From the point of view of one of Negan's soldiers, no.

From the point of view of one of Rick's soldiers, yes.

 

I would agree, but think Rick's people are at the point where the Saviors likely were a year or so ago. They don't HAVE to go down the same road, though.

 

A third dodge. I'm talking about Morgotha's point of view. Of course villains often do the right thing from their own twisted point of view. ISIS is doing the moral thing from its point of view, but I doubt you'd throw up your hands and defer to cultural relativity when asked about them. But I'm asking you for your own opinion. Yes, or no?

 

To Negan and the saviors. Disobeying IS not being valuable.

 

Sure, I agree. The original question was whether the saviors killed a town initially because they weren't worth their time to deal with. Killing someone who is rebelling (from the Saviors' perspective) is different.

 

From my perspective now? They're both immoral, but in different ways. They're also both moral in different ways.

 

Rick was right to kill the saviors but he didn't do it the right way for what the saviors are. He should've got more info as many others have said.

Rick is not a good guy at all. We just see him that way cus we've seen his whole journey. Was it brutal and savage to kill the saviors in their sleep? Yea but the saviors would've killed ricks group if they had come across them so u can't say he's wrong for doing it. This world has new rules. It's not the same as now. You're surviving and if u can kill them b4 they kill u that's what u do.

 

Earlier, you had brought up the Civil War.
Imagine this.
You are FORCED to work for a plantation. You would rather do something else with your life, but you can not.
The plantation owner OWNS you. You must do his bidding. Tend his fields, feed his animals, and cook for him. Plus, the owner may have his way, with one of your women, should he feel like it. And you CAN NOT complain about it. You can not fight against it. If you do, he will get his supervisor to whip you. Teach you a lesson. And forbid if you are caught taking food for your family. That would be death, or death of a loved one. Working for a slave owner, was the death for many of them.
It took a war, to finally get some of these folks to fight back.


Negan - he is that plantation owner. And the saviors are his henchmen. And the library folk, were runaway slaves.

I hope this gets you to understand that the saviors are not misunderstood. They want what they want. And they do not want to work for it.

 

Answer to original question prior to 0616?



After 0616?

 

I will tell you what is interesting.....is you can see posters on this board and their own sense of right, wrong, and morality as they discuss these two separate leaders in Negan and Rick

In my opinion? Rick was absolutely right in killing those saviors

- This showdown was gonna happen eventually
- Rick managed to whittle Negans group by what....30 percent? That is 30 percent he wont have to face later on.
- That difference in odds might well be the difference in winning or losing the war

I have another question as well....I have seen it said that Rick screwed up not doing more recon...my question is....HOW....he didnt know enough about the opposing force.

I think he killed that Savior he had captured a little too quickly......perhaps interrogation before shooting him in the head?

 

Yes, that was a mistake. BUTTTT---- At that split second. He thought he was killing Negan. To Rick - end of problem.

 

I don't misunderstand the Saviors, nor do I think they are great people. BUT, would you say the government of the old Soviet Union was great? How about North Korea? Communist China? An evil government wouldn't be nice to live in, but might still be better than no government at all, or a bunch of little groups like the ASZ which could get massacred on any given day.

Say you want to start up electric service again, or start a big farm that can feed a LOT of people. There's no way that the Library is going to do that, they don't have the manpower to do the job, let alone provide a hundred guards to stop a walker horde that shows up. Someone like Negan though could conscript a bunch of laborers from a bunch of places and get the job done. His people aren't starving, even the people at the Hilltop weren't starving after he took what he wanted from them - the ASZ from what we're told was going down hill and running out of food even with solar power, water, and a big wall! It wasn't helped by each member "doing what they thought was right" and running off whenever they felt like it. They would have been better off if they followed, or were *forced* to follow someone's orders to do what needed to be done.

Every group Rick has been in has suffered devastating losses, and has been running from place to place. Their escapes have often been magical, (like Carol shooting a propane tank's valve with one shot and having it blow up, or a dozen ASZ residents taking out the biggest walker horde anyone had ever seen with hand tools without anyone getting a scratch). What type of losses have the Saviors had? Up until they had the misfortune to meet the show's protagonist, not many by the look of things.

Which of the groups is more likely to rebuild society?

If the ZA were to occur, I would be primarily concerned with the survival of the human race, and for that you need *numbers* of people to get things done. You can't have specialized workers if everyone is out scrounging for food, which a few years after people aren't producing it is probably running scarce. Someone that can do that isn't just a Garreth, but a leader, and his society is probably better than no society at all.

And on saying his people don't want to work for it? Being a soldier or a policeman is a *job*. Ask the guys that Daryl or Rick killed if they felt they had to work for their living, risking their lives each time they met someone new, and they'd probably say "yes".

 

This is your closest attempt at an accurate analogy so far here, perhaps. Maybe especially with North Korea. Two big flaws though:

1)Negan is not the government of the various communities. He has nothing to do with organizing or overseeing their internal hierarchy. He's an outside threat, a terrorist group. He takes from them using terror, with death as a consequence of not meeting their value as he thinks they should.

2)Your alternative of 'no government at all' claim is a classic false dichotomy. Many of these communities do have their own leaders and systems of governments, and likely would be much farther along in the process of combining their forces and cooperating as a bigger unit, if not for the repressing thumb of Negan, under which they must continually spend their time meeting demands [at penalty of death]. The idea of its 'Negan or Chaos' is a fallacy.

Other than those flaws, North Korea works well actually. Bravo.

 

First, recon IS THE WAY Rick would have known more about the Saviors. You don't get intel without it. So the idea that somehow Rick is absolved because of low information has no bearing. Not dissimilar to you "not knowing" the speed limit will fail to sway a Highway Patrol officer from handing you a ticket for a moving violation. Your lack of knowledge does not get you out of your predicament. You are guilty because you should have been paying attention.

My argument for Rick's guilt in this matter:

1. His LE professional background. His education, training, and firsthand experience with criminals should have opened his eyes - even before the ZA.
2. Abraham's consultation as a former military officer with deployments. This opens up a whole basket of goodies in terms of individual and team training, recon, working knowledge of defensive and offensive tactics, communications, etc etc.
3. Someone mentioned Rosita may have been former military also. IF YES, add her as a consultant.
4. The entire core group experiences with The Hospital, The Claimers, Terminus, the Governor, etc - should have been more than enough motivation to ramp up Alexandria to a real BO. Hit the ground running with reconfiguring it's defensive capabilities, and training the healthy residents of fighting age to become the fighting force they would need to really secure any hope of rebuilding any type of civilization.

I'm not sure if you're asking "how to do recon"? Or how Rick might have been able to do it just before the initial strike on the Comm Center?

The point is that since Rick failed to do this from the get go, he was taking a tremendous risk - gambling that somehow, no hostile group (like ALL the others mentioned) would find them and exploit their weaknesses.

There was no real command structure implemented, and no formation of recon teams to get outside the walls and really get a grasp of who might be out there in striking distance.

Their deal with Hilltop didn't include a coalition of fresh able bodied men and women to be trained? Jesus is there - there should be others like him who are ready to put in the field. That whole merc deal stank. Hilltop should have skin in the game.

They do a night raid with no previous observation of the facility? No knowledge of who is there?

They manage to kill off most of the Saviors present, and police up fresh weapons, ammo, vehicles, radios, etc. Then they fail to use the radios to gather intel on the Saviors? I mean, even by accident, playing around with them to incorporate them into their non-existent recon teams?

People come and go as they please like it's the Ritz Carlton, and not the front lines of humanity and democracy? I just can't.

Sorry for the free form rant. I probably didn't answer your question. Yes, Rick should have interrogated the heck out of that hostile at the kill house.

 

The thing is Morgotha, Negan and his group didn't get appointed as a soldier, or policeman.
These guys are just going around taking what doesn't belong to them. The ZAs version of home invasions.
I really wish you would see the difference. Or you already do, but are just yanking our chains.

 

When the Europeans got to America they took the land from the natives. It didn't belong to them. The Soviet Union absorbed Eastern Europe, it didn't belong to them. The winner in a conflict gets to say who was in the right of it. I'm not saying it's "nice", but the goal is survival, right?

Here's an example: Take Eugene's bullet idea. He wants to make bullets, which they could use, and the Hilltop has none of. He wants to start a plant, who is going to help him? Everyone's off doing their own thing. Then, he ends up going on a run to help maggie, and the bullets don't get made. If he went to Negan and said I want to make bullets, and Negan thought that was a good idea, he could provide Eugene with a dozen guards at the factory to keep walkers out, and a dozen conscripts to do the work, force Eugene to keep working when he wanted to go help "Aggie" with her pregnancy, and the bullets would get made. Would the conscripts be happy? Would Eugene? No, but the next time a walker horde or another army showed up, they could shoot back.

 

You know what. - You win.
I am getting a headache from all the face palms.

 

Actually that is exactly what I am asking.

- Their group is not large enough to just split them out and go out seeking the enemy in all directions......they dont even know where the real base camp of their enemy is.

- If it were me (and I know a little bit about this) my only way of getting real intelligence would be to keep some of these saviors alive......and torture them until they give up information on location....then start from there.

Maybe it is Ricks arrogance....may he he totally misjudged the size of the enemy that he felt he didnt need to keep some of the saviors alive that he killed to gain intel.

Not how I would have done it...you cannot recon an enemy till you know their location.

 

I think this arc was about showing how Rick had grown overconfident and thus behaving a bit hastily. He underestimated the size and ambitious evil of Negan's group. 7A will be about him understanding the lesson to be learned from that.

 

Rick made the right decision but went about it like an idiot. He already knew this group terrorized Hilltop and that they would try the same with them so he figured he was going to have to deal with them anyway. Killing them proactively was a great idea, but they did like no surveillance first to see if there were more of them. Rick jumped straight into online multiplayer mode without even playing single player campaign first