[Music] what makes a villain memorable the most iconic villains come in all shapes and sizes they can be chaotic efficient charming repulsive charismatic but if you ever want to write your own perfect antagonist then there's no better example to learn from than gus fring created by vince gilligan and performed by giancarlo esposito fring takes every box for what makes a villain not just memorable but terrifying breaking bad's walter white is hailed as one of the greatest characters ever written but a hero is only as strong as the villain they have to conquer and for two
of the most intense seasons of television ever created that's gus fring so now that better call saul has come to an end we have two complete series to study his rise his reign and his fall so let's take a deeper look at the qualities that make this character work so well so that you can apply it to your own writing as vince gilligan is a master at ensuring his character's key qualities consistently feed into one another so that it all feels natural it starts with how we meet the character as first impressions mean everything with
a villain some crime lords are introduced surrounded by soldiers or dripping with wealth or fearlessly engaging in violence so we know they mean business but for gus fring he hides in plain sight you don't find him he finds you this creates an immediate mythical quality to the character akin to kaiser soze in the usual suspects and like that he's gone and someone that's capable of keeping their identity a secret while running such a hugely dangerous operation is far more intimidating as it means they managed to tightly control everyone around them into complete silence and if
you can't find them they could make you disappear with ease but gilligan doesn't just make it so that fring is a mysterious drug kingpin that runs a fast food franchise he gradually unravels his community ties how he plays a sort of public figure acting friendly with law enforcement keeping his friends close and enemies closer by writing fring as someone that wears an upstanding mannerly mask in public while being a ruthless murderer in private it immediately ups the stakes for the characters and thus our experience as viewers firstly even being capable of pulling off such an
act suggests he's a high operator but it also communicates that human interaction is all just a strategy to get the outcome he wants so therefore he must feel nothing about the morality of his crimes on top of that this means protecting his image always takes precedence and once that's jeopardized the risk must be eliminated so on every level the stakes are higher and the game is more complex in order to make the previous points plausible it takes a certain kind of person to be able to pull it off the phrase how you do anything is
how you do everything definitely applies here gus is meticulous everything is done with precision and attention to detail the way he puts on his clothes the way he sits the way he stands even the way he speaks is precise he knows exactly what he can and cannot say and will use code to never fully incriminate himself or that you know what his plans are sir if you have a complaint i suggest you submit it through our email system all right i'll bring him in now no keep him there wait that'd be a mistake this discussion
serves no purpose he says only what you need to hear and know more but this isn't just how he works it's what he loves notice how gus is drawn to people that take great pride in what they do and thrive to be the very best at it when he walks in on gail playfully singing the periodic table as he works gus smiles as it suggests gail lives and breathes chemistry when he discovers walt cook's myth that's over 99 pure he needs to work with the very best a fellow master of their craft and what attracts
him to david is his deep knowledge of wine he's so passionate and captivated by the small intricate details of each bottle that gus can see a part of himself in him conversely he can't stand sloppiness and inconsistency for example he doesn't value jesse because he's an addict and an addict is controlled by a substance not logic reason money or him and he doesn't think eladio deserves his position because he's not cautious enough choosing to rule by fear and infamy rather than secrecy and control if you want to write a well-rounded villain you have to not
think of them as just a baddie they should have just as lofty goals and motivations as the protagonist gilligan ensures that friend isn't just sitting pretty on his laurels he's the active hero of his own story constantly expanding he may be the most powerful kingpin in the state and to walter white but even gus has someone he answers to and those above him are not friends while most mob stories involve family gilligan shows us how gus started off as an outsider just trying to capture the cartel's attention but his plan resulted in his partner who
was maybe more than just a business partner being murdered by hector salamanca right in front of him and gus was forced to look him in the eyes in horror to understand the consequences of his actions since then he has been subservient to don oladio's needs silently moving chess pieces until he's ready to execute his plan gilligan could have just written gus as the ultimate baddie who runs the world but instead it's all about perspective he's a major player but he has not yet completed his goals or crushed his enemies and when we see the story
from his side we're actually rooting for him to conquer his competitors by taking revenge once we understand gus's goals it re-contextualizes how our hero fits into the picture essentially he wants to use walt's cooking skills to take over the market and complete his plan and walt can make more money than ever before but rather than this symbiotic relationship just working out gilligan instead makes gus not just a ruler and threat but a mentor unlike most stories in breaking bad the villain is the perfect person for what to learn from as he's unquestionably just a better
criminal than him he does everything right whatever needs to be done he usually doesn't let emotion get in the way unlike walt who often makes decisions based on experience and ego so in order to beat the monster you have to become an equal or greater monster this is key because it's not just good guy versus bad guy now that we know gus's background we're presented two protagonists who both want to become the largest meth dealer in the country but one is far more powerful than the other and this power struggle will become the central conflict
of the series essentially walt and gus are both in a race to learn everything the other person does right the fastest so they can eliminate them being in this arms race is an intriguing conflict as walt and gus are very different walt feels he's short on time having been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and living with huge regrets so he wants everything to happen now whereas as we see from better call saw onwards gus's greatest strength is patience he does not execute any plan until he knows it can be completed with absolute efficiency this is
why no matter how often gail offers to start cooking meth for him whether it be in his work lab or in the hole in the ground gus always says no as he believes you start as you mean to continue and to begin too early would be an emotional miscalculation nothing happens until everything is in its right place this has been a quality of his since he was a child and gilligan plants these seeds in his most defining monologue in which gus tells the story from when he was just seven years old living in poverty he
tended to a dehydrated lacuma tree that never bore fruit but he fixated on it until green buds began to grow he then took the fruit in secret and enjoyed it alone so we can see that secrecy was always part of his wheelhouse then they began to sell the fruit to the local community demonstrating his entrepreneurial side but then the tree was attacked by an animal so to crush his enemy he built a trap wounding the creature and when it ran under the house to hide he waited patiently for hours into the night until it revealed
itself and then captured it the easy thing to do would have just been to kill it but once he feels wronged gus enjoys revenge even as a child he kept the creature alive for some time so he could slowly perish in agony and this is the same tactic he wants to employ on hector for killing his partner max and when the doctor shows him his progress the thing that brings a genuine smirk to his face is knowing that the real hector is still in there trapped in his own body like a prisoner he wants him
conscious but debilitated so he can drag out his punishment for longer but this is what gilligan does best he builds character traits and links them together to create true consistency we know gus is meticulous from how he moves we know he's patient from how he makes decisions and we know he likes to operate in complete secrecy but it's not just to law enforcement it's to everyone he ate the lakuma in secrecy as he gains more pleasure from something knowing that no one else knows about it and when he patiently builds his underground lab hidden below
an industrial laundromat he keeps it a secret for maladio and the salamancas until he has the perfect cooks ready to produce the amount of product he needs secrecy is vitally important because knowledge is power this is why he has eyes and ears everywhere watching everything but also limits how much you know and how much you think he knows this way he can sniff out deception immediately and leaves his competitors making decisions based on incomplete information for example when he discovers walters hank's brother-in-law he doesn't instantly react or let walt find out he knows instead he
waits and executes a strategy that kills two birds with one stone let's take a closer look at this one because great writing is all about how and when to reveal certain pieces of information to the audience and the characters sometimes we know something the characters don't and sometimes we're a step behind or just as perplexed as them in this case we think gus is just sending the twins after hank to protect walt and cut out a potential threat however we then don't know why he would warn hank just before the attack but then his larger
plan becomes clear in a master stroke he warned hank just before the attack happens so that the twins get shot and with an attack on a dea officer the feds are now all over the mexican cartel cutting off their supply to the us at the exact time he has walt in place to produce industrial amounts of meth in his underground lab so he plays one person's desire off his personal need distracts and shuts out his competitors while capturing the entire market for himself he is killing two birds with one stone but the play is about
much more than just walt or hank and it's only when walt lies to him about his whereabouts that he personally visits him in hospital to send the message that he already knows more than he could possibly imagine so therefore his lies will never work by being patient having secrets and access to all the information gus can orchestrate complex strategies with minimal risk he's a master manipulator wearing different faces with different people so that no one can see their strings getting pulled he employs different psychological strategies to control his subordinates often putting them into categories with
nacho and jesse he considers them erratic and untrustworthy when mike requests nacho be let go as he has been a loyal servant gus states a dog who bites every owner he's ever had can only be disciplined with a firm hand or put down when walt turns down his lucrative job offer he hires jesse instead so that walt's jealousy and pride will fly into overdrive he then lets him believe the lab was built with him in mind and when walt feels guilty over losing his family gus changes tech to activate walt's ego and sense of purpose
a man provides and he does it even when he's not appreciated he simply bears up and he does it because he's a man gus studies his opponents so he can read the man in front of him as you can't control what you don't understand he knows that walt wants to be known as the best that he wants his ego fed at all times even when punishing jesse like the dog who needs discipline he deepens their divide by building walt up in the process so that he feels like his equal if it wasn't for this man
and the respect i have for him i would be dealing with this in a very different way and once he senses a threat growing underneath him he pits them all against one another gail can replace jesse jesse can replace walt and perhaps victor could replace jesse the aim is to use fear as a motivator that you'll just comply with his desires and act grateful for all he's given you rather than questioning or interrupting his larger plans [Music] given his public persona gus has to keep a safe distance between himself the order and the crime this
is an important detail for how gilligan ties the characters qualities together to maximize the tension gus is meticulous he's always cleaning up or clean in every sense of the word which is why it's all the more shocking and powerful when he gets his hands dirty to make a statement to the witness like when he bags nacho's partner or when he marches into the lab after jesse shoots gail and without saying a word manages to send the strongest message imaginable the scene lasts for over 10 minutes gus slowly taking off his business suit and gradually coating
himself in a hazmat suit signaling something dirty is about to happen he then picks up the box cutter and slowly circles around jesse and walt like a shark letting them get a good intimate look of the weapon and then brutally cuts victor's throat and lets the blood spray on top of him as he holds unbroken eye contact with both witnesses the act is a complete power flex that he can do this and no one will stop him or even have the courage to verbally object and his clinical reaction to the bloodshed only proves how little
the act means to him and how close they are to being next it's a harrowing experience for the characters and the viewer that reveals a completely new and even darker side to gus fring than we thought possible even though he doesn't capture that much screen time during breaking bad his presence is felt in every scene just seeing a camera or his men watching you creates instant tension for the viewer walt jesse nacho all feel out of control of their own destiny because they exist under the cloud of his omniscience in cinema and television we've seen
all sorts of villains but with gus fring i would argue that vince gilligan created the most calculating controlling and efficient villain ever portrayed on screen the type of man to poison himself just to poison you the type of man who gains pleasure from informing you that your entire family is dead someone so ruthless that just knowing someone has become an obstacle in his path is enough to send shockwaves throughout the entire story that's no easy task as in order to write a character that's so meticulous your writing needs to be just as precise from beginning
to end but if you can pull it off it elevates every aspect of your story as no hero is truly admirable unless the villain feels truly unbeatable [Music] if you enjoy content like this and want to see more of it please do consider supporting me on patreon as it really does make a difference to how much content i can pump out or if you can't afford that then simply like the video subscribe and leave a comment down below to help the algorithm do its thing
