[user104658]

Originally Posted by Nicky91

Negan was broken at first, after the death of his wife, that was what led him to become leader of Saviors


i think the first one who gotten through to his real side, must've been Carl, since that letter he was given by him, he really liked that

I think Negan basically bought his own BS - he genuinely believed they were doing more harm than good and that everything would descend into chaos without the Saviours. They also palmed off most of the saviour's worst attrocities (exterminating the Oceanside men, for example) on Simon and a "rogue group" though I think that was a bit of a deus ex machina.

And you could then argue that in his years locked up, he realised that he had it wrong. That makes sense in terms of his plotline with The Whisperers, too. I think he basically sees himself mirrored in Alpha, he knows that her ideas and methods are utterly crazy, but he can see that SHE genuinely believes it's "right". He takes so long to kill her because he hopes he can bring her round to doing things differently and she can change, too. But then after Hilltop and the conversation that follows, he realises that it's never going to happen so he has to go ahead with the origina plan and kill her.

See I honestly don't think negan is a badly written character - there are a few minor points that cause trouble and could easily have been left out. One is his "wives". They go to great lengths to suggest that Negan is not "a rapist", he says as much himself, that he hates anyone who would do that, and kills one of his men for attempting to attack Sasha. But then he has his group of wives who he claims are all "there voluntarily" because they're never literally forced . That is not how consent works, TWD writers, it's made abundantly clear that these women have been coerced into the "job" of being his wives and thus it is absolutely rape when he has sex with them. I mean FFS, Sherry only agreed to marry him to save her own actual husband's life. They could have left the Harem o' Wives out completely - OR had it be a group who had genuinely pretended they wanted to be with him in order to live more comfortably (you could even have them still secretly hating him and plotting to kill him, with him oblivious and thinking they're genuinely happy).

The other point isthe "second kill" (Glenn). I think it was done for shock value, which is the worst part really. But it makes all of the stuff happening now harder to accept. IMO even if Glenn had to go and Maggie had to be widowed, a "cleaner" way to do it would have been to have him kill Abraham like what happens, then instead of Darly jumping up (which gets Glenn killed) just have it be Glenn that jumps up and attacks Negan, and one of the other Saviours shoots & kills him when he tries. You have mainly the same effect but without it actually being Negan that killed Glenn, making it MUCH more likely that Maggie - who would still blame him - could come around.

As it stands, it just doesn't make sense. Negan wouldn't even be on this mission with them, realistically. Even if she begrudgingly accepted that he's being allowed to live free in Alexandria... he'd be cooling his heels helping out with wall repairs, not tagging along on a vital mission. "He's the only one who knows the city" is a crappy excuse.