The Walking Dead World Beyond, Season 2: Who’s THE WORST?

The Walking Dead World Beyond: Jadis

A long time ago, I had assessed Jadis as a mercenary, a person who was only out for herself. After seeing her in her final season and a half on The Walking Dead, I found myself somewhat embarrassed by my original assessment of her.

What a fool I was. I was right the first time.

Throughout this season of World Beyond, Jadis made a great show of telling anyone who’d listen how her devotion to the CRM and its ideals springs out of her belief that the Civic Republic is “The Last Light Of The World.”

The thing is, by the end of the season, the person who seemed to benefit the most from all the evils the CRM was committing wasn’t the Civic Republic or Civic Republic Military; hell, it wasn’t even General Beale! It was Jadis.

The CRM wound up with at least a little egg on its face, Colonel Kublek got sent to the oh-so-pleasant-sounding “Health and Welfare Complex”, and the Civic Republic lost its main research facility. And what does Jadis wind up with? No blame for the debacle at the research facility and a promotion. I mean, you’d figure, if she’s being given clearance to arrest General Beale’s right-hand woman, she had to have gotten bumped up, right?

During this season, I’ve spoken before about my belief that Jadis is planning on working her way up through the CRM, using her position as a warrant officer (Effectively, the only people who can oversee the CRM) to attain power, and, I think her pinning the destruction of the research facility on Kublek is her next step in that plan.

But I’m getting distracted: I need to tackle so much more about Jadis. For example, she knew all about the plan to destroy Campus Colony, Omaha, and Portland. She believed it was justified because she saw the Civic Republic as “The Last Light Of The World.”

Jadis believed that many things she was doing in service to the CRM (And herself, of course) were justified. That includes ordering that Leo, Hope, and Iris be executed to put the fear into the remaining scientists. And ordering everyone at the Perimeter to be executed. And, trading Rick Grimes in to the CRM in the first place, and not one of them did she have even the slightest bit of remorse for.

This isn’t to say Jadis is heartless: She still laments the loss of her original community, the Scavengers, taken from her by Simon back in season eight of The Walking Dead. On more than one occasion, she seemed to grieve her fallen friends, and seemed determined to learn from that loss.

And learn she did, because, as she justified her trading Rick in to the CRM, she quoted Negan’s key philosophic principle: People are a resource. Of course, Negan meant that people, when brought together, can achieve a lot, and that, therefore, needlessly killing people was wasting something valuable and precious. Jadis seemed to think that meant people were to be used as tools to further oneself or one’s goals.

Man, past Liam had her pegged from the start.