Fear The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Who Do You Want To Be?

Fear the Walking Dead – Mourning Cloak

Do you want to be a stooge?

I think it’s a fair question. Do you want to be someone else’s lackey? Henchman? Goon? Someone who just unquestioningly following orders, even when those orders make you do things you find morally questionable or even repugnant?

We saw Ali struggle with this idea in this week’s Fear TWD, as he initially started out wanting to be a ranger for Strand’s Tower, believing it to be a noble pursuit. Risking his life to defend his adopted home is comparable to his father’s service in the U.S. military. But, the further along Ali went with Charlie, and thought about what Strand would do to her once she confessed her original mission to him, the less noble being a ranger seemed to him.

This brings me back to my original question: Do you want to be a stooge? I think that, in the apocalypse, it could be rather easy for people to fall in with groups who demand unflinching loyalty and obedience to commands even if those commands are abhorrent and being given by people who have no compunctions about committing such atrocities or simply want someone else to do the dirty work. Because people want to prove their worth to those who took them in, they may be willing to accept the heavy role because it’s simple and gives a kind of ready-made excuse to hard questions about why you’re doing things you don’t feel good about.

But is that the kind of person you want to be? Do you want to just be someone’s thug who attacks others because they’re told to do it? Someone who hurts people without questioning why?

I can’t answer that for you, but if you have a hard time coming up with an answer, that’s an even deeper problem.