Was Walter right for once?

Warning: Contains spoilers about the second season of "Breaking Bad". 

So, I got into a little Twitter argument with theMAC last night, regarding the question of whether or not Walt was right when he let Jane die in that faithful night in bed with Jesse. theMAC's point was this: 

Hey #BreakingBad fans in my feed. Where do you guys come down on Walt vs Jane? I think Walt is pretty evil but I didnt hate him for that.
— Mike (@theMAC) September 6, 2012

It is a good question. Did I hate him for that? No. In season 2, I didn't hate Walter for anything he did, yet. This got along only in season 4 and strongly so in season 5. And really, I mean, look at the girl.

Can these eyes hint at future insanity? Possibly.

So, now, let's have a look at what happens. After keeping the drug money from the first deal with Gus for safekeeping, Jesse kind of settles with the thought of getting himself killed without half a million dollars. Jane pushed him to blackmail Walter into giving him back his money, planning a total pipe-dream of moving to New Zealand, where Jesse imagines himself to be a pilot for firefighter planes. Yep, they're in that stable a condition. So, with his back against the wall - where Jane kindly and with just the right pinch of insanity in it put him - he gives Jesse the money and decides to do the most reasonable thing, aka go drinking in a bar.

There, as if the universe was trying to tell him something, he meets Jane's dad, and they have a chat about family (although Walter will later claim they talked about water on Mars, which was only a little portion of their talk). The essence of it is that Walt realizes he sees Jesse as his son, and drives back to persuade him to come back to the ground. Jesse is asleep with Heroine in his veines, however, and Jane lays beside him likewise. Trying to wake Jesse, Walt accidently rolls Jane on her back. When she suddenly starts to wretch, her vomit runs down back her throat, choking her. And Walter stands over her, doing nothing, watching her die. It really shows what great actors this show has that the scene totally works without any dialogue; all the stuff Walt's thinking in that moment is written plainly on his face. Seriously, watch this video at 4.00 minutes.

So, did Walt do the right thing, as many commenters over the internet suggest? Was it a favor to Jesse, as some claim? We can easily dismiss the last thought. Jesse really, really loves Jane, and he is devestated by her death, for which he feels responsible (which, cruelly enough, is not entirely wrong). He's a basket case for a prolonged stretch of time, and he decides to be a bad person on purpose in reaction to these events. This certainly doesn't constitute a favor.

This does neither, of course.

If it wasn't a favor, then, perhaps did he at least do the right thing, protecting Jesse from the wrong path his life had taken? This was not Walt's decision to make. If Jesse wants to go down, he can't simply kill people. And denial of assistance is the same as killing, or near enough to make no matter. All he would have needed to do was to roll Jane over, and she wouldn't have died. But Walt didn't. It's true that Jesse surely wouldn't have survived the trip with her and a bag of 600.000 dollars. But now we come to the crux of the matter. 

To state that Walter did this with Jesse's best interest in mind is hilarious. This is Walter White. He killed Jane in that moment because she was a danger to him. She threatened him, and so he took the conventient possibility to get rid of her. It was selfishness at work. Walt couln't know that his action would ultimately trigger the catastrophic airplane accident. But he never acknowledges responsibility for it. It was him who killed Jane, just minutes after talking to her father (of course he couldn't know that, neither, but that's not the point). Walter White brought death and misery to Albuquerque, and this responsibility is his and his alone. Do I hate him for it? Not really, but I can't tell you why. I hate him for things he did more consciously. In that moment, Walter and Heisenberg were still fighting for control. But "pretty evil" doesn't even begin summing up to what lows Walter White is descending in season 2 already.