#twddd

My Interpretation:

Carol hesitates when replying. If there was absolutely no feelings, a person would reply simply with: "No, we're good friends though." But Carol hesitates and appears unsure.

Then Daryl says "Nope." in a very quick and abrupt way. He appears agitated/mad, and quickly walks away. This could be him dealing with his own feelings and unsurety.

Overall, when two people have genuine feelings for each other (which is unspoken) there is so much fear involved. Sometimes people can just blatantly deny their feelings because they are afraid.

This is Beth from the opening minutes of 4x12 Still, admiring a ladybug. She also famously had a ladybug very prominently displayed in her cell, here seen in 4x1 Days Without Accident:

One of the most rewarding things about this little corner of the fandom is that even years after a scene has aired, and subsequently been analyzed to death by literally everyone, someone suddenly sees it with a fresh set of fresh eyes, it sparks new ideas, and we get new interesting insight!

I came across this post by @atrumreginablue earlier today, where we learned that a common genus of ladybugs in the US is called Hippodamia, and it absolutely blew my mind! As someone who normally investigates the etymology of most things in TWDU, I had completely overlooked this aspect of the ladybug symbolism:

It added a much needed piece of the puzzle, because look what “Hippodamia” literally translates to:

“She who masters horses”…👀

I’ve talked about the horse symbolism and how it relates to Beth in many posts, and it came up again recently because of the water thermos with the image of a hippo that we saw in Daryl Dixon:

Long story short, the “hippo” symbolism is synonymous with “horse” symbolism, because “hippo” literally means “horse”:

In my post about the baptism symbolism of DD 3x6, I explained how the hippo was a callback to the scene from TWD 5x10 Them, where Maggie opened the trunk of a car specifically with a key attached to a yellow seahorse keychain:

(read more on the "yellow" symbolism here).

Remember, the “hippo” in hippopotamus means “horse”, and “hippopotamus” means “river horse” or “water horse”… a seahorse is literally a "water horse"… and in this case it was the KEY to opening the trunk where the Beth-walker was hidden:

The Beth-walker in the trunk was a representation of what Maggie and TF believed happened to Beth (she died) while the scene from 4x12 Stll was the actual representation (and foreshadowing) of what happened (she survived).

And it is the horse symbolism that made sure she could survive. The seahorse keychain is the KEY to understanding the symbolism; horse symbolism represent resurrection.

On a surface level, horses in TWDU are known to die gruesome deaths, pretty much immediately after having been introduced, often by the end of the episode if not sooner. That’s a distraction, because horse scenes are always laden with resurrection symbolism. Sometimes TPTB quite literally spell it out, like in TWD 6x16 Last Day on Earth when Morgan randomly finds a horse next to a sign that reads "you are alive":

Back in 2x1 What Lies Ahead we saw a yellow Ford Mustang:

This episode was all about Sophia going missing, and the yellow Ford Mustang became a symbol of the hope of finding her, illustrated by how they placed survival items on it in case she returned. And if it's it’s not clear, the Ford Mustang car is named after a type of horse, a mustang, which is what makes it synonymous with horse symbolism:

Pay special attention to the license plate of the yellow Ford Mustang; LC6-M187:

…because when we saw Carol in DD 1x6 (which I talked about here) it was in a blue Ford Mustang:

…and the license plate, 502AV2A, was a reference to TWD 5X2, in which Carol and Daryl followed a Grady car into Atlanta, something which eventually led them to Beth.

And the car they drove into Atlanta had a familiar license plate:

That’s right, LC6-M187 again. Same as the license plate on the yellow Ford Mustang from TWD 2x1.

So, if Mustangs, via the horse symbolism, represent resurrection, then why did Sophia die? Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to have her “resurrect”?

No, because the resurrection symbolism wasn’t about Sophia, it was about someone else…

We actually had Daryl explain it to us in 2x4 Cherokee Rose, when he and Carol discussed the Cherokee rose, which is another potent symbol of resurrection (read more here):

Daryl didn't think any of the resurrection symbolism they encountered applied to anyone other than Sophia. He was wrong, because the resurrection symbolism of the Cherokee rose (and in the subtext; the yellow Ford Mustang) was about Merle:

Merle “resurrected” in season 3, and eventually died heroically, after having fulfilled his death and resurrection arc. In his last moments on this earth he was seen driving this Chevy Caprice with a familiar license plate:

Yup, there it is again, the LC6-M187. Same as the one on the yellow Ford Mustang from 2x1. This ties Merle to the resurrection symbolism of the “horse” symbol. Read more on the LC6-M187 licence plate here.

Much later, in FTWD, we saw the protective properties of the horse symbolism on display when Madison was shot point blank, IN A FORD MUSTANG, but survived due to the St. Christopher medallion in her pocket.

Read more about Madison and the Mustang of resurrection here.

What about Buttons the Horse you might say. He died tragically from multiple walker bites, how does that symbolize resurrection?

Because of all the weird stuff TPTB decided to include, purely to hint at resurrection symbolism. I’ve written about this in more detail elsewhere, but the gist of it is this:

Randomly, Aaron tripped over a walker stuck under a dead, decomposing ram.

The ram was a convoluted reference to Officer Lichari’s Dodge Magnum, which was the car Daryl and Carol followed into Atlanta in 5x2, and the car I tend to favor as the actual car they put Beth in after 5x8 Coda. The logo of Dodge cars is a Ram, an TPTB made sure we got a real close look at it:

So yes, Buttons the Horse died, but his death served as a vehicle for the resurrection symbolism of the Dodge Magnum that potentially is the car Beth survived/resurrected in.