u/VolumeEquivalent7853

I've seen this scene where Walter kills Mike, and one of the things Mike did was blame Walter for blowing up Fring's entire operation. Which is in character for Mike because from his point of view, that is the case, and he did end up being right to some extent because Walt ended up killing him.

However, the amount of people in the fanbase who thinks Mike is 100% correct is astounding to me. There's a lot of people who think Walter is an egostical pure evil entity that acted on emotion and was destructive while Gus and Mike were infallible and moral people.

Here's the thing, Walter isn't entirely to blame for the operation going down. Walter was actually perfectly happy working for Gus, and respected him, and did wanna cook for Gus even after the initial fall out. It wasn't until he realized Fring was using him and was gonna have him killed once Gale learned the formula - that's when Walter started retaliating.

Most of the blame falls on Fring and Jesse. Gus literally from day 1 was trying to screw over Walter and Jesse's partnership constantly trying to get Walter to cut Jesse loose when Jesse was clearly not much of an issue. Jesse on the other hand rightfully was mad that Gus's men were using literal children for drug dealing, and one of those children killed one of his friends.

Jesse was full on ready to maintain peace, until Gus's men killed Thomas. Now, if Fring gave the order to have Thomas killed, Fring escalated the situation for no other reason than he didn't like Jesse and wanted him out of the business so bad he would choose low level dealers over his second best cook. Now, if Fring DIDN'T gave the order to have Thomas killed, that means Gus Fring choose two low level dealers who couldn't even interpret an order he gave correctly (also on Fring for giving a vague order) over his second best cook. Then he blames Jesse for it.

"Couldn't maintain the peace for 8 hours" it was his two low level drug dealers who couldn't. They killed a child.

Walter in this case acted on his partners best interest by killing those two low level gangbangers. Something Mike and Gus should totally understand.

Walter was still willingly to just let things go and just continue his partnership with Fring.

Fring again choose two low level drug dealers over his two cooks. Mike was literally trying to hunt down Jesse, while Fring was using Gale to try get rid of Walter.

That's when Walter retaliated killing Gale was necessary to keep himself alive and also Jesse.

The whole "low level drug dealers being killed" didn't matter because later on Gus would choose Jesse over Walter anyway, and that act of defiance by Jesse and him being a Junkie didn't matter to Fring anymore by then

(Also keep in mind Jesse was in rehab he only relapsed after his men killed Thomas the whole junkie thing shouldn't have mattered since Jesse was more than willing to quit drugs. It was Fring's own (direct or indirect) doing which made Jesse relapse on drugs again).

Obviously, Walter isn't innocent in this either he could've also just continued cooking without any issues or just quit the business Jesse was more than willing to help keep Walter alive.

There was also the issue that Fring literally was gonna get Hank killed, and threatened Walters family. Walter did a lot of the stuff he did in face-off to protect Hank and his family. He was willing to run away too but Skylar gave his money to fucking Ted without consulting or telling him. By that point Walter had to do what he had to do to ensure the safety of his family.

Also Gus wasn't completely moral or had standards either. People forget this, but just like Jack he almost had Jesse enslaved to cook for him, and he was also willing to kill Hank. Keep in mind Hank wouldn't have any proof for any of this and him killing Hank right when Hank was investigating him would lead to more suspicions.

So no, Walter wasn't some evil dude who blew up Fring's operation that ran like clockwork. He has some blame sure, but a lot of it can be blamed on Fring and Jesse not Walter.

My guess is probably more than the original game and Flipside and maybe as much if not more than Re-up.

(they're shipping jecka with literal nobodies now)

When rewatching Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul I realized how smart Walter could truly be at times. Not only did he figure out Gus's identity based on almost nothing - he also figured out Gus's entire plan with Hank and the Twins with little to no information to go off of even figuring out Gus did this to undermine the Cartel.

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Even Lalo someone who had more resources and access to information than Walt did couldn't truly figure out Gus Fring without digging even deeper.

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