Out of the thousands of supernatural creatures represented in slews of mythology and fairy tales spread by the word of mouth, the werewolf by far has to be my favorite.  Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I do not mean the shape-shifting wolves of modern literature that for some unjustified reason call themselves werewolves.  I mean the half human, half wolf monsters that are best represented in classic horror films such as An American Werewolf in London, Teen Wolf, The Howling, and most importantly, The Wolf Man.  What lures me into these stories and the creature itself is far from the novelty over-the-top transformations (even though I love seeing them in every film I can watch), the look of the creature itself, or the strange romance stories that have become commonplace.  Werewolves lure me in for one pure and simple reason; the internal conflict living with two separate personas can bring these characters.  Like in the case of Jekyll and Hyde, werewolf characters have the charm of giving the audience a psychological thriller through the struggles they face trying to best the beasts that live inside of them.  It is always unknown which side will prevail in these battles of psychological turmoil; the Jekyll-like humanity the character fights to keep despite their constant dark impulses or the Hyde-like beast that will kill anything it lays its eyes upon just for the thrill of the chase.  For the complex characterization alone, werewolves will always remain my favorite fantasy creature.  They are the unsung example of how to write the most compelling, relatable fictional characters the audience will always love.

  Now let us venture into the basic characterization of another fantasy creature that I feel is the complete opposite of the werewolf, zombies.  Unlike werewolves, zombies are the definition of cardboard cutout characters.  There is no motive for what they do besides trying to find their next human snack.  They are just a bunch of rotting corpses that seem to be a key ingredient for thriller stories, such as Night of the Living Dead or The Walking Dead.  All they serve for the plot is to be a threat the main characters need to take out in order to survive whatever crisis of the week they are dealing with.  Unless you like seeing mindless corpses slowly walking around ripping the guts out of innocent people, zombies are characterization wise as dull as cardboard.  They do not hold a candle to the Jekyll and Hyde inspired werewolves, whose psychological trauma can intrigue audiences with their hidden brilliance. 

  For many years, I have been curious as to why almost no one has mixed up the zombie story trope formula.  Like the copycat supernatural love stories that surged in popularity following Twilight's release in 2006, there is never any change to the basic format.  Zombies are written always as mindless, rotting corpses whose main objective from the slightly functioning brain stem still activated in their own decomposing brains is to glutton on still living humans.  They are without empathy, without some type of moral compass, and without any type of characterization besides being frightening.  Can't the formula be broken once in a blue moon so the world can be introduced to a similar brilliance werewolves bring to a crowd?  Why do zombies have to be mindlessly cliché?

  The answer to that is simply that they don't.  Just because one story has a zombie being mindless does not mean all stories have to follow suit.  There are many ways for the zombie character to be represented as relatable and complex.  You could take the route of Warm Bodies by making the zombie character still have shards of their humanity in tact despite being turned and give them the opportunity to possibly earn their humanity back by having a helping hand slowly bring those broken pieces back together.  There is also the idea of having the zombie retain their memories and personality after the change, but have to struggle with the idea of having to eat human flesh to keep themselves whole.  Both the comic and the show iZombie are prime examples of this idea done right.  Finally, the zombie character could turn from mysterious circumstances that are not related to the usual bite, have the ID parts of their brain slowly start to dominate them, and struggle to keep together the peaceful former life they had before.  The underrated show The Santa Clara Diet does this format in a hilarious yet relatable way.  If given the right amounts of creativity, a zombie character can easily become just as complex as many other luring fantasy creatures. 

  The key here is to know what elements are important to keep the character in the realms of a definable zombie and in the realms of being a character that can perplex an audience.  You do not want to accidentally create bland vampires that sparkle in the daytime or shape-shifters that are wrongly classified as werewolves.  With the right amount of balance, you can create a zombie character that avoids starting a cliché upon itself and lures the audience in every single time.  Just remember to use massive amounts of creativity when you are carving out your character.  Creativity is what the fantasy genre was created for after all.