The Walking Dead, and it's striking similarities to The Road

[Christopher]

There are not spoilers yet, I will give fair warning to when those will occur.

This is still a work in progress

 

Overall, after reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy, I felt that The Walking Dead by Telltale games took it's liberties in taking settings, ideas, and characters. 

I really suggest you read the book for yourself. The Road is a gripping book, and Telltale took ideas from the right place. 

 

***SPOILERS WILL BEGIN HERE.***

 

Let me begin with the basic social structure of the characters.

Lee is The father

• Mentoring figure 
• A paternal bond
• Attempts to show bravery consistently, even when it is the hard thing to do.
• I know this bullet point depends on how you chose to make Lee, but he can mask the truth of the world to avoid scaring Clementine, much like the father did with the son.

Clementine is the son.

• Understanding of "the father's" actions, but often found questioning them.
• Consistently reminding the father why it is worth continuing to survive.

 

The bandits and zombies are.... the bandits

• In TWD, the bandits go about stealing other survivals goods by any means necessary, even if it involves killing many others, while the zombies go about eating survivors due to a craving for delicious delicious human flesh. The same is true for the cannibals in The Road. They are willing to use their brawn and deceit to acquire the goods of anyone, and have no problem stealing the goods of other survivors. 

Some of those "Major Plot Points"

 

The Barn

• In the road, Cormac McCarthy describes a gruesome image where in the cellar of a barn/mansion, there is a man with his legs chopped off and cauterized stubs. In TWD, the family which welcomes the survivors onto the farm are also cannibals, and chop the legs off of Mark. 
• Mark is shot in the leg with a crossbow while being ambushed, much like the father is near the end of the book the road.

The Camp

• In TWD, Lee and Danny stumble upon Jolene's camp, which they use to find supplies. In The Road, the father and son go investigate a smoke trail and lead it back to a small camp as well. 
• This may be a little stretch, but a disturbing scene occurs at both camps. In TWD, Lee or Danny shoots Jolene, while in The Road, the boy sees a very disturbing image of what is cooking on the spit.

The Boat

 

• In both TWD and The Road, the idea of getting to the coast is what seems to drive the characters. 
• In TWD, the boat found is ideally used to escape from society, while in The Road, the boat was used to scavenge supplies from. 

 

A Couple (loosely) Overlapping Ideas

• Hunger
•  

[AlteredFormula]

Hate to piss on your fireworks Christopher,

 

Although I'm not saying TellTale weren't influenced by the Road and many other resources, but TWD has been around since late 2003 and its always been about the survivors/human connection rather than the zombies themselves. A lot of the stuff you point out had already been done (in some form.) in the TWD books years beforehand. (Of course, It's all been done by countless others, before and after! Name any Book or Film and I'm sure I can find you someone who thinks its a copy of their work)

 

That being said,  I'm quite a downer on McCarthy as I feel that his ignorance of the English language as well as his descriptive storytelling in his writing (especially with The Road), is poor at best. (despite claims that he is trying to reinvent the language!)

 

Either way its nice to see that you're out there picking up books and making those connections for yourself rather than reading hack reviews and passing it off as having read the book!  but if you're into your post apocalyptic stuff, I suggest you read A Boy and His Dog by Harlan Ellison.  I think its out of print these days, but you may be able to find it on Kindle or in a second hand book store.

 

*Goes into a ramble about how these younguns don't do fancy book learnin' no more, s'all about video games and rock music, work of the devil, I tell you!*

[Orlay_]

Although I see where you drew your connections, these are more Archetypes to most every story rather than connections of just these two. You can classify any fictional character into an archetype.

 

Here are some basic explanations: http://annezo.net/fiction/archetype.html or http://www.svsoft.com/Archetypes,%20Myths%20and%20Characters.htm

[Christopher]

Hate to piss on your fireworks Christopher,

 

Although I'm not saying TellTale weren't influenced by the Road and many other resources, but TWD has been around since late 2003 and its always been about the survivors/human connection rather than the zombies themselves. A lot of the stuff you point out had already been done (in some form.) in the TWD books years beforehand. (Of course, It's all been done by countless others, before and after! Name any Book or Film and I'm sure I can find you someone who thinks its a copy of their work)

 

That being said,  I'm quite a downer on McCarthy as I feel that his ignorance of the English language as well as his descriptive storytelling in his writing (especially with The Road), is poor at best. (despite claims that he is trying to reinvent the language!)

 

Either way its nice to see that you're out there picking up books and making those connections for yourself rather than reading hack reviews and passing it off as having read the book!  but if you're into your post apocalyptic stuff, I suggest you read A Boy and His Dog by Harlan Ellison.  I think its out of print these days, but you may be able to find it on Kindle or in a second hand book store.

 

*Goes into a ramble about how these younguns don't do fancy book learnin' no more, s'all about video games and rock music, work of the devil, I tell you!*

 

Appreciate the feedback! I didn't realize TWD had been around that long. I plan to finish the connections I found, because to me, it felt like I was just reading the game. I'm not a killer fan of McCarthy, but The Road was a very quick read and his mauling of the English language almost felt like it falls in with the rest of the post apocalyptic setting.

 

I'm sure lots of plot points were taken from both, but regardless of who took what, these similarities are in such a magnitude that I refuse to believe that the two stories (regardless of which came first) are similar by coincidence. 

 

I'll look into picking up A Boy and His Dog at some point, thanks for the suggestion

Edited May 20, 2013 by Christopher