The Walking Dead (and most zombie fiction) is filled with
tension. The few remaining people fight
a seemingly doomed battle against vast hordes of former shop clerks and office
workers who have been transformed into ravenous, mindless zombies. In the course of the story that we see unfold
in front of our eyes, these few survivors are forced to fight for their lives
against the vast numbers of the undead.
In the Walking Dead they have to contend with dangerous fellow humans as
well, which complicates things and makes the Walking Dead more nuanced and
enjoyable than earlier examples of the genre.
This latest season of the Walking Dead plays around with the question of
who the real enemy is—the dead or the living?
While most of the season seems to point towards fellow humanity as being
the real danger, I think it's safe to assume that by the end of the season this
will be shown to be a severe and deadly misapprehension. The dead are the ultimate enemy, not other
survivors, at least not in the final analysis.
So. If zombies are
the real villains of The Walking Dead (and I think they are), I'd like to
comment on the methods of fighting them portrayed in the show. Specifically, I'd like to discuss the place
of hand weapons and focus on the severe shortage of them in the hands of the
two groups of survivors. There are
notable exceptions to this—Daryl wields a large Busse combat knife, Michonne
carries a katana, and the henchman Rodriguez carries around an aluminum baseball
bat (which wouldn't work very well, and not for for very long, he should be
using a wooden bat or choose something else).
To that list we should probably add the bayonet/handspike sometimes used
by Merle and Andrea's knife. All in all,
especially before the arrival of Michonne, this is an inadequate total. At one point we even see Rick bashing zombies
with his empty Colt Python, which would probably be a good way of damaging it
permanently. Clearly, more thought needs
to be directed towards the use of hand weapons.
Fighting zombies with axes and machetes would be more
dangerous than if you were using a gun, because you've got to get close to them
and that allows them a chance to bite you.
But if used correctly, having a bladed or blunt weapon would also allow
you to break away from a group of zombies, by fighting free of the press. If Rick had carried a machete or bowie knife
he wouldn't have needed deploy his revolver as a bludgeon. The utility and neccesity of hand weapons
should have been driven home in the events surrounding the death of Lori at the
beginning of Season 3. The zombie attack
that ruined everything in that episode was not large enough to make hand
weapons ineffective. Yet everybody fired
off the few bullets they had with them and then had no choice but to run. Carry hand weapons, ladies and
gentlemen. They work. Not just a gun. A gun and a big knife. Or a sword. Or a machete. Or any one a
numerous possible tools that would help save your life: bats, claw hammers,
hatchets, wood axes, cleavers...there is surely some tool you can find to
defend yourself in the apocalypse. Poor
unfortunate T-Dog, who carried a poker from some random fireplace at the
beginning of season three...he'd get an "F" in zombie survival, in my
opinion.
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