Sumith Prasad
Negan Smith and Maggie Greene form an iconic duo in ‘The Walking Dead’ universe. Since the day they meet each other, Negan and Maggie become each other’s nemesis especially since the former kills the latter’s husband Glenn, which makes Maggie wants to kill Negan. Maggie’s wish to kill the former leader of the Saviors eventually evaporates from her. In ‘The Walking Dead: Dead City,’ Maggie and Negan team up to retrieve the former’s son Hershel from the Croat, a former member of Negan’s Saviors. Throughout their time together, Glenn’s murder becomes an unavoidable topic of discussion, making the viewers wonder why Negan killed him. Well, let us share the answer! SPOILERS AHEAD.
Negan’s Strategy Behind Killing Glenn
In the second half of ‘The Walking Dead,’ Negan and his group, the Saviors, become an unignorable presence among the rest of the survivor communities. Negan demands resources and supplies from other survivor communities to feed his community in return for the promise that they wouldn’t attack the same. He offers the same proposition to Hilltop and eventually subjugates the community. Rick Grimes and “his people” learn about the same and end up confronting Negan and the Saviors. Rick and his group kill several of Negan’s men, which infuriates the latter.
Throughout his reign as the leader of the Saviors, Negan has killed to send a message to his enemies. Although he isn’t a “natural” murderer like the Croat, Negan has killed a few to terrorize many. As far as he is concerned, the security of his community is his utmost priority. To ensure the same, he kills a few individuals to stir fear among the rest. When Rick and his group kill several of his men, he kills Abraham to terrorize the rest, hoping that they wouldn’t continue to kill his men. However, Daryl Dixon, one of Rick’s people, retaliates against Negan and his community for killing Abraham.
Negan then kills Glenn to send another message to Rick, Daryl, and their group. He doesn’t want any more retaliations against his community and he uses the brutal murder of Glenn to ensure the same. Glenn’s barbarous murder makes Negan a barbarian like no other among the rest of the survivors. He succeeds in achieving the fear of others, which ensures the protection of the Saviors for the time being. Negan eventually part ways with the Saviors and become an ally of Daryl and others. Although Maggie never accepts him as a friend, they eventually team up against the Commonwealth, a community that threatens Alexandria, Hilltop, and Oceanside.
In the final season of ‘The Walking Dead,’ Negan even apologizes to Maggie for killing Glenn. “I am so sorry for what I took from you. What I took from your son,” Negan tells Maggie in the series finale. “I can stop wondering if you’ll ever say those words and if I can ever forgive you. Because I know now — I can’t,” she replies. Although Maggie doesn’t forgive Negan, she doesn’t long to kill him anymore. She accepts their past and decides to move on without forgiving him or trying to become his friend.
Glenn’s murder is an integral element of ‘Dead City,’ according to series creator Eli Jorné. “[Maggie and Negan’s history] is not something that I was scared of, or that I felt like I was saddled with,” Jorné said in the June issue of SFX Magazine. “In fact, I was like, ‘This is the show!’ When Glenn was killed, that was hard, obviously, when it’s a beloved character who dies. But to me, the flip side of that was that this universe is going to tell the story of what happens when you lose someone that way. Not just for the person who lost him, but the person who did it,” he added.
Read More: The Walking Dead: Are Maggie and Negan Together? Do They Kiss?
