i guess it depends on whose zombie you reference.
i'm not a big fan of scratches since that would mean the infection is the body, not inside. it does add to the tension of the story but it would be almost impossible for anyone to survive an attack.
bites make it personal and can be brutal, that to me is better than just a small scratch infecting someone.
there are real viruses that can be spread via touch or scratch but don't seem as desperate as ebola or even marburg virus.
just my 2 cents
j
hmmmmmmm. Since the majority of modern zombie fiction is based around a water or airborne vius (this I think tends to manifest itself in stories where if you die by any means you reanimate). As such, human bodily fluids are a great place for the virus to live. The bite would be a perfect way to transfer saliva/other bodily fluids directly into the body, where the infetion would spread. A scratch would imply that the virus could survive for long periods of time exposed to unfavorable conditions, easily possible. So I guess the power of infection is in the author's hands. The scratch method would make it a bit more luck based as did the virus survive in the patch of material that you broke your skin on and make its way into your body. If it did your screwed.
just my thoughts
" but it would be almost impossible for anyone to survive an attack."
Great point! I agree.
Well my thoughts on the scratch situation is this: when someone murders someone else through physical contact, they find traces of that person's DNA under their nails. So if someone was the equivalent of a psychopathic serial killer that not only scratches their victims but digs their hands inside their guts and throughout their bodies, mixing the blood, fluides, DNA, and whatnot, a scratch, if the pathogen is transmitted through bodily fluids, would likely be highly contageous, not just the bites.
This is just my way of thinking it through as far as favoring the scratch scenario...which could mean that if a zombie had gone without food for a time and the blood and other liquids had dried out, it might not cause an infection to spread through a scratch, dependent on how long the virus or whatever it is can live outside the body. But if it is all juicy from a killing spree, that scratch might prove to be pretty lethal, just as if its claws had venom in them.
Surely if the zombie bites his/her nails he could spread the love, er , infection. Another good reason to stop your kids from doing it now!
No, the best reason to quit biting your nails is "Prudence".
Curse you Doc, now I have an urge to listen to "Dear Prudence" by S. and the Banshees. Rob played guitar on that one ya know? He was even in the video. Great cover song.
I'm a really big fan of biting, scratching and puking... from zombies that is. Just like some people already stated, it adds to the tension and I also think it's unlikely that the virus (or whatever caused it) is only situated in the mouth of the zombie. Therefore, alternate means of infection are possible...
At least, that's what I think...
Curse you Doc, now I have an urge to listen to "Dear Prudence" by S. and the Banshees. Rob played guitar on that one ya know? He was even in the video. Great cover song.
-esbrown
I have to go with the Beatles version.
Both are great. Can't go wrong with either. : )
My own opinion, for what it's worth, is that it would hard to be infected by anything other than a bite. Most viruses can't live very long out side of the body so unless a zombie scratched another zombie and then a living person within a space of a few seconds the virus would most likely be dead.
On the other hand in fiction anything is possible so if a writer wanted a scratch to be infectious I could deal with it.
Ok, a new wrinkle to this question: If you die by natural causes, do you re-animate? I'm leaning toward one answer, but I'll wait to see what you all have to say. :)
Depends on the nature of the zombification. If it is necromantic in origin, sure. Also, certain viruses can go dormant in a person, then activate at a certain event. It is possible that even after a zombie apocalypse ends with all zombies dead, there could be someone who is a carrier of the virus that zombifies when they die. kind of an interested cliffhanger.
"Natural causes" is a distincton I don't think gets mentioned very often. In the Romero canon, we know that any sort of death will result in zombification (They make a big point of this in 'Land of the Dead'), and in that case, zombification is, far as I can remember, never definitively linked to a virus -- in the first movie, it's attributed (perhaps incorrectly) to radiation, but in most of the others, it seems to be best explained as some sort of planet-wide shift in the laws of nature.
That said, all we ever actually witness, far as I can recall, are *unnatural* deaths. Either death by zombies, or by means which are not supernatural but also not *natural*, such as murder, suicide, or injury.
I could easily believe that, under Romero-like rules, someone who died a truly *natural* death, from, say, old age, might not resurrect. If that were the case, it would suggest either that zombification requires a violent death (That might make for an interesting angle, if zombies result from some kind of supernatural force which *requires* a violent death to operate), or that the processes of natural death destroys something in the body necessary for reanimation (In much the same way that a person whose head was crushed would not be able to resurrect).
I can't say I've ever come across a story where any *violent* death (regardless of whether it involved a zombie bite) resulted in zombification but a *natural* death did not, but I think it would probably make for a very cool twist, especially in the long-term as survivors try to rebuild.
I was a bit worried about this, but it has been good to see that this is a valid debate point on zombies.
I believe that the Darker projects Alive inside production included the idea of natural deaths causing zombification to occur however it's been awhile since i've heard it so I'm not sure.
