The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Keep Your Wits About You

Tales of the Walking Dead episode 5

Remember who you are. The Walking Dead can make that tough sometimes. 

I’m not simply saying this because a good chunk of this week’s Tales of The Walking Dead focused on a character struggling with short-term memory loss. No, I’m saying this because, as the episode progressed and we learned why the townsfolk were pursuing Davon, we saw him remember just how committed he was to staying human and only resorting to lethal force when he felt it was absolutely necessary.

As we also saw, sometimes, that can be tough for people in a zombie apocalypse.

With Davon handcuffed to Amanda’s walker, it didn’t take long for the rest of her community to assume that he had murdered her, as well as being behind the disappearances of several of the town’s children. Upon catching up to him, the townsfolk planned on executing Davon by crushing him inside of a broken-down van. Despite Davon’s pleas of innocence, his captors were dead set on executing him, so much so that, when he claimed to remember where one of the missing children was, some townsfolk chose to brawl with their neighbors for even suggesting hearing him out.

With violence, sadly, becoming something of a necessity in a zombie apocalypse, it’s easy for a person to get wrapped up in it. Some may resort to it out of perceived necessity but eventually rely on it out of sheer expedience until they’re offing people so casually that they don’t even notice it.

This is not the way you want to handle things in a zombie apocalypse. You obviously don’t want to be someone who gets steamrolled by people, but you also don’t want to go down the slippery slope of violence because, if you do, you’ll wind up being the very kind of person that, at the beginning of the apocalypse, you would see as an immediate threat, and eliminate on sight.

Realize that, sometimes, even in a zombie apocalypse, you don’t need to resort to violence to solve problems, especially with other people. There are times when negotiating and coming to common ground with other survivors is the best course you can take, not only in that it prevents you from going down the path of violence (Which, if we’re being honest, isn’t guaranteed to work out in your favor all the time, anyway), but, it might just earn you a friend, something you need as many of as you can get in the apocalypse.

It’s important to remember who you are in the zombie apocalypse — The kind of person you are and strive to be — because, if you forget, it’s hard to get that person back, and the one you become might be someone that you (And other people) might not be willing to live with.