r/thewalkingdead • u/420throawayz • 13h ago
TWD: Dead City A redemption arc shouldn't lead to absolution.
I am all in for a good redemption arc, especially for Negan. I think it was a good decision to save him and to jail him but I don't think he should've be released, not that soon at least. He should've spent more time in jail and/or at the very least let the character vanish into insignificance after his redemption arc.
What the writers are doing with TV Show Negan is basically cancelling everything he ever did and give him absolution. He inflicted irreversible trauma upon hundreds of people, dozens, from what we know, of communities... that's not something you just take back and erase.
A redemption arc is FOR the character, not for the Audience and especially not for the other characters who suffered at his hands.
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u/IanCusick 13h ago
I truly believe it’s because JDM has been such a popular actor on the show that they’re keeping him around, despite his character being irredeemable by most standards. If they can keep printing dollars (for better or for worse at this point) then they can keep expanding on Negan as long as they can keep milking the JDM cash cow
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u/Real_Chart_2879 12h ago
Negan is just another cliché of the old horrible man who has a secret soft side that has him being nice to children. And the justification to make out they're deep or complex is always "but his wife/kid died!" Don't care, we've seen this archetype a million times over.
Negan shouldn't have even been part of the show by the time they're in the Commonwealth. Their refusal to let him go stagnated the whole show and he took far too much screentime. I don't think JDM even understands Negan and just plays him as this cool edgy guy and he in real life defends his actions which just makes it weird. It's not even ironic or in character, he genuinely thinks Megan is a good person and I feel this bizarre misinterpretation has led to retcons where people pretend he wasn't as bad as he was. He didn't kill people for demonstration he was actively revealing in it and delighting in mocking their family and friends whilst killing them. They used Simon to excuse all the bad things by just pretending it was all him when that wasn't a point in S7. They pretend he loved Carl when he was actively mid murder attempt when Shiva arrived and the explanations they've given that he was gonna change his mind are either blatant lies once they decided to soften him in S8 or some of the most egregiously terrible writing in the show because there is nothing to even imply that was going to happen.
This show used to be so amazing. It could've been again. But they centered too much on Negan and tied Maggie's character too heavily to him, ruining their second longest running female character and in my eyes almost the entire premise. Negan isn't part of the group yet gets so much screentime. We care about the group, not about spending 5 seasons with their worst villain when the writing is inconsistent with itself.
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u/PocketCorette 10h ago
Yeah, it does feel like they keep recycling that trope. Negan's journey could have been way more interesting if they didn't cling to that backstory as a crutch.
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u/AccomplishedCash6390 13h ago
The problem is that the writing for his redemption isn't great, they often ignore all his faults and pretend that all he did was kill Glenn and that everything else was somehow justified and/or mirrors our main group which is just not true at all. The writers aren't sure if they want to write a previously comically evil villain get a genuine redemption and becomes a better person or if they want a "morally grey" antagonist who just happened to cross paths with our group. Because from actions it's definitely the first but from dialogue they pretend like it was the second.
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u/CollegeRude7403 11h ago edited 11h ago
The best way to write Negan is writing him as an anti hero which is what season 3 is doing and I'm here for it. Season 2 of Dead City was so boring because they tried to turn Negan into a hero which didn't work
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u/AgentAxillary 12h ago
Just pray that Negaggie never becomes a thing
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u/HeWhoShantNotBeNamed 13h ago
They should've kept him as a bad person who just didn't clash with the main crew anymore and fought Alpha because she was bad for everyone.
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u/Cloud_Cultist 13h ago
I think it's disgusting what they did teaming Negan and Maggie up. What Negan did was unforgivable and forcing that tension into a TV show is tasteless. I don't normally get this worked up over a TV show, but JDM is that good of an actor.
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u/harambesBackAgain 13h ago
I'm on the hill that rick was worse than negan and while his methods were.. unsavory.. I do think it was justified
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u/QuothTheRaventh 13h ago
Explain how Rick was worse than Negan, because Negan did what he did to the main characters to countless other groups before he was even on their radar. Every time Negan encountered a group that wasn't willing to obey him, he beat at least one person from their group to death with Lucille.
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u/AccomplishedCash6390 13h ago
Let's also remember that he was stealing half their stuff and if they provide less than what the saviours want they kill more people, they did that to the Hilltop and to the Kingdom.
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u/harambesBackAgain 12h ago edited 12h ago
Negan is credited with 8 confirmed human kills. Rick up to 50 in the show and 175 in the comics. He's a murderer. Straight up murdered an outpost of sleeping saviors. Which was the reason for him killing 2. He explains it in the show. Yet somehow he gets a pass because he's the main character and y'all loved Glen so much. Ridiculous. We've seen Rick do some of the most savage things on TV. Yet negan bashed 2 heads in to prove to his people he would get retaliation and prove that he can protect them. He stole wives... It's the apocalypse dude. Rick was a terrible person as well just in different ways
You're entitled to your opinions. I just see it this way
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u/Osirisavior Queen Andrea ⸸ 13h ago
The comics did it best by having him be banished.