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Characters / The Walking Dead (2010): Maggie Greene

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Due to the Anyone Can Die nature of the show and quickly moving plots, only spoilers from the current/most recent season will be spoiled out to prevent entire pages of whited out text. These spoiler tags will be removed upon the debut of the following season, and the character bios will be updated then as well. Additionally, character portraits will be updated each half-season with the release of an official, complete set from AMC. If you have not seen the first ten seasons read at your own risk!

Maggie Rhee (née Greene)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thewalkingdeaddeadcitymaggie.png
"Plenty others have made the mistake of threatening my family. Most of them are dead now."

Portrayed By: Lauren CohanForeign voice actors 

Appearances: The Walking Dead (Seasons 2-11) | The Walking Dead: Dead City

Debut: "Bloodletting"

"I want people to look up to what I’ve done and what I do, not what I have that they don’t."

The oldest daughter of Hershel Greene, Maggie is the most welcoming member of her family to the group of survivors from Atlanta. Quickly establishing herself as smart, pragmatic, and dependable, she finds herself quickly falling in love with Glenn Rhee, entering a passionate relationship with him as the Atlanta group and the Greene family integrate. After the fall of the farm, Maggie becomes one of the group's main defenders and scavengers, regularly seen on the frontline, and marries Glenn after the end of the Woodbury War.

Months later, Maggie loses her father to The Governor, and soon Beth as well during a stand-off with Grady Memorial Hospital. Things look up when the group arrives at the Alexandria Safe-Zone; realizing the community is safe enough for a sustainable future, Glenn and Maggie agree to conceive a child together. Maggie begins to step up as a key leader of Alexandria, serving as Deanna's right-hand woman and later as the liaison between Alexandria and Hilltop Colony. When the group is captured by the Saviors, Maggie is forced to watch Abraham die next to her, and then Glenn is killed after Daryl lashes out. Glenn is able to tell Maggie that he'll find her some day before perishing, and Maggie is the first of the group to get up after their ordeal and demands they fight back. After being taken to Hilltop, Maggie is asked to stay there indefinitely by Dr. Carson, and eventually wins the hearts of the locals through her bravery and leadership abilities.

When the Savior War begins, Maggie has usurped Gregory's position as the leader of Hilltop Colony, and leads her community into battle with the Saviors. However, Maggie is devastated and enraged when Rick and Michonne ultimately end the war by sparing Negan's life. Feeling betrayed by her friends and that justice hasn't been served to Glenn's murderer, Maggie plots to one day kill Negan behind Rick and Michonne's back. However, she relents after seeing how far into despair Negan has fallen suffering in his imprisonment. After Rick's apparent death, Maggie leaves the region with her newborn son Hershel to build a community out west with Georgie, leaving Jesus in charge of Hilltop.

Maggie does not return until several years later when she learns of the Coalition's conflict with the Whisperers and after the fall of Meridian at the hands of the Reapers. She is enraged to find Negan a free man and living amongst the community, but is forced to work with him as a reluctant ally during the Reaper conflict. Maggie puts down the Reaper threat and is granted some peace when Negan leaves the Coalition, recognizing she'll likely never forgive him. However, they're forced to work together again when the Commonwealth's leaders threaten their groups. The conflict sees Maggie finally make a tentative peace with Negan upon seeing how he's genuinely trying to change and after he apologizes to her for taking Glenn from her.

Peace wouldn't last, however, as the Croat, a former Savior, kidnaps and takes Hershel hostage. With no other choice, Maggie is forced to turn to Negan for help recovering him from New York City...


    open/close all folders 

    A-G 

  • Action Girl: Develops into one. Starting in Season 3 she's able to hold her own alongside the toughest and most competent fighters in the group such as Daryl and Rick. By the time the season ends, she's the most skilled gun user of all the women. She also improves as a hand-to-hand fighter, even being able to hold her own against two Reapers who are trained mercenaries.
  • Action Mom: Maggie loves her son Hershel and will do anything to keep him safe, even potentially getting Negan killed despite him having a family of his own to get back to.
  • Adaptation Personality Change: Compared to her initially fragile comicbook counterpart, she's more assertive and emotionally strong from the get-go. She doesn't suffer from Driven to Suicide like her comics counterpart does following the destruction of the prison and the death of her family.
  • Adaptational Badass:
    • She's a credible Action Girl here compared to the comics. In fact, she is the most competent female member of the group in Season 3 until Michonne joins them.
    • Comic Maggie became less and less involved in action after giving birth to her son, instead being more of a behind-the-scenes, diplomatic/political leader. This Maggie is as combat-capable as ever, and can hold her own against trained mercenaries like Fisher, Carver, and Leah.
  • Adaptational Curves: She's notably taller and more well-endowed than her comic counterpart.
  • Adaptational Nice Guy:
    • She’s generally much kinder and emotionally warm and stable than her comic counterpart. In the comic she (in a fit of grief) blames Rick for not having the guts to stand up to Negan before he killed Glenn. In the show she completely understands the dire situation the group was in and doesn't even hold Daryl (who indirectly got Glenn killed) responsible.
    • Thanks to the show not making her into the Governor of the Commonwealth, she never becomes a neglectful mother to Hershel, nor is she cold and distant from her friends like in the comics.
  • Adrenaline Makeover: In Season 2 she dresses mostly in comfortable, flattering, and feminine clothing, which makes sense, as Maggie has spent the first few months of the apocalypse sheltered at her family farm and hasn't encountered many walkers or had to adapt to living on the road yet. After the eight-month time jump between Seasons 2 and 3, during which the group is forced to abandon the farm and spend much of the winter in search of a new place to live, Maggie starts wearing more basic clothing such as tank tops. She also becomes the group's main female fighter next to stalwarts such as Rick, Daryl, Glenn, and T-Dog, and thus spends a lot of her screen time sweaty and covered in blood.
  • Age Lift: From 19 in the comic to 22 in the show.
  • Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: She has dark red hair, is tall, and usually composed.
  • Ambadassador: In Season 6 she is the diplomat between Alexandria and the Hilltop, and takes little shit from resident asshole Gregory.
  • Arsenal Attire: Dead City shows she has a built-in blade hidden in her boot.
  • Back-to-Back Badasses: With Sasha in "Alone" when they are surrounded by walkers near an ice cream truck.
  • Badass Boast:
    • When the Governor is about to rape her. It stops him dead in his tracks.
    Just do whatever you're gonna do and go to hell.
    • When Lance tries to get information about the Riverbend group from her son.
    Plenty others have made the mistake of threatening my family. Most of them are dead now.
  • Bad Liar: Not really in the main series, but several times in the first season of Dead City:
    • Maggie tells Negan and Ginny that The Croat stole her community's grain and took Hershel as collateral to ensure that they deliver next month's tribute. However, during her brief stay at The Bricks, Ginny discovers the grain silo to be full, revealing that Maggie lied and prompting her to set out to warn Negan of Maggie's true intentions.
    • While trying to gain the Manhattan Tribespeople's trust, Maggie comes up with a story that she and Negan are refugees from a community headed to Canada who fell overboard and were trying to get home. They don't buy it, and the duo gets locked up in a dingy bathroom for their troubles. Negan calls her out on this.
    • In the season finale, Negan essentially realizes what Maggie's plan is after seeing Ginny's warning flare. He gives Maggie the chance to confess to it herself first, but she instead puts forth the rather convoluted idea that Ginny set off the flare to let Negan know she feels bad about leaving from The Bricks. He isn't convinced in the slightest, and the two brawl just seconds later.
  • Bad with the Bone: When being held by Governor and Merle, she and Glenn use a walker's bone as a weapon to attack Merle and one other Mook. Said other Mook is killed by stabbing the bone into his neck, anyway.
  • Batter Up!: Though Season 3 sees her switch to Machete Mayhem alongside Glenn.
  • Battle Couple: She and Glenn have no problems working side-by-side and watching each others' backs in combat.
  • Berserk Button: As with the other members of Rick's group, don't mess with her family. Especially her father and her son. She outright slaps Shane when he squares up to Hershel for demanding Rick's group leave their farm after the barn shootout.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Along with Elijah, she arrives in the nick of time to save Gabriel from being killed by a trio of Whisperers in "A Certain Doom".
  • Big Damn Kiss: After spending most of "Pretty Much Dead Already" furious at Glenn for spilling the beans about the walkers in the barn, she gives him a big one when he tells her why he did what he did — so she could be safe and alive, regardless if she hates him for it. It confirms that she has feelings for Glenn beyond just their hook-ups and sees him for the person he is.
  • Big Damn Reunion: Has one with Glenn after the fall of the prison. Unfortunately, the same can't be said of Beth, who ends up dead mere hours after Maggie learned her sister was actually still alive.
  • Big Eater: In Season 7, since she's pregnant, her appetite really begins to pick up.
  • Big Good: Of Hilltop Colony starting in Season 7, and then for the entire Resistance as of the mid-season finale of Season 8, when Hilltop is the only allied colony left and she plans to rally everyone there for a last stand. She ends up deferring to Rick in the twilight days of the war. She is also this to the Wardens, the group she began leading during his six years away from Virginia. In Season 11, she's one of the main leaders of the Coalition alongside Daryl, Carol, Aaron, and Gabriel.
  • Big "NO!": She gives one when Negan suddenly strikes Glenn twice over the head with Lucille.
  • Big "SHUT UP!": In Season 8, she aims a sharp "Shut your damn mouth!" at Gregory.
  • Big Sister Instinct: Towards Beth and Carl.
  • Blood Knight: Downplayed, but she does seem to have more fun killing walkers than the rest of Rick's group when they first clear the prison courtyard at the start of Season 3.
  • Breaking Speech: Gives one to Leah in "Acts of God" to keep her distracted while she frees herself from her binds. She tells Leah that she went against her deal and slaughtered the other Reapers because it was what she wanted, and doesn't regret any of it.
  • Breakout Character: She becomes the Deuteragonist of Season 11 and ultimately receives her own spinoff, Dead City.
  • Break the Cutie: Starts off as a sweet, kindly farm girl who accepts Glenn and his group with open arms, but ends up nearly getting raped, loses her entire family, and also loses her faith by mid-Season 5. Defied after the Season 7 premiere, as even after Glenn himself dies, she is able to rebound from these tragedies and keep it together, even if she's no longer the sweet girl she was when we met her.
  • Broken Bird: Downplayed. She's lost her entire family and her husband, but she nevertheless soldiers on and remains a Plucky Girl.
  • Brutal Honesty: When she first had sex with Glenn, she admitted it was partly because she was lonely and her options weren't numerous these days. Afterwards, she claims it was a one time thing. Later she becomes more willing to tell it like it is, as seen when she rips into Gabriel during "Them".
  • The Bus Came Back: After being absent for about a season and a half, she returns to the show in "A Certain Doom".
  • But Now I Must Go: In Season 9, she departs Hilltop to help Georgie build and fortify other settlements across the country. She admits to Daryl that it was partly because she still had Negan on her mind and didn't want her son growing up knowing that the man who killed his father was still around.
  • Calling the Old Man Out: When Hershel wants to kick Rick's group off of the farm, she chastises him, partly because she doesn't want Glenn to leave.
  • The Chains of Commanding:
    • Taking leadership of a large community just at the onset of a war certainly is no easy task for Maggie. She has to contend with ever-dwindling food and supplies, a large amount of POW's brought in by Jesus (and against her will), and an overpopulation crisis when the other communities are sacked and their populations relocate to Hilltop. In "Do Not Send Us Astray", she is forced to bury dozens of her people after the Saviors' biological attack on Hilltop.
    • She doesn’t have it much better when she rejoins Alexandria with her new group, the Wardens. Many of them are picked off by the Reapers and she also has to contend with the fact that her husband’s murderer is a free man. Contending with a dilapidated Hilltop after the Reaper fight also is no picnic, especially when her constituents begin leaving for the Commonwealth.
  • Character Development: Goes from a flirty, feisty farm girl to a wise, powerful woman and the leader of the Hilltop Colony.
  • Characterization Marches On: Downplayed in Season 11. While she’s still more or less the same woman who left in Season 9, she’s endured six years of hardship and raising a child alone and as she relates in “Acheron, Part II”, has seen some truly horrible things that have changed her. She’s more capricious and pragmatic upon her return.
  • Composite Character: In the comics, Maggie has an older sister. Here, she takes the role of Hershel's eldest child. She also becomes the group's main (female) sniper in this continuity (until Season 5 when Carol and Sasha step up) instead of Andrea, due to the latter becoming an Adaptational Wimp and later dying. She also takes aspects from Michonne during the Woodbury arc as she was almost raped by the Governor (though Michonne was raped) and had a loved one decapitated by him.
  • Cool Big Sis: To Beth and later a surrogate one to Enid.
  • Couldn't Find a Pen: After the prison falls, she uses walker blood to leave messages for Glenn as their two separate parties decide to head for Terminus.
  • Cruel Mercy: She ends up choosing to spare Negan after seeing how much he really wants to die and realizing that keeping him alive is a Fate Worse than Death.
  • Crusading Widow: When she's under the impression that Glenn is dead. Later, when he actually does die and the rest of the group is too demoralized to move, she starts making plans to kill the man who did it while grieving over his body and is so ill she can barely stand. Negan learns the hard way that you don't want to be on the wrong end of this Crusading Widow in the Season 7 finale.
    Negan: That widow is alive, guns a-blazing!
  • Daddy's Girl: Maggie was very close to her father. She is seen crying and screaming when the Governor kills him.
  • Damsel in Distress: Kidnapped by Merle alongside Glenn, but gets rescued, even killing one of the guards holding them captive.
  • Damsel out of Distress: In addition to escaping Merle, she is also taken hostage alongside Carol at the end of "Not Tomorrow Yet", and manages to break free and kill her captives, as well as their reinforcements.
  • Death Glare: This is pretty much her default expression toward Negan. Understandable, since she still hates his guts for killing Glenn and wasn't around to witness his Heel–Face Turn in Season 10. It's little wonder Carol tries sending Negan away for his own safety.
  • Death Wail: She lets out an agonizing one as her father is slowly, brutally executed that also doubles as an aggressive roar of war, since at the same time she's unleashing hell on The Governor's militia. She gives another agonizing one after seeing Daryl carrying a lifeless Beth out of the hospital. She lets out another one when Glenn's head is smashed twice with Lucille, and once the Saviors leave, is a sobbing, wailing wreck once she finally breaks down.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: After having sex with Glenn she tries to claim it was just a one-time thing, but she slowly warms to Glenn and admits she likes him, and later is the first of the two to profess her love for him. Then this trope is flipped when Glenn has to come around to the idea that he loves her. It paid off, to say the least.
  • Determinator: One of her defining traits. Maggie has unarguably suffered through her time on the show, possibly more than anyone else. But she always keeps moving and never gives into her grief or undergoes any Sanity Slippage, and continues to try to make the world a better place for the people she cares about.
  • Do You Want to Copulate?: Maggie gets right to the point when she wants Glenn.
    Maggie: (grinning) I'll have sex with you.
  • Dude Magnet: Played for Drama. She attracts several men over the course of the series besides Glenn, the man she falls in love with and marries. It's just that outside of Glenn, the men who show interest in her are evil ghouls like The Governor, Gregory, or Negan (before his Heel–Face Turn).
  • 11th-Hour Ranger: Arrives at the Tower near the end of "A Certain Doom" to save Gabriel from being butchered by some attackers.
  • Et Tu, Brute?:
    • Maggie feels betrayed when Rick spares Negan and when Michonne supports it at the end of the Savior War.
    • She's shocked to learn that Carol was the one who let Negan out of his cell, though she later admits to Daryl that she also understands Carol's reasons for doing what she did.
  • Evil Stole My Faith: Midway through Season 5, so many bad things have happened that Maggie admits she's lost her faith, but eventually she regains it after the group proves that they're there for her. This is something that sticks around in Season 7, as even after Glenn dies, she is still able to find comfort in saying grace with her friends Sasha and Enid.
  • Faking the Dead: While she's away at Hilltop in Season 7, Alexandria digs a grave for her and tells Negan she has died of her illness. This is so Maggie can be at Hilltop for treatment from Dr. Carson without drawing Negan's suspicion about her whereabouts, and so Negan also does not learn of Alexandria's alliance with Hilltop. The ruse is cast off as Maggie personally leads the Hilltop Colony into battle against Negan himself in the season finale, and Negan is shocked to learn of her survival.
  • Fanservice Pack: Helps that she's played by former model Lauren Cohan.
  • Farmer's Daughter: Maggie is a beautiful young woman who lives on a farm with her father, Hershel. Lampshaded by Glenn.
  • Fatal Flaw: Stubbornness. In Season 2, she refuses to believe that walkers aren't real people, leading to much of the conflict between her and Glenn. In Season 11, she's hostile and dismissive to Negan despite all the helpful advice he gives while on the scavenging mission to Meridian (which she invited him on). She also denies help from the Commonwealth even though Hilltop is scraping by with the bare minimum. Lydia eventually calls her out on this.
  • Fiery Redhead: She's never afraid to voice her opinion or back down in an argument.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: Season 11 heavily revolves around her being invited to form this kind of relationship with Negan, and it’s far from an easy task.
    • By the time they assault Meridian, Maggie has accepted Negan is a useful ally when there’s something in it for him, and that he can provide honest, pragmatic advice as a military commander given his own experiences. They don’t become friends, but Maggie for the time being accepts him as being on her side.
    • ”No Other Way”, however, convinces Negan that she will inevitably turn on him and agrees it’s not worth staying since she could easily kill him, so he leaves the group.
    • They're forced to work together again when their paths cross in "The Rotten Core", and young Hershel (who stowed away in Maggie's truck) is placed in Negan's care after he saves him from a Commonwealth soldier. Negan's willingness to die for Maggie's son makes Maggie finally start to trust him and have her openly admit she is comfortable enough to leave Negan (and his wife Annie) to watch Hershel a second time in "Acts of God".
    • The Grand Finale has them more or less finally become this, after Negan finally, sincerely apologizes for murdering Glenn, and offers to be the one to assassinate Pamela to spare her the inevitable target on her back for doing so. Maggie sits with Negan and acknowledges that he is sincerely trying to be better, but admits that she probably will never forgive him while also assuring him that he has earned his place in the community and that she will try to make it work as well.
  • Forced to Watch: She's made to watch the execution of her father, along with the rest of the main cast. It happens again in Season 7, as Abraham and her husband Glenn are killed right in front of her.
  • Former Teen Rebel: She began to smoke and shoplift after her father remarried. She also ran over her ex-boyfriend's car with a tractor.
  • Friendly Enemy: She's more or less this with Negan come "Acts of God". She's accepted him as an ally, trusts him enough to watch her son, and is capable of having a civil conversation with him that doesn't involve her snapping at him or outright threatening his life. She does, however, make it clear that she does not forgive him, nor will she ever forget everything that he took from her when he killed Glenn. By “Rest in Peace”, convinced by his good actions and sincere apology, she finally tells him she accepts him as an ally and that she is trying to let go of her hate for him even if she never forgives him.
  • Friendly Sniper: By Season 3, she's easily the best marksman among the female cast and by the end of the season she appears to have become the group's primary sharpshooter. In the Season 2 finale, she indicates that her upbringing on the farm may have had a hand in her proficiency with firearms. By Season 5, she shares this role with Sasha and Carol as the latter radically steps up her game.
    Maggie: You grow up country, you pick up a thing or two.
  • Give Geeks a Chance: In a deleted scene, Glenn asks if she would have noticed him if not for the apocalypse, seeing as he was "a huge geek" in high school. Maggie tells him not to be sure she wouldn't have noticed him: "I like geeks."
  • Good Is Not Soft: She's one of the most moralistic characters on the show, but isn't afraid to kill if she has to, with her first victim being a Woodbury guard who she stabs in the throat with a walker bone. Notably, the only other unambiguously "heroic" characters to have taken human lives at that point in the series — not including Mercy Kills — are Rick and Michonne. And while most of those kills are in some way self-defense, she's one of the few people to flat-out murder someone, since she's a good enough shot that she intentionally kills a militia girl in Woodbury.

    H-N 

  • Happily Married: Maintains a loving, happy, and healthy marriage to Glenn for several seasons until his death in Season 7.
  • Hero Antagonist: In early Season 9, she and Daryl plot to kill Negan behind Rick's back despite knowing Rick is keeping him alive to honor the late Carl's wishes. They take preventive measures to keep Rick from reaching Alexandria to stop Maggie and further defy Rick's vision of a peaceful society by letting Oceanside kill Arat, the last of the Saviors responsible for the massacre that claimed the lives of their men and sent them into hiding. Maggie's reasons for wanting Negan dead are extremely justified, however, given Glenn's death and how Rick basically pulled a My Way or the Highway in his decision to spare Negan's life while ignoring how Maggie really felt about the situation.
  • Honorary Aunt: To Judith. They share a big hug upon reuniting for the first time in nearly a decade, and are shown bonding at the start of the next episode. It's even more heartwarming when you remember Maggie was the one who delivered Judith when she was born at the prison all those years ago.
  • Horseback Heroism: When she saves Andrea at the beginning of Season 2.
  • It's Personal: Her attitude towards Negan, the man who murdered her husband, and to the Reapers, the group who wiped out her last community.
  • Important Haircut: Goes to have Boyish Short Hair around the time she's expecting her first child.
  • Jack of All Stats: After becoming a well-rounded Action Girl in Season 3. She's good with firearms, but not as great as Rick, Daryl, Hershel, or Carl. She's effective in melee combat, but not as competent as Rick, T-Dog, Glenn, or Michonne. By Season 5, her marksmanship is only matched by Carol, Sasha, and Rick.
  • Jerkass to One: Maggie is normally quite level-headed and patient, even to assholes who grind her gears like the obnoxious Gregory. She does not, however, have any time for Negan's bullshit, which makes total sense given that he killed her husband, an act which he seems to have little remorse for. As such, Maggie spends a lot of Season 11 shutting him down at every opportunity.
  • Kick the Dog: When Gabriel tries to make small talk with her and let her know she can talk to him about her family if she needs to, she snaps at him and chastises him for leaving his flock to die. Gabriel may have needed it, but he was going out of his way to try to do something beneficial to the group since he's The Load, which is about the nicest thing he does in Season 5.
  • Kill the Ones You Love: Tearfully puts down her reanimated best friend, Sasha.
  • The Leader: She becomes the leader of Hilltop Colony in Season 7 after proving herself to be a much more competent, compassionate leader than Gregory ever was. In Season 8, with Alexandria and the Kingdom destroyed and everyone forced to flee to Hilltop she becomes the leader of the entire resistance, though she shares command with Rick towards the end of the war. As of Season 10, she's the leader of a group from Meridian called the Wardens consisting of her, Hershel Rhee, Cole, Elijah, and a few other survivors.
  • Mama Bear: She delivers a Badass Boast to Lance by threatening to kill him on the spot if he lays a hand on Hershel again.
  • The Mourning After: She still wears the wedding ring Glenn gave to her nearly a decade after his death, as her reappearance in "A Certain Doom" shows. In "Rest in Peace", she tells Negan she'll never love anyone like Glenn ever again.
  • Ms. Fanservice: She takes off her shirt and bra on more than one occasion, although the Shameful Strip by the Governor in Season 3 is most definitely not fanservice. In Season 6, she and Glenn have a nude Shower of Love scene and the camera takes a long look at her from behind. This trope ends up going away after Season 6, however. While she is still beautiful and often dresses well, she no longer gets any sort of fanservicey scenes or outfits.
  • My Greatest Failure: The fall of Hilltop in her absence is implied to be this for her. Despite already hating Negan on principle, she begins blaming him for the fall of her community, despite the situation having been explained to her, and the fact that Negan was forced to partake in the sacking as part of his assassination of Alpha, the woman truly responsible. In “Hunted” she tearfully blames Negan for it, suggesting she regrets having left and being unable to help protect the community she was formerly in charge of. Negan also seems to realize this is the case as he does not argue with her, since they both know what really happened. In Part 2, she stubbornly tries to rebuild Hilltop with pretty much nothing but her two bare hands.
  • Nice Girl: After warming up to Glenn she becomes one of the friendliest and most kind-hearted characters on the show. It doesn't mean she's soft, though. Not one bit.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
    • Ripping into Father Gabriel in "Them" makes Gabriel realize he's The Friend Nobody Likes and plays a major part in him betraying them to Deanna and begging for them to be kicked out, which Deanna comes dangerously close to considering.
    • She falls into this territory again in Season 9, when she and Daryl discover that a group of Oceansiders are responsible for the disappearances and murders of a number of Saviors, exacerbating tensions between the Saviors and the rest of the Militia. Instead of turning them in, she and Daryl turn their backs and let the Oceansiders continue their vigilante killings, ultimately resulting in Jed leading a group of Saviors to ambush the bridge camp in an attempt to secure guns and go after the Oceansiders themselves. The ensuing conflict draws a herd of Walkers which results in the destruction of the bridge and the disappearance of Rick, which in turn leads to the eventual dissolution of the Militia.
    • In "No Other Way" she allows Leah to leave with a single shot to her shoulder presumably as a courtesy to Daryl. Several months later, Leah returns with a vengeance and kills Marco. Maggie admits she should have just killed her despite what she meant to Daryl. It also has consequences for other people, as leaving Leah alive leads to her going after numerous Commonwealth troopers, bringing a genocidal Lance down on the innocent Riverbend Complex when they are believed responsible.

    O-Z 

  • Odd Couple: An extreme version of this with Negan, who is her husband's killer. Maggie is more serious and focused, yet also rather stubborn and ill-tempered. Negan is his usual snarky, pragmatic, lackadaisical self, and admits to finding walking among the dead in a skin mask to be "fun".
  • Official Couple: With Glenn officially starting towards the end of Season 2 and lasting until the start of Season 7, when Glenn is killed by Negan.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In "Us", she reveals that she deliberately caused the cave-in encountered by Glenn and Tara by unloading her last clip of bullets into the ceiling to cut off a horde of walkers.
  • Parental Abandonment: She has two Missing Moms (Hershel remarried). She later witnesses her father being brutally killed in front of her.
  • Parents as People: While she is still a loving, protective mother, Maggie inadvertently allows her son to grow up hateful and resentful of the man who killed Glenn. In the Grand Finale, she admits she no longer wants her son to see her so full of hatred due to the negative impact it's having on her and him by extension.
  • Pay Evil unto Evil:
    • She leaves Negan to rot in a cell for the rest of his life instead of granting him an easy Mercy Kill. She also shuts down most of Negan's attempts to prove to her that he's changed. While Negan really has turned over a new leaf, Maggie still has every right to dislike him.
    • She leaves Gage to die after he runs away with most of the group's ammo and leads a trail of walkers right to the train car they're hiding in. While Gage was a teenager, he had bullied Lydia in the past and certainly wasn't a valuable member of the team.
    • She has no mercy for any of the Reapers who cross her path, slaughtering the last ones besides Leah, who she allows to leave with a shot to her shoulder. In one fell swoop, she wipes out the enemies that took her community and slaughtered her people For the Evulz, punishes Leah for following Pope’s mad crusade.
  • Platonic Life-Partners: With Daryl, who becomes a surrogate big brother of sorts to her. He's the only one to have her back in every dispute or argument, and approves of her plan to kill her husband's murderer against Rick's wishes. Their friendship is not soured by Daryl being the one to inadvertently cause Glenn's death, as Maggie tells him she doesn't hold it against him, and implies that neither would Glenn.
  • Plucky Girl: She makes it clear she will stop at absolutely nothing in her quest to find Glenn following the fall of the prison. She's at it again in Season 6 when Glenn goes missing.
  • Pragmatic Hero: In Dead City, she's willing to sell Negan out to the Croat in exchange for Hershel's safe return. This despite Negan's complete change of heart and having a family of his own still out there somewhere.
  • Pregnant Badass: She starts trying to sideline herself a bit in Season 6 due to her pregnancy, but will definitely take up arms if the situation calls for it. "The Same Boat" secures her status as a Pregnant Badass (see Damsel out of Distress above), and in "Go Getters" she refuses to be kept out of the fight at Hilltop and drives over a bunch of walkers with a tractor. In the Season 7 finale, she leads the people of Hilltop into a massive gun battle against the Saviors. In the Season 8 premiere, she jokes that she can keep fighting well into her second trimester and later takes part in the initial attack on the Sanctuary as well as leading the charge in the battle at Hilltop.
  • Promotion to Opening Titles: Beginning in Season 3. She's been removed from the titles as of "Who Are You Now?", but is re-added in "Home Sweet Home" following her surprise return in "A Certain Doom".
  • Promotion to Parent: Helps take care of baby Judith after Lori's death in Season 3.
  • Put on a Bus: During the six-year Time Skip in Season 9, Maggie leaves with Hershel to help Georgie build up a distant community. She doesn't return until the back half of Season 10.
  • Rape as Drama: Fortunately averted. In Season 3, the Governor tells her to take her shirt off or he'll cut off Glenn's hand. She does so and the Governor is seen fondling her half-naked body, but when the two of them escape Woodbury and Glenn asks if she was raped, she confirms that wasn't the case.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: She's a kind, compassionate and protective leader once she takes up command of Hilltop.
  • Red Baron: Negan nicknames her "The Widow" and it later extends to the rest of the Saviors who are ordered to leave her, Rick, and Ezekiel alive to be made an example of in front of everyone. While the circumstances surrounding the moniker are certainly tragic, it does sound pretty badass.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni:
    • Tends to generate this kind of dynamic when interacting with either Glenn or Beth, acting as the passionate, impulsive Red to her husband's or sister's Blue.
    • In Season 11, she ends up becoming the Red to Negan of all people, being much more hotheaded and stubborn compared to his calmer and more reasonable Blue.
  • Relationship Upgrade: She and Glenn officially enter their relationship at the end of Season 2 when they have both professed their love for each other.
  • Relative Button: Negan invokes this on Maggie in Season 9, outright taunting her about how much he enjoyed killing Glenn and bringing up his horrific Eye Scream. A enraged Maggie almost bashes Negan's head in with a crowbar, only to back off when she realizes what it is he really wants.
  • Religious Bruiser: Not as much as her dad, but she's a bonafide devoted Christian and ass kicker. She loses the religious side of this in Season 5 after the loss of her entire family, but regains it in the season finale.
  • The Resenter: She's furious at Rick and Michonne for sparing Negan, and has Gregory publicly hanged to show them what happens at Hilltop in response to a crime as serious as premeditated homicide.
  • Restrained Revenge:
    • After spending 18 months wanting nothing more than to see Glenn's murderer pay for the crime with his life, she instead chooses a form of Cruel Mercy by sparing Negan's life after seeing how much he really wants to die.
    Maggie: I came here to kill Negan, and you're already worse than dead.
    • She lets Leah go with a single gunshot to her shoulder while killing her remaining Reapers, finally avenging all the innocents slaughtered by Pope at Meridian and punishing Leah for her cowardice by taking her own family from her.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: She wipes out the remaining Reapers and almost got Leah as well in “No Other Way”, despite Leah accepting Daryl’s deal that the Reapers leave in peace.
  • Sexy Secretary: Becomes Deanna Monroe's assistant in Alexandria.
  • Shameful Strip: Forced to do this in Season 3 by the Governor.
  • Shower of Love: With Glenn at the start of "East". It turns out to be the last time they make love, as Glenn leaves Alexandria shortly afterwards in search of Daryl and is killed early the following morning.
  • Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Maggie ultimately falls in love with Glenn because of his kind heart and big brain.
  • Sole Survivor: She is the last remaining member of the Greene family as of Season 5.
  • Spotlight-Stealing Squad: To compensate for her season and a half absence, she becomes one of the main focuses of the cast after her return and receives the most screen time of any of the characters in thee first two parts of Season 11.
  • The Starscream: A heroic version towards Gregory. She steadily builds up more power and influence at Hilltop as Season 7 progresses, then takes over as their new leader in Season 8 and has Gregory locked in a pen with a bunch of enemy hostages.
  • Statuesque Stunner: She's a tall, beautiful girl... which Glenn absolutely notices.
  • The Straight and Arrow Path: Her main weapon when she returns in "A Certain Doom". She uses her skills to great effect in "Acheron, Part II" when walkers overrun the train car.
  • Taught by Experience: She picked up most of her leadership abilities from watching Deanna and Georgie.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
    • In Season 11 she is forced to work alongside Negan who has earned a place, tentative though it may be, in the community. She is able to address him by name and turn her back to him, but she makes it very clear she still wants to kill him. It gets even worse when they are forced to travel alone together for a time. Part 1 revolves heavily around her eventually becoming willing to accept him as an ally. She becomes slightly less hateful towards him after he saves her son and makes a Declaration of Protection to guard the boy with his life.
    • With Negan again in Dead City. The entire plot is kicked off by one of his former minions kidnapping Hershel and taking him all the way to Manhattan. They are able to get along pretty civilly, though Negan calls her out for treating him like shit if she can get away with it even though he's here to help.
  • This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Vows to take on Leah alone, seeing as how she didn't previously finish her off when she had the chance, which led to Marco's death.
  • Token Religious Teammate: After her father dies, her sister gets abducted and killed and Gabriel undergoes a Sanity Slippage induced Face–Heel Turn, Maggie becomes the true religious voice of the group until she moves to Hilltop.
  • Token White: In the trio with Bob and Sasha after the fall of the prison.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: The tomboy to Beth's girly girl.
  • Toplessness from the Back: When she takes off her shirt to have sex with Glenn in "Cherokee Rose".
  • Trauma Conga Line: Where to begin? The only people who even come close to having it as bad as Maggie has are, arguably, Rick and Carol.
    • First, she loses her mother and brother early on to the walker virus, and later has to see them gunned down in front of her when Shane releases the walkers from the barn.
    • Next, family friends Otis, Patricia, and Jimmy all die within quick succession and Maggie is forced to flee the farm from a walker herd.
    • Then her sister Beth and father Hershel die within ten days of each other. She never gets to say a proper goodbye to either of them.
    • A few months later, Maggie's world is upended when her husband Glenn is brutally murdered in front of her, all while Maggie is suffering from a complication with her pregnancy.
    • Weeks later, her best friend Sasha dies in the conflict with the Saviors, and to add insult to injury, Rick and Michonne choose to spare Negan, the man who killed Glenn, which Maggie views as a major betrayal from two of her closest friends. While Maggie does get some closure regarding Glenn's death, as well as give birth to her and Glenn's child, due to being Put on a Bus she is not able to say a final farewell to the late Jesus, Enid, and Tara, all of whom were close friends of hers.
    • She possibly loses Georgie and later loses an entire town of people to the Reapers. The survivors of the massacre, with the exception of Elijah, end up getting picked off over the first part of Season 11. She also discovers her good friend, Alden, having been killed by a Reaper and reanimated after she made the decision to leave him alone in a church because he was injured.
  • Villain Killer: She kills many Saviors and members of the Governor's militia, as well as one Whisperer. In Season 11, she personally headshots two of Leah's right-hand men (Washington and Boone), causes the death of another (Fisher), and buries Elijah's scythe in the chest of The Dragon, Carver. She also orders the execution of the disgraced former leader of Hilltop, Gregory.
  • Walking the Earth: During the six-year time jump she left the Washington region with Hershel to help Georgie build up other settlements across the country.
  • What the Hell, Hero?:
    • By the look on her face in "Spend", she is hurt when Gabriel tells Deanna to not trust Rick's group and kick them out of Alexandria.
    • "What Comes After" sees Maggie scathingly dress down Michonne for disregarding her feelings about Negan and her loss of Glenn, and points out how hypocritical Michonne is being because of the fact that Michonne would've killed Negan if Negan had killed Rick.
    • In “Home Sweet Home” she is upset to see Carol freed Negan, but eventually concedes she understands and accepted that her actions helped lead to the defeat of the Whisperers.
  • When She Smiles: Even after losing so many of her loved ones, Maggie has a radiant, beautiful smile that when seen will help give people hope for the future again.
  • Woman Scorned: Implied when she tells Enid that back in high school, she ran over a boy's Camaro with a tractor.
  • Yank the Dog's Chain: A particularly cruel example. After the prison fell, Maggie operated under the mindset that Beth was dead during the second half of Season 4. In the episode from Season 5 "Coda" as she, Glenn and Abe return from their failed trip to DC, she is informed that they have a lead on where Beth is to her shock and delight. It is taken away from her when she arrives at the hospital where Beth is at to see Daryl carrying Beth's dead body in his arms. At which point Maggie drops to the ground and starts crying.
  • You Are in Command Now: Jesus grooms her to become the new leader of Hilltop to replace the cowardly, incompetent Gregory in Season 7, and she officially takes the mantle in the season finale.
  • Young and in Charge: Downplayed, but she's in her mid-twenties when she takes over leadership of Hilltop. By contrast, the original leader, Gregory, is in his late fifties or early sixties.

"Glenn made the decision, Rick. I was just following his lead."

Alternative Title(s): The Walking Dead TV Show Maggie Greene

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