The Walking Dead’s Negan May Have Had a Deeper Reason for Killing Glenn

Negan has been brandished as the Big Bad in The Walking Dead season 7 in the same way that he has brandished his beloved Lucille onscreen—at almost every chance and with intense enthusiasm.

And while the TV series has portrayed him more as an annoying villain than a real tyrannical villain, the comic book prototype has developed into a fairly great badass with a potentially crooked but jaded moral compass. At least this is what the latest installment of The Walking Dead seems to be hinting at.

In The Walking Dead issue #164 (via moviepilot), Rick Grimes and Negan are trapped in a shed, giving them time to have a conversation. Based on the screens, we see the rationale behind Negan's brutal acts, particularly one that Glenn himself had the misfortune of experiencing.

In his view, he has seen so many people who were just weak, in body, in will, and even in minds, that they just get themselves killed in the process. He even names Dwight as one of those types.

"I just lost respect for the human race. Makes it really easy to bash a man's brains in when you think it might save all his friends… especially when you think the only way his friends can be tricked into living is if they're made into slaves. You stop seeing people as humans after a while."

Now we get a feeling that has Negan has seen and done his fair share of violence to the point that bashing someone's head (or heads, when looking at the TV show) in. This gives him another layer of sorts, one that's almost an anti-hero forced to be bad to do something that he thinks will bring in a better sense of good.

Kind of reminds me of Ozymandias in Watchmen—creating an ultimate yet nonexistent evil to rally the remaining troops to take action in unity. Alan Moore has indeed set up the biggest badass when he wrote Watchmen.

Whether or not The Walking Dead TV series will follow this storyline is an entirely different conversation altogether. There's also the issue of why Abraham was killed in the first place. It would be nice to have some sense of closure—perhaps he was challenging the women in Abraham's lives to stand up and take charge?

Nevertheless, The Walking Dead comic's new development is something worth exploring in the series. If only we can have a deeper layer and understanding of Negan's inner workings.

The Walking Dead airs on AMC every Sundays.

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