#without those things as catalysts he would have remained hollow and passive and stuck with the lowest risk path of least resistance | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

eternalcyclicality · 5 months ago

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damn if the affordable care act existed before walter's diagnosis he never would have started cooking meth

It's not sensible media analysis, since every story needs an inciting action, but it's still funny to look at the smoldering aftermath of some turbo-tragedy series and be like, "damn if he just hadn't gone out for cigarettes in episode 1 then the world wouldn't have ended."

#comment #people may try to point out he refused elliot and gretchen's money & that he refused out of pride #implying he wouldn't let insurance cover his treatments out of pride. BUT! a few notes about that:#1.) he had prior beef with them and how things went down (flashbacks of walt flirting with gretchen)#2.) he was already thoroughly enjoying his successful drug making operation at the time they offered #3.) without the financial desperation to push him to consider meth making he was a mostly hollow shell of a person and #the events over the course of the 1st episode (especially the very end of it) fundamentally changed him #without those things as catalysts he would have remained hollow and passive and stuck with the lowest risk path of least resistance #i.e.. like a benign chemically inert substance which becomes an active volatile with exposure to the right catalysts #walt (passive & hollow) + cancer (catalyst) + pre-ACA financial med system (heat & pressure) -> walt (active but still hollow)#walt (active but hollow) (intermediate state) + s1e1 events (more heat & pressure)(+final catalyst)-> walt (active & volatile)#the ACA removes the heat & pressure necessary to react the passive & hollow shell walt to do something *different*#thus the walter white that turned down elliot and gretchen's assistance was a radically different person by the time they offered it

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