Here’s Why It Took Me a While to Truly Hate Walter White From ‘Breaking Bad’

I finally watched Breaking Bad after a couple of years since the finale aired, so when everybody was hysterically talking about Jesse and Walter and their never ending drug-related shenanigans, I wasn't quite the part of the conversation. Then one day my cousin said to me “It’s time”, and we binged the whole thing in a couple of sittings.

Well, Walter White, brilliantly portrayed by Bryan Cranston, is now definitely considered one of the most dangerous villains ever created on TV, but for the first episodes, especially when Walter still had at least some morals, I found myself sort of rooting for him.

Now hear me out. Here was a high school chemistry teacher, underpaid and underappreciated, who discovered he had terminal lung cancer. His transformation from mild-mannered educator to methamphetamine king seemed almost justified…

He was a desperate man doing desperate things to provide for his family before his inevitable death.

However, the brilliance of Vince Gilligan's writing lies in how gradually Walter's true nature is revealed. In the beginning, his motivations appeared sort of noble, right? He wanted to leave his pregnant wife Skyler and disabled son Walt Jr. with enough money to survive without him. Walter was more of a victim, not even a villain.

As the story continued, Walter started changing, or maybe he was always like that but his desperate life never let him show it all? Turned out he only cared about his wounded pride and was in desperate need for control. He did a lot of harm to his close ones, hurt his family so much, made Skyler afraid of him, and he was very proud of it all.

There’s no doubt that for many, just as for me, another turning point came during Walter's confrontation with Mike in the final season. The way he brutally killed the man was awful, once and for all turning Walter White into Heisenberg.