Fear The Walking Dead, Survival Rule of The Week: Humanity
By Liam O'Leary
On last night’s Fear The Walking Dead, everyone seemed to come face-to-face with a serious dilemma in a zombie apocalypse: Can you stay “human”?
A zombie apocalypse will be a cruel, brutal, savage world, where life will come cheap and death will stalk you –And everyone you meet, quite frankly — at every turn. You will find yourself under constant threat from the undead (Whom you may not even realize are dead for a while), as well as from the greedy, the desperate, the selfish, and the violent amongst the living, meaning having to use lethal force to defend yourself will, sadly, become part of your everyday life. With this in mind, I’m reminded of what might be one of the most important rules for surviving the zombie apocalypse…
Rule #20: Humanity. DON’T lose track of it.
The premise of this rule is a simple one: Don’t become cruel, excessively violent, excessively selfish, or excessively unsympathetic once the zombie apocalypse begins. Like I said, simple.
Of course, I’ve been preaching these rules for a little while now, and, in that time, I’ve seen a lot of people who scoff at this particular rule, thinking it naive, unrealistic, counterproductive, or, seemingly most often, quaint. Well, I think last night’s episode of Fear The Walking Dead did a fantastic job showing us just how wrong that perception can be, and that, sometimes, those little displays of humanity can go a long way in keeping us breathing.
Let’s break it down, shall we?
Cruelty and Violence
As I said at the beginning, violence, sometimes even lethal violence, is necessary to survive a zombie apocalypse.
But, just because this is the world you find yourself in, doesn’t mean you have cart blanche to become cruel and it doesn’t mean you can just be violent to everyone you meet, regardless of whether or not they pose a threat.
Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at Reed for example. Reed seemed to revel in the opportunity to be cruel and malicious, evidenced by his behavior to Chris, but, what exactly did that really get him?
It got him stabbed through the stomach with a pry bar(?), that’s what.
Now, you might argue that that was a spirit of the moment thing, but, I contend that, had he not been such a willfully cruel and violent jerk (And certainly implying that he was going to disobey his brother and just kill The Group outright), he might have just gotten cracked on the head and tied up, instead of being impaled, and having one of his captors kill him out of fear of his eventual turn. Speaking of which…
Dealing With Zombies
As I mentioned earlier, the zombie apocalypse will force you to use lethal force to defend yourself; The simple fact is, you will have to kill zombies to stay alive.
However, that doesn’t make the idea of killing something that, for all intents and purposes, is human, should be easy by any means.
Now, while it isn’t helpful for people to crack simply for having to put down someone who’s turned, the opposite is far worse.
If you have a person who is too cavalier in killing zombies to the point that they get fun out of it may pose a big problem, namely this: If they get fun out of killing something that is almost human, how long will it be before they start getting fun out of killing actual humans?
Those who aren’t bothered (At least slightly) by killing zombies, people who are becoming zombies, or people in general, end up becoming the people that, as mentioned above, are the ones who, rather than simply being incapacitated by other people in the act of defending themselves, wind up impaled and left to die a horrible death.
Sympathy For Others
This, I think, is where people most often seem to think my notion is counterproductive, considering the sort of people I mentioned in the first part of this article. But, I think last night’s episode perfectly showed why a little sympathy is necessary to stay alive.
When we’re reintroduced to Alex last night, she showed what a little apathy can lead to in a zombie apocalypse if you’re not careful, as she reveals she was the one who told Connor and his pirates about The Abigail and its passengers, giving them all the intel they needed to successfully take the ship.
Now, Alex didn’t do this out of some cruel streak, or even necessarily out of desperation, but rather, because The Group, and in her mind, Travis specifically, failed to help her or Jake despite the fact that they were clearly capable of it.
Alex wasn’t a threat to The Group, and Jake wasn’t going to be much of one either. Sure, he would have turned, but, Alex could have easily (And more humanely) put him down when the time came, and avoided having to strangle Jake to death, something which clearly has left her shaken.
My point is: The Group could have helped her, easily. By choosing not to, they ended up making an enemy who made their lives infinitely more difficult than they could have been had they simply taken her and Jake on board in the first place.
Surviving a zombie apocalypse is not as simple as just staying one step ahead of the dead, it’s about remaining normal, remaining as human as we were before the world came crumbling down.
Any twisted psycho, any apathetic, selfish reptile, any greedy thug, and any soulless killer can stay a step ahead of the dead, but, I don’t believe people want to be any of those!
No, surviving a zombie apocalypse is about staying alive, and not becoming any of the poor excuses for human beings mentioned above in the process, and that requires compassion, sympathy, and sacrifice.
To paraphrase President Kennedy, we do this not because it is easy, but because it is hard; The easy thing is to just become a heartless, cruel sociopath, the hard thing…is to stay who you are.
Remember your humanity.
And that is our lesson for today. If you like this and want to find out more rules to survive the zombie apocalypse, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can get it on Kindle here and on iTunes here!