Still "alive" [Fridge horror]
Watching someone's playthrough of season 3, their stats at the end listed that Clementine left [person] behind after they turned into a walker. That song in the credits had me start thinking - a little too deep for my liking - about the situation. When you die and turn into a walker, you're still alive. Of course you don't have your mind at all, but your body is still there - some brain activity is still active enough to cause your body to keep doing what walkers do. That person never finds peace, it never ends. Because wasn't it shown (at least in the show) that a walker does have some brain activity and that's how the doctor discovered you have to destroy it? I don't know if I'm remembering correctly, but this has me feeling all wrong inside.
Even deeper - this part may seem silly to some - if there's an afterlife then your soul cannot leave since you aren't truly dead. Your soul is trapped in that body. So those characters that committed suicide without a gunshot to the head or something like that are never really gone. Maybe I'm overthinking this - I promise I'm not under the influence of anything right now.
Comments
Proof. Now.
Only kidding, it's actually an interesting theory. I like to think of being a walker as being unconscious in the sense that you can't control or even experience your actions, but your body still performs them (breathing whilst unconscious, eating human meat whilst a walker).
Nope. You're completely and utterly dead. According to the show (and we can assume it's the same for the comics), only the brain stem is reactivated, just enough to cause a seemingly constant need to eat and enable the walkers to walk. Walkers aren't hungry like we understand it, they simply have to eat, just like a lot of animals have to chase after potential prey. Other than this constant drive, nothing at all remains of the person's conscience or personality, nor any feelings, pain included. The persons they were are entirely dead, walkers are just husks stumbling around.
They're literally just shells.
When you are under influence you may experience fridge horror. Lol.
I'm pretty sure the whole point of turning is that you have to die--pass on, stop sapient breathing, cease to exist in this mortal coil--and the virus-infection greymatter kickstarts the dead body into getting back up to mindlessly eating anything that moves and isn't undead because it doesn't have anything thing else to do besides spread itself(despite being an airborne vector) and operate on base functions.
Also, considering saying it's a virus makes it a biological and/or pseudo-genetic anomaly and not a product of magic, as well as allowing the body rot, y'know, because it's dead, I really don't see the point of making it a roboticizer situation that would imply it's reversible and thus add not one but two unnecessary loose ends to the driving element of an otherwise relatively realistic environment.
WAtch Z nation it very sneakily explores this subject.
I don't know. I have this headcanon that walkers can feel pain (they can't think or feel anything else though) but can't react to it. So their life is eternal agony.
Pain is a complex neurological process. I doubt very much that walkers can feel pain, especially not in the show universe (where only the brain stem reanimates).
Mmm... true