I never felt like Walt was a badass. My interpretation of his character, right from the very start, is someone who spent their whole life being a coward. He wanted so desperately to be a badass, to be the boss, to be a Kingpin that everybody respected. But he was terrible at it. By the end of season 4, he thought that just by him killing Gus that he could now become Gus. But this was purely his hubris. Gus spent a majority of his life building an empire and a distribution Network, and a dominant character trait that assisted him in this was he was a respectable businessman, who always treated others with respect until they crossed him. Walt is not respectable, nor respectful; he treats all those around them as if they are under him. He is flawed, temperamental, and egotistical, completely full of himself thinking that he knows all the answers. Most of his poor decisions in the series are a direct result of his pride. He had multiple chances to get out and get his family out of danger, and take himself completely out of the game and refused to every single time in the pursuit of climbing the criminal ladder, desperately trying to claw his way to the top to be king.

One thing that I can agree with, is that at the end of it all he really did care for his family. People can do awful things to the ones they love while pursuing the noblest of intentions, because it is simply the only way they know how to show their love. In Walt's case, all he wanted to do was provide. He was so tunnel-visioned on this one objective, that he could not see that no matter how much money he dumped into his family bank account, he was robbing them of their loving father. At the end of season 5, I truly believe that he was completely blinded by his pride for a while, but I saw a bit of redemption when he finally quit for Skyler, and then later was trying to bargain for Hank's life. At his core, he knew Hank did nothing wrong and did not deserve to die for his own sins. And that is why Hank's death devastated him as much as it did. It was a hit-home reality that not only did an innocent man, his own family, died for his criminal actions, but he had completely lost the control that he had been fighting all along to have. His family hated him, his brother-in-law was dead, his money was gone, he had been outed as a meth Kingpin to the police, and he was out of business. Despite all this, right before the bitter end he left a sizable chunk of money for his son and went back for Jesse, knowing he was being kept prisoner.

I do agree that he did multiple "badass" things, but I do not believe in any interpretation that he was actually a true badass. Just a wanna-be. Re-watching the series, there were multiple times were Walt should have been killed and was simply spared by either the kindness or ignorance of others. I always think of Skyler's line to him when she suggests him turning himself in; "you're just a manufacturer who got in way over their head"