Walking Dead Showrunners Contradict Claim the Show's Violence Was Toned Down

Just a little while ago, Walking Dead executive producer Gale Ann Heard said the show was toning down the violence. Now showrunners Scott Gimple and George Nicotero have said this is actually not the case, The EWreports. Clearly, someone's not being accurate here, but who is it?

"The violence in the premiere was pronounced for a reason," says Gimple. "The awfulness of what happened to the characters was very specific to that episode and the beginning of this whole new story. I don't think like that's the base level of violence that necessarily should be on the show. It should be specific to a story and a purpose, and there was a purpose of traumatizing these characters to a point where maybe they would have been docile for the rest of their lives, which was Negan's point."

He continued, "I will say again, the violence in the premiere was for a specific narrative purpose and I would never say that that's the baseline amount of violence that we would show on the show. If we're ever going to see something that pronounced, there needs to be a specific narrative purpose for it."

When asked if any violence had been toned down in response to negative fan feedback, Greg Nicotero said no. He also stated that he would not go back and tone down the violence of the premiere even if he could. "As brutal as that episode 1 was, it's still part of our storytelling bible, which is what the world is about. I don't think we would ever edit ourselves, and I think — even after looking at that episode 1 again — as tough as it was for people to watch, I don't think we would have done it any differently. I don't think we'll ever pull ourselves back. There is definitely a difference between violence against walkers and human on human violence, but truthfully, we're serving our story."

Gimple was asked if the scene where Negan put a hot iron to somebody's face was toned down because of fan reaction and he once again denied it. ""Specific to that scene, I guess specific to everything, no," he said. "Greg Nicotero is the greatest makeup special effects guy in the world, but… what you don't see sometimes can be so much more horrible than what you see, what you imagine. And with the iron, that's a really good example. That's something that I think the audience should do a little bit more of the work on."

It's impossible to know who's telling the truth about this situation. Maybe both parties think that they are and the network is toning down things while the showrunners aren't. This isn't the first time the Walking Dead crew has made conflicting statements and it probably won't be the last. What do you think?

Read: The Walking Dead's Daryl & Negan Share Their Thoughts for Season 7 Return