Season 2 Analysis
Are deaths in the zombie apocalypse ever pointless? Let me try to answer that with a brief history first.
In 2003, Robert Kirkman started printing a long running series called The Walking Dead, a comic with a unique premise for the apocalypse: what if the story doesn't end after the hero gets away from the zombies? What if we stay with him as he goes from hero, to madman, to being born anew, and through multiple victories and periods of intense loss? In The Walking Dead, protagonist Rick Grimes finds his family in the zombie apocalypse, loses them, goes mad trying to protect what he has left, and is left a shell of himself after constant peril, dismemberment and ordeals so precisely lined up that it leaves you with only one possible lesson to take away: we are the walking dead, not the zombies.
Of course, this is diminished in the TV show, where only characters denounced by the fandom are killed off and Daryl Dixon has suffered less injuries than The Hulk. It comes out far stronger in Telltale’s The Walking Dead Game, where the theme is repeated more subtly: The Dead Always Win. This is taken so far that the main character of the game series is killed off in the finale, after having been bitten and fighting off an infection long enough to protect Clementine, the real heart of the story. In a world where the biggest, toughest and smartest all fall to the dead soon enough (Tyreese, Abraham, and Glenn respectively) can a young, innocent girl stay alive?
Here’s where the agenda of a writer comes in. Every story attempts to convey a lesson, whether that is a conscious or unconscious action of the writer. In hopeful optimist Eiichiro Oda’s hands, a story may be about believing hard enough that you change the world. Conversely, skeptic Robert Kirkman’s world is bleak and every death serves to reinforce the inescapable horror of the universe. Everyone who dies becomes a zombie. Everyone watches their loved ones die. And most people have taken drastic, selfish measures for self-preservation – even cannibalism. It seems like the only people who aren't dying to prove this lesson are Rick Grimes and his son Carl. Not that they've survived unscathed. Rick has lost a hand – again, not in the show! – and Carl has lost his innocence and a chunk of his skull – surprise me, AMC, would you dare to that on TV? It isn't a hopeful world, nor really a place for kids. But Carl has survived every ordeal thus far, perhaps more gracefully than his father. Carl has become hardened and kills without thought. When another child without a conscience is a danger to others, Carl murders the boy and doesn't feel bad about it. Carl is the purest product of the apocalypse in the canon. He survives by discarding his conscience. On the other end of the spectrum, there is Sophia, a survivor in the comics – killed in the show not because it was a good idea, only because the actress wasn't staying adorable. Unlike Carl, she hasn't become a reflexive killer. She lives under protection and maintains her innocence. But this article isn't about her, I just wanted to cite that not all survivors have given up every bit of themselves. Somewhere between Carl and Sophia is Clementine, the now-protagonist of the game. And this is where my theory is most clearly visible.
Clementine is introduced as a frail and almost helpless child. Many of the early action scenes with her involve you, as Lee, rescuing her from danger. Through the story, she is less reliant on Lee saving her, entirely through her intelligence. When she redeems herself from being the helpless little kid in episode 5 of season 1, she takes on the role of the hero. Lee’s death transforms her into the next hero of the story, as well as serving as the final nail in the coffin of her hope. If Lee can die, everyone can – and they will. What follows from there is arguably an unnecessary story. Much like following Rick Grimes after escaping the prison nearly alone, we know what happens to Clementine from here. Her luck will keep her safe for maybe a bit more, but only to have her watch those less lucky be torn to pieces around her. I personally doubt they would kill one protagonist per season finale, that’s too easy. Instead we’re probably going to arrive at Wellington after the last of the party falls apart when you can’t drag their bleeding bodies any further, then find Christa dying too. Her last words will cap the season: “We should have let you die.” (I wrote this after episode 4. What actually happened was close enough.) As the credits roll, we’ll have a chance to reflect on every death until that point and see how they fit into the Kirkmanian agenda.
For season 1, everything was sort of depressing, and mostly built Clementine’s later moral compass, but the only really notable deaths are Lee’s and perhaps Ben’s. Lee’s galvanizes her into a survivor, but if Ben dies in a way that his passing is relayed to Clem (meaning Lee lets him die in the bell tower), it is an event marked as the dropping of excess weight. Ben is treated as a liability and her favorite member of the group is said to have died because of his weakness. If both of these events are taken into consideration, it may explain Clementine’s later apparent coldness – which is further compounded in the first five minutes of season 2. Omid, the breath of fresh air, the jovial and warm man who serves as her next protector, a silly uncle if you will, is killed. Not only killed, but killed to demonstrate that this world is cruel and that all relief he brought is gone forever.
Season 2’s deaths then range from inevitable to heroic to pointless. It’s not enough to have a friendly dog try to kill you then bleed out in front of you, episode 1 ends with a reminder that Christa is gone. You are alone. And it’s more than likely (in all but from a narrative standpoint) that she’s already dead. But episode 2 is where the most important lesson of The Walking Dead appears. You make new friends, run into Kenny again, and try to hide the fact that one of your peers shot the lover of a pacifist. Walter is the exact sort of guy you wouldn’t expect to make it in the zombie apocalypse. He’s loving. He trusts others. He preaches forgiveness and peace. And he’s made it this far because he’s right. Surviving with the help of friends is exactly what people need to get through the worst of times, with few exceptions. One of those exceptions is William Carver. He lives by stepping on others and keeping them in line. If Walter is persuaded to hold true to his convictions, he is the best example of humanity in the apocalypse. Probably the first time Clementine has seen a purely decent human being since leaving the treehouse. But Bill shoots him anyway, blatantly rejecting his pacifistic way of life with a cold bullet. I like the idea that Walter doesn’t kill Nick. I’d like him to die as the moral paragon the world sets him up to be. But in some playthroughs we get the bleaker state of affairs where Walter is just as corruptible as the rest of us. It’s both a shame that Walter is the game’s only example of gay representation and also not. While he may not get the most screentime, I would say that Walter’s role and stance is one of the most important to showcase in the series. To make Walter a gay man is something I would see as an incredible gesture. He’s the best of all of them. Him dying so quickly and cruelly isn’t a surprise, given the canon, but it makes for some unfortunate implications. (Since the game is an extension of the comic, I don’t consider Walter the only representation. The comic is pretty rife with happy gay couples. Again, not so much in the show.)
Entering Carver’s town Clementine isn’t beaten yet, despite episode 3’s relentless misery. We meet the most likeable guy, and whether we ignore his situation to focus on our problems or walk on eggshells of sympathy, he’s killed for no reason anyway. We do get one solid payoff if Alvin dies in episode 3. He sacrifices himself and goes out a hero, a luxury pretty much never seen in Kirkman’s universe. The other death is a freak accident – a stray bullet that sends everything into hell – and there’s one led into at the end of the episode. How hopeful is Clementine at this point? A zombie has its teeth in someone’s limb. Does Clementine stay in kill mode and just deal with the attacker? Does Clementine believe that if she cuts off the hand she can save the person? Either way, whether Clementine is hopeful or direct, death is as inescapable as ever. This is the first in a series of pointless deaths.
If Nick’s still alive, the next time you see him, he’s died. Without explanation. Sarah can’t deal with her fears and the crushing loss of her father. If you leave her, she dies with only a moment of realization. If you save her, she’s lost to yet another pointless accident. We get a moment of reprieve when a new life enters the world, but the mother succumbs to exhaustion, starvation and exposure. This isn’t Lee’s march through the herd before dying. No one here gets Alvin’s moment of glory. In fact, they don’t even get Ben’s moment of redemption (Accepting his deserved fate as a liability/Facing death beside Kenny). At no point in The Walking Dead has death been more futile and have the people been so powerless. And this isn’t a criticism of the episode. It’s completely in line with the tone of the canon.
Did Sarah deserve better? Did Nick? Of course they did. Everyone in the series did. Glenn probably deserves better than both of them, but let’s not get into that. Sarah could have continued on and found her inner strength. She could have risen from grief and learned to conquer the apocalypse with her head. But that’s Clementine’s story. It’s not that Sarah couldn’t survive in this world, but she exists as a counterpoint to Clementine, just as Jane serves as her foil. If Sarah were to survive, she’d need a completely different arc than mutating from innocent to strong. Maybe she ends up soulless or robotic, like Jane – but that’s probably not possible to do satisfactorily in one and a half episodes. Nick could have been shown dying after killing all of the walkers outside of the trailer. I think that’s actually pretty good. They could have given him a really cool end right there. Rebecca could have been delirious from exhaustion and been the one to pull the trigger that started the shootout. “Don’t pull a gun on my baby, motherfucker!” All of those could have been awesome. But totally not in line with Kirkman’s zombie apocalypse.
Robert Kirkman uses The Walking Dead to hold up the world under a Randian lens. There are the strong and the weak. [Comic] Carol is a weak person whose rejected co-dependance leads to her walking into the teeth of a chained up zombie. [Comic] Hershel Greene is ultimately weak, and submits himself to execution by the Governor. The Governor is relatively weak, bested by the superior defense of the prison and murdered for his cruelty. Those who survive are often those who reject all weaknesses within themselves and in their peers. This is most apparent in the town of Crawford and in the mentality of The Hunters. Every death serves the agenda of Kirkman’s vision and bleeds into Clementine: the zombie apocalypse is a world where any weakness is meted with immediate death. Is that a toxic message? Do his characters deserve better? Possibly yes and yes. But as we grow more jaded to the carnage around us and frustrated by deaths that mean nothing relative to the lives of the characters suffering them, the story reaches a different independent payoff. The world grows a little colder. A little more unbearable. This episode was about Clementine momentarily being taken under the wing of someone who had almost forgotten what it was like to be human and hated the memories of her weakness toward her sister. Is that what Clementine is shaping up to be? Are we – the players – agreeing with Jane’s choices? Did we prey on those weaker than us (Arvo)? Did we refuse to help those who had lost their resolve (Sarah)? Did we mourn the dead or loot them and then step over their bodies (Nick)? It’s a cruel world, one delicately manufactured to be so. When faced with such inescapable bleakness, do you let it consume you and take it in? (Some just couldn’t kill Sarah fast enough.) Or do you rebel against it? Who was right, Walter or Carver? How do you make it in such an unforgiving world? Do you avoid cities and travel alone, or hold your friends close? What did Lee tell you to do?
(This part happens after Episode 5).
So what did we learn from all of that? Was Walter or Carver right? Was Jane any different than Kenny? Who is still a good person after all of this has happened?
At the end, we realize that the theme of the story was that “good people do bad things”. This is not just true of Kenny’s arc, but everyone short of Luke. People didn’t die for the sake of pointless drama, it’s all tied to that theme. You sit around the fire, have a good time, realize everyone’s good, but - like the Joker’s theory, they will eat each other given the chance.
When Clementine mediates the final clash at the rest stop, we are seeing two good characters willing to kill each other because they think the only option is to murder the other. They’re both terrible people in the moment, but one is actively seeking an excuse to murder the other. If anyone’s familiar with the source material, this is a retread of the comic’s prison arc with Rick and Tyreese. In that, two people nearly insane with cabin fever and struggling for power in a lawless world nearly kill each other. The real issue isn’t “people die for no reason”, it’s “people feel justified doing pointless bad things" and "Will Clementine do the same?” If Clementine intervenes to “do the right thing”, if Jane succeeds, If Kenny isn’t told he’s dangerous for being an insane threat, then no one will have learned anything and the deaths and drama will be for nothing. I like the ending where Clem doesn’t interfere, Jane picks a pointlessly lethal fight against someone she can’t beat and Clementine tells Kenny to calm the fuck down already. He realizes he can’t be trusted to be a neutral protector anymore - because yes, he is on a self-righteous path similar to the Governor or Carver or Rick or any asshole who gives up every scruple in the name of being the hero - and puts Clementine first to get her into Wellington. That way two characters beat out the “lesson” that “every good person will do bad things when pushed far enough.” You overcome that pessimistic theme if you don’t kill Kenny. If you leave with Jane, the theme immediately resurfaces with the unknown family, probably continuing on forever. That’s the way the world works by Kirkman’s laws. You can either embrace them or defy them. If you’re looking for unique characters each time or arcs that don’t endlessly rehash the same theme and churning of pointless death and drama, you’re in the wrong franchise. These are staples of the comic, and the game doesn’t handle it any more or less gracefully.
So TooLongDidn’tRead - “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain”, and if fans don’t find cyclical death and repetitious story arcs interesting, why the hell are they invested in this franchise?