• mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    Arguably the modern view of zombies only dates back a couple decades. Night Of The Living Dead is the first instance of an unthinking undead plague. It only became a genre because US copyright law used to be really stupid, and the whole movie was accidentally public-domain. So it doesn’t take any huge shifts for an alternate universe to simply have no idea what the word “zombie” means, unless a character is familiar with Voodoo.

    • The Dark Lord ☑️
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      4 months ago

      Exactly. The most plausible in-universe use of the word is to say “Wow, look at that thing. It’s like some kind of voodoo zombie.” Though, the issue with using that kind of statement is that way more people know about the modern Romero zombie than they do the voodoo one. So people wouldn’t really understand. It also implies that the zombie is supernatural.

      • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        Honestly, even Romero didn’t use the word. He called them ghouls. Which… I think is also basically like Voodoo zombies, but for vampires instead of priests.

        Nope, apparently from pre-Islamic Arabian folklore. Humanoid monsters that lurk in graveyards and eat people. Fitting.