 Originally Posted by MinionZombie
Rick, albeit fresh to the situation and not into being subtle with his gun, was running around the streets getting all the walkers riled up with his gunfire. He brought a shedload of walkers to the department store and they were trapped - before that they had been able to sneak in quietly. In the heat of the moment she thinks "great, this random idiot has just killed us all, and I'll never get to see my sister again, the sister that I'm responsible for protecting" - justified gun-in-face flash-in-the-pan heat-of-the-moment anger.
Oh, I completely understand where her anger was coming from. But I also think it was a ridiculous overreaction on her part. I don't know, I guess I'm just more of a team player in that if it was THAT early in the apocalypse, I would actually be HAPPY a survivor showed up; it'd be a welcome sight to know someone else had survived. Especially a police officer - maybe they had updates? A clearer perspective of what was going on? Who knows? The first thought to race through my head certainly wouldn't be "Better make sure I show this asshole I'm badass and throw a tantrum." If anything a sarcastic quip would be all that is needed. But the way Andrea reacted was as if this stranger had totally intended to get them eaten, like he knew they were there and lead the zombies there out of spite. She was out of line and over-the-top.
Acting like a bitch?! Her sister - as far as she knows, her only living family member - her beloved sister, has just been cruelly ripped from her life by a walker and killed. She is in total full-on grief mode. Yes, the others don't want Amy coming back and biting Andrea, but their approaches to her become intrusive - Andrea isn't ready in any way shape or form (plus this is the very early days of the outbreak so no-one is hardened by this new life and the practicalities presented by it) - and just think about it, they come blundering along with a gun in-hand - to Andrea they're taking her sister away all over again. Plus, to Andrea - SHE has to be the one to deal with Amy. She's desperate for her not to come back, but SHE will be the one to put her own sister down. Dale is the only one who approaches the situation with any kind of sensitivity.
I understood why she reacted the way she did here, too. The actress just portrays her with such snarkiness it's hard to relate to her on any level. She is particularly hostile with Rick, this comes up throughout the series. They've only shared one friendly moment together as far as I know - when Rick tells her she can steal the dolphin necklace.
In fact, Rick parting with a car and food in the latest episode - still helping Andrea despite her supposed "betrayal" (from prison perspective) - was all the more potent considering how shitty she has treated him (and pretty much everyone else on the show besides Shane, the Governor and Carol) in the past, constantly giving people unnecessary attitude.
She wanted to die - still utterly distraught after the loss of her beloved sister - and Dale comes along and says he's going to stay. Before it was her own decision and it only affected her ultimately, but now her decision is going to kill Dale as well? She was guilt-tripped into it - although I do believe that Dale partly didn't want to go on living without Andrea, but he definitely was also in-part doing it to snap her out of making a rash decision, even in this hellish world.
Again, I understand her line of thinking, and all these explanations of her motive aren't necessary - I just disagree with the consistency of her bitchiness. Notice I said I only JUST realized I didn't like her character? That's because I just rewatched the series in one-shot. She has consistently dis-likable traits, and this is much more obvious when you view the series in large marathon viewing. Explaining her rather simplistic and obvious motives aren't really going to sway my opinion, it's just an opinion after all.
It was her decision and Dale put himself - rightly or wrongly or both - in the way and forced her to change direction, admittedly when she wasn't in the soundest of minds. Still not in a sound mind (season 2 picks up right after season 1 and the first half is only the first week following season 1) so Andrea is in a pretty rough place emotionally. Dale - again, rightly or wrongly - refusing her her own gun to carry around, further compounds a sense of control being ripped away from her ... again, rightly or wrongly.
 See above.
Again, see above.
Yet again, see above.
You can try and justify Andrea shooting Dale dirty looks as he is IN THE MIDDLE OF SAVING HER, but I just particularly think the character is awful and acts consistently ungrateful to literally everyone. Again, I can see why she is pissed off, I just don't agree with the way she is handling her rage. It's like she's constantly on the rag, to be completely honest, and it's just annoying. Even when she's being nice the character just comes across as smug and unlikable to me.
They may be on Hershel's land, but in a world where a walker could suddenly appear around a corner, you don't want to be walking around unarmed. This is still only just after Amy was killed, and being unarmed rightly feels utterly moronic - Hershel had his justified reasons, but he was also under a total delusion at the time. Shane was finally someone who treated her differently - he brought out her inner warrior (it's a shame we've not seen enough of that in season 3, snippets here and there, but not enough during the season thus far) ... Shane taught her how to protect herself in this world and didn't treat her with kidgloves or deny her. She shagged him because of the adrenaline rush.
Again, I understand her motive entirely, they are quite obvious and clear-cut. The way she carries herself in these situations is the key factor, not her personal inner monologue we can easily decipher from her actions. She even says something like this to Shane, "Your delivery needs work." Yet she literally has the shittiest attitude of any character.
I'd have to see that scene again, but I get the feeling you're over-egging all this a bit-too-much.
I'm not over-egging anything - someone said they didn't understand all the Andrea hate, so I posted a quick list of things I remember about her that annoyed me. COLLECTIVELY, all these listed items make it much worse - certain faults when alone would be minor, but when all added up in the grand scheme they work together to make a shitty whole. Again: a lot of these little situations would be excusable if her character wasn't so consistently crass and disagreeing.
Personally, I don't understand the Carol hate, but I'm not going to ask people to validate their dislike of her or anything. Nor would I try to personally debunk someones personal opinions for disliking the character by explaining their motives, either. Don't tell me I'm over-egging when you're attempting to debunk my opinions, good sir 
I definitely agree that her action was foolish and offensive. She wanted to treat Beth like an adult, seeing a connected with the wish-for-suicide, but Andrea came out of it and she wanted to give Beth the choice that she felt she wasn't afforded, however it blows up spectacularly in her face, and Andrea sees she has made a right bugger up of the situation. Certainly not her finest moment - in fact, one of her very low points - a hugely misguided decision that overstepped numerous boundaries.
This is a defining moment for her character. It completely showcases her selfishness - she's literally using Beths condition to attempt to validate her own decision at the CDC. Because of all her other minor quirks and character faults....namely, her attitude towards other characters, disrespect of other people, clueless nature in general, and all the other little things added up throughout.....this was the straw that broke the undead camels back. The consistency of her poor convictions and reasoning skills peaks here, and only gets worse throughout season 3. This and the next example are what define her character in the show.
The "Annie Oakley routine" as Dale said, I guess. She was too eager to prove herself and again made a massive mistake from which she had to learn. Foolish eagerness partly born out of many other people in the group treating her like a baby or denying her opinions on certain things which are perfectly justifiable (e.g. carrying guns on the farm).
There is no excuse for this one. She fired a round at an unknown target while 4 people ran up. 5 separate people told her not to fire. The gunshot sound would easily draw in more walkers. So this one can either be chalked up to a selfish and dangerous need to prove herself vs. complete and utter stupidity. And I'd say it was a mix of both. Combine this selfish and idiotic act with egging on Beth to commit suicide, combined with all her other character quirks, and I think people have a right to dislike her character. I think it's even arguable the writers are making her an antagonist - I honesty do not think the audience is supposed to like Andrea.
Andrea deserved to be treated like a baby. Carl acts more mature in Season 3 than Andrea ever has on the show. She is constantly nagging people and disagreeing with others, just to disagree. She is like a post-apocalyptic hipster.
[qupte]Speaking generally now...
The Andrea hate has been overboard for ages now - and for a huge portion of that time, Andrea didn't have the knowledge that we did. She's now got much more of it now, and I am getting restless waiting for her to rejoin Team Prison and snap out of this weird kind of stockholm syndrome - but like the men in Dawn of the Dead, she's hypnotised by Woodbury, just as Michonne said. Her loyalties are split between those she thought were probably dead, but certainly long-gone, and those she has been coming to get to know (the people of Woodbury). Now that's all been thrown out of whack. The Governor is a first class manipulator - she doesn't know the army guy's head was in the fishtanks, just zombie heads to her knowledge - and yes, that should be a bigger red flag that it's played out to be, but combined with a psychological break that meant TG was keeping his undead daughter chained up in-secret? That shades things differently - hell, she spent months hanging out with a chick who had two pet walkers.[/quote]
A lot of characters hatred is overboard.
Could the writing be better for Andrea? Yes, her decisions are a little too slow in coming and her thought processes aren't always telegraphed to the viewer strongly enough, but the sheer venom spat her way is unnecessary and out-of-proportion too. Sometimes I feel such vicious responses say more about the person doing the complaining, than it actually does about Andrea.
Same with the Carol hate - undeserved and over-the-top ... and at times, quite frankly offensive.
If anyone thinks I'm blindly defending Andrea, then they've not bothered reading my posts, but I will not hop on the over-cooked hatred bandwagon.
I'm not gonna jump on any over-cooked "Hold hands, feel happy counterfeit optimistic" bandwagons either. This is a message board to discuss the Walking Dead. If someone dislikes a character, who the fuck cares? It's a TV show.
"Sometimes I feel such vicious responses say more about the person doing the complaining, than it actually does about Andrea."
If anyone wants to come at me and say my 'viscous responses' bear any semblance to my character or real life persona, they can kindly go fuck themselves. That's some pretty lame, passive aggressive horse-shit right there. I'm not attacking the people that like Andrea, am I? Maybe I enjoy ranting about things to vent in a healthy fashion? To dispel anger in a way that won't harm anyone, as opposed to telling my boss he's an asshole and getting fired, or something along those lines? You follow me? I totally understand that statement if it's aimed at people sending the actress death threats. But I think it is absurd to fault people for venting about a character on a TV show.
I never could understand why people get butt-hurt enough about other peoples opinions to bring it to some personal level bullshit. Most people on the internet speak in hyperbole 99% of the time, while at the same time forgetting that everyone else also speaks in hyperbole on the internet 99% of the time. I mean...we ARE just discussing inconsequential bullshit - the merits of a TV character. Don't try to start a flame-war with that passive aggressive shit, I have no qualms with you for liking Andrea, no need to have qualms with me for disliking the same character.
Originally Posted by MinionZombie
That's an interesting read, thanks for sharing! She seems like a really nice person IRL, I find it absurd people are attacking her personally on Twitter over her character. Discussing it on forums and getting into unnecessary arguments isn't enough for these people? To me, Andrea will always be the most annoying character on the show, and I enjoyed writing satire to knock her, but I wouldn't post that to her wall to try and personally hurt her or anything. She's portraying the character she wants to on the show - I admire her ability to defend her decisions and express them in response to her detractors, even if I dislike the character.
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