The Walking Dead Brian Blake Character Analysis

The Walking Dead has a passionate fan base; season after season their viewership continues to grow by the millions. It's one of the biggest shows on TV and it is praised for having great character arcs and high-tech zombie makeup, which is why it's such a surprise that the Governor, Philip Blake, fell flat.  This is what happened with the Governor, the fans were expecting a character that had the depth that was created in the Comics and Books. But the Governor was dissected into the cookie cutter bad guy on TV, and the background that who was developed was removed. One of the most notable things that was removed was the Governor's race. In the books he's described as Latino, and the reference to his race is never brought up in such plane terms

again. He is consistently described as dark, dark hair, tan skin, and he wears all black. In the Walking Dead TV show, it is the opposite. He is a white, Anglo-Saxon male, who is a standard mold of a bad guy. When the character’s race is changed, their entire cultural background. In the Governors case, when his race was changed they lost interesting character development and made him into a one dimensional character.

It may come as a surprise to many fans of the TV show, but the Governor wasn't imposing. In fact, he was a coward in the beginning of his story.
“Barely five feet seven in his boot heels, Brian Blake is a raw-boned scarecrow of a man scarcely able to fill out his black peg-leg jeans and torn Weezer T-shirt. A mousey goatee, macramé bracelets, and a thatch of dark Ichabod Crane hair complete the picture of a thirty-five-year-old Bohemian waif stuck in Peter Pan limbo” (Kirkman). 
 Brian Blake is the governor; he assumes a different name later in his development but for the purposes of going in order we will start with the beginning.

We first meet Brian in the book Rise of the Governor as he kneels in a closet 'protecting' his niece Penny, while his brother clears the house of zombies. The first description we get of Brian Blake is that he's waif thin and mousey. This describes his character to a tee. He hides rather than fighting letting his younger brother take care of all the issues that emerge. He allows himself to be dominated by his brother because he doesn't like conflict. This stems from the fact that he feels inadequate because he is the polar opposite to his brother Philip. Philip is described as "Having all the muscle that Brian didn't" (Kirkman). His feeling of inadequacy isn't surprising; after all he is the big brother. In societal standards, he is supposed to be the stronger one. The one that his little brother looks up to. Yet, as his brother dispatches the dead, he hides in the closet with a child. The feeling of inadequacy doesn't just follow him into the zombie apocalypse, it followed him pre-apocalypse too.  It is later referenced that Brian had lost his job and he was living in his parent’s house, whereas his brother had his own apartment and a steady

job.
All through his life he had a felling of not being good enough, and being a failure of a big brother.  Which is why its not so surprising when given the chance to change his identity and become his brother he takes it. He symbolically kills his inadequacies by becoming someone that he always wanted to be. Becoming his brother is a way of simultaneously becoming a new person and killing his cowardice. He becomes a person of the worst kind to escape himself. The Governor that meets Rick's group is cruel, and sadistic to the maximum. He rapes, and kills indiscriminately, but he keeps this all behind a well placed facade to his followers that are not in the inner circle. He even tells people that he had to become someone other than who he is. "I've been looked upon to lead this place to become their Governor as these people have started to call me. In order to do that I've had to become someone I'm not. I've had to become strong and decisive I've had to become brutal" (Kirkman). This is merely a hint on what he is actually done. One could look at this as a cry of his actual self bleeding through. As he's saying this he pauses, he collects himself. He makes sure he doesn't give himself away but he is saying so much more than what he means. He indirectly tells someone that his actions are not so much his own, but of someone who is an actor in a play. He's trying to justify his actions to himself. He has locked the real man that he is far away from the person he is play action, to grasp some semblance of sanity. This later backfires on him, Rick's group, a group that is the opposite of everything the Governor stands for, has consistently resisted his brutality. The group is beaten again and again, a member is raped, and many are tortured all by the Governor. In his moments of brutality, he is displaying the El Bandito stereotype, but the only discrepancy is that the El Bandito stereotype mentions that people who portray the stereotype are less than intelligent; the Governor is a highly intelligent man (Berg).  Rick’s group always bounces back and challenges him again. When they aren't stopped, and when he is finally maimed by their group, his feeling of inadequacy returns to the surface. He starts to, on a level, becomes the man he was before, and he becomes unhinged. He becomes so enraged that he takes a tank and rams it through Rick's prison walls and  orders his members to kill anything that moves, including a mother and newborn baby. By ordering this his members follow it dutifully, but once they realize what they've done, they realize what type of man the Governor is. By allowing his own insecurities to get to him he toppled his entire empire himself. He had to become a different person to survive the apocalypse, but in actuality he became who he wanted to be all along. He wanted to be looked up to and admired like his brother was. But all he accomplished was becoming a twisted version of who his brother once was. The key difference between Brian and Philip was that Philip had true self confidence, and the ability to be reasoned with. Brian was just play acting. He put on his brothers personality like a suit that was too big for him.
The Governor is the TV show has nowhere near the vast characterization as the comic book version does. In the TV show the Governor is cruel for the sake of gaining power. Philip Blake's origins are similar to the comics, but instead of the Governor assuming the identity of someone else, he's taken at face value. The Governor has all the makings of a serial killer. He is charming to outsiders; he lulls them into a false sense of security with his noble promises. But behind the scenes he's killing people and feeding them to his zombie daughter. Over and over again the audience sees him gun down people who have valued resources. This can be attributed to his continual grasp for power. He's like a dictator trying to take control of different settlements just to say he has something that is valued in the new world. He runs his world with an iron fist and when things don't go his way, he kills. But another way he differs is when he tries to seek redemption. After his zombie daughter is killed, and he losses all of Woodbury to Rick's group he spends his time wandering around throwing himself into situations that risks his life. He does this because his self-worth is tied to how much power he has. He lost his daughter as well and therefore he lost his hope of curing her. Losing both of them at the same time destroyed his self-worth. He finds another group of survivors and attempts to take the position of a non-important member of the group. He substitutes Penny with another little girl in the settlement, and he begins a relationship that fills what he has lost. But the Governor isn’t someone who sits back and allows the story to unfold around him. When things begin to go a different way from what he wants, he kills the leader of the group. This time it is completely different, in his arrogance, he had assumed that these people would follow him without question. But this settlement isn’t like Woodbury, where he gained the trust of people steadily over time, he is an outsider in this new community. He plays along for awhile and portrays himself as an open and democratic leader. He does this to lull the community into a false sense of security. He eventually asserts complete control over the group and becomes the Governor once again. The Governor in the TV show to driven by revenge, and the continual grasp for power. He’s single minded in his brutality and his character doesn’t have an arc. His motivations don’t grow or change, and he murders because its within his power to do so. It isn’t required of him, he does it because it makes him feel in control.