Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A Am I describing a zombie?

I agree with Chaotic's comment: You could call it wherever you like, as this is your story: Immortals, Revenants, Awakens... It's your choice, but I would avoid zombie, because of the current c...

posted 7y ago by aer‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T08:07:00Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33692
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar aer‭ · 2019-12-08T08:07:00Z (about 5 years ago)
I agree with Chaotic's comment:

> You could call it wherever you like, as this is your story: Immortals, Revenants, Awakens... It's your choice, but I would avoid zombie, because of the current conotation of it and association with famous series and blockbuster movies. – Chaotic 8 hours ago

To expand on it, the word "zombie" is now associated with a particular genre of stories with associated tropes. Using that word would suggest to your readers that you will be making use of those tropes in some way (either playing them straight, or subverting them—although many things that could be thought of as "subversions" of the stereotypical zombie traits are also fairly well-explored by now).

Your use of the words "body" and "remains" in the description, as well as the sentence "Only he comes back to life, when he’s killed again and again he keeps coming back to life," make make me feel like the word **_revenant_** that Chaotic mentioned would be a good choice. It is not a new word by any means, but it is nowhere near as well-known as "zombie", which means people won't have so many preexisting expectations about what a revanant should be like. It literally means "returning" or "coming back" in French, which fits your description of someone who died, but comes back. It has been used in various ways in fantasy literature as a term for an "undead" entity, but I don't think any of the portrayals has become overwhelming or thought of as definitive (unlike the similar word "lich", which started out as pretty much just a synonym for "corpse" but which is now stongly associated for many people specifically with the Dungeons and Dragons portrayal, basically "an undead sorceror with a 'soul jar' that is called a 'phylactery'", as mentioned in Secespitus's answer).

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-02-22T03:41:22Z (almost 7 years ago)
Original score: 2