Norman Reedus has gotten fan mail thanking him for Daryl being asexual

Although he doesn’t appear in Robert Kirkman’s comics, Daryl Dixon may be the breakout star of AMC’s The Walking Dead. For one thing, star Norman Reedus is still around, even as cast members like Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira leave to pursue other things. More importantly, Daryl’s blend of hard-bitten survivalism and emotional sensitivity have captured the hearts of fans. May his face not get eaten off by walkers.

Or at least, not before he finally gets involved in a romance. Unlike most of the other long-term characters, Daryl has never been involved in a relationship over the course of the series, although there are plenty of fans who are pulling for him to get together with best bud Carol Peletier. She even offered once, but they both laughed it off.

Might Daryl just not be interested in romance period? Speaking to Reedus at Palayfest, Insider asked him if he’d ever read Daryl as asexual. “Yeah, I have, quite a bit,” Reedus said. “I’ve gotten a lot of fan mail thanking me for being asexual.”

"He’s definitely a loner, but you might see him open up a little bit. I think he keeps getting hints of roads to go down and either they get taken away from him because of the story line or he gets the opportunity to go full throttle with them. He’s an interesting character."

Asexuality isn’t commonly represented on the small or big screens — the most recent time I remember was on BoJack Horseman — although it’s unclear if Daryl is truly asexual or just so damaged by one thing or another that intimacy isn’t high on his list of priorities. They are living through a zombie apocalypse, after all, and it wasn’t too long ago that the Saviors imprisoned Daryl and forced him to listen to this over and over. “I think [Daryl] has a lot of issues that he’s dealing with that if he’s going to go there, he’s going to really mean it, so you have to be really careful with it,” Reedus said.

"It’s just one of those things. You do it, it’s gone. You can only do it once. Like I’ve said a million times, I don’t think he’s the type of guy that’s just going to have a one-night stand."

That said, Daryl’s been showing attention towards Connie lately, trying to learn sign language and all. Based on the season 10 premiere, Connie’s sister Kelly has definitely noticed the attention. “I think he likes them both for different reasons,” Reedus said of Connie and Carol. “The whole ‘shipping’ thing, I don’t really know how to answer it. I’m not supposed to answer it, and I get asked literally every other question.”

Whether or not there’s romance in Daryl’s future, expect to spend lots of time with him and Carol in season 10. “There will be a lot of Carol and Daryl this season,” said showrunner Angela Kang. “As Norman was saying on the Comic Con panel, it’s really complicated. We’re showing a relationship that’s very deep and deep relationships can have a lot of complication.”

"When two people trust each other and love each other and care about each other so much, when things feel wrong, when somebody’s making decisions the other person is concerned about for whatever reason, that complicates the relationship. There will be a lot of Carol and Daryl. In a lot of ways [they’re] at the heart of this story of the Whisperers."

Okay, great, but will they get together? “People will read into it what they will,” Kang said. “But what we know is that those two are inextricably tied to each other.”

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