The Walking Dead: 5 Characters Most Likely To Die Next

2. Daryl Dixon

Big swing here. Why He Could Be Next: Generally, Daryl Dixon is not a character whose demise seems particularly likely. He's Daryl! He has a crossbow, a tragic past and the hearts of most of the viewers! Ominously, however, he has been the victim of more foreshadowing than even his cheerful companion. In the beginning of the Daryl/Beth-centric "Still," we see one of Daryl's valuable arrows fail him and break. In the end of the same episode, Beth declares that he will be "the last man standing." In the funeral home refuge of "Alone," Daryl chooses an empty casket for a bed. Perhaps most damning off all is the fact that Norman Reedus was elevated to the second-billed actor of Season 4. While this is certainly demonstrative of his meteoric rise from guest star in Season 1, it also puts him in the way of a curse that saw the end of Jon Bernthal's Shane in Season 2, Sarah Wayne Callies' Lori in early Season 3, and Laurie Holden's Andrea in the end of Season 3. It certainly would be a gutsy move by AMC. From a plot standpoint, Daryl's story feels alarmingly as though it is coming to a close. After having an emotional breakthrough (with some help from Beth) from his troubled past to the idea that people can be good and that living should be about more than just survival, Daryl became a new man with a new and more positive outlook on the zombie apocalypse. Now, after having his touchstone Beth abducted away from him, Daryl has fallen in with a bad crowd and seems likely to grow...despondent once more. What better time for him to realise that some of the good people of his prison family had survived, and that they were worth giving his life for? Or, on the flip side, that he will be destroyed by restored hopelessness? Honestly, if Beth dies, there may be no coming back from the dark side for Daryl. He is a man malleable to his circumstance, and it is feeling more possible €“ dare I say probable? €“ than ever that Daryl may not be the last man standing after all. Why He Has A Chance: Despite the evidence that alarmingly keeps piling up that Daryl may not be long for the world, he is the most popular character. Also, if AMC were to kill Daryl, doing so at the end of a season might not be the wisest move. Fans have threatened to abandon the show if their beloved redneck were to bite the dust, and it would be far easier to lose viewers over a hiatus than immediately after the poor man dies.