I love The Walking Dead.
Obviously, I’m not the only one. There’s just something about watching humanity degrade into anarchy while survivors try to avoid becoming a happy meal for the undead that draws in 20 million viewers each week. The most interesting part of The Walking Dead is how people cope with the pain of losing loved ones, while trying to re-establish a working society with death looming around every corner. We’ve witnessed over the past six seasons that the weak perish and the strong survive, despite becoming horribly damaged emotionally.
In the zombie apocalypse, teamwork makes the dream work (Seriously, where’s my motivational poster here?). Rick Grimes, the faithful leader of the show has managed to compile what might be the most bad-ass, rag-tag group of survivors the crumbling world has to offer. As a die-hard RPG gamer, I understand the importance of having a diverse team to handle any situation and if I were to guess, based on Rick’s choice of companions, he may have been a devout role-playing gamer himself before everything went haywire. Let me explain, the following characters all display similar traits to RPG classes.
Rick Grimes – Paladin/Shadow Knight
Traditionally the Paladin carries extreme lawful good intentions. The Paladin is always looking to conquer evil and upholds a strict code of ethics when dealing with morality. Rick began the show as a police officer who carried these values in spades. We saw this in season one in the way he dealt with Merle on the rooftop or when he was rescuing Glen from the gangsters in the “Vato” episode.
Of course, circumstances changed when he was forced to kill his best friend, he lost his wife and had a multitude of unsavory people threaten his existence. Rick developed into sort of an anti-hero, who while still upholding all things good, has struggled to maintain his compassion for the living.
D&D Wiki defines Shadow Knights as somewhat evil, but cannot be chaotic. They adhere to the will of their dark god but still remain somewhat lawful in their actions. Rick’s actions still show that his heart’s in the right place but he has a hard time accepting new people into his life and often greets them with hostility. The way Rick handles the sheltered people of Alexandria shows that he’s looking to protect them but will not hesitate to leave them to die, or kill them if they slow him down. Without the moral support from characters like Dale, Hershel and Morgan it’s totally possible that Rick could have strayed to a more chaotic evil mentality.
Carol – Assassin
Carol has undoubtedly had the greatest evolution of any character in The Walking Dead. Starting out she was a victim of domestic abuse while doing everything in her power to keep her daughter Sophie alive. Carol didn’t seem like she had a chance in hell of surviving… until she discovered her rogue like talents that is.
Assassins are nimble, dexterous and deadly foes who use stealth to prey on their victims. Carol has used this tactic on several occasions. She’s quite frail physically so she needs to even the odds with smoke and mirrors. Whether it’s lathering up in zombie entrails to blend in with a horde or disguising as one of the Wolves to rack up an impressive kill streak, Carol demonstrates that size doesn’t matter when you can outsmart your enemies.
Morgan – Monk
Besides being Rick’s moral compass, Morgan has learned to take a less lethal approach to surviving. Trained in the martial arts of Aikido, he’s able to channel his inner Donatello and kick some serious shell.
The Monk archetype focuses on hand to hand or blunt weapons and they are generally pretty fragile. Morgan’s not exactly weak by the traditional sense but his ideologies make him vulnerable in this brutal, unforgiving world. We’ve seen characters take the pacifist role before and we know that they usually end up among the living impaired. What Morgan does well is keep the group grounded and tries to salvage whatever humanity is left in them.
Click on thru to page two for the final two characters and their classic roles…