Why don't undead freeze in winter?

[Itdoesthatsometimes]

The food that they eat is enough to adjust their temperatures for a short amount of time, as well as any shelter. Meaning the zombies that you see are the lucky ones, that wandered into food and shelter. Vampires actively seek food and shelter, and body warmth.

Plus, if they do freeze they can just thaw out later.

If they thawed out after all of the liquids in their body were frozen solid I'd be surprised if they were in any condition to move at all. Ice expanding into all of their blood vessels and muscle tissue would destroy most if not all of the flesh and probably paralyze them. I'm also doubtful that any disease that existed in the body would survive without a warm host carrying it.

You have to take into account that dead things moving was already a possibility in the first place. I did not invent the rules, just trying to play with in them. If one were to keep questioning the simplest explanation of fiction, everything about it would come a part. Suspension of disbelief works only when you suspend disbelief.

It's fun and fine to dissect the fiction. But if dissection and not dispelling is the goal, one must stay consistent to the source marital. Dead things are animate.

EDIT: Sorry if I am just restating something already said. I have not been keeping up with this thread. But I will go back and read it as soon as I can.

 

[Cryselle]

I've always wondered if not having to answer this question is why the Walking Dead is set in the South.

I think it's more that the South is just a lot better venue for the whole idea. Zombies require humans. Not just because of predation or reproduction, but because what makes a zombie story is usually the interaction between the zombies and the humans, and how humanity deals with the whole mess. Somewhere like northern Canada just doesn't have enough humans around to build much of a story, whereas the southern US has a very good mix of urban, rural, and areas where people live in the bush, all in close enough proximity to each other that you can showcase how the problem has affected each way of life with a minimum of artistic license on the distances.

 

[coheedswicked]

I would say a good rule of thumb is if it's cold enough for humans to freeze without any shelter, fire, etc... it's cold enough for zombies to freeze... ignoring all the other science you have to circumvent for a zombie to exist... being made out of the exact same molecules they would have the same freezing point

 

[cleric of the order]

I Feel this is relevant
Depends on the type of undead, flesh puppets are flesh puppet and will continue to move to their orders long after their musculature rots away but you need to give them a chance.
I figure that dark armies of the undead prefer warmer climates because of the ease the dead can be raised but for the sake of assaulting a northern city I suspect the undead handlers will have torches to keep them from totally frosting over.
I could see armies of zombies marching along side Will o' the wisps and witch lights with necromancers dotting between the ranks with burning censors cackling like imps.

 

[Eddie the head]

If you take the Draugr from Skyrim for instance, I always assumed they were simply strong enough to break free from any ice they happened to be entombed in.

That would mean being having ice surround them rather than their bones and flesh themselves freezing. In the case of draugr, and most undead, I think they've probably got some kind of internal heating that goes along with whatever force is driving them.

Or we could just accept that them not freezing in winter is significantly less ridiculous than them existing in the first place and just suspend our disbelief.

Or since they resemble mummification a lot of salt. Get rind to water you get rind of the freezing problem.

 

[Vigormortis]

Why don't the undead freeze in winter?

For the same reason they don't rot away to an amorphous blob of ooze and bone within days or weeks of dying.

For the same reason they're audio-visual acuity somehow increases after death, sometimes even being granted night vision.

For the same reason other environmental forces don't seem to wear away their bodies.

For the same reason they, as rotted bags of flesh, are somehow simultaneously super-humanly strong and squishy as a water balloon.

For the same reason they sometimes exhibit intelligence, awareness, even memory and forethought, yet can't avoid simple traps or environmental dangers nor perform even the most basic of tactile tasks; like opening a door.

For the same reason they crave human flesh, yet seem to have no digestive faculties nor any meaningful need for sustenance.



That reason?

Spoiler: This right here...