The Walking Dead: Walker camouflage isn’t as simple as it seems

If walking around covered in walker guts or accompanied by walker pets can serve as camouflage from the biters on The Walking Dead, why don’t they do it all the time or at least more often?

This question (paraphrased) was posed by a fan on Talking Dead and has been asked in one way or another by many fans. Robert Kirkman mentioned that it’s impractical because they would need to replenish the guts constantly and the possibility of disease or infection unrelated to the zombie virus.

I’ve thought about this question a bit since the midseason finale and I’ve come up with a few more reasons that these aren’t good daily tactics. The idea of pets is a good one for travel. Andrea used it to get to the prison from Woodbury. But pets are in charge. They make noise. They draw others if you were to use them as lookouts or guards of any kind.

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Psychologically, they can be detrimental as well. We saw that with Michonne. She felt dead when she was with them. Part of surviving is feeling alive and having the pets might not be the way to go unless it’s a temporary measure for travel.

The gut ponchos seem like a great camouflage solution, but other than the drawbacks Robert Kirkman mentioned, there are some significant disadvantages to simply wearing walker insides on the outside, including what we saw at the end of the midseason finale.

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Noise. You would have to live among the biters in silence. Speed. The walkers aren’t known for moving very quickly when there’s not a buffet in front of them. The survivors would have to walk around in silence and slowly. Vigilance. There’s alays a chance that something could happen that would tip off a rotter that you were a poser and not a true rotter.

So while gut poncho camouflage seems like the perfect cover, it really is only appropriate for emergency situations. As survivors, you don’t want to be surviving in silence and hypervigilant constantly. You need to be able to hide and protect yourselves from the monsters and try to live somehow. You have to eat and talk and plan. You have to sleep and think and rest.

But it’s a good plan B when you need it.