...when Walt was in fear for his life, why didn't he start gathering evidence against Gus to use as a safeguard?
You know, "I have evidence and am keeping it where it will be discovered if Jessie or I turn up dead"
If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed. If you do...you are misinformed---Mark Twain
People in Walt's state of mind generally don't act rationally. So there's that. You have to consider that Walt's successes in the drug world are only the result of technical luck and not by understanding the business better than anyone else.
shareWell in real life I'd say it would be a mistake for someone like Gus to expose himself to so much risk.
He'd operate almost completely anonymously and make use of surrogates. No meeting in his restaurant or even letting anyone know who he is.
If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed. If you do...you are misinformed---Mark Twain
He may have had the thought privately, but was convinced there were too many uncontrollable variables into how it could go wrong. It's extremely risky to play chess in that manner with someone like Gus. The kind of power and resources he has, what if he tried to outmanuever Walt by threatening to have his entire family tortured and killed should Walt try anything like that?
shareKilling Gale was his safeguard.
That Gus had to resort to replacing him with Jesse only shows how few options he had. All Walt had to do was maintain a good relationship with Jesse and he would've been fine.
Your question is dumb as hell, he couldn't turn Gus in with out incriminating himself which is a big no-no.
shareQuote Walt from earlier: "Hank catching Gus = Hank catching us". Right before this, Walt was actively working to sabotage Hank's investigation, from tipping Gus off to the tracker on his car to driving Hank into oncoming traffic. You can't realistically see Walt doing a 180 like that.
shareIt's you who's dumb as hell.
He gathers evidence, tells Gus that if anything happens to him (murdered) that he has set up a way for that evidence to become known.
A dead person can't be prosecuted.
Good God. Stick out your lips and rake fingers up and down over them while making humming noise.
If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed. If you do...you are misinformed---Mark Twain
And that evidence eventually leads to full investigation causing Skyler and children to lose her home, possibly going to jail which is completely against everything that Walter was going for, smart plan amigo.
share[deleted]
That would happen if Gus murdered him too. And what evidence was there against Skylar?
All he'd had to do was bluff.
If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed. If you do...you are misinformed---Mark Twain