Out of all the characters on The Walking Dead, Dale was probably the most universally liked. He was the father figure of the group, their moral compass, their conscience. This is never more evident than in his final episode, when he stands against the group in their decision to execute an outsider. When you're living in a post-apocalyptic society, your humanity can slip away without you even noticing. Dale was determined to stop that from happening to him or his friends. He made them question every morally grey decision they made. So it was devastating when they lost such a crucial figure. And boy, he did not go gentle into that good night. I suppose it's a lot for anyone to hope to die painlessly in their sleep especially when there are zombies all over the place but Dale's death is especially gruesome. He gets attacked by a zombie while alone out in the fields, and the end result is that he's left basically trying to stuff his intestines back into his abdomen. And in a cruel twist of fate, the zombie that gets him is one that Carl let live. The loss of their fountain of wisdom left an irreplaceable hole in the group, and for a long time afterwards, you could tell that before they made any decision, they were thinking "What would Dale do?"