OK, so the Saviors wanted Proof of Death of the leader of Hilltop in order to release their hostage.

We've also seen them prepared to capture or murder Sasha, Abraham and Daryl and take their supplies. This is sufficient evidence to determine that the Saviors are murderous thugs who will treat the ASZ the same way once they find it.

 

I agree with what you're saying, but consider a different scenario: Say at the prison some people from Woodbury came covertly to Rick and said, "look, Rick, the Governor is crazy, and we don't want another war where both of us die, but we don't want your people taking revenge on our town either." Do you think it would be unreasonable for Rick to ask for proof that the Governor was dead, and that if his people brought it that bygones could be bygones?

Depending on what the real situation was, asking for a leader's head might not be that unreasonable in a TWD scenario, given how groups behave on the show.

 

Actually something like that did happen, when they tasked Andrea to kill the Governor, but the way I see it there are some major differences between the Governor and Negan.

The Governor was a master at keeping the majority of his cray from the people in Woodbury. He went out of his way to appear a benevolent and kind leader. The townspeople never saw that fish tank full of heads, or the torture room or how he treated people who disagreed with him. Not only that but he had a way of motivating his people to do what he wanted that didn't involve violence. If he had asked for Rick's head it would have all been done covertly.

From what I can see so far, Negan rules through direct threat to those he comes into contact with. He makes a public show of killing people so the others are too afraid to go up against him. He gives that power to kill in his name to his soldiers as well. I doubt no one thinks he's a kind and benevolent leader, they just hope they can fly under the radar and get by. This kind oF leadership also encourages other wackos to come out of the closet and creates new ones who want to suck up to the leader. I'd put money down that the Hilltop people were told to kill and behead Gregory in front of everyone to send the community a message, which they would have succeeded in doing if Rick and co hadn't been there. A blatant act of terrorism.

As Rick has found out as time goes by, it's impossible to reason or negotiate with these types. Sometimes cutting the head off the snake will suffice as with the Grady cops but with the Saviors you not only need to cut off the head but as many pieces off the body as you can get as well. If they ever get as far as the main compound, I think it will become evident if any can be saved by their actions.

 

You can't be serious when you're missing basic details that the writers explicitly put in the story and that 99% of fans see.

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Alexandrians being wary of Rick and his hardened group have nothing to do with this subject, what are you even talking about?. Dwight/Sherry being frightened ties into Daryl's second encounter with the Saviors - remember he had 3 encounters with them, with the first being he, Abe and Sasha shot at by an unknown armed group in the area - the same group that was tailing Dwight/Sherry. He got his first glimpse of the Saviors while with Dwight/Sherry and got his first bit on info on them from Dwight/Sherry and the manner in which they were trying to escape and the manner in which they were scared enough to chance robbing Daryl as a better alternative than trusting Daryl is very telling evidence when you ad it to the first and third encounters Daryl had.

Remember, the bulk of our evidence here comes from our group members Daryl, Sasha and Abe's encounters with them and is only compounded as extra evidence by what we experience at HillTop and otherwise.

They give up half of their stuff and more to Negan not having intense fear of him? They are willing to kill and decapitate their leader and bring back to the severed head because they are not scared?

They tell several stories of the Saviors, including how Negan murdered a 16 year old, how they are holding one of their own hostage and so on...

They are not scared. Not at all. They were just lying about giving their resources to Negan to get Rick's group to take out a group they are not threatened by at all and the whole thing with the Ethan stabbing Gregory was just a theatrical performance. Right?

That was written in the show and explicitly referenced multiple times. You're arguing against canon.

Not verbatim, but the gist of what Bud, the Biker leader said:

"You and everything you own now belong to Negan"

"We usually cap one of you right off the bat just to show intention"

"You are armed, secured a tanker, you're capable, you're going to take us back to where you live so we can see what else you have"

Then Bud postures as if he's going to kill both Abe and Sasha prior to Daryl blowing them up - going good on the cap one of them to make a point that was further clarified later by HillTop in how they described Negan murdering the 16 year old to make a point.

Their intentions were to take whatever resources they wanted and kill to make a point and it's not debatable and along with HillTop's experience we have a mountain of compounding evidence as seen by Rick's group to the contrary of the nonsense you're putting forth.

In some sort of Twilight Zone situation where the Saviors just posture like they are going to kill others to deceive them into getting resources, then they would be so stupid(and still thieves)that they deserve whatever comes across them from other angry armed entities anyway.

You aren't surprised they acted that way when presented the head because they were expecting it and it was written in the show explicitly that they were expecting it. They were expecting it because they are using methods of psychological warfare like this on the HillTop and other groups to keep them aligned to supplying them resources out of fear, because they are oppressive, violent and evil.

Rick's group is not more psychotic that that for seeking to cleanse the area of a massive threat to their own existence while also brokering a resources deal for themselves and liberating another group of non-hostile survivors from oppressive, hostile overlords.

I really hope you understand now. The concepts here are not very difficult and unless we don't give the official story and narrative any credence, the facts are facts.

 

But it's not sufficient evidence. We need to actually see them kill another human before we deem it a threat. This is the method we will use in the Zombie Apocalypse.

How long do you think we will survive using this method and completely eschewing deductive reasoning and critical thinking skills?

A: Not very long - we're one of the ones that died in the first few days of the global outbreak.

 

Still not convinced here. I don't agree with you - and that's fine. I still do want proof where they asked for his head. I can't find it. Are you just saying it's implied? Sending a message to someone and asking for their heads are two different things in my book.

 

As I recall it, Rick's group didn't even know Woodbury was there until Michonne turned up and told them Woodbury had kidnapped Maggie and Glenn. Rick's group set out on a mission to get Maggie and Glenn back -- in the nick of time because after beating Glenn and threatening to rape Maggie, the Governor had ordered Glenn and Maggie to be thrown into the screamer pits. After Maggie told the Gov about the prison in order to save Glenn's hand, the Governor ordered Merle and his thugs to kill everyone in the prison and turn it back over to walkers. Why? Woodbury hadn't been attacked. Rick's rescue-attack was in the nick of time to save Maggie and Glenn. It's purposes wasn't to kill Woodburians or the Governor. That was Michonne's personnel mission, not known to Rick.

The beauty of the Governor as a character was he was a slick, slick, charming psycho leader that people couldn't see through. When he became the Governor #2 -- One-Eyed Bri -- after a short stint of trying to be good, he reverted to character. The Governor was all too human -- the worst version of a human -- the scariest of all the bad guys so far because he was capable of masquerading as a good guy and (sometimes) being good --the same way sadistic Mafia or Cartel guys are good to their own families but have no qualms about killing, raping, looting and torturing others to death if it suits their purposes.

I truly doubt that Negan, when he shows up, is worse than the Governor -- more sadistic and brutal maybe, but probably not worse. One thing that is slick though, based on that last episode, is that Negan has apparently gotten all his followers to claim they are all Negan -- in other words, he appears to have created a Negan cult of loyal sadistic psycho brutes, male and female.. The Woodbury citizens, on the other hand, mostly didn't know what the Governor was or what he was doing. So, the cult of Negan is probably more dangerous than the psycho, unbalanced Governor, or Governor version 2 was.