'Walking Dead' Promotes 4 Cast Members

The big question swirling around The Walking Dead concerns the identity of Negan's victim, the series regular character who will be killed off at the beginning of next season. Thanks to the promotion of four recurring actors to regular status this week, we know four characters who won't be Negan's victim, but they weren't in the running for the honor anyway.

The promoted characters include Negan himself, as played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. The other promoted actors, according to The Hollywood Reporter, include Tom Payne (Jesus), Xander Berkeley (Gregory) and Austin Amelio (Dwight).

The promotions mean that these four recently introduced characters are, for the time being, safe from any fatal twists in the series' storyline. Regular status doesn't provide infallible protection, though - after all, Negan's victim is going to be one of the regular characters for sure - but it does suggest that these characters are going to play important roles as the series' seventh season moves forward.

Season seven of The Walking Dead will begin airing on AMC sometime in October, but no precise premiere date has been announced yet. Until then, we won't know if Negan's victim is Carl, Rick, Michonne, Eugene, Maggie, Sasha, Daryl, Aaron, Rosita, Abraham or Glenn.