Chapter 43-2 The Darkness Ahead

[Litmaster]

I think we (The Fans) are jumping the gun in some regards. KC has always been really good at solid cliff hangers. Datu said they couldn't read but hinted he could and he had a head ache.... then cliff hanger. Much like when Saul sounded like he was going to give up Pegs or when Micheal went "We have to abandon the Tower!" both were hard bait and switchs. All we know is that Datu could read it and they couldn't and he had a head ache. That has turned into Symbols controlling him... Ink's Tat's controling them... his new Tree Zombie controlled via tattoos.

It could easily be a bait and switch where it is in a regular language he knows and part of his change that just so happened to happen when he started to look at something.

Still very very scared of Magic though...

No, well Kc has earned a lot of 'street cred' as far as I'm concerned, but that still doesn't mean I am willing to swallow horse-piss passed off as storytelling. He has set the bar really high; much higher than shows like "The Walking Dead", where they throw shit against the wall nearly every episode and hope it will stick. But because of that high bar, the fans have accordingly come to expect much from this story in the way of continuity and believability. We're coming to the final end, now.... I just hope he can stick the landing.

[Verse]

But this virus is affecting the mind, so it could be also reprogram it to see things that we normal wouldn't noticed before.

Maybe. I can get behind that in some areas. We know there are biological changes. I would not be surprised if how they see things are changed. Seeing things and understanding are different though. I can get behind something like your mental changes give you something like dyslexia. What looks like out of order looks normal to them. I can't see a mental change that allows them to see differently and translate into a new language they do not know. Written language is a complex thing. Look at English. We have There/Their/They're. To see a few scratchs and swirls and go "Ah. They are saying to only eat the people with brown hair behind the taco bell" is a bit to far without being taught.

[TacticalJHP]

But this virus is affecting the mind, so it could be also reprogram it to see things that we normal wouldn't noticed before. I think of it like the time you a driving down the same road over and over again. But when you sit on the passenger side of the car you notice a building or area that you never noticed before.

Maybe. I can get behind that in some areas. We know there are biological changes. I would not be surprised if how they see things are changed. Seeing things and understanding are different though. I can get behind something like your mental changes give you something like dyslexia. What looks like out of order looks normal to them. I can't see a mental change that allows them to see differently and translate into a new language they do not know. Written language is a complex thing. Look at English. We have There/Their/They're. To see a few scratchs and swirls and go "Ah. They are saying to only eat the people with brown hair behind the taco bell" is a bit to far without being taught.

You know, this would all make so much more sense if the outbreak was a man-made thing, and not a natureal occurance.

Then it could have Many things programmed into it... but something just visual to trigger the response.

Everyone would need an Eye of Horus tattooed on them in the end...

[Witch_Doctor]

When I first heard Datu begin to say he can read the paper Micheal had, I thought that he was going to say that he understood the symbols, Dan Brown-style. But the dramatic music and his headache lead me to think he meant that there was a zombieglyph aspect. BUT, like Hoff4d says, KC has this story grounded in a naturalistic reality. So, Datu suddenly understanding an aggregate of ancient symbols that happen to spell out an address, seems a bit supernaturalish.

Not, it wouldn't make a very good story for there to be a hidden zombie language that Ink uses to communicate and protect himself, especially if our heroes can use it to their advantage. Yet, KC does it to us again, there are a number of ways this story could go:

Datu is Robert Langdon or Datu is all of a sudden wearing the One Ring.

We're about to learn about Datu's academic past or learn that Ink knew about the impending apocalypse and how to control zombies.

This episode did start with characters talking about what others did for a living pre-outbreak. This could foreshadow discussion of Datu's past.

Yet, it seems that Ink uses the symbols to communicate with the zombies.


KC, you leave me stumped every week.

[Verse]

No, well Kc has earned a lot of 'street cred' as far as I'm concerned, but that still doesn't mean I am willing to swallow horse-piss passed off as storytelling. He has set the bar really high; much higher than shows like "The Walking Dead", where they throw shit against the wall nearly every episode and hope it will stick. But because of that high bar, the fans have accordingly come to expect much from this story in the way of continuity and believability. We're coming to the final end, now.... I just hope he can stick the landing.

Seeing it written that way expresses what I would be pissed at an Zed Insta-Know language. Couldn't have explained it better myself.

[UndeadSweeper]

Maybe. I can get behind that in some areas. We know there are biological changes. I would not be surprised if how they see things are changed. Seeing things and understanding are different though. I can get behind something like your mental changes give you something like dyslexia. What looks like out of order looks normal to them. I can't see a mental change that allows them to see differently and translate into a new language they do not know. Written language is a complex thing. Look at English. We have There/Their/They're. To see a few scratchs and swirls and go "Ah. They are saying to only eat the people with brown hair behind the taco bell" is a bit to far without being taught.

That the thing is bothering me, is this a complex language thing? How can Datu and person who drop the shopping list able to read the same thing? What cause the zombie outside Ink's police's van stop in their place and just stare at him.

[BunnyButters]

Commenting before reading all the pages of commentary, noob mistake number one, but hey guys, I haven't been on in months. And I have a meeting to go to, and I'm the scribe for the meeting minutes so I can't even fake it and read through all of these, so the first page will have to do for now, sorry if I re-iterate someones comments already made

The church? I think it's one of the safe houses/places CJ has set up and it's where the convoy Scratch is presumably tailing is going. There will be a firefight and Scratch will likely take it over as her own, undoubtedly hoping Pegs is part of the crew to come to the unresponsive radio at safe house st peters basilica.

Now the symbols on Ink that Datu can read? I think Kc has grounded us in some sort of reality, so a 'turned only' language is far fetched. The symbols are biblical, I'm talkin old-world/old-testament shit: ARAMAIC. Datu didnt just take night classes for some plumbing repair...he's a linguistics master and a devout catholic.....Or, you know, his native land had some aborginal tribes using similar symbols that he learned a bit about in some history classes growing up, so he recognizes them. This doesnt guarantee Datu's survival, in fact I think he's going to die immdiately. This will leave us to all "guess" the language and spend a few days scavenging libraries in the phillipines history sections.

I stand by some earlier claims I made long long ago. Ink learned of some pre-historic shit, perhaps spoken about in phillipine history. He knew there was this world-wide quake/rupture of haze coming up at some point, and had become obsessed with preserving the human race (or something) through it and tried to modify US to survive it, rather than fight it. So we cope and prevail...but throw in some insanity, obsession, and getting affected by the haze himself, and you've got a recipe for some messed up shit.

I mean, Kalani even said "the ones on the island were even meaner"...we still never address that, and only say these 'special' ones are in LA. So, perhaps there's some aboriginal inks out there as well with not as much chemsitry knowledge running their own personal armies to a similar degree to be noted as 'meaner'.

That's all I got, time for a meeting. Missed all you guys, wish I had the time to read chapters of discussion and catch up, but this will have to do.

I really like the biblical language theory, and yeah Datu being studied in linguistics - too much of a coincidence!? However, this does not explain why his head hurt. And there did seem to be a strong correlation between his reading of the symbols and the head pain. OR this is just his impending death so that we don't find out what the address is. OR Ink can control them and this is one way!?
I hope your theory is the correct one. It would give Datu some serious outgoing credit as a great character!
We shall see!

[UndeadSweeper]

Does anyone remember what Datu was studying or going to night school for? I thought he said something in passing in the first season.

[BunnyButters]

Does anyone remember what Datu was studying or going to night school for? I thought he said something in passing in the first season.

I just read it was linguistics!

[Verse]

That the thing is bothering me, is this a complex language thing? How can Datu and person who drop the shopping list able to read the same thing? What cause the zombie outside Ink's police's van stop in their place and just stare at him.

That is my worry. What were the marks? If you look at some languages (Like Tagalog for example) it looks like marks. That is why I am worried. I do not like the Magic Insta-Language idea that this points to.

As for why they stopped... I still go toward The Alpha Wolf idea. There is many times where the Zeds are compaired to animals. Until we know that there is a Magic Insta-Language that is in the DNA somehow... I like to think that his personality and being a Smart One made him a Alpha Wolf. The looked at him and new he was in charge. Much how the Zombies move as a group around Randy.