If you’ve spent five minutes online in the past week, you have experienced WDCDS; Walking Dead Character Death Shock. Whether you’re an avid fan or you haven’t seen a single episode, the name ‘Negan’ is stuck in your brain.

Before we go any further, I want to explain that I am not writing this from a ‘Walking Dead Fan’ perspective. I haven’t seen much past Season 1 and maybe some of Season 2, a couple years ago. I’m writing this from the perspective of an observant author. That being said…

Here’s a few reasons as to why Negan should be your goal for an antagonist:

1. Negan only needs two episodes to break the world. Though his character is hinted at, discussed, and indirectly communicated-with for some episodes prior, Negan himself only appears during the Season 6 finale, and then the Season 7 premiere. Two episodes. This character only needed two episodes to turn half of the viewing world into chaos. Countless fan theories of ‘who is Negan going to kill’ blasted through the internet after the Season 6 finale, leading all the way up to merely days before the Season 7 premiere. The character was so perfectly led up to in the prior episodes that Negan was all Walking Dead fans could talk about for months! Is he insane? Is he some twisted hero? Will he really kill someone? Who? All of these questions were tossed around and developed throughout the internet for months until the season premiere.
2. Negan is the character you love to hate, but you still mildly understand him. Now, I’m sure lots of Walking Dead fans will disagree with me on this, but from the research I’ve done, the confrontation between Negan and his ‘Saviors’ and Rick and his ‘family’ was over supplies. Everyone hates Negan. Especially after the Season 7 premiere, everyone HATES Negan. And yet...though many probably don’t want to admit it, they can understand a little bit about him. This character, like Rick, is the head of a group of people just trying to survive in a world where Walkers are trying to kill you and some humans are trying to do the same. It’s a literal kill-or-be-killed world. Negan is doing what he can to survive with his group. And, though it’s probably not quite mentioned in the episodes, Rick’s group killing some of his Saviors was probably a bit like them killing family, or at least fellow comrades. On the battlefield in a war, a bond is grown between people just trying to survive and fight against a common enemy. I have no doubt that Negan held at least that sense of comradeship with his Saviors, but Rick and his group killed some of them. An eye for an eye, in Negan’s opinion. (Too soon?)
3. He hits you in your weak spot. Every good villain needs to do this. Negan draws upon the fears of not just Rick’s group, but the viewers as well; “Someone I love is going to die”. Family, blood or not, is the most important thing to every person. Negan takes the most important thing, puts it in risk, and leaves you with the suspense of knowing you’re about to lose someone, but you don’t know who. It’s a twisted double-pain of inevitable sadness and suspenseful fear.
4. Negan breaks the hero. This is probably THE most important aspect of a villain/antagonist, and it’s not found often. Negan breaks Rick. There are some fans that tend to idolize a hero, and while Rick puts that into question several times, this breaks that misconception absolutely; Rick is not a hero. Or at least, not yet. In the world of writing, this is the crucial turning point in the hero’s character development. The driving force that makes him BECOME a hero. I’ve no doubt that the following episodes will show an incredible change/shift in Rick, and all of the other group members. But for an antagonist to truly be a fulfilled antagonist, he has to break the hero. That moment is when it sinks in to the audience (or readers) that there won’t be some miraculous last-minute intervention to say the day. No happy ending to the chapter. The hero is left broken, destroyed. But with the promise of a phoenix, to rise from the ashes as something new and amazing.

So, from an author’s perspective, Negan is the perfect antagonist. Wicked, disconcertingly relatable, insane, terrifying, and confusing; Negan will continue to amaze Walking Dead fans for episodes to come. The presence of this antagonist will drive the plotline, and each character’s development, to new incredible depths.

Hold tight, Walking Dead fans. You’re in for a wild ride.