Jesse Pinkman!
For our Core Lies series of asks breaking down a character's distorted beliefs about themselves that drive their character.
Breaking Bad is a show about toxic masculinity. Pretty much all of the central characters are victims of a patriarchal structure with warped senses of pride and identity tied into their ability to perform and to provide. Gus pretty much spells it out to Walter when he says "what does a man do? A man provides" with that speech weighing on the toxic ideal that men simply bare the weight and persist forward because it is what is expected of him.
That scene is Gus hoisting toxic masculinity onto Walter, a petty man who desires to have superiority over his surroundings (it is text that he married Skyler because he looked down on her intellectually) and whose life of crime began with him emasculated by his brother in law, feeling weak and powerless, attempting to assert dominance over the world.
Jesse is Walter's first victim in this campaign of domination. Throughout the show Walter seeks to have control over Jesse and uses Jesse's desperation for a positive male role model to assert control over him that he uses well beyond the first seasons of the show. The only reason Jesse ended up still in the game during the final season is because Walter refused to relinquish this control. He spends much of seasons 3 and 4 intentionally undermining Jesse's growth as a person and trying to belittle him as a means of keeping Jesse seeking his approval, even going as far as to admit that he was lying about the quality of Jesse's cook when he felt an honest opinion would benefit more than his usual sharp barbs.
But this is a discussion on Jesse's core lie, isn't it?
Jesse is a chronically dissociated and lost young man who was ejected by his parents and desperately desires love and acceptance from outside of himself. He eventually discovers it in a caregiver's role which was seeded fairly early when we see how he takes care of his little brother, how he protects the child in the den that he raids and of course his behavior around Brock.
Actualization for Jesse is in a character seeking to be taken care of, learning to take care of others. Not in the selfish and angry way that Walter does, in which he lies constantly about his actions being for the sake of his family; Jesse treats nurture and care as an active and present responsibility which involves emotional care and securing safety not with violence but with shelter.
If Breaking Bad is the story of toxic masculinity starring Walter White, it is the story of the self-destructive rampage of a self absorbed egotist who wants to drag everyone down with him.
Then El Camino is the story of a Jesse Pinkman escaping the grasp of toxic masculinity and choosing a life free from the world that Walter dragged him into. (Albeit Jesse did begin as a cook prior to the story, he was a dumb kid who was never going to tangle in cartel business until Saul and Walter got their claws into him).
El Camino is actually a remarkably focused story when viewed through this lens but I'm just going to focus on this one screenshot:
Jesse steals his father and his mother's guns. Specifically gendered in their their names and designs.
One gun is a Colt Woodsman. A long barreled .22 caliber pistol which may as well be called the Man-ManMan gun for the connotations both Colt has for guns and Woodsman has for manly occupations. The other a Smith & Wesson Safety Hammerless a tiny little piece that has an internal hammer and safety on the grip. The modern version of this gun is called the Ladysmith.
The way he wins the final is by baiting an aggressor into a wild west style shootout using the Woodsman on his belt line (a phallic position) indicated as the weapon he will be firing from. With his hand in his pocket he fires the internal hammer gun instead.
He refuses to play by the rules of masculinity and earns his freedom that way.
So we reblogged a meme post earlier that used Jesse under the text "Another day of being a beautiful and charismatic woman"
I'll make the argument that Jesse's core lie is "I need to be a strong and capable man"
I really hope that she works out what that lie entails after the end of El Camino.
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For other core lie asks:
Daine (Tamora Pierce's Tortall series) and Susan (Terry Pratchett's Discworld series) Bruce Banner (Hulk) and Jesse Faden (Control) Elliot Alderson (Mr. Robot) Evangeline Morgan (Of the Devil) Juri Arisugawa (Revolutionary Girl Utena) Master Aqua (Kingdom Hearts) Briar Moss and Trisana Chandler (The Circle of Magic) Rei Ayanami (Neon Genesis Evangelion) Devil Hulk (The Immortal Hulk) Beatrice the Golden Witch (Umineko) The Venom Symbiote (Marvel Comics)