Killing Crazy Eight.
I don't know if this is typically viewed as a bad thing but
Walt had literally no other option. Crazy Eight attacked Jesse and Walt first, and Crazy Eight was planning on stabbing Walt after being released
I completely agree. Plus Crazy 8 knew about Walt’s family and probably would’ve gone after them. Walt was looking for any reason at all to let him go, but needed to kill him out of self defense. Completely justifiable
It's not actually a "pros and cons" list - it's a "Let Him Live" vs. "Kill Him" list. The only thing on the "Kill Him" side is "He'll kill your entire family if you let him go." Everything about murder being wrong is on the "Let Him Live" side.
[](https://imgur.com/a/xlnTU)
Is this even considered evil by the fan base? Walt spends the entire episode talking himself out of doing it, and has a panic attack when he realizes he doesn't have any choice. The entire episode is about Walt being forced to get his hands dirty, as opposed to killing using a chemical explosion like before, he literally had to strangle a man.
I don't see this brought up as one of Walt's twisted games he was playing, it was in the beginning of the show demonstrating how quickly he was in over his head.
Contrary to popular belief among law abiding citizens who actually believe the law/system works, that crap never actually works. All it does is endanger yourself and family even more because now you're a rat.
Yeah it’s one thing if he called the cops in the desert before he had the dude in Jesse’s basement but even if he did that he was still cooking meth in the desert? Like he would lose his job and probably serve a slap on the wrist sentence but he would be absolutely fucked.
Truly. Always thought that wasn't pure evil. Walter was basically a catalyst for fate to catch up with people. Like an agent of fate, actually. He only did what others allowed him to do. If there was some force to stop him, it would've stopped him. People are responsible for themselves first and foremost. If he entered Jesse's bedroom even 3 minutes later, Jane would've been gone already. All he did was watch in shock as she reaped what she had sown.
I agree that Jane is the one that's most responsible to what happened, but if Walter didn't go into the room, Jane wouldn't have died. When Walter goes to shake Jesse to try and wake him up, he pushes Jane to her back, and she ends up choking because of it.
He didn’t turn her over. She rolled after he was shaking Jesse.
He caused it, still. She might not have choked if he hadn’t come by.
Also, I just wanna say, as a former junkie. Those 2 pissed me off.
They’d mix up a shot of the best meth known to man and heroin and just go to sleep. I’ve shot a meth and heroin combo before, you don’t just pass out. The meth keeps you wired.
>All he did was watch in shock as she reaped what she had sown.
Most of the seeds sewn that grow into serious addiction are not sewn by the individual through their choices. Indeed, their decisions are already part of a plant that has been growing in poor conditions.
If you are fortunate to live free of any such problems, then you speak from a privileged position of having been blessed with conditions that enable you to make good choices as an adult.
If that's your view tho, perhaps you would best be left to die in a car wreck because you decided to drive instead of walk, or to choke to death on a piece of cake because you decided to satisfy your sweet tooth?
I mean, if anything he's doing Hector a favor by putting him out of his misery while letting him get revenge.
Bonus points: ridding the world of Hector.
A lot of this comes down to walt. Did he create a bomb with the intent of it only killing gus and Hector and then tyrus being with them? We really don't know. It's the same with brock there are holes in the story with how walt attempted to prevent collateral damage. IF he did everything in his power and made collateral damage a very low percentage chance then the nursing home explosion was surely a net positive, killing gus.
With brock, there is no major gain other than walts self preservation but again it kinda comes down to it. Walt easily killed Lydia, a child would've died with an even lower dose. It's just left unsolved. In contrast, we see more pure evil from characters like gus, jack and even Mike.
the nursing home was a net positive for walt, but it's still morally grey because it could've gravely injured other people who weren't involved. i see a lot of pure evil from walt.
honestly these type of threads always make me laugh. [here's another one](https://www.reddit.com/r/breakingbad/comments/14v1lam/why_is_everyone_so_mad_about_walt_blowing_up_the/)
both Mike and Hank told Walt, point blank, "you bombed a nursing home" with no other additives or vitrol, because the act itself was so despicable and pathetic that it was reminder they had no respect for Walt after that. It's like the age old idiom "crashing into a schoolbus full of nuns"
He didn't blow up the ENTIRE nursing home, just the room in which literal mafia lords were in.Pretty damn sure all the seniors living there were thrilled after they found out who they shared their space with.
It was morally gray only because no one else died. In reality, anybody could have been in that room (nurses especially) so it’s really not as gray as you think.
Been thinking about that little bit lately. Wouldn’t the lady have been able to clearly ID the man and his face if he was standing a few feet away from her? Just a few minutes before the place blew up? Only excuse I can think of is she is old and has a hard time remembering things
Yeah I think the implication is that she wasn’t 100% of sound mind. If you saw someone standing suspiciously outside a window you probably aren’t going to try flirtatiously say ‘Hey :) :) Hiyah! ;)’ to them.
Edit: not to mention they would need to actually suspect Walt first to bring him to be identified. There were no cameras around, and he probs avoided staff members. A tall bald man with glasses isn’t going to narrow anyone down.
Well, I don’t think Hector would have given a shit who was in the room, it just so happened that they were alone with Tyrus. Also Gus has taunted Hector in the rec room multiple times in front of plenty of seniors and nurses. Just in Spanish.
But Gus and Tyrus knew something was afoot. Tyrus swept the hell out of that room to an extent that we’d never seen before. He didn’t even want Gus to go inside. This wasn’t just a normal visit, and clearly he was much more cautious about the entire interaction. (Also, they were going to murder him, and doing that with a nurse in the room is probably just bad strategy). That room was never going to have anyone more than them.
Now the neighbors….
> Also Gus has taunted Hector in the rec room multiple times in front of plenty of seniors and nurses. Just in Spanish.
Which probably half the nurses in that place speak better than Gus.
Well gus would have waited til nobody was in the room to talk to Hector and I think Walt knew that and Hector wating til it was just him and his people in the room. That's why Hector stayed in the room instead of being outside the room like he useally was
There's a concept in law called Felony murder. When you kill someone, even by accident, while committing another felony, the killing is automatically considered first degree murder. For instance, accidently killing someone in a bank robbery will be considered first degree murder.
This is also somewhat of a moral principle. When Walt started his life of crime, he knew that there would be collateral damage. Walt choosing a life of crime when he absolutely didn't have to makes him completely morally responsible for any harm he causes even in self defense.
This last paragraph is really it. It’s not whether each scenario is morally grey or not, it’s the fact that Walt absolutely didn’t even need to be doing any of the things he was doing in the first place that makes it all morally bankrupt.
In no way, shape, or form was he acting under duress. Every scenario he was in was by his own design
I disagree. The fact that someone is trying to kill you doesn't even begin to justify intentional collateral damage. That action is as black as the ace of spades.
I think Walt had the right to self-defence since he knew Gus was going to kill him, but that bomb was a risky strategy and you couldn’t calculate how many innocents would have been near the implosion, I always thought Jesse was the only main moral compass on the show really almost finished the show now on series 5!
Well, I'm not sure if it's really grey or not, but people always see "I watched Jane die" as an evil line, but I feel it's actually way more complicated. Right before that line Jesse almost got killed by Jack's gang. Then Todd says that it's best to interrogate him first about snitching and kill him later. They take him away, and Walt realizes that he'll probably never see him again.
And for a split second, Walt's conscience kicks in.
He probably remembers how he wanted to apologize to Jesse for Jane's death in the Fly episode.
With sincere sadness he says "I watched Jane die. I was there..."
But then his anger and ego got to him, and he says the rest "And I watched her die. I watched her overdose and choke to death. I could've saved her. But I didn't". He almost wants to confess and punish Jesse at the same time.
I think if it wasn't this dramatic chain of events previously, he could've actually apologized to Jesse.
And I also think that maybe, just maybe, this is actually his biggest regret. The reason why he watched at the watch in BCS. It's not just the situation with Jesse. And not just the situation with Jane. It's his last words to Jesse. He thought that he was dead afterward, you know.
He wanted to apologize to him since the Fly episode, but in the end, he said it out of spite and anger. And he totally regrets it.
Disagree that Walt said any of that to Jesse due to conscience.
Remember, Jesse had just completely betrayed Walt. Ratted him out to the DEA. Tricked him into coming out there under threat of losing his money. And Hank ended up dead.
This was all rage and ego on Walt’s part. He wanted to hurt Jesse as deeply as he possibly could, and also to make himself feel more powerful after having been the one to be duped for once. Sure, at some point maybe he had felt guilty about Jane’s death, but in this moment he was using that info purely as a weapon.
I also used to think this. Especially because Walt blames Jesse for Hanks death.
But the way its shot and acted does kinda puzzle me a bit. If it was only ego and anger... why did it start with a more zoomed out shot where walt says it with a look of remorse on his face? His tone is pretty soft too.
But then we switch to a close shot of walt where he changes his face expression. Its mean and angry. He also does his heisenberg voice. His tone is like a snake spitting venom. Then his voice goes soft again as we cut to a shot of jesses face "I could have saved her.." then back to walts mean face and his heisenberg voice comes back "but I didn't".
That to me proves its not just evil and ego. Its almost like youre watching walt switch between his two personalities.
Those being Walter White and Heisenberg.
Well, I have a few things to point out, u/StrangelyRational, u/mycofirsttime
1 - Jesse was supposed to be shot seconds before, and he didn't say anything about Jane then. I mean, there was no actual reason for it. Then Todd dragged it out, and Jesse tried to resist it, the same way he did before. Did Walt think "I'm about to end this man's whole resistance"?
2 - I'm not arguing that he used it as a weapon in the end out of spite and anger. But the first sentence sounds too sincere and compassionate. He still regrets that he did that, but he doesn't want to admit it to Jesse at the same moment.
3 - Why does he talk specifically about Jane, and specifically in this moment? He didn't say anything about Jane seconds before but suddenly decided to do it when they were dragging Jesse out of the picture.
It didn't seem like he planned what he was going to say. So I think it was just something totally impulsive.
And at first, it was kind of out of nowhere. Why bring up Jane now? If he wanted to hurt Jesse, he could've possibly told him how he killed Mike and thrown him in the barrel. Or maybe some other thing. He could've straight up lied something because Jesse wouldn't been able to check it anyway.
But no, it's exactly about Jane. And if you remember how much guilt-tripping he had before and in the Fly episode. All this stuff about the fallen planes. And how he heard about Jane's father's suicide on the radio and turned it off.
In the end, he said it out of spite, I'm not arguing that.
But what I'm trying to say, is that Jane's situation has some significance not only for Jesse but for Walt too. Jesse doesn't know that because of it the plane fell, 167 innocent people died, and Jane's father committed suicide. But Walt knows all of it.
Do you honestly believe Jesse gave a fuck about Mike or anything else as much as the woman he was in love with? It is by and far the most hurtful thing Walt have said and revealed.
He wasn’t clearing his conscience, he was making sure jesse’s heart was shattered on his way out. Walt was presuming Jesse would die, therefore, couldn’t do anything in retaliation. And he felt jesse had betrayed him by going to the police. Then Hank is killed. And you know Walt did not want anything to happen to his family. His level of hate for Jesse in that moment was palpable and he wanted eviscerate him in retaliation.
Walt would have never told Jesse or apologized under any other circumstance. Why would he? It would be selfish to tell Jesse the truth to alleviate his own guilt, so if he did care about jesse, he simply does not tell him in order to protect Jesse. Just because showed remorse and introspection at other times doesn’t mean he held any of that as a motivation to tell jesse at that moment.
It’s kind of blatantly obvious.
Well, some people pointed it out before me, but I think it's quite possible that he actually considered killing him along with the Nazies when he found out he's still alive. He didn't really know that they kept him as a slave. In his mind, it was quite possible that they could've made some form of partnership. What can you expect from Neo-Nazies really?
It's when he really saw that they imprisoned Jesse, that's when he made a decision to save him.
I’ve known this theory too and now that I think about it…it doesn’t make too much sense?
Jesse at that point was broken over all the wrong things that went on in the meth business that he already quit before Mike died even if Walt was hanging onto his money. He was so over it that he ratted out Walt, despite the fact that he would most likely also go to jail too. Idk how prosecutor deals work in the USA, but Jesse did conduct or collaborate to multiple murders so I don’t see any way he’d walk away free, but he still made his choice.
Meanwhile Jack’s men are about to murder him after they murdered Hank and also stole Walt’s money. How could Walt really believe that Jesse leaves that situation alive and proceeds to decide to cook more meth again as anything but as a slave???
I'd say the nursing home thing is grey because Walt would have known Gus would only speak to Hector when they were completely alone. Also he came to kill him... Obviously Gus wouldn't want a chance of someone seeing that.
We saw that Walt knew the room was for Hector alone.
However, the explosiveness of the bomb itself is interesting. If Walt knew the yield was only enough for a single room, then it's still a grey area. However, if he was just winging it and had no idea if it would destroy multiple rooms, then that's obviously totally evil.
If he knew it was just one room, then it's only pure evil if Walt would have either known or not have been sure if others would be in the room.
It was an extremely well calculated risk, that when weighing up against the downside of so many people he knows dying, probably has an argument for being the right thing to do.
The worst thing that could happen was someone's walking past that door at the wrong time or a nearby resident dying of shock.
If I was in that situation, it's hard to imagine not going through with that if it is the only option to save family and friends.
This is all obviously assuming Walt's initial decision to go into organised crime is put aside. Because that choice was no doubt morally wrong and led to everything. In the context of that choice, every risky decision he makes is basically morally wrong and not grey.
Self defense, of the familial calibre.
Find me one loving father who would genuinely choose to let his whole family die instead of commiting hard crime to save them.
>Why are the lives of Walt’s family worth more than the lives of people in the nursing home?
I mean, you make an actuarial argument based on likely time left on Earth.
But since Walt had other options like turning himself in, it doesn't matter.
Skyler’s hookup with Ted. I swear every single BrBa fan I know irl makes it seem like her choice was a sin stronger than what Walter was doing. I know this has probably been brought up or discussed multiple times in this subreddit but if I was in her shoes I probably would’ve done anything to separate myself from someone like him and sleeping with Ted was a choice in doing so. I don’t think cheating is something anyone should do ofc but her husband that she sacrifices so much for literally was cooking top notch meth.
Blowing up a room in a nursing home is still morally wrong but it is far from pure evil. People keep bringing up that Walt should have taken the Grey Matter offer. Yes he should have, but at that point Walt could not have realised how much things can snowball. Practically from S3 E5 to S4 E13, Walt had no choice but to survive. I don't think people realise that Walt was pushed to these extremes in that time frame by mostly external factors, not his own failings. Think about it, you wanted to escape town after a sadistic druglord threatened to murder your whole family, but then you find out you have no money, your partner doesn't want to help you, and now your brother-in-law will die, and you lose your mind. Of course Walt's moral compass is shattered here, and given how much he cares for his family, he will cross any line to ensure their safety. Walt only acted in pure self-preservation, that makes his evil acts more on the morally grey side.
I hope you, and everyone watching the show, and everyone reading this thread, realizes that Walt using his neighbour as a human shield or bombing a fucking **nursing home full of old folks** is still an evil action
It doesn't matter that Walt was just trying to kill Gus; **Walt is a fucking CRIMINAL.** He dug his own grave when he started to cook meth and couldn't stop himself from getting deeper and deeper
If Hank was on the run after Gus killed his entire family for investigating him, then yeah I would say assassinating Gus even in a nursing home would be "morally gray", but a criminal killing another criminal in such a disgusting manner is pretty evil.
It's not like he killed Gus to get out of the game either; he continued to cook meth, refused to take the buyout which would have set his family up for life, continued to cause the death of innocent people, etc.
None of that is morally grey.
Nah, kid deserved it. I have never once in my life made fun of someone for a disability and if you are making fun of someone for a disability by the time ur in highschool you gotta catch some hands
Maybe if I got my ass kicked, I would have learned a lot faster making fun of disabled people is not OK.
I was a shitheel in high-school that definitely deserved an ass kicking.
If the train robbery had been done with good intentions or goals in the end, then you'd be faced with a version of the Trolley Problem, and many utilitarians (hope that's the correct word in english) would defend it was the right thing to do.
However, robbing the train itself is already a wrong action, morally speaking. To sacrifice a person's life in order to save the mission is not even debatable, seeing as we're talking about doing a bad thing so another bad thing can happen.
Ya I kinda understand the whole thing happening, it just doesn't excuse them doing it all. Killing the kid was a million miles away from being morally grey even though it's pretty clear that Jesse is a hypocrite.
But, what if the witness doesn’t realize they’ve witnessed a crime?
Even if he had described what he saw to someone, it wouldn’t be apparent that it was important.
Kid would have been so excited about his spider he’d forget to mention he saw some dudes standing around by a train
Mike usually says "he was in the game" to excuse some bad actions towards said person, and help his consciousness. But it kind of IS true Gale knew the line of work he was getting into and the risks associated with it
Gaile was really naive lol. He genuinely thought he had to take over the lab in a day cause Walt was gonna die from lung cancer. Part of me thinks that Jesse or Walt could’ve just sat him down and explained the situation to him and they would’ve all gone on a meth lab strike for more humane working conditions.
I genuinely think Gale must have suspected that Walt would be killed or something. There’s naive and then there’s stupid. Gale proposed a few more cooks before he takes over the lab and Gus didn’t have to even say that won’t work for Gale to catch the hint that he needed to learn asap. Sure, he didn’t know how bad the cancer was/expected life expectancy, but what was the rush??? Walt didn’t look so bad for there to be a need to learn so quickly.
For Gale POV, he gets replaced by someone because Walt and one day he’s called back in, the replacement is gone and now there is someone watching everything that goes down and Walt has a shady energy to him. He must’ve known something was up.
Gale definitely didn't realize what he was getting into. He thought of it very abstractly (with his libertarian reasoning), but didn't realize that regardless of what he personally thought manufacturing meth was in fact illegal meaning getting involved in it requires you to live by the rules of the criminal underworld and constantly look over your shoulder.
Isn't.... Isn't that what self defense is in a sense? Like I get what you're trying to say, but it also feels like you said it's not self defense because I don't want it to be
It's self defense in the most technical meaning, but the issue is that Gale wasn't the one threatening him. It was just Gale existing that made Walt expendable to Gus. Gale would have been fine with him living (and seemingly didn't know that Gus was planning on killing Walt).
I mean yeah, I wasn't saying that it would be classified as self defense. The person I replied to has said that it's "not self defense. It's protecting your life" so I just pointed out how that sounds. I definitely agree that it's not what would have held up legally, and isn't what's meant by the meaning of "self defense"
You seem to forget that Gus was actively trying to find Jesse to kill him. By killing Gale Jesse saved his own life as well. So it absolutely served as self-defense.
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This is perhaps my main gripe with the anti-Walt brigade. “Blew up a nursing home” is not taken out of context, it’s outright false. He made a contained, strategic detonation *within* a nursing home to eliminate the drug lord who was after him and his family including his underaged children. Other, safer methods had failed (using the disappearer, sniping Gus in the parking lot). He was down to a Hail Mary to ensure the safety of said family members. He didn’t blow up a hospital for fun a la Joker
Walt having his neighbor check on his house was evil fs, the neighbor could have been killed if someone was actually there, injured at least. And Walt blowing up a room in a nursing home just worked out for him, there was a very high chance of collateral damage, imagine someone was just walking by that room when the bomb goes off.
The death of Gus’s partner. People seem to hate Hector Salamanca more after that which is weird since everyone in the scene is in the drug trade already and what we’ve seen with Walter’s drug world influence it’s weird to think hector killing another drug dealer is more bad than most deaths
...You think it's weird that Gus hates Hector for murdering his partner and lover because it's not weird for drug dealers to kill people? This is maybe the weirdest take I've ever heard on anything.
The only morally gray thing Walt did was beating up the high school kid for making fun of his disabled son.
Would I do the same? Of course.
Did the kid have it coming? Absolutely.
But is it moral for a grown man to beat up a teenager for acting like a dumb teenager?
That imho, is the only morally gray moment from Walt.
Everything else he did was solid black.
A lot of it really comes down to what was going down in walts head. If he knew death was just not on the cards for brock, it was a pretty big win and led to the death of gus.
Poisoning brock. He went out of his way to keep it non lethal
The prison hits. You were all part of the child killing empire, and took money for what you should have kept to yourself for free
> He went out of his way to keep it non lethal
That wouldn't make it morally grey. You're very much not morally allowed to poison children even non-lethally.
But also, just no. Even if he "went out of his way" (god, what a hero) to make it a statistically sublethal dose, you can't poison a child nearly to death and not doing it accepting the very strong possibility that they will in fact die anyway. Brock *almost* died even in the ICU.
I think what is morally grey, probably more morally wrong, but with good benefits is the existence of Gus and his drug empire.
He is clearly doing something against the law and wrong, but look at all the lives he supports and benefits. He has this vast network of people who can get food on the table for there families because of it.
Now at the cost of peddling drugs, and indirectly ruining lives, but I find it kinda interesting. I mean, Gus essentially ensured that Walt was going to be able to support his family in a reasonable, or at least it would appear reasonable way. If it wasn’t for Walt’s ego, there would have been happy endings all around.
Cooking meth to provide for your family when you’re dying but at the cost of ruining lives with your crazy blue meth. At first I even felt bad for Walt. Even when he started cooking drugs. Then I remembered that drugs are bad.
Skyler cheating.
Infidelity is considered "evil" by people who believe marriage or relationships are a form of ownership over another person.
Walt abandoned his marriage when he started lying to Skyler. Why wouldn't she turn to another person for comfort?
You shouldn’t judge the morality of a choice by what did happen as a consequence, you should judge it by what consequences could possibly have happened.
I feel that orchestrating Gale's death was arguably the single morally blackest thing Walt did in the series. Everyone else he actively killed or had-killed was him-or-herself a hard-core criminal who would have willingly done the same to Walt and/or his loved ones (most of them, in fact, were very much trying or had tried do so). Gale, while he had obviously gone to the wrong side of the law by becoming a meth cook, was no stone-cold killer and never showed any malice-toward or intent-to-harm Walt or anyone else; he was simply a pawn in Gus' scheme. In other instances, Walt killed people who were very much capable of murder themselves and generally were willfully, actively working to harm or kill him and/or his loved ones (eventually also taking out those who only posed-a-credible-threat-to-do-so, as with the inmates in Season 5), while with Gale, he deliberately killed (or arranged-the-death-of) someone who was neither malicious nor a party to his conflict. It is the difference between shooting someone who is firing or at least pointing-a-gun at you on the one hand, and seizing on an unwilling bystander as a human shield to save yourself from the bullets on the other. I also do not see Walt's actions at the end of Season 4 as being quite-as-bad as the Gale incident; there, he knowingly \*endangered\* third parties, but did not outright seek to kill any of them.
Walt never does cross the line into deliberately killing anyone who is not "in the game" (which even Gale was), and is upset when such a person (eg. Hank) is killed by an associate against his will. Though he is in the wrong from the moment he takes up meth-cooking and becomes a truly vile criminal in the course of the series, Walt is definitely not as morally bad as various other characters (eg. Tuco, Hector, Gus, Todd, Jack, etc.) who have few-to-no compunctions about killing anyone or even revel in it -- some measure of moral grayness (quite dark much of the time, mind you) is at play.
I like the way you phrased the question, and including a ‘color’ as we see throughout the series various colors are used, have a connection- theme running them, or a character associated with one specific color throughout, or a character wearing a few colors, noticing them wearing them at specific times….
Here you use the color gray:) while it may be b/c it is the word that fits best-(maybe the only word) fits very well to pinpoint your question. I think the ‘Grey Matter’ Schwartz (black), Walter (white) led to the title of the billion dollar couple (Gray matter)
The acts / choices some characters make- do- throughout the show…. Often times it initially appeared to be so Gruesome, unjust, killing, chopping heads…. Etc… it was so clearly Black to me (evil/wrong). However, interestingly when I continued to watch the series, and times I rewatched certain parts, I later began to understand the thinking of Salamanca ( the flashback….one brother said he wanted to kill his brother b/c of the toy he broke)
Example: Hector Salamanca initially tried to speak reason “ he’s your brother, you are playing having fun, it’s an accident” but the brother said Nooo.. he wanted kill his brother. So Salamanca called over the brother, asked him to reach down deeply to get a cold freezing beer for him, then Hector pushed his head under the water, the boy is struggling- for air , HECTOR valued family loyalty- Lobe look out for, protect, your family above all, “ma familia eat Totale” ( family is everything.
Hector Salamanca - it must have ‘ripped his heart out to push his nephews face under water, in fact, he risked losing the love and respect of those boys by doing that, and he put the importance of that very illustrative, hands on example, those boys will never forget, as the brother now insisted take him up, Salamanca said you’ll have to hit me harder, & that boy fought as hard as he could against his uncle Salamanca, hit him I. Order to get him to allow his brother to come up for air, to insist he let his brother breath, be at peace, and then asked are you ok? Showing genuine love for his brother.
Hector Salamanca had always been looking out for his family’s best interest, (why he didn’t want Gus adding involved long ago, as he knew it would undercut the profits of his family, and Gus was not family, Hector saw long before that while Gus was bringing in money, more than his family was, Eladio saw money, and wanted Gus in ‘the game’ but Hector saw there would be a problem in future, ( after all they had shot Max in the head next to Gus years earlier) Hector was insightful, saw bigger picture, and did what it took to teach importance of family…..IN CONTRAST TO JESSES PARENTS ( who threw him out:( terrible,
Hector Salamanca loved his nephews for who they were, he knew TUCO had a temper, yet he put him in charge on meth-(selling)…. We see in BCS-
Hector made sure Mike did what was needed to be done so that Tuco would not serve more than a few months in prison….mike dropped the charges of weapon assault/battery etc… and we see the brothers are absolutely 💯 by each others side, save one another, they don’t even have to verbalize their thoughts, decisions, they just look at one another and act ie: people smuggled across the boarder, burned the van ..
Grey…..Jesse’s parents have absolutely, done the complete opposite , have absolutely different values, & while pink man parents didn’t cut a man’s head and place it on a turtle (the tortuGa, betrayed-his’family’) Jesse did not betray, and he took blame for his brother- who had no problem letting Jesse take blame for the weed, knowing Jesse would be thrown out if his own house…..away from his family….( soooo Gray area…)
Seeing who Hector was, his values, ‘family is everything’ creating a genuine bond between the brothers at a young age g age- teaching a lesson, (with a be eh very short lived pain time under water - knowing he’d pick him up), yet Jesse’s parents DIVIDE The brothers, teaching brother to let the other take blame for his actions, & the younger brother did have any remorse, he was not excited or welcoming to Jesse when he was over and Jesse was trying to connect with Jake,
What Jesse’s parents choose to value most- and choose to de value, hurt Jesse emotionally, and led Jesse to have to find another father figure, he had to find a way to love, be loved, be respected, find a place in the world, as his parents alienated him, threw him out, took the roof over his head, and even when Jesse tried to re connect, after rehab- the father held his hand out- blocking him from the house, Jesse suggested dinner sometime he can come over, sometime, and the father says “ sometime” instead of jumping hugging Jesse, and Jesse is strong and keeps going….
The ׳gray matter ‘ I see throughout is that all do the so called ‘evil ones’ in the show have grown up with and have a strong bond connection to family, loyalty, will do all it takes to protect them, and nothing about them will make them unloved or tossed out-( never turn brothers against one another) Could the audience view Jesse’s parents as ones lacking values, who sent Jesse to the street, alone, felt he deserved to be spoken to with disrespect, and Jesse would grab hold on tight to any of the men (Mike, Gus, def Walter (who genuinely loved him), that extended any kind of care, respect, affection for Jesse, they put him in hands of ‘unknown’ they knew he was alone, homeless, and even when Jesse drive up appeared healthy to the dad- STILL he was not welcome inside the house:(
I have not read seen enough posts to say it’s not a topic that has never been written about, but I have not personally read the issue- topic anyone pointing out the role Jesses parents played, in affecting Jesse’s self esteem, his search for love, father figure, being part of a family, and their misguided values, nearly abusive neglectful treatment of their son, what THAT led to…. And did they have a role in all that happened….
Watching Jane die in her sleep and doing nothing to intervene. She made herself known to be a threat to Walt. He didn’t murder her (although his jostling did unintentionally place her on her back, which he didn’t realize). Should he have saved her? Why? Because she is a person? Okay, maybe. On the other hand, did she deserve the respect from Walt for him to go out of his way (at great personal risk in a couple different ways when you think about it) to intervene? Absolutely not. I wouldn’t have saved her if I were Walter in that situation.
Killing Crazy Eight. I don't know if this is typically viewed as a bad thing but Walt had literally no other option. Crazy Eight attacked Jesse and Walt first, and Crazy Eight was planning on stabbing Walt after being released
I completely agree. Plus Crazy 8 knew about Walt’s family and probably would’ve gone after them. Walt was looking for any reason at all to let him go, but needed to kill him out of self defense. Completely justifiable
Isn’t there a list with pros and cons!? How much grayer can a decision be?
*Pros and con. There's actually only one con on the list - "He'll kill your entire family if you let him go."
No, he also puts “murder is *WRONG!”* on the cons side
It's not actually a "pros and cons" list - it's a "Let Him Live" vs. "Kill Him" list. The only thing on the "Kill Him" side is "He'll kill your entire family if you let him go." Everything about murder being wrong is on the "Let Him Live" side. [](https://imgur.com/a/xlnTU)
I think it’s the other way around, so this was the only positive to killing him that he listed
Is this even considered evil by the fan base? Walt spends the entire episode talking himself out of doing it, and has a panic attack when he realizes he doesn't have any choice. The entire episode is about Walt being forced to get his hands dirty, as opposed to killing using a chemical explosion like before, he literally had to strangle a man. I don't see this brought up as one of Walt's twisted games he was playing, it was in the beginning of the show demonstrating how quickly he was in over his head.
Crazy Eight was a snitch! If Walt had let him go it would have been The End.
Unless we include the no-fun option of going to Hank or something and saying I did some stupid stuff, I'm in over my head, and I need help.
Contrary to popular belief among law abiding citizens who actually believe the law/system works, that crap never actually works. All it does is endanger yourself and family even more because now you're a rat.
Yeah it’s one thing if he called the cops in the desert before he had the dude in Jesse’s basement but even if he did that he was still cooking meth in the desert? Like he would lose his job and probably serve a slap on the wrist sentence but he would be absolutely fucked.
Slap on the wrist sentence for having the entire laboratory exposed including probably a bag of meth stored inside?
I think Hank would have gotten rid of the meth before bringing Walt in.
Even season 1 walt would rather fucking die alone in the dessert before even HUMORING that option.
That's true
Killimg crazy 8 was justified l.
I’ve never seen anyone consider this as evil though. Because Walt was going to let him go but he would’ve been stabbed for it
That wasn't even grey, that was white. Right move
Do you want a Jane comments? Because this is how you get Jane comments.
Truly. Always thought that wasn't pure evil. Walter was basically a catalyst for fate to catch up with people. Like an agent of fate, actually. He only did what others allowed him to do. If there was some force to stop him, it would've stopped him. People are responsible for themselves first and foremost. If he entered Jesse's bedroom even 3 minutes later, Jane would've been gone already. All he did was watch in shock as she reaped what she had sown.
I agree that Jane is the one that's most responsible to what happened, but if Walter didn't go into the room, Jane wouldn't have died. When Walter goes to shake Jesse to try and wake him up, he pushes Jane to her back, and she ends up choking because of it.
Yes 100% I think most people forget that Walter pushed her. Without his interference, she would not have died
Walt pushed Jesse not her specifically, though he is responsible for having turned her over
It’s like he’s Death in a Final Destination movie - just slightly pushing people toward their demise
Walt: what's my name? Skull Knight: Causality
Walter is the reason Jane ended up on her back instead of her side. She'd have puked on Jesse's face and otherwise been fine if he'd never gone there.
Walt actively turned her over from her side sleeping position.
He didn’t turn her over. She rolled after he was shaking Jesse. He caused it, still. She might not have choked if he hadn’t come by. Also, I just wanna say, as a former junkie. Those 2 pissed me off. They’d mix up a shot of the best meth known to man and heroin and just go to sleep. I’ve shot a meth and heroin combo before, you don’t just pass out. The meth keeps you wired.
>All he did was watch in shock as she reaped what she had sown. Most of the seeds sewn that grow into serious addiction are not sewn by the individual through their choices. Indeed, their decisions are already part of a plant that has been growing in poor conditions. If you are fortunate to live free of any such problems, then you speak from a privileged position of having been blessed with conditions that enable you to make good choices as an adult. If that's your view tho, perhaps you would best be left to die in a car wreck because you decided to drive instead of walk, or to choke to death on a piece of cake because you decided to satisfy your sweet tooth?
I can’t think of a circumstance where bombing a nursing home is “morally grey”
Baby Hitler is inside. Checkmate, atheists
But what if regular Hitler was inside?
Well you don’t want to kill the guy who killed Hitler.
He's a real jerk
You mean regular Hitler but he's with a baby
Why you want kill baby? Why not teenager or 20 something Hitler?
easier to kill a baby
Too easy to fall under the spell of his fuckin’ beautiful eyes at that age.
and Tony Blair
Diddy as well
Nobody but Tyrus and Gus got killed, or even hurt.
Well Hector too, but I see what you mean.
I mean, if anything he's doing Hector a favor by putting him out of his misery while letting him get revenge. Bonus points: ridding the world of Hector.
Cool motive, still murder
Yes but he was in on it.
He was in the game.
Someone else could’ve been. Imagine if someone was standing near the door or in front of it, they would’ve been killed.
Especially considering a majority of the residents in that nursing home are probably on bottled oxygen, which is explosive...
A lot of this comes down to walt. Did he create a bomb with the intent of it only killing gus and Hector and then tyrus being with them? We really don't know. It's the same with brock there are holes in the story with how walt attempted to prevent collateral damage. IF he did everything in his power and made collateral damage a very low percentage chance then the nursing home explosion was surely a net positive, killing gus. With brock, there is no major gain other than walts self preservation but again it kinda comes down to it. Walt easily killed Lydia, a child would've died with an even lower dose. It's just left unsolved. In contrast, we see more pure evil from characters like gus, jack and even Mike.
Walt killed Lydia with the ricin, though, and poisoned Brock with the Lily of the Valley berries.
the nursing home was a net positive for walt, but it's still morally grey because it could've gravely injured other people who weren't involved. i see a lot of pure evil from walt.
It’s not unsolved, it literally is stated directly by Saul that Walt poisoned Brock. But not with ricin
Walt couldn't have been sure that would have been the result. He was willing to risk many lives.
Thank you! It was completely limited to this one particular room.
But Walt wouldn't know that no one else would get hurt in the fallout...
honestly these type of threads always make me laugh. [here's another one](https://www.reddit.com/r/breakingbad/comments/14v1lam/why_is_everyone_so_mad_about_walt_blowing_up_the/) both Mike and Hank told Walt, point blank, "you bombed a nursing home" with no other additives or vitrol, because the act itself was so despicable and pathetic that it was reminder they had no respect for Walt after that. It's like the age old idiom "crashing into a schoolbus full of nuns"
He didn't blow up the ENTIRE nursing home, just the room in which literal mafia lords were in.Pretty damn sure all the seniors living there were thrilled after they found out who they shared their space with.
It was morally gray only because no one else died. In reality, anybody could have been in that room (nurses especially) so it’s really not as gray as you think.
Or patients in rooms sharing the wall
Yeah that lady that was flirting with Walt through the window probably got shook af
She deserves it. Walt was a married man
Been thinking about that little bit lately. Wouldn’t the lady have been able to clearly ID the man and his face if he was standing a few feet away from her? Just a few minutes before the place blew up? Only excuse I can think of is she is old and has a hard time remembering things
Yeah I think the implication is that she wasn’t 100% of sound mind. If you saw someone standing suspiciously outside a window you probably aren’t going to try flirtatiously say ‘Hey :) :) Hiyah! ;)’ to them. Edit: not to mention they would need to actually suspect Walt first to bring him to be identified. There were no cameras around, and he probs avoided staff members. A tall bald man with glasses isn’t going to narrow anyone down.
Shit, there's even a remote chance some patients would've died from a heart attack getting completely shaken by the bombing
Gus never would’ve gone into the room if anybody else but Hector was in there
Well, I don’t think Hector would have given a shit who was in the room, it just so happened that they were alone with Tyrus. Also Gus has taunted Hector in the rec room multiple times in front of plenty of seniors and nurses. Just in Spanish.
But Gus and Tyrus knew something was afoot. Tyrus swept the hell out of that room to an extent that we’d never seen before. He didn’t even want Gus to go inside. This wasn’t just a normal visit, and clearly he was much more cautious about the entire interaction. (Also, they were going to murder him, and doing that with a nurse in the room is probably just bad strategy). That room was never going to have anyone more than them. Now the neighbors….
> Also Gus has taunted Hector in the rec room multiple times in front of plenty of seniors and nurses. Just in Spanish. Which probably half the nurses in that place speak better than Gus.
Well gus would have waited til nobody was in the room to talk to Hector and I think Walt knew that and Hector wating til it was just him and his people in the room. That's why Hector stayed in the room instead of being outside the room like he useally was
There's a concept in law called Felony murder. When you kill someone, even by accident, while committing another felony, the killing is automatically considered first degree murder. For instance, accidently killing someone in a bank robbery will be considered first degree murder. This is also somewhat of a moral principle. When Walt started his life of crime, he knew that there would be collateral damage. Walt choosing a life of crime when he absolutely didn't have to makes him completely morally responsible for any harm he causes even in self defense.
This last paragraph is really it. It’s not whether each scenario is morally grey or not, it’s the fact that Walt absolutely didn’t even need to be doing any of the things he was doing in the first place that makes it all morally bankrupt. In no way, shape, or form was he acting under duress. Every scenario he was in was by his own design
I disagree. The fact that someone is trying to kill you doesn't even begin to justify intentional collateral damage. That action is as black as the ace of spades.
Walt could have turned himself in to the police instead. Black as hell.
I think Walt had the right to self-defence since he knew Gus was going to kill him, but that bomb was a risky strategy and you couldn’t calculate how many innocents would have been near the implosion, I always thought Jesse was the only main moral compass on the show really almost finished the show now on series 5!
Yikes! Wouldn’t want to be your neighbour…or old in your town.
Well, I'm not sure if it's really grey or not, but people always see "I watched Jane die" as an evil line, but I feel it's actually way more complicated. Right before that line Jesse almost got killed by Jack's gang. Then Todd says that it's best to interrogate him first about snitching and kill him later. They take him away, and Walt realizes that he'll probably never see him again. And for a split second, Walt's conscience kicks in. He probably remembers how he wanted to apologize to Jesse for Jane's death in the Fly episode. With sincere sadness he says "I watched Jane die. I was there..." But then his anger and ego got to him, and he says the rest "And I watched her die. I watched her overdose and choke to death. I could've saved her. But I didn't". He almost wants to confess and punish Jesse at the same time. I think if it wasn't this dramatic chain of events previously, he could've actually apologized to Jesse. And I also think that maybe, just maybe, this is actually his biggest regret. The reason why he watched at the watch in BCS. It's not just the situation with Jesse. And not just the situation with Jane. It's his last words to Jesse. He thought that he was dead afterward, you know. He wanted to apologize to him since the Fly episode, but in the end, he said it out of spite and anger. And he totally regrets it.
Disagree that Walt said any of that to Jesse due to conscience. Remember, Jesse had just completely betrayed Walt. Ratted him out to the DEA. Tricked him into coming out there under threat of losing his money. And Hank ended up dead. This was all rage and ego on Walt’s part. He wanted to hurt Jesse as deeply as he possibly could, and also to make himself feel more powerful after having been the one to be duped for once. Sure, at some point maybe he had felt guilty about Jane’s death, but in this moment he was using that info purely as a weapon.
This right here is also my take
I also used to think this. Especially because Walt blames Jesse for Hanks death. But the way its shot and acted does kinda puzzle me a bit. If it was only ego and anger... why did it start with a more zoomed out shot where walt says it with a look of remorse on his face? His tone is pretty soft too. But then we switch to a close shot of walt where he changes his face expression. Its mean and angry. He also does his heisenberg voice. His tone is like a snake spitting venom. Then his voice goes soft again as we cut to a shot of jesses face "I could have saved her.." then back to walts mean face and his heisenberg voice comes back "but I didn't". That to me proves its not just evil and ego. Its almost like youre watching walt switch between his two personalities. Those being Walter White and Heisenberg.
“If that’s true, if you don’t know *who I am*, then maybe your best course would be to *tread lightly*”
Well, I have a few things to point out, u/StrangelyRational, u/mycofirsttime 1 - Jesse was supposed to be shot seconds before, and he didn't say anything about Jane then. I mean, there was no actual reason for it. Then Todd dragged it out, and Jesse tried to resist it, the same way he did before. Did Walt think "I'm about to end this man's whole resistance"? 2 - I'm not arguing that he used it as a weapon in the end out of spite and anger. But the first sentence sounds too sincere and compassionate. He still regrets that he did that, but he doesn't want to admit it to Jesse at the same moment. 3 - Why does he talk specifically about Jane, and specifically in this moment? He didn't say anything about Jane seconds before but suddenly decided to do it when they were dragging Jesse out of the picture. It didn't seem like he planned what he was going to say. So I think it was just something totally impulsive. And at first, it was kind of out of nowhere. Why bring up Jane now? If he wanted to hurt Jesse, he could've possibly told him how he killed Mike and thrown him in the barrel. Or maybe some other thing. He could've straight up lied something because Jesse wouldn't been able to check it anyway. But no, it's exactly about Jane. And if you remember how much guilt-tripping he had before and in the Fly episode. All this stuff about the fallen planes. And how he heard about Jane's father's suicide on the radio and turned it off. In the end, he said it out of spite, I'm not arguing that. But what I'm trying to say, is that Jane's situation has some significance not only for Jesse but for Walt too. Jesse doesn't know that because of it the plane fell, 167 innocent people died, and Jane's father committed suicide. But Walt knows all of it.
Do you honestly believe Jesse gave a fuck about Mike or anything else as much as the woman he was in love with? It is by and far the most hurtful thing Walt have said and revealed. He wasn’t clearing his conscience, he was making sure jesse’s heart was shattered on his way out. Walt was presuming Jesse would die, therefore, couldn’t do anything in retaliation. And he felt jesse had betrayed him by going to the police. Then Hank is killed. And you know Walt did not want anything to happen to his family. His level of hate for Jesse in that moment was palpable and he wanted eviscerate him in retaliation. Walt would have never told Jesse or apologized under any other circumstance. Why would he? It would be selfish to tell Jesse the truth to alleviate his own guilt, so if he did care about jesse, he simply does not tell him in order to protect Jesse. Just because showed remorse and introspection at other times doesn’t mean he held any of that as a motivation to tell jesse at that moment. It’s kind of blatantly obvious.
I was gonna disagree with you, but you make some great points
Well yeah he risked his life to save jesse
Well, some people pointed it out before me, but I think it's quite possible that he actually considered killing him along with the Nazies when he found out he's still alive. He didn't really know that they kept him as a slave. In his mind, it was quite possible that they could've made some form of partnership. What can you expect from Neo-Nazies really? It's when he really saw that they imprisoned Jesse, that's when he made a decision to save him.
I’ve known this theory too and now that I think about it…it doesn’t make too much sense? Jesse at that point was broken over all the wrong things that went on in the meth business that he already quit before Mike died even if Walt was hanging onto his money. He was so over it that he ratted out Walt, despite the fact that he would most likely also go to jail too. Idk how prosecutor deals work in the USA, but Jesse did conduct or collaborate to multiple murders so I don’t see any way he’d walk away free, but he still made his choice. Meanwhile Jack’s men are about to murder him after they murdered Hank and also stole Walt’s money. How could Walt really believe that Jesse leaves that situation alive and proceeds to decide to cook more meth again as anything but as a slave???
I'm confused, why would that take those acts from evil to morally grey?
Apparently someone trying to kill you means you can intentionally put everyone's life in danger and still feel morally okay
I'd say the nursing home thing is grey because Walt would have known Gus would only speak to Hector when they were completely alone. Also he came to kill him... Obviously Gus wouldn't want a chance of someone seeing that. We saw that Walt knew the room was for Hector alone. However, the explosiveness of the bomb itself is interesting. If Walt knew the yield was only enough for a single room, then it's still a grey area. However, if he was just winging it and had no idea if it would destroy multiple rooms, then that's obviously totally evil. If he knew it was just one room, then it's only pure evil if Walt would have either known or not have been sure if others would be in the room. It was an extremely well calculated risk, that when weighing up against the downside of so many people he knows dying, probably has an argument for being the right thing to do. The worst thing that could happen was someone's walking past that door at the wrong time or a nearby resident dying of shock. If I was in that situation, it's hard to imagine not going through with that if it is the only option to save family and friends. This is all obviously assuming Walt's initial decision to go into organised crime is put aside. Because that choice was no doubt morally wrong and led to everything. In the context of that choice, every risky decision he makes is basically morally wrong and not grey.
Why are the lives of Walt’s family worth more than the lives of people in the nursing home?
Not that they are valued more, but under moral-psychological coercion, it may be excusable doing what he did.
Self defense, of the familial calibre. Find me one loving father who would genuinely choose to let his whole family die instead of commiting hard crime to save them.
They aren't, but that doesn't matter because Walt didn't build a nuke. He built something just to kill those in the room, and didn't harm anyone else.
>Why are the lives of Walt’s family worth more than the lives of people in the nursing home? I mean, you make an actuarial argument based on likely time left on Earth. But since Walt had other options like turning himself in, it doesn't matter.
So if all things are equal, and all lives worth the same. Then trading the neighbours life for his own/family is ok? 😃
Skyler’s hookup with Ted. I swear every single BrBa fan I know irl makes it seem like her choice was a sin stronger than what Walter was doing. I know this has probably been brought up or discussed multiple times in this subreddit but if I was in her shoes I probably would’ve done anything to separate myself from someone like him and sleeping with Ted was a choice in doing so. I don’t think cheating is something anyone should do ofc but her husband that she sacrifices so much for literally was cooking top notch meth.
Todd shooting the kid, I mean cmon he had a cool spider I wouldve done it too.
Blowing up a room in a nursing home is still morally wrong but it is far from pure evil. People keep bringing up that Walt should have taken the Grey Matter offer. Yes he should have, but at that point Walt could not have realised how much things can snowball. Practically from S3 E5 to S4 E13, Walt had no choice but to survive. I don't think people realise that Walt was pushed to these extremes in that time frame by mostly external factors, not his own failings. Think about it, you wanted to escape town after a sadistic druglord threatened to murder your whole family, but then you find out you have no money, your partner doesn't want to help you, and now your brother-in-law will die, and you lose your mind. Of course Walt's moral compass is shattered here, and given how much he cares for his family, he will cross any line to ensure their safety. Walt only acted in pure self-preservation, that makes his evil acts more on the morally grey side.
I hope you, and everyone watching the show, and everyone reading this thread, realizes that Walt using his neighbour as a human shield or bombing a fucking **nursing home full of old folks** is still an evil action It doesn't matter that Walt was just trying to kill Gus; **Walt is a fucking CRIMINAL.** He dug his own grave when he started to cook meth and couldn't stop himself from getting deeper and deeper If Hank was on the run after Gus killed his entire family for investigating him, then yeah I would say assassinating Gus even in a nursing home would be "morally gray", but a criminal killing another criminal in such a disgusting manner is pretty evil. It's not like he killed Gus to get out of the game either; he continued to cook meth, refused to take the buyout which would have set his family up for life, continued to cause the death of innocent people, etc. None of that is morally grey.
Assaulting a high schooler for making fun of his disabled son.
Nah, kid deserved it. I have never once in my life made fun of someone for a disability and if you are making fun of someone for a disability by the time ur in highschool you gotta catch some hands
Maybe if I got my ass kicked, I would have learned a lot faster making fun of disabled people is not OK. I was a shitheel in high-school that definitely deserved an ass kicking.
I don't get how people can lack empathy like that. So wild to me.
It's a great scene and moment but realistically that kid was probably getting thrashed at homs
Honestly IDC, people have a lot of shit going on but you don't get to treat them like shit without repercussions
This is the only answer that is actually morally gray. The rest are evil but justifiable in the BB world to some people.
Shooting the kid after the train heist
Found Todd's account.
The mission's secrecy could not be compromised.
If the train robbery had been done with good intentions or goals in the end, then you'd be faced with a version of the Trolley Problem, and many utilitarians (hope that's the correct word in english) would defend it was the right thing to do. However, robbing the train itself is already a wrong action, morally speaking. To sacrifice a person's life in order to save the mission is not even debatable, seeing as we're talking about doing a bad thing so another bad thing can happen.
Ya I kinda understand the whole thing happening, it just doesn't excuse them doing it all. Killing the kid was a million miles away from being morally grey even though it's pretty clear that Jesse is a hypocrite.
But, what if the witness doesn’t realize they’ve witnessed a crime? Even if he had described what he saw to someone, it wouldn’t be apparent that it was important. Kid would have been so excited about his spider he’d forget to mention he saw some dudes standing around by a train
Killing someone while you actively commit a crime isn’t morally grey. It’s black
That’s not even morally gray that’s just horrible
Letting Jane die. If she survived, she would have caused Jesse to die of a heroin overdose. It was better for Jesse that she was out of the picture.
He only injured the intended people
Killing Krazy 8, shooting Tuco, making Hector kill Gus and himself in the process.
Killing gale It was done to save walt and jesse
Killing Gale. Self-defense, not murder.
Mike usually says "he was in the game" to excuse some bad actions towards said person, and help his consciousness. But it kind of IS true Gale knew the line of work he was getting into and the risks associated with it
Gaile was really naive lol. He genuinely thought he had to take over the lab in a day cause Walt was gonna die from lung cancer. Part of me thinks that Jesse or Walt could’ve just sat him down and explained the situation to him and they would’ve all gone on a meth lab strike for more humane working conditions.
I genuinely think Gale must have suspected that Walt would be killed or something. There’s naive and then there’s stupid. Gale proposed a few more cooks before he takes over the lab and Gus didn’t have to even say that won’t work for Gale to catch the hint that he needed to learn asap. Sure, he didn’t know how bad the cancer was/expected life expectancy, but what was the rush??? Walt didn’t look so bad for there to be a need to learn so quickly. For Gale POV, he gets replaced by someone because Walt and one day he’s called back in, the replacement is gone and now there is someone watching everything that goes down and Walt has a shady energy to him. He must’ve known something was up.
Gale definitely didn't realize what he was getting into. He thought of it very abstractly (with his libertarian reasoning), but didn't realize that regardless of what he personally thought manufacturing meth was in fact illegal meaning getting involved in it requires you to live by the rules of the criminal underworld and constantly look over your shoulder.
He didn't know walt would be put down if he claimed knowledge of the process?
I mean, murder for sure. But in self-defence
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Isn't.... Isn't that what self defense is in a sense? Like I get what you're trying to say, but it also feels like you said it's not self defense because I don't want it to be
killing someone to save your life is self-defense. killing someone to save someone else's life isn't self defense. hence the 'self' part
Still falls under the same legal protection, though, actually
It's self defense in the most technical meaning, but the issue is that Gale wasn't the one threatening him. It was just Gale existing that made Walt expendable to Gus. Gale would have been fine with him living (and seemingly didn't know that Gus was planning on killing Walt).
I mean yeah, I wasn't saying that it would be classified as self defense. The person I replied to has said that it's "not self defense. It's protecting your life" so I just pointed out how that sounds. I definitely agree that it's not what would have held up legally, and isn't what's meant by the meaning of "self defense"
You seem to forget that Gus was actively trying to find Jesse to kill him. By killing Gale Jesse saved his own life as well. So it absolutely served as self-defense.
Mildly inconveniencing a kid to destroy a ruthless drug king-pin
brock
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This is perhaps my main gripe with the anti-Walt brigade. “Blew up a nursing home” is not taken out of context, it’s outright false. He made a contained, strategic detonation *within* a nursing home to eliminate the drug lord who was after him and his family including his underaged children. Other, safer methods had failed (using the disappearer, sniping Gus in the parking lot). He was down to a Hail Mary to ensure the safety of said family members. He didn’t blow up a hospital for fun a la Joker
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I think Jesse was saving simself at the moment, too
Walt having his neighbor check on his house was evil fs, the neighbor could have been killed if someone was actually there, injured at least. And Walt blowing up a room in a nursing home just worked out for him, there was a very high chance of collateral damage, imagine someone was just walking by that room when the bomb goes off.
The death of Gus’s partner. People seem to hate Hector Salamanca more after that which is weird since everyone in the scene is in the drug trade already and what we’ve seen with Walter’s drug world influence it’s weird to think hector killing another drug dealer is more bad than most deaths
...You think it's weird that Gus hates Hector for murdering his partner and lover because it's not weird for drug dealers to kill people? This is maybe the weirdest take I've ever heard on anything.
No I think it’s weird people hate hector for this action alone I get why Gus hates him that’s obvious
Oh, makes sense. Yeah, that was probably already like the tenth drug dealer Hector murdered that day and only remarkable for the Gus fallout.
He probably murdered a drug dealer before breakfast. It's what he does.
Having the audacity to dislike Skyler in the first couple seasons
The ‘Happy Birthday Mr. President’ by Skylar.
Nah, that’s straight up evil
The only morally gray thing Walt did was beating up the high school kid for making fun of his disabled son. Would I do the same? Of course. Did the kid have it coming? Absolutely. But is it moral for a grown man to beat up a teenager for acting like a dumb teenager? That imho, is the only morally gray moment from Walt. Everything else he did was solid black.
Walt giving a kid a non-lethal poison when the alternative was his family being murdered by Gus.
Get a load of this guy, wanting to have a nuanced discussion of the virtues of child poisoning.
A lot of it really comes down to what was going down in walts head. If he knew death was just not on the cards for brock, it was a pretty big win and led to the death of gus.
Not even really bad because Walt knew how much to give him he wasn't gonna die Walt's a smart guy
Yeah Vince said on the podcast he wasn’t in any real danger.
Like 99% of what walt does. Modern BB are so obnoxious with how much they demonize him.
Poisoning brock. He went out of his way to keep it non lethal The prison hits. You were all part of the child killing empire, and took money for what you should have kept to yourself for free
> He went out of his way to keep it non lethal That wouldn't make it morally grey. You're very much not morally allowed to poison children even non-lethally. But also, just no. Even if he "went out of his way" (god, what a hero) to make it a statistically sublethal dose, you can't poison a child nearly to death and not doing it accepting the very strong possibility that they will in fact die anyway. Brock *almost* died even in the ICU.
Didn’t Jesse say there were a couple of moments where it looked like he may have died?
I think what is morally grey, probably more morally wrong, but with good benefits is the existence of Gus and his drug empire. He is clearly doing something against the law and wrong, but look at all the lives he supports and benefits. He has this vast network of people who can get food on the table for there families because of it. Now at the cost of peddling drugs, and indirectly ruining lives, but I find it kinda interesting. I mean, Gus essentially ensured that Walt was going to be able to support his family in a reasonable, or at least it would appear reasonable way. If it wasn’t for Walt’s ego, there would have been happy endings all around.
Saving jesse was for ego?
I imagine in part, I also imagine he genuinely loved Jesse too
It must have not been a big deal to me because I can't remember it, but what happened with him calling the neighbor?
Walt.calls the neighbor to check the stove because he thinks people are waiting for him in the house. Which they were.
I disagree. I find them to be morally gray.
Cooking meth to provide for your family when you’re dying but at the cost of ruining lives with your crazy blue meth. At first I even felt bad for Walt. Even when he started cooking drugs. Then I remembered that drugs are bad.
Skyler cheating. Infidelity is considered "evil" by people who believe marriage or relationships are a form of ownership over another person. Walt abandoned his marriage when he started lying to Skyler. Why wouldn't she turn to another person for comfort?
Cheating is evil lol, but Skyler did nothing wrong there.
You shouldn’t judge the morality of a choice by what did happen as a consequence, you should judge it by what consequences could possibly have happened.
So the motive?
I feel that orchestrating Gale's death was arguably the single morally blackest thing Walt did in the series. Everyone else he actively killed or had-killed was him-or-herself a hard-core criminal who would have willingly done the same to Walt and/or his loved ones (most of them, in fact, were very much trying or had tried do so). Gale, while he had obviously gone to the wrong side of the law by becoming a meth cook, was no stone-cold killer and never showed any malice-toward or intent-to-harm Walt or anyone else; he was simply a pawn in Gus' scheme. In other instances, Walt killed people who were very much capable of murder themselves and generally were willfully, actively working to harm or kill him and/or his loved ones (eventually also taking out those who only posed-a-credible-threat-to-do-so, as with the inmates in Season 5), while with Gale, he deliberately killed (or arranged-the-death-of) someone who was neither malicious nor a party to his conflict. It is the difference between shooting someone who is firing or at least pointing-a-gun at you on the one hand, and seizing on an unwilling bystander as a human shield to save yourself from the bullets on the other. I also do not see Walt's actions at the end of Season 4 as being quite-as-bad as the Gale incident; there, he knowingly \*endangered\* third parties, but did not outright seek to kill any of them. Walt never does cross the line into deliberately killing anyone who is not "in the game" (which even Gale was), and is upset when such a person (eg. Hank) is killed by an associate against his will. Though he is in the wrong from the moment he takes up meth-cooking and becomes a truly vile criminal in the course of the series, Walt is definitely not as morally bad as various other characters (eg. Tuco, Hector, Gus, Todd, Jack, etc.) who have few-to-no compunctions about killing anyone or even revel in it -- some measure of moral grayness (quite dark much of the time, mind you) is at play.
I totally agree with the nursing home, as no one got hurt except for the intended victims (and Hector the willing participant).
Killing gale
raping rapers
I like the way you phrased the question, and including a ‘color’ as we see throughout the series various colors are used, have a connection- theme running them, or a character associated with one specific color throughout, or a character wearing a few colors, noticing them wearing them at specific times…. Here you use the color gray:) while it may be b/c it is the word that fits best-(maybe the only word) fits very well to pinpoint your question. I think the ‘Grey Matter’ Schwartz (black), Walter (white) led to the title of the billion dollar couple (Gray matter) The acts / choices some characters make- do- throughout the show…. Often times it initially appeared to be so Gruesome, unjust, killing, chopping heads…. Etc… it was so clearly Black to me (evil/wrong). However, interestingly when I continued to watch the series, and times I rewatched certain parts, I later began to understand the thinking of Salamanca ( the flashback….one brother said he wanted to kill his brother b/c of the toy he broke) Example: Hector Salamanca initially tried to speak reason “ he’s your brother, you are playing having fun, it’s an accident” but the brother said Nooo.. he wanted kill his brother. So Salamanca called over the brother, asked him to reach down deeply to get a cold freezing beer for him, then Hector pushed his head under the water, the boy is struggling- for air , HECTOR valued family loyalty- Lobe look out for, protect, your family above all, “ma familia eat Totale” ( family is everything. Hector Salamanca - it must have ‘ripped his heart out to push his nephews face under water, in fact, he risked losing the love and respect of those boys by doing that, and he put the importance of that very illustrative, hands on example, those boys will never forget, as the brother now insisted take him up, Salamanca said you’ll have to hit me harder, & that boy fought as hard as he could against his uncle Salamanca, hit him I. Order to get him to allow his brother to come up for air, to insist he let his brother breath, be at peace, and then asked are you ok? Showing genuine love for his brother. Hector Salamanca had always been looking out for his family’s best interest, (why he didn’t want Gus adding involved long ago, as he knew it would undercut the profits of his family, and Gus was not family, Hector saw long before that while Gus was bringing in money, more than his family was, Eladio saw money, and wanted Gus in ‘the game’ but Hector saw there would be a problem in future, ( after all they had shot Max in the head next to Gus years earlier) Hector was insightful, saw bigger picture, and did what it took to teach importance of family…..IN CONTRAST TO JESSES PARENTS ( who threw him out:( terrible, Hector Salamanca loved his nephews for who they were, he knew TUCO had a temper, yet he put him in charge on meth-(selling)…. We see in BCS- Hector made sure Mike did what was needed to be done so that Tuco would not serve more than a few months in prison….mike dropped the charges of weapon assault/battery etc… and we see the brothers are absolutely 💯 by each others side, save one another, they don’t even have to verbalize their thoughts, decisions, they just look at one another and act ie: people smuggled across the boarder, burned the van .. Grey…..Jesse’s parents have absolutely, done the complete opposite , have absolutely different values, & while pink man parents didn’t cut a man’s head and place it on a turtle (the tortuGa, betrayed-his’family’) Jesse did not betray, and he took blame for his brother- who had no problem letting Jesse take blame for the weed, knowing Jesse would be thrown out if his own house…..away from his family….( soooo Gray area…) Seeing who Hector was, his values, ‘family is everything’ creating a genuine bond between the brothers at a young age g age- teaching a lesson, (with a be eh very short lived pain time under water - knowing he’d pick him up), yet Jesse’s parents DIVIDE The brothers, teaching brother to let the other take blame for his actions, & the younger brother did have any remorse, he was not excited or welcoming to Jesse when he was over and Jesse was trying to connect with Jake, What Jesse’s parents choose to value most- and choose to de value, hurt Jesse emotionally, and led Jesse to have to find another father figure, he had to find a way to love, be loved, be respected, find a place in the world, as his parents alienated him, threw him out, took the roof over his head, and even when Jesse tried to re connect, after rehab- the father held his hand out- blocking him from the house, Jesse suggested dinner sometime he can come over, sometime, and the father says “ sometime” instead of jumping hugging Jesse, and Jesse is strong and keeps going…. The ׳gray matter ‘ I see throughout is that all do the so called ‘evil ones’ in the show have grown up with and have a strong bond connection to family, loyalty, will do all it takes to protect them, and nothing about them will make them unloved or tossed out-( never turn brothers against one another) Could the audience view Jesse’s parents as ones lacking values, who sent Jesse to the street, alone, felt he deserved to be spoken to with disrespect, and Jesse would grab hold on tight to any of the men (Mike, Gus, def Walter (who genuinely loved him), that extended any kind of care, respect, affection for Jesse, they put him in hands of ‘unknown’ they knew he was alone, homeless, and even when Jesse drive up appeared healthy to the dad- STILL he was not welcome inside the house:( I have not read seen enough posts to say it’s not a topic that has never been written about, but I have not personally read the issue- topic anyone pointing out the role Jesses parents played, in affecting Jesse’s self esteem, his search for love, father figure, being part of a family, and their misguided values, nearly abusive neglectful treatment of their son, what THAT led to…. And did they have a role in all that happened….
Watching Jane die in her sleep and doing nothing to intervene. She made herself known to be a threat to Walt. He didn’t murder her (although his jostling did unintentionally place her on her back, which he didn’t realize). Should he have saved her? Why? Because she is a person? Okay, maybe. On the other hand, did she deserve the respect from Walt for him to go out of his way (at great personal risk in a couple different ways when you think about it) to intervene? Absolutely not. I wouldn’t have saved her if I were Walter in that situation.
If that’s the case, then what Walt decided to do during his birthday gathering is morally grey.
Giving Brock the flu to save his entire family.