The beauty of having an ensemble show like The Walking Dead is that many different personalities come out of it. We’ve got main protagonists like Rick, who has made questionable enough decisions to sometimes be regarded as a villain; on the other end, we’ve got Glenn, who definitely had the nicest personality of all.
Unlike someone like Carol - a person brimming with rage and twisted tendencies - Glenn was someone who saw the best in people and the world. It was this sweet natured personality that The Walking Dead fans missed so much after his departure, and we’re here to remind you just how awesome Glenn was as a tribute to this character.
10 "You Know, Being Out On The Road, We’ve Seen A Lot. Guess We’ve Gotten A Little Numb To It."
One way to illustrate how Rick or Shane had become so hardened was that they didn’t realize just how far gone they’d become. Glenn, on the other hand, wasn’t such a person. He understood exactly when he was crossing the line from humanity to brutality, and it was his ability to accept the necessity for this that he managed to retain his goodness.
When Maggie first asked him how he could kill off Walkers when she still thought of them as people, Glenn gently told her that there was a whole lot of calamity she didn’t know about and that developing a sort of numbness to killing the infected was inevitable.
9 "I Should’ve Said It A Long Time Ago And It’s Been True For A Long Time."
Only a few other franchises have managed to give us a beloved couple like Maggie and Glenn. Some people don’t quite understand how Glenn went from being the jokey pizza boy to a hardened survivor in a quick span of time, but you have to look at his love for Maggie to get it.
When Maggie told him of her love, Glenn treated it like a high school romance. It was only after he understood it that he matured. He chose the right time to convey his feelings too, as Glenn brought Maggie back to her senses so they could survive together. Thereafter, Glenn began his transition over to becoming the mature man he would be known for.
8 "...He Told Me All I Had To Do Was Believe, And That’s What I’m Gonna Do."
Glenn had a very loving relationship with his father-in-law, and remembered him till the very end. There’s no telling what would have become of the group had they not had Hershel’s calming influence around them, with Glenn in particular learning from his teachings.
He held onto Hershel’s philosophy the most after the destruction of the prison, where the sole thing that kept Glenn going was to find Maggie. It was here that Glenn recalled Hershel’s words of believing in the impossible, and this belief ended up bringing him back to his wife despite impossible odds.
7 "No One's Impressed, Man. Walk Away."
An earlier version of Glenn would have cowered in fright if threatened, but the one that arrived in Alexandria was a survivor through and through. This was why he wasn’t taking junk from anyone who was wrong, leading to a confrontation with Deanna Monroe’s son.
The man futilely attempted to intimidate Glenn when the latter confronted him on his failing leadership, which the former took as an insult. Glenn wasn’t even slightly threatened when he started being physically pushed, instead telling the man that all that bravado was impressing no one. When that didn’t pass the message, Glenn ducked under a sucker punch and landed a clean hit on the man in a second.
6 "We Just Got Stuck With Each Other, We Were Lucky. We Figured It All Out Together, I Felt Like We Did."
The survivor group Glenn was with was unlike any other. These people met each other in the worst of times and only got together out of necessity, but they were so much a family that it was like fate wanted the world to die just so these people could find each other.
Glenn felt this way about his friends, and he relayed this to Michelle. For Glenn, it wasn’t just about being stuck with this group, it was the fact that they now meant so much to him. Even when they didn’t necessarily need to be together anymore, Glenn had no intention of ever letting them go.
5 "I’m Someone Who Knows Who You Are. I Know What You Did, And It’s Not Gonna Happen Again."
You never think of Glenn as the threatening kind. He’s the guy one would go to when they needed a kind voice for support, but Glenn did have a mean streak when it came to dealing with traitors.
Upon finding out that Nicholas’s treachery caused the death of Aiden, Glenn confronted the man for his crimes. Knowing that he couldn’t implicate Nicholas as he didn’t have proof, Glenn instead threatened him with the promise that he would take Nicholas’s life if he tried anything funny. We saw later on how Glenn came close to killing Nicholas due to his attempt to kill him, so it’s clear Glenn was more than capable of making good on his threat.
4 "We’re Not Supposed To Let The World Die, And I Sure As Hell Am Not Gonna Let You Die."
It’s hard not to get cynical when you’re living in the world of The Walking Dead, considering that zombies are everywhere to eat you up while people have become worse than the dead. And yet, Glenn held onto the point of living for what it was worth.
Even though he didn’t know Enid, Glenn refused to let her go down the path that would have ended with her death and instead brought her back to Alexandria. He could have easily let her go, but Glenn respected life too much to see another person throw it away.
3 "Then They’re Still Here ’Cause You’re Still Here."
His reason for appreciating life wasn’t because death was something to be afraid of, but because living on meant remembering those he had lost. Glenn justified his philosophy by claiming all the people he had seen die still lived on in him.
Going by this logic, it meant guys like T-Dog, Dale, Andrea, and Hershel were still alive in some way and surviving in the zombie world. This was also how he convinced Enid of giving the idea of living a shot, as her life meant her parents didn’t truly die.
2 "Hey, Dumbass!"
Out of every word Glenn uttered during his time on The Walking Dead, his most famous ones will be the first time we heard him. This was the kind of debut no-one would have predicted, as Glenn’s voice in the tank where Rick was about to kill himself gave the latter new life.
Had Glenn not taken a chance and decided to rescue the dumb guy he just saw almost go down swinging to the Walkers, then none of the events of The Walking Dead would’ve happened. It was this one decision made by that young pizza boy that eventually resulted in countless lives being saved.
1 "Maggie, I'll Find You..."
These few words communicated everything you needed to know about Glenn Rhee, as he went down with thoughts of meeting his wife in the afterlife. Despite his head being bashed in by Negan, Glenn hauled his bloody head back up to tell his wife that they would see each other again.
It was all of Glenn’s optimism, survival instinct, and innate goodness coming out for the last time, as he confessed that death was only a temporary separation from Maggie. This star crossed lover would track down his wife in the heavens, and that’s a promise we’re certain he is going to make good on one day in another life.