: Oo , Oxford! Check out Webster, it'll give the ulterior
: definitions, such as the main one: 1 : do the
: opposite of : reverse (a specified action) : DE- 1a,
: DIS- 1a -- in verbs formed from verbs unbend undress
: unfold
: You're using the past tense. That's the problem; they're
: adjectives.
: Not really appropriate or preferred
but mb potential, by
: your "lacking" definition.
: However, I contend that at least "undeath"
: means reversal of death. Rather, it means
: "undoing of death". Undoing death doesn't
: mean to chronologically reverse, but to make do with
: what presently exists and making it not dead anymore.
: The factor of time and its passage is key.
I think I finally see where you're coming from. You're taking "undead" and "undeath" to be forms of the hypothetical verb "undie;" therefore you're using the definition of "un-" as a verbal prefix. An undead being is someone who has undied. :-)
But since that verb doesn't exist, why invent it? Much simpler to follow the dictionary and take "undead" as "un" + "dead." And since "dead" is an adjective, you use the adjectival definition for "un-", namely "deprived of the state of being" or simply "not."
Even "un" adjectives derived from real verbs more often than not take on the adjectival definition. Again, an unmade bed need never be made; an uneducated person need never have been educated.
So for "undead," the adjectival definition of "un" is doubly appropriate. It's an adjective itself, and it doesn't derive from an existing verb.
Beyond our etymological play, how does your dictionary actually define undead? Oxford's just says "1) alive" and "2) technically dead but still animate." Both from the adjectival "un," clearly, and neither suggesting any sort of necessary passage of time.
And do we even need to discuss this for Myth? Thrall and Wights are explicitly described as Undead. Beyond this, the narrator characterizes Balor's army as mostly Undead. (The army includes living Ghτls and Fetch, certainly, but that in no way diminishes the likelihood that any given other unit under Balor is Undead; rather, it increases it.) And the manual tells us that Undead units are withered by healing. From this it's evident that Soulless, Ghasts, Mahir, Myrmidons, Shades and probably even Stygian Knights are all Undead. Which fits perfectly with the dictionary definition--except possibly with Stygian Knights, who aren't "technically dead" so much as "technically inanimate."
It's really a simple and straightforward classification system. We care about the niceties of exactly how each creature was animated and how long it was dead for and how much of its mind is left, but the common folk of Myth don't. If you're a rotting, once-living horror animated by dark sorceries, you're Undead and you need to be hacked to bits ASAP. If you're breathing and your heart is beating and you're not noticeably decaying, congratulations--you're alive. Although someone will want to hack you to bits anyway.
--SiliconDream
Incidentally, even if your definition was that used by Bungie, it wouldn't exclude Myrmidons or Shades. All we know about them is that their minds seem to carry over at least partially from their living state, and that they volunteered. That doesn't exclude their having been killed, lying around dead for a little while, and then being reanimated. It makes sense to me that they're more intelligent because they went straight from life to undeath, but it's not actually stated in-game. Their greater intelligence could simply be a function of the power of their creator.
