“Don’t be fooled. He did it for his family just like he professed for five seasons of Breaking Bad.”
Nope. He may have started out that way, but if he did do it for his family, he failed them because all they really wanted was him. He essentially abandoned his two kids by insisting on holding onto a lifestyle that gave him a thrill. That’s why the whole story is a Greek-style tragedy (with some comedy thrown in). He damaged or destroyed everyone he touched - and I’m talking about the people he professed to be doing this for!
It may have started out about making $700,000 for his family but it very quickly became about his ego. He was finally somebody, finally the best at something and recognized for it, finally in control of money, power and people rather than just being a mild-mannered, unimportant high school science teacher with a lackluster marriage to a bored wife, a mortgage, a crippled kid, and a disease that was going to beat him in the end.
It reminds me of that great scene in Bronx Tale where Robert De Niro tries to explain to his son how much tougher it is to get up everyday as a working man than it is as a gangster. Walter White was a genius. And he was an idiot who betrayed every single person he knew including himself.
Like Michael Corleone killing his brother.