Zombie Cliche Lookout: Survivor’s Guilt
People have a natural drive to survive, but it’s something people often struggle with after the fact. This is especially true when they survive, but others didn’t. Consider it for a moment. Let’s say you survive a car accident, but one of your loved ones doesn’t. You wouldn’t be able to help comparing their life to yours. Wondering why you were lucky enough to make it, but they weren’t.
In a zombie survival situation, I imagine this would get even worse. Not only do the other people not survive, but they’re either torn to bits by a horde of zombies, or become a zombie themselves. That’s a pretty rough fate for anyone, and the person who lived through it would likely think about it constantly.
About this Episode:
I’ve been pretty rough on Stewart as a character since the comic began a few years ago. He’s the youngest in the group, and often over-simplifies issues and acts like he has all the answers. I do this because that’s exactly how I was as a teenager, and most of my friends were the exact same way. Is it a broad stereotype? Most certainly. But it’s also a reflection of my personal experience.
That said, I’d like to add a bit of nuance to the character, and I figure a bit of guilt might be an interesting way to approach that.
Discussion Question: Getting Past Guilt
Put yourself into Stewart’s shoes for a moment. You just survived a very close call, but Brent was bitten and infected. Worse, you made it only because Cheryl came to your aid first, rather than Brent’s. How would you deal with the feelings that would no doubt stir up? Could you talk to Brent? Or even look him in the eyes?
Typo alert, Discussion Question, third sentence: “your air first, rather than Brents” air–> aid and for the italicized word, change to “Brent’s” 😀 In the latter case, Dave wants the possessive, not the plural! 😀
Fixed both. Only two today, not bad.
Now if only reply chaining was as easy to fix! 😉
Also, sometimes your strip seems to say it all, for the episode in question, which is why I don’t comment on it – there’s nothing left to discuss! 😀 That’s not a bad thing, however! 😉
As with the trust question. I say getting over the guilt would take time.
But to get to something I’m excited to say, I just say Alien for the first time tonight, better yet, the 35th anniversary version. It’s a Blu-ray with both the theatrical version and the 2003 director’s cut. Both have commentaries and it came with a small comic and art from the production.
I almost freaked out when I had to take out the trash. I’ve seen most of Aliens, Alien Resurrections, and Prometheus. Now I know where it all started. And I’m so happy I now had the satisfaction of seeing one of the legends of the horror genre.