: Re: Am I describing a zombie? I introduced a young person (called Raven) who the main character was friends with in my story; Raven is an excellent student who the main character is also teaching

@Sue2132873

I agree with Chaotic's comment:


You could call it wherever you like, as this is your story: Immortals, Revenants, Awakens... It's your choice, but I would avoid zombie, because of the current conotation of it and association with famous series and blockbuster movies. – Chaotic 8 hours ago


To expand on it, the word "zombie" is now associated with a particular genre of stories with associated tropes. Using that word would suggest to your readers that you will be making use of those tropes in some way (either playing them straight, or subverting them—although many things that could be thought of as "subversions" of the stereotypical zombie traits are also fairly well-explored by now).

Your use of the words "body" and "remains" in the description, as well as the sentence "Only he comes back to life, when he’s killed again and again he keeps coming back to life," make make me feel like the word revenant that Chaotic mentioned would be a good choice. It is not a new word by any means, but it is nowhere near as well-known as "zombie", which means people won't have so many preexisting expectations about what a revanant should be like. It literally means "returning" or "coming back" in French, which fits your description of someone who died, but comes back. It has been used in various ways in fantasy literature as a term for an "undead" entity, but I don't think any of the portrayals has become overwhelming or thought of as definitive (unlike the similar word "lich", which started out as pretty much just a synonym for "corpse" but which is now stongly associated for many people specifically with the Dungeons and Dragons portrayal, basically "an undead sorceror with a 'soul jar' that is called a 'phylactery'", as mentioned in Secespitus's answer).

Vote Up Vote Down

0 Reactions   React

Replies (0) Report

Login to post a comment!