Showrunner Henry Alonso Myers explained the show's decision to kill Quentin, which is doubtlessly intertwined with his unresolved feelings towards Eliot and complicated history of mental health, by saying that Quentin was a "tremendously important part" of how the rest of the characters evolved (via TV Line), and his... The Walking Dead season seven premiere "No Time Left" showed us why they killed Quentin. He was a tremendously important part of how the rest of the characters evolved. His death was not intended to be permanent, but rather it opened up possibilities for future stories down the road. I think it's fair to say that nobody expected him to die at the end of season six, so much so that we didn't even write his scene until late in the process of writing that episode. Quentin's death came as a shock to pretty much everyone involved with the show. While discussing potential deaths before they happen, we usually focus on the characters we think will survive given what kind of injury they have suffered. With Quentin, however, we went the other way - we asked ourselves what would make him die. The only thing that made sense was if our villains caught him doing something useful like saving one of their people. We then wrote his death around this assumption. It's worth mentioning that although he was a character who lived in the past, Quentin wasn't exactly perfect.