My children and I were telling scary stories around a Jack-o-Lantern tonight when my eight year old daughter looked at me seriously to ask a question that had been weighing heavily on her mind. “Hey Dad, what’s the difference between Frankenstein and a zombie anyway?”
I was stumped. A little help?
October 31, 2007 at 1:21 am
Free will 🙂
October 31, 2007 at 1:57 am
Frankenstein was created from the dead, that is brought back to life by a man and zombies are undead, reanimated di novo. Zombies are without consciousness. Frankenstein had consciousness, albeit one quite clouded. Zombies will eat human flesh and brains, while Frankenstein had been known only to kill. I hope knowing this helps your little one sleep better.
October 31, 2007 at 2:04 am
rich, your comment had me laughing out loud. But unfortunately I was holding my 11 week old and my laughter woke her. Curses. But hilarious.
October 31, 2007 at 3:35 am
Technically Frankenstein is a zombie, given the fact that the word zombie is just the term for your general animated dead.
Since Frankenstein is a zombie, but not your common one. It is like saying what makes a truck different from a automobile. A truck is an automobile, just one that can haul lumber. Frankenstein is a zombie, just one reanimated by science, not necro-magic.
For the most part the necro-magic that reanimates the run of the mill zombies, isn’t near powerful enough to reunite their soul and bodies, thus the zombies have no consciousness and have only one directive: brains. The nature of Frankenstein’s consciousness is unknown, if it is the soul of one of the unfortunate hosts, an amalgam of souls, or a completely new soul. Given the fact he is very elusive adequate tests can probably not be conducted any time soon. Since he has a different origin, multiple people medically constructed and scientifically reanimated, logic would state he isn’t like the brain-eating zombies.
I think Dr. McNinja (see http://www.drmcninja.com ) has done recent case studies on Zombies. He seems to support the ecto-meta zombific hypothesis.
It’s plausible and at least his research isn’t based on that silly zombie-virus scenario you see rehashed in B horror movies every several years.
Best of wishes to your daughter, let’s hope she doesn’t have many nightmares.
October 31, 2007 at 2:52 pm
I think actually that Frankenstein is not a zombie (but not really sure) since it appears that he was “brought to life”, or given the animating principle (a soul, presumably from the lightning – ?). I make this presumption from the statement by the deranged doctor “He’s alive!”.
Hmmm…raises a couple of questions…
Anyway, a zombie, according to my best guess, is animated by some evil power, maybe a possession or just some simple evil magic (considering that they’re generally pretty stupid and lack a personality, at least the ones I’ve encountered – bosses, coworkers and, unfortunately, the occasional priest or bishop 🙂
November 1, 2007 at 1:20 am
Gentlemen, I hate to pull rank here but I am a doctor and a significant portion of my medical training involved the dead. Modern medical education also includes study of the undead i.e. zombies. There is a considerable body of literature devoted to the study of zombies. Some of my classmates have in fact gone on to specialize in zombies, one colleague so interested that he has opened a clinic devoted to zombies and those with zombie-like features.
Given the above, take my word for it. Frankenstein was NOT a zombie.
November 1, 2007 at 2:39 am
thank you for all the pertinent and relevant answers to this very “grave” question. Rich, your doctor friend. They may be steering you wrong. I can’t imagine there’s much money in treating zombies. Can these creatures work? Is there a government program that gives them health care? Do they even need health care b/c as far as I can see zombies don’t seem to mind losing limbs or anything for that matter. blood loss doesn’t seem to be an issue. check into your friends. Sounds shady.