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"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | Liar! | „ |
| ~ The Governor killing Hershel in front of Rick and refusing his offer of peace. |
| “ | In this life now, you kill or you die...or you die and you kill. | „ |
| ~ The Governor's most famous quote. |
Phillip Blake, better known as The Governor and later aliased Brian Heriot, is one of the main antagonists in AMC's The Walking Dead. He is based on his comic counterpart, although the TV version of the character is more sympathetic. He served as the main antagonist of both Season 3 and the first half of Season 4 before returning as a posthumous antagonist in Season 5.
He was portrayed by David Morrissey.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Close to Being Pure Evil?[]
Past[]
- Like in the comics, he keeps the undead zombie heads of people he killed in fish tanks in his apartment, staring at them for hours.
- He also hosts fights between Woodbury's denizens solely for entertainment purposes.
- Had Merle kill at least 16 unknown people for him offscreen.
- Massacres an entire National Guard convoy.
Season 3[]
- When Glenn and Maggie are captured by Merle and brought to Woodbury for interrogation in order to find their camp, the Governor has Glenn tortured to find out where they are. He also threatens to cut off his hand if Maggie doesn't undress.
- Maggie confirms in a later episode that he didn't actually go through with raping her, but he still acts aggressive when they're alone so it's still sexual assault at the very least.
- Forces Daryl and Merle, two brothers, to fight to the death in front of an arena.
- Personally snipes Axel in the head, killing him.
- When Merle does a final stand in an attempt to kill the Governor and his soldiers, the latter viciously beats the former up, bites off two of his fingers, and finally shoots him in the chest instead of the head, killing him but leaving Daryl to finish off his own brother's zombie.
- Stabs Milton several times, leaving him badly wounded in a room where his ex-girlfriend Andrea is restrained to a chair.
- He succumbs to his wounds, and she gets bitten by his zombie, ultimately killing both.
- After a second failed assault on the prison, most of the Governor's soldiers disagree with going back there to finish the job, so he guns them down in a fit of rage.
- Only Karen survives the massacre via hiding under a dead body, but this act totally subverts the care he ever had for Woodbury in general.
Season 4[]
- Feeds Martinez to a pack of zombies and then murders his successor Pete Dolgen, leaving his zombie trapped at the bottom of a lake for the rest of eternity.
- When Hershel says that he has daughters in the prison and they could die if they attacked, he says that he doesn't care because they are not his daughters and then later destroys the place anyway.
- Rejects Rick's offer at redemption by brutally decapitating Hershel right in front of his friends and daughters using Michonne's katana.
- Violently hit Rick and tried to kill him by strangling him.
What Prevents Him from Being Pure Evil?[]
- He has a genuine tragedy of losing his entire family to walkers when the outbreak happened, which in turn caused him to become the merciless and utterly sociopathic tyrant he is today.
- He has a great amount of love for his late family:
- He has an endearing relationship with his zombie daughter Penny. He previously wanted to find a cure so she could be human and happy again, is shown brushing her hair at one point, and ultimately broke down in tears when Michonne killed her. A major part of the Governor's character in the TV show is that he wants revenge for his daughter's death, and this redeeming quality is never subverted in any way no matter how malevolent his actions became.
- He loved his wife, as her death still affects him to this day, and when he was talking to Rick about it, he still questions what she wanted to talk to him about in her last attempt to call him before her death.
Trivia[]
- He is a lot more sympathetic and tragic than his comic book counterpart, since the series puts more emphasis on his family's deaths being responsible for his declining mental state. In addition to this, the show makes several changes that make him less heinous overall:
- He was genuinely kind and affable to the people of Woodbury. In the comics, his kindness to Woodbury was simply a facade, as he never truly cared for them and only wanted power.
- While he still sexually assaults Maggie, he doesn't go through with raping her, a point he makes to Rick during their meeting. In the comics, however, he not only went through with raping Michonne (who is in Maggie's place), he does so multiple times over the course of several days.
- He keeps his zombified daughter Penny in a cage and feeds her because he refuses to accept the reality that she's really gone. This is in contrast to the comics where it was actually his zombified niece that he had an incestous/necrophillic relationship with.
- In the comics, during his second assault on the prison, he ends up killing Rick's wife, Lori, and their infant daughter Judith. This doesn't happen in the TV series, since Lori died during childbirth and Judith survived, growing up and becoming her own character.
- His "Brian" persona that he adopts after meeting his newfound family at the start of Season 4 is a reference to his comic counterpart's split personality, an aspect of the character that was removed due to the controversy it presented as a result of not being an accurate representation of Disassociate Identity Disorder (DID).
External Links[]
- The Governor on the Villains Wiki
- The Governor on the Walking Dead Wiki
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 Near Pure Evils
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Comic Universe Telltale Series Television Universe Fear the Walking Dead Tales of The Walking Dead | ||