In its sixth season on the air, The Walking Dead is examining its own violence. Centered around the zombie apocalypse, the show has succeeded thus far mostly because of its artistry with little reflection on its chaotic pace. Yet perhaps it has all been intentional, as the characters have digressed from enduring individuals with history to numb monsters of vengeance.

The Walking Dead features a group of “good people” who must fight the zombies and bad people. While the zombies have always been zombies, and the bad people perhaps even more mindless, the good guys have been good. Every murder was done for the well-being of the world. Every murder was done with peace as the end goal.

Towards the beginning of the series, it was much easier to identify with the violent decisions of the characters, for they were justified and necessary. Or at least framed that way. As the show goes on, the characters become more violent and less human. Gone are the clichés of the just sheriff and pure farm girl. Instead we have killing machines shaped by a dark world.

The show still kills off characters quite frequently, but it has moved past the simple suspense of life and death. It now asks if murder is worth it.

We see this in Rick’s original comrade Morgan, who was a killing machine himself before converting to pacifism. He constantly questions the group, but gains little traction. It is quite refreshing to have someone asking these questions, asking if the good people are good anymore.

The other characters struggle with violence too. The rest of the characters are either in despair or numbness in their pursuit of violence.

So how did we get here? How did reasonable, good, just people end up as the bad guys? The answer is that every kill has been the right decision.

On the flip side, we have Morgan, whose religious pacifism has helped him to stay out of the fray. The issue with murder, or any act of killing, is that it is so absolute. The one with the gun is judge, jury, and executioner. The absolute act of killing may only be defeated with the absolute act of never killing.

I am not a person who practices many things absolutely, but when it comes to the very existence of another human being, it is necessary The view of a pacifist is uniquely absolute because it is the very opposite of a non-pacifist. A pacifist will die before killing, and a non-pacifist will kill to avoid death.

To show why this is unique, let’s look at another absolute. Take a person who refuses to pay taxes absolutely, meaning that they would die before paying taxes. The tax and the death are not directly polarized because the tax and the death are different. Namely, that the absolute value is more extreme, death is more extreme than taxes. This is not the case for a pacifist/non-pacifist, it is an eye for an eye. My death or yours.

Hence, if pacifism is practiced religiously, so is murder. The acts are polar opposites. It is here where we can see how violence breeds violence, and peace breeds peace. For both the characters, and by extension the audience, the rate at which the characters will murder becomes greater and greater.

This is blurred by the seemingly increasing threats, thus the situations where murder is justified becomes greater and greater. It is very difficult to distinguish between these two variables that are positively correlated.

Morgan is in the opposite situation. He spares the bad guys, who appear to have no character. Yet when they are spared, their character suddenly becomes more complex and we wonder what would have happened if Rick had spared some of his victims. Every time Morgan has spared a life, he has been rewarded for it, just as each murder by Rick’s gang has left them more exposed to violence.

The first five seasons of The Walking Dead appeared to justify violence and murder every step of the way. In the sixth season, the show begins to question this idea. The violence and the gore are still used to grab viewers, and I can’t help but support the “good people” committing violent acts.

Yet the constant violence throughout has only bred more violence, not peace. In victory, the good guys are traumatized and dehumanized, in defeat, the good guys die. Morgan is the only one who is neither a dead man walking or part of the walking dead.

If The Walking Dead has taught viewers anything, it is that the dead you have killed will always come back to bite you.