[Viagra Walker]

 I have given up on this show being a common sense survival show. It is a soap opera in a zombie apocalypse.

 

The odd thing is that Daryl became a fan favorite in seasons one and two because he was portrayed as a survivalist, in contrast to all of the over-acted drama going on.

 

Still my favorite show though.

[mosher]

 I have given up on this show being a common sense survival show. It is a soap opera in a zombie apocalypse.

 

The odd thing is that Daryl became a fan favorite in seasons one and two because he was portrayed as a survivalist, in contrast to all of the over-acted drama going on.

 

Still my favorite show though.

In most people's lives their relationships are the most important thing. It would be unrealistic for this show to not deal with how people handle each other. That's actually the biggest hurdle for the survival of our humanity. Staying alive is an important aspect of the show, but staying 'human' is just as important.

 

I disagree that it has become a soap. We don't have people constantly cheating on each other. They don't hop into each other's beds constantly. We don't have big reveals like 'Daryl's mom was the woman Rick's dad had an affair with, which we discover because it was Glenn who delivered the pizza to them and he saw a picture of Rick, Lori, and Carl on the wall.'

 

What we do have are big emotional episodes when people have to cope with the death of their child, wife, mother, father, friend, etc. Kind of real things you'd expect in an apocalypse.

 

Maybe it goes on way too long (Ghost Lori). And that is kind of soapy, but it was a realistic event to deal with and it really would traumatize Rick.

[Viagra Walker]

^ It hasn't just become a soap opera. It has been one since the second or third episode. The best soap opera ever.

 

Maybe with Daryls' new group we see more realism in how they are surviving day to day. Maybe we see them getting bullets somewhere, gas, do they have someone on lookout duty all the time, stuff and things like that. That is more interesting to me than Beth singing. To be fair the show hasn't wasted as much time this season.

 

To stay on topic someone should always be on look-out duty no matter what floor you stay on. It's the world they live in. 

[jayde]

I thought about that in "After" when Rick and Carl slept downstairs in front of the door. But I think it's much more sensible to sleep downstairs for an easy escape route. Not only that but if they're upstairs that limits how quickly they can detect a threat/problem. People are always cautious and quiet when clearing a house, they might very well sleep through a possible home invasion by either walkers or people if they're upstairs since everything would be muffled. But if you're on the main floor, you're definitely going to notice every little noise since you'll be more aware of your surroundings. Sleeping upstairs would just provide a false sense of security.

Besides, as long as they're not making much noise and secure the shelter then I think it's better than sleeping outside.

I thought it was odd seeing Maggie, Ben, and Sasha sleeping on a tarp in the middle of the woods. I know there's nowhere else they could have gone but I so could not sleep out there knowing I could be a walker's midnight snack if I didn't wake up before it got too close.

[shrike]

I think they did have a noise barrier around them didn't they?

 

Anyways....In another thread I floated the idea of Daryl and Beth just going off on their own and if that happened, which I'm sure it won't, there'd be a lot of focus on basic survival.

[mosher]

I would also love seeing a lot more basic survival. I like the foraging scenes and safety precautions. So I agree with you on that for sure.

 

As far as staying safe, I wouldn't even let people sleep in the same room if possible. One sleeping person dies during the night and everyone dies.

 

At the prison I would have each person in a cell, locked each night in a fashion simple for a thinking individual but impossible for a walker. Obvious, but some things they have to allow. If people became too good at surviving the walkers really would never be dangerous again, except in a horde.

 

Then it would be like any other post-aocalyptic drama. Still excellent, but not Walking Dead.

[shrike]

I think at least part of the issue is that in the Walking Dead there was no zombie lore.  These people are having to learn on the fly things that seem common sense to us

[jaco]

Thank you for this topic!  I argue every week with my wife on this.   Personally, I think if they're in the woods they need to learn to sleep in trees.  We know Walkers aren't climbers.  Bob was genius for sleeping on that box truck's roof. The stuff of using strings and cans in the woods drives me crazy.

If they go into a house, get to the second floor (or attic) and blockade the stairs.  Ideally I'd be using a ladder to come and go. Or a rope.  And you're right, cover the windows if you're using light.   

My wife's argument is "you need to be able to flee".  I get that, but if they get upon you before you know they're there, there isn't any fleeing.   In an elevated position you can stay quiet and let them move on.  The first thing you do should really be to limit their access points to you and to have an escape route.  And hopefully be somewhere they don't accidentally stumble on you - like sleeping in the woods.

[Xtracate]

I think at least part of the issue is that in the Walking Dead there was no zombie lore.  These people are having to learn on the fly things that seem common sense to us

 

I have often wondered about this and yell at the tv (watching is a active experience in my house) "have none of you ever seen a zombie/horror movie."

 

I think I am being converted to the first floor being safe with the ability to hear a threat earlier and be able to get away, but I'm still not sure. 

[OMEN]

Good point, their weather sucks... But the Atlantic winter would probably freeze the walkers and we could just go around with hammers shattering zombiesicles!



Truth. I was kind of bummed that they kept skipping over winter, for example - I know Georgia typically doesn't get insanely cold like we do up here, but I was interested to see how the cold weather affected everything, from the walkers to the group's morale. Cold weather, even when it's not -40º, can really wear you down, especially when you aren't properly nourished.

This year we had 2 ice storms here in the Atlanta burbs. There was a sheet of ice on everything. Most of their was about 2-4 inches thick. We have these ice storms about every 4-6 years. It doesn't get as cold as y'all northers area buy it's drops to freezing level and below every winter.

[StrollingDead]

The food supply in Georgia is not as finite as people believe. Yes, there would be few manufactured supplies in stores and homes at this point, but Georgia is an agricultural state. The Grove proved that. The episode title was named after the peach and pecan grove near the house they found. Being an agricultural state, groves and fields from farms would be plentiful and growing food in the summer months, especially in the countryside outside the cities. Georgia ranks number 1 in the US for pecan and peanut production, number 2 for cotton and rye, and number 3 for peaches and tomatoes. "Georgia has 11.1 million acres of land devoted to farms, with an average farm size of 222 acres." "Approximately one in six Georgians works in agriculture, forestry, or a related field." As a farming family, Hershel, Maggie, and Beth would know this and would know that at this point foraging in fields would be a better bet than scavenging in houses. Daryl, a survivalist, would know this too. "Other crops produced in Georgia include apples, berries, cabbage, corn, cotton and cottonseed, cucumbers, grapes, hay, oats, onions, peaches, rye, sorghum grain, soybeans, tobacco, tomatoes, vegetables, watermelons, wheat, and ornamentals, turf grass, and other nursery and greenhouse commodities." Many of these are perennials, meaning they continuously recur year after year.

 

As for livestock, along with pigs they had at the prison, "beef cattle, dairy cows, and hogs are produced on farms throughout the state. Miscellaneous livestock such as meat goats and sheep, catfish, trout (aquaculture), and honeybees are also produced." Georgia is also the number one in the nation in chicken and egg production. If Daryl can still find deer, as Patrick thanked him for doing in episode 1, then some of these animals or birds would still be around too. Also, though I have seen walkers in the rivers, I have never seen one eating fish. I doubt they could even catch one as slow and uncoordinated as they are. I am a better fisherman than hunter, so I would look for a rod and reel in any building I came across. 

 

I am glad that they are finally portraying the food available in the countryside in the grapes the girls and Beth found in Inmates, and the pecans and peaches in The Grove. If they are stumbling across farms, then they should be stumbling across fields with food.

 

ETA: I agree with learning to farm, so that once you find a stable place that you wouldn't have to risk your life foraging in fields to find food. Being an agricultural state, there would be plenty of farming supplies around. Along with farming though, I would learn canning, so that I would have food year round. Thankfully, Georgia is a southern state and with generally mild winters, but they do have winters and would need food to eat then too. Wild animals and birds would be scarce in the winter too.

 

 

Great post- I thought of that in Season Two, when Hershel says winter is coming on and they are short on supplies. According to the timeline, this is less than three months after the outbreak, so most of that year's crops would have been planted; with well over 90% of the population gone there should have been plenty available.

 

This situation would last  a few years, though wild plants would start to crowd out crops pretty quickly, while the surviving ones would become less adapted to human needs- smaller ears of corn, tougher root crops etc., and of course the big fields would start to fill in.

 

Don't know how chickens would do, but I'd put money on pigs, though they'd be more the savage razorback types than pretty  pink porkers. From a few break-outs, pigs and even cattle spread pretty quickly through the New World- though they didn't have walkers after them constantly

[d2daybreak]

Great post- I thought of that in Season Two, when Hershel says winter is coming on and they are short on supplies. According to the timeline, this is less than three months after the outbreak, so most of that year's crops would have been planted; with well over 90% of the population gone there should have been plenty available.

 

This situation would last  a few years, though wild plants would start to crowd out crops pretty quickly, while the surviving ones would become less adapted to human needs- smaller ears of corn, tougher root crops etc., and of course the big fields would start to fill in.

 

Don't know how chickens would do, but I'd put money on pigs, though they'd be more the savage razorback types than pretty  pink porkers. From a few break-outs, pigs and even cattle spread pretty quickly through the New World- though they didn't have walkers after them constantly

 

I forgot about things like kudzu taking over the fields, but like you said, food would still be plentiful in the summer for a few years.

 

As for the chickens, I figured they could out run walkers if not surrounded, and with there being so many, I figured some would survive. They aren't that easy for healthy humans to catch, so walkers would have to be in packs/herds or just lucky to catch one. Having been in pens all their lives, I figure that the biggest challenge chickens would have is fending for themselves once they got loose, but like most of nature, I am sure some would find a way.

[kombat]

I don't get the relationship to the horror that was Newton.

I don't look at Lizzie's death as murder in the sense that the perpetrator acted in either a fit of passion or had something to gain from it. I think Lizzie's death gutted both Carol and Tyreese. There were no good options in the situation they were in. In the prison or any other settled community they could have kept her locked up and looked for other solutions. But in their situation, with Lizzie a clear threat to Judith as well as herself, Tyreese wounded, walkers around all the time, there was no way to control Lizzie. Leaving her would be more cruel and a threat to other people. But having to euthanize her was nothing less than horrible and tragic.

I've been convinced from the beginning that Carol hadn't become as cold as she had convinced both herself and Rick that she was. She was trying to be like that but it's not really in her. I think she loved those girls and having to kill Lizzie was punishment enough in itself.

 

Right. The murderer was Lizzie, who killed Mika. One way to look at it is Carol just gave Lizzie the punishment our society dolls out for murderers: death. Societies determine that a murderer is unfit to live among that society, hence they lock them up or kill them. In this case, the "society" is Tyreese, Carol, and Judith. Lizzie was deemed unfit to live among them. They can't lock her up, so they killed her. Doesn't mean it was easy for Carol to do. Just trying to show it from a different angle.

[Singlyme]

Without a connection, I can't see myself wanting to survive.  Alone and alive?  For what?  To fight off the next attack?  We're social beings who would likely go nuts without those connections.  So I definitely see people hooking up and having that someone to latch onto - to live for.

 

But to the food situation.  Georgia, I'll grant, might be plentiful in the months when things are growing.  But even if we isolate the starvation period to three months of winter, it's a long stretch to go when the pantries of surrounding homes have been stripped.  Rural?  On foot?

[Vicki48]

Guess I didn't make my point.  I'll try and clarify and then drop it.  I'm probably too out there.

 

( "Grove" episode)

We  are more and more frequently dealing with unprovoked violence--Newtown, the Colorado theatre shootings, school shootings.  We know we have a problem, and clearly we aren't dealing with it.  We can't come up with a solution balancing the rights of those who are "likely" to commit violent acts (even tho we can often identify them) and the rights of  people who may be harmed by them.  We are personally affected by that.

 

Anyway, what I'm trying to ask is are we more sensitive to, more willing to accept what happened with Lizzie because it's something we are exposed to in our real lives; something we haven't figured out how to handle? 

 

I am totally clear with Carol's actions.  She did something she understood as "wrong" and personally painful, but accepted it as the only logical, practical, efficient road to take.  But it is kind of weird that no one (meaning viewer) has registered any discomfort with someone "putting down" a child, tho admittedly a dangerous one.

 

Now take it a step further.  Viewers seem pretty divided on the David/Karen issue. You can only go by what the group knew:

*Only two people exhibiting symptoms (thus far). 

*One dead and reanimated person killing a couple (?) of others. 

*No quarantine. (If you have a guy in the next morning delivering flowers, you don't have a quarantine). 

*No effective medical treatment for a disease diagnosed (Hershel and the doctor) as horrific and deadly.

 

--So were D/K less of a threat than Lizzie?  I think they were (at least as far as the group were able to discern) a far greater threat.

 

So I wonder why the difference in reaction (to Carol's "putting them down")  by the viewers.  I wonder if we were currently living in the throes of  something like the Spanish flu of 1918 if we wouldn't be seeing things much differently.

 

And maybe I take this whole WD business a little too far and should just enjoy the show.

 

So I said my say and I'll shut up now.

[Serenity@sea]

Guess I didn't make my point.  I'll try and clarify and then drop it.  I'm probably too out there.

 

( "Grove" episode)

We  are more and more frequently dealing with unprovoked violence--Newtown, the Colorado theatre shootings, school shootings.  We know we have a problem, and clearly we aren't dealing with it.  We can't come up with a solution balancing the rights of those who are "likely" to commit violent acts (even tho we can often identify them) and the rights of  people who may be harmed by them.  We are personally affected by that.

 

Anyway, what I'm trying to ask is are we more sensitive to, more willing to accept what happened with Lizzie because it's something we are exposed to in our real lives; something we haven't figured out how to handle? 

 

I am totally clear with Carol's actions.  She did something she understood as "wrong" and personally painful, but accepted it as the only logical, practical, efficient road to take.  But it is kind of weird that no one (meaning viewer) has registered any discomfort with someone "putting down" a child, tho admittedly a dangerous one.

 

Now take it a step further.  Viewers seem pretty divided on the David/Karen issue. You can only go by what the group knew:

*Only two people exhibiting symptoms (thus far). 

*One dead and reanimated person killing a couple (?) of others. 

*No quarantine. (If you have a guy in the next morning delivering flowers, you don't have a quarantine). 

*No effective medical treatment for a disease diagnosed (Hershel and the doctor) as horrific and deadly.

 

--So were D/K less of a threat than Lizzie?  I think they were (at least as far as the group were able to discern) a far greater threat.

 

So I wonder why the difference in reaction (to Carol's "putting them down")  by the viewers.  I wonder if we were currently living in the throes of  something like the Spanish flu of 1918 if we wouldn't be seeing things much differently.

 

And maybe I take this whole WD business a little too far and should just enjoy the show.

 

So I said my say and I'll shut up now.

Just because we can understand why Carol had to make that agonizing decision doesn't mean we aren't discomforted by it. It was a gut wrenching, heartbreaking episode.

 

I don't see the correlation between the school shootings and this situation. They are living in a world where there is no law and no help for people who are insane.

I could be misunderstanding you, but it feels like you are asking if we are more accepting of a child's death because of the horrible violence we have witnessed at the hands of other teenagers. I would strongly disagree with that statement.

 

We are also veering off topic from this subject of this thread. If you want to discuss this topic further, the various Carol threads would be a better place to do so.

[Singlyme]

Vicki, the difference for me is that Carol took it upon herself to off David and Karen.  We never saw any inner conflict within her because the killing remained a mystery until she spilled the beans to Rick.  We don't know if it was difficult or easy for her to do.  With Lizzie, we saw her pain.  Had we seen it in the sick room, we might feel differently.

 

And I agree with your questions in regard to the rights of victim vs perpetrator.  We are a confused society.

[jayde]

Guess I didn't make my point.  I'll try and clarify and then drop it.  I'm probably too out there.

 

( "Grove" episode)

We  are more and more frequently dealing with unprovoked violence--Newtown, the Colorado theatre shootings, school shootings.  We know we have a problem, and clearly we aren't dealing with it.  We can't come up with a solution balancing the rights of those who are "likely" to commit violent acts (even tho we can often identify them) and the rights of  people who may be harmed by them.  We are personally affected by that.

 

Anyway, what I'm trying to ask is are we more sensitive to, more willing to accept what happened with Lizzie because it's something we are exposed to in our real lives; something we haven't figured out how to handle? 

 

I am totally clear with Carol's actions.  She did something she understood as "wrong" and personally painful, but accepted it as the only logical, practical, efficient road to take.  But it is kind of weird that no one (meaning viewer) has registered any discomfort with someone "putting down" a child, tho admittedly a dangerous one.

 

Now take it a step further.  Viewers seem pretty divided on the David/Karen issue. You can only go by what the group knew:

*Only two people exhibiting symptoms (thus far). 

*One dead and reanimated person killing a couple (?) of others. 

*No quarantine. (If you have a guy in the next morning delivering flowers, you don't have a quarantine). 

*No effective medical treatment for a disease diagnosed (Hershel and the doctor) as horrific and deadly.

 

--So were D/K less of a threat than Lizzie?  I think they were (at least as far as the group were able to discern) a far greater threat.

 

So I wonder why the difference in reaction (to Carol's "putting them down")  by the viewers.  I wonder if we were currently living in the throes of  something like the Spanish flu of 1918 if we wouldn't be seeing things much differently.

 

And maybe I take this whole WD business a little too far and should just enjoy the show.

 

So I said my say and I'll shut up now.

 

Putting down Lizzie was absolutely heartbreaking so I wouldn't say there's a lack of discomfort at all. No one here has cheered on that choice and pretty much everyone has said it was a gut wrenching scene. It's more an understanding that there is literally nothing else they could have done. If they were still in the prison then they could separate her from the others and take away all access to weapons for her and have someone watching her whenever she was out and about. They can't baby her here and they can't isolate her without it meaning inevitable and painful death.

 

Karen and David were much less of a threat. People were more divided on their deaths because there was no guarantee they would die. There was also no guarantee that the flu hadn't already begun to spread to others. Logically, if two people have it then odds are that the flu was already being passed around and it had simply yet to manifest as symptoms in anyone else. But Carol didn't think about that, she took it into her own hands to decide that they needed to die. She didn't talk to anyone else, no one had a chance to consider if putting them in quarantine was enough because she ran off and killed them without getting even the thoughts of any of the doctors there.

 

Lizzie had murdered someone. Not just anyone, but her little sister and planned to kill a baby, not out of malice but because she's mentally unstable. There's absolutely nothing they could have done for her. She wasn't going to magically get better without some kind of treatment that they don't have. However, either Karen or David could have had the strength to last long enough to have a fighting chance at survival. Sasha became ill fairly early on and she survived. Just because they were the first two cases, doesn't mean that they were 100% guaranteed to die. But we know Lizzie would kill again. She planned to. And if she didn't kill anyone she was with then she might have just fed herself to a walker thinking it's okay, she'll come back.

 

People can recover from illnesses even if they're living in the most terrible of conditions and with limited medical intervention depending on the person, their immune system, illness, etc. But you can't come back from being full blown batshit crazy that has you killing people and wanting to essentially kill yourself (even if in her mind that's not what it was about) without antipsychotics or some kind of medication to harness one's mental instability. You can't fix crazy in the ZA.

 

Also, with Karen and David, Carol showed no remorse when she admitted it to Rick. We did see her have a breakdown and I think she regrets the way she had to do it, but she would do it again if she had the chance. That means she wouldn't talk to anyone else about it, she'd just take it upon herself again and that would be it. With Lizzie, you could see the anguish in Carol. It's not something she wanted to do but she knew it had to be done. Regret is an important part of how we perceive someone's actions and has an impact on our understanding of the situation. It's why those who are being charged with a crime or have a chance to be released may state whether they have regrets about their actions. A murderer apologizing and acknowledging his/her actions and the impact it has had on a victim's loved ones will hold more weight than one who does not.

 

 

[Thierry88]

I thought this topic was about whether it is a good idea to sleep on the ground floor or not. Now I read things like nuclear meltdowns and the Lizzie, Karen and David business of Carol, which already has its own topic (Look at the flowers).

 

Sleeping on the ground floor doesn't have to be a bad idea if you have no escape route fromn the second floor. But then do it like Morgan and Duane did in the pilot episode of the show. Board up the door and cover the windows with blankets so no light is seen from outside. But fortifying your position like Morgan has done in "Clear" might also work but is a bit laborious if you have no intention to stay there for long.

[Singlyme]

@ Thierry:

 

The house that Daryl and Beth found was well-stocked with food.  This might have been a good space to spend a few days, well worth putting up some blankets over the windows.  But banging on that damned piano????

 

Does anyone have an inkling of how much time had passed since the fall of the prison?  They spent one night in the trunk but apparently walked all night after they burned the cabin.  Two days?

 

I think I'd be one to opt for the upper floor.  One could hear a break-in from below and have time to react before someone was on top of you.  But I'd be sure I had a porch roof for a quick exit.  However, I'd probably break my legs jumping - zombie chow.

[Thierry88]

Using the piano was something I questioned myself. The sound of most music instruments is not confined by the room, especially when it is all wood. Every walker in the surrounding area should be attracted to it, especially with the house all lit up with no covers in front of the windows. 

[Lioness]

Banging on the piano and singing. Windows uncovered and lights by the windows. It is any wonder that walkers and a mystery person showed up?

[laughingdead]

If you replay the door opening you can see zombies through the slats. In ZA I don't open the door without looking who is knocking.

[Xtracate]

I pointed out in another thread everything they did in the funeral fun house was stupid and did not feel authentic, they didn't show any concern for self protection after all this time, even with the safety they had gotten used to in the prison it's hard to excuse the fact that they l didn't do anything that seemed right. 

[shrike]

They were living  in happily married domestic bliss that's why