Our Zombies Are Different: Difference between revisions

[[File:zombies of a different horror 4588.jpg|frame|Take your pick... and then run like hell.]]

 

 

 

The word "zombie" originated in the Voudon beliefs of the Caribbean, referring to a body "revived" and enslaved by a sorcerer. (Some of the oldest aspects of zombie appearance are actually symptoms of [[wikipedia:Tetrodotoxin#Poisoning|tetrodotoxin]] poisoning, a neurotoxin used in certain voudon rituals.) In this form, it has been known in America since the late 19th century. However, it wasn't until the 1960s that George Romero's ''[[Night of the Living Dead]]'' attached the word to the living dead who eat the flesh of the living. (Note, however, that the flesh-eaters in that movie are [[Not Using the Z Word|never referred to as "zombies,"]] and Romero himself didn't consider them zombies, preferring "ghouls.")

See also [[Everything's Deader with Zombies]], [[Zombie Apocalypse]], [[Not a Zombie]]. [[Not Using the Z Word]] happens when creatures that otherwise fit the profile perfectly are not ''called'' zombies; [[Technically Living Zombie]] is what happens when they fit the profile perfectly except for not being dead. [[Elite Zombie]] is this trope combined with [[Elite Mook]]. Most zombies are [[Night of the Living Mooks]], and [[Slave Mooks]].

 

{{examples}}

== Type V: Voodoo ==

* In ''[[Unhallowed Metropolis]]'', what reports have come back of the state of Central Africa have invariably come from people driven insane from what they witnessed there, but they tend to include references to unholy empires where zombie and human alike answer to witch doctors who demand living sacrifices to placate their dark gods. If there's any truth to these stories, it seems ''very'' likely that the zombies there are Type V, or something akin to it.

* This is a recurring power in the ''[[New World of Darkness]]'', possessed by a variety of supernaturals.

 

=== [[Video Games]] ===

 

=== [[Web Original]] ===

 

=== [[Western Animation]] ===

* Although not encountered often, [[The League of STEAM]]'s zombies seem to be of the flesh-eating variety. The League have has perfected (well, almost...) a collar-like device for domesticating them.

 

 

== Type P: Plague-bearing ==

* The Gotha parallels from ''[[GURPS]] Infinite Worlds'' are 19 alternate Earths that have been destroyed by the exact same zombie virus. These Gotha zombies retain some of their intelligence and are as willing to eat each other as well as normal humans.

* ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'', with elements of Type V; the zombies themselves aren't created by magic, but the virus itself is (they're the work of Nurgle, God of Decay).

 

=== [[Video Games]] ===

* ''[[Survivor: The Living Dead]]'' uses these and you are very much not immune. When you get bitten, you get infected. After that happens, all you can do to avoid turning before the timer runs out is stand still as much as possible and not get bitten again.

* ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'' recently introduced [[Demonic Spiders|husks]], which are horrifying undead abominations covered in dust that transforms anything touched by it into another husk. Hands-down, these are ''the'' most horrifying monster in DF, even trumping {{spoiler|[[The Legions of Hell]]}} for sheer terror; "Breach the Circus" is the traditional DF [[Godzilla Threshold]] plan ''and even that can't deal with a husk infestation''.

 

=== [[Web Comics]] ===

 

== Type PS: Parasite ==

* ''[[Franken Fran]]'', of course, has a stab at this in chapter 39. The Twist, which is either [[Dead Baby Comedy|hilarious]] or [[Nightmare Fuel|horrifying]], is that instead of zombies, the infected victims turn into {{spoiler|rabid living amusement park mascots}}

** ''Franken Fran'' gets in on this again in chapter 47, with more traditional-style Romero zombies and a small parody of ''[[Dawn of the Dead (film)|Dawn of the Dead]]''. Notably, after being bitten by a zombie and examining the effects (by decapitating herself and remotely dissecting her own body, because [[Mad Scientist|that's how Fran rolls]]), Fran discovers that {{spoiler|the victims are actually alive and [[And I Must Scream|entirely aware during their zombie condition but unable to control themselves]], and that the zombie plague is easily reversible with the right treatment - ''but nobody knows this,'' and have used the zombie outbreak as an excuse to go on rampaging kill-sprees}}.

* The Nightshift in ''[[Dawn Tsumetai Te]]'', which take over a host's body and slowly eat it from the inside out.

 

 

=== [[Comic Books]] ===

* ''[[Dead Space (series)|Dead Space]]'': Necromorphs. Shooting them in the head just annoys them. You have to shot off a limb or three.

* The infected crew members of ''[[System Shock 2]]''.

* The X-Parasites in [[Metroid]] Fusion are something like this, though they basically clone the creature they infect,

 

{{quote|"They appreciate gifts of cologne, perfume and other strong-smelling items--and believe me, you will want to give them these things."}}

** It should be noted that zombies do not exist in great numbers in ''[[Discworld]]'', as very few people manage to achieve the level of obsessiveness or bloody-mindedness needed to become one. They're not considered a problem by the living population, although there are prejudices. The novels have featured three zombies as main or recurring characters:

*** It should be noted that Reg says that of the perfectly ordinary dead inhabiting the graveyards. Elsewhere in the book these zombies are described as mere memories on legs.

* [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s ''[[Elemental Masters|Phoenix and Ashes]]'' offers incorporeal revenants, distinct from true ghosts in that they are so obsessed with revenge that they cannot think rationally.

** '''Old World Blues''' has the lobotomites, which are humans who have several of their vital organs cut out and replaced with technology. They can use guns, but they don't seem to have any sense of self preservation and are instantly hostile to any and all life.

** Then came the Marked Men from ''Lonesome Road''. They are former [[Elite Mooks]] of the NCR and the Legion that were caught in the [[Death World|Divide]], and a combination of hazards such as wind storms and radiation caused most of their skin to be torn off, with only the Divide's radiation keeping them alive. They have no sense of who they once were, and now just kill anything they see. Despite this, they still hunt, cut their food, use guns, and at least have some sense of self preservation, as shown in an ending where they allow the Courier passage out of the Divide out of fear.

* [[Journey Quest]] presents us with a 'theoretically impossible' form of undead. A sentient soul stuck in a mobile rotting corpse.

* Zombies in ''Super [[Meat Boy]]'' are corpses of a dead Meat Boy. Meat Boy respawns as normal when he dies, but his former dead body is resurrected as zombie, potentially making the amount of zombies infinite. Those zombies tend to hang around Hell and Rapture and are also capable of fusing together into a larger creature.

* ''[[Deadgirl]]'': The type and origin of the dead girl's condition is not revealed. While she appears driven to try to bite her captors, whether this is in an attempt to eat their flesh or simply as a means to escape is left unclear. Her bite is shown to infect others, however, which J.T. plans to use to find a replacement for her.

* ''[[Supernatural]]'' (again, they like their zombies) has the episode ''Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid''. [[The Grim Reaper|Death]] raises several zombies in a small town, as part of the [[Satan|Lucifer's]] Apocalypse. {{spoiler|Later on, we find that he was forced to do this by Lucifer, Death himself being [[True Neutral]]}}. The zombies at perfectly normal, and just like they did in life. {{spoiler|For a short while, anyway, and then they turn into your typical flesh-eating zombies}}. They can be killed, unlike other zombies on the show, by a [[Boom! Headshot!]].

** Actually, this song is based on the film ''[[Dawn of the Dead (film)|Dawn of the Dead]]''. The line about "no more room in hell" isn't the explanation for the zombies; it comes from a religious fanatic who thinks the zombies are divine punishment. It's considered the movie's most memorable quote, especially since it was also used as the official tagline.

* The French film "Les Revenants" or "They Came Back" deals with zombies that despite being dead within a 10 year range on some, have not decayed, do not crave human flesh and brains. They just one day walked calmly out of their cemetary as if they had been in a long sleep. However, they are sluggish and actually no longer live in our "reality". They have what is termed an "Echo and Memory" reality (echoing what seems like normal behavior and recalling how they might've been in their daily lives). They do tend to group together and migrate throughout the town. It is never explained why they rose and where/why they went when they decided to leave. The film focuses more on how the living's psyche would react when their loved ones rose than what the zombies are up to.

* While [[Brandon Sanderson]] [[Not Using the Z Word|insists]] they aren't zombies, the Elantrians from [[Elantris]] are suffering from a sort of curse that makes them closely resemble zombies, while they are not technically dead, or actually contagious, people that live within a certain radius of the city of Elantris just randomly become Elantrians, they don't breathe or have heartbeats, they have a constant ravenous hunger, and they don't heal from their wounds at all and they are almost impossible to kill, beheading or burning being the only ways to kill them, though they usually go insane and catatonic from the pain of accumulated injuries within a year of becoming an Elantrian.

* The Reapers in [[Dead Like Me]]. While they are not mindless, not slow, and for that matter no different seeming then humans in just about any way(other then the fact that you cant kill them) The fact that they were once dead and have been reanimated does qualify them to be referred to as the "Living Dead"(The show itself uses the term Undead to refer to the state they live in)

* The zombies in the Korean Web Toon ''Wake Up Deadman'' are just normal people who happen to be dead and rotting, it's the media and the government that makes them out to be a mindless cannibal hoard. They don't need to eat or sleep, although {{spoiler|if they become sleepy it means they're too damaged and will die for good}}.

* The zombies from [[Michael Jackson]]'s ''Thriller'' are somewhat like Type F, but with the added benefit of synchronized dancing.

* [[Marvel Comics]] called its Type V zombies "zuvembies" to get around a [[Comics Code]] prohibition (see above). The "zuvembie" name came from a [[Robert E. Howard]] short story, "Pigeons From Hell," and wasn't really all that zombie-like, as summarized on [[wikipedia:Zuvembie|The Other Wiki]].

* ''[[Black Butler]]'' has moving corpses that, lacking souls themselves, are able to sense the souls of the living and home in on them, hoping in vain to fill the void within. So the part about eating flesh of the living is really about trying and failing to eat souls. The moving corpses seem at first to have been created by science, but then it turns out that magic made them work, to the surprise of the zombie-making scientist. There are also more successful specimens that are able to pass as living humans.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Tropes of the Living Dead]]

[[Category:Our Monsters Are Different]]

[[Category:Our Tropes Are Different]]

[[Category:Index of Fictional Creatures]]