Characters / The Walking Dead (2010): Negan Smith

The Walking Dead Main Character Index
Rick's Group | The Grimes Family (Rick Grimes) | Georgia (Morgan Jones, Gabriel Stokes) | Atlanta | Atlanta Survivor Camp (Daryl Dixon, Carol Peletier) | Greene Family & Friends (Maggie Greene) | Prison Newcomers (Michonne Hawthorne) | Woodbury (The Governor) | Tyreese's Group | The Chambler Family | Abraham's Group | Terminus | The Coalition & Other Allies | Alexandria Safe-Zone | The Hilltop Colony (Gregory) | The Kingdom | Oceanside | The Saviors (Negan Smith, Savior Outposts, Former Saviors) | Magna's Group | The Whisperers (Alpha) | The Commonwealth | The Reapers | Other Antagonists | Other Survivors

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!

Negan Smith

"What's the matter? Y'all scared of the Big Bad Wolf?"

Portrayed By: Jeffrey Dean Morgan^{Foreign voice actors}Iñaki Crespo (Spanish), Pedro Ruiz (Latin-American Spanish), Cassius Romero (Brazillian Portuguese), Akio Ōtsuka (Japanese), Charles Rettinghaus (German), Jérémie Covillault (French), Fabrizio Temperini (Italian), Jiří Schwarz (Czech), Zoltán Csankó (Hungarian)

Appearances: The Walking Dead (Seasons 6-11) | The Walking Dead: Dead City

Debut: "Last Day on Earth"

"Hi. You're Rick, right? I'm Negan. And I do not appreciate you killing my men. Also, when I sent my people to kill your people for killing my people, you killed more of my people. Not cool. Not cool. You have no idea how not cool that shit is. But I think you’re gonna be up to speed shortly. Yeah. You are so gonna regret crossing me in a few minutes. Yes, you are."

The main antagonist of The Walking Dead (2010) starting at the end of Season 6. Negan is the powerful leader of the Saviors, and controls other communities as well through intimidation, demanding tribute from them to supply his personal base, the Sanctuary. He wields Lucille, a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire as his personal weapon and symbol of power. When the Alexandria Safe-Zone begins attacking his group and slaughters many of them, Negan decides to confront Rick directly, killing Glenn and Abraham and mentally torturing Rick into submission. Negan humiliates Alexandria through his visits, and offers several of their people membership in the Saviors when they show potential to him. However, his murders of Spencer and Olivia push Rick over the edge, and Rick forms a rebellion against him. With his slave states rebelling, Negan declares war on them.

It becomes apparent during the war that Negan is far more than his evil tyrant persona. Negan is revealed to genuinely believe that he is saving people by protecting the weak, and does not condone the genocidal tendencies of Simon. However, Rick points out that extortion of the weak is not the same as protection, and that the Savior empire will never last, something Negan begins to realize as the war progresses. Though AHK initially has him on the defensive, Negan strikes back and personally leads the sacking of Alexandria, but is devastated to learn of Carl’s death. Ultimately, it is the treachery of his lieutenants that causes Negan’s downfall, as his army surrenders after their weapons are sabotaged by Eugene, his attempt to wipe out AHK fails thanks to Simon’s earlier raid, and Dwight helps wound him during the final fight. Citing Carl’s desire for peace, Rick and Michonne spare Negan and sentence him to life in prison to watch the communities thrive without him.

A year and a half later, Negan is still behind bars in Alexandria, but vows that he will escape someday. Not too long after, Maggie finally arrives to kill him, only for Negan to break down and admit he wants to die. Realizing he is much worse off this way, Maggie spares him. Six years later, Negan has become friends with the now nine-year-old Judith Grimes, and begins asking Michonne if she could learn to trust him after he saves Judith's life during a snowstorm. As a result, Negan is allowed more freedom, but as the threat of the Whisperers looms in the aftermath of a tragic loss, paranoid Alexandrians take their fear out on him. Carol orders him to infiltrate the Whisperers and assassinate Alpha, a task he succeeds in and is rewarded for with a tentative place in the group.

However, this becomes complicated when Maggie returns, and is none too pleased to see him a free man, having not borne witness to his change of heart. Negan nonetheless becomes a reluctant ally of Maggie's during the group's conflict with the Reapers, but realizes she will seemingly never forgive him and leaves the Coalition. He joins a new group and falls in love with a woman named Annie, and soon ends up teaming up again with the Coalition when the Commonwealth's leaders threaten their groups. During the crisis, Negan finally comes to terms with the horrors he inflicted on Maggie and countless others, and finally makes the choice to apologize to Maggie for what he did. Maggie finally accepts him as an ally but refuses to forgive him, giving Negan some peace as he and Annie leave the Coalition.

A year later, Negan is approached by Maggie for a rescue mission: one of his former soldiers, the Croat, has taken Hershel Rhee hostage in New York City...

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A-D

• Abhorrent Admirer: His bragging about how Sherry is now his wife and how he originally wanted to make Tina his beloved reach uncomfortable creeper levels. He also expresses a desire in taking Maggie as a wife (after killing her husband) and admits an attraction to Olivia, who isn't exactly forthcoming considering he spends half of his time insulting her weight.
• Action Dad: Negan finally makes mention of the son he had with Annie in the third episode of Dead City, though we have yet to actually meet him in person.
• Actually Pretty Funny:
  • He takes a moment to stop bludgeoning Abraham with Lucille to laugh at the Sergeant's Profane Last Words, "Suck my nuts!" Makes sense, considering Negan's own juvenile sense of humor.
  • He's amused to see his face on a wanted poster and asks Maggie if he can keep it.
  Negan: For a wanted man, I look good.
• Adaptation Deviation: How Negan got his trademark baseball bat and Iconic Outfit is played differently here:
  • Negan received "Lucille" from Laura (who is not a Savior at that time) while searching for more chemotherapy bags. In the comics, he picked up "Lucille" after his previous survivor group were Devoured by the Horde.
  • In the comics, Negan got his iconic leather jacket from an abandoned store. Here, he bought it for $600 prior to the outbreak, though the real Lucille hid it and later gave it back to him as an "anniversary gift".
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • Comic Negan is Put on a Bus after the Whisperer arc, only making a brief, silhouetted cameo in the last issue of the series. In the show, though he temporarily leaves the group on his own, he ultimately returns four episodes later and sticks around until the Grand Finale.
  • Dead City gives him far more to do beyond his comic arcs.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: He suffers a lot more than his comic counterpart, including spending twice as many years imprisoned in Alexandria and almost losing his wife and son to a Commonwealth firing squad.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: While Comic Negan was a lot more muscular, he also had a pudgy, thuggish sort of appearance, in contrast to the svelte and roguishly handsome Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
• Adaptational Curves: Inverted. Comic Negan has a stouter built, while TV Negan is leaner.
• Adaptational Intelligence: TV Negan is also far more prone to psychological warfare and careful thought than his comics counterpart.
  • As an example, regarding how he chooses who he plans to kill in his debut, comic-book Negan truly appears to have done a random selection (he listed several reasons why he couldn't decide who was going to get Lucilled), TV Negan bounces around during his "random" eeny-meeny-miny-moe game and just so happens to land on Abraham (who had quietly stood up to him earlier) after pausing on the last pick. His seemingly random choice of Glenn as his second victim supports this interpretation as well, given Glenn had previously interrupted him.
  • He finally admits to Rick in "Wrath" that killing Abraham was a calculated move due to Abe's defiance of him, and because he didn't want to murder Rick in front of his son.
• Adaptational Karma:
  • Unlike his comic counterpart, TV Negan gets a well-deserved punch to the face after killing his first victim. Unfortunately, this leads to him dishing out some karma of his own and selecting Glenn to beat to death next.
  • Comic Negan is only incarcerated for three years, compared to the show's eight. Also, because of his Adaptation Expansion making his Heel–Face Turn a more important part of his arc, he has to work harder to earn the group's trust and is mistreated and ostracized much more as a result.
  • This Negan gets to experience firsthand the horrific situation he put Rick's group in when he first met them, when at Outpost 22 he finally experiences what it's like to be forced to your knees while your loved one is made to die in front of you by a merciless, sadistic bastard despite your best efforts to save them. Though Ezekiel and the others rescue Annie, the experience thoroughly rattles Negan and he completely learns his lesson.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • Negan is a lot more aggressive and merciless, but at the same time, he's a more emotionally stable and rational character compared to his borderline sociopathic comic counterpart. In the comic, he knew there was no possible peace as long as Rick was alive at the first failed assassination attempt and decides to go full scorched earth on Alexandria. Here, it's Simon who advocates the "kill everyone" philosophy, which Negan objects to (at least initially). His Heel–Face Turn is also played with more sincerity and his friendships with characters such as Judith and Lydia are emphasized to highlight this.
  • Comic Negan continued to sleep around even after his wife Lucille was diagnosed with cancer, leading his mistress to one day throw him out in disgust. In the show, he breaks off the affair the minute he finds out about his wife's diagnosis and never speaks to said mistress again.
• Adaptational Villainy: Besides the Adaptational Nice Guy above, this version of Negan is more depraved and sadistic than his comic book counterpart. For instance:
  • In the Season 7 premiere, he kills two victims rather than one (the latter just for someone punching him in the face, rather than retribution for killing his men) and nearly forces Rick to chop Carl's arm off, something his comic counterpart never did. Also, while he's disrespectful to his victim(s) in both comic and TV show, TV-verse Negan spends far more time mocking and torturing the survivors, and openly admits he enjoys killing (people he feels need to die to keep everyone in line, at least), whereas Comic Negan confessed to Rick in private that he actually didn't like it.
  • Negan's Paid Harem comes across as much creepier in the show. While Comic!Negan emphasized that all of the women were there of their own free will, were treated well, and could leave any time they wanted (albeit at the cost of having to go back to performing hard labor and being on Negan's shit list), Show!Negan is not above coercing women into joining. His offer for Tina to join him comes after she's unable to afford the insulin she needs to survive under his harsh point system (and later implies he was planning to offer Maggie a similar deal, noting that she's sick too) and the only thing that stops him from executing Dwight for treason is that Sherry volunteers to marry him if he spares Dwight. ^note In the comics, Sherry married Negan because she believed it was the most practical choice for both her and Dwight, not because of any life-threatening circumstances, and Negan only burned Dwight's face after they continued to sleep together behind his back.
  • In their confrontation in the comics, Negan profusely apologized to Maggie for killing Glenn, realizing that for all the grief he feels over his dead wife, he dished it out to Maggie by killing her husband, and outright cried about how horrible he felt for his actions. Though TV Negan does break down crying and begging to be killed, he does not apologize to Maggie for killing Glenn nor does he explicitly express remorse for his actions. When the two finally have a talk, Negan is still adamant that I Did What I Had to Do and admits he would have killed them all if he got to do it over again. The end of Season 11 finally sees this trope subverted once and for all when Negan finally realizes the horrors he put Maggie and so many others through, and finally apologizes to Maggie for what he took from her and Hershel. Their final heart-to-hearts have Negan finally break down and express remorse for his actions.
• Aerith and Bob: A guy named Negan has the decidedly common surname Smith.
• Affably Evil: In Season 8. He's written with a lighter touch and comes across as much more honest and personable than before.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Subverted. While he didn’t beg for his life in "Wrath", he begs Maggie to kill him in "What Comes After" so he can rejoin his dead wife, Lucille, after an unsuccessful suicide attempt the previous episode. Maggie refuses so that he can suffer alone.
• All for Nothing: His six-week quest to find the medicine needed to treat Lucille's cancer ended up being for naught, as she killed herself the very same day that he left.
• Almighty Janitor: As the former leader of the Saviors, he more or less becomes this in Season 10 when he is allowed more leeway in Alexandria only to be assigned grunt work such as doing the laundry and taking out the trash. Negan, for his part, seems content with this and tries not to draw too much attention to himself, especially with the threat of the Whisperers on the horizon. He also bonds with Lydia, who has become a pariah in lieu of Alpha's massacre, dispensing her some words of advice about how to deal with bullies and later rescuing her from said bullies when they gang up on her one night.
• Amazon Chaser: Seemingly averted at first, as his harem is made up of women who are either too weak to work for points or were blackmailed into marrying him against their will. However, a closer look reveals that Negan does in fact have an admiration of strong women:
  • He admits that Sasha has him "wrapped around [her] little finger" after she shows no fear in the face of his threats.
  • He expresses some attraction toward Alpha who, despite being completely insane, has the intelligence and strength of will to command an entire army of Whisperers.
  • After Olivia gives him a defiant Bitch Slap for propositioning her, Negan admits the slap increased his desire for her by 50 percent.
  • His pre-apocalypse wife, Lucille, was very much a "take no crap" kind of woman as well.
  • In Season 11, Negan gets married to Annie, who is an Action Girl and forms one-half of a Battle Couple with him.
• Ambiguously Christian: Negan doesn't appear to be religious, but he makes enough passive comments about God and the afterlife that it seems as if he at least believes in the possibility of them. Then again, when Gabriel says he became a priest because he wanted to bring people closer to God, Negan chuckles and responds, "You gotta be kidding me." He later becomes a member of the religious Riverbend group, though it’s unknown if he actually had a Heel–Faith Turn or if he only wanted a new community to join and was willing to convert to their beliefs if it meant that he could stay.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • Did Laura and Franklin ever find out he was the one who told the Vipers about the location of their camp? Since Negan ultimately came back to save them, it was likely water under the bridge if he did tell them.
  • Did he kill Ginny's father after all? Or did he say that to make her leave New York for her own safety?
• AM/FM Characterization: He considers "You Are So Beautiful" to be the greatest love ballad ever written. He used to sing it to his wife, Lucille, when she was afflicted with cancer, and he once nearly killed a man in a bar because the man was being loud and obnoxious when Negan and Lucille were trying to listen to the song. He's also heard listening to "Back in Black" which, as a rock song, is rather fitting for a Badass Biker like him.
• And I Must Scream: Downplayed. While he definitely deserved to suffer for his crimes, his eight-year stint in prison — no one to talk to, no light, and the knowledge that he could very well spend the rest of his life without ever getting to see outside his cell ever again — counts. According to Negan himself, it got so bad that even his memories started to have bars painted on them.
• And Starring: Jeffrey Dean Morgan gets this billing from Season 7 onward.
• Animal Motifs: In Season 9, Negan is repeatedly associated with dogs — specifically, the question of whether he is now a "good" dog or a "bad" one. In "Who Are You Now?" he tells Judith a story about how he used to bring home stray dogs when he was a kid and how the "wrong" dog ended up killing all the other strays. This comes back around in "Adaptation" when he is chased by a bunch of stray dogs while looking for a new jacket in an empty store. In "Guardians", he turns the motif on himself and tells Michonne that she "can't keep a big dog locked up forever." Michonne's response is to ask Negan what kind of dog that makes him, to which Negan doesn't yet have an answer. Finally, in "The Storm", he begins making strides towards a Heel–Face Turn by risking his own life to bring Judith and Daryl's dog (a "good" dog) to safety, symbolizing that Negan has decided to be a good dog after all.
• Antagonist in Mourning: He is genuinely distraught to hear about Carl's death and offers Rick his sincere condolences... while also berating him for not being around to stop Carl from getting himself into trouble. Rick later takes advantage of Negan's despair to lower his guard and slash his throat.
• Anti-Hero: Evolves into one in Season 10. While he does the right thing and kills Big Bad Alpha, as Lydia points out, he's still motivated by the selfish desire that his own misdeeds will be forgiven, and killing their leader does not necessarily end the threat of the Whisperers as a whole.
• Anti-Villain: In Season 8. While still depraved, he's given many humanizing moments with characters like Gabriel, Eugene, and especially Carl, who believes Negan isn't beyond redemption. In the back half of the season, it's revealed that as harsh as Negan is, he doesn't want to needlessly murder people if he can avoid doing so, and is positively gentle compared to Simon, who gleefully advocates slaughtering everyone at Hilltop and, in an inverted "kill only one" policy, slaughters all of the Scavengers aside from a devastated Jadis without Negan's knowledge or approval. When he finally decides he must exterminate all the rebelling communities and start over, he's truly saddened that it's come to this and takes no enjoyment from it.
• Arch-Enemy: Maggie makes it clear that while Negan may have redeemed himself in the eyes of the Alexandrians, to her, he's still the sadistic murderer who bashed Glenn's head in and left Hershel without a father. It gets extra awkward when most of the Wardens are killed by the Reapers and they are forced to abandon an injured Alden in a church, leaving Maggie and Negan to travel alone together. By the end of the series, however, Negan’s genuine efforts to change are finally acknowledged by Maggie who tells him he has truly earned his place as an ally and neighbor to her, and she wants to try to let go of her hate for him.
• Arc Words: "Right off the bat" during Season 6, as it's used by several characters as a way to hint towards his impending arrival.
• The Atoner:
  • Starts in earnest in Season 10 when he's given more freedom and has to work with Aaron to fend off the Whisperers' walker horde. It would seem that he's made it by the end of the season, though he still has beef with Maggie, who has adamantly not been around to see how far he's come in the years since his incarceration. Season 11's arc sees Negan make further steps to redeem himself, particularly once he realizes the horrors he put Maggie and countless others through firsthand.
  • He takes care of Ginny to make up for killing her father, who was one of the men who assaulted Annie.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: In his first meeting with Rick's group he quickly deduces that Carl is Rick's son and that Abraham and Rosita were romantically involved.
• Ax-Crazy: While he does adhere to Pragmatic Villainy, Negan is a little too quick to employ violence to solve problems, and is downright giddy smashing Glenn and Abraham's heads to a pulp.
• Badass Biker: Negan is a biker as shown when he departs from the Sanctuary on a motorcycle in "Adaptation". He was also part of a biker's club before the apocalypse.
• Badass Boast: He preaches to Daryl about what a powerful leader he is by proclaiming he's nearly all-powerful among his men. Later does this to Carl to demonstrate his authority.
  Negan: I wear a leather jacket, I have Lucille, and my nutsack is made of steel! I am not dying until I am damn good and ready!
  • He has a great one when Beta leaves him for dead only for Negan to march back into camp and approach the leader Alpha with a shit-eating grin on his face.
  Negan: I'm ready for my goddamn skin suit! You best bring that extra-long tape measure on account of my humongous balls.
  • Downplayed when he tells Rick that he's "not saving the world, just getting it ready for me." While it does sound foreboding with his Face Framed in Shadow and Rick is clearly rattled by it, Negan's actions a few episodes later put the line in a different context when he's revealed to be suicidal, implying that it was merely an attempt to convince Rick to go back on his word and kill him.
• Badass Teacher: Seriously, how many gym teachers can say they took command over an army of hundreds of people, with all of them swearing Undying Loyalty in their name? He really puts his skills to use when he teaches Maggie, Elijah and Gabriel to walk in Whisperer masks in "Promises Broken".
• The Bad Guy Wins: In the Season 6 finale and continuing into the Season 7 premiere. Not only does he kill two members of Rick's group, he personally breaks down Rick's hope until he is a blubbering mess and saying he works for Negan and answers to him. He even kidnaps Daryl from the group to force him to work for him and as leverage so Rick remembers not to step out of line. The remaining members of the group are left on the road as the Saviors leave, completely broken and beaten.
• Bad Guys Play Pool: He becomes excited when Spencer tells him that the house across the street from Rick's has a pool table in the garage. During the game, he guts Spencer in front of everyone for trying to betray Rick, and afterwards asks if any of the onlookers want to finish the game in Spencer's place.
• Battle Couple: He and Annie work side-by-side to rescue Gabriel from the Commonwealth in "Warlords".
• Beard of Evil: Unlike his clean-shaven comic counterpart, Negan's facial hair is more noticeable in the show. He lampshades it in his first appearance when he mentions he should shave it off and finally does so in the mid-Season 7 finale. It grows back by Season 8 and he's kept it ever since.
• Beard of Sorrow: Grows one during his initial 18-month stay in Alexandria's jail.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: He used to be apprehensive about killing walkers because he didn't want to "get used to it." He also didn't want to hurt living people and was uneasy about having to rob a camp of doctors to get medication for Lucille. Compare this to the Negan who introduces himself by gleefully beating the skulls of two men and demanding half of Alexandria's supplies as tribute.
• Becoming the Mask: He confesses to Daryl that he actually enjoyed being a part of the Whisperers because it made him feel respected again, only to remember why he was there in the first place upon realizing how dead-set Alpha was on killing Lydia.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: At least on his end towards Olivia. He spends most of his time with her insulting her weight, but eventually admits that he'd love to sleep with her. He doesn't even mind getting slapped by her, as it just turns him on even more.
• Beneath the Mask: In "What Comes After", Negan acts like his old, dog-kicking self to try and provoke Maggie into killing him, but her insistence on him stepping into the light and hesitance sees his bravado fall to pieces, revealing the broken Death Seeker he's become.
• Berserk Button:
  • Don't harm Lucille. Ever. When Rosita shoots his bat, he flies into an extreme rage far beyond anything we've seen before. When Rick lights Lucille on fire, Negan goes apeshit and tackles him to the ground.
  • This also applied to Lucille before the apocalypse. His wife, not the bat.
  • Banging one of his 'wives' behind his back is a surefire way to get an iron to the face.
  • Negan hates traitors and kowtows, as shown with his murder of Spencer.
  • Killing innocent children, as Brandon and Alpha learn the hard way.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Negan comes across as a little off, but, as Rick's group finds out the hard way, you do not cross him.
• Big Bad: From the Season 6 finale to the Season 8 finale, he is the primary antagonist of the show.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • In "Silence the Whisperers", he arrives to stop Gage, Margot, and Alfred from beating Lydia. In "A Certain Doom", he stops Beta from going after Lydia (who is wearing Alpha's mask) by whispering to him, "Hey, shithead."
  • He also saves a mother and son from being eaten by some walkers on an abandoned bus. Pity he was too late to save them from Brandon...
• Bloodbath Villain Origin: The first truly heinous act he committed in the apocalypse was returning to the Vipers' hideout and massacring them all without mercy. Granted, they definitely had it coming, but it was nevertheless a Start of Darkness moment for Negan.
• Blood Knight: He even says he can kill people all day.
• Boisterous Bruiser: He's an overly happy guy who's not afraid to crush his enemies' skulls in with his trusted baseball bat.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: To convince Ginny to leave Manhattan, Negan reveals that he was the one who killed her father, even knowing this will likely be her last memory of him.
• Breaking Speech: Gives a thoroughly detailed monologue that breaks Rick while he and his friends are held hostage.
• Breakout Villain: He gets far more to do than his comic counterpart, eventually becoming one of the show's main characters by Season 10. His popularity led to him getting a spinoff with Maggie after the conclusion of the parent show.
• Break the Badass: What he spends all of "The Day Will Come When You Won't Be" doing to Rick's group (especially to Rick). He's so effective it takes the entire first half of the season and two more people dying for Rick to finally start fighting back.
• Break the Haughty: In Season 9. For his first couple of appearances in the season, despite being utterly defeated and locked in a jail cell, he still acts like same old Negan, gloating and crowing during his conversations with Rick and Michonne. The first cracks appear with his reaction to the news that Lucille was left on the battlefield after his defeat, which causes him to beat his head bloody on the wall. Then, in "What Comes After", Maggie arrives with the intention of killing him, and he starts trying to goad her into doing so, bringing up Glenn (and pretending to forget his name), and poking barbs at her struggles. Maggie quickly catches on to his Death Seeker mentality, and when she hesitates, the facade absolutely shatters, resulting in Negan sobbing and begging for Maggie to kill him, so that he can be reunited with Lucille (his wife, not the bat). Maggie's refusal to do so seems to leave him even more broken and hollow.
• Broken Pedestal: To Ginny when he reveals that he killed her father. After this, she doesn't even bother trying to tell him that Maggie intends to trade him to the Croat for Hershel.
• Brutal Honesty:
  • In Season 11, when Maggie asks if he would have done things differently, Negan responds that yes, he would have... by killing all of Rick's group at the line-up. Shocked, Maggie asks why he would tell her this; Negan says it's because he thinks the only way for them to work together is if he's completely honest.
  • He also made no bones to Annie about his evil past, and Annie later admits that she understands why the Coalition hates his guts. That said, being completely honest about his past means that Annie is able to find it in her heart to still love him.
• The Bully: An adult version, as his MO is basically intimidating people into working for him and forcibly taking their supplies for himself. His juvenile sense of humor and childish cheerfulness also contribute to this image. The way he mocked Glenn while he was dying a horrible death at his hands, cracking jokes and making fun of the group for reacting in horror, is why Maggie tells Negan she will probably never forgive him despite acknowledging he's changed for the better.
• But Now I Must Go:
  • Towards the end of “No Other Way”, he decides to leave Alexandria as he suspects (not without reason) that Maggie will eventually break her promise and try to kill him again.
  • In "Rest in Peace", him returning Judith her compass implies he's left again, though at least this time it's on good terms with everyone and he has Annie and his newborn baby to keep him company.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Negan keeps Dwight around just long enough to help him put down Simon's mutiny, then reveals he knows about his treachery and takes him prisoner.
• Card-Carrying Jerkass: He's well aware of how much of a prick he is.
  Sherry: You're an asshole.
  Negan: I know.
• Card-Carrying Villain: He plays this up to try and provoke Maggie into killing him, bragging about he enjoyed breaking open Glenn's head and watching him suffer as his eye popped out.
• The Caretaker: He was devoted to taking care of his wife after she got diagnosed with cancer at the onset of the apocalypse. This made Lucille realize that, despite his cheating, Negan was still the man she loved.
• Cargo Ship: In-Universe. He has a bizarre fixation with his barbed wire-wrapped baseball bat, Lucille, to the point of affectionately calling her pet names like "baby" and openly speaking about her as if she were his lover. The reason for this is eventually revealed in "Still Gotta Mean Something" — he named the bat after his actual late wife, Lucille.
• Casual Kink: Possibly. He seems into the idea of Alpha leaving her mask on during sex, but considering he is also The Mole who is trying to get on Alpha's good side it's not clear how agreeable to it he really was.
• Character Check:
  • After most of Season 10 is spent giving him a Heel–Face Turn and "Here's Negan" makes him into a rather tragic and sympathetic figure, he gets two massive Kick the Dog moments in the following episode, "Acheron, Part I": throwing Glenn's death in Maggie's face and leaving Maggie to her fate above a herd of walkers. This is probably to show that while Negan may have turned over a new leaf, he's still very much a pragmatic Jerkass who isn't willing to suffer fools, sad backstory or not.
  • Dead City reminds the audience that while Negan has become more empathetic and isn't actively seeking to harm anyone anymore, those that do cross him will get his very ruthless and brutal streak, as the five men from New Babylon, the Buratzi and Luther all find out.
• Character Development:
  • Negan starts out as little more than a murderous bully who mentally tortures Rick into submission. Later episodes show him as a more dynamic character who is capable of occasional kindness, such as with his relationships with Sasha, Eugene, Gabriel, and especially Carl and Judith, the latter of whom eventually becomes something of a Morality Pet to him. When Negan discovers that the Sanctuary has fallen during his seven-and-a-half year incarceration, he decides to head back to Alexandria and genuinely starts taking steps to make up for what he did. This evolves into a full-fledged Heel–Face Turn in Season 10 and beyond.
  • By Season 11 he has adopted a combination of Rick and Simon’s ideologies; he has come to embrace Rick’s idea for civilization to rebuild and has accepted that he can no longer operate as a bullying enemy to Alexandria. However, he has learned from Simon’s schemes for genocide that there are indeed some enemies who cross a line that means you need to put them all down when you have the chance. He tells Maggie he caused his own downfall when he didn’t wipe out the group, and convinces her to dish out a Final Solution on the Reapers.
  • Season 11C has Negan's development come full circle as he finally accepts responsibility for his actions. He apologizes to Maggie and does several selfless things to save both her and the Coalition, this time without expecting to be rewarded like when he killed Alpha.
  • Negan's character development is especially obvious when he is captured by the Croat in the Season 1 finale of Dead City. The Croat is excited to reunite with Negan and clearly expects them both to be on the same page, but they really aren't.
• Characterization Marches On:
  • He is far more reserved and serious in his debut in the Season 6 finale, only raising his voice once when he snaps at Rick for speaking out of turn. Starting in the Season 7 premiere, he is much more animated and loud, more closely resembling his comic counterpart.
  • While Negan has been always shown to have a fondness for children, it is only starting in Season 8 that he adopts a Wouldn't Hurt a Child mentality, as in the Season 7 finale he is mere seconds from executing Carl in a desperate attempt to finally break Rick.
• Character Tics: The "Negan lean", which was inspired by a panel in the comic where Negan was leaning back and laughing, quickly became a staple of his character. He stops doing it in Season 9, which shows how broken he's become since his defeat. He begins doing it again in "What It Always Is" after seemingly reverting to his old ways and joining the Whisperers.
• The Chessmaster: He really shows his skill at this in "Worth". Knowing that both Simon and Dwight are rogue elements in their own way, Negan uses them to take out the other. First, he doesn't immediately out Dwight as having defected to AHK. He instead keeps him around to help lure Simon's mutineers into a trap to slaughter them. Negan also pretends to forgive Simon, to lure him into a sense of security so he'll be confident enough to plan his outright mutiny. While he's dealing with Simon, Negan also allows Dwight to pass on bogus intel to AHK so he can lure them into a trap and win the war. Once Simon is eliminated, then Negan reveals he's played Dwight as well.
• Classic Villain: Greed and wrath, with a massive helping of pride.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Negan's villainous monologue seems to come completely out of nowhere and he oddly takes holding Rick's group hostage as a big joke he pulled on them. His personality is so random that even his own minions get confused half the time when he's talking to them, not being able to tell if he's serious or joking with them.
• Comforting the Widow: He has the nerve to consider asking Maggie to be one of his wives after he murdered Glenn. While he admits that it was a bit of a stretch to think she'd accept, it's implied from his comments to Rick that he's done this successfully at least once.
• Confusion Fu: This is how he defeats the Reaper Carver, using misdirection and trickery to get his guard down before blinding him with some hidden sand, and then knocking the daylights out of him with the bell he had openly displayed.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To previous Big Bad Philip Blake, a.k.a. The Governor.
  • The Governor was mostly a serious villain. Negan is constantly making jokes and is a Psychopathic Manchild.
  • The Governor was a chronic liar who kept his villainy hidden behind a veneer of superficial charm. Negan is upfront about who he is and what his intentions are, and is openly a Jerkass to everyone around him.
  • The Governor's response to hearing about other settlements is to wipe them out because he perceives them as a threat to his power. Negan believes that the communities must work together if they are ever to restore order to the world, albeit a world of his own twisted design.
  • The Governor had a chance for redemption but was "too far gone" and responded to Rick's pleas for peace by murdering Hershel. Negan has a far greater capacity for change and undergoes a Heel–Face Turn over the course of Seasons 9 and 10.
  • As noted above, the Governor kills Maggie's father Hershel, whereas Negan kills Maggie's husband Glenn.
  • Both men have a chance to start over with a new family, to replace the one they lost that turned them to evil in the first place. Whereas The Governor kept his history a secret and quickly fell back into old habits, with Lily later killing him out of disgust over the death of her daughter, Negan is completely honest with Annie about his past sins and thus she finds it in her heart to accept him.
• Cooldown Hug: He gives a much-needed one to Lydia when she breaks down ranting about how much she hated her mother.
• The Corrupter: He shows some interest in making others think the way he does. This is best demonstrated when he convinces Eugene to join the group as their Evil Genius by offering him a great position over the other Saviors. He also expresses interest in recruiting Carl for the Saviors, boasting to Rick that in a few years he'll be one of his top soldiers.
• Cowardly Lion: Downplayed, but in Seasons 10 and 11 he frequently votes for the path of least resistance, avoiding conflict if at all possible and being willing to bail and go home numerous times during the Reaper conflict. Daryl implores him to defy this, warning him that if he wants to be a part of the group, he must keep laying down his life for others; and he has to get a Sadistic Choice out of Maggie to agree to help stay and fight the Reapers.
• Cradling Your Kill: He does this to Alpha after slashing her throat, slowly lowering her to the ground and giving her a gentle kiss as she bleeds to death.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: If anyone tries to get with one of his many wives without following the point system, then he'll scorch off half a man's face as punishment.
• Crazy-Prepared: After the Whisperers' defeat, he held onto his skin mask should the need to use it again ever arise.
• Create Your Own Villain: At least two antagonists have been spawned as the direct result of Negan's actions: Brandon and the Croat. Both are sycophants who take Negan's words to heart while lacking any of the standards that make him a Noble Demon.
• Cruel Mercy: He threatens to kill everybody in the group and back in Alexandria if Rick doesn't cut off Carl's hand, but leaves Rick alive to wander alone knowing he could have prevented it.
  • Negan himself is later a victim of this in the Season 8 finale. After Rick slashes his throat, rather than let him bleed out Rick instead chooses to honor his late son's wishes and save Negan's life, with a twist: he must now spend the rest of his days locked up inside the cell below Alexandria while Rick leads the communities (including some of Negan's own surviving people) into a better and brighter future.
  • Maggie ultimately chooses not to kill him after seeing how much he actually wants to die, opting to let him suffer with the pain he feels for his actions.
• Crusading Widower: His first wife, Lucille, died from suicide seven months into the outbreak. Needless to say, Negan was never quite the same after that...
• Cult of Personality: Negan has one of these within Sanctuary, down to the point where his followers actually bow to him and proclaim that they "are all Negan."
• Dark and Troubled Past: He reveals to Gabriel that he cheated on his actual wife, Lucille, and that he regrets not being better to her when she was alive. This is eventually shown in detail in the episode "Here's Negan".
• Dark Is Evil: He's a dark-haired man in a dark outfit and the longest-reigning Big Bad of the series to date.^note In terms of seasons.
• Dark Messiah: Downplayed. Although Negan is just a mortal man, the Saviors seem to view him as a nearly god-like leader to whom they swear Undying Loyalty, claiming "We are all Negan." A woman is heard thanking God for him in "The Big Scary U".
• A Day in the Limelight: "Here's Negan" spotlights his backstory.
• Deadpan Snarker: More snarky than deadpan, but as a Motor Mouth, Negan has a quip to make about damn near everything.
• Death Seeker: By Season 9, his downfall and subsequent incarceration have broken him to the point that he tearfully begs Maggie to kill him so that he can be reunited with his wife.
• Defiant to the End: In "Faith", when Negan is about to be made an example of by the Warden and his men, he gives one last Spiteful Spit and Grin of Audacity, symbolically telling them all where to stick it and making it clear he's going out on his own terms. Unfortunately, this makes the Warden realize Negan is trying to make himself into a martyr and leads to him deciding to execute Annie as punishment instead.
• Despair Event Horizon: He passes it after spending a year and a half imprisoned for his crimes with no one to talk to, banging his head on the wall in frustration after Michonne refuses to let him see Lucille and then asking Maggie to kill him to end his suffering. He doesn't even make any attempt to escape even though he knows the alternative is being forced to rot in the cell, and willingly goes without a struggle after Maggie refuses to kill him and orders him to return to his imprisonment. Six years later, he has managed to find some level of peace again, thanks in part to his friendship with Judith.
• Didn't See That Coming: Twice over! In the Season 7 finale, he did not expect Sasha to die and try to kill him as a walker. And he definitely didn't expect a tiger to show up and start killing his men, followed by the other communities he subjugated coming to Alexandria's rescue.
• Dinner and a Show: Subverted in the mid-Season 7 finale, with Negan and his pretend family all gathered around the table. Except everyone aside from Negan is terrified.
• Disappointed in You: He tells Maggie they make a badass team and could have figured out another way to save Hershel without her having to go behind his back and hand him over to the Croat. Even if he understands where she's coming from, he's clearly extremely disappointed with her decision.
• The Dog Bites Back:
  • After being held prisoner by the Vipers he later returned and murdered them all.
  • He responds to Maggie's refusal to help him fight a big walker by leaving her to dangle from the edge of a subway car with several walkers below her. He defends this by pointing out that he did not actively try to kill her, but he didn’t save her, just like how she and the others did him.
• Domestic Abuser: Negan's system is fundamentally exploitative. The only other "choice" (which isn't really a choice) he gives his wives is to be treated like a slave. He knew that there would be women like Tina, who couldn't earn the points they need, and there would be women like Amber, who had a family member who couldn't work, that he could take advantage of and exploit.
  • He also tortures them psychologically and enjoys it. His wives are so terrified of him they either want to kill him (as seen when Frankie asked Eugene to help her), drink themselves to death (as seen with Amber), and run away from the safety of the Sanctuary and would rather risk dying to be with him (as seen with Tina). Plus there's the fact that he withheld life-saving medication from Tina unless she agreed to marry him.
• Drives Like Crazy: Is seen ramming a few walkers with an RV. If he's not ramming, he's gunning them down while driving.
• The Dreaded: Before he actually appears on the show. The Hilltop residents were quickly cowed into submission by his soldiers and are initially dismissive of Rick's proposal to assassinate him. We find out in the Season 6 finale just why everyone's so terrified of him.
• Drunk with Power:
  • This is implied to be what happened after he took over the Sanctuary and became leader of the Saviors. "Here's Negan" has him force a man to kneel so he can show him who's boss before executing him for being responsible for him not making it home to his wife on time. By the time Negan meets Rick's group, he's made it customary to have his people kneel to him when he enters the room and has reached A God Am I levels of influence and ego.
  • On that note, in "Look at the Flowers", he relishes having the power to make Daryl kneel before him, as well as getting to wield a firearm again. He still pulls back and helps Daryl kill the Whisperers, but his somber tone afterwards implies he knows he enjoyed it too much. He also admits to Daryl he enjoyed being a Whisperer a little because it made him feel important again.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: In Season 11, he points out he's done a lot for Alexandria and has more than earned his keep, yet everyone is still treating him like the bad guy.
• Dude, Where's My Reward?: He demands that Carol take him back to Alexandria to speak on his behalf after he kills Alpha, and to be fair, that was the deal she promised him.

E-H

• Early Installment Character-Design Difference:
  • His first appearance has him closely resemble his comic counterpart by slicking his hair back. He never does this again.
  • He also shaves partway through Season 7 and remains as such until the end of the season. Unlike his comic counterpart, who remained clean-shaven for much of the series, Negan grows his beard back at the start of Season 8 and has kept it ever since.
• Easily Forgiven: Completely averted. Even after spending eight years behind bars, saving Judith and Lydia, and beheading Alpha, Negan is still on shaky ground with most of the Alexandrians, which is further compounded when Maggie returns with Hershel near the end of Season 10. By the end of the series, Maggie says she will likely never forgive him, but acknowledges he has genuinely changed for the better and accepts him as an ally.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Somewhat. He is still not accepted as family by the group and having to live with the guilt of understanding the extent of his brutal actions without being forgiven. However, thanks to his genuine remorse, change of heart and many efforts to help the group over the seasons, he is no longer in prison and is seen as a trusted ally. He has a loving wife and a child on the way. He does also have some members of the group who are on friendly terms with him such as Lydia, Judith, Jerry and Carol. The members of the group who wanted him dead the most, Daryl and Maggie, are willing to accept him as a neighbor and acknowledge he is genuniely trying to change for the better.
• Empty Shell: Describes himself as one when he explains how he coped with his wife's death to Alpha. He didn't feel much of anything anymore, and used his lack of emotion as his strength when building the Saviors' empire.
• Enemy Mine: With Gabriel in "The Big Scary U" as they work together to escape a trailer surrounded by walkers.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • In "Last Day on Earth," Negan gleefully welcomes Rick's group to their neighborhood with a "The Reason You Suck" Speech before playfully picking which one he wants to punish for their actions against him, and then brutally bashes that person's head (the person being Abraham) to a bloody pulp. Taken further in the next episode when he suddenly murders Glenn as well simply because Daryl punched him after he killed the first victim.
  • It comes a little later, but in "Sing Me a Song", after returning Carl to Alexandria, he takes a tour of their house and discovers Judith in her crib. How gentle he is with her and the fact that the next scene shows Judith comfortably sleeping in his arms reveals a side of Negan we hadn't seen yet. He may be a total Jerkass and something of a man-child in areas, but he does have a genuine soft spot for kids.
• Et Tu, Brute?: He is shaken when he learns that Simon disobeyed him and slaughtered the Scavengers. He's also pissed when he finds out Eugene rigged the Saviors' guns to explode.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He genuinely loved his late wife, Lucille.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • He didn’t want to kill a kid’s father in front of him, hence why he didn’t choose Rick to die from the get-go and settled on the larger, more defiant Abraham. In Season 11, even long after he's pulled a Heel–Face Turn, he's disturbed when he sees how bitter and vengeful Hershel Rhee has become due to knowing his father was murdered before he was born, meaning that his attempt at a clear conscience during the line-up failed since he still destroyed a child that night.
  • Forbids rape amongst the Saviors, though as noted in Hypocrite, this is a downplayed trope. However, when David violates that rule he gets severely punished by having a knife to the throat.
  • He also genuinely feels bad when people cry and tries to apologize for upsetting his victims when they cave in.
  • He seems to have a fondness for babies, as seen when he dotes on and plays with Judith for an entire day.
  • He's disgusted when Spencer tries to betray Rick and get Negan to put him in charge. Despite how horrendously Negan treats Rick, he at least respects Rick for having the guts to fight and sacrifice for his community, which he (correctly) points out is much more than Spencer ever seems to do.
  • He's disgusted by Rick and his group when Rick was actually going to detonate the bombs in the area with Eugene in the vicinity after Eugene tries to talk them down from attacking, even though they no longer consider him in their group anymore.
  • As he believes in Pragmatic Villainy, he’s always quick to tear Simon a new one whenever he suggests that they massacre a community (especially Hilltop). He is also outright disgusted by Simon's all-male massacre at Oceanside, as well as him killing all of the garbage people right in front of Jadis.
  • He was mortified by the Croat's extreme sadism and doing something to a young girl that Negan can't talk about without almost breaking into tears (later revealed to be brutally torturing her to death).
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • He’s visibly revolted by having to resort to the walker guts trick, deeming it as disgusting as everyone else has.
  • He's clearly uncomfortable having to whip Alpha as part of her Self-Harm to make herself "stronger", and as such isn't too thrilled when she tells him that it's now his turn to be flogged. Alpha even points out that he's joking to hide his fear, which Negan doesn't deny.
  • He's nearly brought to tears when Alpha insists that she must kill her own daughter because it's her "destiny".
  • He recognizes a gang of lunatics when he sees one in the form of the Reapers and advises Maggie to be thorough with her annihilation of them. He later expresses disdain for the Commonwealth's troopers, comparing them to the gestapo, recalling his past hatred of Simon's genocidal urges.
  • In Dead City despite being a hardened badass and former villain, he quickly begins squirming and panicking like a normal person when he gets attacked by a bunch of roaches.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: The ultimate reason he underestimates Rick. Negan, who rules his group through fear alongside some liberal self-interest, just sees Rick as another leader of a community he can subjugate and crush under heel, not grasping that Rick leads his group through mutual adoration and devotion, to both each other and to a better future. By the time it really dawns on him that Rick is the man that can unite all the desperate communities against him, he's already lost control and an all out war has erupted. In Season 8, even when he’s legitimately mourning Carl’s death, he chastises Rick for rebelling against him like a parent scolds their child. Negan genuinely does not see any other way than his, and can’t understand why his slave states revolted against him.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • He is this for the Rick of Seasons 5-6: a ruthless and powerful leader who takes care of his own by crushing all potential opposition and taking supplies from those who aren't a threat.
  • He is also this to Ezekiel. Both men are shrewd, intelligent leaders with command over large numbers and a flair for the dramatic. They also cultivated a persona they feel is necessary to keep people alive, while also using it as a mask to avoid coping with their real feelings. However, the key difference between the two is that while Negan rules through fear, Ezekiel rules through genuine, earned respect. The dynamic is highlighted in "Outpost 22" when Ezekiel chews Negan out for his old way of doing things and Negan tries to convince Ezekiel to find a way to give the other people in the labor camp hope, something he admits isn't in his wheelhouse.
• Evil Gloating: Hoo boy, does he like to rub it in. He spends most of "Service" reminding Rick of what he did to Glenn and Abraham and pretty much emasculating him at every turn. Not even his own minions are safe from this, as he regularly brags to Dwight about how he has both him and Sherry under his control.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: He has a nasty habit of making cruel jokes at the expense of others. Best shown in the Season 7 premiere when he calls Lucille a "vampire bat" after he's just finished smashing Glenn's head to pieces, or later mentioning that Glenn and Abraham deserve the "spirit award" for their efforts.
  Negan: What? Was the joke that bad?
• Evil Is Hammy: Jeffrey Dean Morgan is clearly having a blast in the role.
• Evil Is Petty: Despite usually being pretty pragmatic and reasonable in his own twisted way, sometimes he does or says things that are just plain petty, no way around it. Most of these cross over into Kick the Dog, but demanding that Alexandria surrender everything to him in the Season 7 finale - namely, the lemonade - is pretty petty.
• Evil Mentor: To the Croat, who uses his "people are a resource" mantra well over a decade after leaving the Saviors and runs Madison Square Garden with an iron fist much like Negan did the Sanctuary.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Speaks with a really deep, intimidating voice.
• Evil Wears Black: He wears a leather jacket, which accentuates his villainy.
• Ex-Big Bad: He's the Greater-Scope Villain of the second half of Season 6 and the main antagonist of Seasons 7 and 8, but survives to be deposed as leader of the Saviors and becomes a Token Evil Teammate to the heroes during the Whisperer arc of Seasons 9 and 10.
• Face Death with Dignity: Completely averted in Season 9 when Maggie arrives to kill him, though in an unusual example, he cries for death because he can't stand the idea of having to rot in jail for the rest of his life.
• Face Framed in Shadow: He is almost entirely submerged in shadows in early Season 9 when he's sitting in his cell and is still bitter from the events of the Savior War. It also has the effect of making him look menacing, such as when he tells Rick that he's "not saving the world, just getting it ready for me." The first time we clearly see Negan's face in the season is when Maggie forces him out into the light to kill him at which point he’s revealed to be a suicidal wreck who begs her to finish the job that Rick couldn't. Fittingly, he stops being hidden in shadows in the next episode when six years have gone by and he's mellowed out significantly enough for the Alexandrians to finally allow him to see outside the window of his cell.
• Fairytale Motif: Invoked, he likes to reference The Three Little Pigs and refers to himself as the Big Bad Wolf from the fairy tale in order to intimidate others.
  • When he first arrives in Alexandria, he misquotes the signature line "Little pig, little pig, let me come in" and in "What It Always Is", he calls himself the Big Bad Wolf. He often uses pigs as an insult, he has a dog-eat-dog philosophy and he calls himself a dog while in prison by saying "You can't keep a big dog locked up forever, sooner or later he's gotta run."
  • His beard and dark clothing also seem to reflect this motif; as he wears mostly gray-colored clothing with a black leather jacket as if to invoke the image of a black wolf.
• Famed In-Story: A decade after his defeat, talk of his villainous exploits has spread as far as New Babylon and Manhattan Island.
• Fate Worse than Death: Invoked by Rick and Michonne when they sentence him to life in prison. For a guy like Negan, spending almost eight years alone in a cell cannot have been an easy task. In the series finale he admits he’s still shaken by it over a year after his release.
• A Father to His Men: Subverted. Negan seems to genuinely care for the Saviors under his command, as demonstrated when he wants to punish Rick's group for murdering too many of them. That said, he also has no problem sacrificing some of them when he deems it necessary, as shown in the Season 8 finale.
• Faux Affably Evil: He's clearly a fun-loving guy and has his own set of rules, but he's also completely psychotic and happy to murder people in horrible ways if they cross him or his people. Best exemplified in his introductory speech where, despite his jovial demeanor he is telling Rick's group that he now owns them and that one of them is about to suffer a brutal death for killing his men.
• Feed the Mole: In "Worth", he purposely allows Dwight to give Gregory false information to deliver to Rick.
• Fire-Forged Friends:
  • Daryl loathes Negan for everything he did all those years ago and would hardly consider him a friend. Over the course of Season 10, however, the two men build a mutual trust that is solidified in "A Certain Doom" when Daryl saves Negan from a gruesome death at the hands of a vengeful Beta.
  • A straighter example would be with Carol, who did not actually witness most of his cruelty firsthand and, aside from Glenn's death, mainly hates him on principle. While mostly apathetic towards Negan, she does come to respect him for killing her son's murderer and even does him a favor by getting him out of Alexandria when Maggie comes home and tensions start brewing.
  • Season 11 revolves heavily around whether or not he can form this kind of bond with Maggie. By the end of Part 1 she accepts he has valuable advice as a military commander and even asks for his input as the group weighs the remaining Reapers’ fate. However, he decides to leave the group upon seeing she will likely turn on him anyway. Part 2 takes this a step further when circumstances force them to work together again. Negan admits he has respect for Maggie and she tells him that, regardless of what happened in the past, she trusts him with Hershel. The series finale has him sincerely apologize to her for his past crimes and she responds by accepting him as a trustworthy ally, even if she can’t forgive him.
  • The final arc of the series sees him contend with Ezekiel, who has never forgiven him for his past atrocities and takes him to task for it and his recklessness during the group's incarceration in the Commonwealth slave camp. Negan has to do much to finally convince Ezekiel he is a trustworthy ally, and by "Family" they form a sort of peace as Ezekiel recognizes he is trying to do better.
• Fisticuffs Boss: Beat a guy half to death pre-apocalypse and was later charged with assault and battery, as explained in Season 10. He threw Rick out of a window ("How It's Gotta Be"). Rammed Rick into a wooden boarded up door and ended up opening it and rammed Rick again sending them in a good distance ("The Key"). He also has good endurance. He also threw Simon off of him when bit his fingers, hit Simon with a 3-hit Combo and caught one of his punches and gave him a right hook and when Simon tried to slam Negan, Negan wrestled Simon off and sweep-slammed him to the ground with impressive impact and crushed Simon's windpipe with his bare hands ("Worth").
• Flipping the Bird: In "The First Day of the Rest of Your Life", he throws the AHK fighters the finger as he makes an impromptu escape in one of his trucks.
• Forgiven, but Not Forgotten: This becomes his relationship with Carol, who is pragmatic enough to recognize him as a useful asset and puts aside residual hatred for his murder of Glenn and others to accept him as an ally. In the Season 10 finale, she brings up their "not-so-recent history" a bit sternly.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: He marries Annie during the six months between "No Other Way" and "Warlords" and admits how crazy it is.
• Freaky Is Cool: He is genuinely awed by Carl's ruined eye socket and sincerely compliments him on it (in his own way). Plus, he gets along with Eugene better than most of his own men, thinking his lateral way of solving problems is bitchin'.
• Friendly Enemy: Negan's first appearance has him kill two important members of Rick's group, kidnapping Daryl and psychologically torturing Rick himself. His appearances since show that while Rick's side despises him, Negan tends to compliment and admire Rick and most members of his group, sparing the lives of several more and being rather cordial in his own way to several, such as Carl and Eugene. Of course, Negan would also rather psychologically make them work for him than kill them, so this is understandable.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: After his Heel–Face Turn and especially after Maggie returns near the end of Season 10. While he's more or less accepted as a member of the community, almost no one is particularly fond of his company and Maggie's people are openly hostile towards him on the trip to Meridian. Daryl outright tells him they're not friends, and no one bothers to help Negan when he's struggling to fight a large walker in the subway tunnel. It really shows in "No Other Way" when Negan leaves the group for good and no one seems especially bothered by it except Lydia and somewhat Father Gabriel.
• Friend to All Children:
  • Due to working as a gym teacher before the apocalypse. He respects Carl as a hardened survivor, forges friendships with (and goes out of his way to save) Judith and Lydia, and has a conversation with a boy named Milo that almost leads to Negan escorting him and his mother to Alexandria. Granted, it still doesn't stop him from almost killing Carl in the Season 7 finale, but he only does so because he thinks it will finally make Rick submit to him and takes no pleasure in the act.
  • In Season 11, he swears to protect Hershel Rhee after rescuing him from the Commonwealth, assuring Maggie that he would risk his life to keep her child safe. Seeing how badly the boy has taken the loss of his father before he was even born also rattles Negan to his core, who finally seems to realize the depths of the horrors he had been inflicting on people, particularly innocent children.
  • Dead City has him as a surrogate father to a girl named Ginny, who latched onto him after the death of her biological father.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: He was a high school gym teacher before the apocalypse.
• The Gadfly: Post-Heel–Face Turn, he still enjoys messing with people and getting under their skin for shits and giggles. Case in point, when he gleefully taunts Rosita, Gabriel, Siddiq, and Eugene about their tangled romantic history and makes a point of asking Gabriel if it bothers him that his girlfriend's doctor is also the father of her child. Gabriel, for his part, isn't too bugged by it (since the four of them are close enough that they worked it out like adults) and even laughs when Negan calls him "Father Not-the-Father."
  Negan: We have this hot little love quadrangle here to entertain us. It's like Christmas to me!
• Genius Bruiser: Not only is he skilled at crushing his opponents' skulls with his lucky bat, but he successfully mind rapes Rick of all people into submitting to him. He's also very observant and showcases fine mastery over the Secret Test of Character since he gains advantage over Daryl and Rick into obeying his command. In Chris Hardwick's words, "it's now psychological warfare."
• The Ghost:
  • For most of Season 6 prior to his appearance in the finale.
  • He is also this in the first episode of Season 9. While obviously not seen due to being locked up inside Alexandria's jail, he is mentioned many times and his presence is still very much felt, particularly at the Sanctuary.
• Glasgow Grin: The mouth of his Whisperer mask is an intentional Shout-Out by Jeffrey Dean Morgan to the Joker's iconic smile.
• A God Am I: Just to fuel his Dark Messiah characteristics, he makes all his men say they are all "Negan" to promote his leadership.
  Negan: I am everywhere!
• Go-Karting with Bowser: After Carl fails to kill him he leads the boy around showing him the ins and outs of the Sanctuary before personally escorting him back to Alexandria and ordering Carl to take him on a grand tour of his house that includes playing darts and cooking.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: Develops suicidal tendencies after spending 18 months in solitary confinement and being faced with potentially never getting to see the light of day ever again. He breaks down and starts banging his head against the concrete wall out of frustration for Michonne not letting him see Lucille, and when Maggie comes looking for vengeance, he demands that she kill him and put an end to his suffering.
• Good All Along: After seemingly rejecting a Heel–Face Turn and joining the Whisperers, he turns out to have been working with Carol to assassinate Alpha and delivers the Whisperer leader's head to her as promised.
• Gone Horribly Right: He urges Maggie to not make the same mistakes he made as military leader of the Saviors and give no quarter to the Reapers. This leads to Maggie violating the deal Daryl gave Leah and killing the remaining Reapers. Negan realizes that this means Maggie will likely go back on her promise to give up trying to kill him and decides to leave the group peacefully.
• Greater-Scope Villain:
  • His presence is first felt in "Always Accountable", where members of his group allude to him. He is first mentioned by name in The Stinger of "Start to Finish", and his reputation continues to grow stronger as the season progresses until he finally makes his debut in the finale.
  • He still has a massive hold on Sherry's psyche as shown in Season 6 of Fear the Walking Dead. Many of her actions are driven by a desire to atone for not killing him when she had the chance.
• Guest Fighter: Negan can come to blows with the cast of Tekken as part of second season of Downloadable Content for Tekken 7.
• Hammy Villain, Serious Hero: The majority of the protagonists are serious and deeply shaken from the various traumas they have endured. Negan, as noted elsewhere on this page, is what you get if you dropped the Joker in the middle of a zombie apocalypse — he's Laughably Evil to the hilt, and pretty much always Chewing the Scenery, standing out even among the show's other antagonists like the Governor or Alpha, who are far more subdued by comparison.
• Hannibal Lecture: Gives these to Rick, Michonne and Maggie when he is locked up inside Alexandria's jail.
• Happily Married:
  • Downplayed with Lucille. Their marriage prior to the apocalypse was pretty much Dead Sparks, with Negan being a deadbeat husband who was cheating on his wife with her best friend Janine. In an ironic twist of fate, the end of the world allowed the couple to rediscover their love for each other. Negan was devoted to Lucille until the day that she died, and her tragic suicide was the catalyst for his Start of Darkness.
  • He has an honest and supportive marriage with Annie in Season 11, to the point where she's still with him despite being fully aware of his past atrocities.
• Happy Ending Override: Downplayed. After the events of the parent series, Negan retires to live in a cabin outside of New Babylon with his wife Annie and son Joshua. Unfortunately, trouble finds him again when five men brutally assault Annie and Negan kills them all in revenge, forcing him to send his family away for their safety and Negan to spend the last few years evading the law. However, at the very least, his family is still alive, he's taking care of another kid named Ginny in the meantime, and Maggie, while still not a fan of him, isn't out for his blood anymore.
• The Heavy: The villain most associated with the second half of the series (Seasons 6-11).
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: After becoming friends with Judith and entertaining the idea of a Heel–Face Turn, Negan is beset by the paranoid denizens of Alexandria, forced to kill a psychopathic wannabe follower, and ultimately crosses over into Whisperer territory to announce to Alpha that he wants to join her group. It's eventually revealed to have been a ruse to assassinate Alpha.
• Heel–Face Turn: By Season 10, he outright confirms to Aaron he's trying to make amends for his past actions. With his murder of current Big Bad Alpha in "Walk With Us", it seems safe to say he's officially on the side of the heroes from here on out. After his incarceration, Negan has given up his evil ways and no longer actively seeks to hurt anyone. In fact, Dead City reveals that after the events of the parent show, he completely retired to live in a cabin outside of New Babylon with Annie and their son, Joshua.
• Heel Realization: Season 11C centers around Negan understanding the ramifications of his actions towards Maggie and the group.
  • Seeing how angry Hershel is for killing his father makes Negan, a Friend to All Children, realize how impactful his actions were even to people who did not witness them firsthand. He admits to Hershel that he used to be a bad man and probably deserves to die for what he took from him and his mother.
  • He also gets chewed out by Ezekiel for coercing women into sleeping with him.
  • Nearly being forced to watch Annie get executed puts him in Maggie's shoes and makes him realize what he took from her when he killed Glenn.
• Heinousness Retcon: In Season 7, he threatens Carl with Lucille several times and later comes within seconds of bashing the boy's head in as part of a desperate attempt to finally break Rick. While he does display a fondness for Carl, he clearly doesn't have any moral hangups over putting him in harm's way. In all other seasons, hurting kids is a personal Berserk Button for Negan and his love of children becomes one of his defining characteristics — specifically, he brushes aside his Accidental Murder of Margo because she was beating up Lydia, he gets angry when Brandon jokes about him threatening to cut off Carl's arm, and he ultimately kills Alpha because she planned on killing her daughter Lydia, even later asserting to Daryl that, "you never kill kids." Also, in Season 8, he is anguished to hear about Carl's death and claims that he was "the future", which again, flies in the face of his actions in the Season 7 finale. The best explanation for the shift in characterization is so that Negan's evolution into an Anti-Hero would be more palatable.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: It's rare to see Negan without his trademark leather jacket. He stops wearing it following the events of Season 10 and his decision to put his past as a villain to rest.
• "Hell, Yes!" Moment:
  • Has a look of utmost pride when Gabriel turns the final standoff with the Reapers in Maggie's favor.
  • He grins when Daryl shows Pamela and her soldiers where they can stick it by knifing Lance through the hand, ensuring he doesn't escape entirely pain-free for orchestrating the massacre of the Riverbend community and trying to have them all killed.
• Heroes' Frontier Step: In "The Storm" he runs off to save Judith in a blizzard even after getting his leg hurt, pushes through to save her, and gives her his coat despite it being freezing. Discussed by Negan himself, he was willing to sacrifice himself for the group in "Faith" simply because he wanted to do the right thing and it was the right thing to do.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Tries to pull one in "Faith" when the Warden demands to know who was spearheading a rebellion and Negan offers himself up to protect Annie and the rest of the Coalition survivors. The Warden realizes what he's doing and, refusing to make Negan into a martyr, orders the pregnant Annie to be shot instead. Luckily, Ezekiel and the others rally around Negan and Annie while Roberts changes sides and tries to assassinate the Warden. This buys Daryl enough time to sneak up behind the Warden and stab him in the back.
  • He lets Maggie hand him over to the Croat in exchange for the safe return of her son, Hershel.
• Hero Killer: One of the most notorious in the series. He makes his introduction killing Abraham and Glenn, two of the bravest and most competent survivors in Rick's group, both within the span of a few minutes.
• He's Back!: After killing Brandon, Negan dons his trademark leather jacket as well as a makeshift Lucille and crosses into Whisperer territory while reciting his "little pig" speech from "Service" as he gleefully takes down walkers left and right.
• Hidden Depths: For a swaggering, bullying warlord, he does possess a surprising amount of psychological know-how when it comes to either breaking badasses like Rick or getting people to otherwise obey him. He can also identify a homemade bullet from a commercially-made one. And, more tellingly, he does have something resembling a moral center, backing down when he knows he pushed it too far by (albeit admiringly) bringing up how gross Carl's missing eye is.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: When in control of the situation, Negan tends to take his time drawing out the theatrics and agony he inflicts when he could just as easily cut it short and call it a day. It's why Rick's group is able to get the jump on him in the Season 7 finale when he opens the coffin intending to make a big show of Sasha pleading for Alexandria's surrender, and instead it's Sasha as a walker trying to eat his face.
• Honest Advisor: An unwanted one to Michonne in Season 9 and Gabriel in Season 10. While they're both annoyed by his usual snarky remarks they are also forced to acknowledge that the Jerkass Has a Point. He also dispenses some brutally honest advice to Maggie in Season 11.
• Hope Crusher: The Season 7 premiere is essentially all about him crushing every ounce of hope and bravery Rick's group has so they will learn that he's their leader now. He even purposely shows up to Alexandria earlier than expected so he could intimidate the community into giving him whatever his people wanted, making it clear that they have no choice but to obey him.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: After his defeat. His former Saviors work together with the communities to build a bridge that will benefit all of them, and the ones who legitimately want to change later end up joining Alexandria. Rick even visits Negan in prison on a semi-regular basis to gloat about how much better things are going without him. Negan himself realizes how pathetic it is for a man whose name once meant something to be rotting away behind bars and thus becomes a broken shell who attempts suicide at least once and is left crying about how things should have turned out differently by the woman whose husband he killed while at the height of his power.
• Humiliation Conga: Loses control over his vassal states in the Season 7 finale, tricked by Sasha (his intended bargaining chip) and then interrupted in his punishment of Rick's rebellion by the timely arrival of the Kingdom and Shiva. He also has to suffer the indignity of being forced into a retreat by his escaped prisoner Daryl as well as Maggie, the woman he made a widow, wanted to make one of his wives, and was led to believe had died. He's forced to flee Alexandria with his tail between his legs, bitterly musing on how things went to shit.
• Hypocrite:
  • As much as he desperately wanted a child to raise and love with Lucille, he has almost no problem killing parents and leaving their children fatherless and motherless. In the Season 7 premiere, while he refrains from killing Rick to spare Carl the pain of watching his father be killed in front of him, he gleefully torments and mocks Rick for finally submitting after nearly forcing him to chop off Carl's arm, despite the fact that any reasonable father, Negan included, would've probably reacted the same way.
  • For Negan, rape is a big no-no. But forcing a diabetic woman into your Paid Harem by giving her easier access to insulin is fair game because technically he isn't making her do anything.
  • One of his rules is that his wives can't cheat on him, yet he himself once cheated on his actual wife and was deeply remorseful for it.
  • For all his talk about people being a resource, he apparently had no problems ordering the extinction of the library community for attempting to start a rebellion against the Saviors. However, considering it was Simon who was dealing with them it's unknown how privy Negan was to what actually happened, and the Library appeared to have been a small community of survivors whose loss wouldn't have put a dent in the Saviors' resource machine.
  • In Season 10, he claims that both Margo and Alpha got what they deserved for trying to kill Lydia, and outright asserts to Brandon that he personally "would never kill a kid." Yet Negan himself had no issue almost killing Carl with Lucille in Season 7. He presumably is referring to innocent children who have not taken up arms against him like Carl had.
  • He was disgusted with the Croat for brutally murdering a female Kingdom scout who was "just a kid." Again, it didn't stop Negan from almost executing Carl later.

I-L

• I Cannot Self-Terminate: When Maggie finally comes to kill him in Season 9, he tearfully admits that he wants to die and has tried to follow through on it himself, but can't.
• I Choose to Stay:
  • As he points out to Lydia in "A Certain Doom", he doesn't believe either of them will ever fully be trusted by the other survivors for their association with enemy groups and advises her to slip through the walker horde unnoticed, before apparently heading to do so himself. He returns later to save Lydia from Beta and when Lydia asks if this means he's there to stay, Negan replies, "For now." Although, since Maggie has officially returned as of that episode, it remains to be seen how true this statement will hold.
  • Knowing that it's only a matter of time before Maggie tries to kill Negan again, Carol tries to reach a compromise by sending Negan to live in a cabin away from Alexandria. After some self-reflection, Negan tells Carol that his new living arrangement isn't going to work out and returns to Alexandria, where he smiles at Maggie, making it clear that he's done being turned away and the two of them are gonna live together under the same roof whether she likes it or not. However, after witnessing just how capricious Maggie has become during the war with the Reapers, he decides to leave.
• Iconic Outfit: His leather jacket. He bought it before the apocalypse, but his wife hid it from him. She gave back to him as an "anniversary gift".
• Iconic Sequel Character: He's one of the series' most well-known characters, but he does not appear until the last episode of Season 6.
• I Gave My Word: He actually makes a point in his introduction of saying this is probably what separates him from some of the other foes Rick's group has dealt with in the past. And then he kills Glenn to demonstrate what happens when one steps out of line after they've been given a warning.
• I Hate Past Me:
  • Implied in "What It Always Is" when Brandon brings up his tenure as leader of the Saviors and presents him with his leather jacket and a brand-new Lucille. Negan is visibly uncomfortable and only reclaims these items after killing Brandon, who has just murdered an innocent woman and her child.
  • Taken further in "Here's Negan" when he hallucinates his past self and is thoroughly disgusted by what he sees, referring to him as a "clown" and "a cult of personality with no cult."
  • In "Faith", he realizes that the Warden is using his old scare tactics, right down to being a Bad Boss who treats his soldiers like shit. He doesn't like at all what he sees.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: He essentially has Sherry completely under his control in a forced marriage he made up. Since he originally desired Tina before she died though, Negan may have wanted her as one of the multiple wives in his harem.
• Innocently Insensitive: While most of the time he's an intentional Jerkass there are a few moments where he genuinely isn't trying to be offensive. Namely, raving about Carl's missing eye while the boy is obviously self-conscious about it; only when Carl starts crying does Negan realize that he crossed a line.
• Intergenerational Friendship:
  • With Judith and Lydia, bordering on paternal.
  • In Season 10, he also befriends a boy named Milo, who he promises to escort to one of the communities along with his mother. Though that ends when both are murdered by Brandon.
• Irony:
  • Despite Rick and Michonne sparing his life so he can listen to how they remade civilization with the help of his former Saviors, Negan manages to outlive all the ex-Saviors who made a Heel–Face Turn and doesn't have to spend the rest of his life behind bars on account of his own change of heart. He also remains in the area much longer than Rick, who is abducted a mere eighteen months later by Jadis and the CRM, and Michonne, who eventually leaves on a great quest to find Rick after uncovering evidence that he is still alive.
  • In "Faith", he ends up in the exact same position he forced Glenn and Maggie in when he was first introduced: forced to his knees to be made an example of while his pregnant wife watches helplessly.
    • And much like Negan deciding to kill Glenn when he realized Daryl was too badass to die a martyr (or even Richard when he tried to be the sacrifice the Kingdom needed to go to war), the Warden sees that Negan has no problem sacrificing himself and chooses someone else who made an outburst (in this case, Negan's wife Annie) to be killed instead.
• It Gets Easier: Flashbacks show he was initially reluctant to even kill a walker at first, as he was afraid of getting too comfortable with it. After Lucille's death, he has no trouble wiping out an entire living biker gang without breaking a sweat.
  Negan: I am starting to think that I am capable of damn near anything.
• It's All About Me: He's predicated the Saviors' entire culture around this trope.
  • Lydia calls Negan out for this, believing his efforts to atone are more out of self-preservation and a desire to make people forget about the past rather than any sort of genuine altruism. Negan's subdued reaction implies she isn't too far from the truth. He amends this somewhat in the next episode by putting his ass on the line to save Lydia from a crazed Beta.
  • Season 11C heavily revolves around Negan doing things to save other people because it's the right thing to do, not because he expects to be rewarded for it.
• I Want Them Alive!: Played with. He favors this option for only the strongest and "badass" prisoners he comes across, trying to break them so he can employ them as his own soldiers.
• I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure: He's a big fan of this, since going after the people close to somebody is more effective than just punishing them directly. Cases in point, murdering Glenn as punishment for Daryl punching him, and later ordering Rick to cut off Carl's hand or watch his entire group be shot. He also does this to his wives, punishing them for cheating on him by ironing the faces of their boyfriends.
• Jerkass: He's a huge asshole to everybody and seems to get his kicks that way. He patronizes and casually torments everybody around him because he knows they can't rebel against him or his cult of personality. And that's the nicer side of him, considering the rest of the time he seems to spend just outright threatening people, their loved ones, etc. He eases out of this territory ever so slightly in Season 8, which gives him many humanizing moments and some backstory. Overall Negan is a flawed person, but he, unlike most villains, has a heart.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • He points out that for all of Michonne's talk about giving power to the people, she's the one running Alexandria with an iron fist. On a similar note, he makes Michonne realize that Judith has her own ideas about they should be running things, and that she would be a bit more honest with her if Michonne actually bothered to listen to what she has to say.
  • He advises Gabriel to put up a front to make things seem safer than they actually are to keep the residents of Alexandria from breaking into a panic.
  • He accurately surmises that Maggie's true reason for bringing him along on the trip to Meridian was to have him killed away from Alexandria. He also tells her she's not in the right headspace right now to be a leader, and that her leading them through some underground subway tunnels is extremely risky. Gage agrees, lampshading, "He's a dick, but he makes sense."
  • He tells Maggie he failed as a military commander by not murdering the group entirely when he had them at his mercy. Despite his “people are a resource” mantra, Negan outlines to Maggie that in failing to wipe out the people who had already proven good enough to wipe out one of his outposts, all he did was buy time for them to rise up against him. It’s incredibly cruel to tell to someone whose husband was brutally murdered in front of her (and whose friend was murdered in the same way next to her), but he points out that he doesn't expect Maggie to be able to work with him if he's not entirely honest with her, and Maggie takes his words to heart during the subsequent battle with the Reapers.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Downplayed after the six-year Time Skip in Season 9. While "heart of gold" is still a stretch, he's mellowed out considerably in the past six years and even strikes up a friendship with Judith. Played straight in Season 10 and on — he can still be an asshole, but he's heroic now.
• Joker Immunity: Manages to survive multiple attempts on his life through a combination of this and good old-fashioned Plot Armor. Even the incident that finally puts him down doesn't actually kill him. Subverted because he ends up making a Heel–Face Turn instead.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Prior to the apocalypse, Negan was a flawed man. He nearly viciously beat a man to death in a bar fight when he was a Jerkass to him and his wife and kept talking over the song they were trying to listen to, and still had a twisted sense of humor and justice. He was also willing to sleep with his wife's best friend, but straightened up when he learned of Lucille's cancer and became a devoted, loyal husband, abhorring violence even against walkers being afraid of getting used to it. But after Lucille killed herself, Negan was permanently broken. He became the brutal and feared leader of the Saviors, a ruthless extortionist group that ran the Virginia area and all its communities like a protection racket, starting a forced harem of coerced wives and sadistically beating people to death and mocking their loved ones' despair. Negan buried his past self in the facade of a grinning, sadistic cult figure deadset on rebuilding the world in his own image, determined to tune out the eternal shame he felt for failing Lucille by refusing to allow himself to feel anything ever again.
• Karmic Jackpot: Sticking to his Heel–Face Turn in spite of being Reformed, but Rejected proves to be a very rewarding choice. Not only does Maggie spare him after seeing he is sincere about his change of heart, but he ends the series with a new wife and baby on the way.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Mocking Rosita over Abraham's death, practically rubbing his bloodied bat in her face.
  • He emasculates Dwight every time they talk in "The Cell" and actually jokes about how he has his ex-wife under his control.
  • Engages in this repeatedly and gleefully during the entirety of "Service", implied to be at least partially to test Rick's patience with him while the latter is holding Lucille. Among other things, he goes on about his intention to invite Maggie into his harem, jokes about his murder of Abraham and Glenn, and forces Rick to say "thank you" to him when he finally leaves.
  Negan: In case you haven't caught on, I just slid my dick down your throat, and you thanked me for it.
  • Telling Rick that he "failed as a father" after Carl dies.
  • In the same vein, telling Aaron that Eric's death was his fault because he failed to protect him, even though it was one of Negan's own men who killed Eric.
  • When Maggie finally comes to kill him he cruelly mocks Glenn's death to her face, even pretending to forget her late husband's name; in this case, however, it's because Negan actually wants to die, which he tearfully confesses moments later.
  • In "Acheron, Part I": While he is not wrong to say Maggie is being reckless, he definitely crosses a line when he tells Maggie he has no intention to be put down like a dog, "like Glenn was." Daryl gives him a well-deserved punch to the face for it.
• Kindness Button: Dislikes it whenever his victims cry and does try to apologize for whatever he said. As evidenced when he makes Carl cry after mocking his injury, he genuinely tells him he's sorry for crossing the line. Though since he still is a Mood-Swinger, his moments of compassion are far little in between.
• Kneel Before Zod: Forces Rick's group to kneel before him when at his mercy. It's also shown that he forces his own Saviors to bow to him as well.
• Large Ham: You will know when Negan is in the room. He favors grandoise speeches and is a natural showman with a flair for the dramatic. He does become slightly more subdued after his Heel–Face Turn, however.
• Large Ham Radio: "Rock in the Road" reveals that he occasionally graces the airwaves with his obnoxious persona, eulogizing Fat Joey over the Saviors' walkie talkie network.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Downplayed. By the final episodes of Season 11, Negan has since made a complete Heel–Face Turn and evolved from the sadistic, monstrous dictator he used to be. However, in "Faith", he does get a taste of his own medicine and finds out what it's like to be on the receiving end of the punishments he used to dole out.
  • When he attempts to make a Heroic Sacrifice by claiming responsibility for trying to start a rebellion, the Warden decides to kill his pregnant wife, Annie, instead. He's finally forced to understand what Maggie felt when he murdered her husband Glenn in front of her, and how much the use of I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure really stings to the surviving individual. It's also similar to how he used to torture his wives when they cheated on him, having to watch their spouses suffer the consequences for their so-called infidelity.
• Last Episode, New Character: Played With. He does not appear in person until the Season 6 finale, ten episodes after his presence is first felt.
• Last Kiss: He gives one to Alpha after slashing her throat and letting her bleed out.
• Laughably Evil: His theatrics and mannerisms are often hilarious, even for such a terrifying psychopath.
• The Leader: Of the Saviors.
• Lean and Mean: In stark contrast to his comic counterpart, who was Large and in Charge. Jeffrey Dean Morgan intentionally invoked this to play Negan, deciding the character should have a "lean and hungry" look.
• Leitmotif: The scratchy guitar riff that plays during his introduction (most notably when he introduces Lucille). You know the one.
• Let the Past Burn: He left his undead wife to burn along with the house they shared. Years later, he burns Lucille the bat as a way of making peace with her death and letting go of his past as a villain.
• Lightning Bruiser: In physical combat, Negan not only hits fast, he hits like a Mack truck. Every time Rick goes up against him, he manages to beat him and Rick is forced to escape.
  • Although, see "No Other Way" for a subversion: while Negan may be a good fighter against non-trained combatants, he's no match going up against an Afghanistan war vet like Carver, and has to resort to using his wits and a well-timed sneak attack (with assistance from Elijah) to get the upper hand.
• Living with the Villain: Well, former villain. As of "Here's Negan", he's chosen to live in Alexandria as a resident instead of a prisoner. Maggie is none too happy about it. After Part 1 of Season 11, however, he leaves the group knowing Maggie would eventually turn on and kill him.

M-P

• The Mad Hatter: He admits that he's a lunatic, but enjoys letting everyone know it to scare them for a cheap laugh.
• Manchild: Pre-apocalypse Negan was essentially a less psychotic version of his current persona. After being fired from his job as a gym teacher he spent most of his days playing Gears of War with teenagers and purchasing items he and his wife couldn't afford to waste money on, like a $600 leather jacket.
• Mangst: Lucille's death still deeply affects him to this day, though you'd never guess it from his happy-go-lucky personality and harem of wives.
• Manipulative Bastard: Mind games are his specialty. Even sitting in a cell, he's a master at getting under people's skin and pushing at their weaknesses.
• Manly Tears: During his confrontation with Maggie in "What Comes After" and when consoling Lydia about Alpha's death in "The Tower".
• Mind Rape: The Season 7 premiere is mostly dedicated to him psychologically torturing and breaking Rick until he's enough of a wreck to comply with his orders. As Season 7 progresses, it seems that this is a specialty for him.
• Misery Builds Character: He thinks that enslaving communities and bullying them into submission is how he can force them all to be strong. And he's apparently always had this philosophy, if the flashback of him playing video games with teenagers before the apocalypse is any indication.
  Negan: Don’t be such a pussy, this is how you get better! You gotta take it!
• Misplaced Retribution: After Lucille's death he went after the bikers who held him hostage and threatened to dump her chemotherapy bags in the toilet, this despite the fact that Lucille killed herself on the day he left and the bikers had nothing to do with it beyond preventing Negan from making it back to their house a day earlier.
• The Mole: The ending of "Walk With Us" reveals he was tasked by Carol to infiltrate the Whisperers and take out Alpha.
• Mood-Swinger: He can shift his emotional state from a dark and scary presence to a comical, happy act in a millisecond. Even his own minions can't get a fix on how to react to him.
• Moral Myopia: He completely disregards all the pain and suffering he brings upon other communities serving him since all he wants is supplies that benefit him and his Saviors.
• Motor Mouth: Negan just does not know when to shut up. Lampshaded by both Rick and Gabriel at different points, and Negan even agrees with Michonne's assessment that he likes hearing himself talk.
  Rick: Do you ever shut the hell up?
  Negan: Nope!
  • It really puts him at odds with Beta, who comes very close to killing him for this reason and only relents when Negan reveals he has vital information about their enemy to give to Alpha.
• The Mourning After: It's clear that despite having a harem of wives he never got over the death of his first wife, Lucille. In Season 9, he begs Maggie to put him out of his misery so the two of them can be Together in Death. Alpha also surmises that even though Negan is grateful his wife didn't live to see how awful the world would become, he has spent every day since her death wishing he could have died alongside her; Negan doesn't deny it. He finally comes to terms with Lucille's passing in "Here's Negan", and in the following season he finally finds love again with Annie, marrying her.
• Mugging the Monster: Initially, Rick is far too overconfident about the idea of facing Negan, believing him to simply be a Big Bad Wannabe (like Gareth), an enemy who's powerful but not overwhelming (like the Governor), or, as Daryl theorizes, a fictional boogeyman created by the Saviors to intimidate people. He is very, very wrong.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Not especially physically imposing, but he can more than hold his own in a fight against people like Rick or Simon. He’s not a match for everyone, though — see his last encounter with Beta who, even though he had chunked a walker at Negan (giving him less time to respond to the attack), it’s safe to say had him beat if Daryl hadn’t arrived to save the day. He also is unable to hold his own against the Reaper Carver, a trained war veteran and mercenary, and has to resort to trickery and distraction to get one over him.
• My God, What Have I Done?: After staunchly refusing to admit to any wrongdoing in regards to Glenn's death, he finally seems to have some remorse when Hershel pulls a gun on him, intending to shoot him for killing his father. It appears to hit close to home as Negan is about to become a father himself; he ends up breaking down in tears while admitting to Hershel that he took something from him and Maggie that he can never make up for. The series finale sees him express this sentiment directly to Maggie.
• My Greatest Failure:
  • His failure to put down his zombified wife is still a great source of shame for him. "Here's Negan" reveals that he did technically put her down, but by leaving her to slowly burn to death in their flaming house because he couldn't bring himself to simply bash her in the head.
  • He indicates that Rick's raid on the satellite outpost was this for him as leader of the Saviors. He says he was forced to explain to countless people why an entire outpost of people with friends and families were lost on his watch - and admits that he should’ve wiped out Rick’s group when he had the chance.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In his first appearance, he wears an exact replica of the outfit Negan wore in his comic debut. He also comments on two separate occasions that he should shave his Beard of Evil, as his comic counterpart was nearly always clean-shaven. He finally does shave his beard in the mid-season finale.
  • His killing of two hostages because somebody tried to take him down during his villainous monologue bears resemblance to a similar moment when Carver from The Walking Dead (Telltale) game does the exact same thing if Clementine and Kenny try to take him out during his speech.
• Named by the Adaptation: Robert Kirkman never gave Negan a last name in the comics. The show gives him the surname "Smith".^note The name can be seen on the mailbox in front of his house.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Robert Kirkman chose his name because he liked how negative it sounded.
• Necessarily Evil: How he sees himself: he feels that his despotic rule over the Saviors and their forced vassal states are how he can force them all to be strong.
• Never Be Hurt Again: Buried himself in the Savior leader persona because didn't want to face the pain and guilt he felt over losing Lucille and not staying with her when she asked.
• Never Got to Say Goodbye: Lucille killed herself while he was away scavenging medical supplies to treat her cancer. This breaks Negan, since Lucille specifically asked him to stay with her until she passed. Negan refused, since they were only a handful of treatments away from stopping the spread of the disease, and he thought it would be wrong not to keep trying.
• Never My Fault:
  • He takes no responsibility for the fact that it was the Saviors' cruel mistreatment of the community residents that made them unwilling to accept things as they were and start up a rebellion against him. It's Rick's fault for not being able to stand by and watch his people get bullied and/or killed.
  • He tries to rationalize his treatment of his wives to Gabriel by telling him, "all those ladies made a choice." In "Outpost 22", Ezekiel finally calls him out for coercing women into his harem and this time Negan expresses remorse, in part because he's had a Heel–Face Turn in the years since.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Invoking this is a favorite tactic of his. When Daryl punches him, he beats Glenn to death. When Rosita tries to shoot him, he orders Arat to kill someone, and she chooses Olivia.
  • By alerting Alpha of Gamma's treachery, he is indirectly responsible for the deaths of all the Alexandrians Beta kills in his search for the traitor. This ironically includes Negan's own former lieutenant, Laura.
• The Nicknamer: Has a variety of nicknames that he uses to refer to other characters.
  • Dwight: "Dwighty Boy"
  • Maggie: "The Widow"
  • Father Gabriel: "Gabe/Gabey", "Father Not-the-Father"
  • Siddiq: "Dr. Baby Daddy"
  • Kingdommers: "Royalty Brigade"
  • Beta: "Jolly Green Giant", "Frowny McTwo Knives"
  • Duncan: "Man-Tits", "Sasquatch"
• Nightmare Fetishist:
  • He has Carl remove the bandages over his eye so he can admire how mutilated his face is. He even asks if he can touch his exposed eye socket.
  • He doesn't mind when Alpha insists on leaving her mask on before seducing him. Given he is trying to get in close to eventually assasinate her, it's a bit ambiguous as to if he really means it or not.
  Alpha: Does my true skin disturb you?
  Negan: Not at all. Weirdly, the opposite.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Pre-apocalypse, he dished one out to an obnoxious asshole who refused to lower his voice in a bar when Lucille politely asked him and tried to fight Negan when he stepped in to defend his wife. According to Negan, he beat the guy so badly he stopped moving. The man sued Negan and this cost him his job, as the man had kids who went to the school Negan taught gym at.
• Nominal Hero: As of Season 10. He's formed friendships with Judith and Lydia, expresses disgust as some of his old ways of doing things, and will (usually) go out of his way to save people if it's in his best interest. He also plays a pivotal role in defeating the Whisperers, has no problems working with Alexandria to ensure the community's survival, and puts in effort to make peace with Maggie even though it's clear she wants him dead. But, as he makes clear in "Promises Broken", he would go back and slaughter all of Rick's group if he could, and it's only because circumstances landed him where he is now and he's had to accept that his way of doing things is over that he's come to terms with helping his old enemies.
• Non-Protagonist Resolver: He ends up being Alpha's murderer instead of Carol. Downplayed since Carol is the one who freed Negan from jail and ordered him to kill Alpha, so she still had a hand in her death.
• No One Sees the Boss: Going along with Orcus on His Throne, it's implied Negan doesn't often intervene in outside affairs, as the people of Hilltop have never seen him. Daryl even suggests that he's possibly just a boogeyman the Saviors made up. The Saviors' mantra is "We are all Negan," and Primo poses as him when he's out of options in order to save his boss the element of surprise.
• No-Sell: Practically a Running Gag in Season 10.
  • In "What It Always Is", he tries to kill a walker with a knife but the blade gets stuck in the walker's skull, causing the handle to snap off.
  • In "Bonds", Beta gives him a small and very cheap-looking knife to defend himself. The exact same thing happens as in the previous episode while Negan is surrounded by a herd that Beta arranged for him to be devoured by, forcing Negan to improvise off-screen by using a tree branch to take out the herd.
  • One of his first walker kills was this. He tries to crush its skull with a hammer, but since it's still year one of the apocalypse and the walker's skull is still fresh it doesn't work. He then sticks a kitchen knife in the walker's eye but that doesn't work either, for the same reason, prompting Negan to exclaim, "Seriously?". A gunshot courtesy of Lucille finally does the trick.
• Not His Sled: "Here’s Negan" begins with him being sent to live in a cabin in the woods, making it seem as if the show will follow the comic route of him being Put on a Bus after the Whisperer arc. At the end of the episode, after coming to terms with his past and burning Lucille, Negan returns to Alexandria to announce to Carol that his new living situation "isn't gonna work out" and asks for permission to bring all his stuff back.
• Nothing Is Scarier: In Season 6. If the Saviors we see are violent, abrasive and murderous assholes... what's their leader like? We don't learn until the finale.
• The Not-Love Interest: In another story, Negan's frequent bickering with Maggie, coupled with his earnest desire to be accepted by her and Maggie learning to value his advice as a leader and warming up to him after he saves her son might be signs of a budding relationship founded on Belligerent Sexual Tension. Except that's definitely not the case here, since Negan brutally killed her husband. Nevertheless, their relationship is an intense, complicated one and the main focus of both characters' arcs starting in Season 10. Negan also becomes willing to die for Maggie over time (even with a family of his own to get back to), and the finale has him tell Maggie, "I'm doing this for you" when he takes it upon himself to kill Pamela so Maggie doesn't take the heat for it. In Dead City, Hershel calls Maggie out by telling her she's "obsessed" with Negan.
• Nuclear Family: What Negan forces Carl, Olivia and Judith to be for him in the mid-Season 7 finale. It's really more of a Big, Screwed-Up Family though.
• Odd Friendship: With Judith. She's a Little Miss Snarker Kid Hero, he's a former Big Bad who's serving a life sentence for his crimes (which she's fully aware of). Yet the two of them get along well enough for Negan to help her with her math homework.
• Oh, Crap!: When he realizes he accidentally killed Margo while saving Lydia.
• One-Man Army: Implied. He shows up to the Whisperers seemingly ready to take them on by himself if he has to. He is fully shown to be this in his backstory, as he took out an entire biker gang by himself with ease.
• Orcus on His Throne: Prior to the extenuating circumstances with the Alexandria Safe-Zone, Negan delegated all interactions with vassal states to his lieutenants, such as Simon and Gavin. Aside from Alexandria, he's never been to any of them.
• Outlaw Couple: Subverted with Alpha. They have sex and oversee the Battle of Hilltop together, but their relationship doesn't progress any further since Negan is only there to kill Alpha for Carol, and decapitates her when they are completely alone.
• Panicky Expectant Father: He's very concerned for Annie's well-being in "The Rotten Core", revealed to be because she's twelve weeks pregnant with his child. In "Lockdown", he expresses his fear for Annie's safety to Carol, clearly hoping to get some kind of reassurance from her that everything will be alright.
• Papa Wolf: A surrogate one to Judith and Lydia. In "The Storm", Negan throws all caution to the wind when he rescues Judith during a blizzard, the latter having gone to get Daryl's dog. In "Silence the Whisperers", he stops a trio of bullies when they start beating up Lydia. When Alpha announces that she is going to kill Lydia, Negan murders her in response.
• Parrying Bullets: Negan does this with Lucille after Rosita tries to shoot him. Needless to say, he treats this like it is a Minor Injury Overreaction for him, er... Lucille.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: With the exceptions of Glenn, Abraham and Dr. Carson, every other person we see Negan kill on-screen is an Asshole Victim in some way.
  • Spencer tries to betray Rick for shallow and poorly thought out reasons, so Negan guts him like a fish in front of everybody.
  • When David attempts to rape Sasha, Negan berates him harshly to scare him, then stabs him in the neck.
  • Simon massacred several people at the Junkyard and Oceanside, so Negan beats and strangles him to death in a Trial by Combat right in front of all the rest of the Saviors.
  • Margo's death by head trauma may have been accidental, but considering she was beating up Lydia at the time, it's impossible to feel any sympathy for her.
  • His killing of Brandon in the following episode also qualifies, given the latter's casual murder of an innocent mother and her son in a twisted effort to prove himself as a loyal "Savior".
  • Alpha was an unrepentant mass murderer who intended on wiping out the entire Coalition and believed that she was just on her way to kill her own daughter.
  • His decimation of the Valak's Vipers gang was also well-deserved.
  • He helps Maggie cut down the Reaper Paul Wells, a member of the murderous gang who sacked Meridian unprovoked and had been hunting the group. He helps kill other Reapers too, and is the one who ultimately defeats Carver, a sadistic psychopath who got off on torturing people.
  • He brutally disembowels one of the Croat's men who stabbed a harmless old lady.
  • He went after the five men who robbed, beat, and raped Annie, and murdered them all.
• Pet the Dog: Every now and again, Negan shows that for all his sadism and cruelty, he does have a kinder side to him.
  • Subverted when he saves Rick from walkers that were attacking him twice during his "test" for his trust. Yeah, he was giving Rick a hand in an otherwise impossible situation, but it was also to teach Rick that he is in charge.
  • After Glenn interrupts him during his introductory speech he chooses to let it slide, understanding that it's an "emotional moment" for Rick's group. Downplayed since it doesn't stop him from later killing Glenn anyway.
  • In addition to the above, he genuinely apologizes to the group for having to kill Glenn, reminding them that they were warned: "No exceptions!"
  • The fact that he didn't choose Rick to die in the Season 6 finale because he didn't want to kill him in front of Carl.
  • Despite the sexist comments, he doesn't seem to look down on women in practice, as there are high-ranking female Saviors under his employ, such as Paula, Arat, and Regina. He also abhors the idea of raping a woman, his men stating that he only wants "ass that's willing."
  • Perhaps negated by threatening to kill her soon after, but he chides Arat for manhandling Olivia unprovoked while the Saviors are confiscating Alexandria's armory.
  • He has a genuine liking for Carl, and sincerely apologizes for making the kid cry over his missing eye, even comforting him after the fact like a father would. It's unfortunately downplayed by Negan threatening the boy in events surrounding it, but it's still something. He also takes a genuine liking to Judith, much to Carl's horror. When he prepares to kill him in the Season 7 finale, he tells him and Rick that he'll try to do it in just one hit to get it over with quickly, since he likes Carl. Shiva thankfully intervenes.
  • He also offers nothing but hospitality to Eugene when he's held captive in the Sanctuary, but this is because he wants him to join his group.
  • He sincerely thanks Sasha for cooperating in the standoff with Alexandria, not knowing that she's plotting to die on the way and reanimate and attack him.
  • He treats Father Gabriel with respect when they're trapped together in a walker-surrounded trailer, and even opens up to him about his past despite Gabriel trying to kill him. When they manage to escape, he orders his men to treat Gabriel gently when they take him into captivity.
  • He gives Rick his sincere condolences for Carl’s death, and his immediate reaction to the news is to ask if his people were responsible. When Rick later is hunting him, partially out of desperation, Negan offers him a new deal where AHK falls back under his control, but they only have to give him 25% of their supplies in each tribute. Then subverted a bit since a condition is that Rick must become his personal janitor and servant indefinitely.
  • He apologizes to Jadis for Simon's massacre of her people and even offers her the chance to come back to Sanctuary with him. Even when she refuses his offer, he promises to make it right, which he follows through with by killing Simon for her.
  • He apologizes to Gabriel for making fun of him at a time when Gabriel is stressed about his girlfriend Rosita possibly being hurt, though Gabriel angrily tells him to save it.
  • He tries his best to give Maggie space after she returns following the final battle with the Whisperers, and to be a team player during the mission to Meridian. Unfortunately Maggie barely regards the effort he has made and makes it clear she’s still scheming to kill him when she has the chance.
  • He doesn't kill Maggie after learning she intends to hand him over to the Croat in exchange for Hershel, completely understanding her situation even if he's extremely disappointed with her decision.
• Please Kill Me if It Satisfies You: Implied. While he manages to talk Hershel down from killing him due to the many other lives at risk, he later meets with him in private and tells him to come find him in a few years when he's older, and they'll settle it then.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: His speech is littered with casual sexism and misogyny and he believes that Men Are the Expendable Gender. Downplayed, as he doesn't seem to have a problem with women in a position of power, and isn't afraid to express his admiration of Action Girls Sasha, Rosita, Carol, and Maggie.
• Polyamory: He has a harem of wives who married him in exchange for a more comfortable lifestyle.
  Negan: I always wanted to screw a whole bunch of different women. Why settle for just one? Why follow the same old rules?
• Practically Joker: Is basically the answer to the question “what would the Clown Prince Of Crime be like in the post apocalypse?” His bombast, sadism, and bizarre sense of humor is evocative of the classic Batfoe, and comparisons are driven further when joining the Whisperers and gaining a pale mask with a Glasgow Grin.
• Pragmatic Hero: He has no problems potentially getting Gamma (who he knows is helping the heroes) killed if it means gaining Alpha's trust and moving him a step closer to taking out the leader of the Whisperers herself.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • Negan believes it's better to work as a protection racket for other safe zones in exchange for supplies. This is the only reason why he doesn't simply slaughter all of Rick's group when he has them completely Out-Gambitted in the Season 6 finale. He later leaves them a truck for them to use to gather supplies for his tribute, and at Alexandria, he does not touch their food supplies since if Alexandria starves to death, he doesn't get any supplies period.
  • This gets flipped on it’s head by Season 11 when he outlines to Maggie that he should have killed all of Alexandria’s leaders during their initial confrontation. If he had thoroughly wiped out the ones who ultimately rallied the communities to rebel against him, Negan would’ve never lost his empire. While Negan is lamenting the loss of everything he had, he is also encouraging Maggie to not make his mistake when it comes to the Reapers.
• Precision F-Strike: While still very profane, he doesn't drop nearly as many F-bombs as his comic counterpart.
  • In "Lockdown", he tells his concerned wife Annie, "I am fucked either way."
  • In "Family", in response to seeing a walker climbing for the first time, basically vocalizing what the entire group is thinking.
  Negan: What the fuck?
  • In the pilot episode of Dead City, upon seeing post-apocalyptic Manhattan for the first time.
  Negan: Fuck me.
• Promoted to Love Interest: He and Alpha never became lovers in the comics. It's still not enough to stop him from killing her, however.
• Promotion to Opening Titles: Starting Season 7.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Biggest example in the series. He playfully chooses which one of Rick's group members he wants to kill in a game of eeny meeny miny mo while taunting them with petty insults. His process of coercing Rick's partnership also involves him bullying the man by forcing him to get his hatchet off the roof of an RV in a zombie infested fog area like a bully throwing a toy on a high place. When he hits Glenn with Lucille and dislodges his eye, Negan's taunt of "I just popped your skull so hard, your eyeball just popped out, and it is gross as shit!" sounds like a bully gloating to the poor kid he just beat up.
• Psychotic Love Triangle: He's coerced Sherry into his harem, but competes for her loyalty with her ex-husband Dwight.
• Psychotic Smirk: Wears one of these frequently.
• Pummeling the Corpse: Continues clubbing Abraham and Glenn's heads long after they're clearly dead.
• Pungeon Master: A dark example. He makes cruel Puns regarding the ones he killed (specifically, Glenn and Abraham) such as them receiving the "Spirit Award" for their "efforts" and calling the weapon he used to kill them as a "Vampire Bat".
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: In "Here's Negan". In practically any scene with his wife Lucille, at some point he'll probably look at her with innocent-looking eyes. When Lucille gives him his leather jacket, he's practically beaming with childlike joy.
• Put on a Bus: Leaves the group on his own near the end of "No Other Way".
  • The Bus Came Back: He returns four episodes later in "Warlords", and in the nick of time to save Gabriel, too.

R-U

• Rape and Revenge: A group of men from New Babylon brutally assaulted and raped his wife Annie, so Negan tracked them down and murdered all five of them, including a corrupt town magistrate.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: As in the comic, Negan appears to be a believer of this, as Wade says that "he only wants ass that's willing." Although, see Hypocrite above.
• Real After All: For most of Season 6, Rick's group assumes that Negan is a fictional boogeyman the Saviors cooked up in order to strike terror into unsuspecting victims. The finale introduces him as a very real threat.
• Real Men Cook: Cooks spaghetti for Carl, Judith, and Olivia while he waits for Rick to return from a scouting trip. He also used to make dinner for his wife before the apocalypse.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In "Acheron, Part I", he gives Maggie a scathing teardown of her totalitarian behavior and letting her hatred of him affect her leadership choices.
• Recruiting the Criminal: Carol springs him from jail with the promise that she will speak on his behalf if he takes out Alpha for her.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: His favorite look is wearing his black leather jacket, black faded pants, and his red Scarf of Asskicking.
• Redemption Demotion: He goes through this in Season 9 after his incarceration. Without his Saviors to back him up, absolutely no one is scared of him or has any tolerance for his bullshit anymore and barely even register him as a legitimate threat, even those who used to quake in fear around him such as Eugene.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • The verbose and gleefully childlike Red Oni to Rick's serious and somewhat more reserved Blue Oni.
  • He is, however, the Blue Oni compared to Simon, who strongly believes in solving the Saviors' problems through violence, while Negan often prefers psychological manipulation and always tries to see the bigger picture.
  • He's also the Blue to Maggie's Red in Season 11. Maggie is fueled largely by her anger towards Negan and frustration at losing Meridian to the Reapers. Negan is calmer and tries to offer more reasonable (if pragmatic) solutions.
• Reformation Acknowledgement: In the Grand Finale, Maggie — who has more reason to hate Negan than anyone - finally acknowledges that after having to work alongside him against the Commonwealth throughout Season 11, she can't hold onto her anger towards him anymore. She tells Negan that while she'll never forgive him, she won't actively hate him anymore, and acknowledges that he and his new wife Annie deserve to have a fresh start together as part of the survivor community without fear of retaliation from her.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: Especially after "Here's Negan". He's still a bit of a dick with a snarky attitude who's willing to take pragmatic means to survive such as leaving Maggie behind.
  • After Season 11 softens him a bit, Dead City reminds the audience just how ruthless Negan can be once he's truly pissed off. He reveals he's on the lam for killing the men who raped his wife, and brutally disembowels one of the Buratzi after they kill Esther, an old lady who never meant anyone harm.
• Reformed, but Rejected:
  • And quite understandably so, given the amount of damage he caused during his time as a Big Bad. Even after returning to Alexandria and saving Judith during a blizzard, he is still on shaky ground with most of the Alexandrians. The only people even willing to give him a chance are Michonne, Laura, Siddiq, and Gabriel, and it takes Negan killing Alpha and rescuing Daryl from some Whisperers for Daryl to genuinely start coming around on him. Negan's assistance during the Reaper conflict and the fights with Lance and Pamela eventually cause the Coalition to accept him as a loyal ally, but they still don't really love him like a member of their family.
• Reminiscing About Your Victims: Invoked when he tries to commit Suicide by Cop and "fondly" recalls to Maggie how his brutal dispatch of Glenn made him realize how much he got a kick out of sadistically killing people.
• Revenge by Proxy: He kills Glenn as revenge for Daryl punching him in the face.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: He took out all of the grief and anger he was feeling from Lucille's death by massacring the entire Valak's Vipers biker gang single-handedly.
• Sad Clown: Underneath all the crudeness and joking is a man still deeply haunted by the tragedy of his wife's death.
• Sadist: He openly admits that he enjoys killing — men at least, though he'd kill a woman too — and clearly likes inflicting both physical and psychological pain; in fact, his debut consists of gleefully murdering two people and then spending the rest of the episode mind raping Rick.
• Sadistic Choice:
  • He makes Rick choose to either cut off Carl's arm or watch his entire group be shot in the head. He relents at the last second when it's clear that Rick has been pacified.
  • He is on the receiving end of this from Craven in "Here’s Negan", being forced to either divulge the location of Franklin's camp or be shot and have Lucille die thinking he ran out on her. It ends up being for naught since, unknown to him, Lucille is already dead anyway.
  • He makes Maggie agree to stop trying to kill him if he assists her in taking back Meridian from the Reapers. Though she accepts the deal, she later refuses to accept Daryl's deal with the Reapers asking them to surrender and never come back, and slaughters most of them on the spot. Negan realizes this means Maggie probably won't honor the deal, and leaves on his own terms.
• Scarf of Asskicking: He's wearing a red scarf underneath his leather jacket a lot of the time.
• Secret Test of Character:
  • "The Cell" shows that he's been secretly testing Dwight and Daryl to see where their loyalties are with him.
  • "Service" implies that he was testing Rick's patience with him the whole time when he asks Rick to hold Lucille for him while he proceeded to bully everyone in the community.
• Self-Imposed Exile: After seeing Maggie execute the remaining Reapers, Negan accepts that his peace with Maggie is likely own temporary peace and she could one day revert to her old ways and try to do the same with him. Thus, he takes Aaron's advice and chooses to exile himself from the Coalition and be on his own way.
• Settle for Sibling: He originally desired Tina as his wife, but after she died, accepted her sister Sherry's offer of marriage in exchange for Dwight's life being spared.
• Shoo the Dog: He sent his family away prior to Dead City because he knew that the law would be coming for him after his murder of five men and he wanted to keep them safe.
• Shrouded in Myth: Prior to "Last Day on Earth", when he reveals himself to the Alexandrians, no one outside of the Saviors has any definitive proof that he even exists at all. Daryl even speculates that he is nothing more than a fictional boogeyman made up by the Saviors.
• Silver Fox: Even with his greying hair, he's still got Jeffrey Dean Morgan's devilish charm and ruggedly handsome good looks. He manages to get Alpha of all people interested in him, and when he leaves the Coalition to strike out on his own, quickly picks up another wife named Annie.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Though heavily Bowdlerized compared to his comic counterpart, Negan isn't shy about using foul language. In the uncensored version of the Season 6 finale, he uses the F-word a whopping 23 times. In Season 11, he finally becomes the second character to drop an uncensored F-bomb in the series proper.
• Slashed Throat: This is how Rick finally puts him down — by cutting open his throat with a broken shard of glass from a stained glass window.
  • Negan later takes a page from Rick's book and successfully uses this move to take out Alpha.
• Slasher Smile: His default facial expression, at least before his Heel–Face Turn.
• Smarter Than You Look: At first glance, you may be given the impression that he's just a cruel thug, but he is a genuinely credible Genius Bruiser who has led his minions very well, if not in an evil way.
• Smug Smiler: He has the nerve to grin at Maggie as he re-enters Alexandria to continue living there after Carol banished him. It's worth mentioning that the script originally called for Negan to simply glare at Maggie and Jeffrey Dean Morgan actually did do several takes of this version. In the end, the editors decided to go with the take of him smiling because they felt it did a better job setting up the conflict for Season 11.
• Smug Snake: He is incredibly boastful and supremely confident in his authority and leadership. He delights in lording power over others because he knows they can't do anything to fight back.
• So Last Season: After his defeat. The survivors have become more savvy to his manipulation tactics and don't fear him as much without his army of Saviors to back him up. Becomes even more pronounced when the Whisperers take over as the new major threat, with Negan lampshading that he's gone from "Public Enemy #1" to "the guy doing the laundry and taking out the trash."
• Sole Survivor: As of "No Other Way", he's the only Savior introduced as a member of the group who is confirmed to still be alive (barring the non-combatant Gracie).
• Spanner in the Works: For Lance Hornsby's plan to exterminate the Riverbend community. First, he sends Jesse to Hilltop to notify Maggie, ensuring she is already en route by the time she meets Aaron halfway on the road. As a trusted member of Riverbend and a more-or-less ally of the Coalition, Negan serves as a diplomat between the two factions, convincing them to work together peacefully to take out Carlson's entire operation. He also rescues Gabriel and Hershel from the troopers, eliminating any potential bargaining chips Carlson may have had. This continues into "Lockdown", where Negan is the only one of the group whose face the Commonwealth soldiers haven't seen who also has the trust of the Coalition residents. Because of this he's able to make it past security and notify Carol of the danger that allows her and Jerry to get the kids (who Lance planned to use as leverage) to safety and make a deal to get their friends out of trouble with the Commonwealth.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Starting in Season 10, he's gotten more story importance and been featured in more of the promotional material than many of the characters who have been around for much longer than him such as Eugene, Rosita, Gabriel, and Aaron. He's also one of four (the others being Daryl, Carol, and Maggie) to be chosen to be a part of The Walking Dead: Origins series of specials documenting each character's journey over the course of the show, even though Negan only made his introduction in the Season 6 finale. His spin-off with Maggie, announced prior to the end of the main show, soldifies him one of the primary faces of the Walking Dead franchise as a whole, and one of only three people confirmed to survive the parent show's series finale (the other two being Maggie and Daryl).
• The Starscream: When Negan first arrived at the Sanctuary, he (with the help of Simon, himself an example of the trope) overthrew the original leader who he saw was doing a poor job of leading the community, and brought the various gangs and factions that had built up in the Sanctuary together.
• Start of Darkness: "Here's Negan" chronicles how Negan started on the path from normal high school gym teacher to maniacal, post-apocalyptic warlord.
• Stopped Caring: Negan actually found it unnerving to kill walkers at first, let alone living, breathing humans. Needless to say, after Lucille's death he seemed to get over it pretty quickly, to the point of finding it fun.
• Submissive Badass: Despite being a natural leader with years of experience, he doesn't seem to mind falling under Ian's leadership when he joins the Riverbend apartment community.
• Suddenly Shouting: He rarely yells at people, but when he does, it is truly terrifying.
  "That... was a no-no. THE WHOLE THING! NOT ONE BIT OF THAT SHIT FLIES HERE!"
  "But there's always work. There is always a cost. HERE, if you try to SKIRT IT! If you try to CUT! THAT! CORNER!"
• Suicide by Cop: After being broken by his year and a half-long incarceration, he tries to goad Maggie into killing him by mocking Glenn's death to her face. It almost works, until Maggie realizes what it is he's really after and decides to let him suffer.
• Take Me Instead: He shouts this when the Warden's men are about to gun down his pregnant wife, Annie.
  Negan: No! You take me! JUST ME!
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: He stands 6'2, and is a crazy, imposing, and darkly comedic character.
• Tattooed Crook: He has several tattoos (Jeffrey Dean Morgan's own) and eventually spends most of a decade locked up inside Alexandria's jail.
• Tautological Templar: He is absolutely convinced that his way is the only way and refuses to admit any wrongdoing on his part.
• Team Killer: Murders Dr. Carson (who was framed by Dwight), David (who was about to rape Sasha) and Simon (who betrayed and was planning to assassinate him).
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: With the Coalition as of late Season 10. No one wants him around due to having memories of what he did, but are forced to acknowledge him being useful and having earned his keep due to executing Alpha. It's most notable when he gets invited on the trip to scavenge food from Meridian and the team consists almost entirely of people who are fiercely loyal to Maggie. It gets worse when the majority of the group are either sidelined due to injuries (Alden), MIA (Gabriel and Elijah), or outright killed or kidnapped by the Reapers (Daryl and everyone else), forcing Maggie and Negan to travel alone. They later meet up with Gabriel and Elijah and the four of them work together to infiltrate Meridian, with Negan and Maggie proving to be a very effective team once they put their feud on hold and actually start cooperating.
• These Hands Have Killed: Has this reaction when he takes his first human life by using the newly-created Lucille to bash in the skull of one of Craven's men. He quickly gets over it.
• They Died Because of You: Aaron accuses him of failing his wife, which clearly strikes a nerve. We see why in "Here's Negan".
• This Means War!: After witnessing the united communities working together against him firsthand, Negan gets right to the point letting his people know what to expect in the coming weeks.
  Negan: We are going to war!
• Token Evil Teammate: Downplayed. He takes pragmatic means to kill Alpha but still follows through and takes out the leader of their sworn enemy. However, since the Whisperers are still a threat even without Alpha, it's implied Negan did this so that Carol would vouch for him to the Coalition, rather than out of any sort of altruism.
• Took a Level in Badass: In "Here's Negan", we see how he went from being unable to even kill a walker by himself and making a clumsy attempt at a robbery with an unloaded gun to taking out an entire biker gang almost single-handedly and starting on the path to becoming leader of the Saviors.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: One that goes hand in hand with his level in badass. He was once a flawed but respectable guy who loved his wife and didn't actively seek to hurt anyone. The Negan we meet in the Season 6 finale is a sadistic warlord who demands half of everything from every group he encounters and delights in bashing in the skulls of his victims.
• Took a Level in Kindness:
  • Prior to meeting Rick's group, he went from a Lazy Bum who was cheating on Lucille to a dedicated husband determined to help his wife beat her cancer. Unfortunately...
  • After Maggie spares his life, he takes on a less antagonistic attitude and his interactions with others from that point on are portrayed in a much lighter fashion. By the end of Season 10, he's firmly in Jerk with a Heart of Gold territory.
  • He takes another level when The Bus Came Back in "Warlords". With a wife and a baby on the way, he's lost much of his pragmatic streak and is more empathetic and understanding to the damage his actions caused the survivors.
• Trademark Favorite Food: He loves powdered lemonade, and during the faceoff in the Season 7 finale, he orders Alexandria to surrender their supplies... and their remaining lemonade.
• Tragic Keepsake: His leather jacket. He bought it before the apocalypse, but his wife didn't approve of him spending $600 on it when they couldn't afford it. She hid it from him for months and said she returned it to the store, and gave it back to him not long before she died.
• Tragic Villain: While it excuses none of his actions since then, it is a bit sad seeing how much Negan loved his wife and knowing he was just another victim of the apocalypse who lost himself along the way.
• Tranquil Fury: Anytime his usual joking manner is absent... be afraid.
  • The first time he confronts Rick's group personally he greets them in a positive, joking manner before giving them a Hannibal Lecture. He only raises his voice once, when Rick does the same to him, but even then isn't that harsh with him. In the uncensored cut, however, he does raise his voice a lot more. Starting with the Season 7 premiere, he is much more animated and loud, more closely resembling his comic counterpart.
  • He just barely keeps it together when Aaron accuses him of causing his wife's death and suggests that she must have died hating him.
  • A good example is when he kills Brandon, who has just murdered an innocent woman and her son and is overjoyed thinking Negan will finally be proud of him for it. Negan is clearly fuming, but he doesn't speak a word the entire time. He simply picks up a rock, walks over to Brandon, and smacks him across the head before proceeding to turn his skull into a bloody mess.
  • In "Here's Negan", he is remarkably calm when addressing Craven while also making it clear in no uncertain terms that he is fixing to kill Craven the moment he's done monologuing.
  Negan: You best hope I never stop talking. Because when I do... when I do, something very terrible is gonna happen to you.
  • When he discovered the Croat horrifically tortured a young girl from the Kingdom to death, he is completely silent as he stares long and hard at the poor girl. Simon and the Croat keep bickering, but Negan just stares as he realizes that the latter needs to be put down.
• Tritagonist:
  • In Season 10. He gets more focus than anyone in the cast besides Carol and Daryl, and has his own backstory episode to boot.
  • In Season 11, he's the tritagonist to Daryl's Protagonist and Maggie's Deuteragonist.
• Troll: He knows that everyone either hates and/or fears him, but he enjoys messing with everyone around him anyway by acting like a complete and utter lunatic.
• The Unapologetic: Even with Maggie back and out for his blood, Negan makes no attempt to actually apologize to her. In "Promises Broken", he outright says to Maggie he would have killed them all at the lineup if he could go back. And while he finally seems to have scaled it back after getting married, he still never actually apologizes to Hershel, Maggie, and even Ezekiel for what his actions took from them.
• The Unfettered: Even after making a Heel–Face Turn, he's adamant that I Did What I Had to Do to keep people alive and shows very little remorse for his cruel actions as Big Bad.
  Negan: I made myself into a monster, because that is what the world needed.
  • Set in stone in "Promises Broken", where he firmly justifies everything he did and makes clear he doesn't regret any of it, other than that he didn't kill Maggie and the rest of the group at the lineup.
  • Although getting married seems to have made him rethink this mindset, or at least not continue claiming he was in the right for doing these things. In "The Rotten Core", he tells Hershel he deserves to die for killing his dad, and in "Outpost 22", he says that being forced to work hard labor in a prison camp is a fitting punishment for someone like him, but not for a noble leader like Ezekiel.
• Unseen No More: Negan is the Greater-Scope Villain of Season 6 and is frequently mentioned by people who work for him, but only appears in the season finale. In the following seasons, he's a regular.

V-Y

• Viler New Villain: His presence helps to make Dwight more sympathetic and set him up for a Heel–Face Turn in the back half of Season 7.
• Villain Ball: His decision to kill Dr. Carson for failing him comes across as this, considering the lack of doctors or people with medical knowledge in general there are in the apocalypse. True, he had to set an example, and he suggests afterwards that they're going to get the Dr. Carson at Hilltop to replace him, but it's really not wise to diminish such a valuable resource on the strength of one man's word and a coerced confession.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Attempts this when the tide turns against him in "Wrath". Rick quickly catches up to him and puts an end to his reign for good.
• Villain Killer: Responsible for the deaths of two significant villains: Simon and Alpha. He also kills several minor antagonists and other unsympathetic characters, see Pay Evil unto Evil above.
• Villainous BSoD:
  • In "How It's Gotta Be", Carl (trying to buy the Alexandrians enough time to escape) offers himself up as a sacrifice and asks Negan if he's happy with himself and the man he's become. It's the first time Negan doesn't have a smartass retort in the chamber, and instead just listens silently.
  • Negan breaks down crying when Rick mentions the now-deceased Carl during their final face-off, as if the pain of what he’s done is finally catching up with him. Then Rick slashes his throat.
• Villainous Friendship:
  • He starts to form one with Spencer in "Hearts Still Beating", when Spencer introduces himself to Negan. After Spencer tells him about a Pool table and offers to play a game with Negan, he calls Spencer his "new best friend" and during the game he appears to take sympathy for Spencer when he tells him the story of how his mom was the original leader before Rick came and everyone in his family died, saying it was "the saddest story [he'd] ever heard". Subverted when he refuses to help Spencer kill Rick, and instead calls him a gutless coward for going behind Rick's back to ask Negan to do the dirty work for him before gutting him through the stomach.
  • He forms one with Eugene of all people, hoping to convince him to join the Saviors as their Evil Genius. It's worth telling that Eugene's also the first person at the Sanctuary who isn't outright threatened by him or any of his followers. Indeed, Negan genuinely seems to get a kick out of Eugene's stoic and overly-complex manner of speaking. When Negan is released from his cell for the first time in years, he can't help but crack a smile at listening to Eugene talk again.
  Negan: Damn, I missed you, Eugene.
  • He starts up yet another one with Alpha when he joins the Whisperers... and while it's not a true friendship since he's only there to kill her and has no actual interest in joining her group, Negan does admit he liked Alpha and laments being unable to convince her to change her ways.
• Villainous Legacy:
  • Negan's cruel murder of Glenn and Abraham comes at the midpoint of the series and defines its' second half, with many subplots devoted to the long-term fallout of his actions even after he pulls a Heel–Face Turn.
  • His notoriety long after his Heel–Face Turn catches the attention of the Dama, who orders the Croat to seek Negan out with the intent of having him lead Manhattan in a brewing war against the mainlanders.
• Villain Respect:
  • Though he takes every opportunity he can to make Rick miserable and torture him, he admits that he has respect for him. Negan remembers how Rick said he would kill him, clearly hating him for murdering Abraham and Glenn, but he has swallowed that hatred and put his pride aside, submitting to him and going out to gather supplies for him to keep his group safe from The Saviors, saying how all of that takes guts. Because of this he refuses to help Spencer with his plan to murder Rick and put Spencer in charge of Alexandria because Spencer is a coward who only talked to Negan after Rick was gone and wanted for Negan to do the dirty work for him.
  • This respect also extends to two more of Rick's group: Negan respects Olivia for standing up to him despite her fear, and takes a shine to her, even admitting that had he chosen someone to die instead of Arat, she wouldn't have been the one he picked; Gabriel, meanwhile, is one of the few to seriously unnerve Negan, which Negan ironically admires. The two work well together to make it out of a harrowing situation alive, and when they are finally safe in the confines of the Sanctuary, Negan treats Gabriel kindly, allowing Eugene to take him a blanket and an ice pack, later also granting him prompt medical attention when he falls ill.
• Villains Never Lie: Rick's group discovers this the hard way when Negan kills Glenn after he had already announced that any retaliation (in this case, Daryl's punch) would result in serious consequences to the rest of the group and he needed to make sure his point was understood.
• Villains Want Mercy: He begs Maggie to grant him an undeserved Mercy Kill as opposed to spending the rest of his life behind bars. Maggie, wanting him to suffer but realizing she'll be doing him a favor if she executes him, declines.
• Villain Takes an Interest: He finds it fascinating how little Carl is afraid of him, especially in contrast to many of his own people. Negan vows to corrupt Carl into being one of his top soldiers one day, and is genuinely disappointed when Rick announces that Carl has died, ensuring the boy wouldn't be around to help build the future he wanted to create.
• Visionary Villain: He plans to rebuild society by finding other communities to "save" and having them produce for him in exchange for protection.
• We ARE Struggling Together: He explains this as his mindset to Maggie after the Whisperer War as to why he is no longer the enemy of the group. In his view, there is too little left to bother fighting over, and too little decent people left to fight with; and Alpha’s attempt to destroy the Coalition’s civilization was the last nail in the coffin for him that he needed to join with other people and not dominate and extort them as he had done in the past, so they could have a shot at surviving and building a future.
• We Can Rule Together: Offers Sasha a chance at joining the Saviors, and outright says that with her courage and status as a bonafide badass, she could one day join his inner circle and help him lead the empire.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: How he sees the Saviors and himself: they're subjugating others in order to make them strong and able to contend with the Crapsack World they've all found themselves in. Gabriel takes issue with this viewpoint, pointing out that Negan's methods are dangerous and cruel.
• What the Hell, Hero?: He's disappointed that Maggie intends to hand him over to the Croat in exchange for Hershel, telling her they make a badass team and could have come up with their own way to rescue her son.
• What You Are in the Dark: Numerous times:
  • When fighting zombies with the temporarily blinded Aaron, who wouldn't let him use a weapon to fight the dead, Negan could have left him to fight on his own or die, and no one would ever know the truth except as it came from Negan. He doesn't and chooses to watch over Aaron for the night.
  • His wife Lucille invoked this on him. He ended his affair with Janine after Lucille's cancer diagnosis and never spoke to her again. Lucille had never told him that she knew about it.
• The Wonka: Downplayed. He really comes across as crazy and random, but he has successfully outsmarted Rick Grimes with his skills.
• Won't Do Your Dirty Work: His response to Spencer's cowardly appeal to have Negan kill Rick behind his leader's back.
• The Worf Effect:
  • He is effortlessly knocked to the ground like a toy by the mammoth Beta, and later is defeated in mere seconds by him in “A Certain Doom” despite being fully prepared for a fight.
  • Despite taking on the Reaper Carver with Maggie and a wounded Elijah at his side in a small hallway, Negan is still thrashed around by the highly trained combat veteran and doesn’t succeed until he uses his wits to outsmart him. It establishes that the Reapers are too dangerous to be kept alive if just one of them - a disturbingly sadistic one at that - was able to manhandle three of the best fighters the group has ever had in their ranks.
  • He is among the dozens of people captured by Pamela's special forces in a lightning strike that also saw just about every member of the Coalition felled, establishing that Pamela and her private army are a far worse threat than Lance and the regular rank-and-file troopers.
• Worthy Opponent:
  • He views Daryl as one for showing his complete defiance towards his authority, but the only reason he's keeping him alive is because he wants to recruit him for the Saviors.
  • He also views Carl as one for showing absolutely no fear around his presence and admires how the Kid Hero broke into the Sanctuary just to kill him even though he knew it would end in his own death. According to Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Negan views Carl as the son he never had.
  • In his own twisted way, he appears to respect Rick considerably more than most of his own people, even ones he's been with for a long time. Rick could easily stay home and order some of his people to go out and forage for supplies, but instead he always goes along and takes more than his share of the risks. Rick also always comes through and delivers supplies as expected. Negan knows he ultimately needs people like Rick, as if he has nothing but sheep working for him, then nothing will ever get done. Spencer finds out the hard way that Negan doesn't like slackers who try to get someone else to do the dirty work.
  • He tries to keep his distance from Maggie once she returns after the Whisperer War, knowing very well she is capable of killing him. By “No Other Way” he decides to leave the group after seeing her lead the war effort against the Reapers, completely convinced she could have him dead to rights the moment his back is turned regardless of their deal.
• Would Hit a Girl: Though he claims he doesn't like killing women, he will not hesitate to do so if he has to. Just ask Alpha.
• Would Hurt a Child: In the Season 7 finale, he is seconds away from killing Carl before the timely arrival of Shiva and the Kingdom.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Following Carl's death from a walker bite he becomes this.
• Would You Like to Hear How They Died?: He recalls the gruesome details of Glenn's murder as part of a gambit to be slain by Maggie.
• You Are in Command Now: After Negan kills Alpha, a trio of Whisperers submit to him as their new leader. Unfortunately for them, Negan has no interest in taking over the Whisperers, and uses this as a chance to prove his loyalty to Daryl by killing all three of the skins.
• You Can't Go Home Again: After escaping his cell he returns home to the Sanctuary, only to find it entirely abandoned and in ruins. He ends up deciding to head back to Alexandria.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Negan's reaction when one of the Saviors finds the RPG that took out Bud and his crew is one of astonishment and sadistic glee, stating he couldn't wait to test out that rocket launcher.
• You Killed My Father:
  • He murdered Hershel's father, Glenn, and when Hershel realizes the truth, he almost kills him.
  • It turns out that he was the murderer of Ginny's father, who was one of the men who assaulted his wife Annie.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: He is disgusted by Brandon's fanatical devotion to the old ways of the Saviors and his regime.
• You Remind Me of X: When discussing his late wife with his current lover Alpha, he mentions how she looked beautiful even when she lost her hair (from cancer), and then gazes wistfully at Alpha, clearly having a flashback to his beloved Lucille.

Weapons

Lucille

Lucille

"Lucille is thirsty! She is a vampire bat!"

Appearances: The Walking Dead (Seasons 6-8, 10) | The Walking Dead: Dead City (Season 1)^note Flashback

Debut: "Last Day on Earth"

"This is Lucille. And she is awesome."

— Negan

Negan's primary weapon, a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire. Lucille quickly becomes notorious in the series for being the weapon used to murder Glenn Rhee and Abraham Ford. The bat originally belonged to Savior lieutenant Laura, who gave it to Negan to defend himself from marauders on the road.

For tropes related to Lucille Smith, see here.

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• Batter Up!: Negan's signature weapon, a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire that he uses both in combat and to make an example of people in front of their loved ones
• Birth-Death Juxtaposition: Negan first wrapped Lucille in barbed wire on the night he returned to find his wife (the original Lucille) dead as a walker.
• Companion Cube: Lucille creepily comes across as this to Negan as he describes her like a close friend, or even a lover. Later revealed to be a way of coping with the loss of his wife, who was named Lucille.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Lucille is first alluded to in "East", when Carl notices an image of the bat carved into one of the guns Rick's group took from the Saviors' outpost.
• Hero Killer: Literally, as she's used to kill two of the series' main heroes, Abraham Ford and Glenn Rhee.
• I Call It "Vera": See the above quote. Negan takes a moment to introduce Lucille to Rick's group when they first meet, and informs them that she will be used to turn at least one of their skulls into mush before the night is through.
• Iconic Item: One of the most recognizable items associated with the series. Even people who don't watch the show have probably heard of or can recognize Lucille.
• Kill It with Fire: Lucille is finally destroyed when Negan burns her in the fireplace in Leah's cabin.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Lucille sustains damage from her first two on-screen victims from beyond the grave.
  • In "Hearts Still Beating", she takes a bullet fired by Abraham's ex-girlfriend, Rosita. Said bullet was crafted by Abraham's best friend, Eugene, in the factory that the two of them first found together.
  • In "The Key", the lighter Rick uses to set Lucille on fire originally belonged to Glenn.
• Named Weapons: A baseball bat named in honor of Negan's dead wife.
• Rule of Symbolism: Negan burning her in the fire is symbolic of him finally overcoming the trauma caused by his wife's death as well as officially putting his past as a villain to rest.
• Spared by the Adaptation: In the comics, Lucille ends up getting destroyed when Negan repeatedly smashes her on Beta's back during the Whisperer War. This does not happen in the show, and the original Lucille remains unaccounted for until the Season 10 finale, "Here's Negan", when she is finally destroyed for good.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: When Negan asks to see Lucille in Season 9, Michonne claims that the bat is still lying under the tree where Negan last dropped it. She wasn't lying — Negan returns to the tree eight years later in search of the bat and, after some digging, finds her buried underneath the grass and dirt that has accumulated over the last decade.
• Wrecked Weapon:
  • First, Lucille blocks a homemade bullet intended to kill Negan. Then, in "The Key", Rick gets a hold of Lucille and lights her on fire to draw Negan out of hiding. The bat survives both occasions.
  • Lucille is irreparably damaged when Negan digs her out of the ground after eight years and uses her to kill a walker. He burns her in the fire shortly afterward.
• Your Head A-Splode: Negan's Signature Move is to repeatedly whack his victims' heads using Lucille until it's all gore. Abraham and Glenn sadly find this out the hard way.

Lucille- 2

Lucille-2

Appearances: The Walking Dead (Season 10)

Debut: "What It Always Is"

Negan's temporary replacement for Lucille, crafted by Brandon, who intended it as a gift.

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• Mercy Kill: Negan uses the bat to put a badly wounded Hilltop soldier out of his misery.
• Replacement Goldfish: A poor knockoff of the original Lucille, and not nearly as effective. It also doesn't help that Negan has evolved past his former tyrant persona and doesn't take as much joy using this Lucille.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The bat is last seen in "The Tower", and it presumably stayed there since Negan isn't shown using it afterward.

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"No one ever thinks that they're the evil one."