Spoilers up through the latest episode of Breaking Bad.
So, in this show we have been presented two characters who seek to build a drug empire: Walt and Gus. Superficially, they have some similarities: methodical, have achieved an atypical (for a drug lord I would assume) level of higher education, a presence in both the drug world and the “legitimate” world, connections to the DEA, a calm personal presence which belies their ruthlessness. Also they both are motivated by personal insults: Fring by the murder of his lover/friend, and Walt by the incredible success of the company he helped found and then quit.
Yet I think most would agree that Gus was more successful than Walt. While he did die eventually, and as far as we know Walt has not, he probably made hundreds of millions of dollars, and has most likely left his family with lots of money, although his name is ruined. Also he was active in the business for years if not decades. He managed to have fabulous wealth and live a pretty decent life for many years.
Walt, as we know from flash forwards, ends up an outcast from his community, and most likely does not have any money to pass onto his family. Most importantly, he was taken down in a matter of months.
So my question is, why is this? Is it just a difference in luck? Or is a difference in personality/approach? Granted Walt really did think he was going to die soon at the beginning and end of the show, but there was a good chunk in the middle where he thought the cancer was cured and he was engaged in the process of empire-building. Or is my premise altogether flawed?
I honestly don’t have any conjectures at this moment, which is why I am throwing it out to you all. Really interested to hear what you guys think. Gus is probably my favorite character from the show.
Walt got into the meth business as a desperate gambit to provide something for his family before cancer took him.
He jumped in, found out that the business was MUCH harsher and harder than he ever thought possible, yet was intelligent enough to react and improvise long enough to (as of now) stash away a sizable nest egg for his family.
Gus had no artificial time limits, and was free to establish his meth business in a thoughtful, methodical way. If Walt had not gotten cancer and started cooking (the ultra-pure blue) meth, Gus would still be banking millions with Gale slaving away down in the underground super-lab.
The first time Walt met Gus he didn’t know that Gus was the man who was scoping him out. Gus originally rejected him as a partner because he only wanted to work with professionals. It was with reluctance that Gus finally agreed.
Gus built an empire with trusted associates and he paid them all very, very well. He approved an insurance plan so if any of them were arrested or killed then their families would still be taken care of. His way of treating his partners established trust and loyalty so people had relative security for a long period of time.
Walt on the other hand is selfish. He’s not looking to make his associates money, he’s looking to make himself money. He doesn’t want to pay high prices for long term relationships with professional people, he instead pays contract prices for short term solutions with unstable people (such as the nazi prison gang). He kills his most valuable assets like Mike and he dangles money in front of his closest “friends” like Jessie so he can control them.
In the end, Gus had built a group of peers that protected him while Walt has alienated every one of his peers leaving only himself as an emperor with no kingdom.
I would say those similarities aren’t superficial at all. They run deep and they tell us a lot about what Walt is doing any why he’s doing it. The short version is that they tell us is that Walt isn’t a good drug lord because he doesn’t act rationally.
To me there’s no question Gus was much better at what he did. Gus treated his operation like a business. I am not sure if I would say he wanted to make money or just get revenge on the Salamancas. You could say either one was the number one goal, I guess. But he was very methodical about both. His desire for revenge didn’t affect what he was doing in the short term or even in the intermediate term. He didn’t want recognition like Walt does. He only seems to have let his hatred get the best of him once, and it got him killed. He really built an empire and it seems like he worked toward that goal for about 20 years and it was going strong until he got involved with Walt. Walt just killed him and took over most of what Gus had built. That’s a success in empire terms, but it’s a different kind of success.
Walt ascended very fast but he’s flamed out in about a year since he’s not really in it for money or any rational reason. He’s motivated by anger at the world and a desire for revenge. So he is awful at building things and great at wrecking things other people have built. Walt says he wants to build something that will last, but he doesn’t understand himself well enough to know why he can’t do it.
Did Gus manage to leave his family with tons of wealth? I don’t think the show has gone into it much, but I would think the DEA would have seized a lot of his money. I think some of it was in the Cayman Island’s and maybe the DEA can’t get to it, but I would think they could make it difficult for any family to get to it.
If anyone remembers more from the show or knows more about what the real-world financial fallout would be, feel free to correct me.
Did Gus have any family that we know of? We certainly don’t see a spouse or any kids. I fear that Gus was a very lonely man, and had been ever since his partner/boyfriend was killed. Though I suppose maybe he had relatives in Chile.
We don’t know if Gus had a family. I thought he mentioned children once, but maybe I’m just thinking of what he said about a man providing for his family whether it’s appreciated or not (a lesson Walt didn’t learn). I choose to believe he didn’t have a family, but that’s just how I like to think about it. If he had relatives in Chile he probably didn’t keep in touch since neither Mike nor the government were able to learn anything else about his background. We know that the government found out about the offshore accounts belonging to some people on his payroll- the people who became “Mike’s guys” who wound up getting murdered. We don’t know where the rest of his money went or if it was ever found.
I’m not sure how much scrutiny the Pollos Hermanos restaurants were placed under, but I assumed that they were still going. If they all got shut down/seized, then I guess Gus’ theoretical family doesn’t have much.
I choose to believe that he did the whole wife/kids route, if nothing else in order to fortify the “good family man, successful entrepreneur, pillar of the community” image he was so carefully cultivating.
Yes but remember in that episode he was trying to win Walt over. Gus could have just put the toys there and talked about children as a way to try and form a connection with Walt knowing that Walt has children.
It could be a ruse, I guess. It’s strange, though.
He is quite the mystery man. I also suspect that he’s not actually from Chile, since no one can find any trace of his past there and he keeps hand waiving that away with “poor record keeping”.
I’ve seen mentioned on the interwebs that when Gus speaks Spanish, he has a noticable U.S. accent. Of course, the actor, Giancarlo Esposito, isn’t fluent in Spanish, so it could just be because of that, and we’re meant to believe that Gus is really fluent in Spanish. The show seems to be careful to cast fluent speakers in the other Spanish-speaking roles, though, and is generally concerned with attention to detail, so maybe there is more to it, and if he was ever in Chile at all, that’s not where he’s originally from. Some have suggested a German connection, because of Madrigal.
If nothing else, there is certainly room for some fanwanking along those lines.
