Norman Reedus: Daryl Dixon Was Slowly Turning Into Merle

It isn’t often that we get a look into what characters on The Walking Dead might be like if they hadn’t interacted with Rick Grimes and his group of survivors.  Luckily for us, a recent question and answer session with Norman Reedus (who plays Daryl Dixon) shed a little light on how he thought Daryl would have turned out if he hadn’t met up at the RV camp outside Atlanta.

Here is what Reedus said about Daryl Dixon’s character transformation since season 1 of The Walking Dead aired according to an interview on the AMC website:

"“Well, his brother was kind of an a–hole and I think he was slowly turning into his brother. Merle even says that they had met up at that camp [where Rick was] to initially rob everyone before it all went south. I imagine Daryl would still be doing things like that, being up to no good.”"

That’s a really interesting theory.  While fans wouldn’t really want to believe that Daryl Dixon would continue on his thieving ways, Norman Reedus is probably right.  Daryl seemed in danger of becoming more like one of the members of The Claimers that we met back in season 4 of The Walking Dead.  He already fit in pretty well with that group, but if he and his brother Merle were both alive and present then, they’d probably be running an operation like that.

The influence of Rick, Carol, Glenn and the rest of the survivors have had a major impact on the development of Daryl Dixon as a character.  The idea of thinking about what the character would have been like without staying with the main group of survivors on The Walking Dead is really hard to think about, but offers a really interesting look into who Norman Reedus’ character really is.

What do you guys think?  Would Daryl Dixon have continued to become more like Merle if Rick’s group hadn’t taken him in?  Or would he have eventually found the good in himself without their help?  Discuss it in the comments below.

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