Is Negan Actually A Better Hero Than Rick On The Walking Dead? – Forbes

The Walking Dead

This morning I saw an interesting retweet from Jeffrey Dean Morgan about a CBR.com article praising Negan on The Walking Dead:

While JDM has always been excited to play Negan, he seems even more in his element now that hes moved on from villainous warlord to a morecomplicated character as the seasons have gone on.

I wanted to explore the premise of the idea that Negan is a better hero than Rick ever was. And while that may sound absurd to some Walking Dead fans, Ican kind of see both sides.

Rick Grimes is an iconic character in both comic books and film. The drawl, the hat, the colt python. The endless moments of badassery and heroism over the years.

Andrew Lincoln obviously did a great job playing him. We saw ranges of grief, fury and occasionally, joy, in the character and Lincoln gave Emmy-worthy performances whenever asked. The show definitely lost something important when he left, and I was not surprised to see the comics fold up shop shortly after he was killed off there.

The Walking Dead

And yet

I dont know how complex Rick is as a character, really. Hes almost the quintessential action hero to an absurd degree to the point where I feel like the show often didnt bother examining his actions. Yes, we had a few moments where he goes off the rails and needs to be restrained (usually by Michonne), but the entire kick-off to the Negan War, where Rick and his group kill well over a dozen of Negans men before he killed two of theirs in the famous bat scene made him feel bloodthirsty to an odd degree. Its really never questioned that he decided to launch a pre-emptive strike stealth mission to murder a bunch of Saviors in their sleep?

Rick was an action hero, and a good one performed well by Lincoln. But I dont think he was all that interesting as a character, and his morality was rarely called into question.

Enter Negan.

Negan is an entirely different animal. Schoolteacher turned warlord turned prisoner turned nowsomething akin to a hero, with his recent covert ops spy mission to assassinate Alpha to turn the tide of the Whisperer war.

The Walking Dead

I have always had some issue trying to forgive Negan for his past actions, like the cold blooded murder of Glenn and Abraham as object lessons and more weirdly, his harem of stolen wives which essentially amounts to ongoing sexual abuse and exploitation. That does not seem to me to be a character who can be, or should be, redeemed.

And yet both the comic and show have tried this anyway, and the conflict we feel as viewers, can we ever really trust or forgive this guy? is the same question that the characters on the show are asking themselves, whether thats Judith, Daryl, Carol or Aaron.

The other factor here is that Jeffrey Dean Morgan is just so damn charming as Negan that it complicates the entire affair. Again, we are seduced by Negans charms just like the characters on the show are, and that adds to the complicated notion of being able to trust him or knowing where his true loyalties lie.

At this point, Negans heart seems to be mostly pure, and aligned with the interests of Alexandria and characters he has genuine affection for like Judith. I truly think he wants nothing more than to rejoin that community as an actual member, not a prisoner.

But hes still doing morally questionable things. He sold out Gamma, who risked everything to turn spy for Alexandria, he let the attack on the Hilltop go ahead which resulted in a lot of deaths. And yet Ill be damned if I wasnt leaping out of my seat and cheering when he killed Alpha, cementing his status as newfound good guy.

Its for those reasons that I think Negan is genuinely a more interesting character than Rick ever was. I dont know if that makes him better, but the show has done wonders with his development over time, and I do find myself missing Rick less and less as time goes on with so many good current characters able to fill the void, Negan included.

Follow meon Twitter,FacebookandInstagram. Pick up my new sci-fi novelHerokiller, and read my first series,The Earthborn Trilogy, which is also onaudiobook.

Originally posted here:
Is Negan Actually A Better Hero Than Rick On The Walking Dead? - Forbes

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero