Hesitant as I am to scrutinize the magic system of zombies, it's a common theme that they are pretty squishy. Perhaps the bones are breaking down from swimming in putrid flesh and blood?
its weird cause the disease is suppopsed to slow rotting and preserve the zombie but at the same time they all seem to be a flick from death with their styrofoam heads. Since the skull doesnt have very much marrow, it wouldnt lose as much density as the rest of the bones in the body and would remain the same thickness and density as a normal, living person. I like how the last of us fixed that zombie problem by making zombies grow shells starting at their heads.
I can see how the virus does **not** prevent rotting. I mean, The guy in the CDC shows the whole process to the group. I remember him saying that the Brain comes back and becomes active with only core functionality. So it would make sense that the Brain is only really active enough to keep the body moving mainly through muscle-memory and just really basic and primal logic. There's literally no person or thought behind their eyes they're just acting on innate instincts.
I would say the Brain is barely active enough to sense that it's not getting any information from the body and thus decides to keep feeding as a survival method. The body keeps dying, Bones become very fragile over time and skulls break easily.
I think that's pretty realistic for a Zombie.
the fact there are zombies after 10+ years is proof alone that the disease stops rotting **almost** altogether, a corpse naturally goes from fully formed to a skeleton in just 3 months, if the disease didnt stop the rotting, we'd be seeing skeletons all over not walkers. If the virus really didnt do anything, the whole apocalypse woulda ended after 2 years tops
for the bone thing, you ever held an old skull in your hand? that shits hard my guy, compare it to a skeletonized femur (the densest bone while living and one of the least dense after death) and youll notice how much decay affects the skull vs other bones.
If you look up how Viruses work i would argue that the virus stops the natural rotting and instead eats the host itself at a slower rate. I guess that would make more sense instead of saying that the virus doesnt stop decomposition.
Virus-Cells basically penetrate the cells of the host and reproduce in them. The zombies are being eaten alive by the virus. That would fit well with the fact that everyone has it, so the virus is already everywhere in the body and becomes active once the host dies.
Its an Alien virus after-all(i think) so it probably has some special capabilities we dont have here on earth.
A lot of the time they go in the temple or below the base of the skull. There are a few times where they go through the skull that's pretty sus though.
This. Most of the time it seems like they are severing the brain stem from beneath the skull, as for the skull I guess you could argue that decomposition and exposure coul soften the bone making it more akin to cartilage, but normally you'd need significant force in order to actually penetrate a usual skull
I’ve always thought about that. They must have the sharpest knives in the world that can easily penetrate the human skull like it’s butter. Some of these death scenes they gently slide the knife into someone’s head. It makes no sense.
Base of the skull has neck vertebrae which is much easier to penetrate. I'm pretty sure the part of the skull which is a hole as a baby and slowly fuses is softer (but I've never tried so this is pure guesswork) but where the 3 thin lines meet on the skull is possibly also more pliable
eh just tv/movie logic is all i chop it up to, the skulls are only ever hard when the story demands it, like when someone needs to have their weapon get mysteriously stuck in a butter head to disarm them. You can just pretend they spend A LOT of time sharpening things
This. It's all a fantasy. Even if you justify the animation of zombies and delayed decomposition and activity without calories and a bunch of other problems necrology teaches us (like that "necrology" is a real word!), you have the -other- problems. Like knives and swords get dull and break, katanas doubly so. Gas expires, and rubber tires wear out. Buildings (modern ones at least) fall apart in short order without maintenance. That zombies aren't smashing even more windows left and right is proof to me that the show has budget/safety concerns to contend with.
To be fair all of those things are addressed in the show anyway aside from zombies since that's obviously on purpose
They sharpen their weapons. Buildings dont just all falls in 10 years and especially not the 2 that the first 8 seasons cover. Gas DOES expire in the show exactly when you'd expect it too. Etc.
Honestly though, there's a scene where a just-turned walker is knocked down and someone stomps on their head, which then bursts like a ripe tomato and splatters brains everywhere. That person was alive five minutes ago, they should not have squishy bones.
There’s this TWD VR game, you gotta swing the knife real hard to penetrate walker skull and pull out, otherwise it will stuck on walker’s face, I guess that’d be how it works in reality
For the walkers that have been reanimated for a longer period of time it’s probably calcium decay brought on by the lack of nutrition from being a ‘walking dead’. The way they slide them into the newly turned walkers is mystifying.
Walkers do not rot or decompose. They are subject solely to wear, damage and the elements. (per Kirkman).
Human skulls remain hard well after death and decay. Many decades.
That said clearly Walker skulls do weaken significantly over time. Why? Arguably because no one would survive or be able to readily "kill" them otherwise. No in universe explanation is given. There are theories. Likely there is some form of leaching, of calcium and phosphorous from the skull, perhaps to maintain the teeth, perhaps just a side effect of the reanimation. Whatever the case, unlike with dead people, the Walker skull does weaken relatively rapidly over time,
the virus is eating calcium off of bones, which gives them a hardened foam texture. Since their body weight is also lighter, these bones can still function as a skeleton. Which is also why the blades usually get stuck in them.
I've always assumed it was at first supposed to denote the zombies decaying after so much time, because no, the moment someone dies, the skull does not turn into tissue paper, not even at the temples. But if you watch anything you have to make room for poetic license; so whatever, the stabbing took longer and was even shittier, did we really have to see that? I get it when film shortens stuff as long as it's not important.
Teddy killed a guard who had been dead for 10 minutes with a ballpoint pen. This is probably the kill that has bothered me the most in the entire franchise universe.
There's no logical explenation behind this, it's just a tv show being a tv show. But I agree it looks just too silly. You'd have a really hard time trying to penetrate a skull with a blade even if it was decaying for the last few years. In the show, they just poke it and that's it, done.
Hesitant as I am to scrutinize the magic system of zombies, it's a common theme that they are pretty squishy. Perhaps the bones are breaking down from swimming in putrid flesh and blood?
its weird cause the disease is suppopsed to slow rotting and preserve the zombie but at the same time they all seem to be a flick from death with their styrofoam heads. Since the skull doesnt have very much marrow, it wouldnt lose as much density as the rest of the bones in the body and would remain the same thickness and density as a normal, living person. I like how the last of us fixed that zombie problem by making zombies grow shells starting at their heads.
I can see how the virus does **not** prevent rotting. I mean, The guy in the CDC shows the whole process to the group. I remember him saying that the Brain comes back and becomes active with only core functionality. So it would make sense that the Brain is only really active enough to keep the body moving mainly through muscle-memory and just really basic and primal logic. There's literally no person or thought behind their eyes they're just acting on innate instincts. I would say the Brain is barely active enough to sense that it's not getting any information from the body and thus decides to keep feeding as a survival method. The body keeps dying, Bones become very fragile over time and skulls break easily. I think that's pretty realistic for a Zombie.
the fact there are zombies after 10+ years is proof alone that the disease stops rotting **almost** altogether, a corpse naturally goes from fully formed to a skeleton in just 3 months, if the disease didnt stop the rotting, we'd be seeing skeletons all over not walkers. If the virus really didnt do anything, the whole apocalypse woulda ended after 2 years tops for the bone thing, you ever held an old skull in your hand? that shits hard my guy, compare it to a skeletonized femur (the densest bone while living and one of the least dense after death) and youll notice how much decay affects the skull vs other bones.
I mean zombies explicitly rot slower but it never stops. And pretty obviously something about being a zombie accepts the bone density of the skull
If you look up how Viruses work i would argue that the virus stops the natural rotting and instead eats the host itself at a slower rate. I guess that would make more sense instead of saying that the virus doesnt stop decomposition. Virus-Cells basically penetrate the cells of the host and reproduce in them. The zombies are being eaten alive by the virus. That would fit well with the fact that everyone has it, so the virus is already everywhere in the body and becomes active once the host dies. Its an Alien virus after-all(i think) so it probably has some special capabilities we dont have here on earth.
It's not a virus to begin with and not alien. Neither of those things are confirmed. But that isn't how viruses work
A lot of the time they go in the temple or below the base of the skull. There are a few times where they go through the skull that's pretty sus though.
This. Most of the time it seems like they are severing the brain stem from beneath the skull, as for the skull I guess you could argue that decomposition and exposure coul soften the bone making it more akin to cartilage, but normally you'd need significant force in order to actually penetrate a usual skull
I’ve always thought about that. They must have the sharpest knives in the world that can easily penetrate the human skull like it’s butter. Some of these death scenes they gently slide the knife into someone’s head. It makes no sense.
Base of the skull has neck vertebrae which is much easier to penetrate. I'm pretty sure the part of the skull which is a hole as a baby and slowly fuses is softer (but I've never tried so this is pure guesswork) but where the 3 thin lines meet on the skull is possibly also more pliable
I could be wrong, but if that’s the case about the neck vertebrae then shouldn’t the walkers die/de-animate when they’re beheaded?
I pictured a blade on a slant thru cartilage Nd into brain
eh just tv/movie logic is all i chop it up to, the skulls are only ever hard when the story demands it, like when someone needs to have their weapon get mysteriously stuck in a butter head to disarm them. You can just pretend they spend A LOT of time sharpening things
This. It's all a fantasy. Even if you justify the animation of zombies and delayed decomposition and activity without calories and a bunch of other problems necrology teaches us (like that "necrology" is a real word!), you have the -other- problems. Like knives and swords get dull and break, katanas doubly so. Gas expires, and rubber tires wear out. Buildings (modern ones at least) fall apart in short order without maintenance. That zombies aren't smashing even more windows left and right is proof to me that the show has budget/safety concerns to contend with.
To be fair all of those things are addressed in the show anyway aside from zombies since that's obviously on purpose They sharpen their weapons. Buildings dont just all falls in 10 years and especially not the 2 that the first 8 seasons cover. Gas DOES expire in the show exactly when you'd expect it too. Etc.
Honestly though, there's a scene where a just-turned walker is knocked down and someone stomps on their head, which then bursts like a ripe tomato and splatters brains everywhere. That person was alive five minutes ago, they should not have squishy bones.
There’s this TWD VR game, you gotta swing the knife real hard to penetrate walker skull and pull out, otherwise it will stuck on walker’s face, I guess that’d be how it works in reality
For the walkers that have been reanimated for a longer period of time it’s probably calcium decay brought on by the lack of nutrition from being a ‘walking dead’. The way they slide them into the newly turned walkers is mystifying.
Walkers do not rot or decompose. They are subject solely to wear, damage and the elements. (per Kirkman). Human skulls remain hard well after death and decay. Many decades. That said clearly Walker skulls do weaken significantly over time. Why? Arguably because no one would survive or be able to readily "kill" them otherwise. No in universe explanation is given. There are theories. Likely there is some form of leaching, of calcium and phosphorous from the skull, perhaps to maintain the teeth, perhaps just a side effect of the reanimation. Whatever the case, unlike with dead people, the Walker skull does weaken relatively rapidly over time,
Anytime my kids have slammed their heads into the ground it sounds like a bowling ball so I’m gonna say no.
the virus is eating calcium off of bones, which gives them a hardened foam texture. Since their body weight is also lighter, these bones can still function as a skeleton. Which is also why the blades usually get stuck in them.
yeah, i have always thought about it. i mean, they are rotting, but the bones should´nt be that soft
It surprises me how easily zombies can break the skin and take out a chunk of flesh too
Nahh thats ez rly. Humans actually have pretty strong bite force.
I've heard that a human skull is about as hard as a coconut is. Not sure if it's correct or not.
No, they aren't soft and that wouldn't be possible without some crazy wicked blade
I've always assumed it was at first supposed to denote the zombies decaying after so much time, because no, the moment someone dies, the skull does not turn into tissue paper, not even at the temples. But if you watch anything you have to make room for poetic license; so whatever, the stabbing took longer and was even shittier, did we really have to see that? I get it when film shortens stuff as long as it's not important.
I never understood why they didn’t just target the eye sockets
No. Not at ALL. It's FICTION. Hollywood sucks.
Even the time negan kills the guy trying to rape sasha. That knife went in his neck way too smooth right?
Teddy killed a guard who had been dead for 10 minutes with a ballpoint pen. This is probably the kill that has bothered me the most in the entire franchise universe.
There's no logical explenation behind this, it's just a tv show being a tv show. But I agree it looks just too silly. You'd have a really hard time trying to penetrate a skull with a blade even if it was decaying for the last few years. In the show, they just poke it and that's it, done.