How do they know about Wellington?
So I took until the penultimate episode of the current season to even come to this thought: How do the characters in the story, the ones who drop the "Wellington" bomb, know about it in the first place?
Someone must have gone north and came back with news of Wellington, otherwise nobody would be talking about Wellington, just "north" and the common knowledge that zombies get slow at and below freezing. How did this rumor of Wellington get started?
It's the reason why Clem met the cabin group in the first place, so who did Omid and Christa hear about it from? Carver knows about it, so who told him? The cabin group must know too, they came from Carver's group. Kenny drops the name when you meet him, and I can only assume the general direction they're going after escaping Carver's group is north, so how did he hear about Wellington?
This is important. Without something to tie it all back to Wellington, specifically someone or something to inform these people about the place, the whole narrative falls. Does anyone have an answer? Does the team plan to answer this question in EP5?
Comments
Walter said he saw groups heading to Wellington on a daily(?) basis. Maybe someone from the settlement travelling to and fro who stopped by the ski lodge told Kenny about it? Not sure how Carver/ the cabin group knew about it though
That doesn't really explain how Christa and Clementine knew, as it is only mentioned after Omids death. I guess like Molly said "Its like a ghost story"
Except we don't know if this one is true :l for all we know there could be a Wellington in another country or continent and someone got it confused of being in Michigan. But we won't know until we wait
Maybe like Terminus there were signs, or other Survivors told them about it.
It's not something that has to really be explained in extreme depth. People hear things, it gets passed along, maybe signs and notes are left. Maybe someone went there and came back. The most likely explanation is probably that it was a refugee area in the beginning of the apocalypse and people just remember hearing about it. And people then brought the information of it to other settlements, which is a believable enough outcome. It happens in other apocalypse based franchises, no reason it couldn't happen here, and it's realistic.
I mean, Pete heard about his cousin further south or something chopping off a leg and surviving a bite. So there must be ways to get information passed around, but it's likely all physically, unless they have extreme long range walkie-talkies. Although, there seems to be an increasing amount of stable (or as stable as you can be in a zombie apocalypse) communities and safe-zones popping up in the comics and the game.
And these are really just the ones we know (and I can remember) and half of them are located relatively close to each other. And it's implied that there are even more now. This means safe-areas could have possibly set up a whole communication system of some sorts over long distances between a few of them, letting stories like this spread even further.
It must be other survivors, but a lot of survivors are selfish or bandits and the few that are nice, die. If the message was told before they were dead thats probably how the rumor started, but also since there are lots of bandits and selfish survivors, could Wellington have been raided after being told to the wrong people?
I'm guessing at one point (who knows if they still do, maybe) Wellington had scouts like Tavia spreading the word to other survivors, who then spread the word. This explains how word got out in the first place, and trickled around. It's pretty darn far for word to travel from Michigan all the way to Virginia or wherever they were though. I also find it a little hard to believe that it's strictly through word-of-mouth. Yes people in their groups come across other groups too, but these meetings are usually accompanied with hostility. From what we've seen from this franchise, the cooperative transfer of information doesn't always occur. E.g. Nick shot Matthew before they even learned his name for goodness' sake. I guess if Wellington has been around for long enough tho, word would get around eventually. But yeah, I'm thinking scouts.
Sure, but someone still has to tell the ghost story.
What I'm wondering is... Isn't Wellington supposed to be in Washington? That's what I heard? If so, how exactly do they plan to get there? On foot? How will they get through the deserts? Are we going to have a 1-year timeskip whilst they travel? I don't get it.
Edit: sorry, this wasn't supposed to be a reply to you, oh well.
Ham radio is a thing. And word of mouth, for those rare groups that can keep thier suspicion and self preservation instincts in check long enough to have a civilized conversation. And maybe scouts, but it's a bit of stretch that someone who has found saftey would travel the zombie/raider infested distance from michigan to georgia. Then again, aircraft are also a thing.
No, Wellington is in Ohio I believe, very close to Michigan. Or the way around I can't remember which. I think Kenny or another character says at one point by mentioning Michigan.
Oh, that makes more sense. Maybe I misheard Michigan as Washington somehow.
Smart. Still, I'd appreciate it from the team if they decided to lampshade this in EP5.
I think you may have mistaken it with Alexandria Safe-Zone which is a community near Washington in the comic book. Rick currently lives there.
A working aircraft is definitely a conversation piece that can't be ignored when talking about something it's been vital to spreading word of the community that launched it. The way Carver talks about Wellington gives me the impression that there's not enough information for him to consider it a real place, or at least a practical destination. So scouts? Probably not. Ham radio is definitely a possibility, though. Still, I'd appreciate it from the team if they decided to lampshade this in the season finale.
Sorry for the duplicate.
I've never read the comic. There is a Wellington in Washington and not in Michigan so it makes sense on the surface (although there's also one in Ohio too so that also fits). Plus the one in Washington is a ghost town (IRL) which I thought would be kind of a cool plot thing. Or it is possible that someone else got the two confused and then I read that which led me to believe that.
Yeah, I doubt it was scouts. Probably would have to be a mix of both ham radio and word of mouth. Not many other possibilities for how so many different groups so far away could have found out about it. But uh, what does lampshade mean?
It means...oh, any of various protective or ornamental coverings used to screen a light bulb. HAHAHA, do you like my joke!? http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging
I doubt my suspension of disbelief is threatened by much, anyway. I'm aware it can easily be assumed off camera that there must be some means used to inform people about Wellington(writing on the wall, ham radio, etc), I just want to know.
Also, be careful when you visit that site. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife
I think Carver spoke derisively about Wellington because it meant a lot of people were risking death for a community hundreds of miles away from his own sanctuary.
It was Kenny during the dinner scene in the lodge in 202.
Absolutely he did.
He was jealous.
Oh, funny twist: the people at Wellington know Carver because they recently deposed him. "Think they're better than me, do they? I'll go find a new place to live, start my own civilization, I don't care if I have rocks and sticks to work with!"
I think Christa just had common knowledge that Wellington got really cold in the winters. She did say back in Season 1 that she and Omid were on a 'Great American Road trip' so she would know about the places.
Doesn't really explain the "great migration of the dazed and confused", as Michael put it. Everyone(not everyone) is or was trying to get to Wellington, not just Christa and Kenny. Actually at the time, I think Kenny was just dropping the name to gauge the reactions of Luke and Nick, maybe see if their faces matched.
Sorry to be a nuisance, but don't you mean Matthew?
I don't think Matthew meant it like that, though. I think he meant it as in people wondering if the lodge was Wellington or not.
I'm not sure if we can assume that much, but I was referring to his account of the people that come through, namely that there are a lot of people going north, at least taking the bridge and passing their lodge. We could probably assume that's how Christa knows, but not similarly for all of the other people who have been trying to get there.