About book Los Muertos Vivientes, Vol. 21: Guerra Sin Cuartel, Parte 2 (2014)
Oh man, the next trade will officially end my Walking Dead trade reading Marathon. Big things go down in this volume. I really do think this is the highest point of the series. There is a difference between having villains that are just despicable sociopaths, only around for doing something disturbing, and having villains with logical motivations. With the exception of Negan, the walking dead villains have fit into the first category. This book is all about the climactic battle between Negan's forces and Rick's. Who wins? Read the trade, and enjoy! Forgive me for delving into the territory of criticizing the actions of characters. I was watching American Horror Story and thinking how it's such a human thing, to critique the behavior of a character in a bizarre, desperate situation.Can I ask a question about that show? Or really, a question about any show or movie with a haunted house?HOW MUCH BAD SHIT HAS TO HAPPEN BEFORE YOU SAY FUCK IT AND MOVE!?I get it. A mortgage is a big expense, a grown-up responsibility. But when I start hallucinating, possibly murdering people, and seeing the devil, it's time for me to move. I don't give a shit what this does to my financial life. You want to call the police, have them come get me? Fine. I'll be in a studio apartment somewhere. It just drives me nuts. What financial consequence is applicable in the face of abject terror? Hell, people make worse money decisions just based on not thinking at all. Every Hummer you see on the road, that's a $30k decision, at least. So how hard is it, with legitimate reason, to just move the hell out?Okay, that aside, we're now at the end of All Out War Part 2. If you haven't read it, some spoiling will go down. Be aware.The book ends and Negan has been captured. Which is good. About half way through, I was ready to be done with Negan. Knowing what we know as readers, there was no way out of this for him.The thing is, the guy survives, and Rick INSISTS that they keep him alive, ending the book with a speech about how Negan will suffer when he sees how much he was holding the world back with his stupidity and selfishness.And this makes me crazy.Now, I recognize that there's a possibility that Rick is doing this because he sees this as the ultimate torture for Negan, which is obviously misguided, and if I wanted to believe that he was truly trying to torture Negan, I can't see much reason to not, I don't know, cut off his hands and feet?After all the crap that's happened to the characters in this book, after all the nonsense and times they've been betrayed, by people they trusted at first, how can they just leave him in a back room somewhere? I just don't understand how characters can go on, knowing they've captured this guy and that his one occupation is to escape and fuck shit up.Which is me telling fictional characters what to do. Which never works. If they don't go in the basement, then there's not story. BUT, I think the writing should give the character SOME reason to go in that basement. Because when the only argument in favor of going in the basement is "If they didn't, there wouldn't be a show" then the narrative is flawed. The characters are making decisions to prop the narrative, not because they are logical decisions for those characters.Anyway, this situation also brings me to an ethical argument that I seen often in comics and would like to address:"If we kill him, we're no better than he is."I kinda think, in the context of comics, this is a tired and false statement.Let's look at the very specific case here in the Walking Dead. You've got Rick, who can be a bit rough, but overall is doing his best and making the best possible decisions to keep the largest number of people alive and protect the people who don't protect themselves. Although his choices are sometimes wrong, sometimes violent, and sometimes questionable, he makes his decisions based on what he thinks is right for the majority of people, perhaps with some bias towards the personal safety of those he cares about most.Then you have Negan. Who seems to care about absolutely no one but himself. He uses violence to make sure that things continue the way he wants, and although he's managed to hold things together for a long time, it's purely as a result of the fear he instills in his followers. The proof of which style is effective comes in this volume. Although Rick's small army is beaten, they are only made more certain that they have to continue fighting. Negan's army, conversely, wins the first battles, but the moment they have the opportunity to turn on him, they take it.What makes Negan an interesting character is that he's unquestioningly a product of the environment, which is apocalyptic. He's very fatalistic, and although he says he doesn't prefer to use violence, he doesn't seem to have a problem doing so when he deems it necessary. He's a young guy who, at this point in the Walking Dead chronology, might have spent the majority of his life in a post-zombie world. He's very possibly the first of many like him. And, most relevant to the story, he's Carl's personal Ghost of Christmas Future, showing where a boy who lives through nothing but tragedy and hardship might find solace only in being harder than the world around him.Negan, unlike a lot of the characters we've seen before, seems to have little to no illusion about the good old days, about the world returning to normalcy. Which is probably his greatest strength. Rather than trying to change the chaos, he thrives within it.If the zombie thing never happened, what would Negan be like? Hard to say, although it seems likely that he'd be a high school dick who eventually mellows after a struggle in the post-school world where bullying doesn't gain a person much.That's my case for Negan, that he's a product of his environment. That his path was, to a certain extent, inevitable and out of his control.In our world, the real world, that makes things complicated. A murderer, a real bastard of one, might be on a path, and there is going to be some debate as to whether or not some intervention might change things. What can we do to make this right, and can we make him see the error of his ways?In the real world, that's a debate worth having. Within this comic, however, I don't think it is.The reason being, Rick cannot reasonably keep everyone else safe from Negan during the time required for that change in ideology to happen. More than that, he's not capable of creating any sort of treatment plan or course. Which is why I think, in this fictional, hypothetical case, it's okay to end his life. Not as an act of revenge, not because you want what he has, but because you can reasonably expect that in doing so, you will keep someone else safe.Let's look at Batman. This is where you see the argument a lot. I can't kill the Joker because then I'd be no better than him, and I took an oath.The counter argument is always, Okay, but the blood of everyone else he kills is on your hands.Batman seems to accept that argument as true, even though it's clearly not. If a lifeguard saves the life of a drowning child, and that child grows up to be a serial killer, is that blood on the lifeguard's hands? Obviously not as the lifeguard's lot is to save people regardless of who they are and the content of their current or future character. If a doctor saves the life of a shooting victim, even if he knows for a fact that this victim is a murderer, is he to blame for that person's future actions? Again, no. Because his job, as part of the system, is to save lives. And additionally, that one doctor can't take it upon himself. Who called the ambulance? Who loaded the killer in the back? Any of those people could have also prevented the killer's revival by not acting, so it's impossible to blame any one person. In order to avoid this sort of question, doctors take an oath to help anyone and everyone. It's their job to heal, someone else's job to seek justice or decide what should become of the person.So I can't agree with the sentiment that Batman is responsible for the continued murders committed by the Joker. Even if he can reasonably expect the murders to continue, we can't reasonably expect that a costumed vigilante, who operates by his own set of rules and morals 100% of the time, which is precisely why he's a costumed vigilante, will kill someone because it's what would be most convenient for everyone else and create what we've decided is the best protection against future crimes.But, that still doesn't answer the question, if Batman chose to kill the Joker, does that make him as bad.Again, I say No. While the mechanical action of killing is the same in both cases, it's the motive that makes them very, very different. And I think this is where the confusion lives. In some cases, the motive is subordinate to the action. Our neighbor used to mow part of our lawn, and he did it because he was a jerk who was really particular about his lawn. He couldn't stand the incongruity that resulted if we each did our own patch, so he did ours for us. Dick motive, but as far as I was concerned, fine. Or maybe someone creates an artificial heart valve that works perfectly, but he does so to make cash as opposed to improving lives. Hey, sounds like kind of an ass, but you know what? We still have an improved heart valve, so I'm cool with it.But there are other times when the motive overrides the action. If I bought flowers for my girlfriend because I wanted to be nice, that would be a good thing. If I bought flowers for my girlfriend because I'd cheated on her the night before and felt shitty, if I bought her flowers to relieve myself of some guilt, it doesn't really mean the same thing, does it? In this case, the motive is more important.The Joker's motive behind killing is to cause pain and chaos. Batman's motive, IF he killed the Joker, would be to stop this one specific man's spreading of pain and chaos. The motives could not be more opposite. Stop pain, cause pain.My opinion? If Batman doesn't want to kill the Joker, he should just say so. And he can explain it by saying, "Why? Because fuck you, that's why." Batman is nobody's hired killer. Hell, he doesn't get paid at all, which is great for him because it means his only master is himself. He can decide to do whatever the hell he wants, just so long as it doesn't go against his personal moral code, which is obviously quite different from the rest of us anyway.
Do You like book Los Muertos Vivientes, Vol. 21: Guerra Sin Cuartel, Parte 2 (2014)?
One of the weaker story arc conclusions to the series, but still a very good read.
—Dominoes101
