Living Dead or Undead?

Ok so recently i have wanted to try and slowly start playing Warhammer Fantesy. With this in mind i am slightly interested in the Vampire Counts as the army to play. I have had 2 issues with this so far, The first being that their are no ranger infantry and what not...which i can deal with. The other issue is of more prevelance!!! Over the past 5 years i have been in literaly multipal arguments on what a zombie is considered....are they the living Dead or Undead. My personal belife is that they are the living dead but i have run into pop culture issues such as Thriller (yes i am using this so what?) and people who have asked me about what they might be if their was dark magic involved... and sense the Vampire Counts Army Book states them as undead and that i am literaly at the point of not caring what they are (as long as i can kill them i am fine.) I am asking you the people of the O-zone "What is a Zombie...The Living Dead or The Undead?"

No matter what the answer is i am never dealing with this issue again!!!!

WOW!!! Such emotion over so little a thing

In my humble opinion, it depends on how the zombie was created.

If it was raised from the dead thru means of dark magics or the sort then it would be undead.

If however it was created by means of a disease ( like Resident Evil) then I would say that it is the living dead.

Now I am fully aware that this trully does not answer your question but in reality it is a zombie

BRAINSSSSSS!!!!!!!!

Brian hit it on the head. Chuck may put in a few words on this seeing he is a Zombie of sorts.

Uh, if I could just throw my hat into this I think I could clear this up. WHO CARES?! Who says Living Dead and Undead are different? The Chinese have how many different words for rice?

SLAANESH wrote:WOW!!! Such emotion over so little a thing

In my humble opinion, it depends on how the zombie was created.

If it was raised from the dead thru means of dark magics or the sort then it would be undead.

If however it was created by means of a disease ( like Resident Evil) then I would say that it is the living dead.

Now I am fully aware that this trully does not answer your question but in reality it is a zombie

BRAINSSSSSS!!!!!!!!

True but it does help, i mean i can live with that...hell i would be fine with that....but lets see what other people say lol.

Also Keebler.....I CARE.....i do not know why but i do.....I belive their is a diffrance......no offense or anything!!!!!

From my point of view from playing Tomb Kings (Undead), they all died or were killed then brought back from Nagash's screw up. Vampire Counts, ghouls, and etc. from what i have read are the living dead; Living people that through necroancy are changed. The zombies and skeletons on the other hand are undead based on previous arguments. Necromancers have gone to graveyards and raised (from the dead) zombies (recently dead individuals) and skeletons (being old enough that the flesh no longer remains on the bones).

Huh i have never though of it that way before.

Zombies, are, in the most literal sense, the living dead. Going back to old Voodoo rituals, people would be entranced and act "zombie-ish". Hence, alive while seeming dead. This is also seen in coma patients and people who have been lobotomized. Being alive while giving the appearance of being dead.

Once you enter the world of fantasy and horror, you find the undead. Anything that has been brought back from the dead, is undead.

In cinema, Zombies have been depicted through various mediums, such as Night of the Living Dead, Resident Evil, and 28 Days Later. Of course, 28 Days Later starts the controversy of "Are they even really zombies?" I won't go there for now.

Basically to answer the question...

If a person is alive, and acting like a zombie, they are the living dead. Living implies some sort of body function, like a pulse or brainwaves.

If a person was dead, and comes back by some means, then they are undead. This does not include things like Ressurections, since things like that restore a person to complete functionality.

Most zombies that would be in warhammer would be undead.

To add some philosophical weight to the argument one should ask themselves what does it mean to be "living"? Is living a physical or mental aspect of ones self? In many of my psychology and philosophy courses (yes Keebler went to college) we discussed, and I would tend to agree, that it's the mind that makes one living more so than the body. Using this logic one could say that any sort of creature that acts with thought of free will is living. Taking this into the realm of this discussion I would have to say that creatures that act of their own free will such as Vampires are living dead. They are alive philosophically because they think, learn, reason, and have wants but their bodies are not alive in a natural sense. In this way they are alive mentally but dead physically so they are LIVING DEAD. On the other hand creatures like Zombies and Skeletons are often animated automatons that have no free will (classically of course, there are exceptions to any rule) nor any wants that drive them so they are not truly living by definition as well as being a literal dead body capable of moving so they would be dead but not living so UNDEAD.

"I think, therfore I am"

I think that sums it up perfectly

Descarte never had to deal with this issue though lol.