Zombie Cliche Lookout: The Other Side of Splitting Up
It’s pretty well established that splitting up in a horror movie is just like asking to get gutted by the monster. There is safety in numbers, and eschewing that to cover more ground, or whatever stupid reason the characters come up with, rarely works out. There is, however, a bit of an exception to that rule. If there’s something dangerous that needs to be done, having one or two brave souls break off from the group might make sense. After all, there’s no point in risking everyone on the suicide run. Let the glory-hounds handle that, and everyone else can just sit back and relax until things are safe. Relatively speaking, of course.
Sometimes, we get a little reversal of fortune. That guy that splits off from the group to take the stupid risk to save everyone? Well everyone usually writes him off as zombie chow, but what often happens is that hell miraculously survive, often showing up at the end to save someone at the last minute
About this Episode:
My big idea for this flashback arc was to explain Sam’s cowardice a bit. I hope it all works out in the end like I have in my head. In the meantime, bear with me a bit here. Yes, Sam’s acting braver than you might expect him to, but that’s on purpose. Believe it or not, I really do have a plan here.
Discussion Question: When to Split Up?
Let’s say you find yourself in a horror movie kind of situation. It doesn’t matter what kind. You can stick with zombies, go for the slasher villain, or pod people, or whatever you want. The point is, you’re stuck in that movie, and you need to play by the genre rules if you hope to stay alive. With that in mind, when would be an appropriate time for the group to split up, other than when you want to thin out the herd a bit, of course.
The thing about bravery is that there is no greater bravery than that which goes unrecognized until after the fact! 😀
Or so these movies would have us believe, what will Dave want us to believe? 😉
I read a good quote about bravery, although I can’t recall where. It went something like this: “Bravery isn’t the absence of fear, it’s carrying on despite it.”
“Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.”
-John Wayne
A hero is no braver then an ordinary man, but he is brave 5 minutes longer.
Ralph Waldo Emmerson
I also have a question for Dave: Are his zombies as helpless in the dark as people are? Do they even have a zombie sense of light vs. dark?
More importantly, if they were down there I’m sure we’d have heard them by now, and even more importantly, if there was a sufficient number of them, we’d hear them trying to push one another up the ladder by sheer force of numbers. 😀
They’re about as able as people as far as night vision goes, but I think zombies tend to rely more on other senses more than most people do.
That, and they don’t have to see, smell, or even feel to bite. Something gets near a zombie mouth, and zombie bites. Think of them like self-propelled Venus Flytraps.
Haha, I love the way Sam is trying to hold on to that laptop, despite of all that’s happening, he really doesn’t have a clue. And I’m not looking forward to the climax… poor Sam 🙁
Do we really know that his girl has been bitten? It happened off-screen didn’t it. So we don’t know… yet… Is this part that you wrote “That guy that splits off from the group to take the stupid risk to save everyone? Well everyone usually writes him off as zombie chow, but what often happens is that hell miraculously survive, often showing up at the end to save someone at the last minute” a little fore shadowing? Does Sarah (a typo-alert in the TAGs btw 😉 ) get split of and come back later on in the comic to join Sam again, when it turns out she hasn’t been bitten after all… I’m on to something here aren’t I 😀 Well… maybe not…
And when the group is not acting like a group anymore… it’s time to split up. If you can’t trust members of the group, it’ll be more dangerous to have ‘m in the group.
FL, you have a valid point there. There are lies, damned lies, and statistics, but any way I see it, if it hasn’t actually happened on-screen, then it’s still possible she could have survived without his knowledge.
It’s certainly a possibility, although why would she lie about it?
Here’s the thing, does she even know what bit her or why? Remember, they’re both new to this zombie apocalypse thing, so she probably just thinks one of those zombies they’re talking about bit her.
This is also the bad thing about having off-screen zombie bites, sure you know it’s in your script and it calls for certain actions to follow, but since nobody can actually witness it, nobody can believe it.
Good catch on the typo; thanks!
As far as foreshadowing goes, I’m not going to comment too much, suffice to say that the write-up is more of a statement about zombie stories in general rather than Bricks of the Dead specifically.
I am not so sure about this episode Dave… the “hold this for me otherwise I can’t climb down” almost feels like a joke, it only miss a “Duh” at the beginning of the last line to be complete.
I get that Sam is clueless as to what is going on but I like to think that at this point (and after having crushed a few skulls) anyone would have realized that holding on to a laptop is just stupid.
Unless… he plans to use the laptop as some sort of flashlight in the tunnel? Mmmh, I wonder what you have in store for us now.
Sam’s still in denial, but he realizes there’s danger and that he needs to step forward and protect his wife and unborn child. I look at the laptop handoff as a sort of “You just stay here were it’s safe,” sort of statement.
I think he figures he’ll climb down the ladder, then have Sarah drop it down to him.
As for his denial, folks put on their “automatic tape loop” in a hurry. They do what they normally do, because they haven’t conditioned their brains otherwise. I can think of two good examples. It’s a truism that in a hurricane that grocery stores run out of eggs, bread, and milk first because husbands are conditioned by their wives to pick up a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, or a dozen eggs on their way home from work (I imagine most every man here has gotten that call at work at least ten times). Another example are the tourists that die out in the desert (at least down in the Sonoran desert) with full canteens. They see on TV that they have to “ration” their water, and die having never had any.
Are these cliches? Sure, so is Sam clinging to hip laptop; but it really happens.
I get the feeling that Sarah is going to get attacked and eaten by the zombie group following while Sam is climbing down the ladder.
However, wouldn’t be the first time I made a prediction and got it wrong in this comic… keeping me hooked as usual Dave, nice work!
That’s my though too, that she’s going to get her bite sneaking through the parking structure.
Poor Sarah. We hardly knew ye.
There are documented photos of passengers on Asiana flight 214 fleeing the burning aircraft with their carry-on baggage.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2358629/The-passengers-grabbed-bags-despite-roaring-crashed-Asiana-jetliner.html
Hilarious, Dave. When I was first reading the question, “When is it okay to split up?”, I started thinking, “When I want to get rid of somebody…” Then I read “other than when you want to thin out the herd a bit, of course.” That about kicked over my giggle box.
How about the opposite? I can’t play by the horror movie rules, at least not slasher movie rules, because I am the armed predator. I think I’d split my group when I wanted them to be safe. I’d hide them out, move away, and create a diversion, nothing obvious like fireworks, or a neon sign. I’d feign the wounded deer. I’d loudly trip, limp, something like that. I’d try to draw the slasher out, then unload a whole magazine into him.
That, or set up an ambush using one of the group I don’t like (maybe the loudmouth, maybe the sexpot) as bait. Have them pitch a camp in a field (or upstairs- we all know you never go upstairs). Then open him up.
Why is he smiling in the last panel?
Well honestly I have hardly ever seen splitting up work out for the better, so honestly I would never want to split up and even if my group did I would still have to follow at least one person.