The Walking Dead Villains: Who ISN’T The Worst? Part 5

Father Gabriel

Since I neglected to mention it in my previous article, let me get this out of the way right now: Father Gabriel, perhaps more so than anyone else on this list…wasn’t evil. While arguments can be made about the others on this list, you can’t really say that anything Father Gabriel did was out of malice. You could argue that he acted out of distrust, cowardice, or selfishness (Both of those last two I did argue), but…not malice. And that is an important thing to remember.

Another important thing to remember is the circumstances under which Gabriel did his, arguably, worst act: Leaving his parishioners to die.

When Gabriel confesses, he explains that his routine was to lock the doors of the church every night, by the time his parishioners arrived in the early morning after Atlanta was firebombed, they were still locked. He also explains that, as they tried to get him to open the doors, the noise they made quickly drew the walkers to them.

If I’m understanding it right, it sounds like by the time Gabriel’s congregation arrived, a herd was not far behind them. I think he didn’t open the doors because he was afraid the walkers would follow them in…and still tear them apart. Yes, Father Gabriel failed his flock, but, if you were in his position, believing the herd would follow his flock inside, would you have opened the doors?

Something that seems lost in what Gabriel did (Or, in this case, didn’t) do, is that, it happened on the night Atlanta was firebombed. Assuming Atlanta didn’t collapse all in one night, walkers may have already been popping up in the area. If this is true, (Which, everything we know about the beginning of the apocalypse would say it is), it’s little wonder Gabriel was reluctant.

Sticking with the fact this happened at the beginning of the apocalypse, we have to, on some level, lower our expectations about people at that point, as they’re being met with a circumstance they’ve never seen before, not even in movies (P.S.: This is why the term “zombie” is never used in The Walking Dead, by the way).

If you want to know who is a good or bad person, look for the one who feels guilt for the things he or she has done

To people at the beginning of the apocalypse, seeing the carnage, the insanity, and the horror, expecting them to be Rambo is…unrealistic. They’re seeing something completely

alien

to them, and the world as they know it is responding with panic and chaos before ultimately collapsing altogether, the

vast

majority of people as this point are

terrified

, and

that

is what Father Gabriel was.

“But, what about him trying to betray The Group? Where does THAT come from?” You might ask?

Well, if you watch Gabriel, almost from the moment he meets The Group, he is attempting to get himself killed; In fact, when Rick and Sasha suspect Gabriel of working with whoever took Bob, Gabriel specifically states that he believes Rick and The Group were sent by God to punish him for his cowardice.

What’s more, as The Group reaches Alexandria, Gabriel continues his quest to get himself killed. First, after leaving the gate open, Gabriel strolls out into the wilderness and finds a walker, with the intent of getting bitten. When he can’t bring himself to do that, he chooses instead to provoke Sasha, who comes to him seeking council, hoping to provoke her into killing him!

What his endgame with Sasha makes you realize is that all of this (Plus his attempt to get The Group kicked out of Alexandria) was all an elaborate attempt to face punishment for what he did to his congregation. Everything he’d been doing, even burning his collar and tearing up The Bible in his church, were attempts to “provoke” what he saw as a necessary divine punishment.

Unlike many of the people I’ve assessed in this quest to find the least/most redeemable villains in The Walking Dead, Father Gabriel is a man wracked with guilt. He spent everyday since Atlanta was firebombed going over his failure in his mind, haunted by the screams of innocents he failed to help.

Again, when Rick confronted him in the church, Father Gabriel said he believed The Group was sent by God to punish him. When that didn’t happen, Gabriel sought that punishment out however he could. He made a point of trying to find ways to kill himself, or to provoke some kind of retribution form The Almighty by destroying symbols of his own faith. All of this was an elaborate attempt, not to deflect his sins, but to atone for them.

Even his speaking ill of The Group was to further this quest for atonement. He wasn’t really speaking about The Group to Deanna, he was speaking about himself, he had done terrible things. He didn’t want The Group punished, he wanted himself punished.

In the end, I can’t find irredeemability in Gabriel for the simple fact that he was so devoted to facing punishment what he’d done. If you want to know who is a good or bad person, look for the one who feels guilt for the things he or she has done, not the one who tries to ignore it or shift the blame, look for the person who seeks to atone for their wrongdoing, not blame others or take it out on innocents, making said innocents suffer instead of themselves.

While he may have gone about it the wrong way, Father Gabriel did more to accept the responsibility for his crimes than anyone else I can think of. If that’s not the sign of a good person, I don’t know what is.

…Oh, were you expecting something for Martin? …Yeeeaaah, that’s not gonna happen. To be fair, I could try, but, what little we saw of Martin, he was playing mind games with Tyreese, threatening Judith, kidnapping Bob, and just generally being a callous ghoul. We saw nothing redeemable from him. I’d make a case for him, but, he gave me nothing to work with…

…Plus, he’s king of the THAT GUY!!!!’s. So…there’s that, too.

Next: Physician, Heal Thyself.