Walter White (And Vince Gilligan) As The Prince

A reader at Andrew Sullivan's The Dish comments on Breaking Bad (includes a sing-along video):

I’m also a long-time fan of Breaking Bad and appreciate a fellow fan who sees the obvious allegory of Walter White’s post-battle Richard III climax (“my kingdom for a horse”), tied all together with the pathos of Treasure of the Sierra Madre (“show us your badges!”) and Ozymandias rolling his own “legless trunk” through the desert.

...The radical objective of Machiavellian virtu was not earthly happiness, but immortal glory, which, as Leo Strauss puts it, “liberates men from the desire for petty things – comfort, riches and honors – as well as from fear of death.” Machiavelli undermines the ethereal promise of immortality offered through Christian virtue with the substantive possibility of immortal fame achieved with Machiavellian virtu.

This is Breaking Bad‘s story to the end: Walter vanquishes everyone, achieves all his objectives including his own death, knowing that he has secured his ultimate Machiavellian objective of eternal glory. Not surprisingly, this is also Vince Gilligan’s hope for Breaking Bad‘s legacy:

You want your work to be remembered. You want it to outlive you. My favourite show ever was The Twilight Zone and I think about Rod Serling, [who] started that show 54 years ago this year. It long outlived him – he passed away in 1975 – but there are kids who haven’t been born yet who will know the phrase ‘the twilight zone’, and hopefully will be watching those wonderful episodes. I can’t say that’s what will happen [with Breaking Bad], but you wanna have that kind of immortality through your work. That would be wonderful. I’d feel very blessed.