The Development of Walter White’s Role in The Breaking Bad Series

Save Walter White! The desperate old man has stage-four lung cancer, and his doctors will not accept the insurance that his poor high school teaching job provides. What a sad soul with such a ravaging, pre-destined expiration. Wrong! Walter White was no more a cancer victim than a cat is a dog. In fact, White’s death sentence served to be the greatest advantage of all: one that each drug king pin desires and must ascertain. He did not fear death. White’s cancer awoke him from the flavorless coma that he called his life. Throughout the series, Walter White appears to be on the decline and well on his way to be put to rest. It seems to viewers that it is only a matter of time until cancer puts longstanding, timeworn Walter White into the grave; however, that was never the case. In fact, while each fan was stricken with sympathy for his condition, Walter White was only on his way up. Vince Gilligan and his fellow Breaking Bad writers never intended for the havoc wreaking disease to weaken or destroy Walter White. Instead, they decided to utilize something that is infamous in the real world for consuming man unconditionally in order to build Heisenburg’s monstrous drug empire.

In the pilot episode of the series, White issues a comment to Jesse Pinkmen that his cancer has awoken him. A Fox News 411 article touched on this issue; it read: “Walt's terminal cancer diagnosis wasn't so much a death sentence as it was a reminder to live. It just turns out that Walter White's bucket list featured items a little darker than skydiving or seeing the Eifel Tower.” This phenomenon may have been apparent to many viewers, but it was never directly addressed in the series. White begins “breaking bad” shortly after he receives his cancer diagnosis. A nerdy science teacher known to all as the chemistry fanatic, Walter White is a man who would most likely be the last on the list of possible drug lords, yet he quickly plunges into the world of crime and street violence. One can imagine the courage it would take a high school chemistry teacher to begin committing felonies regularly, but even more courageous was Walter White’s relevant lack of hesitation to dive headfirst into a universe he was no more familiar to this world than any other American who does not make a living manufacturing the most hard core synthetic drug on the planet. The cancer diagnosis he received symbolized a wakeup call-- a sign to begin his life before it ended. It is not outrageous to say that without ever attaining this terminal illness, Walter White would have lived on many happy years with his family until ultimately being killed some natural causes. His diagnosis caused him to really take a step back and analyze his life, as would any person who could clearly see the sand in their hourglass diminishing. Once his rational mind juggled the intangible future and weighted its burdensome illness, it became clear to Walter that leaving his family suffocated by debt at the off chance of not beginning remission proved imprudent and thoughtless. Instead of taking the normal track of many cancer patients before him, White began to use his brilliant mind to create the greatest meth ever abused by junkies. This decision fashioned the base of a ladder with rungs leading to infamy. Walt’s awakening allowed him to overcome a fear of death.

Shortly after Walt’s “breaking bad,” we start to see him branch out and do things that to the viewer seem insane. Walt begins to do things in a manner that suggests that he is truly a daredevil at heart. The first real example the audience sees of this is the scene in drug king pin Tuco’s office. Walter walks into what should have appeared to be a dangerous trap and pulled off the most Rambo-like thing possible. This example is only the first of hundreds to follow in the season. Walt’s rational mind convinced him that he had no reason to fear death. In his head, he was already a dead man with a ticking clock. It was only a matter of time until his cancer laid him to rest. Walter slowly loses the connection with his old self through these actions. His mental immortality gave him the courage to do the things that it takes to be a drug lord. He began to learn develop his new identity by imitating the fearless characteristics of Tuco and Gustavo Fring. White saw how feverishly they desired control, and how “bravely” they acted as if they never thought they could be killed or caught. Walt shortly understood the cruel nature of all drug lords, regardless of their professional and unprofessional business operations. Heisenburg evolved from this. A simple math equation can explain these things: Walter White plus no fear of death equates to the Heisenburg. Walt quickly learned that he could truly live as if he was immortal. Death no longer shook the boots of a man who had to look death in the eye daily while undergoing intense chemotherapy treatments and dealing with the stress of lying to his family. Without a cancer diagnosis, White would have never gained the courage needed to step ahead of those in his way or, in more intense words, put a bullet in those in his way. His immortality is responsible for his drug empire. Once he gained this new confidence, the old Walter White was no more, and he became merely the body of Walter filled with the soul of a dead man.

It is apparent throughout the series that author Vince Gilligan never intended to have Walter White die a victim of cancer. He makes this most obvious when he presents Walter’s terminal cancer diagnosis in the first series. Had Gilligan intended for his main character’s death to occur at the hand of cancer, he would have not presented evidence of the diagnosis so directly and up front. An author aware of his target audience knows that it would be impossible to sustain the life of a dying man with stage-four cancer for multiple seasons of a successful television show. By mirroring the archetype of the good guy who overcomes evil in every hero story, this not so good guy would ultimately overcome his cancer. I believe that the cancer diagnosis was intended to do exactly what it did: give Walter virtual immortality. It serves no other purpose in the series other than to telegraph the life of Walter White. His cancer brings his family closer together, but only to hide the horrible things Heisenburg was doing in the background. This unfortunately includes laundering money through his son’s “Save Walter White” website which ultimately tear the family apart even more. Walter’s cancer is the catalyst for all of the seasons of “Breaking Bad”. The drug manufacturing, killing, lying, and king pinning were the direct results of Walter White and his lack of a natural fear of death. I believe that Gilligan knew all these things prior to the creation and airing of each episode of “Breaking Bad.” He purposefully gave the protagonist cancer because he knew that it would be exactly what he needed to fall over the edge and finally lose it. Once again, without Walter White’s cancer diagnosis, there would have never been a Heisenberg.

However, not all critics agree with this conclusion. Some say that Walter White’s cancer did not give him unlimited courage and bravery. The opposition of this argument claims that this could not be the case because Walter White shows signs of hesitation in early episodes when doing immoral things (outside of cooking meth). The most common example is his unwillingness to kill the drug dealer that he locked up in the basement of Jesse Pinkmen’s house with a bike rack. White weighed the options by making a pros-and-cons list, and even after he decided to kill the criminal, he still debated hesitantly. It was not until Walter knew his own life was in danger that he mindlessly went through with the murder. I say that this evidence is not appropriate at all. Had Walter White not been diagnosed with cancer, he would still be teaching chemistry and eating breakfast with Walt Jr. and Skyler White. The terminal illness he had pushed him to find a way to make money to pay for his treatment rather than dying and leaving his family behind with mounds of debt. Walter cooked meth to pay for his treatments and to lift a cumbersome burden away from his family. Even after he earned the money to pay for his expensive medical care, White still considered himself a dead man. This is most obvious when he makes the comment to Jesse about how he has to make $700,000 to leave behind for his family, and then he would quit cooking.

In conclusion, Heisenburg, without cancer, is a caring father, loving husband, and ruthless professor. The terminal diagnosis Walter White received gave him the courage to overcome the natural fears of death that we as humans all retain. He saw himself as a dead man in the books, and knew for certain that he was on his way out. With this extremely unique perspective and rational understanding of his situation, Walter White began to live as if he could not die. He no longer withheld the fear of losing his life.