Kirkman sets this up nicely in his comic The Walking Dead. In this post apocalyptic world, Kirkman lets the reader believe that the enemy is the walker, however it turns out the real enemies are the fellow survivors and their potential to consume resources and destroy another's way of life. In short-- The Other.
Viewers of the television show were left with a cliff-hanger at the close of this season. The Alexandrians were forced into submission before Negan, and his sexualised bat Lucille, and we know he murdered one of our favoured characters, however it was decided by the writers to leave the audience hanging and not reveal who died as they believed the "who" sets up the next chapter in the story (Talking Dead, Season 5, Episode 16, Air Date April 3, 2016).
**POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT**
Readers of the comic know-- insofar as we know the show writers have changed key story-lines for characters in the past, case in point Andrea is still alive and is partnered with Rick Grimes--that Kirkman chose to kill off Glenn. However, viewers of the show, will have to wait until October 2016 to know whether the show adheres to the comic or not.
That said, this newly forged oppostional relationship between Negan and Rick is a curious example of us versus them. As we read, the comic Negan shows very "human" characteristics. He has, in his position of leader, created a system that for his followers--the Saviors--works. As has Rick with the Alexandrians.
Now in this post apocalyptic world, all of the survivors have come to understand the walkers and how to both use them as methods of deterrence and how to eliminate them efficiently. They are merely endless copies of themselves that spread themselves across the land consuming all there is in their path and leaving yet more dead in their wake--an interesting metaphor for capitalism symbolizing the point at which we exhaust our resources, through over farming both the oceans and the land, and creating waste and pollution. However, the relationship that Kirkman creates in The Walking Dead from trade issues 17-21 is the real--and in the television version, present--threat to the society that Rick envisions for his followers.
Upon killing Glenn, Negan informs Rick that Rick and his people now work for "The Saviors". Negan has set up his own system whereby he collects 1/2 of the provisions that the neighbouring communities collect or produce (Kirkman, Something To Fear, 2012, pg. 93). It is clear that Negan is ruthless given his judicious use of Lucille, and one might venture to say he has become a sociopath in this new world order, particularly demonstrated by the way he chose Glenn as his victim. But, he also exhibits a kind of fairness in his dealings. He recognizes that Alexandria is very low on flood supplies so to ensure they stay strong and healthy he chooses to not take half of the food on his first collection run (Kirkman, What Comes After, 2013, pg. 16). In doing so, he ensures that his new workers remain healthy, and this in the long run, to Negan's way of thinking, benefits the Savior's stockpile of supplies. Negan also refuses to harm a child and chooses to not retaliate against Carl, Rick's son, even after after Carl kills six Saviors, (Kirkman, What Comes After, 2013, pg 90). Negan would no doubt recognize that to do so would guarantee a war with Rick and his people, which would in turn significantly diminish the number of workers within his collective. Additionally, when Spencer, the son of the former leader of Alexandria, approaches Negan behind Rick's back, Negan brutally slays him, effectively protecting Rick's position of authority from betrayal from within. But this also strengthens the political hierarchy at Alexandria (Kirkman, March to War, 2013, pg. 63). This use of both control and freedom meted out by Negan is an attempt to colonize the Alexandrians to Negan's form of government. He is exercising his power to control with brute force and fear, and utilizing compassion when necessary in order to keep Rick and his people (and Kirkman's readers) in a state of anxiety. In this story arc we as the reader experience through Rick and his followers how it must feel to be afraid of the other, to actually experience the other, justifying the need to colonize those who we do not know nor understand.
As the Negan story arc continues, we come to realise that Negan and Rick have evolved into the leaders that they are. It also stands to reason that those who are followers of Negan, are in many instances content with their new post apocalyptic life. The story of these two groups, as different as they are, could just have easily be told from the perspective of Negan. If that were so, we as readers, would be sympathetic to Negan, having grown to know the characters. But we do not know these characters. We are as readers feeling the anxiety that these characters would as they experience the other through Negan and the Saviors. Both groups have committed atrocities. Ironically, it is the hero Rick who descends so far into this same inhumane sociopathic mentality, that he bites Negan just as the undead walker would have done. This point is crucial to Rick's understanding of what it means to be human. He, for one instant became the undead; he momentarily lost his humanity.
In the end,of this particular storyline, it is Rick's group that prevails--of course it is because this is The Walking Dead!It was through the violence and the brutality that Rick witnessed in Negan and in his own self, that Rick came to recognize his own humanity. Rick chooses to incarcerate Negan instead of meting out a similar deadly justice that met Glenn. In choosing to spare Negan's life Rick proves that he is the more humane or even more human of the two leaders.
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