Zombie Cliche Lookout: Breaking Point
When people have a belief, they tend to treat it pretty seriously. There’s no point in being committed to a belief system if you’re going to be silly about it, right? Now most people can talk rationally about their beliefs, and even take a bit of good-natured ball busting from the non-believers. But then there are those people are take their believe to excited new levels of crazines. For some reason, those people also tend to stick to the less common beliefs (UFO trailing behind an asteroid, Jim Jones is God, etc.).
Should you be so fool hardy as to challenge or insult those beliefs, you’d better be prepared to deal with the repercussions, which are likely to be immediate and severe.
About this Episode:
I really had a lot of fun with this last panel. I think I took about a dozen shots of that smack from various angels and focal points. There’s nothing like a good hard slap to the face to break up the tension a bit.
That’s right, I’m a grown-ass man who spends his time making his LEGOs smack each other and filming the results. Jealous?
Discussion Question: Dealing with Irrational People
Even if the zombies never show up, we’re going to have to deal with people who behave irrationally, and there are a lot of them. In a disaster scenario, those irrationalities are just going to get turned up to eleven. So how do you typically deal with people who aren’t quite keeping things reasonable? And what happens when those same people get their actions magnified several-fold by some sort of disaster (zombie-related or otherwise)?
Personally, I like to avoid these people are much as possible. I’m generally not much of a “people person”, so I find that just circumventing them is the best course of action. Of course that’s not likely to work when I’m barricaded inside an old farm house with such a person, with dozens of zombies pounding on the doors and windows.
you know, if i was abe i’d hit him with the gun, but i guess the ladylike thing to do is giving you the back of the hand treatment, trust me, ive felt it from more than one woman
The thing these over-zealous religious people forget is that you may be just like them with your own beliefs you may hold very dear…
Irrational like Larry in the Walking Dead( Video Game)? He was always pissed off about something. Do anything to stay off of their way, other wise, they are just a pain in the ass.
Typo alert! Legos does not f**king exist. Only Lego, either plural or singular.
I love how he is hit in the face, is it a slap or a punch?
When I say their way I mean the irrationals…
I don’t deal with people like that.. And I will -never- deal with people like that. I’ve spent most of my life burning bridges, and I’ll continue to do so.
There are certain times in which I’ve tried to make friends with people, plenty of times. Even so far as to go and help them realize how irrational/ignorant they are. Only on rare occasions has it worked, but for the majority of the time it just ends with a dull wall of nothing.
I really want to see what Bo says on this.
Surround yourself with people that value reason.
There’s never a good time to panic; but I don’t equate panic with irrational thought. There are plenty of calm people that lead with their emotions and many otherwise logical people that can succumb to hysterics. I’d rather deal with the latter than the former. I’m not convinced that Sam is irrational. He’s doughy, whiny, and scared, but not necessarily irrational.
Besides, is there really anything rational about the living dead roaming the earth, especially Romero zombies clawing their way out of graves?
Didn’t think so.
Yeah, most of the time the way I post makes it sound like I over generalize people. But trust me I don’t do that as an individual, for the most part I’m very analytic. I study people as if they were science experiences, and I do surround myself with reasonable people.
I totally figured this guy was a badass type, and possibly nonredeemable. I figure he’s 99% of the way there with that slap to the face! 😀
The big question here is what will Sam respond with? Personally, I’d report someone like that to the police but as we all know, the police in this webcomic are almost all either zombies, infected, or dead, with the exception of Murphy.
If it was a real zombie apocalypse and I had no other choice I’d be very likely to hit him back and probably just as hard. If someone’s dumb enough to start a fight with me they had damn well better be prepared to finish it!
the only way to deal with overzealous fanatics in a disaster/apocalypse, is either a good punch to the face, or janitor duty on the killing field.
I have a very low “breaking point”, I think. I’m not too sure on which one’s low and high, but low sounds better. But it doesn’t take much time before I snap, and point a gun (Or whatever’s in hand; I might point a brick at you.) at you.
“Irrational” or “hysterical”?
From where I am sitting, 99% of the entire planet is irrational. They lead with their emotions. They don’t really think things through; and they’ll go against their own self interests if it makes them “feel better”.
The chronically irrational need strong leadership, or a dis-invitation from your survival group. Let Darwin take care of the non-thinkers.
For the hysterical, Ativan works wonders.
As as for Col. McBadasses actions, if more blasphemers got a rap on the snoot, the world might be a better place. That is, folks have a right to free speech; but we live in a “society” where there are seldom consequences for said speech. The best thing about living in the zombie apocalypse is that civility will soon pass into fashion, because the State won’t be there to protect the idiots.
Shoot ’em in the face is not the right way to go, is it?
My job involves answering customer-service calls at an insurance company, so I deal with lots of irrational people on a daily basis. Some of them are actually certifiably insane. Avoiding them isn’t an option, though, since my job requires helping them as much as possible.
What I do is:
1) Always remain calm myself.
2) Use what I call my “secret weapon words”. These are “we” and “us”. As in, “Let’s take a look at your account and see if we can figure out what’s going on with it.” This almost subconsciously puts us on the same team, and starts to get the idea into their heads that I am actually there to help, not thwart, them.
3) Be polite.
It’s amazing how much more rational people can be when I’m not adding fuel to the fire of their paranoid delusions. I think a lot of irrational encounters are more mutual-contribution than the people who feel victimized think.
“That’s right, I’m a grown-ass man who spends his time making his LEGOs smack each other and filming the results. Jealous?”
Totally!! lol
Gotta have something to do between case-lot sales.
Jealous? That’s just livin’ the dream right there.
He looks less angry than I would. Im going to say it again, friends don’t hit other friends. Man that looks like he is trying to choke Sam.
its like the termanator “come with me if you want to live” well whose side are you on? ive never liked sam anyway, everyone’s going to be on my @$$ about this, but i like stewart, even if he is a jerk.
Hah, “irrationalities turned up to eleven” – “why not just have it go up to ten, and make ten louder?” 😉
I knew getting a fervently-religious man with a gun and a Badass Beret angry in a zombie apocalypse wasn’t a good idea. It’s too bad Sam didn’t.
God I love that movie.
“But ours go to eleven.”
I’m jealous… I’M JEALOUS!!!
Damn. It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on here, was Sam starting to lose it and Abe just slapped him, or is he preparing to beat the tar out of him? Given Sam’s arms in panels 2-3, it’s not impossible, but I don’t think things are looking good for Sam right now.
Forgot the question:
If someone is truly not willing to listen to reason, there’s not much you can do, except hope that the majority of your group are more with it. If they’re just a bit hysterical though, we can deal with that.
hey dave why did Abe slap sam .
Blasphemy.