I only came in halfway through the second series, but is it just me or do the dead die too easily?
The human brain is a hard thing to destroy and presumably most of it doesn’t reactivate yet simple things like sticking a knife a few inches in is a sure kill.
In fact they stick a knife through the skull like its butter.
And in one episode where they clear out a church I swear that Redneck Joe merely slashes the face of one.
It just seems like they die too easily. Or is this ever explained?
Most “official” zombie lore holds that whatever is reanimating the dead continues to work short of the total physical destruction of the zombie. What attacking the brain is doing is destroying what coordination is there that allows a zombie to somehow identify prey and move it’s body in a useful manner. Presumably most of the “killed” zombies are still undead, they simply can’t seek prey or do more than twitch anymore.
The brain itself is about as soft as cheese and very easy to damage. Getting through the skull can be either very difficult or comparatively easy depending on what instrument you use and how lucky you get. And finally Hollywood has long been fond of the “instant death” knife or gunshot wound, whereas real life is a lot messier.
I think it’s just typical movie/television shorthand. Yes, in real life it would probably be much more difficult to destroy the brain of someone, living or undead. But if they tried to more accurately portray the effort that would be needed to damage the brain enough to put someone down, it would be a lot more grotesque and eat up a lot more screen time.
I do agree with you that those scenes of killing zombies with a single knife stab through the skull are really stupid and are just one of many, many flaws with the logic of that show. I’m still a fan, but I think the writing is very amateurish most of the time.
However, movies and TV are full of this kind of shorthand, so I just try to ignore it and focus on the things that are done well.
I’d fanwank it as, whatever process animates and controls the zombie does something to the brain that is fairly fragile. Suppose a network of some thread-like material grows through the brain, and it needs to be whole for the zombie to function. So even, what for a human would be a survivable brain injury, for the zombie is immediately catastrophic.
…zombies are THE CULTURE!