Line #4 Fridge/Crossed


1	!!FridgeBrilliance:
2	* The Crossed are as eager to endanger and torture themselves as they are the uninfected. Seems sort of strange at first that, if they became purest evil, they wouldn't simply focus just on the killing of others but after thinking about it, it clicked for me; they're committing evil against ''themselves''. Self-hatred and the like that are also evil thoughts, the same as hatred against other peoples, and non-selfish self-love definitely isn't going to be left by the infection. After all, there's a reason why suicide and self-harm are rightfully viewed as negative actions.
3	!!FridgeHorror:
4	* Invoked. What happens when the people we trust the most--our parents, our children, people we depend on for safety--go completely off the rails?
5	** In another sense, a comment near the end that what the Crossed do isn't anything that ordinary humans aren't capable of. That's ''scary as hell''.
6	*** In fact, that could be considered a running theme throughout the Crossed saga. In all the story arcs one can see non-Crossed characters engage in Crossed-like behavior. Some examples are obvious, eg. Harold Lorre & Addy's father, while others are more subtle. This of course reinforces the concept that all the Crossed virus really does (apart from the facial rash) is strip its victims of all norms and concepts of civilization, society, and morality, with some people already being like the Crossed even without the virus.
7	** ''+100'' makes it explicitly clear with Beau Salt, an individual so vile and insane, the virus did little else than giving him the cross rash. Even if they may be rare, there are humans who are already Crossed-like without the help of the infection.
8	** From ''Wish You Were Here'': The revelation that the Crossed virus [[spoiler:is not only capable of being transmitted through the flesh of carrion eaters ([[ParanoiaFuel when's the last time you had some fish lately?]]), but is also apparently mutating into something even ''worse''.]]
9	** In ''Volume One'', a flashback details how Cindy's group met a policeman at the start of the outbreak who had a Crossed locked in the back of his police car. The cop claimed the Crossed had said things about his wife that the Crossed had no way of knowing, and wanted to interrogate him further. Cindy claims that the Crossed hasn't said anything that he couldn't have deduced from a cold read of the cop and they discount the cop's theory. Flash-forward to "The Thin Red Line" arc, where the initial Crossed infectee in Britain ''does'' gain access to information that he couldn't possibly know, and it paints a more disturbing picture. Are first-generation Crossed actually, in some strange way, clairvoyant?
10	* Arguably the darkest example is in ''Gore Angels''. Many people watched Emiko's gang-rape video online... just how many people now think that she's a slut, not knowing that she was actually drugged and raped!?!?
11	* Did anyone stop to consider that Boss Yamada may have abused his daughter!?
12	* In Crossed #8, Stan, Cindy and their group bed down in a crashed Chinook chopper. There's a skeleton in there, with an ApocalypticLog; he was part of a special military unit that shuttled nuclear engineers and scientists around during the beginning of the Crossed pandemic, shutting down nuclear power plants so the Crossed couldn't blow them up. That's pretty smart. However, once they shut down all the plants in their roster (with other units doing the same around the country), ''they killed all the engineers and scientists''. The justification from their superiors was that if they could shut the plants down, they could re-activate them again, and the [=PTBs=] didn't want that kind of knowledge floating around. '''''THE MOTHERFUCKERS [[LostTechnology KILLED NUCLEAR POWER]].''''' An entire field of science will have to be ''re-invented'', and it took decades and billions of dollars for the greatest minds in human history to do it the first time. Thanks a whole lot for condemning countless generations to freezing in the dark, you stupid robots.
13	** Not to mention, they took away a very useful weapon to take down at least some Crossed-infested cities.
14	** To be fair, considering what the Crossed are capable of, would ''you'' want to risk the secrets of the atom to fall into their hands?
15	*** Good point, but at the same time, that in of itself is another layer of FridgeHorror because of how a million times worse the carnage would be when the Crossed upgrade their arsenal with any weapon that they find (we've seen Crossed obtain firearms, for example, including flamethrowers and machine guns). Meaning that it's only a matter of time that they'll eventually find more advanced weaponry.
16	** Also in regard to the chopper scene, if you pay attention to the art, you will see that it does not look like the soldier killed himself nor does it appear that the Crossed got to him. Meaning that the soldier likely died alone of thirst and starvation. In this series, that's a peaceful yet also painful and depressing way to go.
17	* [[spoiler:Patrick's reveal of having been infected by the Horsecock's gang opens a lot of horrifying possibilities at how ''exactly'' was he turned, ranging from a simple spit in the face to an outright ''rape''.]]
18	** [[spoiler:"Fortunately" it appears that Patrick was simply bitten in the neck with a noticeable wound and blood flowing down his neck as seen in the close-up panel where he's revealed to be infected.]]
19	* The exact nature of the crossed insanity is never truly revealed, however, it's assumed in and out of universe [[WhatYouAreInTheDark that the C-virus robs the person of their inhibitions, causing them carry out their own evil impulses that were already there]]. But, here's the thing, what if this theory is ''wrong''? What if the C-Virus does indeed compels its infectees to act like they do on a genuinely involuntary level. What if the Crossed are aware of the nature of their actions but [[AndIMustScream are genuinely unable to control themselves]]?
20	** This is obviously not canon, but the movie ''Film/TheSadness'' which was implicity inspired by ''Crossed'', took this premise and ran with it.
21	** This would also explain why [[SerialKiller Salt]] was mentally unaffected by the virus. [[AxCrazy It didn't compel him to do anything he would not do out of his own volition]].
22
23	!!FridgeLogic:
24	* If Creator/GarthEnnis meant this as a TakeThat (see below) to people who believe they could survive a ZombieApocalypse, why didn't he use actual zombies? The Crossed aren't any kind of zombie at all, but something completely different.
25	** Because the average Garth Ennis protagonist, i.e. Cindy, would be in about as much danger during an actual zombie apocalypse as you are during a particularly rowdy soccer game. She'd hand out two thousand clean headshots and go put Patrick down for a nap.
26	** Because those type of survivalists generally take into account only one kind of zombie, the slow-moving hungry-for-flesh type, and boast about how well they would do against them. Ennis just gives them a foe they have no chance against, and no amount of bug-out-bag preparation or choosing the right kind of machete will save you.
27	*** But the point is that the crossed aren't zombies, so the lesson (you couldn't survive in a zombie apocalypse) still doesn't apply - the survivalists aren't saying "I could survive psychotic attacks by beings capable of thought in huge numbers" they're saying "I could survive a ZOMBIE attack, by ZOMBIES,", which the Crossed ARE NOT.
28	*** They are, though. [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Just a different type of zombie.]] In fact, being [[TechnicallyLivingZombie alive and merely berserk]], they're probably much more realistic and likely zombies than what all the "shoot 'em in the head" nerds are prepared to face. The lesson isn't "you couldn't possibly survive in a zombie apocalypse", it's actually "you couldn't possibly survive in a zombie apocalypse if you automatically assume that the zombies you're facing are going to be or act in a certain way", which is most certainly true.
29	*** The fact that the zombies are more "realistic" makes the whole thing even more self-defeating. Part of the zombie stuff that's so engaging is thinking about these fantastical issues and how you would survive them. This isn't people talking about how they'd survive a hurricane, it's a particular brand of fantasy. Making it more realistic defeats the point of the exercise entirely. Saying nothing of how realistic a mystery condition that destroys all higher reasoning that still leaves you with the ability to use tools and drive vehicles is anyways.
30	*** And as an addendum to the above, those "armchair survivalists" who enjoy planning for a zombie apocalypse almost never talk about anything other than a Night of the Living Dead / Walking Dead style slow-zombie apocalypse. They don't talk about fast zombies, smart zombies, rage "zombies" or anything like that because it's not part of the fantasy. It's really more the equivalent of getting mad at an armchair sports coach type baseball fan who always says he could do it better than "X" coach could and then trying to prove that he couldn't by forcing him to coach a soccer team. Then smirking about it. But a more proper answer is the one directly below - strawman and author tracts that make no sense. It's on the level of the ending to the comicbook version of Wanted in making no sense.
31	** Because, frankly, Creator/GarthEnnis is ''not'' above writing {{Author Tract}}s or using TheWarOnStraw as part of that. He can't find a viable counter-argument for those who make arguments for "classic" Romero-style {{Zombie Apocalypse}}s, so instead he moves the goalposts by replacing the iconic mindless shamblers with a literal HatePlague that turns the infected into AxeCrazy killers ''without'' robbing them of their human intelligence.
32	*** It's probably more accurate to say that the "zombie apocalypse" angle comes up in that issue as more of an immediate indicator to the reader that this is not that kind of story, where the first reel begins with our heroes on the ropes and they're going to make their comeback soon. The one guy who actually mentions taking the world back from the Crossed is a moron who's steeped in science-fiction tropes and who dies for it. The Crossed are thus established as something other than power-fantasy cannon fodder, and it doesn't hurt that he got to thumb his nose at a particularly irritating brand of fan while he was at it.
33	*** Except that the reader would have almost no expectation of it being any other kind of story. Zombie fiction, in any media, generally ends on no less hopeful a note than "A few of them survived." There's almost never a comeback of any sort beyond overcoming the hordes to manage to survive, possibly finding a way to wait out the apocalypse. Even the power-fantasy cannon fodder is less to do with "Wow, we want the world to end so we can kill zombies!" and is more that people would be free to shoot and kill without any sort of remorse since it's, ya know, undead and not people. Something that could be examined in a far less over the top, ridiculous and strawman way while trying to tear away that fairly silly image. But this seemingly isn't within the authors abilities so he builds a strawman character in the comic to take a pot shot at a mostly imagined "irritating brand of fan" without having any real point to the issue and it serves no purpose other than to be a pot shot at the exact people who would waste their money on the comic he's trying to sell. It's not even a deconstruction, it's just bad writing. It's about the same quality of writing you get whenever an internet user is depicted as a fat, slovenly middle-aged man living in his mothers basement and trolling on internet forums.
34	*** Well, 'ZombieApocalypse' is used as a bit of an short-hand umbrella term these days -- it's used, with strict accuracy or otherwise, to describe everything from classic Romero-style zombies to ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater''-style rage-psychos and more. The premise has evolved beyond referring strictly and solely to shambling living-dead to any kind of scenario wherein people are reverted to some kind of savage, uncivilized state where they hunt, kill and convert those who are unaffected, pretty much leading to the collapse of civilization in the process (whether this is strictly accurate is another matter -- but then, it can often be argued that the differences between a lot of these are often so minor that it's sheer pedantry to quibble). ''Crossed'' doesn't strictly count as the living dead, true, but the overall ''narrative'' it follows is definitely that of the latter. What Ennis is basically suggesting is that the 'zombies' that show up aren't necessarily going to be the zombies that you've been planning for. The Crossed aren't traditional zombies, and that's exactly Ennis's point. All the preparation in the world won't do you much good if the actual apocalypse doesn't turn out the way you're expecting it to.
35	*** The ''Lesser of Two Evils'' arc in ''Badlands'' more or less confirms that this is indeed the comic's purpose. A group of survivors who have been successfully evading the Crossed encounter two women who have been relying on a "zombie apocalypse survival guide". At first they are invited to join the main group, but following the instructions in the guide only causes them to either be killed or to become Crossed themselves. Eventually the entire group of survivors is wiped out, mostly as a result of the zombie apocalypse survivalists being WrongGenreSavvy. The point here is that so-called zombie apocalypse survivalists are narrow-minded in the kind of zombie apocalypse they are preparing for, and might find themselves woefully ''unprepared'' for a different kind of disaster.
36	* In ''Lesser of Two Evils'', Morgan and Olivia's misuse of an {{Expy}} of Literature/TheZombieSurvivalGuide is said to be what undoes the group. Which is a fair enough point, however, [[spoiler: the specific advice used is advice to screw over everyone else if it means your own survival. The Zombie Survival Guide, while obviously about a completely different apocalypse than Crossed and likely full of poor advice, explicitly opposes that kind of thinking, with Brooks even writing at one point 'logic must sometimes yield to humanity.' This does make it feel like an attempted TakeThat failing to land because it is ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontWatch.]]

Context Fridge / Crossed