Should I, or shouldn't I? It's the slippery slope, minor transgressions that are so frequent and habitual that they snowball into cataclysmic ones. Brilliantly embodied by Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad follows Mr. White over five seasons of insane adventures, all the way to an ending that still captivates fans to this day. Walt starts Breaking Bad by telling his family that he loves them, and that everything he did was for their sake. He ends the show hobbling out to the meth shed to be with what he truly loves—a meth lab. It's clear (even more so than when he admitted to Skyler that he did it for himself) that he was never really Mr. Chips. During the Breaking Bad series finale, as Walter White lies there on the floor in a puddle of his own blood, we have to wonder if he was imagining other ways his … Worse still, he admits to Jesse that he watched Jane die and did nothing.Â. Catfish Morally speaking, the under-forty set is worse than those older, reported a 2012 survey at the Josephson Institute for Ethics. How far would a regular person go, what moral lines would they cross, if they knew they were dying and had to provide for their family? If "Ozymandias" is the "realistic" end to Walt's journey, then "Granite State" is a fitting punishment for the former meth kingpin. "Should we encourage less creativity in banking?" But the higher he rises, it gets harder and harder for him to argue that he's just leaving a nest egg for his family. Every rule is designed to level the playing field or tilt it. mindset. Even when Jesse escapes the white supremacist compound, finally free of Walt and his vindictive torturers, he lets out a guttural scream straight from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. If there's anyone in the show that knows what kind of monster Walt was, it's Jesse. People follow different rules and break each others rules. So in honor of one of the most legendary TV characters of all time, here are the 10 biggest turning points in Walter White’s Breaking Bad transformation. Let’s not think about the legal law for a minute, let’s think about the household laws our parents set or have set for us when we were kids. Everyone breaks (or bends) the rules from time to time. That group, which perceived itself as disadvantaged, cheated more than those who believed that everyone received an equal payment. This is the reason I say that breaking rules is important. Walt gets his victory lap in the final episode, but it's only because he's chasing his enemies around the track. Here is an extensive but likely incomplete list of such usages. If other people get away with littering in the park, why should you pack out your trash? creativity There are plenty of clues seeded early on in the show that hint that maybe "Mr. Chips" always had the propensity to be petty, vindictive, and violent. But all that's actually required of anyone is a The key to successfully answering this question is to prove why it was necessary. should "Imagine there is a conscience on your shoulder—it's often sleeping and not paying attention. Audiences appreciated the show's unique setting and the beautiful vistas associated with the on-location Albuquerque shoots. About half admitted to cheating on a test at least once or fibbing to save money; over three-quarters had lied to a parent about something significant; and about a fifth had stolen something from a store. His survey found that (at least among his white male subjects) relatively minor Ferris Bueller-style infractions committed in adolescence—damaging property, playing hooky (if not actually soaring through the air in a stolen Ferrari)—predicted an esteemed occupation in adulthood: entrepreneurship. Put the same person in a different context and watch his or her values shift. Further, Gino argues, creativity and criminality are mutually reinforcing. Test yourself. He is the world's greatest liar.". Walt is the villain of Breaking Bad. Walt's not just a bad guy in the moral sense. All hell break(s) loose: chaos ensues 2. Aaron Paul: Breaking Bad was one of the first series people binge-watched, because the first three seasons all plopped onto Netflix at once. He's also clearly unhinged beyond what we see of other successful criminals in the show. We live in a world of instant gratification, which is why it's so tempting to re-download all your dating apps as soon as you find yourself single again. Many of these rely on self-control, but there are other safeguards: Keep yourself fed and well-rested— we're likelier to lapse when hungry or tired. If good people are asked to work in a bad culture, one in which leaders do not relinquish control, then the odds of something bad happening go up. In a similar example of role fulfillment, Gino found that people who donned faux Gucci sunglasses perceived themselves as slightly shady and were therefore more likely to cheat than when they wore the real deal. But the closer researchers look at everyday transgressions, the more they're convinced there's something to rule breaking. The novelist Wallace Stegner summed it up in his novel, He kills all of the white supremacists that stole his blue meth recipe. "As individuals gain power," Zhang explains, "their behavior becomes even more liberated, possibly leading to more norm violations." So, nothing happens without breaking rules. Now imagine you just witnessed a testosterone-fueled type cutting in line or tearing through a red light (nearly running over you and the toddler holding your hand). He kills Mike just because Mike mocked him. Even in the kind of purgatory that Walt lives in, he's still not free of his cancer, and he's constantly waiting for Ed to return with chemotherapy drugs. It's a fitting punishment for a man who pretended to do everything he did out of loyalty and filial piety. The old phrase “Rules Are Made to be Broken” can be pretty dangerous in an industrial environment. He moves through scenes like a horror movie slasher. Strikingly, they were also likely to copy the wrongdoers in a subsequent experiment, whether they were aware of it or not. He threatens Gretchen and Elliott into giving all of his money to his family under the guise of a charitable donation. Walter White, the chemistry teacher/family man-turned-murderous drug lord in Walter White starts off as a timid chemistry teacher and ends the show as an infamous meth kingpin. We evolved as tribal animals who cooperated and followed the rules within small groups (Us) but not with the rest of the world (Them). "In its modest form, rule breaking is actually healthy," says Zhen Zhang of Arizona State University. In "Gray Matter," Walt and his wife attend a birthday party for Walt's former girlfriend and business partner, Gretchen Schwartz. When he tries to convince his family to flee with him, his wife and son attack him, and Walt kidnaps his infant daughter. It's almost a fantasy of Walt's ideal ending, and there are plenty of bizarre coincidences that would seem to back up that reading. The spirit of Us inspires empathic cheating, or rule breaking for the benefit of other group members, even when personal sacrifice is involved. When researchers used the verb to But most of the best things in life aren't supposed to be. Those who were induced to cheat (by making it easy to inflate their scores) came up with far more innovative solutions to problems in subsequent tests—and cared less about rules, in general—even after the researchers accounted for differences in baseline creativity. You need to find ways to wake it up," Ariely says. But when the noun In another experiment, Ariely and Gino posed ethical dilemmas to employees in an advertising firm and discovered that those with the most creative jobs—the copywriters and designers—were more likely to break the rules than, for instance, the accountants. So, perhaps billing for more hours than you actually worked might help you come up with more innovative solutions for your clients. "It's important to give ourselves moral reminders at the time we feel most tempted," Gino stresses. Why are so many people drawn to conspiracy theories in times of crisis? And that, Gino found, is easy to induce in almost anyone—just by using subtle cues. AMC made their deal with Netflix when we … The killing of Krazy-8 Now if it is someone intentionally breaking the rules/regs and causing harm then I will get general descriptions/info and notify my local agent. The harder it is to do, the less inclined we are to lie and cheat, concluded a Stanford study in which participants were tempted to claim money they didn't deserve. "Felina" might be Walt's fantasy, but it's everyone else's nightmare. The more people care about power and winning, and the more they feel threatened by competition, the faster their values fall to the wayside. Full disclosure: I'm still catching up on Breaking Bad. (Asked whether lying and cheating are necessary to succeed in life, teenagers were five times more likely than those over 50 to say yes, according to the Josephson Institute. Deception works best when the rules are ambiguous and when it's hard to discern a victim in the crime. Hopefully this list has provided you with enough information regarding your law-breaking habits to help you be more careful and obey the rules. The winners felt emboldened. Walt is so lonely that he ends up paying Ed thousands of dollars just for an extra hour of his time. Or a colleague received a promotion after boozing with the boss, while you toiled and got nothing. Most people don’t question rules. And, of course, in knowing why we transgress, we can defend our actions—for better and for worse. As for Walt, most monster movies end with the monster dead (before a last-minute revival), so it's fitting when Walt finally bites the dust. (There is, however, such a thing as a "moral offset" effect wherein we feel we've amassed so much moral capital that we can afford to commit a few naughty deeds.). However, by episode five of the show, it's pretty obvious that's just a thin justification for wanton lust for power and petty pride that Mr. White already had. So we've spent a lot of time talking about Walt, but what does the actual ending of Breaking Bad mean? Eliot put it, "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." The real threat posed by rule breaking isn't an occasional fall from grace. : "It is the beginning of wisdom when you recognize that the best you can do is choose which rules you want to live by." Walt's cancer was just an excuse for him to be the power-hungry villain he'd always wanted to be. Not all the time, of course — we are, after all, trying to have a society here. People will be more concerned about following the rules out of fear of getting in trouble or losing their jobs than doing what needs to be done. As Vince Gilligan once put it, "We always say in the writers' room, if Walter White has a true superpower, it's not his knowledge of chemistry or his intellect, it's his ability to lie to himself. If, for instance, your friend asks for a crooked favor? Even when he dies, it's on his own terms. Are smart people more deceptive and more willing to cheat? Break and its various forms are found in a number of idioms and expressions. Morality is so malleable that just thinking about breaking a rule can change the way we behave. Breaking Bad There's logic here. And when that happens, souls will be lost. Breaking Bad is one of the best shows in TV history, and after five seasons, it led to an ending that people still talk about today. Edward Snowden leaked top-secret government surveillance data because, he claimed, powerful wrongdoers weren't held accountable to the law, which is "corrosive to the basic fairness of society.". casual Plus, he poisons Lydia with a whole lot of ricin, and he successfully evades the police all the way to the end. That's not a hot take. —not a single person cheated. It cuts to the very core of identity. The rich didn't wait their turn at a four-way intersection or stop for pedestrians at a crosswalk nearly as often as less-wealthy drivers. Cheating can be reframed easily enough; thinking of oneself as the Yale University psychologist Paul Bloom famously found that babies as young as six months demonstrate underpinnings of morality: They're compassionate, they like and reward helpers, and they punish selfish rule breakers. We think of ourselves as good and honest citizens despite daily acts (one to two on average) of cheating, lying, or otherwise breaking the rules in seemingly innocuous ways. In the annals of TV history, Breaking Bad will undoubtedly go down as one of the best television shows of all time, right there along with The Wire and The Sopranos. "Imagine working for an organization that stresses the importance of being creative, innovative, and original," Gino says. ", Facebook photo credit: Elena Shur Photography/Shutterstock, Psychology Today © 2020 Sussex Publishers, LLC. By acting like you’re in love with the person (whom you want to destroy). If your rival broke the rules and you're inspired to do the same? When he drives out of the show, it's as viscerally satisfying as seeing the final girl in a horror movie survive the killer. They're also twice as apt to deceive their boss and lie to get their kid into a good school. And eventually, they just don't think about it. If you could make the windfall your family needs by doing something you shouldn't? We've all seen examples of what horrific damage this drug inflicts on people. Walt is like a cancer, spreading every manner of depravity into Albuquerque. We all want to take our lives in our own hands and hurl them out among the stars.” ― David Bottoms tags: boredom, breaking-free, breaking-the-rules, changes, life, new, new-beginnings. I think if you have conversations with your teammates/managers, do some research and think creatively you can almost always solve a problem within the rules." When he brags to Lydia about how she's dead by his hand, it's a moment that wouldn't be out of place in a Final Destination movie. Walt's undeniably smarter than your average meth cook, but his pride and open greed handicaps him as an effective crime boss. We believe that people who decide to take illegal drugs or abuse alcohol are totally un-cool. It's about pride, not his family. It may be that we simply conform to the expectations of whatever role we find ourselves in. It’s nearly impossible to look at this person platonically without thinking of all of your extremely intimate moments or secrets that you have only shared with this person. Moral Tribes "Breaking Bad:" The Hidden (True) Meaning "Breaking bad" or "to break bad" means to defy convention and go against what is behaviorally normal, especially in relation to society at large. Behold the whitewash of a good storyline. (Robin Hood was a thief, after all.). don't be a cheater This following short list covers 3 of the most common reasons we hear for employees breaking the rules on job sites around the world. To find out, the duo recruited volunteers, tested their intelligence and other attributes, and then tempted them to cheat on a test. Instead, he thinks they're disrespecting him by not giving him the credit for what he's earned. isn't the real driver; it's social and situational forces that strongly influence bad behavior. O n the day that Breaking Bad was set to shoot the scene in which Walter White slings an entire unsliced pizza onto the roof of his family home, the … He lied to the audience, too. In a now-famous experiment at the University of Newcastle, England, a pair of hand-drawn eyeballs mounted over a collection box at a corporate coffee bar successfully enforced the honor system. 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Critics loved its unfailingly beautiful cinematography and direction by incredible filmmakers Jobs and Apple: as Apple grew, did... To deceive their boss and lie to get even or at least to level the field your... Working for an organization that stresses the importance of being creative, innovative, feared! Wrongdoers in a subsequent experiment, whether they were satisfied with their overall character even! Show 's unique setting and the law: the ladies shoot and swindle is important —the participants still cheated because. Imagine working for an organization that stresses the importance of being creative, innovative, and original, '' says... Big boss,  Walt is infamous, which Ariely found works among. Others rules by those rules, if necessary. cancer was just an excuse for to. Moral dilemmas. `` the rich did n't correlate with dishonesty tempted, '' says Zhen Zhang Arizona. But it 's a respected businessman, insanely rich, and of course, his goes!