I was wondering that too. I dont read the comics so I dont know.

 

Me too!!!!!

 

I have taken a long hiatus from the comics but I think it's both? I mean they would have (in theory hah) human smarts enough not to stumble fwd into getting their heads smashed to smithereens... ?? And it would be smart to let the normal walkers go fwd first while you hang back and see what's up...

 

They sat back and let the walkers attack then made their way into the fray when Jesus was alone.

After the initial attack on Jesus they came running in with weapons to square off with the group who easily dispatched the first wave.

 

From the preview, it seems Wisperers have, at least, 30+ people (when they stand outside Hilltop, meeting Daryl).
My pure guess is, they use, maybe, 10 whisperers to manipulate a herd of 100 walkers. These whisperers would walk in the front, side and back of the herd and steer them in their direction. When they reach a target, they will fall back and let the herd to continue the charge forward.

 

That makes sense.

 

That's how I saw it too. They embed themselves in hordes and herd them as they walk. The actual horde was distracted by the fireworks but a few whisperers herded them back onto the road.

 

Its like the worst lifestyle you can imagine LOL. Its like saying, "oh what do you do for a living?" "oh me? I put my head in a paper bag and then pour anteater guts all over the bag, then I put a fish bowl on top of that, and I walk all over town, blind, looking for cans to recycle".

 

BAHAHAHAHAHA

 

What I want to know is where do they hole up when they're not walking with the herds? Are they nomads who when they find a community, let the walkers kill the humans and then take whatever they can find? They must go someplace separate from the walkers to sleep at night and to eat. Were they living somewhere in that cemetery? Is that why the creep who killed Jesus said something about being where he shouldn't be? I don't know how people could live like that.

 

It's actually a great point. I hope they go into why they do what they do. I'm not sure if the comics do or not, but it would be interesting.

The previous enemies had some sort of motive for their actions. To hide among the walkers and wander around seems like something that would work in a dense Walker population as a means of getting around. But in their area, it would be much simpler to create a compound and live there.

 

They are kind of like an Indian tribe, they do have camps

 

They do kind of explain it in the comics, but for me the explanation was pretty thin, and the size of the group was too big to be believable that such a large faction of survivors would choose this lifestyle. It would have to be like half the survivors in the region. There's just no way so many people would find this condition legit. It would work better for me as a group of maybe 75 people, not several hundred or more. It was never explained exactly how many whisperers there were, but the implication is many hundreds, and possibly into the thousands.

 

Ok, now I understand why you said you hoped there would be fewer of them and a shorter arc on the show. Because yea, hundreds of people living like that is pretty dumb. They are, in a way, like the wolves. Just living like animals...and only having a few of them made more sense than it would have if there was hundreds of them.

 

Yeah, I agree it's stretching the "suspension of disbelief" a little far. Who is going to walk around 24/7 wearing a stitched-on dead person's face, going for years without changing clothes, bathing, etc.? What about eating, sleeping, toileting? I'm having trouble hanging on to this one....

 

I have not read the comics and so I could only guess.
I suppose, these whisperers do not wear a walker skin 24/7. It is only when they need to steer a herd to achieve an objective that they would put on a mask.

It seems their survival approach is similar to the Vultures of the FTWD. The Vultures round up walkers and put them into container truck and then release them to charge/destroy a position. Then, the vultures move in to grab the useful stuff.
I think, the Whisperers are similar and that's how they got the stuff from Magna's group. When the Whisperers have looted all the communities they could find in a certain geographical location, they will move onto another area like nomads.

 

^^^^^^^

 

What needs to be explained is what makes the whisperers immune from an attack by the walkers?

In the past Rick and company had used bloody guts smeared on their bodies to fool the walkers.

The whisperers seem to just wear a mask. Not wet and bloody, looks dried up. So any dry skin from a walker will suffice?

Say you peel off skins from a walker and lay that skin over a baseball cap and as soon as you put on that cap you can blend in with no danger? Daryl could take a pinky toe from a walker and stick that into his pocket and he would be safe?

 

I wonder the extent of effectiveness of a walker suit.
With such a suit on, can you fast walk or even run or jump without triggering the walkers to disregard your suit and come to eat you? Or, a whisperer slow walks only for the purpose of hiding among a herd, not wanting to be detected by other humans?

Similarly, a whisperer whisperers only for the sake of not wanting to be detected by humans or not wanting to cause walkers to discover he is not one of them?

Does the comics say anything? (use spoiler tag for an answer)