From "Hi how are you?" to "Stand back or you will end up like the walkers."

From "Hi how are you," To "Stand back or you will end up like the walkers."

Jeff LoPilato

Found on Google Images

The Walking Dead is a widely popular American drama series featured on AMC.  It is a post-apocalyptic show in which a fever infects all of humanity, causing people to come back after death as zombies or “walkers,” as they are referred to in the show. With these walkers seeking to rip apart and eat any living thing they can find there are many themes in the show that are backwards to those in our society.  One of the most important themes in the show is trust versus distrust.  Instead of Assuming that “All People are Good,” as we do in our everyday lives, the show suggests we would learn to assume that “all people are bad” so that we may survive in the zombie apocalypse.

When survivors don’t learn this new social norm, they die.  In the first 2 seasons the character Dale was the wise elder who kept many morals from society before the breakout.  Keeping that moral compass caused conflict with other group members.  Anytime someone new was presented to the group he thought it fair to give them a chance to be integrated in.   The leading members of the group, Rick and Shane, thought it best to either blindfold and drive strangers far away from the group or kill the person to protect the group.  Dale died towards the end of season 2 after he refused to be apart of a gathering that was purposed to decide the fate of a boy who the group had saved after getting injured (Shields).  

Trust also brought death to the group when they let those they liberated from the insane Governor's fortified town, Woodbury.  The group brought them back to a prison where they were living, allowing them to live among them.  With this large number of people now living within small quarters with each other, disease broke out.  There was not enough medicine to help heal everyone, so those who were sick were put into quarantine in one of the cell blocks.  The disease spread and people started dying.  Those who died came back as walkers and began killing all who were still alive in the quarantine cell block.  It was chaos that could have been avoided if the group hadn’t trusted people they didn’t know and had left them to fend for themselves.   

This way of operating is not brutal in this world, where the only goal is survival. Being too trusting can get you killed very quickly, and being distrusting can save your skin.  There are many survivors in the world that manipulate, steal from, and commit heinous to other survivors so that they can live.  The group has came into contact with plenty that turned their minds to constant distrust of anyone besides those within their own group.  In season 3 we saw distrust in Michonne when her and Andrea met the Governor.  As viewers we were meant to think the Governor was a caring guy who wanted people to be safe from the walkers, but Michonne didn’t trust him for a second.  She knew nobody in the new world was so willing to help complete strangers without dark motives.  She turned out to be right in fleeing Woodbury because we learned the Governor was a psychopath who killed an entire unit of United States Military so he could take their guns and ammunition.

In season 5, the most recent of the show, all of the group members are on the same page about how to handle strangers.  When Aaron is introduced he approached the group, and they quickly forced him into the barn they were staying in for the night and began interrogating, frisking, and binding him.  The leader of the group, Rick, is the most distrusting of the group.  When they learned that Aaron was from a nearby community of survivors, Rick warned the group that they must be cautious because Aaron and his group could have been looking to kill them.  After hearing what Aaron had to say, Rick and the group agreed to be led to Aaron’s camp, Alexandria, which turned out to be a community of people who hadn’t left the confines of their town since before the start of the breakout with the exception of a select few (Surette).  Rick continued to distrust them. which proved to be the right decision when walkers got into the complex killing the inexperienced Alexandrians.  Rick and the group saved Alexandria and are now in a place of power over the town, which could be a safe place to stay for a while. The drama behind how that is to happen will be shown when the show returns with its sixth season on October 11, 2015.

Sources:

Shields, Robin. "Why It's Dangerous to Be the Moral Compass in the Walking Dead Zombie Apocalypse!" Moviepilot.com. N.p., 31 Mar. 2015. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.

Surette, Tim. "The Walking Dead "The Distance" Review: A Matter of Trust." TV.com. CBS Interactive Inc, n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.