Much like Michael Corleone, Walt does what he must in order to survive and protect his family.
To those who condemn Walt and Michael, what would you have done in exactly the same circumstances?
He appeared careless regarding a kid who died. Otherwise, he was a sweet man difficult to hate.
shareWhat's also very similar about the two is they both have bitches for wives.
shareseemed like the hero to me!
shareCause he is a criminal and killed people, troll
shareWalt does what he must in order to survive and protect his family.
To those who condemn Walt and Michael, what would you have done in exactly the same circumstances?
Have you tried reading this?
https://moviechat.org/tt0903747/Breaking-Bad/5fe9652da9e2c1725b6cb338/Why-do-people-consider-Walt-a-villain
Yes. Why?
shareIt's a thread which asks the same question, and has numerous posts from different people explaining what they would do instead.
shareIt’s this thread dude 🤦🏻♂️
shareHave you read it? It contains numerous explanations of what people would do instead of what Walt did.
shareWell no because they change his circumstances to fit their preferred choices, so those ‘explanations’ aren’t valid.
shareNothing changed. Those were the explicit circumstances as clearly stated in the series.
shareWrong. In every case the people casting negative moral judgements on Walt have avoided putting themselves in the exact same circumstances. In every case they’ve shifted the goal posts and thereby proven themselves to be worthless hypocrites masturbating over their self-attributed but non-existent moral superiority.
shareThey have put themselves in those circumstances and every time opted to get a job with Grey matter. This answers your original question.
shareOK but that doesn’t fulfil Walt’s objective - which is to provide a nest egg for his family.
Given that they would take the low risk option and leave their families with a pittance instead of a fortune, they’re not in a position to moralise and pass judgment on Walt - they’re at least equally morally dubious.
>OK but that doesn’t fulfil Walt’s objective - which is to provide a nest egg for his family.
You've obviously got no idea what sort of monies are being involved in this situation.
Scrolling up a bit you quoted $30k for a few months so that's $10k per month? $120k per year? I guarantee that's more than what Walt's getting for his teaching job. Probably double. The series takes over 2 years so that's $240k. Before income tax ? You don't say, but Walt's benefits would include medial treatment as an added bonus because Elliot explicitly says so, and Walt's expenses suddenly plummet.
Yet you claim that this is a pittance. Why would Elliot think Walt would want to join when offering such a low salary? Walt could accept a job with a rival company for a higher wage. $150k would not be unreasonable. But oh dear, you saw Elliot's birthday party and the enormous mansion he lives in. Elliot owes his success to Walt's help during their Uni days and Grey Matter is now worth a fortune. $200k per year would not be unrealistic in
those circumstances. I've met people from San Fransisco on similar wages yet the costs of living there soaks up almost their entire monthly pay pack. Alberquerque will be much cheaper. Walt may not earn enough to cover his own personal target he met but he would have taught his kids that studying hard at college will earn you big bucks on the long run.
Still not convinced? What other company benefits are normal these days that Walt could get?
If Elliot can pay himself $200k pear year (unrealisticly low, considering his circle of friends can afford to give him an effing Stratocaster as a present) then how much post-tax profit is Grey matter making every year? More than $1m if they can afford to take Walt on at a similar wage, but to give you an idea what's possible, let's stick with that.
Clapton's stratocaster:
https://www.insidehook.com/daily_brief/music/eric-clapton-guitar-auction
Elliot could fund Walt's *entire* nest egg by auctioning off *one* birthday present.
I don't think it was one of Eric's personal guitars :) but rather one of his guitar lines
https://shop.fender.com/en-US/electric-guitars/stratocaster/eric-clapton-stratocaster/0117602806.html
Chuck in a proper case for $500 and it's still a heavy whack of money.
The dialogue makes it seem like it's supposed to be Eric's:
ELLIOT: Oh, wow, it's a Stratocaster.
PARTY BRO: No, no. Not just any strat. That's one of Clapton's.
ELLIOT: No way. (reading) To Elliot, sorry about the buckle rash, Eric Clapton.
I mean, to be fair, it's probably not the heavy-in-use type of "historically famous" guitar that he used on a bunch of recordings and would move for $1 million, but the party bro seems to imply it was used by Clapton, as does the "buckle rash" signature.
What about company schemes? This is where things get really spicy.
Is Grey listed on the exchange? No idea. Grey Matter was founded some 15 years ago. Company is worth $15m. Shares are worth $10 each so that's 150,000 shares listed. Walt uses the company's share scheme to buy as many shares as possible from his earnings. He's already earning *4 (again, artificially low) what he get's as a teacher. At a minimum he invests $120k in the company.
Grey matter grows %10 pcm, the share price rises as such. Walt dies, Walt jnr. inherits them, graduates from college in 5 years time. 5 years at %10 compound growth and the shares are worth $200k. Very nice.
Maybe Grey Matter isn't listed on the market. Walt could ask for a stake in the company instead. 2% is a paltry amount for 2 years work. That means Walt is entitled to 2% of all company profits, again at a meagre $1m earnings per year that's $20,000.
What happen's when Walt dies? His kids inherit his stake.
So his kids get $20,000 per year. For doing nothing. Even though Walt is dead. For as long as Grey matter exists. Ker-ching!
But yeah, chemistry teachers abandoning their jobs and going into making class A drugs for huge profits happens so often it's not even in the news any more.
Walt chose to become a criminal and murderer. End of story. Also he ruined countless innocent lives along the way. Its ok to like the character, i do too, but hes a criminal
shareWhat would you have done in exactly the same circumstances?
shareNot been a murderer and criminal, presumably.
shareWhat would you have done instead, given the exact same circumstances?
shareWe've had this "conversation" before and I found it impossible. I'm not doing it again. Just re-read the last one. I just wanted to be cheeky with my last comment.
shareMore dodging.
Again, what would you have done instead, given the exact same circumstances?
Okay, but this is it:
Given the exact same circumstances, I'd have taken the Grey Matter job and supported my family and provided for them with that kush job working with an old friend on making the world a better place with my gifts instead of spreading mayhem and misery with the same.
That's what I would have done.
Alright, but given the time constraints of the cancer, how would you earn enough to leave a nest egg for your family and fund your treatment?
shareElliot makes it clear in his offer that he is doing it to help Walt. I would be confident that Elliot and Gretchen would help until my family were back on their feet, a place they would no doubt get to as Skyler can work as an accountant, Walt Jr. could get a part-time job, and Hank and Marie would also be part of a good support network.
shareOK your solution is for your wife (who’s raising a baby) and kid (who’s in school) to get jobs and earn their own living. Walt wanted to leave them enough money so they don’t have to struggle like that, and he needs to pay for his treatment.
The pay from Elliot’s job wouldn’t be enough, especially considering Walt will imminently be unable to work or dead from cancer.
You are the one saying it would be inadequate, not me. Elliot makes it clear he will help Walt with everything, and I think that generosity would be more than adequate to get them by for a long time.
Yeah, Skyler would have to get a job after a couple years. But the additional benefits include that I wouldn't be responsible (directly or indirectly) for enough violence and mayhem to rip my family apart and make them spit on my grave. Walt caused carnage on an international level.
A job at Grey matter for a few months might earn Walt a maximum of $30,000 if Elliot was feeling extremely generous. That might cover Walt’s treatment but it’s not going to make a dent in mortgage payments or fund Skylar, Walt Jr and the baby for anything beyond some pocket money.
If you’re of the mind that you’d rather provide a pittance for your family and leave them to fend for themselves, but avoid the risks of making and dealing drugs, then I can appreciate that but it’s no less morally dubious.
I've explained this elsewhere.
And Walt broke his family with his actions. So, from what I can tell, if the options are "provide my family with a small amount of money" or "leave my family well-off but psychologically and emotionally demolished," then I know which one I think is better. Heck, one is "not good, but okay," and the other is "evil", so yeah.
Well that’s a false dichotomy because there was no guarantee that dealing drugs would leave his family ‘psychologically and emotionally demolished’, there was a risk that drug dealing could have dark outcomes for Walt’s family but he can’t predict the future.
The choice Walt has was to either provide his family a pittance, or provide them a fortune but potentially incur the risks that come with drug dealing. If you would have chosen the former, fine, but it is no less morally dubious.
No, that wasn't the choice.
You said, "What would you have done in exactly the same circumstances?"
That does NOT put the dichotomy between "provide his family a pittance" and or "provide them a fortune".
Most people attempting to enter meth dealing in their fifth decade wouldn't produce the affluence Walt did, either.
So, if the choice is between, "Take a well-paid job (plus benefits) with my friend making a big difference through research and patents doing what I love," and "Become a drug dealer," I know what I'd pick.
And I know which one is more morally-upright.
It was the choice. Walt knew how to make extreme high quality meth, so the pathway to riches was clear, though it involved obvious risks.
It was that or take the job and leave a pittance.
You would choose to leave your family a pittance, fine, but it leaves you in no position to moralise.
It's the choice you said up there. I'm quoting you: "What would you have done in exactly the same circumstances?" Exactly does not imply pittance (Elliot all but says, "I'll give you big bucks to take your troubles away, buddy.").
Certain risks? To make the money Walt required he would be all but guaranteed to run afoul of the gangsters like Tuco who would wage war.
To sum up: by the show's blueprint, "pittance vs. drug dealer" is not accurate. Leaving my family in good shape without causing havoc or engaging with drug cartels puts me in a great position to moralize.
I'm done now.
This is why I said earlier that I didn't want to re-hash this conversation with you. If you want to talk more, go ahead, but I'm done now.
No, you’re lying. The job would earn Walt $30,000 max - a pittance.
The drug dealing carries risks - it’s possible Walt could have remained hidden in the shadows with Jessie handling the dealing, until Walt dies. It didn’t go that way, such are the risks, but the reward is a fortune to pass onto your family.
You’re in no position whatsoever to moralise because you’d choose to leave your family a pittance. The only person buying into your unwarranted sense of moral superiority is you, remember that.
OP, did you even pay attention when watching the show. Go back and watch the very last episode, when Walt finally admits the truth to Skyler, that he did it all for himself because he liked it, NOT to survive and protect his family. Walt might have "initially" started out with "noble" intentions, the good guy, but he ended up "Breaking Bad", thus the title of the show
shareThe last season was a poorly written mess, I’m basing my position on how Walt behaved when he made these moral choices.
shareWalt clearly had options. He was offered a job with Grey matter that would have given him more money, great health insurance and the people who would have allowed him to work around his cancer treatments and illness.
He never even considered the offer out of pride. This was not just about money or providing for his family.
How do you know this job would pay for his cancer treatment and allow him to leave a nest egg for his family given his impending death?
shareElliot makes it super-clear that this is the intended effect of the job.
shareThe job would have to pay Walt in the region of a million dollars in a matter of months to reach that goal, not plausible.
shareBreaking Bad takes place over two years: https://breakingbad.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline
Elliot makes it clear he was offering Walt the job specifically to take care of the cancer problem. The implication is that 100% of the bills would be gone, making Walt's $737,000 target number a LOT lower. I think the treatment was $170,000? That's a new goal of $567,000. $283,500 per year is still a huge amount, but what would Elliot pay Walt?
Elliot was offering Walt a top-job at a mega-corporation with huge prestige and massive resources. A friend gave Elliot a Clapton Strat for his birthday. Those suckers have fetched ~1-2 million dollars. This is a different kind of wealth.
It wouldn't surprise me if Walt's salary was, in fact, in the 2-250,000/ year range, maybe more with bonuses.
At the end of it all, if Walt was shy his target goal, I'm betting that Gretchen and Elliot would have made up the difference. If they didn't, Skyler and the kids had a great support network with Hank and Marie (Hank was an up-and-comer in the DEA), plus Skyler is an accountant.
My family would be doing okay. They wouldn't be rolling in money. Junior might need to get a part-time job to help get him through college. It'd be a normal existence.
But it'd be a lot better than my acting in a manner that shattered that family to dust. Take Walt Jr. *alone*. Do you know what a broken relationship with a father does to a son? Oh, and don't forget that he also hates and resents his mother by the end of it all, too. So, the kid has two pulverized relationships with his parents. The other role model he looked up to (Hank) is dead, too. He has Marie, I guess, but she's so neurotic and would start to see more "Walt" in Flynn by the minute. So, Flynn's f***d.
I'd leave my family in a good financial position, grieving but on the healing path.
What's the alternative? Cook meth, ruin the whole family, break dozens of other relationships, and directly and indirectly cause death and carnage on literally an international scale. No.
Again, you’re failing to put yourself in Walt’s shoes - he doesn’t know when the cancer will kill him, or debilitate him to the point of incapacitation. He must operate on the assumption that he has months left to make his fortune at most. You’re pretending that his ‘two years’ was somehow assured, it certainly wasn’t.
Given that, the job at Grey Matter won’t earn him enough.
If he wants to be assured of making a fortune quickly then he must go the drug route. Yes, it brings additional risks, but you’re also pretending the negative outcomes were somehow guaranteed, they’re not. Walt could just as easily have stayed in the shadows and earned his fortune while Jessie handled the dealing.
Fair enough if you’d rather go with the low risk option and leave your family a pittance, but it means you certainly don’t warrant your self-appointed moral superiority, not at all.
Whether Walt is a villain or not depends on your own morals, and where you draw those lines. Most people would say his actions push him into villain territory. I would say he chose a profession (meth manufacturer) that shouldn't have been illegal, and he only killed others in that line of work that threatened him. Could argue that the people Walt killed knew what they were getting into when they undertook that profession, maneuvered into a position to directly threaten Walt, his colleagues, or his family, so Walt killing them wasn't amoral. Yes, he poisoned Brock, who was truly an innocent, but he had no other choice and Brock fully recovered.
I’m somewhat agnostic on Walt’s morality, much like Michael Corleone or Indiana Jones he appears to do what is essential to survive and protect those he loves, and doesn’t launch unprovoked attacks on others. My issue is with those who judge Walt as immoral yet cannot explain what they would do differently in the exact same circumstances.
shareI'd argue back that whether or not the profession should be immoral, Walt knew the risks and dangers of the profession himself, and so he was never "forced" into murdering people to uphold his illegal business. He chose the business. If they are fools for choosing that line of work and that "got them killed", then Walt chose the business as well, and his killing is still immoral.
But moreso, I would argue that the absolute havoc he brought down on the lives of people he knew, that was where some of his biggest problems come in. He broke his family, perhaps with hope in their future for recovery, but perhaps irreparably. He got Hank murdered. He lets Jane die. Poisoning Brock might have been "necessary" from Walt's perspective, but as you say, Brock was innocent. Walt dragged him into that.
Breaking Bad does give us a great world of grey morality and difficult decisions, and I do relate to a lot of the characters in a lot of ways, but I'm in the camp who definitely thinks Walt crossed too many lines and went evil at some point. He's a bit of a narcissist, by the end of it he's acting almost completely selfishly, and he is (almost) unrepentant for his actions.
"If they are fools for choosing that line of work and that "got them killed", then Walt chose the business as well, and his killing is still immoral."
I don't follow that logic. Everyone is a willing participant in that underworld
"He got Hank murdered."
How so? Walt didn't do anything directly to cause Hank's death, and multiple times Walt tried to save him. He told Jack to call it off when he saw Hank and Gomez was with Jesse in the desert, and when Jack ignored him and showed up anyway, Walt was willing to give away all of his millions to save Hank's life. That is evidence that even at this late stage in the game, Walt has a moral code.
My logic is this: your statement was, "...the people Walt killed knew what they were getting into when they undertook that profession..." So, if that's true (one has signed one's own death warrant by participating in the business/ should know better), then it must be equally true for Walt. ie, since he willingly entered a world of crime, violence, immorality, and death, then he should not be absolved for any actions that follow in consequence. He chose that world, therefore he chose to become immoral and criminal.
I would never argue Walt didn't have a moral code, but I would argue that it's (a) f---ed up, and (b) pretty lousy by the end, even if it has retained a couple decent features. His actions did directly lead to Hank's death, but even setting that aside though (assuming we absolve Walt of guilt there - and you do have a good point where he tried to buy Hank's life), Walt still drove several wedges into his family and annihilated their happiness to fuel his own ego-binge. He hurt people, murdered others, ruined lives - he was responsible for a lot of pain and suffering, and he should not be absolved of his actions.
At the very end - the very, very end - he did try to right as many wrongs as he could, but that proves the point more: I believe that even Walt knew he had become something awful.
Always check to make sure the poster clearly states what they would do in the exact same circumstances as Walt - this is what those who judge Walt as immoral constantly try to evade.
shareGood, so given the exact same circumstances, I'd pick Grey Matter and giving my family a safe, love-filled, comfortable life instead of tearing up lives all over the place and ruining my family's emotional and psychological well-being, possibly forever.
shareWell that doesn’t work because factoring in Walt’s impending death from cancer he wouldn’t be able to earn enough money to fund his treatment and provide a nest egg for his family.
shareWe disagree on that point. Factoring in Grey Matter's abundance and Elliot and Gretchen's generosity, I don't come to the same conclusion as your assumption.
shareAssuming they gave him a very well paid white collar job in a tech company he would make maximum $30,000 in a few months (a very generous guess), that won’t make a dent in Skylar’s mortgage and bills.
By cooking high grade meth he stands to make millions, and truly provide a nest egg for his family.
If you choose to leave your family a pittance, fine, but it means you certainly can’t take the moral high ground that you seem to have granted yourself.
"Well that doesn’t work because factoring in Walt’s impending death from cancer he wouldn’t be able to earn enough money to fund his treatment and provide a nest egg for his family."
So? If he can't "earn enough money to fund his treatment and provide a nest egg for his family" in a non-villainous way, then that's his problem. A villainous path doesn't magically become non-villainous simply because you can't think of a different way to get what you want. If you don't want to be a villain, then you have to avoid villainous behavior, obviously, and in some case that might mean that you can't get what you want.
Also, Walt was 50 years old and had been working as a high school teacher for a long time; he should have already had a life insurance policy for decades at that point in time. One that pays his nest egg goal amount, or even substantially more than that amount, isn't all that expensive, something like $50 a month.
As you originally stated,' do what he must to protect his family' the path Walter took resulted in Jessy attempting to burn down his house. Also:
Having to kill rival suppliers to protect his own life, and risk being busted by the DEA which would have resulted in him losing _everything_.
Getting a job in Grey Matter would have none of these risks.
You're right. If he was trying to protect his family and care for them, he did a terrible job.
I think the only explanation is that, either Walt failed, or that Walt really cared mostly about Walt by the end - which he, of course, says in the finale.
You're pretending that those negative outcomes were guaranteed, they weren’t. Cooking meth brought risks but also good odds of making a quick fortune.
A job at Grey matter carried fewer risks but low odds Walt would be able to earn enough money to provide a nest egg for his family before the cancer killed or incapacitated him.
If you’d rather take no risks and most likely leave your family a pittance that’s fine, but no less morally dubious.
A man always provides for his family, even when he's not appreciated.
share