside. We see the reaction when he has to tell people at his former friend’s birthday that he is not a college professor but a high school teacher. This leads me to conclude that his Heisenberg personality existed BEFORE but had been suppressed under a blanket of responsibility Breaking bad did CREATE Heisenberg , its released it from the lamp

I was pretty much fully on his side until he run over the drug dealers. I didn’t hate him but at that point i realized he wasn’t as calculating as I thought he was. (as gus put it, not a cautious man at all) Walt lost me completely when he poisoned Brock. I don’t care how you try to spin it, in no way was that okay.

Right, but could this not be said about any human being? There are very few people who wouldn’t become “evil” give the right chain of events and the right circumstances. That untapped evil is there somewhere within all of us, but most people are doing their best. I don’t understand the moral preening of modern society. Why is it so difficult to have compassion? Would that undermine your own sense of moral superiority?

So, why did Walter let Jesse live when Jesse could be threat to Walt´s family?

Totally disagree Vince!

Genesis 4:7 7 If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

I disagree with everything in this video.

I don think the guy on the right knows what he’s talking about

I thought Walt was a good person but a writer made him bad

thumbs down -- the interviewer thinks this stage is his own stand-up special, overshadowing Gillian

Walter White did nothing wrong

I still believe that Walt was a good person that became bad. His problem was that he had issues with feeling like he was allowed to be ambitious when he was young and into adulthood. I feel like his family life was not good growing up and his parents were not good role models (from what we learn of them through his POV reflections in the show). On the other hand he was extremely talented intellectually. When he was given a death sentence he found a way to allow himself to be ambitious, to give money to his family on the way out. But once his meth product became recognized as superior; first from Jesse in the beginning, he became addicted to that feeling of validation. That he was talented, deserved recognition, and all within a situation that presented opportunities to be more and more ambitious (climb the status hierarchy of the drug world). When people see Walt becoming more and more monstrous throughout the show, people like Chris Hardwick wonder if that monster had always been there. I don't think it was a monster that was in Walter naturally, like someone who is a psychopath and has a screwed up brain. I think he became a monster and escalated his crimes; in order to maintain the drug like euphoria of being high status in the drug world. That if "Walter White" would never be recognized as a force to be reckoned with, at least "Heisenberg" would

I was wrong