The Walking Dead- Matt Meyer Final Draft

        Qualities of a leader; just, level-headed, knowledgeable, altruistic, strict, logical, and helpful all of which Rick Grimes had at the beginning of the first season of The Walking Dead. Then things started to change, slowly all the characteristics that Rick possessed were starting to seize to exist in and around him.

        Going into a coma was the event that started Rick's adventure into the "new world" that the disease had created, when Rick woke up he no longer had the quality of being knowledgeable. The entire world that he had known prior to being in coma was no longer there, it had been taken over by the dead, the living-dead. Essentially being born into this new world he turned to the only thing that he still knew which was family, and so his journey began.

        After finding his family and some others he became the leader of the group, and during some hard times he had to make some hard decisions. Rick exemplified his, strict and in a kind of backwards way just characteristics, when he decided to leave Merle, a burden to the group, on top of a city building handcuffed to a pole. However even though this action in the long run helped the group Rick's characteristic of having a level-head was destroyed in the process because this was a result of him losing his cool and acting on an impulse.

                         

        While the group carried on after facing tragedy and having to move from their camp they found a small farm house with its residents willing to take them in after finding out that one of the children were severely hurt. After the child healed, who happened to be Rick's son Carl, Rick decided that staying at the farm was the group's safest option and made an executive decision and went against his just being and took over the farm without permission of its owner.

        As shown the farm didn't last very long and the group eventually left and found a prison where they could take shelter. During this time Rick's wife Lori had a baby and in the process she died. This event took Rick's logic away, he started seeing her and running off to try and catch her. This hurt the group because they needed Rick to lead them, but this was becoming harder for Rick to do because of all the events that he has gone through and the difficulty of staying alive in the new world. With Rick running off and not protecting the barriers or helping with physical tasks or even taking care of his two children his helpfulness disappeared and others had to take charge like Glenn and Carl.

        The day that Rick lost his altruistic characteristic was the day that the group was split up. The Governor, a leader of the nearby colony, came to the prison and essentially blew it up because the group imposed a threat to his colony in his eyes. seeing this and barely surviving the attack Rick's only two goals were to find the group and take revenge on whoever hurt his group or family in the past and to kill anyone that imposes a threat to them in the future, it was no longer to grow and live in harmony.

        All hope for the characteristics to come back were lost when Rick and Carl were attacked. One of the attackers was threatening Carl and Rick turned to the dark side and ripped his throat out with his teeth and then preceded to beat the other attacker. The hate that you could see in his eyes or just his actions shows that there is no soul left in his body. The events that he has been through has destroyed him, however his true instincts show through while he is still protecting his child. Also, people including Carl now fear Rick this just shows that the same characteristics only the opposite will create a monster instead of a leader.

        Although the characteristic of being strict is still prevalent in Rick after all of the events that he has gone through that quality alone does not make for a leader. People went from idolizing Rick to fearing him. And all of the reasons that this viewpoint has changed were solely reliant on the new world and struggles that he has been put through.