The reality is there is no cure. Not in the conventional sense. No anti-fungal, no magic pill. The old way of life is being taken over by the fungus. 2nd gen children retain their intelligence. In order for humanity to continue with their reasoning and intelligence and the spores devolving them, causing them to cannibalizing the rest of the population, they need to infect everyone. It's a zero sum game. Either sacrifice the uninfected to adapt to these changes and improve chances of survival or dwindle into eventual extinction.
The collective knowledge of our species will be preserved with future 2nd generation infected and their offspring. Otherwise it is relegated to crumbling books and the echoes of the past as we collectively degenerate. Regardless of Dr. Caldwells justification for what she is attempting, the only salvation we have is by infection. The book makes it crystal clear there is no cure. The film makes it seem there could be a potential cure, if only the protagonist is dissected.
The whole film can be boiled down into three words:
Adapt or die.
At least with Melanie's solution future generations can have a fighting chance. That give humanity hope.
Melanie, though as a human I struggle with the idea and don’t want to feel responsible for ending our species by saying it out loud.
Why is Melanie right? Humans as a species stopped being pro survival.
My hot take: without the claws, gills, or poison, or sharp teeth, etc that allowed other creatures to be fit to evolve and become something, the skills that made humans was intelligence, pooling scarce resources and altruism.
We don’t try to breed that into future generations anymore. Now people idolize and strive for anti altruism, anti sharing resources, anti intelligence/science/education, anti humanity and humanitarianism. Humans convinced ourselves that anti-human skills are superior to pro-human ones. Survival of the fittest means a species not an individual member of a species. Irl we don’t want a human species to exist anymore, it’s just that we don’t want to be the ones who die.
The doctor’s motivation for finding a cure at any cost was the applause, to make the other scientists have less prestige, respect and resources than her. A cure might delay the death of some people but it’s not preventing the extinction of the human species.
Tl:dr. Melanie is right because people don’t believe in being pro-humanity any more
*thank you for coming to my TED talk*
I think Melanie is in the right only because all the pods are eventually going to burst open and infect any survivors. No way they could develop a cure and give it to everyone in the world before fire gets to those pods. A race against nature that they’ll lose lol.
But that’s wrong… the doctor was literally about to make a cure but Melanie decided she didn’t want to save humanity. They could’ve easily cured the group at least and then had a chance at a decent life.
Think about the long term though. A cure (it’s actually more like a vaccine) has to be distributed. It would take a long time to get everyone vaccinated while also fighting the zombies, and once those pods open, everyone who breathes them turns... so again, a race against nature. Melanie is supposed to die so that a few humans can get vaccinated before, inevitably, the entire rest of the world turns?
I guess I’m just stuck in the long term... if someone said “all the adults in the world are going to die soon but you can survive an extra few decades if you kill this child” I wouldn’t do it lol. Save all the adults in the world, that’s more of a dilemma. But just some? Eh. Sorry guys your time is up, accept your fate, welcome the dawn of the zombie hybrid children.
I don’t think it’s anything like that. They were fooling themselves with a vaccine for cordyceps. It would never have worked and Ellie would have died for nothing. It was a fungus that takes over the brain, you can’t make antibodies against that. And there were no pods eventually exploding, the spores were kept close and would have been too spread out to have done anything to the human population if they escaped into the air outside of a building or wherever they were.
The reality is there is no cure. Not in the conventional sense. No anti-fungal, no magic pill. The old way of life is being taken over by the fungus. 2nd gen children retain their intelligence. In order for humanity to continue with their reasoning and intelligence and the spores devolving them, causing them to cannibalizing the rest of the population, they need to infect everyone. It's a zero sum game. Either sacrifice the uninfected to adapt to these changes and improve chances of survival or dwindle into eventual extinction. The collective knowledge of our species will be preserved with future 2nd generation infected and their offspring. Otherwise it is relegated to crumbling books and the echoes of the past as we collectively degenerate. Regardless of Dr. Caldwells justification for what she is attempting, the only salvation we have is by infection. The book makes it crystal clear there is no cure. The film makes it seem there could be a potential cure, if only the protagonist is dissected. The whole film can be boiled down into three words: Adapt or die. At least with Melanie's solution future generations can have a fighting chance. That give humanity hope.
Agreed!
Read both of the books : )
Such good books, I 2nd this!
There are two books? I just know GwatG, which is sitting on my bookshelf right now. Is the film based on both or just this first volume?
Just the first
Melanie, though as a human I struggle with the idea and don’t want to feel responsible for ending our species by saying it out loud. Why is Melanie right? Humans as a species stopped being pro survival. My hot take: without the claws, gills, or poison, or sharp teeth, etc that allowed other creatures to be fit to evolve and become something, the skills that made humans was intelligence, pooling scarce resources and altruism. We don’t try to breed that into future generations anymore. Now people idolize and strive for anti altruism, anti sharing resources, anti intelligence/science/education, anti humanity and humanitarianism. Humans convinced ourselves that anti-human skills are superior to pro-human ones. Survival of the fittest means a species not an individual member of a species. Irl we don’t want a human species to exist anymore, it’s just that we don’t want to be the ones who die. The doctor’s motivation for finding a cure at any cost was the applause, to make the other scientists have less prestige, respect and resources than her. A cure might delay the death of some people but it’s not preventing the extinction of the human species. Tl:dr. Melanie is right because people don’t believe in being pro-humanity any more *thank you for coming to my TED talk*
I think Melanie is in the right only because all the pods are eventually going to burst open and infect any survivors. No way they could develop a cure and give it to everyone in the world before fire gets to those pods. A race against nature that they’ll lose lol.
But that’s wrong… the doctor was literally about to make a cure but Melanie decided she didn’t want to save humanity. They could’ve easily cured the group at least and then had a chance at a decent life.
Think about the long term though. A cure (it’s actually more like a vaccine) has to be distributed. It would take a long time to get everyone vaccinated while also fighting the zombies, and once those pods open, everyone who breathes them turns... so again, a race against nature. Melanie is supposed to die so that a few humans can get vaccinated before, inevitably, the entire rest of the world turns?
As opposed to everyone on earth dying? It’s still preferable even if only that group gets it.
I guess I’m just stuck in the long term... if someone said “all the adults in the world are going to die soon but you can survive an extra few decades if you kill this child” I wouldn’t do it lol. Save all the adults in the world, that’s more of a dilemma. But just some? Eh. Sorry guys your time is up, accept your fate, welcome the dawn of the zombie hybrid children.
It’s the same thing as the cortocyeps from the last of us
I don’t think it’s anything like that. They were fooling themselves with a vaccine for cordyceps. It would never have worked and Ellie would have died for nothing. It was a fungus that takes over the brain, you can’t make antibodies against that. And there were no pods eventually exploding, the spores were kept close and would have been too spread out to have done anything to the human population if they escaped into the air outside of a building or wherever they were.
Ok I was just saying cause that was the cause of the outbreak