‘The Walking Dead’ And The Best Villains On The Show, Negan And Shane

The Walking Dead is known for two things – walkers (also known as zombies) and villains. Of the two, there are awards for only one of these things and that’s for the villains. This past week, two characters and actors have been awarded the Best Villain role from the hit show, The Walking Dead.

One of those awards for the Best Villain comes from the 2017 MTV Movie & TV Awards. This awards show occurred last night on May 7, 2017. Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who plays Negan on The Walking Dead, was up for the award and he had some serious competition but ultimately, he was the big winner.

Besides Jeffrey Dean Morgan from The Walking Dead, there were four other nominees. Jared Leto was nominated for his role in Suicide Squad where he played the Joker. Interestingly enough, Leto won a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor for this role. Apparently, not everyone thought he did a horrible job.

The other nominees included Mark Steger for his monster role in Demogorgon, Allison Williams for her bad girl role in the movie Get Out, where she played Rose Armitage, and Wes Bentley, for his role in American Horror Story. All nominees were villainous but in the end, it was Jeffrey Dean Morgan of The Walking Dead who won with his portrayal of Negan.

On The Walking Dead, Negan is villainous on two levels. On the physical level, viewers know that he is capable of horrible deeds. He opened up Season 7 by bashing in the brains of two of The Walking Dead‘s most beloved characters, Glenn and Abraham. He punishes his own people for lying to him or other perceived betrayals by burning their face with a hot iron. He’s sporadic and you won’t necessarily see it coming, like when he killed Spencer by slicing him open on The Walking Dead.

Negan also knows how to mess with characters’ heads on The Walking Dead. Viewers saw how he would mess with Rick to manipulate him into doing what he wanted him to do. He would beat Rick’s people in front of him. He made Rick go after the axe that he threw into the throng of walkers. And twice, he threatened Rick’s son, Carl, because he knew that no physical threat to Rick’s life would make him do what Negan wanted him to do. Negan knew that he had to mentally and emotionally beat Rick down if he wanted to get him under control. In the end, even that didn’t work though. Negan played head games with other characters on The Walking Dead, too. Negan also gave Dwight a mental beat down on a regular basis and he played with Eugene’s and Carl’s minds when he made them watch members of his crew being punished.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s portrayal of Negan on The Walking Dead has been amazing and the MTV award for Best Villain was well earned. According to Gold Derby, “When it comes to villains, no one is badder than Negan.”

Another Best Villain award was given out this past week though and that award was decided by The Walking Dead viewers and fans. The Walking Dead had their own Best Walking Dead Villain contest. According to The Walking Dead, there were tens of thousands of votes and the ultimate winner was….Shane, played by Jon Bernthal!

Shane went up against Gorman and Jadis before he finally went against Negan. He beat them all. He finally went up against the Governor in the last round and beat him in a landslide, taking 88 percent of the votes.

It might seem strange that Shane would win over both the Governor and Negan because he’s not really a traditional villain, but his connections with other characters were close and the potential for so much more emotional damage was obvious. As The Walking Dead said, “he did become dangerous inside the group when he decided Lori and Carl belonged to him and did anything to protect that.” Sometimes the enemy that is closest to you is worse than the enemy that you know is out to get you.

Who do you think was a bigger villain on The Walking Dead? Is Negan the biggest and baddest villain or is Shane a scarier villain to you? Sound off in the comments!

[Featured Image by Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Images and by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images]