Is Breaking Bad an example of Orange turning Red?

[Edvard]

The evolution of Walter White - is it Orange turning Red, or just Good Orange turning Bad Orange? Or maybe Orange/Yellow turning into Turquoise Zen Devil, perhaps...?

Given that I've heard that going back in Spiral Dynamics is not possible.

 

Edited July 26, 2018 by Edvard

[Consept]

As I understand it in spiral dynamics you have all the previous levels within you and you can revert to them at any point depending on the circumstances. So for example someone who's mainly orange and loses a loved one may temporarily look to God and become blue while deal dealing with the trauma. So with breaking bad it's interesting because at first it happens very slowly, he's put into different positions which mean he just has to be more and more violent. But I would say initially he's at orange/green but he moves into bad orange/red. 

So it's msybe not possible to move your dominant colour backward, but you can do it temporarily dependent on circumstances

[electroBeam]

its well known that people become more primitive, based on life circumstances. In natural disasters you will often find people behaving similarly to chimpanzees. A perfect illustration of this dynamic is the fictional life of pi. 

get someone not necessarily enlightened, but is turquoise, and I bet ya that this individual can identify with primitive behavior if put in the circumstances.

[Edvard]

17 minutes ago, Consept said:

As I understand it in spiral dynamics you have all the previous levels within you and you can revert to them at any point depending on the circumstances. So for example someone who's mainly orange and loses a loved one may temporarily look to God and become blue while deal dealing with the trauma. So with breaking bad it's interesting because at first it happens very slowly, he's put into different positions which mean he just has to be more and more violent. But I would say initially he's at orange/green but he moves into bad orange/red. 

So it's msybe not possible to move your dominant colour backward, but you can do it temporarily dependent on circumstances

 

2 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

its well known that people become more primitive, based on life circumstances. In natural disasters you will often find people behaving similarly to chimpanzees. A perfect illustration of this dynamic is the fictional life of pi. 

get someone not necessarily enlightened, but is turquoise, and I bet ya that this individual can identify with primitive behavior if put in the circumstances.

That makes sense

[Edvard]

But these responses also illustrate that it's often hard to determine anyone's real stage based on their behavior alone.

Edited July 26, 2018 by Edvard

[Consept]

@Edvard I mean it seems like a fluid thing, in the same way that your personality is fluid depending on emotions, things happening. So if you know someone well and can see them over a certain length of time through different circumstances then you could make an evaluation and say this persons predominantly green but have shades of yellow and can revert to orange when stressed about money for example. But of course if you just take an isolated action and say oh that was a red action so that persons red its not going to give you the full picture. Also keep in mind yellow can use the other colours as they wish so they may do orange actions for example to get money, but they might be strong yellows. So its impossible to like at isolated behavior and get a clear picture. 

Im reading a book about it at the moment and they were using the model to sort at apartheid in South Africa in the 90s, and what they had to do was work out what colour each group of people was and then what colour the revert to in different circumstances, which takes a lot of understanding of the various cultures.

The best you can do without knowing the person or people really well is say, that was an orange action, that was a blue action etc

[DoubleYou]

Mostly an example of an ever-growing ego.

[blazed]

Walter's character is not simple, he usually kills bad guy's when he's forced to and he tolerates a lot of bullshit (Jess) before he turns on them too.

The worse thing he done was poisen a child but it seemed like he knew he would recover and not die.

Walter was having a mid life crisis, he was bored with his life, hated his jobs, felt insignificant, betrayed by previous partners. he had a disbaled son, was running low on cash and the breaking point was he found out he had cancer and wasn't going to live much longer.

So he went into his passion which was chemistry and science but to make fast gains and business turn to the drug scene.

But in the end he sacraficed himself to get rid of bad people for revenge, saved Jess from torture, and managed to take care of his family cash wise, there was acts of even selflessness.

But yes his overall character I would say was Orange, seeing as he was a science person, cared about success and money for the majority of the show. There was elements of red but he was mainly Orange, he did not show much signs of Green or Turquoise.

[Leo Gura]

I would say it's Blue/Orange going into Orange but in a neurotic, unhealthy way. Maybe it devolves into Red too.

The whole show is basically about Walter gaining his independence from society and personal power (which is Blue --> Orange), just in an unhealthy way.

It reminds me of the standard PUA arch: lame anti-social guy learns to pick up girls and devolves into a manwhore, corrupted by excessive ego and power.

[kieranperez]

Doesn’t Spira dynamics make the claim that people don’t move down the spiral?

Not confusing map for the territory as there are always exceptions with maps and models. Just asking

[Rilles]

People can devolve in traumatic situations and cancer can be pretty traumatic so yes, Walter goes from Blue/Orange to more and more Red as he experiences more trauma and chaos.