Warning: Spoilers for The Walking Dead season 11, episode 14
In defending Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), The Walking Dead essentially forgot his entire villain arc. The Walking Dead season 11, episode 14, titled “The Rotten Core”, seemingly served as a step toward Maggie (Lauren Cohan) deciding not to avenge her husband’s murder. Since Maggie and Negan are destined for a trip to New York City in a spinoff series, it’s been understood that the two will eventually move on from their feud.
Having realized that Maggie isn’t above breaking her promise not to kill him, Negan moved on and found a new community, only for them to cross paths once again in “The Rotten Core”. A forced alliance between the two groups culminated in Negan’s people protecting Herschel and Maggie coming face-to-face with Annie (Medina Senghore), Negan’s wife. Meeting her and hearing her reasons for overlooking Negan’s past has apparently offered Maggie a newfound perspective on the former Savior leader. Looking at how their interaction played out, it’s likely that her talk with Annie will play an important role in getting her to let go of any future plans to kill Negan.
Regardless of the impact Annie’s words will have on Maggie in the episodes to come, this scene came off as a heavily flawed defense for Negan’s actions as the leader of the Saviors. Annie, who claims to know what Negan did, argued that because of the circumstances of the apocalypse, none of the survivors have “clean hands”. Her opinion is that people had to do horrible things to survive. This excuse accounts for many of the morally questionable decisions that so many characters have made in The Walking Dead shows, but doesn’t apply to Negan, who genuinely enjoyed murdering people.
Negan’s laughter and the obvious pleasure he took from maliciously beating Abraham and Glenn to death created a massive separation between him and the people who were forced into making difficult choices in the apocalypse. In contrast to people like Maggie, Negan murdered people on whims and to exert his authority. He simply used Daryl’s defiance as an excuse to kill Glenn, and his only real reason for killing either of them was to instill fear in Rick’s people so that the Saviors could use them as slaves. Negan’s decision to have a harem and the other horrors he committed prove that Negan did far more than what was necessary to survive.
Through its depiction of his character in recent storylines, The Walking Dead has taken steps to show that Negan, who feels real regret for his actions, truly has changed. As Annie points out in the episode, Negan is a better person than he was before. But while it’s not necessarily problematic for the show to highlight Negan’s evolution as a character, excuses for his behavior don’t work. Negan may be different now, but that doesn’t change the fact that he was a sadistic and unremorseful mass murderer and one of the show’s biggest villains.
The Walking Dead releases new episodes on Sundays on AMC.