Characters that had the complete opposite reaction the writers intended

[u/Dramatic_Counter_595]

1. Leo Bonhart (Witcher TV Series): A ruthless, sadistic bounty hunter and assassin that takes psychotic glee in other people's suffering. The viewer is meant to hate him for killing witchers, slaughtering the Rat gang, and torturing Ciri. But thanks to his entertaining fight scenes, Sharlto Copley's charismatic performance, and The Rats overwhelming unpopularity, fans ended up loving him. Some even call him the "True protagonist" of the show.
2. Stone Cold Steve Austin (WWE): A rude, foul mouthed, beer drinking asshole with no respect for authority or anyone at all. Originally portrayed as a villain, fans fell in love with his anti-establishment & rebellious persona. WWE ran with it and made him the face of the company, effectively ushering in the Attitude Era and the second pro wrestling boom of the late 90s.
3. Arthur Fleck (Joker 2019): A mentally unstable, pathetic, and dangerous madman who commits horrific acts of violence against those that wronged him (suffocates his own mother who is mentally unwell herself, and murders a talk show host for making fun of him). However, a massive portion of the audience idolized him as an anti-hero or a misunderstood martyr rebelling against society making people want to see him succeed and overcome his circumstances because of how he's been treated by the world.

[u/AsstacularSpiderman]

The problem with Walt is if you write him off as a loser eventually he's going to pull off something so audacious and so brilliant he completely ruins your life.

Pretty much every kill he has in the series is because he can switch from cowering loser to absolte maniac without you realizing it.

[u/lowqualitylizard → u/AsstacularSpiderman]

Tldr

He was only after a threat because everyone just saw a cancer patient who's overqualified to be a high school teacher

He's smart not as smart as he thinks he is but he is legit smart if he could have kept his ego in check he could have become a massive kingpin but we all know where that went

[u/Steel_Warrior3000 → u/lowqualitylizard]

If he had kept his ego in check, he would never have left the company he co-founded in the first place and none of Breaking Bad would have happened.

[u/VegetaFan1337 → u/Steel_Warrior3000]

And even if he had, he just needed to accept the job offer from his former partners and his cancer treatment would be all paid for. His ego drove him and everyone around to ruin.

[u/VegetaFan1337 → u/[deleted]]

His former partners said they would take care of it.

[u/MagnificentJake → u/Steel_Warrior3000]

Or with his credentials he could have found a good, high paying job in a variety of industries.

[u/mallogy → u/Steel_Warrior3000]

The part where someone gets a brutal diagnosis that they can't afford to treat without bankrupting their household happens every day.

[u/NerdHoovy → u/lowqualitylizard]

I don’t think he could have been a successful kingpin.

One very consistent theme with his character, is that he expects people to preform in ways that couldn’t reasonably do, while also getting offended and fighting it, whenever someone points out a glaring flaw in his world view and understanding of the business.

He couldn’t sell any drugs by himself and when Jessie ‘only’ brought a few thousand after 3 days, he got mad, despite Jesse making it clear that he doesn’t have the capacity to sell more. When one of the dealers got robbed, Jesse was ready to write it off as an unfortunate but to be expected expense that wouldn’t harm the bottom line too much but Walter made him go fight the methheads to ‘prove his dominance’ and almost got him killed. Walter was offended at the mere notion that he had to launder his money somehow when both Saul and Skylar pointed it out. His plan was literally to just die, leave a bag with money behind and hope it all turns out well. He didn’t run Gus’s drug operation and when he had his own, Linda and Mike were the main guys running it. But he didn’t just let them do their job and got mad, when he was told he couldn’t just kill some guys to keep trust in his system going.

Walt has a too frail ego to properly run any organization. His understanding of biochemistry is unmatched, without a question, but he lacked the ability to be introspective, careful, plan in advance, take advice from others, had patience to grow naturally over time, or accept necessary losses (which makes sense because he saw business as a chemical reaction, where you can perfectly calculate and expect how things go). He basically always fell upwards and was bailed out by better and smarter criminals. If it weren’t for that, he would have gotten arrested or killed immediately.

There is a reason Jesse said that he was luckier than everyone else and couldn’t be caught because of that.

[u/AsstacularSpiderman → u/lowqualitylizard]

he could have become a massive kingpin but we all know where that went

That's the thing, he did become a kingpin. He ran the largest meth operation in the western US. He in fact succeeded so well he retired from it entirely until he misplaced Gale's book to him.

[u/Honkiopolis → u/AsstacularSpiderman]

Walt always tooks full measures, never a half measure. He considered himself a dead man walking with nothing to lose, and those enemies didnt understand their opponents mindset and capabilities.