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Redundant posted:I'm not sure I can really agree with this. Walt is a pretty great meth kingpin when everything is considered, sure he has set backs but ignoring his successes (which there were lots of, even if some of them were desperate acts or didn't go perfectly smoothly) does him and the show a bit of a disservice. I feel like this is the same sort of revisionism that led to people calling Walt a monster from the very beginning because they saw how it ended up. The thing with Walt is that his ego and pride fucks it up Every. Single. Time. He probably could be pretty good at it, given time - he's detail obsessed and fastidious (and pretty ruthless as well), but he just can't bear not being in the limelight, or lording it over others. He doesn't take the time to learn how things work in the criminal underground, he just blunders around in the blind certainty that he knows best (which repeatedly nearly gets him and Jessie killed). There were multiple times where he could have just taken the money - more money than he could ever need - and walk away, safely, but he didn't. Mike absolutely nails him in Season 5 for this stuff.
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Jan 18, 2014 18:39
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Redundant posted:I'm not sure I can really agree with this. Walt is a pretty great meth kingpin when everything is considered, sure he has set backs but ignoring his successes (which there were lots of, even if some of them were desperate acts or didn't go perfectly smoothly) does him and the show a bit of a disservice. I feel like this is the same sort of revisionism that led to people calling Walt a monster from the very beginning because they saw how it ended up. He really isn't. Walt is good at creating Meth. He's fairly bad at selling it. He depends on Jesse to do most of the distribution and networking and the second they run into any serious problems they end up scrambling around in panic. A lot of his Meth Kingpin stuff boils down to "Jesse, do this thing!!" and then it backfires and they have to deal with the consequences. A good portion of the time Jesse points out why this is a bad idea even but Walt convinces him to do it. I think Walt could be good at it, excuse he's egotistical and greedy and that makes him do stupid things. The 'time limit' his cancer gives him also encourages him to take quick and easy routes instead of the safe and sure ones but I think we see enough of Walt to say that he'd do that even if cancer wasn't an issue. He is successful enough when moving small amounts of Meth directly via Jesse. The second he tries to get into distribution is where things begin to go downhill rapidly because Walt is not stable enough to actually be able to keep a good distribution network going. It doesn't matter if you're discussing the Tuco stuff, the Gus stuff, the Aryan stuff or even their own attempts, they're just not very good at it. They have short-term success that balloon into long-term disaster almost entirely because of Walt and his own issues. I watched the show for the first time only a few weeks ago and came into with no preconceived notions beyond hearing that it's a very good show. This isn't me revising anything, it is my thoughts while watching the show for the first time. It may be that I watched the show beginning-to-end instead of week but Walt's flaws stand out very starkly in that format. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Jan 18, 2014 |
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Jan 18, 2014 18:39
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You make valid points but I can't help but think that when I look "big picture" he achieves things that would lead to legendary status amongst drug dealers. In a relatively short space of time he makes a mountain of cash, firmly establishes his product as being the very best and wipes out a huge amount of the opposition without attracting much real heat despite having a DEA agent in the family. He eventually gets taken down due to his own hubris combined with actions that were out of his control (even if he did play a part in setting them in motion) but he came a remarkably long way very quickly. He takes a lot of silly risks due to the cancer acting as a ticking clock, I feel if that was removed though he could easily have gone on to be a Gus type figure using the car wash instead of a chicken empire as his distribution medium. A lot of what Walt does is scrambling to maintain but for the vast majority of the show Walt is on an upwards trajectory, there are set backs and his methods are risky but he is still making progress. I don't mean to imply that he's Pablo Escobar but saying he's bad at everything bar manufacturing the meth is a bit harsh considering the train heist, 10 prison murders, Gus murder, DVD, Nazi camp destruction and a host of other smaller successes (I really liked the termite tent idea) that seem to have been masterminded by Walt. Sure, some of them are to cover for previous mistakes or only succeed due to a bit of luck but that shouldn't detract from the fact that he does "succeed" for large periods of the show.
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Jan 18, 2014 19:36
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Redundant posted:You make valid points but I can't help but think that when I look "big picture" he achieves things that would lead to legendary status amongst drug dealers. In a relatively short space of time he makes a mountain of cash, firmly establishes his product as being the very best and wipes out a huge amount of the opposition without attracting much real heat despite having a DEA agent in the family. He eventually gets taken down due to his own hubris combined with actions that were out of his control (even if he did play a part in setting them in motion) but he came a remarkably long way very quickly. The thing is that most of what he achieves is not actually his own things. His Meth? Certainly. That poo poo is legendary. The mountain of cash he makes is, as Jesse points out, actually fairly trivial compared to the profit Gus makes off it. It's a lot of money. A lot of money. However, as Walt recognizes, it's actually a lot less money than he would be making as a kingpin. Gus is the legendary figure there. Walt is the guy working for him, and that burns Walt hard. Walt could unarguably be successful just by cooking meth. He made millions of dollars by doing so. But being a kingpin? Nah. He doesn't have the mindset for it, but he desperately believes he does. If Walt was willing to just make Meth and take the kind of role that Gail did, he really would have just been a legend. As pointed out above, he refuses to stay out of the limelight. Skyler had to beg him to not draw attention to the family. She had to repeatedly plead with him not to do things which attracted attention to him. She had to come up with the gambling story to explain where the money was coming from and had to plead with him to work with her to justify it to Hank properly. And even then he went out and bought cars and did stupid poo poo because he absolutely could not bare not flaunting his money. When he gets drunk he dropped crucial hints to Hank because the dude could literally not control himself and absolutely wanted to brag about how smart he was. He is arrogant, incautious, and a good chunk of his successes are due to the people around him as opposed to his own actions. In comparison look at Gus. Gus lives a relatively modest life as the manager of a series of corporate owned chicken shacks. He is modestly wealthy and extremely cautious. He is able to make friends within the DEA and support them without any suspicions because he doesn't feel the need to brag or show off. He only accepts Walt against his better judgment and after much encouraging and that one mistake is what topples his empire. Gus is what Walt wants to be but what he absolutely does not have the mindset to be. This is why Walt couldn't have become a Gus-like figure. Gus is okay with not bragging. He is okay with looking weak. He is fine with the idea that he is making money in secret and nobody knows. Walt just can't do that. He has to put on his peacockin' hat and show off and make sure everyone knows it was him. Walt has short term success stories but every single short-term success story he has comes with the germ of long-term failure. Some of these are outside of his control but a good portion of them are entirely his own fault. He wanted to make an empire but he did not have the mindset to do so. He could certainly pull off short-term successes but short-term doesn't matter in the long run. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Jan 18, 2014 |
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Jan 18, 2014 19:54
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I think Season One is really good at setting up the show in general. As it's been said, the show consistently tops itself in terms of stakes. Not until season 5 did I feel the show "reset" itself. Everything that happens, has purpose- which is hard for any show to do. The characters feel like people and not plot devices to get the show moving.
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Jan 18, 2014 20:03
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I think comparisons with Gus are a bit harsh considering their backgrounds, especially since Gus seems to have been working for the cartel before taking out his bosses and taking over the region using Walt as his manufacturer. In many ways I feel that Walt and Gus have a similar arc in that they both start off as a cog in the machine, work with the wrong people to try and make the step up, kill their bosses, achieve short term success before being undone by that decision. I also think it's harsh to diminish Walts achievements by saying they were accomplished by people around him since those people were mostly doing what Walt told them too, I'd also say that picking the right man for the job is a big part of being "The Boss" but I just finished saying that both Walt and Gus made terrible decisions in this respect so maybe I will leave that one  I'm not trying to imply that Walt is the best criminal in the show, he had several glaring weaknesses which have been pointed out, I just feel like people might be underestimating his accomplishments which were achieved in a very short period of time.
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Jan 18, 2014 20:47
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Sal Goodman says it perfectly. "You guys suck at peddling meth." I swear to God, Walt's just plain bad at being a criminal. He's good at staying alive because he's got that mad science that no other criminal can boast, but he's just plain incompetant when it comes to being a gangster. I guarantee you that if he was partnered with anyone less incredibly dense than Jesse, he'd have either been forced to retire by season 2 or gotten killed by his own partner before even MEETING Gus.
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Jan 18, 2014 20:56
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Walt is clever and he stumbles rear end-backwards into situations where he can use that cleverness to achieve a masterstroke and leapfrog ahead (the biggest of these being taking out Gus while Mike is available and motivated to provide an entire distribution network). But he sucks at building an empire. His fall is partly due to the immediate issues in S5b, but it's mainly due to the fact that he put himself in a ludicrously unsafe position and seemed to have no idea. He's a frail meth cook with tens of millions in secret cash and absolutely no one he can trust. He has no muscle, he just knows a gang of neo-nazis with no reason not to turn on him and leave him dying in the desert the first chance they get, yet he treats them like Jesse and just assumes they'll do whatever he wants. He's not a kingpin, he has nothing. When he started cooking alone with Todd I was thinking "This is so stupid, what is there to stop Todd from just killing him and taking an entire cash haul one day?" and while it didn't unfold quite like that, that situation is what ultimately took him down.
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Jan 18, 2014 21:15
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I think the thing that makes Walt such a lovely criminal is that he doesn't understand crime is boring. He goes to Jesse with the assumption that Jesse is making bank when Jesse is just making by. Tuco is a maniac, sure, but he's a pretty benign figure. He's not making big power plays. He's just sitting on top and enjoying himself. The cartels are happy with the status quo. Mike spends most of his time hanging out with his granddaughter and watching old movies. Even Gus's crazy revenge against the cartels is the product of years and years of biding his time, slowly accumulating power, and not letting himself be seen as a threat until it's too late. Ignoring the cancer, imagine Walt spending decades accumulating power and planning revenge on someone. Imagine Walt having to wait. He could never do it. Jesse calls Walt out perfectly in season one when they go to the scrapyard to meet Tuco. He's not acting like a real criminal. He acts like what a non-criminal thinks criminals are like. He gets off on the hypermasculine version of himself he becomes. It's like when he turns the magnet on full power when they're wiping the laptop. It's completely unnecessary, but it's exciting.
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Jan 18, 2014 21:48
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Timeless Appeal posted:I think the thing that makes Walt such a lovely criminal is that he doesn't understand crime is boring. This is spot on. In many ways Walt is appealing to us because he does the things we want to do. His impatience and his frequent urges to do something unnecessary/reckless because "Why the gently caress not?" is part of that. This is where the "Walt was always a monster" criticism is too black and white, because a lot of Walt does represents the thoughts a lot of us have in our day to day lives, but would never even consider acting on. Not the dreams we never pursue, but the idle thoughts we have for a half second and then immediately dismiss. Freed by his cancer, he just stops giving a gently caress and engages in all those impulses. Why let some guy laugh at your kid when you could kick his rear end? That guy who just cut you off, what if you blew his car up? But the story isn't about having those wishes/daydreams fulfilled, it's about watching some guy try to fulfill them. Consider how humiliating his "That guy who cheated with your wife, why don't you go kick his rear end?!" fantasy played out. The poster ov wasn't off the mark when he said that a lot of the story is a teenage revenge fantasy. The thing is, that's what Walt is doing, but it's not what the show itself is doing. We as viewers kind of watch in a mix of glee, amusement, and horror as he engages in all these fantasies, but we don't endorse those behaviors.
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Jan 18, 2014 22:29
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Tender Bender posted:The poster ov wasn't off the mark when he said that a lot of the story is a teenage revenge fantasy. The thing is, that's what Walt is doing, but it's not what the show itself is doing. We as viewers kind of watch in a mix of glee, amusement, and horror as he engages in all these fantasies, but we don't endorse those behaviors. Yeah, that was exactly what I was saying. Walt is definitely a monster, but he's not a monster by way of sheer category (there's no such thing, in good fiction), he's a monster by way of degree. He's the idiotic, utterly egocentric, completely short sighted id that we all sometimes want to let loose, but realise will never benefit us in the long run.
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Jan 19, 2014 02:19
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I think the pilot for Breaking Bad is pretty much the best pilot ever. Not that it doesn't have its problems (it's a pilot) but you watch it and basically that is the show. Topped off by the fact that the second episode isn't another pilot but rather a direct continuation of the show itself. In my experience, if you aren't hooked by the pilot, BB may just not be the show for you. And that's cool. I've seen a lot of people jump on the bandwagon since it became common knowledge that BB is the best show ever (except maybe the Wire) but if the pilot doesn't sing to you, why wait for it to "get good"? There is no real point where BB "gets good" it was always good and gets better. TV is supposed to be fun. If the pilot isn't fun for you, BB may not be a good fit for you. That's cool. Watch something else. Don't waste hours you'll never get back.
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Jan 19, 2014 03:12
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Shbobdb posted:TV is supposed to be fun.
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Jan 19, 2014 03:32
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ImpAtom posted:Perhaps more importantly, Walt is not actually a mistreated person. Walt absolutely is a mistreated person. He also creates many of his own problems. These two things are not mutually exclusive. That's part of the beauty of it, Walt is mistreated just enough that he believes that mistreatment is the source of all his problems.
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Jan 19, 2014 03:58
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Barry Foster posted:Mike absolutely nails him in Season 5 for this stuff. He absolutely does not, though. Look, I love Mike as next as the next guy but his final "own" on Walter was pretty much revisionist history. I feel like people forget the set of events that ended up with Walt in the doghouse with Gus in the first place. Jesse gets pissed and goes on a suicide run against the street dealers, and Walt saves Jesse in turn. People can spin this into being about "Walt's pride" or whatever but Vince Gilligan and the actors have been quite up front about the fact that Walt has a genuine connection to Jesse, even more than his own son. So then Mike is mere seconds away from killing Walter, then when he thwarts that miraculously Gus slits Victor's throat in front of him without saying a word. It's absolute bullshit to pretend that Walt wouldn't have reason to expect the ax to come down on him and his family as soon as Gus had a suitable replacement. So is Mike okay with the very first path, that ends with Jesse dead? Is he pretending Gus wasn't practically begging for Walt to kill him? Walt does his fair share of deplorable poo poo S1-4 but I feel like the people pretending he was always 100% bad to the bone from episode one are kind of missing the forest for the trees. I think S5A is the root of the problem, where his actions become just completely prideful and unjustifiable. As much as I love that part of the series I think drilling this home as hard as they did was a mistake on the writer's part, one they corrected with S5B. He's still a dick, but the humanity's there. Walt being as morally complex as he is is one of the reasons the show is so good. That DICK! fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 04:32
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Timeless Appeal posted:Okay, I agree with some stuff here, but I don't think TV has to be fun. I mean that would imply stuff like Threads or Roots is bad television. Also, Ozymandias might be one of the great single episodes of an TV show, and it made me want to throw up. The word "fun" when applied to forms of entertainment or art is such a ridiculous  I had the same reaction to Ozymandias, though 
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Jan 19, 2014 05:07
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Blind Melon posted:Walt absolutely is a mistreated person. He also creates many of his own problems. These two things are not mutually exclusive. That's part of the beauty of it, Walt is mistreated just enough that he believes that mistreatment is the source of all his problems. How is he mistreated? I guess you can argue he's poorly treated at the car wash but everything else I can think of is people bending over backwards to help him out or accommodate his problems. He isn't fabulously rich and wealthy at Gray Matter because he chose to leave. We don't know the specifics but, especially based on how Gretchen and Elliot treat him and what we know of Walt, it was almost certainly because of his own issues and not because he was driven out. He's obviously angry and bitter about Gray Matter but we've never given any serious indication that it was anything but his own fault that he took the buyout and his friends clearly love him and want to help him when they find out about his illness. I mean his life isn't perfect but I don't think moreso than anyone else in the world or to the point you could argue that he just got a bum wrap. (Cancer aside which, yeah, is just totally lovely and a bad roll of the dice.) That DICK! posted:I think S5A is the root of the problem, where his actions become just completely prideful and unjustifiable. His actions became completely prideful and unjustifiable from the moment he turned down Gray Matter's help. He quite literally at that point decides he would rather murder people than accept help. Walt is not a robot. He clearly loves his family and it becomes clear that he loves Jesse too. However the series is pretty clear about the fact that Walt wasn't a good man who fell. He was a bad man who got a chance to act on the urges he suppressed because he no longer feared consequences for them. That isn't mutually exclusive with him loving his family... but it does highlight that at least part of his familial love is based on his own pride and his own ego. He wanted to provide for his family because he loved them... but also because a man provides for his family and it has to be absolutely known that He, the Man of the House, provided for his family. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 05:13
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One little touch that I really liked in the last conversation between Walt and Mike, is when Walt thinks he "owns" Mike by saying that he can't just skip town, he has a family and responsibilities. Mike looks like he's going to say something in response, but doesn't and just walks away. It's great because you know Mike is thinking that he absolutely does have a family and it's killing him to leave them, but there's no point in throwing that fact around, and arguably a good deal of harm could come from revealing this to Walt. And Walt just thinks he just got a good burn on Mike. It's the difference between the two men; One is all bluster and recklessness, and one is quiet and efficient.That DICK! posted:He absolutely does not, though. Look, I love Mike as next as the next guy but his final "own" on Walter was pretty much revisionist history. I feel like people forget the set of events that ended up with Walt in the doghouse with Gus in the first place. Jesse gets pissed and goes on a suicide run against the street dealers, and Walt saves Jesse in turn. People can spin this into being about "Walt's pride" or whatever but Vince Gilligan and the actors have been quite up front about the fact that Walt has a genuine connection to Jesse, even more than his own son. This is one of my favorite parts of the whole story. As bad as Walt is, him running over those gangbangers is a spur of the moment, gut decision to save Jesse. (one assumes Walt went to stop Jesse and ran the guys over when he showed up and didn't have any other options. I don't think he left his house intending to murder those guys). That relatively selfless action causes a huge amount of trouble and sets like the entire rest of the show into motion. Tender Bender fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 06:57
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One little nitpick I'd like to make : Walt is an incredible criminal. Amazing. Absolutely deserving of every shred of praise one could send his way. He's a high school chemistry teacher who, in 2 short years, builds a meth empire that has netted him 80 million. He goes from being so green at this way of life that he cant even remember to disable the safety on a pistol before failing to shoot himself into a guy that mows down a room full of hardened white supremacists with a machine gun. All his early mistakes, his errors, they arent because of idiocy, anger, impatience, it's because he's brand new at this and learning on the job.
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Jan 19, 2014 08:26
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hiddenmovement posted:One little nitpick I'd like to make : Walt is an incredible criminal. Amazing. Absolutely deserving of every shred of praise one could send his way. Walt killing the Nazis isn't particularly the sign of a good criminal, not in the least because he quite literally kills himself doing it. He goes on a killing spree (if admittedly one involving a hilariously implausible trap machine gun). That's not master-grade criminal at all. It's a very effectively killing spree but other than being a particularly clever bit of mechanical wizardry it's not meaningfully different from the hits we saw nameless goons carry out earlier in the show. Likewise, Walt made a lot of money, but he was remarkably bad about hiding it. Other people had to beg him to do things like launder money and he never expressed particular interest in how effectively his money was being laundered or how he was planning to keep his operation a secret. He had some good ideas but he never thought long-term about them and that almost ways backfired on him. His most effective idea was probably the tent one which is one of the few I can think of which doesn't backfire tremendously on him in short order. (And unsurprisingly, the one that earns him the bulk of that $80 million) And it isn't just a case of "well, he's realistically a bad criminal but in-show he is portrayed as a great one." The show goes out of its way to contrast him with guys like Gus or Mike who are good at being criminals. Walt kills both of them but that isn't because he is particularly a better criminal. It is because he is perfectly willing to do something for short-term gain and long-term loss. You can argue the cancer means he can get away with that but as, again, the show is careful to point out, Walt's successes don't suddenly become untouchable once he dies. The show itself emphasizes that Walt is not very good at being a kingpin. That doesn't meant Walt never succeeds, because he obvious does, but that his successes are not actually the signs of a guy who would successfully be an empire-builder in the way that Gus was. Walt is amazing at making Meth. He's pretty good at getting people killed. He's just not good at hiding it and that last step is pretty important. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 08:31
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It's interesting how one of the keys to Walt's success is how often he manipulates people into doing just what he needs, despite being so transparent and a terrible liar. Pretty much every time he works someone over they're practically rolling their eyes and bristling with indignation at his bullshit, but he still gets what he wants. And frequent lie-targets Skyler and Jesse pretty much know they're being lied to all the time, they just don't know enough of the truth to counter his lies or they're too exhausted/browbeaten to fight back. edit: And I'm not sure he ever realized to what extent Gus did the exact same thing to him, that "A man provides" speech was right out of the Walter White playbook. Tender Bender fucked around with this message at 09:12 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 09:07
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I've always figured that Walt never really bothered with the long term aspects of how to launder it all because he didn't exactly have much of a long game to worry about. He didn't exactly have a decade, let alone decades, worth of empire building to work on. He was on borrowed time from the start and had to get things done fast if he was going to leave an impression that could sate his ego's need to be acknowledged. His wife, on the other hand, could be pretty well counted on to figure out some way of dealing with it as long as the money was actually there. Not to say that he isn't gloriously short-sighted in several regards, he definitely is. It's just fairly understandable that his plotting largely revolved around getting as much money as possible in as short a period as possible. Even if the "he did it for his family" thing is complete bullshit, leaving money for his family was still a fairly consistent goal of his.
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Jan 19, 2014 09:10
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ImpAtom posted:Walt killing the Nazis isn't particularly the sign of a good criminal, not in the least because he quite literally kills himself doing it. He goes on a killing spree (if admittedly one involving a hilariously implausible trap machine gun). That's not master-grade criminal at all. It's a very effectively killing spree but other than being a particularly clever bit of mechanical wizardry it's not meaningfully different from the hits we saw nameless goons carry out earlier in the show. I don't recall seeing too many meaningless goons singlehandedly wiping out a heavily armed gang, but ok. Also when Gus pulls off a similar stunt he and Mike wind up heavily wounded and relying on an ex junkie meth cook to escape, but I suppose wiping out the cartel isn't a very impressive criminal action either. quote:Likewise, Walt made a lot of money, but he was remarkably bad about hiding it. Other people had to beg him to do things like launder money and he never expressed particular interest in how effectively his money was being laundered or how he was planning to keep his operation a secret. He had some good ideas but he never thought long-term about them and that ways backfired on him. He. Is. New. At. This. Brand spanking new. Of course he's going to make mistakes, even a seasoned operator like Mike fucks up by going with a bit of a hack lawyer when it comes to money distribution. In the end, thanks largely to Skylar, the money laundering ends up being a really effective part of the whole operation. Look at the errors we know Gus made in expanding his operation, he gets his partner murdered and only escapes himself due to family connections. quote:And it isn't just a case of "well, he's realistically a bad criminal but in-show he is portrayed as a great one." The show goes out of its way to contrast him with guys like Gus or Mike who are good at being criminals. Walt kills both of them but that isn't because he is particularly a better criminal. It is because he is perfectly willing to do something for short-term gain and long-term loss. You can argue the cancer means he can get away with that but as, again, the show is careful to point out, Walt's successes don't suddenly become untouchable once he dies. Mike and Gus have decades of experience on Walter, of course they're better. The point I was making wasn't Walt is the greatest criminal in the world, but he certainly has an incredible talent for it considering the learning curve and what he manages to accomplish from nothing in such a short stretch of time. Also the fact that he thinks short-mid term doesn't somehow invalidate the fact his criminal career goes from success to success (at the expense of his family one). Within the bounds the short term thinking that he is forced into by virtue of his terminal illness, he is very very successful indeed. quote:realistically a bad criminal If I heard about a real life 52 year old chemistry teacher with lung cancer that went from effectively broke to having 80 million in two years having slaughtered every single rival in his path my jaw would be on the floor. He liked it, he was good at it, and it made him feel alive.
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Jan 19, 2014 09:15
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hiddenmovement posted:I don't recall seeing too many meaningless goons singlehandedly wiping out a heavily armed gang, but ok. Also when Gus pulls off a similar stunt he and Mike wind up heavily wounded and relying on an ex junkie meth cook to escape, but I suppose wiping out the cartel isn't a very impressive criminal action either. The meaningless goons almost killed Mike by doing exactly what Walt did. Firing into his truck with machine guns. It was only because Mike had forewarning (and was probably the most competent person when it came to survival and killing in the show) that he survived. Later on they used a more effective plan and just gassed everyone in the truck. Gus wipes out a well-protected cartel who knew he was there and had reason to be suspicious of him after spending years working up to a position where he could get into that position. And yeah, he got lucky as hell. He would have been dead if not for Jesse. Walt literally drives up to the place and parks his car. Anyone with a machine gun could have done what Walt did, aside from maybe the Saving Jesse part. hiddenmovement posted:He. Is. New. At. This. Walt being new at it doesn't mean he is good at it even by the terms of being new at it. He doesn't go from success to success. Most of his plans end up in failures where he barely survives and most of the time his survival is due to luck or due to other characters saving his rear end. We're talking about the kind of guy who gets drunk and tells his DEA agent brother-in-law that there was another criminal out there because he was so egotistical he couldn't stand Gail getting credit for his work. That is not a guy with a real talent for being a criminal. That's the kind of poo poo you read about in a "World's Dumbest Criminal" article. Walt is not a bumbling inept idiot but he is egotistical, arrogant, self-centered, and prone to bad decisions. He can pull off amazing plans but he also is the kind of guy who whines at his wife when she tries to convince him that, hey, maybe we should make sure our DEA Agent relative has no reason to be suspicious of us or gets frustrated when she tries to get him to pick a believable cover story for their money laundering operation. He is the kind of guy who gets really annoyed when he's told he can't spend his money on ostentatious cars when they have no justification for it. That is Walt's big problem. Not that he is stupid, but that he is arrogant, and that is unlikely to be something that would have changed had he not had lung cancer. He wants to preen and show off and be recognized and he doesn't like that what he'd have to do to be really successful gets in the way of that. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 09:43 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 09:26
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ImpAtom posted:The meaningless goons almost killed Mike by doing exactly what Walt did. Almost killing one guy but loving it up and having him kill you instead = wiping out 6+ guys. Exactly the same thing guys, you heard it here first. quote:Anyone with a machine gun could have done what Walt did, aside from maybe the Saving Jesse part. This statement is absurd. Are you an American citizen? Can you jury rig a large automated firing mechanism for a machine gun from the back of a van with little to no experience for me please and post it on youtube? I mean if any dope with a machine gun can do it..... quote:He doesn't go from success to success. Most of his plans end up in failures where he barely survives and most of the time his survival is due to luck or due to other characters saving his rear end. Sure sounds like the time Gus got his partner murdered by the cartel, ergo Gus too is a lovely criminal. Also his plans are such goddamned failures that after only 6 months or so in the job he hurls his original 700,000 dollar goal out the window and ends up reaping tens of millions. God what a useless failure of a man. quote:We're talking about the kind of guy who gets drunk and tells his DEA agent brother-in-law that there was another criminal out there because he was so egotistical he couldn't stand Gail getting credit for his work. That is not a guy with a real talent for being a criminal. That's the kind of poo poo you read about in a "World's Dumbest Criminal" article. Yes, it's Walter's great big human flaw. Just like Gus couldn't let go of his hatred for Hector, Walt can't let his ego lie down long enough to behave, and it brings them both undone. Again, this must make Gus a lovely criminal as well because he couldn't follow his own rules and distance himself emotionally from the situation at hand. Which is a totally ridiculous line of logic but it seems to be the one you're applying to Walt so here we are. It's fine to hate Walt for the enormous bastard he is, for the lies, the manipulation, the selfishness and betrayal, but if you think he was bad at what he did you are living on Mars. From a standing start, literally no experience at all, it took him just two years to amass vast wealth, create the best meth the world has ever seen, slaughter every rival that got in his way, evade capture, secure a legendary legacy for himself (which lets face it, he REALLY wanted), and figure out a way to get the money to his family, all on a forced truncated timeline because by the way he's terribly sick. You think that guy was bad at being a crook. That guy. The multimillionaire drug lord that murdered everyone and was never apprehended. I'm being trolled. Only answer.
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Jan 19, 2014 09:46
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Timeless Appeal posted:Okay, I agree with some stuff here, but I don't think TV has to be fun. I mean that would imply stuff like Threads or Roots is bad television. Also, Ozymandias might be one of the great single episodes of an TV show, and it made me want to throw up. Ozymandias was visceral, but I loved every second of it. I didn't have to force myself to watch it, I watched it and I loved it. . . but I was also a prisoner to it. I couldn't not watch it. And BB does cover that arc, going from "I want to watch this" to "I can't not watch this". Either way, I'm loving the poo poo out of it and my time is well spent. That is what TV is for. When someone recommends a show to me and says I need to watch the entire first season or whatever before "it gets really good" I skip the show because gently caress that poo poo. I ain't got time to sit around and "wait" for my entertainment to be entertaining. Which is why I'm cool with people peacing out after the first episode of Breaking Bad. Everybody has an hour-or-two they can waste. That's why poo poo like SVU is on the air. If you love it, great! If not, do something else with those hours.
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Jan 19, 2014 09:48
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If 0 to 80+Million in 2 years doesn't make you a good criminal then what does?
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Jan 19, 2014 09:52
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hiddenmovement posted:Almost killing one guy = wiping out 6+ guys. Exactly the same thing guys, you heard it here first. The the terms of how it is executed, yes, it is. In both cases it is literally "fire repeatedly into enclosed area." That's it. What exactly is so impressive about this besides Walt jury-rigging the machine gun to fire? And that's a totally impressive bit of mechanical engineering but, as I said, it isn't particularly impressive from a criminal perspective. Someone who is not Walt could have gotten the exact same result by standing outside and firing in themselves. hiddenmovement posted:You think that guy was bad at being a crook. That guy. The multimillionaire drug lord that murdered everyone and was never apprehended. Yes, actually. He was in fact bad at being a crook. That is why he was identified and forced to go on the run, why he lost most of his money to a doublecross by his own allies, and why his eventual ending was him murdering a bunch of people and effectively committing glorified suicide. socialsecurity posted:If 0 to 80+Million in 2 years doesn't make you a good criminal then what does? Getting away with it for longer than a few months. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 10:07 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 09:56
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Shbobdb posted:Ozymandias was visceral, but I loved every second of it. I didn't have to force myself to watch it, I watched it and I loved it. . . but I was also a prisoner to it. I couldn't not watch it. Shouldn't shows be recommended based on the tastes of the person you're recommending to, rather than your own personal tastes? Would you not recommend a show that takes a season to get good to someone that doesn't mind waiting a season, just because you yourself do mind going through that entire season first?
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Jan 19, 2014 09:58
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ImpAtom posted:How is he mistreated? I guess you can argue he's poorly treated at the car wash but everything else I can think of is people bending over backwards to help him out or accommodate his problems. How about Hanks toast at his 50th birthday party? A lot of it is debatable, (everything about his relationship with Skyler) but plenty of it is not, like the way he gets treated by his students.
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Jan 19, 2014 10:03
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Blind Melon posted:How about Hanks toast at his 50th birthday party? A lot of it is debatable, (everything about his relationship with Skyler) but plenty of it is not, like the way he gets treated by his students. Hank is kind of an rear end in a top hat to everyone so I don't really count that. That is less Walt being mistreated and more that is how how Hank talks to literally everyone, even his best friend/partner and his wife. You're right that Walt is treated like poo poo by his students though. I mentally wrote that off as just part of being a teacher, which is kind of depressing in retrospect.
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Jan 19, 2014 10:06
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hiddenmovement posted:Sure sounds like the time Gus got his partner murdered by the cartel, ergo Gus too is a lovely criminal. Also his plans are such goddamned failures that after only 6 months or so in the job he hurls his original 700,000 dollar goal out the window and ends up reaping tens of millions. God what a useless failure of a man. I feel like it's sort of like running a sports team. On one hand you can go out and grab a bunch of guys who are really good at the moment and be really good for a few years, but after a handful of years those guys aren't very good anymore and you're stuck with them and the team is ultimately worse in the long run. On the other hand, you can slowly gather a lot of young players who aren't nearly as good now but eventually they become better than the older guys, and though this method is harder and takes longer, the team is better for it. Walt obviously didn't have much choice in the matter on which to do, and died right after everything went to poo poo. Monicro fucked around with this message at 10:12 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 10:09
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ImpAtom posted:Hank is kind of an rear end in a top hat to everyone so I don't really count that. Ok whatever bud.
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Jan 19, 2014 10:11
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Blind Melon posted:Ok whatever bud. So you're arguing that Hank was in fact completely forthright with everything he said to Marie or Steve or other characters who clearly took what he said without being remotely offended by it? If I'm supposed to buy that Hank being Hank was a sign of Walt being mistreated by the world, yeah, I'm not buying it. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 10:21 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 10:16
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Some day I'm going to read something preceded by "So you're arguing that" that isn't retarded, but alas today is not that day. Everything about that toast was a huge insult to Walt, and a clear sign of a complete lack of respect that is not present to nearly the same degree with the give and take (HUGE distinction there) between Hank and Gomez. Everything from breaking out the gun, in Walts home, at Walts party, over Walt's objections, to taking the beer out of Walts hand for the toast, to holding court and turning on the news of his bust is calculated to diminish Walt to satiate Hanks own ego, and it is very much a colossal and deliberate mistreatment that we don't see from Hank again toward anyone until after he gets shot and is a complete rear end in a top hat to Marie. You don't think that Marie was offended by Hanks treatment of her? She straight up says she considered having an affair. Who are all these people Hank was an rear end in a top hat to who weren't offended or put off? The fact that Hank mistreats a lot of people doesn't mean that he doesn't mistreat Walt.
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Jan 19, 2014 10:39
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Blind Melon posted:Some day I'm going to read something preceded by "So you're arguing that" that isn't retarded, but alas today is not that day. Everything about that toast was a huge insult to Walt, and a clear sign of a complete lack of respect that is not present to nearly the same degree with the give and take (HUGE distinction there) between Hank and Gomez. Everything from breaking out the gun, in Walts home, at Walts party, over Walt's objections, to taking the beer out of Walts hand for the toast, to holding court and turning on the news of his bust is calculated to diminish Walt to satiate Hanks own ego, and it is very much a colossal and deliberate mistreatment that we don't see from Hank again toward anyone until after he gets shot and is a complete rear end in a top hat to Marie. Hank acts that way to drat near everyone prior to El Paso. We even see him trying to put that sort of act back on afterwards. Hank is an rear end in a top hat. He is not being a malicious rear end in a top hat, he is being an insensitive rear end in a top hat and pretty clearly does not mean much of what he says. People get annoyed or angry at him for certain but they don't treat it like he is actively trying to keep them down. Walt does not have a perfect life. People act like shitheads to him sometimes. His students disrespect him. It's a long step from that to him being notably mistreated. Walt certainly takes this tiny little things as part of an ongoing campaign against him and the cause of his problems, but that is because Walt has issues. Walt is the cause of his own problems. (Again, aside from the cancer, which is all bad luck.) The fact that he can't recognize that until the very end of the series is a big part of why things go down like they do. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 10:52 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 10:43
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Blind Melon posted:Walt absolutely is a mistreated person. He also creates many of his own problems. These two things are not mutually exclusive. That's part of the beauty of it, Walt is mistreated just enough that he believes that mistreatment is the source of all his problems. God drat, it's not like there exists mistreated person, and not mistreated person, and absolutely nothing in between. Blind Melon fucked around with this message at 11:13 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 11:11
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Jan 19, 2014 12:59
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ImpAtom posted:
Or to be specific, someone could have gotten the same result by having a buddy hide out in the trunk of their car.
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Jan 19, 2014 15:32
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 18:28 |
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I still feel that a lot of this is revisionist chatter in regards to Walt. It's people focusing on his failings and then looking for ways to diminish his successes, we still have people saying he's a monster for turning down the Gray Matter offer despite the fact that the offer fixed none of the problems Walt thought he had. Walt didn't want treatment, based on his reaction to going into remission he didn't even want to live, he just wanted to leave $737,000 dollars for his family (at that time). If I tell you that my car doesn't work and you offer to buy me a dishwasher that's lovely, but it doesn't fix the problem. If the Gray Matter offer had been life insurance for $750,000 then sure, go to town with the "he was always a monster" chat. As it stands though people are revising their opinion of Walts motivation at that time because they know that later he carries on because he enjoys it. For me he starts enjoying it around the time of the mercury fulminate thing, up until that point he actually was just doing it for his family, but at that point the see-saw starts to tip. It's a similar story in regards to diminishing his successes. He planned the murder of 10 people, in several different prisons in the space of minutes but because he didn't do it himself it's not impressive. He planned and executed the biggest train robbery ever without anyone even knowing and it's not even mentioned. People try to say that because Walt was working for Gus his achievements are relatively minor whilst ignoring that Gus spent most of his time working for the cartel and that Walt was the catalyst for Gus making his move against them and was a key factor in building/establishing his empire. Walt taking out the Nazis was every bit as impressive as Gus taking out the cartel, both of those plans were well thought out and executed despite the fact that both of them left seriously injured. People also revise the Gus/Walt falling out to be entirely Walts fault when Jesse is actually the one mostly responsible for that. I will leave it there since this is turning into  , my main point is that Walt achieves, or is the key reason behind other people achieving, an awful lot in the criminal underworld. You don't manage that in such a short space of time by being a lovely criminal, he's by no means the best but his genius and ability to turn an apparently losing hand into a winner is what made him more than competent and also very dangerous.Let's listen to Jesse for a minute though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtX1AJpYdHU
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Jan 19, 2014 16:22
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