I’m not saying it’s a sexual thing, and I’m not saying that the team behind the show have a sexual fetish for weapons. What I am saying is that the show fetishizes weapons, and yes, there is a difference. Weapons are all that separate (in the beginning) the living from the undead. If you have a gun, then you and several others can have a life. Shane used a huge shotgun almost exclusively, which befitted his character; he was an alpha male, prone to bouts of explosive rage. He was a big man, carrying an enormous gun. We knew he had a big gun because he was a big man, and big men have big guns. This is what the show reinforced, in the early days.
This is the point at which the twin subjects of women and weapons dovetail. The first and second seasons of the show were slightly misogynistic in the way that no female character was able to effectively use a gun. This made some narrative sense initially, due to Rick and Moss being the main two with guns also being cops and therefore trained in firearms, but as the show introduced other characters, the “no women with guns” rule became increasingly bizarre. After the arrival of Andrea, a tomboy, it became ridiculous. To combat this, the writers gave her a craving for guns. She wanted one more than anything in the world, it seemed – it almost defined her character. And what happened when she was finally allowed to use Dale’s absolutely huge Remington hunting rifle gun to snipe for walkers? Disaster struck, and she accidentally shot a main character. Basically, the weak woman couldn’t handle the big gun. Glenn took over walker duties after that.
Darryl is the swerveball, in this scenario. An incredibly masculine character, but not in your typical macho way. He’s full of attitude, but charming, tending to stay out of gung-ho guyist posturing. It’s interesting that such an odd character – the charming, intelligent, artistic redneck racist – is equipped with such an odd weapon – the crossbow. If anything, it’s an extremely cumbersome weapon, and not very energy-efficient – he’s forever having to go and fetch arrows from the carcasses of the zombies he kills. The weapon makes sense in very practical terms though, because it’s completely silent. It’s stealthy, and understated, designed to fly in under the radar. Can we infer that Darryl was portrayed in that way to counterpoint the macho energy of Rick and Shane, through weapons alone? Maybe. I think it’s a valid point, but then again, I would, because I just made it.
It’d be easy to dismiss my argument as the whinings of a typical British leftist liberal softie, and you might be right. An American apocalypse would no doubt feature a shit-ton of weapons, and of course a show like The Walking Dead, a horror show, will feature them by the boatload. Guns are the most effective way to kill zombies, after all. I’m not trying to argue against gun use, or the portrayal of guns in the media; all I want to do is talk about a few weird things I’ve noticed.