#bringbethback2019

I’m gonna start off by saying that, with one hundred percent belief on my end, Beth would not try to get Daryl to join the Whisperers unless she had absolutely no idea who he or Carol or Michonne – the only people she’d recognize at this point since Maggie and Rick are MIA – were at all.

The Whisperers in the comic would only kill people that wouldn’t conform to their belief. They shun civilization and humanity and view humans as animals. Basically, the apocalypse was a reset for them to “go back to their roots”, so to speak. Which is funny because on the show, that’s what The Wolves believed. Hell, a Wolf basically says that to Morgan and Gabriel before Carol kills him:

“We’re freeing you. You’re trapped. You need to know, people don’t belong here anymore.”

Which is why a lot of people who’ve read the comics probably thought The Wolves were going to be The Whisperers. They’re very similar after all… But it turns out it was more like a hint / foreshadowing of the Whisperers. At least in terms of dealing with people with views that are “way out there”.

Think about it this way. So far, besides Terminus and The Wolves, the other groups that TF has faced had very understandable reasons behind their actions that one could associate with human survival and mentality. The Governor was a bit mad but his choices stemmed from basic human emotions that were twisted. He lost his family and therefore it twisted him up and he wanted a cure to get his daughter back and he wanted control to run things as he saw they should be. His actions were disgusting and horrible, but he was still marginally human. A monster in his actions. But a human.

Dawn and Grady were an example of The Stanford Prison Experiment. The psychological perceived image of power and control over one’s prisoners. Dawn believed she had control and therefore she underestimated people and what they can and will do for power or to survive. If you’ve never read about the experiment or seen the tapes, fair warning that they’re hard to stomach but also really fascinating. But I can say that some of what we saw at Grady is very similar to the experiment. Especially when you focus on how each person fell into their roll and how quickly things fell apart since the experiment only lasted six days but many people left mid experiment…

Anyway, Grady still had the psychological connection to human actions. What we saw with Dawn and the other officers and the prisoners/Beth was examples of human actions when given no boundaries within boundaries. Meaning the actions of the officers were still “controlled” in the hospital because too much push could have consequences to them even if Dawn was slack on punishment for the sake of a power balance, she still had the illusion of control over things and psychologically that put people in place. Even the ones plotting against her. She was still being a cop just with very twisted views and survival choices… It’s kind of like when you deal with a teacher that thinks they can do whatever they want because they have ten year but, in the end, they still have to keep to certain school rules or risk a full-on student attack. Least in high school anyway.

Then there’s The Saviors. Negan was using charisma and intimation to rally people the way he wanted them. He was basically being an Adolf (I’m not gonna put the N with the Z word in here incase it gets flagged or something since Tumblr is on some cray with their tagging or mention issue) and he used charisma and the illusion of power to make things his way. We get a hint from Gordon (the Savior who tried to get away that Dwight killed) that things before Negan were different. That when Negan came in, everyone and everything changed:

“Thug swoops in with a baseball bat and smiles and we’re so scared we gave up everything – but there’s only one of him and all of us so why are we living like this?”

If you think about it, Negan’s reign was a very basic example of Adolf’s reign over Germany. Adolf came in, worked himself up to power in politics with cunningness, violence, and his overall charm. People liked him (crazy enough) and he was excellent at speaking and surrounded himself with people like himself that weren’t afraid of violence to fulfill their political gain… Who does that sound like? Negan. And Negan used a lot of psychological torture on people (example of letting Dwight fuck with Daryl by taking away his clothes, keeping him awake with cheery music, and feeding him dog food), something Adolf himself had done with his camps… Basically the Saviors could be an example of Germany and their fall to Adolf’s political party… And this is even more true when you think of how Germany had a hard time adapting after Adolf’s fall (I know there’s more history to it than that but I’m not going into politics and history here, just pointing out similarities).

So now look at the Terminus crew and The Wolves. Out of the two, Terminus is more human than the Wolves were. They were once a peaceful group who put up signs to bring people together to survive and have a future… But the wrong kind of people got in and stayed and used the Terminus crew and raped and just enslaved them. This broke Gareth and his brother Alex and their mother Mary. He started seeing his deeds – eating people and hurting them – as things he had to do. Not things he wanted to do. Things he had to do to survive. They needed to eat. Food was scarce, so they took a page from the Walkers. People became the food. You’re either the butcher or the cattle mentality taken to a whole new level… Those that didn’t fall in line – those that questioned the choice to eat others – became the cattle.

Really, Gareth even says it to Bob after Bob wakes up (I cut down some of the speech because it’s not really needed):

“I want to explain myself a little. You see, we didn’t want to hurt you… before. We didn’t want to pull you away from your group or scare you. These aren’t things we want to do. They’re things we gotta do. You and your people took away our home. That’s fair play. Now we’re out here like everybody else trying to survive. And in order to do that, we have to hunt. Didn’t start that way, eating people. It evolved into that. We evolved. We had to. And now we’ve devolved, into hunters… I just hope you understand that nothing happening to you now is personal…. A man’s gotta eat….”

It’s human to evolve… But it’s also an animal thing. Humans and Animals have evolved over the years to adapt to the changing environment and changing world. Gareth had a point when he said they had to evolve… But he was right in that when they evolved, they devolved as well. They went back to cave men. Because in TWD world you can’t be like you were. Like Beth said, you gotta put the past behind you or it kills you. The Terminus people became the Walkers… Humans as Walkers. So, they were the first simple example of The Whisperers in that they turned their back on civilized norm. They ate other humans to live. They weren’t too different from the walkers… Just maintained their human mind of being able to have cognitive thoughts. In the end, that got them killed cause they tried to eat the wrong people.

Then there’s The Wolves. Primitive and cult like, The Wolves used the walkers just like Terminus adapted with the walkers. Now we didn’t see a wolf eat a person (least I don’t recall seeing them try to eat a person) but they did use the walkers and took to overthrowing and raiding other survivor groups to survive. They were scavengers (taking the arc of The Scavengers in the comic, who are the ones who actually attack ASZ after Rick kills Pete). They were like wolves. They scavenged their food, mark their territory, and would grow in numbers with gathering more people to follow their way or gather more walkers to use as a trap, marking them with their W’s as well. Marking them like a farmer marks their cattle. A butcher marking their kills… Which is what a pack of wolves does. They mark their territory and take from it as they see fit.

So again, it’s easy to see why they were viewed as being The Whisperers. But I believe – like a lot of people – that they were just a “beta” version of the Whisperers for the group to face. The Wolves devolved from civilization to taking on animal qualities of a cult-pack mindset and were using the walkers to gain an upper hand against other “packs”, AKA the people they attacked. The Whisperers devolved to become those that use the walkers but walk among them… The Wolves and the Terminus crew were a buildup to the Whisperers – a buildup to Beta and Alpha. Alpha is basically like Gareth and Beta is like Owen, the former leader of the Wolves.

So, what about Beth in terms of my entire rambling? Well as I said, I do not believe that unless Beth didn’t know who Daryl was, she wouldn’t try to lure him to the Whisperers. That role seems to be going to Lydia – the girl we see telling Daryl in the trailer that “you don’t belong with these people” or so it’s being made out as… We’ll see.

Now I started writing this out before the mid-season premiere so I’ve gone and changed some thoughts, but most of the following stuff is still what I think. I think Lydia is going to try and persuade Henry and Daryl. More so I see Henry, as it seems they’re trying to play Carl’s role with Lydia on Henry, though I don’t see it going over like it did in the comics (We saw an image of Lydia violently lashing out in the future episode previews so I’m still with the belief that she can’t be trusted for now./// May change.)

Anyway, with Lydia persuading Henry, his easily impressionable and good hearted nature is gonna have him go after Lydia (SPOILER ALERT FROM HERE ON YOU’VE BEEN WARNED there’s going to be an exchange for Luke and Alden from Alpha to get her daughter back). Daryl is going to have to get into the Whisperers group because I’m sure others are gonna be captured (this part I do not know but I do know Daryl is supposed to put on a Walker suit and mask). That’s how he ends up fighting Beta like we see in the preview (which, ooc for this post I’m so fucking excited for just FYI ‘cause I love love love Ryan Hurst and I’m so happy to see SOA peeps on TWD… Can we get others? Please?! Lol) and that’s going to probably get Daryl captured by the Whisperers as well.

Now here is my speculation… I have a few ideas about – if she is with the Whispers – that can maybe be possible. One, I am wondering if Beth is going to be shown coming across the spiked Walker heads. Why do I think that? This:

This is Andrea after she finds the spiked heads of her friends with Michonne, Rick, Dante, Carl, and Lydia. Michonne in the comic was in a sort of relationship with Ezekiel (who is one of the heads that the group finds) and she breaks down, unable to put down Ezekiel’s reanimated head. Andrea takes a knife from Michonne and does it for her. Now… Look at how Andrea looks. She’s wearing a poncho, a hat similar to what Gabriel has been wearing (I believe it’s called a Gaucho hat or more commonly just called a Mexican cowboy hat), jeans, her hair pulled back, and the scar on her face.

The poncho automatically makes me think of Daryl. Daryl’s poncho was left back at the prison when it fell along with Merle’s bike. So unless Beth ended up back at the fallen walker over-run prison (which, hey, if she was still in Georgia when she woke up, wouldn’t be that far off though I highly doubt it) then her picking up a poncho not only would be a reference to something Daryl did but it would also connect to Maggie as Daryl let Maggie wear the poncho in S3. The hat would be a nod to Rick, as the Gaucho “Mexican Cowboy Hat” would associate to the cowboy hat that Rick wears and honestly with Beth’s jeans, would look dope as hell… Just saying. She’d look like a female Clint Eastwood, which is why Norman wanted the poncho – Clint Eastwood look.

This image of Andrea is one of the many that really paints that Beth and Comic!Andrea looked very similar. There are tons of images in the comic of Andrea that make Beth look like her twin. Especially with the new cut across her cheek she had received in Grady.

With this image in mind and being at this part in the comic on the show, I can’t help but just gravitate to it and think of Beth in general… Which is mostly just fan reaching with no solid evidence, but that’s one way I can see Beth having a connection to the Whisperers’ coming across their “handy work”.

Number two, if Beth survived the gunshot, her memory could be all kinds of fucked up. She might not have a single clue as to who Daryl or Carol or Michonne are. She might not recall that she has a sister or who Rick was or even know who Judith was/is. I always keep in mind that we were told the reunion could be bittersweet for Beth and the others… Bittersweet could mean that she doesn’t remember anyone OR that she’s partially blind and can’t recognize people OR that she doesn’t remember anyone and is a completely different person than she was… That would be the only way I’d be able to see Beth within the Whisperers world. The Beth we know wouldn’t stand for what they do. Would she maybe stick around to survive them if they captured her? Absolutely. But the moment she could, Beth would escape… Unless she didn’t know who she was at all anymore. As in who she is and who she was are not part of her and make her completely different. What’s more bittersweet than finding something you lost but it’s not the way you remember it? Ever find an old book or an old photo or something you lost, only to see it’s missing pages or is cracked in places or just not completely like you left it… That could be Beth. That gunshot has to have some kind of leftover affect on the girl… Trauma to the head isn’t gonna leave you in one single piece. Not from what I’ve studied and heard…

So of course the third thing is that she’s pretending and with the Whisperers as a means to survive because they said join us or we kill you / fuck you up. So she joins them… But if Beth saw Daryl or Michonne and her memory was still around, then she’d do her damn best to get to him and Michonne to get back to her family like she’s been trying to do FOR EIGHT YEARS. This is why I have a hard time with this whole “Boots is Beth” thing, by the way. I can see the appeal of it. And there are some strange things around it… But if Beth had any clue of where Rick or Maggie or Michonne or Daryl were, she’d have gone to them asap. Granted, she could’ve gotten held up / something bad happened to her on the way between the junkyard and Alexander. But even still, eight years is a long time to get held back…

Overall, eight years is a long ass time between Grady and now. Oh sure, it had been two years or so since they’d seen Morales and suddenly he shows up and his loose end was closed… But at least Morales wasn’t some weird ass fucking Dutch angle bullshit. He left for a new location with his family, he never made it, and he found the Saviors. That’s the basic of it… But it’s a story and it folds up nice enough to make sense… Beth’s story is an eight year fucking gap in the TWD world. For us it’s been just over five years of nothing… Would now be the best time to drop her in? Well it wouldn’t hurt the ratings right now that’s for bloody sure. I mean – I know everyone is pointing it out but why don’t I as well – the ratings for Season 1 were just slightly lower than they are now… Slightly. Not too far. But close… Season 4 and Season 5 were the best and highest in ratings out of all nine… They need to step some shit up. Not by taking away and adding in a bunch of who the fuck people… But by doing something no average viewer is going to expect. I took film classes. I studied this shit. They need to do something or the show can end up on the chopping block and goodbye big screen and FEAR and all the other ideas that were supposed to be played out.

Now… Back in 2015 – give or take – I did have a thought. This will be my final thoughts on Beth and the Whisperers, I cannot believe I’ve written something this long good god I am sorry for the long read…. But anyway, back in about 2015 or so, I wrote a post called “Liz Makes A Contribution to TD” (click to read if you want) . In that post I talked about the season five cast photos that were out at the time.

If you don’t recall which one those were, here’s a link from Skybound of them . So these photos come out and – like Skybound pointed out – there was no Tyreese or Beth or Carl. Which had people speaking up on Tumblr and I saw a few people on Twitter also comment to Skybound about how bizarre it was that we didn’t have these three… Well then we got a picture of Beth and Tyreese.

Of course Tyreese’s photo looked like everyone elses. Like they were all inside a barn (which they would end up in later… But not Tyreese) and Beth’s… Well, if you looked at everyone elseS THEN LOOKED AT Beth’s… Hers was completely different.

If you look at Beth compared to the others, hers just… Sticks out. Everyone else is inside something. There’s light coming through cracks and hitting everyone… But not Beth. She’s being completely covered in light. As in it’s shining down on her while it’s peaking at everyone else.

Now of course, if you read my post, you know that when we got Season 6 Promo pics, a lot of people flipped out and were pointing out how Beth’s picture looked like she was on the other side of the wall that Rick is leaning against and listening to the Walker on the other side.

Take a look

Even someone like me - on team fence - could still look at these images and go “Hey, Wait a minute…” and gasp at the realization that it literally looks like Beth is just on the other side of the wall Rick is against

Immediately I was thinking of Beth’s lines that she screamed at in Daryl to make a point to his drunk, angry ass. The same damn lines that many of us today have still been quoting and that many people have been pealing back layer by layer and feeling like this is important and it’s trying to tell us something.

“I know you look at me and you just see another dead girl. I’m not Michonne, I’m not Carol, I’m not Maggie. I’ve survived and you don’t get it ‘cause I’m not like you or them. But I made it and you don’t get to treat me like crap just because you’re afraid!”

How many times has TD gone over and over this line? How many times have you all found yourself just repeating that line and thinking “why did they have her say that if they just were gonna kill her” when we were told Scott had this whole damn thing planned out… Why give her that line to spit out? Or the line she says to Daryl as they’re sitting and talking on the porch?

“I’ll be gone someday.”

“Stop.”

“I will. You’re gonna be the last man standing. You are… You’re gonna miss me so bad when I’m gone, Daryl Dixon.”

Of course I highlighted the important elements... I have thought really had about this line many a times and I know you all have as well… So when I thought of those lines and thought of those promo photos and what they were saying to me, I went into “Holy Shit I Get It” mode.

Beth IS A dead girl… She’s among the dead…

At the time I didn’t understand what I was getting at. I just knew Beth would return with the Walkers. I felt that deep in my gut when I looked at the images. And even now, looking back at them, my body is like “dude, wake up and look dammit!” and I’m looking… But until now, I think I get what I didn’t realize back then.

The Walkers Beth will be with… Are the Whisperers.

A living girl among the dead… Who does that? The Whisperers do that. Alpha and the Whisper do just that. They LIVE among the DEAD. The WALK among the DEAD. They ARE the WALKING DEAD. They are what Rick said that Team Family was and what Daryl said they are not.

But what exactly does that mean… Is Beth a Whisperer… Or will she come from the Whisperers.

Let me explain… You asked if I believed Beth would try to convince Daryl to Join the Whisperers… If Beth is among the Whisperers AS a Whisperer, no I do not believe she will try to bring Daryl over… But rather try to get from the Dead to Daryl and Carol (who will be the only damn people left she will know with Michonne leaving) and reveal herself among the dead…. Or this whole Whisperers arc will lead to something that will clue Beth on where to find everyone… As in the Living Dead – the Whisperers – will be with the walkers that lead Beth to Hilltop or Alexandria or the Kingdom… Something done among the dead will lead the living back.

Make sense? God I hope so.

Those images are the only reason I could see Beth have anything to connect herself to the Whisperers… She’s among the dead. I do believe that… But how she’ll be with the living again is the mystery…

I’m so sorry this took so long and is so long oh my gawd lol!