There are more than a few definitions for the word ethics, but common to most of them are moral obligations dictated for any given situation either through the nature of the universe, a higher power, or standards of rationality. Depending on your perspective, these ideals and ethical standards are the very foundation of society and what make us human, the basis for what separates us from all other life on this planet, or pure bullshit and lies we tell ourselves to make us feel special and at the center of the universe.
Many works of fiction generate conflict by testing these principles in situations mirroring the lifeboat dilemma. There’s always a ticking time bomb or a horrible act that must be done for the greater whole. In relation to this, one of the core themes of The Walking Dead is something that’s central to the genre going all the way back to George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. The circumstances of the situation brings out the worst tendencies in humans, turns our best qualities against us, and in order to survive, a balance has to be found between the two. With almost any zombie story, the afflicted can be seen in such an entirely different light when you realize the zombies aren’t meant to be “evil” or even the “villains.” The zombies are no different than a thunderstorm, or a hurricane, or an epidemic. A thunderstorm can cause bad things to happen, but a thunderstorm in and of itself isn’t evil. It’s just a part of nature that we deal with, and how we deal with it can sometimes depend on the type of people we are. Therefore, the true evil in most zombie apocalypses comes from humanity. With the world crumbling around them, the human characters still can’t put aside their differences to save each other. They would rather fight over the last scraps of civilization, or hold on to slights and grudges that serve to help no one survive.
And that is the great subtext of zombie fiction. Here in the real world there are so many problems that seem as implacable as a zombie apocalypse, that if we only worked together and saw reason we might be able to do wondrous things that would benefit everyone. But we don’t and people suffer.
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