These are
going to be short examinations of character concepts I enjoy. This list won’t
ever be finished nor will it have some kind of ranking. I also don’t pretend to
be the first one to describe these concepts nor can I guarantee that they will
be free of well-known tropes. This is just for fun.
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I’ve seen
him referred to as “apocalypse puppy”. This term already suggests the deeply paradoxical nature
of his character: on the one hand something young and sweet and innocent and on
the other hand something gruesome and brutal and decidedly not innocent. This
dichotomy is what makes him as a character interesting and appealing.
But who
am I talking about exactly?
This is
10K. When we are first introduced to him, we don’t even see him as he snipes a
zombie about to eat one of the others. The first time we really see him, he’s
walking down the road and answers a “do you need a ride?” with a shrug. He’s noticeably
young (and going back to season 1 after watching season 2 and some things from
season 3, it’s especially striking how young he looks) and dressed in urban
military gear complete with a sniper rifle and more weapons (more weapons than
he should reasonably be able to carry as we’d see a few episodes later). He
doesn’t talk much and when he does, it’s to remind the audience of how young he
is and how sheltered he lived before the apocalypse (“never seen porn”). He has
very limited social skills, mostly because he spent at least a year all on his
own, but he has all the other skills that might be helpful in an apocalypse. As
the son of a hardcore survivalist, he knows how to hunt and fish and is an expert
in killing zombies, not only as a world class sniper but also with a slingshot
or whatever’s at hand. The name he gives the group, and us, is ’10 000’, the
amount of zombies he wants to kill and when we first hear the number, he’s
already at over 1 000 (his given name, as we find out later, is Tommy, making
the clash already obvious in his names).
So, in a
fight he’s absolutely lethal. The one with the undisputed highest kill count
(which doesn’t only include zombies, but also living people). He’s ridiculously
competent in anything pertaining survival. And he’s super awkward in any and all
prolonged social interactions. When forced into those, his face and body
language convey discomfort or confusion. The way he deals with emotion is distinctly
child-like.
All of this
creates a compelling dissonance.
Furthermore,
the concept presented here differs from these related ones, which I will call ‘apocalypse
child’ and ‘murder puppy’. An ‘apocalypse child’ (like for example Carl from The Walking Dead) is forced to grow up
quickly due to the less than ideal circumstances (mostly, however, surrounded
by people that care about them). They are typically serious and emotionally
distant. Only very rarely do they show signs of still being a child at all. The
‘murder puppy’ in contrast is overly emotional, mostly in a childishly
enthusiastic way. They might kill without remorse (or even with joy) and smile
brightly at their friends immediately after. These characters often seem
unsettling due to the mixture of childishness and murder-happiness.
10K is
neither. While he is more serious, he still retains some of his childish
innocence (at least in season 1 and 2) despite being older than your average
‘apocalypse child’. And while he likes guns and revels in zombie kills it never
reaches ‘murder puppy’ heights.
In season 2,
another character says about him “he’s a child with a gun” and while it is meant as an insult, it’s technically right.
