Hank Schrader has one of the most interesting reputations throughout the entire Breaking Bad
and Better Call Saul universe. Likely due to the lasting impact of his character,
he’s often lauded as the true hero of the series, as a morally righteous man, and generally he
seems to be viewed as truly upstanding by a significant portion of the fanbase,
at least from what I’ve seen. And that’s always puzzled me because the show holds nothing back
in directly opposing the idea that he is this paragon of virtue. By my reckoning, he’s praised
as this hero not necessarily because he actually is one, but rather because in comparison to our
monster of a protagonist, most people would seem like one, with their flaws dwarfed and
diminished in comparison and their positives accentuated. Yet despite his horrifying death,
Hank should not be put on this lofty pedestal because it genuinely misrepresents the type
of man he was. He was capable of heroics, but overall he was never a hero and romanticizing
him as one just isn’t productive. At the end of the day, despite his failings,
he did catch Heisenberg - and despite how things went down from there, that should be looked at as
an achievement of a regular person, not that of a hero. Not just because of the lesson that regular
people can ultimately do good and significant things, but simply because that’s who he is.
As he says here halfway through the series, he’s not the type of man that he should be - Partly due
to his experiences in season two. He is ashamed of some of the monstrous things he’s capable of,
and the charges not being pressed on him for his beatdown of Jesse give him a new
lease on life to become that man that he can be proud of. He wanted to do better,
to be good. And began making strides towards that eventually, but things got worse before
they got better.. and then they subsequently got much, much worse. It’s tragic, but
it’s the truth. Hank resolved to be better, and then was attacked, crippled, thrown into a
horrible depression, regained that spark for his case and began being that man he wanted to be,
and then was ground to dust through numerous failures that wore him down to nothing.
When he finally stumbled upon the truth, it tore him and his family apart and he
made headstrong decisions every step of the way out of pride, obsession, and personal wounds.
Now of course, heroes can have flaws and plenty of heroes do. But for me, for one to be a hero, those
flaws have to be overpowered by immense good that shifts the balance, and a nobility in intent and
sentiment. And Hank just doesn’t have that. He has good and admirable traits that gain in momentum,
but they don’t overpower the bad to an extent that would make him anything more than a regular
person. And so many of his deeds that would seem great in a vacuum are done for reasons that are
centered on pride, ego and selfishness, so I can’t really look at them as heroic.
I can see an argument for him being probably, maybe the closest thing that the main cast has
to a hero I guess? But he’s still so far off that it makes the conversation seem redundant.
Naturally, Hank does many fantastic things throughout the series. He’s a great uncle to Walt
Jr most of the time and a loving family man. He acts extremely admirably and genuinely throughout
the series at times through showing care for others and through trying to do what’s right and
good. But despite those aspirations, he is never able to become a great man. He was just.. a man.
He exudes toxic macho masculinity and sexist undertones at times, he completely demeans
Wendy in front of Walter Jr, he is absolutely horrible to Marie when she’s trying to support
and comfort him - which was understandable given the context but still awful, he lets her get away
with stealing due to his connections, he is crass and rude and jokes about dead bodies,
he lets his anger get the better of him and beats Jesse to within an inch of death, and even after
significant growth he shows a complete lack of empathy for Jesse’s story about him and Walt.
He is fully willing to sacrifice Jesse’s life to catch Walt as part of his crusade,
and arguably most prominently - his quest to stop Heisenberg gradually shifts from something
that was just part of the job that needed to be done because it was what was right,
into something Hank NEEDS to do himself. It becomes personal to him, and it morphs
into this obsession that ultimately becomes something he needs to do, to quote unquote win.
After finding out that Walt was Heisenberg,
the smart thing to do would’ve been to give that information over to the DEA.
Walt was known to be an extremely dangerous man capable of all sorts of terrible, violent deeds,
and so turning him in immediately even if it would lose him his job would have been the proper thing
to do. But instead, he prolongs it and pursues this himself, because he wants this personal
glory and he wants this victory. Catching Walt is an admirable ambition in a vacuum,
but Hank didn’t want to do it for the benefit of others, or even because he wanted Walt to be
apprehended. He did it because he needed to be the one that caught Walt. Breaking Bad so often hones
in on how immense pride can be such a deadly flaw - through Walt’s entire journey, through
Gus’ downfall, and through many other threads throughout the series, and Hank is no different.
Hank is characterized by his lax, happy go lucky attitude and wisecracks and for being
exuberant and larger than life. But by the end, his obsession with heisenberg destroyed
him from the inside out. He would approach his earlier cases and even the earlier bits of the
heisenberg case with a fervour and energy. But by the end, he is just sick of it all. It’s not fun,
it’s not enjoyable, it’s not gratifying or fulfilling. It’s a need. He has resolved
to do this but it chains him down, haunts him and makes him miserable, and once he reaches a
certain point, it becomes overwhelming and scary. At this point in his life he can look back on jobs
that he thought were shitty with rose-tinted glasses and indulge in the innocence, where he
didn’t feel this obligation to chase something that terrified him. This isn’t a hero, this is
simply a man - driven by obsession and pride into oblivion by the storm that is Heisenberg.
Obviously I’m not saying that there is nothing within him that wants to catch Walt for more
righteous reasons, but the dominant force within him is that same dominant force that took hold
within his brother-in-law. And I laid out a bunch of his personal flaws either, but please note that
I’m not at all trying to portray him as completely awful. Is he capable of admirable heroism? Sure.
But he is just as capable of deep darkness, and he is as powerful a demonstration as anything else
in the show that pride and ego are so often our greatest enemies. His is a sad story of a regular,
flawed man who loses himself in the wake of a devil, who becomes a shadow of himself,
and is ultimately destroyed, pushed on by this impulse. He is the every man in some ways,
showing the duality of regular people, being a simultaneous piece of encouragement and
a stern warning as well. We can be capable of both immense good, and immense iniquity,
and we are capable of becoming so fixated on things that they drive us to the edge and make us
forget what is right in service of what we feel we must do. Hank Schrader is a wonderful character.
Not due to being this idealized hero that some portray him as,
but because he is thoroughly, for better or worse, exactly who he is. Many thanks for watching.