Warning: spoilers ahead for The Walking Dead season 11, episode 23.
The origin of variant zombies in The Walking Dead: World Beyond season 2 in a series finale post-credits sequence, variant walkers made their official main show bow in The Walking Dead season 11, terrorizing Aaron's group on their journey back to Alexandria. A second variant was then sighted picking up Lydia's dropped knife, but exactly where this new breed of walker came from remains a mystery. The Walking Dead is yet to explain how and why variants appear, and why they possess greater faculties than your average reanimated corpse.
The Walking Dead season 11, episode 23 takes a significant step toward answering that question. Until very recently, variant walkers in The Walking Dead had seldom been seen. Excluding a few early aberrations in season 1, The Walking Dead had previously featured only the zombie who attacked Aaron's group, and the one who picked up Lydia's knife. The Walking Dead season 11's "Family" sends out significantly more invitations to the variant party as the Commonwealth gets overrun, and this steep increase in numbers may explain how variants are happening.
Zombie Variants Are Becoming Way More Common In The Walking Dead
When the only variant zombies in The Walking Dead season 11 were Aaron's definitely-not-a-Whisperer and the knife-swiper, the possibility remained that variants were an incredibly rare type of zombie that existed since the very beginning, but the vast majority of survivors simply hadn't had the pleasure of encountering one. This theory is essentially debunked by The Walking Dead's "Family" episode. When zombies begin overrunning the Commonwealth, at least three scramble their way up the gate's gantry, and another climber is spotted by Negan shortly after. Four variants being present in the same herd all but proves the spread of this new strain is accelerating in The Walking Dead season 11.
Further proof can be found in how The Walking Dead characters react to seeing advanced zombies. Beforehand, one might have argued that Aaron, Lydia, Jerry and Elijah had simply managed to avoid sighting a variant since the outbreak began, but The Walking Dead season 11, episode 23 confirms the Commonwealth soldiers, Negan, and even Mercer have never seen a variant either. These are characters who make zombie-slaying a regular pastime, so their ignorance strongly suggests The Walking Dead's new variant breed is only becoming prominent in the United States now, over a decade into the apocalypse.
Is The Walking Dead's Virus Evolving Or Spreading?
The rapidly-increasing prominence of variant zombies in The Walking Dead raises a vital question: is the "climber" version of the virus evolved from the original, or spreading through the population? The former possibility would mean The Walking Dead's Wildfire virus is undergoing a natural mutation, which would for why climbers are only being noticed at this late stage, and why their numbers appear to be growing. The prospect of regular zombies evolving into variants also cannot be discounted, although it seems more logical to assume variants have been that way since reanimation, and regular zombies are stuck as they are.
Rather than evolving, it is also plausible that The Walking Dead's variant virus is spreading. A "patient zero" may have carried the advanced strain, and the notable increase in variant zombies during The Walking Dead season 11 could be the result of that new pathogen becoming more widespread and slowly overtaking the old one. As with the evolution theory, a question mark remains over whether the variant virus is ing among the zombies - which would explain why at least four are in the Commonwealth herd alone - or whether the variant strain is transmitting through living survivors, and those infected with it become variants when they die.
Through Dr. Jenner, The Walking Dead established that everyone in the world already possesses the Wildfire virus that triggers reanimation upon death. A new version of that sickness spreading in The Walking Dead could have major ramifications for the likes of Aaron and Jerry, who both came into close with a variant walker. If either of those characters died in The Walking Dead's series finale, they may now become climbers similar to the one encountered in the abandoned Renaissance faire theme park, having contracted the new virus during that fight.
The Walking Dead Season 11 Hints Zombies Are Learning
While the most obvious explanation behind The Walking Dead's variants is a change to the virus itself, another option must be considered: the virus is unchanged, but the zombies are learning. The Walking Dead season 11, episode 23 hints toward this possibility when the Commonwealth herd breaches the walls. One or two zombies begin climbing the scaffolding, but others are looking up at their corpse colleagues, reaching out in mimicry. These scenes could indicate variants are the result of zombies learning new skills, and their herd mentality means that as soon as one walker figures out how to do more than shuffle and groan, the others quickly catch on.
Again, this theory s for why the Commonwealth herd in particular is filled with advanced zombies. Unfortunately, the "learning zombies" concept fails to cover all variant bases in The Walking Dead. Even if some zombies do possess the capacity to learn, The Walking Dead: World Beyond showed a variant that was freshly-reanimated, leaving no time for her to pick up new skills. "Zombie see, zombie do" may be possible in The Walking Dead, but something must also be inherently different with the Wildfire virus.
Season 1 & World Beyond May Reveal The Real Variant Origin
Two important clues suggest The Walking Dead's variants are the result of a new pathogen spreading, not the original virus evolving. Firstly, variants were present in The Walking Dead season 1, with runners, climbers, and door-handle-twisters all sighted. If variants were a natural evolution, these early examples would make no sense because not enough time had ed. If advanced zombies were caused by a new pathogen gaining momentum, however, it becomes plausible that variants in The Walking Dead season 1 meekly died out. The upgraded virus was then somehow reintroduced into the US and this time took hold properly, leading to the variant influx in The Walking Dead's final season.
Secondly, the lab scene from The Walking Dead: World Beyond season 2 sees an unidentified French character imply variants are the unfortunate consequence of scientists attempting to cure the zombie outbreak. The scene also hints variants are far more common in Europe than the US. This may indicate that the variants fromThe Walking Dead season 1 were caused by a traveler from bringing the fresh strain onto US soil. This new pathogen failed to oust its predecessor as the dominant version, but another traveler has since reintroduced the variant virus to North America, and this is why climbers are only becoming more common in The Walking Dead season 11.
The Walking Dead concludes Sunday on AMC.