The Walking Dead 6.13 "The Same Boat" (spoiler alert)

[Solly Mack]

111. It was an episode for mirror image perceptions. (Us/good Them/bad for the same actions)

Sometimes, when a people get a hint of themselves in others, they become more entrenched in the belief that they are good and the others are bad, because people tend to hate what's deemed negative in others especially when they see the same thing in themselves.

And sometimes they blame the leader. As in it's not the people's fault for their actions, it's their leaders causing them to behave that way. Change the leader, change the way people behave. But that also gives people an easy way out for their own behavior - it wasn't them, it was the leader.

When people commonly think of a mirror image, they think of an image that is almost, but not quite, the same as the original image. Leaving out the physics behind the reflection in a plane mirror - mirrors as a literary device almost always present a character's 2 selves. Good/bad would be a simplistic expression of those 2 selves but people and their motives are more complex than that. Still, motives matter, and the ability to still feel and care matters.

Carol and Maggie can still feel and they still care - I think for a long time Carol denied those feelings and now everything is bubbling up to the surface. She needs perspective but I am not at all convinced that meeting Paula accomplished that. I think it served to enhance and drive home Carol's identity crisis - and she is having one. Her 2 selves need to merge and not compete - right now they are locked in battle, and Carol is losing right now. She is in danger of reacting instead of acting.

I think Maggie was always capable of brutality if the need arose. I think most people are capable of things they would not believe of themselves during the best of circumstances. They haven't been tested. For some, the moral compass is permanently set a certain way and they can't change that (Heath - but time will tell). But then no one has faced a zombie apocalypse either. I think Maggie didn't like that side of herself, and that's her dilemma. Heath has also had the benefit of protective walls for most of the crisis. He hasn't faced the challenges Rick's group has, but that is changing.

Glenn is going to dislike himself now that he has killed a human, and I think Glenn will see his actions as murder, though he'll tell himself he did it to save Maggie and the baby.

We can call it pre-emption and we can know from the comics that nothing about Negan spells safety for Alexandria. Everything Rick said was true - eventually Negan would have found them and he would demand half of everything they have - and he would kill to get it.

But none of that will stop Glenn from his own reflections.

I also think people would be wrong to think Rick has stopped caring and has crossed the line of no return.

I'm looking forward to how it all plays out.

I'm just pondering.