Because in this universe, walkers are the least of your worries.
The Walking Dead (2010)
- Season 1: The walkers, while not intelligent and more a force of nature, are the main threat that the survivors face. Notably, this is the only season in the whole franchise where there isn't a human antagonist big enough to overshadow them.
- Season 2: Shane Walsh, after Slowly Slipping Into Evil over the course of the series, finally snaps and starts plotting to kill Rick and usurp him as leader of the group.
- Season 3: Philip Blake aka The Governor, iron-fisted leader of the survivor community of Woodbury, who goes to war with the protagonists to assert his authority over the area.
- Season 4: The first half has The Governor, who takes over a new group of survivors and tricks them into attacking the prison community to try and take it over. The second half has the Claimers, led by Joe, who clash with the protagonists after crossing paths and trying to take their supplies for themselves.
- Season 5: The first half has Terminus leader Gareth, building off of the previous season finale as his group hunts the protagonists, and Dawn, leader of a survivor enclave in Atlanta that Beth is taken in by and which she doesn't allow anyone to leave. The second half of the season has Pete Anderson, who serves as the primary instigator of conflict between the protagonists and their new haven of Alexandria, with the mysterious Wolves serving as Greater Scope Villains posing a potential threat to the community.
- Season 6: It begins with Alpha Wolf and his Wolves attacking Alexandria in the first few episodes, but later on the Saviors take over as the main threat as they begin menacing the town and other survivor communities, acting under the leadership of Negan Smith, who is an unseen Greater-Scope Villain until the season finale.
- Season 7: Negan takes on full Big Bad status, as we fully explore the means by which he rules over the network of communities.
- Season 8: Negan continues in this role, as The Alliance of communities go to war with the Saviors.
- Season 9: The first half lacks a central antagonist, instead being a case of Good Versus Good as the survivors come to blows over unresolved past grievances. The second half is more clearcut, having Alpha, the leader of the Whisperers who begin encroaching on the survivors' territory and trying to claim it for themselves.
- Season 10: Alpha continues to be the main antagonist, as she carries out a campaign to slowly destabilize the survivors' communities, before eventually deciding to simply declare open war and wipe them out entirely. Midway through the season, she's killed by Negan, at which point Beta takes over and swears revenge.
- Season 11: Pope and his Reapers are the main antagonists of the first third of the season, as they clash with the protagonists over control of a supply stash. Pope is eventually killed by Leah, who takes over from him; however, this only lasts one episode before the Reapers are wiped out. Starting in the second third, the Commonwealth (which had been presented as Ambiguously Evil in the first third) is slowly revealed as the new antagonists, as it becomes clear that Deputy Governor Lance Hornsby is both corrupt and willing to do anything to increase his own power within the Commonwealth, eventually ordering the Coalition communities occupied and trying to kill the protagonists. However, he's quickly reduced to a Big Bad Wannabe in the final third, as Governor Pamela Milton turns on him to improve her own public profile, before then trying herself to crush the protagonists when she comes to view them as undermining her rule. Though ultimately, it's the walkers that reclaim the position of Final Boss, specifically a horde of intelligent variants that get over the Commonwealth's walls and threaten the entire city; Pamela's efforts to prioritize protecting herself causes her own army to turn on her and ally with the protagonists in fighting against this threat.
Fear the Walking Dead
- Season 1: While the emergent Zombie Apocalypse is the primary threat, human antagonists arrive in the back half of the season in the form of the National Guard unit led by Lieutenant Moyers, who is determined to do whatever it takes to protect his safe zone.
- Season 2: The first quarter of the season has the pirate band led by Conner which preys on other survivors who fled to sea. The second quarter has Celia Flores, who has turned the Abagail compound into her own cult, which she runs with an iron fist. The second half of the season has the Los Hermanos Cartel, led by Marco Rodriguez, which has taken over much of the region that the protagonists find themselves in after the governments collapse.
- Season 3: Troy Otto, the sociopathic son of the leader of a survivor compound that the protagonists come across, serves as a recurring antagonist, lashing out at virtually everyone around him whenever he doesn't get his way. The final episodes, however, have a greater threat in Proctor John, the leader of the Proctors Motorcycle Club, which like the cartel before it is carving out a post-apocalyptic kingdom that the protagonists clash with over control of resources.
- Season 4: The first half of the season has Mel and Ennis, the leaders of the Vultures, a scavenger group that crushes every other group of survivors they come across to try and steal their resources. The second half has Martha, a Straw Nihilist who is hellbent on killing everyone she encounters out of a belief that only the strong should survive.
- Season 5: The season at first has Logan, the leader of another survivor convoy that clashes with the protagonists over resources. Two-thirds through the season, he turns out to have been working on behalf of Virginia, the leader of the Pioneers group that is trying to rebuild civilization in the most pragmatic, ruthless way possible.
- Season 6: Virginia continues to act as the main antagonist, until her death midway through the season. At this point, a secondary threat introduced in the first half — an Apocalypse Cult led by Teddy Maddox — becomes the primary threat in the second half, as they work to fulfill their vision of destroying any attempt to rebuild society by launching nuclear warheads from a beached submarine.
- Season 7: Victor Strand sets himself up as a warlord by taking over one of the few habitable areas left, clashing with the other protagonists on ideological grounds. There's a secondary threat in the form of the Stalkers, a group of scavengers formed from the remainder of Teddy's cult, now led by Arno. By the end of the season, Arno is dead and Strand's community has collapsed, forcing him to rejoin his old comrades.
- Season 8: The first half has Shrike and Crane, the leaders of PADRE, an organization enforcing a tyrannical regime over the southern United States by means of kidnapping children to indoctrinate as Child Soldiers who can one day reclaim the country from the walkers. After the protagonists defeat them midway through the season, Troy Otto returns to reclaim the main antagonist mantle, now leading a band of marauders who are determined to claim PADRE's former resources for themselves.
The Walking Dead: World Beyond
- Lieutenant-Colonel Elizabeth Kublek is the primary representative of the Civic Republic Military seen in the show (though she remains subordinate to Major-General Beale, who is unseen throughout the series), acting as the instigator for everything the protagonists have to deal with.
- Midway through Season 2, Kublek returns to the Civic Republic's city-state and leaves the role of main antagonist to fall to Jadis, who is sent in to secure the research facility, and thus comes into conflict with the heroes when they infiltrate it. And at the end of the season, she usurps Kublek by scapegoating and arresting her.
The Walking Dead: Dead City
- The man known as "The Croat" is a former Savior whom Negan exiled and tried to kill due to being too cruel. Since then, he has taken over the ruins of Manhattan and rules it with an iron fist. He kicks off the plot by kidnapping Maggie's son Hershel in order to lure her and Negan to him in order to get revenge. The end of Season 1 reveals that the Croat is actually just The Dragon to the woman known as "The Dama", who ordered him to kidnap Hershel in order to lure in Negan, whom she wants to serve as her general in her plans to completely conquer and unite Manhattan.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon
- Marion Genet is the leader of Pouvoir des Vivants (Power of the Living), a populist nationalist movement seeking to reunite France by force. A heartless authoritarian, she has her militias roam the countryside brutally enforcing her laws, and has people abducted by human traffickers to use as test subjects in her scientists' experiments to weaponize the walkers. Learning of the messianic message that the Union of Hope is spreading about Laurent, she orders the boy hunted down in order to eliminate a potential threat to her rule.
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live
- Major-General Beale, the previously unseen Greater-Scope Villain of World Beyond, is the head of the Civic Republic Military, who is in charge of all the shady actions they undertake in the name of protecting the Civic Republic.
