Zombie Cliche Lookout: Quest Failures
One of the things that makes zombie stories so interesting for me is the fact that the characters are in a perpetual state of disadvantage. With perhaps a very few, short lived exceptions, people surviving the zombie apocalypse have the deck stacked against them to a ridiculous degree. Not only do they have to be on guard against zombies and hostile survivors, they also have to constantly secure a supply of food, potable water, medicine and first aid supplies, weapons, clothing, shelter… the list goes on and on.
Even when they manage a small victory, there’s usually some sort of caveat. Sure, everyone might make it back to camp alive, but they lost the supplies they went to gather. You rescue the person who was holed up in the bell tower, but two of your people were bitten in the process. These constant setbacks are incredibly difficult for most people to deal with, so you often see characters start to have little breakdowns, or start freaking out about things. You can only ask so much from a person before the stress becomes too much to take.
About this Episode:
Sam wastes absolutely no time divulging the bad news. He could have taken a minute or two to lavish in the good feeling that he had made it back, which obviously impressed Tara, but he knew he had to get the bad news out before he got her hopes up too much.
Discussion Question: Irritations and Minor Problems
This weekend I managed to get sunburned on my back, shoulders, chest, and neck. It’s not a huge deal; I’ll just have to deal with some tender skin for a few days. But this got me thinking: in a survival situation where you need to be focused and on your game, any minor problem like this could really throw you off. This makes me think of two questions. First, what sort of irritants do you think could plague people during the zombie apocalypse, becoming much more pronounced issues than they are otherwise? Second, what sort of strategies would you suggest for dealing with them?
Typo alerts for today:
“but the lost the supplies” add ‘y’ to the first “the” to make “they”! 😀
“These constant setbacks are incredible difficult” incredible–>incredibly 😀
Also, the mouseover text went missing again! 😀
Fixed all, thanks.
I wonder if Sam should’ve said he has to say goodbye to Tara and Gramps because he found his friends again? 😀
Or perhaps he’s going to ask them to come with them, who knows, in a zombie apocalypse nowhere is really going to be safe forever! 😀
Could go either way. Having a few more people around might not be a bad idea.
For me irritants would be behaviors that other people don’t display in public, or that they only display when around certain friends or family. For instance they might have a habit of greeting someone with a certain greeting all of the time, but because it’s not an off-the-shelf greeting, it gets annoying after a while to have to listen to it being said the same way all of the time. It could even be as simple as someone who habitually likes going around slapping people on the back too hard! 😀
So affected-type behavior?
I guess … I’m not worried so much on the technical aspects – such as what it’s called – more I started thinking about what I would find annoying in a zombie apocalypse. 😉
Scratches. Any minor break in the skin can easily become infected especially in times where you have limited access to cleansing supplies and where your diet is also not up to RDA standards. Gangrene has been pretty much eliminated in the Western World (except in diabetes cases) but is still a cause of death in many places.
And I called this one…. Wrong again… I should try to play it safe sometimes LOL (I thought it could be someone else than Sam at the door.)
I myself sprain my ankle pretty badly playing basketball this week end. And as nothing was fractured nor teared, I could easily imagine how bad such an “everyday” injury could be. Let’s face it this has “death around every corner” written all over it LOL…
Now dealing with that… You have to be around people who will chose to help you over leaving you behind…
Extreme Pessimistist, and anything first-aid related.
If twd then also any death that ppl can’t shank before the body turns.
I know at some point it would move beyond mere irritant, but lack of dental hygiene would lead to everyone having bad breath. Of course, it might not be so noticeable over the smell of no one showering regularly.
Lack of dentists and toilet paper
Nuff said man. Nuff said.
Deryck you jerk xD we posted the same thing at the same time xD