Fast Zombies

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
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Is it weird that a Zombie has haste[1]? Aren’t they supposed to be slow? Some people in house found it weird, but modern pop-culture zombie storytelling has opened the door to non-plodding zombies, some of which are terrifyingly quick!
—Aaron Forsythe, Director of Magic R&D.

A type of zombie[2] that is fast. If these zombies are alive, they should count as Technically Living Zombies. If you spend most of your first encounter standing there staring at one thinking it's Not a Zombie, your chances for survival are pretty grim. Deadly Lunge is a common middle ground between this and Zombie Gait, in which a zombie becomes fast once its prey is quite close[3].

Mark Rosewater, in his 3rd podcast[4] about the Innistrad Set[5]. said that this trope has it's origins in video games. He said that zombies are an ideal video game mook [6] because they come in mass, are slow, typically stupid, and typically aren't able to withstand ridiculous amounts of damage[7] and thus are low threats on their own. He said Fast zombies were a progression on that enemy. Such as an Elite Mook, or a Video Game Boss.

Examples of Fast Zombies include:

Advertising

Anime and Manga

Comic Books

Fanfic

Film

Literature

Live-Action TV

Music

Professional Wrestling

Newspaper Comics

Oral Tradition

Puppet Shows

Radio

Tabletop Games

  • In Magic: The Gathering there are some creatures with the zombie subtype that have at least one ability associated with speed (such as haste). The page quote comes from a card designer bringing up the trope on the card discussion of Blackcleave Goblin.

Theatre

Video Games

  • Half-Life 2 has fast zombies[8], which are not only fast, but quite agile and capable of both jumping and climbing.
  • The zombies in Saints Row the Third can run pretty fast for zombies, but still do so with a very pronounced stagger.

Web Animation

Web Comics

Web Original

Western Animation

Real Life

  1. This is an "evergreen keyword ability" associated with speed.
  2. or creature highly analogous to a zombie
  3. although Deadly Lunge isn't a strictly zombie trope
  4. His podcast is named Drive to Work
  5. Not that innistrad has fast zombies (aside from maybe Abattoir Ghoul, which has first strike, and seems to be able to prepare you a meal as a triggered ability). He is a fan of large masses of Plodding Zombies, and as head designer of Magic R&D, he has quite a say in how things go.
  6. Feel free to look at the Night of the Living Mooks page.
  7. In some case they only go down easily if you headshot them
  8. as in that is what they are actually called