The show often takes liberties with the source material and thus, some characters who perished in the comics actually got to survive in the show — or, at least, got to survive a little while longer.
MASSIVE unmarked spoilers below!
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General
- By default, this trope is now in effect for every character who has a comic counterpart still alive at the start of the Whisperer arc who dies after the fifth episode of Season 9, in which a whopping six year Time Skip takes place. It’s also a Subverted example as the comic’s stories did not continue until after the Time Skip.
Characters who survived longer than in the comics but still died
- Carol's husband Ed and Lily's daughter Meghan were both Posthumous Characters at the start of the comics, but were alive in a few episodes of the series, later becoming early casualties after their appearances.
- Tyreese's Off with His Head! demise in the comics is given to Hershel Greene in the show. He still dies almost exactly a season later from the effects of an amputation caused by a walker bite.
- Tobin and Bruce lived past the "No Way Out" arc only to perish for good during the Savior War.
- Abraham avoids his comic counterpart's rather anti-climactic fate of being shot through the head with an arrow by Dwight. However, he does get the unfortunate honor of being Negan's introductory kill instead which, while more fitting, manages to be even more horrific due to his skull being turned into mush.
- Glenn is perhaps the shortest-lived example of this trope in fiction. Abraham takes his spot as Negan's first victim, but due to Daryl lashing out, ends up being selected to die moments later anyway, meaning he only outlived his comic counterpart by a few minutes.
- Luke is one of the casualties of Alpha's massacre in the comics. Here, he survives to the Grand Finale, where he is bitten by a walker and dies from the blood loss after his group is forced to hack off his limb to try to save his life.
- In the comics, Alpha died before she could get to participate in the actual Whisperer War. In the show, she gets to at least oversee the first battle before meeting her comic counterpart's fate at the hands of Negan.
- Lucille is revealed to have died several months into the apocalypse, as opposed to how she died during its' early days in the comics. On that note, Lucille the bat was destroyed during the thick of the Whisperer War in the comics, but Negan doesn't reclaim it until after the war only to immediately lose it when it breaks beyond repair in the show.
- Rosita is also beheaded by Alpha in the comics, but ends up being the main heroic casualty of the show's Grand Finale. She is bitten by a walker and slowly succumbs to the infection before being put down by Eugene.
Characters who survived the entire TV series
- The biggest example is, of course, Rick Grimes himself. Thanks to pulling a near-fatal Heroic Sacrifice and thus sitting out the rest of the series, he survives to avoid being gunned down by Sebastian Milton and ultimately ends up having his story happily concluded in the sequel spin-off The Ones Who Live.
- Carol gets the Adaptational Badass treatment and doesn't commit suicide out of grief like she does in the comics.
- Judith died during the Governor's prison attack in the comics.
- Scott avoids his comic counterpart's early demise and lives until at least the second third of Season 11. He is never seen again and is last mentioned in "No Other Way" with his final fate by the end of the series unknown.
- Morgan lived past the Alexandria Safe-Zone walker herd to become the main protagonist of the sister show, Fear the Walking Dead.
- Dwight is similarly Put on a Bus and thus avoids the fate of being shot in the head during the final Commonwealth arc.
- Sherry is also Put on a Bus to Fear and avoids suffering an accidental death in the aftermath of the Whisperer War.
- Ezekiel isn't beheaded by Alpha (a fate taken by Henry instead) and lives to the end of the show to become the new Governor of the Commonwealth.
- Gabriel is Gutted Like a Fish by Beta during the opening battle of the Whisperer War. In the show, thanks to the timely arrival of Maggie and Elijah, he manages to avoid a similar fate at the hands of a trio Whisperers during the final battle of the war.
- Due to Rosita surviving to actually give birth in the show, her baby goes on to live through the events of the series and is raised by Gabriel after Rosita's death in the Grand Finale.
