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The Protagonist In Walter White's Breaking Bad

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Although Breaking Bad’s spotlight shines upon Walter White’s thrilling odyssey of operating a meth lab, it also investigates the transformational process in which White’s morality evolves as his desire for power and wealth far exceeds the future needs and financial expectations for their financial security of his family. Trying to recognize and identify the exact pivotal moment that marks Walter’s transition from a protagonist into an “antagonist” becomes problematic. Vince Gilligan’s portrayal of the protagonist, Walter White, takes on the role of being an “antagonist,” which in any narrative is the character or force that is perceived as an opposing force to the protagonist, and White gets corrupted by unchecked greed; however, Gilligan throws in phrases like “I …show more content…

In essence, the initial reaction a viewer may have towards White’s methamphetamine operation may be one of a forgiving nature that may be hesitant to label White a felon when they consider his pure motivations; furthermore, the viewer would be caught in a critical existential question of what extent they would go to in order to provide for the wellbeing of their own family if they were in a similar situation, and they may indeed be caught in the gravity of the situation when considering the good of their own family, as is White, or the evil done to society through the processing of illegal substances. In the midst of this existential crisis, many viewers of the BB show support of Walter White in his criminal activity because at the heart of his transformation is the symbolic representation of the average underappreciated man who’s merely trying to provide for family at any means necessary, which many people can relate to on some deeper existential

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