Everybody is talking about GAME OF THRONES right at the moment. Admittedly they are bitching, but that still counts as talking. (Man, you GAME OF THRONES fans *really* hated that series finale, didn’t you?) As this is likely the last opportunity I will have to talk about the subject and still be timely, I will take advantage of it. Let us then discuss the differences between the zombies of the show and the dumber, more decomposed zombies of the show. The White Walkers do qualify as zombies in my book. Maybe they aren’t dead in the technical sense–or are they?–but if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck. (Okay, maybe you could argue that the Walkers are Wendigos instead, and that would also work.)
According to this linked article, Walkers are human-looking but non-human entities with magical powers. So they’re really Ice Elves! (Best comparison yet!) Wights are the dead bodies of human beings reanimated by the magic of the Ice Elves. Wights are the true zombies. But the Ice Elves also correspond to the “aptrgangr” (literally the “again-walker”) of Nordic mythology who were more zombie-like. The only other analogy I can think of would be to suggest that the Walkers are akin to the Nazgul in J.R.R. Tolkien’s work, and the GOT wights are like Tolkien’s Barrow-wights. The latter two are specifically one and the same, with the exception that the wights of GOT have a specific origin.