Hello, lovelies!
This post contains spoilers for this season of The Walking Dead. If you aren’t caught up, read at your own risk.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know that this has been the craziest season of The Walking Dead. Our resident badass chameleon was injured after leaving the group and is now living outside of a kingdom. There’s a dude with a fucking tiger! A TIGER! Everyone is everywhere, so none of the episodes feature all of them. Two of our beloved group members were killed in the season premiere by a crazy man wielding a barbed wire-wrapped baseball bat named Lucille. Said crazy man then kidnapped everyone’s favorite bad boy and psychologically tortured our (previously) fearless leader. What I’m about to say may be an unpopular opinion, but I. Love. Negan.
The Man We Love to Hate
Every story needs a good antagonist. Harry Potter had Voldemort. Katniss Everdeen had President Snow. The Avengers had Loki, Ultron, and each other. The Ricktatorship has arguably had more than their fair share: walkers, the Governor, Gareth from Terminus, the “Claimed” assholes, and porch dick (aka Jessie’s douchebag husband) all took their toll on our group. However, Negan is the most interesting by far.
Negan As a Leader
This man is arguably the most successful leader we’ve come across thus far. He manages to keep a group of possibly hundreds of people in line. His group then manages to rule over an unknown number of smaller groups.
Negan has managed to create his own government. His group of Saviors collect taxes from other groups. He has a set of rules and explicit consequences for rule breakers. He even has a strict moral code, and he doesn’t tolerate (physical) abuse of women and children. Even Deanna turned a blind eye to Porch Dick abusing Jesse and their sons.
Negan: A Father Figure?
Seeing Negan interact with Carl was incredible. Initially, he simply antagonizes and taunts him, like he would with any other adult. However, when he sees that Carl is upset about his eye, he sincerely apologizes to him. Negan goes on to teach Carl about how guys bust each other’s balls, which is something that slipped through the cracks while Rick kept them all alive.
The most disturbingly delightful scene from that episode is probably when Negan finds baby Judith. He’s just so genuinely overjoyed to see a baby, and he immediately picks her up. The difference between the man who gleefully bashed in Glenn and Abraham’s heads and the man happily babbling to the baby is astounding. It’s hard to not smile and cringe at the sight of him snuggling a sleepy Judith on the porch.
Negan the Comedian
No one can deny the fact that Negan’s twisted sense of humor is actually hilarious at times. If you didn’t laugh when he said that baseball bats don’t have pussies, I don’t know if we can be friends. If you don’t simultaneously giggle and cringe when he tears someone down with a cutting remark or two, there must be something wrong with you. Negan is the comic relief that we need in the dark world of the zombie apocalypse.
Who is your favorite Walking Dead villain? Which Negan scene made you laugh the hardest? Do you hate to love him or love to hate him? Let me know in the comments! xo
Feature Image Credit: Gizmodo
I crawled out from under my rock to comment on this post. Can you believe I have only seen 1 episode? 😱😱😱
OMG REALLY!?!?! Idk how you managed to only watch 1 episode! I’m way too addicted to this show.
I don’t think I could watch that show. I don’t handle gore so well. I’ve almost fainted just from reading a description of a gory death/injury in a book! I’m soft as!
LOL Yeah, it’s probably not for you.