I kind of agree. I wouldn’t be in a major moral battle about what happens outside the walls or even within the walls unless things were noticeably pretty off and affected our lives a lot. Sad to say, but in the zombie apocalypse if I was warm, safe, and fed I’d be pretty happy. I agree about the soldiers, I think.
For those of you who say that survival trumps morality where do you stand on the attempted murder of Michonne? Maybe she wasn’t much of a threat but she might tell other people about Woodbury. Rick’s group is a threat too I suppose even if not so large a threat as the guardsman plus they might have supplies the town needs. Was it okay for Merle to take Glen and Maggie prisoner? How far can the Governor go to get information about the location of Rick’s group? Is it okay to beat it out of Glen or rape it out of Maggie?
I think the reason Merle killed the last guy (and I totally saw that coming) was because he didn’t want him to tell the Guv that he (Merle) didn’t actually kill Michonne.
I, too, was not to happy with the capture scene. It just seemed out of character. Glen can be a bit of wuss at times, but that was in the past. We’ve seen him act pretty bad ass when needed, and Maggie isn’t a shrinking violet, either.
Technically, with Merle, it would be 7 and a half armed men
Once Maggie figured out that Glen knew Merle, she was following his lead. And while Glen has advanced in badassery, shooting walkers is a lot different than shooting someone who is a (former) member of your team. I don’t remember if either G or M squeezed off a shot before diving for cover, but I really think that diving for cover is the more instinctive reaction if you aren’t an action-movie hero.
It seems to me that that outlook is a form of Prisoner’s dilemma. To rebuild society and preserve the precious handful of humans that are left requires voluntary cooperation. So if two groups encounter one another, it’s in both their best interests to cooperate peacefully. But since neither knows if the other plans to be peaceful or not, and a peaceful group would be overwhelmed by a group that turned out to be violent, the optimal path is instead to kill all threats. While logical, this strategy will prevent the return of human civilization, and with the birth rate surely near zero, threaten its very existence, at least the areas we’ve seen on the show.
I think the moral path would be to make your very best effort to add outsiders to your group, perhaps after a vetting process or trial membership. A group identity would be absolutely crucial, be it based on a set of rules, uniforms,* something* to bind people together. Then, as long as you didn’t add a new group large enough to subsume your group identity, I think you could either flourish, or at least die doing the right thing.
I agree with most of that, except i don’t think the course of action has to be the same in every instance. A large group of armed soldiers is a very very high risk to take, a couple of females is a smaller threat worth risking. Going after Michonne is a dick move, but killing the soldiers was the right call and Rick killing the prisoners would’ve been the right call also.
In the specific case of the 12 or so National Guardsmen massacred on the show, I have to disagree. I think a group of people that is: 1) already familiar with combat, 2) used to disclipine and heirarchy, and 3) stranded with nowhere else to go would be highly beneficial to Woodbury. They could take over watching the walls, for instance, freeing the civilians to work on the food supply and such. I wish we knew more about Woodbury, because it’s unclear if the average citizen is engaged in work of any kind.
It comes down to whether The Governor and his inner circle want the strongest, safest community possible, or the best community they can have *in which he’s the unquestioned ruler.***That’s the only way the Guard massacre makes sense: it was that choice made manifest. It was a tremendous risk by The Governor personally and his men, when the Guard had no idea that Woodbury existed, and no helicopter for aerial recon. The real threat the Guard represented was finding Woodbury one day, and the residents there wanting them to stay. They were a threat to his rule, not to Woodbury’s safety.
The Governor was extremely fortunate that the Guardsmen were unable to take cover and return fire, and that he himself wasn’t shot when he produced his pistol. So I don’t think the attack was self-defense, it was a robbery.
Going after Michonne seems a bit cartoonishly evil to me, and it was handled in a foolish way. We know they have suppressed AR-15s, after all, and they knew what street she’d be walking down.
Killing the prisoners is more of a gray area, because if you’re founding a new, stable society, adding people who have rejected the rules of the old society is a bad start. I’d have still tried to integrate them, though, using the trial membership. No firearms, adherence to a set code of conduct and a work schedule, etc. Those who can’t follow the rules are asked to leave, if they don’t, they are killed.
As near as I can tell they’re engaged in wandering around the streets like they’re in a perpetual small town 4th of July celebration.
Not sure that I really buy that going out and slaughtering people who have shown no actual sign of being a threat other than a theoretical one, who don’t even know you exist is the right thing to do.
But then, everybody ended up wandering around aimlessly for 6 months and still ended up within a half day’s walk of each other so who knows. The phone calls for a little bit had me imagining a Truman Show scenario where it is just this small part of Georgia that has been turned into some larger reality show entertainment for the outside world.
Or they could just kill all the males and go to town on the females. The problem with a group that large with that much firepower is that they can do whatever the hell they want and there isn’t jack shit the townspeople could do about it. Sure, it would be wonderful if they were nice and helpful and ready to dedicate themselves to the well being of all, but that is a risk i wouldn’t want to take.
And that’s how you end up in a cave shooting at U.S. soldiers 40 years after the war ended.
That was Human Action, not me. 
Whoops, sorry. Bad editing.
Michonne might find a group of well armed males and tell them about Woodbury. If it’s okay to take out one “threat” (a threat that was completely unaware of the existence of Woodbury) why wouldn’t the governor kill someone who not only knows the location of Woodbury but it’s layout, number of people and what kinds of weapons they have available. Why is murdering the national guard the right choice while going after Michonne a dick move?
Right, which is bizarre. I think survivors of a zombie apocalypse would be more motivated to stay alive than just milling about on Main Street while everything is provided for them.
I was hoping the calls were coming from a stable, moral group that would contrast with Woodbury. Pretty disappointed by the reveal that they were delusions.
Don’t you have to take those risks, though? Otherwise you could only coexist with people you feel able to dominate with force, and everyone else is a threat that must be destroyed. Doesn’t that limit human society to groups of a few dozen at most? I think in Year Two of the apocalypse, longer-term thinking is needed.
Because by that logic every one is a threat, there is a huge difference between one chick with a sword and a large heavily armed military unit. I’m not saying “kill everyone because they might be dangerous”, I’m saying “kill the ones that are obviously dangerous”. Going after Michonne was a personal vendetta, not a safety concern, the only way she becomes a serious threat is if she runs into another large group of heavily armed soldiers.
That’s interesting, because my take was the opposite. I saw attack on the Guard as just a blatant robbery; the first thing The Governor tells his men afterward is “Let’s see what Uncle Sam brought us.” The Guard was not a threat.
Michonne, on the other hand, could be called a threat. She is openly hostile to Woodbury, knows where it is and how it’s laid out & defended, and her only friend/possible lover stayed behind, and she is very capable and deadly. She’d be the one I’d worry about either finding a group to help her go get Andrea, or just terrorizing Woodbury with guerrilla warfare.
So I’d say the attack on the Guard was the dick move, the hit on Michonne was understandable, if poorly planned and executed.
I still don’t think going after the guardsman was a safety concern so much as a “they have what we want” concern. Which, if I recall, there were people in the other thread who argued that looting supplies from the guardsman was also a legitimate reason to murder them. I see where you’re coming from but it doesn’t make any sense to me. If the guardsman were a threat then Michonne is also a threat. Even if she isn’t as serious a threat she’s a problem that needs to be gotten rid of.
Is there perhaps some algebraic formula you use to determine threat level? How many armed people does it take before murdering them is the correct option? Does it matter if they’re soldiers or civilians? Men, women or children?
I guess it would be “more than you can easily handle without risking too many of your own people”, personally I’d be concerned with groups of more than 5-7 people. Obviously problematic groups like criminals and soldiers would be right out though.
The criminals I can see, but why are soldiers problematic? Is it just because of their force of arms? Or do you think they’d be more likely than not become marauding rapists? If so, is that just because power (their weapons and gear) corrupts?