"Hi, baby.
  I'm your Aunt Marie."
  Marie Schrader tends to get  the least attention
  of the four adult members  of the central family in Breaking Bad,
  which would not please Marie.
  "Now I'm supposed to go,  'Hank, please what can I possibly do
  to further benefit my spoiled,  kleptomaniac, bitch sister
  who somehow always manages  to be the center of attention?'"
  But it's a big mistake to overlook her  because Marie holds a key
  to understanding the show as a whole.
  As we're watching,  we start to realize
  the writers use Marie to offer  a secret, warped mirror of Walt himself.
  "You're a thief."
  "Excuse me?"
  "And a liar, making stories up about yourself.
  What's wrong with you?"
  Through Marie, the show explores  central questions of Walt's story --
  like, why do people  do bad things?
  And where's that line separating selfish  and spiteful from truly evil?
  In Walt these questions take on  a grand dramatic tone;
  in Marie, they're repeated  on a smaller, more comic scale.
  "Don't worry, I wouldn't hurt anybody,  but it just...
  it just feels good  to think about it."
  Thus the character unlocks  a hidden commentary
  that makes us re-evaluate  our initial take on Walt's journey
  and sheds some light on  what makes a person break bad, or stop short.
  So here's our take on  why Marie Schrader is Walter White, Lite.
  Before we go on,
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  And back to Marie.
  Skyler and Hank are both,  to some extent, Walt's antagonists --
  they're often in clear opposition to him,  either knowingly or unknowingly.
  Meanwhile, Marie actually has a lot more in  common
  with her brother-in-law
  than first meets the eye.
  "I think you should do  whatever you want to do."
  "What?"
  Comparing Walt and Marie can help us  understand Walt's motivations for breaking
  bad.
  If you look at  the fourth episode of Season 1,
  it contains a very revealing sequence of events  that sheds some light
  on why Walt does what he does.
  Skyler tells the family  about Walt's diagnosis,
  and Hank, though he means well,  says the worst thing he could say to Walt.
  "Whatever happens, I want you to know  that I'll always take care of your family."
  Hearing this, Walt feels powerless  and emasculated.
  Later, a guy swipes  Walt's parking spot.
  "Hey!
  Oh come on!"
  And when Walt runs into the guy again,  he sets fire to the guy's car.
  Unhappy that he can't  provide for his family --
  and, more to the point,
  that the world sees him as a man  who can't provide for his family
  and who will just stand by  as his parking spot is stolen --
  Walter asserts himself.
  Marie has a parallel situation  an episode earlier.
  First she complains  that her shoes are ugly.
  "These shoes make me look like  I should be changing bedpans,
  like I should be squeaking around  bringing soup to some disgusting old person,
  then take the bus home  to my 16 cats."
  Then she goes window-shopping,  is annoyed by a rude salesperson,
  "Excuse me, ma'am.
  Ma'am.
  You need to be wearing footies  before you try those on."
  "I'm extremely clean."
  "Yeah, well,  I'd really appreciate it."
  and, on impulse, it seems,  walks out of the store
  wearing shoes  she did not pay for.
  Both Walt and Marie feel unhappy  with who they are,
  and more specifically with the fact  that others view them in a way they don't
  like.
  Both act out of spite,  to punish the people they think slighted them.
  They begin breaking the law  as an instinctive response
  to feeling their egos bruised  and their worth not recognized.
  And as they go on,
  their deeper psychological desire is  very much the same, too.
  Bryan Cranston once said about  Walter White turning into Heisenberg:
  "Personally I feel it had happened  in the very first episode
  when he attempted to  become someone he wasn't."
  So according to Cranston,  Walter's fatal flaw is wanting to
  overstep the boundaries of who he is --  to become something he's not.
  Marie's stealing is  a similar overstepping --
  she is very literally disregarding the boundary  between "mine" and "yours."
  And Marie goes even further  in trying to become someone else.
  "Any children?"
  "Yes, as a matter of fact,  a little boy."
  "Oh, how old?"
  "He turned 4 in May.
  He's a Gemini."
  In Season 4, when her relationship  with Hank is struggling,
  she finds solace in a new,  more elaborate ritual --
  she goes house-shopping, pretending to be  a different person in each house she visits,
  "Tori Costner."
  "Charlotte Blattner."
  "So nice to meet you, Charlotte."
  and stealing little trophies  along the way.
  Marie wants to be seen as a creative,  glamorous and happily married woman,
  "My husband is an illustrator,  so we traveled a lot --
  Paris, Italy, Denmark.
  It was before the kids were in school,  so it was easy to pick up and go."
  while Walter wants to be seen as  the great and mighty Heisenberg.
  "I am the one who knocks."
  Yet both are driven by the ambition  to swap a dissatisfying life
  for a better one,  via shortcuts.
  "Between his pension and the income  I bring in from hand modelling,
  we're, you know, comfortable."
  The key psychological similarity  that Walt and Marie share is
  an inflated yet fragile ego.
  "You were returning it?
  Why would you return it?"
  We've talked Walter's ego at length  in earlier videos.
  "Bring the bottle back."
  Marie has an ego that could probably compare,  even if it's not as obvious.
  "When you watch this 20 years from now,  I will look exactly the same as I do now.
  I know it is amazing.
  I have aged shockingly well, haven't I?"
  Her self-centeredness manifests  most often in her insensitivity
  to the people she's talking to.
  "I was talking to Melinda,  Hank's boss's wife.
  I told you about the one with helmet hair  and permanent lip liner.
  Anyway, she was saying  that when they were there --"
  "Shhh!"
  She can't read a room  to save her life.
  "Yeah!
  Hey!"
  And one quirk that expresses  Marie's egomania is
  her famous obsession with purple.
  Betsy Brandt, who plays Marie,  once explained that each cast member was
  assigned their own distinctive color  at the beginning of the show,
  but that she was the one  who suggested taking Marie's love of purple
  to the extreme.
  She said, quote,  "And they just ran with that."
  Purple is associated with royalty,
  so it's fitting that the color makes Marie  feel special and important.
  Like a child, she equates herself  with her favorite color --
  surrounding herself with it is a way of  remaking her world in her own image.
  Of course, this is a superficial  and largely imaginary pursuit --
  which is more evidence that Marie is  a lighter version of Walter.
  He's trying to bend  the whole world to his will,
  even taking and destroying lives  to build his empire,
  whereas Marie's crimes are  largely victimless.
  She indulges her egotistical whims  in a more solipsistic fantasy space.
  Yet the comparison between the two  leads to the important observation
  that what Walt's doing is  just as childish and deluded,
  if far less harmless.
  Marie and Walt are also  both prolific liars.
  "You better just back off, okay?
  My husband is a DEA agent."
  "I thought he was an astronaut or an illustrator.
  You better get your crazy lies straight."
  And they excel especially  in lying to themselves.
  "You're a drug dealer."
  "No, what, how--"
  "The shoplifting.
  You're not going  to admit this, are you?"
  "I can't really admit to something  when I have no knowledge of what it is
  that I'm admitting."
  They seem to have  a defensive barrier
  that helps them repress  what they really feel deep down.
  And that self-delusion results in  a lot of misdirected emotions.
  When Hank is in the hospital,  Marie's anxiety over his health
  surfaces as a rant about  the hospital cafeteria forks.
  "We're in a hospital.
  Do you think that sick people aren't  eating with this bacteria-infected silverware?
  My God, how are you supposed to  survive this death trap?"
  Walt has a very similar hygiene-related obsession  in the famous "Fly" episode.
  "This fly is a major problem for us.
  Now, we need to destroy it  and every trace of it.
  Failing that we're dead."
  Of course, it's not the fly  Walt is really worried about;
  he's concerned over his increasingly  dangerous stalemate with Gus.
  But both Marie and Walt are so good  at keeping themselves in denial,
  that sometimes they don't even know  when they're doing it.
  "I have no idea  what the hell you're even talking about."
  So the parallels between Walt's and Marie's  psychological makeup are striking:
  the dangerous ego, the lying to themselves,  the impulsivity and spitefulness,
  the need for recognition,
  and the feeling that they're entitled  to be more than they are.
  It's no coincidence that both Marie and  Walt
  try to steal Holly from Skyler in Season 5.
  "Give me my baby."
  "Skyler, we're not leaving without her!"
  "Walt, no!
  Let her go!"
  Both have such big egos and ability  to delude themselves
  that they confidently overstep boundaries  others would consider sacred and untouchable.
  In season one, we learn that Walt's not  the only member of his family breaking the
  law --
  "You know that tiara  that Marie gave us?"
  "Hmm."
  "Well, she stole it."
  The audience thus gets to feel out  each of the main characters' approaches
  to morality,
  and their reactions to Marie foreshadow  what Walt will face
  from his family in the future.
  Skyler's response to her sister's shoplifting  lets us fast forward in our minds
  to the moment when she'll inevitably  find out about her husband --
  and we can see  it's not going to be pretty.
  "Your lies.
  To me.
  The shoplifting.
  All of it.
  Did you really think it was all  just neatly gonna go away?"
  "Well, if you hadn't tried  to return it --"
  "Apologise."
  Her reaction to Marie tells us  that Skyler's morality is pretty rigidly
  unbending --
  this is not a woman who will rush  to make excuses for her family's transgressions.
  "You knew about this."
  "W-We're working on it."
  Meanwhile, Hank, the tough DEA agent  who treats his perps like scum,
  "Sit your ass down!
  Comprendé?
  Sientate!"
  is nothing but supportive  when it comes to his wife's "issues."
  "We gotta support  the shit out of her."
  So we see that he has a soft spot  when it comes to family --
  and that will come into play later  when it takes him so long
  to realize the truth about Walt,  even when it's in front of his eyes.
  We see that Marie's own moral code isn't  lax or forgiving,
  "Maybe you should just go ahead  and die then."
  except when it comes to making room  for herself as an exception.
  She's outraged at the idea  that Walter Jr. is,
  she wrongly believes,  smoking pot.
  "Walter Jr."
  "Yeah, what about him?"
  "Marijuana --  he's smoking it."
  but she shoplifts a pair of shoes  immediately after this conversation.
  So her behavior shows how easy it is  to excuse yourself while judging others --
  and that gives us a preview  of exactly the kind of hypocrisy
  we're going to see later  magnified in Walt.
  "I am not a criminal.
  No offense to any people who are."
  Walter's own reaction to  Marie's crimes is deeply revealing --
  trying to justify his own behavior,  he reinterprets Marie's.
  "Oh, well.
  People sometimes do things  for their families."
  "People sometimes do things  for their families?
  And, what, that justifies stealing?"
  This exchange is so interesting  because we can see that Walt is
  already using Marie's compulsion  as an opportunity to practice his skills
  of rationalization --
  something he will eventually  turn into an art form.
  "That is college tuition  for Walter Jr.
  And Holly."
  So in the end, what separates  Marie and Walt?
  Why does Marie never kill anyone,  poison any children,
  or torture her nearest  and dearest?
  Surely if they are really so similar,  she would have done something
  worse than stealing a few knickknacks?
  Well, there are three significant things  that Marie doesn't have,
  which weigh greatly on Walt:
  the deadline of a cancer diagnosis  breathing down her neck;
  the unrealized potential  of wasted scientific genius;
  and the pressures of society's  expectations of masculinity.
  These factors separating  Walt's story from Marie's
  suggest to us that at least part of  what leads someone down a darker path
  is circumstance --  environment.
  But Marie also has a very important thing  that Walt doesn't,
  and that's a consistently loving,  resilient marriage.
  Her truest redeeming quality is  her devotion to her husband.
  And maybe it's largely thanks to  his patient support
  that Marie stays mostly true  to her better side.
  "Marie!
  Do it now.
  Give her back."
  Marie and Hank constantly  berate each other,
  "I must've said Cheetos like ten times.
  You need me to write it down for you?"
  "No, and I don't need you to be  mean about it either, Mr. Grumpy."
  but they also understand each other  without words
  and share their own intimate language.
  "If I can get the groundhog  to see his shadow --"
  "It's not going to happen.
  I'm sorry."
  "I'm betting it will, and if he does,  you check out of here."
  They're an unlikely contender  for the title,
  but we might argue that these two make  one of the the sweetest TV couples out there
  --
  in their own way.
  "Pain is weakness leaving your body."
  "Pain is my foot in your ass, Marie."
  "Hey, if you can get your leg up that high,  I say go for it."
  There's a chicken-or-the-egg  mystery here --
  is it the strength of their relationship  that keeps Marie from succumbing to her bad
  side,
  or is it because Marie is more good than bad  that their relationship stays more nurturing
  than Skyler and Walter's?
  Either way, Marie gives us the answer  to why most people with the potential to break
  bad
  don't turn into Heisenbergs --
  true connection to others keeps us  tethered to our better selves.
  Characters are not supposed  to be real people.
  They're elements in a story --
  collections of traits and motivations  deliberately crafted to move the narrative
  along
  and illuminate its key themes.
  Marie's character is designed to  double the issues we see in Walt's personality,
  but in a smaller,  unthreatening form.
  Think of it this way --
  if Heisenberg were a T-Rex,  Marie would be a little, mini T-Rex.
  Now, if you shrink down a big scary dinosaur  to the size of a lapdog,
  the fearsome creature becomes  essentially harmless,
  even funny and ridiculous.
  "Welcome to your baby shower,  Esmeralda!"
  Walt wants the universe to look upon him  with fear and awe --
  yet this little yappy mirror of him in Marie  undermines that mighty image
  and forces us to wonder --
  is Heisenberg's ego trip not a little bit  silly and pitiable after all?
  "He was... naked, naked in a supermarket?
  It wasn't Whole Foods, was it?"
  In the end, this kleptomaniac  radiology technician
  with a penchant for purple is  the "Heisenberg everywoman" --
  proof that you don't have to be  exceptionally talented
  or diagnosed with cancer  to have Heisenbergian egomania within you.
  But even if you are an unpleasant,  selfish person in many ways,
  it's not a done deal  that you can't lead a good life.
  If you're ever in doubt,
  clinging to your bonds  with the people you love
  will help you stay on  the right track.
  "The officers spoke to the homeowners  and they're not gonna press charges."
  "Good, I won't either."
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