He certainly thinks he is, but does the evidence bear it out?
He amassed 70 million which is hard to argue with, but also very unrealistic going by our reality and I’d say even the reality of the show.
He could never have done it with killing Gus and then absorbing his connections, without Gus Walt would have never been as successful.
One flaw that Walt had in becoming a criminal is that he was never comfortable with how things are in the criminal world, this ultimately came back to bite him in the ass with the Aryan Brotherhood. If Walt had let go of his lone wolf delusions, OR been satisfied with a lower yield of cash/business his way would have worked, but he wanted both and that isn’t possible. Drug cartels have agents and lots of muscle for a reason.
In addition Walt often succeeds not with cunning or manipulation alone, but blind dumb luck and chance. If he didn’t have luck on his side he probably would have been killed in the pilot.
There’s a saying along the lines of, “Professional are predictable; it the amateurs you got to watch out for.” I think when it comes to criminality, Walt benefitted (with some plot armor) from the latter.
Mike would’ve buried Jesse and Walt ater Gus’s demise except circumstances (plausible ones, too, IMO, at least within the confines of the show) forced him into an uneasy alliance to cover up all of the loose ends and therefore cover his own ass. And then he lost all the money he had set aside for is granddaughter and had to work with Walt and Jesse to recoup his losses and keep the Gus Fring Nine paid off and quiet. And when that went all pear-shaped…
The point is that Walt benfitted from both his audacity and having “serious players” either with him or working for him. But that only lasted unitl his audacity ran out, his money ran out, or he no longer had a serious guy like Mike around.
Or, ulitmately, he ran into people who refused to be impressed with his amateur’s audacity, saw him/sized him up for what he truly was, and acted accordingly. Their only mistake is that they didn’t shoot Walt in the head and dump his body in the same hole alongside Hank and Gomey.
Well there you go, then. He was successful. Maybe he wouldn’t be successful in our world, maybe he didn’t deserve to be successful, but in his world, he was.
And then he lost the money, lost his family, and died.
Walt’s goal was never money though, it was being BMOC and having a legacy. I think the accomplishing the former is debatable, but I do think he accomplished the latter with the blue meth. So he measures himself by a different metric than most criminals would. Does that make him successful? I dunno.
Walt would’ve been fine if he capped Jesse during one of his numerous off the rail manic episodes or let Gus take care of him. Or just not save him from those gangbangers.
Walt’s empire wasn’t his own though, which is kinda weaksauce. The only reason he had anything was because Saul always knows a guy. Or multiple guys, as it turns out. Without Saul he’d still be trying to sell baggies or hoping Jesse accidentally makes it seem like he dropped an ATM on someone’s head.
Yup this was my evaluation too thinking back on the show and what Walt could have done differently.
I think Walt’s best bet would have been to work for Gus and not fuck things up with him, this would have let Walt concentrate on what he knew(the chemistry production side) and not have to deal with distasteful to him stuff like hiring muscle or arranging hits etc. Gus takes the meth and deals with the bad people etc.
Had Walt never confronted Hank with the transmitter on the car, Hank would still be in the garage trying to make a stale case that Walt was a cook, that the statute of limitations had probably passed. Walt could have gone driving around with the recorder showing nothing.
Extremely. Walt kills two of Gus’s street dealers with his Aztek, him and Gus were on great terms (they had just had dinner at his house) and Gus was planning on a profitable future with Walt.
That just reminds me of how silly that whole thing was (I loved BB btw). Why the hell would Gus be dealing with two low-level street-level dealers? That would be pennies compared to his actual operation.
It started with Walt’s financially taking care of his family. He was successful in gaining financial independence.
Second half, once that goal had been achieved it all began blending together especially after his remission. He caught a second wind and gained a new perception. I believe his first goal was it, he did not think beyond that as he anticipated his death. Given another opportunity he re-evaluated his station.
Deciding to kill Gus became a turning point in his status as gatherer to hunter. He was a successful gatherer and unsuccessful hunter.
I’m rewatching the whole series now and this same thing came to mind. As we come to learn more about Gus’s organization it’s never really implied he has a huge network of dealers. In fact it’s implied he’s more of a manufacturer/distributor, and other than the two who were killed he doesn’t run street level dealing. Him having dealers that are a) employed by his organization at all and b) even knowing who the man at the top is, just makes no sense given the rest that we know about his organization as the show progresses. I think this could be a case of Gilligan needing to use street dealers connected with Gus in the story he’d crafted and he didn’t really think out what Gus’s organization as a whole actually looked like at that point.
It’d be like (if you’re familiar with the Wire) the Greek/Vondas having guys working corners. That’d make no sense, those guys were bringing in $50-60m/time by being the “primary” supply for all of Baltimore and that region of the Atlantic seaboard’s drug supply, they wouldn’t want to be involved in street dealing, even large scale street dealing operations would be relatively pointless to them and is far riskier than being a major distributor.
He doesn’t exactly get away with it and in the end he’s slightly dead which, you know, tends to put a damper on things.
He was rarely happy during his enterprise. Took several thrashings and had more than one panicked episode and brush with death.
He did leave some money for his kids which was the goal all along but since Walt Jr. completely rejects him in the end, you have to figure this almost crosses that one out.
He failed morally by letting Jane die (though she may have had it coming) and later when he killed Mike.
His brother-in-law’s death was a direct result of his criminality, he lost his house and his wife will never live the life she had before.
His obit will first identify him as a meth drug lord rather than a brilliant chemist, high school teacher, loving father, etc.
I dunno. I’m going have to plant the big FAIL stamp on this one.
That’s a fair point, but I think it IS strongly implied that Gus’s success is due to his organizational skills (and that Walter piggy-backed off what Gus built, having little talent of that kind himself).
When we first see Gus–before we know he actually is the “guy” Saul contacted to meet with Walter–we see him mentoring and guiding his fast-food restaurant employees. It’s clear that even though this is merely a money-laundering front for Gus, he genuinely cares about bringing his employees along and promoting their own success in their jobs. This is part of Gus’s personality–he’s good with people and good at making an organization work.
Walter lacks these qualities. After he killed Gus, he benefited from what Gus had put together.
As mentioned above: Walter’s “success” as a criminal has a lot to do with luck. (And with his chemistry knowledge and with the fact that he’s just plain smarter than many he deals with, of course.)
He’s not good at running a criminal enterprise, no. He’s very good at being flashy and gratifying his own ego, so by his own standards he’s successful. But he ascends the ladder in a hurry by doing crazy and irrational stuff that’s bad for business, and once he gets to the top, he quickly blows it by doing other crazy stuff. Good legend, bad criminal. Then again, Gus was an extremely intelligent and methodical criminal and look what happened to him.
(In fact, I found it a bit implausible that Gus wouldn’t have considered the possibility that two of his enemies would conspire against him, making his gloating expedition to the nursing home overly risky. His failure to see that wasn’t well-supported, I thought. But that’s a quibble, given the overall excellence of the writing of that show.)
I can believe that that just wouldn’t have occurred to Gus. I liked that, in fact. They were showing that everybody has a weakness, even Gus. Walt has tons of failings and Gus almost literally has just one- and that one weakness was enough to get him killed.
Well, that does make a certain amount of sense, on reflection.
(This series really does lend itself to reflection and re-evaluation. I so want to get it on DVD—but the Barrel version is going to be so pricey m($200+). I hope they eventually do a set that’s just DVDs (with commentary). I don’t need a Los Pollos Hermanos apron, particularly. :rolleyes:)
