i find it really interesting how in many ways jimmy is an inversion of the typical conman. we talk about how his cons are a way of taking back power or gaining a sense of control, but i don’t know that i’ve seen anyone point out (though i’m sure someone has) how his tendency to go after powerful people is the exact opposite of what most conmen do. usually a con artist or a scammer will go after whoever they see as most vulnerable, like a wolf picking off the weakest member of the heard. they target the people they think will be most likely to believe them, the more desperate or well-intentioned the better. jimmy’s father is singled out as a mark because he’s so eager to help people. they don’t care that he needs the money and they don’t feel bad about taking advantage of his kindness. jimmy’s marks, in contrast, tend to be that same type of person. he pretends to be the vulnerable one, and rather than taking advantage of their willingness to help, he leads them to believe that they’re taking advantage of him.
the man that he and marco trick into buying the worthless coin involves himself as soon as he thinks they don’t want him listening. he says “hey, money talks” feeling that he just came out on top of someone else. they never directly sell him on anything. he took it upon himself to buy a coin that was being sold to another person. in the flashback in 1x04 the man yells “later, sucker” as he runs off with the fake rolex (which he thinks they stole off a semi-conscious man passed out in an alley, even if said man was a dick). both plans very clearly hinge on jimmy and marco appearing as the “suckers” and their ‘victim’ taking advantage of that of their own accord. you see it with the stockbroker he and kim scam in the first episode of s2 as well. they lure him in by presenting themselves as people who have lots of money to invest, don’t know what they’re doing, and are very suggestible and desperate for advice. after they leave he goes, “wow. just… wow.” as if he can’t believe his luck in finding two people with so much money that are so easy to manipulate. if you scam someone by pretending to be a mark, it would follow that the people you scam are people looking for marks, or at least are happy to seize the opportunity when it’s presented to them. even in s6, the first guy we see jimmy scamming as “viktor” is constantly trying to trick him into losing bets, unable to believe jimmy keeps falling for it and yet very much enjoying humiliating him and taking his money. jimmy targets walt, who sees himself as superior to those around him and bullies his wife and jesse more than anyone else, exploiting their emotionally entanglement with him. the first person walt singles out to help him in his power trip is a drug addict, someone vulnerable that he feels will be easy to control. he prefers vulnerability to reliability, telling gus that he likes jesse because he can trust him and he does what he tells him to. jimmy never really engages with skyler and jesse in the same way walt does. he actually tries to help skyler deal with the man she cheated on walt with without telling walt, and uses walt’s money to do it. if you wanted to be generous (and i do) you could even read his attitude towards skyler, especially with regards to car wash, as his half-hearted attempt to prevent her from becoming involved.
however, i think that the most glaring and clearly intentional contradiction in his conman role is his involvement with elder law, elderly people being the quintessential stereotype of a scam victim. despite the fact that “old people love him” and he’s clearly very good at charming them, his elder law practice is genuine. when marco asks if he’s “ripping off old people” he seems somewhat incredulous at the suggestion. far from exploiting them, he actually uncovers and exposes sandpiper crossing for defrauding their residents (a plot which repeatably brings up how vulnerable old people are to abuse and manipulation by citing various legal sanctions). the one time that he does manipulate his former clients as part of a ploy to close the sandpiper suit, his plan would actually result in them getting money, not losing it. when he realizes that his exploitation of their trust had real negative repercussions he calls it off and mitigates the damages by creating a situation that would cause them to see him as the bad guy, the kind of person who actually would happily manipulate and exploit old people without scruples, despite the fact that his elderly clients were some of the only people to genuinely like him. it doesn’t benefit him in any way and he actually says that he really doesn’t want to do it, but he makes the sacrifice anyway because he feels guilty that he exploited their trust in him.
chuck could be taken as another prime example of someone that the typical conman would see as a perfect mark: mentally ill, often desperate, vulnerable, and dependent on him. instead we’re immediately shown how upset jimmy is at the idea that howard is taking advantage of chuck (“wave bye-bye to your cash cow, ‘cause it’s leaving the pasture”). he switches the numbers only after he feels like chuck exploited kim’s hard work just because she had less power than him and he felt entitled to it. he only retaliates against chuck after he feels chuck knowingly and callously twisted his trust and concern against him. at the same time, they make absolutely clear that jimmy holds total legal power over chuck’s autonomy at multiple points and yet he only ever does what he thinks chuck would want him to, no matter how mad he is at him or how badly chuck’s hurt him. he’s uncomfortable with even having the power in the first place, the thought of abusing it would never even cross his mind (not necessarily applauding him for this, but it’s still worth pointing out how it subverts the expectations associated with the archetype).
the only thing to snap him out of his dark, pain-fueled scam spiral at the end of the series is marion telling him, “i trusted you.” that phrase triggers something and all the fight appears to go out of him. he was relatively unfazed by the man with cancer, and to be honest, his argument wasn’t totally invalid. while having cancer certainly makes you vulnerable in many ways, it doesn’t really have anything to do with how trusting you are or if you’re easily manipulated or if you manipulate other people. the walt example wasn’t inappropriate. maybe jimmy wouldn’t have been as willing as “saul” or “viktor,” maybe he would, but if you’re looking at the criteria he uses to determine his marks, having cancer really isn’t relevant. this is different though. he’s manipulated plenty of people that may have been more vulnerable, but it’s always in service of a bigger plan and in a way that he thinks won’t hurt them (i.e. manipulating the sandpiper residents but only when he believes they would also benefit and willingly taking a hit to reverse the damage he caused after seeing his mistake). at first the nippy lie did seem to fall into those parameters. he wasn’t trying to hurt her in any way, he just wanted to get to jeff. the bleaker his mental state became, the less consideration he seemed to put into who he was hurting and why, but the second that he became cognizant of the fact that he’d manipulated a vulnerable person into trusting him, then exploited that trust, and was now about to see them suffer for it, he stopped cold. even at his darkest and cruelest, that was a horrifying realization.
none of this is exactly news, but plenty of people exploit and bully those they see as weaker or more vulnerable than them as a way to feel more powerful (walter white is a prime example of that. his entire arc is basically a how-to guide on it.), so i find it interesting that jimmy inverts the conman figure, which does represent that personality type in a lot of ways. his conning is still very much associated with power, as much as he hates feeling small or weak or vulnerable or exploited or without control, he never turns around and takes it out on someone less powerful. it’s a weak person that claims victory by picking a fight with someone they know can’t hit back. that’s not to say he doesn’t do damage or he never hurts people who don’t deserve to be hurt (whatever that means), but in juxtaposition with walt it works perfectly. both stories follow men who make bad choices in an attempt to stop feeling powerless, but if there’s one thing jimmy’s never been, it’s a bully. to use the archetype of the con artist is genius because once you actually put jimmy in that mold it’s immediately obvious how badly he fits. he’s not shameless. his entire character arc is about shame and desperation for approval from others. he’s not ruthless. he’s overwhelmed by guilt over his own collateral damage. walt is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, using his harmless appearance to trick attack those more vulnerable than himself. jimmy is a sheep in wolf’s camouflage, trying to cloak his own vulnerability by playing dress up with someone else’s clothes, clothes that never fit quite right.
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