Just have Clem DO things in S3
Something that bothered me a lot about season 2 was Clem's lack of autonomy. Yes, she was the one who did most of the work for the group, but it was almost always at the behest of someone else. "Clem watch Sarah." "Clem come with me." "Clem search that cabin." "Clem climb that rope." "Clem talk to Kenny." She never just ups and does something on her own. It's always a task that someone assigns to her. And that sucks because it makes the player feel like an errand boy (or girl) for a group of lazy, incompetent adults. Maybe that's something that the writers were going for, but I think it really hampered the game.
In a way, I feel like Clem had more autonomy in Season 1 compared to Season 2. Sure, Lee asks her to crawl through a few small spaces here and there, but for the most part, the clever things Clem does are done out of her own volition without input from anyone else: handing Lee the hammer, pulling Ben away from the conflict with Lilly, standing up for Ben at Crawford, finding the boat, sneaking out of her room and distracting the Stranger etc. No one told her to do any of those things. She did them because she saw that they needed to be done and acted.
This should be how her character is written in Season 3, should she continue to be the protagonist. Instead of having the adults proposing that something needs to be done and then turning to the little girl to do it, just have the little girl figure out what she needs to do and then wander off and do it herself. It'll make her feel a lot more confident and mature as a playable character and make the game feel less like a chore.
Comments
I hadn't thought about this but now that I do, it may have been done to remind us that Clem is an 11 year old girl. She is in a world of adults but she isn't one. If the character was too much of a vanguard she might be confused as the leader of the group. But clementine is not the leader, she is delegated responsibility because she is respected by the group but she is still a little kid. But this dynamic could change in season 3, if she is the main character, she could be older and take on the responsibility of leadership. It would be an interesting moment if her group and another meet and they want to know who's in charge and everyone looks at clementine.
I'm not really calling for her to be a leader or to have a role of authority in the group, only that she shouldn't be so much of a follower. She should be shown to be more of a maverick. It was how she was portrayed in Season 1 and that was what I found impressive about her. She was smart, she was bold, she was curious. When she was faced with a tough situation, she didn't just sit there for someone to tell her what to do, she figured out how she could help and she acted. It didn't matter how people saw her or if they respected her abilities because she didn't defer to them. But neither did they defer to her like they did this season.
I didn't mind it as much, because as a kid you "do" get told to do things all the time by adults, but you're absolutely right that Clem didn't do a whole lot at her own behest like she did in the first series.
I'd like it if in season 3 she did more at the behest of nobody else, as you've described
I agree. Even before she was made the playable character, in Season 1 she had a rebellious streak and did things that went against her friend's wishes.
With that idea in mind it would have made more sense for Clementine to do things on her own and take risks just as a child would do in real life, than have tasks given to her by adults when they're already able to do it themselves. Season 2 went too far in the 'give player character something to do' direction, and thus ended up making Clementine the only competent team member among the cast of adults who acted as if they couldn't think or do anything for themselves.
Hopefully if Clementine the player character again in Season 3, she'll be less depended on and be given opportunities to do whatever she likes on her own.
Actually, now that I'm thinking on it, episode one is kind of what you're talking about. That whole episode is probably one that you liked?
Other than that though, yeah; nothing really clever or rebellious outside of... oh... maybe the arm chopping or zombie mommy killing? Everything else, pretty much, was at the behest of an adult, as you've pointed out.
Well, I had other problems with that episode, but yes I did like the autonomy that Clem showed during the whole cabin sequence (though I wish they had made her internal reasoning for wanting to break out a bit more salient). In fact, that's what clued the cabin group in on how awesome her was.. I don't know why they decided to downplay that aspect of her character after she became "part of the group."
Well, Clem is survivor, meaning she has to handle things on her own. And arguments saying "she's just a little girl" aren't really true. She can use her height (crawling through holes), weight (bridge situation, climbing, boosting her up) and appearance (still little girl's face) to her advantage, and she's smart enough to do so. I want Clementine to stay alive as long as possible.
Hopefully they give more "save Sarah or not" situations in next season. Give players chance to be more "evil" or nice.
And give us choices that will trigger some serious things. Permanently shape Clementine's personality.
They don't really even need to do anything drastic to achieve that effect. They just need to have the other characters react to Clem differently depending on the things they see her do and how she interacts with them. If characters behave as though Clem had a different personality, it will just seem to us like she has a different personality.
Yup. Whatever Telltale's planning to do in the next season, it should move towards shaping Clem's character. In any way.
Well if that's the case then my clementine will be the girl she was in season 1...
Or the closest thing to it.
I agree that you don't have to figure out as much on your own. All the directions might have been a way to let you know what do in the game. There seemed to be more of an emphasis on deciding clementines attitude and the person she will become. Siding with different people, Kenny, Luke , Jane, or how we respond. Lee was already an adult, although you can choose a course for him his character is more decided. Clementine is still growing up. If they continue with clementine as the main character I think or I hope at least they will change the structure of the game. I'm really curious what will happen in the next season. If they continue with clementine, how they will do it.
Hopefully, they'll stop making the interactions about how Clem responds to people in the group and more about how people in the group respond to Clem. And hopefully they'll do it in a way that doesn't seem contrived, sudden, and out of nowhere like with Bonnie.
Honestly as long as they tone down the stuff she has to do herself when in a group, Ep 1 and 4 were actually okay with that as her situation meant she had to do certain things. However ep 2 was just overidden with stuff the adults should be doing for her.
Clem's story is over.
Proof?
"Clementine, would you kindly...."
I would like to play as an adult character for a change. Don't get me wrong, I like Clem, but I'm not huge fan of child protagonists. I would rather play as Kenny/Jane or Christa. Or maybe even as Nate or any other 400 Days character.
He has none. He's just assuming and acting like it's almost fact.
Just as I thought.
Yep I agree with a lot of what you write. They seemed to have difficulty with the child aspect of Clem - the fact that adults would talk over her at some points and yet then ask her to do far more adult-suited tasks at other points. You're right that there probably aren't enough occasions where we see her using her initiative.
Yeah, episode 2 was a pretty bad one in that regard. Like with the windmill thing, instead of having the adults inexplicably acknowledging that, yes, the little girl is the best person for this job, they could have just had Clem take out her lighter and flip the switch while everyone's talking, kinda like how she snuck in that doggy door while everyone was squabbling over what to do.
Yeah I agree. I'd even like to see some situations where Clementine is alone and has to figure out her own way out, sort of like Lee in ep.4 when he gets stuck in the sewers. The closest we got to that when you had to find your own stuff to stitch your arm up in ep.1.
It was stupid, but nevertheless biggest issue was that fixing the windmill turned out to be non-puzzle. I was expecting at least an easy puzzle, because everyone kept saying how difficult it must be to turn on the windmill.