Why do zombies become ineffective durring the winter? This is a question I have discussed with several classmates, and one that has been bothering me for some time. It seems to me that these creatures who are often immune to fatigue and almost any bodily injury shouldn't be so vulnerable to a snow shower or two. Frostbite would certainly not be an issue since it is based around blood flow to the extremities and zombies generally dont have blood. In some cases zombies do have a black, sludge-like substance that flows through them though it unclear as to how essential it is to the zombie's reanimation. It seems that one of these zombies can be shot and lose copious amounts of this substance and still survive, so I dont see why the cold would have an effect on this substance, or be significant enough to stop the zombie if its flow were slowed.
We have seen the winter depicted as the safe season for survivors in several works this semester but most predominantly in Max Brook's World War Z. Brooks emphasizes the importance of winter in several passages, one fo which takes place in Antarctica where the wealthy inventor on Phalanx, Breck Scott, resides. This skilled survivor understands the importance of location to survival and how in Brook's apocalypse, living on a frozen continent is better protection than all the guns on the planet. Another example Brooks provides involves a family from Wisconsin that sought refuge in a Canadian wilderness park. The family supposedly heard rumors that zombies freeze solid in extremely cold climates. The book also illustrates teams of men who sole purpose is to explore the outskirts of civilizations in cold climates to eliminate frozen or partially frozen zombies that could cause problems once thawed in the spring.
When recently watching the popular TV and book series, Game of Thrones, I noticed that their version of the zombie, known as the white walker, is unique in the fact that it is unaffected by the cold and is even thought to reside in colder region of Westeros (the continent in which the series takes place). In my opinion it makes more sense that zombies would be unaffected by the cold as they aren't really affected by anything other than a shot to the head or fire in some circumstances. It seems to me that as long as the brain is preserved, the temperature of the internal organs or extremities shouldn't be a factor.
If the black liquid is thicker than blood, it is more likely to freeze at a higher temperature. The zombies also don't have hearts to pump the blood through the body. Therefore, the black inactive liquid sludge could easily form into a solid. The zombies brain might still be active when the zombie is frozen. It's not like shutting down a robot. It's freezing the zombie from the inside out. In that way, it's as effective as cutting off all the limbs of a zombie. The solid that is inside the walking dead immobilizes them.
ReplyDeleteThis really is a good question. Zombies can handle practically any harm (other than brain damage), so why would the cold prevent them from moving? It's not like the heat ever stops them from looking for fresh human flesh. As we see from the putrid results of the urban heat island effect in Atlanta, the zombies of The Walking Dead are still hungry, even if they are especially smelly. I don't see how the cold would really change anything. Maybe their mobility in snowier areas is even more limited?
ReplyDeleteIt was my understanding that the cold froze the zombies up. Never really considered the physics behind it. As for the white walkers, have they been shown to have any liquid running through them? They look pretty dehydrated to me.
ReplyDeleteThis brings me back to the first days of class when we formed our communities and needed to come up with an area to live in. Members of the defense team opted for a frozen place somewhere in Canada because of zombies being slower or completely frozen. We opted out of the idea, yet still moved our location more north to Wisconsin, which still gets a pretty rough winter. This location seemed great because it offered us the supposed protection with winter as depicted in World War Z, yet trying to preserve warmth 24/7 is difficult and high-energy in a post-apocalyptic world. Of course it worked well for the millionaire Phalanx guy, but not everyone has the luxury of that. In terms of why this would happen, it would make complete sense because we are still carbon life forms which freeze easily. Especially when thought about in terms of The Walking Dead, when zombies reanimate the only thing working is their brainstem, so technically if that froze then they are quite immobile. I guess thats why The Walking Dead seasons only show summertime and end right before winter starts. Maybe it would be boring to show them killing slow zombies.
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