I don’t know if he was having a psychotic break, suffering from dementia or some other mental difficulties but it seemed clear that his grasp of reality was tenuous at best.
He was treated as a moral agent. Rick & Company attempted to reason with him instead of just killing him. As for your analysis over whether or not the hermit was insane, well, it’s interesting. But I doubt you or many other people could make that analysis while they have a shotgun pointed at their face.
This hasn’t really been conveyed on the show, at least in the sense that creating noise inevitably summons a herd. Or, at least, that’s not how I interpreted the season 2 herd-forming montage. I don’t read the comics, though.
I just re-rewatched the scene, and it seems like the back door was a known quantity. It’s directly behind the hermit, and after the hermit is stabbed, Rick instructs Oscar to “check the back”, and he strolls directly to the back door and opens it. But, this is pretty subjective territory.
It really seems as though, had they exited immediately out the back, they’d have been fine. When the walkers massed the front of the shack, none are depicted going round back, and when the group does exit, they encounter no walkers.
Agreed, as he should have been.
Moving on a bit, as we seem to have nailed down where people stand on the morality of what happened in the shack. I’ve said what I took away from the scene: that Rick’s gang is tribalistic in deed as well as word, and that Michonne will kill with no hesitation if she feels its justified. My question is, then, what did the rest of you take away from that scene? What did it mean to you, and/or what did the writers intend for it to convey?
Don’t forget casually taking his dick out & urinating in front of the bar. That was even more disturbing that his comments about the women.
Ha! You know it’s funny, I liked Dale in Season 1 and beginning of Season 2, but I quickly got tired of him when he started on his smug moral proselytizing. I have a feeling that if he was still alive I’d be yelling these things at him on the TV, instead of debating them here on the SDMB!
I don’t agree that right and wrong don’t change with the environment, but that’s beside the point. Surely you can see that right and wrong do change with the circumstances? Stealing a loaf of bread when your starving vs. stealing one for sport? Killing a man for fun vs. killing a man you caught sleeping with your wife vs. killing a man who is attacking you and your family? Right and wrong aren’t black and white, and living in a post-apocalyptic world being constantly chased by man-eating creatures can only increase the grey area.
Imagine if the gang followed your (and Dale’s) selfless, intransigent morality:
Rick meets gentlemen in bar, gives them the benefit of the doubt when they draw on him. Rick, Glenn, Herschel are shot dead. The rest of the group put in jeopardy.
Group lets Randall go (or keep Randall, who escapes). Group is overpowered by Randall’s crew. The men are killed, the women raped (and possibly killed).
Rick refuses to act against Shane that night in the field. Rick shot by Shane, who assumes control of the group. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb speculating that he would not have been as effective a leader as Rick.
Rick takes the kid-glove approach with Crazy-Eyes in the prison. Rick killed, possibly Daryl and T-Dogg as well, prisoners assume control of group.
That’s what I mean when I say that the rules of polite society just don’t cut it anymore. Following them would have resulted in Rick and others getting killed four times over, and the group likely being murdered, raped, or eaten by zombies in the aftermath.
That’s a beautiful thing to embroider on a throw pillow, but I don’t think it would serve you well in Rick’s world.
I agree with you there. Since the end of Season 1 we’ve seen the group evolve in many ways, but this season is marked by how cynical they’ve become. In Seasons 1 and 2 it seemed that there was at least some shred of hope of help or deliverance, and an unwillingness or at least hesitancy to let go of the way things used to be. Going to the CDC, trying to live on an idyllic farm that was clearly vulnerable to walkers. Now they’re thrilled to live in a prison because they recognize it’s functionality in this new world, and have given up hope of help from the outside - they’re planning on planting crops and thinking of ways to raise a little girl in this world. To me it looks like they’ve accepted this as the “new normal.”
You keep using the word “tribalism” like a dirty word, as if it’s inherently evil or bad. It’s the way human(oid) society worked for the first million years or so, so someone could argue that it’s the natural state of mankind. Is it so different from the society they left behind? Just replace “Rick’s group” and “the Governor’s group” with “Axis” and “Allies,” or “Irish” and “English,” “Israeli” and “Palestinian,” “Spartan” and “Trojan,” “Tamil” and “Sinhalese,” etc. Is there anything inherent about tribalism you don’t like, other than it tends to be more brutal for the average individual than our society?
Except that still would have gotten the hermit killed. The zombies were agitated, stirred up, and already starting to crack the boards over the front door and windows. They’d already caused the guy’s death by leading the herd there. It’s POSSIBLE he might have been hiding still under the blankets and it would have kept him safe from zombies, but I somehow think that hiding under covers won’t stop zombies from finding and eating you.
He was going to die either way. If he hadn’t been crazy or territorial or whatever he decided to be by yelling about the cops, he could have gone with them.
It’s been made clear that gunshots attract walkers but there’s no indication that it necessarily creates a herd. Towards the end of season 2 they just got unlucky and attracted a herd of walkers when Shane’s gun went off during his attempted murder of Rick.
Unfortunately they didn’t have time to check the exit to make sure the coast was clear until after the hermit was dead. If I had a bunch of walkers knocking on the front door I sure wouldn’t assume the back door was safe.
What I took away was the scene was that the group has not completely abandoned their humanity. They tried to avoid harming the hermit by reasoning with him. Even Michonne didn’t attack the hermit until he was clearly endangering everyone in the shack.
Well, that and waiting until she could kill him in the most cool-looking way the circumstances permit.
Dale was a flawed character, (hiding the guns was indefensible, and his intense interest in Andrea’s love life was a bit creepy), but I think the show benefited from a moral voice, a plea to not give in the urge to write off morality as “things are different now! The rules have changed!”
I suppose his being unceremoniously killed was a thematic statement that conventional morality died with him. Too bad. Now the moral arguements happen at SDMB and Hitfix.com instead of on the show.
Yes, right and wrong do change with the circumstances, but the circumstances presented do not make the group’s actions right.
Quick question before I pursue this area further: Is being killed the worst thing there is? If you answer ‘yes’, then that might be a fundamental difference in our way of thinking.
Agreed, but you can’t let go of everything from the “old normal.”
I will address this in two parts, the general and the specific.
In the general, yes, tribalism is inherently bad. It might be the natural state of mankind, and I’m sure it was useful in the ancient past, but it prevents the finest attributes of man from emerging, and prevents a peaceful, cooperative society. See: Africa. And it’s insidious, once it takes hold, it’s hard to go back.
In the specific, emergent tribalism is a massive barrier to the resumption of something like a Western society, with thousands of people cooperating peacefully for their mutual benefit. As I’ve noted before, with a massive drop in the birthrate, and a massive spike in the death rate, the human race itself is in jeopardy in TWD’s world. To reverse this decline requires much larger groups than Rick’s or The Governors, to carry out productive agriculture and establish permanent settlements proof against the zombie scourge, as well as efforts to reduce the zombie population. If everyone clusters into groups of 1-80, and is immediately hostile to and unable to cooperate with other groups, the human race might be gone within a few decades.
Maybe, maybe not. His shack was boarded up, and he did live in the middle of the Red Zone, so it may have weathered such attacks before. As zombies are just part of the natural enviornment, I don’t think it was wrong for Rick & co to flee from them into the seemingly-abandoned shack, thus I wouldn’t hold the group to be morally culpable if the hermit died due to the battering down of his door by the zombies.
Also, on re-rewatch, the shack had a Posted: No Trespassing sign out front, so that settles the issue right there. 
Right, I didn’t put much stock in the “The hermit was making noise and had to be silenced” arguement because the zombies already knew that humans were inside. Wouldn’t their banging away at the door and walls be all the commotion needed to bring more zombies, with or without more noise from inside the cabin? Or do I have my zombie behavior wrong?
I think they did have time to check, had they thought to. I know it was a stressful situation and all, but writing for fictional characters generally sacrifices some amount of realism for thematic purposes, and TWD is no exception.
Ok, I can see that interpretation. Anyone else?
It appears that’s what she’s on the show to do, kill things in cool-looking ways.
Moving on a bit, Pajiba.com ran this essay, “Make Sure Your Face Is Clean Now, Can’t Have No Dirty Dead: Race, Gender, and The Walking Dead.”
I think he makes a lot of good points, though the show does feature exceptions (Maggie, most of all) to some of his complaints. Thoughts?
Another thing, getting back to the Mr. Coleman experiment. Andrea flatly rejects the idea that any humanity remains in the walkers. It’s been noted that Morgan’s wife returned to her former shelter and tried to open the door every night. As well, in episode 210, "18 Miles Out’, Rick becomes trapped under some walkers, and tries to shoot one of them with his revolver. The walker appeared to recognize the revolver as a threat, and keep it pointing away from him.
Are there any other occurances in which a walker displayed human memory or reasoning skills?
Oh my God, did that poor man have to kill his own dog to keep it from barking and attracting walkers? :eek:
I’d have a psychotic break too.
Ok, this question has made me see just how far apart we are on the spectrum. Umm, yes, broadly speaking being killed is the worst thing there is. If you’re one of those people who believes that dying is preferable to acting in a way contrary to some lofty notion of a categorical imperative, I can say from experience (my Mom thinks the same way) that we will never see eye to eye on this.
Ok, I understand your strikes against it. It’s definitely not an ideal state to be in, tribalism is polarizing and makes people distrustful of others. I wonder how Herschel would react to Rick and Co coming to his farm now, as opposed to last year.
I have no doubt that in 100 years, Carl’s descendants will talk about how terrible the world was when they were just a small group trying to scratch out an existence, and how much better (and perhaps morally superior) their lives are now. But groups of 1-80 people are going to be tribal by default, it’s just the only way they can survive. Right now society is scrambling. Scrambling for ammo and equipment, scrambling for food, scrambling for gas, scrambling for baby formula, scrambling for reliable companions, scrambling to survive. In these circumstances, you need to watch your group’s back and have them watch yours. Once society is no longer scrambling, once you have time to get rid of the walkers, plant and harvest crops, figure out how to ride bikes so that you’re not always burning precious gas (Seriously, one guy on the writing staff likes tea and we’re subjected to lingering shots of Earl Grey every episode. There isn’t one cyclist on the writing staff?), and basically have a bunch of stable tribes, then you’ll start to seeing the tribes band together.
Tribalism is an behavioral trait that is an evolutionary advantage in a dangerous world with small pockets of humans living in a sparse overall population. It is a hindrance in a globally interconnected human society with a high population. I agree that tribalism is something that we in the real world need to get over and put behind us. However, I don’t agree that it is inherently bad in the situation presented on the show.
This reminded me of the last episode of MAS*H. “It wasn’t a chicken… It was a baby!!!”:eek:
In the first episode of season one, a little girl zombie picked up a doll or stuffed toy off the ground.
How much time elapsed between discovering the hermit and killing him? At what point could Daryl, Rick (who had a shotgun in his face) or Michonne taken the time to go and check the back door? No, I can’t fault them for not checking the backdoor while worrying about the hermit.
I didn’t think of that, you might be right. Baby Judith might put the prisoner gang in a similar, MAS*H-esque dilemma.
Ok then, that’s settled. We’ll have to see how our respective views influence discussion of future events on the show.
Probably with a barrage of gunfire.
Agreed, tribalism made sense for ancient man. However, I would argue that the zombie plague is a unique and unprecedented threat, which requires the active rejection of tribalism, in favor of cooperation, to overcome.
Here’s a list of TWD characters who’ve died at the hands of walkers:
Ed
Amy
Jim (commited suicide after being bitten)
Dale (mercy-killed after being bitten)
T-Dog
Jimmy
Patricia
Sophia
Big Tiny (killed by Tomas after being bitten)
Here’s the ones who’ve died at the hands of another human:
Andrew
Tomas
Shane
Randall
Dave (skinny guy in bar, Michael Raymond-James)
Tony (fat guy in bar)
Otis (zombies were proximate cause, but Shane was the ultimate cause. Debatable)
Sean (member of Randall’s gang, killed in shootout)
8 or so National Guardsmen
3 of Merle’s hunting party
The hermit (again, proximate vs. ultimate cause)
I left out Lori, Dr. Jenner and Jacqui (suicides), and anyone I forgot.
Point is, the humans are doing a better job killing humans than the zombies are. You could argue that such violence is unavoidable, but I think it can be mitigated if people were to take the view that each remaining human life was a precious, finite resource. Otherwise, between the zombies and human violence, the whole species is in serious danger of extinction.
I know the show needs human conflict, because zombies aren’t an interesting enough antagonist on their own. I just wish the idea that killing a human was the worst thing you could do had a voice on the show.
That’s right, thank you. I really hope they keep that idea going, it makes the zombies much more interesting. Maybe a little tool use here and there, that sort of thing.
I’d have to re-re-rewatch it and time the scene. However, it could have gone down like this:
Hermit: Get out of my house!
Rick: Ok, let me check the back door or windows. Looks clear, we’re leaving. Want to come with us? Those zombies look really determined to get in here.
Instead of:
Hermit: Get out of my house!
Rick: We will, we just can’t right now.
Zombies only show up when it’s convenient for the plot, so to me it seemed like a contrived scene to show us, and Ricks team, that Michonne will kill a living person. A lot of people will kill zombies all day long but won’t kill living people and the group is getting ready to battle living people. I thought the whole scene was simply to show that Rick can send her to take out a sentry or other living person and he won’t have to send Daryl with her. Michonne is on the A team and now we can expect to see her be as much in the upcoming battle because the writers chucked in this wierd scene to set it up.
Yes, that’s the whole point.
The shack was boarded up in the middle of the red zone, but clearly had not attracted zombie attention thus far, or they would still be banging on the windows. There are probably still zombies banging on the windows at the farm. It’s not like zombies get bored.
Once the zombies were attracted to the shack, they were going to continue banging on it until they got in. At that point, if there was nothing to eat, they would probably continue on through it and continue to flock in the direction they’re pointing, picking up more and more stray zombies as they snowball along.
The problem with the hermit is that the zombies were all coming from one direction - the front door - attracted by the humans they’d chased in there. Another group could be pulled up to the back door by the screaming, and then everyone would be completely cooked.
And yes, I believe that if they stayed there long enough, zombies would have been attracted to all sides - the point was to GTFO as soon as they could through the back door while it was clean, not sit there having a hostage negotiation with Old Man Smellydog.
We had seen her kill a couple of Merle’s goon squad, but that was a very different circumstance. Rick has now seen her fight zombies and kill a man, so I suppose that does put her on the A team of lethal effectiveness, along with Daryl, Rick, and Oscar. They need more manpower to farm the prison, time to start recruiting!
They didn’t act as if the plan was to GTFO as soon as they could. They took their sweet time exploring the cabin, and pulling the blanket off the bed, when they could have already checked the back door and been gone. Remember, they hermit didn’t confront them, they confronted the hermit. It looked to me more that the plan was to hole up in the cabin for awhile.
It seems like it would be a really good idea to find ways to distract zombies in that kind of situation: firecrackers, RC cars, a flare gun, a rabbit…surely something would make them shamble off in the other direction. Of course, these people can’t be bothered to protect their skin from bites.