Ross Marquand Reveals How Negan Changed Aaron On The Walking Dead

02/12/2017 01:30 pm EST

The Walking Dead's seventh season has been tough on everybody. Those characters who were around for the first moments of Negan's presence on the AMC series had it a little worse, though. They were forced to watch their friends being beaten to death by a baseball bat.

For Aaron, specifically, this was far and beyond the most cruel corner of the zombie apocalypse he had seen. The character has been sheltered at Alexandria from the beginning, serving as a recruiter and living behind walls. Experiencing something so horrific might change a person, quite a bit.

Aaron actor Ross Marquand has quite a bit to say about how much Aaron has been changed from everything in the first half of The Walking Dead's seventh season and he spilled it in an exclusive interview with ComicBook.com.

"I think his optimism and his general belief that everyone is inherently good and can be turned to the good side if given the chance is being severely challenged," Marquand said. "He's realizing that much like the people that he used to work with in western Africa, all those warlords and drug lords that he worked with before the apocalypse began, they're very similar to Negan. There's some people you just can't reason with. I think he realizes there's no way to be diplomatically sound with these people. You have to actually fight fire with fire."