An interesting turn of events, this. Many of the questions I had about Walter’s character remain unanswered, or answered in ways I wasn’t expecting.
He still hasn’t murdered anyone in cold blood. I wonder, though, that even after he knew that Krazy 8 had the piece of plate, he still maneuvered the situation around to where killing him was an act of self preservation.
On the plus side, Walter gets to maintain his moral ambiguity. He’s still doing bad things that harm people, but the harm is indirect and can be justified as being self-inflicted for the most part (I realise this contradicts the current popular view on drug addiction but fuck it, either we’re responsible for all of our own actions, or we’re responsible for none of them). He is also still doing those bad things for good reasons. as flimsy as that justification is.
On the negative side, we are left with a protagonist who still hasn’t completely committed himself to a course of action. He still hasn’t taken any steps that can’t be untaken or forgiven. Had he walked down there and used the hammer on the back of Krazy 8’s skull or sliced his throat open – even knowing that it was to protect his family from the possibility of murder – we would have looked at Walter differently. He would no longer have been out of place in “this line of work”.
I guess where I’m left dissatisfied is that I like my characters to be more clearly defined, and Walter White is not yet clearly defined. He is certainly not a hero, but nor is he truly an anti-hero. He is a sort of quasi-proto-hero, and that leaves me feeling vaguely unfulfilled.
Perhaps the conversation he’s about to have with Skyler about the cancer will give him the push he needs to hold the strength of his convictions. I’m still holding out hope for my theory about him taking over the drug industry and eliminating all rivals.
He just seems like that kind of guy.
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