I have thought the same thing. I really think that his change of heart has everything to do with how Carl impacted him.

Simple as that for me.

 

I think that wraps it in a pretty nice bow. It kinda seals his Carl arc. He didn’t say “I have never killed kids”. He said “I don’t kill kids’”.

 

Yeah, and I think that the fact we know he was going to kill Carl adds to our relationship to the character. He claimed he doesn't do it, and I'm sure he believes himself (like we all do believe ourselves through everyday little lies), but he probably did, or would have if not for an improbable tiger.

Shows that he was probably honest when he was struggling to use Carl against Rick, but felt he had to go to these lengths. Shows how twisted the motherfucker is. I have no problem with it.

 

I think this is a very important point, and something that might help putting your mind to rest, @Dnae.

1. What a character says about himself, is not necessarily the truth. The person might be lying on purpose, or simply lying to himself. I don't think these words from Negan are trying to retcon what happened in the show. What is actually happening with Negan is that he might be retconing what he did, so he could live with himself.

2. Saved by the Tiger Incident: I think he was at that point pushed too far and lost control, and he really needed to get back at Rick and he wasn't sure what he was going to do. He didn't want to kill Carl, but he was so angry, and wanted to hurt Rick. It was touch and go. Luckily the Tiger saved him from this moment of madness. My feeling is that he wouldn't have killed Carl, but we don't know. I wonder if there's any interview with Jeffrey when he talked about this scene?

3. I'm pretty sure the 16 year old kid was killed by Simon, not Negan. Well, you know, they were "all Negan" back then. But the Hilltop only had dealings with Simon. They never even knew about the Sanctuary or met Negan himself at that point.

 

Yeah, in terms of Rory, I think Jesus just said "the saviors" or "Negan's men" did it. I don't think it was stated that Negan was present when he was picked as a victim.

And agree again, in terms of Carl, I think Negan's code of ethics sometimes becomes flexible when he is pushed to extreme situations. He obeys his own rules as long as he isn't operation on emotion. Probably pretty consistent with what we would expect from a man like him.

 

I think the key is that they used the term "Negan" for everyone, not just Negan himself. Jesus said they killed Rory in front of them. But then Jesus didn't know what the real Negan actually looked like, because he never met him. He only knew Simon.

 

Black Bird for the save once again.
If memory serves, which it rarely does, Negan had a very serious conversation with Simon about his propensity for being too brutal with his lessons in particular killing all the men at Oceanside. This was the first time we heard "people are a resource".
A Narcissist will always tell tales of themselves being the hero or the victim, never the villain.
Yes! I'm so grateful for Ms Kang. Might it be that she is attempting to show us Negan's rebirth cuz we didn't really didn't get to see that while he sat in his cell?

 

This guy had the same problem as you @Dnae, and includes the clip from Jesus.
Watch from 3:25.



This is not the writers messing up. This is Negan trying to convince himself that he was never going to kill Carl. And maybe he really wasn't.

 

So true. I find Ronny hit and miss. I liked him in Season 7-8 when a lot of people were hating on the show and he was still positive on the parts that were actually good.

Trevschan? Worth checking out again? I thought he used to just basically recap, without any interpretations.

 

I thought pretty much as in the original post of this thread about Carl and the Hilltop kid (I think 16 is right). Maybe Negan doesn't see that age is still a "kid" especially in the ZA. Perhaps he's just referring to people more like 12 and under. Just a thought.

 

That stood out to me too when Negan said he didn't kill kids. I immediately thought of Carl's near death.

I think you can toss aside the Hilltop incident though and chalk that one up to Simon. He was the one always directly involved with Gregory.

The Carl situation is trickier. That scene angered me because I felt that Gimple had gone way too far. Negan would never do that to Carl.

Personally I can make the logical jump to say Negan didn't intend to kill Carl. I can put it aside as him having used it as a means to scare Rick (like with cutting off Carl's hand) because it's not within his character.

I can see why someone would have a problem with it, and it's really a result of Gimple's poor handling of Negan.