Someone speculated that Negan doesn’t know, but I don’t buy it. In this world, everyone would have an extreme interest in figuring out the nature of zombie guts as a potential infectant, and everyone still alive by now would have spent enormous effort avoiding the risk. They didn’t, so we have to assume that they, like us, believe that the only zombie danger comes from a bite. And since we have Never seen anyone on this show die from a zombie in any way other than by being bitten, the characters have good reason to believe that zombie guts by themselves pose no particular risk.
Way back in season 1 or 2 it was established that Michonne removd the jaws of her ‘pets’, which rendered them completely harmless. If they were walking sacks of deadly infectious material, that wouldn’t have been the case.
No, I suspect that, as usual the writers came up with a ‘cool’ idea and are running with it, without bothering to think about whether or not it really makes sense. That, or they have enough contempt for their audience that they think we won’t notice the problems, or care if we do.
I’ll be happy to stsnd corrected if Negan’s big plan fails next week, and Rick says, ’ You idiot! Don’t you know you have to be bitten to die?" I’m not holding my breath.
I can believe normal infection. E-Coli and other bacteria must be everywhere. But as you point out, it didn’t kill Gabriel. It just strangely gave him sort of red tunnel vision. Ok.
But if you want a biological weapon, there’s an easy way to do that - just smear feces on your pointy weapons. Humans have been doing that for thousands of years. The Viet Cong used to smear their own feces on punji sticks, and stepping on one pretty much guaranteed a life-threatening infection unless you were treated soon.
The problem with doing that in battle, though, is that infections don’t take the enemy out of the battle immediately. It takes hours or days.
Also, people DO walk around covered in zombie guts. When would you say Daryl had his last bath? Or Rick?
However, I think Negan’s plan has one way in which it could work: If they rained arrows or even small darts down on the people at Hilltop and manage to infect even 10% in the way Gabriel was infected, he’ll force them to expend their effort caring for the wounded, and if he has antibiotics to negotiate with, he might be able to force a surrender without completely destroying everything we thought we knew about the zombie apocalypse,
There is always an infinite supply of redshirts. If they aren’t worried about us counting bullets in the guns with the endless magazines, they aren’t worried about us keeping a running count of people over the years.
Yep, if they want me to believe that, I am gonna be pissed. They’ve used the zombie guts on you since Rick and Glen did it in Atlanta, season 1. That ain’t gonna cut it. There is a tiny chance I might believe Negan doesn’t know all the facts, if it’s written cleverly. Eugene knows, that could be a way for him to go on the sly, and help our group. Somehow.
So just to thorough, I went back and watched the scene where Negan gutted Spencer (season 7, episode 8). Negan left before Spencer re-animated. And the only thing Negan said was “somebody better come clean this mess up” or something to that effect. But there wasn’t any “before he turns” type of dialogue.
So at least that scene doesn’t betray Negan having knowledge that everyone comes back. The Governor’s people knew it, and we saw that they knew it from the very beginning with them.
It could be kind of neat to watch the Saviors go down due to ignorance, but I think it would take far more sophisticated writing to pull it off than has been in evidence is several seasons, so I won’t hold my breath.
There was a scene last season where the Kingdom was feeding zombie flesh to pigs and then giving those pigs to the Saviors as food. Did that ever go anywhere plot-wise or was it just never brought up again?
Yep, I have wondered about the pigs too. When our group was at the prison and Rick was tending to the pigs, I recall they got sick and had to be destroyed. Is there a recurring pig theme? Or just a quirk?
Well pigs get used in a lot of medical testing do to some human/swine similarities. But geez, the pig scene at the prison was what season 3? And then the feeding walkers to pigs was early last season? If this bunch (the writers) has been working a long con for that amount of time, I’ll eat my hat.
It’s probably nothing. I like to pretend the new Dr. Dude will get a brilliant plan to test the pigs for immunity and fashion a crude vaccine and cure every one. Eugene can help him. Nice ending, right?