Redemption is subjective, and former villains often face the lasting shadow of their past actions. People will always remember their previous cruelties, and it’s understandable why they do so. A history of wrongdoing leaves a deep impression, one that’s not easily erased. This makes it difficult for society to fully accept any transformation, no matter how genuine it may seem. While I personally believe Negan has redeemed himself, I respect those who remain skeptical. Their caution is warranted given the gravity of his past misdeeds, and it really showcases how challenging the path to redemption can be.
@@1dorgodsportsandmusica Chad could be colloquially understood as a man who portrays the epitome of masculinity and or can also be a understood as someone who stands his ground when he knows he’s correct rather than giving into what the crowd says to do. For example for most of the waking dead Rick grimes behaves like a Chad in that he tried his best to do the right thing even against insurmountable odds and decent from his fellow survivors.
Negan is very interesting how he was dealt with in the show vs the comics. In the show: He is complicated but he’s trying to atone for his past sins against the communities. In the comics: Negan also assists against the Whisperers but is eventually exiled and Maggie finds him but chooses to let him live with his guilt. We never see Negan again until the final issue where we see the shadow of a man kneeling of a makeshift grave. Unable to redeem himself in the eyes of those he wronged and trying to find some semblance of peace in the new world. Personally, I think both are fine for their respective mediums.
@@blackrose8418 Yeah. Comic Negan as the villain was the best. JDM was funny, but honestly I felt like I could have a drink with him still. In the comic, the man was brutal.
Maggie: *gives a logical explanation to why she won't forgive Negan* Negan: "wE dOn'T hUrT KiDs!" Also Negan: *tries to k*ll Carl* 🤔 Negan: "wE diDnT k*ll pEoPLe wHo DidN't dEsErVe iT!" Also Negan: *literally k*lls Olivia and his only doctor* 🤔 Fans: "i HaTe MaGGie sHe'S sUcH a HyPoCriTe 🥴"
@@djkin5501Okay but he ordered Arat to murder someone. If it wasn't Olivia it woulda been a stronger member of the group, which was what Negan was implying. Which woulda been way worse. Negan either goes for the strongest ones in order to show the group that their strongest is dead/broken, or he goes for innocents, whose deaths will break the others as he displays repeatedly as his main tactic.
My problem is that Negan wasn't the TYPE of character who would have sought redemption. It wasn't his ACTIONS that made him so evil, it was his SADISM, his outright joy in inflicting pain and terror that made him evil. And that sadism was waved away when the show creators decided they wanted Negan as a main character. He talked about his past deeds as if they were utilitarian and misguided but never once talked about how he enjoyed them. When he talked to Maggie never once was the CONTEXT of Glen's murder addressed, the glee and mockery he took in it and in tormenting the others. While I did like the character Negan and some of the stories that came out of his redemption arc, I found it unbelievable.
I agree completely - it’s not just that he killed Glenn, it’s HOW he did it and how he clearly felt while doing it. He can say it was all a show to maintain power and therefore order, but I don’t buy it.
Killing negan right before completing his redemption arc would have been the best way to end his story. Some things are unforgivable and don’t deserve redemption.
I agree with this even though Negan is my favorite character. However, I think the writers felt the need to keep Negan alive for the reasons that he said in the video
100% agree. Only reason I attempted to finish twd was to see if they'd deliver justice against Negan. Once I saw that not only were they not gonna do that, but they were making Maggie and him work together, I was like nope. This is some kind of perverted fantasy where a man kills the pretty girl's husband and takes her for his own and I won't have my nuts clipped by watching it. I held out a long time. I think I was in the final few episodes. Not worth it. There is a clear path toward justice in this case, and the show instead is putting Maggie through some humiliation ritual and even giving them their own show. They have no respect for the gravity of what they did when they killed Glenn.
Even understanding he is irredeemable, he has a unique perspective about how peoples actions changed during the apocalypse and how even knowing what he did, he has capacity to change his feelings and actions for the better
Yes, he was willing to die at the hands of Herschel. With no resistance whatsoever. And he explained to Maggie. He understands now. After he went through something similar so. He will probably act as an undercover agent. And Maggie will explain that to Rick, in time I hope.
I would never say Negan is redeemed. First of all, all his actions are irredeemable. Rape, exploitation, enslavement, torture, murder, these are not acts that set one up for redemption. Not to mention his petty evil actions, like taking all the mattresses from Alexandria just to burn them and everything he does to specifically break Rick. The only reason he didn't have the Saviors steal Alexandria's food is that the community was already at starvation rations and he didn't want the people he was now enslaving to go into a famine because they wouldn't have the energy to serve him. There's also Negan's motivation behind his changed behavior. It wasn't out of a true realization of how horrible he was and his desire to change. He, like a lot of people in the real world, just wanted to stop being public enemy number one and having his past atrocities continually held against him. Judith even points this out to him. Sure he could have killed The Family, Ezekiel, Enid, and everybody, but then he'd be alone and have to rebuild. We saw how he couldn't handle being alone. Also, it took him being on his knees about to witness Annie and her son be killed to understand what he put Maggie, Rick, et. al through with the lineup and him about to murder Carl if it weren't for a very well-timed tiger attack. I would say a redeemed person wouldn't need to actively live through the same terror to have this epiphany.
Ima say no. The choices we make aren’t redeemable we can’t take back what we’ve done and the loss he’s inflicted on many others not just Maggie and the main group proves that
@@crusader2112the ricktatorship was barely a dictatorship, rick stepped up, he kept them alive throughout the entire winter with a pregnant wife, the situation was extreme and he never abused anyone, negan was more than just a dictator, he was a manipulative murdering psychopath.
Redemption is a journey....some acts take longer than others...some act take a lifetime. Negan is in a redemption arc...and Maggie is the polar opposite by denying that she too has blood on her hands as well as in large part....the cause of her own losses.
@@silentj624 Plus Maggie to make the deal to kill Negan for food and supplies...the deal that led to Glenn killing Negan's men in their sleep...that led to Negan's retaliation...that led to Abe's death as well as Glenn's. TBF Negan would have found them eventually after Jesus introduced them to Greg
This hits the worst in dead city. Seeing him be s7 negan, but watching him do it to terrify our enemies left me so uneasy. I was so grateful for him, and it made me sick.
I thought it was pretty silly Maggie never killed him at any point after Glen’s death. Didn’t make sense for Maggie to put up with it. It’s unforgivable what he did, she should’ve executed him and she would be forgiven given what happened to Glen. His redemption is depicted as genuine, but if this wasn’t the amazing Jeffrey Dean Morgan he would need to be killed off. I couldn’t forgive his character so it made little sense how everyone was putting up with him. He’s killed and messed with countless lives.
Negan is redeemed, specially after having a wife and a child... but, he's still a huge hypocrite who acts like he and Rick were the same, like their groups did the same things to survive, when it was the complete opposite.
@@dwnkaomwn3953 Rick's group killed over 100 of Negan's people in their sleep, the saviours killed much less people in Rick's group while they were awake.
Not worse, but what they did, they did to survive, not for fun. Rick never forced women to marry him otherwise he'd kill their husbands, Rick never burned people's faces with an iron to make them "learn", Rick never made anyone kneel for him, Rick never mocked anyone while killing them, Rick never tortured people for fun, Rick never enslaved sick people, Rick never "punished" people because they were stealing medicine, etc... The whole idea of Rick being better than Negan is not simply what the writers "wants us to believe" , it's a fact. They actually want fans to believe Negan is somehow equivalent to Rick, he isn't, and will never be!
@@micahbell5572 Rick and company did what needed doing to keep their community and people fed/safe. Negan would've done the same to them if the situation was in reverse. Plus, Captain Gold mentioned in one of his other videos that what Rick and company did wasn't necessarily wrong anyway. Minus the workers, the Saviors weren't good people.
On paper, Negan is a redeemable character, but realistically he is irredeemable. What he has done in his past is absolutely unforgivable, so I firmly believe he should’ve been left behind or left for dead. Not that he should’ve died just they should’ve let him go. Yes, he’s been in prison for years & after the imprisonment, he should’ve been let go into the wild like an animal. Take it from someone who literally SIMPS over Negan, my guys.
He MIGHT be a "good" guy now buuutttt this was a guy who RULED by putting hot irons against people's faces then taking their wives as his own. Sure nooooow he's different but WHAT IF Rick Grimes hadn't come along and MADE HIM change his ways? What would STILL be going on?, would he have "changed" at all?
the ONLY thing I hated about Negans redemption arc was them trying to make him relatable by making him a hardcore gamer.... look guys hes just like us!! so cringe.
@@blackrose8418 I think it he means that trying to make Negan "cool with the kids" by making him a gamer is cringe. Like how some adults try to show themselves to be "cool with the kids."
@crusader2112 that's fine and dandy but I think when it showed us that he was gaming it the show telling us that back then he was a jobless loser. Getting fired, not finding a job, gaming and cheating. So I don't see how it was trying to make him cool at that point
@@blackrose8418 I'm just explaining what wruxiz6104 was saying. As for me, I have no opinion on the Negan flashbacks. I think it was as well as it could be.
@@blackrose8418 that other person got my point half right. Im not saying they were trying to make him cool with the kids, its like. Ok so a lot of people like Negan the same way they like a character like say Killua from HxH the kind of edgy cool anti-hero and the show making him this hardcore gamer in the flashbacks know exactly who they were trying to appeal to. They wanted those people who wanna be the edgy anti-hero to be able to relate or put themselves in his shoes even more and I think that pandering is extremely cringe and artificial. I think they could have done just well by making him a bit of a jobless loser or something who leeches off and is ungrateful towards his wife and then have him come around and be redeemed thats fine.
After the death of Carl and the known exit of Andrew Lincoln and with him the departure of Rick Grimes they had no choice but to try to redeem Neegan. They had only three characters that the audience knew anything about and cared for and those were Maggie, Daryl, and Carol. All of these three were strong side characters but not able to carry the show. They needed to build up other good characters for the audience to love but every single time the audience got to love a character they killed them off! So now they were stuck with Neegan! Everyone despises him (because he was played so extraordinarily well by his actor.) Maggie and her son being a constant reminder of how he destroyed Glen in such a terrible way. Then there’s all the terrible things he’d done including debasing Daryl and even harming his own previous followers! He was always going to be a hard sell and extremely unpopular character that the audience wasn’t going to be willing to give a chance to! That’s why the show pretty much died when Carl did!
His antisocial personality disorder is what makes him such a @#$%&. But every bad blood individual eventually sees the light. In Negans case he gets to experience pure solitude later on simply og his weak ways. That's a Boomers take.
imo they wouldve needed to adress how negan had multiple "wives",but thats just a fancier way of saying sex slaves,and the show never adressed this either,so,until they do,negan will never be redeemed for me,they simply tweaked his personality a bit and thats it,as the good deeds dont begin to atone for the shit hes done
He seems to have gone legit and JDM has a magnetic energy in the role of Negan though I have to say I feel reforming an antagonist would have been better suited for Shane as he had a decent amount of history with the majority of the main group during his stay on the show and had been in good standing with them for a time as the groups de facto leader. It seems as though they played around with the idea in the conclusion of 18 miles out but ultimately went the route of killing him off to complete Ricks arc of the season and likely due to Jon Bernthal opting to be written out with the departure of Frank Darabont from the series.
Yeah he definitely has been redeemed IMO. SHOULD he be redeemed?? Nope! His rules and army of saviors were never going to work. Hell, the CLAIMERS had a more simple system IMO!!
I’m in a rather interesting position in a discussion like this. I never really watched the early seasons of the walking dead. By now I’m familiar with a lot of the events of the early seasons but I really never saw the show until I watched it one night at a friends house and it was the season 7 premiere. I only bring that up to highlight I never had some attachment to Glenn or Abraham. That said it was certainly brutal what Negan did there but makes some sense in the larger context. I myself do think he has been redeemed for the most part but I do understand why Maggie can’t get past it. It would be pretty great if she could though because as Negan points out in Dead City they do make a hell of a team. I’m not saying they should become a romantic pairing or anything as I’ve seen a few people suggest in the past but if they establish some level of friendship that would be really cool I think
I think the only thing this video doesn't account for is the fact that sometimes redemption just isn't a possibility, but if we're saying it's always possible then I'd agree with this take for the most part
THEY HAVE ALL KILLED AND DONE SOME SERIOUS SHIT BUT ONLY NEGAN HAS TRIED TO REDEEM, NEGAN saved blind Aaron, saved Judith & dog in the blizzard, saved Lydia from the lynching, saved Daryl from the whisperers, Killed Alpha & helped take down Beta, helped Aldan from the Reapers, Saved Hershel Jr. (multiple times)
Honestly I consider pretty much everyone in the walking dead horrible people with some of them being nicer than others. Everyone’s more focused on killing each other than the walkers themselves
I feel like the story would've been better if they spread the timeline of season 7 over a month long frame. The whole season got squished into less than a week.
I think hes in the process of being redeemed for his actions but it always takes a multitude of good to overcast a little bad, Negan has done so much bad he'd probably die trying to be redeemed by human standards.
He's redeeming himself, sure. But I still say Rick should have killed him or let Maggie kill him for what he did to Abraham and Glenn. The only reason I would not kill him would be in consideration of why he did it. They killed a lot of his people. Still...I'd have sided with Maggie moat likely.
Ngl Comic Negan and Show Negan are two very different characters I feel. Show Negan, to me, wants redemption. He wants to be able to care for his family and do better by them, For Carl and Lucille. Comic Negan I feel doesn’t try to seek redemption. He’s more jsut looking for a way out and Rick was looking for “plausible deniability” or simple fighting monsters with monsters. After this Event, Negan proceeded to screw off in his Cabin, presumably till he dies.
I don't know. I often get to the point where I think the other characters should cut him some slack, but when I rewatched Season 7, my feelings went back to thinking he is unforgivable. HOWEVER, I don't think he should have been constantly humiliated and punished for the sake of cruelty. Solitary confinement is recognized as torture, fwiw. I understand that vengeance is practically a universal human trait, but if he had already served his actual punishment, it's just cruel to constantly mock him and exclude him from anything within his eyesight and earshot. I'm thinking of Dead City in particular, with all of the petty things Maggie did to exclude him *while* enlisting his help, because he "owes" her an eternal debt for killing Glenn in such a horrific way. While I understand her perspective and actions, I can also understand and empathize with the fact that nobody likes to feel that they're eternally "on call" for any favor that someone asks of them, and that they have to always say yes because of "what they did". From Negan's perspective, he served his punishment. Rock made the decision to spare his life and imprison him instead, much to some people's chagrin, Maggie being the main one. However, just like in our real societies, criminals who have served their punishments are still reviled and mistreated by society after they reenter the world. Most people consider it fine to be cruel to these people and see it as an unofficial continuation of their punishment. They may be physically "free", but that's not going to stop other people from being judgmental and acting accordingly.
I don't think Negan was ever fully redeemed, he got a partial redemption and I think that works fine for his character. I would have liked to see him sit down with everyone he affected though, not just Maggie. Everyone's hatred is justified but it would be nice to see him apologize to Ezekiel and Aaron. As a side note I would have preferred someone like Aaron let Negan out of the cage initially to stop Alpha, since it would have been more personal with that action than Carol, who yeah, lost Glenn and Abraham but it just felt random to have her be the one do do it imo.
I stopped watching The Walking Dead at some point in the middle of season 7 but I've since gone back to revisit the show. Picking things up where I left off, I'm halfway into season 9. While I like Negan as an antagonist, I personally feel he is irredeemable. Now that I know that's the direction they went with him, I'm not sure how I'm going to react to that development as I really wanted to see him get what was coming to him.
@@NeonKittyDream Depending on your interpretation of redemption. In the video I gave a clear interpretation of it -> being the act of a person changing for the better. Which Negan has. If your interpretation is more in line with the repaying of a moral debt, then it would certainly be more relevant. That’s not my interpretation. That said, I spent some time denouncing Negan’s sexual coercion in my initial Negan video. I even prefaced the video by stating I covered Negan’s Savior days in a previous video. So it’s kinda crazy not to pay attention to the first few sentences lol I have covered the very thing you said I haven’t.
@TheRealCaptainGold lol yeah I saw the vid. You mentioned his other wrongs in this one though. So clearly, you thought those were relevant. I'm saying that the sexual assault was also relevant.
@@NeonKittyDream I just didn’t want to be redundant. If I mentioned all his wrongs, the video would be longer than the first lol I think they’re all relevant.
7:40 Tbf, if she was there all alone, how else would she get out of the situation? Not implying negan thought like that in the moment, or some chit like "he helped her see her true strength" etc, but he didnt even try and end her on the spot like he could have. And yeah, ofc hes redeemed himself.
Gave up when the show stopped being entertaining. Season 6 was the last I could stomach. Not the deaths, the direction, the writing, the story in general just went mehhh.
No i dont think he's redeemable, but i love Negan as a villain. KNOCK KNOCK! I SAID, KNOCK KNOCK? WHO'S THERE? BUTTER! BUTTER WHO? WELL, YOU BUTTER GET OUT YOUR UMBRELLAS CAUSE ITS ABOUT TO GODDAMN RAIN 🩸
My personal take on this is quite simple: Redemption ≠ forgiveness. IMO, all you should really strive to do for redemption is 2 check markers. A) you beed to be a changed person. You have to be different, and no longer commiting negative acts. B) you need to have helped people, and done more good, protecting and saving more than you’ve hurt and killed. I believe negan has done both of these, and as a result has more than earned his redemption. HOWEVER, again, redemption does not mean he will be forgiven. I think that is where a lot of viewers go wrong. Because many viewers, like maggie, refuse to forgive negan (rightfully so), they do not believe he can atone. But he has atoned.
Honestly, Negan is more than redeemed. He basically served a 7-year sentence in solitude eating whatever shit food they gave him, did everything in his power to help the group, saved many of them from death, etc. Only reason people will say he isn't redeemed are the ones that glaze the shit out of Glenn. If it was just Abraham that died, many of the Glenn glazers would say "oh yeah he's definitely redeemed." Only because Abraham wasn't in the group that long. Glenn was a fan favorite among everybody without a doubt, everyone loved him. But hey, shit happens, people die. Keep in mind, Rick made the decision to go in and assassinate an entire stronghold of people Negan had (WHILE THEY WERE ASLEEP), we only see them as "NPCs" because we've only seen the story from Rick's group. They all knew each other, they had friends, families, etc. Everyone is a hero in their own story. If you're still going to glaze Glenn, you should at least know that his favorite restaurant was Popeyes.
The Governor, Negan, Gareth, and Alpha were evil to Rick and the group but everything they did was mainly for the survival of their groups in that universe. Everyone outside your group is probably an enemy in that world.
LMAO the governor and alpha? The governor literally killed his own group, and alpha repeatedly killed whisperers or told beta to kill whisperers. Neither has a right to claim anything was for the survival of their groups.
@rainbow_doglover8301 the only saviours I remember negan killing are David who tried to grape sasha, the doctor who he thought let daryl escape and Simon whom literally betrayed him. Point is he had good reasons for killing all of them, but the governor killed all his people because they retreated from an unwinnable battle and alpha killed people because they disagreed with her and on one occasion she killed someone because he saw her cry.
Is negan can't be forgiven, then people in the chat, what if you were never forgiven for any wrong you've done? Obviously most of you haven't beat someone with a bat lol, but whatever it is inside your head that you knew you did, you know you did it. Are you beyond redemption as well?
The main contention people have with my conclusion is that their interpretation of redemption is more like repaying debt than reforming one’s moral fiber. In their eyes, they view Negan’s wrong to be so substantial that he could never repay the debt. That’s not how I view redemption, but I’m not going to fault people for using that definition. But telling people to look in the mirror won’t suffice as most people don’t have a debt that large.
Negan did nothing wrong he was just looking out for his people he didn't need to be redeemed. Maggie is literally worse in every way, and the show and people view her as good even when negan killed Abe one of the best characters I still loved him from start because he was in the right he is 100% redeemed no question people who don't think he's redeemed are just Glenn fanboys
The dedicated haters will argue it's simply badly written, that it made no sense to showcase redeemable qualities later on, but ignore that we didnt know his true intentions from the very beginning, we first only knew how he affected beloved protagonists.
Such a meat rider for Negan, the Saviours intentions were clear from the get go as were Negans. Rob and kill them, torture, kidnap, branding, forced relationships, community submission, break the leader, and be a maniac to his own people enough to scare them into submission too. Negans intentions were dead clear and he made them dead clear later on in his redemption arc. If he could repeat it, he woulda killed them all. I love Negan and JDM as characters, Negan is thrilling on screen and steals the show, doesn't make anyone a dedicated hater if they're not screaming "We hate Maggie cause she doesn't forgive him 😡💢" like 90% of the fanbase does.
@@Shannon-vv6rr first of all, I wanted to see him suffer a painful death in the beginning because of how vile his entrance was. But emotions aside, we can't mistake intent and actions. And the video explained how he doesn't need a perfect redemption, and it's very human that he still makes vile justifications to cope with the terrible things he's done. If you want, you can make the case that the redemption (to whatever degree you believe it exists) is badly written, but it can't be because of your character analysis from the start. The layers of moral dilemmas and how people go down a dark path for survival is what the show is largely about, e.g. how Morgan wanted to "clear" everybody, because of how much he attributed his survival to it. But you wouldn't question his redemption because he wasn't introduced as a psycho killing Glenn and Abe.
