Did Randal murder the people on the barge
In The Walking Dead: Michonne, you have two competing stories regarding a group of people you discover who were murdered on a barge. One person says that Randal and the people of Monroe murdered them all, even the children. On the other hand, Norma, the leader of Monroe, says that bandits murdered the people and that they came in afterwards and executed the bandits.
I assumed that Randal murdered them. I believed Monroe to be a group of evil pirates that take everything they can and kill everyone they find. That's why I lied to Norma when she was interrogating me and told her that there was nobody else in my group, because I didn't want her to send Randal out to kill them too. That's why I burned down Monroe with no remorse, killed Randal with no remorse, and allowed Norma to be torn apart by walkers with no remorse. I still believe that they probably did kill them, but it was never confirmed one way or another.
So what are your thoughts? What do you think really happened to the barge group? The biggest reason that I believe that Randal killed them is the way that brags about killing children when you have him captured. There's no doubt the dude is a grade-A psychopath. However, at the same time, Sam tells you about how Norma let her go the first time she stole from her, which seems strangely merciful for the leader of a group of child-murdering pirates.
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The following is just my educated interpretation and not the truth.
There was a group of survivors including Rashid and Vanessa that inhabited The Mobjack, a recently wrecked ferry. They lived relatively safe lives, sustaining themselves on the supplies that the ship held pre-apocalypse.
A second group, called the scavengers, decided that taking over the ferry would provide them of a better chance of survival, so they killed all the previous ferry inhabitants, including Rashid and Vanessa; they rid themselves of the bodies by either throwing them into the sea or hiding them on the lowest level of the ship. Among the scavengers was a reduced number of teenagers and children.
Samantha eventually made contact with the scavengers; the latter decided not to reveal their reproachable acts to have a good relationship with the siblings.
Samantha's family's situation declined soon after Sophie killed herself. She, sunk into trauma, decided against her better judgment to sneak into a float of boats called Monroe—a gathering of ships anchored to a pier. She got away with it because of Norma's forgiveness and empathy.
Soon after, she made the scavengers aware of the colony's existence. They decided they preferred that place for themselves and their families.
Simultaneously, Samantha left some of the stolen supplies with the scavengers in order not to raise suspicion in regard to her father; she'd come for these supplies later. She did, though, take the bags of guns and ammunition to the house and hid it under her bed.
Perhaps it was because of failed attacks that Randall discovered the scavengers; behind Norma's back, he collected Gabby, Zachary and some others and headed down to The Mobjack and gunned most of the people there; being the sadist that he is, he lined up the teenagers and messed with them psychologically before killing them as well. Randall and his crew took most of the supplies back to Monroe.
Norma was furious with Randall and refused to trust him anymore, instead relying on Zachary as a personal advisor, and thus, provoking the grudge that Randall has against him all the way up to "In Too Deep."
When Samantha learned along with Greg that her "innocent" allies—the scavengers—had been killed by Norma's group, she assumed that her community had changed into a dangerous gang of pirates who murder everybody and take everything. Instead of taking the supplies she had previously stolen and retreating home, she wanted more. She snuck into Monroe a second time and barely made it out alive. This is when she made a call through the radio, triggering the events of Michonne Miniseries.
I consider @Deltino to be great at discussing this, so I'll tag him.
Yeah, I'd go with a story along those lines. Of course, this is just speculation. Like @BetterToSleep said, this is mostly just interpretation.
To sum it up into bullet points:
Group of scavengers take over ferry, killing previous residents
Sam comes into contact with the group of scavengers and trades with them, unaware of what they did
Sam gets desperate, steals from Monroe
Eventually, the scavengers and Monroe come into contact with one another, leading to Randall massacring everyone on the ship
Sam, not knowing the true motives of the scavengers, sees the massacre as a senseless act of violence, and assumes that Norma and the rest of Monroe are just a pack of murderous pirates
Sam steals a second time, hides out on the ferry and uses the radio, leading to the events of the miniseries
Bottom line being: yes, Randall did kill the people on the ferry. But said people weren't entirely innocent. But then again, Randall's methods weren't exactly good; he killed children and teenagers, strung a guy up on a door and left him to be eaten, and tied people up and executed them. His methods weren't just spur of the moment. He willingly had people lined up and executed. So this whole situation's a bit of a grey area; on one hand, you can look at it as justice, a guy taking out a group of murderous thieves. But at the same time, Randall himself is pretty much a murderous sociopath as well, so who's really in the right here? Is it justice? Or is it just a bad guy taking out another group of bad guys? There's not really a clear winner in this situation.
But Norma and Monroe itself aren't all that bad. It was Randall that was responsible for most of the bad stuff that happened, or at the very least, had a hand in most of it. Norma was tough but fair; willing to show mercy and let someone that attempted to steal from her go. She was diplomatic and reasonable, for the most part. Randall, on the other hand, would take just about any excuse to kill someone if he wanted to, and Norma had a tough time keeping him on a leash.
The whole conflict of the miniseries is grey overall. Norma's an antagonist, sure, but she's not exactly a villain. Most of the punches were thrown by Sam and Michonne first. She doesn't even really have it out for anyone until the very end, and for an understandable reason, given everything that happened, and the fact that she just watched her brother get killed right in front of her. Sam isn't entirely innocent, but she's not fully in the wrong for what she did either, especially if you consider her being misguided into thinking Monroe was bad. If there was one character that was the closest to being considered the 'bad guy' in this story, it'd be Randall. He's the least justified in his actions compared to the rest of the characters, if you ask me.
And this is one of the things I like the most about the miniseries. The central conflict actually has quite a lot of depth to it. It isn't as straight forward as 'this guy's the good guy, that guy's the bad guy'
It's a shame that not a lot of people really talk about it. It's pretty captivating when you take a closer look.
I believe it to be a real shame that none of this was clear in the miniseries. Can you imagine the number of casual players there must be who barely realized what was going on before "In Too Deep?"
Outstanding narrative, Telltale, but very missable.
I like the fact that what really happened is left somewhat ambiguous, because all of the witnesses are unreliable.
Most likely.