I agree it is definitely portrayed as a breakthrough product.
My impression - which admittedly could be wrong - is that it doesn’t really work that way: that even taking pharmaceutical-grade meth, one would still develop those nasty side-effects, because they are related to the fact that the drug itself is directly neurotoxic. Taking pure drug would not avoid them - though obviously, unknown impurities could prove even worse.
In short, it is not possible to have the high from this particular drug, without the bad side-effects if the use is prolonged. This is unlike (say) opiates like heroin, where it is possible to “maintain” on pure product (if you could reliably get it) and live a more or less normal life.
We need a little Heisenberg hat for that guy.
Could we get one in my size? Is that physically possible?
I’m not even sure if we have a tailor in Pontypool… 
There are a lot of things about Walt’s Baby Blue meth that don’t square with the reality of the drug trade. Super-potent drugs are something dealers usually tend to avoid, for two reasons.
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If people get a better, longer-lasting high from a drug, they don’t buy it as much. When Stringer’s crew on The Wire is stuck selling lousy heroin, one of the hoppers remarks to the other, “When the shit is good, we sell a lot. When it’s bad, we sell twice as much.” Obviously there’s a point at which this breaks down — eventually Stringer had to source some new heroin from Proposition Joe — but selling a drug at a strength more potent than it needs to be is basically leaving money on the table.
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People used to a certain strength of drug can get themselves sick or dead when taking a more potent strain. That’s what killed Janis Joplin, and supposedly half a dozen other people who shot up with heroin from the same batch. It’s a pretty bad day for a dealer when a bunch of people die from his stuff.
Most street drugs are adulterated (“stepped on”) with filler ingredients to increase their bulk and to prevent the two issues above. If that were the case with Walt, the value of his meth would make sense: a stronger initial product could be cut more and still deliver an acceptable high, increasing volume. But Baby Blue is sold as crystal, not powder, and you can’t step on crystal unless you introduce the impurities at the time of manufacturing — and we know Walt isn’t doing that.
So in short, Walt is making a product even more dangerous than regular crystal meth, and which might (I don’t really know how meth highs work) make his customers inclined to use less often than they would with cheaper shit.
All stimulants whether pharmaceutical grade or kitchen chemist grade cause reduced saliva production and dry mouth, the sunken faces are caused by the appetite and thirst reduction causing extreme weight loss The sores are a result of the skin itching, the addict scratches compulsively at the smallest imperfection and causes weeping sores. They have plenty of time to worry about minor imperfections what with being awake 24/7 and the lack of sleep for days or weeks at a time causes further degradation of body appearance.
If a meth head ate and drank on a schedule and forced themselves to sleep nightly possibly with the aid of downers, they would look like anyone else aside from the perkiness.
Shut up and take my money!
Killing an innocent person to prevent someone else from killing you isn’t self defense.
Walt always has a perfectly reasonable and entirely perverse rationale for what he does. You know the quip about the Romans, that they conquered the world in self defense? It’s a bit like that with Walt.
Many times after something horrible happened Walt was affected, stuck in traffic staring at stop lights, standing naked in front of the TV staring at it. A psychopath wouldn’t care at all, and an evil person would have enjoyed the event.
Gale was involved in the meth trade as well. He wasn’t some innocent bystander.
And that warrants and sanctions getting shot in the face ?
The writer’s gave us glimpses of Walt’s dark side from the very beginning. Remember the scene in the department store where he physically attacked the older kid who was mocking Junior because of his disabilities? Remember where he set that annoying guy’s car on fire simply because he was annoying?
In both cases I think most of us felt some sense of satisfaction at his actions. He was doing what a lot of us have felt like doing at times. Of course, most of us don’t act on those thoughts because we know that it would be wrong. Walt did act on them. This was the start of his slide - anti-social acts that he could convince himself were justified. Just as he could convince himself that cooking meth was justified for the good of his family.
Ask the real life Albuquerque owners of Walt’s house who are constantly hosing down pizzas tossed on to their roof by assholes if Walter White is evil.
Yup. The industry he chose to be in does not abide by the same rules as a legit chem lab. Of all the deaths Walt was a part of, I don’t blame him for Gale, that death was a direct result of a ruthless boss he chose to work with, Gus.
People who help manufacture alcohol, opiate pharmaceuticals, cigarettes, etc. also contribute to death and misery for endless millions, but nobody considers them supervillians. People don’t consider someone working at a brewery to be evil.
Having said that, I didn’t imply WW wasn’t evil, just that he was less evil than people in the George RR Martin universe like King Joffrey, Ramsay Snow, the Mountain, etc.
Right. Walt isn’t pure evil. Walt is *part *evil.
Heck, Walt isn’t even the most evil character on Breaking Bad. If there’s someone who is the incarnation of pure evil, it’s Todd. Walt kills people in the meth business. Todd kills the kid on the bike and Andrea. They *are *innocent bystanders.
Of course, then you do have to ask how much of what Todd does can be traced back to Walt. Walt sets things in motion, and sometimes the evil escapes and gets away from him. A bit like with the plane crash.
How much do we blame Bruce Banner when the Hulk goes out smashing?
I personally see the point of the show as being a bait-and-switch for passive, narcissistic geeks. The sort of people who think, by virtue of their intellect, the world owes them something. It starts out as a kind of wish fulfillment fantasy for the viewer, with a veneer of moral justification just so we can feel safe identifying with Walter.
But note that as soon as his cancer goes into remission, he punches his own reflection. He’s lost his moral justification. And so have we. Gilligan seemed to be saying, “If you identify with Walter, you’re maybe not the nice guy you think you are.” He took the geek fantasies to their darkest depths. That takes guts, to potentially alienate an audience like that.
Walter wasn’t evil. Cartoon characters are evil. Walter was all-too-human–that’s the point.
You open yourself up to that, yes, just as Walter did. The benefits of profiting from organised crime are offset by the fact that you’re now living within the law of the jungle.