NOTE: This article is only for the TV version of Negan Smith. To see the article for the original version, go to Negan (Comic Series). ✓
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“ | Anybody moves, anybody says anything, cut the boy's other eye out and feed it to his father, and THEN we'll start. You can breathe, you can blink, you can cry. Hell, you're all gonna be doing that. | „ |
~ Negan moments before killing Abraham. |
Negan is one of the main antagonists of AMC's The Walking Dead. He's also one of the two main protagonists of the series' spin off The Walking Dead: Dead City.
He was the totalitarian and magisterial leader of The Saviors, a hostile group of outbreak survivors that are pitted against Rick Grimes' group. However, after his defeat and imprisonment, he had a change of heart and became an anti-hero who would aid the communities in various ways, most notably infiltrating the Whisperers and killing their leader, Alpha.
He is portrayed by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who also played The Comedian in Watchmen, Abyzou in The Possession, Azazel while possessing John Winchester in Supernatural, Sam in Desierto, and Joe Kessler in The Boys.
Biography[]
Background[]
In Season 8, Negan mentions that he helped young people become stronger and implies he played a role in their development. In the season 10 episode "Here's Negan," we learn that he used to be a high school gym teacher. Negan was married to Lucille but cheated on her, leading to their marital issues. After being fired for assaulting a man who insulted his wife, he ventured into the zombie-infested wilderness to find medicine for Lucille's cancer. When he returned, she had died and turned into a walker, which haunted him.
In the post-apocalyptic world, Negan becomes the ruthless leader of a group called the Saviors. He wields a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire, which he names "Lucille" in memory of his wife. Negan's community gathers followers and establishes outposts around Washington, D.C. He has key allies like Simon and various lieutenants, including Wade, Bud, Gavin, Arat, and Dwight. Negan's group extorts supplies from communities like the Hilltop and the Kingdom, using brutal violence to enforce their demands. He also had a conflicted relationship with a former ally known as the Croat, who became a brutal torturer and formed his own group.
At some point, Dwight and his companions fled the Saviors with stolen supplies, prompting Negan to send a group led by Wade to retrieve them.
Season 6[]
In the second half of Season 6, the Saviors, led by the mysterious Negan, become the main antagonists. Negan's name is first heard when a group of bikers led by Bud tries to steal weapons from Daryl, Abraham, and Sasha but are killed by Daryl using a rocket launcher.
In the Season finale, "Last Day on Earth," Rick's group faces roadblocks set by the Saviors while taking Maggie to the Hilltop. Eventually, they are ambushed by a large group of Saviors led by Negan's right-hand man, Simon. Negan forces Rick and his group to kneel, takes their weapons, and declares that they now work for him. Due to the deaths of Saviors by Rick's group, Negan decides to punish them by beating one of them to death with his baseball bat, Lucille. He selects the victim using the rhyme "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe" and brutally kills them while the rest of the group watches in horror.
Season 7[]
Negan kills Abraham and Glenn. Negan then confronts Rick, who refuses to pledge loyalty to him. Negan threatens to kill Rick's son Carl and the rest of the group unless he cuts off his arm. Rick raises the axe, but Negan stops him, satisfied with breaking the elder Grimes' spirit. Negan rules the Sanctuary through fear and rewards his enforcers, even Daryl, who refuses to submit. He arrives at Alexandria early and forces Rick to give him a tour and hold Lucille. Rick and Father Gabriel lie to Negan about Maggie's death to protect her.
Negan convinces Carl not to shoot a Savior and takes all of Alexandria's guns. When two guns go missing, Negan threatens Olivia to kill them unless they are found. However, Rick finds them and a hunting rifle. Impressed, Negan tells Rick to find something interesting for next time.
Negan meets his men returning with supplies from the Hilltop and is attacked by Carl, who kills two Saviors. Negan develops respect for Carl and later exposes his eye to get to know him better. He apologizes when Carl becomes visibly upset, and later burns Mark, a Savior who has displeased him, with a hot iron to teach everyone about "following the rules." He brings Carl back to Alexandria, where they wait for Rick.
In "Hostiles and Calamities," Negan is approached by Spencer Monroe, who tries to bond with him over whiskey and pool. They seem to hit it off, but Negan later reveals that Rick is dangerous and should be in charge for both of their sakes. He respects Rick's bravery and refuses to let him go.
Rosita shoots at Negan, but misses and hits Lucille instead. Negan threatens Rosita to have her face mutilated unless she tells him where she got the bullet. When she refuses, Negan orders Arat to kill someone, killing Olivia. Rick arrives and demands to know what happened. Negan calmly replies that he tried to be reasonable and killed Spencer unharmed.
When Eugene Porter confesses to making the bullet, Negan takes him prisoner and tells Rick that he is "way in the hole" for this incident. Rick realizes he has to stop Negan and attempts to convince other communities to form an alliance to defeat their common enemy.
In "Hostiles and Calamities," Negan greets Eugene entering the Sanctuary and allows him to get comfortable within it. He suspects Sherry of freeing Daryl and has his minion Dwight beaten and thrown in a cell. He sends Dwight after Sherry, only to find evidence of Dr. Carson aiding in Daryl's escape.
Negan visits Sasha, a captive, and discovers one of his Saviors, David, attempting to rape her. He states that rape is against their rules and will not tolerate such behavior. David apologizes, but Negan rams a knife through his throat, stating he does not accept his apology. He then leaves Sasha with a choice: kill herself or kill David once he reanimates to show her willingness to work with him.
Negan leads a convoy of Saviors to Alexandria, with Simon, Dwight, Eugene, and Sasha in tow. He plans to bring Rick back under his control, revealing the Scavengers are working for him. Negan brings a coffin forward and reveals Sasha is inside, offering to let most of them live if they meet his demands, including all weapons, Daryl returning to him, and Rick choosing someone to be killed by Lucille. However, Sasha dies and reanimates as a walker, leading to a gunfight. Negan captures Rick and Carl, and prepares to kill Carl. However, the Saviors are ambushed by King Ezekiel, forces from the Kingdom, and Maggie from Hilltop. Caught off guard by Rick's reinforcements, Negan orders a retreat. He questions Eugene about Sasha's death in the coffin and declares war with the assembled Saviors.
Season 8[]
Negan faces off against Rick and his alliance outside the Sanctuary. A massive walker herd, led by Daryl, puts pressure on Negan, trapping him with Gabriel in a trailer.
In a moment of vulnerability, Negan shares his regrets about his first wife's death and escapes with Gabriel's help. He returns to Alexandria, where Carl tries to persuade him to choose peace, but Negan proceeds with an attack. Later, Negan deals with internal conflicts among his lieutenants, including Simon's insubordination. Rick informs Negan of Carl's death and rejects peace offers.
Negan's plan to infect weapons with walker flesh leads to a showdown with Rick at an abandoned building. During the battle, Negan's beloved Lucille is destroyed. He escapes but is captured by Jadis. Upon returning to the Savior compound, Negan regains control by defeating Simon and forces Dwight to manipulate Rick's group. Michonne reads a letter from Carl, but Negan remains determined to eliminate Rick and his allies.
When the final battle begins, Negan's weapons fail due to sabotage by Eugene. Rick defeats Negan, but instead of killing him, he decides to spare his life, inspired by Carl's vision for peace.
Season 9[]
18 months after the war, Rick visits Negan in his cell to discuss the new peace among the communities and a bridge they're building for their future. Negan warns that the peace won't last, but Rick reassures him. Michonne convinces Negan to end a hunger strike by sharing his regrets about his late wife, Lucille. Maggie, seeking revenge for Glenn's death, meets Negan but decides not to kill him, as he's "worse than dead."
Six years later, Negan remains imprisoned in Alexandria and befriends Judith. He helps her with homework and learns to be a better person. Gabriel visits him and they discuss their lives. Negan escapes briefly but returns to his cell voluntarily. He shares stories with Judith and helps her when she goes missing. During a blizzard, he saves Judith's life, earning respect from the community.
Season 10[]
After the storm, Negan helps protect Alexandria by teaming up with Aaron. When defending Lydia from the Highwaymen, Negan kills one of them in self-defense and faces possible execution. He escapes, forms a dark alliance with Alpha, the Whisperers' leader, and joins their attack on Hilltop.
Negan later tricks Alpha and kills her, becoming a potential ally to the communities. In the final battle against the Whisperers, he helps distract Beta, allowing Daryl to defeat him. Despite intending to stay, Negan fears Maggie's return, as she wants him dead.
Season 11[]
Negan joins Maggie to reclaim her village from the Reapers, sensing her intention to kill him. When they get separated from the group, they reluctantly work together and eventually unite with Gabriel and Elijah. Negan agrees to train Maggie as a Whisperer in exchange for her giving up revenge.
They attack Meridian but face a rocket attack. Negan later goes his own way, disillusioned. Six months later, he marries Annie, joins the Commonwealth community, and forms an uneasy alliance with Maggie and Daryl to defeat a corrupt leader. Negan is imprisoned in Commonwealth's labor camp, endures abuse, and faces execution but is saved when the soldiers turn on their cruel warden. In the series finale, he helps fight off a walker herd and saves the life of Commonwealth's leader, Pamela Milton.
In the end, Negan apologizes to Maggie, who can't forgive him but decides to move on from her anger. Negan and Annie leave the Commonwealth together to start a new life.
Dead City Season 1[]
5-6 years after the finale of the original series, Maggie seeks Negan's help when their son, Hershel, is kidnapped and taken to a walker-filled Manhattan by a man known as the Croat. Maggie's Hilltop community has moved to a new location after the Whisperers' attack, and it's now under threat from the Croat, who seems to be a former Savior.
Maggie makes a deal with Negan, allowing his companion Ginny to stay at Hilltop in exchange for his help. Negan has returned to some of his old ways, and he's being pursued by New Babylon Federation marshals for alleged murders. However, Negan claims the truth is different from what the marshals believe.
Maggie faces her past trauma over Glenn's death while reluctantly partnering with Negan, who killed her husband. She starts to understand things from Negan's perspective and discovers the Croat's history as one of Negan's early Saviors, experiencing Negan's protective and sometimes ruthless charisma from a different angle.
Dead City Season 2[]
Negan is set to return in The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2.
Personality[]
Negan has a unique personality. He has a penchant for provocation and power games. The stronger the resistance to his will, the more he seems to enjoy the test of wills. With insight rarely associated to violent antagonists, Negan appears to both observe and appreciate the concerns and intentions of his opposite numbers. This gives him a serious psychological advantage in most contest of wills, as he is able to anticipate and preempt an enemy's plans.
He is also shown to be a very intelligent, logical, clever, and brilliant strategist. While he can be very intimidating, dangerous, and brutal, he is also a strangely charismatic man with a twisted sense of humor, and with this humor comes frequent cursing. Also, while he can be very casual and jolly when speaking to an ally or enemy, he has a temper that can frighten just about anybody. Despite being violent, sadistic and murderous, he does have a compassionate and insightful side to him that comes out at times: this is shown when he makes fun of Carl's damaged eye and when Carl begins to cry, Negan quickly apologizes to the poor boy.
Also, when Negan makes fun of Olivia's weight and makes her cry, he regrets it and apologizes to her, and then offers to have sex with her if she wants to, but an offended Olivia slaps him in the face, causing Negan's men to aim their guns at her, ready to kill her. However, Negan orders his men to stand down since he knows that he crossed the line. This shows that whenever Negan crosses the line when he insults someone without measurable gain, he almost immediately tries to make up for it and can't bring himself to ignore it. Furthermore, Negan always follows his moral code, as much as he loves violence, he absolutely hates sexual violence (finding it "unseemly"), and he will not hesitate to kill anyone who commits sexual violence of any kind, friend or foe. He believes that if anyone in his group of Saviors are to commit rape, then their goal of rebuilding civilization can never be achieved.
As well as his dislike towards rape, Negan also dislikes killing people at random, which is never shown by any of the other main antagonists in the series, save for Chris and The Hunters. Negan really only wants to install fear in other people and tries to keep as many people alive as possible, hence why he called his group "The Saviors". Also, he is willing to spare anyone whom he sees as potentially useful and can be reasonable during negotiations, and he is a man of his word as he promises to help communities clear out walkers near their homes and will not destroy their communities, as long as they give him half of everything they have once a week.
Unlike other villains in the past, such as The Governor and Thomas Richards, Negan is always true to himself and is a very honest and dependable man; it is not really in his nature to lie, even if his honesty is brutal. Despite seemingly having little empathy and remorse, he can occasionally be remorseful. Unlike many other villains throughout the series, Negan does not underestimate his enemies, at least not as much as other villains do. He knows full well how battle-experienced and dangerous Rick and his group are and as a result, he admires their skills and views them as extremely useful for his cause, hence why he keeps them alive. However, he does kill one of their group members, Glenn, when they kill a dozen of his men, showing that while he wants to keep potentially useful survivors alive in order for them to work for him, Negan does not tolerate other survivors killing his men, and will give the survivors a severe but fair punishment by killing at least one member of their group.
He also has a weird and disturbing relationship with his baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire, "Lucille", indicating that he is an objectophiliac. However, it is later on revealed in his back-story episode "Here's Negan" that he named his baseball bat after his deceased wife, Lucille, whom he loved and he wanted to dedicate his bat to her. We see that Negan still mourns the loss of his wife and loves her deeply, years after her death and admits that she was his "true" wife.
Victims[]
- Rory (Caused)
- Marsha (Caused or Direct)
- Tim (Caused or Direct)
- Ethan (Indirectly Caused)
- Denise Cloyd (Caused)
- Abraham Ford
- Glenn Rhee
- Spencer Monroe (Alive)
- Olivia (Caused)
- Emmett Carson
- David (Alive)
- Sasha Williams (Indirectly Caused)
- Dean (Zombified)
- Brion (Indirectly Caused)
- Tamiel (Indirectly Caused)
- Harlan Carson (Indirectly Caused)
- Tobin (Indirectly Caused)
- Kurt (Indirectly Caused)
- Kevin (Indirectly Caused)
- Dana (Indirectly Caused)
- Wesley (Indirectly Caused)
- Katy (Indirectly Caused)
- Bruce (Indirectly Caused)
- Gary (Caused, Before Reanimation)
- Simon (Alive)
- Lance (Caused)
- Duke (Caused)
- Richie (Zombified)
- Margo (Accidental)
- Brandon
- Alpha (Alive)
- At least 20 unnamed people
- At least 12 unnamed residents of the Alexandria Safe-Zone (Caused)
- At least 130 unnamed Scavengers (Indirectly Caused)
- 13 unnamed Hilltop residents and refugees (Indirectly Caused)
- 28 unnamed Saviors (21 Caused, 2 Indirectly Caused, 1 Before Reanimation, 5 Zombified)
- 6 unnamed Hilltop residents and refugees (Indirectly Caused)
- 3 unnamed Whisperers
- 2 unnamed Coalition members (1 Directly or Indirectly Caused, 1 Out of Mercy)
- Numerous counts of zombies and unnamed people (Caused and Direct)
Appearances[]
Appearances on The Show |
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Season 6[]
Season 7[]
Season 8[]
Season 9[]
Season 10[]
Season 11[]
Dead City[]
|
Quotes[]
“ | I care about my people. I don't want to just march them on the line of fire because I want to play "my dick is bigger than yours". It is. We both know it. | „ |
~ Negan to Rick. |
“ | Ho-ly crap! You are creepy as sh*t, sneaking up on me, wearin' that collar with that freaky-ass smile! | „ |
~ Negan upon meeting Gabriel for the first time. |
“ | Where's Rick?... Dooooooon't caaaare... Where's Rick? | „ |
“ | You got some beach ball-sized lady nuts coming in kamikaze like that. | „ |
~ Negan to Sasha. |
“ | EASY PEASY LEMON SQUEEZY!! | „ |
~ One of Negan's most memorable quotes |
“ | He hid in one of my trucks and machine-gunned a bunch of my men down...yet I brought him home, safe and sound...AND, I fed him SPAGHETTI. | „ |
~ Negan telling Rick that he took care of Carl. |
“ | What I don't get is after all these years you STILL think I'm the bad guy. I'm not, NO ONE is! You know what, Maggie? Maybe everyone is. Ask yourself one question: have many husbands and fathers have YOU killed? | „ |
~ Negan defending himself to Maggie. |
Trivia[]
- Negan is the second major primary antagonist in the Comic Series, the first being The Governor and the third being Alpha.
- Out of all three of the antagonists, Negan has the longest lifespan and is the only one still alive.
- Also, while still a bad guy, Negan is the least evil of the three, because unlike The Governor, Negan does not really like killing people, he only kills to keep people in line, and he absolutely hates sexual violence (The Governor was a vicious rapist who raped Michonne multiple times). Plus, unlike Alpha who is a feral individual, Negan wants to rebuild civilization, and unlike Alpha, Negan does not kill children or pregnant women. And unlike Alpha, Negan hates rape and does not allow anyone in his group to rape anyone (Alpha allowed many of her male Whisperers to rape her own daughter, Lydia and other female Whisperers, numerous times because she believed that it would make them "stronger").
- Also, each of the three major antagonists has a different status: Negan is alive, The Governor is dead, and Alpha is undead.
- In many ways, Negan is more morally correct and honorable than Rick Grimes.
- Charlie Adlard has confirmed that Negan is based on actor and musician Henry Rollins.
- Henry Rollins also auditioned for the role of Negan due to partially inspiring the character, but the role was eventually given to Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
- Negan in both the Comic Series and TV Series are different in some ways. In the Comic Series, Negan is a very tall and physically imposing man with a shaven face, square jaw, and his leather jacket's zipper is on his left side, whereas in the TV series, while still very tall, he is thinner, has a stubble, his jaw is more round, and his leather jacket's zipper is on his right side, which is more appropriate since men's leather jackets have the zipper on the right side, while women's leather jackets have the zipper on the left side. In addition, TV Series Negan is more sadistic, disrespectful and depraved than his Comic counterpart, shown when he kills two people in Rick's group, Abraham and Glenn, instead of just one, Glenn, like in the comics, and even wanted Rick to chop off Carl's left arm or else everyone in Rick's group would be executed by Negan's men (though Negan soon reveals that it was a test and he just wanted to scare Rick into complete submission, which indeed worked), something that his Comic counterpart never did. TV Series Negan also spends far more time mocking and torturing his victims and admits that he enjoys killing people (especially men, whilst he admits that he does not enjoy killing women) under the right circumstances, while his Comic counterpart confesses to Rick in private that he does not enjoy killing people, men or women.
- Also, it is strongly implied that in the TV Series, during his debut, Negan purposely, not randomly, selected Abraham because of the man's imposing size and fearless demeanor, and Negan felt somewhat intimidated by him and felt that it was too dangerous to keep the larger man alive. Negan also probably believed that removing Abraham from Rick's group would leave the group at a certain practical disadvantage. Therefore, Negan was most likely just messing with Rick and his group with the "eenie, meeny, miney, moe" game and had already chosen to kill Abraham even before the game. Even Abraham's actor, Michael Cudlitz, agrees that Negan's game was simply a front for him to observe each member of the group and determine who was the logical choice to take out. His seemingly random choice of Glenn as his second victim supports this interpretation as well, given that Glenn had previously interrupted him. In the Comic Series, however, Negan's victim, Glenn, truly appears to have been a random selection since he gave several reasons as to why he couldn't decide as to who was going to get "Lucilled".
- Negan is the fourth major primary antagonist in the TV Series, the first being Shane Walsh, the second being The Governor, and the third being Gareth.
- In the comics, Negan's right-hand man is Dwight but the Savior that appeared in Issue 97 and 100 came close as well. In the TV Series, Negan's right hand man is Simon and the initially shared a very strong relationship. Simon is the second in command of the Saviors. The differences is that while Dwight wants to overthrow Negan as revenge, Simon wants to betray Negan out of disagreement with Negan's ideology and for the Saviors' means of survival, seeing that it would be more effective to destroy the Militia completely and find other communities to extort and potentially raid.
- He is the first major antagonist in The Walking Dead to later become an anti-hero and redeem themselves.
- From Issue 100 to Issue 111; Negan had a red scarf around his neck in the comics. However, after Issue 111, Negan has not been shown wearing that since. In the TV Series; Negan's scarf is much larger and he has been seen wearing it from time to time thus far. In Season 8 and 9; Negan has not been seen wearing the scarf. In Season 10, Negan's original leather jacket and the red scarf returned.
- TV Negan currently possesses the largest kill count out of any character on The Walking Dead, with a total of at least 225 victims.
- TV Negan currently possesses the highest kill count of any antagonist encountered on The Walking Dead.
- Also, TV Negan has officially killed more main characters than any other antagonist both directly and caused. He is responsible for the deaths of 5 main characters: Abraham Ford, Glenn Rhee, Spencer Monroe, Sasha Williams and Simon.
- TV Negan is also the first main antagonist to kill more than one main character in one episode (Abraham Ford and Glenn Rhee).
- So far, Negan has the longest lifespan out of any other main antagonist in the TV Series with a total of 33 episodes; surpassing the Governor, who had 22 episodes.
- He is also one of the two main antagonists who survived the end of the Comic Series, the other being Sebastian Milton.
- Negan serves as a guest DLC character for Tekken 7, with Jeffrey Dean Morgan returning to reprise the role. His appearances in the Season 6 finale and Season 7 premiere serve as a basis for his moveset.
- Negan was originally planned to be killed off on three separate occasions in the Comic Series:
- In an earlier draft for Volume 17: Something to Fear, he would've been killed of in the end of volume. It would've depicted Rick bringing Negan's decapitated head to Maggie in a box, saying "I'm sorry".
- He was planned to be killed in Issue 108. However, Robert Kirkman stated that he liked Negan "too much" to kill him off.
- He was supposed to be killed by Maggie Greene in Issue 174, but Kirkman changed his mind while writing the issue.
- When writing Issue 100, Glenn was originally supposed to be killed by Rick Grimes in order to save his son. Kirkman disliked this idea, and thus Negan was born.
- In the Letter Hacks for Issue 182, it was stated by Robert Kirkman that Negan wouldn't be making any more appearances past Issue 174. He reiterated this statement in the Letter Hacks for Issue 192.
- However, he was shown to still be alive in Issue 193 and the spin-off comic Negan Lives.
- Despite claiming several times that he does not tolerate rape and is for consent, Negan himself is arguably a rapist by sexual coercion. While the women in his harem may verbally consent to sex, it is made clear that none of them are even comfortable being in the same room as him, much less having sex with him, which they only do to keep their family members safe and to have access to the medicine they need to live, such as the case with Tina, who's a diabetic. Negan also intimidates Amber into staying with him after she had sex with Mark by telling her that if she wanted to leave him, she could, but he would force her and her family to return to the harsh working condition beneath them. Furthermore, even if one of his wives chose to leave Sanctuary, he would still send his men to go after them and kidnap them, which is exactly what he did to Sherry and attempted to do with Tina.
- Negan and his "wives" are widely considered the most controversial aspect of both the TV series and comics, since Negan is later redeemed, but is never held accountable for his treatment of them.
External Links[]
- Negan on the Heroes Wiki.
- Negan (TV Series) on the Walking Dead Wiki.
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