The old Luke vs Kenny Argument
This is one that has been going on since S2Ep4 along with the "Kenny vs Luke would have been better than Kenny vs Jane" argument and I keep seeing it. But this is an argument I never understood for multiple reasons, why would people want this and how would it even come about?
For starters, with how things were going, if you had to choose between Kenny or Luke, just before he fell when the group arrived at the river, who would you choose?
At that point, I dont see any reason to pick Kenny other than sympathy for the loss of Sarita and his family 2 years back. Kenny was extremely unstable at that point and proven to be extremely irrational when heated (which didnt take much), even if you did love him to pieces. Luke however was nothing but a selfless character who chased the group on foot without sleep for days back to Howe's to help, while his only fault was that he left the perimeter unguarded for a short time (which no one else volunteered to do).
If the choice occured at that point for even equal reasons on both sides of the argument, I think about 90% of people would pick Luke at that point.
Second, how would we have a Luke vs Kenny situation? It really isnt in Luke's character to be confrontational, he would only fight if backed into a corner. However, if he was backed into a corner and Kenny just attacked him, who would side with Kenny in that situation? We already know Luke is a selfless person that doesnt want to fight or kill Kenny, so why would we choose Kenny if Kenny were the aggressor?
Third, If Luke were to suddenly turn out to be a bad person, wouldnt everyone just consider that to be even worse writing? Furthermore, what kind of act would have to do to make it a "balancing point" between Kenny and Luke that would also justify Kenny wanting to kill or abandon him? Or would Luke just suddenly feel like killing Kenny, completely changing our opinions of him? There isnt really a scenario here that would either make sense or be impactful enough to me to choose Kenny over Luke.
Lastly, Jane was set up against Kenny because she had her own demons and she wasnt that well known. Kenny simply attacking and trying to kill Jane was completely unjustified, if I didnt know either of them, I would have killed Kenny on the spot, however, Jane is someone we only know somewhat and who recently abandoned us to go take care of herself alone, something Kenny, despite his many many flaws, would never do.
The balancing point is that even though Kenny is the aggressor, hes someone we know and can trust better, however hes completely unjustified in attacking Jane, even though Jane is an unknown in both the sense that we havent known her long and we dont know what she did with AJ, she still doesnt deserve to die for it without us knowing what happened to AJ (and in essence, without knowing who she really is).
Anyways, thats my argument for why Kenny vs Luke doesnt work and to a lesser extent, why Kenny vs Jane does work.
Comments
Kenny vs Jane made no sense and neither did Kenny VS Luke. Either situation as shown with Kenny vs Jane was mostly manufactured conflict and plot convenience.
Kenny vs. Jane was in large part simply impossible to make meaningfull because of the small time frame you had spent with Jane. Half the people that chose to stick with Jane did so because they disliked Kenny rather than liking her in particular.
Luke, you had met and known while Kenny was still MIA. You had time to get to know him, get to know his close kin and how he interacted and cared for them.
I like unstable people.
Kenny vs Jane might have worked if the conflict was introduced earlier. There is little to suggest they disliked each other before episode 5. The season should have climaxed with Luke vs Carver. They had different ideologies and a history of not getting along. Just grace Carver with some humanity and a reasonable motive: i.e. his son and ur golden.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Luke vs Kenny would have been boring and predictable. Plus Luke just isn't the type of person to get into a fight to the death. The guy didn't even want to kill Carver hahahaha. Jane vs Kenny was much better even though it was a little underdeveloped.
Honestly after Lilly vs Kenny, I didn't really want this verses thing a second time. When they were Kenny vs whoever during s2, I was just like ugh this again, really???
I predict there is going to be another versus thing in season 3 but this time it will be even worse as the characters are even more under developed. Probably going to be Javier vs Clementine or Javier vs David.