Is Lance Armstrong real life Walter White of Breaking Bad?

 

About Lance..

Lance Armstrong is a hero and will always remain a hero for me.
For me, he is a survivor! When I first came to know about him, he was already 4 times Tour De France champion. Over the years, he won 3 more titles, fought with WADA and USADA, wrote 2 books, became center of at least 8 books, retired, returned and again retired. But this does not tell full story about his life.

He too has a family like everyone else, has problems in his life, worried about his and his family's future, and like all of us he is equally marred by one major thing in life: Uncertainty!

He became a social ambassador for Cancer Patients and became a synonym of Hope. His foundation, followers, social stature, probable Political career, all those things speak of themselves.

About Walt..

Walter White on the other hand, is a hero too nevertheless. He doesn't have same stature as Lance Armstrong in social media, or in his life he is not too popular like Lance Armstrong. In his universe, whoever knows Walter White, respects him. He is a symbol of hope in his people. His students have very high regards for him and the family respects him, well, at least who are unaware of the other "Walter White"! They sympathize with him for being a Cancer Patient.

How Walt Breaks Bad..

Walter white breaks into crime, or rather I should put breaks bad when he realizes that he will leave his family financially unsecured with too much at stake. His treatment, his children's education, his family's day to day living are his main concerns. What his world did to him at that point?

 At that stage, But he never looks for charity, he doesn't want someone's money. He doesn't cheat anyone to get the money. The Motive was to survive. He breaks bad for his survival. He starts at just a novice who just wants to "cook" and earn for his primary issues. His Primary crime could be understandable as a Morally wrong thing with Illegal thing to cook. He never motivated anyone to cook for him or consume his product or he doesn't sell it himself. He is proud of his product and since it is his brainchild and chemical genius. He is not a greedy person but he wants to earn enough to support his family. He gets pulled into the mud by others when the learn that he is a genius and his product is one masterpiece.

How Lance Breaks Bad..

After USADA revealed the evidences about Armstrong's cheating, I wasn't shocked or felt bad on my hero's fall. Because for me he still stands tall. His crime wasn't killing someone or doing any harm to the nation. His crime would be categorized to be "Morally". I was more amused on the thought, when he really got to know that he is suffering from such a gruesome disease and he has 3 little kids and a wife to support. His life suddenly lies on uncertainty and he finds himself isolated from the world. What this world did for him at that stage?

At that stage Lance was just a cyclist and was winner of few small championships but not taken as a celebrity or a serious contender of Tour De France. But suddenly he becomes very vulnerable for the fact that he has to provide for his family. That little concern eats him. The treatment is different thing altogether. providing for family would have been his first motive.

Why Lance and Walt are Heroes..

Lance wasn't alone in the crime, there were people helping Lance and his team throughout his criminal adventure, successful races, I mean 7 times. It takes heart even to come out on top with the use of drugs after getting diagnosed by cancer. Some would end their lives, some would wait for the end, some would just put their lives inserted in the treatment. And here we have 2 characters who after getting diagnosed, fight for not only their lives but set an example for others as well.

Average Survivors to Anti Heroes..

USADA has said, that U.S. Postal Service Pro Cycling Team was running most sophisticated drug use in the history of sports. Doesn't it look similar to how Walt started breaking into crime scene and then getting played into the crime scene with what we call "Sophistication", nobody comes to know, not even his family, and he works out a way in which he looks clean outside. To me Walt is a hero as well, he later kills many, many people who come in his way. He tries to remove such obstacles either himself or with the help of his various partners. They clean out all that dirt from Walt's clothes so that Walt still looks like a good citizen to outer world.

The reason "Providing for the family" shouldn't be taken as a cause to break into the crime scene. I mean, there are many bad people already out there, and they start giving examples of Lance or Walt and say if people can accept Walt and Lance, why they can't accept those corrupt politicians, those crime lords, those hooligans, those tax eating corporates, political scandals? Those all things are completely different to Lance and Walt's worlds. They did wrong things, but they did for themselves and they had to pay a cost for it. Doing crimes and not getting caught is a different topic altogether, Lance had to pay the cost after so much time, being called a shame in tabloids. Walt as well had to pay the cost becoming a bad person in his own eyes and becoming more and more involved in the crime day by day.

So, there were costs, there were obstacles and most importantly motives in both of their lives, although completely different in the detailed versions of their lives, but the abstract of their lives looks similar. Both become Anti Heroes in the pursuit to become Average Survivor. I don't call them Villains and they both are heroes to me even if Anti Heroes!

To Lance and USADA and Lance Haters:

After writing this, I want to clear it, that I might have done a sinful act of comparing a real life hero with a fictional hero. These both heroes are very near to my heart, as they did everything which they thought was right for their family. Right now, Lance is facing tremendous heat and he is alone in this battle of hatred. He would have to pay the cost of "cheating". But everyone has forgotten that cycling was nothing before a cancer patient became 7 time champion of a cycling event. He has been stripped of all the titles and today he removed them from his twitter bio as well. It's hard to imagine what he is going through. But does anyone care what he went through for those 15 years? Please think about it!

People are acting like Lance was Lex Luther, but I just want to say, he used drugs to win a bloody cycle race, which wasn't anywhere on the globe before he started winning it. If I know about Tour de france, and I know that it is a very exhaustive race, it's all because of Lance. Lance should never apologize for giving people hope. He is still a hero! I don't care about those 7 wins and those lies, because I know only one thing, Hope is bigger than a Lie! The cost he is going to pay would be enormous, People are terming him as a psychopathic liar.. But he is a survivor. He is a symbol of Hope. The world will be divided, I will be on that part which still believes in the hope which he gave!

I say, make those drugs legal if you can't get such hope in next 10 years without those drugs!