Carl Grimes

Carl is Rick and Lori's son, a boy dropped into a world that has already ended once. He clings close to his father, still capable of ordinary childish stubbornness and fear, but he's watching everything — how people survive, who gets left behind — and starting to decide what kind of person that makes him.

Carl works because the show refuses to let his childhood be a fixed point; Chandler Riggs ages into the role in real time, and the writing tracks his hardening with real patience. He becomes a live question about what growing up armed and grieving does to a kid, rather than a mascot for one.