(Spoilers S7E11) Dwight's one of my favorite character and I wanted to talk about his motivation parallels with Daryl

Tl;dr Dwight and Daryl both were given opportunity to escape Negan by Dwight's wife escaping and both killed a relatively innocent person who posed a POTENTIAL threat to stopping them from getting out from under Negan's Thumb - even though both of the victims were not acting aggressive at the time

Dwight and his motivation

First off Dwight is one of the most tragic (to me) stories in the show. He seems to be a broken version of Daryl, and while I believe Dwight would have lashed out against Negan when his own life was at risk, Negan offered him a very sick and twisted choice where his wife would suffer for Dwight's actions. Basically become a monster while I gently rape your wife or watch me rape and torture your wife before I kill you. It's made me hate Negan more than any other single action in the show. Theres been some posts this week "we all like to think we'd be like Daryl, but a lot of us would be like Eugene" ... I'm horrified I'd be like Dwight.

But Dwight has to hate Negan. You don't forget that. Sure - pretending to be a monster for long enough you start to become one - what else can he enjoy? And the cage Negan has him in is not physical like Daryl's it is the constant threat of bad things happening to his wife.

Dwight's wife giving an opportunity for escape

When Dwight's wife escaped its pretty obvious she gave Daryl the opportunity to escape. Dwight was finally given one to, Negan apparently doesn't realize it yet but he lost all his leverage over Dwight. When he was reading the letter from his wife you can tell his resolve strengthens and its time for him to fight - he only has to get himself out of there safely now.

Killing to make it to safety

Daryl killed someone who had surrendered and promised not to turn him in (fat joe maybe?) and theres a decent chance Daryl could have escaped and not killed him. Theres a decent chance he would never have talked. But theres not time left to be a good person, its us versus them. Daryl killed him in cold blood to prevent him from revealing to Negan where he left from/when.

Dwight recently had some conversations with the doctor that would make the doctor highly suspicious that he killed his own wife. He may never have brought it at all, or he may have and fated Dwight to a very bad time. Like Daryl he chose to play it safe and preemptively kill or discredit the doctor before the doctor could reveal the information he had to Negan, because again there is no time to be a good person (ironically the doctors advice)

I'm not really taking a moral stand either way on whether these killings are justified, but Dwight caught a lot of heat for it this week, and I think our heroes may have done the same thing in his shoes. Survivors gotta survive though.

Submitted March 02, 2017 at 04:30PM by CrossCheckPanda http://ift.tt/2ljyl0v