TWD: Evil doesn’t always swing a bat or wear an eye patch

Every now and then The Walking Dead reminds us that even though the show is set during the apocalypse and things can look bleak, the world that came before also had its flaws.

We spend a lot of time in Season 7 of The Walking Dead reflecting on people like Negan, and how someone who lived a normal life can become so ruthless and cruel. The same happened during the Governor’s reign; it was chilling to see the picture of him with his family before the world fell apart. He was a normal guy who became a villain. It’s easier to explain why people have become evil during the apocalypse.

But sometimes the show reminds us that evil existed in the world before the Walkers arrived.

I was watching The Walking Dead marathon ahead of the Season 7 midseason finale. In Season 5 episode 10’s “Them,” Maggie encounters a Walker in the back of a car. She can’t open the trunk because the key is stuck, and she’s about to blast it open with her gun when Glenn puts a hand on her arm. She tells him there is one in there and she didn’t kill it, and he seems to understand so he tries to get the key to turn. When the trunk opens we see a Walker inside, but something is very different about this one. The Walker is a woman, and she is bound and gagged. Add that to the fact that she’s in the trunk of a car, and a very different picture starts to fill itself in.

Perhaps this woman was alive when she was placed in the trunk. Perhaps she had been kidnapped, or assaulted. God only knows. Based on what we know about the Walkers, it’s highly unlikely that someone bound and gagged his girlfriend after she turned and threw her into the trunk during his escape from the apocalypse. Someone put her there. Intentionally. And with all of the chaos, she was left there to die. Seeing her in there is a harsh reminder about the evil that has always existed in the world before things went bad.

Even the worst villains in the world of The Walking Dead don’t hold a candle to some of the monsters in the real world. From the Nazis to that unstable guy in North Korea who executes advisors for napping during meetings, history has been full of people who are far worse than Negan or the Governor will ever be.

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With all of that in mind, it’s important to pay attention to those little reminders for a sense of perspective.

Sometimes the evils of the world don’t wield baseball bats and wear eye patches.