Fear The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Family

In a zombie apocalypse, there’s nothing more important than family. That said, as we saw in Sunday’s Fear The Walking Dead, family can be more than blood.

Family is a simple concept. Most of us are born and acclimated into a group of people who are directly related to us: Our parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. In circumstances where our relationships with these people are healthy, these are, most often, the people you’re closest to.

As such, in a disaster like a zombie apocalypse, these are the people who are the most important to us. Your family are (Probably) the people who’ve stood by you, regardless, and, therefore, the ones you’ll strive hardest to save and protect.

A good example of this in Fear The Walking Dead are the Otto brothers, Jake and Troy.

Troy, as made evident throughout this season, is a little…how shall I put this(?)…different than most people. While not as bad as say, Martin (Sunday’s episode revealed that Troy is not devoid of humanity), Troy is a violent and disturbed person, his reaction to the Trimbols leaving the ranch made that clear.

Yet, despite this, his brother Jake, for the most part, stuck by him, being one of the few people who seemed to care about him during their youth.

Even when he believed he had to kill Troy, it clearly wasn’t easy for him to come to that. He described it to Nick as “…what you do when something is lame or sick.“, the sort of harsh decision one must make to end a loved one’s suffering.

Similarly, after Jake was bitten by an infected after Nick stopped him from killing Troy, despite the fact that Jake was about to kill him, Troy still did what he could to help Jake. In the end, Jake preparing to shoot Troy, and Jake’s decision to make concessions to Qaletaqa didn’t matter. What mattered to Troy was that Jake was his brother.

Ideally, that’s what family means to you (Particularly in a zombie apocalypse): People who you would do anything for, despite your differences, because of what they mean to you.

However, family comes to mean so much more in a zombie apocalypse. Family can become anyone you are willing to risk harm or even death to protect. In the face of a death too horrible to imagine, strangers, even enemies, can become family.

Look at Broke Jaw and Black Hat. When this half of the season began, they were at each other’s throats, nearly killing each other out of distrust.

Yet, when the infected set upon them, none of that mattered. They knew that it was simply them, all of them, against the dead. Their race or whose land the ranch was didn’t matter anymore. They were all fighting to save each other, desperately trying to help each other get to safety from an enemy that didn’t care about their differences, and simply saw them all as food.

So, should you ever find yourself in a zombie apocalypse, remember to look after your family. Remember to appreciate the time you have with them and remember what they mean to you.

And, as time progresses, remember that the people you survive alongside with, while maybe not technically your family, if they are willing to risk life and limb to help you, might just as well be.

Next: Fear The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Human Nature

And that’s our survival rule of the week!! Hopefully, it will help you should you ever need it and give you that mental edge that will prove so crucial once the dead start eating everyone.

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!