When you look at people who go after Negan and kill his thugs, He is across the board merciful to them...
If they wanted to go the "negan truly does value people" route, It could be argued that he doesnt mind his herd of killers getting clipped at all... it lessens the cruelty in the world.
The difference to me is Morgan was one of many side characters... he was no where near a main character when he was missing from the show for years at a time.
Madison was, at the time, the Rick Grimes of FTWD, so to disappear her like that, and you may be right 1.5 seasons, it makes me think for her to return it might follow the same kinda path as Rick, with Commonwealth, unable or unwilling to return to her family for some reason.
I never found Madison to be a great character, she was very bland.... it was like they wanted FTWD to have a female Rick Grimes lead that was kinda like a Carol type badass woman who evolved via the zombie apocalypse.
But where Carol is this interesting and well-acted character who developed into what she is over 10 seasons.... FTWD tried to turn Madison from boring school counselor to Badass Scary Mama Bear in like 1-2 seasons and all throughout she was always kinda this bland middle ground. Not awful, not great, and that's bad for a lead in a show.
Also... I will say it since you brought it up... John being pussy whipped.
FTWD and TWD have become one of those annoyingly SUPER F****ING WOKE #GirlPower shows.
FTWD:
- Madison was in charge
- Alicia in charge of Nick, now Strand
- June in charge of John and half in charge of the Convoy group
- Grace in charge of half the Convoy, has Morgan pussy whipped
- Sara is a badass bitch who takes care of her poor disabled brother Wendell
- Ophelia was a badass bitch who took care of herself, didn't need anyone, had that Native American dude pussy whipped.
- Luciana had Nick pussy whipped, she a badass bitch who takes charge.
- Charlie is young, but a badass bitch who can survive on her own.
- Al is a badass journalist bitch who can survive on her own, don't need no one.
- Travis was Madison's bitch boy, then he died.
- Travis' son was fragile, emo, then he died.
- Strand was Madison's dog, now Alicia's dog
- Nick was Madison's mommy's boy, needed Alicia to take care of him, became Luciana's dog.
- Daniel, a former soldier/enforcer, was so fragile he broke, now he's Grace/June's dog.
- Morgan, a dude who survived on his own for 4-8 years, now a pussy whipped dog for Grace/June, sometimes freelances as Al's dog
- Dwight, lol a Negan Lt, pussy whipped by Sherry, now he's a subservient dog to June/Grace/Convoy.
- Rabbi dude, survived alone for a long time... omg Charlie and the girls, time to join the cult of emotionally sensitive men who serve them.
- Wes dude who survived alone a long time, sensitive guy who paints trees, changed and saved a girl in that truck stop.... appears to be yet another soldier in the dog army.
Find me one strong male character on FTWD who isn't either a pussy whipped bitch boy, or a fragile emotionally sensitive guy, or a subservient dog who does what he's told by the ladies, or some combo of all 3?
If you examine these male characters you find they've become dependent on being led/supervised by the female characters. They are not decision makers or leaders... unless you choose to count Morgan as a leader, but I would argue they quite explicitly state that June/Grace became 50/50 defacto leaders, and all Morgan seems to do is follow orders.
The notion that this is what men turn into, post zombie apocalypse... is beyond unrealistic.
I won't TLDR you on TWD, but it has gone the same route, look at who is in charge of every major group.
So- on the new episode of TWD...... What is your opinion on
The question Aaron asked Michonne?
I am thinking that is the beginning of a conversation about Negan down the road.
I approached the subject a year or so ago when they began showing humanity in Negan... And Aarons explanation of his question really follows that same line of thinking.
to paraphrase, "we think we are the good guys but what if we are the villains in someone elses story? What if we are so dangerous to them they need to wipe us out?"
Rick was our hero that we knew and followed...yeah, he did some shady shit. Yeah, he left innocent people to die, killed others for little reason, but he was our guy.
Our guy meets negan, Negan wastes glenn and abe in a hideous fashion.
Negan=bad
However, if we were following negan this whole time, our intro to rick is when he kills scores of people at the satellite outpost unprovoked.
Rick then becomes a super villain.
Not sure this discussion really needs to go in spoiler, but I will just to be safe.
I know what the show is getting at, and it is an interesting discussion, but TBH I don't find equivalency in Rick a villain vs Negan a villain.
For one thing, we didn't get to see Negan's journey from start to when he first met Rick's people, nor did we get to understand whom the people were in that Satellite station that Rick killed.
All I was shown as a viewer.... Hilltop (and later you find out, a number of other) settlements are being abused and exploited by The Saviors, in the worst ways possible.
They kept showing how the people at the Satellite station had like pictures, evidence of grisly murders they had either witnessed or taken part in, not evidence of good people. And what they showed of the Saviors after... at no point did they try to convince you The Saviors were at least decent people in tough situations, most of them were happy to fill roles as abusers and Negan supported them in being abusers and murderers.
Let's go to Rick and Negan direct comparison.
I want to compare Rick pre-Satellite incident vs Negan pre-Satellite.
Negan we know very little specific, but can infer some:
- He had built a small feudal like system where he dominated say 200-500 people across multiple settlements.
- He and his people murdered all the men and boys (children) of the Oceanside settlement and drove the women and girls to flee and hide.
- He used a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire to beat people to death as examples to their friends/family... clearly Abe/Glen were not the first.
- He used a furnace/hot iron to burn people's faces as punishment for things.
- He threw people in said furnace to burn to dead as punishment for things.
- He engaged in a practice of polygamy and sexual slavery, presumably rape.
Rick we know his whole story, but ill try to point out the worst things I can remember:
- He got a horse murdered in Atlanta like a fucking asshole
- He left a guy handcuffed on a roof, more/less to die... I guess?
- He was an indecisive leader at times, let Shane run amok.
- He engaged in conflict with The Governor that cost many lives
- He killed people, usually in conflict or them/me situations, but some where you could say he may have had options to not kill. I can't recall a great example of Rick deciding to murder people he wasn't in conflict with, before the Satellite station.
- Jesse's husband is murky... he was an asshole, probably deserved what he got, but Rick didn't handle it real well.
- I honestly feel that poor horse was his worst crime up to this point.
So I'm sorry but these are not equally bad dudes.... Rick never engaged in the kind of crimes Negan did, much less do it in a systematic, long-term type of way.
You can't say Rick raped anyone, much less can you say he fucking sexually enslaved women for long periods of time.
If you boil it down to, Negan has people and Rick killed them, so Rick is the villain to Negan... sure, I suppose you can put it that way.
But if you honestly tally up the crimes of Negan and his people, the attitude, the footing, etc... I don't see how a viewer can really see Rick as a villain on the flip side of this story because I don't know what person in their right mind would watch Negan do all the stuff I listed and still consider him a hero/protagonist .
Ginny in charge of a few hundred men with assault rifles... not like any strong male character would crush her IRL and take command. Cuz that never happens.
Alpha in charge of the Whisperers and in the ultimate irony Beta is this giant fucking Hulk of a dude who could crush her in 2 seconds, but chooses to be her bitch boy.
To be fair to the show writers, Alpha/Beta are like that in the comics... I disagree with the writing choice either way, but they are writing true to the comics.
At least Alpha seems to have shown a propensity for making statements, kinda like Negan, which can cow more physically powerful people into submission. It is semi-plausible as compared to Ginny.
Ginny in charge of a few hundred men with assault rifles... not like any strong male character would crush her IRL and take command. Cuz that never happens.
Alpha in charge of the Whisperers and in the ultimate irony Beta is this giant fucking Hulk of a dude who could crush her in 2 seconds, but chooses to be her bitch boy.
To be fair to the show writers, Alpha/Beta are like that in the comics... I disagree with the writing choice either way, but they are writing true to the comics.
At least Alpha seems to have shown a propensity for making statements, kinda like Negan, which can cow more physically powerful people into submission. It is semi-plausible as compared to Ginny.
In the comics, wasnt beta a young not so brilliant pro basketball player?
I could buy someone used to having his life run by a coach buying in to a cult like relationship with a forceful personality that claims to know all the answers.
It is never addressed, but I wonder if alpha met beta at the very beginning and having a forceful attackdog at her command was the sole reason she became what she did- fear of beta was the real issue.
Negan was introduced in the shittiest light possible.
He was undoubtedly a boogeyman of the biggest proportions.
We do not like him because he runs the saviors, and the saviors do shitty things to people.
Dude was a grade A asshole top to bottom at first.
Then we learned he did have empathy to a degree. Little moments here and there gave us pieces of his backstory.
We do not know much though, and the comics did not flesh a lot of that out.
We learned although he was kind of an asshole to her, he loved his wife deeply.
We know His bat that he carries is an homage to her.
We Know from conversational bits here and there that the sanctuary was a cesspool when he arrived. Rape, murder, anything goes.
We know that Simon was there, and it appears Simon was the architect of the slaughter at oceanside.
Additionally, when Negan made Simon drop to his knees and almost caved his head in, Negan referenced the slaughter at oceanside.
The way he referenced it, it appeared to have gone down before Simon and Negan took over the sanctuary and the saviors.
How bad would the saviors have been if negan DIDN'T take over?
What we do know is that Eugene tried to kill him by making the bullet for rosita, and he offered him a place. He let the woman who tried to shoot him live.
We know Sasha tried to kill him, and he offered her a place.
We know Rick killed scores of his people, and he only took out 2 of Ricks group.
We know Carl killed a couple of his guys and Negan took him home and cooked him dinner.
We now that rick tried to blow him up, and Negan only asked for one person for lucille.... and who knows if he would have even followed through?
We know that in the basement with Rick, when they are talking back and forth, that not a single person had been killed by a walker in his communities.
We know that he even went so far as to keep the arrangement with the Kingdom a secret from the citizens of the kingdom.
Theoretically, they could show a Negan backstory that paints the sanctuary as a brutal, deadly, genocidal group that Negan runs across and winds up in.
They could very well put together a story where Negan seizes control as almost a public service to the outside world... leading the nastiest collection of terrible people in the least deadly way possible.
Instead of the slaughter at oceanside, a slow slide towards actually saving people while neutralizing the very worst surving humanity has to offer... neutering them from the inside.
A story like that would be interesting- controlling bloodthirsty killers and slowly changing their ways.
At the end of the day, everything Negan does backs up the fact that he values people- up to and including the workers who are relived as hell to see him show up with father gabriel.
Those same workers likely had it FAR worse under the old regime.
If TWD really wanted to branch off in to a successful direction, a Negan backstory in the mold of Better call Saul would be something I would watch.
Read my reply in Spoiler... Negan has enough of his own sins you can't pretend he is a boogeyman of circumstance only.
If nothing else, the fact he engaged in a practice of forced polygamy/sexual slavery.
If he was a truly good guy, trying to wrangle a tough bunch of people, why would he engage in that?
If he was truly a good guy... and he knew Simon was the architect of Oceanside massacre, why not make an example of him and say "That shit never happens again".
I would agree Negan is not an all bad guy, but he is not a hero in a tough spot.
Not sure this discussion really needs to go in spoiler, but I will just to be safe.
I know what the show is getting at, and it is an interesting discussion, but TBH I don't find equivalency in Rick a villain vs Negan a villain.
For one thing, we didn't get to see Negan's journey from start to when he first met Rick's people, nor did we get to understand whom the people were in that Satellite station that Rick killed.
All I was shown as a viewer.... Hilltop (and later you find out, a number of other) settlements are being abused and exploited by The Saviors, in the worst ways possible.
They kept showing how the people at the Satellite station had like pictures, evidence of grisly murders they had either witnessed or taken part in, not evidence of good people. And what they showed of the Saviors after... at no point did they try to convince you The Saviors were at least decent people in tough situations, most of them were happy to fill roles as abusers and Negan supported them in being abusers and murderers.
Let's go to Rick and Negan direct comparison.
I want to compare Rick pre-Satellite incident vs Negan pre-Satellite.
Negan we know very little specific, but can infer some:
- He had built a small feudal like system where he dominated say 200-500 people across multiple settlements.
- He and his people murdered all the men and boys (children) of the Oceanside settlement and drove the women and girls to flee and hide.
- He used a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire to beat people to death as examples to their friends/family... clearly Abe/Glen were not the first.
- He used a furnace/hot iron to burn people's faces as punishment for things.
- He threw people in said furnace to burn to dead as punishment for things.
- He engaged in a practice of polygamy and sexual slavery, presumably rape.
Rick we know his whole story, but ill try to point out the worst things I can remember:
- He got a horse murdered in Atlanta like a fucking asshole
- He left a guy handcuffed on a roof, more/less to die... I guess?
- He was an indecisive leader at times, let Shane run amok.
- He engaged in conflict with The Governor that cost many lives
- He killed people, usually in conflict or them/me situations, but some where you could say he may have had options to not kill. I can't recall a great example of Rick deciding to murder people he wasn't in conflict with, before the Satellite station.
- Jesse's husband is murky... he was an asshole, probably deserved what he got, but Rick didn't handle it real well.
- I honestly feel that poor horse was his worst crime up to this point.
So I'm sorry but these are not equally bad dudes.... Rick never engaged in the kind of crimes Negan did, much less do it in a systematic, long-term type of way.
You can't say Rick raped anyone, much less can you say he fucking sexually enslaved women for long periods of time.
If you boil it down to, Negan has people and Rick killed them, so Rick is the villain to Negan... sure, I suppose you can put it that way.
But if you honestly tally up the crimes of Negan and his people, the attitude, the footing, etc... I don't see how a viewer can really see Rick as a villain on the flip side of this story because I don't know what person in their right mind would watch Negan do all the stuff I listed and still consider him a hero/protagonist .
I am simply playing devils advocate here... by no means am I saying Negan is a hero or even a really good guy.
As for Negans feudal system- although it is not explicitly stated, it appears that Negan joined the group when that was in place.
My justification for thinking that was the Simon/oceanside incident that happened before Negan took charge.
SO- since we have no real backstory, just a collection of referenced events, lets look at possibilities and parallel situations.
The parallel situation I have in mind is daryl and the guys who tried to rape carl.
Daryl fell in with them.
They caught up with rick and company.
Daryl tried to stop them... and got the shit kicked out of himself.
An insane, rage fueled lucky rick tipped the scales, but 99 times out of 100, daryl gets beaten to death, Rick gets a bullet in the head, carl gets raped, michonne gets raped, then they get killed, and the group goes on.
SO picture negan walking in to a compound with 40 or 50 groups exactly like the ones daryl fell in with.
There is not a goddamn thing he can do to wipe them all out.
He works his way up and takes control... his leadership may be different but the guys under him are the same animals that were there before. Hundreds of them.
The only answer within the group Daryl fell in with was violence. The only law was take what you want and beat people for any infraction.
Along this possible backstory, What is negan to do once he takes charge?
If he says "we are not going to take from communities anymore" Simon steps up and kills him.
If 40 of their buddies are murdered in their sleep and Negan says "lets just scare the killers" the entire group of saviors kills him and goes on the warpath.
Simon repeatedly wants to kill his way out of situations, and plans a coup because Negan wont allow it.
Comparing actions we have seen as viewers is of course skewed... although rick showed private cruelty on more than one occasion- The cannibals at the church could have been safely shot... but rick wanted to fuck them up before killing them.
The killing of the saviors who escaped hilltop... they WANTED to come back and start a new life, rick manipulated them and literally stabbed em in the back.
A real comparison between Rick and Negan is impossible... but let me ask this-
Lets say Rick is alone. Everyone died just like Morales' family did.
Rick is picked up by the saviors.
What would he do?
He couldnt kill the hundreds of psychos. he may take a few out and then get his ass killed.
Does he leave the area and just let them do what they do at the psychotic level they did before?
I would argue that he could do so guilt free and remain clean.... but what of the settlements?
It could very well be argued that the greatest benefit to humanity would be to bring that group under control and look long term.
Read my reply in Spoiler... Negan has enough of his own sins you can't pretend he is a boogeyman of circumstance only.
If nothing else, the fact he engaged in a practice of forced polygamy/sexual slavery.
If he was a truly good guy, trying to wrangle a tough bunch of people, why would he engage in that?
If he was truly a good guy... and he knew Simon was the architect of Oceanside massacre, why not make an example of him and say "That shit never happens again".
I would agree Negan is not an all bad guy, but he is not a hero in a tough spot.
As for polygamy... it is shitty the way he did it for sure. He is exploiting his power for sure.
But- there is the one scene where the one girl was crying and he offered to let her go back to her husband.
I would argue that the wives are shitty people being given an offer to live the high life and they take it.
Negan pointed out she would go back out to working with her husband and whatnot... she earned no exclusive right to living the highlife by skill or contribution...she earned it with her vagina- and she was free to go back to being like the rest of humanity if she didnt want to continue making that trade.
At the end of the day, the wives are prostitutes of their own accord- and if they cry because they feel guilty for betraying their husbands for a more comfortable life... who gives a shit?
As for Simon and oceanside- Negan stated "that was the work of a sick person- but after you helped me take this place I kept an eye on you and you worked out well"....
He needed simons help to take over, and perhaps Simons group of guys would have slaughtered Negan if Negan went after Simon.
Perhaps he kept Simon close and used him to control his attack dogs that otherwise would have turned on him and everyone around him.
As for polygamy... it is shitty the way he did it for sure. He is exploiting his power for sure.
But- there is the one scene where the one girl was crying and he offered to let her go back to her husband.
I would argue that the wives are shitty people being given an offer to live the high life and they take it.
Negan pointed out she would go back out to working with her husband and whatnot... she earned no exclusive right to living the highlife by skill or contribution...she earned it with her vagina- and she was free to go back to being like the rest of humanity if she didnt want to continue making that trade.
At the end of the day, the wives are prostitutes of their own accord- and if they cry because they feel guilty for betraying their husbands for a more comfortable life... who gives a shit?
I very much enjoyed the 50 hour zombie onslaught. This show gets so caught up in character storylines that it forgets these simple little ideas are far more entertaining than watching the Post Apocalyptic Dating Game.
Negan still baby stepping his way to being a full fledged Alexandrian.
Carol going all Naked Lunch.
Never you mind where she got uppers 15 years after drug production ended...that was fine television.
Also, Alpha is begining to win me over. Her attitude is just the right blend of reasonable and menacing. When she just smiled at Carol's feeble attempt and drawls out....
"I forgive you...mother to mother."
I wanted to applaud because Alpha just suckered me into watching yet another season of this show with just that one scene.
I very much enjoyed the 50 hour zombie onslaught. This show gets so caught up in character storylines that it forgets these simple little ideas are far more entertaining than watching the Post Apocalyptic Dating Game.
Negan still baby stepping his way to being a full fledged Alexandrian.
Carol going all Naked Lunch.
Never you mind where she got uppers 15 years after drug production ended...that was fine television.
Also, Alpha is begining to win me over. Her attitude is just the right blend of reasonable and menacing. When she just smiled at Carol's feeble attempt and drawls out....
"I forgive you...mother to mother."
I wanted to applaud because Alpha just suckered me into watching yet another season of this show with just that one scene.
I think they are going for a slower build there. My guess is you finally get there in the mid-season finale.
This whole season has a slow burn feel to it...which I am liking. It was feeling like they were always rushing to the next conflict resolution the last two seasons to tie up too many storylines.
Now it's back to classic zombie apocalypse stuff and The Whispers are the perfect catalyst for that.
Speaking of wanting to applaud...Gabriel throwing his dick on the table between Big Bad Negan and the man that can turn his arm into a mace was nothing short of amazing.
When Alpha and her Whisperers met up at the stakes with the Alexandria squad.
Alpha had like a dozen or so Whisperers who were armed with guns... one had an AK-47.
In the comic bits I read, the Whisperers don't use guns really... they are very low tech... I think it said only Alpha carries that like sawed off shotgun.
And part of it bothers me because that's who the Whisperers are... they are distinctly different from the Saviors or other villains.
The setting has changed.... gas has gone bad, guns/ammo are scarce evidently... if the setting had not changed and you had a few hundred Protagonists with assault rifles and plenty of ammo, Alpha's group woulda been wiped out by now.
They are making clear points about the setting changing... horse and buggy, archers, shield formations reminiscent of the Roman Empire, it all makes sense.
It evens things out so you don't wonder "Why don't the good guys just load up and mow down the Whisperers?"
They can't... they have to use melee weapons and arrows.... fighting is a much more labor intensive endeavor and you need to be trained more than load, point, pull trigger.
So when the Whisperers show up with a bunch of guns, it felt like they took a well built antagonist that was scary because they were a threat, but interesting because they were not just pure World Beaters ala Negan and his Saviors, and they made them seem cartoonishly dangerous IMO.
It is one of those decisions I just don't grasp... it wasn't necessary to show them with guns and it diverges from the source material.
And now it will make me wonder "Why doesn't Alpha just take her 10-12 guns and ambush these idiots?"
with the amount of population lost there will still be shit tons of ammo and guns around if one was to find them. Maintenance would be an issue except with the ak. Taliban is fighting off our special forces with 30 year old rusted out aks.
but guns shouldn’t be how the whisperers operate cause that won’t work with walking with herds or the dead
we have yet to see any remnants of government or military anywhere which is odd
The remnant of the government was the the congress woman in Alexandria. The remnants of the military was the helicopter crew that the governor took out.
The remnant of the government was the the congress woman in Alexandria. The remnants of the military was the helicopter crew that the governor took out.
Agreed, one congress woman and one helicopter crew is pretty sparse. Who knows if the people that took Rick are former military or government, they do have at least one helicopter.
