[WalkerBaitress]

I_Follow_You_Axel, on 04 June 2012 - 08:16 PM, said:

I don't know if a motorcycle is really all that practical. Have you heard the motor on that thing? Any walkers nearby would be drawn in by the noise. Not to mention, if you get caught in a herd, you have zero protection from getting pulled off the bike.

Those are some damned good points, Axel! You feelin' me? In any case, Daryl did a pretty good job of navigating his way through the walker herd when he drove away from the farm with Carol in the S2 finale.

[WalkerBaitress]

Goat, on 04 June 2012 - 03:31 AM, said:

Not to make excuses for him either (I have friends and family through marriage who are Jewish), but the SS lightning bolts have been adopted as a symbol by a few outlaw biker clubs that don't have a primary agenda of white supremacy.  In those cases, I think the shock of the symbol is the primary end.  

That said, I think the symbol is a good representation that Daryl has not fully emerged out of the shadow of Merle -- I don't think his transformation into an emotionally mature person is quite complete.  I also think that stripping away the symbol would probably show that he's given up on Merle being alive, and while he knows full well that Merle is not a nice guy -- he's still family, and he probably holds out some kind of weird hope that he could have his brother back.  I dunno, maybe I'm psychoanalyzing Daryl too much.  All I was trying to say was, I think the symbol's gotten adopted even outside of white supremacist groups because of its shock value.

Yeah--I've learned to take it with a grain of salt in many cases. Hell, these days, people Daryl's age probably don't even know which countries fought each other during WWII, and have most likely learned to associate the SS symbols with some antiquated skinhead type of B.S. rather than a deeply significant and harrowing reminder of what transpired during the Holocaust. It's sad, but we really have forgotten our collective history in that way. Yet, in a weird way, it does give the Gen-Xers and younger a weird sort of "pass" on history, just because our generations are so self-involved that we can't be bothered with the echoes of history...but I digress...

[Trillian]

Goat, on 04 June 2012 - 03:31 AM, said:

That said, I think the symbol is a good representation that Daryl has not fully emerged out of the shadow of Merle -- I don't think his transformation into an emotionally mature person is quite complete.  I also think that stripping away the symbol would probably show that he's given up on Merle being alive, and while he knows full well that Merle is not a nice guy -- he's still family, and he probably holds out some kind of weird hope that he could have his brother back.  I dunno, maybe I'm psychoanalyzing Daryl too much.

Nice.  I don't think that you're psychoanalyzing Daryl too much.