SPOILER ALERT
This is true, but I'd argue he also did it because he enjoys brutality. It's a pretty well established character trait. He even specifically said that he likes killing people -with a big grin on his face.
He does tend to keep his word, but not always - "Half yer shit is what I say it is!"
No argument here.
He has done a great deal, but I would argue that he has simply done what he needed to survive. He got out of his cell once and came back on his own because there was nothing out there anymore for him and the only thing he had left was to try and win the trust of his captors who had proven to him that there was a better way to run things. Someone that evil doesn't change because they get stuck in a cell for seven years. There would have to be a profound spiritual experience for that. Yes, I'm impressing reality onto a fictional story, but I'm ok with that. The Liberian former warlord "General Butt Naked" is a good real life counterpart to make an example. He's currently a free man pretending to be a really good moral guy because it's the only option he's got left for survival: to bullshit everyone into thinking that he's a changed man at some fundamental level. The reason I think that's the case with Negan is this: When Maggie came to his cell to kill him, he played her like a violin, boo-hoo-hoo-ing all the way and begging her to kill him so he could be with his wife. Then after she relents and lets him live because she's been convinced of his suffering w/o his wife, Negan is shown with a sly grin on his face. He had one card left to play to ensure his survival. He just had to figure out what it was and then give a masterful performance.
They kind of addressed this at the end of the regular series where Negan tearfully apologizes and she tells him he's earned his place but then tempers it with reminding him that some days she may not be able to look at him... I agree, it does get a little tiring, but then it must take a lot after someone brutally murders your better half right before you're about to have a baby.
I'll admit it, I found that kids attitude annoying as well. I guess I just rationalized that he's a teenage kid and thus hates everything including the one person who'd do anything for him...
I actually thought that was a half-way decent plot point. The power in New York wanted Negan, knew how dangerous it would be to go after him, and also knew enough about him as well as Maggie to know that kidnapping her child and giving her instructions to deliver Negan in exchange would result in him being willing to team up with her. Either he truly does feel bad enough to want to right the situation, or he wants to nail the widow bad enough to go for the phony rescue. He did mention once mention that he intended to make Maggie one of his wives and stated that it was possible to win the affection of a woman right after bludgeoning her husband to death.
Which is where I personally think all this is going. It seems to me they want to get Negan and Maggie together as a couple, it's just going to take a lot longer than Negan thought and probably be only just-so shocking to the audience by the time it happens.
Couldn't agree more, that got old fast.
I have no idea on that one. It is an interesting thought though, that after so long of the show using the comics as source material things become inverted and the comics begin to use the show as its own source material? For all I know it may have already happened, but if so it'd be new to me.
Anyway, if you've read this far just know it's not my intent to totally pick apart your perspective and ram my own into your skull like a barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bat for the sake of contrariness or something. I just find it fun to pick things apart in general to see if I can figure what holds water or not.