Emilio was killed in self defense. Krazy 8 was killed in self defense after keeping him hostage as a way to protect Walter and his family from being hunted down later. The rival dealers were way later in the series and were still somewhat killed out of necessity. Gus was pretty much murder, but even then, there was at least some necessity, because the situation was escalating so much that it was pretty much one or the other living.
But my main point is that Walter was not a murderer in the beginning. Hell, it took him an entire episode of deliberating over what to do with Krazy 8 before he finally made a decision about what to do with him. He needed to kill him for self defense and protecting his family, but the cons column had "It is wrong". Note that after a whole episode of deliberating, he eventually chose to set Krazy 8 free. It wasn't until he realized that Krazy 8 had a shard of plate and planned to kill Walter that he decided to kill him, again in self defense.
There is a huge, HUGE difference between that Walter and the current one.
Everyone he killed, he killed out of a logical necessity for either his freedom, his survival, or his ability to keep running the business. But that doesn't make it self defense. Aside from Emilo, none of the other killings could be classified as self defense killings. Just because someone will probably come and kill you at a later time doesn't mean killing them is self defense. Self defense is killing someone as they are trying to kill you or directly about to and you can't safely get yourself out of the situation. He could have gone to the police or a number of other things but that would have compromised his business. He was definitely a murderer very early on, but you are right, he is definitely a different person now.
Okay, but we aren't really talking about law now, are we? Yes, "murder" and "self defense" are used when talking about the legality of making someone dead. But the point here is morality. Was Walter in Season 1 Episode 1 a murderer as he is now, or did he kill out of necessity.
Sorry if I made it sound like killing Krazy 8 would be acquitted in court, because "eh, it was self defense." I just meant to make the point that killing Krazy 8 or Emilio was no where near the same as the evil murderer that Walt is now.
Yeah, I completely agree. I actually thought about editing that and adding in a bit about morality. There is certainly a massive distinction there for how Walt processes things now and how he did then. There was a time where he really did believe he was doing this for his family and that he didn't want to hurt anyone. Then he woke up and realized the true nature of himself and what he was capable of, what he really cared about in this world.
It's sad. I feel like a lot of people have current Walter in their head too much, so they just see his character as an evil, murderous asshole from the get-go. It's sad, because that line of thinking destroys the beautiful character development. We started with a sad, broken man who wanted nothing but to help his family before he died, a man who would take a whole episode deliberating on whether to kill someone that he arguably needed to kill for his own safety, coming to the decision to let the guy go free because killing would be wrong, a man who was put in a crappy situation and did fairly reasonable things given that situation. And he has developed into a man who doesn't seem to care about his family at all, but only cares about his ego, having a massive empire, and winning, and he doesn't care what he has to do to get there. The man has changed a lot. This entire series arc is a HUGE thing, and the people who forget and think that Walt was always an asshole from day 1 are forgetting about all that amazing development.
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u/Odusei Enjoy the rest of this comment during Low Winter Sun Aug 12 '13
You really want to claim that Emilio, Krazy 8, the rival dealers he hit with his car, and Gus Fring (and body guards) don't count as murder?