Why was Saul Goodman so scared of Walter White?
The groundbreaking TV shows, Breaking Bad and its spinoff Better Call Saul, managed to create a cohesive and appealing universe. However, there are some things that might look like inconsistencies.
A topic that has sparked a lot of debate among fans of these iconic TV shows is why Saul Goodman, the slick, fast-talking lawyer, was so scared of Walter White, the high school chemistry teacher turned meth kingpin.
In Better Call Saul, James McGill becomes Saul Goodman and works with a lot of criminals along his way. Is his fear of Heisenberg an inconsistency or is there an explanation? We’ve gathered some insights from a Reddit discussion to shed light on this intriguing dynamic.
One of the main reasons Saul was scared of Walt was due to Walt’s ruthless and efficient approach to dealing with problems. Walt had a zero-tolerance policy for anyone he deemed a liability.
Remember the prison killings or when he killed Mike? He killed Gustavo Fring himself after all. These actions showed that Walt was not someone to be trifled with. If you were smart, you’d be scared of Walt too, or at least, very cautious.
Another factor is Walt’s unpredictability. Saul was used to dealing with career criminals who followed certain unwritten rules of the underworld. Walt, on the other hand, was an amateur in the world of crime.
As a Reddit user Pox_Americana put it, “The greatest swordsmen need not fear the second greatest swordsmen, but an amateur.”
Walt was not a professional criminal with decades of experience like Gus or the Cartel. He was just some guy who found himself in a world he didn’t fully understand. He didn’t abide by the rules of the criminal underworld because he didn’t know them.
This ignorance made him more dangerous. He was willing to do anything to protect his money and interests, even if it meant breaking the norms of professional crime.
His actions, such as poisoning a child to manipulate Jesse Pinkman or blowing up a nursing home to kill Gus, showed a disregard for the rules that was both shocking and terrifying.
