So, Walkers Can Climb Steps?

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#51
Chinghis

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Moving hands to mouth to eat is an animal instinct. I think you should see walkers in TWD as primitive animals. They can sit on their knees while eating like humans can (like the one that was eating a dear just near the Atlanta camp and the walker Daryl shoots before he spots zombified Merle).
The little girl zombie who picked up the teddy bear, Morgan's wife turning the doorknob, the rock walker, the walker that seemed to try to follow Rick and Glenn up the ladder and those walkers climbed up the fence were all in season 1 directed by Frank Darabont. I think he had a different view of walkers having some vestigal intelligence and memories than Mazara and others had. The RV walker was in episode 1 of season 2, which was also directed by Darabont partially. The walker that pushed away Rick's gun multiple times in "18 Miles Out", I think it was meant to be accidentally but the actor playing that walker didn't do it very convincingly. Just imagine if you are instructed to push away a gun but make it appear accidentally, I doubt all walkers seen in TWD are portrayed by highly skilled actors due to budget reasons.

I've always thought that the issues in Season 1 with smart walkers had more to do with figuring out how they wanted them portrayed - Romero has given us zombies that definitely have some vestigial intelligence, or at least memories of their former lives (I'm just considering the first two movies here). In Dawn of the Dead, after the helicopter pilot dies, he "leads" a zombie horde through the fake wall they built to protect their hideout. So, at least it had a function in the plot, not to mention being able to lampoon society through caricature.

Oh, and the little girl zombie with a doll? When I saw Penny 2.0 with her doll, I wondered for a moment if she becomes the zombie Rick shoots in the pilot. Probably not, but it was a nice parallel.
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#52
DominusPisces

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I think we have consistency problem. In season 3 Milton says that Michonne's two jawless walkers had been starving, but starving slowly. I assumed this meant walkers need nourishment.


No consistency issue. There is always the fact Milton could be WRONG. He said he telecommunicated to his job. I am not saying he wasn't a scientist, but a biologist is not capable of telecommuting to his job as far as I know since you work directly with samples. Even if Milton is just a geologist with a scavenged medical textbook, he would still be the most qualified person at Woodbury to run these experiments. It doesn't mean he's qualified enough to make assertions without a large margin of error. Keep in mind the limited equipment he would have access to in order to run experiments to measure metabolism. Also, remember how he already messed up by projecting human qualities onto the walkers. He clearly missed the pitch when he tried to prove that they retain personal memories and emotions. He based the theory on the fact that the walkers were emaciated, but that could have been due to the fat and viscera breaking down and then drying out.

Just because a character in the show says something, doesn't mean it's true, especially if we do not know if said character is qualified to make statements like that. Jenner's opinion would have carried more weight and even HE wasn't the highest qualified person there. His wife was. The only source we can take at full face value is Mazzera or Kirkman.
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#53
UltraAmbiguousID

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I think we have consistency problem. In season 3 Milton says that Michonne's two jawless walkers had been starving, but starving slowly. I assumed this meant walkers need nourishment.


Didn't Clara say that Eddie was moving very slow because he hadn't eaten in a while? If so, then it would seem they do need nourishment, but are capable of hibernation perhaps?
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#54
DominusPisces

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Didn't Clara say that Eddie was moving very slow because he hadn't eaten in a while? If so, then it would seem they do need nourishment, but are capable of hibernation perhaps?


Eddie was a severed head. How mobile would you be in that case. Plus Clara was NUTS. Even if their bodies needed nourishment, they have no means of getting it to their brain. They have no active digestion to break down food, nor do they have a circulatory system to transport new nutrients anywhere in their bodies. Also human tissue breaks down and dies after 10 minutes without Oxygen max. These things don't breath, given the fact that severed heads were kept in fish tanks for days, weeks or months and were STILL moving about.
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#55
etphoto

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I wouldn't think they need nourishment. Look at the last episode. Brian went into the rest home for O2 tanks. He walked past some lady in a wheel chair. He was probably the first "live" human she saw since the ZA started. Other than being confined to the wheel chair, she looked pretty healthy (as a zombie goes) to me.
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#56
DominusPisces

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I wouldn't think they need nourishment. Look at the last episode. Brian went into the rest home for O2 tanks. He walked past some lady in a wheel chair. He was probably the first "live" human she saw since the ZA started. Other than being confined to the wheel chair, she looked pretty healthy (as a zombie goes) to me.

Wheel chair walker DID bug me. Other than her, NONE of the Walker's exhibited ANY problems with spinal or nerve injuries. We have Drug store walker that attacked Maggie. Glenn got a homerun upside his head and completely BROKE his neck to the point it lulled to the side like a slinky. Randal had his neck broken and severed ALL communication between his brain and body. These were able to walk around just as well as any other zombie. Yet Granny in her wheel chair was still paralyzed? Makes no sense.
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#57
Chinghis

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Wheel chair walker DID bug me. Other than her, NONE of the Walker's exhibited ANY problems with spinal or nerve injuries. We have Drug store walker that attacked Maggie. Glenn got a homerun upside his head and completely BROKE his neck to the point it lulled to the side like a slinky. Randal had his neck broken and severed ALL communication between his brain and body. These were able to walk around just as well as any other zombie. Yet Granny in her wheel chair was still paralyzed? Makes no sense.

Wheelchair Granny wasn't paralyzed. She was strapped into the chair. Her feet were moving, too - they focused on that quite clearly to let us know that she would be able to move, and therefore maybe trap the Governor.
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#58
Thierry88

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Wheel chair walker DID bug me. Other than her, NONE of the Walker's exhibited ANY problems with spinal or nerve injuries. We have Drug store walker that attacked Maggie. Glenn got a homerun upside his head and completely BROKE his neck to the point it lulled to the side like a slinky. Randal had his neck broken and severed ALL communication between his brain and body. These were able to walk around just as well as any other zombie. Yet Granny in her wheel chair was still paralyzed? Makes no sense.

Those two examples indeed didn't make sense to me either. They should have been laying on the ground with just the head moving. We saw that it is the brain stem that get a zombie up and moving, so severing any connection between that and the body should render them paralyzed. But apparently a severed head can also make gasping sounds without having lungs to exhale air so I don't know if anatomy still applies to the zombies in TWD.
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#59
DominusPisces

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Those two examples indeed didn't make sense to me either. They should have been laying on the ground with just the head moving. We saw that it is the brain stem that get a zombie up and moving, so severing any connection between that and the body should render them paralyzed. But apparently a severed head can also make gasping sounds without having lungs to exhale air so I don't know if anatomy still applies to the zombies in TWD.


Maybe the air to moan comes from the same place the air comes from that lets us hear explosions in space on Startrek
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Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee Lord these bites aren't deep.
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#60
Valleyaggie

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Hey. Star Wars has explosions AND lazer beamy things in space. Not to mention neat "roaring" sounds when the ships fly by. Don't knock my Trek universe unless you knock Lucas too. Just sayin'.
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#61
DominusPisces

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Quicker just to reference one. Lol.
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#62
doc dynamo

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I wouldn't think they need nourishment. Look at the last episode. Brian went into the rest home for O2 tanks. He walked past some lady in a wheel chair. He was probably the first "live" human she saw since the ZA started. Other than being confined to the wheel chair, she looked pretty healthy (as a zombie goes) to me.


If you're confined to a wheel chair, you don't burn much energy. Milton said Michonne's walkers were starving slowly and they were out walking (burning a lot of energy).


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#63
d2daybreak

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Didn't Clara say that Eddie was moving very slow because he hadn't eaten in a while? If so, then it would seem they do need nourishment, but are capable of hibernation perhaps?


Eddie was just a head. How does a disembodied head move fast?
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#64
DominusPisces

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Eddie was just a head. How does a disembodied head move fast?

Dunno why. Maybe cause its past 1 am and we're all sleep deprived, but I just showed this to a conductor I'm working with and we just cracked up
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#65
doc dynamo

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No consistency issue. There is always the fact Milton could be WRONG. He said he telecommunicated to his job. I am not saying he wasn't a scientist, but a biologist is not capable of telecommuting to his job as far as I know since you work directly with samples. Even if Milton is just a geologist with a scavenged medical textbook, he would still be the most qualified person at Woodbury to run these experiments. It doesn't mean he's qualified enough to make assertions without a large margin of error. Keep in mind the limited equipment he would have access to in order to run experiments to measure metabolism. Also, remember how he already messed up by projecting human qualities onto the walkers. He clearly missed the pitch when he tried to prove that they retain personal memories and emotions. He based the theory on the fact that the walkers were emaciated, but that could have been due to the fat and viscera breaking down and then drying out.

Just because a character in the show says something, doesn't mean it's true, especially if we do not know if said character is qualified to make statements like that. Jenner's opinion would have carried more weight and even HE wasn't the highest qualified person there. His wife was. The only source we can take at full face value is Mazzera or Kirkman.


Milton could be wrong, but dramatically what purpose would serve for the statement to be wrong?

Also if the food zombie's eat isn't being processed somehow almost all the zombies we'd see would be walking around with big bloated bellies and we don't see that.

Finally if zombies walk they have to eat or they starve. It's the first law of thermodynamics. So if you have show with zombies that don't need nourishment then zombies are magical. I hate the idea of magic zombies.
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#66
DominusPisces

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Milton could be wrong, but dramatically what purpose would serve for the statement to be wrong?

Also if the food zombie's eat isn't being processed somehow almost all the zombies we'd see would be walking around with big bloated bellies and we don't see that.

Finally if zombies walk they have to eat or they starve. It's the first law of thermodynamics. So if you have show with zombies that don't need nourishment then zombies are magical. I hate the idea of magic zombies.

Dramatically it ties into Milton's false assumption of projecting living traits onto zack. It also gives us as the audience hope that with everything going on, that some people are still looking for answers. Biologically they need bo nourishment. How is someone like bicycle walker supposed to digest with her damage? How is Eddie supposed to metabolize ANYTHING with no means of digestion, no heart to circulate nutrients or oxygen? Oxygen is critical to the manufacture of ATP. The chemical fuel that drives cellular function. Without O2 cells die in a few minutes. Even with a slower metabolisim the zack with compromised lungs are WAAAAAY past any point of extended O2 deprivation tolerance they may have had. We have to either bow to the supernatural or some kind of biology way past our understanding that bypasses all the systems the body has to keep it running.
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Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee Lord these bites aren't deep.
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#67
Valleyaggie

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Dom is right. The walkers are going to need some way to create ATP in order for there to be cell activity of any kind. However, I think it is entirely plausible that the zombie virus changes the actual cell properties; remember, a virus functions by attacking the cells and programming the cell nucleus with the virus' DNA. Essentially, the virus is actually in control of the cell's operations. Now, to me, the real question is whether or not the virus has evolved a new way to generate ATP that does not depend upon food or oxygen. If it has, then that answers all the questions about how the zombie heads and disemboweled zombies have continued to function have an answer.
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#68
UltraAmbiguousID

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Also if the food zombie's eat isn't being processed somehow almost all the zombies we'd see would be walking around with big bloated bellies and we don't see that.


Hmm, that makes sense. We did see the walker that ate Lori with a distended stomach - think it was slouched against a wall and its the one Rick stabbed repeatedly in the stomach. I guess if we're to believe it ate all of Lori, then it had to take a nap while it digested (just like me on Thanksgiving!).
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#69
BigEd

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Wheel chair walker DID bug me. Other than her, NONE of the Walker's exhibited ANY problems with spinal or nerve injuries. We have Drug store walker that attacked Maggie. Glenn got a homerun upside his head and completely BROKE his neck to the point it lulled to the side like a slinky. Randal had his neck broken and severed ALL communication between his brain and body. These were able to walk around just as well as any other zombie. Yet Granny in her wheel chair was still paralyzed? Makes no sense.


The Producers/Writers/Continuity dropped the ball. (Even with Randall in S2)

It's silly to think something like this can still stand/move around.


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#70
DominusPisces

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Hmm, that makes sense. We did see the walker that ate Lori with a distended stomach - think it was slouched against a wall and its the one Rick stabbed repeatedly in the stomach. I guess if we're to believe it ate all of Lori, then it had to take a nap while it digested (just like me on Thanksgiving!).

If it ate a whole person, then it wasn't distended. It's stomach must have ruptured. All that Lori must have been crammed in the chest cavity. Blech... Also I'ld bet it wasn't napping. It was too heavy to move. Try doubling your weight and see how well you can walk.

As far as where does it go? As a walker eats I can see contents in the gut being pushed down by the weight above it and via gravity and movement by walking around and.... exit the normal means. Plus chewed up remains probably continue to break down, rot and liquify making it easier to drain out of the walker's ... exit and any wounds that penetrate the gut.
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Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee Lord these bites aren't deep.
Should I die before I wake, I pray thee Lord, my skull they break.


#71
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They always show the heads that Michonne sliced off still chomping away. That shouldn't be the case either.
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#72
DominusPisces

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History shows precedance that severed heads DO retain neural connection. During the french reign of terror, heads would show seizure like twitches and tics after beheading. Some executioners even report eyes focusing on them when calling their name or scowling at a slap before going slack. So I'd by a severed head still trying to eat.
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Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee Lord these bites aren't deep.
Should I die before I wake, I pray thee Lord, my skull they break.


#73
Thierry88

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The trigeminal nerves, which innervates muscles that are responsible for biting and chewing, goes from the brain stem directly to the muscles without first going through the neck. So the fact severed walker heads can still chomp and bite is plausible because there is still connection with the brain stem.
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