Talk:Undead

Suggestions for expansion

Origins of the contemporary concept

While the article does well in pointing out undead comes from Bram Stoker ("The Un-Dead"), it doesn't point out how it was made popular today and goes on to ramble randomly with various examples, from there. I get the impression that the term spread directly from D&D, which also defined how we generally use it nowadays. This should be noted in the article, citing early uses (such as in old D&D rule books or whatever) that made it popular, although it'd be best to do some additional research to see whether other authors used the term before D&D made it popular. Getting this right should also allow some a criteria for what additional examples of undead in fiction and games to include, regardless of whether monsters which were not explicitly called "undead" are mentioned. Who is like God? (talk) 21:10, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Interesting thought. I think you correctly point out that the development of Undead as a literary concept is underrepresented in the article. Bear in mind that the last thing this article needs is another Original Research-tagged section. So if you're going to write about the development of Undead in modern literature, please please research it first and make sure that your underlying assumptions regarding Dungeons and Dragons are supportable, and provide good references for statements you make in the article. BreathingMeat (talk) 21:42, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Literature etc.

I think Literature really needs to be three sections.

First, folklore should have its own section, rather than having the information buried in the middle of a paragraph about Frankenstein. And it should include things like ghost stories, if the article considers things other than reanimated corpses and vampires to be undead. And spiritual/demonic possession, spiritualism/mediums, West African/Haitian zombies, and so on.

Then, Literature is fine, except for the paragraph about Harry Potter, which adds nothing.

After that, there should be a section on later developments or popular culture or something.

First, where did we get our specific modern notions from? When you think of undead, it's not Haitian zombies, Romanian vampires, Germanic ghosts, and Greek shades, it's Romero zombies, Anne Rice vampires, Poltergeist ghosts, and Art Bell shadow people. D&D is probably relevant for some things (e.g., the idea of a "wight" as a sort of lesser wraith, or a "lich" as an undead sorcerer-revenant). There must be sources on this.

And, more importantly, where did we get the concept of "undead" as a category that even needs a name? Nobody in the 1960s would have considered a vampire, a necromancer-animated skeleton, and a ghost to be the same kind of thing at all, but nowadays, they're all undead. (And we can think about whether things like computer-uploaded minds, alien-parasite-possessed corpses, etc. are undead, which leads to new ways for fiction to creep you out or make you think.) I suspect it's mostly D&D, with maybe a bit of Anne Rice, and influenced by the Universal and Hammer horror films (which explains why people often lump werewolves in with the undead when they're not thinking). But again, obviously someone would need to find a source that actually talks about this.

Finally, because the concept of the undead, and the specific categories, have become so well established, any modern writer who wants to talk about necromancy or possession or the like without bringing up specific associations of Romero or D&D zombies now has to go out of their way to avoid it. And here's where Harry Potter's inferi are maybe relevant, as an example. --50.0.128.145 (talk) 09:20, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

This article is poorly developed, but Romero zombies are not exactly original. According to the Night of the Living Dead article, George A. Romero intended his living dead to be ghouls, the traditional flesh-eating monster associated with graveyards. And he got the idea of the zombie plague and infection from the novel I Am Legend (1954).

The vampire as undead goes all the way back to the traditional folklore of the Vampire. They were depicted as corpses which rise and prey on the living. "Corpses thought to be vampires were generally described as having a healthier appearance than expected, plump and showing little or no signs of decomposition. In some cases, when suspected graves were opened, villagers even described the corpse as having fresh blood from a victim all over its face.[39] Evidence that a vampire was active in a given locality included death of cattle, sheep, relatives or neighbours." And blood-drinking deities, demons, and monsters are actually well attested in world mythology. Compare Empusa, Lamia, and Strix, the predatory blood-drinkers from Greek mythology.

And in the nekyia part of the Odyssey, the shades of the Greek Underworld drink blood. According to an analysis by an external link: The "shades of the dead” ... "may look like the living, but they do not immediately act like them. They “have no mental powers (noos) or strength (menos), and are no more than insubstantial shadows” They may regain these mental powers and their memories, but are unable to speak the truth or remember their past lives until they drink the sacrificed sheep’s blood (Homer, 11.180-83, 187-88). " Dimadick (talk) 19:30, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I Am Legend (novel) is a great example. I added that to the article, and a "See also" link to Spirit possession. The article could still use more expansion inspired by some of the above points. -- Beland (talk) 20:11, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

'History of the beliefs in undeads' section could be created?

I mean a History of the beliefs in the undead

Ancient Greek http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/summer-2015/article/walking-dead-and-vengeful-spirits --Hienafant (talk) 00:24, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Mythology and folklore (especially Russian and other Slavic)

I find it weird that there is no mention of mythological creatures here. I don't know much about Germanic or Romanic mythology, but Slavic mythology is full of undead creatures. For example:

Koschei - Russian creature main "inspiration" for the creature called "lich" (better said lich is kaschei under the different name)

Vampire - the name is of the Croatian/Serbian origin ("vampir") and the most common deffinition of the vampires comes from their mythology

Rusalka - spirits of young women who died near water

Baš Čelik - in some ways simmilar to Koschey, from Serbian folklore HeadlessMaster (talk) 19:26, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Congratulation for forgetting Strzyga. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.252.10.2 (talk) 19:01, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Do you not know how to read or are you just trolling :) ? I wrote "For example", not "All examples", so you have no reason to be rude. HeadlessMaster (talk) 19:07, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Please let's criticize the content and not each other. I have added Rusalka and Strzyga to the list of undead forms. Vampires are already listed. @StjepanHR: (formerly HeadlessMaster) Nothing in Koschei or Baš Čelik indicates that they died; it seems they were simply immortal or difficult to kill. They are now both listed on List of fictional immortals. Feel free to correct the appropriate articles if there are also versions of these stories that describe these entities as undead and not merely undying. Were there any other missing creatures? -- Beland (talk) 19:56, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Deleting the Science section

In this 2015 anon edit, someone added a "Science" section, before the Literature and other sections. Initially (and currently) it contained a long paragraph about Robert Cornish's experiments with reanimating dead dogs, which, at the end, meanders into a discussion of brain death and the future of cryonics. He (or another anon user) later added a paragraph about Robert McDougall's attempts to weigh the soul, which was later deleted.

I could see a useful section about the prospects of real-life "undead" by reanimating corpses, including a brief mention of Cornish and other proto-experimenters, but he certainly shouldn't be the focus of the first section in this article. When people think about "the undead", they're thinking of Frankenstein and Dracula, Romero's movies, Anne Rice, D&D and its descendants, etc., not about an experiment from 1932 that's mainly notable because it occasionally inspires a horror story. (I'm willing to bet the anon editor who added him had just watched The Lazarus Effect…) So, I'm replacing it with a single sentence in the intro. --50.0.128.145 (talk) 08:44, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Mentioning undead created by scientific rather than supernatural means seems quite reasonable, since it's become a pretty common trope - see The Return of the Living Dead, Resident Evil (film), Blade (film), World War Z, and so on. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tronvillain (talk • contribs) 09:05, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

This now seems to be covered in detail at Resurrection#Technological resurrection; I've put a link there instead of, um, resurrecting the Science section. -- Beland (talk) 18:18, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

@Tronvillain: that's a good point about non-supernatural causes inside fiction; I added some of your examples to the History section. -- Beland (talk) 18:39, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Conflicting definition. A Ghost is *NOT* a "reanimated corpse" and is not "undead"

Despite the attempted categorization of "incorporeal", Ghosts are considered a form of apparition. They are not "reanimated corpses", as undead is (self-)defined here. All references to ghosts do not fit with "undead", as ghosts are not corpses at all but are by definition apparitions of the dead. 𝓦𝓲𝓴𝓲𝓹𝓮𝓭𝓲𝓪𝓘𝓼𝓝𝓸𝓽𝓟𝓮𝓮𝓻𝓡𝓮𝓿𝓲𝓮𝔀𝓮𝓭-𝓟𝓮𝓮𝓻𝓡𝓮𝓿𝓲𝓮𝔀𝓮𝓭𝓜𝓮𝓪𝓷𝓼𝓡𝓮𝓿𝓲𝓮𝔀𝓮𝓭𝓑𝔂𝓟𝓮𝓮𝓻𝓼𝓞𝓷𝓵𝔂 (talk) 22:12, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

@Tgm1024: From a quick web search, it seems like some people do include ghosts on lists of forms of the "undead". Since you do not, and I agree the core concept revolves around reanimated corpses, I rewrote the defining paragraph to make clear that ghosts may or may not be included (and added citations to examples of the inclusive usage). -- Beland (talk) 19:32, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Notes

I saw that this wiki article is considered 'start quality' despite its 'high importance', I think it is missing a pop culture section.

lots of intellectual properties have undead (also think we should mention undead in many contexts are differentiated from ghosts which are more likely shown as paranormal spirit beings.) such as:

-TV show IP like White Walkers in Game of Thrones, Borg in Star Trek

-Video Game IP like Warcraft (The undead are former mortals who have died and have had their souls trapped between life and death.)

some helpful links:https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheUndead

Drocj (talk) 18:38, 23 June 2023 (UTC)