8. More Children
In a zombie apocalypse, I'm not concerned about the children. Its every man, woman, and child for themselves, and I'm fairly confident I can outrun the kids. I am, however, concerned with the amount of children that are amassed for season 4 of The Walking Dead. I've already given Gimple praise for the way he dealt with Sophia in season 2. Her exit from the barn sent a shockwave of reactions through both the characters and the fans. Sophia trudged out as a dead piece of innocence, lost to all the characters. Patricks death in the premiere episode was used in a similar fashion. After quickly displaying the peace that comes from 30 days without an accident, Patricks death shattered any feelings of safety. Killing off kids provides a fast transition into panic and action mode. More fear, more paranoia, more action, more viewers. When kids arent killed off on The Walking Dead, however, there are a couple of risks involved. Most characters have some sort of tragic flaw. Whether theyre over zealous in rage, too eager to help, or some sort of a control freak, most adult characters have traits that lead to mistakes. Their flaws lead them down paths before theyre trapped and forced to either change or succumb. Kids, on the other hand, are simply erratic. They dont know what theyre doing, so, as viewers, neither do we. As a result, its often difficult to relate to child characters. Filling the prison with kids (such as the ones Carols taken into her care) bars the viewers from understanding certain motivations. Its easy to pin irrational behaviour onto kids, but it takes away an element of intrigue. Kids are easy scapegoats for absurd behaviour. Lets consider a scenario, for example. If an adult is feeding rats to the walkers, then it could be an inside job trying to tear the prison down or a variety of other scenarios. But if a kid is feeding rats to the walkers, then its just an unfortunate coincidence dismissed as bad behaviour. Just as theyre easy targets for walker, kids are also easy targets for blame. The writers have baited themselves with easy outs in this season. As twisted as it sounds, I hope the kids become walker bait before they become blame bait.