5 Reasons "The Walking Dead" Doesn't Refer To The Zombies

4. The Living Haunt Each Other More Than The Dead

I didn't notice this until a blogger pointed it out in this amazing review of The Grove, but the characters that die serve a purpose before they do. Of course in good story telling all characters serve a purpose. But an oft repeated theme in this show is that as the humanity is stripped from the survivors thanks to their hopeless and hostile environment, it's the living that haunt the survivors more than the dead. The living remind them of who they used to be. Their reactions to the living show how they've changed. For example, the Governor went from keeping his daughter locked up in the basement as a zombie and going through the motions of brushing her hair and taking care of her every day for months on end to shooting his new daughter figure without so much as an iota of hesitation. It's the living that the remind the survivors of the mistakes they've made. The never-agains. Daughter figures in particular really don't fare well in this show. Both the girls in The Grove had a lesson to teach Carol. If the characters are capable of haunting one another and impart lessons and character progressions than they are the walking dead already in the sense that they're already ghosts and their days are numbered.