"Hellfire rained down on my house!" "Sir--" In our last video, we looked at
7 supporting characters from Breaking Bad and how they reflect different forms
that bad behavior can take. In the story of Walter White’s
descent into evil, the people around him serve as mirrors of
what “breaking bad” looks like. So in this video we’re looking at
7 more lost souls who’ve strayed from the righteous path,
in even more serious ways. "No more half measures,
Walter." If this were Dante’s Inferno,
right now we’d be beginning our descent into the lower circles of hell. Before we go on, we want to tell you a little bit
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for free. "The moral of the story is
I chose a half measure, Mike Ehrmantraut represents
pragmatic evil. The “fixer” for Saul,
Gus and later, Walt, Methodical Mike is practical
in every sense of the word. "Now, I don't know what kind of
movies you've been watching, but here in the real world
we don't kill 11 people as some kind of prophylactic measure." Once he’s made a decision
to do something, he makes sure to do it excellently,
thoroughly, without mistakes. He thinks through every eventuality. "The next time you bring a gun to a job
without telling me, I will stick it up your ass sideways." He’s practical when it comes to
morality, too. "I've known good criminals and bad cops. Bad priests, honorable thieves." His experiences on both sides of the law
have made him completely skeptical that high-minded principles have
any place in the real world. Mike has found that a pragmatic worldview
is the only outlook that can make sense of all
the contradictions and unfairness in what he’s lived. "My son wasn't dirty!" So with no justice to believe in, Mike concerns himself with carving out
a much more manageably sized code of honor and set of rules for himself. "Me, personally I was hired to do a job. I did it. That's as far as it goes." The main rule Mike believes in
is personal responsibility -- he holds himself accountable
for his actions and stays true to his word, "You can be on one side of the law
or the other, but if you make a deal
with somebody, you keep your word." and he holds others
responsible for their actions. "Trust me, this woman deserves to die
as much as any man I've ever met." Mike believes the people he encounters
in his criminal endeavors have chosen to bear the consequences
of their actions, just like he did. If it becomes necessary
for him to kill them, they’ve brought that on themselves. "Everyone sounds like Meryl Streep
with a gun to their head." Ultimately, after accepting a world
that is far less than ideal, he makes it his goal to ensure
the well-being of those he feels personally responsible for -- everything else is beyond the realm
of his personal responsibility. "Don't make me beat you
till your legs don't work." Mike is Walt’s polar opposite,
which explains Mike’s extreme distaste for the great Heisenberg. "You know how they say
'it’s been a pleasure?' Well, it hasn’t." Walt works in the drug business to fuel
his own desire for ever more power, while Mike prides himself on
knowing his place. "You and your pride and your ego. You just had to be the man. If you'd done your job,
known your place, we'd all be fine right now." Walt is a grandiose liar,
while Mike is brutally honest. "What you packing?" "A pimento." "Sorry, what?" "Pimento sandwich." Essentially, Mike's noble self-control highlights
what an impulsive out-of-control jerk Walt is becoming by contrast. "You are a time bomb. Tick, tick, ticking. And I have no intention
of being around for the boom. Somehow, in this line of work,
Mike still retains a certain moral integrity -- so the moment when Walt kills Mike is
one of the clearest signs we get that Heisenberg has won over Walter White. "Shut the [BLEEP] up. Let me die in peace." "I would like a cup of hot water,
filtered, if possible, and a single slice of lemon. And I'm assuming you don't have stevia? Never mind, I brought my own." Lydia Rodarte-Quayle is guilty of
the kind of evil that is born of desperation. The head of Logistics at Madrigal Electromotive
-- and Gus Fring’s distribution liaison --- is, as her last name suggests,
always quailing. "Okay." "No. No. Not okay,
Mike. Not okay." The--The look he just gave me
was the very antithesis of 'okay,' okay?" "Breathe, Lydia." High-strung Lydia is not cut out
for a life of crime. [Muffled screams] Lydia is willing to do literally anything
if she thinks it will help keep her safe. "I can grow your business exponentially." "Just give me the list." "I can do that by helping you expand
into a larger, highly active, highly profitable marketplace." So she shows how total desperation is
one of the most dangerous motivations out there for making people do evil things -- "Yeah, I'll take paranoid any day
over getting gang-raped by prison guards." a desperate person has really
lost him or herself altogether. Any concern or sense of responsibility
for others Lydia may have once felt goes out the window -- because she is terrified,
all the time. "You're tying up loose ends,
and I don't want to be one of them." She’s like a drowning person who instinctively
grabs blindly at other swimmers, not caring if she pulls them down with her. When Walt talks to Lydia,
we can really see how far he has come in his transformation. "You're a smart businesswoman,
you understand the concept of leverage?" "Please don't patronize me,
I hate that." "You have none." Less than a year ago he was unsure
and stuttering in front of a fearsome drug lord. Now, it’s Lydia who’s afraid for her life
at the mere sight of him. "You're putting me in a box here. You know what could happen." "Again, none of my concern." "Hi, I'm Saul Goodman. Did you know you have rights? The Constitution says you do,
and so do I." Saul Goodman embodies
the evil of opportunism. "I'm a lawyer. Even drug dealers
need lawyers, right? Especially drug dealers." If there’s a chance to make a quick buck,
Walt and Jesse’s criminal lawyer jumps at it, happy to bend any legal
or moral lines that stand in the way. "Conscience gets expensive doesn’t it?" We’ll delve much more into how
and why Jimmy McGill becomes this person in an upcoming Better Call Saul video, but by the time Walt meets him,
Saul is hardened into a truly “criminal” lawyer. "Seriously, when the going gets tough
you don't want a criminal lawyer, alright? You want a 'criminal' lawyer." Saul advertises himself in front of
cheesy renderings of a constitution, and an American flag -- "And that's why I fight for you,
Albuquerque!" and Saul’s character highlights
some of the paradoxes of what is considered right and good
in American society. In some respects, he fits our cultural standards
for an exemplary citizen. He’s got an amazing work ethic,
an ingenious entrepreneurial spirit, and endless gumption. "Don't drink and drive,
but if you do, call me." It’s precisely Saul’s lack of moral scruples
that makes him so good at his job. "If you're committed enough,
you can make any story work. I once convinced a woman
that I was Kevin Costner. And it worked,
because I believed it." He has the mental and moral flexibility
to find a loophole in anything. "This dude got Emilio off,
like, twice. Okay? Both times, they had him dead to rights, yo. And then, poof. Dude's like Houdini." So in him we get a portrait
of our culture’s dedication to getting ahead at all costs. He’s the axiom “America is
the land of opportunity,” taken a little too literally. "So if you want to make more money
and... keep the money you make -- better call Saul!" What’s ultimately scary and dangerous
about Saul’s outlook is the lack of a moral center -- "If a prison shanking is
completely off the table, and we're sure of that?" "No shanking!" the absence of any scruple or principle
that can’t be violated, to hold him back. "The way of the world, kid. You go with the winner." As the Season 4 finale
of Better Call Saul told us, Saul’s philosophy essentially becomes: "The winner takes it all" Walt makes extensive use of
this opportunistic evil -- and his bond with Saul cements
his growing ambitions to build his criminal operation
into a true business empire. "There's no honor among thieves,
except for us, of course." [Laughs] Tuco Salamanca is an embodiment of evil
as unprovoked, senseless violence. Tuco is the first “real” drug lord
we meet in the show, and he fits our preconception of
what a drug dealer, or a “bad guy” in general, is like. "We're gonna rewrite history with this." [Snorts] [Screams] "All right." He’s erratic, unhinged,
and will fly off the handle for no reason at all. In his first meeting with Walt,
he beats one of his own associates to death for speaking out of turn. "Woah! Damn, man,
look at that! Look!" Counterintuitive as it may seem,
just any old violence isn’t enough to make someone evil
in our society’s eyes. There are plenty of forms of violence
our culture condones or even applauds. In fact, studies have found
that we as a society are especially averse not to all violence,
but to unprovoked violence, specifically. The character of Tuco personifies
exactly this kind of unpredictable, spontaneous violence that we tend to
dislike and fear the most. "No, man. No." "Come!" It’s by design that Tuco is one of
the first overtly evil characters we get to know early on -- "I like doing business
with a family man. There's always a lot
of collateral." Tuco’s frightening persona is
the complete opposite of meek season-one-Walt. So this contrast helps us
justify Walt's behavior. Surely, calm and clever Walt is nothing
like those crazy, actual drug dealers. But Walt swiftly comes to embody
this senselessly violent evil, too. Even right after "winning"
his negotiation with Tuco, Walt exits the house
and screams in his car -- [Screams] so already we’re seeing him incorporate
aspects of the evil people he meets into his rapidly growing Heisenberg persona. [Screams] "What the hell is wrong with you? We're a family!" "Get back to work." Gus Fring gives human form to
soulless, corporate evil. "I don't believe fear to be
and effective motivator. I want investment." Gus is the ultimate multi-hyphenate -- successful business-owner,
pillar of the Albuquerque community, benevolent employer...
and ruthless murderer. "I will kill your wife. I will kill your son. I will kill your infant daughter." A corporation, by definition,
is a group of individuals, acting and legally viewed
as a single entity. Gus is essentially what that single entity
would look like if it came alive and became one man. "Pollos Hermanos, where something delicious
is always cooking." By making the corporation corporeal,
Vince Gilligan and his team of writers managed to portray an elusive type of evil
that is extremely dangerous in today’s world. When we see something bad happen,
our impulse is to look for the guilty individual parties
in order to hold them accountable. But what’s so frightening about corporate
evil is that there is no single human who’s responsible -- the evil enacted on the world
stems from the principles that govern the corporation itself. A corporation exists only to increase
growth and profits. As appealing or intriguing
as polite and calculating Gus might seem, there is no there there. "I'm sure if you keep digging,
you'll find me." As Gus comes on the scene
in Walt's story, this is a signal that Walt
is thinking bigger -- "What you two need is
an honest-to-God businessman, alright? Somebody who treats your product like
the simple, high-margin commodity that it is." his startup wants to scale. "I'm in the empire business." "I told you, numbnuts,
this guy's OG." Hector Salamanca demonstrates
the evil code of honor. "Me and my family,
we built this whole business." Silent and motionless in his wheelchair,
Tuco’s and the cousin’s uncle is like a living totem
with near supernatural powers -- [Bell rings] a living embodiment of cartel rules. Rule number one --
family is all. And Rule number two --
never talk to the DEA. "W, X, Y..."
[Bell rings] "All right." "Yeah, thanks. I-I can spell. For him, the rule that family is everything
far outweighs the well-being of any of his actual family members. So, if one of his family members
were to kill another, Hector might easily feel it his duty
to kill the remaining one in order to observe his rule
that family must not harm family. This kind of paradoxical,
extreme observation of principles makes Hector a far more terrifying form of
evil than the senseless randomness that we saw in his nephew, Tuco. "Salamanca did, Salamanca money,
Salamanca blood!" And it explains why Hector manages
somehow to stay around so long, and remain so powerful,
even long after he would seem to be pretty much incapacitated
and impotent. Hector is clearly an evil person, "How about your payment is
you get to live?" yet he genuinely believes
in the thing that Walt keeps telling everyone
he values the most -- family. "Now, the Salamanca name
dies with you." Yet in Hector’s case
standing by family means dominating in the bloody,
inhuman drug trade -- because that is
what the Salamanca family does. "This is what comes of
blood for blood, Hector. Sangre por sangre." So Hector’s character illustrates
that any ideology or code -- even if it’s based on good values --
becomes evil when taken to the extreme. [Screams] "Just so you know
this isn't personal." Todd Alquist represents evil
for evil’s sake. The nephew of Neo-Nazi Uncle Jack
is a true-blue sadist. Think of the eagerness
with which he jumps at the job of torturing Jesse. "I mean, I can do it. Me and him,
we got--we got history." Later, Todd punishes Jesse for
trying to escape by shooting Andrea -- and making Jesse watch. But the degree to which Todd’s worldview
is warped is shown best in the episode "Dead Freight." When a kid on a dirtbike happens
on the crew robbing the train -- Todd immediately shoots the child dead. "Shit happens, huh?" After, Todd is extremely worried, but not because he feels guilty
for killing a child -- he worries that Walt will think
less of him. "Did I make a mistake, Mr. White? Because to me, you know, respectfully,
I was looking out for the team. I didn't want to kill him,
y-y-you gotta believe that." Todd is one of the most terrifying
representations of evil we get in Breaking Bad -- someone completely devoid of empathy,
who genuinely enjoys causing pain. Most of the other characters have
some justification for doing things that hurt others, but for Todd evil actions
are an end unto themselves. So the fact that Todd becomes Walt’s
second-in-command in season five, replacing Jesse, shows how far Walt has come
in his transition into pure evil. He has finally crossed over into
the territory of evil for its own sake. "Hey, man, I gotta know we're square,
or we're gonna have to go that other way." Walt was written in a way that made it
very hard to completely dismiss him, even at his most despicable, and each of the types in this list
inspires a similar type of conflicted empathy. Each has something endearing
or at least laughably ridiculous about them. "Does that ring a bell? The guy actually has to ring a bell." "I-Yes." Tuco’s devotion to his Tio;
Todd’s awkward crush on Lydia; or Mike’s down-to-earth expertise
and unflappable charm. "Be nice, be nice. Let Wendel in there. Wendel doesn’t eat,
no one eats." By producing unforgettable,
appealing characters and then making all of them
pretty darn bad, Breaking Bad forces us to look
without flinching at people who do evil things. It gives us the space to honestly
evaluate our own morals and ask how we measure up
on this complex scale of sins. All together, this makes Breaking Bad perhaps the most thorough and profound
televisual exploration of evil, ever created. "I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it." Hi guys, this Alani,
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I personally think it's a great video, even if I disagree on their description of Todd, who I'd describe more as 'casual evil', since he doesn't seem to view violence as anything other than a tool, nor understand how this is wrong (compaired to the other characters who either avoid violence or enjoy taking part in it). Also, the motivations of Gus' and Lydia's become more muddled as the series goes on, but I still think the creators of this video had an interesting perspective.
The channel have also made another similar video covering seven other characters including Marie and Jesse.