The Walking Dead (TV) - Morrissey Says The Governor Isn't Evil

The following is in this article from the Vulture:

Your son, who is 17, is a big fan of The Walking Dead. Have you had a chance to talk to him about this most recent episode? 


They get it a week after us in the U.K., so he hasn’t seen it yet. He and his friends, they don’t look at any blogs or anything until they’ve seen it. He’s very opinionated about it, though, and has been since season one. He likes how this season has opened up, with the two communities. It’s not just Rick’s group in the quarry or the farm. He loves the heads and the prison and the fact that Rick is going crazy. But, yes, it will be interesting to hear what he thinks of the episode. The Governor certainly reveals more of himself in the scene with Maggie. I felt you could see that the Governor was doing it for the first time. 

How so? I’m not sure I got that, specifically. 

He doesn’t strike me as someone who is a seasoned interrogator or torturer. He’s someone who is walking into that room and thinking, How am I going to play this? How is this going to work? How is this woman going to react to my interrogation? He’s discovering things about himself and how far he can go. This world is as new for him as it is for everyone else. I don’t feel that in his past life he was in any way a dark, mysterious, sadistic figure. What’s happened to him since the incident is he’s built a community that he’s very proud of and very defensive of, and he has a reason for that and it’s his daughter. He wants to protect her. 

Defensive, sure, but the heads on display feel like something he’s very proud of.
 

I don’t feel like the heads aren’t trophies. This man is trying to desensitize himself to this terrible world he’s found himself in. He’s going to look it right in the face. A lot of soldiers I’ve talked to in the past use this technique, demonizing their enemy in a way that’s very important for them to go into combat. It is freaky, but I don’t think it’s a perverse action on his part. 

You might be empathizing with his murderous ways more than most. 
 

I think there is a conscience in there, a slight sense of troubled man. I really do. You see who he was with Penny, and a little bit with Andrea.