Gray Matter keeps coming up.
The show is much more interesting if you just accept it as a universal constant that Walt could not take a charity job from Gray Matter. He had his reasons, which haven't been revealed for the most part, but it's quite clear that he would rather be dead than accept charity from them.
If you try to ret-con the Walt from Season 1 as a sociopath, it makes the journey much less compelling, IMO.
I completely disagree (leaving aside that I don't think it's retconning). The story of a wolf in sheep's clothing is always a compelling one, and that's exactly what Walt has been all along imo. It's entirely possible that this was not the author's intent early on (though I think it more or less is at this point), but that doesn't really matter. The show is more than the sum of its parts, and that's why it's so fantastic.
I even think the fact that people refuse to believe Walt could have sociopathic traits simply because of the idea that he managed to get along in the world without great incident for the bulk of his life to this point is a fascinating lense through which to look at the show. It says some interesting things about people's perception of mental illness and criminality and amoral behaviour.
I do also think that a lot of people actually think that Walt pre-episode-1 was actually Hal from Malcolm in the Middle, and that's pretty interesting too. The way the show is framed we know so very little about his life before the show began and people clearly fill in the blanks differently.
I find it strange to assume that he was somehow less capable or willing to lie before the show than after, and what little we know of his life before shows that he was willing to destroy his career over a matter of pride, which is not exactly 'typical' behaviour. But other people fill in the blanks differently, imagining that he and Skylar were really happy, that he hadn't settled for her after leaving Gretchen as well as settling for his job after leaving his business. But that difference of interpretation is very interesting.
They've constructed something fascinating here to me, and I think Walt is an unquestionable textbook example of either antisocial or borderline personality disorder and has been from basically day one. His view of the world is extremely self-focused and his attachments to other people are possessive and unemotional. So yeah, I definitely disagree that looking at Walt as a sociopath from day one makes the show less compelling. To me it's what makes it compelling.
I mean, it's possible that whenever I finally get around to rewatching the whole thing my view on him in the early seasons will change, but I felt this way about his character very early on the first time around.
