The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: The many faces of evil

4) Using their own group as personal cult.

Cults have lot of insidious little tricks to keep converts: Cutting them off from friends or family, controlling what information they get (So as to reflect what the cult or cult leader wants), not allowing members to leave, making them believe that they (The cult) are their only hope; You’ll find people use these tricks to control others in a zombie apocalypse, too.

Look at The Governor for example, he lied to Woodbury about how he and his militia got the weapons and military equipment from the National Guard (He told them the Guardsmen were dead when they found them), because he feared that the National Guardsmen were people his community might look to rather than him, he had them all slaughtered, he kept trying to find ways to keep Merle from looking for Daryl; Do any of those sound familiar?

People like this will wield their followers as a weapon, vilifying anyone they perceive as a threat, even if they aren’t a threat, even they know they have no intention of being a threat, using their followers to launch attacks if they deem it necessary, then, if they’re unsuccessful, will callously use any followers’ deaths to galvanize the others to fight harder.

If you find yourself in a group led by a person who makes excuses to keep you from leaving, who tells you everything inside your community is sunshine and roses, but everything outside is even worse than you’d expect, start checking for yourself. If what you find doesn’t match what they tell you, maybe you should start thinking about leaving…fast, before they sacrifice you in their quest for power and control.