I actually find "humanizing" the Governor to be interesting. This was a guy who was seemingly normal before the world fell apart. He had a wife and daughter that he loved very much... he had a job that wasn't all that important... he could have been anyone one of us. He then loses everything. The two people he loves the most and civilization itself disappears. What the Governor tries to do is desperately cling to these things. He creates Woodbury as a seemingly normal town to try and cling to civilization. He keeps his zombie daughter because he's trying cling to her existence. He attacks anything that he sees as a threat to those things like a cornered animal. The Governor's a natural leader... a skill he probably found after... and in a desperate world people will follow those sort of people despite how misguided the leader may be (history is replete with examples of this- the most obvious being Hitler and the Nazi party in Germany, after Germany was decimated by Allied troops in WWI). He becomes corrupted by this power. He's found himself in a world where life doesn't carry the same meaning as it used to. He's become numb to it... death is an every day occurrence. What's the difference in killing a few people to maintain his illusion of civilization and power? The casualness towards life and death can be seen in terrorists who've known violence for so long...
Basically, the Governor could be anyone of us in this situation. We like to think how we'd react, but we don't really know.
Another group living outside Woodbury was a threat to the very shaky illusion of stability maintained in Woodbury. The attack on Woodbury and the loss of his "daughter" send him over the edge. And when he learns that he couldn't easily defeat them in the prison he feels that there isn't any point anymore. He'd never have civilization again like it used to be... he'd never have his daughter back and when the people would no longer blindly follow his orders he knew that even his power was slipping and would never be the same. In a fit of frustrated rage he shoots everyone. At that point he's left with nothing... barely an instinct of survival... nothing really mattered anymore. Until he comes across the group that might help him recapture the family he's lost. It's a new way to cling to the past... it's not even that he cares about the individuals, he cares about the idea. Maybe he can do it all again... maybe it's a second chance... but the threat of the people in the prison are still there... and that destroyed his last attempt.
The fact is... he's nuts. But then again, who in this world of madness is sane? And the Governor, could be anyone of us.
