The Walking Dead, Survival Rule of the Week: Never Assume

Tales of the Walking Dead episode 1

Never assume the worst of a potential ally.

Not long after Evie and Joe first met (a meeting which, and of Itself, was not the friendliest, considering Joe was nearly bitten by a zombie while stuck in one of Evie’s booby-traps and forced into being handcuffed), as the pair discussed going on a road trip to Michigan, Joe warns Evie that her plan to steal his motorcycle won’t work out very well, prompting Evie to immediately assume Joe thought less of her because she was a woman. This was rude, considering that she didn’t even let Joe explain why she wouldn’t be able to steal his motorcycle, but, for our purposes, that’s not the problem.

Even Evie, effectively, calling Joe a sexist based on…nothing isn’t the problem, rude though it was. What’s the problem is doing this to someone she was, eventually, expecting help from. This all might seem silly, but think of it like this: If you met someone in the apocalypse, and they just assumed the worst thing imaginable about you right out of the gate, would you turn around and help them? If they proposed some alliance, knowing what they apparently think of you already, would you trust them to stick with you if a potential hostile showed up, or would you expect them to bail on you because they thought “you deserved it”?

This is the problem. If you’re not going to assume someone is a threat immediately and act accordingly, but then you turn around and basically tell this person you think they’re scum (In one fashion or another), you’re shooting yourself in the foot. Because if you’re not treating a stranger as a hostile, you’re essentially saying you see them as a potential ally, but if you insult their character, you’re making any potential alliance a lot weaker than it should be because the other person doesn’t have to help you, and, if you’re making negative presumptions about them right out of the gate…why should they?

Never automatically assume the negative about a person you see as a potential ally. It’s one thing to say you don’t trust them — That should be pretty standard in a zombie apocalypse — but if you just tell them that you immediately assume them to be some kind of a scumbag, you’re also telling them that being in an alliance with you might not be in their best interest, and you might lose out on someone who could have become a great ally, maybe even a friend, because you decided to be a presumptuous donkey.