Walter White and Overweening Pride: Breaking Bad Character Analysis

Spoilers --- Spoilers --- Spoilers ---Spoilers --- Spoilers

I spent the last few days binge-watching Breaking Bad and I feel a bit punch drunk from the effect. During my first viewing, some years ago, I absorbed the show slowly, and in that mode did not discern clearly the overarching scheme of the show. This time around I was startled by how prominent the theme was. This was especially true in the character of Walter White, the protagonist.

A Brief Recap for Those Who Haven't Seen the Show (Reminder--- Spoilers)

When the show opens, Walter White seems to be an ordinary man living an ordinary life. He is married, has one child. He works as a chemistry teacher and presents with a bland, almost colorless personality. All that changes in the first episode. Walt learns he has terminal lung cancer. This is the catalyst that propels him down a tragic, destructive path.

He realizes he is facing financial catastrophe. He has no money, and another child is on the way. He strives to gain control of his life and his future. He sets himself in opposition to the fate he has suffered. He not only sets himself in opposition to fate, but also in defiance of the moral constraints that have ruled his life. He decides to cook meth (methamphetamine), and eventually becomes a major player in the meth criminal underworld.

Actual Gas Mask Used by Walter White When He Cooked Meth
Breaking_Bad_gas_maskCredit APK 4.0.jpg
Credit:APK. Used under CC 4.0 Attribution Share Alike International license.

Walter's rupture from his past is rapid and absolute. By the end of the first episode not only is he cooking meth, but he also has schemed to kill two men who were threatening to kill him.

Here is a YouTube video of the scene in episode 1 where Walter uses his chemistry skills to poison the men who are threatening his life:

Walt's brush with death, and his role in planning the death of others, do not dissuade him from his chosen path. The way forward is clear. The road will be paved with danger and there will be no moral boundaries to guide his actions.

Walter White as as Tragic Character

In classic Greek tragedy, the protagonist's downfall is brought about by a fatal character flaw--inevitably this flaw is hubris, overweening pride. Throughout the Breaking Bad series, Walter White repeats what he purports to be the justification for his increasingly amoral behavior: He's doing it all for his family. Not until the very end of the series, in the last episode, does he admit to his wife that what he does, he does for himself. "I did it for me," he explains. "I liked it. And I was good at it."

Here is a YouTube video of the scene.

However, we don't have to wait for this last scene to know that Walter White is driven by pride. Overweening pride rears its head throughout the show. It is the trait that Gus Fring exploits when he tempts Walter into cooking for him. Fring is the major meth producer and distributor in Southwest USA.

When Fring comes into his life, Walter and his acolyte, Jesse Pinkman, have been cooking meth in an RV. Walt wants out. He doesn't want to cook meth anymore. Jesse continues without him...but he does so using Walt's formula. He sells his product through Fring's network. When Walt finds out that his acolyte has been making meth with his formula, he is furious.

Fring exploits this pride, Walter's sense of offense. Fring's henchmen take half of Jesse's profits and turn them over to Walt--an acknowledgement that the formula is Walt's.

Walt insists that Jesse stop selling the product. He is contemptuous of Jesse's meth. In this YouTube video Walt dismisses Jesse's abilities. This tension between the two, occasioned largely by Walt's pride, is an important dynamic in the series.

When Walt confronts Fring for selling the 'inferior' meth, he recognizes that Fring is trying to goad him into cooking. Fring wants Walt to head up a major meth producing laboratory. Walt resists. He tells Fring (Season 3, Episode 5), "You think I have some proprietary selfishness about my formula. Some sort of overweening pride, that you think overwhelms me, clouds my judgement..."

There it is, the central theme of the show, overweening pride, the fatal flaw in Walt's character.

Walter continues to resist, but when Fring takes him to an elaborate, meth-cooking laboratory, constructed for Walt's use...resistance falters. Here is a YouTube video of the scene. You can see Walt's eyes widen, as temptation to rule this chemistry universe gets the best of him.

Walter succumbs to the temptation, and proceeds inexorably to his ultimate destruction.

Walter White is the driving force behind the show, but he is not the only character who is destroyed by pride. His arch enemy, Hank, the Javert of the series, pursues the mysterious Heisenberg (Walt's meth-world pseudonym) beyond a point his colleagues consider reasonable. Hank is Walt's DEA agent brother-in-law who is nearly paralyzed by an attack on his life. This injury does not deflect Hank from his search for Heisenberg.

Finally, when Hank discovers his target is his brother-in-law, who has been operating right under his nose, he is consumed by rage. His only desire is to 'get' Walt, to see him destroyed and behind bars. Even when he learns Walt is dying because his cancer has returned, Hank is determined to win, to beat Walt and the cancer clock. He tries to trap Walt's wife, Skylar, into giving a statement about Walt. Here is a YouTube video of the scene.

In the end, Hank's determination to see Walt destroyed leads to his own destruction.

Another character who is destroyed by pride is Skylar, Walt's wife. She presents herself as morally upright, outraged by his meth-selling activities. But she herself demonstrates a corrosive moral flexibility.

Sklyar is willing to break up her marriage because of pride. We get a foretaste of this pride as the conflict with her sister, Marie, unfolds. Marie is a kleptomaniac, a serial shoplifter.

The YouTube video posted here shows Marie's compulsive shoplifting--notice in this scene the ironic juxtaposition typical of the show: Marie is reporting Walter Jr. for smoking marijuana while she herself is in the process of shoplifting a pair of shoes.

Marie gives Skylar a baby-sized diamond tiara at Skylar's baby shower. The tiara has been stolen. Skylar needs money more than she needs a tiara so she tries to return the glittering item to the store. She is nearly arrested for theft.

Skylar seethes. She insists Marie apologize. Marie cannot, because she is compulsive and will not admit what she has done. Finally, there is a showdown in the kitchen and Marie tearfully offers the apology. Skylar has won.

Skylar is equally demanding of Walt. When she realizes what he has been doing, she is furious because he has lied to her. This stance of moral outrage might be persuasive, if we didn't have other insights into Skylar's character. She is as flawed as Walt, but lacks his courage and imagination.

For example, she takes a job with a former admirer, and not only helps him cook the books for his business, but also carries on an affair with him. This boss ends up disabled in the hospital because Skylar has sent men to strong arm him when his actions endanger her well-being. She may pretend to herself that she didn't know what might happen, but we see in the YouTube posted here that she is prepared for Ted to be dead.

Shown in this video is the hospital scene where we can see Ted gravely wounded. Skylar is not happy to see him injured, but in the end she is satisfied because Ted will not talk, and she is safe.

In one of the last episodes of the series, Skylar discovers Pinkman has doused her house with gasoline and apparently intended to burn it down.

Here's the scene where Pinkman is dousing Walt's house with gasoline.

Skylar suggests to Walt that Pinkman must be killed. She is essentially making the same moral choice Walt made in the first episode of the series, when he killed someone to protect his own life.

Sklyar is inflexible with Marie and Walt not because she is morally superior. She is inflexible with her husband and sister because they have wronged her. Her pride demands restitution.

While destructive pride is a consistent theme in Breaking Bad (it is evident in other characters, such as Hector Salamanca, cartel leader consumed by pride-driven revenge), it is after all Walter White who is the center of the show and who drives the plot forward. Pride is the motivation that impels his actions.

As the show accelerates to its catastrophic conclusion, the bodies pile up. Walter kills Gus Fring. Then he kills Mike Ehrmantraut, who was Fring's enforcer. Mike has the names of nine people who are in jail, people who can 'flip' and give Walter up to the DEA. But Mike will not give the names to Walter, and he will not allow Walter to kill the people. In Walt's view, Mike must die, so the killing can proceed. The YouTube video shown here has Mike describing the defining essence of Walt's character, the trait that destroys everything.

Walt's overweening pride leads to his downfall because, in the tradition of a classic Greek tragedy, it places him in opposition to fate and to the will of the gods. Although he has received a death sentence in the form of a cancer diagnosis, he defies that destiny.

In the YouTube video posted below, he openly disdains the will of God. "Man plans, God laughs", a fellow patient declares. Walt's response, "...bullshit. Never give up control."

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1nIUnT8M4qM

Breaking Bad is one of the most brilliant series I have ever seen. It is not perfect. Toward the end, some of the episodes seemed a bit out of focus, but over all it is a laser-sharp autopsy of a tragic, destructive character. Walter White could have leapt out of the imagination of Sophocles or Euripides. He is memorable, believable, and (unfortunately) relatable.

Walt is an extreme example, but is there not a little of him in all of us? As we watch his decline we may wonder ourselves at what point we would say, "Stop, I give up."

Series Stats (From IMDB)

Breaking Bad: 2008-2013
I binge-watched the series on Netflix. It is available for a fee on a number of other services, including Amazon Prime.

  • Creator:
    Vince Gilligan
  • Starring:
    Bryan Cranston as Walter White
    Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman
    Anna Gun as Skylar White

The following is from Wikipedia

  • Executive Producers:
    Vince Gilligan
    Mark Johnson
    Michelle MacLaren

Thank you for reading my blog. Peace and health to all. Hive on!



0
0
0.000
16 comments
avatar

I like the small and consistent changes to Walters clothing, how early on he wore brighter colors but slowly converted to darker colors as he descended further into his other personality.

avatar

I never noticed the clothing--I'll have to take another look. The hat--now the hat became symbolic in so many ways. First of all it's a black hat (black hat/white hat?), and then it is a kind of totem he adopts when he wants to be 'bad'.

Thanks for reading, and commenting. Hope your weekend is pleasant and fruitful, @trudgencia

avatar

Oh, how I loved it! But, I won’t bore you by counting the ways. Hehe! I also binge watched the entire series (and rewatched episodes). I think you have the underlying character flaws perfectly summed up.
It was wonderful to revisit and indulge 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃

avatar

Hello dear @itsostylish,

I'm not surprised you enjoyed this show. It had great writers. Amazing that it was broadcast on the 'small screen', that vehicle for so much garbage :))

Thanks for the endorsement. It's a kind of drug for me to get absorbed in researching and writing a post like this. I really don't need the pharmaceuticals because I can just lose myself in something most people don't care about. Most people won't even read it😄. Thank you for reading.

Hope your work schedule is bearable. Have a peaceful weekend.

avatar

My daughter highly recommended this series to me, I tried to watch it but honestly it didn't hook me, I have a special dislike for series about drugs. But it sure is a good series just not my type.
I'm glad you enjoyed watching it!
Greetings my dear friend! I hope you are having a great time this summer. 🌞

avatar

Hello my friend @mballesteros,

I understand your reluctance to watch a show with this level of violence and one that deals with drugs. Usually I leave the room or cover my eyes if something unpleasant is going to happen on screen. After all, the show is supposed to be relaxation, not a source of tension.

Thank you very much for your comment and your feedback. I'm enjoying summer. It's hot here, but there are ways to stay cool. Spending time with family in the good weather. That's the best thing 🌷

Looking forward to seeing more of your pictures. You offer a virtual tour. Wish I could go back to Spain...but that will not happen.

Have a restful weekend🌈

avatar

Excellent analysis, @agmoore! 👍

I really enjoyed watching the series. At the beginning, because I was very impressed by Walter's drive.
Of course I disliked what he did, but his courage compensated a bit for that.
I noticed his pride getting stronger and stronger too, and that made me all the more curious to see what would happen next. He was losing sight of his actual goal more and more. And as we all know, extreme pride comes before a fall. He was bound to pay his price, sooner or later.
So it was a pleasure to wait for that until the end of the series. :-D
However, I then felt no pleasure in seeing how happy he was when he went to meet his final judge. I didn't want him to have this happyness.

avatar

He was losing sight of his actual goal more and more

It's hard to say when he made the turn and could never go back. Was it when he killed the man in his basement? Was it when he agreed to cook for Fring? The writers of this show are so brilliant. You related to the existential struggle of this drug dealer, and I did too. That's amazing. Of course at some point, as you say, he went beyond where we could relate.

Thanks very much for reading. I was sure nobody would read this long piece. Part of my formal training is in literary analysis... something I could never use in the job market😂, but it's always a part of me and you can see it here in this piece. Great fun for me. I'm very surprised and gratified that it is also interesting to other people.

Hope you are having a great summer my friend.

avatar

That's a fine analysis and a thoroughly enjoyable read. I remember seeing the series some years ago but thought it was just a show about drug dealing:)

avatar

Writing this was self indulgent. Some people lose themselves in a drug haze as a form of escape. I get lost in interests nobody in the world cares about. It doesn't make for interesting conversation, but it does produce long blogs ;)))

Thanks very much for reading. I'm very happy you enjoyed it. 🌷

avatar
(Edited)

Interesting analysis, Walter is a well written and complex villain protagonist, when I started watching the show I feel sorry for him but later on I couldn't stand his actions. I have seen some interviews were the creator of the show revealed that Walter was always an awful person inside and it was about a matter of the circumstances for him to reveal his true nature.

avatar

I love that clip! Thank you. Notice he uses the phrase 'overweening pride' in his description of Walt?

Walter was always an awful person

In my analysis I write that Walt is relatable--many of us can see pieces of ourselves in Walt. I personally think most people have the ability to be horrible. Civilization and self control stop us. We train ourselves not to be horrible. But Walt always harbored resentment. His interaction with Gretchen and Elliot show that he was seething with anger at what he considered betrayal. That kind of jealousy--even hatred--is great breeding ground for growth of the monster he became. All he needed was a catalyst. His cancer diagnosis--confronting death--was that catalyst.

Thanks so much for the comment and the video. I enjoyed it.

avatar

I haven't watched this show yet.
Normally I'd shy away from long analyses like this but as always, you find a way to rope me in😭😂😂

!PIMP

avatar

I really didn't know if anyone would read this whole thing :))

You would enjoy this show. Even though it's about a middle-aged man who is dying, the them is universal.

Thanks for stopping by, @seki1