#darylxbeth

Negan's compass: In Acheron 2 there was a mention of a radio tower and a reference to Meridian. As you explained, @angelthefirst1, Negan was their "DC tour guide" in the Acheron episodes, which calls back to Beth's DC spoon from Still and the general map/compass/navigation/North Star symbolism. I've talked about how I interpret the DC spoon from Still in a "navigation" theme framework, and IMO the "DC tour guide" comment plays into that. We saw Negan being tied to the navigation/North Star symbolism in 9x9, when he stole a compass from Judith. She confronted him with it, but let him keep it, telling him "It will help yoy find your way". In The series finale we saw Judith recieve a package from Negan, returning the compass, admitting it had helped him find his way, confirming what the North Star symbolism is about, and that it's still in play.

Compasses are part of the North symbolism, and ultimately represent finding your way "home", as explaind by Carl in 6x10.

We saw this play out in Negan's escape attempt in 9x9. He meant to escape, went away for a while, but eventually returned "home". We also saw Judith shoot at him, but the bullet didn't kill him, which is interesting as well.

Meridian: The word "meridian" after which Maggie's settlement was named, refers to the lines that goes from north to south on a map. They are essentially geographic reference lines we use in relation to navigation.

The word "meridian" is also used to establish different time zones, and many countries name their timezone as they relate to the Prime Meridian which runs through the Greenwich Observatory on London, England.

The Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT, refers to the time of day when the sun crosses the Greenwich meridian, and timezones will be named for example GMT +1 (Greenwich Mean Time plus one hour).

Before it was decided that the Greenwich Meridian were to be the Prime Meridian, the French championed on behalf of their own Paris Meridian, but in the end, the Greenwich Meridian prevailed.

Interestingly, the fictional Rose Line from the Da Vinci Code was actually based on the real Paris Meridian.

We've discussed The Da Vinci Code a lot through the years, as it seems like a lot of the symbolism we see in TWD is heavily inspired by various elements of the book. And now, with Maggie's Meridian settlement there's yet another connection to Dan Brown's novel.

In The Da Vinci Code, we saw how Professor Langdon followed the Rose Line, which is based on the real Paris Meridian, through Paris to the glass pyramid outside the Louvre. He realized that the tomb of Maria Magdalena was hidden below the inverted pyramid under the glass pyramid outside The Louvre.

Inside the hidden tomb lay Maria Magdalena, the mother of Jesus' child, the child that kept the blood line of Jesus alive into our own time.

For TD, this ties into a multitude of our theories. I've recently talked about Daryl's blood and how his blood saved Judith's life in "Red Is The Living Colour". I've talked about "Trunk" symbolism for years, which ultimately is a reference to the tomb of Christ and how Maria Magdalena one day found it empty. We’ve written numerous theories in which the symbolism from The Da Vinci Code features heavily. In season 5 we saw a plaque on the wall in Father Gabriel's church which was a reference to Da Vinci's fresco "The Last Supper", which we theorize the kitchen scene from 4x13 Alone was modeled after. Furthermore, @wdway has through the years discovered brilliant connections between TWD and The Da Vinci Code that really deserves a post on its own.

"The Holy Grail" in The Da Vinci Code was the tomb of Maria Magdalena, mother of the child that carried the bloodline of Jesus, the ancestral mother of Sophie Neveu, a direct descendant of Jesus. @wdway keeps discovering chevron symbols in TWD, which are identical to the symbolism Robert Langdon explores in his hunt for the true Holy Grail, and there are some truly amazing parallels to TWD.

Greenhouse symbolism: I've always viewed the glass pyramid outside The Louvre and the inverted pyramid below it as potential tie-ins to the broken greenhouse from 4x4 Indifference. That was the episode that put the "Red Controls The Gates" symbolism on my radar, and it also revealed how the greenhouse symbolism is tied into it.

In the episode, Ana mentioned that she had found tomatoes (which are red), inside the greenhouse. They had survived because of a hole through the roof in the greenhouse, which had allowed for rain to come through, providing the plants with water. To me, that strengthens the "Red Controls The Gates" symbolism, and it is also a tie-in to the "red" symbolism around Maria Magdalena which I talked about in "Red Is The Living Colour".

Therefore, also ties into the Meridian symbolism inherent in the name of Maggie's settlement, because as we've discussed, the Rose Line (based on the Paris Meridian) showed Langdon the way to Maria Magdalena's hidden tomb.

Tomb symbolism: My interpretation of the greenhouse symbolism in TWD is that it represents a tomb. But because we get the story of a hole through the roof that let the tomatoes survive and become red in 4x4 Indifference, the tomb symbolism comes with "emergency exits", meaning a person who is affected by the tomb symbolism has a "way out", an "emergency exit", so to speak. We see this again in The Da Vinci Code, in which the bloodline of Jesus was able to survive through his child, born after his death to Maria Magdalena. The bloodline didn't die with him, it survived.

One thing we have to understand about the TWD references to The Da Vinci Code and Maria Magdalena's tomb below the glass pyramid is that first of all, a pyramid is, by definition, a "tomb".

That was their original purpose in Ancient Egypt; to be magnificent tombs for the pharaohs. And when we see "tomb" symbolism in TWD, it is, in my opinion, a reference to the tomb of Jesus, the one Mary Magdalene discovered to be empty.

I've always called the "tomb" symbolism in TWD "Trunk" symbolism. We saw in Still how a trunk can be a hiding place and keep you safe, but in 5x10 Them, we saw the flip side to that, a trunk can keep you trapped and become your tomb. There's a duality there. But it is that duality that allows for characters like Rick, Madison and hopefully Beth to "come back" from the dead, to "return", to escape their "tombs".

Team Violet and the Sirius Piggybank: As I've talked about ad nauseum, "Sirius" symbolism in TWD represents "return". It symbolizes Sirius The Dog Star, that disappears from the night sky for a while, only to reappear one morning before dawn. We saw it around Beth in Alone when Beth and Daryl were visited by the white one-eyed dog.

In Acheron 2 we saw Maggie lead the group towards a radio tower, and the word Meridian was spoken, which makes it a combined Sirius and North Star/navigation theme reference. It also ties into the Maria Magdalena stuff from above because as I've described, the Rose Line from The Da Vinci Code is based on the real Paris Meridian, which really does go through Paris and even The Louvre. And we have been told that the Daryl spin off will involve The Louvre in some way, shape or form.

It is starting to appear as though all lines eventually will converge at The Louvre…

Let's bring in the World Beyond after-credits scene, where we are given serious clues as to where TWDU will be going in the future. We see a lady watch video messages from Dr.Jenner who we met in season one. W hear about Team Primrose and Team Violet. We watch her get interrupted by a French speaking man, who eventually murders her. We watch her quickly turn into a type of ferocious walker we have never before seen on the show, and we understand that this is a new Variant.

The "violet" reference immediately struck me as important, because we've had a few "violet" references through the years. We remember Violet The Pig from season 3, and then there's the purple/violet blanket Beth had thrown over her prison cell door. There was also a purple fan next to the aforementioned compass Negan stole from Judith. Could it be a nod to Team Violet and how it's related to the compass symbolism?

Violet is an important clue.

In 8x11 Dead Or Alive Or we saw Father Gabriel loose sight on one eye. That episode was very symbolism-heavy, and we saw a piggybank, which I like to call the Sirius Piggybank, because it is a reference to the Sirius Piggyback from Alone. I've elaborated on it in the "Backpacks, Back Pockets and the Ass End" posts.

We've already discussed the radio tower from Acheron 2, and how radios are Sirius symbolism. On the side of the Sirius Piggybank from 8x11, there is an image of a radio tower, and the words "Ham Radio". Ham radio is slang for amateur short band radio, but it is of course also a reference to "pigs"…as in Violet The Pig…

There's a direct link from the radio tower in Acheron 2 to the Sirius Piggybank in 8x11. There are radio towers in both, that's the "Sirius" symbolism. They also both tie into the Sirius Piggyback from Alone, and to Violet the Pig…

…and to Team Violet from the World Beyond coda, which of course is directly tied to why Daryl is going to France in the first place. See how all clues seem to lead to… France, and to Paris, and perhaps even specifically to The Louvre?

The Louvre:

Let's talk about The Louvre for a second. It's undeniably one of the most famous museums on the planet and houses some truly incredible collections of art.

We've actually had a few interesting references to The Louvre through the years. First of all, let's appreciate that the etymology of the name The Louvre seems to suggest a reliable tie to the french word for "wolf".

And for TD, that is of course interesting because of the line "there's gonna be a party when the wolf comes home" from the song that plays at the end of Still as we watch Beth and Daryl burn the Moonshine Shack.

In one of the TWDU spin offs "World Beyond", we saw Percy recreate The Louvre in the back of a truck for a date with Faith. He put up pictures from an art book to make the back of the truck (trunk symbolism) resemble The Louvre. We of course saw the Mona Lisa, probably one of the most famous works of art in the world, as well as other famous pieces, and eagle eyed @wdway also spotted a picture of Venus de Milo, the famous statue which can be found at The Louvre. I'll explain why that is absolutely monumental in a minute.

Percy even took the effort to create a replica of the glass pyramid we see outside The Louvre, the same pyramid under which Professor Langdon, in The Da Vinci Code, found "The Holy Grail", the tomb of Maria Magdalena.

We watch Faith admire all the artwork, there are a couple of books there, one of which deals with resurrection. We see Faith fall asleep in the back of the truck, directly below the make-shift Louvre pyramid. Then she naps.

Surrounded by wonderful artwork that calls our minds to France, she sleeps. There's a picture with a French flag there...

Just like Princess Aurora in the Fairy Tale about Sleeping Beauty, she sleeps. Just like Princess Aurora, who shares her name with Aurora, the Roman Goddess of Dawn, as well as Aurora Borealis, the beautiful, green Northern Lights...she sleeps...

...then we see her suddenly wake up...from underneath the pyramid...that represents the pyramid outside The Louvre in Paris...

...where according to the novel The Da Vinci Code, the hidden tomb of Maria Magdalena is located...where Maria Magdalena sleeps, so to speak...

we watch Faith sit up...

...behind her face, we see a picture of Venus de Milo...

(thanks @wdway for always having screenshots at hand)

Venus, Sirius, Morningstar:

I mentioned Venus de Milo above, and there are good reasons for that. Venus De Milo is a famous marble statue believed to depict Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of Love (Venus is her Roman name), and it is one of the most famous works of art found at The Louvre.

For TD this is particularly interesting because of how prominent the Sirius symbolism on the show has been. Sirius refers to the star Sirius, and it is called The Morningstar because of how it disappears from the night sky for an extended period of time, and then reappears one morning before dawn.

However, Sirius is not the only celestial object referred to as a Morningstar. In ancient times, people believed that the planet Venus was a star, and because it sometimes appeared on the night sky right before dawn, it was referred to as the Morning Star. This name stuck, even when it was later discovered it was in fact a planet, not a star.

And as prominent as the Sirius symbolism has been on the show, the Venus symbolism has also undeniably had a strong presence. I'll name a few of the most important incidences.

In 3x8 When The Dead Come Knocking, we saw a painting of Botticelli's "Birth Of Venus", and interestingly, it was inverted, just like the pyramid under the glass pyramid outside The Louvre, the one that in The Da Vinci Code marked the tomb of Maria Magdalena.

It's also interesting to note that the painting we saw in 5x4 Slabtown, Caravaggio's "The Denial Of Saint Peter" showed Saint Peter. One of Caravaggio's other famous works also involves Saint Peter, namely "The Crucifiction Of Saint Peter". In fact, an inverted cross has come to be called a "Saint Peter's Cross, after Saint Peter requested he'd be crucified on an inverted cross to distinguish himself from Christ, as he didn't consider himself worthy of dying in the same way Christ did.

I've talked about my interpretation of the Slabtown clock in previous posts. I won't get into all of that here, but I have to bring it up because it ties into the Venus/Morning Star symbolism. I'll try to keep it brief but I need to mention that the numbers of the time on the clock can be interpreted in many ways. You can say the time shown is 10.10, or ten minutes past ten, but the ten minutes can also refer to "2", which we find references to on for instance Noah's T-shirt (one one).

This is a bit complex and it's better suited for a separate post, but for the purposes of this post I'll just mention that we find variations of these numbers throughout the seasons. We find it again in the season 9 episode Scars, where we watch Daryl get tortured with a cattle branding iron. In season 10 we get to see this scars, which reads like "X II". Those are symbols that could be interpreted within the same framework as the Slabtown clock. The X could refer to the Roman Numeral for "ten", and the parallel lines could be read as Roman Numeral for two, it could also be read as 11, and it could be read as "one one", just like on Noah's T-shirt.

Apologies for this seemingly confusing tangent on numbers, but I'm getting to the point shortly.

When we saw Daryl's scars after the episode Scars, I immediately tied them to episode 10x11, and I knew my intuition touched on something vital when we later learned that season 10 episode 11 were to be called "Morningstar".

In short; the scars on Daryl's back (remember back is Sirius symbolism, re. the Backpack, Back pocket and the Ass End posts) foreshadowed episode 10x11 Morningstar. The episode name is simultaneously a reference to the Sirius symbolism and the Venus symbolism.

It is also a callback to the Slabtown clock through the interpretation of the numbers on it, and it ties the painting of Saint Peter to the inverted cross of Saint Peter, which in turn ties into the inverted "Birth Of Venus" painting from 3x8 WTDCK, which in turn ties into the inverted pyramid at The Louvre.

The Louvre is the home of Venus de Milo. Daryl will be at The Louvre in his spin off, and we know that in The Da Vinci Code, the hidden tomb of Maria Magdalena were situated below the inverted pyramid under the glass pyramid outside The Louvre. It was the Rose Line that led professor Langdon to her tomb in The Da Vinci Code, and the fictional Rose Line is based on the real Paris Meridian, that does indeed go through the Louvre and were the Frenchmen's preferred choice to become the Prime Meridian.

I wonder if Team Primrose, which we learn about in the World Beyond coda, could in reality be just another reference to the Louvre, through the fact that the fictional Rose Line, is based on the real Paris Meridian, which once were concidered by the French to be the real Prime Meridian?

Rose Line + Primrose = Prime Meridian?

Regardless, it was foreshadowed by the name of Maggie's settlement Meridian.

Which is tied to Beth through a multitude of different theories on a multitude of symbols.

The Sirius Piggyback. The Sirius Piggybank with the radio tower from 8x11 Violet the Pig Team Violet, Team Primrose and the Variant walkers.

The Greenwich Meridian, The Paris Meridian and the Rose Line The French coda from World Beyond.

Sirius is a Morningstar. And so is Venus.

The "Rose Line" in The Da Vinci Code was what led Professor Langdon to the Holy Grail, the tomb of Maria Magdalena. Could Maggie's Meridian settlement be the TWD version of the Rose Line from The Da Vinci Code, the geographical reference line that helps us navigate the map of symbolism we've drawn up through the past eleven seasons of TWD, to help us make sense of the symbolism landscape of the show?

Sirius piggyback. Sirius piggybank. Violet the pig. Team Violet. Variant walkers. Venus de Milo. The Birth Of Venus. Venus the Morning Star. Sirius rising before Dawn. Aurora Borealis, Aurora the Roman Goddess of Dawn…

All the lines seem to converge at The Louvre.

Daryl mentions he has been out there since before the sun came up, which is a reference to the Sirius symbolism, about how Sirius the Dog Star disappears from the night sky for a while, only to reappear one morning before dawn.

Len even refers to Beth as a "bitch", which isn't wrong if you concider the Sirius-symbolism around her.

Joe Claimer shows up before Len and Daryl get a chance to kill each other, and makes an executive decision to have Len and Daryl share the rabbit. He cuts it in half, against a tree, no less (Three/Tree/Trunk theory) using an axe (axe is synonymous with X which is synonymous with Cross, but I’m digressing). Daryl gets the back half of the rabbit, and Joe Claimer states "The ass end is still an end" Daryl got the back half, where the tail is, meaning Daryl got the tail end, or shall we say the "Coda" end (coda = tail). This, together with Len's remarks about Daryl having lost "a piece of tail" really leaves no doubt that the rabbit symbolism is about Beth .

Interestingly, when they arrive at their shelter for the evening, The Claimers claim all the cars, leaving Daryl to sleep on the floor with his "ass end" of the rabbit. Len, who has the "head end" sleeps in a blue truck (Blue Clue theory).

Take a close look at the licence plate of Len's blue truck. Looks familar? It's the same as the one on the car that kidnapped Beth in Alone.

But that’s not all. It’s also the exact same licence plate as on Officer Lichari’s Dodge Magnum, a car that we see in 5x7 Crossed, a car which I’ve written numerous posts about, for exemple in the Trunk Resurrection posts. I believe that this could very well be the actual car they put Beth in after Coda (for those of us that believe in the Trunk theory).

We actually see this license plate in another couple of episodes as well, on different cars, but that’s a post for a different day.

This brings me back to the scene where Daryl gives Judith a blood transfusion. We already know from the dialogue that Daryl's blood holds powerful healing properties. But what we see is his blood, in the tube, flowing from his arm to Judith, essentially saving her life. And while doing so, we see the healing red blood (Red Controls The Gates) crossing the rabbit tattoo which we now know is a callback to Beth, or "Daryl’s piece of tail", to use Len's poetic vernacular.

BACKPACKS We see Daryl collect the money into the black backpack in Still. By the time we get to Alone we see Beth carrying the black backpack, and of course we all remember Daryl finding it in the middle of the road after the Grady car has kidnapped Beth.

It was the episode 10x18 Find Me that really put the backpacks and the back pockets on my radar. In Find Me, we see Daryl go through no less than four different backpacks, which seems excessive for a frugal guy like him. Sure, he was out there for a long time, but still, four different backpacks seemed like a lot for a 40 minute episode. I'll probably do a separate post on Find Me later, and elaborate more on how it relates to the backpack/back pocket symbolism. For the purposes of this post it's sufficient to understand that there were a lot of backpacks in Find Me.

Backpacks and back pockets were already on my radar though, even before Find Me, but I had never quite figured out exactly how the symbolism around them was supposed to be interpreted. However, I kept noticing that "money" symbolism had a tendency to show up in the mix around backpacks and back pockets, and I realized they were probably connected somehow.

MONEY/COIN SYMBOLISM The "money" symbolism comes up in relation to backpack and back pocket symbolism again and again. We saw it in Still, when Daryl collected the money into his black backpack, and we saw in in Alone, when Beth had been kidnapped and dropped the backpack and the money was flowing out into the street. In Still, we saw how Beth and Daryl together set fire to the money, and used it to burn down the moonshine shack.

I've talked about how I interpret fire as a "Sirius" symbol, because the name Sirius comes from Greek and refers to "Seiros", which means "scorching/glowing" (Sirius and North Star master post HERE). Beth was the original Sirius-character of the show, and the fact that we saw her use a car mirror and a piece of broken glass to start a fire in Still established her as having quintessential Sirius-character traits, it established her as someone who's associated with fire. A fire starter, if you will. We've also seen matches being used as symbolism related to her, and matches are of course actual fire starters. Whenever we see fire in the show, I tend to interpret it as Sirius symbolism. And when we saw Beth and Daryl burn down the moonshine shack in Still, that was "Sirius" symbolism in combination with "Money" symbolism, which opens for a bunch of interesting interpretations.

MONEY But back to the "Money" and what it symbolizes.

We saw it in Still, when Daryl filled the backpack with money.

We saw it when they set fire to the money and used it to burn down the moonshine shack.

We saw it in Alone, when Daryl found the backpack in the road, money spilling out, after Beth had been kidnapped.

We saw it in Carol's dream sequence in 10x3 Ghosts, when Daryl pulled a dollar note out of his back pocket in season 10.

We saw it in Acheron 2 when Daryl finds a 100 dollar note with a message of "return/reunion" written on it. It was a 100 dollar NOTE and it had a NOTE written on it which is of course interesting because Beth specifically used the word "note" in Alone. She meant it in the sense of writing a note, but it still ties into the dollar note symbolism.

We see money when Team Eugene arrives at The Commonwealth. When they are trying to escape processing we see them pass a large crate full of dollar notes marked with X (which is synonymous with "cross" among other things). It's in a yellow crate, headed for incineration, which is the mother of all "fire"references.

We also see Princess keep a two-dollar note she's particularly attached to. It had been her first pay from her first job. The number two (as in the "one one" from Noah's t-shirt, for instance) is an interesting one in the show, but that's a post for a different day.

We also saw money symbolism in 11x24 Rest In Peace when we heard Daryl say Merle used to sell his blood for money, effectively tying the "money" symbolism to the "red" symbolism.

There are many other instances where we've seen references to money in some way, shape or form, but I'll settle for the ones I've already mentioned for now.

BACKPACKS IMO, the backpack symbolism is tied to the "return" symbolism. The word "backpack" refers to something you carry on your back. In Alone, we saw Daryl carry Beth across the cemetery before they entered the funeral home. You could say that the entire show centers around the issue of "coming back". We see the dead "come back" as undead, we see characters who are believed to be dead "come back" alive (such as Rick, or Madison from FTWD, and hopefully Beth). We constantly hear Morgan talk about how "everything gets a return".

But first and foremost, there's the Sirius symbolism, which was first introduced in a significant way in Alone. Beth and Daryl were visited by a white, one-eyed dog. The dog is a reference to the Robert Frost poems "One More Brevity" and "Canis Major". The "Frosty Cola" from their kitchen scene is a reference to Robert Frost.

The poems talk about Sirius the Dog Star, which disappears from the night sky at one point during the year, only to reappear some time later, before dawn. It's a star (that's associated with dogs), which is suddenly "just gone", and then it magically reappears one morning "before dawn". This type of "return" symbolism is abundant around Beth.

Basically; Sirius symbolism = return symbolism.

Then, there's the Sirius piggyback from Alone. When we saw Daryl carry Beth "piggyback" style across the cemetery, it signaled that she was someone who was capable of "eluding" death, which is what TD believes ultimately happened after Coda. She was carried across the "Death Realm" symbolized by the cemetery, foreshadowing that somehow, she managed to "elude" death after Coda like she symbolically did in Alone. Daryl is carrying her on his back, and she is carrying the black backpack.

Personally, I feel like the fact that she untied the red rag that held the trunk shut in Still is the most compelling evidence of Beth "eluding" death. I've elaborated on why HERE. The "Sirius Piggyback" showed us Daryl carrying Beth on his back across the "Death Realm" of the cemetery, and I have this in mind when I interpret the backpack symbolism as synonymous with the "return" symbolism and the Sirius symbolism. She was never in the "Death Realm", she soared over it on Daryls wings. She is a character that is capable of "controlling the gates", as I call it when I talk about it in relation to the "Red Controls The Gates" theory.

In 8x11 Dead Or Alive Or…, we see Father Gabriel become a Sirius character when he has escaped from Negan and The Sanctuary. He has developed an eye infection, and Dr. Carson, who he escaped with, is worried he'll develop sepsis and die unless he gets treatment ASAP. They come across a Radio Shack in the woods (a callback to the Moonshine Shack from Still), where they find antibiotics. We understand that the medication saves Father Gabriels life, he essentially "gets to come back", he "eludes" death, he "ressurects" as a one-eyed Sirius figure. The radios in the shack symbolize "Sirius" as I've explained earlier (due to the associations to Sirius Satellite Radio), and the whole episode is full of Sirius symbolism and other symbolism related to Beth.

But most importantly in the context of this post, is the "Sirius Piggybank".

Yes, we actually see a piggybank in a radio shack. The radios are Sirius symbolism, Father Gabriel losing an eye but saving his life is Sirius symbolism and a callback to the one-eyed dog from Alone. The piggyBANK is a clever reference to the Sirius PiggyBACK from Alone. A piggybank is a container where you typically save your money, which ties it to the "Money/Coin" symbolism. And as the cherry on top, inside the piggybank they find a set of car keys, which ties it directly to the "Trunk" symbolism (read more HERE and HERE) and a map. The map ties into the other maps I've mentioned, such as Daryl's map from Find Me, and the navigation theme from Beth's DC spoon.

BACK POCKETS When it comes to the "back pocket" symbolism, one obvious clue is that back pockets are nothing if not "Ass End" symbolism. It's in their nature, they're located on the "Ass End". Say what you will, but they are. This, in turn, indicates they're part of the "Ass End/Tail/Coda" symbolism, which I discussed HERE.

And it's the objects associated with the back pockets that make it interesting. I've mentioned Daryl's red rag (HERE), I've mentioned Beth's green notebook, seen here while she herself is draped around Daryl's back, similar to how he later will carry her across the cemetery in Alone on his back. Lots of backpack symbolism.

I've also mentioned the dollar note from Daryl's wallet in Carol's dream sequence in 10x3 Ghosts, and I'll get back to it shortly.

There's also the sign language book in Daryls back pocket in 10x1 Lines We Cross ( a reference to Daryl's quote from Alone : "the signs are all there, you just gotta know how to read them").

Here, enjoy a photo of Daryl's "Ass End". You're welcome!

In 10x18 Find Me, we see Daryl carrying a map in his back pocket. IMO, we can draw a line from Beth's DC spoon from Still, and the map we later see in Daryl's pocket in Find Me.

It's kind of hidden in this pic, but it's there in his left back pocket. Beth's, wh DC spoon from Still is North Star symbolism because the constellation "The Little Dipper" is where we find the North Star, which I explained in the Aurora post HERE. North Star symbolism is about navigation because as long as you know which direction is north, you can find your way. It's literally how compasses work, plus we have Carl's words to Judith from 6x10 A New World.

Maps are of course also useful when trying to navigate, and IMO, the map we see in Daryl's pocket is a reference to the "navigation" theme, and therefore ties into to Beth's DC spoon which she put in her back pocket in Still (because the spoon is North Star symbolism).

HEADS OR TAILS I believe that the "Money/Coin" references we see on the show are references to the "Heads or Tails" symbolism, which I have explained HERE. I've talked about Lance's Lucky Coin, and I've talked about how the coin decides who gets to live and who gets to die.

Heads or tails. Who lives and who dies? The coin decides. We saw Lance's coin foreshadow his own death when he placed it "head's up" in the puddle of brain matter that used to be Sebastian's head in 11x19 Variant. We did actually also see that it was Pamela who ultimately sealed Lance's fate. Remember when she let him choose his own destiny by using his own game against him? She instructed him to pick a hand, and if he picked the hand where she'd hid the coin, he would live, while if he picked the empty hand, he would die. He picked the correct hand, and got to live. For a while.

But before leaving his cell, Pamela slid the coin down his front pocket on his vest.

The significance of the front pocket versus the back pocket is beautifully (though tragically) illustrated in a couple of incidents involving Henry.

In Carol's aforementioned dream sequence from Ghosts, we watched Daryl pull a dollar note out from his back pocket. He then gave it to Carol, who looked at it, visibly confused. The confusion is a key for the audience, a key to understanding the scene. Next, we saw Henry, sitting by the table, wearing his compass t-shirt.

All of these are symbols I've discussed in my recent posts. The money, the back pocket, the compass…

Last week I talked about the "Heads or Tails" symbolism. I described how I believe the "tail" side to a coin, the side that represents the "Ass End/Tail/Coda" (and let's also add the "Back Pocket" end to the list), that's the "end" that signals survival, life, prosperity. That's the "good" end, the "happy" end.

The incident from Carol's dream sequence, it contained all the "good" symbolism, all the symbolism we see around Beth. Why did Henry still die?

The dollar note from the dream sequence was "Heads or Tails" symbolism, the same type of symbolism we see around Beth. It came out of Daryl's back pocket, so you'd think it was "Ass End/Tail/Coda" symbolism, right? I’ve written several posts now, arguing the "Ass End" is a good thing. Right?

Then why did Henry still die? Didn't the symbolism apply to him? And if that's the case, why should we believe it applies to Beth?

Because, my friends, Carol's dream sequence was just that, a dream. It wasn't real. Henry was already dead at that point. He had stepped "out of time". Carol's watch lacks both hands, because Henry had already left the timeline.

Carol was in a really bad head space in this episode. She was sleep deprived and irrational, she was hallucinating. She was angry, distraught, she made rash, selfish decisions that put other people in danger. Her anger nearly killed Connie and Magna when the cave collapsed later in season 10. Daryl was beyond frustrated with her. Carol was in deep, deep crisis.

Her happy dream represented how she WISHED things would have played out. Henry alive and well, herself still wearing her wedding ring, her family intact. TPTB cleverly gave us a blueprint to how to interpret the symbolism IF Carol's dream had been reality.

Had it been reality, we would have seen how the money, which represents the "Heads or Tails" symbolism, coming out of Daryl's back pocket, which represents the "Ass End/Tail/Coda" symbolism, would have protected Henry like it did Beth and Judith. Henry's compass T-shirt would have represented the North Star symbolism we saw with Beth's DC spoon. The red compass needle of the compass would have represented the "Red Controls The Gates" symbolism that I wrote about in the "Red Is The Living Colour" post from last week, which is the same symbolism that saved Judith's life in 11x24 Rest In Peace. If it had been real, the symbolism would have protected Henry.

IF it had been real.

It wasn’t though. It was only a dream, and Carol was in reality living her worst nightmare.

Interestingly, we actually do see the symbolic flip side to Carol's dream sequence, and we do see how the symbolism played out around Henry in REALITY, as opposed to in Carol's happy dream.

In 9x7 Stradivarius, when Daryl shoots a snake through the head with his crossbow, we see the snake get nailed to the tree. Carol is trying to convince Daryl to return to Hilltop, to look after Henry. The word "babysit" was mentioned, a callback to Beth's sarcastic "chaperone" comment from Still. This is all signaling a strong Beth-presence in the dialogue. There was always an abundance of parallels between Beth and Henry. Daryl then cuts the head of the snake and puts it into his front pocket.

His FRONT pocket, not his back pocket.

Like Pamela sliding Lance's coin into his FRONT pocket was an ominous sign for Lance, Daryl putting the snake's head in his FRONT pocket in Stradivarius was an equally ominous sign for Henry.

Daryl then put the tail end of the snake around his own neck, in an episode where callbacks to Beth were plentiful. Daryl's act of separating the snake's head from it's tail was done to illustrate the two different outcomes of the "Heads or Tails" symbolism, and the different properties of the back pocket symbolism versus the front pocket symbolism. It's reasonable to assume the symbolism was about Henry, because that's who they were talking about the whole time.

Henry and Beth were paralleled so many times through the seasons, but it was particularly noticeable in Stradivarius. Unfortunately for Henry, the snake's head in Daryl's front pocket foreshadowed his death by beheading, much like Pamela putting Lance's coin in his front pocket foreshadowed Lance's own death.

The snake's "tail"resting around Daryls neck addressed the Beth-part of the equation. It was the same old "Ass End/Tail/Coda" symbolism we always see around her. It could also have been a reference to how Daryl himself benefited from the "happy tail end" of the "Heads or Tails" symbolism. Chronologically, Stradivarius happens after the events from 10x18 Find Me, and lord knows there was more than enough death symbolism lurking about in that episode. Stradivarius represented the first time we checked in on him while he was still living isolated in the woods, after the events of Find Me. Find Me, which aired later, in reality took place before the events of Stradivarius. However, that's a rabbit hole for another day, so let's leave it at that for now.

TRUNKS It's worth mentioning that if there's such a thing as an "Ass End" to a car, it would have to be the trunk. I won't go into it here, but I've written extensively on the "Trunk" symbolism (which I like to call "Three/Tree/Trunk" symbolism) in many posts, such as HERE and HERE.

GREENBACK DOLLAR Finally, a few more words on the money symbolism. It is a fact that the US dollar was once called the "Greenback Dollar". It is still sometimes referred to as "greens" in slang and popular culture. I don't know how much TPTB want us to read into that, but the symbolism sure fits. "Green" could obviously be a reference to "Beth Greene". The "back" in "Greenback" could without a doubt be a reference to the "return" symbolism, to the "Sirius" symbolism, to the "backpacks" and the "back pockets", to the "Sirius Piggyback"…And it's definately a money reference, so ...

What if: Beth's green note book in her back pocket = a greenback dollar note

And what if: The green dollar note in Daryl's back pocket = Beth's green note book in her back pocket.

And could we even say: Carol's confused look when she got Daryl's money in the dream sequence = Beth's WTF-expression when she was looking at Daryl collect the money in Still.

I'm just saying…

With that in mind, let's discuss the "Heads Or Tails" symbolism. The "tail" from the rabbit symbolism and the "coda = tail" symbolism ties into the "Heads Or Tails" theme. Flipping coins was something we saw Lance Hornsby love to do in season 11. In 11x12 The Lucky Ones we got the backstory of his Lucky Coin, when Lance and Maggie were talking at Hilltop. It had been a gift from his father who was a driver for the Miltons (or a Chauffer as he described it himself).

(Side note: "Chauffer" is a Sirius reference, it means "to heat", as in for example keeping a steam engine running. Sirius means "scorching", "glowing", a reference to fire. It also means a motorist, which ties right into the "Trunk" symbolism around Beth, but I digress).

Interestingly, Maggie responds to Lance's story by namedropping a couple of VERY potent Beth symbols. She mentions a rabbits foot, and there’s a "dog" mention. As we know, rabbits symbolize Beth through the situation from 4x15 US when Daryl was willing to kill and be killed to defend Beth's honor in response to Len's insults. Len called Daryl out for being distraught because he'd lost "a piece of tail", and the situation only resolved when Joe Claimer decided they’d have split the rabbit between them, whereby Daryl got "the ass end".

And dogs are, as we know, Sirius symbolism, a reference to Sirius the Dog Star and the one-eyed dog from 4x13 Alone, which I’ve written about in countless posts over the years.

So we know from Maggie and Lance's conversation that the symbolism surrounding the Lucky Coin intersects with the "rabbit/tail" symbolism and the "dog/Sirius" symbolism. In 11x16 Acts Of God we see Lance flip a coin, seemingly to decide the faith of the residents of Oceanside. We never see which side the coin lands on, but we later realize that Oceanside is under attack. What we do know from that situation is that Lance uses his coin to determine who lives and who dies, precisely as Pamela later explains in 11x19 Variant, after Lance's manipulative play has blown up in his face.

He admits his gamble has backfired, and Pamela uses his Lucky Coin against him. His choice of the word "gamble" is interesting, it implies there’s a level of unpredictability to this game. the wrong choice could have grave consequences. Pamela, angry over Sebastian's death, commands Lance to pick a hand. If he picks the one where she holds the coin, he gets to live. If not, he dies. The coin decides. Her words reflect the elements of risk and gamble tied to the coin:

"What do we do about you? Do we do it your way? Take a risk? Make a gamble?"

What Pamela in reality is doing, is she's essentially explaining the rules of the "Heads Or Tails" symbolism. Heads or tails decides who lives, and who dies. Lance picks the correct hand and gets to live. She then brings Sebastian to Lance's cell, and demands he feed him with Roman's dead body.

Carol and Daryl, on a mission to retrieve their kidnapped friends and family, needs Lance's help, and decide to break him out of prison. They find him in his cell in a catatonic state, laser focused on his Lucky Coin, now colored red (red symbolism) from the blood of Roman, while chanting to himself "there’s always a way out".

Again, we see how the coin, now blood-red, is tied to the "Red Controls The Gates" symbolism. His chant about "a way out", right before Carol and Daryl break him out of prison underscores this theme. Red Controls The Gates.

We later discover he’s left behind a a souvenir for Pamela. His Lucky Coin.

The left behind coin is key to understanding the "Heads Or Tales" symbolism, and by extension the "Ass End/Tail/Coda" symbolism around Beth. We learn that Lance deliberately has placed the Lucky Coin "heads up" in the puddle of brain matter that previously used to be Sebastian's head. It seems clear we're supposed to deduce that the "head" in "Heads Or Tails" is the lesser option. The "Tail", or "the Ass End" is the end that keeps you alive, like we saw with Daryl in 4x15 Us, or like we saw with Judith in 11x24 Rest In Peace, and finally, like what we believe happened with Beth in 5x8 Coda.

Lance's coin also demonstrates the connection between the "Money" symbolism and the "life/resurrection" symbolism. We know that the "Rabbit" symbolism is about someone who lives, about "Resurrection", hence Daryls "Ass End" from Us. We also saw his blood running over his rabbit tattoo in 11x1, we watched it "wake" the "dead" from their "sleep". We saw his life-giving blood "wake" Judith from her sleep in 11x24 Rest In Peace, we watched it flow from his arm, through the tube that was draped over his rabbit tattoo. And we heard him mention that Merle used to sell his blood for money. Daryl's blood is synonymous with money. It's synonymous with the coin you flip in Heads Or Tails. It's synonymous with the "Ass End" of a rabbit, and in part three of this series of posts I'm going to explain why in more detail.

In my opinion, Lance's coin, which holds power over who lives and who dies, is the key to understanding the significance of the "Ass End/Tail/Coda" symbolism around Beth. The examples of Daryl, Beth and Judith described above, and how their survival is tied to the "Ass End/Tail/Coda" symbolism is juxtaposed with how the "head" side of the coin is tied to the death of Sebastian and later Lance. We saw the coin literally laying head side up in the bloody remains of Sebastian’s head. We also saw the same type of message coming across with Len in Us, when Len, having acquired the "head end" of the rabbit, later was bludgeoned to death by the other Claimers. And the reason he died was because of a gamble, similar to Lance's gamble in season 11. He wanted to frame Daryl by pretending that Daryl had stolen his "head end" of the rabbit, anticipating Joe Claimer would have had Daryl killed on the spot. Instead, his gamble backfired, and all he achieved was to have himself murdered in a gruesome, violent manner. The "head" end is the lesser end. The "Ass End" is the key to survival.

And as @angelthefirst1 so brilliantly pointed out yesterday, the "Ass End" is the "Happy End"!

It’s important to note that in order to have a “resurrection” you need to have a “death” first. So we do see the “red” symbolism around characters that die. “Death” and “resurrection” are two sides to the same story. And “resurrection” symbolism in TWD can be used when a character comes back as a walker, or it can mean coming back from a “fake death”, like Rick, or Beth.

Through the years I’ve been making notes about when and where we see the “red” symbolism, and at one point I realized it came up in relation to gates and doors an awful lot, and for lack of a better word I started referring to the theory on the “red” symbolism as “Red Controls The Gates”.

We’ve seen literal gates (Ana’s leg in 4x4 Indifference, and the red umbrella blocking the opening mechanism on the gates of Alexandria after the fight with the Saviors and the Heapsters in s8). However, I’ve also come to understand the concept of “gates” as something that tells the audience that we’re watching a character in a situation where they may or may not survive, they’re in the liminal space between the “Realm of the Living” and the “Realm of the Dead”. When we saw Rick shoot the red dynamite that caused the explosion on the bridge in 9x5, that was him crossing over to the Realm of the Dead. He’s not literally dead, because we, the audience, always knew he would survive. But as far as the other characters are concerned, he’s dead. He’s in the Death Realm. Or he was, up until Michonne discovered his boots and phone in 10x13, and realized he could be alive. That’s what I mean with “Red Controls The Gates”. The red dynamite opened the gates, Rick crossed over. Not permanently though, but the other characters don’t know that.

The interesting part of “Red Controls The Gates” for TD is that we’ve seen Beth do something similar. In 4x12 Still, Beth and Daryl sought refuge from an approaching horde by hiding inside the trunk of a car. They stayed there overnight, and the next morning we see Beth untie Daryl’s red rag that had been holding the trunk shut. She untied the red rag, the one that was holding the trunk closed, and they climb out. Red Controls The Gates. The red rag was the locking mechanism of their hiding place, it was the KEY, and Beth was the one that untied it to open “the gates”. And to circle back to the story of Mary Magdalene and the red Easter egg, when Mary arrived at the site of the tomb of Christ she discovered that the stone was already rolled to the side. The “gates” were open, and we can still see her holding a red egg in iconography, representing the red Easter egg of resurrection. In my opinion, the “gate/door” symbolism in TWD is ultimately a reference to Christ’s resurrection and Mary Magdalene discovering the empty tomb with the stone rolled to the side.

I mentioned Ana’s leg from 4x4 Indifference above. She had a compass tattoo on her leg, and TPTB really wanted us to notice it! Compasses are symbols we often see in scenes that remind us of Beth. Remember how she put the DC spoon in her back pocket in Still. The spoon represents The Little Dipper, which is the star constellation where we find the North Star, or Polaris. North Star symbolism is huge for TD, because it represents “finding your way home”, or reunion with loved ones (as explained by Carl to Judith in s5). And this is all related to compasses because compasses let you know which direction is north. It’s the red compass needle that points north. The red compass needle is the KEY.

The North Star symbolism is linked to the “red” symbolism because the needle of a compass is almost always red, and it always points to the north. So when I say “Red Controls The Gates”, it’s something we see with Ana’s leg in 4x4 Indifference. Her leg, with the compass tattoo, and the red blood from the cut, holds the gate open. Red Controls The Gates.

We also see a representation of this in 11x23 Family. Daryl leads Team Family to the train station. It’s a trap though, and they discover that the doors (“gates”) are closed with chains. When Judith gets shot, we see a desperate Daryl yelling to Ezekiel to throw the red fire extinguisher into the air. He then shoots it, which creates a fog which allows them to escape.

In this exemple we see both actual gates (doors) as well as metaphorical gates (Judith getting shot, losing a lot of blood and venturing dangerously close to the “gate” between the realms of the dead and the living). However, when we get a bird’s eye view, we find that the entire train station floor is essentially a gigantic compass rose, which symbolically makes the red fire extinguisher the red compass needle that always points north, to home, to family, to reunion. And the compass needle is red, as in the resurrection symbolism of Mary Magdalene’s red egg.

As soon as the red fire extinguisher releases its powdery fog, someone manages to cut the chains and literally open the doors (gates). Daryl carries Judith out and gets her to the hospital, where he gives her his blood. Red Controls The Gates. Judith’s chances of survival increases significantly. The red fire extinguisher is the key.

In the next episode we witness Judith waking up after receiving Daryl’s blood, which honestly strikes me as the greatest exemple of the Red Controls The Gates symbolism of the entire series. We see Daryl’s RED blood save Judith’s life, TPTB even had Tomi (the doctor, and Yumiko’s brother) comment on it, to make absolutely sure the connection between Daryl’s RED blood and Judith’s survival/awakening comes across properly. Daryl’s blood saved her life. Red Controls The Gates. Judith avoided crossing over to the Death Realm before the gates closed behind her. She was able to remain in the Realm of the Living, thanks to Daryl’s life-saving red blood. His red, life-saving blood was the key to her survival.

This is my interpretation of the red symbolism, and I’m sure there are multiple ways of interpreting it. However, there have been countless exemples of this particular constellation of symbols in TWD over the years, far too many to mention here. And while this theory developed gradually over time, there was one scene in particular from 11x24 Rest In Peace that in my opinion signaled once and for all TPTB’s true intention with this particular color and what it represents. It’s like they really wanted to get their message across in the series finale, and they put in a red Easter egg (pun intended) for the observant viewer…

A record, on a record player.

Red label. The ultimate hint about the true meaning of the “red” symbolism, hidden in plain sight in the subtitles:

Living Colour!

(Colour is the British spelling of the word “color”)

Red is the “living colo(u)r”.

RED IS THE LIVING COLOR!

We watch Princess put on the RED record, we watch the music DRAW THE DEAD AWAY, we see RED barrels of fuel, we see the RED record create a spark that sets off the mother of all bombs, which ultimately opens the “gates” to the “underworld”, which swallows up the dead and leaves them trapped in the “death realm”.

Red controls the gates!

Red is the living color.

Red is the key.

(Thanks for the screenshots @wdway 💖)