The evolution of Tara Chambler on The Walking Dead: Becoming a leader

Tara has brought us some much-needed fun over the years since she debuted on The Walking Dead and she has gradually blossomed into an unexpected leader.

When Tara first was introduced to The Walking Dead, she was immediately fun-loving but naïve at times. She had a unique quality of being immature at times, sometimes just having fun and making the best of a bad moment.

Upon her introduction, Tara was a follower and didn’t do much thinking for herself. When she made her first appearance in the season four episode titled “Live Bait”, her sister Lilly was clearly the one in charge since Tara had to watch her foul mouth and Lilly called the shots and had final say.

Lilly is an underrated piece of Tara’s past since we didn’t truly get to learn much about her, but she was strong and kept Tara at bay. Tara could have been described as a little reckless at times if she didn’t have someone leading her.

The Governor took over as both Lilly and Tara’s leader. She agreed to go along with ideas as seen in the episode “Too Far Gone”. She was the first to rally behind the Governor’s hostile plan.

Tara showed no resistance and trusted too easily. This led to the events of the war at the prison and Tara was so nervous that she froze following the horrific acts that the Governor did right in front of her to Hershel.

Tara always had some form of leadership that influenced her decisions whether it was the Governor, Rick, Glenn or Daryl. Tara was generally going along for whatever they did and whatever was planned by someone else.

This pattern continued and Tara was slowly becoming self-aware of her own following patterns for plans when Rick made plans to attack Negan’s outpost. Tara for the first time showed concern for following dangerous orders and it was a huge breakthrough for her.

That breakthrough did not last long, because Tara was one of the rogues that didn’t follow Rick’s plan as seen in “Time for After”. Which Tara followed Daryl’s lead and went rogue. Tara showed that she can be reckless as predicted.

After the war was officially over, Tara went through major changes that brings us to today. Tara finally became a leader for the first time, and she wasn’t the one taking orders from others.

Tara even stood up to Jesus to complete their duties, which is a breakthrough beyond expectations. Tara was the one being led, while Maggie, Michonne, and even Carol were being groomed to be leaders, Tara was an unexpected leader that even Rick couldn’t have seen coming.

Tara has done a tremendous job picking up the slack for Hilltop and being the leader when Jesus wasn’t around and should continue to do well in guiding the people of the Hilltop.

How will Tara protect the people she cares about against the biggest threat in the history of The Walking Dead? This is going to be a test of Tara’s newfound leadership and see if Tara will hang on when The Walking Dead returns February 10th on AMC.