Talk:Undead/Archive 1

Borg?

I'm no trekkie, but I thought that the humanoid component of a Borg was sustained in a living state. Has it been established beyond argument that the borg are undead? BreathingMeat 00:03, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

This is news to me too. I'd support reverting it. The same editor also added similar content to the borg article. The demiurge 01:17, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Reverted. BreathingMeat 01:33, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

i am no trekkie either but i belive that the organic parts of borg are alive because in the trek film First Contact the borg were killed when their organic parts were dissolved by some kind of green gas that was in the ships engine. BY FATMAN

I can't say I'm a Star Trek fan, haven't watched too much of it, but it sounds to me that these creatures are similar to the abominations that were seen in the movie Virus. However, these, I believe would be better classified as Cyborgs, since either the mechanical parts are assisted by the organic or vice versa, and because having a living being stripped of it's free will by programming will look relatively similar to a zombie. Overall the organic pieces are still functional, and therefore they aren't dead. I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents, I realize this is an old topic but I like to share my opinion when I see an oppritunity. ~Saibot —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.114.216.9 (talk) 13:47, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Borg are living beings. They can and have been rehabilitated on the show. They don't die and reanimate at any point. There is nothing undead about them other than grey makeup. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.77.66.66 (talk) 00:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Games and Popular Culture

This section seems to attract a lot of contributions about specific games, films and shows, very little of which is particularly valuable imho. There are loads and loads of games and movies and shows featuring undead, and undead are all handled slightly differently in each. In this case, I think it is better to talk generally, e.g. "many medieval-themed games allow players to recruit undead allies" than specifically "In Heroes 3, undead can be recruited at a Necropolis town, etc etc etc" because we will never make an exhaustive list, and neither should we as such a list would be boring and useless. Having said that, I believe a few particular titles such as D&D are worth mentioning because they are pioneering, well-documented and noteworthy. BreathingMeat 02:31, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree. This is a common problem on wikipedia, some examples are good for illustration, but people feel the need to extend the examples to put every example they can think of. Then the article no longer flows well. The demiurge 13:24, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

This problem is still happening regularly. People seem to really want to list their favorite game, movie, TV show or book in this article because there is an undead character in it. Perhaps we should make a new article "Undead Characters and Races in Popular Culture" where such information would be relevant. Hopefully then all references to Lexx and Dune and World of Warcraft etc etc etc etc would not crowd this article. BreathingMeat 02:10, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

A place to pile all the vain, irrelevant references so they can be more easily ignored. Sounds like a plan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.168.23.224 (talk) 15:27, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Specific references come across as shoehorned promotions for commercial works, especially in light of the long history of undead in video games that go unmentioned. Trying to be fully inclusive is outside the scope this article and better suited to TvTropes. But at wikipedia, the inclusion of World of Warcraft with few other references smacks of cheap advertising. 68.6.191.69 (talk) 18:37, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

World of Warcraft

It seems there is an edit war brewing over the inclusion of World of Warcraft in the Games and Popular Culture section. The reason I do not think we need a mention of WoW in this section is this: WoW is a large fantasy game which includes pretty every fantasy trope that there is, including undead characters as well as trolls, orcs and everything else. It is not a particularly instructive illustration of the use of undead characters specifically. Yes, there are undead enemies in it: we already say that undead often feature prominently in MMORPGs. Yes, you can choose to play an undead character in WoW: we already say that there are games where you can play undead characters; and the Vampire: the Masquerade example given in the article is better than WoW IMHO because VtM specialises in undead characters, whereas WoW merely includes them.

I feel strongly about this because I have watched this article's history for many months, and have seen its quality deteriorate sharply whenever people start adding unnecessary references to their favourate game, movie or TV show. Other editors see it as a licence to add their own unnecessary references, and the effect is to turn sections of the article into useless lists of currently popular entertainment featuring undead characters. BreathingMeat 05:36, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about that, BreathingMeat. On one hand, I understand where you're coming from: You don't want this article to become saturated with redundant and unnecessary information and I can respect that. On the other hand however, I don't think it's as easy to dismiss the impact that World of Warcraft has had just with a wave of a hand. It's quickly becoming a part of popular culture since nearly everyone knows what it is and you have a huge amount of people other then the stereotypical pasty, overweight, anti-social nerd who play it. That's why people are adding WoW. Given WoW's growing position in popular culture, I feel that it legitimately belongs in the Games and Popular Culture section. Furthermore, it does not help that Diablo 2 remains in the article. Not only was the game made by the creators of Warcraft and was immensely popular, but it doesn't specialize in undead like Vampire. It includes them, but the story mainly focuses on demonic influence more then anything else. I can also argue the inclusion of The Forsaken for a similar reason Diablo 2 was mentioned: The Necromancer was a playable character that could control the undead. In WoW, The Forsaken are a playable race who are undead. See what I'm getting at? It's about what the games allow you to play as. If The Forsaken weren't a playable race, then I would agree with you. I'm going to re-add The Forsaken for now but I feel that this issue will have to move to community or something along those lines. Red Viking 01:40, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe the Diablo mention got in there because it was a different means of interacting with the undead than V:tM. Instead of being the undead, the necromancer character controls the undead. I wouldn't have a problem with mentioning WoW in the same sentence as V:tM, but I don't believe it deserves a separate mention. I'm going to do a small edit and see if it's something we can all agree on. The Dark 14:32, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that's a fair compromise. Thanks, Dark. What do you think, BreathingMeat? Red Viking 12.33, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'll put up with it for the sake of smiles all round. The thing is, because of WoW's undeniable impact on popular culture, and its popularity with a large section of Wikipedia editors, it makes its way into almost all pop culture sections. Sometimes it is encyclopedic because of WoW's innovation; in most cases it is not. I think in this case it is borderline, leaning on the unencyclopedic, as WoW's innovation is in the field of game mechanics rather than in its use of Fantasy tropes. BreathingMeat 22:40, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Removed Banshee

I removed Banshee from the list of cincorporeal undead. As the wiki article on Banshees correctly states, the name refers to a female fairy guardian of a family. She sings a mournful song at a family member's death. Though eerie, and occasionally included in ghost stories, the banshee is beither incorporeal not undead but a living and solid creature of the fairy realm. 71.143.211.21 23:42, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

It depends on your literary/legendary paradigm. Obviously, this concept of "undead" as a category of beings didn't exist before modern times (personally I'd date it to the early/mid 1970s), so a banshee (Gaelic bean sidhe, which can be translated as "fairy woman" or "peace woman" depending on which sidhe homophone you want to see in it) in the traditional sense isn't undead, and really neither is any other pre-modern legendary figure. However, in a lot of contemporary fantasy literature, games especially (e.g. Dungeons and Dragons, World of Warcraft), there is a thing called a "banshee" which is placed into this "undead" category. It's hard to nail down what's "true" when you're talking about something that doesn't exist to begin with. I would agree that whoever made them undead in the D&D Monster Manual grossly misunderstood their role in Irish folklore, but whoever it was had a lot more influence on fantasy literature than I do. Tarchon 17:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I just removed a bunch of other "examples" of dubious notability or relevance. One day I'm coming at this article with a chainsaw to try and remove all these damn cruft-magnet lists. BreathingMeat 02:34, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

FTR, Banshee now mentions that sometimes these are considered the spirits of dead women, and it's been re-added to Undead. -- Beland (talk) 19:12, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Definition of "undead"

I wonder about the actual definition of 'undead'. Where did the word come from, and what is it meant to be. For example was Lazarus undead? He died and Jesus returned him to life. Taking D&D as an example if a cleric casts a resurrection spell on a dead comrade, does the raised count as undead (even if not in game terms)? Where would the line be drawn?

Hopefully my recent edit clears that up. See what you think. Feezo 05:36, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'm too new to comfortably edit the main page, but Stoker didn't invent the word "undead". Chambers Online gives it as 15th century. Online Etmyology Dictionary gives it as c.1400. Osric 17:42, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Stoker sort of reinvented the term and gave it a new meaning. The early sense of "undead" was more like "barely alive" than the present sense of "not alive but somehow still moving around and doing stuff." (see the Oxford English Dictionary) It's not clear whether Stoker even knew of the earlier sense, and the fact that he originally hyphenated it suggests that he probably thought he was coining an entirely new term, at least in English. At one point in Dracula, he seems to use "nosferatu" as an "Eastern European" synonym for "un-dead," which has prompted some speculation that "un-dead" was intended as a literal translation (calque) of nosferatu. Tarchon 18:09, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

D&D examples

Are the D&D examples best placed here? Aren't there genuine folklore examples we could use, and move the role playing game stuff to a role playing game page? Mark Richards 17:42, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Mark, what leads you to think that RPG information cannot be taken as "genuine" in comparisson to folklore examples? I say both sources are valid. RPG characteristics are indeed widely related to the undead and necromancy. I really can't see reasons not to associate them both on Wikipedia. To move that information to a role playing game page means to make the undead article less rich. The beauty of Wikipedia is the ability of crossing references; the possibility to merge informations on the same place, leading people to learn more about different subjects.

Folklore can be understood as "popular culture", which is often based on tales and beliefs. RPG fiction continues to set its roots into general knowledge, merging with popular culture on its own way. That being, RPG fiction could also be seen as a form of folklore, which makes it equally valid and genuine.

So yeah, those are my two cents. I that makes absolutely no sense, it's ok. Sometimes, I end up babbling too much. =] Mackeriv 15:05, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Although the D&D information is interesting, I think it should be seperated from the popular culture and folklore information, simply because most people looking for general information on "undead" will probably be interested in the undead from popular fiction and folklore, not the undead created specifically for RPGs. Perhaps the RPG specific information can be in its own section on this page and if it got overwhelming, perhaps move it to its own page. My worry is that if the sheer amount of individual types of undead from RPGs are put on this page it will overwhelm the common information that most people will inquire about. The demiurge 05:22, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

I think the D&D reference could be generalised and rewritten so it sounds less like a detail of RPG mechanics. I don't think all undead creatures and specific information should be listed here tho. --Ashmodai 06:12, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

D&D's influenced a lot of popular fiction, so to say "such and such characteristics/types of undead show up in book X" when said book was taking them from D&D is misleading. Nateji77 12:55, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

'Turning' Undead

Hi Mackeriv,

I notice you've twice changed someone's previous text about "turning undead" from its usual D&D meaning into an odd reference saying that it means turning into a lich. I've played D&D for years and play RPG-derived PC games such as Icewind Dale, etc, and the meaning you removed is the only meaning I've ever heard of "turning undead". Certainly people (generally necromantic wizards) can transform themselves into liches, but this isn't called "turning undead". Both Paladins and Clerics usually have this "turn undead" ability. I believe the term comes from "turning away" the undead - generally the power "scares" the undead - though at higher levels can destroy them. Here are some links to support this common meaning:

• http://www.gamebanshee.com/dndonline/information/3eturningundead.php
• http://snack.p.lodz.pl/~cd/html/resthelp/g_tudead.htm
• http://www.warpbreach.com/dgate/dgskills/dgturnundead.html
• http://www.mjyoung.net/dungeon/char/clas009.html

Zuytdorp Survivor 04:14, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

Mylings

Are them finally corporeal or incorporeal? Following the link you can read they are "phantasmal incarnations" of souls... Which doesn't clarify anything to me.

Anyway, it makes no sense to me to have them listed in both "corporeal" and "incorporeal"...--euyyn 11:39, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Revenants

I am not sure if Revenants are creatures that originated in fiction. According to "A dictionary of ggosts" by Peter Haining, revenants (the word coming from French "revenir" "to return") are creatures rising from the grave after an extended period of time. The examples included in "A dictionary of ghosts" (Indian revenants, Johann Steinlin) seems to indicate that the concept is fairly old. So, I wouldn't put them in one basket with popculture liches and mummies. As the idea is clearly similar to this of "medieval revenants" (also mentioned in the article), I can't see how they should be treated separately. Following that line of thought, vampires should also be mentioned under the "undead originating in fiction" headline. After all, popculture vampires are hugely different from the traditional images of the creatures.

Merge with Undeath

The information in Undeath is not very developed or polished, and I think it would be a good idea to merge the information into this article. Undeath isn't too popular a term compared with undead, and I don't see what could be said about undeath that couldn't be included in this article under a subheading about how undead got to be that way. The demiurge 21:02, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I think the Undeath article could easily be just a section of this page. --Vyran 17:35, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

I merged and reformulated the information from Undeath. The demiurge 19:34, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

Wights?

As far as I can tell, Tolkien's barrow-wights are NOT incorporeal. For whatever it's worth, D&D wights certainly aren't. Though the Wight article is vague, it's at least not clear that the Norse and Scandanavian examples are incorporeal, and in any event none of them originally went by that name. So why are these guys listed as incorporeal here?

Makes sense to me. If no one else objects, we should move it over. The demiurge 03:18, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

I would move wights over to "Undead originating in fiction". If anyone can find a specific reference to wights as monsters in folklore prior to Tolkien's barrow-wight, please provide it. The word "wight" is a neutral one, an archaic term meaning both "person" and "thing". It is related to such prosaic words as "aught," "naught," and "not." This is according to Merriam-Webster and The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. Not as exciting as the Monster Manual, I know.

Tolkien's barrow-wight seems to be very similar to a draugr; I think it is a kenning for a draugr, equivalent to calling it a "tomb-person" in Modern English. The "barrow-" got trimmed in fantasy role-playing circles, as if it were a modifier for a general class of undead monters, the wights. It wasn't, but it is now, thanks to D&D and writers who prefer the Monster Manual to a dictionary. It's OK if I'm not neutral POV in Talk, right? ;)

The wight article is indeed a mess. It seems clear that the modern "wight" is based on Tolkien's "barrow-wight," which seems itself to be based on the draugr. Silarius 09:27, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Tolkien wrote of wights ("evil wights", "evil spirits" -- hence incorporeal) being sent to the Barrow-Downs. There they animated corpses in a seeming attempt to make Men think the souls of the dead weren't as safely gathered up by Mandos (and then Eru) as the Elves had told them. When the people of M-e spoke of "Barrow-wights" they presumably meant the walking corpse.

So they were genuinely spirits, but not necessarily spirits of the dead; and gave rise to genuinely walking corpses, but not animated by the unquiet soul of the deceased. They were counterfeit undead, and whether or not they should be included as "undead" depends very much on the precise definition of "undead" itself.Osric 17:33, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

"Wight" is essentially a ghostly "being" (which is where the word comes from, Old English "ƿiht"), and are an extremely crucial part of supernatural belief in Heathenry. So the presence of wight is legitimate, but has nothing to do with fantasy works. Think of it along the same lines as "angel" being in a "religion" article. — ᚹᚩᛞᛖᚾᚻᛖᛚᛗ (talk) 06:13, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Orcs and Goblins

Who keeps inserting orcs and goblins into the list of undead? These creatures are not undead. The demiurge 18:56, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more. I've removed them. SpectrumDT 21:52, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

The orcs are back. I will remove them. People have gotten the idea from the expression "orc-neas," found in Beowulf line 112, that orcs were a feature of Anglo-Saxon folklore, and that they were considered undead. Not so, in either case.

The expression "orc-neas" is mentioned in a list of unholy creatures that sprang from Cain. It is interpreted variously as "walking dead," "evil spirits," and "monsters." Note that it is not offered as the name of the race to which Grendel belongs; Grendel, elves, giants, and evil spirits are all "kin" in the sense that they are all the products of Cain's evil. "Orc-neas" is an expression that does not occur elsewhere in Anglo-Saxon poetry and prose, according to Klaeber; it was not a word in general use, but unique to line 112 of Beowulf.

That Tolkien named his orcs after this expression is not in dispute, but it is an error to conclude in turn that Anglo-Saxon literature or folklore features orcs. Please do not put orcs back into the undead list without a compelling reference. Silarius 08:38, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll agree with Silarius. I speak Old English, and can verify that in OE poetry, they often used kennings to name things indirectly: "whale road" for "ocean," for example. In genuine ancient Heathenry, orcs were living creatures (which have nothing to do with some "cain" or another). — ᚹᚩᛞᛖᚾᚻᛖᛚᛗ (talk) 06:20, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

defense against the undead

How can you kill a zombie when technically their dead to begin with? They are reanimated flesh by means of magic(D&D, Forgotten Realms, etc.) science(viruses, parasite, etc.). technically you cant kill something thats dead... I prefer the term disabled. oh and most you cant disable a zombie by destroying the brain, you got to destroy the entire body!Half-life guy

That's a good point. Undead aren't really killed, because they aren't dead. They're destroyed or disabled, or something to that effect. We should probably discuss that in the section about defense against the undead. By the way, you should sign your name after commenting in talk pages. The customary way to do this is with four ~ characters (~~~~) That shows up (for me) as The demiurge 21:19, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

ok we should, only we should put it in the introduction so that way it makes a little bit more sense. i put in the 'cant kill a zombie with out destroying the body or reanimator' in the section. Also why is it that it sounds like alot of the info comes from video games? quote "the only way to kill an incorpereal undead is to kill it with an enchanted weapon or silver weapon" unquote. That sounds like it came from The Elder Scrolls or D&D.Half-life guy

Well, most of the information is from games and modern fiction. If you could find some references about folkloric undead and how to destroy them, we could bulk up this section. We could use some references for the modern fiction stuff as well. The demiurge 21:09, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

allright Ill look through my personal Library... I have several old books that go into this matter. I'll see what i can do. Half-Life guy

From what I read is that there is only one way to get rid of a ghost, and thats by finding out why it left an impression of itself after death. Also, some of the undead in my books tend to just want to be left alone, and some can even be helpful.Half-life guy

The information in the Defense section needs to be referenced. I also think it should be reworded because it is unclear when we're talking about the undead in real life and literature rather than in video games (actually, are we talking about undead in real life or literature or something else?). It all seems rather vague. Also, what about exorcism? BreathingMeat 19:20, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Exorcisms only work against demon manifested in things(humans, buildings, animals, etc), and it draws out the demon scourge from it. Demon manifestations in those items are not, NOT, undead monsters. In fact after an exorcism the thing returns back to normal. Please do not use words that you dont understand. Half-life guy

I believe exorcism in some non-christian traditions is done to banish ghosts. For example, gaki in Japanese Buddhism are ghosts that can be appeased through offerings. I don't think the difference in some cultures between evil spirits and ghosts is as big as you seem to think. The demiurge 00:39, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Most of the examples in this article are of obviously fictional sources. There are plenty of examples of notable fiction in which exorcism is portrayed as an effective defense against unwanted Undead. The Poltergeist movies spring immediately to mind, for example. I think the fact that you became upset enough to attack my use of terminology illustrates the point I have been trying to make about the way the folkloric, fictional and real life information in this article is not well distinguished. BreathingMeat 02:19, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Forgive my rudeness, I had a particulary bad day. Exorcisms could work for evil spirits, considering that they are almost the same as demons. In the catholic church though exorcisms are only preformed against the manisfestation of demons. the day i wrote the attack was the 2 month aniversery of my grand fathers death, i was enraged, saddened, and i had to some how take it out. Again i wish to apologize for my childish behaviour, and i hope you understand...Half-life guy

Thank you for apologising. I bear you no ill will. Hope you're feeling better now. BreathingMeat 08:40, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Minor Changes

fixed up some minor mispellings and changed "thing" to "task." s.p.m.

Citation style

This article could be greatly improved if the externally-linking endnotes were converted to footnotes and the links reformatted with the standard {{cite web}} template.
,-~^R'lyehRising~-, 02:58, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

—Noting this was done.
,-~^R'lyehRising~-, 01:14, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Films

Maybe I'm too green...I keep trying to add a reference to the Category "Films directed by George A. Romero", with the title in the double brackets, but nothing shows up for the link; it only seems to add the page in question to the category, not provide an in-page link. How can I get it to link directly? Also, would it be better to link to movies featuring Undead in general rather than a specific director? Ipso-De-Facto 12:05, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Update: Found what I needed by RTFM. I'm adding a link to Category:Living_Dead_films as it's a good general link to films featuring undead.Ipso-De-Facto 12:24, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Night of the living dead

Zombies in voodoo aren't stupid--they undead are slaves who suffer their plight--animated by the same spirit that had the body when they were alive. The popular culture zombies who are stupid and can be chopped up are a result of Night of the Living Dead and Army of Darkness D&D of course but not voodoo. At least I don't think so. Puddytang 04:45, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Twilight

i've just seen the twiligth and all this about the imortals and the vimpires.....it's a big and in my opinion untruth story.....a legent.....it's good to tell things about it but we must not believe it...!!!betweent us i will have gave everything to make a reletionship with patterson....but.....we see it only in movies:( —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.68.126.213 (talk) 20:31, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Polar opossite of life

Can anybody make a research about undeath's symbolic representation as the oppossite of life (with death being their intermediate threshold)? I think that the cultural depiction of undeath often present this polarization having life as sancted and holy and undeath as damned and unholy, life as a representant of light and beauty and undeath as the banished cursed lurking in the shadows, life as the finite and perfected "goal" of nature and undeath as the epitome of the unnatural (with the emotionaly negative sence). Beside the modern depictions of undeath in fantasy lore as oppossite of the living (being disabled by sancted/positive magic and empowered by unholy/dark magic - positive/negative energies in DnD for example) their role in classic literature and tradition was pretty much the same even far before Stoker in religious practices and superstition.--92.118.191.48 (talk) 11:33, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Vampires

How vampires undead? I thought vampirism is supposed to be an infectious decease.--MathFacts (talk) 00:22, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

• You're trolling about video games (and perhaps some movies) in which vampires have been reimagined as a disease. But as I'm sure you well know, vampires from folklore are corpses that have come back to life to feed on the blood (or life) of the living. 173.209.110.233 (talk) 17:44, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

In Philosophy

Can anyone verify in which text Derrida talks about the undead as the binary opposition between life and death? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Redactthyself (talk • contribs) 04:52, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Removed "Holy Ghost"

The Holy Ghost (in today's English better: Holy Spirit) is supposed to be a spirit, but not undead. She/He/It is thought to be divine, in Christianity even to be God. and therefore to live forever. "Undead", however, means that something ought to be dead but is not, that it escaped death somehow. People think that the Holy Spirit cannot die, so it/she/he ought not to be dead, therefore he/she/it is not undead. Curryfranke (talk) 15:46, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Duplicate text under Literature section

The last 2 paragraphs in the literature section that are exactly the same as the first 2 paragraphs. I tried to fix it but the change was automatically reverted. Could somebody with the right Karma make the change? Surely, this shouldn't be very controversial.

Thanks,

Dominik Lukeš (talk) 14:13, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

You are correct, and I have removed it. There has been a lot of back and forth on this article recently, and it is really a disaster at this point. I admit I did not even notice the duplication. Thanks for pointing it out. ---The Old Jacobite_{The '45} 14:49, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Resurrection VS Undeath

Does Ezekiel 37:1-14 really belong here? While this is a passage which does describe the dead coming back to life, its describes as coming back to full ordinary life - not undeath. Specifically the mention of "wind" which also translates, I understand, as "breath" and/or "soul". This then would be literature about resurrection, coming back to life, such as the story of Lazarus or the resurrection of Jesus Christ found elsewhere in the Bible. It's not really about an undead army at Ezekiel's command, but a demonstration of God's power. 173.209.110.233 (talk) 17:59, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Section is original research, removed. Ian.thomson (talk) 18:03, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

I restored the section; the point is that this ancient resurrection story supplies not only the idea but some of the details used in "undead" literature. Ezekiel's theological intent is not relevant; the imagery is. A Georgian (talk) 18:15, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

It is primary sourced based original research. WP:No original research is clear on this: "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation... Do not analyze, synthesize, interpret, or evaluate material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so." It needs a secondary or tertiary source. Ian.thomson (talk) 18:20, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

The Book of Ghosts does not mention Ezekiel (or Ezechiel in the German). Ambrose Bierce's Can Such Things Be (another primary source that should to be replaced, but at least use the word "lich") does not mention Ezekiel either, and neither does Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror in Literature. No source in that section supports the interpretation that Ezekiel is about the undead. Ian.thomson (talk) 18:33, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Restored the quote (Primary source is permitted under policy), removed the OR.— Preceding unsigned comment added by A_Georgian (talk • contribs)

If an undead interpretation is not asserted, then the quote is pointlessly irrelevant. Ian.thomson (talk) 19:00, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

The quote has no context (which needs to be sourced). --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:07, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

i searched for secondary sources discussing the valley of the bones as an example of zombies or undead, and found none. i just reverted. Jytdog (talk) 00:14, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Secondary source found and cited, restored quote and added secondary sourceA Georgian (talk) 02:37, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

all that page cited ( p. xiii) in that book says is "While the imagery and the final outcome are more reminiscent of Revelations and Ezekiel..." The content was also COPYVIO from the book. But there is a significant discussion in that passage in the body of the book. i fixed the citation, added some wikilinks, and removed the quote from the bible which we don't need now. Jytdog (talk) 03:09, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

@Jytdog: Is the section title "Literature" still appropriate? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:23, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

The secondary source is pop-theology, not literary analysis. It'd be kinda like citing Escaping the Matrix: Setting Your Mind Free to Experience Real Life in Christ in the Cyberpunk article. Ian.thomson (talk) 04:48, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

ian, i could see someone saying that the source isn't scholarly enough but that seems kind of a weak argument. post modern theologians and literary critics have been fusing high and low culture since the 1980s. NeilN's comment that movies are not literature is more on point it seems to me - i see that you all have discussed movies a lot here and are excluding them now. i won't jump the hoop by insisting they be included. i'll also add that the discussions about ezekiel in the book (there is a second discussion of the valley of the bones in a section about zombie walks) were about zombies, so perhaps a better fit for that article than this one. so i took it back out while discussion here continues. i appreciate that it is tough to keep this article encyclopedic! Jytdog (talk) 12:12, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

The literature was Ezekiel, the secondary source connecting Ezekiel to the undead is cited. The objection to the secondary source was found to be weak, and the relevance of the quote from Ezekiel established. All issues resolved?A Georgian (talk) 16:25, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Incomplete sentence in the "Science" section

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy and brain hypothermia to delay cell death. 

The above incomplete sentence found in the "Science" section is missing a verb. I am unsure about the original intention of the writer. Is it supposed to be incorporated into its preceding or following sentence?--Quest for Truth (talk) 01:58, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

This has since been deleted. -- Beland (talk) 19:07, 13 February 2022 (UTC)