Themes From We're Alive

[airrunner]

Angel also did this to try and appease the mallers, into possibly making a sort of truce with Scratch. It didn't work, but that was also a little bit for the group. He knew how Scratch would take it.

Now, this opens up a few more questions about the mallers and Angel's relationship to them (which you may be willing to answer, since they are within the knowledge of the characters).

I do remember now that Angel was trying to get Scratch to call the mallers off and she said something like she couldn't promise him anything. But she also made it clear that Pegs is dead no matter what Angel did for Scratch and Angel said flippantly that he was sure Pegs knew that (and by extension, he knew that). So what exactly would it look like for the mallers to have no beef with the Tower but still want to kill Pegs? Since the Tower would never just give her up willingly, the mallers would be forced to attack them regardless of any truce that was made, right? Or maybe it's that if the mallers did attack the Tower, the truce would mean they would take care not to kill anyone except for Pegs?

So my questions to you, KC, are how much did Angel know about The Family? Did he understand the Rules? Did he know not only was Scratch compelled to seek revenge, but also Durai (and thus the mallers as a whole, because he led them)? The idea of a truce seems farfetched with that kind of knowledge.

Also concerning the two maller attacks on the Tower am I right in thinking Attack #1 was under Durai's leadership and the goal was to establish a new safe place for the rest of the mallers (taken by force, if necessary)? And Attack #2, which destroyed the Tower, was all Scratch's decision in order to kill Pegs, with control of the Tower completely irrelevant? In fact, Durai may not have even known that Scratch was planning on returning to the Tower and he probably had no desire to ever go back there.

[airrunner]

Overarching themes .............

1) Zombies are bad
2) Never trust people with tattoos all over their bodies
3) CJ is Evil


Done!

1) Zombies are bad. Smart zombies are worse.
2) Never trust people with scars (unless they are in the shape of a lightning bolt).
3) CJ is my hero.

[Kc]

Now, this opens up a few more questions about the mallers and Angel's relationship to them (which you may be willing to answer, since they are within the knowledge of the characters).

I do remember now that Angel was trying to get Scratch to call the mallers off and she said something like she couldn't promise him anything. But she also made it clear that Pegs is dead no matter what Angel did for Scratch and Angel said flippantly that he was sure Pegs knew that (and by extension, he knew that). So what exactly would it look like for the mallers to have no beef with the Tower but still want to kill Pegs? Since the Tower would never just give her up willingly, the mallers would be forced to attack them regardless of any truce that was made, right? Or maybe it's that if the mallers did attack the Tower, the truce would mean they would take care not to kill anyone except for Pegs?

Angel was hoping for any truce or cease-fire they may have been able to give or even a "ok, so maybe you'll leave us alone now". He knew it could possibly soften their reaction. It was lucky/fortunate that Pegs would ask Angel to do this- but it only seemed to help Angel in the end. Well, sort of. Had he not been mortally injured, it might have ended different.

So my questions to you, KC, are how much did Angel know about The Family? Did he understand the Rules? Did he know not only was Scratch compelled to seek revenge, but also Durai (and thus the mallers as a whole, because he led them)? The idea of a truce seems farfetched with that kind of knowledge.

He knew a great deal, he grew up in that environment, he just went a different route. He knew that there could be fallout from any sort of "rules". But, then again in this new world, it would still be very uncertain if their old ways still held any merit. Durai felt they did, but Scratch didn't, as we saw later.

Also concerning the two maller attacks on the Tower am I right in thinking Attack #1 was under Durai's leadership and the goal was to establish a new safe place for the rest of the mallers (taken by force, if necessary)? And Attack #2, which destroyed the Tower, was all Scratch's decision in order to kill Pegs, with control of the Tower completely irrelevant? In fact, Durai may not have even known that Scratch was planning on returning to the Tower and he probably had no desire to ever go back there.

#1 attack was Durai trying to take it over. and #2 was all Scratch. You're correct, Durai had no intention on going back there. He knew when to let thing lie.

[airrunner]

Theme: Reinvention








*SPOILERS*




Another theme I picked up on with WA is the notion that an "End of the World" type survival scenario allows people to reinvent themselves. Alternatively the theme could be that so much of the type of lives we craft for ourselves is irrevocably tied to the times and circumstances we live in. Millions of people living desperate lives of office cubicles, box stores, 2.5 children, and coach potato'ing on the weekends could be the valiant warrior, the skilled hunter, the industrious gatherer, the wise leader, or the ambitious rival had they only been born thousands of years earlier.

The zombie apocalypse offers new types of roles which directly have an impact on the ability of survivors to survive and it seems many of the characters were eager to fill them.

I won't go so far as to say that the characters were happy that the infection started, but...

1) CJ seems happier. She downplays her former life as doing trivial stuff. Since she is portrayed by both Burt and Michael as a "young girl," I doubt she was in any position of leadership before. All her control freak tendencies, her ability to plan multiple scenarios in her head quickly, her anal retentive attention to details -- all of that probably went unrewarded in her former life but in the zombie apocalypse they made her a natural leader.

2) Victor seems happier. He also downplays his past as being an insurance salesman (and I think he said it was one among many jobs he had) and being married to an awful woman. In the zombie apocalypse he's this kick-a** hero, highly devoted to his friends, willing to do whatever needs to be done for the sake of the survivors. Who else had the cajones to take on a Little One face-to-face and jam a syringe in its eyes?

3) Burt seems happier. Before Saul discovered him, he seemed like a grumpy old curmudgeon, lonely and heartbroken after his wife's death, with even his shooting abilities deteriorating due to the shakes. In the zombie apocalypse he's this lean, mean warrior, lethal with a gun, fiercely protective of his friends, and reveling in a world filled with targets for him to shoot at and new people to care for. I'd say whatever meaning he lost in his life, he found after the zombies arrived.

4) Michael seems happier. When WA opens he's this detached, aloof military intelligence soldier with poor interpersonal skills trying to re-acclimate to civilian life after attempting to hide from the regular world by choosing multiple tours of duty in Iraq since his parents' deaths. In the zombie apocalypse he's the beloved father figure at the head of a family of friends. He allows himself to care deeply for this group of random strangers, gains a comfort level with his emotions, and a newfound appreciation and preference for the world of ordinary folk that exists outside of the regimented lifestyle of the military.

5) Saul seems happier (well, before he lost Lizzy). It sounds like at the start of the story he was a nerdy young man, estranged from his Mom, who was more comfortable playing video games than wooing women. He escaped his life by becoming special ops in the military, where is impulsiveness held him back from what should have been a promising career given his intelligence and resourcefulness. In the zombie apocalypse he's the perfect soldier and a skilled tactician. His playfulness and sense of humor lighten up the lives of those around him. And his heart is a moral center for the group as he truly embodies the spirt of never giving up on anyone regardless of the risks involved (e.g., Burt, Lizzy, Lady, and Angel, Riley, Datu in the Arena).

6) Datu seems happier. He left his homeland to work as a maintenance man in an apartment complex, scraping whatever meager money he could earn to support the children of his philandering ex-wife back in the Philippines. In the zombie apocalypse he was the brains and the soul of the survivors, giving everything he had for the good of the survivors and loving each and every one of them openly and unabashedly and loved by all. He found his soulmate in Samantha and his mastery of all things mechanical - more than once (e.g., the generator, the helicopter, the matagun) - gave the survivors the edge they needed to make it through some dark moments.

7) Lizzy seems happier. She was a psychologist not by choice and she was in a relationship with a guy, who was not a good fit for her [note: I'm getting this from an interview with KC, but since it's never talked about in the story, maybe it's not canon...but if KC says that's what's going on isn't that like coming from God's lips, which does make it canon?]. In the zombie apocalypse she fulfills multiple roles for the survivors. She's the first of the civilians and of the women to demonstrate that everyone can take an active participation in their own survival (e.g., she relishes in learning how to shoot and kill's the biter who got Todd, she goes along with Michael to lead the zombies away from the Tower after they were attracted by Peg's mishap, she comes up with the sweat experiment, she figures out how to contain the fire). Then she morphs into the romantic heart of the survivors along with Saul, which leads to her becoming the first post-zombie apocalypse Mommy. Basically, her relationship with Saul and Nicholas gives hope to the rest of the survivors that there is a future out there for humankind. All that said, this may be one of the weakest illustrations of the reinvention concept as it's possible that she would have been just about at happy in her former life.

8) As for the rest: Hope, Glenn, the soldiers, Pete, Riley, Angel, Bill, Tommy, Kelly, Pegs, Kalani, Tanya... It's not so easy for me to make the case that they became happier with their lot in life after the zombie apocalypse, though their roles may have changed.

9) Oh, and the Mallers. They definitely were happy with their lives after the apocalypse because they weren't stuck in Eastern Bay anymore.

10) Ditto for Bill Roberts. He got his wish: a near immortal life with hordes to protect him. And it would have all worked out too, if it weren't for those meddling kids and their dog...and cats...and goat...and pelican.

[Storm]

You're correct, Durai had no intention on going back there. He knew when to let thing lie.

He was a good man and will be missed. R.I.P.

[LiamKerrington]

Theme: Reinvention

...

9) Oh, and the Mallers. They definitely were happy with their lives after the apocalypse because they weren't stuck in Eastern Bay anymore.

The Mallers were not only happy to be out of Eastern Bay anymore. But for some time they were not only the anthagonists and evil spirits roaming the zombocalpysed world of We're Alive. They had a purpose. From the Kalani-backstory we have learned that the Mallers were very ambitious in kind of mapping the apocalpyse and understand the new world; and they also planned and prepared for a major assault against the zombies, which they did in the arena.

Besides these two major plans they also scavenged the hack out of LA, took as many people as slaves or minions as possible, and they prepared for leaving the place as soon as they learned about the colony, where they could take over. That was the moment, when the arc of the Mallers was ended, because after that the Mallers as a group got distroyed. Just theorizing: What, if there was never the revolution? I could easily envision an alternate WA-verse, where the Mallers were able to sustain the Colony, make it bigger and stronger, maybe even expand it. But it would be a dark place for all the slaves and minions who would have to succumb to the will of Durai and especially the wild emotions of Scratch.

Nevertheless: The main theme here is: purpose. The Mallers - as much as anyone else, who had no meaningful life before the zombocalypse - lived their (new) purpose. And they were able to express their understanding of survival in ways they never could have fathomed or imagined in a world before the zombocalypse with so many rules and regulations. That is as much true for the named Mallers as it is for all the red shirts.

edit:
And purpose is a theme for many other characters as well - as you have described and explained it already. But let me add a few more characters:
Pegs - the almost "useless" survivor right from the beginning. She filled in her role as the lead-farmer in the tower, which was not fulfilling though; but later in the colony - awesome. Besides that she was responsible for the sign of "We're Alive" attracting more survivors from the surrounding. Another purpose for her was to become Scratch's antithesis, and when the deathmatch of the two unfertile women was at the climax in Dunbar, her purpose was to impersonate the very good and warmth of humans in contrary to the mean and vile character of Scratch as well as to protect the life of Nicholas. This name is powerful, because it means the victory of the people. So, on kind of a meta-level Pegs not only won over Scratch and thus saved "victory to the people", she also saved - at least some of - the people when she became the pilot at the end of season #2. So, yes: Pegs had a purpose, although it did not show right from the beginning. This purpose was important for the complete story, but also important for teh character of Pegs, because she was accepted for what she did and how she contributed for the story of survival.

Tommy is another good example: A youth with digestion issues, who was characterized as useless by Kelly. He had a purpose, because he was able to show his skills and prove is use for the greater good and the community. So Tommy, allbeit a small story arc, is kind of similar to Datu. Both ended tragically, but both had their purpose, which was important for the complete story. But they lived their purpose as characters just as well.

Maybe this is not an official theme of We'Re Alive. But for all the main characters and main groups this is true. They were not only "just there"; each of them had their purposes and greater meaning. And purpose is something a human being wants to have in his small or not so small community.

(pardon my typing and spelling; I am so tired like you have no idea; and I just wanted to get my thoughts out there ... I hope I could at least somehow show what other theme I have recognized.)

/edit

Best wishes!
Liam

[airrunner]

Besides these two major plans they also scavenged the hack out of LA, took as many people as slaves or minions as possible, and they prepared for leaving the place as soon as they learned about the colony, where they could take over. That was the moment, when the arc of the Mallers was ended, because after that the Mallers as a group got distroyed. Just theorizing: What, if there was never the revolution? I could easily envision an alternate WA-verse, where the Mallers were able to sustain the Colony, make it bigger and stronger, maybe even expand it. But it would be a dark place for all the slaves and minions who would have to succumb to the will of Durai and especially the wild emotions of Scratch.

....

And purpose is a theme for many other characters as well - as you have described and explained it already. But let me add a few more characters:

Great points Liam and having a purpose did seem to make life more bearable for survivors and prevent them from wallowing in their despair. In fact wasn't this one of those two or three things Michael said everyone needs to have to be productive in a zombie apocalypse world? I'm lazy, so I don't feel like checking the early season one episodes to confirm. I do plan on listening to the whole series again when I get all the CDs though.

As for the Mallers, an alternative ending with them maintaining control of the Colony and expanding seems quite bleak, but I'm guessing they didn't have a Tanya among them to figure out what was motivating the zombies nor the military training and weaponry that enabled them to bury the zombies underground. The Mallers did a commendable job of taking out the Arena, but how would they have fared against the zombies in their more advanced stages with the army of Little Ones at full strength? Actually, let's just pretend Durai never tries to kill Scratch and the Mallers remain in control of the Colony. At some point Ink and Randy would have made their way over to the Colony, whether Glenn and Pete led them there or not. Would the Mallers have been able to manage victory against the zombie horde the way the Towerites did in chapter 36? They did not have access to a mini-gun or a helicopter to take out the Little Ones. I'm thinking the Colony would have been decimated had it stayed in Maller hands.

[LiamKerrington]

Great points Liam and having a purpose did seem to make life more bearable for survivors and prevent them from wallowing in their despair. In fact wasn't this one of those two or three things Michael said everyone needs to have to be productive in a zombie apocalypse world? I'm lazy, so I don't feel like checking the early season one episodes to confirm. I do plan on listening to the whole series again when I get all the CDs though.

As for the Mallers, an alternative ending with them maintaining control of the Colony and expanding seems quite bleak, but I'm guessing they didn't have a Tanya among them to figure out what was motivating the zombies nor the military training and weaponry that enabled them to bury the zombies underground. The Mallers did a commendable job of taking out the Arena, but how would they have fared against the zombies in their more advanced stages with the army of Little Ones at full strength? Actually, let's just pretend Durai never tries to kill Scratch and the Mallers remain in control of the Colony. At some point Ink and Randy would have made their way over to the Colony, whether Glenn and Pete led them there or not. Would the Mallers have been able to manage victory against the zombie horde the way the Towerites did in chapter 36? They did not have access to a mini-gun or a helicopter to take out the Little Ones. I'm thinking the Colony would have been decimated had it stayed in Maller hands.

I thought about this myself for a while and simply decided to "ignore" the zombie-factor, because my point was about the Mallers having their own agenda and sticking to it; this would not change with the zombies around a lot, especially because the Mallers would not have recognized the special ones as special threat - their weak spot, if you like. But this is just an assumption, because we have nearly no knowledge about how well the Mallers were informed about the variety of threats within the ranks of the zombies. But I think, as soon as I add the zeeh-factor into this scenario then the Mallers would have had really hard times survivng against an attack from the zombies trying to overrun the COlony. And it is kind of a safe assumption that the zombs would have overrun the Colony with at least most of the inhabitants dying in the end.

As for Michael: It is exactly what Michael has said in the beginning that people needed to have tasks or purpose in order to keep them busy and not to let despair and sorrow overwhelm them.

Best wishes!
Liam

[Witch_Doctor]

Theme: Chronicling

From the VERY beginning of the series, we are introduced to the story as an account that was written down by Michael. The story ends as the accounts by Michael and others are told to Nicholas.
Mysteries are solved by recorded information: Kalani the blackmailed Rat and his connections to three L.A. groups; Who has Lizzy...
The threat posed by Ink was pieced together by recorded information from the various accounts of the survivors.
Where to go, where to avoid, what to do and not do was all pieced together with things that people wrote in their journals: the location of where the events started; the ideal that sweat is how the zombies find humans...
The survivors share what they remember of loved ones by writing it down: Datu, "We write down things so we don't forget." as he tells Samantha; Samantha writes in Datu's journal about her daughter Hope, who escapes the Colony to join the Tower.
Michael tells Tommy that writing things down can help uncover information that might otherwise be missed.

Yet, what bugs me is that, as the story ends, this lesson is beginning to become lost. Some of Tanya's notes are hidden away for Nicholas' protection and the survivors are beginning to lose interest in how they came into their current situation. Now a new generation is growing up with only a secondhand knowledge of the world before doomsday, when civilization was at its height. Future generations will be even more removed from this time period with only ruins as evidence that such a world ever existed.

This is a post that I made to another forum thread talking about it. http://www.zombiepodcast.com/forum/s...-It-s-not-over!

Sorry to flip the discussion so abruptly, but I noticed something disturbing when I first listened to Chapter 48. Michael had just mentioned the petroglyph found in New Mexico and how archeologists originally thought it was a warning about steep drops, but it turned out to serve another purpose altogether. (46:30-48:50) He goes on to describe Tanya's theory of the outbreak then says that people no longer talk about that anymore. "Everyone is focused more on where we are now, rather than why it started." They are ALREADY beginning to forget the cause of the outbreak

Originally Posted by Witch_Doctor

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Where am I going with this? How can an ancient symbol control people suffering from some sort of cognitive disease? Where would such a symbol come from?
Perhaps the stop and enter symbols are ancient symbols of protection from some very ancient unnamed culture. Ink may have found them in a catalog of similar symbols, using any and all in a willy-nilly fashion. In order to look for the origin of such a symbol from the PAST in the We're Alive Universe, lets look into the FUTURE in the We're Alive Universe.

• Ink is dead, and so are his minion of zombies under his control. His clique. The only realistic way for Ink to counter the effect of the stop symbol is to create new zombies immune to it. Perhaps breeding smart ones who show resistance to it. (Like humans who show resistance to the infection.) So, with the death of Ink, Michael and Tanya's fear is abated and CJ's plan of marking everything can prevail.
• With Ink gone, the remaining zombies can't learn to avoid the effects of the markings.
• The human survivors mark themselves, their effects, their habitats, their roadways and everything else with the SYMBOL OF PROTECTION. Just like it was done some untold time in the past when this last happened. In time, the origin of the symbols are lost. All that remains is the notion that it protects.

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.....DEEP UNDERGROUND, like Tanya said. Deeper than anyone bothered to dig. There, they died, decomposed, and turned into gas.

Sorry to shamelessly quote myself, but this is the ONLY prediction that I can remember getting somewhat right in the entire series.
They have a symbol that they can use to protect themselves.
When they begin to rebuild, they know why they are using the symbol and what it does.
Now the symbol has been incorporated into a flag.
They lose interest in the origin of the outbreak.
Later they will lose understanding of the meaning and purpose of the symbol. As with many symbols in human history the original meaning and purpose begins to change, evolve.
When Puck quizzes the new recruits, we see the beginning of the symbol's transformation. (57:00) Nicholas explains the different parts of the armband, then Puck explains how much it should be revered. Nicholas' explanation of the black markings (The original symbol) is that it means protection from the threat outside. This is a concept that has been distilled into something vague. What happens when or if the threat outside is no longer the zombies? CJ already said that there are unfriendly groups. The symbol could easily evolve into a tribal, mythological or religious symbol, removed from its original purpose. We see now that the survivors are losing sight of the events leading to the outbreak, the discovery of the tools they can use to fight back and they brushing off the work and ideas of the prophet/oracle who figured it all out, Tanya.

Right now, perhaps billions of zombies are burrowing underground to die off and produce more gas to inflict another unsuspecting civilization far into the future. They might likely be caught off guard like the ones in We're Alive.

[Witch_Doctor]

I thought about this myself for a while and simply decided to "ignore" the zombie-factor, because my point was about the Mallers having their own agenda and sticking to it; this would not change with the zombies around a lot, especially because the Mallers would not have recognized the special ones as special threat - their weak spot, if you like. But this is just an assumption, because we have nearly no knowledge about how well the Mallers were informed about the variety of threats within the ranks of the zombies. But I think, as soon as I add the zeeh-factor into this scenario then the Mallers would have had really hard times survivng against an attack from the zombies trying to overrun the COlony. And it is kind of a safe assumption that the zombs would have overrun the Colony with at least most of the inhabitants dying in the end.

As for Michael: It is exactly what Michael has said in the beginning that people needed to have tasks or purpose in order to keep them busy and not to let despair and sorrow overwhelm them.

Best wishes!
Liam

Bricks did mention that he was more terrified of the special kind of zombies when Tardust was telling Lizzy how much of a zombie-killing-bad-ass he is. (Ch 21-1, 4:30) This is before the Little One's appearance, when the Mallers only new about the Smart Ones, Runners, Jumpers and Behemoths. Later, Scratch tells the group that Durai was expecting the zombies to get worse and that was the reason why they were attacking the arena.

In sum, they knew about the threat of the special ones and Ink new about the threat that the Mallers posed to him. So it may have only been a matter of time. Then again maybe not. As I'm writing this, I remember that Ink(?) sniffs around Lizzy's voice recorder, then tells other zombies to 'go'. Shortly afterwards, Randy attempts a snatch-and-grab of Tanya. Maybe he thought that the Towerites attacked the Arena and not the Mallers.
So, never mind. I'm just rambling on the forum.