What The Walking Dead gets ‘wrong’ about zombies – Herald Planet

With yet another spin-off and multiple movies on the way, it looks like The Walking Dead will never truly die, much like the walkers. But even when you put aside the inherent absurdity of a zombie apocalypse dont worry, were totally clear that zombies dont exist theres something about the walkers that doesnt add up, and its all to do with how they decay.

To the shows credit, zombies on The Walking Dead have been visually decomposing ever since they first appeared way back in 2010.

From a distance, early examples of the undead could have been mistaken for regular people, albeit ones who hadnt washed in a while and lost the occasional limb. However, as the series progressed, the walkers gradually decayed to a point where later seasons depict them covered in moss with little to no hair and barely a rag to cover their modesty.

In that respect, the special effects team have done an admirable job of bringing the undead to life. However, their portrayal still ignores one crucial scientific fact, and thats all to do with the bacteria which live in our guts.

Via Live Science, a Texas-based mortician called Melissa Unfred explained how the show follows and then deviates from the natural processes of decay in real life.

(You might want to put down whatever snacks youre currently munching on before you read the next bit).

Soon after death, lividity sets in, which is when your body becomes discoloured as blood sinks and pools in the body parts closest to the ground. The eyes and mouth then start drying out and pull back a bit, something which Unfred thinks has been captured quite well on The Walking Dead thus far.

However, most walkers in the show have somehow skipped the next stage, which is where corpses start to bloat. Just hours after death, bacteria in the gut begins to digest internal tissues, releasing gases which cause the body to swell and leak a dark liquid known as purge fluid.

Now try purging that hideous fact out of your mind.

Still with us? Well, given what we know now, its safe to say that almost none of the walkers seen in The Walking Dead have followed the natural processes of decay (or zombies in most horror movies either). Aside from that season-two zombie in the well and another who ate Loris remains in season three, all of the walkers weve seen are surprisingly thin.

Weirdly enough, series creator Robert Kirkman sort of explained the reason behind this way back in the letter column for The Walking Dead #111 (Via Comicbook.com):

While plenty of larger zombies can be seen in the comics, few are seen onscreen due to practical limitations:

Frankly, its hard to ADD to big people to make them look like zombies. Keep in mind, to make those walkers look real, you have to build stuff, on top of real people you start adding to people my size, and well we start to look a bit too padded, if that makes sense.

In this case, Kirkman isnt referring to the process of decay and bloating, but still, this does explains why most of the walkers we see are skinnier than science would lead us to expect.

Of course, thats not the only problem with zombies. Even if walkers did actually exist somehow, they wouldnt be able to well, walk, because the tendons which hold their bones together would fall apart soon after death.

In fact, zombies seen in later seasons of The Walking Dead should be nothing more than a pile of bones and dry skin (following that initial bloat process). Kirkman himself said as much in one of the final comics before the series came to an end earlier this year.

According to Cinema Blend, The Walking Dead creator describes less-mobile zombies as Lurkers who are extra decayed:

The natural progression is that, yeah, eventually there will be very, very few zombies in this world because most of them will have died off and decayed away will the series last long enough for us to get there? Only time will tell!!

As we now know, the comic itself ended just a few issues later. However, with the shows growing emphasis on survivors, future instalments of the franchise could actually reach a future where the zombies have decayed completely.

In that sense, The Walking Dead is actually scientifically accurate after all, just minus the bloat. And, you know, the whole zombies feasting on people thing.

The Walking Dead airs on Mondays at 9pm on FOX in the UK. You can also catch up on the show via NOW TV. In the US, the show airs on Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.

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What The Walking Dead gets 'wrong' about zombies - Herald Planet