Why We Love Zombies
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
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Some of these points make sense, though others are decidedly defeatist and manic-depressive. But the one that grabbed my attention the most was no.3, because it's one I myself have ruminated on. In a nutshell, I think Yahtzee's got the right idea, but not for the right reasons.
Or let me put it another way, not for the same reasons I think zombies represent life after death. The way I see it, zombies don't represent life after death just because in some forms of media they're depicted as continuing to perform certain ingrained habits they picked up in life and continue to follow by reflex.
Zombies represent life after death because if there is no such thing as a soul or an afterlife, then all we are as beings are organic machines. If being animated through one means or another is all it takes to be designated as "alive" then there would really be no difference between us and zombies than the kinds of actions we perform. Pre-zombie people would talk, walk, sleep, eat, screw, etc. while zombies would walk (well stagger, unless they're the Dawn of The Dead remake types), eat and maybe run for elected government offices.
But when we look at zombies, we see a severe, unavoidable difference between ourselves and them. We feel, we express emotions, we do things beyond simply what's necessary to remain functional. The shambling corpse gnawing on the postman's severed arm doesn't. In spite of the fact that both a living person and a zombie are both functioning and animated in some way, there's a noticeable, obvious absence of SOMETHING in the zombie. Something that makes it less of a person than a living human being, even less than an animal. What's missing? Is it maybe the soul? And if so, where did it go?
These are the sorts of things that zombies hint at through their very existence in media and fiction; the idea that there's more to a person than just their bodily functions.
Or let me put it another way, not for the same reasons I think zombies represent life after death. The way I see it, zombies don't represent life after death just because in some forms of media they're depicted as continuing to perform certain ingrained habits they picked up in life and continue to follow by reflex.
Zombies represent life after death because if there is no such thing as a soul or an afterlife, then all we are as beings are organic machines. If being animated through one means or another is all it takes to be designated as "alive" then there would really be no difference between us and zombies than the kinds of actions we perform. Pre-zombie people would talk, walk, sleep, eat, screw, etc. while zombies would walk (well stagger, unless they're the Dawn of The Dead remake types), eat and maybe run for elected government offices.
But when we look at zombies, we see a severe, unavoidable difference between ourselves and them. We feel, we express emotions, we do things beyond simply what's necessary to remain functional. The shambling corpse gnawing on the postman's severed arm doesn't. In spite of the fact that both a living person and a zombie are both functioning and animated in some way, there's a noticeable, obvious absence of SOMETHING in the zombie. Something that makes it less of a person than a living human being, even less than an animal. What's missing? Is it maybe the soul? And if so, where did it go?
These are the sorts of things that zombies hint at through their very existence in media and fiction; the idea that there's more to a person than just their bodily functions.
I think another reason for why gamers and nerds like zombies so much is that it appears to be an excuse for why we play video games so much. A lot of people think that just because they can ward off a zombie swarm in Left 4 Dead, they can do it in real life. What they don't know is how to turn a safety off, reload, put a round in the chamber without hurting themselves, or even withstand the kick of firing an actual gun.
I don't think the popularity of zombies means anything as depressing as all humans want to kill off most other humans. I think it's just a generalized instinct to kill /something/ every so often. Maybe it's a guy stealing your food or trying to stab you in the face, but more likely a tiger trying to eat your wife or a deer that, well, gotta eat. So, humans probably have a general "you're probably gonna have to kill something at some point" instinct, and there's just nothing left that can scratch it guilt-free but zombies.
Enemy soldiers? Either fighting for their families or here tricked into fighting you. Aliens? Probably want to be your friends if they haven't just nuked you from orbit anyway. Monsters? Always misunderstood and hated for their appearance. Anything sentient that does genuinely want you dead, there's some situation where you can live in peace and you should work toward that. Random animals? Even there you've got stuff like "animal cruelty" and "maybe it'll go extinct" and "piles of corpses aren't very hygienic" going against you.
But zombies? They don't have offspring or evolve in any way. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pain, fear, or regret. All they want is to kill you and/or people you like. And even if you slaughter a stadium full and leave the bodies wherever, at least you're not increasing the number of rotting corpses hanging around, so forget the tedium of cleanup too.
Enemy soldiers? Either fighting for their families or here tricked into fighting you. Aliens? Probably want to be your friends if they haven't just nuked you from orbit anyway. Monsters? Always misunderstood and hated for their appearance. Anything sentient that does genuinely want you dead, there's some situation where you can live in peace and you should work toward that. Random animals? Even there you've got stuff like "animal cruelty" and "maybe it'll go extinct" and "piles of corpses aren't very hygienic" going against you.
But zombies? They don't have offspring or evolve in any way. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pain, fear, or regret. All they want is to kill you and/or people you like. And even if you slaughter a stadium full and leave the bodies wherever, at least you're not increasing the number of rotting corpses hanging around, so forget the tedium of cleanup too.
Aww, did Yahtzee make himself sad at the end?
Yeah, I like zombies, but the games are getting a bit boring. Some guy way back in the list made a good point, there hasn't been a good game with dinosaurs in it for a long time, someone needs to do something about that.
Yeah, I like zombies, but the games are getting a bit boring. Some guy way back in the list made a good point, there hasn't been a good game with dinosaurs in it for a long time, someone needs to do something about that.
This article actually makes a good point. I've always found zombies to be easy to kill because:
1) They're already dead (even though they're walking around because of some parasite/virus/bee/SCIENCE)
2) I feel like if something is trying to kill me and there's no way to reason with it or it has no control over it's actions/won't have control over them ever again, it's fair play to end it so that it may rest in piece and give me piece of mind (or keep the whole thing seeing as that's the point)
3) While if I were able to save a person from becoming zombified (i.e. Zombrex or something), if the process of saving them put everyone/anyone else in danger (i.e. taking all the bone marrow of the only person immune to the virus to make a vaccine) I don't think I could do it. Sure, taking a blood sample is fine but ending the life of another person so someone else can be zombie free doesn't seem fair and defeats the purpose of preserving human life.
While I do see how zombies make great enemies in video games, I have to disagree that putting them in so many games right now is a good idea (I know Yahtzee didn't say that, just making a point). We need to look beyond the norm and find new ways of storytelling in games and new kinds of games to play.
1) They're already dead (even though they're walking around because of some parasite/virus/bee/SCIENCE)
2) I feel like if something is trying to kill me and there's no way to reason with it or it has no control over it's actions/won't have control over them ever again, it's fair play to end it so that it may rest in piece and give me piece of mind (or keep the whole thing seeing as that's the point)
3) While if I were able to save a person from becoming zombified (i.e. Zombrex or something), if the process of saving them put everyone/anyone else in danger (i.e. taking all the bone marrow of the only person immune to the virus to make a vaccine) I don't think I could do it. Sure, taking a blood sample is fine but ending the life of another person so someone else can be zombie free doesn't seem fair and defeats the purpose of preserving human life.
While I do see how zombies make great enemies in video games, I have to disagree that putting them in so many games right now is a good idea (I know Yahtzee didn't say that, just making a point). We need to look beyond the norm and find new ways of storytelling in games and new kinds of games to play.
Zombies becoming an arcade mode is getting boring. Friend of mine only bought Cod Blops because it had zombies in it. In fact yesterday we ran through a list of the people we know and decided if we would let them come with us in a zombie apocalypse. Decided by such things as if they would be prone to 'Cut and run' in a dangerous situation or if they just lack the 'Z' factor. But anyway a zombie game should have less zombies, not more. The game should not be set in America where guns are more common and accessible forcing the player to use the situation, making fleeing or avoiding zombies more appealing than killing them. Forcing the players to use melee weapons and whatever comes to hand, zombies would scratch and grapple the player so they pull them in and bite them. In Nazi Zombies and games such as Left 4 Dead, zombies are no longer scary because theres just too many of them and they die too easily. The shambling hordes in Nazi Zombies can down you in a couple of hits but if you and your friends get shotguns and SMGs then you can just sit in the teleporter until they overwhelm you, the one with the most money buys the trip. Eventually everybody has enough to Pack a punch their weapons and can just repeat.
Sorry about the rant but you get the point, a swamp isnt going to have 3,000 people just milling about in it.
Sorry about the rant but you get the point, a swamp isnt going to have 3,000 people just milling about in it.
...and furries, you forgot the furries. Because they don't get together for either of those reasons. (Well, maybe the first one occassionally)
OT: I'd agree with pretty much all of those points. Then again I think the reason zombies can be placed into pretty much any game now is because no one actually questions it... World at War... ok fair enough, Black Ops... ok well they did it once, Red Dead Redeption... ok wtf, well alright, more RDR is only a good thing, right?
The reason they're USED so much is because they're an easy money spinner but I think Yahtzee just about summed up the reasons why we continue to lap it up. If you can make a good game centred around the concept of zombies (L4D, the older Resi games) then fine, I'll play it happily (especially if you can give me an intelligent reason for their existance), but please developers, stop sticking them randomly in everything... please!
It's not the end of the world, Umbrella hasn't released the T-Virus and as for Wesker... well I doubt we'll be seeing his global saturation any time soon.
Your right! I have never posted on a forum before, but your focus on zombies made me feel like I had to do it!
I've always seen the appeal of the zombie apocalypse to be much simpler than some of these suggestions. I don't think it has much to do with them being proxy shadow-puppets for things we don't like, or some manifestation of our instinctive fears or anything like that.
They're just weak. They're slow, stupid, rotting hunks of meat, looking at a mob of them from behind your impromptu gas mask, Remington 12-gauge held firmly in your hands, you think to yourself - "These are the inhuman menaces who brought society to it's knees? I can take these fuckers on any day! The shambling ranks of Beelzebub don't got nothing on me!"
They're just weak. They're slow, stupid, rotting hunks of meat, looking at a mob of them from behind your impromptu gas mask, Remington 12-gauge held firmly in your hands, you think to yourself - "These are the inhuman menaces who brought society to it's knees? I can take these fuckers on any day! The shambling ranks of Beelzebub don't got nothing on me!"
That's a much nicer way of putting it than...
We love zombies because we're too antisocial with people in this world that we gotta imagine one where all the people we hate are zombies which at that point we love to acquire weapons to beat their faces in time and time again.
It's like saying we're more sane when we're the only ones left in the world.
We love zombies because we're too antisocial with people in this world that we gotta imagine one where all the people we hate are zombies which at that point we love to acquire weapons to beat their faces in time and time again.
It's like saying we're more sane when we're the only ones left in the world.
"Truth is a folly without which certain species can't survive." This, I guess, applies in the case of Zombies, too.
I find zombies entertaining: they can be a quiet a relaxing distraction, but I can't play a whole game based around them. Which is why I found L4D and L4D2 quiet bland.
I find zombies entertaining: they can be a quiet a relaxing distraction, but I can't play a whole game based around them. Which is why I found L4D and L4D2 quiet bland.
That is a problem largely relegated to European nations and other places with a high population density. In many parts of the world, a permanent burial site is all but unheard of - the best you'll get is a few generations. In the US on the other hand, this is less of an issue in many places thanks to relatively low population density.snowman6251 said:
Yahtzee missed a big one here. One of the reasons we all love zombie entertainment is because we can easily place ourselves inside the shoes of the zombie-killing hero. Even if you are slow, overweight, or scrawny, you're still one up on a shambling semi-conscious beast. We all can easily envision that "what I would do if the zombies came for me" scenario and it sucks us right in to the story.
I didn't read through all the commentary, pro'lly because I'm just a fuckwad, but for the moment, I have the excuse of being one day off NaNoWriMo [http://www.nanowrimo.org/]. That means I dunno if this has been covered. I'd also add:
(Contemporary) Zombies represent a virus we can battle directly. Normally, when a pandemic goes through our region, our only option is to isolate ourselves, often from loved ones, until everything dies. In the zombie-virus paradigm, the infection doesn't travel by air (through touch is often enough). Usually you have to be bitten before it's a problem. But still, as the virus tries to get you, you can fight it with real weapons, from shotguns to pointed sticks, and not just cower like a little child. (Given enough resources, interestingly, cowering like a little child, that is, hiding from the menace, seems to work until supplies run out.)
(Contemporary) Zombies represent a virus we can battle directly. Normally, when a pandemic goes through our region, our only option is to isolate ourselves, often from loved ones, until everything dies. In the zombie-virus paradigm, the infection doesn't travel by air (through touch is often enough). Usually you have to be bitten before it's a problem. But still, as the virus tries to get you, you can fight it with real weapons, from shotguns to pointed sticks, and not just cower like a little child. (Given enough resources, interestingly, cowering like a little child, that is, hiding from the menace, seems to work until supplies run out.)
awww Yahtzee that last part made me sad, go and sew some wild oats man, and teach your generation of children terrible dick jokes and make them ware sweet hats too.Yahtzee Croshaw said:
[HEADING=2]The Yahtzee clan must live on, its the only hope against the space puritans![/HEADING]