The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: The Seen And UNseen

The Walking Dead season 11

If it’s too good to be true, it probably ISN’T true.

As I mentioned earlier, Ian proved to be one the more intriguing aspects of this week’s episode, partially because, despite initially coming off as rather unhinged, he was actually pretty damn sharp. In fact, I think Toby going into super-spy mode was his Plan B, because I think that Ian might have caught on to what Toby’s first plan was.

When discussing the offer Aaron made, Ian suggested that, just as another would-be diplomat had once before, everything Aaron was saying was simply a ruse to lure Ian and his people outside into a waiting ambush.

Ian, you see, found everything Aaron was saying and showing him to be too good to be true. In his mind, this far into the apocalypse, anything like what Aaron was saying had to be a trap of some sort, and (Though Aaron and Gabriel didn’t realize it), he was kind of right.

Now, obviously, we know that everything Aaron was saying to Ian was true, but the mere fact that the diplomatic team was there to make the offer in the first place was a trap, and Ian was right to distrust it.

I said in the beginning, I was going to address things we don’t see, and things like this are textbook examples of that. While certainly not all the time, you will probably at some point come upon a situation where things seem way too good to be true. This may come in the form of a survivor who seems to be just the thing your group is looking for, or it may be a great cache of supplies not far from your base that, somehow, no one has gone for, and has no zombies around it, or it may come in the form of an offer of friendship or trade from people who seem just a little too nice.

Sure, these things may not present anything openly dangerous or threatening or hostile, but, we all have some sense of when things seem too perfect. We all know that, if we come upon such things, that there’s always a catch, always something that can ruin things. Nothing comes for free.

So, in the apocalypse, you need to learn to rely on that instinct, because, these kinds of threats, by their very nature, aren’t openly threatening, but hide their danger until it’s too late to back away from it.