In response to a great article by my good friend J. A. Crook on The Anti-Hero.
You can read his post here:
http://joshuacrook.wordpress.com/2013/10/02/the-anti-hero/#comment-66
This touches on a subject that I have been thinking about quite a bit lately. The concept of the struggle between the Individual and the Collective.
I think the constant pull from both sides is the biggest underlying factor in the majority of the struggles we face today. I see this battle being played out very clearly in our political arena in the constant disagreement over the boundaries of control of our Federal Government over it’s people. This struggle for balance between the self and the collective is at the very core of who Walt is in Breaking Bad.
When the show started Walt was extremely collective focused. He is a teacher, trying to spread knowledge for the greater good. He was a talented chemist, using his scientific knowledge to create things to benefit society as a whole. He was a family man working two jobs and making sacrifices like working at a car wash to help his loved ones. He started out as a very selfless person who continuously passed up on opportunities for wealth and acknowledgment of his abilities. He was humble. But, as evident from the beginning he was far from balanced.
There is a dark side to being humble and altruistic. It allows people like Walt to be stepped on and pushed down, and forces them to compromise their own desires so that others can get what they want. His students show him no respect, his boss at the car wash showed him no respect, his brother-in-law Hank shows him no respect, his son Walter Jr. shows him no respect. Even his contributions that built the company Grey Matter went completely unrecognized and unrewarded.
Many people just go along with it, allowing themselves to be used and disregarded by others. This pattern of behavior may very well have continued for Walt had he not been confronted with a life altering situation. Terminal lung cancer.
This was the last straw for him in a life that he felt had treated him unfairly. He had always done things the right way. He was always good, always gave that extra energy to help others. But life shit on him by giving him lung cancer that he didn't deserve. Lung Cancer, he didn't even smoke. So Walt was faced with a decision. Give up and die, or fight for himself. Self.
This was the catalyst that awakened Walt’s sense of Self. He even recognizes it right away in his quote when Jesse questions him about why a man like him is breaking bad. He responds “I am awake!”. As in “I”, himself, his Self. For the first time in his life he is making decisions to benefit himself.
Breaking Bad is also a story about change. I loved Walt’s quote of an early episode when he is speaking to his class about chemical changes and he explains how things that change rapidly react violently, explosively. This is the perfect analogy of the change from the selfless Walt, to the selfish and controlling Heisenberg.
Heisenberg is the epitome of Self. Everything revolves around him. He is in control, he pulls the strings, he makes the plans, he is the one who knocks. Everyone else just becomes puppets for him to manipulate so that he can achieve his goals. As Heisenberg he is all Self, yet still, he is not balanced.
Balance is something that is very important. In chemistry if a reaction is not balanced there will be waste, by products, leftovers that need to be cleaned up. This is also true in Breaking Bad. Heisenberg’s rapid change and complete lack of balance leave a trail of toxic waste in his wake. People get hurt, and killed, lives and careers are left in tatters. Though the way Walt navigates his minefield of change into becoming Heisenberg is orchestrated beautifully in Breaking Bad, this rapid unbalanced reaction constantly leaves behind toxic unwanted byproducts. And when a mess starts to grow people take notice, and try to clean it up. The collective of society fights back against Heisenberg’s Self. In the end the collective is stronger.
Though Heisenberg schemes and operates with a focused obsessive genius eventually he is overcome by the forces around him. His sense of Self was unbalanced, and not in harmony with the desires of the collective society, and therefore his victories were short lived. Everything crumbles around him, his family, his friendships, his partnerships, his empire. Yet when all is lost, and he becomes a fugitive that is when he finally attempts to reclaim his honesty, clean up his mess, and restore a sense of balance. His final plan is an exit strategy, a way to finish the fight without losing everything he fought for. In the end he succeeds, he finds a way to get money to his family, kills off the remnants of his meth empire, and frees Jesse, and that is when he truly wins.
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