If everyone is already infected......
It has been established in this universe - Kirkman's universe - that everyone has the virus. That's why Larry's head was popped with a salt lick; if they didn't destroy his brain, he would have turned.
So, my question is this: Why would just a bite or scratch from a zombie cause someone to die? If Lee already has the virus in him, why does getting bit matter? Does a bite from a walker cause the virus to kick into over-drive?
Maybe I'm just looking for an out for Lee, but it seems to me that just a scratch or little bite wouldn't cause death. (Yeah, I know. I've seen all of the movies, too. One bite means death, but I'm gonna miss Lee. He's awesome.)
So, my question is this: Why would just a bite or scratch from a zombie cause someone to die? If Lee already has the virus in him, why does getting bit matter? Does a bite from a walker cause the virus to kick into over-drive?
Maybe I'm just looking for an out for Lee, but it seems to me that just a scratch or little bite wouldn't cause death. (Yeah, I know. I've seen all of the movies, too. One bite means death, but I'm gonna miss Lee. He's awesome.)
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
The bite causes a fatal infection that cannot be cured basically. In the comics, it is possible to survive a bite by amputation if the infection hasn't spread yet, but it's only worked once and that was IMMEDIATELY after the bite. Odds are that by now the bite has spread so Lee's screwed.
But the bite itself does not carry this airborne zombie disease. The walker bite is simply a means of infecting a living person with a host of high fatality diseases. The walker's mouth being a vector for particularly nasty variants of horrible diseases and a plethora of them. Pretty much everything imaginable. That's how I understood it at least.
I think it's just a matter of there being so much foulness in the mouths of these walking dead that it hard to administer this kind of cure for several reasons.
First, you'd need a doctor who knows something about the amount of infections and lethal diseases that the zombie's carry as vectors. And if they have mutated in the zombie host to become more virulent and more deadly (which is likely the case). And without someone with the proper know-how and a lab or anything set up. That's tough to find.
Second, you'd need the actual medicine, anti-biotics, and treatment. And in the post-zed world those thing are a precious commoditiy. Either already looted or just damn hard to find.
Third, you'd have to find that super-genius doctor. And get him the materials. Then he'd have to figure out what in the hell you have and how to treat it. If that's even possible. In the end it's just too much of a task. The infection too quick and too deadly. A disease or batch of diseases no one was prepared for. Not to mention the thing that reanimating the dead.
It's really just a complete clusterfuck of doom. SO while I think it's plausible given that the star were aligned and the bitten person was tended to immediately by someone with a vast knowledge about virulent diseases. Our protagonists definitely won't be in such luck. And most of the people capable of stopping these diseases are most likely dead.
Yeah, that's kinda where I was going with that one
Yep I personally think if all the right conditions were met and it was handled by those capable people with the right equipment a zombie bite would perhaps not be a total death sentence.
Like, I get pissed think about the inconsistency of their strength. Sometimes they're strong enough to rip through live flesh, which is damn near impossible for even the strongest people, yet can barley walk and have no muscles. It's like Kirkman doesn't know basic anatomy.
Yep, a lot of contradictions.
Romero can be thanked for that.
Kirkman's "take" on the shambling dead is really nothing new.
It's heavily rooted in Romeroist tradition.
Anyways...
I think Max Brooks addresses the issue in his Zombie Survival Guide.
Of why they're so incredibly strong.
by chance do you know what the explanation for the strength is?
Does it matter that Kirkman is unoriginal? He decides what is what in the end. He could have changed that. He owned it the moment he wrote it.
Another thing that is stupid is spreading a disease by bite. That's pretty much the worst way to infect someone. The best example we have is rabies, and it's practically extinct. And for rabies to spread there needs to be saliva for the bite to transmit the disease. Dead people don't salivate.
Brook's explanation was that zombie aren't really fatigued. They have unwavering stamina. Most victims are caught either by surprise. Or when they're tired. He goes on to say that humans only use about a third of their maximum strength that their muscles will physically allow for preservation reasons. And that zombies don't have that regulation happening in their body so they use all of it. While the zombies generally get weaker cause their muscles don't heal themselves, it makes for an unusually strong zombie when first encountered.
Yes that's true. But those are the rules laid out by Romero himself. To go against that is doing a great disservice to the Godfather himself
And noone said the diseases that harbour in the mouths of the living dead are anything like rabies. The virulent process that turns the reanimates the dead is completely separate from the horrifying diseases that fester in the mouth of a walker. Who knows what byproducts of eating flesh (living or otherwise) has had on what dwells there. And who knows what effect being in a shambling corpse has had on these diseases being picked up. Could haver been mutated from the host itself, or in reaction the prescence of the reanimation virus. If that's what it is.
Anyways, I spose it's up to Kirkman.
BUT, speaking of Romero, I remember specifically in the original Night of the Living Dead, its the recently dead that are rising, nothing to do with bites
it was theorized by the main character that the dead bodies likely carried an untold number of diseases and thats what causes the bite to be fatal
though if that were the case for Kirkman zombies, i would assume bites would be less than 100% fatal
Your right there Panda Man in the real world they don't salivate, or walk, or kill, or eat, or breathe. But in the Romero/Kirkman worlds they do. We've seen them do all these in the films, tv shows, the books, and the games. On numerous occasions in the films, tv shows and books when there is a closeup shot of a zombie there is a clear viscous fluid drooling from its slavering jaws, more evident when a meal is at hand, it may be something else but it sure looks like saliva. And before anyone laughs, about the breathing, its true they don't breathe for the same purpose we do, they don't need to breathe to sustain their existence but they do need to draw air into their lungs to create the moans, groans, growls, yells, and snarls we've all come to love.
You need water to salivate. Walkers don't drink water. And they couldn't get enough from eating people. Therefore, walkers have magical saliva.
Edit: That was directed at Panda.
They have magical walking abilities too. So, y'know, grain of salt...
Or whole salt lick.
Well, I can't argue with that logic. Birds can fly so I can see walkers being flyers soon!
You are correct, yes.
I agree.
I think a deconstructing scientifically what we think should be happening and what is happening is the difference, we don't know nor do we understand it. Maybe they will figure it out in the future and some vaccination will prevent us from turning, until then it is kill or be killed by the geeks (or zeds, or walkers, etc.).
You caught me. I'm trying to define it to myself. It's the only way to define it! lol
But thats the thing red theres nothing logical about the walking dead, they aren't real, they are a multitude of impossibilities. It doesn't make sense to pick one of those impossibilities out from the heap and try to apply logic to it, ignoring the fact that nothing else about them has any realistic viability. They exist the way they do only through artistic interpretation so whose to say what is right or wrong?
I think zombies catch the worst crap over it because they're us, only dead and cannibalistic.
Sure there are things that aren't supposed to happen, but there are parasites and viruses that can change how a creature works, too. I don't see why this wouldn't be any different.
No one's saying that zombies are realistic. It doesn't have to be scientifically correct.
As long as the story is great, it shouldn't be that hard to suspend disbelief. Just enjoy it. lol
The writer who is artistically interpreting it. :P
I agree with you. I've been saying the exact same thing in other threads. It doesn't mean it doesn't bother me at times. That's something personal. But yeah, you're right.
Look, comparing zombies to cats is about as useful as comparing zombies to birds or any other animal. It isn't. There are complex biological processes that allow them to do these things that zombies don't have. Just b/c it's possible in one species doesn't mean it's possible in another, was my point.
Zombies are fictional. Everything about them is magical, from their ability to move at all to salivating. You'll never create a coherent explanation, never give anywhere close to a good analogy b/c there isn't one, so what is your point?
Everything that goes farther into actual medicine is donkey shit anyways.
No, you were comparing zombies to cats, saying that's how they could get water. I said it's like comparing zombies to birds--useless b/c they are different species. There was no cat and bird comparisons on my part.
And did you just call me your darling? LMAO! WOW! I cannot stop laughing.
If your imagination doesn't got that far, I am sorry I confused you... but it doesn't make your statement right.
P.S.: I called you darling 'cause I felt you needed a hug.
I'm saying you're comparing zombies to cats. Is that not what you're doing?
You're saying zombies can get water from blood/eating because cats can, right? lol
This explains why everyone in the Walking Dead universe seems to be incapable of making decent decisions.
The walkers were just people who were hit the hardest with the infection, and they wander around, unable to interact with anyone.
FLYING ZOMBIES!
Here is what Jake said about this topic:
"Dying is what turns you into a zombie. It doesn't matter what you die from... as long as your brain is physically intact when you die, you will come back. So, if something kills you, you will come back.
A zombie bite kills you. You get sick from the infection, it wears your body down and you die. If something kills you, you will come back. A zombie bite kills you, therefore you come back.
One isn't a direct cause of the other ("A zombie bite turns you into a zombie,") but the first half -- the bite -- becomes the cause of the second half -- death, at which point you turn."
I couldn't tell if anyone had answered your question