The Walking Dead's Pitiful Attempts at Moral Ambiguity

"Quiet, Rick. If we pretend we're a clever show, maybe they'll all believe it!"

Let's just get right to the point. The Walking Dead is not a clever show, as much as it tries to be. Although avenues from which to mock this show abound, I'd like to focus on just the one, for the purpose of this post: the incessant, trite attempts at moral ambiguity. To do this, all we really have to do is ask ourselves the same question, at pretty much every moral dilemma the show presents. That being... "are both sides really the same?" 

Well, the answer is always the same: NO. UNEQUIVOCALLY.

Look — I understand that the underpaid film students that must be doing all the recent writing for this show want to spread their wings and test the waters, but the end result has simply been a disaster. Specifically, I am talking about all these scenarios where the main group comes to a screeching halt whenever they're about to kill Saviors, often positing before themselves such contrived questions like "won't we become as bad as they are, if we do this?" "What will separate us from them?" "Will we be any different than them after this?" Hooooly shit. If you go outside and take a walk, come upon a stranger in the middle of strangling a cat, and decide to get involved by physically separating the two, what would you say to your friend who stops you before you take action, proclaiming "you won't be any different than they are if you do this!" 

Ahahahaha. Get the hell out.

Jesus has been the main culprit so far, in this season. "We can't kill them! They've surrendered! Their hands are up!" Why, though? Does raising one's hands erect a magical barrier? Does it instantly rewrite the script such that the doer is encompassed by plot armor? In one instance, the person Jesus spares from death almost immediately proves it's a ruse; in fact, this person goes as far as smashing the prenatal vitamins intended for Maggie — a woman he's never met, all the while Jesus is pointing a gun at him, as if to give Jesus more reason to shoot him. This Savior is simply so cartoonishly evil you wonder how he's managed to survive this long... and it's not because Jesus hasn't killed before. In fact, the opposite is true — we've seen Jesus kill a lot. 

Another prime example is Rick's discovery of baby Gracie. The confused look on Rick's face implies he's been unaware that... this entire time... the Saviors have been... human beings...! It's true! They are also people! Just like Rick and his group. But does that really mean they're both the same? Does basic physiologically exclude one from the host of human rights violations they've committed?

This show's implication that horrific murderers shouldn't be killed is stupid at best, and insulting to the intelligence of the audience at worst. What is The Walking Dead trying to convey to us? That merely lacking the means with which to carry out your crime, at this exact point in time, absolves you of whatever you've already demonstrated you intend to commit? Taken to its logical conclusion, how would these characters justify practically any part of our modern legal system (no less, the one in the world they all grew up in), in which the crime committed long predates the trial and eventual societal or legal punishment? Maybe this show is simply trying to tell us that Rick & friends are brutal underneath the warm facade, but even then, we've already seen this in prior seasons, without the pretentiousness and insufferable morally ambiguous nonsense. The show is so intent on driving this point home that it's become the basic plot underlying every sequence in the show; there's Rick and Morales, Rick and Gracie, Maggie and Gregory, and Jesus and the prisoners. All are the same plot, rehashed to fit the immediate circumstances surrounding the characters. 

To the cynic — this poster is not arguing that it's ethical to kill unarmed combatants. The distinction made here is that the Saviors have proven beyond all shadows of a doubt that they will stop at nothing to exact their goals, and that sparing them only gives them another chance to commit more atrocities later on. In fact, Jesus is downright irresponsible by deciding to bring the Saviors to the Hilltop, where there are women, children, and elderly people. Beyond this, it's also stupid, because these Saviors must be fed and given shelter, during extremely hard times in which these supplies are limited. While it's true not all Saviors may be individually bad people, it's by no means the fault of the main group that those people chose to become Saviors, and although the former may feel bad about killing the latter, it stands to reason it'd be worth the grief when the alternative is being brutally killed at the earliest opportunity. 

A final note: in the comics, Negan is humanized to a greater extent; and this is all the more reason for this argument to stand. In the show, all the moral ambiguity has been removed from the determination of whether it's ethical to kill Negan and his ilk. In the show, Negan is pure malevolence.