Skeleton (undead)
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An animated skeleton is a type of physically manifested undead often found in fantasy, gothic and horror fiction, and mythical art. Most are human skeletons, but they can also be from any creature or race found on Earth or in the fantasy world.
[edit] Myth and folklore
Animated human skeletons are known to have personified death in Western culture since the Middle Ages. The Grim Reaper is often depicted as a hooded skeleton holding a scythe (and occasionally an hourglass), which has been attributed to Hans Holbein the Younger (1538). Death as one of the biblical horsemen of the Apocalypse has been depicted as a skeleton riding a horse.
Figurines and images of skeletons doing routine things are common in Mexico's Day of the Dead celebration where skulls symbolize life and their familiar circumstances invite levity.
[edit] Modern fiction
The animated skeleton featured in some Gothic fiction. Probably its most terrifying appearance was in "Thurnley Abbey" (1908) by Perceval Landon, originally published in his short story collection Raw Edges. It is reprinted in many modern anthologies, such as The 2nd Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories and The Penguin Book of Horror Stories.
Undead skeletons play a more active, and less symbolic, role in modern fantasy fiction. Skeletons might be given 'life' by a more powerful undead or necromancer. When raised by another, skeletons are a mindless set of animated bones, brutal and virtually immune to a piercing attack that would only harm the flesh they lack. In many stories, legions of undead skeletons are raised as perfectly obedient and expendable foot-soldiers or guards. Unlike zombies, skeletons are rarely portrayed as self-directing or independently mobile. Since most skeletons are controlled by another source, they cannot make their own intelligent decisions, and can easily be led into ambushes, traps, or hazardous terrain. Fairly weak individually, their strength lies in numbers, like zombies.
- The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) features a fight between Sinbad and an animated skeleton.
- In the 1963 film Jason and the Argonauts, whose stop motion animation techniques were accomplished by Ray Harryhausen, a number of skeletons are animated against the Argonauts. These skeletons are capable of reassembling themselves when their bones are scattered, and are only defeated when they are led off of a cliff into the ocean.
- In Dungeons & Dragons (and games it inspired), animated skeletons are undead similar to zombies, but skeletons are completely devoid of flesh. Edged and piercing weapons, such as swords and arrows, are mostly ineffective against skeletons; only blunt weapons, such as war hammers, are effective at knocking the bones apart. Liches, which are typically intelligent and powerful spellcasters, might be mistaken for a simple animated skeleton. Clerics often have the ability to repel or destroy undead creatures, of which animated skeletons are usually the weakest such adversaries. Animated skeletons are not coerced by mind affecting spells; they cannot be rendered unconscious and cannot tire.
- They are often used in fictional undead armies as standard troops, for example in the Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings armies of Warhammer Fantasy.
- In the 1985 movie Return of the Living Dead, the zombie at the end is an animated skeleton who, despite his other organs and tissues having rotted away, still has eyes.
- In the 1987 movie A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Freddy's zombie is an animated skeleton.
- An army of Skeleton pirates plays a crucial role in the computer game Curse of Monkey Island.
- In the computer game Serious Sam and its sequels, Kleer Skeletons are one of the most frequently encountered and one of the most dangerous enemies of all.
- The cartoon TV shows Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs featured Mr. Skullhead, an animated skeleton.
- The 1993 movie Army of Darkness features an army of deadites who, unlike those in the rest of the series, are animated skeletons.
- In the 1993 Tim Burton film The Nightmare Before Christmas, the main character is a walking skeleton.
- The 1994 animated series Skeleton Warriors was about animated skeletons.
- The 1998 computer game Grim Fandango was about animated skeletons.
- In the 1999 movie The Mummy, Imhotep controls skeletons for this purpose. With no free will or fear of death, they cannot disobey commands.
- Spy Kids 2 features animated skeletons very similar to those in Jason and the Argonauts.
- Ace Lightning features an undead skeleton villain, Lord Fear.
- In the final volume of Megan Lerseth's Sadie Sequence, King Richard III re-enters his own exhumed remains, briefly becoming an animated skeleton.
- The Revenant from Doom are skeletons that shoot rockets at the player.
- Killer Instinct is a fighting game that spawned a sequel, Killer Instinct 2. Both games contained Spinal, an animated skeleton that fights with a sword and shield.
- In the Xbox game Grabbed by the Ghoulies, skeletons are among the various "ghoulie" enemies that the player encounters.
- The Super Mario Bros. Nintendo games feature creatures called Dry Bones who are the reanimated skeletons of koopas.
- The hero of the MediEvil series of Playstation games, Sir Daniel Fortesque, is a skeleton that was accidentally animated when the evil sorcerer Zarok conquered the game world with armies of zombies.
- The game Puzzle Pirates features skeletons (referred to as "skellies" in the game), which roam random islands and fight swordfights with the players.
