# What did Walter White do that was so evil **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 11, 2015, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507 "2015-08-11T00:52:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Garula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ea666f/32.png) [@Garula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garula)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507/181 "2015-08-19T15:05:57Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > He is not culpable for anything wrt to Jane. He owed her no duty of care. > It was morally wrong. But not illegal or unlawful. To reiterate a point that often gets overlooked, Jane DID take proper precautions when going to sleep. Walt in the room caused her to turn over, I think when he tried to wake Jesse but I don’t remember exactly. Perhaps not intentionally, but he did in fact cause her death. ---
**Author:** ![Honey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honey/32/5074_2.png) [@Honey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honey)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507/182 "2015-08-19T18:16:18Z")
I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I never saw Walt as evil and I still don’t. In fact, I rooted for him right up until the end, as well as Jesse. I couldn’t stand Hank, and I was not upset to see him die. To me he came off as a racist blowhard. Marie annoyed me, so I didn’t really care about her. I didn’t care about Brock, or whether he live or died. Jane? meh, didn’t care. I disliked Schuyler though, and I wouldn’t have been sorry to see her die. I liked Mike, and was really sorry to see him go. Junior and Holly, to me, were the only innocents. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507/183 "2015-08-19T18:34:55Z")
> [@Honey](#): > > I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I never saw Walt as evil and I still don’t. Wow. Although, I guess that someone has to be on that end of the bell curve, too. On the other hand, in another thread I admitted to a man-crush on Walt (although non-sexual, and with a boatload of qualifications). And in this thread I’ve mostly spent my time downplaying his evilness. So maybe I’m in the handbag with you. I mean, in a crazy way, I like Walt. I do. I like him a lot. I wouldn’t spend this much time thinking about and discussing a character that I didn’t like. Heck, if I didn’t like him, I probably wouldn’t even have watched the show. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507/184 "2015-08-19T19:57:52Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > That’s true, but it’s also true that the reason she was choking was that Walt had moved her out of her ‘safe sleeping’ position. It was unintentional, but it was still something Walt _did_. > It’s not as if he had simply entered the room and found her choking. She was choking _because of a physical action that he had taken_. > > The “death of Jane” scene provides, probably, the quickest way to find out a viewer’s beliefs about what the show is _about_. The split in opinions about Walt’s accountability is clear and unambiguous: either ‘Walt was responsible to a marked degree,’ or ‘Walt was not remotely responsible because Jane was a loser who deserved what she got.’ People in the first camp are likely to see the show as being about the personality flaws that can lead to destruction of the flawed one and those around him, whereas those in the second camp are more likely to see the series as being the story of a man who did his best to provide for his family, but who met with bad luck and, ultimately, tragedy. > Actually it might be possible to predict a person’s political party affiliation from their opinion about the “death of Jane” scene, with a high level of reliability… > [@Balthisar](#): > > Walt was responsible to a marked degree, but only because of the bad luck of being part of an oppressive system that doesn’t allow adult humans to make decisions about what to put into their bodies, and to engage in free trade without the risk of incarceration in order to meet the demand for those personal decisions. > So, a little of bit of the first point, a little bit of the second point. Do I contribute to your dataset? I don’t have a dataset, but I do think it would make for an interesting research project. The episode in question is the 19th, meaning that subjects would need to be shown about fourteen or fifteen hours-worth in order to fairly assess Walt’s conduct. The subjects could be asked their political affiliation, but of course that would vary by the nation in which the study is conducted, and international party-equivalencies might be a bit shaky (UK Labour is not identical to USA Democrat, for example). So a more universal measure might be the subjects’ scores on something like the Political Compass. That particular measure is of position on a coordinate plane defined by left-leaning economic views to right-leaning economic views on the horizontal axis, and authoritarian views to libertarian views on the vertical axis. I don’t know you, nor have I looked at your posting history, but if, hypothetically, you happened to fall in the lower right quadrant of the measure–the Libertarian Right–then I’d tend to think you’d see Walt as being fundamentally a flawed-but-decent man trying to earn money for his family, in an unjust world. But that’s just a seat-of-the-pants guess. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507/185 "2015-08-19T20:24:23Z")
The character that touched me the most in BB was Jesse. Despite the badness he does, we are treated to continual reminders of his basic humanity, his inner goodness. When he does evil things, he is haunted by it, traumatized even. He abuses drugs, but he isn’t proud of it. He demonstrates compassion, integrity, and honesty. Despite his criminality, there’s a innocence in him that keeps him morally clean. Walt doesn’t have this cleanness. The veneer of rational defensibility makes it hard to see his villainy, but when you contrast the kind of guy Walt is with Jesse, it’s obvious. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507/186 "2015-08-19T20:31:55Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Despite his criminality, there’s a innocence in him that keeps him morally clean. Clean? If Jesse is clean in your world, I wonder what kind of crapsack world you live in. He talks a girl working at a gas station into a trade of meth in exchange for gas. That, in addition to being part of running a drug operation, and a bit of murder. “Clean” my ass. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507/187 "2015-08-19T20:35:31Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > Walt was responsible to a marked degree, but only because of the bad luck of being part of an oppressive system that doesn’t allow adult humans to make decisions about what to put into their bodies, and to engage in free trade without the risk of incarceration in order to meet the demand for those personal decisions. That’s just silly. If Walt had lived in a society where all drugs were perfectly legal, then there would NOT be a massive black market for meth, and he would NOT have been able to make huge amounts of money fairly quickly using his chemistry skills, and there would have been no show whatsoever. Walt was LUCKY to live in a society where, due to the particular things that were banned, he happened to have a skill that translated very quickly into lots of cash, albeit in a way that inevitably exposed him to the criminal world, where it turned out he thrived (for a while). ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507/188 "2015-08-19T21:04:51Z")
It can be argued that there is some ambiguity about Walt’s character in the beginning of the series. But there is a clear, unambiguous turning point when Walt show his true colors, and that’s when he rejects Gretchen’s offer of a sinecure and full coverage of his medical care. When Walt says “fuck you” to Gretchen, that’s the most important moment in the entire series, because that’s when you know what Walt is really about. As for people who genuinely believe that Mike and Jesse were ultimately worthy of sympathy and Hank and Skyler were not, that just shows you how easy it is to fool people using the tricks of storytelling. In contrast with Walt’s key character moment—the fuck you—is Hank’s key character moment: After he beat the shit out of Jesse, he went straight to his superiors and turned himself in. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507/189 "2015-08-19T21:15:16Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > Clean? If Jesse is clean in your world, I wonder what kind of crapsack world you live in. Jeeze, serious much? We’re talking about a TV show; get a grip. It’s clear to me that Jesse’s character is a counterpoint to Walt’s. Jesse superficially is bad, but on a deeper level, good. Walt is the opposite: good on the surface, but very bad in the inside. If you disagree with this fine, but simmer down with the insults about what world I’m living in. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507/190 "2015-08-19T21:18:51Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Jeeze, serious much? We’re talking about a TV show; get a grip. Yeah, sorry about that. I was trying to channel Jonathan Banks there, but I cranked it up way too far and hit it way too far out to the side. My apologies. (In one interview I read with some of the cast, Banks asks, I think, Bob Odenkirk: “What kind of broken-ass home do you come from?” So I was kind of shooting for that. I guess it’s only funny when he does it…) ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507/191 "2015-08-19T21:27:55Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > Sorry, no match in my opinion. GRRM’s characters are worse than Walter White. While I don’t know how you can compare people who live in two separate universes, I’d also point out, as others have, that the murderous behaviour of various nobles in “Game of Thrones” is basically normal for their society, while Walter White is clearly extremely abnormal for his. That is, I suspect, what GRRM is probably talking about, at least with regards to the likes of Cersei Lannister or Peter Baelish; they’re working within the rules they understand their world to work by, while Walter White is breaking the rules his world works by and he damn well knows it. (Ramsay Snow/Bolton is clearly a psychopathic monster all the way, and really Walter can’t be worse than that, so GRRM isn’t technically correct, IMHO.) That said, the real difference is that they are completely different types of story. “Breaking Bad” is a tragedy. “Game of Thrones” isn’t. Walter White is a tragic hero, and nobody in GOT is, save possibly Ned Stark but he’s not in most of it. White is an absolutely classic Shakespearian tragic hero, in fact; he has a central flaw, his pride, which undoes everything and either kills the people around him or leaves them bereft of what they had. The show is basically about Walter’s tragic nature; he does have good qualities, including his intelligence and his genuine love for his family, but he’s twisted and driven to doom by one flaw, that being his pride. Pride is what causes him to make every decision that leads to mayhem, even when the decisions appear to work. When he tells Skylar “I’ve won,” it’s his pride misreporting the facts; he may have beaten Gus Fring, but Gus Fring isn’t really his problem. Walter is his OWN problem. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507/192 "2015-08-19T21:32:06Z")
Jesse is certainly presented as more endearing that Walter, but I’m hard-pressed to view him as “good”. Objectively, he’s a very bad dude indeed. he’s just ‘good’ within the limited context of how he’s presented in the show - a drug dealer and murderer with a heart of gold. In fact, playing with who is “good” and who is “bad”, within the context of the drama versus within the context of society as a whole, is a very big part of this show (and makes debating the show endless fun! 🙂 ). We are all used to “movie” or “show” logic, in which murderers and gangsters can have hearts of gold. At the beginning, we are sorta expecting that of Walt - that he’s a meth cook sure, but he’s the (anti) hero. The genius of this show is that its about an ostensibly-bad man being shown to be really-bad, even within the context of the show’s moral universe - he’s a gangster who proves to have a heart of lead. 😉 As an aside, another movie I’ve seen recently that made a big impression on me that played - a lot - with this theme of movie-context-morality vs. real-life-morality was _Leon: The Professional_. The viewer is induced into stong sympathy for a murderous hit man in love with a 12 year old girl (well, platonic, on his part at least). ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507/193 "2015-08-19T21:34:17Z")
> [@TCMF-2L](#): > > Buy a remote control garage opener, spend a couple of hours in the desert and next thing you have a remote controlled machine gun? But they had to do that, because Jesse, three or four seasons earlier, had been so happy about the idea Walt was going to save them by building a robot. And, eventually, that’s actually what he did. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507/194 "2015-08-19T21:37:11Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > My apologies. It’s cool. In reading this thread, it’s fascinating how differently people see these characters. Who cares whether Skylar was annoying or not? Or Hank? They are still sympathetic characters, clearly turned victims by Walt’s pursuit of power. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507/195 "2015-08-19T21:47:35Z")
There are many characters in GOTs that kill and rape for pleasure, or burn their own children and sole heir alive in the chance it might shift weather conditions in their favor. Compared to that Walt is a model family man. I almost gave up on GOT because the psychotic characters, the same never occured in B’NB to address the OP. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507/196 "2015-08-19T22:22:40Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Nobody’s charged with murder, but duty-to-rescue laws aren’t [that uncommon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue#Criminal_law) > [@Frylock](#): > > If it was morally wrong, then he was culpable. That’s what culpable means. Actually, according to Dibble’s link it’s fairly cut and dried: > [@](#): > > Common law In the [common law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law) of most [anglosphere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglosphere) countries, there is no general duty to come to the rescue of another.[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue#cite_note-Rosenbaum-1) Generally, a person cannot be held liable for doing nothing while another person is in peril.[[2]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue#cite_note-2)[[3]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue#cite_note-Peters-3) However, such a duty may arise in two situations: > > [ul] > [li]A duty to rescue arises where a person creates a hazardous situation. If another person then falls into peril because of this hazardous situation, the creator of the hazard – who may not necessarily have been a negligent [tortfeasor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortfeasor) – has a duty to rescue the individual in peril.[[4]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue#cite_note-4)[/li][/ul] Walt created the hazard when he rolled her over. He had a duty to rescue. (It’s unclear whether this is strictly true in the USA, but there’s a clear moral and ethical guide here.) ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507/197 "2015-08-19T22:23:43Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Nobody’s charged with murder, but duty-to-rescue laws aren’t [that uncommon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue#Criminal_law) > [@Frylock](#): > > If it was morally wrong, then he was culpable. That’s what culpable means. Actually, according to Dibble’s link it’s fairly cut and dried: > [@](#): > > Common law In the [common law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law) of most [anglosphere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglosphere) countries, there is no general duty to come to the rescue of another.[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue#cite_note-Rosenbaum-1) Generally, a person cannot be held liable for doing nothing while another person is in peril.[[2]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue#cite_note-2)[[3]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue#cite_note-Peters-3) However, such a duty may arise in two situations: > > [ul] > [li]A duty to rescue arises where a person creates a hazardous situation. If another person then falls into peril because of this hazardous situation, the creator of the hazard – who may not necessarily have been a negligent [tortfeasor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortfeasor) – has a duty to rescue the individual in peril.[[4]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue#cite_note-4)[/li][/ul] > > . . . Walt created the hazard when he rolled her over. He had a duty to rescue. (It’s unclear whether this is strictly true in the USA, but there’s a clear moral and ethical guide here.) ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507/198 "2015-08-19T22:29:44Z")
Most opiate ODs are from respiratory depression, unless Walt worked with opiates or opioids with his work he would have no clue how to help her. So the vomiting while high thing was a writer creation, to make Walt more culpable. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507/199 "2015-08-19T22:57:00Z")
So it’s the writer’s fault? ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507/200 "2015-08-19T23:43:16Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > So it’s the writer’s fault? Agreed. We’ll be charging them too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-walter-white-do-that-was-so-evil/727507.md?page=11)