Zombie Cliche Lookout: Binary Choices
This one isn’t specific to zombie stories by any means, but it’ll certainly show up there. I’m speaking, of course, of when the leader character will boil down the options available to the group into two broad, mutually exclusive options. This is generally just a bit of narrative streamlining. Sure, there are loads of other options available, and there is plenty of overlap between many of the options, but all that gets far too complicated to get across to an audience. The answer, just reduce the options down to two and force people to pick a side.
In this case, our heroes could do a few different things. They could secure the house temporarily to prepare to flee. They could barricade the house and work on some way to distract the zombies or draw them away. They could hunker down and only send one person off to try to find help or lead the zeds away. I could go on and on.
About this Episode:
I’m not sure if it comes across here or not, but I’m trying to show Barb walking back and forth as she delivers this little monologue. The idea is to mimic a scene that shows up in a lot of military and action movies where the leader character is trying to pump up the heroes to go out and kick some ass.
Discussion Question: Options C – Z
Maybe this is a lame question, but when I was doing the above write-up I kept returning to it. Other than the options Barb listed, and the additional ones I enumerated about, what else could these characters do to try to survive? Are any of these choices better than the others? Any of them a surefire way to end up as zombie food?
Typo alert: “find help of lead the zeds away” of–>or 😀 You’re doing a lot better, only one today! 😀
Just one? Not bad, not bad. It’s amazing how often I screw up of/or.
It sort of comes across that she’s walking around, but it’s not helped by the fact that she’s standing in the same spot in the first two panels, and also not helped by the fact that she seems to be standing with both legs together in every shot. If I were doing it, I’d have alternated her leg positions one leg at a time, and turned her in the opposite direction more often. 😀
She’s actually in different spots in the first two panels, although it’s subtle. I probably should have changed up her leg position more than I did.
I think a big part of the problem here might be the fact that real LEGO minifigures cannot twist at all, so in order to have her upper body face the audience (not us, the other characters … and coincidentally *also* us) her legs are also stuck facing us.
But then maybe human actors don’t actually do that in these scenes either, I’m not really sure ;-).
As for their options, they definitely need someplace safer than here, and with some hope of getting to food and supplies. The kids are going to be a problem once they learn that candy, chocolates, and all things that kids like are going to get much harder to procure! 😀
Maybe it wouldn’t be the way Dave would write it, but I can definitely see their numbers getting thinned out a bit. Question is, who is going to be the one that falls by the wayside?
This is as difficult a question as what is going to do someone in, therefore the answer is equally hard to deduce. Personally, I think Clark’s going to have some issues with being dragged into this situation, and is going to become a problem sooner or later, or outright leave the group. Maybe he’ll even end up volunteering to lead the zombies outside away, since he’s had experience with dealing with zombies, and roughing it on his own.
Some very interesting thoughts here, BrickVoid.
I always imagined life like a RTS video game. Never stop improving. Would be your house, your job, the next has to be better than the previous. I kinda think this could translate into ZA… Barricade your house, find some time to think this through, and find another place, a better one. Considering you have the luxury to do so of course…
Sometimes, even in RTS games, things do go as planed…
So my guess is they should first try to barricade the house to buy some time. This keeps people active and this gives time to the leader to find a new plan. Then, prepare for the next move. A house like that might just be temporary.
Good thoughts here. It has the added benefit of keeping people busy. Busy people have less time to think about their circumstances too much, and getting desperate and depressed.
Never go with the military option if it is not the first one out the door. The 2nd through whatever non-personal attempt is always a clean sweep / mop / control then spin in a “we are winning / we are fighting back” lime light. It’s not just in movies folks.