Fear The Walking Dead: Compassion VS Pragmatism

Fear The Walking Dead: Compassion VS Pragmatism

Which is the right way to act in a zombie apocalypse: Compassion or pragmatism? I argue both in this week’s Fear The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week!

This week’s premiere episode of season seven of Fear The Walking Dead not only seemed to focus on the dichotomy between compassion and pragmatism but seemed to be laying the groundwork for that the be the theme of the entire season.

I say this because much of this week’s episode focused on Strand struggling between who he was and the man he wanted to become. The former was a man who, while flawed, was a decent person, and the latter is a man who believes that by cutting oneself off from caring about others and thinking only in terms of how others can be useful can one survive.

As the episode unfolded, we saw Strand straight-up tell Will that he only takes people in if they can be useful to him. He also said he only wanted to find Alicia to rub it in her face that he was right and she was wrong. Later, we saw Strand give up the facade, and admit that he wanted to find Alicia alive because she’s the closest thing he’s got to family left in the world.  Then, he turned one final time, seemingly committing to his choice of brutal pragmatism, doing whatever he could to ensure that anyone who might consider him a friend would stay far away from him.

So, with all of that being so prominent in this week’s episode, I’ve decided that, for this week’s survival rule, I’m going to look at both approaches and layout at least one of each of the pros and cons of the two, and letting you decide which is better.