The Walking Dead (4 Viewers)

[jbutler]

...if they are already infected, why does a zombie bite kill them?

As someone who has not paid super close attention to the "rules" of the show, I also meant to ask this. Seeing dude get his shoulder bit last night and acting like he would be a goner now, I didn't get it. Like Biggy, I thought everyone was infected and would resurrect upon death and so a bite should make no difference.

Anyone know the answer?

 

[Anthony Martino]

Let's face it, if you were in the zombie apocalypse, would you not make a suit of armor out of tires and duct tape/string like every 80's mad max movie?

No, that only slows you down and tires you out. The way to survive is to have endurance and be able to outrun the zombies, and to avoid them at all costs, not to pile on additional stuff that limits your range of motion and slows you down.

There are 10,000 holes anyone can see in the story, like if they are already infected, why does a zombie bite kill them? I am sure somewhere this is "explained" but it should just be a flesh wound.

I'm guessing they explain it by saying that even though that sort of wound isn't life threatening, the infection caused by the wound is difficult to treat and thus you die anyway (I think that's what they said on Fear The Walking Dead)

And why do zombies even eat? Their organs do not process food

Because it's terrifying to think of being eaten alive by smelly rotting corpses. My bigger question is how are there so many zombies around given that whenever we see zombies attack people they essentially devour them into a pile of flesh and bones. All the zombies we see for the most part are relatively intact compared with all the humans we see become their meals.

Anyway, I don't see how he could survive it, and not sure why they did not climb the stairs on the building to the right of the dumpster, kill a few to block the stairway and ride it out on the roof,

I thought they were going to climb all that debris onto the stairs leading to the roof too

or why the injured people did not do something similar rather than try and run for it.

Because it's more dramatic to have them wait and then become "trapped" inside with zombies banging on the windows and the horde closing in than to have them kill the 7 zombies to escape before the horde arrives

 

[Ronoh]

As someone who has not paid super close attention to the "rules" of the show, I also meant to ask this. Seeing dude get his shoulder bit last night and acting like he would be a goner now, I didn't get it. Like Biggy, I thought everyone was infected and would resurrect upon death and so a bite should make no difference.

Anyone know the answer?

Yes, something in the bite causes an untreatable infection that leads to a very high fever and eventually death.

 

[Ronoh]

To clarify, you don't die from the bite. You die from the infection the bite causes.

Scratches wont kill you, neither will getting a walkers blood/gore in your mouth or open wound.

 

[Anthony Martino]

Beth was a very cute girl but a bit on the goody goody side. She'd be looking for love while Maggie would grab the back of your head on the floor of a ransacked drugstore with corpses strewn about the place and just go to town.

In my experience it's the goody-goodies that can't wait to get freaky because they've been religiously repressed most of their lives and are just waiting to cut loose

 

[BiGGyT]

To clarify, you don't die from the bite. You die from the infection the bite causes.

Scratches wont kill you, neither will getting a walkers blood/gore in your mouth or open wound.

So if I get a scratch, and zombie blood pours into it, it is not infected. But if I get a bite, zombie spit has 1000x aggressive component that makes super infection. Seems legit.

No, that only slows you down and tires you out. The way to survive is to have endurance and be able to outrun the zombies, and to avoid them at all costs, not to pile on additional stuff that limits your range of motion and slows you down.


Because it's more dramatic to have them wait and then become "trapped" inside with zombies banging on the windows and the horde closing in than to have them kill the 7 zombies to escape before the horde arrives

While yes, adding 20 lbs of newspaper to your torso and legs might make you more fatigued at first, you would adapt much like soldiers who hump 20 miles with 80lb sacks. Yes, cardio is important to survive zombieland, but even Brad Pitt figured out a magazine worked good for protecting the forearm.

I think the 2-3 could have busted out of the pet shop, the bad leg girl stay behind, stack dog food in front of the doors and chow down on it while waiting for the hoard to follow the healthy ones out of town. Live to fight another day and all.

Regardless, I enjoy the show.

 

[Ronoh]

Just pulled it up on my phone and watched the death a few times.

Glenn is wearing beige, Nicholas is wearing green.

Glenn's head smacks off the ground pretty hard.

Shot of Glenn from the upper chest to his head, If Nicholas is on top of him he's only covering below the rib cage.

Sure looks like a beige shirt the walkers dig in to.

Glenn looks like he blacks out (or dies).

Either a) Glenn is dead.

b) Glenn is alive because the walkers tore in to Nicholas and they didn't give a damn what the final product looked like

c) Glenn hit his head so hard he imagined the walkers digging in to his chest and he was somehow saved by an outside party

 

[Ronoh]

So if I get a scratch, and zombie blood pours into it, it is not infected. But if I get a bite, zombie spit has 1000x aggressive component that makes super infection. Seems legit.

These are the comments I just don't get. If you can suspend disbelief enough to enjoy a show about zombies why have any issue with something in the saliva that causes an untreatable infection......?

 

[Ronoh]

You'll be fine if you get covered in black mamba blood but you're in deep shit if it bites you.

 

[Poker Zombie]

Glen used to wear riot gear (armor) when fighting zombies. He eventually ditched it. Possible reasons:

• Atlanta + armor = pass out.
• Atlanta + armor = stink, and zombie target selection is determined by smell.
• Lots of people have used makeshift armor. We don't see them because they're all dead.

 

[Chippy McChiperson]

So my question is what happens if you get bitten by a regular person? If everyone is already infected, will you still turn into a zombie? Or does something happen to the saliva at the moment they turn into a walker that acts as an accelerant?

 

[Anthony Martino]

the bad leg girl stay behind, stack dog food in front of the doors and chow down on it while waiting for the hoard to follow the healthy ones out of town. Live to fight another day and all.
.

I don't even remember seeing her get injured. I saw the guy shot in the leg and the guy bit on the back/shoulder, but don't recall seeing her leg get injured. Not to mention, how is no one pissed that Rick pretty much jinxed the whole group when he took Michonne & Glenn aside (while the group was still healthy and ahead of the horde behind them) to say that the others wouldn't all make it, like, way to fucking go Rick!

Also, they outran the horde behind them, so not sure why they're encountering segments of the horde in the woods ahead of them. Oh wait, did the bad leg girl trip and fall or something, no wait, I think that only happened when she left the pet shop before being devoured.

And what's with the injured people suddenly being martyrs without fear "no, leave me behind, you guys go on and save yourselves!" Like, people would be losing their shit about to get chomped into and have their flesh torn by gnashing zombie teeth.

 

[kirchhausen]

I don't even remember seeing her get injured. I saw the guy shot in the leg and the guy bit on the back/shoulder, but don't recall seeing her leg get injured. Not to mention, how is no one pissed that Rick pretty much jinxed the whole group when he took Michonne & Glenn aside (while the group was still healthy and ahead of the horde behind them) to say that the others wouldn't all make it, like, way to fucking go Rick!

Also, they outran the horde behind them, so not sure why they're encountering segments of the horde in the woods ahead of them. Oh wait, did the bad leg girl trip and fall or something, no wait, I think that only happened when she left the pet shop before being devoured.

And what's with the injured people suddenly being martyrs without fear "no, leave me behind, you guys go on and save yourselves!" Like, people would be losing their shit about to get chomped into and have their flesh torn by gnashing zombie teeth.

SHe twisted her ankle in the forest running from the herd before they made it into town..

 

[Poker Zombie]

Bit by zombie = sickness then death.
Death by anything other than brain scrambling = zombie life.

Why? Because having a reason detracts from the story.

IGN Comics: Last issue, we saw the survivors take the first steps towards investigating the zombies and maybe trying to figure out what causes someone to become a zombie. Do you have any intention of ever explaining what caused the zombie outbreak?

Kirkman: I really don't. I think that what the book has going for it right now is a sense of realism, if that makes sense. There are a lot of girls reading the books and stuff, and I get a lot of female readers and people who don't read comics and don't read superhero comics. And so if you take away the zombies from the Walking Dead, it's really just an accessible story about people's lives in an extreme situation. And I feel that if you were to sit down and say, you know, a space spore landed on Earth and infected a bunch of people…There's no explanation for the zombies that doesn't push you further into the realm of science fiction, and I feel like it would kind of kill the believability, as odd as that sounds for a book about a bunch of dead people walking around.

 

[Anthony Martino]

So my question is what happens if you get bitten by a regular person? If everyone is already infected, will you still turn into a zombie? Or does something happen to the saliva at the moment they turn into a walker that acts as an accelerant?

Hmmmm, everyone is infected/carrying the virus. Yet no one is affected by it while they're alive, the virus is able to reanimate the body upon death. So the bodies immune system must be capable of holding the virus at bay, just not at eradicating it completely.

As such, perhaps the body of a living person is incapable of transmitting the wound inhibitor via biting because the bodies immune system keeps it at bay, while the dead don't have an immune system and thus are able to transmit the un-healable infection

 

[Ronoh]

Anthony i never said whatever you quoted above. Just to throw it out there.

Good question chippy, I would assume getting bitten by someone healthy is fine as I haven't heard of anyone biting their lip and turning

Still not sure why anyone has an issue with a bite being what kills you. That's, like, every zombie movie ever. Dawn of the dead when Ving falls into the fountain and punctures his arm he never turns, kinda their way of showing that zombie blood wont turn you but the fat lady in the wheelbarrow died and turned from a "flesh wound" bite.

 

[Anthony Martino]

Anthony i never said whatever you quoted above. Just to throw it out there.

Not sure why it listed you as the person I quoted since I went to edit and it had BiggyT's info in there, but I just edited it and it seems ok now

 

[jbutler]

Still not sure why anyone has an issue with a bite being what kills you. That's, like, every zombie movie ever. Dawn of the dead when Ving falls into the fountain and punctures his arm he never turns, kinda their way of showing that zombie blood wont turn you but the fat lady in the wheelbarrow died and turned from a "flesh wound" bite.

Because not all zombie movies/shows/stories operate within the same rules. TWD has everyone pre-infected whereas that's not the case in the vast majority of zombie movies in which the bite transmits the infection. I'm well beyond arguing about whether the rules or anything else makes sense or doesn't (I have pretty much written the show off as a hate-watch at this point), but it certainly makes sense that people would be wondering about the rules themselves.

 

[MoscowRadio]

I just watched the episode and I'm surprised to see that no one has posted anything about Rick's hand getting bitten. In the comics, he loses his hand to the Governor, so maybe they're still taking that path but in a different way? It seemed obvious to me that he was going to radio everyone telling them about his bite just before the Wolves attacked his RV.

 

[detroitdad]

I just watched the episode and I'm surprised to see that no one has posted anything about Rick's hand getting bitten. In the comics, he loses his hand to the Governor, so maybe they're still taking that path but in a different way? It seemed obvious to me that he was going to radio everyone telling them about his bite just before the Wolves attacked his RV.

I didn't realize it was a bite. I thought he sliced it with the machete he pulled out of the walkers back.

 

[jbutler]

I didn't realize it was a bite. I thought he sliced it with the machete he pulled out of the walkers back.

I didn't think it was a bite either, but I thought the danger that was implied was his open wound coming into contact with the blood/gore/flesh of the walkers he was fighting.

 

[72o]

I didn't realize it was a bite. I thought he sliced it with the machete he pulled out of the walkers back.

Yeah I thought it got screwed up from when the knife broke off in the zombie's head just prior.

 

[Poker Zombie]

^^ this. Cheap knife, blade broke off. He tried to pull it out, and sliced his hand. Then he took the free machete in the zombie's back.

Which reminds me - why are there so many machetes in Atlanta?

...and why hasn't Kudzu taken over the whole state yet?

 

[SixSpeedFury]

I like Glen, but if he is miraculously alive next week then man, that is some bad writing. I rewatched that scene to see if he had any possible escapes. 1) Why didn't they go up the fire escape? They had ample time. 2) The dumpster was of no use, seeing as there was only like six inches of clearance from the floor, and it was like all of 4 feet wide. 3) There was a manhole beneath them when they landed, although I doubt Glen would even remotely access it with all those zombies around him and all that weight on top of him. Some people are pointing to

Spoiler

Jesus

or even

Spoiler

Negan

as his savior, although the latter being introduced would be too early, storyline wise.

 

[Ronoh]

Because not all zombie movies/shows/stories operate within the same rules. TWD has everyone pre-infected whereas that's not the case in the vast majority of zombie movies in which the bite transmits the infection. I'm well beyond arguing about whether the rules or anything else makes sense or doesn't (I have pretty much written the show off as a hate-watch at this point), but it certainly makes sense that people would be wondering about the rules themselves.

But in every last one of them a bite will kill you and I can't think of one where a zombie's blood getting in a scratch will kill you. Sure there may be an obscure one here or there but those two "rules" are pretty darn firm in the zombie universe.

 

[jbutler]

But in every last one of them a bite will kill you and I can't think of one where a zombie's blood getting in a scratch will kill you. Sure there may be an obscure one here or there but those two "rules" are pretty darn firm in the zombie universe.

Sure, but again, TWD has already made clear that its rules deviate from the norm as to how one becomes infected.

 

[Ronoh]

Sure, but again, TWD has already made clear that its rules deviate from the norm as to how one becomes infected.

But I said nothing about any of that, all I said was I can't grasp why anyone would have an issue with the two "industry standard" rules of a bite killing you and blood in a scratch not killing you. My comment wasn't geared towards anyone who didn't know TWDs rules, they were geared towards those who have insinuated those two rules are dumb

 

[Anthony Martino]

But in every last one of them a bite will kill you and I can't think of one where a zombie's blood getting in a scratch will kill you. Sure there may be an obscure one here or there but those two "rules" are pretty darn firm in the zombie universe.

In 28 Days Later just a drop of blood falling into a guys eye caused him to immediately turn. Granted they are rage-infected people and not necessarily the undead, but kinda presented similarly.

 

[Ronoh]

In 28 Days Later just a drop of blood falling into a guys eye caused him to immediately turn. Granted they are rage-infected people and not necessarily the undead, but kinda presented similarly.

Almost put a "please don't mention 28 days" in that post but didn't want to turn the thread in to what is or is not a zombie movie.

28d people are rage infected living people, they aren't the undead. They starve to death in the end yeah?

 

[Anthony Martino]

Almost put a "please don't mention 28 days" in that post but didn't want to turn the thread in to what is or is not a zombie movie.

28d people are rage infected living people, they aren't the undead. They starve to death in the end yeah?

True but the infection in both 28 days and TWD i believe is a virus. Which puts us onto the discussion of how they are transmitted (and obviosly many liberties lacking realism are taken in that genre)