5 Reasons Why Lori Grimes is One of the Most Important Characters in The Walking Dead
5 Reasons Why Lori Grimes is One of the Most Important Characters in The Walking Dead
(or, Why the Walking Dead Isn’t About Heroes, It’s About People)
Word Count: ~5,000
Warnings: Strong language, strong opinions, mentions of suicide and sex, discussion of abortion and marriage, character death
Author's Notes: So this one got a bit out of hand (it wa originally 0 Reasons Why Lori Grimes is Better Than Your Favorites, but at 5k for five reasons I think we're good). Huge thanks t Aubrey or putting up with my ranting and working it into something coherent, t Kate or her own excellent thoughts and meta, and everyone in the fandom who has argued in the defense of Lori, because you are seriously wonderful and come here, let me love you
I just want to start this off by saying, pre-Season 2, I hated Lori. I despised her. I thought she was literally the worst thing to happen to television and I couldn’t wait for her to bite it. (Or, in this case, get bit.) I was counting down the days until her stupidity got her killed
But then, Season 2 happened. Her son was shot. She found out that she was pregnant. Her very close friend started going crazy. Her husband started to crack under pressure
And my estimation of her went up.
Lori Grimes won me over slowly, over the course of weeks and months. She still did stupid things. She still made mistakes. But as the season went on, I became more and more aware of the reason behind those mistakes. I got to know Lori. I stopped seeing her as an annoying pair of legs and started to see her as a person with flaws and imperfections and motivations that I could relate to. That I could understand
By the end of Season 2, I sympathized with Lori. By Season 3, I hurt for her. I had become pretty protective of her by the time she died, and after her death I couldn’t understand why the hate was still coming. I couldn’t make sense of it-didn’t people understand? I thought. Didn’t they know her motivations, didn’t they know who she was
And then, watching arguments form and a very small-scale war break out in the tags, this little monster was born. Er, sorry.
Enjoy
5. She Has Her Shit Together (Mostly)
A few minor freak outs aside, Lori Grimes is one of the few characters who pretty much has her shit together
By shit, I mean mental, emotional, and physical state, and by together, I mean she’s not a shivering, post-traumatic wreck.
Lori’s doing pretty well, considering all that’s happening. She never has a breakdown. She never has a huge, dramatic freak out. Yes, there are a few times when she panics. When she screams and cries and shakes like a leaf. When her son is shot, for one thing. When she finds out that she’s pregnant. When she thinks that her baby might be dead inside her, just waiting to eat her alive
But the rest of the time, she is on top of this. No matter how scared she gets, no matter how pissed, no matter how beaten down and cornered she might feel, she carries on. She’s strong in front of her son. She’s supportive of her husband. She’s rational and open to listening to the rest of the group. She acts as a bridge between Mr. How Do Communication Grimes and the rest of the group. She has their respect. She has their trust.
So mentally and emotionally, Lori’s pretty sound. She doesn’t show any signs of PTSD like Rick and Shane do (and if you say that’s because she doesn’t do as much as them, fuck you and your misogyny, you can get PTSD without killing hordes of things. The end of the world is pretty much going to give anyone PTSD, and the fact that she doesn’t have it-or if she does, the fact that she hides it really well-is a testament to her mental strength). She doesn’t have emotional breakdowns where she just shuts off completely and can’t be reached
She also has a pretty good grasp on her place in this new world. Now, before you jump down my throat about the word “place,” I don’t mean her natural, subjugated state as a Lowly Woman. That’s not the kind of “place” that I mean. I mean that she understands what she can do in this world, and she’s going to do her best to fulfill that role
If that means cooking and cleaning and doing laundry, she’s going to do it. Yes, it is misogynistic to imply that that’s all women are good for and I am pissed every time she and Andrea have that argument over a woman’s worth. But Lori isn’t like Andrea-she has no desire to become a hunter. She has no desire to wield a gun. She doesn’t want violence.
This doesn’t mean she’s incapable of doing what’s necessary-she kills two walkers by herself, remember-it just means that she doesn’t want to be the one going out and killing roamers. She knows that she’s good at the little things-micromanaging-and she’s content to do them.
And the world needs people like that. What Lori does is actually pretty fucking important for long-term survival. If your camp isn’t clean, if the clothes you’re wearing aren’t regularly disinfected, you cut your hand and then suddenly you’re dying of sepsis because the environment is teaming with bacteria. If you’re not getting decent food, your body starts to shut down and you get sick.
What Lori does is incredibly important. It doesn’t seem that way, because of the danger of walkers-who the fuck cares about clean pants when there’s a zombie trying to eat your face? But it is important. And she knows that, if no one else does. She understands that what she does is just as important as guarding camp and hunting
She has enough reason left in her, when everyone else is going crazy, to see that these things need done, so she does them. Yes, the way she presents her side is misogynistic and stupid and terrible, but she only talks that way once; the rest of the time, she’s very logical about it
She understands. And that’s a super important quality to have in the middle of the end of the world. You’ve got to have your shit together enough to realize that if you ever want to survive longer than a few weeks, the basic things need done. So fuck you, if you say that she’s just a dumb, stupid, hysterical bitch. Fuck you so hard
4. You Wish You Could Be as Forgiving as Lori Grimes
Forgiveness is an underrated quality these days. I’m not really so good at this whole social commentary thing-hence a meta about fictional characters instead of real people-but I’m sure that’s indicative of our society somehow. We just don’t value forgiveness like we used too. Our media is flooded with messages like “never forgive, never forget,” “forgiveness is not an option,” over and over again. We’re taught that forgiveness is a weakness. Is a surrender
But the thing is, it’s really, really not. It is incredibly hard to forgive. It does feel like giving in, in a way; not only are you admitting that the other person hurt you, but you’re also saying that you’re putting it behind you-you’re moving on. You’re giving them another chance. Exposing yourself to them again, even though it’s entirely possible that they could hurt you a second time
Doesn’t sound so much like weakness now, does it?
And Lori is just so, so forgiving. I mean, what else do you call “Better Angels?” Lori looked at Shane, at everything he had done, everything that she knew him to be-she knew by that point that he’d killed Otis, and that he’d probably tried to kill Rick already, she knew that he was dangerous and hanging by a thread and probably better off dead-and she reached out to him anyway. She went out to him, alone, unarmed, to say “Thank you for everything you’ve done. Thank you for protecting me and my son. Thank you for being my friend.&rdquo
Granted, this backfired rather horribly, but Shane’s breakdown in “Better Angels” wasn’t her fault. She didn’t tell him to go out and kill Rick. She didn’t say, “I want to be yours again.” She just reached out to him in friendliness, to let him know that all that had happened between them was water under the bridge. She forgave him, for some really, really terrible things.
She forgave him for “TS-19.” She forgave him for his angry, erratic outbursts. She forgave him. What happened in “Better Angels” was on him-he couldn’t forgive Rick. He couldn’t reconcile his fantasy world with reality. He couldn’t forgive Rick for coming back
But Lori could. She forgave Shane, and after everything he’d done, that’s pretty fucking amazing
Even if you want to ignore the attempted rape in “TS-19,” Shane does some pretty unforgivable shit. Even before Season 2 he was pretty unforgivable. He was always arguing and fighting and generally being a dick, and he lied to her about Rick
In Season 2, he killed Otis. Murdered, as in willingly took a man’s life. He then flipped the fuck out and opened the barn, endangering everyone around him. (In the comics, when the barn is opened, Hershel loses two children, so don’t tell me that it wasn’t incredibly, incredibly dangerous and irresponsible.) After that, he lied to her again and manipulated her into leaving Rick out in the town. Then he got into a fist fight with Rick (even if they never mentioned it, the bruises they came back with would’ve told a different story)
He fucked up again and again, sometimes pretty willfully, and continued to get worse and worse. He was quite clearly losing it. He was quite clearly dangerous
And Lori forgave him. She forgave him. That’s just-incredible. That’s amazing. After one of those incidents I would’ve just washed my hands of Shane. I would’ve left him alone to self-destruct. It would’ve been safer for me, certainly. Safer for my unborn child, too
But she doesn’t. She knows what he is. She’s seen it, she’s watched it happen up close and personal, and she forgives him anyway.
That takes personal strength that I can’t even wrap my mind around. Just, yeah. Recognize
3. She’s A Fucking Awesome Parent
Yeah, that’s right, you heard me. Lori is a fucking wonderful mother. “But Carl!” you might say. “Not in the house! Not in the house! She bad mom, no watch son! “
Just sit down and shut the fuck up for a second. Carl is twelve years old. By twelve both myself and my brother (as well as the rest of the kids in our neighborhood) were considered old enough to stay home alone. As in, we were trusted to take care of ourselves for a day, without any parental supervision. (And if you’ve met my brother, you’d understand why this is sometimes not a good idea, because the kid’s a bit of a mess.)
Carl is at the age where he should be responsible enough to handle himself for a few hours. Yes, it is the zombie apocalypse, but when does Lori stop knowing where Carl is every second of the day? Yes, that’s right, when they get to Hershel’s house and haven’t seen a walker within the fence for a good several weeks.
Before Hershel, if Lori wasn’t with Carl herself she made sure to leave him in the hands of a responsible adult. “Stay where Dale can see you,” she said, or “Can you keep an eye on Carl for me?” while she went to deal with other aspects of her life
By the time the group has settled at Hershel’s, Lori has assumed that Carl is smart enough and responsible enough to, if he’s not in the house, at least stay around the farmstead. He’s been shot. He’s seen what happened to Sophia when she was on her own. He, by all accounts, should be completely, 100% aware of the dangers of wandering off on his own. Seriously. The fact that he’s not intelligent enough-or perhaps too arrogant-to stay where he should isn’t a reflection on her, it’s a reflection on Carl
Throughout the entire series, what Lori’s most concerned with isn’t herself, her own safety and well-being. She’s most concerned with Carl’s well-being, and not just his physical well-being but his emotional and mental well-being too. She doesn’t want him to grow up empty and heartless, without any memories of the world before. She wants her son to be a good person. “Don’t let this world spoil you,” she says. “If it feels it wrong, if it feels easy, don’t do it.&rdquo
She wants Carl to be a good man. To have compassion and mercy and kindness left in him. To know what love is. To understand that the world isn’t all bad, and that even though it’s ugly right now, it will be okay as long as he stays a good person. And you know what? In the face of everything she’s gone through, everything she’s seen, what’s happening to her at the very moment of her death, she has every reason to say, “You know what? Do what you want. The world is ugly and cruel and going to shit, so why not be ugly and cruel too?” It would certainly give Carl a better chance of survival-kindness and compassion aren’t advantages in a world like this
But she doesn’t say that. With her last breath she says, “Be good.” If that doesn’t tell you what kind of mother Lori is, you need to take off your fucking “lol where’s Carl” glasses and watch the damn show again
“But she wanted to abort her baby!” Some might cry. “She wanted Carl to die when he got shot! Bad mother! Bad!&rdquo
First, this isn’t a civil rights post, so we’re not going to get into the whole pro-life/pro-choice debate. Second, dude, zombie fucking apocalypse. You can argue against her choices with religion and morality all you want, but the fact is that she is living in a world where dead people want to eat living people, and if you can’t protect yourself you’re pretty much dead
Babies can’t protect themselves. Carl, at the point of his injury, couldn’t protect himself. Her children would be living in a world of near-constant danger, never safe, never able to rest. She would live with the very real possibility of losing her children every day, especially since a baby will be pretty much defenseless for at least another five or six years.
There is the overwhelming probability that her children will die before they reach adulthood. From an evolutionary standpoint, this is, uh, not good-offspring are needed to continue the species, and if they’re dying, the species too will die. But more than that, these are her babies. Her children, whom she loves with everything she has. She doesn’t want to watch them suffer and die. She doesn’t want them to grow up in a terrible world off grief and hatred. She doesn’t think that she could bear to see them die
This isn’t the sign of a bad mother-this is, in fact, the opposite. “She should let them live,” some say. “She should give them the choice.” And maybe she should. She does, in the end-she gives Hershel permission to operate on Carl, and she keeps the baby-but she also takes the time to consider herself, and her options. That’s pretty damn responsible parenting
And then there’s this final point: she died saving her child. She died. Of course, at that point she was pretty much going to die anyway, without Hershel or Carol around, but she had two choices
1) She could continue trying to have the baby and then die of bloodless/trauma/whatever and the baby would die with her in the womb, or
2) She could have Maggie cut her open and die of bloodloss/trauma/whatever, and her baby could live.
She knew what was happening. She was fully aware of the choice in front of her. She could end it all-her life, her baby’s life, spare them both terrible suffering-or she could die giving her child a chance to live. And she decided that if there was a chance, any chance, of her child living, she would have to die, and she accepted that.
Just, wow. I can’t even imagine myself in a situation like that. To have the strength to say, “Cut into me, save my baby, it’s okay, I want this,” is mind-blowing. It’s insane. And it’s a testament to the kind of ferocious, strong, amazing woman Lori was in the end. Yes, she screwed up. Yes, she’s flawed. But she died so that her baby could live, and she did it with a smile.
I dare you to tell me that makes her a bad mother. I dare you.
2. “First Lady” Isn’t Just a Title, Or Lori is a Better Wife than All Your Favorites
Before we get into the deep stuff, yes, Lori slept with Shane. Several times. Yes, she enjoyed it-hence the several times. Yes, she leaned on Shane for emotional and physical support in the middle of the zombie apocalypse
This does not make her a slut. Having sex isn’t a sin. Enjoying sex isn’t a sin. Wanting to have sex with someone isn’t a sin. Having and enjoying sex with a person who has long been your friend is not a sin.
But she was married! But she cheated! Cheating is wrong
It’s not really cheating if you think that your husband is dead. Widows find new partners all the time. I’m going to say this once, and only once; she genuinely believed that her husband had died. Why shouldn’t she believe that? I’ve seen arguments against her saying that she should have had more faith in Rick. She should’ve known, like being married gives you some kind of telepathic powers, that he was still alive
So, quick medial lesson:
Before the apocalypse even began he was shot. If you’ve never had a family member or a friend suffer a gunshot wound, that might not seem like much-after all, TV characters get shot all the time and bounce back in a matter of weeks (I’m looking at you, CSI). A gunshot wound is actually a pretty serious injury, and Rick was hit in the shoulder/upper chest area-that’s a bit not good. You have all kinds of stuff there-important stuff like major veins and arteries, bones, and, you know, a lung. That gunshot fucked with some very necessary things. I’d imagine that he was in surgery for a very long time, and then in critical condition for even longer
Not to mention that he’s in a coma-comas are dramatized in media as a sort of Sleeping Beauty type deal, but in reality, they are really not good. Comas can mean all kinds of things, from neurological (read: brain) damage to muscle death to memory loss to a “death” of the personality-meaning that the body is alive, but there’s no one home, so to speak
The only way to tell for sure what kind of damage you’re looking at is if the patient wakes up
So Lori had no idea, even before the dead started to rise, how long Rick would last. Gunshot wounds cause all kinds of complications, and comas even more so-there is a very distinct possibility that the prognosis wasn’t good. Rick was on life support, after all. His doctors didn’t think that he could survive without a machine beating his heart for him. So when the hospital fell, there were dozens of things that could have resulted in his death-the soldiers purging the sick wards, the electrical failure, the walkers themselves-and it’s completely reasonable to assume that when someone you’ve known for years tells you your husband is dead, he’s actually dead.
Which kind of takes infidelity off the table, doesn’t it?
With that out of the way, the major argument against her being a shitty wife kind of crumbles. She wasn’t unfaithful-the moment Rick showed up at camp, she broke it off with Shane and never started it up again. She didn’t carry on her affair while Rick’s back was turned. She wasn’t sneaking off to grab a quickie in the bushes while he was away. Even when Shane came on to her in the CDC, she didn’t sleep with him. It would have been easy to give in-Rick wasn’t around, and afterwards if she’d been caught she could’ve blamed it all on Shane-but she didn’t.
On top of that, Lori does her damnedest to support Rick in all of his decisions. Even when she doesn’t agree with him-in “Vatos,” for example-she stands beside him and offers her support. That’s pretty impressive, considering the shit that he pulls on a regular basis
But, one might say, if that’s the case then she’s just blindly submitting to whatever her Big Strong Husband wants. She’s not being a good wife, she’s just being a compliant one. If she didn’t argue with him in private, I’d agree with you. Just blindly going along with whatever your significant other says isn’t the hallmark of a strong relationship-relationships are about compromise, hashing it out (respectfully). But Lori argues with Rick in private all the time.
She calls him out on his decisions. She challenges them. She questions his motives and pushes him to not only think things through but to communicate with her, which is one of his biggest flaws. (The fact that he can’t communicate, that is, not that he doesn’t think things through.) In “Save the Last One” she makes him think about the consequences of saving Carl for this world. In “Secrets” she argues her position with the baby. In “Judge, Jury, Executioner” she shares her own thoughts on Randall, and assures Rick that no matter what he ultimately decides, she’ll still love him. In “Sick,” she does the exact same thing
Lori doesn’t argue with Rick in front of the others. She doesn’t want to undermine his authority that way-Shane does enough of that already. But she does argue with him. She gives her own opinions and forces Rick to reevaluate his, and she does it without shaming his opinions or going out of her way to call him a soft idiot. She challenges him, step for step, and then when he makes a decision she supports him wholeheartedly
That’s pretty impressive. And, since she’s a fucking wonderful wife, she not only supports his decisions but she tries to convince others to support him as well. She does it with Shane, with Andrea, with Hershel. She takes his decisions, adds her own opinions, and then goes to talk to others about them. She never screams at anyone, never tries to bully them into accepting Rick’s choices, but she does talk to them. She does try.
So not only does Lori remain faithful to Rick, not only does she support his decisions, not only does she challenge him to make better ones, she goes out of her way to convince others to listen to him too
Lori doesn’t have Rick’s commanding personality. She doesn’t have his ability to speak and have everyone listen. But Carol still calls her “their First Lady” anyway. Now if Lori was just a trophy wife, just hanging off the side of Rick’s arm, I doubt Carol would have gone to her and called her that. She probably would have gone to Andrea instead, or maybe to Rick himself
But Lori isn’t just a trophy wife. She’s a valuable part of the group-her opinions carry weight. She holds her own beside her husband, as an equal. That’s what makes her a good wife. That’s what makes her a compelling character.
If none of this is ringing true with you, that’s okay, I suppose. Maybe I’m reading too much into it-maybe she’s not a very good wife at all.
But then, remember the last two words she ever spoke. “Goodnight, love.” She was in pain. She was about to die. She would never see her husband again. But, do you know what? She didn’t beg. She didn’t scream about how unfair it was. She didn’t break down. She didn’t collapse
The last two words she ever spoke were for him. They were full of love for him.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, makes her a better wife than your favorites
1. This is the Story of Humanity, and Lori Grimes is So, So Human
Ah, you say, but all the characters are human! Technically yes, but I’m not talking about the bipedal, chattery mammal sense of human, I’m talking about the other definition. The human with love, and hate, and desire. The human with sorrow and grief and joy. With memory. With regret. I’m talking about the messy kind of human, the one that makes mistakes and hurts others and hurts oneself. That kind of human.
And The Walking Dead is the story of that humanity-losing that humanity, if we’re being specific here. It’s the story of everything that makes us soft-love, kindness, joy, regret-being stripped away. Regret isn’t conducive to survival, after all. Love and kindness are well and good but they’re weaknesses, exploitable ones. Look at the Governor-that’s the kind of weakness he eats for breakfast. The moment he sees that you love something, he has you in his nasty, conniving little claws
Walking Dead is all about losing that humanity. That’s Rick’s story. We’re watching his descent from a good, upstanding man into a survivor and all that entails.
Lori’s story, however, is not this descent. She’s one of the few characters who stays pretty consistent morality-wise throughout her run. She doesn’t lose morals like Rick or gain morals like Daryl. So what, then, is her purpose?
It’s not to sleep around or nag at Rick or fail to watch Carl. Lori exists to showcase humanity. Yes, her actions and decisions are often flawed. Yes, she makes a lot of mistakes. She’s not the greatest mother or spouse, but you know what? No one is. There isn’t a single person alive in this world who is perfect, and I think that we tend to forget that when we watch TV. People are screwed up and people will screw up-it’s a fact of life. What makes us human is that we try.
And Lori tries so, so hard. She tries to look after her son and support her husband and protect her unborn baby, and yeah, she stumbles and falls flat on her face sometimes, but that’s okay because she keeps trying. Even in Season 3 when Rick is barely speaking to her, she does her best to support him and make sure he’s okay. She doesn’t know how to comfort him anymore, or how to share her own fears, but she tries to help him.
She doesn’t ever stop trying, not even until the moment of her death. She tries to make sure that her baby will live. She tries to make sure that this won’t break Carl. She tries to make sure that Rick will get some sort of closure.
She tries to reconcile with Shane. She tries to keep the peace within the group. She tries to comfort whoever needs it. She tries to hold herself together even when she’s terrified out of her mind
Her story isn’t told in acts of violence or redemption. She never gets the big, dramatic speeches or the moments of heroism and villainy that are the hallmarks of Rick’s journey or the moments of staggering softness that mark Daryl’s path. She doesn’t get a religious storyline or a pulled-from-the-jaws-of-suicide arc. She ends in the show much as she started in it-as a woman, scared out of her mind but pushing on. As a mother, trying desperately to protect her children. As a wife trying fiercely to comfort her husband
Lori’s story isn’t a big one. It’s not grandiose. It’s not the stuff of legends and fables. It’s not a parable or even a wishful fairy tale
Lori’s story is the story of humanity. It’s told in acts of pettiness and kindness. In moments of anger and of forgiveness. She gets the quieter moments, a whispered endearment, a restrained argument. The hallmarks of her journey are grief and moving on. Her little boy in her arms. Her arms around her husband’s waist. Her path is pockmarked with flaws-pride, envy, anger, stubbornness-and paved with good intentions. With love.
And that, I think, is the moral of the story. Rick’s journey is a commentary on losing humanity. Daryl’s is showcasing the human capacity for redemption. But men like Rick and Daryl are a rare breed-most of us can’t relate with them. They’re just a bit beyond us
But Lori? Is a lot more human. Is a lot more normal. With all of her flaws and imperfections, she represents humanity a lot better than Rick ever will. She represents all that is good and bad within us-she represents our struggles. Our stumbles. Our moments of incredible stupidity and breathtaking love
I see a lot of people saying that Lori should’ve died seasons ago. She should’ve gotten eaten. She was so boring, so pointless, so dumb.
And if you really, truly believe that, there’s nothing I can say to make you see otherwise. This meta will be pointless to you
But Lori is so human. She’s so like the rest of us-flawed, damaged, but wonderful all the same, but strong all the same, but brave and brilliant and enduring and hopeful all the same. The Walking Dead has its fair share of flashy, grandiose characters. It’s got plenty of characters who are magnetic and charismatic, who catch your eye and keep it
But it also has Lori and her story. It also has her fight. It has Rick and the Governor facing each other down like Hades and Zeus, but it also has a wife who does anything for her husband, a mother who dies for her child
It has gods and heroes, monsters and villains, but you know what? It has just people, too, and it’s their story-our story-that we should be paying attention to