Philip Blake (Novel Series)

"We're gonna survive this thing, and we're gonna do it by being bigger monsters than they are! You understand? There ain't no rules anymore! There's only us and them, and all they wanna do is eat our ass! So we're gonna fucking eat them! We're gonna chew 'em up and spit 'em out, and we're gonna survive this thing or I will blow a hole in this whole fucked-up world! You follow me? You FOLLOW ME!"

- Philip Blake ensuring Brian Blake.

Philip Blake was the husband of Sarah Blake, the father of Penny Blake, and the brother of Brian Blake. In the TV series, The Governor was referred to as "Philip". However, the novel "The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor" explained that Philip Blake died and that his brother, Brian, adopted the name and went on to become the Governor.

Rural Georgia
As a teenager, Philip attended a high school in Burke County, Georgia, along with his two friends, Bobby Marsh and Nick Parsons. He married a woman named Sarah, with whom they had a child, Penny. After she passed away, Philip became a single parent and started to grow apart from his friends with whom he drank alcohol with often since their freshman year in high school. It was known that after his wife's death he worked in a muffler shop, and drove a freight-liner, all while being a single parent. When the zombies reached his town, Waynesboro, Georgia, he took his daughter and picked up his two friends to find a safer place.

The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor
When the dead began to rise, Philip, his two friends Nick Parsons and Bobby Marsh, his daughter Penny, and his brother Brian Blake left Waynesboro and found shelter in the Wiltshire Estates, an upper class gated golfing community. Rick and his group also passed through Wiltshire Estates a few months after Philip and his crew had left. After Bobby died of blood loss due to a zombie bite, Philip, Nick, Penny, and Brian left with weapons and supplies loaded up into Philip's Chevy Suburban. On their way out, Brian left a sign at the entrance of Wiltshire Estates that read: "ALL DEAD DO NOT ENTER." Ironically, the sign that the future Governor created alerted Rick to the dangers of Wiltshire Estates.

Philip and his family made their way to Atlanta through wrecks and walkers. They found a temporary safe haven with the Chalmers family in an apartment in Atlanta. David, Tara, and April Chalmers were traveling musicians who were seeking out a living in the first floor of an apartment building. Philip and his group assisted them in expanding into the upper levels of the apartment and with retrieving food and supplies from nearby stores. The living arrangement was perfect until Philip took his blossoming romance with April too far. As they began to have sex, April told Philip to stop and that it was too soon. Philip then raped her. He realized what he'd done immediately afterward, but in his delusional thinking, he thought he could still salvage their relationship.

The next morning, all of his group's weapons are gone. Tara told them, at gunpoint, to leave. They left and made their way, via motorcycle, to an abandoned old plantation house. The house was secure and free of walkers, for the most part. They had food to last them through the winter and the house itself was in an orchard. Brian suspected that they were followed to the house and were now being staked out. His suspicions were confirmed when a drug-addled and heavily armed gang came to take the house away from them. Philip made a deal with the group's leader to let them walk away, but Philip realized that the gang planned to kill them as soon as they were out of the house. They sprinted down the orchard where Philip told Brian to hide with Penny and to keep her safe at all costs. Philip and Nick stealthily took out several of the gang members. However, one slipped past and shot Penny. Just as the shooter was about to execute Brian, Philip arrived and killed the gang member. Enraged at his daughter's death, Philip began mercilessly kicking Brian and severely injured him. Philip couldn't bring himself to put Penny down, so he kept her tied to a tree.

They left the plantation house and came across Woodbury: a beat up old town with a fairly large group of survivors. Philip and his crew took residence in an apartment there. Philip snuck Penny into the apartment and began feeding her appendages from the bodies that he claimed he didn't kill. One night, Nick spotted Philip dragging a girl out into the woods against her will. He set out to stop Philip with a shotgun while Brian attempted convincing him that whatever it was going on with Philip could be fixed. Nick killed Philip and accidentally killed the girl Philip had abducted. Brian, almost instinctively, killed Nick on the spot. Philip died in Brian's arms. The next day, there was a town meeting about the rising number of deaths. A group of National Guard soldiers were terrorizing the citizens of Woodbury into obeying their every command. When one older man attempted to leave, their leader, Gavin, shot him in the back of the head. Brian, who always relied on Philip for protection since childhood, began wondering what Philip would do in this situation. While Gavin's followers were outside, Brian had an out of body experience in which he carried out his vision of what his brother would do, and killed Gavin. Brian encouraged the people of Woodbury to assist him in taking out the remaining National Guard soldiers. Martinez, the man who eventually assisted Rick, Michonne, and Glenn escape from Woodbury, asked Brian for his name. Brian told Martinez that his name was "Philip Blake".

Killed By
While Philip was in Woodbury, he abducted a girl into the nearby trees and attempted to either have sexual intercourse with her, or to kill her as food for Penny. Nick, however, found out about his plan and followed him. Philip wouldn't give up the girl, so Nick shot Philip in the face with his shotgun.
 * Nick Parsons

Killed Victims
This list shows the victims Philip has killed:
 * Several members of the gang that killed Penny Blake
 * Bobby Marsh (Zombified)
 * David Chalmers (Zombified)
 * Numerous counts of zombies.

Penny Blake
Penny was Philip's daughter that died and reanimated after a gunshot wound. Philip couldn't bring himself to destroy Penny and eventually began feeding her. After Philip died, his brother Brian continued to take care of the zombified Penny. After assuming his brother's name, Brian took on the role of Penny's father. After removing all of Penny's teeth in Issue 43, he said, "Give Daddy a kiss", before taking the relationship to another level.

Brian Blake
Brian was Philip's brother. Philip was always more capable of being a leader than Brian while growing up, with Philip always being the one to be grounded to reality while Brian was seemingly in his own world. When the apocalypse started, Philip accidentally ran into Brian and brought him along with his own two friends Bobby and Nick. Brian always looked up to Philip despite being older than him and tried to be as strong as his brother often. After Philip passed away, it seemingly pushed Brian the extra mile into becoming The Governor, taking on several of Philip's personality traits along with his name. It is safe to assume he also adopted his brother's insanity during his role as the Governor.

Sarah Blake
Sarah was Philip's wife. She died in an car accident before the apocalypse, leaving Philip to raise Penny all by himself.

April Chalmers
Philip and his group found a temporary safe haven with the Chalmers family in an apartment in Atlanta. Philip and his group helped the Chalmers expand into the upper levels of the apartment and to retrieve food and supplies from nearby stores. The living arrangement was perfect until Philip took his blossoming romance with April too far. As they began to have sex, April told Philip to stop and that it was too soon. Philip, in the heat of the moment, was unable to stop himself. He realized what he had done immediately after, but thought he might've still been able to salvage the relationship. However, Tara told them the following morning at gunpoint to leave the apartments.

Nick Parsons
Though both once lived in the same area and attended school together, the ensuing traumas of the apocalypse drove Nick into closer friendship with Brian, the last "sane one" he saw within their group. As Philip's actions lead to their "eviction" from the Chalmers apartment, Nick began slowly losing his edge and tried convincing Brian that his brother was going insane. After the death and reanimation of Penny, Philip brutally beat Brian for losing sight of her. Nick was the one to help the latter heal and rehabilitate, informing him of his brothers deranged activities with Penny's surviving attackers. Brian shared Nick's concerns when Philip brought along the reanimated Penny until they arrived at Woodbury when things came to a serious head. Nick and Brian discovered Philip killing survivors to feed a zombified Penny, going as far as to come across his latest victim. Nick attempted to stop him, but wound up killing the victim and mortally injuring Philip before losing his mind himself, prompting the tired and hardened Brian to shoot Nick in the head.

Trivia

 * After Philip's death, Brian Blake assumes Philip's identity and seems to even take on aspects of Philip's personality and becoming the new Governor.