Board Thread:Clean up Concerns/@comment-29644557-20170724213830/@comment-3581997-20170725115442

What about the case of zombies, characters that have effectively stopped being characters but whose actions continent to affect a plot?

Here is an example: A mad scientist creates a zombie outbreak, is killed off at the beginning, but the animate corpse of the scientist is an active threat. The mad scientist is dead and gone, he has effectively stopped existing and departed the world of the living, but his body continues to be a villain of the piece, identified via the scientist's name if only because zombies don't have any individuality save reference to the former inhabitant of the body. While dead, and used as zombie patient zero, mad scientist also set things in motion for the entire piece. Patrick Heyworth, Dr. Klein, a whole host of Doctor Who villains and/or any given Umbrella corp science team leader spring to mind.