undead

Undead is a collective name for mythological beings that are deceased yet behave as if alive. Undead may be spiritual, such as ghosts, or corporeal, such as Zombies. Undead are featured in the legends of most cultures and in many works of fiction, especially fantasy and horror fiction.

Bram Stoker considered the term "The Un-Dead" for the original title for his novel Dracula, and its use in the novel is mostly responsible for the modern sense of the word. The word does appear in English before Stoker but with the more literal sense of "alive" or "not dead," for which citations can be found in the Oxford English Dictionary. Stoker's use of the term refers only to vampires, and the extension to other types of supernatural beings arose later. Most commonly, it is now taken to refer to supernatural beings which had at one time been alive and continue to display some aspects of life after death, but the usage is highly variable.

Examples

Traditional forms

Corporeal

Corporeal undead have an animated physical body that is otherwise biologically deceased.

• Ashwatthama, from Hindu mythology
• Draugr, from Norse mythology
• Drekavac and assortment of similar creatures, from south Slavic mythology
• Ghoul, from Arab folklore. They are moderately powerful and usually independent.
• Hopping corpse, of Chinese folklore
• Kirkonväki, "folk of church" from western Finnish folklore
• Koschei the Deathless, lichlike undead czar, which has a pagan origination as the darkness-god (Chernobog)
• Medieval revenant, stories of undead from medieval chroniclers. They usually have limited intelligence but can be resourceful when working toward their unique goal.
• Vampire, of various cultures. Usually vampires are very powerful forms of the undead and may control other undead.
• Zombie, attributed to the Voodoo tradition. Zombies generally have limited intelligence.

Incorporeal

Incorporeal undead have no tangible form, but exist in the world of the living as spiritual entities.

• Ghost, common in many cultures — all types of non-corporeal undead could be said to be variations of ghosts.
• Myling, an incarnation of the soul of an unbaptized or murdered child from Scandinavian folklore
• Phantom, a spirit which may be sensed, heard, or experienced, but perhaps not seen.
• Poltergeist, spirit or ghost that manifests by moving and influencing inanimate objects, originally of German origin
• Spectre, a spirit with a visible presence. They can be quite strong.
• Will o' the wisp, sometimes said to be undead spirits in parts of Europe and North America
• Wraith, an apparition of a living person, or the ghost of a dead person. How strong they are depends on how strong the person was in life.

In fiction

Corporeal

• Death knight, an undead corruption of a righteous warrior who broke his code of honor and embraced evil. An anti-Paladin is a form of death knight.
• Dracula, the villain of Bram Stoker's novel of the same name.
• Ghast, a stronger breed of ghoul.
• Inferi, reanimated corpses from the Harry Potter series. Known to be used to defend Voldemort's Locket Horcrux, but most likely have other uses.
• Lich, an unholy living corpse, usually that of an evil sorcerer, possessing great magical powers.
• Mohrg, reanimated dead being controlled by a parasite.
• Mummy, reanimated, mummified corpse, sometimes found in modern pop-horror.
• Revenant, a sentient creature whose desire to complete a goal (usually to avenge its death) allows it to return from the grave as a creature vaguely resembling an intelligent zombie. Revenants exist primarily in role-playing games and horror movies. Examples include The Crow and Al Simmons, the protagonist of Spawn.
• Ringwraith, from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Also called Nazgûl and Ulairi the nine Ringwraiths were once mortal men of great power who became neither dead nor alive under the power of the Nine Rings (they never died in the first place, though).
• Skeletons are usually animated through magic. They generally are unintelligent and dependent on their animator for motivation, since they do not have brains.
• Wight, an invisible being, neither dead nor alive. They are of moderate strength and are often attached to a specific place.
• Zombie, a cannibalistic reanimated corpse from modern fiction (1954 to present).
• Vampire, a vampire bite causes the victim to die and become a vampire itself, known for feeding on the blood of mortal humans.

Semi-corporeal

• Barrow-wights, spirits that can transition from non-corporeal to corporeal forms

Non-corporeal

• Demilich, a Lich that has increased its power to become incorporeal and travel through various planes of existence. However, it keeps a physical avatar, generally in the form of a skull. Destroying the skull is the only way to destroy the Lich.
• Ghosts
• Shade (Undead)
• Shadow (Dungeons & Dragons)
• Wraith, a spirit-being that heralds a living person's death.
• Spectres

Creation

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus introduced a new variant of undead, the dead brought back to "life" by science, though Frankenstein's creature bears some similarity to a golem. Similar works include H.P. Lovecraft's short story "Herbert West—Reanimator" and the Re-Animator film franchise inspired by the story.

Both legend and popular culture discuss various methods for creating undead creatures. Most involve the reanimation of a corpse, as with zombies, skeletons, and ghouls. Regarding ghosts, the spirit lives on after death, forming an intangible physical body that often mirrors the one the spirit had in life.

In some cases, the undead, especially skeletons and zombies, are under the control of a sorcerer. In other cases, such as zombies as depicted in film and vampires, the undead existence is passed on like a curse or disease. With liches, the powers of undead are sought after by the participant of a magical ritual that turns them from a living being to a lich. Ghosts are said to be kept in their undead state by willpower, either from a keen desire to remain with the living or from a wish to see something completed that they could not do during their lifetime.

Vulnerabilities

In fiction and folklore, undead creatures are often hostile toward the living. Defending against the undead is often difficult as they are usually depicted as being resistant to normal attacks, as seen in most zombie movies (Only a direct shot to the head seems to stop most zombies. An example would be Night of the Living Dead). Nonetheless, they are often vulnerable to sacred or blessed objects, such as crosses and holy water. This is seen in the Final Fantasy series, and Dracula, when a crucifix burns the vampire. In some games, undead are damaged by magic spells that normally heal a living being and by fire-based attacks.

Vampires traditionally can be killed by a stake through the heart or by decapitation, though various traditions have different means of dealing with them.

Zombies are often portrayed as able to attack when dismembered. The zombie-like ghouls in Night of the Living Dead could be dispatched by a "shot in the head, or a heavy blow to the skull".

Incorporeal undead are frequently shown as being difficult to defend against because normal physical weapons pass harmlessly through their forms. In some games (such as Dungeons & Dragons) ghosts can only be dispatched by enchanted or silver weapons. However, in other fiction the only way to get rid of them permanently is to discover what duty or task they failed to complete in life (such as in Chapter 4 of The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis).

Undead are often depicted as vulnerable to sunlight and fire. They may also perish when their creator is likewise dispatched. Undead may be unable to cross certain symbolic boundaries or even natural barriers like running water. Mummies are exceptionally vulnerable to water as it dissolves its flesh and dampens its bandages, destroying them by using the damp bandages to crush its dusty core.

In some cultures, various plants are said to repel the undead. Examples include garlic and wolfsbane, as well as rosewood, rowan, hazel, willow, and holly. This modern tradition appears to be based on pre-Christian belief that some plants are sacred.

Additionally, a line of salt is sometimes said to act as a barrier to the undead.

Films

Many films have been made about the undead, usually vampires, zombies, and mummies, including the classics Dracula, Night of the Living Dead, and The Mummy.

For more, see Category:Living Dead films.

Games and popular culture

File:Undead mm7.png

Undead in Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor

Undead are a popular adversary in fantasy and horror settings. They feature prominently in many role-playing games, computer role-playing games, MMORPGs and strategy games. In such games, special rules are often given for the undead.

In Dungeons & Dragons and similar systems, clerics can attempt to "turn" undead by invoking their patron deities or channeling "positive energy" (other-dimensional life energy, which animates and heals living creatures, and is the antithesis of negative energy, which animates and heals undead creatures.) This forces the undead creature away from the cleric; powerful clerics are capable of completely destroying weaker undead creatures with this ability. Although the act of turning away the undead relies primarily on power of faith, a holy symbol is usually required as a focus for the divine power being invoked. This is derived from the traditional notion that vampires could be repelled by the cross. Clerics of evil gods can rebuke and control the undead in a similar fashion, by means of necromancy.

In Dungeons & Dragons and other games such as Final Fantasy, undead can be damaged by using magical effects that heal normal living beings.

Undead characters appear in many roles, be it a mindless horde of opponents (such as zombies or skeletons) or a thoughtful, plotting villain (such as vampires). Some games feature undead playable characters, such as Vampire: The Masquerade and World of Warcraft. Others, such as Diablo 2, allow the player to take on the role of a Necromancer and raise undead from corpses.

In some stories and settings, such as the Lorien Trust LARP, the word "unliving" is used as a preferential synonym. In reference to the political correctness movement, the undead are sometimes jokingly referred to as the "living-impaired". Vampires were sometimes likewise referred to as "Undead Americans" by characters in the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the spin-off Angel.

In philosophy

Jacques Derrida used the myth of the undead as a means to deconstruct the binary opposition between life and death.

See also

• monster
• afterlife
• maschalismos
• philosophical zombie
• death and death (personification)
• list of species in folklore and mythology
• list of species in fantasy fiction

Footnotes and references

This article contains content from Wikipedia. Current versions of the GNU FDL article Undead on WP may contain information useful to the improvement of this article

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