The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: NOT Amongst Friends

The Walking Dead season 11

The enemy of your enemy is not always your friend.

There’s an old saying that “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”, meaning that if there are two parties both in opposition to a third, they can (Or already are) allies. It has become the basis of many an unlikely alliance throughout history.

This can also prove to be the bases of many potential alliances you might develop in a zombie apocalypse, as you and another person or group you don’t get along with may determine that a larger or more brutal group is a shared threat and that you should pool resources to overcome them.

However, this is also not a guarantee. Look at what happened to Lance Hornsby in this week’s episode of The Walking Dead. After helping Daryl and Carol find their path out of the Commonwealth, the pair basically told him to get the Hell out of their sight and that, after his attempts to take over the Virginia communities, they didn’t trust him, never mind want anything to do with him. He feared he wouldn’t survive alone, and, despite his best attempts to convince Daryl and Carol to let him stay and help rebuild the Commonwealth, they told him to leave or die, he attempted to present a third option, that of them dying, and got an arrow in his throat for his troubles.

The thing is, they were right not to trust him. Hornsby, helpful though he was, was a schemer, manipulating people and situations to edge himself closer to power. Would you trust a guy like him as an ally? Sure, he might do his part to help against your shared enemy, but what about after that? Would you trust him to maintain the alliance after the fact? Or would you be waiting for him to try to turn on you the first chance he got?

If you meet someone within a larger group who’s willing to betray them to help you, you should be very careful about trusting them. This isn’t a case of bad leadership turning their own group against them, I’m talking about, but someone who decides to betray them largely because you can help achieve their own ambitions. If they’re willing to betray their own group, what do you think they might do to you?

And that’s our Walking Dead Survival Rule Of The Week! As the zombie apocalypse progresses, people may coalesce into larger and larger groups, and you may find yourself and your group joining an even bigger group, maybe even a full-blown community. This is all well and good…until they decide they don’t like you. At that moment, you are now in enemy territory and need to use all your survival skills to escape or fight back. If you want a good source to look for those skills, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can also get it at Amazon here, and on iTunes here!