History Literature / WorldWarZ

-->--General Travis D'Ambrosia, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, reflecting on the US decision to go on the offensive during the War.

* MamaBear: When Mary Jo Miller's daughter was nearly eaten by a attacking zombie, she ran up and literally tore its head from its shoulders WITH HER BARE HANDS!

* StrawmanNewsMedia: Type 4. Their quest for ratings was partly responsible for the disaster in Yonkers, which started the Great Panic.
** That's true, but they didn't actually cause the Great Panic: [[spoiler: the Yonkers chapter mentions that the Great Panic had been underway for several months, and was part of the reason why the logistics at Yonkers were such a disaster. ]]

** The general implication that Max Brooks gives, is that those of us on the internet tend to drastically over-estimate the extent to which "New Media" had penetrated into the general population. TVTropes updaters, bloggers, and 2Chan otaku could tell what was going on, but Joe Sixpack or the suburban Everymom still largely rely on CNN or Yahoo.com news blips when they check their e-mail. The implication is that the zombie Tropers and bloggers were the ones who knew what was happening and ''got the hell out of Dodge'' and fled to the mountains or the Arctic before the plague really hit. Its just that Brooks' interviews focus on those who represent the great majority of people, who don't pay attention to the news, just shuffle through their daily routine, and didn't realize what was happening until it was too late. By the same logic, bloggers who had thoroughly researched the weather reports from Hurricane Katrina would have left New Orleans far ahead of the storm, but the vast majority of people in the city still relied on the mainstream news and government announcements.

* DidNotDoTheResearch: Sometimes in story, sometimes by Brooks.
** The survivalist woman Brooks talks to in Canada doesn't know that cells do not burst when frozen. She also refers to the "cell walls bursting" after being frozen. People and animals don't have cell walls; only cell membranes. Plants and certain fungi, algae, and bacteria have cell walls outside their cell membranes.
** There was the big-name rapper who had an AK-47 with a grenade launcher, and he loved to go on about how it was an exact replica of the one from ''{{Scarface}}''. The bodyguard narrating "didn't have the heart to tell him Sr. Montana used an M16."
** Brooks himself tends to underestimate the effects of certain weapons; there is [[FlameWar heavy discussion]] as to the validity of Brooks' interpretation of the effectiveness of military weaponry and tactics.
** The idea of Land Warrior allowing soldiers completely unrestricted access to other soldiers' video and audio feeds and aircraft video feeds is inaccurate. In real life, Land Warrior was intended mainly to share information between squad members and pass it on to the higher ranks, who would use it to get a picture of the battlefield. The higher ranks would then pass relevant and necessary information to soldiers who needed it.

* NicknamingTheEnemy: Americans refer to the undead as Zack, the Europeans, as Zed.

* AfterTheEnd: The framing takes place approximately 15 years after the ZombieApocalypse, and the stories themselves take place during it.

** Class 2: [[spoiler:China]] is the hardest-hit country in the war, followed closely by [[spoiler:Russia]]; it would be more accurate to categorize these as "extreme Class 1" because they manage to reform stable governments after a few years, but population centers that once numbered in the millions are now countered in the ''tens of thousands''. [[spoiler:North Korea]] probably fits into Class 2, given the theories about what happened there.

** Geraldo Rivera goes down at Yonkers.

* DeathByMaterialism: The celebrity mansion/fortress on Long Island. [[spoiler:They're overrun not by zombies,]] but by desperate survivors who had seen all of the supplies that they had flaunted through their live Internet and television feeds.

* ArabIsraeliConflict: Settled by the zombie invasion, by virtue of many involved parties being dead or infected and Israel [[spoiler: making peace by inviting in Palestinians previously in Israeli territory, with strict but fair conditions.]]

** {{BadassIsraeli|Badass Israeli}} - the State of Israeli is literally the *only* country to take the initial reports of the zombie threat seriously and respond to them competently. This is attributed to a deliberate policy of considering every potential threat to Israel after the Yom Kippur War, no matter how ridiculous it might sound. The sheer level-headed planning and logic which Israel employs puts the botched reactions of all the world's major superpowers to shame. Israel's response is to build a massive structure out of reinforced concrete surrounding its entire border - aptly dubbed "The Wall" - like a modern Great Wall of China. In order to convince the world that they're honestly not trying to hold onto contested territory, the Wall is built on the old 1967 border lines, abandoning the West Bank and Jerusalem (Jerusalem isn't geographically very defensible). Then, they try to warn the world by presenting a detailed report on the zombie threat to the United Nations General Assembly. Finally, they announce that they'll let any Palestinians within the Wall if they go through medical screening first, again to try to convince everyone that this isn't a trick (few believe them anyway, but this arguably prevented an open war with the Palestinians). It is generally presented that Israel is virtually the *only* country to survive the Zombie War relatively intact (barring some isolated islands like Cuba). Of course, they did have to face an Israeli Civil War when the ultra-orthodox Jews got upset that they abandoned Jerusalem, but the IDF triumphed over the rebels because the ultra-orthodox do not participate in compulsory military training. Presumably such arguments about whether to abandon this territory died down during the first year of the zombie epidemic, when entire countries started collapsing and zombie hordes numbering in the millions seethed outside the Wall.

** {{BadassIsraeli}} - the State of Israeli is literally the *only* country to take the initial reports of the zombie threat seriously and respond to them competently. This is attributed to a deliberate policy of considering every potential threat to Israel after the Yom Kippur War, no matter how ridiculous it might sound. The sheer level-headed planning and logic which Israel employs puts the botched reactions of all the world's major superpowers to shame. Israel's response is to build a massive structure out of reinforced concrete surrounding its entire border - aptly dubbed "The Wall" - like a modern Great Wall of China. In order to convince the world that they're honestly not trying to hold onto contested territory, the Wall is built on the old 1967 border lines, abandoning the West Bank and Jerusalem (Jerusalem isn't geographically very defensible). Then, they try to warn the world by presenting a detailed report on the zombie threat to the United Nations General Assembly. Finally, they announce that they'll let any Palestinians within the Wall if they go through medical screening first, again to try to convince everyone that this isn't a trick (few believe them anyway, but this arguably prevented an open war with the Palestinians). It is generally presented that Israel is virtually the *only* country to survive the Zombie War relatively intact (barring some isolated islands like Cuba). Of course, they did have to face an Israeli Civil War when the ultra-orthodox Jews got upset that they abandoned Jerusalem, but the IDF triumphed over the rebels because the ultra-orthodox do not participate in compulsory military training. Presumably such arguments about whether to abandon this territory died down during the first year of the zombie epidemic, when entire countries started collapsing and zombie hordes numbering in the millions seethed outside the Wall.

** Class 2: [[spoiler:Russia]], and probably [[spoiler:North Korea]].
** Class 3a: Much of [[spoiler:Scandinavia]] (maybe a Class 4 if the animals went too), with [[spoiler:Iceland]] still horribly infested and [[spoiler:Finland]] only being cleared out now. [[spoiler:Iran and Pakistan]] are also in this category thanks to their [[spoiler:nuclear war]].

* NicknamingTheEnemy: Americans refer to the undead as Zack, the Europeans as Zed.

* NicknamingTheyEnemy: United States soldiers are referred to the undead as Zack; in the United Kingdom and Europe, they call them Zed.

More recently, Max has released the short story "Closure, Ltd." in the zombie anthology ''The New Dead'', set in the same style and universe as ''World War Z''. In it, Max interviews the head of a company dedicated to finding closure for survivors of the zombie war.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: North Korea.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: It's mentioned in passing that military equipment was recalled from the Middle East for use at Yonkers, but that is the last we hear about the Army's overseas assets and bases, some of which were in areas that would be abandoned by their host countries as part of the Redeker Plan. Also, North Korea.

* TankGoodness: Subverted and averted. At Yonkers, the tanks aren't carrying appropriate ammunition - anti-tank kinetic darts are worth fuck-all against the living dead. Later in the war (in America's case at least), tanks get mothballed because the resources required to use them (i.e. fuel and ammunition) don't equate to a higher number of dead zombies than, say, an infantry platoon would. [[FridgeLogic On the other hand]], you'd think that presumably tanks and armoured vehicles would be the safest way to neutralise large hordes of zombies... simple methods like [[CarFu running them over]] with a couple tons of armored should break bones and puree flesh.

* ZeppelinsFromAnotherWorld: Part of the US anti-zombie defenses after the war is airships. Zeppelins can theoretically fly low enough and slow enough that snipers on board can pick of zombies one by one; they're more fuel-efficient and can cover long distances, both of which matter when you're trying to recover vast swathes of contaminated areas; and your speed doesn't have to be very fast when the enemy's top speed is "shamble".
** Your speed doesn't have to be anything if the enemy can't get off the ground.

* BabyFactory: The Holy Russian Empire ends up using resorting to these after the war ends.

* AuthorAppeal[=/=]ShoutOut: IronMaiden. Some of the music blared to improve troop morale and lure Zack into prepared killzones is reminisced about with a certain fondness by the veteran interviewee, who also quotes lyrics.

** The strategy for fighting back against the zombies is to form a defensive position, then draw them over open fields with loud music. Each country uses some variation on their traditional war songs -- the Scottish use bagpipes, for example, and the South African Zulu chant and bang combat knives (The Sou'frican equivalent of the K-BAR is referred to as an assegai) against rifle butts. The Americans' choice? Among other songs, "The Trooper", which makes things doubly ironic because IronMaiden is obviously not American and they use a Zombie as a mascot, along with the singer dying at the end of the song.

** Tomonaga Ijiro. Despite being blinded by the Hiroshima bombing, he can battle zombies, teach his new apprentice how to fight, and still find time to honor the spirits who may be offended during all this.