Negan and Carol have developed an interesting relationship lately. But how are these Walking Dead characters similar, and how are they different?
There are many stand-out characters in AMC’s The Walking Dead, but two that consistently make their mark are Carol Peletier and Negan. Played to perfection by Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Melissa McBride, the two cast members have genuinely proven their range when it comes to bringing these complex and fascinating characters to life in the midst of the zombie apocalypse.
Heroes and villains, Carol and Negan are very different people when it comes to the way that they choose to live their lives, but they are not exactly complete opposites. Their many commonalities prove that even in a dystopian world, there is a choice to be made when it comes to deciding what kind of person that they want to be.
Many characters in The Walking Dead have lost loved ones, but the loss of a spouse or a child is especially tragic. Both Carol and Negan have lost the people that they loved more than anyone in the world in traumatic ways that they had no control over when they both found their loved ones dead and turned.
Carol had to watch Sophia be put down with the horde in the barn, while Negan couldn't bear to do it directly, and set their home aflame, leaving zombie Lucille chained to the bed.
Carol was distraught over the initial loss of her daughter. She was vulnerable, anxious, and introverted at times, but she didn't let it turn her into the villain. She did not lash out and seek out brutality the way that Negan did after the loss of his wife.
Unwilling to watch more people die needlessly, Negan became cold and cruel. He embraced his anger and shook off the "weakness" he felt that he had, leading the Saviors and others around him by fear and threat of violence.
Negan is a master of manipulation. He knows when to turn on the charm and bravado to bolster the confidence of his group, and he knows when to prove that his bite is worse than his bark. Though the two characters use this skill in different ways, Negan and Carol's brand of intelligence is very similar.
Carol may have started out the series as a nervous housewife cowering at the whims of her abusive husband, but she has always been so much more than that. Clever and calculating, she easily works out plans in her mind and anticipates others' reactions before they happen.
Carol is a smart and capable woman. She can fight, she can hunt, and she can make the tough decisions when she has to, but she has never sought out positions of power. Even when she was "married" to Ezekiel and people playfully referred to her as a Queen, she wasn't comfortable with the title.
Negan, on the other, desperately wanted power and he did what he had in order to hold onto it. It is likely his need for control that drove him to create a cult of personality affixing himself as their leader.
Negan genuinely has a soft spot for children. He cried over Carl, he has made friends with Judith, he bonded with Milo, and he immediately rushed to Lydia's rescue when she was attacked by bullies. In "Here's Negan", Lucille laments that he loved working with kids as a teacher, and being fired sent him down a downward spiral.
Always a nurturer and a caretaker just as much as she is a warrior, Carol consistently takes on motherly roles whether she is doing her best to care for Lizzie and Mika, or she is raising Henry into a fine young man with Ezekiel.
Carol has made it clear that she kills when she has to kill. “If you care about people, there are people to protect. There are people who you will kill for. If you don’t want to kill or if you can’t, then you have to get away from them."
Negan says outright that doesn't kill when he doesn't feel that he has to, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't enjoy it. In fact, he seems to delight in killing during his time as leader of the Saviors.
It is natural to want revenge when one is wronged, and Carol and Negan have both felt the incessant heaviness of that need over their years of loss on the show. Negan ruthlessly goes after the bikers after Lucille's death and goes so far as to kill Glenn and Abraham with a horrifying glee after Rick's group attack the Saviors.
Driven by her own need for justice, Carol lets Negan out of the Alexandria jail cell and makes a deal with him to kill Alpha after the Whisperers murder Henry and others in their group.
Negan is a showman. He lives for attention. He likes to know that people waiting on bated breath for their next order, and he doesn't do well alone. He practically became a cult leader and had a difficult time when he was imprisoned in Alexandria. No one would likely love imprisonment, but Carol isn't like Negan when it comes to needing praise and attention.
She prefers to keep to small circles. She was friends with Rick and Maggie, and she has always been closest to Daryl. She could live alone if she needed to, while Negan had his chance to live alone at the Sanctuary, or in the cabin, but prefers to take his chances in groups.
Negan and Carol both know what it's like to be outsiders and viewed as murderers after being esteemed members of a group. Carol was banished from the prison by Rick after she killed Karen and David and burned their bodies to keep the rest of the group from getting sick. She has also chosen to live apart from groups, such as when she found the Kingdom.
Negan is currently going through that now while trying to find a way to comfortably assimilate into life in Alexandria. Carol's actions were very different from Negan's, but the feeling of being on the outside looking in is the same.
Negan may have earned his way out of the Alexandria jail cell by infiltrating the Whisperers, but he has a long way to go before he is a beloved member of the community. Carol is respected. People trust her as a protector and a friend.
Negan told Lucille that he is ready to do her fighting for her, and implied that he is ready to fully commit to the road to his redemption, but there is no telling how long that will take, or even if he will ever be able to get there after the sins of his past.
