Anya: That's shocking!... Sorry.
Sometimes you want to use hordes of the undead in your story, but you want a different take on them to make them stand out or be cooler than your standard issue zombie. And you want to do something other than your usual methane-filled exploding zombies, heavyweight zombies or bile spitting zombie. That's where this trope comes into play.
This is when zombies are infused with, wield, or in some other way tied to one of the Classical Elements. This can be used to make the undead seem more dangerous than their common counterparts, make them stand out, or serve as a thumbprint of their origin or master. In some cases, they actively wield the element they are tied to, while in other cases it merely seems to be part of their anatomy that they exude on their environment. While sometimes elemental zombies are some form of Elite Zombie, depending on the setting even the regular rank and file zombie Mooks could be elemental as a form of Our Zombies Are Different.
Some of the most common elements are:
- Ice: Common enough to have its own trope, Chill of Undeath. Ever since the premiere of Game of Thrones, zombies with an ice theme have seen a surge in popularity as a sort of Shout-Out to the White Walkers.
- Plant: The fact that zombies come bursting up from underground has made combining them with plants a rather logical leap, especially if they're covered in roots. Mushroom zombies are a popular sub-variant of this element.
- Earth: This is most commonly an element seen in conjunction with mummies, due to their association with Egypt and the desert. Typically in the form of summoning sandstorms or their bodies being full of sand.
- Fire: Despite being a common zombie weakness, zombies with some kind of fiery heart are not unheard of, especially if it's a zombie comprised of funerary ashes, or if it's from a Fire and Brimstone Hell.
- Water: Often the fate of an unfortunate drowning victim, waterlogged zombies might feature marine life stuck on them, such as barnacles or seaweed, or have a nautical theme. Bonus points if they feature Walk, Don't Swim or other shout-outs to the Pirates of the Caribbean films.
These undead tend to be visually distinct from their kin by having their bodies blended with the element they're tied to. Fire-based ones may have Volcanic Veins fiery eyes, or an inferno-like Throat Light or look like they're made partly of ash. Ice zombies will probably have ice-blue skin with white hair, be covered in frost, or exude an aura of cold. Plant Zombies will tend to have roots or branches bursting out of their decaying bodies.
This trope tends to be more commonly found in fantasy works, but sci-fi-slanted works can get in on the action too. This is usually in the form of a zombie with electricity or lightning ties, often as a Shout-Out to Frankenstein's Monster. Plant-based ones pop up in sci-fi too, often with a mention of fungi that are known to infect and take control of insects.note
This is often a case of Powers via Possession, where some otherworldly spirit is Possessing a Dead Body and providing its own power.
Note that while the word "zombie" is used here, skeletons, liches, death knights, revenant zombies, mummies, and other "corpse-y" undead that are partly elemental can count too.
Chill of Undeath, especially when the ties to ice and cold are played up, is a sub-trope. Compare Deceased and Diseased for when the Undead are associated with poison and plague instead of (or in some cases in addition to) this trope. Subtrope of Elemental Variation. See also Elemental Dragon.
Examples:
- Blackest Night is an Episode of the Dead of Green Lantern and in general to The DCU, wherein Black Hand becomes the Avatar of Nekron and creates the Black Lanterns, whose rings can bring people from normal humans to metahumans Back from the Dead, turning everything into a universe-scale Zombie Apocalypse. That includes superheroes or villains who got Elemental Powers, having among them a Fire Zombie (Firestorm I/Ronnie Raymond, renamed as "Deathstorm"), an Earth Zombie (Terra/Tara Markov) and an Ice Zombie (Ice/Tora Olafsdotter).
- Judge Dredd: At least two of the Dark Judges possess elemental powers. Judge Fire, one of the main four, is always wreathed in flames and can shoot fire with his Devil's Pitchfork (ironically, the other Dark Judges are vulnerable to fire). Judge Whisper started out as a more regular type of zombie (albeit with Psychic Powers) until a mutation caused him to become a Plant Person on top of that.
- Game of Thrones has the White Walkers, who are often colloquially called "ice zombies" by fans. This is due to them being undead who hail from the Land of Always Winter, having a blue and white color scheme and their power over ice and cold.
- Michael Moorcock’s second series of Corum novels sends his depressed Vadhagh Champion forward in time to an ur-Celtic era where humans are being wiped out by other-dimensional monstrosities called Fhoi Myore (the Fomor of Celtic myth). Two of the armies at the command of these ice-fog monsters consist of humans infected with a plant-based hive intelligence that gives them green skin and sap for blood. These ‘Brothers of the Pines’ are basically tree-zombies, and the albino Ghoolegh, who are more or less typical zombies.
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- Blights are classified as plant monsters, but are essentially zombies, as they are spawned from a Gulthias tree — an undead husk of a large tree infected by vampirism.
- Blazing skeletons are a variant of the standard skeleton but engulfed in flames. Unlike many other corporeal undead, they are resistant or immune to fire and are also capable of hurling fire bolts as an attack. As to be expected, they are often pyromaniacs.
- Magic: The Gathering: Most zombies are straightforward reanimated corpses, with no modification beyond at most grafted weapons or body parts. A few exceptions exist, such as Lava Zombie
and an ice zombie on Chill of the Grave.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!: The majority of the Zombie-type monsters belong to the DARK attribute. However, there are a few exceptions that appear in the WATER, EARTH, WIND and FIRE attributes, and less so in the LIGHT attribute. To wit:
- EARTH-Attribute Zombies: "Pyramid Turtle", "Shutendoji", "Skull Mammoth", the Minotaur-like "Gozuki" and "Mizuki", the Jiangshi-esque "Master Kyonshee";
- WIND-Attribute Zombies: "Tengu, the Winged Mayakashi" and "Hajun, the Winged Mayakashi"
- FIRE-Attribute Zombies: the Shiranui cycle ("Shiranui Samuraisaga", "Shiranui Solitaire", "Shiranui Squiresaga", "Shiranui Shogunsaga", "Shiranui Sunsaga", "Shiranui Spectralsword"); "Burning Skull Head", "Skull Flame", "Doomkaiser Dragon".
- WATER-Attribute Zombies: the Yuki-onna-inspired "Yuki-Musume, the Ice Mayakashi", "Yuki-Onna, the Ice Mayakashi", and "Yuki-Onna, the Absolute Zero Mayakashi"; "Sacred Spirit of the Ice Barrier".
- Going against the grain, we do have LIGHT-attribute Zombies: "Skeletal Dragon Felgrand", "Malevolent Mech - Goku En", and "Paladin of the Cursed Dragon".
- Cursed Treasure:
- The first game applies the Chill of Undeath trope to its crypt towers since they can only be built on snowy terrain and with enough skill points invested in the undead Skill Tree, can be upgraded to inflict Harmless Freezing when they attack heroes.
- The sequel has all of the same ice tropes as the first game, with the addition of crypts being upgradable into chilling crypts and icy crypts for a better chance of Harmless Freezing. It also throws in a few lightning elements as well; one of the 5th-tier upgrades is the lightning crypt, which hits harder and reloads quicker than other towers at the expense of a reduced chance of triggering special effects, and one upgrade in the undead Skill Tree allows any crypt to turn the souls of the heroes it kills into lightning traps.
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has the ash spawn, zombies created from the ashes of cremated dunmer. Unlike the undead in the rest of the game, they're immune or resistant to fire spells and damage but are instead weak to cold damage. They also inflict fire damage and cast fire spells, in contrast to standard undead's ice spells.
- God of War (2018) has the draugr, which are fire zombies, and Helwalkers, which are ice zombies. Draugr can lob molten rock or fireballs as an attack, and some unleash a fiery explosion when their heads are stomped on, meanwhile Helwalkers use things like ice swords and ice shields in combat. Consequently, the draugr are weak against the Leviathan Axe's ice powers and the Helwalkers are weak against The Blades of Chaos' fire powers.
- The Last of Us takes place in the aftermath of a Zombie Apocalypse. The Infected are essentially people who have been exposed to a Festering Fungus, making them prime examples of the plant-based zombie. Over time, the zombie starts to resemble a mushroom more and more, with scales and spore pods all over their body.
- Minecraft features biome-specific variants of zombies: Drowned, which spawn in water or when a regular zombie drowns and can be armed with tridents; and Husks, which spawn in desert environments, do not burn in sunlight, and inflict Hunger as well as damage in their melee attacks.
- Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes: Some of the playable Zombie Heroes qualify as this, having the origin of being blasted by the Zombot Hero-tron's explosion as well as Signature Superpowers that put their abilities on full display.
- Electric Boogaloo, thanks to being near electrical wires while blasted, gains electrical powers that he unleashes primarily through dancing (thanks to being a Disco Zombie originally), with one of his three regular powers even being electricity-themed.
- Brain Freeze is a Zombie Yeti who gains ice powers, which he can use to freeze plants and environments. One Plant Hero quest storyline shows him doing this to an entire pool (trapping the Plants there until Solar Flare escapes).
- Neptuna is a more downplayed case, since she's more The Beastmaster but still has some control over water, especially near the ocean. However, she has to rely on a fish tank to get around when out of the water.
- Starting from Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Resident Evil introduced a form of zombie called the "Molded", which especially in 7 are violent fungi in humanoid form. The game is a little contradictory as to whether they are actual undead humans reanimated by a supernatural mold, or are themselves constructed mold-based golems, but whichever case, the idea is the same: they are disgusting monsters of decay and fungal ooze, and they want the player dead.
- Roblox game Zombie Attack upgrades the normal zombie in one of two ways. Make them bigger, or throw on an elemental power like lava or ice. They are soon discarded though in favor of non-zombie enemies, despite the name.
- TimeSplitters Future Perfect: In Level 6, "What Lies Below", as Sgt. Cortez and Jo-Beth Casey descend further and further into the lab, they come across zombies that are charged with electricity. These zombies have the power to shoot electricity at Cortez. Jo-Beth Casey and Anya react accordingly.
Jo-Beth Casey: Electric Zombies!? That's like, so unfair!
Anya: That's shocking!...Sorry. - The zombie main character from Sonny can, starting in Sonny 2, learn to use electrical, poison, ice, and psionic attacks.
- Shocker zombies in Cataclysm can throw electrical bolts at survivors, which are more damaging than usual zombie melee attacks and inflict the pain status effect.
- In Harley Quinn (2019), Ivy's attempt to make a serum to aid plant life has the unintentional consequence of creating plant zombies. These zombies also puke a slime that causes people to become plants.
