Summary
- Fans blame Rick for Sophia’s death in The Walking Dead, saying his actions led to her tragic demise in season 2.
- Rick’s decision to leave Sophia alone in the forest caused viewers to point fingers at him, igniting debates among fans.
- Sophia’s death in the show’s narrative transformed Carol’s character trajectory, shaping her into a strong survivor in The Walking Dead.
Spoilers for seasons one and two of The Walking Dead
The Walking Dead is packed full of horrific deaths of some of the show’s most beloved survivors, but the death of Sophia has viewers of the long-running AMC post-apocalyptic series blaming her demise on only one specific main character. Throughout the show’s eleven seasons, the group, which consisted of characters like Carol, Michonne, Daryl, and Maggie, a lot of hard choices had to be made when it came to living or dying. With “walkers” around every corner, knowing how to survive in a world that wanted to eat you whole was the constant terrifying undercurrent that ran through The Walking Dead‘s complex narrative.
Viewers witnessed the death of Shane, Rick’s friend and work colleague before the outbreak, due to the morally challenged character’s actions of wanting to kill Rick and take his family for himself. There was also the death of Andrea, who was seduced by the Governor’s charms, blinding her to who he really was and, in turn, ending up as a zombie herself. And, of course, the deaths of Hershel and Glenn are considered by fans as two of the worst and most tragic in the series, making many long-term watches switch off from the show completely. In season two of The Walking Dead, the end of Sophia’s life could be considered one of the most unexpected and shocking yet, and when it comes to pointing the finger about who was to blame, fans have only one person in mind.
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The Walking Dead Fans Blame Rick Grimes for Sophia’s Death
Over on The Walking Dead‘s Reddit page, one fan of the show has made a post talking about how Rick’s stupidity caused the death of 12-year-old Sophia. User Dangerous-Dig5883 believes that even though Rick’s actions weren’t the reason Carol’s child got lost in the forest and eventually bit by a stray walker, his downfall was thinking that a timid young and inexperienced kid could actually find her way back to the highway, especially on her own, terrified and likely chased by walkers. Rick tells Sophia that if he doesn’t make it back in time, she must find her way to the rest of the group but, as many fans saw, that didn’t happen. Rick finally returns and Sophia is nowhere to be found.
After the group searches for Sophia for days, the trial runs cold, with mostly Daryl being the only one on the hunt for her. Carol can be heard asking Rick, “How could you just leave her out there to begin with? How could you just leave her?”, and it seems some fans are asking the same thing. “It was Rick’s fault”, expresses one poster in the comment section, while another agrees by stating, “Wasn’t there only like 2 walkers? He could have taken them out fairly easily even this early on.” However, quite a lot of fans are in defense of Rick and believe that he was the only one in the group who actually jumped into action to find her, and did everything he could to save her. One fan said that they blamed Lori for holding Carol back as she was too scared to let her go look for Sophia and if she went, she may have found her child easier than the rest of the group.
As The Walking Dead viewers will remember, Sophia’s heartbreaking disappearance finally concluded in episode seven of season two where she was found in Hershel’s barn of walkers, with Rick having to put a bullet in her head due to her having turned. The death of Sophia gave Carol a different outcome in the show, where she went from a meek and abused housewife to a strong and powerful survivor who ended up saving the group from the cannibals of Terminus by using a sniper rifle and fireworks rocket to explode a propane tank.
The Walking Dead is currently streaming on Netflix, with season two of The Walking Dead: Dead City airing sometime this year.
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Source: Reddit