Fear The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Identity Crises

1) Don’t Be A Coward

One of the first characters we met in this week’s Fear The Walking Dead was Sanjay, a resident of the Pioneers’ community who had, somehow, run afoul of Virginia, but, was given a second chance to redeem himself by helping her clear a warehouse of its undead denizens.

Also, Sanjay was a total…chickenshit.

I mean, we’re talking Gregory levels of cowardice, here. First, he balks at doing the job at all, even though the ranger overseeing the operation, Jeb, made it plainly clear that the alternative was getting shot in the face. Then, he doesn’t even try to stab any of the walkers attacking him and his fellow “Second Chancers” (As I’ve taken to calling them), even though his spear was long enough to do it without getting grabbed by them. Then, he’s too scared to try to close the warehouse garage door to try to seal the walkers off. Then, as Jeb is begging him to put him down before the walkers drag him into their lair, Sanjay is still too cowardly to even do that!

…Like I said: Chickenshit.

He manages to get worse later in the episode, when, as Strand and Alicia are trying to organize the Second Chancers to get rid of the warehouse walkers, even before things went sideways, he runs off, leaving no one manning the garage door to cut the walkers off. Useless!

If you want to survive a zombie apocalypse, don’t be like Sanjay. Now, I’m not saying go out there and be a reckless idiot, but, you can not be a coward. Even if you never have to fight people, sooner or later, you will have to fight zombies. It’s inevitable.

When that battle happens, what are you gonna do? Just…run away? Sure, you can do that for a while, but…what happens when you can’t? At that point, you have to fight.

Also, as I’ve said many a time, being a coward is a staple trait of being a “That Guy” (Like the former leader of Hilltop, Gregory). While there’s a few other traits, a typical “That Guy” is so much of a coward, that they’ll run from a dangerous situation, even when that is actually more detrimental to their chances of survival than standing and fighting, or, in Sanjay’s case, closing a damned garage door.

Think about it: By chickening out, he ensured that more walkers got out, meaning that Strand and the others were facing more walkers than they could handle, and, if they all died, how long would it have been before the walkers found Sanjay, or Virginia, finding the carnage he partially caused, killed him? Either way, his cowardice was, eventually, going to get him killed.

To survive, you need to have courage.

Don’t be like Sanjay.