What Would You Do In this type of Zombie Outbreak?

For discussion of John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel Hanteringen av odöda
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danielma
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What Would You Do In this type of Zombie Outbreak?

Post by danielma » Wed Dec 05, 2012 11:04 pm

Let's have a hypothetical here...because I noticed we don't have one for Handling the Undead where as we have plenty of hypotheticals for LTROI and such. A shame considering that HTU has a perfect hypothetical question to be asked

What would you do in this type of Zombie Outbreak?

I have said time and time again that the thing that effected me so greatly in this novel was the heartbreaking story of Mahler and his grandson Elias. I think what gets me the most about that story is the hope involved with hoping that someone you loved can be healed even if that is maybe not the case.

And it got me thinking...how would I deal if the situation were thrown on to myself...how would I deal if my beloved 2 year old niece were to die only to return in a similar manner to Elias...what would I do? Would I love her despite the fact that she clearly is no longer the same person she once was? Would I be in fear of her? Would I want to help her and hope that she could return to civilisation?

I think, to be honest, there would be a mixture of fear yet there would also be that hope for me...that hope that comes with love, that we hope that we can repair what is fundamentally broken.

At least I think that would be my reaction but what about the rest of you? How would you Handle this type of Zombie outbreak? How would it affect your thoughts on religion? How would it affect your thoughts on life in general? How woud you deal with the thought of seeing someone you loved so dearly return in what is a somewhat disfunctional shell

How would you the infected deal with this type of Zombie outbreak? That's the question...feel free to answer in any way
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EEA
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Re: What Would You Do In this type of Zombie Outbreak?

Post by EEA » Thu Dec 06, 2012 12:14 am

I would be scared if someone I knew came back as a zombie. I would probably run away and try to protect myself.

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JToede
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Re: What Would You Do In this type of Zombie Outbreak?

Post by JToede » Thu Dec 06, 2012 2:49 am

A regular run-of-the-mill zombie apocalypse is easy to deal with, just lock and load and rock and roll. But a Handling the Dead out break, I would be freaked out. :o
It would be a psychological shocking, I might consider locking the door and not going outside.
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Re: What Would You Do In this type of Zombie Outbreak?

Post by Swaefheard » Thu Dec 06, 2012 7:29 am

If I remember rightly it was the recently dead who were resurrected rather than the decomposing. I think it may be easier to handle their return if death had been peaceful but if a mangled zombie with bits hanging off turned up on my doorstep I'd be out the back door!

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Re: What Would You Do In this type of Zombie Outbreak?

Post by gattoparde59 » Mon Dec 17, 2012 9:18 pm

danielma has answered the question for me. How we feel about the undead really depends on how close we were to them when they were living. That is the way it seems to work in the novel. I can relate to this on a personal level. My father died of brain cancer. For the last three months of his life he was seriously disabled. Paralyzed, bed ridden and suffering from a gradually worsening aphasia. Sometimes my Dad was there and was aware of what was going on, other times the lights were on but nobody was home. In other words he was not unlike a zombie in the last few months of his life.

My Dad's aphasia often meant that he would moan and groan, or otherwise be uncommunicative. People unfamiliar with my father would be seriously creeped out by his condition. There is a certain fear of disease and death and my father was I think a still living reminder of where we are all going to wind up some day: so helpless we need to be spoon fed and wear diapers. For us who were familiar with my father, he was still our father. If he was moaning and groaning like a zombie, well that was nothing we hadn't been hearing for our entire lives. :) So I guess what I am saying is we were more accepting of someone we knew no matter how disturbing his behavior, even as he gradually slipped away from us.

It is different when things happen this way. I was mourning my father long before he died and his actual death came as something of a relief. That seems to be what happens in Handling the Undead. It is a relief for these people when they finally lose their ambiguously living relatives.

I'll break open the story and tell you what is there. Then, like the others that have fallen out onto the sand, I will finish with it, and the wind will take it away.

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Tigermamma
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Re: What Would You Do In this type of Zombie Outbreak?

Post by Tigermamma » Mon Feb 18, 2013 8:58 pm

David is the person in the book I think have it worst, because Eva has never been "dead" to him. He doesn't get a chance to get used to the thought, since she is the last one dying before they wake up. I don't remember exactly, but I think he receives the message of her being in a car-accident and the corpses start waking up right after that. My heart bleeds for him when he doesn't know how to explain to his son that not only has mommy died, she has woken up like a ZOMBIE :o
His description of "The big bed", and how that is where a kid feel the safest, in their parents big bed, is something I often think about. "Where is MY big bed", that gives me goosebumps... :shock: Anders in Harbour thinks about the same thing, when he "is" Maja, lying in her bed reading Bamse-magazines. "There is the big bed. I can go there if I get scared".
Mahler and Anna has had some months to get used to Elias being dead, so every news about him coming back, is good news. They have already experienced the worst thing, loosing a son/grandson.
Sorry I couldn't answer your original scenario, I guess my answer depends on whether or not I knew anyone of the ones coming back... ;)

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Re: What Would You Do In this type of Zombie Outbreak?

Post by OBakaSama » Wed Nov 20, 2013 12:25 pm

I would like to think I would be well composed, and see a reliving loved one returned to some physical activity as a second chance of sorts; and possibly see them as Mahler tried to in a sense as having a kind of disfunction of the brain where it does not function correctly. With the right 'training' it would be possible to overcome death such that death is indeed an event in life rather than the end of it....

Truthfully I think I would just freak out and run. Or just faint on the spot.

How we react does depend on our connection to the individual reliving; and in a sense the physical condition they are in as well I would suppose. Eva was the most recent example, and aside from the injuries she had sustained I would imagine physically she would have been fairly intact. Other cases would be more difficult to handle. Anna and Mahler's encounter towards the end was the most horrific of those mentioned in the novel; but with Elias it was different (not only because of their personal connection but also his condition which was like mummification).

Given how the story progresses, one has to wonder how much the initial encounter between living and reliving affects the relivings' subsequent reaction to the world at large. If the initial reaction/emotion they encounter was hate and revulsion then things could be a lot more dire. It would take a tremendous amount of willpower to face a horde of reliving who you don't know with the love and good thoughts required to prevent such a scenario I believe.

Personally, I'll stick to the fainting.

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