Fearless Undead

I don't know who to pity more: those who flee from my presence or the damned who can withstand it.

Being dead sucks. On this most people agree. However, there are perks and this particular perk derives from the fact that there is very little imaginable that can happen to you that has not already happened. In works of fiction, The Undead are usually depicted as being without fear and immune to supernatural attempts to inflict it.

See also Immortal Life Is Cheap.

Examples of Fearless Undead include:

Film

• The Apostle from Dogma states that the dead have few things to worry about.

Literature

• In The Death Gate Cycle, there are two kinds of undead- Cadavers (which are nearly mindless) and lazar (which are sentient). Both are completely fearless- cadavers because they are barely aware of what's going on around them, and lazar because they are aware of the agony of their undead condition and know for a fact that nothing is worse. Fireballs, sword thrusts, decapitation, arrows through the heart- none of it matters to something that's that far beyond our meager understanding of "pain".
  • The cadavers aren't exactly mindless, their minds have just gotten stuck to the moment of their death, and they can't learn anything new, and are inclined to return to whatever they were doing just before their death, unless somebody constantly keeps an eye on them. They're essentially dementia patients taken up to eleven.
• Reg Shoe and many other undead from Discworld, along with the Igors.
  • Although if Night Watch is any indication, he was pretty fearless while alive, too.
• The Cauldron-Born in Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles have no emotions at all, including fear.
• The High Seekers in the Novels of the Change are an odd case. When they are killed, they are possessed by a fearless dark power until such time as the bodies are no longer useful - but then, when they're alive, they're possessed pretty regularly too, to similar results.

Tabletop RPG

• Dungeons and Dragons, to a varying degree in different editions. Undead are typically immune to all fear spells, and if morale is a factor, undead are unshakable. The only thing that will set undead running for the hills is holy power, such as that unleashed by the Cleric's ability to Turn Undead.
  • It is also averted as far as intelligent undead are perfectly capable of a Tactical Withdrawal, and indeed will do so when a battle turns against them since they know firsthand just how much their situation beats the Nothing After Death. They just can't be forced to by anything short of Turn Undead.
  • Also averted in the fourth edition. Undead are immune to things that specifically affect only living creatures and don't need to breathe or sleep, but that's it; the blanket immunity against mind-affecting spells and effects from previous editions is gone. (In fact, two undead of the exact same type equipped with charm or fear powers might plausibly affect each other with them if those powers aren't specifically limited to working only on the living. A mummy's despair aura comes to mind.)
• Averted in Exalted, where the undead have fear normally (although Mindless Necrotech automatons don't). Abyssal exalted have fear and so on too, but the virtues (including Valour) are warped by their association with the Neverborn.
• In another White Wolf example, this is steadily averted in both Vampire games. Vampires have the Beast, the predatory half of their vampiric nature that has a tendency to hijack their bodies in certain circumstances. One of those is mortal fear (such as when sunlight or fire make an appearance), in which case the Beast might grab hold and make the vampire run screaming into the night.
• In GURPS, the templates for most undead include Unfazeable and Indomitable, making them disregard all reaction rolls and fear effects.
• Referenced in Magic: The Gathering, where several Black creatures cannot be blocked except by Black and Artifact creatures, defined in the flavour text as fear-based.
  • The easiest way to give a creature this skill is to cast the black spell "Fear" on them.
  • Another great example is the black spell "Terror". It instantly destroys a creature, provided they are not Black or an Artifact.
• In Warhammer, undead units never have to make leadership tests.
  • Averted, however, in Warhammer 40000, where the Necrons are basically Zombie Robots: The game explains that while they do ignore fear (comes with having your soul eaten by your gods and your entire body transferred into a machine), they can still judge when it would be advantageous to flee if in presence of a stronger enemy, and so must still take morale tests.
  • Played straight with the Plague Marines, who are described as being so rotten they can barely sense what's going on around them and are completely immune to pain. Perfectly represented on the tabletop in that they're far more durable than the standard marines, have the actual Feel No Pain rule, is slower than the average marines, and is completely and utterly fearless. Small wonder why they're one of the best units in the book.

Webcomics

• The zombie in Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name has a touch of this ability: he's infamously cool headed and very little can scare or shake him.

Video Games

• In the Heroes of Might and Magic games, undead are immune to both good and bad morale.
• Averted in World of Warcraft. While The Forsaken Undead gain a bonus against fear abilities, it is implied to be willpower rather than an innate ability. Played straight with the rest of the Undead Scourge.
  • This is something of Gameplay and Story Segregation. In the original alpha, forsaken were treated as undead and had all the benefits that came with, including immunity to fear. They also had the downsides, which allowed priests and paladins(then exclusive to the opposing faction, the Alliance) to utterly dominate them. In Warcraft's tabletop rpg companion, they're treated as undead and are immune to fear.
  • The Will Of The Forsaken racial ability that all Undead players get is essentially this trope in ability form. Activate it and it will negate any Fear, Charm or Sleep debuff the player is currently suffering from (it's not immunity per se, as it needs to be activated by the player, and then you won't be able to do it again until it's cooled down).
  • As mentioned, this is still played straight with the undead mobs, which is immune to most fears. (pallies can still turn them, through.)
• Ace Attorney ghosts can fear loved ones coming to harm but don't need to worry about any repercussions of their own, something Dahlia Hawthorne uses quite skillfully.
  • Until Mia decides to show her otherwise.
• The skeletons in Dungeon Keeper 2 are immune to fear traps, and will never retreat in battle... which can cause problems when they pull a Leeroy Jenkins against stronger opponents.
  • Especially considering that skeletons cannot be recovered to lairs by imps, so dying means they are Lost Forever, and that with no need to eat or sleep, they will usually spend all their time training - which costs gold.
  • Then again, skeletons are implicitly free Cannon Fodder anyway.
• Bizzarely averted in Gladius. Undead aren't immune to any stats effects. Skeletons can bizarrely be effected by the "bleeding" condition.
• Most undead in Dominions have a morale of 50, a purely symbolic value meaning that they are completely unbreakable.
• The Undead monster family in one of two types (machine is the other) that cannot be intimidated in Dragon Quest VIII.

Live-Action Television

• Being Human often has the ghost character, Annie, reminding herself or others that she is a ghost and thus has no reason to be afraid of any physical danger.

Annie (terrified while exploring a creepy hospital wing): "I'm already dead. I'm already dead. I'm already dead…"

• On Deadliest Warrior, this was actually listed as an X Factor in the Vampires vs. Zombies episode. The Zombies recieved the higher number due to being physically incapable of fear(unlike vampires).