#david zabel

As if he didn’t have to do the same to his brother, as if Merle didn’t exist and loosing his brother was one of the most traumatic things that have ever happened to him

From a shipping perspective, David Zabel gave Daryl a romantically charged kissing scene with a character who had treated and spoken to Daryl poorly. And this relationship was used as a tool to progress the idea that Daryl was "conflicted" about choosing between his old world and his new world, as expressed by Didi. Zabel then killed this character off in the scene immediately after Carol and Daryl's reunion. This avoids exploration of whether Daryl would be "conflicted" between Isabelle and Carol when both are in his life, and leads some to feel like Carol is not depicted as 'first choice'. Meanwhile, the misogynistic issues with pitting women against each other for a man continue because we are constantly reminded that Isabelle "loved" Daryl, and we are confronted with Carol's reaction to this.

Meanwhile, Angela Kang wrote love interests for Carol and Daryl, who were clearly intended to act as foils and parallels in order to advance Carol and Daryl's relationship arc. For Carol and Daryl's story, Connie provided a tangible realisation of how Daryl can form healthy connections with women who could theoretically be a love interest while demonstrating exactly why "it's not like that". We saw Daryl continue to choose Carol regardless of whether or not Connie was there. And this was achieved without making Connie suffer with unrequited love, and without pitting the two women against each other.

Regarding Leah, the entirety of her arc in season 10 was intertwined with Carol. There isn't one time that she's mentioned or on-screen when her role in Daryl's life isn't explicitly paralleled with Carol. Additionally, it's impossible not to notice that she's used as Daryl's first active love interest at a time when Carol is married and talks about this every time she visits him. The Leah story explored Daryl's loss of sense of belonging, and it's no coincidence that he felt visibly and vocally conflicted about this until after Carol told him she wouldn't be visiting him much because of her obligations to her husband and son. Whatever you may feel about the way this story was executed, the storytelling enables stronger exploration of Carol and Daryl's relationship than David Zabel's use of Isabelle did. And we were never subjected to a "visual realisation" (to quote Zabel) of Daryl and Leah's physical intimacy.

There's no point discussing Carol's Ezekiel arc here because David Zabel didn't bother to present Carol as possibly having romantic relevance outside of Daryl, so there's nothing to compare it to. Daryl has three women (Isabelle, Carol, the demimonde dancer) demonstrating romantic or sexual interest in him, while Carol has no one - not even Daryl. It feels like Zabel is very much narrating a story from the male perspective, but that's another issue.

Shipping aside, David Zabel has written a series which does little to nothing to empower women while Angela Kang actively championed telling complex stories about complex women on TWD. In fact, Zabel has made a number of storytelling (and marketing) choices which are harmful to women.

Okay, let's all share one thing that Zabel did with or in The Book Of Carol that you liked, loved, or thought he got right.

It could be a favourite scene that Zabel wrote. It could be a creative choice that he made. It could be to do with the storylines, arcs, or characters more generally, including his original characters. It could even be giving us hot as hell Ash in that cool ass plane!

The only rule is it must be something positive. This is an appreciation post only. If you have nothing positive or nice to say about Zabel, this is not the post for you, so please scroll past. All negative comments & reposts will be deleted - you have your own posts for negative comments.

I'll start. I absolutely loved all the fun and comedy moments Zabel wrote. In particular, I loved the car scene when Caryl were bickering like an old married couple. It was absolutely hilarious. Also, the field scene when Carol was trying to convince Daryl she needed to go into Ash on her own and then nearly took her eye out on the tree/bush as she rushed to get past him to get in front.