What The Walking Dead Fans Still Don't Understand About The Show's Haters
AMC's "The Walking Dead" was a welcome Halloween gift to millions of AMC viewers when the show first premiered in 2010 (via Rotten Tomatoes). Since then, the highly successful zombie series has exploded into a bevy of spinoffs, sequels, and offshoots (via Insider). Although the series maintains a reliable viewership (via TV Series Finale), after nearly 12 consecutive years on the air, it is also not without its fair share of detractors.
Since the beginning of the show, fans have watched some of their favorite characters transform in a variety of ways. This includes characters that have gone from loved to hated and, in more unique cases, hated to loved (we're looking at you, Negan). Such ups and downs have caused a number of fans to drop the series, while others remain devoted to the drama.
According to a number of online discussions, the disparity between these two groups has become so grand that many die-hard walker-watchers can't understand why former fans are so vocal about hating the show. Of course, as with any other topic, Reddit serves as a great bastion of the opinionated.
Fans don't understand why people stop watching when a certain character dies
Every TV and movie watcher in the world knows the pain of saying goodbye to a favorite character when that character is killed off. Of course, fans of "The Walking Dead" probably have more experience with this phenomenon than most. Indeed, over the course of the last 11 seasons, the popular AMC series has bid adieu to countless characters, including numerous series regulars and a plethora of bit parts (not to mention, thousands of walkers).
Interestingly, the frequency with which "The Walking Dead" recycles its cast might be the source of some trouble among fans. In fact, the deaths of some prominent characters have led a number of viewers to simply shut off their television sets for good. However, other fans admit they don't quite understand this thinking.
In a post to Reddit, u/electric725 said that giving up on the show when a character dies doesn't make a whole lot of sense. "I never understood why people stopped watching the show claiming that their death was too brutal and unnecessary." Furthermore, this user also said, "I don't understand how the TV fans claim that it is too much gore when they are fine with people getting devoured, but when they kill your favorite character, it's somehow a bad thing..."
In response, a number of commenters jumped at the opportunity to explain their reasons for prematurely tuning out of the series.
Blending horror with everyday television can be too much for some viewers to handle
One Reddit user quickly pointed out that it isn't necessarily which character dies that bothers fans, but how some characters meet their ends. For example, in reference to the brutal Season 7 murder of Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun), u/eezoGG wrote, "It was an incredibly disturbing celebration of cruelty and body horror, which is saying a lot considering how many people in this show have had their faces eaten off." Of course, this was far from the only reason fans were upset with certain character deaths.
A number of other commenters pointed to the Season 8 death of Carl Grimes (Chandler Riggs), with plenty of users calling Carl's death particularly upsetting given the fact that Carl lives to the very end of the comic series (via The Hollywood Reporter). "It was tolerable until Carl because, from a story standpoint, his death makes no sense," u/Subarc00kie said.
Notably, although complaints about Carl's death were a common sentiment, there were other perspectives on the matter. For example, u/Pad132 pointed out, "Death is a massive part of the show, anyone could die in any episode (maybe one or two exceptions). I hate TV shows/films where you know main characters will never die, if anything people should embrace the deaths on the show as it keeps us hooked."