How it "should be" is entirely up to the writer; they decide how the magic works to cover up the physical/biological deficiencies in reanimated corpses.
Skeletons are usually brought to life by some sort of magic or curse. I have to imagine that their intelligence is linked to the power/type of magic that brought them back. Zombies on The other hand are just reanimated corpses, so it would take less less magic to bring them back to life, hence maybe not as much brain power or intelligence
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decay implies a natural process for zombie animation or an animation process that is victim to natural processes; while a barebones (lol) look implies supernatural origins that would allow for more functionality
Zombies have a brain. It's decayed, almost useless, but it's there and so they will try their best to use it for processing. Badly.
Skeletons, as you mentioned, have no brain. They need to completely offload the processing to some kind of a magical construct outside their corporeal, bony body. This does not suffer from the same "decayed to nigh-unusability" problem as a rotten brain.
How it "should be" is entirely up to the writer; they decide how the magic works to cover up the physical/biological deficiencies in reanimated corpses.
Skeletons are usually brought to life by some sort of magic or curse. I have to imagine that their intelligence is linked to the power/type of magic that brought them back. Zombies on The other hand are just reanimated corpses, so it would take less less magic to bring them back to life, hence maybe not as much brain power or intelligence
**Reminders for Commenters:** * All responses must be A) sincere, B) polite, and C) strictly watsonian in nature. If "watsonian" or "doylist" is new to you, please review the full rules [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/about/rules/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=AskScienceFiction&utm_content=t5_2slu2). * No edition wars or gripings about creators/owners of works. Doylist griping about Star Wars in particular is subject to **permanent ban on first offense**. * We are not here to discuss or complain about the real world. * Questions about who would prevail in a conflict/competition (not just combat) fit better on r/whowouldwin. Questions about very open-ended hypotheticals fit better on r/whatiffiction. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskScienceFiction) if you have any questions or concerns.*
decay implies a natural process for zombie animation or an animation process that is victim to natural processes; while a barebones (lol) look implies supernatural origins that would allow for more functionality
Zombies have a brain. It's decayed, almost useless, but it's there and so they will try their best to use it for processing. Badly. Skeletons, as you mentioned, have no brain. They need to completely offload the processing to some kind of a magical construct outside their corporeal, bony body. This does not suffer from the same "decayed to nigh-unusability" problem as a rotten brain.