Like Game Of Thrones, The Walking Dead confronts violence, survival, and family
It’s a hard life for Game Of Thrones fans. From April until June, every weekend is filled with amazing episodes to look forward to; then, for the rest of the year, we’re stuck waiting endlessly between seasons, impatiently trying to forget that we have such a long hiatus. I’m a television buff, and while there’s always something on the screen to keep me occupied during the off-season, it’s not necessarily what I want. It figures that the thing to hold me over during the show’s hiatus would be another popular cable drama: The Walking Dead, which started its fifth season last night, has started to fill the Westeros-shaped hole in my heart.
When I started watching, I was immediately struck by the characters, the twists and surprises, and (to be completely honest) the glorified gore that can only come with a zombie show. On the surface, the similarities between Game Of Thrones and The Walking Dead are quite obvious: both shows are huge cable successes, both deal with slightly “out there” settings (a fantasy medieval world and a post apocalyptic zombie world), and both were adapted for television from earlier works. But really, it’s more than that. First, both are about survival.
Like Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead is a world where it’s more or less every person for themselves–and if you don’t figure out how to survive, you’re, well…zombie meat. There’s little time to learn how to live in an environment that suddenly has turned on you, as most of the survivors learn. It’s simply trial and error, much like the way poor Sansa was thrown into the big leagues of the Lannister family. This makes survival more than just physical–like Sansa’s character development from superficial, love-struck teen to quiet, coy schemer, the characters in The Walking Dead have to grow with the world that they’ve been immersed in.
One of the most jarring and scarring scenes last season occurred when The Walking Dead’s Carol was forced to shoot a possibly psychotic teenager, after recognizing that her murder of her younger sister made her a potential threat to the group. There was nothing good or bad to justify Carol’s actions–it was brutal, but it was what needed to happen in order to ensure that the people she cared about could survive.
We’ve seen many of the Game Of Thrones characters in similar situations–most notably Arya,who made her first kill in order to protect herself. The Walking Dead consistently shows how violence affects its lead youth character, Rick’s son, Carl, to the point where last season he had to face the dangers of the world on his own, and his maturity was demonstrated when he was forced take care of his dad when Rick fell apart emotionally. It’s a different kind of violence than what Game Of Thrones gives us: Carl doesn’t want the violence that he’s being forced to partake in, but that’s what he needs to adapt to.
This leads us to another prominent theme that the two shows share: family. One of the reasons the downfall of the Stark clan hits so hard is because we’re introduced to them at the beginning of the books when they’re what a family should be: loving, supportive of each other, and carefree. Jon Snow is searching for the truth behind his parentage, and the climax of his Season 1 storyline involved him choosing his new family over his old one. More often than not, Daenerys refers to and treats her dragons as her children, while also (perhaps unwisely) accepting the name “Mhysa,” or “mother,” from slaves she frees. Theon strives for his father’s approval, desperately wanting him to be proud of his son.
Family dominates almost all plots in The Walking Dead, starting from the very first scene of the first season, when Rick wakes from his coma with one primary motivation–to find his family. It’s a thread of narrative not unlike what Arya’s journey becomes in Season 2 after she goes on the run following her father’s death. And like Game Of Thrones, The Walking Dead likes to focus on “found families” as most of the survivors come to care about each other as if they are their own, the same way that Shae learns to care about Sansa, or that Shireen learns to care about Davos, or the entirety of the Night’s Watch.
The more each series progresses and the more I invest myself in their worlds, I find that there are so many layers that make up The Walking Dead‘s narrative–strong woman characters, interpersonal relationships, accidental heroism–that are shared by Game Of Thrones. Perhaps the only real difference is that the power struggle in The Walking Dead‘s world is theoretically against zombies, while in Game Of Thrones, it’s human against human. But really, don’t let that fool you. There are humans who are just as horrifying as the undead in TWD, and, I mean, have you seen those White Walkers?
Spoiler Alert!
Please take care to tag spoilers in your comments by wrapping them with <spoiler></spoiler>. Spoilers in comments are hidden by a gray overlay. To reveal, simply hover or tap on the text!