Negan’s attempts to convert Daryl, Eugene and Sasha on The Walking Dead

Negan’s conversion of Eugene: a successful one… so far

How Eugene works

In many ways, Eugene on the Walking Dead is the anti-Daryl. Daryl’s main trait is loyalty, while Eugene, with a few exceptions, is mostly driven by self-interest. Eugene is a self-confessed coward and although he can occasionally have moments of bravery, he is mostly useless in fights. Though he has been shown to care about some characters, like Tara, Eugene seems to give little importance to human relationships.

Where Daryl longs to be appreciated as a person, Eugene mostly yearns for his skills to be recognized. While Daryl struggles with low self-esteem, Eugene has a very high opinion of himself. Though he admits openly that he is a coward, and is occasionally ashamed of it, he is very proud of his brain power and his broad range of skills (lock-picking, battery-making…). He gets offended when people question his skills and their value, and demands to be recognized as a true “survivor” by Abraham (particularly in “Twice As Far”, episode 14 of season 6).

Negan’s strategy with Eugene: reassurance and rewards

Quite logically, Negan’s treatment of Eugene was exactly the opposite of the treatment he gave Daryl. Arguably, it was also much more efficient. There was no need to try and “break” Eugene, in the first place. Eugene was already terrified. Negan only had to bat an eyelid for Eugene to break down completely.

Eugene is both far easier to scare, and far easier to corrupt than Daryl. He truly enjoys the little comforts Negan can give him: a nice room, pickles and even entertainment – videogames and the company of Negan’s wives.

What’s more, Negan secured Eugene’s allegiance by giving him the kind of importance he had been longing for, but never really had, in Rick’s group. As evidenced by some of his conversations with Abraham in season 5, Eugene had always resented being considered as some kind of burden who could not really protect himself or anyone else. Although he temporarily got that recognition from Rick and Abraham, just before he set out to drive the RV, this was short-lived. Rosita once again crushed his pride when she called him a coward and bullied him into making her a bullet.

Eugene obviously enjoyed his new power and his prominent position in the community, as evidenced by his attitude in season 7 episode 14: he took evident pleasure and pride in calling himself “Eugene Porter, Chief Engineer” and ordering people around.

“They’re keeping me safe”, he tells Sasha when she asks what the Saviours did to him. As he explains when pleading with Sasha to convince her to accept Negan’s offer, Eugene has applied his motto, which is to adapt in order to survive: “Things have changed, we can change with them, we have to”. Sasha, however, is not as receptive to this argument…