Maybe the choice between “arguing with the wife” and “becoming a drug kingpin” was going for the lesser evil?
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Motivation is all in the first episode, and there’s nothing direct. I just finished skimming through it. My read is that Walt’s motive is mostly resentment at having been given a raw deal in life. If Walt’s real motive was ever to provide for his family, it was out of pride, and quickly morphed into something else.
The decision to cook is made in the first half hour.
Before then (in order):
- Walt looks at certificate for contributing to other winners of a Nobel Prize
- deals with insolent students while teaching high-school chemistry
- humiliated by said students, serving them at his second job at car wash
- sees news of big money in a meth bust
- Hank offers a ride-a-long, to add some excitement to his life
Then some financial information is revealed (in order):
- comments to paramedics that he doesn’t have the greatest insurance
- gets diagnosis of inoperable lung cancer (though he’s never smoked)
- wife shown dealing with minor credit problems
- quits second job at car wash in anger
- takes Hank up on offer of ride-a-long to see meth bust
- decides to cook meth with Jesse Pinkman
So that’s all that’s portrayed before he makes the decision to break bad.
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Walt was ok with dying. His teacher’s plan wouldn’t cover what anyone would have access to in a developed nation with universal health care.
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en, may…
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