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The Walking Dead Season 4

Not knowing how disease is being transmitted is irrelevant


It's absolutely relevant. She thought that she should kill the people who were in quarantine and then burn their bodies as if that were a solution to the transmission.


That is a solution to the disease that’s most prevalent in her world: the one that makes dead people get up and try to eat living people. Immobilize them by cutting off or destroying the brain, then destroy the diseased tissue.


It's entirely ignorant of how diseases work and is more of a throwback to how primitive people dealt with disease. She should know better.


Which is a perfectly rational option when all you have are primitive methods for fighting disease because there are no such things as clean rooms or pressurized isolation rooms anymore, you can’t mass produce antibiotics and you can’t get to the drugs already available because getting to them means going through masses of dead people who want to eat you.


She probably does know better. She’s working with what she has at her disposal.


Still on Team Carol.
 
It's not a rational option at all. It's primitive, doesn't work, and ignores many basic facts about the spread of these types of disease. The best thing at her disposal was to do what they are doing now by isolating those with the disease, looking for preexisting medications, and possibly cultivating new remedies. Murdering them before they turn isn't really a solution, it's just psychopathic.
 
Slightly off topic. Ouch - George Romero hates the Walking Dead:

When you’re a horror-film legend like George A. Romero, you’ve got certain clout. And Romero used that clout to not only decline a chance to work on AMC’s The Walking Dead, but to let the world know via an interview with Britain’s The Big Issue that he didn’t want to get associated with “a soap opera with a zombie occasionally.”
Ouch.
Romero revealed that he was asked to make a couple of episodes of the hugely popular hit series, but declined. “I always used the zombie as a character for satire or a political criticism and I find that missing in what’s happening now,” the creator of Night of the Living Dead said.
 
Slightly off topic. Ouch - George Romero hates the Walking Dead:

When you’re a horror-film legend like George A. Romero, you’ve got certain clout. And Romero used that clout to not only decline a chance to work on AMC’s The Walking Dead, but to let the world know via an interview with Britain’s The Big Issue that he didn’t want to get associated with “a soap opera with a zombie occasionally.”
Ouch.
Romero revealed that he was asked to make a couple of episodes of the hugely popular hit series, but declined. “I always used the zombie as a character for satire or a political criticism and I find that missing in what’s happening now,” the creator of Night of the Living Dead said.


Why would you be a fan of something that totally blows away anything you've ever done in the genre and makes you irrelevant?
 
Why would you be a fan of something that totally blows away anything you've ever done in the genre and makes you irrelevant?

I suppose. It's akin to Majel Barrett [rest her soul] or Gene Roddenberry telling JJ Abrams he's destroyed Trek.

I dunno - a little more acclaim from the original of all the Zombie producers to the most successful today would have been more gracious - on his part.
 
It's not a rational option at all. It's primitive, doesn't work, and ignores many basic facts about the spread of these types of disease. The best thing at her disposal was to do what they are doing now by isolating those with the disease, looking for preexisting medications, and possibly cultivating new remedies. Murdering them before they turn isn't really a solution, it's just psychopathic.

Yarp.
 
Why would you be a fan of something that totally blows away anything you've ever done in the genre and makes you irrelevant?

I suppose. It's akin to Majel Barrett [rest her soul] or Gene Roddenberry telling JJ Abrams he's destroyed Trek.

I dunno - a little more acclaim from the original of all the Zombie producers to the most successful today would have been more gracious - on his part.

Well that would be a true statement. ;)
 
Then he should have exiled himself for murdering Shane...

IN FUCKING SELF-DEFENSE!!!

I've already explained why Rick's motives and lack of action were suspect after Shane tried to take his head off at the school. Either Rick was saving Shane for later (eternally pissed that shane had his way with loose Lori) or he's the most clueless man on earth. Take your pick.


At a time when the whole group was at risk from The Governor and Rick was Ricktator and Chief. Also he DIDN'T hand her over speaks larger.

So, you're willing to excuse him for being the "Ricktator," and are satisfied with the fact he even considered handing Michonne over to the Governor?

There's no defense for that. He was placing her head on the chopping block. A living person--not a walker or someone on their way to becoming one, as in the case of Karen.
 
I don't know how anyone can say that what Carol was doing was rational. It was absolutely stupid because of the complete lack of understanding about how disease is transmitted.

Rationality is partially defined by circumstance. It's a world where dead people get up and try to bite living people. Not knowing how disease is being transmitted is irrelevant if you know for a fact that it is, somehow, being transmitted, it's fatal, and people who die get up again and try to eat living people. And knowing how disease is ransmitted is still irrelevant in an environment where proper isolation and treatment are impossible.

Carol did what she could with the knowledge she had and the circumstances she was given to work with. .

Well said.

Rick, the doctor and Hershel know nothing about the disease--or if it will respond to antibiotics. The one thing everyone knows is that the disease leads to death, and reanimation as a walker. Rick must suffer from some kind of Pollyanna complex to think Carol is dangerous, when she ended a problem that had only one conclusion.

Rick did not know if the scouting party would return (a common risk in that world), so he's operating off of much assumption, and a truckload of hypocrisy, when we remember his ease with the ending of life in seasons 2 and 3.
 
Rick, the doctor and Hershel know nothing about the disease--or if it will respond to antibiotics. The one thing everyone knows is that the disease leads to death, and reanimation as a walker. Rick must suffer from some kind of Pollyanna complex to think Carol is dangerous, when she ended a problem that had only one conclusion.

At that point, they only knew that two people died from it. And any doctor would know that even the worst diseases we've experienced in history didn't have a 100% mortality rate within a day. Basically, Carol had no way of knowing if they would die or not. And acting upon that lack of knowledge with murder isn't exactly in the right mind. She should have deferred to Hershel and Caleb, who were likely correct in diagnosing it as bacterial, and could have informed that most likely everyone in that cell block was already exposed.

Also, I don't think Rick thought Carol was dangerous so much as that her life was in danger from Tyreese or possibly others at the prison. The situation was likely to cause unrest.
 
A bit OT here: how cool is Chris Jericho? I know nothing about current, or past, wrestling, but his viewpoints--and especially the very clear and intelligent way he expressed them? God, I wish the news could apply such analysis!
 
It's not a rational option at all. It's primitive, doesn't work, and ignores many basic facts about the spread of these types of disease. The best thing at her disposal was to do what they are doing now by isolating those with the disease,

Right, in a large open space that's not airtight and can't be made airtight with any surety, which means calling the patients there "isolated" is delusional in the extreme, especially if we find out that the disease is airborne!

looking for preexisting medications,

Which, again, requires risking getting overrun by hordes of dead people trying to eat you. How do you keep missing that?

and possibly cultivating new remedies.

Do you know how long it takes to create a useful anti-viral? Or what resources you need? They are in an abandoned prison. Not a Merck Lab.

Murdering them before they turn isn't really a solution, it's just psychopathic.

It's a solution that takes into account their current reality, not medical knowedge that, while up-to-date, is only useful in a functioning society. Whatever you want to call their situation, "functional" ain't the word for it.
 
It seemed that Rick was undecided on what to do about Carol until she didn't want to wait for the potential survivor. After she said, "It's time to go", they cut to Lincoln's face, and you could tell from his expression that was the moment he gave up on her and decided she wasn't coming back with him.
 
A bit OT here: how cool is Chris Jericho? I know nothing about current, or past, wrestling, but his viewpoints--and especially the very clear and intelligent way he expressed them? God, I wish the news could apply such analysis!

Yeah, Jericho was great. Especially after the train wreck of Manson on last week's Talking Dead.
 
A bit OT here: how cool is Chris Jericho? I know nothing about current, or past, wrestling, but his viewpoints--and especially the very clear and intelligent way he expressed them? God, I wish the news could apply such analysis!

Yeah, Jericho was great. Especially after the train wreck of Manson on last week's Talking Dead.

Yeah, Talking was great this week. Looking forward to next time with Adam Savage that one should be great as well.
 
Just had a thought. We all kind of realize Shane & Carol are of the same philosophy. Cut loose your humanity in order to do the terrible things. The interesting thing is that Shane tried to force that way of life, violently, emotionally. Carol just accepts it as easily as a husband who beats her. In THAT way, she hasn't changed. She's just gotten stronger & more independent. The Zombie post-apocalypse is her new abusive relationship & she's resigned herself to it.
 
Yep, she's doing the same thing she did with the abuse from her husband. Trying to normalize it as much as possible. In a way, she is trying to ignore it.
 
It's not a rational option at all. It's primitive, doesn't work, and ignores many basic facts about the spread of these types of disease. The best thing at her disposal was to do what they are doing now by isolating those with the disease,

Right, in a large open space that's not airtight and can't be made airtight with any surety, which means calling the patients there "isolated" is delusional in the extreme, especially if we find out that the disease is airborne!

looking for preexisting medications,

Which, again, requires risking getting overrun by hordes of dead people trying to eat you. How do you keep missing that?

Exactly; there is no isolation in an open-air environment. Prisons are not designed for medical isolation, so all they are doing is admitting that if someone is sick, they will turn, so you don't need that in the common area.


Do you know how long it takes to create a useful anti-viral? Or what resources you need? They are in an abandoned prison. Not a Merck Lab.

Another great point. How are some so willing to believe there will be an answer in whatever drugs are left (and who is qualified to even concoct an anti-viral) for a disease they do not understand?

It's a solution that takes into account their current reality, not medical knowedge that, while up-to-date, is only useful in a functioning society. Whatever you want to call their situation, "functional" ain't the word for it.

True--they are just existing, and are not even as organized as Woodbury. Carol seems to be the only resident to figure this out, so she made a decision. Grim, but necessary.
 
Right, in a large open space that's not airtight and can't be made airtight with any surety, which means calling the patients there "isolated" is delusional in the extreme, especially if we find out that the disease is airborne!

The disease is likely airborne, as that's typically how a flu will be transmitted, but usually a disease like that being airborne in a non-ventilated space means that it would not have much range. Isolating people far from the other group is actually a pretty safe bet in that case (with the exception that people were already infected). Murdering them won't change the level of pathogens already in the air.

Which, again, requires risking getting overrun by hordes of dead people trying to eat you. How do you keep missing that?

They're already in a scavenging situation just to survive, so adding medications to that list would be a priority.

Do you know how long it takes to create a useful anti-viral? Or what resources you need? They are in an abandoned prison. Not a Merck Lab.

I never said anything about anti-virals. Hershel said it wasn't the virus that was killing, but the secondary infection, which is why he said they need antibiotics. It is possible for them to be creating something like a basic form of penicilin. Or to even be coming up with more natural remedies like the elderberries that Hershel collected.

It's a solution that takes into account their current reality, not medical knowedge that, while up-to-date, is only useful in a functioning society. Whatever you want to call their situation, "functional" ain't the word for it.

So do you then condone that they should kill every person with symptoms?

Their current reality allows for basic precautions to be taken that don't have to involve murder, which won't even work.
 
I never said anything about anti-virals. Hershel said it wasn't the virus that was killing, but the secondary infection, which is why he said they need antibiotics.

I actually think he said the symptoms are more killing people, which makes sense. When your body is suffering from an illness it tends to get stupid and tries to kill the disease by killing the patient. Take running a fever as an example, you run a fever in order to raise the body temperature in hopes of killing the invaders that way. Well, too high of a fever can kill you, so we have medications to keep high fevers under control.

Coughing, sneezing, running noise all ways the body copes with trying to get invaders out of the body and all things that can kill in extreme circumstances. So the goal seems to be whatever they can do to curb the symptoms is the goal right now under the hopes that the body will eventually cope with disease.

It is a problem they're looking for antibiotics which are useless against viruses.
 
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