Fan video by: PR TWD on YouTube.  Rated Mature for adult content and violence.

AMC’s The Walking Dead has legions of fans around the world that absolutely love the show, and I am one of those fans. What makes the Walking Dead so different than other incarnations of its genre or other shows? Here are my reasons why I think it is so good:

Note: Spoilers ahead up to Season 6

Transformative Characters

I think the largest reason why so many people love the series is because of the characters, but the fan favorites are characters I call transformative and those characters are: Daryl, Glenn, Carol, and Rick. For me, a transformative character is one that starts out in one state or way of being, and becomes a very different person. These four characters go through the most dynamic of changes.

Take Carol as a main example. In season 1, Carol is a meek housewife who is also an abuse victim, but even in season 1 we occasionally got glimpses of the inner strength that Carol does possess. In episode three, Carol is washing clothes next to a lake with Andrea and the other women in camp. The women are reminiscing about the things they miss most from their old lives, and Andrea makes a joke about how she misses her vibrator. Carol quickly retorts that she too misses her vibrator, which gets the group laughing. It was such a small line and scene, but even then we see defiance in a Carol that was completely under her abusive husband’s thumb.

Throughout the seasons, Carol grew harder and tougher, especially after the loss of her daughter. It was not a sudden transformation that happens overnight as it happens with some characters in other series, but a very gradual and natural progression. In season 6, nothing of the meek Carol is left, only a woman that can do what is necessary to save lives. She makes the people of Alexandria look like kittens.

Daryl and Glenn are two other prime examples. Now Glenn has always been a man with the heart of a lion from the second episode of season 1 when he is introduced. I think we see Glenn mature into a man who can do what is necessary to save others, but can still keep his moral compass straight. In fact, in a way, I think Glenn acts almost like a moral compass to Rick, in that when he thinks Rick is going too far or losing too much of his humanity, he is there to pull him back. He starts out as an uncertain kid that has a backbone, and turns into a cool headed, mature leader in his own right.

Daryl is another character that goes through a wonderful transformation. Daryl is my favorite character because the actor who plays him, Norman Reedus. Norman Reedus was the reason I started watching Walking Dead. I jumped into Walking Dead later than most people. I had heard it was good, but I wasn’t really into watching something I thought was going to be gratuitously gory. And that was when I saw that Norman Reedus was a part of the cast. I remembered him from his well known role in Boondock Saints, and I could not help but watch Walking Dead, and what a treat it was to see him bring the character of Daryl to life.

Daryl starts out seeming to be a backwoods hick which we were already predisposed not like after just meeting his racist, hateful older brother Merle. It was easy to lump the two together, and even easier to fix common stereotypes on his character, but if there is anything that the Walking Dead does not do is stick to common stereotypes, which I will get into later in this article. Daryl starts out as an angry, disenfranchised young man whose whole world revolved around his older brother because, as you later learn, that was all he had. We see Daryl start to differentiate himself from his brother once he is out of his brother’s influence (as Carol does once Ed is gone). We quickly see that Daryl can use logical reason and can work with others, and that he has more of a moral compass than his drug addicted brother. Daryl turns from a backwoods hick who cares for no one but himself and his brother to a valuable member of the group that will fight for others. This characteristic really comes to light in the second season when Daryl would not give up on finding Sophia, and the devastation he felt when he found out her fate.

Now Rick’s transformation is an interesting one as it is one that is both good and bad. Rick starts out idealistic, with a strong sense of justice and doing what is right. As the seasons progress and surviving in this world gets harder and harder to do, Rick’s morality keeps having to be compromised and adjusted as he has to make hard decisions. Most of his decisions, even the brutal ones, have been right, and have kept the group alive, but it also chips away at the idealist Rick we met in season 1. By Season 6, Rick is so unrecognizable from the man we met in season 1. Things that the idealistic Rick would have shied away from doing, the survivor Rick does without batting an eye. In a way, this is good because, in this cruel world, that is the only way you are going to keep the people you love and care for alive, but it’s bad if he loses his humanity entirely. That is where Glenn has stepped in and reminded him that they have to be better than some of the monsters they face out in the wild, most of which are of the human variety. Re-watching season one after watching season five really brings that point home, and yet there were moments even in season one where Rick showed that side of him that had what it took to make hard decisions.

Misconceptions and Stereotypes 

I think that The Walking Dead did a good job in not only turning stereotypes on their heads, but also used stereotypes and misconceptions as a way to make a point. For instance, one of the strongest characters in the series with a heart of a lion and balls of steel is Glenn, and he was just a simple pizza delivery guy in his old life. Yet Glenn keeps it together better than some characters whom you think should be able to keep it together (like Shane). Daryl also broke the stereotype of a backwoods hick having no brains to him. Daryl has an over abundance of common sense, and sharp survival skills that make him king in this post-apocalyptic world.

One of the best examples of this idea of turning stereotypes on their heads is in season 1 in the episode named “Vatos”. Even the name “vatos” gives the viewer a negative impression that this episode is all about gangbangers, but this episode does a complete reversal of what is expected. It starts out as you would expect. While Glenn and Daryl are attempting to retrieve the bag of guns dropped by Rick in episode one, a group of guys who look like gangbangers jump Daryl as they attempt to take the bag of guns from Glenn. They fail, but take Glenn instead, while Daryl takes one of their own as a hostage. When they come to make a trade in what seems like a tense stand off between Rick’s much smaller group and the gangbangers run by a man named Guillermo, the unexpected happens: an old lady comes out in the middle of it all asking for her grandson Felipe (one of the gangbangers), and asking for help for another old person who needs his medicine.

As it turns out, this group of gangbangers isn’t really gangbangers, but young men who would not abandon their elderly relatives in a nursing home, even after Atlanta fell. They stayed behind to take care of the elderly people, even after everyone else abandoned them, and they needed the bag of guns to hold out against the zombies.

Once more Frank Darabont throws out the cliché stereotype of a gangbanger and of a hostage situation, and makes it so much more human and dramatic. Like Rick’s group, this group of “vatos” is doing what they need to survive, but they still will not abandon those that can not defend themselves like the elderly. As it turns out, it was a nurse and custodian, these “vatos”, who stayed behind when the rest of the staff fled. This adds a fresh take on the situation and brings to light what it would be like in a post-apocalyptic world for the helpless. And once again, the age old saying of never judging a book by its cover is deftly used in this episode.

“Vatos” is also the episode where Glenn comes up with a smart strategy to get the guns, and, when asked what he did before, he answers pizza delivery guy. His next question to them is “Why?” as in why does it matter what he did before, and that is a prevailing theme in The Walking Dead: it doesn’t matter who you were before the apocalypse. What matters is what you have become because of it.

Impact on the genre

The Walking Dead has had a very strong impact on the Zombie genre. Most movies of this genre rely on the scare factor or the gore factor to bring out the audiences, but very rarely do they have characters that really resonate with audiences. One other notable exception to this is 28 days later, but in general most Zombie films would be characterized as horror. I would say that The Walking Dead fits more into the drama category than the horror category in that the focal points are not the chase and fight scenes and gory deaths, but are the characters and their desperate fight for survival. We watch The Walking Dead to find out what will happen to the characters, and whether or not they will survive.

I think this show brought a more serious note and recognition to the genre. The excellent writing and acting in this show is superior to most works out there, and it is recognized for it. Before the Walking Dead, the zombie genre was considered having low quality writing and standards, relying mainly on the gory aspects to draw audiences. People didn’t go see zombie movies to be moved, but to be terrified. The Walking Dead changed that by making it possible to have a smart drama that also happens to have zombies in it. I think this is because, again, it doesn’t focus on the zombies as much as it focuses on the survivors and their lives.

There are many more reasons why The Walking Dead is as good as it is, but for me these are the main reasons. But what’s your opinion? Why do you think the Walking Dead is as good as it is?