‘Walking Dead’ Character Guide: The Camp

Back when ‘The Walking Dead’ started its two-and-a-half-month hiatus, I put together a Character Guide for the Grimes family. We talked about each character’s chances of survival, and how they might die. With the show starting up again on Sunday, I’d like to take a look at other members of the cast, starting with the rest of the camp.

Besides the Grimes family, the camp of people that have been palling around together through the first couple of seasons are a pretty eclectic bunch. Even though we’ve come to know these characters intimately since they’ve been around from the beginning, the truth is that any of them can become zombie chow at any moment. They’re not as crucial to the story as Rick and his family, which doesn’t bode well for their overall survival rates.

So, which character is the most likely to get chomped when the show returns? Let’s take a look:

Glenn

Character Introduction: Glenn is an all-around nice guy. In the first season, he rescued Rick from sure death as a horde of hundreds of zombies closed in around the tank that Rick concealed himself in. He’s done just about every dirty job imaginable and doesn’t complain. Truthfully, this is his weakness. He’ll do anything for anyone, and that may just end up being his demise.

Chances of Survival: 45%. While Glenn is the likable character that everyone gravitates towards, I don’t see him lasting long if he continues down this path of helping everyone all the time. He needs to start looking out for himself. I mean, he allowed himself to get lowered into a well with a hungry Walker at the bottom. Choices like that don’t usually bode well for life expectancy.

Likely Death Scenario: Glenn becomes Walker food one of two ways. Either he says “yes” one too many times and winds up getting bitten and then infected, or he’s caught in the middle of having sex with Maggie and gets chomped. Either way, I just don’t think Glenn survives much longer.

Dale

Character Introduction: He’s the friendly but quietly domineering grandpa figure. On the one hand, he’ll be your best buddy. On the other, he’ll constantly shove his unattainable ideals down your throat. He always believes that he’s doing the right thing, even when he’s actually getting in the way. He’s by far the most annoying character on the show. I’m just waiting for Carl, or someone, to yell “Shut up, old man! There’s zombies running around. We don’t have time to sit around the campfire singing Kumbaya and loving each other.”

Chances of Survival: 60%. Dale comes out a bit better when predicting whether he’ll survive the zombie apocalypse or not. Why? Because he sits on top of the Winnebago all day long, and only gets down to lecture people. If you stay out of zombie reach, you have a good chance of not becoming zombie dinner.

Likely Death Scenario: The group runs into a group of riotous zombies who’ve learned how to topple vehicles by banding together and shaking them like their team had just won the Superbowl. They line up, push the motor home over, and enjoy some well-aged man meat. (I know, I was laughing too when I wrote that phrase.)

Shane

Character Introduction: Shane doesn’t need much of an introduction. I like to refer to him as the guy who has it all right. I’m behind Shane 100%. He’s the only member of the group thinking remotely clearly. We’ve come to a point where it’s survival of the fittest. When everyone else is trying to build a lovey-dovey hippie commune, Shane realizes that there are monsters out there that want to eat them. Being nice and cordial should be the last thing on the list. Let’s arm ourselves to the teeth and go out with guns blazing. I like Shane’s train of thought.

Chances of Survival: 70%. The problem with television shows like this one is that they tend to carry heavy karmic weight. Do bad things and bad things will likely happen to you. While I think Shane has a good chance of surviving because he’s a perfect contrast to Rick’s overly optimistic attitude, I worry that the writers may try to appease the Shane haters by killing him off at some point.

Likely Death Scenario: There’s no question that Shane is riddled with guilt for boinking his best friend’s wife. He hides it well with his anger, but the guilt is there, boiling just underneath the skin. It’s very possible that Shane dies while trying to save Lori or Carl from a hungry horde, sacrificing himself in a fashion that would totally redeem his up-to-then angry behavior.

Andrea

Character Introduction: She’s the most mentally unstable of the bunch. She wanted to die at the end of the first season, but fell victim to Dale’s overreaching, and sometimes unwelcome, generosity. Now the thought of suicide is always in the back of her mind whether she wants to admit it or not. Seemingly to take her mind off of the crappy parts of her life, Andrea has shacked up with Shane, who’s also trying to forget.

Chances of Survival: 35%. The combination of man-eating zombies and an already suicidal mind pit two life-ending situations against Andrea. That doesn’t make for good odds.

Likely Death Scenario: Like Lori, I don’t think Andrea meets her demise by zombie. Rather, I think she finds a way to off herself with a last second decision. Whether it’s a gun, explosion or some other way of dying, I think that Andrea meets her maker by her own hand while Dale watches aghast.

Daryl

Character Introduction: The hillbilly of the group was just starting to get along with everyone until he started seeing his dead brother in hallucinations. Now he’s been shot by Andrea, and he was never able to find the missing girl. Daryl certainly isn’t having a great time as of right now.

Chances of Survival: 70%. Daryl has a good chance of living for a few reasons: He make us to want to see if we ever encounter his one-handed brother Merle along the way, and he’s great for some Sawyer-like comedic relief. He knows how to take care of himself and to survive even if he were to get lost in the woods for days. Plus, it seems that whenever zombies attack him, they go for his delicious-tasting boots first.

Likely Death Scenario: Couldn’t you just see Daryl running into a group of zombies and taking as many with him as he possibly can? That’s how I see Daryl going out. He’ll just come to a point where he doesn’t care anymore, get pissed and start blowing away as many Walkers as possible before they overwhelm him. That, or in the cruelest of coincidences, he meets up with a zombified Merle somewhere down the line and can’t bring himself to kill his brother. Merle walks closer and closer as Daryl starts crying, loses it, and allows his putrefied brother to start chomping away on his skull. Either death would be awesome.

T-Dog

Character Introduction: He’s been the character with the least amount to do in Season 2. Ever since he opened up a wound on his arm in the first episode, which should’ve been his demise right there, T-Dog has found himself walking around camp with a giant bandage and not doing much else.

Chances of Survival: 25%. T-Dog has a lot of things going against him. Mostly, if he’s such a klutz that he could cut himself that severely, then he doesn’t stand much of a chance when the Walkers start closing in around him.

Likely Death Scenario: While fixing his arm bandages, a few Walkers sneak up on him and dine on his entrails. One way or another, that wound on his arm will be his undoing.

8 comments

  1. Nice list. I feel like I have a cheat sheet having read the comic though. One of the characters listed above was killed in the first arc of the comic and I think his/her comic death scenario might happen at the end of this season.

    Daryl’s death by Merle almost has to be the way he goes out.

    • Aaron Peck
      Author

      Yeah. I really need to read the comics, but I just haven’t gotten around to it. Although, reading the comics would’ve definitely clouded my vision with these Character Guide posts.

    • I recently read the comics up through the point where the TV show last left off at the barn massacre. In other words, that puts me about 10 pages in from the start of the first issue. 🙂

      The comics are so different than the show in both plot and character that it’s difficult to make too many comparisons between them. Half the characters in the show don’t exist in the comic at all, and several from the comic have no representation on TV.

      • Lahrs

        It has been difficult not to spoil the show by talking about the comics. You are right, there are a few characters in the show (Daryl for example) that are not in the comic, and there are quite a few personality changes (Andrea being a big one, she is fairly bad ass in the comic), but for the most part the show has been fairly comparable.

        I did get a chuckle out of Aaron’s list, just because I have read the entire series so far and know who lives or dies, at least in the comic, the show could end up very different with their characters. Without the basis of the books, Aaron’s statistics are fairly accurate, though Carol is missing. I think she has a much better chance of offing herself than Andrea does, especially since Sophia is dead. The only thing she had going for her was that she was a mom, now what?

        I am actually starting to lose interest in Rick on the show because they have taken so much out of him, in the comic he is a mix of on-screen and Shane. Shane is supposed to be the “bad guy” because he is so cold hearted, but Rick repeatedly risks everyone’s life, isn’t that much worse? Rick is much more complex in the comic, and they did a huge disservice by removing the darker side of the character.

        I am glad they had him kill those two drifters after denying them the farm, at least it finally showed some survival instinct.

  2. I didn’t mention during the Grimes character guide, but I don’t believe that Carl is long for this world. Despite his longevity in the books, it’s just an inevitability that the actor will outgrow the role.

    It’s the same reason for Sophia’s missing arc this season and why Walt was kidnapped at the end of the first season of Lost.

    • In the comics, not much time passes issue to issue, sometimes a 3 week passage happens. All in all, 84 issues in (where i’m at), the outbreak is at 1.5 to 1.75 years. Carl changes his looks A LOT in that time, though. he is forced to grow up early, and in some drawings, it shows.

      Now, that won’t work in real life. The problem is, though, there will always be a child character, so as to keep hopes for the future, so on. To give the innocence lost angle. Carl will be a STRANGE evolution, and his aging will affect the show greatly.

      • While not much calendar time may pass in the comic, the plot points fly by at an absurd speed. Carl gets shot in the chest… No worries, he’s up and running again four panels later. Four panels!

        I won’t deny that the TV show draws things out too slowly, but the comic has the exact opposite problem. If the entirety of everything that has happened in the TV show were filmed at the same rate it takes place in the comics, the barn massacre would have happened in Episode 3 of the first season, and the show would have run out of comics to draw from well before the first season ended.

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