Did Clementine work for you as a protagonist?
For me... nah... I thought her emotionless blank thing was boring. Apparently for being a badass 11 year old who can overpower walkers by the dozen and kick down doors can't kill anyone. I think they should have went with a more of an Arya Stark type thing. She's a kid her mind is a sponge.
Sign in to comment in this discussion.
Comments
Seems like we have different experiences then.
Don't know what you mean about emotionless blank thing, I saw Clementine express all kinds of emotion during my playthrough.
Also, that silly door argument. I'm not gojng to say that it's realistic that a small girl can kick down a door, but I am going to say that Clementine at that point has lived through the apocalypse for two years now, likely fending off walkers several times.
Besides we don't actually know the state the door was in, the lock could be rusty or there might have been slight damage to it already after having been hammered at by walkers. Extend your imagination a tiny bit outside what's convenient for you.
Clementine was quite excellent as the protagonist for S2. All the effort made by Lee to teach her how to be the survivor that she is today really paid off. I thought Clementine (Melissa Hutchison) did a damn good job at conveying her voice from the 8 year old to an 11 year old kid going through the ZA. Clementine has her moments of happiness, surprise, and obviously sadness that were portrayed just as expected given the Telltale engine's capabilities and VA. Although just a little girl, the moments of triumphs like stitching her arm up, climbing the ski lift tower, or standing up to Carver fit well within her character. I hope we continue to play as her in upcoming S3.
About state of the doors - people often ask why walkers didn't manage to break them? I think that they're kind of fans who didn't read comics yet because in the comics there are several walkers who can't even grab any survivor and hold him or her. It seems that walkers after a long time are somehow weaker. In other words - it's possible that this doors were in bad shape but walkers were also not strong enough to bust them open.
My answer is basically what both DoubleJump and Nikolaj-11 already said. I enjoyed playing as Clementine, even more so than Lee, I feel more attached to her character after Season 2, and hope we play as her again in Season 3.
Did Clementine work for me as a protagonist? Yes, definitely. For me, it was an obvious choice after season 1. We're talking about character who don't has established personality and we all know that Clementine as a kid enters into important part of her life when her personality will be shaped. I just can't imagine Christa, Lilly, Molly, Kenny, Omid etc. as PCs because this are characters that we already know, we know who they are, what's important to them. I'd imagine an entirely new character as PC but... no, I'm glad that they chose Clementine and I hope we'll see her again in Season 3 as protagonist.
She already had a defined personality, albeit a boring one, so i dont think she should have been a protag. I hated her both seasons.
" but I am going to say that Clementine at that point has lived through the apocalypse for two years now, likely fending off walkers several times."
I didn't get that impression from listening to Christa's conversation with her in episode 1. Based on what Christa's was saying Clementine didn't come across as being seasoned in battle. Christa was very concerned that she wouldn't be able to make it without her and seemed to doubt her life skills when she was saying how she should be doing these things for herself, during the scene by the fire, before they were separated.
I think Clem can do what she can do simply because she is the protagonist controlled by us. She basically becomes Lee in a Clem "unlockable skin" which was one of my issues with her as a protagonist. There was very little difference in playing with Clem in a Z.A and playing with Nariko from Heavenly sword in her fantasy setting. When you play with Bella Monroe in Siren you feel like you're controlling a child.You feel her limitations and her fear. It's the contrast to when you play with the more competent and older characters within the same game that makes her believable. For these reasons I found Lee more convincing as a protagonist than I did Clem.
A child surviving 2 years in a ZA is more about luck and them being part of a strong group than them having Rambo levels of "badassery".
Clementine worked as a protagonist for me. But I don't think that Telltale utilized her very well, especially during Amid the Ruins and No Going Back.
She felt too independent from others and interacting with the rest of the environment. An example of this [environment wise] is during the combat moments is that during the first half of Season Two she had to pick weapons to defend herself (e.g. shed and bridge fight) and then by the second half of the season all she had to do was struggle a little and she could "overpower" a walker. (Simply mashing a single button instead of finding a way to fight back).
I really liked her as a protagonist because she has a lot of potential to be a great one, hopefully her potential will be utilized in Season Three.
She worked for me, I liked playing her more than Lee and I want to keep playing as her in the next season(s).
She definitely had her moments, I'll give her that, but overall, I did not like playing as a physically helpless child for five episodes. I can see why some people would like that change, but from what I've seen, it's very split.
Beware, long post ahead
Overall, Clementine didn't feel like a good choice to be a protagonist. Creating a pre-defined character into a playable character is difficulty to do right, mainly due to the choices players can make as them can potentially contradict their pre-defined morals and personality.
The main problem is that we're technically not playing as Clementine, but still playing as Lee (or rather, the player), which means that whatever opinions, feelings, and characters Clementine had in Season 1 has suddenly merged into the opinions, feelings, and character of whoever controls her. In Season 1 she sticks up for Ben in spite of her abandoning her out of cowardice, and gets upset should he die in the bell tower. Here in Season 2 her compassion for others all depends on the player, not herself. Her compassion for characters such as Sarah and Nick would be in-character for Clementine had she been a supporting character, but because she's a player character, she can potentially have them killed and show no regrets over it.
I understand that her character shift could have been due to whatever happened during the time skip of eighteen months with Christa, which will have been enough time to turn her from a sweet and lovable little girl to a hardened and cold girl who is approaching her teens. The problem is? We never get to see how much she has changed throughout the time-skip, which makes the transition all the more poorly handled. Because of that I found it hard to relate to the new Clementine and understand why she could decide to abandon a girl near her age to die a horrible death and not have it haunt her for as long as she lives, or stare at a man who is getting his face smashed with a crowbar and not be traumatised over it.
And then there's how everyone treats her as an adult starting from the second half of the season, she's expected to perform tasks for other characters solely because she's the protagonist and needs something for the player to do. The problem is? She's eleven years old, and the writers consistently forgets this fact, and has no problems with Clementine singlehandedly rescuing the group from Carver's community, or using super strength to fend off walkers and locked doors. Because of this she is rendered 'overpowered' in the narrative, and inadvertently makes the majority of the adults surrounding her look hopelessly incompetent, incapable of looking after themselves, and just plain lazy. This problem wasn't present in Season 1 due to Lee being an well-built adult in his thirties, and being given tasks to do was more appropriate than say expecting Duck to help rescue Glenn in Episode 1.
To be fair, she was a good protagonist in Episode 1 due to attempting to be friends with a dog and not knowing that it was actually turned feral due to lack of food, especially if she takes food away from him. The bite she receives is also treated by herself in a poor manner, which was realistic due to her age, and her cries in pain throughout the procedure was appropriate, given her age and lack of experience with self surgery. All of this made clear that she's not Lee, she's not going to be as capable as an adult and we shouldn't expect a child to perform as many impressive feats as we would expect from her.
Then come Episode 5 where she shrugs off a bullet in the shoulder and only passes out on the floor in a pool of her own blood, and seems to not need any treatment to recover from something that should have killed her. Not only does this contradict what she had to go through in the first episode, it also makes me struggle to emphasise with her, since she defies the laws of nature to survive in a scenario that clearly should have killed her. For heavens sake, she can potentially fall into a freezing lake which could have almost killed her as well, even with a few seconds of burning fire to warm her up.
All of these reasons provide is why I don't believe that Clementine worked as a playable character. I'll admit that had the writing been improved, she could have been a fantastic child protagonist, but in the end the potential to explore the true nature of a child struggling to live in a post-apocalyptic world had been underutilized in Season 2. In the end, Clementine works better as a supporting character, not a protagonist.
Not to me, it just didn't work for me.
I agree
You bring up some very good points. Treating her as an adult and her shrugging off a bullet because of plot armor was horribly illogical. Take my like, friend
Nope, for the same reasons already given.
I don't know why I'm responding to this, but what the hell. Clementine didn't just shrug of the bullet wound. When Clem got shot in the shoulder she passed out from the pain, hence the dream with Lee. She woke up, clearly in pain and Kenny/Jane mentioned that the bullet passed through her body. After the car crash, Clem wondered off into the snow storm holding her shoulder still in pain. Then during the fight between Kenny vs. Jane, she fell on her shoulder having the wound bleed out and having barely enough strength to hold the gun. After all that she still holds her shoulder in certain parts of whatever ending.
The odds of an 11 year old being shot so close to the chest with no medical treatment in the midst of freezing temperatures and not being seriously crying out in pain is ehh
She was in pain. Crying out is something Clementine just doesn't do. Clementine can even say it herself back in ep. 3 to Sarah that she balls up her pain. Plus she was shot in the shoulder, people can survive that and keep pressing on.
I think it is slightly mixed for me.
When I heard that Clementine is going to be the protagonist of Season 2, I pictured this idea that because she is still a child, her main strength would be to influence people around her to make the choice that you want to do. Sure, she will still be awesome at killing walkers and handling other problems. But I thought it would have been cooler if she has influenced the survivors to do her choices. Like for example in Episode 2, her words influenced Walter's choice to either save or let Nick die.
But overall, I am glad that Clementine is the protagonist of Season 2, but you have to keep her capability realistic and grounded.
Chest? It was closely to her shoulder. In such low temepratures she wouldn't bleed to death, I think. Also, there was an exit wound and this kinds of wounds have a better chance of healing up.
Btw. why do you think she doesn't received any medical treatment? She was unconscious so we don't know what Kenny and Jane did. I think that at first they put her in a car where was warmer and then maybe Jane tried to stop the bleeding and she manage to do so? I mean, she survived on her own for a long time so I guess she knew how to treat injuries.
It worked in episode 1, but even then it felt limited after that it was just terrible. i hope we play as an adult in season 3
Yeah, those were the kind of choices I also would have liked, I really loved the idea of influencing people, because Clem definitely had a lot of influence on not just the characters in Season 1, but the majority of players. I really loved that Walter choice, just wish there had been more of those.
I enjoyed playing as her, she is a good example of what you have to become in an apocalypse. Call it what you want, unrealistic, boring, annoying (that adults rely on her) but in reality she's eleven at that age you become less like a child and more adult anyway. Clementine has had to grow up faster than we would have to so being a badass is what everyone has to be.
When people say she was emotionless I really question if you actually payed attention to the game. She's shown emotion a ton of times. Just because she isn't crying at every second or at everyones death doesn't mean she's emotionless.
Yeah, forgive me to take a concerned mother figure's words with a grain of salt. Besides a lot of the 16 months were left to interpretation anyway, since we know nothing, anything could happen. I'm taking Clementine's actions during the game as proof that Christa underestimated her.
I just want to add to what you said, I often compare Clementine to Carl from the comics, who, like Clementine, has been forced to grow up and give up his childhood and become more adult like as a result of the surroundings and seriousness of the situation. However, I don't see people complain about what Carl has become, in fact, people generally like comic Carl because of how he has transformed, but meanwhile, Clementine's change is completely lampooned by many people. Maybe it's because, as RichWalk23 said, we never actually saw her change while with Carl we did see his progression, but that doesn't change the fact that both are kids who have learned to grow up in order to survive in this world.
I don't get why some people perceive Season 2 Clementine as emotionless. There is a strong difference between being reserved and not having any emotions. She is after all an introvert (like me) and introverts tend to be more reserved than extroverts. When bad things happen we introverts struggle to keep it to ourselves. Throughout season 2 i saw Clem battling her emotions internally, especially in A House Divided (The Fireplace scene) when Kenny was talking to Clem about the past. From the look on her face I swear that she wanted to cry but she kept herself together.
Well to quote Obi-Wan of Star Wars, after Season 2: She's taking her first steps into a larger world. Lee had a guiding hand but the training wheels were off for Season 2. The player can choose how Clem will be.
So, yes. She DOES work for me as a protagonist. I just hope she continues to have more adventures in surviving the Walking Dead world.
Absolutely... until No Going Back where she was a void character to build up AJ and Kenny and just auto-agreed with everyone's word and had no personality of her own. She had lost all her relatability and as a result I felt nothing throughout the entirety of the episode other than a breath of relief once she killed Kenny and the episode was over.
Although NGB is a fun drinking game. Take a drink every time something extremely stupid happens or someone breaks character, you'd end up very similarly to me and be pausing the game every ninety seconds to take a leak.
But anyway, I'd hardly consider No Going Back as a part of the experience as it really doesn't count to me in terms of my enjoyment of Clem as a character. I enjoyed her slightly cold and aggressive demeanor and found her extremely sympathetic throughout the majority of the season and was always very interested in her when she did actions on her own term and came off being strong without being too distant.
NO as much as I like Clementine I didn't like playing as her. I still think it was a dumb ideal killing off my favorite character Lee
Not really for me. . .
I mean, I still love Clementine's character of course. But there were a lot of times where her expressions were kind of blank, and totally emotionless. She did show anger and sadness, but whenever she seemed to smile, her eyes were off from her lips. There were plenty of uh, "Invincibilities" that Clementine had. Such as her hat staying on, no matter what, being able to live through falling into a freezing river, getting shot in the shoulder. . . etc. Y'all get it. But I still love her.
Didn't work for me. I'd rather see her as a deuteragonist.
Clementine worked as a protagonist for me, she was my favorite character in season 1 and i really enjoyed playing as her in season 2.
I do agree there are a small number of unrealistic moments for a character of her age but it didn't take any enjoyment from the game for me, i also didn't see her as "emotionless" as Yo-da-Man pointed out she seems more introverted and introverts a less likely to let all their emotions show like a extroverted person would. After playing season 2 i like and respect her character even more than i did after season 1 and i really hope we see her again in season 3 whether that be as a protagonist or deuteragonist.
No, not really.... I miss caring for her safety. I think I only worried about Clem about three times during the whole season. I want Clem as deuteragonist again.
To add onto what you said, emotional numbness is also a thing. It would be rather prevalent in the zombie apocalypse, I imagine.
I'm someone that doesn't really feel much, as odd as that sounds. Don't know why, but it doesn't mean I can't, for example, look at someone and think something like 'it's a shame what you must have gone through'. I just, you know, keep everything bottled up, more or less, in my head without emotionally reacting. And I know that I'd torture myself trying to make a hard decision.
And really, I imagine many are like that in the apocalypse. There has to come a point, in the apocalypse with so much death and hardship around, where people harden.
I think the rule of 'show, don't tell' is rather apt for this discussion as well. It's like people want it spelled out, as plain as day, that she's hurting. I think the writers trusted people to get that, but . . . yeah.
In summary:
Put yourselves in Clem's shoes. She's lost her parents and Lee, a man who affected her a lot. Then, she loses Omid and as a result, Christa has quite possibly not gotten on well with her for quite a long time. The baby must have also been lost, I imagine. To me, regardless of whether she cried or not, it was quite clear to me that she was in pain, kept a lot bottled up.
I think a lot of times there is a blank slate. Her voice is usually pretty monotone or flat.
Yes and no. When the game was at it's best, sure. But during moments like Clem KICKING A DOOR DOWN. No, that didn't cut it for me.
For me it was the moment where a group of adults couldn't shut down a windmill but she could.
I'll admit that I found myself saying that she comes across as bland and emotionless at times when there are moments when she clearly isn't.
If I had to guess why people insist that she's 'emotionless blank', it might have something to do with her sudden personality transition between S1 and S2, her sometimes stilted voice acting, and how she sometimes acts too grown up for an eleven year old girl, which might break some player's immersion in connecting with the new Clementine.
She was shot in the shoulder, and she lost quite a bit of blood. At the very least, her arm shouldn't even work properly anymore.
She was shot by a hunting rifle at practically point-blank range. Clementine should be dead. Low temperatures don't stop bleeding either.