The five best deaths from AMC’s The Walking Dead

Siddiq

And, finally, we get to the man whose death made me want to write this in the first place: Siddiq.

Let me break something down for a minute. For me, a “good” death in a TV show needs to make sense (As I explained with Merle), have impact on the show and the characters in it (Like with Sophia and Dale), and most importantly, evoke emotion in me as the viewer, specifically sadness and anger (Like Hershel).

Siddiq’s death hits all of those criteria.

Firstly, Siddiq was murdered by Dante when he realized that Dante was the Whisperer who ensured that he witnesses the executions of Henry, Tara, and Enid (Among others) by Alpha. For the entire first half of season 10, Siddiq had been haunted by terrifying flashbacks of watching his friends be murdered in front of his eyes, each one seeming worse, as he heard a distorted voice instruct him to “open your eyes”. It makes perfect sense that, just as he realizes who that voice that’s been tormenting him belongs to, that the owner of said voice should be the one to kill him.

As for impact, I could simply ask “What greater impact can there be than depriving a baby of her dad?” and be done with it, but, there’s even more than that.

With Rosita deciding to go out and pick a fight with a group of walkers right after Siddiq’s funeral, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of the aftershocks Siddiq’s death will have on her. It’s already got her questioning whether or not the communities are strong enough to take on the Whisperers, we can only fathom what will happen come the second half of the season and beyond.

And then, there’s Father Gabriel.

One thing that can be said about him is that he is, for the most part, not a violent man. We only saw him directly kill one person in the entire series, that was, until he confronted Dante inside his cell. As he sat there, talking to Dante about what Siddiq meant to him, he proceeded to pull out a knife and stab him to death, before burning his corpse. For a man like Gabriel, who’s largely avoided having to kill another person this far into the apocalypse, to brutally kill Dante in a fit of rage, is probably something that will, eventually, come to haunt him, even if it’s only because the community discovered that he violated an edict set down by Rick years earlier when he spared Negan.

One way or another, I would be highly surprised if we’ve seen the end of the ripples Siddiq’s death will cause.

Lastly, there’s the emotions Siddiq’s death inspires. Honestly, when I watched Siddiq die, part of me said “He’s just knocked out, right? They wouldn’t actually kill Siddiq, would they?” That is the sort of response you want a character’s death to elicit.

You want the audience to feel like the dying character has left at least a little something on the table. As the old saying goes: “Keep them wanting more”.

As for the man who killed Siddiq, Dante, upon realizing that, yes, Siddiq was dead, I immediately wanted to see somebody punch his face in. Within the span of a few moments, Dante rocketed up my “THAT GUY!” charts. Honestly, he’s a serious contender for my most irredeemable villain of season 10, and the first half only just ended.

That’s the other thing a character’s death should do: Make the audience despise the rat bastard that killed them. If you’ve got fans wanting to see a character (And not the actor playing the character) blown to smithereens with a rocket-propelled grenade because they maliciously killed a protagonist, it means you’ve done something right as a storyteller.

In a show set in a zombie apocalypse, like The Walking Dead, death is going to happen, but only a few of those deaths are truly “good” in the sense that they do everything that they’re supposed to do both for the show, and for the people watching it. In my humble opinion, the five I’ve presented here are the best examples of that.

But, I’m just one person…what do you guys think? Do you agree? Would you switch out another character for one of the ones I presented here (Honestly, I almost convinced myself to have Karen on this list for a minute), or would you replace all of them? I’m curious to hear what you say. And, if you enjoyed this and want to learn how to have the “best” death of all in a zombie apocalypse (By not having one), then why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can also get it at Amazon here, on iTunes here!