Sooo... basically, in the very first episode in his speech in class, Walter White spoiled the whole show and told us what will exactly happen throughout the series.???
Walter White told us what the whole show was going to be about....right in the first episode....it was all about "Growth..Change and Transformation" Wow....just wow....
Even the doctor said he'd live about 2 years with the cancer and that's how how much time passed from season 1 to 5 so many things to consider and reconsider on a rewatch I mean this is one of the best shows I've seen the story the way the characters are developed and how expertly Bryan Cranston played Walter I believe the moment that he truly became became Heisenberg and lost walter's morals is when he killed the two people that Jesse was about to kill it started at Jane's death but when he killed them two that's when he's really started to stop caring he didn't show any remorse or even flinch at his actions where before or he only killed people to defend himself like with crazy 8
I'd say he finally reflected what he did and realized the consequences are all on him. Something he didn't want to see due to his ego as Heisenberg. He went as calm and responsible as he was before, just with the heavy burden of his realization.
Especially when he sees himself in the mirror, it's a play on the classic novel, "A Picture of Dorian Gray." In the book, a wealthy, narcissistic young man makes a deal with the Devil that he won't age, and none of the things he does in life will be visible outwardly. Instead, they're reflected in a portrait he'd had painted of himself. Eventually he had to hide the picture in a locked room to keep himself or anyone else from seeing it. Toward the end, he finally looked at it and the portrait depicted a vile, corrupted, horrible monster of what had been him. It completely destroyed him.
Definitely agreed about GoT. When they were following the books they were golden. But after season 4 they went right off the rails, right about when George RR Martin became less involved in the scripting, and I found that the only things worth watching for anymore were Peter Dinklage and Lena Heady's delicious performances, along with the set and costume porn.
I saw an interview once that they were only ever given the okay to use one 'fuck' per season and that they typically gave them to Skyler. Being the voice of reason character its usually the most impactful coming from her.
This show baffled me as how real it is. Every response, act, emotion portrayed by Walter & everyone around him was so damn real & relatable. It's genius.
@@CFC003 Mh idk Peaky Blinders is good, but I wouldn't say that amazing like BB The camera, costumes and general how everything looks is one of the bests out there though. In that aspect Peaky Blinders is King
Dude, I never thought that those lines in Walter's chemistry class were subtly hinting at his change as a character throughout the show. Just goes to show you that Vince Gilligan was a masterful writer and director when creating this series.
Also when jesse said ' a robot ' . N walt makes a robot in the middle of the desert that saves him in the last episodes . The robot is the machine gun that saves jesse . That's the genius of breaking bad .
I wonder if there are high school teachers who want to be Heisenberg as much as there are students who would like to hear one of their teachers was Heisenberg.
I have a teacher that looks exactly like Walter, and he's a chemist teacher. Also, he's divorced to his ex-wife literally named Skylar and he has a 4 year old daughter and a son with a disbility...
This video made me realize just how genius the writing of Breaking Bad was. They revealed Walt's evil side slowly and consistently - when he was losing power (something I didn't even realize while watching the show). Compare that to the final season of Game of Thrones where the writers had Daenerys show her evil side over the course of 2 episodes...
Game of Thrones is trash compared to Breaking Bad to be honest. I don't see it even close to Breaking bad as a whole only the first four seasons compare.
Her evil side was shown much earlier than that. The difference between Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones is that the former is a show ABOUT said transformation while Game of Thrones isn't. BB is dedicated in showing Walter's transformation while in Game of Thrones is much more subtle and they barely devoted enough time to it. I'm not gonna pretend GoT ending was good by any means but Daenerys showed the path she was taking often in previous seasons. Granted it wasn't as good as Breaking Bad obviously but it wasn't done "in 2 episodes". Only one show comes close to have the writing of Walter White and in my opinion it even surpasses it. Jax Teller in Sons of Anarchy.
@@maiamartini9095 I wouldn't say downfall. I don't think that downfall is defined by evilness. He kinda mastered his own life and became what he really is, and to be fair, he rarely did something to someone who didn't had it coming. He still had his own moral compass that he followed. His rules of life. And he did what he liked, for himself, as he said. Evil or not evil, Heisenberg period is only when he was truly alive, before that he barely existed.
@@maiamartini9095 I think that at the core people don't really change, what we do is only start acting less or more like who we truly are. There was a psychological research that i was reading that said that around 40% of our personalities is "encoded" in our genes. And of course, personality can grow and develop, but it can't never exist without its roots. Personality growth is in my opinion the only try way of living the life to the fullest and winning in it. Not in material sense(of course it can be that too, depending whats your personality and what you are going to do), but in a sense of self satisfaction. Walter died and lost almost everything, but at the end he still considered that he won, that he lived. He for sure regretted some things, but he also regretted a lot of things while he wasn't Heisenberg. The point being, you will always regret some things, so at least regret some things while being your true self. Some people also might be evil and psychopaths and for them being true to themselves might not be the best for the society, but im trying to make a different point, that even the psychopath will feel miserable until he acts as the psychopath. So not everyones personal growth is desirable for others, but it is desirable for every individual that is experiencing it.
I'd say killing Emilio (and attempting to kill Krazy 8) was more of a landmark. It set the standard of bloodshed for Walt. His choices were to really show his method and hope he would be spared, or make a break for it. Even though he did it to save his ass, it clearly was a planned attempt and he knew very well what he was doing. Who knows, maybe if he showed the method he could have kept cooking reasonably peacefully, but as it really was about showing his masculinity, power and genius, he would undoubtedly have craved for more.
The age old dilemma: do people actually change or is it that they hide very well their true colors (until the time comes and they end up showing them)?
1. All people have the capacity for great evil. Being more or less attracted to this capacity is a character trait, and can be modified by your raising -- but not always predictably. (A household that taught you that smoking is disgusting and wrong might drive you to avoid it entirely, or to seek it as a rebellion or forbidden fruit; the same is true of other topics.) 2. People can actually change, but it's not so much a change in their potential, as in their will, to do/be this or to do/be this other thing. A bully can become a protector. A nice young lad can become a rapist or a murderer. Sometimes it's about a hidden quality (e.g. the person only seemed nice at the time, but was later revealed to be a serial killer), but other times it's an actual change, a person who at one point in their life is good and at another point in their life is evil. Whether this allows some level of in-life redemption is another issue. (As to salvation as a whole, Jesus' sacrifice on our behalf means that there is literally no depth to which you can sink that is too far for God's hand to save. People try to make this "line in the sand" thing about salvation -- like a relative of mine, always coming back to whether murderers and rapists can be saved or not -- but that kind of thinking is making the lesser sins trivial, like "oh well too bad you stole something, God'll forgive you" + "you raped someone, that's so evil that God cannot forgive you," which is completely misunderstanding the nature of sin.) 3. The mindset that people cannot change -- that having crossed a given line is to forever be beyond redemption, either within life or outside it -- is dangerous, in that it creates "in for a penny, in for a pound" mindsets in those who've crossed the line. It stops people from seeking any sort of positive change, because hey, why even try if it's impossible to undo the harm that was done? If Bob has murdered a dozen people, then his options include: A. Go on murdering more people! B. Decide to never murder anyone else again. and A. Try to do more evil in the world. B. Try to do good in the world. C. Completely ignore anything you could do to affect the world -- stay neutral/selfish and just live your life. D. Give up and remove yourself from the world (suicide). If Bob has the idea that he cannot possibly recover, then he'll never choose B+B there (never murder again, and try to do good in the world), and he might choose option D (just kill himself out of hopelessness). This is not a good situation to set up. Those who have done wrong and *want* to change should be allowed some path to get there (even if we, from the outside, cannot figure out if the drive to change is genuine or not).
+Scott Trucano I really don't like this. Bad people aren't always narcissists, or psychopaths, in fact, most of them aren't. Pretending otherwise is a denial of the fact that everyone can be evil. Walter isn't somehow fundamentally different to the rest of us good people. He is just a man. The monsters aren't external to us... we are the monsters, not psychopaths, but ordinary people.
@@npc1172 thats actually crazy that 1 alligation from 11 years ago that resurfaced and went to court changed your entire outlook on him as an actor. Its really sad to see.
This evil was always with him. All that time he was ignoring those feelings. Upon his diagnosis, he decided to let it go. This is what this show is all about
The way I see it is, all so called nice men have evil inside them. Many don't act on it, few does and lands themselves in trouble. With Walter, the cancer liberated the evil inside him. By evil, for him it meant his hunger for power and identity. The show even established that fact in short glimpses on few occasions like where he advanced on the principal or trying to threaten Skyler and in fact the whole character move of Walter.
Nah, he just snapped because humans prey on the weak.. and he's been preyed upon his whole life and had enough. A rage builds up inside a person, when they know they have been good, and done what society expects of them, and yet they still receive zero respect from anyone.. until one day the final straw breaks the camel's back. Society creates its monsters. If Walt had received the same respect by society for being a chemistry teacher, as he did for being a drug dealer, there would have been no incentive for him to change. That's not how society works though; the good, kind, and disciplined people that prop up civilization are shit on regularly.
He could’ve gotten respect as a chemist teacher if he acted in a way that was worthy of it. He was too weak. His students didn’t respect him, his brother in law didn’t respect him, nor did his wife respected him. He was the common denominator and it wasn’t because of his profession, but rather how he acted. When he became a drug dealer he let his shadow come out. He was more assertive, more aggressive, more confident, etc. Each of us have a shadow, a dark side, and we have to learn how to incorporate and channel it for the good. Turning your other cheek is only a virtue if you had the power not to but chose to do it anyway.
@@shrihari7386 you know you are bad if you adapt yourself on the bad path. everyone has evil, whether you are good depends on how much you can suppress this evil.
Rusty Debier No. She even wanted to become clean herself. But the problem is most Junkies don’t just become clean. There were too many drugs around her and she might have changed if Walt would have saved her. It was disgusting how he just stood there and looked.
My favorite quote from Walter is “I sold my children’s birthright, for $5000” This just showed his inner motive, he wanted to compete with Gray matter.
Leon Robinson To be fair, no one forced him to sell his shares. It was all his idea to sell it. It wasn’t “stolen” per se, more like “accidentally giving it away”
This is a man who lived by the law all his life. He worked his ass off and barely made enough to get by. Nobody, not even his own family respected him. When he started living outside of the law, he had respect and instilled fear into everyone. He felt in control and powerful. He was a great character. R.I.P
But was it all worth it? The hundreds of lives he destroyed, just so people would remember his name? I think that's the question Vince Gilligan asks the audience
I don’t know if I can agree on you with that. In a perfect world, much different to the one we live in today, people would work selflessly to improve the lives of everyone around them. Now of course that would be an incredibly difficult thing to do in this world, but I think if we more or less applied that same principle to the people we love/admire/work with then we ourselves would benefit off of that. Pride and ego killed Walter White, if we can learn from this story and acknowledge and deal with our ego then I think the world would be a little better.
@Cy Dobbo In a perfect world there would be no place for imperfect men. You say things like that because you don't have power (probably), because if you had you would like an imperfect world where you have a perfect life. Also having power has a big chance changing you into an asshole (don't remember exact study but supposedly most people are "nice" because they have to and when they get to a position of power they don't care/try as much as before. Supposedly its normal for humans.). So yea its impossible for everyone in the world to be equal and to have everything they desire (because human desire is endless and i know it because i would like to be a god someday). Also although i would like to live hundreds of years, getting killed is not the worst thing in the world, its better to live few years as a king than to live 50 years as a dog that everyone uses as they want with no say in the matter (to your point that pride killed him). I have to go (drink some coffee and stuff), so have a nice day.
@@nobody-fp5is I'm not sure about that. There are some straight up saints, and some diabolical people, but they don't start like that. How does someone becoming Hitler or Gandhi? I think it's how your actions cultivate each side. But I'm JUST A CITY BOIIIIIIII
This analysis doesn't suck, but it's not the best. Like, missing a major plot point like "taking a girl as a new Mexican kingpin". Because he wasn't. His absence from that scene is a very big deal.
When Walter runs off to New Hampshire, he thinks winning consists of dying before the police can catch him. Then, after talking to Junior he realizes the only way he can truly win: by dying on top the world. Getting rid of all his enemies and people who try to live off his work. Forcing his family to take the money and being the most powerful man in a room with Gretchen and Elliott. Killing Jack mid sentence, like he killed Hank. Saving Jesse to prove he was right: He did care about him. Finally facing his biggest lie to his family, that he did all that for himself. Dying before he can see the inside of a jail cell, surrounded by his legacy. That was the only way he could get the most definitive win. After fighting death and irrelevance, he was finally immortal.
It’s so interesting that Mike, Jesse and Skyler, all of Walt’s biggest foils, were actually motivated by family and taking care of people. Walt, on the other hand, talked a big game, but was selfish and got in the way of their ability to do so. Brilliant.
"Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing." Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment "It can't all be for nothing" Walter White, Breaking Bad
“The evil Walt became was like a terrible chemical reaction to the end: it could not be stopped. It just had to consume everything around it, until it burnt out on its own.” WOW👏👏👏
Always got me too lmao. I also always loved how right before that as he’s waiting in the lobby and thumbing through a magazine with this twisted smile on his face lmao
I think a great depiction of how Walt has always been the way he is is when we have the flashback of him and Skyler walking through their home when they were young. He wanted more, he wasn't satisfied with a house like this he had his eyes set on something bigger and Skyler's opinion didn't matter.
So true! Jesse even spotted that about his character, asking if the $700k he wanted would be enough. But I disagree on "Skyler's opinion." He had his say about the house, but *Skyler's was the only opinion that mattered.* They bought the house she demanded. The whole family staged an intervention as she commanded (and she had a meltdown when they disagreed with her). Their poor Kid got the [garishly girly] car she demanded (even against Hiesenburg). Walter got the chemo she demanded. Etc, etc. And when she loses control of Walter, she starts an affair to feel powerful again (we know she doesn't have a sex drive).
All of it stems from Walt, Gretchen, and Elliot really, with Walt selling his share of Grey Matter for 5,000 dollars and the company turning into a multi million dollar business really ticked Walt off because he isn’t credited for its success Walt may say he cooks meth for his family but it’s really to feel powerful and to actually feel bigger
Lilac Milkshake I feel you’re removing the context from a ton of those events to make Skyler out like she’s some tyrannical supervillain. She staged the intervention and broke down because it was her last effort to save Walt’s life. On one hand yeah it’s his choice, but from Skylers perspective the man she loves has just decided to die, leaving her alone with a son and a new baby to take care of all on her own, not even attempting to try and live. Walter Jr. also gets mad at Walt in that scene for the same reason, they love Walt and don’t want him to die if there’s a chance he could live. They got that different car for Walter Jr. because they had to return the car Walter stupidly bought that would’ve ruined their cover story and raised suspicions. She did this knowing Walter Jr. would hate her for it, but also knowing it was the only way to sell their lie and keep Walt from getting caught. She had sex with Ted as a power play, but keep in mind that she did that in response to Walt forcing his way back into their house and basically making Skyler captive with him in her own home. Not to mention she kicked him out in the first place to protect their family from his dangerous profession (meaning him living with them again endangered them) and he even manipulated Walter Jr. against her to get what he wanted. It was basically a last ditch effort to convince Walt to leave and it didn’t even work. Notice how in two of these cases Skyler is just desperately trying to protect her family from the actions of a deluded narcissist who consistently puts them in danger. I think that’s a lot different from just being controlling for the sake of it.
@@jonathanjoestarwithpluck4930 Skyler is the most hypocritical character in Breaking Bad, and Skyler is an narcissist as much or even more than Walter, what are you talking about?
*He was never good. He was always Heisenberg even before marrying Skyler. His inferiority complex was the reason the whole Gretchen thing happened. All of his life, he's always suppressed it. The whole series was all about him letting the bad out -- letting Heisenberg out.*
Bombing Tuco’s place: Heisenberg was born. Letting Jane die: Heisenberg took complete control. Hank death: Walter White died. Edit: Jesus Loves you! ❤️
Personally I can SOMEWHAT relate to the early changes in Walter White. Not so much the criminal part, but the cancer/ aggressiveness/ anger/ violence parts. At one point in the early 1990s after Desert Storm where I was seriously wounded, I suffered a very severe spinal injury on an poorly-planned parachute drop. My wounds from the Gulf weren't completely healed and it appeared I'd only be able to walk again -- maybe -- after several years. By that time, I'd worked my way from young Private with 2 years of college to Staff Sergeant, then thru Officer Candidate School, becoming a commissioned officer, and by 1992 was a superbly trained Infantry/ Combat Engineer/ Ranger and Special Forces Senior Officer with a Master's Degree. The Army was my life's work and my IDENTITY. Suddenly I was placed on the "Temporary Disability Retired List" with a poor outlook for ever returning to Active Duty. I was technically still in the Army, but realistically not. Needless to say I was angry, frustrated, and severely depressed. A year or so afterward I was diagnosed with Stage II Hodgkin's Lymphoma. At that point it was too much. I started drinking more and sometimes LOOKED for fights whenever I saw bullies or loudmouthed obnoxious people. Needless to say, no matter how tough those clowns acted, they were out of their league with me. And I LIKED IT. Like Walter White with his chemistry, I was proving to myself that I still "had it." Also, like Walter confronting the store bullies, I did it to protect others, especially those who couldn't effectively protect themselves, but also to vent my anger. And like Walter, who'd effectively lost his identity as a great chemist, I'd lost mine as a superb soldier and officer. Fortunately I never crossed into any type of criminal activity and the drinking hadn't gotten out of control (I quit completely well before it became a problem) but there are many aspects of Walter White I can understand and relate to. I can even understand -- as most of us with families can -- why he INITIALLY produced meth to provide for his family after his death. I suggest that AT FIRST it was a case for Walter of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. Then we see how it becomes a matter of greed and "power" as his morality is gradually eroded. Thank God I never got in that position, although professional combat leaders often find themselves in situations where we question the morality of what we're doing. We have to constantly monitor ourselves and our people for erosions of morality -- that's when bad things can happen. In my case, I was finally recalled to Active Duty from 2001-2004. Which helped me have some closure with my military career. I suggest many of us look inside ourselves and see if we share certain of Walter's traits as his character developed.
Thou i have great respect for you to be able to get yourself out of that state of mind and be able to articulate it so profoundly showing you understand the human condition more then most, i would consider that you see walter white in that way because it mirrors your own experience, connecting you to the story therby emotionally investing you ( something everyone does , music being a good example how 2 people can draw different interpretations from the same song ) because to me walter seems to be acting selfishly from the beginning because in a way he hasnt acted in his own intereest in years doing what needed to be done to support his family, he actually then acts agaisnt his family interest because making tons of money from cooking meth is not guarenteed. You can jusf as easily end up in jailing or getting killed by competition thereby hurting your family... Just a thought thou
All these replies go to show how fundamentally misunderstood nietzsche was. He's not saying that being virtuous is cowardice, but that virtue is an excuse for cowards to not act on their true desires.
@@piririn5052 Of course that's plausible, but it also can be false. For example, let's say you want to have 1 million dollars when you retire, and you must invest 1000 bucks a month to do it. Your long term desire, is to attain wealth but your short term desire can be to have parties use drugs ,travel, etc. Is it cowardice to not indulge those short term desires in order to fulfill your long term desire? I like Nietzsche, and I admit I've only been reading up on him recently, but that does not mean I can't interpret his words differently.
I never made the connection that Walt's actions directly mimic that of an addict. The excuses and lack of responsibility for his actions until after a "detox" or in varied moments of clarity, the mental gymnastics it took for him to justify his actions, always chasing that first high, asking for "one last hit" every time he almost quit, the erratic behavior after particularly good highs/successes, obsession, illusions of grandeur, paranoia, a total disregard for how his chasing that high may affect others... Great video as usual!
It gets interesting when you break it down. Ned and Walt are both: - pushovers - nice - have a loving family - ridiculed - wear simple clothes While Heisenberg and Lex are both: - Intelligent - Witty - Manipulative - Soulless - Impulsive - Murderess - Friendless - Have no family ties - Where nice attire
ScreenPrism please don’t ever use the word actually it makes you sound like a rich snob btw the kid had a point, Walter had a lot of chances to asked for help let alone not asked for help but leave Skylar in debt bc it was one of the right things to do. #Walter white is evil.
Yes please, ScreenPrism! A video on The Americans would be great. My mum's already told me good things about the show, and a video essay by you would finally convince me to give the series a proper go.
There's this book, 'No More Mr. Nice Guy' , and Walter White is the perfect example of one. The book however, points out that most nice guys aren't nice. They do things to further their own desires, not because they are genuinely nice.
That's not true, way I see it. No one's really appreciates when you're nice till they see you being. *Not nice* and then they think your previous kind behavior was fake.. when in fact you might just grow tired of people's shit and Walt took a lot of shit. I think he was tired. You could only be nice for so long.
If we could have a proper sit down i could explain the reasoning as to why i know it’s true and why i sounded aggressive, could take some time though.. i really go deep into these things.
Another early sign of Heisenberg is when he's offered money for his cancer treatments but his pride and bitterness forces him to decline. After that it was no longer necessary to cook meth but a purely selfish choice. On the flip side by admitting his true reasons for cooking meth to Skylar and then rescuing Jesse, I think his long buried better nature did start to resurface towards the end.
I'd have a big ego too if the people who got successful from my research pretends I have nothing to do with the company. Even if Walter gave his rights to the company away, they were friends. I'm not saying that they're entitled to give Walter a few million dollars but out of moral respect they should have
@@aronphilip2782 let’s not overlook the fact that a grown man made a decision of selling his stocks consciously. Gretchen and her husband owed him nothing from business standpoint. So much so, they were kind and considerate and accepted his noodle gift with grace as opposed to his poor assumption that he’d be made fun of upon wrapping it in front of people. The show showed no evidence to support that Gretchen and Her husband were bad people. Them agreeing to pay for his treatment was exactly friends would do and that’s tbh enough. It’s just Walter didn’t have enough courage to look himself in the eye and forgive himself for making a poor choice which would have been a far more productive arc for him from a personal standpoint.
@Mooky Blaylock Exactly. I was exactly at that point a year ago: Never watched it but after seeing the great scenes I will The Problem is: There are too few good scenes. Too much frustrating waiting during boring scenes and Walt is absolutely horrible. Almost everyone is absolutely horrible. I wouldn't recommend this series. Stick with the good scenes you can find on RUclips, the series hardly adds on that but gives you dozens of hours of frustration instead.
Great analysis, I like the reference to crime and punishment a lot. I've noticed the similarity when I've watched BrBad for the first time. Looking forward to seeing Jimmy McGill vs Saul Goodman analysis!
it's funny how my experience watching breaking bad the first time was totally different from the second time. the first time, I felt a lot more empathy for walter, I thought he was really incredible and didn't think much about his responsibility for the tragedies that happened, I was like: these people around him are really unbearable and mean, he can't take it more. the second time i watched it, a few years later, my feeling for walter was one of anger, indignation. I was able to see how self-centered he is and that his bad side did not come during the show. this guy just managed to destroy the lives of everyone around him and, well, analyzing the other characters I also realized that they were not so unbearable, they were people with their mistakes and successes, qualities and defects, and the truth is that walter probably ALWAYS had an inferiority complex. that is the case: a therapy would have solved it.
I understand why you felt like that second time and its mainly because you already know whats gonna happen and it goes without saying you already know that. The feeling of empathy towards walter comes down to the fact that we don't know how its gonna end. He is the protagonist in our minds and hackneyed storytelling has instilled in our minds that main guy's actions are reasonable and justified and it will end on a good note.(atleast thats how i felt) Huge credit to Breaking Bad to break that stereotype and huge thanks to them for giving us such an incredible show and a character
You , so easily say that people around him are not so unbearable... Big lol....so many people around him are much more worse and unbearable than Walt. You are in delusion, lady.
@@sreeragp2082 I watched it for the first time and I feel WW was a bad person all along. The whole charade began because he couldn’t forgive himself for the decision he consciously took with Grey Matters. I mean that dude is an adult and supposed to know better. He was on such a toxic power trip that he ruined Jesse and gave him PTSD, let Jane Die, tried killing Brock, lied to Skyler and disregard her mental health, etc etc. He couldn’t contain himself, he lacked control, he was obsessed. These are my thoughts in my first watch. My sympathies lies with Skyler, Flyn, Marie, Poor Jesse, and Brock.
At the beginning of the show Hank tells Walter come with him on a raid ''live a little''. At the end Walter says I did for me, I liked it, I was good at it, I was alive. It's not about good to evil, it was about going from an NPC to becoming an actual player character.
Walt reminded me a lot of Light from Death Note. A man who was always in line with the law but suddenly has the power to change that. Also Kira is to Light as Heisenberg is to Walt.
The two of them, while given names of "purity" (light, white), really are evil, destructive hypocrites who only fell into darkness when they did because of when they had the means to do so. That evil was always there. And their empires, like Ozymandias (Ramses II) won't live on long after them except for an example of pride.
I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't watch Breaking Bad until 3 months ago. I'm grateful I didn't know any spoilers. Such a powerful, raw game changing show. And seeing as how I just finished the finale last week, this analysis feels refreshing and accurate. Well done!
I think what’s interesting about the final two episodes is how Walt/Heisenberg’s acceptance of both sides of himself seems to unify both sides of his personality. The Heisenberg in him accepts that he’s lost and that he shouldn’t try and boost his ego further (and finds kindness and forgiveness to save Jesse) while the Walt side of him accepts he did it all for selfish reasons because he liked it and was good at it.
Chemistry is the study of change. So you could say his job is the center part of the narrative, both the reason he can become a drug dealer and the reason he becomes the type of man that is powerful in that business. Because breaking bad is not the study of what's matter??, but the study of what is changing?? Great video. I never tough about how much more his job is essential to the history.
Yes that's nice and all but what the guys who made Breaking Bad were saying was "Oh hey let's have a guy cooking meth" "Yeah yeah and he has cancer!" "You know what else? His step brother should be a cop" Yada yada yada.
The claim that his job is the reason “he can be the type of man that is powerful in that business” lost me; unless you are simply saying he was familiar with meth production.
I don't know why everyone hates Skyler so much. She didn't exactly make great choices but what was she supposed to do? She was constantly faced with impossible decisions. Turn her husband in and ruin their kids lives or don't? that's tough. And everyone says she "tore the family apart" by keeping the kids with hank and Marie. But she was protecting them, plain and simple. From what she knew, Walt had killed multiple people and others were out to kill him. What else would a mother do but get her children as far from him as possible. And she offered to go to the police, but Walt threatened her. She may have not been the most lovable character but she was a complex one who ultimately was looking out for her families safety.
DylanK25 _ You’re completely right. People hate her character because she was well - in the way of Walt 99% of the time. She’s also a bit annoying, but even because of that, her character is completely reasonable and understandable.
Not once throughout the show does she even begin to try and understand the view point or position of anyone else. She is always right, and everyone who disagrees with her is always wrong. Anyone who does something that she considers bad is immediatly evil. She's the white in a perceived black and white world that doesn't exist, the world is grey, and she refuses to acknowledge it. She is part of Walt's repressesion in the beginning in the show, she doesn't even allow him to choose whether to live or die. And when she finds out what he's done, she has a chance to try and bring him back, make him see reason. Make him understand that his actions aren't justified by his goal. But she doesn't even try, she only judges him.
I'll never understand people who like Walt but hate Skyler. She was just trying to protect her kids and people hated her for that. Sure she fucked up, but who wouldn't in that position?
@@Pierce1996h Same here, honestly both of them are unlikable by design. Both have redeeming qualities which are outweighed by horrible actions and behaviours, which is bloody interesting to watch
i think that crippled old man i dont remember his name had given his consent for this bomb. walt had come and talked tohim about his plan of killing fring.
Pretty sure the detonator to the bomb was attached to his bell also... And that's why he taps it so frantically. I would think hed do it to tell walt to blow it but we dont see him with a detonator so yeah....
@Aphirak Tumoon facepalm, that's not ego, that's just ambition and optimism. You saw his evil develop over the course of the show, not from the beginning
To qoute Angel from Buffy in the Angel Episode destiny when he and Spike fight I didn't make you Spike I just opened up the door and let the real you out. That's how I felt about Walt that Heisenberg was always deep down in him somewhere
Bombing Tuco’s lair - the birth of Heisenberg Letting Jane die - Heisenberg begins to consume him The crawl space - the death of Walter White Bombing the nursing home - the validation of Heisenberg’s existence Hank’s death/Skylar and Junior turning on him - the fall of Heisenberg Felina - Heisenberg and Walter White have become one
I absolutely love the chemical reaction metaphor you refer to explain Walt's transformation. A chemical reaction does indeed begin with stored chemical 'potential' energy in chemical bonds, which indeed is released (converted to) heat in many reactions.
Star: Questions you first have to ask is was he ever really a "good man"? If someone ONLY follows rules o society in order to "fit in", is this a "good man"? It's like people who ONLY treat others well because they fear that, accoring to thieir religion, they might go to hell instead of heaven. If those are the ONLY reasons that you treat your fellow humans well, are you really a "good person"? sounds more like yo'u're only "decent" because you feel that a gun is being held against your head.
@@arx754 He always had a very bad personality, because he was so vain, arrogant and spiteful. But he would not have been an evil person if he hadn't started working with such dangerous people. The things he later did he would not have done in the beginning, which you can see in the first season, for example. the last Krazy 8 scene
@@gnuling296 : Read something years ago that makes sense and that I believe. "Circumstances don't make you a bad person; they just REVEAL what you've always been". How many people out there only do the "right thing" because they're afraid of getting caught (OR, if you're the religious type, you're afraid of "hell")? However, it IS possible to do the "right thing" just because it's the "right thing to do". It depends on how much "self-respect" a person wants to have. Another saying I like very much is: "Integrity is what you do when no one's looking". It might sound really corny, but respecting MYSELF has always been the most important thing for me.
I also believe it could be argued that Breaking Bad follows the formula of William Shakespeare's great play "Macbeth." Both characters appear to be good men, men who are living their lives according to the codes of their generations. Yet, both secretly crave power, respect, and glory. And although both men do receive these (Walter White from his wife, friends, and students who love him, Macbeth with King Duncan, Banquo, Macduff, and the Princes) they still feel that they do not have what they desire. When a prophetic image is shown to them (Walt with the drug bust by Hank and Macbeth being visited by the Strange Sisters) they find that through murder they can rise to power. This then leads both men to become truly monstrous, willing to do anything to get to the top.
"Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love." Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Thanks for doing a great video on one of the best series ever made. Watching this story and gradual change of character was outstanding and beyond memorable. I regard Breaking Bad as a flawless series because of its perfect character development and tight pacing.
Don't forget the amazingly tight scripting, gorgeous filmmaking, and unparallelled acting by pretty much the entire cast. There may have been unlikable characters, but not one bit of bad acting in that series.
Please do the show, "Avatar: The Last Airbender"! The writing in it is superb. I'd love to see an analysis of it from this channel, you guys are awesome!
That was phenomenal. I actually watched Breaking Bad again recently, it’s amazing that after 5 years, I still find new things out about the show. I never thought that White was never good, he just never acted on what he really wanted, so that’s why he was perceived as a nice guy. That was great. Could you please do a similar analysis on Vikings character Ragnar? Because although he has his rise to power and ranges from charming and noble to manipulative and brutal, he always did what he wanted, unlike White. He wasn’t a pushover, his friends and family respected him, he exerted his dominance sexually, verbally and violently, and through action only rose further and further until his inevitable downfall. So if you could please do something on him, that’d be great.
In the end, he was not mistaken, delusional, or lying to himself about his power. The completed and final Walter WAS the one with the power. He DID give his millions to his kids. The family did not get hurt Walter White at season1 ep1 however, was not powerful. He was passive and people close to him even made fun of him (Hank) for it. But Walter was very likeable. And his first lie about Jesse selling him pot worked well and was even funny. His lies and manipulations work very well... Make no mistake... Walter White is the brilliant genius chemist. NOT Heisenberg. Walt got them out of the desert when the RV battery dies (remember the teaching segment to Jesse?) Walt saves Heisenberg and Jesse a couple times... Walter even came up with the plan to sell meth to solve his money problem. Everything changed when it was Walter who killed Crazy 8. It fucked him up, disturbed him emotionally, etc. This causes a rift... Out steps the long suppressed Heisenberg to do Walts future dirty work without the emotional consequences that Walt suffered from taking another mans life.... Walt didnt even like having power. He always tried to leave the meth business. Heisenberg wouldn't have it.. And being a man of action and Walt being passive, Heisenberg slowly started taking over tasks out of necessary survival... Later of course what is deemed necessary survival shifts focus to necessary to build the business... To become Heisenberg... So H became the business man and decision maker... But, Walter was the genius planner. But Walt still had NO power nor did we like exercising it.... So Heisenberg was the executor of Walt's genius plans... But Walt gradually slipped away leaving the planning to Heisenberg. But as Heisenberg came out and Walter slipped away, we didn't like him much, his lies were downright laughable and didn't work. He did awful things and it was hard to like him.. or we might even downright hate him. He is AWFUL to Jesse. At times, Heisenberg can even be cringey when being so egotistical he thought his power extended over women (raping skylar). Then Walt disappears and its just Heisenberg. Miserable, no power but was in denial... Thinking he was a puppet master (Uncle Jack ultimately had the power... Proving it when killing Hank and stealing his money). But when Heisenberg saw it was Hank there to bust him out in T'Hajilee, Walt came back full force and suppressed Heisenberg and turned himself over to Hank instead of another dark and sloppy Heisenberg power play. We start liking him again... And Walt, not Heisenberg executed that plan. Walt started to take action finally. Out in Vermont, (a classic religious theme of going into the wilderness to meditate), Walt learned how to Integrate Heisenberg into Walter White... So they both merged instead of being separate, forming a complete personality with the two active at the same time. Notice how calm, resolute, honest, emotional, but above all else, powerful he was after this completion of his evolution? His manipulations were very brilliant, the innocent were not in danger, and his plan executed flawlessly. Accomplished ALL goals flawlessly. This is Classic Carl Jung. He used his, this time, very real power for justice and repetence (righteous concepts) and still got his money to his kids... Proving he was not lying to himself or anyone else about that... The money was there's. Not his. And we all loved him again... And the true legend of Heisenberg is born. Even though its Walter White that is now a badass. Moral of the story: if you suppress your darker side, your fighting side, your action side... the part of you that you access when you need to get yourself out of a jam, it will eventually break out and wreak havoc all over everything and everyone you love. If you only employ your passive good side, you will be stomped on, squelched, mediocre, taken advantage of, possibly abused, and never grow to your full potential, but you will have your family that has always loved you in the end. If you suppress your good side, no one will like you or even talk to you, you end up alone, sad, anxious, angry, vengeful, with no peace ever. You end up twisted and miserable and defeated... With NOTHING LEFT. If you use both in a balanced and necessary way, you become a very formidable fucking force of nature. There is no ONE correct way to be all the time. If you live on Earth, you need to get a little Heisenberg-y on someone's ass from time to time. But you also need to chill the fuck out, relax, and think things through and recount your blessings or you won't make it to the next day and will lose everything. Brilliant. Absolutely well done. So many layers. A great study of how an event or trauma can trigger personality disorder and change someone into someone else. Too cool. Walt in realty always had the potential for real power but didn't like it, Heisenberg had the illusion that he had real power (but did not), because he had the balls to do what he thought needed to happen to accomplish a goal. In the end, we see a Walter White with giant balls of powered badassery and maybe even a hint of honor.
Walter White is Heisenberg. Heisenberg is Walter White. You're talking like it's two different people when it's not. They didn't somehow "merge," they were always the same.
I see Breaking Bad’s evolution of Walter White as an everyday man who never questioned his surroundings, life or himself. Once he started to ask the questions and act on them, he realized how different he really was.
Thank you! Yes! That's how I always felt about him. When he killed Mike, I thought, "What an insult to an intelligent criminal who's so stable and careful, to be killed by a hack-criminal *loser* who had another temper tantrum."
I disagree. He was resentful yes, but he channeled that resentment into a successful drug empire, eliminating all rivals, even the formidable Gus Fring. He is far from a loser.
I mean yea, its what you think. I think it's like the image of Hitler you know? In the end, no matter what we thinks, the truth is that ppl like them are still seen as powerful figures.
He represents the hidden fantasy of many average people: Becoming someone with power, a name to be recon. I don't think that "good" or "bad" terms apply here. It is just human nature.
Well said. There is no split personality. He's hiding certain behaviors that would get him in trouble, and manifesting those that would benefit him socially. It's just practicality.
Barack Hussein O'Toole in reality he always was Heisenberg, he was simply hiding his true self, afraid of the consequences, afraid of the power, but when he was diagnosed with cancer he just thought, fuck it and he went from some pushover overqualified science teacher, to a legendary drug dealer
It's a story of a 'nice' guy retaining his dark side that ultimately has to surface the way or another, just like with Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. People with issues with prolonged repressed anger know this all too well.
I suppose what you might call a ‘split personality’ is simply the most comprehensible way of expressing a stark dichotomy in one’s personality. Of course, it cannot be taken 100% literally, but compartmentalisation via Walt/Heisenberg gets the crux of the issue here across nicely: conflicting psychological drives will eventually show themselves should the environment be conducive to it ... and one will eventually win out.
Walter summed it all up with one of his last sentences in the final episode. When Skyler says "If you tell me you did this for the family one more time" He cuts her off and admits "I did it for me, the truth is I enjoyed it"
Superb analysis, hope there will be similar videos on other major characters from BB and perhaps BCS too. Your vids are always a guaranteed 10-15 mins well spent. Thanks again :)
I love this idea that the character's moral philosophy transitions from good to evil because he changed from inactive to active. It seems analogous to the ACTUAL Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in that we cannot definitively measure, or predict, the change in momentum of an object. It's just like Walt's transition to and from Heisenberg! God damn, what an amazing show...
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Man I have got to watch this show. Maybe I can get the blu ray set.
I kind of agree about "You're goddamn right", but I think "I am the one who knocks" was pretty damn good. This show was brilliant.
Please do a show about Al in Deadwood.
Sooo... basically, in the very first episode in his speech in class, Walter White spoiled the whole show and told us what will exactly happen throughout the series.???
Face Reveal or GTFO
Walter didn't start out "good", he started out "Harmless". There's a difference.
Like Gale :(
🔥🔥🔥🔥✊
exactly
No. He was good.
Like anyone else. No men are truly good, just harmless.
For all of the idiots complaining about spoilers why the hell would you watch a character analysis and not expect spoilers. Makes no sense
Actually, I watch this to see if I really should watch the show
yeah, like seriously
Exactly 🤦♂️, common sense
The only circumstance where I find it right to defend spoilers.
@Victorianne Castle
Ever thought of googling a non spoiler review?
Walter White told us what the whole show was going to be about....right in the first episode....it was all about "Growth..Change and Transformation" Wow....just wow....
Growth then decay then transformation
Incredible writing
Yuri Silva To be fair all shows have growth change and transformations
Yuri Silva 🤘🤘🤘🤘
Even the doctor said he'd live about 2 years with the cancer and that's how how much time passed from season 1 to 5 so many things to consider and reconsider on a rewatch I mean this is one of the best shows I've seen the story the way the characters are developed and how expertly Bryan Cranston played Walter I believe the moment that he truly became became Heisenberg and lost walter's morals is when he killed the two people that Jesse was about to kill it started at Jane's death but when he killed them two that's when he's really started to stop caring he didn't show any remorse or even flinch at his actions where before or he only killed people to defend himself like with crazy 8
It's also worth mentioning that in the final season Walt looks like a twisted version of how he looked in the first season.
balbanes1 well that’s because he is dying of cancer...
Yeah it shows how his character progression goes full circle.
I'd say he finally reflected what he did and realized the consequences are all on him. Something he didn't want to see due to his ego as Heisenberg. He went as calm and responsible as he was before, just with the heavy burden of his realization.
Especially when he sees himself in the mirror, it's a play on the classic novel, "A Picture of Dorian Gray." In the book, a wealthy, narcissistic young man makes a deal with the Devil that he won't age, and none of the things he does in life will be visible outwardly. Instead, they're reflected in a portrait he'd had painted of himself. Eventually he had to hide the picture in a locked room to keep himself or anyone else from seeing it. Toward the end, he finally looked at it and the portrait depicted a vile, corrupted, horrible monster of what had been him. It completely destroyed him.
Pat McCann I know I do just like you might have
10 years later and Breaking Bad is still one of the best shows ever put to television
Ben Wasserman damn it, it's been ten years…
*the best
Its the best. No GoT, not even House of Cards... Breaking Bad remains the king.
Rahul Chaudhary if got writers would have stayed on the books for story and didn't fuck up after season 5 it would have been better than BB.
Definitely agreed about GoT. When they were following the books they were golden. But after season 4 they went right off the rails, right about when George RR Martin became less involved in the scripting, and I found that the only things worth watching for anymore were Peter Dinklage and Lena Heady's delicious performances, along with the set and costume porn.
“The most dangerous man is a man that has nothing too lose”
To**
@@YoungChugga ummmm no
Fr, school shootings, mass murders, serial killers, what do they have to lose? Nothing.
I am the one who knocks. That's probably my favorite scene
I need to know the intro sound name of this vid ?
Funfact: they chose very carefully when they drop the F bomb. That made it such more impactful when Mike said _STFU and let me die in peace_
True
And when walt says fuck you to gretchen
I saw an interview once that they were only ever given the okay to use one 'fuck' per season and that they typically gave them to Skyler. Being the voice of reason character its usually the most impactful coming from her.
"Fuck you Gretchen."
"Can you walk? Then get the fuck out and never come back."
I fucked Ted
This show baffled me as how real it is. Every response, act, emotion portrayed by Walter & everyone around him was so damn real & relatable. It's genius.
Chill Dude Best series ever made, hands down. Still amazing.
That’s what made it better than any other show ... well except for one
@@CFC003
Mh idk Peaky Blinders is good, but I wouldn't say that amazing like BB
The camera, costumes and general how everything looks is one of the bests out there though. In that aspect Peaky Blinders is King
@@Fangoros yeah, peaky blinders looks absolutly amazing.
@p nah dude. Nah.
Dude, I never thought that those lines in Walter's chemistry class were subtly hinting at his change as a character throughout the show. Just goes to show you that Vince Gilligan was a masterful writer and director when creating this series.
Also, when Skylar went to see ted to pay the IRS , ted tripped on the carpet while walking. It was foreshadowing ted's accident.
Vince Gilligan is an genius
amazing stuff!
Also when jesse said ' a robot ' . N walt makes a robot in the middle of the desert that saves him in the last episodes . The robot is the machine gun that saves jesse . That's the genius of breaking bad .
Yeah it's been so long since I watched the first episodes I completely forgot
I wonder if there are high school teachers who want to be Heisenberg as much as there are students who would like to hear one of their teachers was Heisenberg.
Yeah a high school teacher in Arkansas was busted trying to cook meth in the high school. It's on the news today
I have a teacher that looks exactly like Walter, and he's a chemist teacher. Also, he's divorced to his ex-wife literally named Skylar and he has a 4 year old daughter and a son with a disbility...
Not quite sure I believe that haha
@@Milk88488 no
@@Milk88488 me losing my virginity in the next 5 years has more probability than your fucked up story.
Moral of the show : pay teachers more
and don't disrespect people u think that are interior than u.
That's mostly the States job, not The Feds job.
Abbass Badass No, the moral of the story is the American Healthcare system is trash.
@@SomeGuyWhoPlaysGames333 I'll take it
GameAddict51 so true
This video made me realize just how genius the writing of Breaking Bad was. They revealed Walt's evil side slowly and consistently - when he was losing power (something I didn't even realize while watching the show). Compare that to the final season of Game of Thrones where the writers had Daenerys show her evil side over the course of 2 episodes...
They took her too far fast, as Vince Gilligan said, one shouldn't do that in a story telling
Game of Thrones is trash compared to Breaking Bad to be honest. I don't see it even close to Breaking bad as a whole only the first four seasons compare.
The Problem is that the final season was written without a Book to base it on.
Her evil side was shown much earlier than that. The difference between Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones is that the former is a show ABOUT said transformation while Game of Thrones isn't. BB is dedicated in showing Walter's transformation while in Game of Thrones is much more subtle and they barely devoted enough time to it.
I'm not gonna pretend GoT ending was good by any means but Daenerys showed the path she was taking often in previous seasons.
Granted it wasn't as good as Breaking Bad obviously but it wasn't done "in 2 episodes". Only one show comes close to have the writing of Walter White and in my opinion it even surpasses it. Jax Teller in Sons of Anarchy.
@@JulianScotus We are not comparing the shows as a whole, we are comparing the character development.
Aaron Paul gave a phenomenal performance in this show. I’m really surprised he never played big roles in movies.
probably because of the success of the show. Too recognizable
He has in need for speed he was the main character
@@mexicanturtle2255 that's Paul Walker ding dong
No
MexicanTurtle22 that’s one movie. Look at all these actors that seem to be in another huge movie every year
He was a man fed up with life and suddenly had nothing to lose. That makes someone extremely dangerous.
@@maiamartini9095 I wouldn't say downfall. I don't think that downfall is defined by evilness. He kinda mastered his own life and became what he really is, and to be fair, he rarely did something to someone who didn't had it coming. He still had his own moral compass that he followed. His rules of life. And he did what he liked, for himself, as he said. Evil or not evil, Heisenberg period is only when he was truly alive, before that he barely existed.
@@maiamartini9095 I think that at the core people don't really change, what we do is only start acting less or more like who we truly are. There was a psychological research that i was reading that said that around 40% of our personalities is "encoded" in our genes. And of course, personality can grow and develop, but it can't never exist without its roots. Personality growth is in my opinion the only try way of living the life to the fullest and winning in it. Not in material sense(of course it can be that too, depending whats your personality and what you are going to do), but in a sense of self satisfaction. Walter died and lost almost everything, but at the end he still considered that he won, that he lived. He for sure regretted some things, but he also regretted a lot of things while he wasn't Heisenberg. The point being, you will always regret some things, so at least regret some things while being your true self.
Some people also might be evil and psychopaths and for them being true to themselves might not be the best for the society, but im trying to make a different point, that even the psychopath will feel miserable until he acts as the psychopath. So not everyones personal growth is desirable for others, but it is desirable for every individual that is experiencing it.
Falling down
He had everything to lose
Killing Crazy 8 was a landmark moment in the transition also.
It was, but that was self defense. Understandable. Letting Jane die was pure self interest.
The first time he personally killed someone
I'd say killing Emilio (and attempting to kill Krazy 8) was more of a landmark. It set the standard of bloodshed for Walt. His choices were to really show his method and hope he would be spared, or make a break for it. Even though he did it to save his ass, it clearly was a planned attempt and he knew very well what he was doing. Who knows, maybe if he showed the method he could have kept cooking reasonably peacefully, but as it really was about showing his masculinity, power and genius, he would undoubtedly have craved for more.
@ mm not exactly.... look at it this way. Jesse would have died with that much money if he was with Jane.
@ He saved Jesse by Jane letting Jane die
The age old dilemma: do people actually change or is it that they hide very well their true colors (until the time comes and they end up showing them)?
YCRestEasyN Could it be,that you read Satre ?
Exactly. The cancer diagnosis and the "need to provide for his family" was just an excuse to be the narcissistic psychopath that he always was.
1. All people have the capacity for great evil. Being more or less attracted to this capacity is a character trait, and can be modified by your raising -- but not always predictably. (A household that taught you that smoking is disgusting and wrong might drive you to avoid it entirely, or to seek it as a rebellion or forbidden fruit; the same is true of other topics.)
2. People can actually change, but it's not so much a change in their potential, as in their will, to do/be this or to do/be this other thing. A bully can become a protector. A nice young lad can become a rapist or a murderer. Sometimes it's about a hidden quality (e.g. the person only seemed nice at the time, but was later revealed to be a serial killer), but other times it's an actual change, a person who at one point in their life is good and at another point in their life is evil.
Whether this allows some level of in-life redemption is another issue.
(As to salvation as a whole, Jesus' sacrifice on our behalf means that there is literally no depth to which you can sink that is too far for God's hand to save. People try to make this "line in the sand" thing about salvation -- like a relative of mine, always coming back to whether murderers and rapists can be saved or not -- but that kind of thinking is making the lesser sins trivial, like "oh well too bad you stole something, God'll forgive you" + "you raped someone, that's so evil that God cannot forgive you," which is completely misunderstanding the nature of sin.)
3. The mindset that people cannot change -- that having crossed a given line is to forever be beyond redemption, either within life or outside it -- is dangerous, in that it creates "in for a penny, in for a pound" mindsets in those who've crossed the line. It stops people from seeking any sort of positive change, because hey, why even try if it's impossible to undo the harm that was done?
If Bob has murdered a dozen people, then his options include:
A. Go on murdering more people!
B. Decide to never murder anyone else again.
and
A. Try to do more evil in the world.
B. Try to do good in the world.
C. Completely ignore anything you could do to affect the world -- stay neutral/selfish and just live your life.
D. Give up and remove yourself from the world (suicide).
If Bob has the idea that he cannot possibly recover, then he'll never choose B+B there (never murder again, and try to do good in the world), and he might choose option D (just kill himself out of hopelessness). This is not a good situation to set up. Those who have done wrong and *want* to change should be allowed some path to get there (even if we, from the outside, cannot figure out if the drive to change is genuine or not).
+Scott Trucano I really don't like this. Bad people aren't always narcissists, or psychopaths, in fact, most of them aren't. Pretending otherwise is a denial of the fact that everyone can be evil. Walter isn't somehow fundamentally different to the rest of us good people. He is just a man. The monsters aren't external to us... we are the monsters, not psychopaths, but ordinary people.
jordel2010 Jesus guys it's like a philosophy class down here....great just great
I always thought how Heisenberg's character was basically a cancer to everybody else in the series, he basically destroyed everything around him
Lucas Melo And himself
Sosa Laflare ahahah
@@sosalaflare7364 lmaoooo
Frankly almost everybody in the series is in someway a piece of shit.
@@PieMister02 I’d say that’s true for real life as well.
It's crazy that even though Walt never used the meth, he was the one most addicted to what it did for him.
So many moments throughout that are simply genius. When he told Skyler that she will never see Hank again, but the tears were streaming down his face.
@@El__Silbon Agreed. Absolutely brilliant.
I saw u comment on another breaking bad video! :)
Damn. Well said.
@@graceedits3118 thank you
Lmao at "I'm not the street guy yo"
I laughed at that lmaooo
Almost as funny as when Walt says "Am i the only professional here?" I think that shows Mr Whites complete lack of self awareness in a nutshell:)
Ahhhh wire
Streat* 😜
@@Nietzschian_Nihilist lol I got that reference skinny Pete haha
Kevin Spacey: "Sex is about power"
That didn't age well...
true
Gery A 😂😂😂
This comment didnt age well since he was cleared of all those charges. Yikes.
@@AdrianWach1 clinton was cleared of all charges but we all know she did everything. whats your point?
@@npc1172 thats actually crazy that 1 alligation from 11 years ago that resurfaced and went to court changed your entire outlook on him as an actor. Its really sad to see.
"Walter is an evil man fooling people that he is good, while Jesse is a good man trying his best to be evil."
Who said this? I love it
Yeah, this truth smacked me in the face in the Peekaboo episode. Jesse is a good boi
@@seisosimp something about spelling boy as boi just makes me laugh
Jesse never tries to be evil
@@thegoldensorcerer9866 did you actually watch the show
This evil was always with him. All that time he was ignoring those feelings. Upon his diagnosis, he decided to let it go. This is what this show is all about
The way I see it is, all so called nice men have evil inside them. Many don't act on it, few does and lands themselves in trouble. With Walter, the cancer liberated the evil inside him. By evil, for him it meant his hunger for power and identity. The show even established that fact in short glimpses on few occasions like where he advanced on the principal or trying to threaten Skyler and in fact the whole character move of Walter.
Nah, he just snapped because humans prey on the weak.. and he's been preyed upon his whole life and had enough. A rage builds up inside a person, when they know they have been good, and done what society expects of them, and yet they still receive zero respect from anyone.. until one day the final straw breaks the camel's back. Society creates its monsters. If Walt had received the same respect by society for being a chemistry teacher, as he did for being a drug dealer, there would have been no incentive for him to change. That's not how society works though; the good, kind, and disciplined people that prop up civilization are shit on regularly.
He could’ve gotten respect as a chemist teacher if he acted in a way that was worthy of it. He was too weak. His students didn’t respect him, his brother in law didn’t respect him, nor did his wife respected him. He was the common denominator and it wasn’t because of his profession, but rather how he acted.
When he became a drug dealer he let his shadow come out. He was more assertive, more aggressive, more confident, etc.
Each of us have a shadow, a dark side, and we have to learn how to incorporate and channel it for the good. Turning your other cheek is only a virtue if you had the power not to but chose to do it anyway.
@@Carloss86py Civilizations who do not treat their "weak" geniuses with respect will lose them to their competitors, resulting in their own conquest..
@@shrihari7386 you know you are bad if you adapt yourself on the bad path. everyone has evil, whether you are good depends on how much you can suppress this evil.
I feel like the real turning point was when he let Jessie's girlfriend die. No way back from that moment on.
Ikr. He just kept doing worse and worse things.
That was serioussssssss
Rusty Debier No. She even wanted to become clean herself. But the problem is most Junkies don’t just become clean. There were too many drugs around her and she might have changed if Walt would have saved her. It was disgusting how he just stood there and looked.
Reflex in real life that is a horrible and difficult almost impossible situation. You would call for help and try to save her.
@Eddie Bacon it was more about how she was blackmailing him then anything else.
My favorite quote from Walter is
“I sold my children’s birthright, for $5000”
This just showed his inner motive, he wanted to compete with Gray matter.
That was partly his motive. There were other elements.
I wouldn't say compete. He wanted to reclaim his "stolen" wealth.
Leon Robinson To be fair, no one forced him to sell his shares. It was all his idea to sell it. It wasn’t “stolen” per se, more like “accidentally giving it away”
bluepeng889 I’m pretty sure that’s why he put stolen in quotations
This is a man who lived by the law all his life. He worked his ass off and barely made enough to get by. Nobody, not even his own family respected him. When he started living outside of the law, he had respect and instilled fear into everyone. He felt in control and powerful. He was a great character. R.I.P
But was it all worth it? The hundreds of lives he destroyed, just so people would remember his name? I think that's the question Vince Gilligan asks the audience
I don’t know if I can agree on you with that. In a perfect world, much different to the one we live in today, people would work selflessly to improve the lives of everyone around them.
Now of course that would be an incredibly difficult thing to do in this world, but I think if we more or less applied that same principle to the people we love/admire/work with then we ourselves would benefit off of that. Pride and ego killed Walter White, if we can learn from this story and acknowledge and deal with our ego then I think the world would be a little better.
xxXXRAPXXxx You spend too much time playing video games.
@strange Angel i just don't lie to myself as much as most people.
@Cy Dobbo In a perfect world there would be no place for imperfect men. You say things like that because you don't have power (probably), because if you had you would like an imperfect world where you have a perfect life. Also having power has a big chance changing you into an asshole (don't remember exact study but supposedly most people are "nice" because they have to and when they get to a position of power they don't care/try as much as before. Supposedly its normal for humans.). So yea its impossible for everyone in the world to be equal and to have everything they desire (because human desire is endless and i know it because i would like to be a god someday). Also although i would like to live hundreds of years, getting killed is not the worst thing in the world, its better to live few years as a king than to live 50 years as a dog that everyone uses as they want with no say in the matter (to your point that pride killed him). I have to go (drink some coffee and stuff), so have a nice day.
Why people are afraid to say that we all have the evil side? With the right circumstances anyone of us can turn into a complitely amoral person.
no one that’s right humans adapt to their environment. No one is all good or all bad.
@@user-qr7eb1sf3l there is some who are all good and or all evil
@@nobody-fp5is I'm not sure about that. There are some straight up saints, and some diabolical people, but they don't start like that. How does someone becoming Hitler or Gandhi?
I think it's how your actions cultivate each side. But I'm JUST A CITY BOIIIIIIII
no one we live in a society
Walter + red pill = Heisenberg
The greatest god damn character development ever in a TV show. 🤠
True
Negative chracter development.
Uhh jesse
You're goddamn right.
Tornike Tvalchrelidze how did they reference rick grimes
One of the best breaking bad analyses out there, and that's saying something
Try Jordan petersons one. Not necessarily this kind of movie critic analysis but a very good one
Not really, she's just projecting her subjective narrative to the show. It's actually kinda lame like people who read into astrology
This analysis doesn't suck, but it's not the best. Like, missing a major plot point like "taking a girl as a new Mexican kingpin". Because he wasn't. His absence from that scene is a very big deal.
so your Opinion is saying something... wow
Cameren Greer I understand what you’re saying, but this channel does not analyze male characters well at all.
Breaking Bad isn’t about a good man becoming evil. It’s about the capability of evil that exist within everyone given the right motivation.
Nah it’s not evil just capability of greatness just happens for walter it was drug empire
Walt is a narcisisst. In his older days he was able to explore his narcissistic evil side which led to heisenberg
What’s the difference?
@@grumpyentity2029 it means that there was always evil inside Walt. He didnt become evil, he unlocked the evil that was already in there
@@alim.9801Yeah honestly you’re right.
When Walter runs off to New Hampshire, he thinks winning consists of dying before the police can catch him.
Then, after talking to Junior he realizes the only way he can truly win: by dying on top the world. Getting rid of all his enemies and people who try to live off his work. Forcing his family to take the money and being the most powerful man in a room with Gretchen and Elliott.
Killing Jack mid sentence, like he killed Hank.
Saving Jesse to prove he was right: He did care about him.
Finally facing his biggest lie to his family, that he did all that for himself.
Dying before he can see the inside of a jail cell, surrounded by his legacy.
That was the only way he could get the most definitive win. After fighting death and irrelevance, he was finally immortal.
That was beautifully put together man
“Men don’t change they just turn into more of who they already are.”
Ok Arthur Morgan
John Dean good catch my good sir
Love Arthur!! What a Legend!!
You just a little 🌲 big shadow
that's a pretty cynical outlook.
It’s so interesting that Mike, Jesse and Skyler, all of Walt’s biggest foils, were actually motivated by family and taking care of people. Walt, on the other hand, talked a big game, but was selfish and got in the way of their ability to do so. Brilliant.
"Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing."
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
"It can't all be for nothing"
Walter White, Breaking Bad
BB feels like crime and punishment on the universe of Godfather
Yeah, wasn't it to ensure financial stability for his family. Mafia mindset.
Here's something just as profound: I just shit in my pantaloons.
“The evil Walt became was like a terrible chemical reaction to the end: it could not be stopped. It just had to consume everything around it, until it burnt out on its own.” WOW👏👏👏
Ikr?! Underrated comment or quotation from the video.
I don't think anyone, who hasn't watched Breaking Bad, could watch this and not want to see the whole series.
so true!!
The delivery on, "I'm talking with Ted" kills me everytime
Always got me too lmao. I also always loved how right before that as he’s waiting in the lobby and thumbing through a magazine with this twisted smile on his face lmao
That was definitely Hal lol
It was Hal
@@rileys.9901 who is Hal?
@@kathleen2382 Malcolm in the middle
I think a great depiction of how Walt has always been the way he is is when we have the flashback of him and Skyler walking through their home when they were young. He wanted more, he wasn't satisfied with a house like this he had his eyes set on something bigger and Skyler's opinion didn't matter.
So true! Jesse even spotted that about his character, asking if the $700k he wanted would be enough. But I disagree on "Skyler's opinion." He had his say about the house, but *Skyler's was the only opinion that mattered.* They bought the house she demanded. The whole family staged an intervention as she commanded (and she had a meltdown when they disagreed with her). Their poor Kid got the [garishly girly] car she demanded (even against Hiesenburg). Walter got the chemo she demanded. Etc, etc.
And when she loses control of Walter, she starts an affair to feel powerful again (we know she doesn't have a sex drive).
All of it stems from Walt, Gretchen, and Elliot really, with Walt selling his share of Grey Matter for 5,000 dollars and the company turning into a multi million dollar business really ticked Walt off because he isn’t credited for its success Walt may say he cooks meth for his family but it’s really to feel powerful and to actually feel bigger
Brandon Cluff Skyler’s opinion clearly did matter or they wouldn’t have bought the house, genius.
Lilac Milkshake I feel you’re removing the context from a ton of those events to make Skyler out like she’s some tyrannical supervillain. She staged the intervention and broke down because it was her last effort to save Walt’s life. On one hand yeah it’s his choice, but from Skylers perspective the man she loves has just decided to die, leaving her alone with a son and a new baby to take care of all on her own, not even attempting to try and live. Walter Jr. also gets mad at Walt in that scene for the same reason, they love Walt and don’t want him to die if there’s a chance he could live.
They got that different car for Walter Jr. because they had to return the car Walter stupidly bought that would’ve ruined their cover story and raised suspicions. She did this knowing Walter Jr. would hate her for it, but also knowing it was the only way to sell their lie and keep Walt from getting caught.
She had sex with Ted as a power play, but keep in mind that she did that in response to Walt forcing his way back into their house and basically making Skyler captive with him in her own home. Not to mention she kicked him out in the first place to protect their family from his dangerous profession (meaning him living with them again endangered them) and he even manipulated Walter Jr. against her to get what he wanted. It was basically a last ditch effort to convince Walt to leave and it didn’t even work.
Notice how in two of these cases Skyler is just desperately trying to protect her family from the actions of a deluded narcissist who consistently puts them in danger. I think that’s a lot different from just being controlling for the sake of it.
@@jonathanjoestarwithpluck4930 Skyler is the most hypocritical character in Breaking Bad, and Skyler is an narcissist as much or even more than Walter, what are you talking about?
*He was never good. He was always Heisenberg even before marrying Skyler. His inferiority complex was the reason the whole Gretchen thing happened. All of his life, he's always suppressed it. The whole series was all about him letting the bad out -- letting Heisenberg out.*
It was him, Breaking bad...
@@theonewhodidit7591 I love this
Agreed
Bombing Tuco’s place: Heisenberg was born.
Letting Jane die: Heisenberg took complete control.
Hank death: Walter White died.
Edit: Jesus Loves you! ❤️
Crawl space scene is heisenberg taking control
@@Unholy187 yup. That maniacal laugh was when the transformation took place.
And the scene where the camera zooms out on Walt’s body during the crawl space is just like Heisenberg’s death.
@@Unholy187 no the crawl space scene was Heisenberg losing control
What if walter white was just walter white all along?
“Im not the street guy yo”
- Walter White
“Heisenburg” is just Walt’s true self. “Walter White” is the facade he’s put on for 50 years
Personally I can SOMEWHAT relate to the early changes in Walter White. Not so much the criminal part, but the cancer/ aggressiveness/ anger/ violence parts. At one point in the early 1990s after Desert Storm where I was seriously wounded, I suffered a very severe spinal injury on an poorly-planned parachute drop. My wounds from the Gulf weren't completely healed and it appeared I'd only be able to walk again -- maybe -- after several years. By that time, I'd worked my way from young Private with 2 years of college to Staff Sergeant, then thru Officer Candidate School, becoming a commissioned officer, and by 1992 was a superbly trained Infantry/ Combat Engineer/ Ranger and Special Forces Senior Officer with a Master's Degree. The Army was my life's work and my IDENTITY. Suddenly I was placed on the "Temporary Disability Retired List" with a poor outlook for ever returning to Active Duty. I was technically still in the Army, but realistically not. Needless to say I was angry, frustrated, and severely depressed. A year or so afterward I was diagnosed with Stage II Hodgkin's Lymphoma. At that point it was too much. I started drinking more and sometimes LOOKED for fights whenever I saw bullies or loudmouthed obnoxious people. Needless to say, no matter how tough those clowns acted, they were out of their league with me. And I LIKED IT. Like Walter White with his chemistry, I was proving to myself that I still "had it." Also, like Walter confronting the store bullies, I did it to protect others, especially those who couldn't effectively protect themselves, but also to vent my anger. And like Walter, who'd effectively lost his identity as a great chemist, I'd lost mine as a superb soldier and officer. Fortunately I never crossed into any type of criminal activity and the drinking hadn't gotten out of control (I quit completely well before it became a problem) but there are many aspects of Walter White I can understand and relate to. I can even understand -- as most of us with families can -- why he INITIALLY produced meth to provide for his family after his death. I suggest that AT FIRST it was a case for Walter of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. Then we see how it becomes a matter of greed and "power" as his morality is gradually eroded. Thank God I never got in that position, although professional combat leaders often find themselves in situations where we question the morality of what we're doing. We have to constantly monitor ourselves and our people for erosions of morality -- that's when bad things can happen. In my case, I was finally recalled to Active Duty from 2001-2004. Which helped me have some closure with my military career. I suggest many of us look inside ourselves and see if we share certain of Walter's traits as his character developed.
Memphis Mark this is a great story, deserves more likes
brilliant story man. this deserves more likes.
Thou i have great respect for you to be able to get yourself out of that state of mind and be able to articulate it so profoundly showing you understand the human condition more then most, i would consider that you see walter white in that way because it mirrors your own experience, connecting you to the story therby emotionally investing you ( something everyone does , music being a good example how 2 people can draw different interpretations from the same song ) because to me walter seems to be acting selfishly from the beginning because in a way he hasnt acted in his own intereest in years doing what needed to be done to support his family, he actually then acts agaisnt his family interest because making tons of money from cooking meth is not guarenteed. You can jusf as easily end up in jailing or getting killed by competition thereby hurting your family...
Just a thought thou
@@madmaxim3965 You missed the entire point.
@@MLA56 probably lol tbh i was thinking of something else at first but as i was typing i was still thinking about it and started to type it out
Breaking Bad is a genius TV show.
Your God damn right
Dude you need to binge watching BREAKING BAD again.
A define masterpiece
"All cowardice masquerades itself as virtue" - Nietszche
Kwakeka Mdivasi fuck Nietszche and all his words and works
"You think it's a good thing to not rape women? Wow your such a coward."
All these replies go to show how fundamentally misunderstood nietzsche was.
He's not saying that being virtuous is cowardice, but that virtue is an excuse for cowards to not act on their true desires.
@@piririn5052 Of course that's plausible, but it also can be false.
For example, let's say you want to have 1 million dollars when you retire, and you must invest 1000 bucks a month to do it. Your long term desire, is to attain wealth but your short term desire can be to have parties use drugs ,travel, etc. Is it cowardice to not indulge those short term desires in order to fulfill your long term desire?
I like Nietzsche, and I admit I've only been reading up on him recently, but that does not mean I can't interpret his words differently.
Dear (dead) god, unknown common people criticising Nietzsche. What have we become.
Essentially, "Power doesn't corrupt. It reveals."
I never made the connection that Walt's actions directly mimic that of an addict. The excuses and lack of responsibility for his actions until after a "detox" or in varied moments of clarity, the mental gymnastics it took for him to justify his actions, always chasing that first high, asking for "one last hit" every time he almost quit, the erratic behavior after particularly good highs/successes, obsession, illusions of grandeur, paranoia, a total disregard for how his chasing that high may affect others... Great video as usual!
Walter went from being Ned Flanders to Lex Luther
He actually really looks like Flanders now that I think of it.
It gets interesting when you break it down.
Ned and Walt are both:
- pushovers
- nice
- have a loving family
- ridiculed
- wear simple clothes
While Heisenberg and Lex are both:
- Intelligent
- Witty
- Manipulative
- Soulless
- Impulsive
- Murderess
- Friendless
- Have no family ties
- Where nice attire
"i did it for me" ..
this is the most powerful dialogue of the whole series
I remember talking to my mate who hated Skyler because she wasn't supportive of Walt but I was thinking, but Walt did not have to go down that path.
Actually the whole issue of Skyler being disliked for opposing Walt is discussed in our upcoming Skyler character study, stay tuned :)
Can't wait!
Yayyy, Can you do a video about "The Americans"?
ScreenPrism please don’t ever use the word actually it makes you sound like a rich snob btw the kid had a point, Walter had a lot of chances to asked for help let alone not asked for help but leave Skylar in debt bc it was one of the right things to do. #Walter white is evil.
Yes please, ScreenPrism! A video on The Americans would be great. My mum's already told me good things about the show, and a video essay by you would finally convince me to give the series a proper go.
Pls do character study of jesse pinkman and his future
Mannu Sharma I have this feeling that Jessie commits suicide in the end
"...then do it yourself.."
Me too
Aranyani Productions I hope you are wrong but the sad thing is he had nothing left
@@tobiaswalker7562 there is gonna be a movie about him :')
"the road to hell is paved with good intentions"
Summarizes the show perfectly
There's this book, 'No More Mr. Nice Guy' , and Walter White is the perfect example of one. The book however, points out that most nice guys aren't nice. They do things to further their own desires, not because they are genuinely nice.
No one is genuine. NO ONE.
That's not true, way I see it. No one's really appreciates when you're nice till they see you being. *Not nice* and then they think your previous kind behavior was fake.. when in fact you might just grow tired of people's shit and Walt took a lot of shit. I think he was tired. You could only be nice for so long.
If we could have a proper sit down i could explain the reasoning as to why i know it’s true and why i sounded aggressive, could take some time though.. i really go deep into these things.
Hamad B that whole no one is genuine thing is bull shit, that's the end.
you sure proved yourself shallow there mr. genuine
Vince Gilligan succeeded on his promise:
He turned Mr. Chips into Scarface.
True
@Tornike Tvalchrelidze no.he turned to mr Lambert a combination of walt's personality and heisenberg's
@Tornike Tvalchrelidze yeah okay
Except Scarface wouldn't hurt children.
You know what's ironic? Mr. Chips died as Scarface (in the crawl space episode) and Scarface died as Mr. Chips at the end of the show.
Another early sign of Heisenberg is when he's offered money for his cancer treatments but his pride and bitterness forces him to decline. After that it was no longer necessary to cook meth but a purely selfish choice. On the flip side by admitting his true reasons for cooking meth to Skylar and then rescuing Jesse, I think his long buried better nature did start to resurface towards the end.
I'd have a big ego too if the people who got successful from my research pretends I have nothing to do with the company. Even if Walter gave his rights to the company away, they were friends. I'm not saying that they're entitled to give Walter a few million dollars but out of moral respect they should have
@@aronphilip2782 let’s not overlook the fact that a grown man made a decision of selling his stocks consciously. Gretchen and her husband owed him nothing from business standpoint. So much so, they were kind and considerate and accepted his noodle gift with grace as opposed to his poor assumption that he’d be made fun of upon wrapping it in front of people. The show showed no evidence to support that Gretchen and Her husband were bad people. Them agreeing to pay for his treatment was exactly friends would do and that’s tbh enough. It’s just Walter didn’t have enough courage to look himself in the eye and forgive himself for making a poor choice which would have been a far more productive arc for him from a personal standpoint.
@@aronphilip2782yeah I have that too these days am trying to see the brighter side you know
Never watched Breaking Bad but after this critique I will.
Andrews2490, the same.
You're on fucking meth idiot Mooky Blaylock
waluigiwithachainsaw Cocaine is pretty overrated
@Mooky Blaylock Exactly. I was exactly at that point a year ago: Never watched it but after seeing the great scenes I will
The Problem is: There are too few good scenes. Too much frustrating waiting during boring scenes and Walt is absolutely horrible. Almost everyone is absolutely horrible.
I wouldn't recommend this series.
Stick with the good scenes you can find on RUclips, the series hardly adds on that but gives you dozens of hours of frustration instead.
Great analysis, I like the reference to crime and punishment a lot. I've noticed the similarity when I've watched BrBad for the first time. Looking forward to seeing Jimmy McGill vs Saul Goodman analysis!
it's funny how my experience watching breaking bad the first time was totally different from the second time. the first time, I felt a lot more empathy for walter, I thought he was really incredible and didn't think much about his responsibility for the tragedies that happened, I was like: these people around him are really unbearable and mean, he can't take it more. the second time i watched it, a few years later, my feeling for walter was one of anger, indignation. I was able to see how self-centered he is and that his bad side did not come during the show. this guy just managed to destroy the lives of everyone around him and, well, analyzing the other characters I also realized that they were not so unbearable, they were people with their mistakes and successes, qualities and defects, and the truth is that walter probably ALWAYS had an inferiority complex. that is the case: a therapy would have solved it.
I understand why you felt like that second time and its mainly because you already know whats gonna happen and it goes without saying you already know that.
The feeling of empathy towards walter comes down to the fact that we don't know how its gonna end. He is the protagonist in our minds and hackneyed storytelling has instilled in our minds that main guy's actions are reasonable and justified and it will end on a good note.(atleast thats how i felt)
Huge credit to Breaking Bad to break that stereotype and huge thanks to them for giving us such an incredible show and a character
@@sreeragp2082 This makes a lot of sense.
You , so easily say that people around him are not so unbearable... Big lol....so many people around him are much more worse and unbearable than Walt. You are in delusion, lady.
@@sreeragp2082 I watched it for the first time and I feel WW was a bad person all along. The whole charade began because he couldn’t forgive himself for the decision he consciously took with Grey Matters. I mean that dude is an adult and supposed to know better. He was on such a toxic power trip that he ruined Jesse and gave him PTSD, let Jane Die, tried killing Brock, lied to Skyler and disregard her mental health, etc etc. He couldn’t contain himself, he lacked control, he was obsessed. These are my thoughts in my first watch. My sympathies lies with Skyler, Flyn, Marie, Poor Jesse, and Brock.
This channel deserves to be so much bigger!
Walter White went from a non-reactive Nobel gas to a highly unstable Radioactove isotope. That was the transformation and chemistry metaphor.
At the beginning of the show Hank tells Walter come with him on a raid ''live a little''. At the end Walter says I did for me, I liked it, I was good at it, I was alive. It's not about good to evil, it was about going from an NPC to becoming an actual player character.
never enough breaking bad analysis’
Walt reminded me a lot of Light from Death Note. A man who was always in line with the law but suddenly has the power to change that. Also Kira is to Light as Heisenberg is to Walt.
The two of them, while given names of "purity" (light, white), really are evil, destructive hypocrites who only fell into darkness when they did because of when they had the means to do so. That evil was always there. And their empires, like Ozymandias (Ramses II) won't live on long after them except for an example of pride.
Yes! I have been thinking about this comparison with Light and Walter and their justification.
Stfu WEEB
@@wanderlustwarrior Oversimplifying it a bit, aren't you?
Stfu weeb don't compare breaking bad to some shit anime
I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't watch Breaking Bad until 3 months ago. I'm grateful I didn't know any spoilers. Such a powerful, raw game changing show. And seeing as how I just finished the finale last week, this analysis feels refreshing and accurate. Well done!
Great vid, one of the best characters ever written (and performed). A vid on Better Call Saul would be great!
Awesome analysis of an awesome character, great job!
ObviouslyASMR love your vids :)
Thanks :)
I think what’s interesting about the final two episodes is how Walt/Heisenberg’s acceptance of both sides of himself seems to unify both sides of his personality. The Heisenberg in him accepts that he’s lost and that he shouldn’t try and boost his ego further (and finds kindness and forgiveness to save Jesse) while the Walt side of him accepts he did it all for selfish reasons because he liked it and was good at it.
We all have 2 dogs inside of us 1 good 1 bad which one wins? The one you feed the most
B L ..Rabid.. Dog..
James Livingston ikr. Hard to take this metaphor seriously
B L its wolf not dog goddamnit
The Crypter it depends on who’s telling the quote dog for intelligent people wolf for dumbass people
B L
dOgs fOR InTElLigENt pEoPle and wOLf FoR dUmB
Kevin Spacey saying 'sex is power' creeps me out
Best dialogue delivery ever "I am the danger" ......that intensity in the eye ...wow!!!!
Chemistry is the study of change. So you could say his job is the center part of the narrative, both the reason he can become a drug dealer and the reason he becomes the type of man that is powerful in that business.
Because breaking bad is not the study of what's matter??, but the study of what is changing??
Great video. I never tough about how much more his job is essential to the history.
Vicente Ortega Rubilar that is deep
perfectly put!
perfectly put!
Yes that's nice and all but what the guys who made Breaking Bad were saying was
"Oh hey let's have a guy cooking meth"
"Yeah yeah and he has cancer!"
"You know what else? His step brother should be a cop"
Yada yada yada.
The claim that his job is the reason “he can be the type of man that is powerful in that business” lost me; unless you are simply saying he was familiar with meth production.
I don't know why everyone hates Skyler so much. She didn't exactly make great choices but what was she supposed to do? She was constantly faced with impossible decisions. Turn her husband in and ruin their kids lives or don't? that's tough. And everyone says she "tore the family apart" by keeping the kids with hank and Marie. But she was protecting them, plain and simple. From what she knew, Walt had killed multiple people and others were out to kill him. What else would a mother do but get her children as far from him as possible. And she offered to go to the police, but Walt threatened her. She may have not been the most lovable character but she was a complex one who ultimately was looking out for her families safety.
DylanK25 _ You’re completely right. People hate her character because she was well - in the way of Walt 99% of the time. She’s also a bit annoying, but even because of that, her character is completely reasonable and understandable.
Not once throughout the show does she even begin to try and understand the view point or position of anyone else. She is always right, and everyone who disagrees with her is always wrong. Anyone who does something that she considers bad is immediatly evil. She's the white in a perceived black and white world that doesn't exist, the world is grey, and she refuses to acknowledge it.
She is part of Walt's repressesion in the beginning in the show, she doesn't even allow him to choose whether to live or die. And when she finds out what he's done, she has a chance to try and bring him back, make him see reason. Make him understand that his actions aren't justified by his goal. But she doesn't even try, she only judges him.
She was also annoying.
I'll never understand people who like Walt but hate Skyler. She was just trying to protect her kids and people hated her for that. Sure she fucked up, but who wouldn't in that position?
@@Pierce1996h Same here, honestly both of them are unlikable by design. Both have redeeming qualities which are outweighed by horrible actions and behaviours, which is bloody interesting to watch
BEFORE HE COULDNT STAND UP FOR HIMSELF, NOW HE CANT STAND DOWN....
Damn that was so accurate
When walter used a crippled old man in a nursing home as a suicide bomber, his journey to the Dark Side was complete :)
@@sitdowndogbreath True but doing monstrous things to a monster doesn't nake them any less monstrous.
i think that crippled old man i dont remember his name had given his consent for this bomb. walt had come and talked tohim about his plan of killing fring.
@@Nitrogang You would have to be pretty monstrous to grant such a wish. Also this wasn't the old man's idea, it was Walter's.
The old man wanted to do that. He was cool with that plan
Pretty sure the detonator to the bomb was attached to his bell also... And that's why he taps it so frantically. I would think hed do it to tell walt to blow it but we dont see him with a detonator so yeah....
He was always Heisenberg, he was just hiding his true self.
No he wasn't, littlefinger always hid his true self, walt was pushed to becoming heisenberg.
@Aphirak Tumoon facepalm, that's not ego, that's just ambition and optimism. You saw his evil develop over the course of the show, not from the beginning
@Aphirak Tumoon facepalm
@Rory kay yeah...that's correct, but what is the point of telling me that? Did I indicate that I disagree with that?
To qoute Angel from Buffy in the Angel Episode destiny when he and Spike fight I didn't make you Spike I just opened up the door and let the real you out. That's how I felt about Walt that Heisenberg was always deep down in him somewhere
Bombing Tuco’s lair - the birth of Heisenberg
Letting Jane die - Heisenberg begins to consume him
The crawl space - the death of Walter White
Bombing the nursing home - the validation of Heisenberg’s existence
Hank’s death/Skylar and Junior turning on him - the fall of Heisenberg
Felina - Heisenberg and Walter White have become one
Original comment
I absolutely love the chemical reaction metaphor you refer to explain Walt's transformation. A chemical reaction does indeed begin with stored chemical 'potential' energy in chemical bonds, which indeed is released (converted to) heat in many reactions.
When a good man is pushed beyond his limits, beyond his tolerance for abuse, then yes, he will become evil.
Star: Questions you first have to ask is was he ever really a "good man"? If someone ONLY follows rules o society in order to "fit in", is this a "good man"? It's like people who ONLY treat others well because they fear that, accoring to thieir religion, they might go to hell instead of heaven. If those are the ONLY reasons that you treat your fellow humans well, are you really a "good person"? sounds more like yo'u're only "decent" because you feel that a gun is being held against your head.
@@arx754 He always had a very bad personality, because he was so vain, arrogant and spiteful. But he would not have been an evil person if he hadn't started working with such dangerous people. The things he later did he would not have done in the beginning, which you can see in the first season, for example. the last Krazy 8 scene
Actually he just dies. You aren't pushed to be evil. You just are
@@gnuling296 : Read something years ago that makes sense and that I believe. "Circumstances don't make you a bad person; they just REVEAL what you've always been". How many people out there only do the "right thing" because they're afraid of getting caught (OR, if you're the religious type, you're afraid of "hell")? However, it IS possible to do the "right thing" just because it's the "right thing to do". It depends on how much "self-respect" a person wants to have.
Another saying I like very much is: "Integrity is what you do when no one's looking". It might sound really corny, but respecting MYSELF has always been the most important thing for me.
lmao u pretty much ignored the whole vid and posted ur own opinion ?? god ure lame no one asked
"No one cared who I was til I put on the hat"
Absolutely genius video. Truly insightful. Now to binge for the third time.
I also believe it could be argued that Breaking Bad follows the formula of William Shakespeare's great play "Macbeth." Both characters appear to be good men, men who are living their lives according to the codes of their generations. Yet, both secretly crave power, respect, and glory. And although both men do receive these (Walter White from his wife, friends, and students who love him, Macbeth with King Duncan, Banquo, Macduff, and the Princes) they still feel that they do not have what they desire. When a prophetic image is shown to them (Walt with the drug bust by Hank and Macbeth being visited by the Strange Sisters) they find that through murder they can rise to power. This then leads both men to become truly monstrous, willing to do anything to get to the top.
Jesse=Banquo, Gus=Duncan, Jack and his Aryan Brotherhood crew=Macduff and bush-covered English.
@@childeharoldskillgrimage2652 Except Jesse lives while Banquo is successfully assassinated
"Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love."
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
very good character study on Walter White love ya ScreenPrism
Thanks for doing a great video on one of the best series ever made. Watching this story and gradual change of character was outstanding and beyond memorable. I regard Breaking Bad as a flawless series because of its perfect character development and tight pacing.
Don't forget the amazingly tight scripting, gorgeous filmmaking, and unparallelled acting by pretty much the entire cast. There may have been unlikable characters, but not one bit of bad acting in that series.
I think RJ Mitte as Walt Jr and Steven Michael Quezada as Steve Gomez were mediocre performances, but other than that I agree.
Like the joker said, "Sanity is like gravity, all it takes is a little push".
"All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy."
"No, no, you listen to me. Its time for YOU to listen to ME" lmao he says that line so perfectly
Please do the show, "Avatar: The Last Airbender"! The writing in it is superb. I'd love to see an analysis of it from this channel, you guys are awesome!
I don't think he means the movie
I’m glad I watched this in 2019 when everything’s already uploaded and I don’t have to wait for the next season to come out. Hate waiting
Same I finished it today after I watched el camino
That was phenomenal. I actually watched Breaking Bad again recently, it’s amazing that after 5 years, I still find new things out about the show. I never thought that White was never good, he just never acted on what he really wanted, so that’s why he was perceived as a nice guy. That was great.
Could you please do a similar analysis on Vikings character Ragnar? Because although he has his rise to power and ranges from charming and noble to manipulative and brutal, he always did what he wanted, unlike White. He wasn’t a pushover, his friends and family respected him, he exerted his dominance sexually, verbally and violently, and through action only rose further and further until his inevitable downfall. So if you could please do something on him, that’d be great.
Both characters had epic and fitting deaths. I agree a Ragnar analysis would be cool.
In the end, he was not mistaken, delusional, or lying to himself about his power. The completed and final Walter WAS the one with the power. He DID give his millions to his kids. The family did not get hurt
Walter White at season1 ep1 however, was not powerful. He was passive and people close to him even made fun of him (Hank) for it. But Walter was very likeable. And his first lie about Jesse selling him pot worked well and was even funny. His lies and manipulations work very well... Make no mistake... Walter White is the brilliant genius chemist. NOT Heisenberg. Walt got them out of the desert when the RV battery dies (remember the teaching segment to Jesse?) Walt saves Heisenberg and Jesse a couple times... Walter even came up with the plan to sell meth to solve his money problem. Everything changed when it was Walter who killed Crazy 8. It fucked him up, disturbed him emotionally, etc. This causes a rift... Out steps the long suppressed Heisenberg to do Walts future dirty work without the emotional consequences that Walt suffered from taking another mans life.... Walt didnt even like having power. He always tried to leave the meth business. Heisenberg wouldn't have it.. And being a man of action and Walt being passive, Heisenberg slowly started taking over tasks out of necessary survival... Later of course what is deemed necessary survival shifts focus to necessary to build the business... To become Heisenberg... So H became the business man and decision maker... But, Walter was the genius planner.
But Walt still had NO power nor did we like exercising it.... So Heisenberg was the executor of Walt's genius plans... But Walt gradually slipped away leaving the planning to Heisenberg.
But as Heisenberg came out and Walter slipped away, we didn't like him much, his lies were downright laughable and didn't work. He did awful things and it was hard to like him.. or we might even downright hate him. He is AWFUL to Jesse. At times, Heisenberg can even be cringey when being so egotistical he thought his power extended over women (raping skylar).
Then Walt disappears and its just Heisenberg. Miserable, no power but was in denial... Thinking he was a puppet master (Uncle Jack ultimately had the power... Proving it when killing Hank and stealing his money).
But when Heisenberg saw it was Hank there to bust him out in T'Hajilee, Walt came back full force and suppressed Heisenberg and turned himself over to Hank instead of another dark and sloppy Heisenberg power play. We start liking him again... And Walt, not Heisenberg executed that plan. Walt started to take action finally.
Out in Vermont, (a classic religious theme of going into the wilderness to meditate), Walt learned how to Integrate Heisenberg into Walter White... So they both merged instead of being separate, forming a complete personality with the two active at the same time. Notice how calm, resolute, honest, emotional, but above all else, powerful he was after this completion of his evolution? His manipulations were very brilliant, the innocent were not in danger, and his plan executed flawlessly. Accomplished ALL goals flawlessly. This is Classic Carl Jung. He used his, this time, very real power for justice and repetence (righteous concepts) and still got his money to his kids... Proving he was not lying to himself or anyone else about that... The money was there's. Not his. And we all loved him again... And the true legend of Heisenberg is born. Even though its Walter White that is now a badass.
Moral of the story: if you suppress your darker side, your fighting side, your action side... the part of you that you access when you need to get yourself out of a jam, it will eventually break out and wreak havoc all over everything and everyone you love.
If you only employ your passive good side, you will be stomped on, squelched, mediocre, taken advantage of, possibly abused, and never grow to your full potential, but you will have your family that has always loved you in the end.
If you suppress your good side, no one will like you or even talk to you, you end up alone, sad, anxious, angry, vengeful, with no peace ever. You end up twisted and miserable and defeated... With NOTHING LEFT.
If you use both in a balanced and necessary way, you become a very formidable fucking force of nature. There is no ONE correct way to be all the time. If you live on Earth, you need to get a little Heisenberg-y on someone's ass from time to time. But you also need to chill the fuck out, relax, and think things through and recount your blessings or you won't make it to the next day and will lose everything.
Brilliant. Absolutely well done. So many layers. A great study of how an event or trauma can trigger personality disorder and change someone into someone else. Too cool. Walt in realty always had the potential for real power but didn't like it, Heisenberg had the illusion that he had real power (but did not), because he had the balls to do what he thought needed to happen to accomplish a goal. In the end, we see a Walter White with giant balls of powered badassery and maybe even a hint of honor.
Walter White is Heisenberg. Heisenberg is Walter White. You're talking like it's two different people when it's not. They didn't somehow "merge," they were always the same.
@@phoenixslythe6808 yeah because personality disorder isn't a thing
Walt doesn't have fucking schizophrenia
Cam qa
Blah blah blah,, I'm the one who knocks.
I see Breaking Bad’s evolution of Walter White as an everyday man who never questioned his surroundings, life or himself. Once he started to ask the questions and act on them, he realized how different he really was.
Such a brilliant character analysis, love this channel so much
At no point did Walter White's alter-ego Heisenberg seem powerful to me.
He always was nothing more than a thwarted, resentment-driven loser.
Thank you! Yes! That's how I always felt about him. When he killed Mike, I thought, "What an insult to an intelligent criminal who's so stable and careful, to be killed by a hack-criminal *loser* who had another temper tantrum."
Natasel agreed
I disagree. He was resentful yes, but he channeled that resentment into a successful drug empire, eliminating all rivals, even the formidable Gus Fring. He is far from a loser.
I mean yea, its what you think. I think it's like the image of Hitler you know? In the end, no matter what we thinks, the truth is that ppl like them are still seen as powerful figures.
@@leonrobinson8180 Gusto Fridge
He represents the hidden fantasy of many average people: Becoming someone with power, a name to be recon. I don't think that "good" or "bad" terms apply here. It is just human nature.
I don't like this split personality business - it's one personality throughout the show, manifesting different behaviours
Well said. There is no split personality. He's hiding certain behaviors that would get him in trouble, and manifesting those that would benefit him socially. It's just practicality.
I Am A Shadow, The True Self.
Barack Hussein O'Toole in reality he always was Heisenberg, he was simply hiding his true self, afraid of the consequences, afraid of the power, but when he was diagnosed with cancer he just thought, fuck it and he went from some pushover overqualified science teacher, to a legendary drug dealer
It's a story of a 'nice' guy retaining his dark side that ultimately has to surface the way or another, just like with Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. People with issues with prolonged repressed anger know this all too well.
I suppose what you might call a ‘split personality’ is simply the most comprehensible way of expressing a stark dichotomy in one’s personality. Of course, it cannot be taken 100% literally, but compartmentalisation via Walt/Heisenberg gets the crux of the issue here across nicely: conflicting psychological drives will eventually show themselves should the environment be conducive to it ... and one will eventually win out.
Walter summed it all up with one of his last sentences in the final episode. When Skyler says "If you tell me you did this for the family one more time" He cuts her off and admits "I did it for me, the truth is I enjoyed it"
6:45 - Holy crap! Didn't think of this metaphor!
Yes! Finally a video about one of the best characters ever!
Superb analysis, hope there will be similar videos on other major characters from BB and perhaps BCS too. Your vids are always a guaranteed 10-15 mins well spent. Thanks again :)
I love this idea that the character's moral philosophy transitions from good to evil because he changed from inactive to active. It seems analogous to the ACTUAL Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in that we cannot definitively measure, or predict, the change in momentum of an object. It's just like Walt's transition to and from Heisenberg!
God damn, what an amazing show...