Zombie Cliché Lookout: You Can Trust Us
When someone goes out of the way to tell you that you can trust them, that they’re on “your side”, or that they’re a “good guy”, do you believe them? Because I sure as hell don’t. Nothing sets of my creep detector faster than someone taking such a direct route when trying to get me to relate to them. It tells me that they are, very purposefully, trying to get me to forget my misgivings and just go with whatever they’re doing. Sure, that could be innocent, and they might have my best interests in mind, but what if they don’t? Trust is a powerful thing, and it can very easily be used as a weapon against you if you let it.
About this Episode:
I don’t know why, but this episode took a lot of photography. When I shoot a comic, I typically take two to three photos of each frame, playing around with angles for when I edit it later. Out of the ten photos I took, none came out well, so I had to re-shoot. Of those, all but the last frame looked terrible, so I had to re-shoot that. Third time was the charm, thankfully.
Discussion Question: Good Guys?
When it comes to a zombie apocalypse situation, who would be the good guys, exactly? Obviously zombies and raiders and the like would be excluded, but wouldn’t your run of the mill group of survivors be more interested in not getting eaten than worrying about where they stood on some arbitrary scale of morality? I tend to think so. So it would come down to larger groups, remnants of the government, military, et cetera. But if zombie flicks have taught us anything, it’s that the government is wrong just about 100% of the time.
So who are the good guys? Is there such thing, or have we moved beyond that? Are the good guys simply the common man, trying to survive in the trenches?
There is no good guy, not until he gives his life in exchange of yours. For all I have learned, no one can and should be trusted. Groups can be formed but not to an extent of emotionally depending on them or in any other way.
Oh by the way, every time I read one of the lines of the “Father” I have this british accent in mind and I am in the wait of him saying, “bloody hell” or something.
Someone else thinks he’s Scottish. It must be the badass muttonchops.
The muttonchops and the berret. killer combo for scottish bad ass. lol
I suppose so.
If he were a Scot, he’d be wearing a balmoral, not a beret (bit of difference, there).
I can’t wait to read more about this guy.
Is he packing an M1 carbine? Great old school choice, and seems to be fitting of the character.
That is indeed and M1 Carbine. It seemed appropriate for an old-timer.
Have to add one of those to my next Brickarms purchase.
I think that’s the only BrickArm I have that I’ve actually shot.
Bo – I looked balmoral up and only found pics of a castle. What is a balmoral hat look like? just wondering
nevermind! found it and yup way close.
Gotta respect the dingleball.
Dave, it’s called a “toorie”; and yeah, love my balmoral bonnet.
Gotta respect the toorie.
😉
In the next comic, put him in the kilt from the new piper minifig, like in my avatar.
Hah! Maybe as a special feature.
I love when you see an interview with an actor in an American TV show and you hear an accent that you had no idea he/she had. The actor playing Rick Grimes is British as is House.
That would make a great special feature. He’d have such a strong brogue his words are illegible. lol
A big surprise for me was the actor playing Winters in Band of Brothers being Irish. I was just floored.
My favorite is Anna Torv. As hot as she is, the accent makes her evenmore adorable. :p
Saving him was good for them, don’t know if it was good for Sam though. I have yet to see enough of this organization or whatever it’s called to make a proper judgement on it. They’re definitely coming across as a group to be wary of though! 😀
Yeah, they’re all just a little off, aren’t they?
Well after playing the walking dead, dead island and left for dead, I do not know, I do not know.
How is Walking Dead? I’ve heard good things, very story driven, right?
it is more of an interactive movie. Mostly just point click, cut scene, point click, cut scene. I would suggest it to someone that doesn’t want to devote too much time to a video game.
Really? That’s quite disappointing.
Well you have to know what to do. The reason it is so many cutscenes is because there are so many choices and it shows you what happens because of that choice. It only takes 10-20 minutes to finish one episode.
As a free flash game, I’d be all over that. But it’s probably not something I’d pay for (my gaming budget it absolutely tiny).
there are apparently going to be 4-5 of them, and you pay $25 for all of them.
Still not worth it( I played it at a friends place, heheh).
So you buy a season pass, so to speak? Kind of a clever way to sell the game, actually.
The good guys are those I can trust to waste the zombies and don’t seem likely to stab me in the back. (You can never be sure of anything…)
That’s at first anyway. Once some sembalance of a society and safety has been restored we can worry about ethics and how said good guys treat others and all that hippy peace stuff.
Yeah, if we beat the zombies, then things settle down and morality and ethics will become a little more reasonable.
There are no “good guys.” Humans will do anything to survive, even stab each other in the back, if necessary.
Always be prepared to dodge a back stab, and always be prepared to deliver one yourself.
Indeed, Samson, indeed.
“Are the good guys simply the common man, trying to survive in the trenches?”
I totally agree here. Unless you make the conscious choice to do bad, I think we all aspire to do good. In the Book “The Road,” morality is shades of grey because of their plight. I think when the ZA hits, we will have to make the same shifts – no black and white, just different shades of grey – morally speaking.
Nice call, and nice reference in The Road.
Good guys in the apocalypse are the same as good guys everywhere else. The stakes are just higher. The good guys are the ones with compassion for others, who aren’t selfish, who genuinely want to make the world a better place, not only for themselves but for everyone. They sacrifice for others when necessary. They apologize when they’re wrong and try to make amends. They possess virtues such as, to quote a pretty famous book, faith, hope, and charity.
The stakes are, indeed higher. Well said, Steven.
Can’t say.. Everyone is different, and if we classify them by a simple word, or attempt to find them all in one sect. Then we will soon find ourselves disapointed.
But also consider this.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
~Einstein
But I’m going to change it’s over all meaning here for a moment to make my example.
If you judge a survivor by their self sacrifice, you will surely find yourself dumbfounded. The point to SURVIVAL is to survive, not to attempt to sacrifice yourself at every corner. But if you judge a survivor by their attempts at helping people? Then you might just find yourself entertained with the idea of a better moral standard. Not the mythical ‘good’ or the lore spun ‘evil/bad’, but the good ol’ realistic moral standard.
Some damn good thoughts here, Calicade.
That was actually beautiful Calicade.
The “good guys” are the ones that laid up enough skills/food/medicine/gear so that they won’t have to worry about stabbing you in the back for your gear. Consider the Parable of the Virgins. Five were wise and five were foolish; and, when the time came, the wise virgins could not share their oil with the foolish. Apply this to a survival situation: if you want to maintain your morality, put youraself in a situation where you won’t be tempted. I don’t tolerate thieves, liars and cheats well. If you want to say there are no “good guys” in a survival situation, don’t come anywhere near my operations center. I don’t need the heartache of being around people I can’t trust. To that end, build your group now. Get your own gear; and don’t plan on sharing, stealing, lending or borrowing. You’re on your own.
Meeting self-interests I can handle. Altruism scares me much more. That is, when folks going around talking about the “greater good”, my hackles raise- don’t trust that guy. When everyone cooperates to meet their own interests, there’s a bit more honesty.
You seemed to have put it far better than I could of ever have.
As always, Bo, well said.
Typically when I hear someone saying something is for the “greater good”, that greater good seems to usually be best for that individual and they would not really have to give much themselves to get it, but others will need to make sacrifices, sometimes large sacrifices, for that “greater good” to come around.
There’s an interesting scene in TWD comic (issue #93) where Rick has to decide whether or not to trust some strangers.. And at some point he realizes that after everything he’s been trough chances are that him and his people are probably more dangerous than anyone else out there. That’s an interesting shift actually, from being convinced to be the good guys to becoming the ones you should probably want to avoid sticking up with.
We are the people your mothers warned you about…
Well yes, I do think there’s a difference between “We are the people” and “We are the people’.
I loved that Yatkuu! It was great to see his train of thought head that way. I have #’s 97 and 98 but have not read them yet. Excited to see how Rick and his people handle being a “security” team.
I don’t know if I like him. He seems like he’s going to be very hostile towards the others, if they ever meet.
Some pros have no sense of patience.
This guy might be one of them.
How’s the line go? Every single war that has been fought was between two sides that believed that they were in the right, even on the side of angels. (Granted, if your angels are valkyries then the issue of religious figures condoning the war is a bit moot…)
It’s tough to say just how far my trust would go, but I tend to trust in some institutions more than in people at random. I’ll allow that survival is key, but I can’t help but think that I’d likely put my lot in with a bunch of other educated types trying to save as much knowledge as possible while working together to save our families – sort of a modern monastery, but with families inside with you. (Again, “Anathem” made a huge impact on me.)
If God be with us, who can stand against us? – Said by soldiers on both sides.
Your notion of the modern day monastery is really, really cool. I need to find “Anathem” one of these days.
“. . . than worrying about where they stood on some arbitrary scale of morality?”
He, he, he! Dave, let’s make a date. Let’s revisit this quote six months after your baby is born; you’ve had the awesome opportunity to care for this most vulnerable of creatures; after (s)he smiles up at you a few times.
It’s amazing how one’s Ethical System shifts when holding an infant.
This is baby number two, Luis. And yeah, if it came to me protecting my family, anything goes.
I think that in zombie stories, it’s sometimes hard to tell but I’ve got a good example. In Resident Evil 4, Ada Wong helps the main character, Leon S. Kennedy but it’s not until the end of the game where you realize that she’s been using you all along. So I believe that if someone’s just out to survive just like you and don’t take advantage of you, then you could consider them as a good guy.
Anyways, the kinds I don’t think I would be able to trust would be those with loyalty or death rules like street and biker gangs even if they tried to convince me they were the “good guys”. They’re still fellons and they’re still unpredictable.
Eh, it can be a warning flag, but that’s also just what you’d say if you were the good guys, too.
Question:
Speaking of… as far as I’m concerned, we are the good guys. Our group is going to find as many other survivors as we can, build a safe place to live, and then keep it safe. We don’t see why the Four Freedoms can’t exist just because there are zombies out there.