12 Small Details You Only Notice Rewatching The Walking Dead
8. Merle Dixon Sticks By His Principles
Merle Dixon is a fantastic character, and his death remains even today as one the saddest and most painful moments on the show. Daryl, finally reunited with his lost sibling, finds Merle after he is killed by the Governor and left to turn. Daryl then cries and turns into a meme, and commences to let out all his conflicted feelings about his older brother as he puts him down for good. It's powerful TV.
But the detail we're confronting here is Merle's dying words: "I ain't gonna beg. I ain't begging you." Though many fans remember these simply as Merle's final words, they are in fact the same as what he said in Season One after Rick handcuffed him to the roof of a building. Left alone to his thoughts, the older Dixon brother looks to the sky and yells to God. But he won't beg.
It's a nice call back which bookends Merle's journey on the series, showing his growth from cruel antagonist to reluctant hero to a man willing to sacrifice himself to right his wrongs and help his brother.
In repeating these words again before the Governor kills him, we're reminded of how tough the guy is, and how much he went through during the tenure on the show. He may have been a violent racist for the most part, but at least he stuck by his principles.