The Walking Dead Theory: Why Does Richard Hate The Saviors?
By Liam O'Leary
Everyone in The Walking Dead hates The Saviors, but, King Ezekiel’s right-hand man, Richard, seems to hate them more than anybody. But…why?
In The Walking Dead, just about anyone not in The Saviors either hates them or is terrified of them. Not surprisingly: They’re a terrible collection of thugs and lackeys serving in what amounts to a crime syndicate, run by a psycho.
However, it seems that The Kingdom’s Richard hates The Saviors a little more than most. How much more? Well, enough to try to convince Morgan and Carol to try to convince Ezekiel to take a suicide mission and ambush them.
Basically, he’s willing to risk the lives of everyone in The Kingdom in the hopes of destroying The Saviors. In contrast, Rick, despite how much he hates The Saviors, has been willing to take their abuse to prevent The Saviors from killing anyone else.
Sure, other groups we’ve seen so far want to be rid of The Saviors. Hell, even people in The Saviors don’t seem to like them terribly much, sometimes.
Yet, Richard, seems to hate them above and beyond the call of duty. He picks fights with Saviors in spite of how dangerous doing so is; he even insists on feeding the pigs The Kingdom gives them walkers, presumably in the hopes of it being some form of biological warfare.
But…why? What have they done specifically that has warranted such disdain?
Because, I believe…he’s run into them before.
Theory: Richard is the last man of Oceanside.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: “But, there aren’t any men in Oceanside.”
True. There are no men at Oceanside, but, saying “The last man of wherever-the-women-of-Oceanside-came-from” sounds stupid. In any event, I believe the remnants of Richard’s original group are the ladies who now occupy Oceanside.
Why? Well, Richard doesn’t seem to hate them because The Saviors are extorting his group — I mean, he does, but, it’s more than that.
As we saw in “Hearts Still Beating”, after Morgan and Carol nixed his idea to convince Ezekiel to go to war, Richard sort of…broke down. This wasn’t the action of a man who wanted to stop thugs from extorting his friends, this was the action of a man who’d lost something.
In “Swear”, we discovered that Negan’s tactic of killing one member of a group as a show of force is relatively new. Presumably earlier in the apocalypse, his method of sending messages to a resistant group was far more brutal: Killing every man within it.
Tara learned from Beatrice that, for their insolence, Negan lined up every male ten years or older in what would become the Oceanside community and gunned them down. Rather than comply, Natania took the remainder of her group and fled to Oceanside.
But, what if The Saviors didn’t get all of Oceanside’s men? What if one was out scouting or hunting, and came back to find his friends and family either disappeared…or dead?
I think such a scenario happened with Richard.
I mean, why else would he be so adamant about going to war with The Saviors? Why would be willing to risk the lives of his friends in what would certainly be a death wish, just to kill them? And why would he be so saddened at not having the chance to do so?
I think Richard returned to his group’s base only to find it abandoned, with his family either among those The Saviors killed, or those who fled; Either way, he came back to find his family gone, knowing that The Saviors were the reason why.
Could there be another reason? Sure. But, with the way Richard has been behaving, it suggests that something happened to him involving The Saviors; They caused him to lose someone, we just haven’t found out who or how yet.
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And, with what we’ve seen of The Saviors thus far, it would fit perfectly that Richard was a survivor of a group they wiped out. Of the two we know of, only Oceanside has any survivors to speak of.
I believe, in the second half of Season Seven, we’ll learn why Richard hates The Saviors so much; and I believe we’ll discover just how small the world The Saviors rule really is.
So, that is my latest The Walking Dead Theory. What do you think? Do you believe that Richard has had a run-in with The Saviors that not even Ezekiel knows about? Do you think he’s “The Last Man of Oceanside”? Or…do you think I’m completely crazy? Let me know in the comments!
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