****** is absolutely irredeemable. (S4E1 spoilers)
Marlon was downright awful in my opinion. His writing was great, but god, I have never hated a villain this much. He did so much awful shit, and while I don't think killing is the right option, I don't think he deserved a second chance either. I can't recall, but didn't he literally say he would do it again if he could?
Anyways, props to Ray Chase for amazing voice work. It was incredible.
Edit: Looking at your responses, I'm actually starting to agree with some of y'all. I still can't forgive Marlon, but I forgot he's just a child.
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I agree, I would've put him in the basement so I could talk to the others about what to do with him but AJ kinda ruined that plan. Tbh I think I would've executed him later on anyway. (Can't let him stay and too risky to let him go)
I actually can relate to him and no, I don't view him as a villain but as a 'troubled kid' which he phrased it himself. He deserved a second chance, he didn't actually have much of a choice as all of them are kids which already survive more than 8 years(?) so when he faces a group of bandits, he knows they can't defeat them and it's unfortunate that he thought it was a good idea to 'gave up' the twins to save all of them. And then a year(?) later, Clem and AJ come after he has a mental breakdown and become worse after he knew that they need to deal with this again...
I really just want to restrain him for a week or so to make him reflect on what he has done to the three and the group, and then, well, AJ did stupid thing before Clem can do that...
If he could be redeemed, it would take a lot of work in my opinion, considering he murdered Brody and then was willing to murder Clementine to cover up.
Yes, he killed her but he knows that it's not okay and he is already willing to surrender...
Marlon was a kid leading an entire community of other kids, desperate to try and survive and keep everyone alive. Obviously his decision of sacrificing a couple to save many (seems kind of Carver-esque) is wretched and unforgivable, which is why I said we were going to lock him up, but he still could have maybe been useful to keep him alive since he knows some info regarding these raiders.
Like you, I thought the writing, and especially the voice acting, was very strong with his character. Yes I'll admit the revelation of him being evil was kind of quick, but even then, you can (even if you disagree with it) see that he didn't like the choice and was scared, as is to be expected from him.
I don't even begrudge Marlon making the deal. We don't know the details. Maybe the 4 of them (Marlon, Brody, the twins) ran into a group of 10 + people and making the deal was the only way any of the kids walked away at all. He may have just been being pragmatic. Sometimes you get into a no win scenario and the best you can do is minimize your losses so no, I don't hold the deal against him. What I find really shitty is he tried to cover it up and never even made an attempt to find the girls or get them back. What I find unforgivable is he accidentally killed Brody and then left Clem with her as she turned then tried to blame Brody's death on Clem.
Same. A lot of people say that if it were them they'd be martyrs but I personally don't think that's right. It's better to be alive than dead, and you might be able to get the sisters back. Truth be told I'd be too scared to give my life away fighting raiders, unaware of the ramifications it'd have and what follows. At least Marlon was alive and well for a good year, protecting the kids properly until Clementine stumbled upon someone from outisde the safe zone. Clearly this had happened before but Brody is just too bothered about it.
I would be on Marlon's side if it weren't for the fact that he killed Brody. I was meant to talk about how flashlights probably can't kill people and can only make them blind. Even if he didn't want it to go this way, he still attacked. But at least when Brody floors him he doesn't fight back. That's what he'd probably do if it were a boy, so at least he does abide by some customs.
This guy has the right of it. If the Raiders could kick your ass, it isn't as deplorable as it might seem. The lying was though.
Admittedly, it's a little hard to come back from that type of thing.
Even if it was just that one thing, the fact that he lied to Tenn and Violet about it, was gonna repeat it with the suppliant Clementine & AJ, and how he [over]reacted to Brody telling Clementine is some serious evidence.
The difference between Carver and Marlon is Marlon doesn't think like Carver. If Carver had to trade kids for safety he'd probably do it but ultimately that other gang would end up dead or enslaved.
Marlon gave up tenn's sisters and lied to ten about it and marlon said he'd do it again. Who cares if he's a kid? tenn's an even younger kid and marlon gave up tenn's siblings and lied to tenn. I really don't understand how anyone could forgive marlon. He wanted to give clem and aj up to. If marlon gave up your siblings, lied to you about, and said he'd do it again would you forgive him?
It's a shame Tenn couldn't kill him
It is a shame that tenn couldn't kill marlon.
Tenn and Violet both deserved to pull the trigger on Marlon. Or decide if he dies anyway. Damn it Aj
Put yourself in tenn's shoes. You just found out that the leader of your group someone who's suppose to protect everyone gave up two people and those two people were your siblings and you also find out that said leader lied to you about what happened to your siblings and this leader chickened out in trying to rescue your siblings and to make matters even more worse the leader said he'd do it again. Violet cared about both of tenn's siblings too and was dating one of them. What marlon did didn't just effect tenn. And this is just one atrocity. There's still the matter of marlon killing brody and him blaming it on clem and the matter of marlon wanting to give clem and aj up. If you think killing marlon is going too far that's fair enough but marlon definitely shouldn't be forgiven and no one should be making excuses for marlon and trying to defend him. He doesn't deserve it. Personally I think marlon should've suffered. Aj gave marlon an undeserving quick and swift demise.
If I was Tenn one bullet for each kneecap and a gut wound then drop him off outside the gates as Walker bait
Yup. Marlon would've been good walker bait too.
At first I thought the same but now I disagree. How often do you see teenagers lead groups? Not only are you coping with day to day survival, not being a fully developed adult and the struggles and responsibility of keeping others around you alive can be over bearing to say the least. He's definitely a dick though but not irredeemable. I wonder how a redemption arc for him would play out, maybe suffering greatly at the hands of someone worse in this adult group, taken prisoner and forced against his old group but then sacrificing himself for the sake of them. But in the real world not everyone gets that chance
You know, regardless of how you feel about Marlon, they clearly did something right with his character, since you have people making arguments on both sides. There's people that sympathize with him on some level and don't see him as completely evil, and there's people that think he's an irredeemable coward. And I think both sides make good points for why they feel the way they do.
It's been a while since we had a truly polarizing character like this. One where no one seems to unanimously agree on how they feel about him.
To add my feelings: I'm one the people that doesn't think he's completely awful. He's someone that was forced to make a shit choice, and had to live within the lie he created for months. And then when that lie comes crumbling down in front of him, he ends up unintentionally killing Brody in a fit of anger. Then he panics even more, decides to lock Clem down there and lie to everyone, effectively digging himself an even deeper hole. But the thing is, I can understand his motivations behind all of it. On some basic level, I can still sympathize with the kid to some degree. What he did was fucked up and I can't deny that much, but I think he genuinely didn't want things to go the way they did. He's just some kid that reluctantly stepped into a leader role, forced to make a pragmatic decision that ate away at him for the better part of the year, then panicked and cracked under the pressure when the story started to unravel. Honestly, one of the dialogue options Clem gets sums up my feelings on Marlon pretty well:
"He made a mistake. He did the wrong thing, but he thought it was for the right reasons. But that doesn't mean he shouldn't pay for it."
He deserved some kind of punishment for what he did. But I don't think he deserves some super gruesome death for it, either. He's a dirty coward that tried to run from the problems he created, but I don't think he's a completely malicious person that would turn against the school if you gave him the opportunity. He seems to genuinely come to his senses after you talk him down or wrestle the gun away from him. The fact that he realized that and admitted it in front of everyone says something about him. If he was truly an irredeemable bastard, he wouldn't have willingly (and somewhat pathetically) asked for exile like he did. He'd have stuck to his guns and swallowed the guilt he felt.
I had pretty much forgiven him by the time AJ killed him. Clementine was all set to let him stay at the school (Minus his leadership role) when AJ pulled the trigger.
Ironically I would have tried to redeem him even though his actions were iredeemable. So AJ probably did me a favor. I don't have that burden.
Nah, fuck Violet.
Give Tenn his moment in the rain.
Half of the time.
Just not in this series.
I wanted to kill him instantly. However Alvin Junior did that real quick for me, I actually thought it was some sort of Raider sniper first.
He was a weak spineless coward who gave in to the demands of a raider group, someone who absolutely couldn't deal with the stress of leadership, hardly an evil person just a scared weakling trying to save his own hide.
My Clem would have been able to whip him back into shape for sure, too bad he dead.
i felt the same i reaaaaaallly did but after his breakdown and remembering this kid has been running a group.of kids since he was around 10 hell even ben was 18. his cowardice, broken psyche, stress and guilt made him give in to quick fix decisions
Oh, I agree. I can understand his reasoning for giving the girls away, his hands were tied, and he didn't want to risk the whole group getting killed. He said he wanted to rescue them, but he was too much of a coward, whatever, I can understand. Still a horrible thing to do, but maybe it was for the good of the group. But trying to pin Brody's murder on Clementine was just scummy and unforgivable. I didn't want him to get shot like that, but he deserved it.
yeah he did, karma gets ya
Your AJ has become KARMA lol
he my psycho dude
Wasn't it implied that he had potentially let more kids 'disappear' in his dialogue? I am sure he said something about being responsible for thirty deaths (or was that someone else?). And also, the constant lines about how 'whenever they leave the safe zone someone doesn't make it back' implying it may have happened on more occasions (unless these were all just normal natural deaths while scavenging). I am probably overreading it as surely someone would have noticed sooner if people only disappeared when with hin (and possibly Brody).
Being a kid and being scared of a group of raiders turning up and demanding two children off you so they don't take all of them - seems redeemable
Flying into a rage and murdering someone - not so redeemable
Made it kind of simple after that second incident.
The way Marlon was conspiring behind the group's back, calling the shots by himself and sending the twins to a fate worse than death is already pretty irredeemable. He should've been honest to the group and handled things more democratically.
Add killing Brody and trying to save his own skin by his actions afterward and him saying that he would do it again by planning on trading Clem and AJ confirmed that he was irredeemable. It makes me wonder if he only saw Clem and AJ as human trafficing goods. And after Clem and AJ who would be next.
Sure, he admits what he has done and feels regretful but that doesn't just wash all his sins away and change what he'd done. Like I have said before, I would've locked him in the basement and probably executed him later on because letting him stay is totally out of question after betraying his friends like that and exiling would've been too risky.
I agree. I can understand why he did it (the location is called School for Troubled Youth and he was, well, troubled/unstable ) but my sympathies stop the second he took the flaslight to Brody's head. I didn't even like Brody, kinda hated her in fact but that's not the point. That's a person he killed. The fact that he locked Clem in the basement was the icing on the cake.
Which is why I don't know yet how I'll deal with my AJ.
If telltale will let me I would want to say something like 'These things have to be decided by the group' or 'Killing a man who has surrendered is a wrong move.' Hell, I was having a conversation with Marlon lol. If you ask me, Marlon deserved death for the shit he's pulled. I am glad that AJ does not hesitate, this means he will make a great survivor. But he learned conviction with a gun and now he has to learn constraint.
Aj's an adorable savage. I'm very proud of him.
What choices did Marlon really have though? He was just trying to protect everyone else. I hated him too at first but when you think about it, his hands were truly tied. He couldn't go toe to toe with armed raiders and he couldn't tell everyone because they'd go fighting the raiders and more people would have died.
He's a huge scumbag for trying to put Brody's death on Clem and get Clem killed by a walker Anyone who harms Clem emotionally or Physcially automatically becomes someone I hope gets a hatchet through the eye but I do think as far as the selling of the twins thing goes. He had his hands tied. And I think he was a young kid in a ridiculously tough situation and I think he didn't mean to become the monster he did. Which is why he broke down at the end. I'm sure he just wanted everyone to live happy, he even seemed as a good kid as much as I hated him but the raiders were scary and he didn't know what to do.
Abusing brody and not having the guts to admit it once it came to that is what makes him a POS in my book, but I think he's very misunderstood and still not as bad as that asshat Larry lol.
It's debatable. It's easy to condemn someone in a situation you'd never been. You can't honestly know how you'll react unless your in that situation. He's a kid looking out for a group of kids it might've been a thing where he was threatened with a choice between all the other kids or just the two. Not to say it wasn't wrong, it totally was, but its not like he's got a lot of fighters and can declare war. That being said what he did to Brody was just straight up murder, don't care if he wasn't in the right state of mind or what.
But AJ killing him wasn't smart. It wasn't up to him or Clem of how Marlon was dealt with, that was up to the group who knew him and Brody and the twins. And I can't imagine their all going to be okay with what AJ did, so Clem and AJ are in a bit of a pickle now.
He never would've been able to redeem himself after Brody spilled the beans. Although he deserved punishment, he didn't deserve to die. The ends didn't justify the means, but he "killed" two in order to save many. He did what he could to save the rest of the kids.
AJ fans, those who liked what he did, i'm want to say in advance that he will f*** up badly, when it happens don't blame telltale for poor writing, its exactly what he will become doing what he did.
Much like poor Carley, Marlon didn't HAVE to die.
Can we get a rewrite to make him determinate, please?