And the narrative shouldn’t set it up as a character expectation either
An odd story direction was taken with Maggie’s character on The Walking Dead, and regarding her antagonistic relationship with dear old Negan. You’ll remember Glen’s memorable death, and the characteristic turning point it gave the show. It sort of ushered in a part two of The Walking Dead.
But it may be accurate to say that, since this, there’s been a slight limbo as far as Maggie’s feelings vis-à-vis Negan, and brutally being torn from Glen, were concerned.
Maggie’s character does a back and forth. You could almost say that ever since Glen died, it became less about his death, but about recycling his death into a storyline for “the one left behind,” Maggie.
Because it’s become such a center piece of her storyline, there’s this weird narrative expectation placed on her of having to forgive Negan. Whether that’s because they don’t know what to do with her, or because they want to endear Negan to the audience (I didn’t dislike him already anyway, no worries). What shows is the hesitation, the wavering, and the slight instability in the characterisation. It leaves fans antsy, who drink the kool aid; “can’t she forgive Negan already?” “Well obvious she can’t forgive him,” and two sides end up forming. And The Walking Dead: Dead City goes into that stagnancy regarding the impact of Glen’s death, and the back and forth it’s created, which is sometimes passed off as a character’s internal indecisiveness, and where sometimes, fourth wall breaks occur and we see it’s in fact the writers that are indecisive on what to do with Maggie’s character beyond that one defining moment, something that’s upset fans in more recent iterations of The Walking Dead.
What this constant back and forth around the question: “Will she forgive Negan? Can she forgive Negan? Should she forgive Negan?” points at, beyond the illusion set forth by the story, and behind it, back up towards the writers, is wavering intents from the writers, who are clearly hesitating regarding what direction to take the character: do they not know what to do with Maggie anymore? Do they consider her arc concluded with Glen’s death, and yet, it doesn’t make realistic sense to kill her off too after having run out of potential material to use to animate her character, considering that in the source material the TV show is loosely based on, she does not die, and because she is too much of a fan favourite to kill off?
They didn’t know where to take her anymore, is what it seems the writing reveals, so they decided to put their focus on the one significant event that would have undeniably defined her whole arc, and make it be the centre point of all her decisions.
But I argue, that it’s not a matter of “should she, she shouldn’t”, but instead, that the entire decision from the writers, in the back, to present it under this light in the first place really was the issue.
This line, given to the writers by Negan, shows that self-awareness.
Think of it this way:
The thing is, realistically, Maggie shouldn’t have for forgive someone for murdering Glen. It’s odd that, narratively, this was even set up as an expectation for her characterial direction.
Think of it this way. Her man died. Now, death is a normal thing, but regular people struggle to wrap their head around it even in a normal setting. So, Glen dies, this thing that people struggle with under normal circumstances. But he doesn’t even die a natural death, of old age, surrounded by his loved ones and community. Which, might have been sad for the ones remaining, but realistically is a logical and normal way to go because everyone just goes at some point. That’s normal. However, instead, he dies, beaten to death, Bear Jew style, by a random guy swinging a barbed baseball bat, who batters him to death, bashes his head open, on top of it, in front of said loved one, who happens to be pregnant, with their child.
Think of it some more: it’s already difficult to find love in the normal world, with seven billion people surrounding us, seven billion possibilities (well, if you discount the children and the elderly then suddenly it is a lot less), and for plot purposes, she finds love during the apocalypse, with a severely shrunk down population, where the chances of even finding basic survival is impossible, never mind friends. But she finds love, and surprisingly, ends up pregnant with their child (surprisingly because of the conditions).
And then, she gets to watch as that person gets brutally battered to death.
Realistically, no one would ever get over something like this. Watching your partner get beaten to death would be fucked up under regular circumstances, and is worse during the apocalypse because the circumstances themselves are generally worse. You’d still occasionally wake up from a nightmare at age 70, you’d have a casual flashback when staring at an old, derelict baseball court thirty years down the line, and so on.
And this trope of the dead wife/husband is different when the person experiencing the loss is a guy. Other media have been fuelled by men who lose their woman in some way, and go on whole self-righteous quests of vengeance, where the journey is less about the death of that person and the global loss of that individual or about that person themselves and the injustice of their death, and more about the protagonist and their short-sighted, self-righteous rage. The individual lost is a placeholder and a symbol. Less an individual. More of a idea, objectifying the human and shown to be what really it really represents in the eyes of the protagonist who experiences the loss. And entire movies about this, with this kind of self-righteous energy presented as being right exist. That’s the case of Memento for instance, or the Tarzan comic books, or any stories where the male protagonist loses either his wife or mother, and goes on a rampage because of it.
These stories are always portrayed as self-righteous, and nobody ever suggests these protagonists should quit their quest. Nobody tries to talk those protagonists out of their vengeance quests of rampage, because the soul of the author acts like it’s perfectly normal, because that’s how they feel and every feeling inside us finds itself justifiable. So the fans side with that automatically when they experience the story.
But the narrative surrounding Maggie doesn’t make sense, because her reaction is just a spontaneous and normal reaction to have. To be ever so slightly pissed at those kinds of awful circumstances that wouldn’t be acceptable to anyone under any circumstances is pretty much normal.
Therefore, it would have been perfectly normal if they (the writers) would have gone full on with a revenge plot, a vengeance and frontier justice arc (or rather real justice; what’s systemic justice in a lawless world) for Maggie. Maggie could have fully turned out to be murderous, and it would have made logical sense. And to be frank, it might have made watching The Walking Dead more entertaining. As it is, her will of wanting Negan dead gets sidelined when Rick elects to save him after his defeat. This potential Maggie vengeance arc could have maybe began in The Walking Dead proper, then wrapped up, or culminated, or both, in Dead City.
This choice would not be to make her stoop as low as just, regular short sighted male characters who make the death of their wife or mother all about them and their own self-centered arc. But generally because it makes sense to be upset, and vengeful, about that kind of loss.
In fact, if they wanted to redeem her in some way, by having a complete 180 degrees arc where she goes on a rampage, but wakes up from it because oopsie! I’ve turned out to be just like the bad guy that got me started on this path! Which is the revelation every single abuse victim comes to after stewing too long in the consequences of their pain, would have made a lot more sense.
It’d have been a much more real arc, because then they could have PROPERLY addressed the state of mind she’s in, that she was put in, and have her fully explore it before she was ready to leave it.
Because you need to fully be embraced by, fully experience a certain state before concluding that you want to leave it (or that you want to keep it and stay that way forever), in order to make any kind of step forward. You need to step inside what’s happening to you 100% to move forward in any way.
In short, if the writers wanted to have some kind of come back from the war path arc, they did it poorly, because the constant idea that Maggie is supposed to get over her ill feelings for Negan, is ridiculous, and suppresses the vengeance impulses, and therefore prevent her from going down that path in the first place. Thus, it doesn’t make sense how everyone expects her to get over Negan kill Glen, because she never actually gets to let out how upset she is about it, via the appropriate vengeance path to externalise it.
She should go full on and embrace the revenge. Precisely so she can effectively and properly come back from it.
She can’t come back from it if she doesn’t fully commits herself to that path.
So writing wise, fans complained that she seemed to be back to her vengeance way in Dead City. Logically, they complained that it undid the bit of understanding she and Negan had developed, when she claims she can’t forgive him, but acknowledges that he’s trying.
We can say the writers didn’t know what to do with Maggie. Or perhaps her and Negan have too much chemistry (I swear, at some point, I was wondering if they’d up together in some kind of weird way, talk about Stockholm syndrome). But the overarching issue is that she was never plunged into vengeance mode enough for it to be so thoroughly explored, that even writing confusion from the writers would have been naturally redirected towards making her come out of it at some point, because it would have been the next logical step.
This differs from Rick’s arc, for those who would like to argue about that, because Rick’s journey of manhood has absolutely nothing to do with getting lost down the war path. It’s precisely about striving for some kind of idealistic leadership role that lets him let out and embrace those qualities within him—which is precisely what the overall story of The Walking Dead is about manifesting, whether that’s the comics or its adaptation, and why so much of it focuses also on the relationship he has with his loved ones, and with women as well, and how he relates to them as a man, and what it says about who he is as a man.
Rick has no business getting lost down the vengeance path. So him forgiving Negan and telling him, “we’ll jail you as proof of our magnanimity” (summarising) fits. It’s in line with what his character is about.
However, not having read the comics that extensively—but besides, based mostly on what they did with Maggie, in the show, it would be acceptable for her to do this. To say “fuck it, we’re putting you down.” Whether that’s okay morally speaking, that’s another debate entirely. But given the direction of her character based on what’s previously done with it, I say alright, I green-light this. And the writers should have as well.
Fans have complained about this inconsistency. Some drink the koolaid painted by the narrative, and they abide by the expectation set forth by the show, so they complain about Maggie not having forgiven Negan yet: the whole “when will she?” Some think it’s poor writing because the show points at one direction, and then doesn’t go through with it. But most mainly act like it’s the character’s fault rather than authorial intent’s influence: “Why isn’t Maggie getting over what happened? When is she going to get over it?”
My brother watch your partner get beaten the fuck to death and get back to us on how fast you get over it.
Anyway, I rest my case. While it may be physically too late (her arc seems already concluded; would we get more seasons to do this?), the show should let her go down the revenge path for good, so she can come out of it, for good.
On a final note, I wouldn’t mind her ending up dating Negan, but good god that’d just be too weird for The Walking Dead. These two had way too much chemistry.
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