A Boy In Russia
TL;DR - This is a thought exercise about Arvo.
So you're an exchange student from Georgia, not yet 16, who's spending a few months studying in Russia. Your Russian ain't so hot, but you can say the basics if you concentrate and it's not like you'll be living there forever. Your big sister's flown in with you to make sure you don't get into trouble, and you've got a couple of American buddies who you can stick to. They talk shit about you for wearing that stupid brace, so your sister shuts them up by telling them about the polio you had as a kid.
Then shit happens. First you see the reports of mysterious crowds of people swarming about and eating folks. Then you see your friends getting their guts torn out by a group of rotten freaks, and it's only thanks to your sister that you managed to run away. You try to call mom & dad at home, only to find the same craziness is happening over there. The airports have stopped working, the cities are overcrowded, and the flesh-eating dead are everywhere. You and your sister are marooned in a land where only you know even a fraction of the language.
Just as she always had, your sister does everything in her power to keep you safe. You stay out in the wilderness with a bunch of her American friends, preferring the freezing cold over dealing with crazy foreigners who might as well be more dangerous than the dead. She robs for you, sells her body for you, kills for you. Medicine is a huge priority for you guys - it keeps you from dying, it keeps you from wanting to end it all, it keeps you awake and prepared to keep fighting.
One day your sis shot up real bad and, stupidly, you get her hooked on the meds. She doesn't hold it against you - you only wanted her to feel better - but it does mean you're stuck with your group even as they turn more savage with every passing day. You guys clean out the wilderness, going from town to town, hiding in the shadows, doing all you can to avoid meeting the locals.
Eventually your group's been whittled down to four - you, her, her boyfriend Vic and his scary friend Barry. Vic's a jittery creep who already had a bunch of drugs with him when things went bad, and Barry's an aggressive man who served a couple of years for breaking a man's face back in the US. Barry's ruthlessness and willingness to kill has saved your lives more than you can count, but it also means you're too afraid to talk back when he tells you to follow him.
The first winter you spent in Russia killed off most of your group and so as the leaves begin to fall again you're eager to find new shelter. Stopping off at a half-built home, Barry orders the three of you to each go in a separate direction and scout for supplies and shelter. Your sister protests, but Barry reminds her that you're 17 and it's about damn time you start pulling your weight. He hands you a gun - the first time you've so much as touched a weapon - and threatens you with all kinds of horrible fates if you lose it. Weapons don't drop from trees, and without a gun or someone to protect you you're as liable to survive as one of the walking dead.
Armed with the gun and a bagful of medicine, right after daybreak you walk around the river beside your shelter. You know from past experience that the winters will freeze water solid, and in a few days you can just walk straight across the bank. After half a day or so, you come across a monument to an obscure battle back in WW2. What matters to you, though, is making sure the observation deck is safe. You limp up, knowing what easy prey you must be to any random bandit out there, and make your way upstairs.
The coast seems clear, although you tightly hold onto your gun nonetheless. You really wish your sister was here. After a moment's hesitation, you prepare to stash your medicine in a trash-can - unlike the house, this place has a metal gate, an actual roof, and a vantage point from which you can spot intruders. Barry will surely be impressed and think to move here immediately.
You hear a voice. Shit, stupid, stupid! You turn around and aim at the intruder.
It's a fucking kid. Oh god, what's happening? Is she gonna try to rob you? No, she doesn't have a gun, shit, you've just barged into someone else's home and threatened a kid!
You blurt out apologies, trying to reassure her that you're not a bad guy, you tell her your name, you tell her that you don't want to shoot anyone, that you're just gonna leave and-
A woman grabs you from behind, snatching your gun and leaving you defenseless. For a moment you're in utter panic because you know you've just made a terrible mistake, then you realize the kid's not scared either. It dawns on you - the kid is working with the bandit holding you at gunpoint.
The bandit realizes what's at your feet, and you're enraged. How dare she? The bitch starts talking excitedly in Russian, getting up in your face and dismissing your pleas (as if you don't even understand her!) and trying to convince the kid to help her steal from you. The kid's angry, though, and she refuses to take from you. You feel relieved, but before you can thank her the crazy woman suddenly pushes you over the edge of the deck and sticks your gun in your face, hissing at you to never come back.
Then she forces you to leave without your gun.
The walk back is terrifying.
When you return, your sister is shocked - it's been days since her last fix and she's turning real gaunt - and Barry throws a fit when he realizes you lost his gun. You let it all out, thinking that Barry might understand if you're being honest, but his reaction is worse than you wanted. "Fucking bandits," he growls. "They wanna fuck with us? We'll show those dumb-shits! We're gonna rob THEIR asses and see how they feel about it."
You're terrified of meeting that woman again along with her friends. You're terrified of seeing your friends kill again. You're terrified of possibly hurting that little girl - she may be a bandit, but she's still a child. But Barry refuses to listen and forces you to come along, and Vic's just happy to have the chance to rob some folks again.
The search takes a couple of days out in the cold, and your sister tries to no avail to convince Barry that this is a bad idea. But Barry was never one to let grudges go. If there's a threat, he has to crush it immediately.
Hiding in the trees, you finally see the girl. Her friend is missing, but in her place are five strangers - a one-eyed bearded man, a red-haired woman, a dark-skinned man, a guy in an orange shirt, and a woman slumped over on a tire. Barry pushes you out, telling you that he only wants for you to be safe, and you struggle to lie to the girl. She asks you about your sister, and you tell her the truth: she's not doing so well. None of you are doing so well.
Barry springs the trap, and you feel helpless to stop it. You struggle to tell them Barry's demands - that the strangers should put down everything they have and walk away - and start turning shrill as you realize nobody wants to listen. Everybody is too self-righteous and angry to hear the other side. You want to apologize to the girl, you tell her that you wish you could have met differently. She was kind. That was not common.
Your sister, always the smart one, tells Barry to stand down, knowing that you're outnumbered, but he doesn't care. He yells and Vic starts screaming insults, egging on the angry one-eyed man. You want to cry, you want to run away, people are going to die again and you don't want it to happen. Even the crying of a baby - a human sound you haven't heard in years - isn't enough to stop everybody from screaming and preparing to shoot each other.
The bearded man shoots the baby's mother.
The man in the orange shirt cries out.
Barry opens fire.
The one-eyed man shoots your sister.
Oh god, no, no, no! You bend over her while everybody else tries to kill each other, doing everything you can to keep her alive. Come on, don't die, please! She's lived through worse, oh please god, she can't just leave you now, she's too strong for that! She's gasping and her blood is coming out with every breath, and her eyes are filled with confused tears.
Then the one-eyed fucker starts choking you, wrenching you away from your sister's bleeding form, and puts a gun to your head. You don't care - you MUST know that she's okay. You have to save her, you can't let her die. Even as he swings you around, you see her getting up, you see her crawling and reaching out for the little girl and-
-the girl shoots her.
No. How dare she.
The gunfire stops, the air filled only with Vic's hideous gurgles, and as you watch the bitch walk out of the woods it sinks in. Your sister is dead. The one-eyed man, the crazy woman, and the little girl are to blame.
How dare she. You trusted her. She was lying all along. This was all a trap. Now everyone is dead, and you're alone with a bunch of angry Russians who have every reason to want you dead.
The one-eyed man starts wailing on you, and you're too stunned to say anything or even register the pain. How could this happen? You're to blame, you could have stopped Barry, you could have avoided all this, you could have saved your sister, you should never have trusted the girl.
You can hardly understand them anymore. It's all gibberish. You don't even have the words to say it in American. The other men try to protect you, despite the one-eyed man pulling a gun on you, and even the girl tries to calm him down. You stutter in Russian, hoping they can forgive you, telling them about your home. About the food that you and your sister used to share. You tell the bearded man, like a child, that you just don't want to see more people die.
They tie you up like an animal, and the bearded man forever has his one eye on you, snarling every chance he gets, dragging you like a fucking leper. How dare he! They killed your sister, those animals! You keep quiet, not wanting to show too much weakness to these Russian bandits, too scared to talk sensibly.
Night falls and the bandits decide to stop and have a party at a little power station. They tie you up and leave you to freeze while they laugh and get drunk and reminisce about good times. All you can think of is your sister. Oh god.
The girl comes up to you and tells you that she's 'sorry'. You scream at her - this is her fault! She doesn't really care about you anyway, how could she? She walks off without a word, apparently more interested in getting drunk with the others than talking to you.
The dark-skinned man isn't afraid to talk to you, though. He's there with you, spends hours just listening to you cry, never mocking, never blaming. You wonder - did he have a little sister? Does he have second thoughts about being with these bandits? Maybe he can save you, maybe...
...the next day, it's back to the house. The mad one-eyed Russian starts pushing you over, beating you and screaming for not saying anything, for saying the wrong thing, for being too slow, for being too fast, for being you. You don't understand him. Why is he still angry at you when you're tied up? You want to help him, yet he hates you? He didn't lose his family, they're right there with him. He still has his daughter, he still has that woman, he still has that baby!
You reach the lake, and the ice has frozen over. After a little discussion, they force you to test the water first. You're almost disappointed that it is indeed solid. After a minute or so, you look behind you and panic - the dead are approaching. You run, first from them, then from the screaming mad-man who wants to kill you, and you fall into the water. Before you can sink all the way, the bearded man tosses you out. The black man stands over you, protecting you once again from the one-eyed monster's rage.
You see the others screaming as the ice breaks further down. The orange-shirted man disappears, but the little girl is fished out of the water by the bitch who tried to rob you.
How could the world have spared them while taking your sister away?
Finally you're at the house, and everyone is angry. You don't know what to say - it's not like you forced them to go on the ice.
The angry Russian screams at you in your own house, screaming that you lied to him without even asking where your supplies were, and then starts shaking you. "Greedy American pig!" he screeches. "Too stupid to even learn our language?!"
Enough. You use the strongest insult you know in Russian.
"Sukka." Every prison-dog's favorite bitch.
He loses his shit, just as you wanted, and starts pounding your face in. Your ears ring, you start coughing up blood, your glasses shatter, your eyes are bruised shut, your nose is bent, but you don't ever fight back. You only keep repeating the insult. "Sukka, Sukka."
It's funny, getting beaten to death. It's almost peaceful. You feel like you're about to leave and return to your sister, and then you can apologize to her, and then
the little girl yells at him and is knocked back by the bearded psycho, and the pain returns. You lie there on the floor, confused by her. After all she's done to you, why would she save your life?
They tie you up again - away from the fire, again - and the little girl doesn't utter another word to you. As always, the only one who even thinks about your feelings is the black man. He glares at the bearded freak and tells you that he's had enough. He whispers that tonight, you'll finally be free - he and the red-haired woman never liked those bandits anyway.
When the others are asleep, the black man and his friend untie you. When you take out Barry's gun - the one he treasured most, the one he'd never dream of letting you touch - you consider getting even. Blowing out the man's brains while he's asleep, or letting that woman bleed out just as your sister had. But the moment passes. You're not a murderer, your friend is not.
You walk over to the truck, which the bandits have finally managed to get working. They take your supplies with you, promising that soon the three of you can start anew, and you don't ask what will happen to the baby or the little girl. The madwoman and the one-eyed bastard would sooner die than let go of the children, and besides you can't stand the sight of the girl. You can't forgive her.
The girl walks out, gun in hand, and starts threatening you with it. Your blood runs cold - is this another trap? Are your new friends going to die again, and you left to starve in the ice? The black man, kind as always, moves slowly towards the girl, trying in vain to take her gun. You want to warn him - you want to tell him that the girl shot your sister in the face, that she's going to do it again - and the finality sinks in.
That girl is a killer. She won't have any problem killing in cold blood again.
Does she think, just because she's a little girl, she can just get people killed and nobody will care? That by saying "Sorry", it'll all magically get better?!
That's NOT how it works!
You pull the trigger.
The girl falls down.
Oh...
...god.
You killed her. Oh god. You stupid fucking kid.
You run. There's no more forgiveness, no redemption, no going back for you. You've just murdered a child.
As you limp off in the night, followed by your friends, the old man's howls yield no pleasure for you. Taking away his child doesn't bring back your sister. All it means is that your stupidity has just robbed the world of another good girl.
You really wish you'd never left your country.
Comments
This is all good and could be right but its a bit one way, I dont think arvos pure evil like some but this is a bit leniant to him and using every fact biased to him.
Arvo could easily just be part of a group of bandits, tells them about this new group then just manipulates the group while waiting for a chance to kill them. His sly grins give more evidence to that.
Truth is we wont know unless he's in season 3
We honestly don't know much about Arvo (like most of Season 2's characters), so this is conjecture. I assumed that the men in Arvo's group were 'bandits' like Winston and Victor were, but that doesn't mean he's in charge of the group. BTW I don't ever see the "sly grin" that you talk about.
Point is, I wanted people to imagine what it's like to be a foreigner in another country. Arvo gets a lot of hate for being a Russian in the US, but what if you were an American kid stuck in Russia?
And yes it is done for the bastard , firstly if he does not steal, then he will dump all the blame on Clem and Jane , he stole from their own people, for himself or for his sister , it does not matter . Heh interesting to do to him Bouriko , because he had a tattoo on his cheek , " kill the thieves " (It's about those who steal from their people, usually those in prison tattoos do)
For the one sly grin he gives there's plenty of other sad and reluctant faces. Determinantly he can apologize to Clementine and this is when his group has already come out of hiding so it likely isn't part of an act at that point.
Furthermore, in the translation I have seen Arvo is asking Buricko what to say/do. He wouldn't have been doing that if he was the one who planned it.
You what?
Way to empathize.
How would you like it if some Siberian motherfucker starts threatening you in your own home and mocking you for not speaking his language?
Most of you'd want to say "Fuck you!" to that.
Jane stole his gun and threatened to kill him, and he assumes Jane is hiding nearby when he confronts Clementine's group. If he was stealing directly from his group he would never have told them about the medicine because he wouldn't want them to know he had it at all.
It is easy for me to empathize with Arvo's situation all the way up to him shooting Clem (regardless of her actions). The fandom is fully happy to justify characters doing far, far worse. Many people would say it's perfectly natural to be selfish, to be violent, to act like a 'bandit' for "survival". And judging by the sheer vitriol against Mike/Bonnie/Arvo, a lot of this fandom is perfectly willing to spout ridiculous revenge fantasies for being 'betrayed' - just like Arvo was.
I feel like freakin' TROY has more supporters than Arvo does.
So just flip things around. Imagine being a teenage boy in a foreign land. An American kid in Russia, or China, or any other place where English ain't so widely spoken. Imagine being in that vulnerable position. I deliberately tried to draw parallels between Buricko/"Barry" and Kenny, and how Arvo & Clem both had no control over those violent men's absurdly extreme behavior.
Makes a lot of people uncomfortable, doesn't it? It's much easier to imagine yourself being like "badass" Clem, Jane, Kenny and Lee than folks like Ben, Nick, Arvo or Sarah.
Jane did not steal his gun , he threw it on the floor and more of it she did not have . Arvo took his bag of drugs, put them somewhere else, probably someone from his group where the same medicines, and he said that he was robbed Clem and Jane . He is a thief and blamed entirely strangers . And he deserves every blow from Kenny on his brazen face. I would have killed him immediately after the shootout .
Did you play some alternate-universe version of Amid The Ruins? Jane held him at gunpoint and never gave the weapon back.
A point that a lot of people seem to have forgotten is that, regardless of Arvo's personal desire to 'get even' (which A LOT of people would actually feel, regardless of how much they deny it), it was ultimately Buricko's decision to attack Clem's group. A decision that neither Arvo nor Natasha agreed with.
Natasha asks Arvo - "Are they?" And he replies, "Yes, it is they" Why are you trying to protect Natasha , I do not understand .They obviously planned this attack can be Arvo and neither wanted to have all of this happened, but it was he who led them to a group of Clem and he is to blame for all that had happened. It was he who said that you can go on the ice, he killed Luke. You know why he ran to the house? He wanted to take his rifle which was hidden there and shoot the whole group.
Yes, it's easy to blame the crippled, scrawny, unarmed kid for starting the gunfight. Clearly, because he speaks English, he MUST be the mastermind.
Did you even read the first post? Probably not. I admit it's long, but I do make an effort to point out that it was the group's "tough guy" (Buricko) who wanted the gunfight, not Arvo. This is actually backed up by in-game dialogue options.
Why am I 'protecting' Natasha? Ever heard of family love? People kiss Kenny's feet for being violent because "he's just protecting the kids", people are totally cool with Carver's possessiveness because he 'cares' for his baby, they love Nate for being fond of his 'boy' Russell.
If your little brother is attacked by some crazy bandit, you'd want to get even too. Even though, as translations have pointed out, Natasha sees reason and tries to tell Buricko and Vitali to stand down because there's too many people.
Why do you think that Bouriko is up to? I certainly do not advocate it, but if you ask Arvo " Why do they laugh ," he will say "I told them that you have robbed me ." He lied to him , but I did not steal him . If I had robbed him in his passing then I would not have him any claims. But this piece of shit accused me of stealing , then began to blame Jane. But he took his bag, she did not steal anything from him. I do not care that he was a cripple , a young and funky . He accused me that I did not do , because of this foot shot Luke , AJ lying under fire , Mike wounded . And I have every right to blame him for it.
This little story was pretty much what I had in mind when I was playing the game and studying Arvo and his group's actions, especially since Telltale refused to give Arvo any kind of backstory to sympathise with him. This sub-plot (or lack of, really) was a step backwards from the sub-plot with Season 1 villains such as The Stranger, who was driven with vengeance over a small mistake he made by leaving a car alone to search for his missing kid while they were out hunting, and how he lost his entire family over this small mistake due to the thief's greed and his own mistake with leaving a car full of supplies unattended.
Arvo was basically designed to be hated, especially since he draws parallels with Ben, whom Kenny hates, and we're supposed to side with Kenny because of this. We never get to know if he was the mastermind behind it all, or if he was dragged around as an interpreter for his group and would had been left to die a long time ago for his disability had he not known how to speak English. It matters not because he's another Ben, another screw-up, and whatever his group had done might as well had been done by Arvo's own hands since they barely have any development whatsoever, and thus deserves whatever he gets coming to him, especially when he shoots an 11 year-old girl in the shoulder and runs away to avoid his comeuppance.
Compared to The Stranger, Arvo is never given any kind of sympathetic background. We can sympathise with The Stranger, because lets face it, we may have done the same in his shoes. We would want to get even with the thief that had destroyed your life and indirectly got your family killed because you know that they didn't have to take everything you had to help feed you and your family, even if you were foolish enough to leave your car behind in a panic. He was an effective villain because he was more human than Carver, who was basically a monster with no humanity whatsoever. The Stranger was basically a victim of the ideology of surviving in a zombie apocalypse: "Take whatever you find even if its not yours, and screw over everybody's chances of surviving if it means keeping your family safe". All is fine and dandy when you do whatever it takes to survive and keep your family safe, but when someone does this to you someday? Suddenly everything changes and the whole world just got uglier.
But Arvo? He's basically part of the Russian gang who robs your group because you robbed him, even if you chose not to, because Jane will have done the deed anyway with Arvo's only weapon. The player feels angry because from their point of view Arvo is a slimy scumbag who attacks the group at the worse possible time, and might have even lied about the theft part event when it's technically true with Jane's role in indirectly causing the incident that never gets brought up again. Telltale ignores this, which means that the player should ignore this too.
Even the scene with Natasha and Clementine felt heavy handed because not once do we get to explain to him of what's happened, since according to his Russian lines, Arvo has no idea that Natasha reanimated to attack Clementine. He only saw his sister using her last ounce of strength to crawl away from the shootout and was cruelly shot down by the same little girl he had met earlier today. But in the end Telltale drops the chance to explain ourselves to Arvo just to give him a crude reason to shoot Clementine down when he'd be more justified in shooting Kenny, who was the one that shot Natasha in the first place.
I'd like to be charitable and say that we are meant to pity Arvo - but then there's that nonsense with him shooting Clem. Even in the first post, I struggled to find any kind of logic in that. I can only conclude it happens to vindicate Kenny's bigotry. Never mind that Clem isn't actually that hurt by having a hole torn through her shoulder/back, or that it leads to the inevitable reunion with Lee.
And seeing how mean-spirited Telltale apparently was regarding their thoughts on Sarah, I'm less inclined to say they intended for us to empathize with Arvo. Just another casualty of them trying to be "edgier" than the first Season.
I wonder if Telltale had problems with Russians so much that they wanted to portray Kenny as patriotic and heroic for nearly killing all of the 'evil' Russians in Season 2. No one else but him was able to kill the entire crew and finish off one who was stabbed by Jane, and with Arvo was the last one standing, Kenny who wants to finish the job even if Arvo was defenceless and had surrendered.
Okay.
I dunno. I think they just want to make him seem 'badass'.
It'd have been cool if his accuracy was actually ruined by having one eye. Y'know, like in real life. This ain't Metal Gear Solid.
If it was, Arvo'd probably be some secret ninja cyborg.
I've grown sick of the developers' extremely transparent emotional manipulation after Episode 4. I suppose I could write a sob story for Troy too, but weirdly enough it seems as though that guy already has fans despite being far less sympathetic than Arvo ever was.
I hate them both. Whatever they think is "emotional manipulation" to make me sympathetic towards either didn´t work on me.
'Emotional manipulation' is what writers do to make the audience feel a certain way. But when it leads to extreme actions - particularly those that contradict prior characterization - then it becomes obvious and should be called out.
In the case of Arvo, shooting Clem even if she drops her gun was a lazy move that seems designed purely to make him seem evil because "ZOMG HE SHOT A KID HE LITERALLY HITLER NOW." There's no explanation for it, because they didn't bother having Clem talk to him beyond that one-sentence exchange at the power station.
Come to think of it, I don't even know why Clem would be that callous. The Clem I know would actually talk to people rather than just stare at them creepily.
People always have more room to empathize with the protagonist characters, across all fandoms that's how it is. I also think it has something to do with Arvo being considered a weakling. Carver's behavior is okay because he's 'badass.' It was Sarah's fault for being 'useless' and that got Reggie killed and so on.
I feel like somewhere, in an alternate universe, Arvo is the main protagonist of TWDG. Clementine is the badly written character passed off as a one-note antagonist when she deserved better development. Her sympathetic side is presented in a cheap way, giving the player options to defend her, but never a chance to tell her story and have her do something unsympathetic at the end regardless of how ridiculously this was set up. The entire fandom only knows her as 'that evil little bitch who shot Natasha and then ruined everything' and hates on her relentlessly.
And in this alternate universe, I am probably defending that Clementine. I tend to like the characters everyone else hates.
Well, I do hate Troy and Winston. The former's a sociopathic bully while the latter is literally a child-murderer. Neither of those guys have anything remotely redeemable about them, but then again they weren't intended to be. The difference with Arvo is that he IS a very vulnerable character - he even has Sarah's glasses, which subconsciously draw parallels between him and her - and therefore my pity/sympathy is activated for him.
It would be nice if I could believe Telltale really did intend for us to be empathetic even when barely any information is provided for you. But it only takes a cursory look at the 'net's reactions to realize the simplistic conclusions they come to, and quite often it boils down to "Badass = Good" and "Anyone who opposes our protagonist/favorite character and isn't badass must be Stalin reincarnated."
It'd be a hilariously bold move if Arvo were to return in Season 3 and NOT end up being humiliated/set up purely for a shallow revenge scenario. Hell, I'm more interested in seeing him come back than Lilly.
My Clem tried to get Kenny to kill Arvo, to be honest. i just felt some shit was gonna be pulled.
Nice post. It makes me wish that TT created a proper backstory for the characters who have suffered by the lack of it.
To be honest, I always thought the one who shot Arvo's sister was Bonnie, judging by the fact that she was practically aiming at her face. I'd assume Kenny was chosen by blind fate (hey, I did a pun), but hell, hope it won't cause any argument.
But Kenny would appear less badass if his eye injury actually gave him any consequences. And lets not get into how he avoid having brain damage by sheer dumb luck. Come to think of it, Kenny seems to get 'lucky' a lot doesn't he?
The more I look at Kenny in Season 2, the more I think he's less of a character and more of a personification of a typical gamer's desires of what they want to be if they ever were in a zombie apocalypse. He's basically wish fulfilment given form.
...Well then the shot in the shoulder that your Clementine got was basically karma.
It´s exactly because I had a feeling he was going to do it that I tried to prevent it.
I recall the vine they teased and Clem clearly had been shot in the shoulder. If all the other russians were dead at that point and Arvo was clearly angry because of his sister...well, it was obvious to me. Can´t blame me for trying.
You never explained why Arvo tried to hid the medicines... I declare your story invalid and you shouldn't assume that this is what happend.
and I understand that you wan't others to look at the same perspective as Arvo was.
Arvo wouldn't hide the medicines and then leave back to his group to recommend a new 'safehouse', and if they refuse to check it out then he can go and pick those medicines back up.
This whole theory... appears to be legitimate.
To be honest, I thought so too - but remember that No Going Back's opening is extremely out of sync with Amid The Ruins' ending. According to Vitali's translations, Kenny was indeed guilty of "killing Natasha". This would also explain why Arvo didn't seem to hold any grudge against Bonnie.
I dunno, if the firefight really was logical then virtually everyone'd be dead. I'd actually like that scenario - where only Clem, AJ and Arvo somehow survive - but of course the writers would never be able to do that.
So you basically got Clem shot. You monster. =-P
Clem's arm injury was forgotten about in subsequent episodes, but it was a clear impediment to her for most of the first episode and we had an extremely uncomfortable scene involving the healing process. I think we needed another scene like that to really emphasize the damage caused by having A RIFLE BULLET TEAR A HOLE INSIDE A LITTLE GIRL'S SHOULDER - Clem shrugging it off like an action hero only weakens my empathy for her.
Hey, if I could have avoided it I´d even rewind which is something I´m very against doing.
I was desperate.
Carver also shrugged off a bullet around the same area. I guess they really are more like than she thought. :P
Yeah, it was one of those bullshit moments everyone should forget about. I remember the speculations about Clem, AJ and Arvo being the only ones who survived the shootout because they were away from the line of fire, or did hide behind someone. Actually I like this idea. At least it would be realistic.
Arvo's first interaction with Clementine was him pointing a loaded weapon at a young girl. After he was disarmed and no longer a threat, his weapon was ours (as far as I'm concerned). After Jane verbally threatened a man she deemed a very probable danger to the group, why would she return a loaded revolver to him? We don't know his intentions, and when questioned about his medical bag, he was being extremely difficult to reason with and vague.
"The supplies are for your sister? Why are you hiding them in that bin over there then?"
"Please, she's sick."
"Arvo, answer the question."
"She needs them..."
At that point, the medicine was off the table. He had threatened a young girl, and when finally disarmed, his story was flimsy and untrustworthy. He then returns with his goons to try and steal from a battered group of freezing survivors that are on the cusp of death? Fine, but at that point the situation was kill or be killed. We had toppled his little ambush. And as far as I'm concerned, a bullet in his head would've been the way to ensure no one else could be harmed in the future.
Was the situation ever in favor of Arvo? No, but that doesn't mean feeling bad for him is the appropriate response. He was initially a victim of shitty circumstance. But retaliating against us by sauntering up and smugly declaring we were to just strip ourselves of all supplies was a way for him to paint a target on his back.
After that, he was on equal villainy as the St. Johns, Stranger, Carver, or Troy as far as I'm concerned.
You act as if Arvo grabbed her by the neck and threatened to blow her brains out or something. He pointed the gun at Clementine because she startled him, and Arvo has shown to be a frightened, nervous person. He was shaking like a leaf and was on his way to leave before he ever saw Clem so I think if Jane hadn't interrupted them Arvo eventually would have put the gun away and kept moving.
With that said, I still think Jane was right to take the gun from him, because even though the chances of him actually shooting were slim, Jane was trying to protect Clem. She couldn't give it back because as you said, it would be dumb to do that to someone she just threatened. However, Arvo still has to go back to his group and they'll ask what happened to it. I can't really blame anyone for what happened at the deck, it was just a series of events that went from bad to worse.
...And why exactly does Arvo owe Jane and Clementine an explanation about the medicine? Jane was checking it for more weapons, not medicine. Once Clem didn't see any weapons, they didn't have any claim on anything else in there. Just because Jane didn't like his explanation doesn't mean the meds automatically become her property.
It was pretty obvious that he wasn't the one who came up with the plan to rob Clementine's group. Buricko, according to translation, was instructing him on what to say and do from start to finish. If he truly was enthusiastic about robbing them he wouldn't be taking directions from someone else. He still had a part in it though, no matter how reluctant he appeared about it so there's still that, but he wasn't the mastermind behind it.
As for if he's a villain as bad as the others, I personally don't think so but that's simply opinion.
Also , Natasha had some sorta of cell disease
Carver clearly had an armour made out of berries.
I notice that you left out the part where the little girl puts down her gun and is no longer a threat to any of them, after doing everything in her power to keep the bearded man from continuing to abuse you.
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I did.
It makes no sense, but so does Arvo being entrusted with his group's only medicine bag and walking alone to a new location. I tried my best to understand that bizarre incompetence. The Russians in general are extremely incompetent survivors, when you think about it.
It seems like players are really bad at nuance or body language. It's also why they think Carver is being genuinely friendly to Rebecca and Clem even though it's clear his smiles are fake.