Zombie Cliche Lookout: Listening
A lot of times, we can be our own worst enemy. We tend to think that we know best, or at least that we can figure things out when push comes to shove. While a bit of confidence is great, it can also trick us into ignoring extremely useful advice from others. Under normal circumstances, that can set us back a bit, but we could probably overcome it after a bit of blood, sweat, and tears. During the zombie apocalypse, it can get us and everyone we care about killed and eaten by zeds. So really, listening can become an extremely valuable survival skill.
Of course, there’s a flip side to this. During the early days of the zombie apocalypse, misinformation is everywhere. So while listening can be a valuable survival skill, know when to listen becomes far more important. Sadly, sorting the wheat for the chaff is difficult under the best of circumstances, let alone when society is crumbling around our ears.
About this Episode:
I’m trying to show a different side of Sam here. He’s confident, maybe a little too confident. It’s not like the cowardly Sam we’ve grown to… love? Yeah, let’s go with love.
I think we can all predict that this little arc is heading toward a tragic end, and I really hope that helps to humanize Sam a bit. To see where he starts and what he goes through will hopefully help to inform how he works now.
Discussion Question: Filtering
Like I mention above, being able to differentiate between good information and bad can be the difference between life and death in the zombie apocalypse. The difficult part, of course, is figuring out which is which. So how do you do it? Are there certain sources that you just don’t trust? Some that you do? Are there certain things that just set off your bullshit detector?
In a zombie apocalypse? Always be paranoid.
Hah, sounds like good advice to me.
Paranoia. My friend, my ally, my betrayer. No source is trustworthy. They can all lead us to death and they could also save our asses. So how can I trust my source? Ask my magic 8-Ball. If I somehow loose it, I would need help of other less reliable methods such as risk analysis. The only source I would NOT listen to at all would be the government, other than for infection/danger levels I see no point at all. Given my parents would like to go with the government, I need to persuade them otherwise, since where there is people, there is a swarm of non-thinking SOBs.
I like how you say this Phantom; I think you’re right in line with the typical zombie survivor.
Honestly, I’m already at that point of not trusting most things I read or hear about that I haven’t personally experienced. TV “news” are a bunch of sensationalists who are more interested in boosting ratings by breaking a story first than journalistic accuracy, newspapers can’t afford the manpower to investigate a story fully anymore, so they rely on TV or the Internet for their “sources”, and the less said about the Internet news sources, the best (most of them just regurgitate what the other sites are saying anyway…). I’m sure the truth is somewhere in the middle of all of them, but good luck recognizing it through all the filth, lies and crap that has been shoveled over it.
That said, should the zombie outbreak start tomorrow, I wouldn’t trust any news source – including the government – to have any kind of useful, accurate information.
You’re preaching to the choir about sensationalism in the news, Darg. It’s awful, isn’t it?
My issue with any ‘realistic’ zombie apocalypse these days is that we’re all so well educated now. Even people who aren’t fans of the genre get the basics. I can agree that there will be a slight naivety in the very beginning, once you witness one, we’ll all know what to do. Yes some people will get taken down, but I’m of the opinion that humanity would defeat the living dead quite easily, at least the slow walking ones anyway!
This is a really, really good point Mark, and I think it makes writing in the genre more challenging (although not necessarily in a bad way).
The way I see it, there are a couple ways to approach the problem: either ignore it and make your characters completely ignorant of zombies (and this is where we get into the territory of not calling them zombies), or embrace it and see how the characters work through being in a zombie movie themselves.
I think both approaches have their merits and drawbacks; it’s all in what the writer does with it.
I agree on the writing difficulties Dave. The issue I have is I’ve seen numerous ‘zombie ignorance’ movies done very, very well. But I’m yet to see the latter done satisfactorily.
You have to assume in such a situation that the world would be saved (I guess?!). And on a side note I think this is something the Walking Dead will struggle with for an eventual ending. The comic can go on for ever, but TV series don’t last. So in my opinion they either let everyone die or the world is miraculously saved, and that will be tough to do from the current position
I don’t know if it has to have a win/lose sort of ending. I’d actually be fine it they resolved whatever current conflict/character drama that season tackled, and the show ended with everyone still trying to survive in the zombie apocalypse. I tend to like those sort of open-ended endings. My wife, on the other hand, absolutely hates them. She likes everything wrapped up. I guess it will come down to what sort of audience you’re trying to please.
OK, comic…. Sam is acting too cocky? naive? mixture of both… no wonder he turns in “cowardly” Sam with the group, he is probably blaming himself for what is going to happen to Sarah.
And thanks for grounding this in reality for me Dave… my wifes name is Sarah and she has just finished the first trimester of her second pregnancy… So I am currently reading what my situation might look like 😉
Hmmm sources… I guess knowing that there is misinformation (both intentional and accidental) is half the battle, because then you can see/hear/read some news from multiple sources and try to work out what is smoke and what is real. By sources I mean different sources, not just different media.
Knowing your source well would help with the accuracy… I mean if my brother starts telling me a story I know that two thirds of it is exageration… he loves to embelish everything… so if he says he saw and battled nine zombies… I know it is actually three 🙂
And on the Walking Dead TV series ending thing… Have you noticed that the final of each season thus far has potential to end the group completely…
Season 1 = CDC explosion… could have easily ended with everyone being locked in and blown up.
Season 2 = Zombie herd goes through farm…. could have easily ended up with everyone being eaten.
Season 3 = Governor attack, again potential to kill entire group.
So there is always the potential to wrap up the series hovering over their heads… but while the viewership of the TV series keeps going up I don’t think AMC is going to end it 🙂
Lots of good thoughts here, Mad..
As far as the grounding in reality thing goes, let’s just say a lot of this comes from my own experience. My wife pregnant with our first child was something that really affected my, so a lot of that is coming out here.
Hey this is completely random, but a bit of episodes back when those paramedics got ownd by the zombies I noticed the Lego Goth Skater Girl was among the zeds eating them, and she is one of my favorite Lego minifigures lol! Whenever I’m playing out a Lego Zombie Apocalypse with my Lego City the Lego skater girl is always among the main characters, because I feel that the cute goth chick is always killed off at some point or another in most if not all horror zombie genre type movies I have seen
Well, I do aim to please.
I’m holding my breath for when you change her arm to grey to show the spreading of the infection : )
Hah!
I like the point that you bring up in the hover text – “She’s got an uniform, she seems authoritative”.
That would be a good topic for discussion on its own (unless we had it already?).
It is no wonder that it is a common trick of burglars and crooks, you dress up as a cop or even just the cable guy and you immediately gain a certain level of credit.
There are exceptions though, when I put on my “Fire Intervention Team” uniform for an evac drill at my office there are always a bunch of people who don’t even bother to look up from their computer when I ask them to leave (granted, my red helmet is not as impressive as a gun and a walkie).
I think the uniform thing has a double effect, it places the one wearing it in a state of self confidence and on the other hand places the others in a relative state of submission – maybe the word submission is a bit strong but I can’t quite find a more appropriate one.
I understand how you feel about the ‘fire intrvention team’. I was a fire marshall at a previous employer and always wanted to pop a smoke grenade to make it a bit more realistic as no one seemed to care about fire drills….even the day when we set off the alarm without prior notice……took about 15 minutes for the building to be reported as ‘clear’….when in reality is should take only 5 minutes.
Sorry for going a tad off topic Dave 😀
No worries; this is discussion going in interesting directions. I love that.
I was told by an old teacher of mine that there is a saying by some man from one of the many Asian countries.
“Believe nothing of what you hear, and only half of what you see” I follow that.
That’s a great line right there.
Don’t call me an idiot but I’d go with trusting the “local” police, state troopers, ete. But not the main “government”.
No name-calling here, MiBattles101. Local folks are probably a lot more trustworthy anyway.
Listen to the woman, Sam. The security guard was under orders, she’s not just imagining things. And your wife can testify that people are getting attacked. Now that I think about it, I wonder what her encounter looked like for her to dismiss it so readily. I wouldn’t think she would have if she actually had to fight the old woman off…