The Growth of the Zombie Myth

[Lugbzurg]

I remember thinking about a small zombieish section in a game concept of mine. It was actually something like this. Or not like this. However you'd put it. This just reinforces it for me. Excellent points here. If people are going to keep zombies... alive... in the media, we need to come full circle and return to the basics.

Otherwise, just have plain old monsters, instead of zombies. How often do we just get good old monsters to kill? Aliens, zombies, thingamabobs... Let's start using monsters, instead. That ought to fix things up a bit.

 

[JakobBloch]

It is worth noting that the old mystical Zombies don't spread any sort of taint that makes people who were bit into zombies. They were somehow reanimated. The reanimation could come from several sources: necromancy, disturbance in the natural order, normal happening for a setting, wrath of god, so on and so forth. The standard zombie apocalypse with a mystical source often uses the prophesied end times to justify the walking dead. Another way would be that the path to the underworld is blocked somehow (god of the dead is... well dead, the connection has been severed, the underworld is full, the total collapse of the pantheon) and dead souls are forced back into the world, in this case as the power that reanimates dead bodies. What makes this apocalypse work is that in these scenarios, anyone that dies come back as a zombie and presto you have your apocalypse.

As for the infection zombies it gets a little harder to suspend disbelief as infections and viruses is something we know about. If the infection is capable of some fairly sophisticated neurological restructuring it could work. As parasites of divergent kinds have shown this kind of ability through chemistry it would not be that hard to imagine a virus able to do something similar. So the virus would after the incubation period be able to make the infected seek out others as fast as possible (turbo zombies), ignore other infected (so they don't eat eachother) and only bite a person once or twice (allowing the infection to take hold and spread). These zombies would not technically be dead. Large parts of the body might be necrotic but the virus would still rely on the body to function for it to spread. Essentially the infection version of zombies would not come rising out of graveyards. All the modern weaknesses would work for these zombies. A bullet to the head would stop it as reliably as other human. Methods that relied mostly on pain would be of little help, but methods that directly targets specific systems (tazers for example) would be to some use. Stopping the heart might not kill the zombie instantly but its lifespan would be cut from weeks to minutes. Ultimately this type of outbreak would be easily contained for any industrialized society and even most developing nations. Certain factors like a very long incubation period could make it harder to contain initially but that long incubation period would make it easier to contain any secondary outbreaks. This however leaves ample room for drama inside the quarantine zones. This might actually work to the advantage of the story, because unlike apocalypse stories where the world has ended, here the world lives on with Paradise Hotel and Dancing with the Stars, while the protagonists fight for their lives. Relatives will be clamouring for news about loved ones from an overburdened bureaucracy. The protagonist will be a distraught father who sneaks into the quarantine zone after his daughter. It will be a thrilling tale where he has to come to terms with his teenage daughter coming of age, while fighting the symptoms of the infection from a bite he received early on. In the end he leaves he safety in the hands of her boyfriend (the existence he has come to term with over the course of the story) and the door of the bunker slams shut with the father left outside (he was infected remember) driving it home for the young girl that she does not have her father to lean on as a poignant metaphor about growing up.

... well that went a bit of the rails.

 

[weirdee]

When I was playing re: revelations recently, you do find a lot (like, a LOT) of half mutated corpses or just outright dead people that aren't going to get back up again, so I think there is plenty of room in the scenery to demonstrate that there are losers in the reanimation race too.

 

[Iron Criterion]

The standard "infection comes from bites, slow & mindless" zombies would never get off the ground. They might kill a few people, but, in the (paraphrased) words of Cracked, "their main source of food is also their biggest predator and only source of reproduction. It would be like fighting a lion every time you wanted to make a sandwich or have sex."

People try and make it more logical by having zombies just fast enough to grab a bite, but not so fast you can't escape to reanimate at a dramatically convenient moment, or by having a massive initial infection (contaminated water poisons an entire city).

This. I reckon during the initial confusion and chaos the zombies could do some damage to a few cities, but really as a species we are very good at killing.

 

[Iron Criterion]

Zombie spread by infection is easily understood if you're dealing with the weaker kind.

It kind of goes like this:
1. Lone zombie manages to catch a person off-guard somewhere.
2. Zombie bites person.
3. Person shoves zombie off, doesn't hang around to kill it, and runs off.
4. Initial zombie returns to step one.
5. Infected person starts feeling crappy, goes for a lie down.
6. Someone comes in to tend infected person, gets bit.
Repeat.

It relies on a couple of basic things:
Most of us aren't the he-men who would immediately pop our own heads off once we got bitten. We'd try to justify it to ourselves as maybe it wasn't infected, etc.

Most of us aren't the he-men who could casually take out the friends and acquaintances who've bitten you. Killing your best mate isn't an easy task when things were just fine the night before.

The collective armed forces of humanity could easily contain the situation within a week.

 

[sarahvait]

I don't think zombies are angry these days. I think it's just the standard, aggressive predatory instinct that I see in hunting animals, that whole, "HOLY SHIT, YOU'RE FOOD!!! IMMAEATYOUNAOOOOOO!" I mean, I don't think lions are pissed at the gazelles they're taking down.

Zombies are definitely more aggressive though. Guess the whole decaying thing that used to slow them down doesn't come into play anymore.

And someone mentioned this, but I thought the reason zombies didn't turn and eat/kill each other is that zombies want living people flesh, not stinky zombified flesh.

 

[I.Muir]

You have to be a zombie to watch a zombie film especially resident evil the how not to guide of running a sinister mega corporation. Zombie films tend to ignore things like blood loss causes the inability to move your muscles and not just death, no oxygen again means no movement and the human body tends to rot completely away in a week. The best explanation for rotting zombies isn't science it's magic.

Other zombies probably more closely represent lepers than dead people. They hurt themselves without thinking and get infected but it would still kill them eventually. S.T.A.L.K.E.R zombies were brain dead but left with a few instructions and enough motor skills to fire a gun and probably eat cans of bake beans.

Slow zombies were supposed to compensate by having retard strength right? Fast zombies are supposed to be a big problem because they swarm in places there really shouldn't be that many people anyway. Left for dead zombies were one of the outbreaks that could spread easily because it was airborne, having to rely on biting people seems ineffective. Special zombies were just supposed to be mutants except for left for dead where they are both i think.

It amuses me that modern warfare games are supposed to be realistic but every other time trey arch does it it's always the first person equivalent of defend the house against zombies that are also Nazis. Are zombies so fascinating because we fear indoctrination and do we just hate everything zombies are supposed to represent so it always involve things that make murderers cringe.

See http://www.cracked.com/video_18311_4-terrifying-psychology-lessons-behind-famous-movie-monsters.html

 

[RevRaptor]

"Chinese whispers"? Is that the British version of Telephone (a game kids play where you whisper a phrase to someone, they whisper to the next person, etc. and change it slightly each time)?

Yahtzee got the origins of the zombie wrong, which to me puts a bit of a damper on an article that talks about the evolution of the zombie myth. It's also kind of ironic, when you consider he starts talking about the distortion of myths.

Exactly my thoughts as well - nothing about the origins of zombies in Voodoo lore. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie]

Except that the modern zombie has more to do with a revenant than a voodoo Zombie. So he is mostly right. A Voodoo zombie is completely different than the hordes of undead that we now associate with the word and really wouldn't work very well in a zombie movie.

 

[Podunk]

I've always said that the first sign of post-apocalyptic troubles is that every barrel in the streets spontaneously catches fire.

 

[TheAmokz]

This part of the year seem to be all about zombies.

 

[Eleima]

I'm sorry to say that I am one of these people that make a distinction between zombies and infected. Sorry, Yahtzee! But promise, this post won't turn in a rant on that point. I do, however, agree wholeheartedly with point number two. It doesn't make sense that zombies would start raging fires. It does make sense, however, that zombies would cause the living to panic and do stupid stuff (like crash cars in tank trucks).

Last, but not least... You write that nerds find zombies "cool", but I disagree. At least, it isn't true for me, and yet I think I've a good, healthy dose of nerdiness. Zombies absolutely freak me out; every time I have a nightmare, you can bet it's the zombie apocalypse and that I'm running for my life. And I know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that if a zombie apocalypse were to occur, my chances of survival would be slim to none. Granted, I'd be a good asset to any group of survivors (having a medkit is great, but next to useless if you don't know how to use it), but my unwillingness to ditch my infant son would probably paint a big fat target in my back.
So no, I'm not sure people think mutating into a special kind of zombie would be "cool".

 

[Bertylicious]

"...in the same way we tend to picture dragons and wizards actually existing in medieval times."
--------------------------

Do we? I don't think fantasy tropes have quite penetrated to the level of coconuts for horses just yet mate.

I seem to remember reading an article about apocalyptic notions through the ages and why they're so common. As I recall, the nub of it was that it is an extension of one's own paranoia regarding one's demise, but applied to one's wider social structure. People are naturally mawkish due to the quite healthy natural inclination to be terrified of everything.

For instance when polled (in "a poll". I know, I know. Sorry) about when people thought the apocalypse would occur the most common answer was, apparently, "in 100 years" or "in the lifetime of my childrens' children" if they were a bit yokel.

The zombie apocalypse could therefore be described as personification of disease and civil strife; ironically a means of humanising these sweeping and invisible forces. This produces the curious phenomenon you've observed in gaming; in that zombies are both humanised in their descriptions as sick people or even previously encountered characters but at the same time dehumanised as a shuffling, unliving, enemy.

So really, when we get down to it, we're talking about characterisation, which is subtly different from personification, and people's fascination with zombies and 'survivorism' (if I may coin a phrase to differentiate from survivalism) is nothing more than most people's healthy desire to triumph over death.

 

[psijac]

Zombies have penetrated the American Gun market. These are real products:

http://www.hornady.com/ammunition/zombiemax
http://www.eotech-inc.com/products/sights/xps2Zombie
http://www.amazon.com/Leupold-1-25-4x20mm-Zombie-ZombieDot-Reticle/dp/B007778I9Y


Eotech makes the holographic sights that actual US Navy seals use.

 

[LadyMint]

Personally, I'm more fond of the slow shambling zombies than the speedy mutant infecteds we have now. The slow ones kinda lure you into that false sense of "this is no big deal" until you're horribly overwhelmed with them. And once they did get their death grip on you, chances are you weren't going to be able to pull away. Video games do make it seem like zombies need more of a challenge, but with the variety of injuries a zombie can maneuver with, there's many different ways even the slow ones can lurch towards you unexpectedly. People also seem to forget that it's usually the slow, shambling ones that you don't see or hear until it's too late. The fast ones are pavement-slapping, lung-screeching at you from a distance and while their rapid movements may be a little jarring, they're still telegraphing their moves a lot.


As for the urban decay: I have to agree with someone else who said that's more due to human reaction of the situation than the zombies themselves. Although I don't think that an entire building should be crumbling down around its foundation just because there's been a zombie outbreak. Fire and trash strewn about is pretty reasonable, though. It honestly doesn't take much to spark an accidental fire, and in turn it doesn't take much for that fire to spread. And I'm sure we all know more people than we can count on our fingers and toes who'd be all too eager to throw something in a storefront window for easy access to their goods in an End of the World scenario.

 

[Jerre138]

I've always liked the reason why zombies eat brains in Return of the Living Dead; being dead hurts and feasting on brains relieves it somewhat.

 

[PrototypeC]

I was going to say exactly what Yahtzee said at the end of the article. Yeah, basically the regular zombies are other people, and I'm an extra-special snowflake. Surely if I were to die and mutate (but with my solid "stay-in-my-house-with-a-shotgun strategy, would never happen anyway), at the very least I would become a unique zombie that also (spoiler alert) maintains my brain and just makes me look cooler so I can haunt the protagonists as a cool and silent killer.

Also I would be covered in bandages, have a trenchcoat, meat wings and I will always regenerate so I'll never die. Yeah. That's what's gonna happen. The regular shambling hordes are the kids who used to bully me in high school.

 

[lRookiel]

Snip

Thank you :3

I Bought + Downloaded the Alpha for Project Zomboid today because of that vid.

I'm having a blast!

 

[That_Sneaky_Camper]

I think that the special kind of zombies, you know the ones that genetically change in such a way that they are distinct from others like they are faster, more muscular, etc. are needed in zombie stories. I say that because I always have thought it absurd that normal human zombies could have the kind of durability and advanced motor skills that would allow them to survive long periods of time.

1) Zombies are eventually going to starve, deteriorate (dead human flesh can't be sustained forever because it will rot unless magic is involved), be consumed by predators, or have an accident that renders them immobile (if a zombie can't feel pain then it won't stop to rest if it has a broken leg which over time will ruin that leg entirely).

2) Undead zombies aren't going to have very advanced motor functions and are going to be walking around very slowly making them easy to escape and can't easily get over obstacles. Viral zombies are going to be much dumber than a real human being would be as well and while faster because they can run still wouldn't be able to utilize tactics that would allow it to outsmart a human. A smart person could effectively barricade themselves in a building and wait for these zombies to starve to death or even pick them off with their guns.

3) Guns should be extremely lethal against a zombie threat and not just to the head. It is complete bullshit that a zombie having multiple high caliber rounds placed into its body shouldn't stop it. Try to have a zombie continue using its arms if the bones and muscle tissue is broken by the bullets, or have a zombie move if several high caliber bullets went into its torso and severed its spine. This isn't even getting into various Military weaponry, the U.S Military could napalm a zombie threat out of existence in a day or in more drastic measures nuke it out of existence in a day.

Zombie threats like Left 4 Dead or Resident Evil work well because not only does the virus infect large masses of people at once but it creates special breeds of zombies that make containing the zombie threat slightly harder.

 

[Undeadpool]

To be fair: Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare is really, REALLY good. I mean I went into it as zkeptical as zkeptics get, but the game won me over with a HORRIFYING quickness. It's expansive, well-implemented and oh yeah, HILARIOUS. It is one of the funniest videogames I have ever played, and I played ALL the Quest for Glories, and early LucasArts adventure games.

I guess my point is: zaying "zombies are over" is pointless. Zombies don't ever NEED to be over, it's just the days of them being instant zelling points are over, but as long as the game is of high enough quality, I don't see a problem with chucking some zombies into it.

 

[Murlin]

The best use of zombies was at the end of Shaun of the Dead.

I actually found that ending extremely plausible.
I haven't really watched any other zombie movie (being hemophobic makes the prospect a bit less attractive) but from the synopsis of most well-known zombie related media I always get the idea that somehow as a species we are grievously unable to save our society from a zombie infection. Is it really that hard to just send in the military and shoot them all up?