# Zombies - What's their motivation?



## M. Robert Gibson (Dec 10, 2020)

I've recently watched a couple of Zombie films and a thought struck me - why do they attack and eat the living?   

I mean, if they are dead, then surely they don't need to eat.

And when they do attack, why do they usually only take one or two bites, leaving the victim to become one of them?  This is not a very good survival strategy as any virus will tell you.  If you kill all your hosts then your food source is gone with the end result of dying yourself.  
And if there are more of you, then the food source becomes scarcer which means increased competition.  Another bad survival strategy.

It's almost as if these Zombies are not very clever.

Could someone explain the biological requirements and the motivations of Zombies?


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## tinkerdan (Dec 11, 2020)

Discriminate diners.

Zombie-ism is more like rabies.  It drives the victim mad makes them less fearful though somewhat sluggish and if you get too close they will bite.
They have the added feature of not biting anything that smells like them, so they are more prone to bite someone not infected.
A lone Zombid person who bites someone usually does it less from hunger than from madness--not to say they don't get hungry.
But it is easy to get away from a single zombie--however once bitten is all it takes. You can run, but you can't hide.

A Zombid person tends to forage alone until there are so many infected that it becomes difficult to avoid crowd feasting.
Crowd feasting is so hard to analyze in the movies because things happen so fast. However there are fewer people who survive to become zombies, which is okay since once they reach crowd feasting level that means they are mostly overpopulated anyway.

I just saw the movie--The Girl With All The Gifts.








						The Girl with All the Gifts - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				



This sort of examines the next phase after the overcrowding of zombies occurs.


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## TomMazanec (Dec 11, 2020)

I read an interesting article once somewhere online. The stereotypical living dead (dark rings around eyes, etc.) does not look like a corpse. Instead, it looks like a famine victim. The zombie apocalypse is actually a vision of starving hordes.


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## alexvss (Dec 11, 2020)

Zombie stories are allegories for fears that people have in real life. The first fictional zombies came from the stories that americans that were in Haiti during the occupation of that country brought back. Romero used zombies as metaphors for cold war, exacerbated consumerism, etc. 
Depending on the take, zombies (or ghouls) can be controlled by a higher entity, like a vampire, necromancer or witch. Alternatively, it could be a disease like rabies or the mad cow disease--that's what happens in Train to Busan or 28 Days Later, for instance. Or, it could be a fungus, like in The Last of Us. In those cases, the disease/parasite affects their brains, thus making them "not very clever", as you said.

There's a very interesting Youtube channel that I follow. They made three episodes about zombies:


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## HareBrain (Dec 11, 2020)

Rant ahoy!



M. Robert Gibson said:


> It's almost as if these Zombies are not very clever.



They don't have to be. They're mindless puppets -- not, as was originally the case, of sorcerers, but of writers who still rely on them for lazy scares or metaphor 5,362,926 years after the idea got old, and who don't seem to feel the need to justify their existence past the logic level of a D&D spell. (As Arthur C Clarke almost said, "Any sufficiently vague virus is indistinguishable from magic.")

For me, they rank alongside vampires and skater jeans as fashions that should have been strangled at birth but instead somehow went on to enjoy almost Biblical longevity.


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## BAYLOR (Dec 13, 2020)

If you watch the movie Return of the Living dead and its sequel . The zombies  spell it out quite clearly   ."   Brains ! Brains !  "


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## Alex The G and T (Dec 13, 2020)

Ayup.  A couple of C-grade Sci-fi movies from 60 years ago... this trope was pretty much spent.  

And done to death (so to speak), these days.


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## Dave (Dec 13, 2020)

Very interesting comments, What we seem to be saying here is that the Zombie trope is an easy and lazy way for writers to create a pan-regional, disastrous threat, but without any political, religious, ideological or scientific underpinning, so avoiding any backlash from using those metaphors badly, while still triggering our basic underlying fears of Death, Famine, War, and Conquest.


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## Rodders (Dec 13, 2020)

Someone once told me that Zombies are in constant  pain and eating human flesh is the only thing that abates it.


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## nixie (Dec 13, 2020)

My first zombies were Haitian.
 Fascinating read


			Zombification Process | Nathan S. Kline’s Zombi in Haiti


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## Venusian Broon (Dec 13, 2020)

Rodders said:


> Someone once told me that Zombies are in constant  pain and eating human flesh is the only thing that abates it.


Reminds me, somehow, of the stories of the supernatural beings, the Preta. Except being a Preta feels that it would be much worse.









						Preta - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				




The Ghouls in fallout are a bit better thought out as a sort of zombie. Ghoulification preserves humans, so that they can last hundreds of years, but the feral ones have 'rotted brains' from prolonged radiation posioning so they become instinct driven only. And very angry, so they just attack everything, bar other ghouls, they see.

@nixie....Although they were not called zombies at the time, Ishtar in the Epic of Gilgamesh, so ~4000 years ago, threatened to "smash the gates of the Underworld and raise the dead to eat the living". That's pretty much a zombie apocalpyse in my books


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## BAYLOR (Dec 13, 2020)

Alex The G and T said:


> Ayup.  A couple of C-grade Sci-fi movies from 60 years ago... this trope was pretty much spent.
> 
> And done to death (so to speak), these days.



And yet this spent trope seems to constantly resurrect itself  in the of tv series and movies .   The Walking Dead Franchise is now three series in all with a possible fourth  series on the horizon.


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## BAYLOR (Dec 13, 2020)

Venusian Broon said:


> Reminds me, somehow, of the stories of the supernatural beings, the Preta. Except being a Preta feels that it would be much worse.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Ever see the film *On Dark Night* ?  This one an interesting take on resurrection of the the undead.


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## paranoid marvin (Dec 19, 2020)

Brains.


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## Danny McG (Dec 19, 2020)




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## Toby Frost (Dec 20, 2020)

I agree in part with @HareBrain 's point. There's very little original mileage in the traditional zombie even if the imagery is effective. I think you can tell that it's getting stale when the same story gets told over and over again: the reports of strange violence that get closer and closer, the collapse of society, the fighting between rival survivors as well as zombies, etc. It's powerful, but it's getting old. The beginnings of both 28 Days Later and The Walking Dead owe quite a lot to Day of the Triffids, which doesn't bode well.

However, undeath, rather than traditional zombies or vampires, remains interesting. The idea that you could keep yourself going beyond death, at horrible cost, is strong and has a lot of interesting options.


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## HareBrain (Dec 20, 2020)

Toby Frost said:


> even if the imagery is effective



I think that's the "problem" -- it's very effective, and frightening at a fundamental level, which is why creators still think it can carry an entire story (and for many readers and viewers, they're right).


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## M. Robert Gibson (Dec 20, 2020)

HareBrain said:


> and for many readers


Talking of which, are there any books about Zombies?  Or do they only exist on film?  I can't think of any off the top of me head, and I can't be bothered doing a search


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## paranoid marvin (Dec 20, 2020)

M. Robert Gibson said:


> Talking of which, are there any books about Zombies?  Or do they only exist on film?  I can't think of any off the top of me head, and I can't be bothered doing a search



Cell is pretty close to what could be described as a zombie novel. The novel is quite good (a little like a shortened 'The Stand') but avoid the film at all costs.


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## HareBrain (Dec 20, 2020)

M. Robert Gibson said:


> Talking of which, are there any books about Zombies?  Or do they only exist on film?  I can't think of any off the top of me head, and I can't be bothered doing a search



Of the top of my head, *The Girl With all the Gifts*, *Twelve*, *World War Z*. (Some of these were made into films). *Pride and Prejudice and Zombies*, of course ...


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## Vladd67 (Dec 20, 2020)

Here are a few to peruse.


			Amazon.co.uk : zombies


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## M. Robert Gibson (Dec 20, 2020)

HareBrain said:


> Pride and Prejudice and Zombies


Ah yes!  I'd forgotten that Jane Austen was way ahead of her time


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## M. Robert Gibson (Dec 20, 2020)

Vladd67 said:


> Here are a few to peruse.
> 
> 
> Amazon.co.uk : zombies


You know when Disney get involved, Zombies must be on their way out   






						Call to the Wild (Disney Zombies 2: World of Reading, Level 2) : Behling, Steve: Amazon.co.uk: Books
					

Call to the Wild (Disney Zombies 2: World of Reading, Level 2) : Behling, Steve: Amazon.co.uk: Books



					www.amazon.co.uk


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## BAYLOR (Dec 20, 2020)

HareBrain said:


> I think that's the "problem" -- it's very effective, and frightening at a fundamental level, which is why creators still think it can carry an entire story (and for many readers and viewers, they're right).



Zombies For the most part are for the most part, are  the epitome of the one dimensional character .  For the most part ,they exhibit no  character development  whatsoever .  They're consumed with one overall purpose , human flesh and how to acquire it by any means possible. After a while this becomes very tedious stuff.


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## Dave (Dec 20, 2020)

M. Robert Gibson said:


> You know when Disney get involved, Zombies must be on their way out



Zombie Princesses! 

Do you think I can copyright that idea?


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## BAYLOR (Dec 20, 2020)

M. Robert Gibson said:


> You know when Disney get involved, Zombies must be on their way out
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Zombies are not cute and cuddly so,  Disney is going to have a very hard time marketing them as such .


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## alexvss (Dec 20, 2020)

M. Robert Gibson said:


> Talking of which, are there any books about Zombies?  Or do they only exist on film?  I can't think of any off the top of me head, and I can't be bothered doing a search


*The Walking Dead* has a series of novels that spin-off the comics. I read four or five of them. The first one is awesome; the others, not so much...



Dave said:


> Zombie Princesses!
> 
> Do you think I can copyright that idea?



There is an anime (original, not an adaptation of manga or anything) about zombie idol girls. It's called *Zombie Land Saga*. I just watched the first episode and didn't grab me though...


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## nixie (Dec 20, 2020)

When I first came across zombies they were poor souls under the influence of voodoo doctors, some were reanimated corpses, others drug induced minions. If memory serves me correctly they weren't flesh eaters but mindless slaves with no control over their own actions. Then over the years they've evolved into the flesh eating monsters with  no voodoo doctor involvement.


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## Vladd67 (Dec 20, 2020)

I remember seeing a report on Newsnight concerning Zombies in Haiti. Apparently, a man thought dead and buried had come wandering into the village but was like a zombie, he even had a scar on his cheek from a coffin nail. It seems people were drugged so they appeared dead, they were then buried only to be dug up later on revived and then sold on as slave labour. The zombie effect was caused by lack of oxygen in the coffin causing brain damage leaving the victim capable of only the simplest of tasks. This was shortly before the publication of Wade Davis' book Serpent and the Rainbow.


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## BT Jones (Dec 21, 2020)

I agree with @HareBrain that the whole zombie card became a lazy one to play several years ago.  I think 28 Days / Weeks was probably the apex, both in quality and plausibility (a virus that drives people wild but cannot sustain the infected indefinitely without sustenance - i.e. they all die eventually).  World War Z wasn't bad though.  The Walking Dead started off as quite engaging but, much like the Alien franchise, the moment they relegate the monster to background noise behind an otherwise regular drama / thriller, it quickly looses its appeal.

What's interesting, I suppose, is how the allegory for the zombie can change from show to show.  As previous comments, it can be a metaphor for the cold war as well as consumerism.  Personally, I've always seen it as a bit of an allegory for aging or, specifically, our detachment from the youth of the day.  Here are these soulless, risk-averse entities wandering about the place, causing mindless destruction, looking unrecognisable to 'normal' people.  You can't negotiate with them, and they're just as likely to do themselves harm as harm you.  More often than note, you can 'think' your way to safety as they lack the tactical intelligence to plan ahead or negotiate certain obstacles.  This doesn't explain the relentless effort zombies put in, however - there's ZERO correlation there!!

I always felt that it was quite telling how teenagers and young people were more drawn to the genre than any other age group and that, on the most part, the older you got, the more you grew out of it, which I don't imagine can be said for Sci-Fi or Fantasy (at least, not as much).

So, yeah; zombies = teenagers.  That's my take on it, at least probably the last 10 years worth of titles.


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## Danny McG (Dec 21, 2020)

BT Jones said:


> So, yeah; zombies = teenagers. That's my take on it, at least probably the last 10 years worth of titles


Agreed, I've got a street full of them here, I'm not sure if destroying their brains would help tbh


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## Danny McG (Dec 21, 2020)

M. Robert Gibson said:


> Talking of which, are there any books about Zombies


Author Peter Meredith has a long series about them, including the mega awesome *The* *Queen Enslaved*.

Why is it so special you may ask?
Because I'm a character in it!

Yes folks, Danny G McGuinness is in this epic yarn after an email correspondence with the writer....fair enough I quickly get slaughtered but I'm in there.


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## Toby Frost (Dec 21, 2020)

I think zombies combine a serious fear of inevitable, creeping death with the entertainment of gross and excessive deaths. Every zombie film seems to have a "celebrity" zombie who dies in a ridiculously gory fashion. There's also the fact that, among a certain set of the British public at least, they got weirdly fashionable a few years ago. The problem is that they're extremely limited in what they can do, and it now feels like a rather lazy way of writing about an apocalypse.


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## BAYLOR (Dec 21, 2020)

A Zombie  is  a person who loses everything that made them who they are.  They go from becoming a thinker  to becoming  an unthinking consumer.  This   causes them to go on shopping sprees in which the buy things that don't really need and makes them run up and exhaust  all of their credit cards .  The most serious of these  Zombie  outbreaks usually occur around the Holiday season.


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## BAYLOR (Dec 21, 2020)

Vladd67 said:


> I remember seeing a report on Newsnight concerning Zombies in Haiti. Apparently, a man thought dead and buried had come wandering into the village but was like a zombie, he even had a scar on his cheek from a coffin nail. It seems people were drugged so they appeared dead, they were then buried only to be dug up later on revived and then sold on as slave labour. The zombie effect was caused by lack of oxygen in the coffin causing brain damage leaving the victim capable of only the simplest of tasks. This was shortly before the publication of Wade Davis' book Serpent and the Rainbow.



I also remember the Wes Craven movie .  Very much an underrated movie.


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## M. Robert Gibson (Oct 24, 2021)

I've just watched _The Return Of The Living Dead_.  In it there is a scene with half a zombie strapped to a table.  It gets asked the question "Why do you eat people?" to which the answer is 
"Not people.  Brains... ...The pain of being dead ... I can feel myself rotting"
"Eating brains.  How does that make you feel?"
"It makes the pain go away"

So there we have the answer.  Zombies' motivation is to ease the pain of their suffering.  Almost feel sorry for them now 

Found the scene on yew toob


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## Mon0Zer0 (Oct 24, 2021)

M. Robert Gibson said:


> So there we have the answer.  Zombies' motivation is to ease the pain of their suffering.  Almost feel sorry for them now


Opioids for Zombies!


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## Mon0Zer0 (Oct 24, 2021)

paranoid marvin said:


> Brains.


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## BAYLOR (Oct 24, 2021)

Mon0Zer0 said:


>



He had no luck with online dating.


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## Fiberglass Cyborg (Oct 25, 2021)

The behaviour of modern-style Ravening Zombie Horde zombies makes no sense if you consider the zombies themselves to be doing it deliberately to meet their own needs. It's a bit more logical if you consider it to be driven by an outside agency that doesn't have the zombies' best interest at heart.

The two classics: an infectious disease that is trying to spread itself; and a curse that is trying to achieve maximum destruction of human life. In the case of the disease I suspect that after burning through a large part of the population, selection pressures would force it to evolve into a less virulent strain that only /occasionally/ zombifies people. And the curse doesn't care if the zombies eventually run out of food, so long as they do the job they were raised for.  (Some writers can't even be bothered to invoke these causes, mind you.)

I have an issue with the motivation of "monsters" in general, and particularly the ones that are animal-like rather than humanoid. So often, the film-makers don't seem to know whether the poor beast is hunting or showing territorial aggression. Those two activities have VERY different associated behaviours in most real animals. If you hear a lion roar it is /not/ hunting, it is announcing its presence to other potentially hostile lions. But your average Deformed Rubber Mega Beast just blunders around roaring and eating people for no apparent reason.


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## BAYLOR (Oct 25, 2021)

As tax paying citizens , they're tired of constantly being persecuted and discriminated against by society . They want respect , decent housing   and the right to enjoy the finer things in life.  All they really want is two brains in every pot.


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## Ray Zdybrow (Nov 5, 2021)

BT Jones said:


> I agree with @HareBrain that the whole zombie card became a lazy one to play several years ago.  I think 28 Days / Weeks was probably the apex, both in quality and plausibility (a virus that drives people wild but cannot sustain the infected indefinitely without sustenance - i.e. they all die eventually).  World War Z wasn't bad though.  The Walking Dead started off as quite engaging but, much like the Alien franchise, the moment they relegate the monster to background noise behind an otherwise regular drama / thriller, it quickly looses its appeal.
> 
> What's interesting, I suppose, is how the allegory for the zombie can change from show to show.  As previous comments, it can be a metaphor for the cold war as well as consumerism.  Personally, I've always seen it as a bit of an allegory for aging or, specifically, our detachment from the youth of the day.  Here are these soulless, risk-averse entities wandering about the place, causing mindless destruction, looking unrecognisable to 'normal' people.  You can't negotiate with them, and they're just as likely to do themselves harm as harm you.  More often than note, you can 'think' your way to safety as they lack the tactical intelligence to plan ahead or negotiate certain obstacles.  This doesn't explain the relentless effort zombies put in, however - there's ZERO correlation there!!
> 
> ...


Eh? I thought you were saying zombies = old people (boomers like me) which actually makes sense... shambling around living of the young


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## Ray Zdybrow (Nov 5, 2021)

Ray Zdybrow said:


> Eh? I thought you were saying zombies = old people (boomers like me) which actually makes sense... shambling around living of the young


*off*


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## M. Robert Gibson (Nov 6, 2021)

Ray Zdybrow said:


> zombies = old people


Have you seen _Cockneys Vs Zombies_?  It has one of the all-time great chase sequences   

Warning! Naughty language in the following clip


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## Rodders (Nov 6, 2021)

I have to admit that looks hilarious.


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