History Literature / UndeadOnArrival

* DropTheHammer: Novak uses a small sledgehammer in his offhand. Additionally, other fighting men are described as carrying "guns and hammers." Makes sense, as after a [[ZombieApocalypse zombie apocalypse]], you take what you can find and there are hammers everywhere.

* AnAxeToGrind: Novak uses a hatchet in his dominant hand to split zombie, or "geek," skulls.

* WideEyedIdealist: Dr. Bloch remains convinced that humanity can and will bounce back despite their low population. Ricky Robadella obsesses with writing a new US constitution Novak doubts will ever mean anything or comes to pass [[spoiler: and only decided to kill Novak due to feeling he was becoming a dictator, only to change his mind too late when it came down to it]].

* ClosetGeek: Stew, Ricky, Michelle, laborer Jim Sorenson and Gamburyan (an Armenian thug for Walter and Inez) all play Dungeons and Dragons together, with only Ricky and maybe Michelle being characters you'd expect this of. For Gamburyan this also counts as GoKartingWithBrowser.

* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Rippey's child brides quickly establish him as a dirtbag, and Novak extolling sex out of desperate women on the hill by giving them extra food isn't portrayed as being a positive thing [[spoiler: and is part of the reason Ricky decided to kill him]].

* YourCheatingHeart: Inez has been having an affair with Novak, causing Walter to become one of Novak's prime suspect for the zombie head being placed in his trunk.

* AmbiguouslyJewish: The Rosenberg Brothers, Jacob and Micah have traditionally Jewish names but are loyal, high-placed members of Reverend Rippey’s camp (although perhaps more for mercenary reasons than religious ones).

* FamilyThemeNaming: Jacen Ford and his sister Janelle both have ''ja'' names.

* AllAsiansKnowMartialArts: Walters chief guard Sakimoto is a judo expert and LightningBruiser against the zombies.

* FamilyNameTheming: Jacen Ford and his sister Janelle both have ''ja'' names.

* SoleSurvivingScientist: Dr Judy Bloch, the last doctor in town works hard to keep the gene pool viable in the limited population and keeps a couple (with their jawbones removed to prevent an outbreak if they get loose) chained up zombies she studies trying to find a way to understand and potentially stop their herd migratory tendencies. The town still isn’t happy when they find out but Novak is able to keep them from lynching her.

* BadassGay: Stew, Novak's right hand man, is gay, married, kills zombies by the boatload with a machete, and is probably the person most capable of leading Devon.

* DirtyCoward: Both Walter and Rippey show fear when confronted and accused by an angry Novak and in the backstory when an outbreak breached the gates, Rippey was prepared to abandon Devon and Walter remained holed up in the Athena before Novak, Pulaski and Martinez single handedly cleaned out the zombies inside the gates.

* JackBauerInterrogationTechnique: Novak strong-arms nearly everyone he talks to. The trope itself is averted as every one of these people lies to him, though that's not immediately apparent.

* HollywoodPudgy: Rippey's aide Gloria Wu, InUniverse. She never misses a meal due to her position and Novak notes that he always thinks of her as fat even though she isn't overweight by post-apocalypse standards.

* AllAsiansKnowMartialArts: Walters chief guard Sakimoto is a judo expert.

* BatterUp: Subverted. When Novak is roughing up his first suspect (a refugee whose wife he extorted for sex) the man's teenage daughter tries to make him stop with a baseball bat but is quickly scared into backing down.

* ChekhovsGunman: Tommy Martinez is bitten and killed on an excursion out of town before Novak even gets bitten, initially seeming like a SacrificialLamb to showcase the dangers of the world. Later, however, it's revealed that Reverend Rippey had been trying to convince him to kill Walter [[spoiler: making Walter paranoid towards Novak and his people, with an attempt he made to kill Pulaski while Novak happened to be nearby further convincing Novak that Walter might have been the one who put the head in his locker]], and at the end it's revealed that his death and Novak's reaction to it [[spoiler: were the final straw for Ricky, who'd been agonizing about whether or not to kill Novak for a while]].
* CoattailRidingRelative: Inez's cousin was Walter's gardener before Inez and Walter got married (following the infection and MercyKill of his first wife) and her cousin got promoted to Walter's inner circle, but given rumors that her cousin put down Walter's first wife when he couldn't do it himself, it's unclear which one of them first came into Walter's favor (Inez for her TrophyWife beauty or her cousin for performing that service) and then managed to get Walter interested in the other one.

* PapaWolf: Rob Franklin is initially accused of having pimped out his eleven-year old daughter to one of Walters men but in fact chased the man off with a shotgun and thanks Novak upon hearing he killed him.

* PapaWolf: Rob Franklin is initially accused of having pinoed out his sleeve year old daughter to one of Walters men but in fact chased the man off with a shotgun and thanks Novak upon hearing he killed him.

* WideEyedIdealist: Dr. Bloch remains convinced that humanity can and will bounce back despite their low population. Ricky Robadella obsesses with writing a new US constitution Novak doubts will ever mean anything or comes to pass [[spoiler: and only decided to kill Novak die to feeling he was becoming a dictator, only to change his mind too late when it came down to it]].

* BabyOfTheBunch: Ricky Robadella (a student form Novak's gym class during the outbreak) is the youngest and most idealistic of his inner circle, and a NonActionGuy.