Why do video game skeletons put themselves back together?
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In its original Japan, Dry Bones is known as Karon, a reference to the sound of bones clattering.
Well there you go. They won't rest until they speak to your manager.
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The same reason ghosts and vampires and mummies often similarly reform, reanimate or reappear soon after being banished or defeated. All are undead, protected or animated by powerful magics, and you generally can't just "kill" something that's already supposed to be dead. Death no longer has meaning to it, its mere existence proves that it is beyond what we would normally consider death. At least not without exploiting some kind of specific weakness, using some elaborate ritual or calling ghostbusters.
Zombies are sometimes considered undead too, and originally they pretty much were, but more recently they've mostly been modernized and adopted into a more pseudo-science existence where they're simply dead-ish, but with bodies still animated by some kind of infection in the nervous system and brain that allows basic biological activity to continue. The biological activity, then, can still be stopped using most or all of our conventional methods of stopping unwanted biological activity.
True undead are much more difficult to permanently end, and a skeleton is very clearly not using any traditional biological activity to exist, so whatever does allow it to exist isn't likely to be stopped by our traditional methods of ending life.
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What is dead can never die
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They're possessed by the power of Music.
Necrodancer : REANIMATE!!
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Cause they need to, man. Next hero comes down the hall expecting dancing fuckin’ skeletons to whack, what else are they gonna do? Their union contract guarantees them good pay, calcium paste, and a continuous supply of puppet strings. Let ‘em do their jobs. They’re tired, man.
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Next they'll ask why red barrels explode when you shoot them...
Next they'll ask why red barrels explode when you shoot them...
Or why crates contain the specific ammo and supplies you need, or why pottery reliably contains money, or why old dusty castle walls hide entire meals that are somehow still edible...
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Because it is visually cool.
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What is dead can never die
“That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.” -
"...bone to his bone."
- Ezekiel 37:1-8 KJVDem bones Dem bones Dem dry bones
Dem bones Dem bones Dem dry bones
Dem bones Dem bones Dem dry bones,
Hear the word of the Lord. -
It makes for some pretty neat (infuriating) game mechanics. Like an infinite mob spawner, but more intuitive and less dull.
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Me using a bunch of spring joints to join all individual bones together to make a skeleton
That'd be bad in so many ways
Only if it's all the bones
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What is dead can never die
You cannot kill what doesss not live
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What is dead can never die
But it CAN be ground to bone meal and replace a small amount of flour in commercial bread baking operations
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Cause they need to, man. Next hero comes down the hall expecting dancing fuckin’ skeletons to whack, what else are they gonna do? Their union contract guarantees them good pay, calcium paste, and a continuous supply of puppet strings. Let ‘em do their jobs. They’re tired, man.
Worked to the bone, you could say.
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Next they'll ask why red barrels explode when you shoot them...
Or why crates contain the specific ammo and supplies you need, or why pottery reliably contains money, or why old dusty castle walls hide entire meals that are somehow still edible...
Wall chicken out here catching strays.
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They got back together and got up the first time they died, why not do it again the second time?
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Why shouldn't they?
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I was about to hazard a guess that it hearkens back to Ray Harryhausen, but I rewatched the skeleton fight from Jason and the Argonauts, and I'm astounded that they apparently didn't do it there.
