![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Serious Question about Breaking Bad meta
Sep. 18th, 2013 08:55 pmEverywhere I go on the internet, I read well-intentioned meta and recaps by Serious Authors who all have the habit of separating Walt from Heisenberg and referring to them as different people/personalities. As if the character has MPD, or was a fantastical contemporary version of Jekyll and Hyde.
... is it just me, or is that interpretation not supported by ANY textual evidence in the show? And yes, it's quite ablest, but more importantly, the show is VASTLY easier to interpret 'correctly' if you're not dividing Walter White into different alters.
The thing that baffles me about it most is that the people most likely to do it are people who are not Team Walt whitewashers, but people who think Walt is an irredeemable bastard for all the things he's done. And well, yes, he is - but he's also not suffering from some kind of illness. Heisenberg was always Walt, Walt was always Heisenberg and complicated for everyone who'd wish otherwise, there's no easy splitline or way to divorce the two, because that division is an artificial construct made up by viewers.
As Walt Whitman would say, we contain multitudes.
ETA: There are now spoilers in the comments.
... is it just me, or is that interpretation not supported by ANY textual evidence in the show? And yes, it's quite ablest, but more importantly, the show is VASTLY easier to interpret 'correctly' if you're not dividing Walter White into different alters.
The thing that baffles me about it most is that the people most likely to do it are people who are not Team Walt whitewashers, but people who think Walt is an irredeemable bastard for all the things he's done. And well, yes, he is - but he's also not suffering from some kind of illness. Heisenberg was always Walt, Walt was always Heisenberg and complicated for everyone who'd wish otherwise, there's no easy splitline or way to divorce the two, because that division is an artificial construct made up by viewers.
As Walt Whitman would say, we contain multitudes.
ETA: There are now spoilers in the comments.
