Walter White Was A Narcissist Even In Breaking Bad Episode 1, Psychiatrist Argues (2024)

Psychiatrist Dr. Eric Bender analyzes Walter White from Breaking Bad, suggesting that he was actually a narcissist even from episode 1. Created by Vince Gilligan, Breaking Bad first aired on AMC in 2008, charting the downfall of Bryan Cranston's Walt. After being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in the first episode, Walt begins his transformation into one of New Mexico's most dangerous drug kingpins, hurting those around him as he gains power and notoriety.

Now, in a new video shared by GQ, Dr. Bender suggests that there's more to Breaking Bad's Walt than a man who slowly becomes a villain over time as a result of extreme circ*mstances. According to the psychiatrist, Walt has narcissistic traits from the very beginning. Check out Dr. Bender's full comment or watch the video below (relevant section begins at 1:37):

“Walt becomes an anti-hero very early on, maybe even in the first episode, because here’s this guy that we can identify with, feeling badly for him, and he decided to cook meth. So the oppositional force to being a hero is that this guy is going to start doing something highly illegal. Some studies on meth suggest that if you start using it and use it continually, you shorten your life by about 15 years after the first couple times. So he’s doing something that really clearly is detrimental to humanity.
“When we first meet Walter, he is almost a pitiful character. But as he starts to try to change his life he does more and more amoral things. Murder becomes second nature. Lying becomes second nature. This guy becomes what some might call a sociopath, which means that society has impacted him enough for him to really develop these psychopathic traits.
"I think that’s a bit too simple to say that. I think he has these things in him from the beginning. He had this idea that he was owed something, that he was taken advantage of. He starts to blame other people and that’s something narcissists do often, and it’s everybody else’s fault, it’s not theirs. Even though he’s not Heisenberg yet, he’s on his way.”

Walter White's Genius Breaking Bad Arc Explained

Walter White Was A Narcissist Even In Breaking Bad Episode 1, Psychiatrist Argues (1)

While the extremity of Walt's actions increase over time as the forces against him become more formidable and his situation becomes more serious, there's certainly something to the idea that many of his negative traits are present from the beginning. Undertaking a criminal venture that he knows will adversely affect peoples' health, as Dr. Bender explains, suggests that the self-centeredness and coldness is in him even at the start. In addition to these innate human qualities, however, there's no denying that Walt is also a product of his circ*mstances.

When audiences first meet Walt in Breaking Bad season 1, he's a man who lacks both control and, at least in his mind, the respect from those around him. From his home life to his professional life, Walt is stuck in a rut and there's seemingly nothing he can do about it (he can't even eat real bacon anymore). Being diagnosed with uncurable cancer is, in many ways, the ultimate loss of control for him and serves as the catalyst for the entire story.

Although Walt may have narcissistic qualities in him from the beginning, it's questionable whether these qualities would manifest themselves to the same degree had he not been diagnosed with cancer. Gilligan, then, has really created the ultimate anti-hero, crafting a sympathetic man who has a darkness in him from the start before then surrounding him with circ*mstances that bring this darkness out in all its forms. It's now been about 13 years since Breaking Bad ended, and the fact that viewers (and psychiatrists) are still finding new ways of looking at the show speaks to just how effective it remains.