Zombie Cliché Lookout: We’re Not So Different…
When a character, especially one that appears to be up to no good, starts talking about how he/she isn’t so different from you. Or how they used to be a lot like you, lookout. That’s classic bad guy talk right there. They’re trying to get you to let down your guard a bit. They do this either by getting you to humanize them in your mind a little bit, or to dehumanize yourself a bit. The goal is to bring the two of you to the same level. You might not trust them, per se, but you might think that you understand them. And that can be dangerous.
About this Episode:
I had to shoot all of this week’s episodes very quickly, since I was going out of town for the weekend to help my in-laws re-roof their house. As such, I didn’t really have time to edit them all together. That can be dangerous, because sometimes I don’t notice a minor problem when reviewing the photography. Instead, I’ll find it when I’m putting together the comic. If I still have the set together and the camera out, no big deal. But once everything is put away it turns into a hassle.
Luckily, things seem to have worked out pretty well this week. How’s that for anti-climactic?
Discussion Question: Zombies and Biker Gangs
It’s a commonly held belief that, during the zombie apocalypse, the zombies are going to be no where near as big a threat as other people. Sure, the zombies are always going to be a problem, but if they’re slow and you’re smart, you should be able to avoid them most of the time. People, on the other hand, can be a little more tricky.
Based on that, what sort of people do you think are going to be the most dangerous in the zombie apocalypse? Outlaw gangs, desperate survivors, the mentally ill, people who think they should be in charge?
Teenagers, definitely teenagers.
Correction: teenagers I’ve sent to the principal’s office.
I remember reading in… Kaplan’s “The Coming Anarchy” (an anthology of his non-fiction stuff) about a junta of junior officers in Western Africa stealing all the luxury cars and shooting all their former teachers. I’d rather not remember that one some days.
Good lord. As a teacher, you really shouldn’t be reading stuff like that, Lich.
Read that one about… Two years before I committed to the career, four before I started. The day I wrote my last exam before going into the teaching program? Columbine. I have had way too many odd portents in my life.
@_@
Just wow.
hmm, it seems a comment I made was eated by the site.
Perhaps it didn’t save. I just checked the spam queue, nothing there.
I have absolutely no idea what I was going to say, so I guess it wasn’t important.
One only has to look at BotD for the answer: Anyone infected and running away from zombies! 😀
Indeed
Crazy people, power seeking people, teenagers, and cockroaches.
Man, what did cockroaches do to get lumped into that group?
I think he means types of people who are considered cockroaches due to their low moral standards. I think some of them took a side-track evolutionary path and became politicians or similar. 😀
Na brickvoid, I meant the animals.
Well Dave, I was surfing through some channels and saw a ton of cockroaches take somebody away by carrying him on there backs.
Well that’s just absolutely horrifying.
So whenever a teacher tries to reach out to a student from their experiences in a similar situation, it’s instant villain time? (I can believe it with politicians, of course, but…)
I’ve had some pretty bad teachers, Lich.
Joking, of course. I’m talking strictly about people in action and horror flicks.
Eh, we all have. I may even have played the role from time to time… though mostly only when helped by some heavy, crazy classroom insanity.
As for the action/horror movies… well, I guess that’s why we don’t have so many media teacher heroes heavily armed. Well, other than that New Jersey principal with the baseball bat in that “Lean on Me” film…
I think anyone who seems unjustifiably confident, would definitely be on my radar as a danger to themselves and others. I try to keep a realistic view of my skills and limitations.
We didn’t get ‘participation’ trophies when I was in school. We built character not self esteem.
In the words of Scrooge McDuck, “I got where I am today not by lying and cheating, but by being tougher than the toughies and smarter than the smarties” I don’t really think I live up to the expression yet. It is a personal goal though.
Thanks for participating in this discussion, Gumbyfigners, have a trophy.
In all seriousness, I think I have a couple “participant” trophies from AYSO soccer at my parents’ house somewhere. I never understood the point of them, even as a kid.
Because in our culture of mediocrity, everyone has to be a winner?
Here’s a great example of that. I recently took a BSN from a small (expensive) I graduated, one for cum laude honors and one for membership (my minifig avatar is wearing them, too) in the international nurses’ honor society, Sigma Theta Tau. Well, the college passed out purple cords to everyone, a participation prize, as it were, as it were. Additionally, graduates could purchase a set of gray cords by contributing to the “senior gift”. WTFO? Folks could get two sets of cords, for basically nothing. Wow.
Again, it promotes a culture of mediocrity. “When everyone’s special, no one is.” (my favorite line from The Incredibles
OK, rant off.
I graduated cum laude and didn’t even get my cords. What a rip off.
The Nazis.. Can’t trust the Nazis.
You can trust them to be assholes.
Plain ol’ desperate folks. People trying to survive, and willing to do anything to do it.
In other words, a lot of the people who post on this site… 😉
Yeah, desperate people will do some really awful stuff.
Politicians. No way would I ever trust a politician. He’s probably got some idea that’s he’s the leader of every group. He’ll probably have one hand open and another one armed.
Yeah, politicians are useless at best, dangerous at worst.
Hey, hey now.. They’re not ‘useless’ good zombie fodder.
Who’s the bad guy? Anyone that doesn’t have enough food laid up to feed his own family, and especially they with an attitude of entitlement. That is, folks that say “I deserve this,”; or, “My kids deserve to live, too”. Folks that throw around the word “hording” and “gouging” now will be especially dangerous after the Collapse. They’re the ones that form mobs. They’re the indignant sheep that would rather burn you out than see you with the means to take care of your own family, while they do without.
It’s important to understand that it’s never wise to talk about the specifics of preparedness with the uninitiated. At best, they won’t understand. At worst, they’ll be hostile, even before things get bad. Moles hate not only mountains, but mountaineering. Keep your mouth shut to avoid problems now and later.
Good advice all around, Bo.
Ex-gov officials will likely be very untrustworthy in the aftermath of a WCS. They are used to being in charge; and without the air of authority, they could seek a power-grab. This holds true especially for members of the executive branches of government, whether local, state, or federal.
Tell you what, I’d be very leery before taking any executive branch employees into my group.
You would even consider it? Most of the time they’re personalities make me sick alone..
It all depends on the person. A lot of people in charge are there because they love the power, but not all.
… Their*.. Why did I.
Yeah, I’ve learned that when you actually talk about the scenario of survival or preparedness in a group of people.. You tend to get negative feed back, and even hate from certain people. My teacher brought it up in our US history class, because we were talking about the 50’s-60’s, and everyone was instantly onto calling anyone that prepares ‘crazy’. I was actually being slightly verbally attacked when I offered my plentiful opinion.
I do have my group of friends that do practice and absolutely -love- survivalism, and talking about such scenarios though. I guess I’m lucky in that respect as far as reasonable people go.
I think the issue is that most people’s exposure to survivalists/preppers is the weirdos they see on shows like Doomsday Preppers.
Everyone.
^ This.
Sometimes a little paranoia is a good thing.
Just because you’re paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you.
Damn straight.
Hah, this turned out pretty well for a “rush-job.” Better than my rush-jobs, anyway. 😉
I like what you’re doing with Dadass, although I wasn’t so sure he was supposed to be a villain until I read the cliché.
I love it when a character (and by extension, the audience) can relate to a “bad guy” in some way, and then have to rethink their morals. And making a villain seem more “human” is great for giving a story some real depth – we’re not just talking about some guy who’s sadistic and evil because he can be, and enjoys being a villain (or wants to take over the world, etc.), but is actually motivated by the same things that everyone else is – or at least, wants you to believe as much.
Eh, I had more to say, but I forgot what it was. I think I can leave that mini-rant on its own for now. 😉
Thank you, sir!
I think the most dangerous people in a zombie apocalypse would for sure be gangs, criminals, etc, but I think that some of the upper class could easily be a threat too. I’m talking about the people who had it all and lost it all. Someone like that could easily convince you to keep them alive in exchange for a grand reward, only to find out later that they only need you as a shield and you’re nothing else to them.
People with a misplaced sense of entitlement could definitely be dangerous. Good call, Larry.
anyone who says muslims or jews are bad guys gets sent to the guillotine
Yeah, we don’t say stuff like that around here. And I don’t see any reason to imply that someone might. This comment is borderline to me.
Borderline like the Nazis comment, right?
I can’t tell if you’re joking or not, but:
The Nazis comment was clearly a joke because, yeah, Nazis are about as evil as it gets.
This comment suggests (and I admit I might be reading into it) that people here are going to say Muslims and Jewish people are evil. I think we’ve got an awesome bunch of folks here, and I don’t like the implication that there’s a bunch of bigots just waiting for an excuse to go on an anti-whatever diatribe.
Dave, you’d be surprised how many times people do actually take me seriously on such silly jokes. I don’t quite understand why…
And really, even if you weren’t joking, you said to not trust Nazis. That’s reasonable enough.
You have a good point there… What’s wrong with a lack there of trust?
Personally I think the worst thing to have is pride… Pride for a group, origin (I don’t agree with the idea of ‘race’ so I use origin instead), and area (such as southern pride, which pisses me off each time I hear it).
I think it was George Carlin who said that taking pride in something you had not control over (being born in the South, or being of Irish descent, for instance) didn’t make a lick of sense. You can be happy to be from the South, or Irish, or whatever, but how can you be proud of something that you didn’t need to work to accomplish.
I mean the whole Nazi thing is borderline because most sensible people, including myself, just don’t want to revisit the atrocities committed by German soldiers following orders from whoever was in charge. I personally find anything to do with war crimes and atrocities implied thereby leaves me with a reaction very similar to the one I get when I discover smells from food that has rotted in the fridge and has to be thrown out. There is no discussing it, one should throw it away if it ceases to be food. The whole Nazi thing faded into history, can we not just throw it away and leave it to rot by itself instead of having pointless discussion about it?
Either over sensitive, deadened humor, or attempting to make self look like it was all intentional.. Cannot tell.
Frankly, BrickVoid, I don’t think we should ever forget that humans are capable of things like the Nazis. That just smacks of denial to me.
I don’t know about the pride thing. You can buck what you are or where you come from or you can embrace it and let it make you stronger.
I struggled to be OK with myself as the only Puerto Rican kid in any of my classes in high school. My Spanish was terrible and I was embarrassed to admit where my family was from. As I got older, I realized what a benefit it is to have the perspective I get from the family I grew up with. I am definitely proud to be Boricua and am a better person since I embraced it.
I think maybe when pride becomes prejudice that the problem starts. Each side has good and bad people regardless of ethnic or religious background and ignoring that is what causes trouble.
biohazard: that felt kind of random – going for funny?
I agree that the Nazi comment doesn’t count as bigotry. Historically speaking, they are the “bad guys” and have a long list of atrocities to prove it.
If he said “Don’t trust the Germans,” then that is a whole other ball game.
Woah woah woah, what’s so bad about teenagers? Most of my friends and I aren’t the troublesome type, and they already know the boundaries for our group when Z-Day hits.
Although, I can agree to what you guys are saying…
I remember being a teenager. There were mild-mannered teens like my buddies, and then there were the pain-in-the-ass teens that did everything they could to get attention, show how cool they were, or show how much they “didn’t care”. Those are the teenagers I’m talking about.
And this is strictly a group dynamic thing.
I want to be an evil Overlord.. So I’m going to be doing that…
Goals are wonderful things.
Well, you also try to relate to someone and get them to relax if they’re as clearly freaked out as Sam is. Still, while this is all circumstantial evidence, there’s a lot of it.
Question:
Well, I believe in banding together, so I don’t view the desperate survivor as being that big a threat; he may attack another lone survivor or a small group, but I would expect him to prefer to join a decent sized group. The mentally ill are probably a bit more dangerous since they might not listen to reason, although they would probably not come in great numbers so a well organised group could deal with them easily enough if need be.
People who think they should be in charge? That depends, they could be a problem if they don’t have the brains to back up their ego but insist on causing trouble in the group anyway.
The biggest threat is clearly raiders, those who have made the conscious decision that they will take what they want from other survivors. I would expect them to be among the smartest, best armed, and most numerous of the threats out there.