Leadership in The Walking Dead: Comparing the Governor, Negan and Rick

Negan and violence: it’s playtime… but there is always a message!

Negan seems to be perfectly comfortable with his own violence. He definitely has a sadistic streak, but unlike the Governor, he doesn’t seem to be struggling to repress it. Rather, he embraces it and commits his atrocities with an attitude that can only be described as playful. Negan is a sadistic brute, but a happy one.

He uses nursery rhymes to randomly pick his next victim, and often openly expresses satisfaction after killing or mutilating someone. He generally loves playing around with people as if they were toys, whether they are his victims, his prisoners or his lieutenants.

Though he takes a sadistic pleasure in them, Negan’s acts of violence are deliberate and calculated. His treatment of Daryl has a clear aim: to break him and turn him into one of his men. Most of the time, these acts are also public, and meant to send a message. Whether they are meant to scare the communities he intends to submit, or to punish a transgression, the killings or disfigurements he inflicts on people are elaborately staged and meant to be seen by all – he even has his men take pictures of the mangled heads of Lucille’s victims.