The Walking Dead Villains, who isn’t the worst? Part 11
By Liam O'Leary
The Walking Dead redemption stories
2) Leah Shaw
I feel like I’ve already explained this one during my condemnation of Leah last week. Suffice it to say: I think that, under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have tried to kill Maggie.
Why do I say that? Well, because, for most of her time in this season, Leah was the closest thing to a conscience that the Reapers had. One might argue that that isn’t saying much considering some of the awful things they’d done, but I’d contend that they would have been worse without Leah trying to temper Pope the way she did.
When Pope was getting ready to kill Bossie, Leah was the only one who A) seemed to know what he was planning, and (More importantly) B) seemed to want to do anything to stop him from doing it. I don’t remember any of the others trying to get him to chill out, do you?
Later, when out with Daryl searching for Maggie, Leah discovers a family of survivors trying to eke out a living in an abandoned house. Despite being ordered by Pope to kill them, she allows them to escape and lies to Pope that Daryl did as was ordered just to improve his standing within the Reapers.
As things began to unravel around Pope and Maggie’s team was closing in, he insisted that one of his men use the Reapers’ secret weapon, a hwacha, be used against Maggie, Negan, and the herd of walkers they brought with them. Upon hearing this, Leah protested, knowing the weapon could easily kill several of her brothers-in-arms in the process. When Pope brushed off her concerns and insisted the weapon be fired anyway, Leah took action, killing Pope and putting an end to his madness.
Finally, when the Reapers had been defeated by Maggie, Daryl, Negan, Elijah, and Father Gabriel, Leah legitimately offered to take her remaining comrades and leave, attempting to bury the hatchet to protect the brothers she still had left. It was only after Maggie had killed them that Leah truly carried on Pope’s quest to destroy Maggie.
The point here is that Leah wasn’t just a wanton killer motivated by blood lust or by encroaching madness. She was capable of mercy and exercised it when her father figure insisted against it. She always put her family, the Reapers, first, always trying to protect them if and whenever she could, and only seemed to get truly hostile when someone harmed or was going to harm them (In fact, the only reason she turned on Daryl was that he had killed the Reaper Pope had ordered to fire the hwacha).
By all accounts, Leah seemed like a genuinely good person, only going sour at the last moment after everything had been taken from her. Honestly, we’ve seen our heroes in The Walking Dead do worse things after losing less than she did. If we don’t consider them evil, why should Leah be any different?
Side Note: If you’re wondering why I don’t have a page for Carver, it’s quite simple: He didn’t do anything to imply he had any good qualities to speak of. Even Pope, if only through what we knew of his history, had done things that could imply some inherent good within him. But Carver? Nah. Everything about him screamed “heel”, and if someone doesn’t give me anything to work with, I can’t defend them.