Humanoids and Beasties

In the comments section of yesterday’s post, Patrick made a very good point:

See, with zombies(vampires and werewolves) it isn’t just fear of them killing you, there is fear of becoming one or having a loved one become one and eat/kill you.

Fighting a bad unicorn, well, that’s sort of like being on the wrong end of the food chain.

Which is an excellent point, and raises an interesting question in this debate. Is comparing an animal, however dangerous, to a humanoid monster with the power of transformation/infection even worthwhile? Is it apples and oranges?

There’s an old theory about storytelling (I believe it’s Aristotle?) that posits that the main conflicts in any story fall into one of the following groups:

• Man vs. Man
• Man vs. Society
• Man vs. Nature
• Man vs. God
• Man vs. Himself

A human monster story, such as Dracula or Frankenstein, falls into the Man vs. Man category (well, depending on who you think the protagonist is in Frankenstein, because it could very well be a Man vs. Society situation). Count Dracula, for all that he is non-human, is a person. He speaks and thinks like a person, and his motivations are decidedly personal.

An animal monster story, such as Jaws or “The Bear,” tends to be more of a Man vs. Nature story. You can’t ascribe the same sort of human emotions to beasts–the envy, or need for vengeance, or pettiness, or etc.

This topic was much on my mind as I was designing the killer unicorn book. What were these unicorns? Were they animals, or were they sentient beings with their own motivations? It makes a difference.

And of course, the worst thing a unicorn can do is kill you. A zombie can kill you — but far worse than that, it can infect you. A central theme in Carrie Ryan’s upcoming zombie book is whether or not death is worse than living death. Which does, I admit, add a whole new layer of terror.

Yesterday, John Green made the argument that unicorns will always lose to zombies until there is a unicorn movie out that’s as good as Shaun of the Dead (note to film producers reading this blog: the film rights of Rampant are still available). However, this assertion does not take into account the fact that it’s easier to film zombies. You don’t need special CGI or outlandish costumes or puppets or Andy Serkis running around a green screen soundstage with thousands of sensors attached to his body to make a zombie movie. You need some white makeup, some fake blood, and a couple of actors who are talented enough to moan on cue. Seriously. The aforementioned Shaun of the Dead even made a joke about how easy it was to pretend to be a zombie.

This Halloween, Sailor Boy and I went as Wedding Night of the Living Dead. ‘Twas easy. If we’d gone as a unicorn, it would have been much more complicated (especially given the argument about who would be the back end).