Died of shock, I would assume, means goes into cardiac arrest (ie clinical death) as a result of reduced blood flow.
Heh. As a non-biologist - as, I expect, most of Joss' readers (and Joss himself) are - I tend to read it as, well, "dying of shock". And then I do the obvious thing and look up "dying of shock" on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_%28medical%29):
At this stage, the vital organs have failed and the shock can no longer be reversed. Brain damage and cell death have occurred. Death will occur imminently.
Granted, that's the final stage, but I expect in a case like this a body could go all four stages in very quick succession (much like, I believe, gunshot victims can do). Feel free to correct me on that; like I said, I'm not an expert.
Though in a way, your explanation - that she does something unexplained and undetectable (even to two very might creatures such as Willow and Anya) within those four seconds, not to save Warren's life but to prepare him for resurrection (which would be the first time we've heard of anything like that being necessary - it wasn't in "The Zeppo" - but I can ignore that) puts an even darker spin on what Amy does to him. That's not a bad thing. But in the end, it comes down to the same thing: Warren's dead as a dodo. A dodo who's been shot and skinned. Whether Amy resurrects him "from scratch" afterwards or starts it in the seconds before he dies doesn't matter; it's still a natural - irreversible - death.
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Date: 2007-06-27 11:00 am (UTC)Heh. As a non-biologist - as, I expect, most of Joss' readers (and Joss himself) are - I tend to read it as, well, "dying of shock". And then I do the obvious thing and look up "dying of shock" on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_%28medical%29):
At this stage, the vital organs have failed and the shock can no longer be reversed. Brain damage and cell death have occurred. Death will occur imminently.
Granted, that's the final stage, but I expect in a case like this a body could go all four stages in very quick succession (much like, I believe, gunshot victims can do). Feel free to correct me on that; like I said, I'm not an expert.
Though in a way, your explanation - that she does something unexplained and undetectable (even to two very might creatures such as Willow and Anya) within those four seconds, not to save Warren's life but to prepare him for resurrection (which would be the first time we've heard of anything like that being necessary - it wasn't in "The Zeppo" - but I can ignore that) puts an even darker spin on what Amy does to him. That's not a bad thing. But in the end, it comes down to the same thing: Warren's dead as a dodo. A dodo who's been shot and skinned. Whether Amy resurrects him "from scratch" afterwards or starts it in the seconds before he dies doesn't matter; it's still a natural - irreversible - death.