Negan might be the big villain in The Walking Dead Season 7, but he wasn’t always the bad guy.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan revealed another side to Negan during an interview with Entertainment Weekly. The Walking Dead Creator Robert Kirkman sent the actor 48 pages of Negan’s back story to help him get familiar with the character. Morgan explained the reason why Negan became so cynical was originally out of frustration with the stupid actions of other people.
“After the apocalypse hits and the zombies start taking over the world, you see Negan trying to help people,” Morgan told EW. “And no one listens to him, and they get killed, and so finally he gets to the point that he becomes a little bit of a dictator. Negan’s always a foul-mouthed son of a bitch, so he always is colorful with his language, but I think you see him kind of make a shift, because he starts off really trying to help people and save people, and when they don’t listen to him and they’re constantly getting killed, he becomes a little bit more brutal in his tactics, I guess.”
Think about the dumb decisions people have made that have gotten themselves killed For example, let’s look at Andrea from the show. Michonne was hyper aware of the evil in the world when we first met her. She found a sick Andrea and took care of her. When they stumbled across the Woodbury compound, she immediately knew something was wrong with The Governor. Andrea was naive and didn’t listen to Michonne. The Governor essentially gave Andrea a death sentence by leaving her tied up in a room with a dead person.
Andrea is just one example, but we get why Negan would turn into a bad guy. Negan didn’t have a child to think about or a wife to love after the apocalypse. All he had was the desire to survive. Of course, his lack of support doesn’t excuse his behavior. Michonne lost all her friends and family as well, but was able to come back to her senses. But then there were people like Shane, who took on a surrogate family that gave him a purpose to live. Unfortunately, Shane became bitter when Rick returned and he never came back from that.
What do you think about Morgan’s explanation of Negan? Let us know in the comments below. The Walking Dead Season 7 premieres Oct. 23 on AMC.
