Forget Zombies, Teenagers Are the Real Villain in All of Us Are Dead, Here’s Why

Published 02/11/2022, 5:30 PM EST

via Imago

When Lee Jae Kyu was creating the megahit show, All of Us Are Dead, with writer Kim Nam Soo, we bet he did not know that he would end up making the teenagers the villain of the story. The makers did give us a villain, Yoon Gwi Nam, and the zombies but if you take a closer look at it, you will see cracks appearing. 

The undead creatures are terrifying but what is more terrifying is the cruelty of the teenagers. The show gives us a peek into the human’s primal instincts in desperate situations.  

Learned helplessness in the bullied of all of us are dead 

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In psychology, learned helplessness refers to victims of abuse or bullying who submit themselves to physical violence and consider it a part of their lives. The victims stop blaming the bullies and start blaming themselves and usually end up committing suicide to end the pain. 

We see this happen to the science teacher’s son, who was being heavily bullied. In a bid to keep his son from taking his own life the science teacher ended up making a virus that ends up eliminating the entire city’s population. 

In the first episode, the bullies force a girl to strip while they film her topless. Another guy intervenes, but the girl refuses to leave, fearing the worst. Soon after, we see her standing on the parapet meaning to kill herself. 

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Killing a low born

The most toxic girls award goes to Lee Na Yeon, who turns a boy into a zombie simply to prove the other students wrong. She despises him for belonging to a lower-class family and called him a “Welfie”—someone who is on the government subsidy program. Despite being an elite, the students seem to side with the Welfie which rubs her in the wrong way. 

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Leaving friends to die 

A boy tries to save the girl from committing suicide, telling her that he loves her. But he refuses to accompany her when she wants to find the phone, which has her naked video footage in that zombie-ridden school. 

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When her friend trips, and a zombie attacks, a girl gives up on her friendship to save herself first. Nevertheless, she didn’t meet a good end. 

Did you pick up any other instance where humans no longer acted like humans in this series? Comment down below.

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Srabani Biswas

1105 articles

Srabani Biswas is a writer at Netflix Junkie. She is a sociology graduate from Lady Brabourne College. Previously, she has contributed to Sports India Show and The Sports Room as a sports writer, and interned at Ripples Learning.

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