When the Dead Walk . . .

Who would you rather have on your side: Rick, or Shane?  If you're not sure what I'm talking about, take a few hours or days to watch the first two seasons of The Walking Dead on Netflix.  The premise is simple.  Rick, the cop gets shot and falls into a coma.  During that time, the world comes to an end.  Zombies walk the earth.  He wakes up a few days later and has to make his way through the ravaged city, desperate for answers and to find his wife and son.  Meanwhile, said wife and son think Rick is dead and have come to rely on his best friend Shane to protect them.  Wife sleeps with Shane, Rick catches up to them.  Cue portentous music.

The television show, produced by AMC (probably the most innovative network on American television), is based on the series of graphic novels of the same name by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard.  It follows the trials of a small band of people trying to escape Atlanta and make their way someone, anywhere, that's safe.  The dangers of the zombie apocalypse are exacerbated by the secrets each character possess, and the fault-lines dividing the camp.

That's the quick and dirty.  I recently caught up on the second season so I can jump into the third, currently airing.  I was struck by the dynamic between Shane and Rick.  Although Shane slept with Rick's wife--and even though Rick isn't exactly cool with it--he accepts that his family and Shane believed that he was dead.  It was one of those instances of forgiveness in extremis.  But the major contention that divides the two friends is the manner with which they deal with danger.  Shane sees danger in its immediate context: How it's a danger to the woman and child he believes he loves.  Rick sees danger in the context not only of the group he has become leader of, but also to the group's humanity and in regards to longer survival goals.  He sees survival as more than a zero-sum game.

They're both right.  Sometimes danger comes at you and you have shoot it in the head.  But other times are less black and white.  Highlighting the difference is the moral dilemma facing them both in the second season.  What to do with a prisoner they've saved/captured?  Shane understands from the beginning that they will probably have to kill the prisoner so that he cannot return to his own group and lead them to the small band of survivors Shane and Rick are both trying to protect.  From his perspective, killing the prisoner is the only option available to them.

But Rick sees the death in larger terms.  Not only does he want to protect the group, but the last shards of humanity they're all desperately clinging to.  He understands that the world they've inherited is cold and unfeeling, and with a child already succumbing to it, he wants to keep it as far at bay as possible.  But there's something else at play.  Rick understands that people are feeling, communal beings, and the connections we all form are just as important to our survival in crisis situations as the existential threats beating at our doors.  In a few words: We're more than the air we breathe.

So when the world ends, who do you want on your side?  Shane, who'll keep you breathing by doing everything possible, including leaving you to die if you become a burden to the group?  Or Rick, who will fight and sacrifice to keep you alive and offer you hope?  In the calm of your office (or wherever you're reading this) the answer seems simple.  I'd pick Rick, and most of the people seem to, and the writers of both the graphic novel and the television show seem to lean that way.  Shane, though, has definite advantages.  With the ruthlessness to get stuff done, he offers a viable means of surviving to the next day.

But I'm glad most people would pick Rick, because it offers us a method of preserving our humanity in the face of almost certain doom.  And that's reassuring.  Regardless, I'm excited for season three.

Who would you pick?  Rick the strategist, or Shane the tactician?  Let me know in the comments.