They haven't ventured out to kill anyone yet. The National Guard incident? They needed weapons and they needed to get rid of the threat that the soldiers National Guard presented. In that case, I can't argue with the Governor's actions there. The only difference between walkers and National Guard is that walkers have some degree of coordination, after all. There's a ton of reason to what's been shown or implied:Merle was found in a bad state, but obviously someone capable and tough enough to endure what he'd been through. From what we've seen, the Governor's SOP is to fix the wounded and assess their threat status. Merle has been shown to be loyal to Woodbury, which is why he was probably kept around. Andrea has been much the same way, while Michonne was determined to rock the boat and cause chaos.
Eh, I dunno if I agree that there's no rhyme or reason. The people he's killed (that we know of) have been part of a group that could easily take him down, like the military guys. And now that he knows Rick and co. cleared out a prison that the Governor previously thought uninhabitable, they are a threat to him. Michonne and Andrea were on their own, and he thought disarming Michonne would eliminate any threat that duo might pose. Merle was probably wandering on his own, more asset than threat when they picked him up.
Except that they weren't a threat and had no intention of doing anything to Woodbury and likely would have been happy to join their community. She wanted to leave and they refused, when they finally let her go they tried to hunt her down and lost three men in the process. Why does he immediately assume Rick and Co. are a threat, they've made no aggressive actions towards them (they don't even know they exist) and again could potentially be a benefit to Woodbury. Andrea a Michonne were able bodied and armed yet he's got no issue with them. His immediate disposition is to eliminate anyone nearby, except when it's not and there's never a reason for his violence other than people being nearby.
They might have started out that way, but once they found out how fucked up he is they could have easily taken him down, given their military training. Unstable dictators don't like having armies around that aren't easily controlled.
See, you're treating them like normal people. In all likelihood, once you introduce a military element into a civilian population during time of crisis, they try and take over and assert authority. That brings chaos and disorder into the ordered structure of Woodbury, so it can't be permitted. And keep in mind that these aren't disciplined soldiers, they were explicitly stated to be not only the National Guard, but rural Georgia National Guard. Which means they're not soldiers, they're carpenters and students and cashiers and clerks and truck drivers and yahoos who put on uniforms and play with guns on occasion. About a hundred different kinds of "hi, we're here to fuck things up and pretend we know what we're doing" at the best of times, much less during a crisis. Andrea is compliant and cooperative, that's why the Governor has no problem with her. She's easily manipulated and eager to serve - she's the ideal newcomer. Michonne, on the other hand, questions things. Doesn't follow orders, doesn't play along, doesn't do what she's told. As for Rick and group, remember that there are multiple groups out there. The group Randall belonged to was explictly described as a bunch of unsavory rapey types that were heavily armed. So when the Governor hears that ten people have managed to clear out a nest of walkers in the middle of a zone that Woodbury has cordoned off as "red zone" too dangerous to even enter, the implication is "Oh shit, these are asskickers that might be a threat to our current stability. If they took a prison, they might be able to take us". Of course that's a threat.
Like Merle and the rest of his force? You're contradicting yourself here and your description of the NG is no different than the Governor's current group of muscle. So where the national guardsmen and Rick would be open to joining this community. Yet he didn't have her (or both of them) killed immediately. For a man who deals with those who pose even the tiniest threat with swift and fatal violence he didn't do a damn thing about her for days. Still not convinced. Yes they're capable as any survivors after living in those conditions for a year would be, so what. He's still horribly inconsistent with how and why he deals with people the way he does. Glenn and Maggie weren't any more of a threat than Michonne and Andrea, I would argue less. Andrea and Michonne he welcomes and even tolerates their skepticism and flat out hostilities. Glenn and Maggie well let's beat try to kill and threaten to rape them. I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree. We all saw the same thing, you have no problem accepting his behaviour and to me it's just completely inconsistent and incomprehensible. I think more motivation is required other than people just being there.
I think Nute is right. While the National Guardsmen individually might just be the type the Governor wants, as a coherent group hat had survived that long, it makes sense, that they're a threat. A threat they might have ignored, except that they have gear that Woodbury could use. Of course even in a post-apocalyptic world it's not rational to just wipe out threats, but who's saying the Governor is rational?
They let Michonne 'go' as a show for Andrea (who was starting to question things as a result of Michonne's persistence). If they could have killed her in Woodbury without Andrea noticing they would have. This stuff is all pretty explicitly laid out: anyone who is likely to challenge The Guvnor's authority is despatched. The show hasn't been inconsistent about that.
Except when they showed up both were questioning the Governor and he attempted to persuade them. As far as the audience knows he hasn't given anyone else that opportunity, he's been all KILL KILL KILL. Why did he let Andrea and Michonne in at all, they were armed and as far as he knew posed the same threat everyone is foisting onto the NGs; potential subversion from within. Either he's open to letting people join the community (this seems to be true from what's presented and implied) or he's not (also seems to be true from his actions both explicit and implied). There's no consistency! He knows nothing of the people he's encountering yet some he indiscriminately kills and others he goes out of his way to persuade them to join his community.
It's a lot harder for two lightly-armed women to be subversive than 8-10 heavily-armed national guardsmen. It's a matter of numbers and power. Plus, he finds Andrea attractive. The guardsmen were frumpy.
I noticed that Andrea bore a resemblance to the Governor's wife in that photo. Probably not a coincidence.
Also keep in mind that Glen and Maggie were brought in by Merle under guard. Merle explained that these are the people that left him to die. The Gov ♥'s Merle, so he would treat them poorly.
And Glenn and Maggie, yep lets torture and rape them, clearly they're a huge threat! Two young people looking for baby formula, LOOK OUT! I just don't buy protecting Woodbury as the motivation for all of it, it's simply not enough to explain his actions.
Who are part of a larger group. Faulty comparison. No, it's protection/xenophobia plus paranoia & insanity that explains his actions.
Don't buy it, Merle didn't much care for Andrea and Michonne showing up but the Governor ignored him. The Governor could have easily tried talking to Glen and Maggie rather than interrogating them and jumping straight to violence and ensuring a violent interaction with the rest of the group. Anyway, nobody's going to convince me here as I've spent most of the time having any suspension of disbelief ruined by his character, Merle has also been poorly handled I think but not nearly as badly and he's not as significant as the Governor.
The arguments have been made well by others; I won't waste your time by repeating them, just wanted to add to the WrongDr count. Sorry.
The rest of the group is not with them and the only evidence they even exist is what Merle says and is based on what happened a year ago, he's never even met Maggie. Yet he's clearly allowed others in. My issue is that his actions aren't directed by events or any understandable motivations, he simply does what the writers want him to. Why are you posting if you're not adding anything to conversation? You really are useless, oh and good to know my opinion is wrong.
Well, I really didn't see much point. It has been laid out for you in detail. The governor disposed of the NG immediately because they were an organized threat and likely would not have surrendered their weapons willingly; he believes that a group of people that could clear out the prison is a threat; he tortures Glenn and Maggie because they have information he wants NOW about their threatening group; he doesn't dispose of Michonne promptly because he thinks she might be of use, she is not part of an organized group and because he desires Andrea and doesn't want to piss her off by killing her friend; we know nothing about the circumstances of his incorporating Merle into the group, so we have to discard that event as relevant. He sends a group after Michonne because she's really pissed him off. He's unhinged, so his motivations are askew. You are looking for them to be entirely rational and 100% consistent. They are not, but they are real, ascertainable motivations, and close enough to rational for a nutjob. Happy?
1. Merle knows that Glenn was previously part of a larger group. 2. Merle finds Glenn and Maggie getting baby food. Yet there's not a baby with them. So that's a dead giveaway right there that they're part of a larger group, one large enough to support a baby. 3. Merle asks if his brother is alive, which Glenn confirms and then volunteers to go get him. So again that's confirmation that they're part of a larger group. 4. Merle was in the car with Glenn and Maggie and you don't know what happened, but it's safe to assume that some additional info about the group was asked and answered in the car. Come on, this ain't that hard. He's not going to NOT believe Merle about something that Merle probably told him when he was found months ago. If anything, Glenn's appearance confirms Merle's tale to the Gov. However, I don't think the Gov truly trusts anyone. Again, group size and composition is important in determining whether a new group is potentially an asset or a threat. Something you keep ignoring. Wrong? No, because it's an opinion. I'd say...thickheaded.
He didn't trust Merle about Andrea. This also isn't about trusting Merle it's about recognizing that Merle doesn't know Rick and co. current circumstances. The Governor won over a skeptical Andrea in spite of Merle why would he not try to be reasonable with Glenn and Maggie the way he was with Andrea and Michonne? I honestly expected the Governor to be guarded but reasonable and try to talk to them and get information in a much more friendly way, exactly as he did with Andrea and Michonne. Both situations are identical yet the Governor behaves completely differently. Merle recognizes one as being a member of the group that abandoned him and doesn't recognize the other and he's not happy about them showing up. In one case the Governor is nice, out going and offers to help, in the other he's brutalizing and raping them. It doesn't make any sense. From the Governor/Merle perspective it's literally the same situation, there's no way they'd assume Andrea wasn't with the old group when she and Michonne showed up.
Is it possible that not all of the Governor's motivations have been revealed yet? Is it possible that the experiments are designed to determine if his daughter can be salvaged in some fashion? Is it possible that the Governor saw in Andrea some echoes of his previous wife and that she fits a piece in his puzzle to reconstitute his family?
The same applies to Andrea. Two people show up Merle recognizes one as part of a larger group = friendly Gov. Two people show up Merle recognizes one as part of a larger group = sociopathic Gov. Which equally applies to Andrea again. Probably not, I don't think his paranoia is being debated. In each case it was two people, one who was recognized as being a member of a larger group. No difference Because it doesn't agree with yours? Guess you're the thickheaded one. There hasn't been anything that anyone has brought up that I hadn't thought of myself. The Governor always seemed like a weak character to me and this past episode really just pushed it over the edge when identical circumstances came up and he didn't react in a consistent way.
I hope not, as I said earlier though it's simply gone on for too long, there's clearly a large conflict coming and we don't understand his motivations (or at least to me they're not sufficient). I think this is obvious and I don't think anyone's debating it. Possibly but that's awful weak, particularly when it's plain he's let others join their group which would mean Andrea joining the community wasn't entirely a unique situation.
If that's his plan, it wouldn't be unreasonable to believe he might be looking for a mother for his daughter then.
The Gov. let Michonne and Andrea in CAUSE THEY"S WIMMINZ....semi hot (for zombie apocalypse) wimminz.... Glenn and Maggie were tortured for info on where their group (and Darryl) are.....are you even watching or did you have to go to the bathroom? Anybody think Randall and his pals were from Woodbury?
Maybe the governor is like my friends. A buddy says, hey man those 2 girls over there at the bar are real trouble. But they come over and the one is openly flirting with one of my buddies and pretty cute to boot, and let's face it there aren't that many good looking chicks showing up in this bar anymore. Against anyone's better judgement the alpha male of our group decides they can't be that bad and, hey he's kind of lonely with the scarcity of women around. So in this case the governor is just looking for some shenanigans, so what if merle doesn't like her, he can always kill her later.
No, they mentioned being holed up somewhere by an overpass, and having women in the group. If it had been a Woodbury scouting group, I don't think they'd have had women with them. And when Andrea was pointing out to Merle where the farm had been, he mentioned that it was "well through the Red Zone", so I think the Woodbury group wouldn't have been scavenging that far out. Randall's group seemed to be more of a roving gang than an organized militia.
TheTrunkDr, if you're going to keep insisting that the capture of Michonne and Andrea is identical to the capture of Glenn and Maggie or that there's some kind of equivalence between those two events and the NG massacre then there's no point in discussing this. All three events are different at both a macro and micro level. For a start, the circumstances surrounding the capture of the two pairs are completely different.
Tell me then, what's so different between Andrea and Michonne's capture and Glenn and Maggie's? The NG isn't comparable to Andrea and Michonne's but Philip has clearly recruited muscle (like Merle), so why are the NG men killed while others weren't? They weren't actively a threat and were quite receptive to Philip.
When Merle found Andrea and Michonne, Andrea was near-death with pneumonia (or whatnot. She's a Southern chick, she could have just had "the vapors") and Michonne had surrendered. When he ran into Glenn and Maggie, it was the second confirmation that the Atlanta group was alive, he found out his brother was definitely alive, and there were guns pointed. In the first instance, it could have just been a standard "Hey, here we have people that are survivors and could be assets to Woodbury." In the second, it was all Merle going "These folks know where my brother is and I got no problem cuttin' bits off 'em until I find out."
When they captured Michonne and Andrea, they were clearly two women on their own (carrying a lot of stuff with them, walking, Andrea almost dead). When they captured Glenn and Maggie, they were clearly part of a larger group that was well-off enough to send two people with guns and a vehicle to go get baby stuff. The Governer is clearly eliminating threats to Woodbury/his leadership (which he sees as the same thing). As all tyrants do.
There were guns (swords) pointed in the Andrea circumstance and Merle had no reason to believe Andrea didn't know where Darryl was. Merle was probably just as willing to torture Andrea when he found her as he was Glenn. When Merle captures Andrea he has no reason to believe she wasn't still a part of Rick's group and doesn't find out until after that they were separated, besides he has no reason to trust what she or Glenn says when he first finds each. Also, Merle isn't inconsistent in his behaviour and there's no reason to believe Merle would be more or less hostile to Glenn over Andrea. He caught them, brought them back to Philip and in one case Philip decides to be decent and the other violent with Merle's position being pretty much the same in each case. The assault on Glenn and near rape of Maggie really seemed out of place compared to how Philip treated other captives, including the NG survivor they pulled form the helicopter, even him he approached with a friendly demeanor to get the information he wanted rather than torture.
Yeah, because nearly raping them is so much worse than killing them, cutting off their heads and putting them in a fishtank. Hell, I do that to my postal carrier at least once a month.
Yeah, whatever he feels work the best. He did end up decapitated and in a zombie fishtank once he'd given up the information.
Ultimately this is probably one of those times where we don't want to really look at the show too closely... Just enjoy the ride and be grateful we're not back at that fucking farm.
