Zombie Cliche Lookout: Informed Opinion
Once again, today’s cliche is in no way unique to the zombie genre. In point of fact, it’s not something that exists only in media (films, book, games, etc.). No, you can witness this one in real life. Many of us like to imagine what other people would do in specific situations. Sometimes like is a game at predicting outcomes, and sometimes this is us trying to reverse engineer how a situation came to life. Regardless, I think very few of us is as good as we think we are. Why is that? Because we tend to make a lot of assumptions that aren’t really all that accurate. We like to imagine that we can put ourselves into someone else’s shoes, but that’s much easier said than done.
About this Episode:
I realize that spending two full episodes showing people making their way through a window is perhaps a bit boring. Okay, there’s no perhaps about it, it’s boring. That said, I’ve done so for a reason, which I’m making quite explicit in that last panel. These two normally abled adults (#ableism) struggled a bit with making their way inside the house through the window. One adult with two small children would have a much, much hard time of it. In fact, it might not be possible without a ladder or some other form of assistance.
Discussion Question: Vicky and the Kids
Let’s say that are in the house. It’s certainly possible, right? Yes, they’d have a harder time than Barb and Clark, but they could do it. Your job is to tell me exactly how they managed it. And, don’t forget, they didn’t leave anything behind that would have clued in Clark and Barb. So you can’t say “Push a picnic table under the window and climb up on that.
Typo alerts: “Sometimes like is a game at predicting outcomes, and sometimes this is us trying to reverse engineer how a situation came to life.”
Either replace “like” with “life” or “this”, it depends on what Dav e was thinking when he wrote this up. I have no idea, though, what his fingers were thinking! 😀
Hmm, more typos: “One adult with two small children would have a much, much hard time of it.” hard–>harder 😀
“Let’s say that are in the house.” that–>they 😉
Wow, Dave, you were doing so good on the write-ups, well, three isn’t bad though, either! 😀
The kids I don’t think would have a problem entering the house. Kids today seem to have boundless energy! Dave would be correct, however, in surmising that their mom would have a much harder time of it! 😀
I agree to a certain extent, kids would normally look forward to the opportunity of climbing through a window or do anything else that is typically considered off-limit behavior. “look mom, I can climb this, I can jump from here, I am strong and I can do it!”. Part of it is play but also driven by the desire to prove themselves.
But these are not normal circumstances, they are definitely panicked, they could be hurt – their mom might be in bad shape – any number of reasons that could leave them mostly incapacitated and require their mom to do the heavy lifting.
Soo… all things considered, I still give them a chance of being in the house but things are not looking great.
As to where this is all headed to… I will cheat a little here and say that for the benefit of the story Barb and Clark will find them… but it won’t be pretty.
As Greg has already said, the kids would not really have a hard time and would also be thrilled to have to assist their mother. One gets on hands and knees to allow other to climb up, open window and climb in. Then both help mother in. Then the child already inside assists other child to climb in. Have you not watched children at play?
Kids are light. Vicki could have just tossed them up into the window–she’d know there was a bed there to break their fall.
Getting HER through the window would have been harder, but if the kids braced themselves they could have grabbed onto her hands, pushed back with their feet against the window seal, and pulled her through as she pushed off.
So I think, though difficult, it’d be completely plausible.
Simple…the aliens did it.
Or she pushed her children through the window and ran off to be eaten else where…
Or our heroes both failed their perceptiom check with natural 1’s and ther ereally IS a table pressed against the window…and everyone is a zombie standing right behind them ready to eat them.