In a Reddit thread (which contains NSFW language), Breaking Bad fans recently opened up a discussion about whether Todd's extreme two-faced nature had any basis in reality. This is a guy who was, on the surface, polite and courteous; he had an obvious respect for Walter, and even demonstrated a boyish charm in the presence of Walter and Jesse's business partner Lydia Rodarte-Quayle (Laura Fraser). He also, without hesitation, shot a 12-year-old boy dead when the youngster inadvertently witnessed criminal activity; participated in holding Jesse captive in a hole in the ground, forcing him to cook; and killed Jesse's girlfriend Andrea in front of him when he tried to escape.
User devildog3375 opened the discussion. "I have never seen a character in a TV show more f***ed up than Todd," they wrote. "That dude is so nonchalant about killing a child, torturing Jesse, tormenting [Walter's wife] Skylar, and threatening [his daughter] Holly all the while keeping a smile and acting as if nothing is wrong. It looks like he compartmentalizes all the insane evil he commits."
Wrote one user in response, "[Todd is] just psychologically unrealistic. The whole 'acts nice but is a total psychopath' thing is just for TV, in reality there's not any person who's just going to kill a kid and not experience some strong emotions." But user detectiveDollar had a pretty strong refutation for that assertion, writing, "It's not unrealistic, he's just extremely compartmentalized emotionally. [Jeffrey] Dahmer was extremely kind and disarming, which is how he was able to attract his victims."
That's true of a great many real-life psychopaths, but the original poster was unmoved. "I've read this exact criticism of him before about how unrealistic his character is from a psychological standpoint," they replied. "It's definitely for cinematic affect. It has me posting on Reddit after all."
