Most people who describe The Walking Dead
to their friends and family use the word "zombie"
when trying to give a short synopsis of the
popular post-apocalyptic horror show. The
show follows a group of survivors as they
attempt to fend off undead creatures looking
to feast on humans.
The monsters from the series are, for all
intents and purposes, zombies - undead creatures
whose corpses were supernaturally reanimated,
who roam the world near-soundlessly.
So why don't the characters on The Walking
Dead actually refer to said monsters as "zombies"?
They're called literally everything else - walkers,
monsters, roamers, geeks, lurkers, biters,
the infected, empties, and muertos, the Spanish
word for "dead" - but not once in the ten
seasons of The Walking Dead has the word "zombie"
crossed the lips of a single character on
the show.
Robert Kirkman, who co-created the Walking
Dead comic books and executive produces the
television series, had an explanation for
the omission while speaking to Conan O'Brien.
"We wanted to avoid that notion of, 'Hey,
why isn't that character just shooting that
zombie in the head because they saw all those
movies I saw."
Based on Kirkman's comments, leaving the word
zombie out of The Walking Dead has been an
extremely deliberate omission all along, and
one that makes a ton of sense.
"The Walking Dead takes place in a universe
where zombie fiction doesn't exist. No one
in the world has seen a Romero movie."
In other words, there's no reference to the
word "zombie" on The Walking Dead because
the word simply doesn't exist in that universe.
"Any zombies out there?"
"Don't say that?"
"What?"
"That."
Even though the word is never used on screen
in the popular series, Kirkman did cop to
the fact that he himself refers to The Walking
Dead as a "zombie show." He also added that
the word is regularly said on set, and actually
written in the scripts despite never making
it into the dialogue on the series. As far
as we're concerned, that gives us permission
to continue calling them "zombies," even if
we never hear the word uttered on a single
episode.
The series, on the other hand, will continue
using clever ways to avoid stating the Z-word.
Characters will forever call the undead creatures
"walkers," and plenty of other colorful options.
Though The Walking Dead team has gone out
of their way to avoid using "zombie" on the
series, the word has popped up a few times
within Kirkman's comic series.
In the second issue of The Walking Dead, Glenn
Rhee instructs Rick Grimes to take a giant
leap from the roof of one building to the
roof of another. Rick says that there's no
way that he's going to do that, but Glenn
tells him that he doesn't have a choice - unless
he wants to die. It's in this exchange that
the word "zombie" is used. Glenn tells Rick.
"You're going to have to. Listen... it's easy.
I do it all the time. When we climb down this
building, those things will still be waiting
for us at the bottom of that building. And
there's no way out of that one. All these
buildings are filled with zombies. Trust me."
The word is again used a few issues later.
Rick actually employs it twice in the same
conversation, telling fellow survivor Tyreese,
"When we were camped near Atlanta, we went
into the city. Most of the zombies just sat
around, not doing anything unless provoked
[...] Then our camp was attacked. A pack of
those things just tore through us, killed
two of our friends. So I gotta think that
there are other kinds of zombies that roam
around, always on the move."
Since both occurrences of the z-word show
up fairly early in the comics, the use of
the word likely comes down to Kirkman still
deciding what the world of The Walking Dead
was going to look like. Regardless, Zombie,
zom-bay, roamer, or walker - no matter what
you call them, we're just glad they're totally
fictional.
"That. The Z-word. Don't say it."
"Why not?"
"Because it's ridiculous."
"Alright... Are there any out there though?"
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