Pronin 1

Michael Pronin
Professor Bedell
CAS 137H
Passion Blog 1: Walter White
Vince Gilligan told us his plans from the start, he wanted to turn Walt
from Mr. Chips to Scarface. Walter White is one of the best characters to
ever hit T.V., and his complexity and moral ambiguity drove the show to the
wild success it had.
Walt starts out as an unappreciated man in virtually every aspect of
life. He wasnt respected by his students, his employer at the car wash, and
even his family. It was more than evident that he doesnt wear the pants in
the family after the first breakfast scene in the pilot, where his wife, Skyler,
decided what he ate and had the dominant demeanor. Moreover, Skyler was
less than interested in their sex life, which was manifested through an
awkward scene in which she surfed the web while being intimate with Walt.
Even Walts look reeked of mediocrity and was exceptionally unexceptional.
Brian Cranston has noted that he intended the mustache to look impotent
and resemble a dead caterpillar. It comes as no surprise that when Walt
finds out he has cancer that nothing really seems to change on the outside.
He was already dying on the inside, and it was only appropriate that real life
followed suit.

Pronin 2

To fully understand Walts transformation, it is key to fast forward a bit

to when we are introduced to Elliot and Gretchen Schwartz, who are the
owners of Grey Matter Technologies, a company that Walt helped found. It is
revealed very late in the show that Walt sold out his part in the company for
$5,000 and the company ended up being worth $2.16 billion dollars. This led
to an emptiness that one can only feel if they gave up a once in a lifetime
opportunity. He had the chance to be at the top of his field, but ended up
teaching chemistry to a bunch of ungrateful high school kids. This anguish
was never more present than when he was talking to guests at Elliots party.
When told that Walt was teaching, one of Elliots guests asked at which
university. The look in Walts eyes said it all.
So the stage was set. Walt was depressed, emasculated, humiliated,
underappreciated, angry, and dying. The next logical step was obviously
jumping into the tumultuous life of meth dealing. Sarcasm aside, it isnt hard
to understand why. His justification was that he wanted to leave money for
his family, and I dont doubt that was a big reason, but its clear that there
was much more to the decision. Walt needed something in his life that would
fill all of his voids (there were a lot). He needed to feel like a provider,
leader, rebel, and, most importantly, a man. After all, he was in the empire
business. It wasnt about profit, it was about no longer being that pitiful
man that we met in the pilot. He didnt want to be Mr. Chips.
Its undeniable that the show was driven by Walts moral ambiguity.
Its the dark side that most are too afraid to embrace, of course for good

Pronin 3

reason, but we all have that voice in our heads. The rest of Walts character
development is one giant slippery slope. Most wouldnt have been on Walts
side if we would have went straight to that final scene in which he
mercilessly murdered all those people at the house simply for revenge, but,
somehow, it was much easier to stomach the initial two murders that Jesse
and Walt perpetrated. Perhaps it had something to do with his caution filled
approach, or the tears that accompanied the murder of Krazy 8. Still, we
accompany Walt on this journey of his next action being worse than his last,
but yet it still seems manageable because we only inch towards his role as
the villain. Similarly, he is able to justify his actions by gradually becoming
worse. Every action seems easier to justify, building off the last.
So the question is raised: why is it so hard to turn your back on Walt?
Why is it that even after the most inhumane and seemingly selfish acts that
we still feel some sort of compassion for him? I believe that answer lies with
his love for Jesse. To the end, the only person that Walt ever stayed
completely loyal to was Jesse, even though Jesse didnt realize it. The reason
we dont turn our back on Walt is because with every evil act, he always
showed a hint humanity. There was always something to relate to. There
was always some way to understand why. Many believe that Walt turned into
a villain after he let Jane choke on her own vomit and die, but with a closer
look, we see that his decision to let her die was made in no small part to help
Jesse. Jane came along and took Jesses mind off business and took a bad
situation and made it worse. He was reeling from a death of his friend, and

Pronin 4

her influence got him hooked on heroin. If she stayed around, Jesse would
surely have met a similar fate as Jane did that night, and Walt knew that.
Similarly, to get Jesse back from the grasps of Gustavo Fring, he poisoned an
innocent boy. While at face value this is terrible, but it was clear that doing
so would have been the only way to get Jesse back on his side. His love for
Jesse justified event the worst acts, and the audience knew it.
Besides his many good intentions, Walt became a wrecking ball. He
destroyed everything around him. He destroyed the life of Skyler and Marie,
the very family that he wanted to protect. He effectively got Frank killed.
While it is hard to say that he destroyed the life of Walt Jr., he certainly put
him in a worse position that he otherwise would have been. He directly killed
dozens of people and caused the death of countless others. Everywhere he
went, pain and suffering followed. It was almost as if he took everything that
he had felt inside and thrust it upon everyone else. Id argue that the only
person that ended up better off from his contact with Walt was Jesse. If Jesse
didnt meet Walt, he would have ended up in jail or dead. He would have
remained a low level meth dealer and user, and there was no end in sight to
that. With Walt, he reached the top of the game and always escaped even
the direst of circumstances. Walt afforded him a chance for personal growth
that Jesse would never have achieved on his own, but more on Jesse next
week.
While many claim that there was a point that they finally turned on
Walt and decided that he was now the villain instead of the protagonist, I

Pronin 5

admittedly never reached that point. I stuck with Walt until the end. While
he did some terrible things, I dont believe he was ever a terrible person.
Walt was a guy that needed to be on top. He needed to be the best. We all
need that validation and feeling of supremacy. He gave up one chance as
Walter White, but found another as Heisenberg. People knocked at Walter
Whites door, but Heisenberg did the knocking.