The higher man is distinguished from the lower by his fearlessness and his readiness to challenge misfortune. Friedrich Nietzsche. Breaking Bad is considered one of the best television series ever made. It tells the story of Walter White, an unremarkable chemistry teacher diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Shortly after the diagnosis, Walter decides to cook methamphetamine with former student Jesse Pinkman. And so his metamorphosis from a timid, awkward man to a ruthless underworld kingpin begins. During his evolution, Walter White leaves a trail of destruction. From the beginning, he justifies his actions by telling himself he wants to provide for his family, as he won’t be able to look after them anymore after his illness kills him. From this perspective, he rationalizes earning money by cooking and selling meth as a selfless act. But throughout the series, it becomes clear that his family isn’t the only reason he does what he does. Walt feels defeated by life and seeks redemption by becoming the best meth cook in the region.

under the pseudonym ‘Heisenberg.’ His distinctive blue crystals quickly become
infamous with the underworld and the Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA. The 
character of Walter White shows an interesting psychological transformation throughout the
series that has been discussed and analyzed for years. Was Walter White simply a frustrated man gone
evil? Or was there more to his evolution into Heisenberg? Could it be that Walter White achieved what
many others only dream of, namely, to overcome himself? Through the lens of Nietzsche’s idea of
the ‘Overman (or Übermensch),’ this video explores the psychology of Breaking Bad character
Walter White. Please note: this essay doesn’t condone
Walter White’s actions, nor does it encourage people to imitate him. Also, this video contains Breaking Bad footage
and imagery which belong to Sony Pictures, and it does contain spoilers. In the first episodes of the series, we meet
Walter White as a timid man, showing characteristics

of low self-esteem and an inferiority complex. His posture is slightly bent forward. He generally speaks softly, half-muttered,
and rarely maintains eye contact. As a high school teacher, his pupils don’t
respect him in the slightest, and at home, he’s henpecked by his wife, who loves him
but doesn’t seem to acknowledge him as an equal within the household. At a surprise birthday party, we see his macho
brother-in-law and DEA agent Hank Schrader poking fun at Walt’s masculinity. To make ends meet, Walt has taken on a second
job at a car wash, where he receives continual disrespect from his boss Bogdan. When a couple of his students see him washing
a car, they laugh at him. His mediocre life is in stark contrast with
his actual capabilities. Walt is a brilliant chemist who has obtained
a Ph.D. and was once part of a startup called Gray Matter with two friends from graduate
school, Gretchen, and Elliot.

Gretchen and Walt were romantically involved
at that time, but for personal reasons, Walt sold his share
of the company to Elliot for $5000. Gretchen and Elliot eventually married each
other, and Gray Matter became a multi-billion dollar company. Walter later felt that Gretchen and Elliot
stole his work and blamed his financial problems on them. Despite his setbacks in life, Walter White
remains a very prideful man. He refuses to take help from Gretchen and
Elliot, who offer to pay for his cancer treatment. Walt loathes the fact that his son looks up
to Hank but looks to Walt with pity and eventually enforces his role as a father upon him. Also, he doesn’t want his wife Skyler (who’s
pregnant with their second child) to work, as he wants himself to be the provider of
the household. Walt’s ego gets particularly hit when Hank
tells him, undoubtedly with good intentions.

that he’ll always look after his family (something Walt feels incapable of doing). His pride, his unwillingness to accept the past and how his surroundings perceive him, and his persistent feelings of inadequacy, shame, guilt, and resentment, are factors that propel him into his psychological transformation. Walter White feels cheated by life and seeks redemption before he dies. Teamed up with his old student and drug-dealer Jesse Pinkman and later the “criminal lawyer” Saul Goodman, he becomes a successful and respectable player in the underworld after many setbacks and bloodshed. His original motivation – providing for the family – slowly fades to the background as he realizes his full potential as a methamphetamine producer and a drug lord ruling an empire feared by many competitors. Looking at the beginning of the Breaking Bad timeline, just before Walter White broke bad, we see that he had other options that would have made more sense rationally and practically.

For example, he could have taken Gretchen
and Elliot’s money for his cancer treatment. He could have taken the outstretched hand
of Hank and Marie. Walt would have received plenty of support
from the people around him. His family would probably have been able to
make ends meet after his death, either through the help of their environment or by fending
for themselves. But Walt didn’t accept other people’s
help. He was done being the meek, impotent shell
of a man unable to take care of business, always living in the shadows of those around
him. Deep inside, he had a burning wish to ascend,
to have lighted the sky briefly before he passed away. In his work Thus Spoke Zarathustra, philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche professed his idea of man’s ultimate state. Zarathustra is a prophet-like character who
decides to share his wisdom with the world after a period of seclusion.

He declares that “God is dead,” pointing
to the fading influence of Christianity on Western civilization. Even though Nietzsche criticized Christianity,
he also predicted that Western civilization would fall into nihilism without the guidance
of religious morals. Nietzsche argued that people don’t live
by bread alone; we need meaning in our lives. How could people survive and thrive without
an overarching purpose? In an attempt to save people from the soul-crushing
hands of nihilism, he proposed the idea of the Overman (or Übermensch, in German, not
to be confused with Hitler's Übermensch), which comes to fruition in the story of Zarathustra. The Overman is a fully self-actualized being,
a vision of what someone could be (which differs per person): an ultimate potential to aim
for. The Overman rejects collective morals, like
those presented by Christianity, and creates his own morals. Nietzsche described a human being as a tightrope
over an abyss between beast and Overman; attempting

to cross the abyss is a dangerous but fulfilling
undertaking. But to move away from being a mere human animal,
man must strive to overcome one’s human nature and become an Overman. I quote: All beings so far have created something beyond
themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the
beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman:
a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. End quote. Opposed to the Overman, Nietzsche placed the
so-called ‘last man.’ The last man nihilistically concerns himself
with short-term pleasures and works to fulfill them. As a herd without a shepherd, the last men
all want the same thing; some little treats for the day, some little pleasures for the
night, which, added together, constitute what the last men call happiness.

I quote: Lo! I show you the last man. “What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?” asks the last man and blinks. The earth has then become small, and on it there hops the last man who makes everything small. His species is ineradicable like that of the ground flea; the last man lives longest. “We have discovered happiness”—say the last men and blink thereby. End quote. Until his cancer diagnosis, Walter White represents Nietzsche’s “last man.” He seems tired of life, risk-averse, and unable to actualize his full potential. His life revolves around earning a living for himself and his family by engaging in a mind-numbing routine of trying to teach chemistry to unmotivated high school students that don’t respect him and cleaning cars. From the morality of the herd, Walt is, in many ways, a great man. He is humble, works hard, and even took a second job to provide for his family.

He plays by the rules, obediently doing what’s ‘good’ rather than what he desires. Ironically, his terminal illness was his first unintentional break with the last man archetype, as it would radically shorten his lifespan. If Walter didn’t get the diagnosis, he’d probably have continued his mediocre life, dead-end job, and his little treats for the day and little pleasures for the night. An example of the latter is the passionless birthday present given by his wife Skyler. But Walt’s abrupt change in outlook evoked a paradigm shift, evaporating barriers that previously held him back. When time is running out, and longevity isn’t an option, one often starts to live more immediately. Walt’s paradigm shift paved the way for reinventing himself, redeeming his unfulfilled life as a cowardly, meek person disguised as humble and moral. “He’s just decent, and he always does the right thing,” thus Walt Jr. described

his father during a local news item about
the website he created to collect money for him. But Walt’s decency wasn’t so decent: it
was weakness. In reality, he was resentful of those who
had it better (especially Gretchen and Elliot), but felt impotent and powerless and unable
to change his life’s circumstances. He was a genius who settled for a mediocre
life: a docile sheep conforming to what the world imposes on him. Nietzsche stated: “There exists no more repulsive and desolate
creature in the world than the man who has evaded his genius and who now looks furtively
to left and right, behind him and all about him. He is wholly exterior, without kernel, a tattered,
painted bag of clothes.” End quote. Deep inside, Walt longed for greatness or,
from a Nietzschean point of view, his will-to-power – the irrational, striving force inside
of him – demanded to be expressed.

He found an opportunity to snatch that power
through partnering up with Jesse and cooking meth. And thus, his escape from being Nietzsche’s
“last man” began when he answered to the deep-seated longing for heroism and self-actualization. Or, as he stated to Jesse: “I am awake.” Scholars are divided on what Nietzsche’s
Overman would look like exactly. But the ideas of self-command, self-overcoming,
the willingness to say ‘yes’ to life, determining one’s own values, and reaching
one’s full capacities seem collectively agreed upon when describing the Overman. Nietzsche admitted that becoming the Overman
is rare and possibly too difficult for most of us to accomplish. A more realistic goal, however, is to at least
walk the tightrope between beast and Overman, away from the “last man” archetype, towards
fulfilling one’s higher potential. Such a pursuit characterizes the Higher Human.

Looking at Walter White climbing the meth
business, we see a man overcoming himself, affirming life, and creating a higher purpose,
despite the destructiveness of his trajectory. One of Walt’s realizations after his awakening
is how fear had always held him back, and for a significant part, he has overcome fear. He is free in ways he previously was not. When his brother-in-law Hank has PTSD, Walt
tells him, and I quote: “I have spent my whole life scared. Frightened of things that could happen, might
happen, might not happen. Fifty years I spent like that. Finding myself awake at three in the morning. But you know what? Ever since my diagnosis, I sleep just fine. And I came to realize it’s that fear that’s
the worst of it. That’s the real enemy. So, get up, get out in the real world and
you kick that bastard as hard as you can right

in the teeth.” End quote. Nietzsche was disgusted by what he called
‘slave morality,’ which he saw as human weaknesses turned into virtues. His Overman, therefore, was amoral, which
isn’t the same as immoral. Amoral, in this context, means rejecting traditional
values and creating one’s own. Evidence of Walter White moving towards the
Overman ideal is him shedding off old, collective morals and adopting new ones – or creating
his own. This moral transformation is a testament to
independent thinking and self-command that lie at the basis of his ascent to power. Instead of turning the other cheek, Walt physically
attacks his son’s bullies in the clothing store. Instead of presenting himself as meek and
timid, he begins to assert himself and stand up against tragedies. Instead of refraining from killing – considerably
one of the worst crimes from a general moral perspective – Walt reluctantly kills drug
dealers Krazy8 and Emilio early on in the

story. And later, he ruthlessly liquidates anyone
who stands in his way to the top. Walt also employs revenge instead of (quote-unquote)
“weaker” morals like acceptance or forgiveness when dealing with his enemies Gretchen and
Elliot. He isn’t shy from using deceit and manipulation
to reach his goals and replaces his humbleness for pride as he wants the world to feel the
impact of his activities, ingenuity, and skill. Nietzsche stated: “What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in
man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance
is overcome.” End quote. Driven by the will-to-power, Walt intends
to establish himself in the world, make his presence known, and exploit his brilliance
by creating the purest meth ever produced in the region. Unlike the mediocre, docile existence he lived
before, his life under the pseudonym Heisenberg

allows him to use his intelligence to serve
a more fulfilling purpose. Aside from producing meth, he applies his
genius in various ways, from using ricin as poison to using a giant magnet to wipe off
evidence from Gus Fring’s laptop and stealing methylamine from a train. Walt’s longing for power becomes more apparent
when he tells Jesse he isn’t in the meth business but the “empire business.” After his most prominent opponents, Gus Fring
and the Salamanca’s, have been wiped off the map, he proudly exclaims to his wife:
“I won.” Wrap up. With his activities, Walter White sows death
and destruction. From a traditional moral perspective, he turned
“bad” – he became evil – and unsurprisingly became one of the most wanted criminals in
the country. However, his transformation into Heisenberg
generated psychological and physical benefits: he felt better, happier, and in control, his
libido returned, and his cancer went into

remission. “There is more wisdom in your body than
in your deepest philosophy,” stated Nietzsche. At the end of the series, Skyler asks Walt
why he did what he did. Instead of repeating his mantra (saying he
selflessly did it all for the family), he finally makes his true intentions known. I quote: “I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really…I was alive.” Thank you for watching.

Breaking Bad: The Psychology of Walter White (based on Nietzsche)

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