Can You Dead The Undead Dead? or, Zombies In St. Elmo Part 3
Noel over on Barely Legal Substance is a generous and thoughtful person, and I truly appreciate his willingness to engage in blogscussion (ooo, I think I just coined a new phrase! dang nope, 26 instances of it appear on google) concerning Zombies in general, Zombies in St. Elmo, and certain metaphysical problems with Zombies which may have dire practical implications for those seeking to survive a Zombie Event. I'm going to do my best to respond.
Noel asks a very important question: "how can the undead go back to the dead?" i.e. how can you kill a Zombie? One might consider the assumption that you can dead the undead foundation or inherently tied to the assumption that the dead can become undead, but I think Noel gets at a tension, or perhaps an inherent contradiction between those two assumptions. My contention is that they are not to assumptions, but in fact one and the same contained within the very concept of a "Zombie Event".
Again, Noel's point is that if the dead become undead, they have in no uncertain terms attained immortality in an altogether unprecedented and supernatural event. Further, it would be downright silly to think we could end that immortality (impossible by definition of the term) with our machetes, Lee-ennfields, or Model 87 Shotgun (you'd want the youth model for a shorter barrel & shorter stock for greater mobility, especially in close quarters).
I think the solution to this quandary is to understand the perceived purpose/definition of a Zombie Event, namely, that a Zombie Event occurs as punishment on the living for some type of world-wide evil or sin being committed the offends both God and the dead, compelling (not in an Open Theist sense) God to send the dead back to enact justice in hopes of shocking the living back into, I'd assume, righteousness. In this purpose there is the assumption of the living returning to righteousness in this life, and I can see that occuring in no other way than with somehow killing the undead. One could even conclude that in the killing of the undead some type of redemption is found for the living.
It may seem absurd, but my contention would be in a very real sense that was the point of the Zombie Event all along: to kill the undead and find redemption for the societal sins of all man-kind. note: an interesting discussion would be whether or not man has failed in his redemption if post Zombie-event he immediately builds a society as corrupt as the previous one, i.e. faith without works type thing. But regardless, its not as if Zombie events wont occur again.
And its an aside: practically speaking you can kill a zombie via severe trauma to the head and/or spinal column. What you need to do is keep the brain for kicking down whatever rudimentary signals are being sent to the re-animated body telling it to move, either by destroying the brain or separating it from the body.
I agree with Noel that all this "putting yourself back together for another go" is rather silly (though Noel, the Flood in Halo are not the undead. Halo would fit in with the sci-fi medical apocalyptic event category, like 28 Days Later and Miss Congeniality 2). Zombies do not in any way posses the ability to heal themselves. While they can withstand wounds far beyond what would kill the living, they can't heal those wounds and nor do they need to. So thinking that a zombie could "reattach" its arm implies some type of re-connecting & healing between the Zombie and its arm, and that's just not going to happen.
So remember, when fighting Zombies, its all about head shots or completely disintegrating their "bodies", so you'd better learn to shoot straight or to bring a howitzer, 'cause nothing less is going to save you from turning into one of them.
Josiah Q. Roe | By Josiah Roe | 9:46 AM
Comments
josiah, what about a flame thrower? and i dont mean just your run of the mill ace hardware specials, or the aresol can equivalent. I mean like the one i have in my garage. The one that can melt the paint off of a car from 15 feet, could i disintegrate a zombie with that. And if your answer is "no you cannot." Then i have to say "you are misinformed my friend", because my brother ben and myself spent hours in our youth perfecting zombie disentegration techniques. Now u know Ben can kill some zombies!
Posted by: huffine at July 2, 2005 3:59 PM
So I guess you want me to bring the Remington 870 Wingmaster 3" magnum with me when we come?
Posted by: DAD at July 2, 2005 4:35 PM
The "re-deading the previously but no longer dead" question is part of zombie lore. Note that in most such stories, the point isn't to "kill" the zombies, but to de-animate them. The understanding is that these creatures aren't immortal as such, and certainly haven't been resurrected, but have been temporarily reanimated by a third party, who would normally fall into the category of "people you wouldn't invite over for coffee". You don't "kill" zombies, you dismember them to the point that the enchantment/ensorcellment/possession that has caused their peculiar appetite for the brains of the living can no longer function. This is normally accomplished by either gross dismemberment (note the commonality of chainsaws in zombie lore) or, as Josiah described, the so-called "critical hit" to the main site of the enchantment, generally recognized to be the brain (though this is not always effective, and your best bet is to always go for the pulverization).
Posted by: ryan at July 2, 2005 5:06 PM
zombies are just lore? what? then my lifes work has been a horrible shame.
Posted by: huffine at July 2, 2005 5:21 PM
Huffine, the flame-thrower idea is a good one. But I have a concern, and a serious one, and its that its going to take time for Zombies to burn to the point where their animation ends i.e. they stop moving. In that time, because Zombies don't feel pain etc. they'd still be marching straight towards you with your flame-thrower.
Now, its not that I'm opposed to the flame-thrower, I just think it would need to be used selectively and certainly not as a replacement for traditional munitions and above all accuracy.
And yes Dad, bring the Wingmaster. See if you can get a gunsmith to get the barrel shortened. Within legal limits of course. And bring lots of 4 shot if possible. Remington makes some great higher muzzle velocity 4 shot munitions.
I don't want slugs nor buckshots. I want stuff that will both stop the zombies forward movement (in body shots) and will, to be frank, expload their heads.
And Ryan, thanks for your thoughts, I don't get all that "lore" stuff though.
Posted by: JosiahQ at July 2, 2005 5:34 PM
As I contemplate all of these approaches to killing the undead or making the undead dead again - all the approaches used down through the centuries and admittedly effective for the short term - pick your poison of the era: garlic with decapitation, crosses, vinegar and chopping into pieces, guns, nuclear devices, eletrocution, etc - in the end the undead just keep coming back generation after generation. Further, if they are emerging because of some sin of the living, some lack of living that WE (the living) are doing (that we've been doing culturally since the beginning of human time) then to some degree aren't the dead innocents? Isn't killing them a kind of sin (which, I believe in Greek simply means to miss the mark - no judgement)...could that then explain why the dead keep insisting on coming back? That we are putting the undead back to dead in the wrong way? That we've built the new society after the supposed victory over the old corrupt one in the wrong way? that perhaps violence just doesn't work in the long term? And if this is possibly true (and God knows I don't really have a clue), but supposing for a moment that something along these lines is correct, how could you put the undead back into the dead state (which is to say getting the natural cycle order back into place) in a way that isn't violent? A sort of turn the other cheek approach - which is, as I remember what that guy Christ was exploring, till they took him out with a cross, which - by the way seemed to work short term with the undead, but then of course as -has been noted they've kept showing up...but I'm rambling now as I so often do. Any help out there?? How could you return the undead to the dead state without violence...perhaps the mind is at issue, but how? Shit, I'm continuing to ramble...
Posted by: Stephen Gyllenhaal at December 13, 2006 11:41 AM
