Could the raccoon family be foreshadowing?
Now don't laugh, I'm dead serious about this XD
Foreshadowing, fans have had a lot of theories on these throughout Season 2. One confirmed foreshadowing we've had happen already is with the chess pieces that ended up foreshadowing Carver's demise. This was something that other fans pointed out, in that floor the group is standing on is designed like a chess board and Carver's words of "Three moves away from checkmate" ended up being Clem, Kenny and Luke doing an epic takedown on him as shown in the gifs below.
There's also been speculation by fans that the other board game found in the cabin might come into play too with the Kenny/Luke decision, because of the way the pieces are placed on the board. [you can find the post about it here.] Along with this, many fans including myself theorize that the Good King Wenceslas Christmas song that Sarita tells Sarah of, may also foreshadow events to come, one where an unidentified 'Servant' will struggle to carry on through a storm and a 'King' will help that Servant through.
So foreshadowing isn't something unheard of, even if most of it is speculation. It's a subject we often speak of. That said, this is what brings me to the raccoons in Episode 4 and the theories around it that may or may not hold some significance, on whether or not those raccoons represent fellows characters like the chess pieces did.
Let's say the raccoon family are in fact added foreshadowing of things to come, and that it’s something that revolves around a family. The easiest characters to place the younger raccoons to would be Clementine and the baby, because clearly they're the youngest of the group who are still alive and the game may hopefully be implying Clementine will survive and is going to have a little brother for a while.
So its just leaves open the question, who's the parent raccoon meant to be? Could this all be playing into the Kenny/Luke conflict that might kick off in Episode 5? Could that adult raccoon be Luke or Kenny?
Think about it for a moment, throughout this season these two have not been getting along, and we're already getting some bad things going down between Luke and Kenny revolving around the baby now too [one where Kenny tells Luke off for porking at the worst of times; while the other was Luke having a go at Kenny for wanting to keep holding Rebecca’s child when she said no.] We currently don't know how much worse things could get with Kenny and Luke, however it's this scene with the raccoon family and looking back at the board game with only 4 pieces on the board [one fallen] that leads me to think the Pizza vs Ice Cream business might not be on saving a life, and more than picking sides...but a decision on family.
Let's look at this board for a second,.The fallen piece on the board could imply a dead character, but it also could mean the baby who can’t be included into making the Pizza/Ice cream decision because after all it is just a baby, but that the baby can’t be removed from the board because it hasn’t been taken out of the game, as in it's not dead like everybody else. But again, this is just a theory.
It’s the subject of family and seeing theories around this game board which is why I’m so uncertain if Bonnie and Mike will survive the shootout, and why I’m really starting to suspect that Clem, the baby, Kenny and Luke will end up being the last survivors from the group; if from the shootout or towards the end of the final episode. So if the raccoon family theory does indeed play into some foreshadowing of the future, could it mean the game will end with a family of three?
Rebecca is dead and the baby is parentless, so who will take care of it? Rationally many would think Kenny, because despite being broken after losing Sarita, he’s been a father before and would know what to do. But at the same time we have Luke who was friends with Rebecca and obviously would be worried about what would happen to that poor baby, yet seemingly doesn’t know a pickle about babies in particular [something that gets put into question when you have Bonnie take Clem to one side and ask 'Does Luke know anything about babies?']
Then we have Clementine too. Clearly even if she’s a tough cookie that can kick walker ass like the awesome little ninja she is, she still needs guidance of adults to make sure she grows up well. Clem’s connection to Kenny is that of an obvious one, they knew each other the first 3 months the dead started walking and have that history. Meanwhile for Luke it’s barely two weeks, but this guy has still been looking out for her after the incident with the dog bite and has tried to make her feel accepted as part of their group.
What I’m trying to say is, if it weren’t for Clementine and the baby being there [along with what’s left of the group] there’d be nothing to keep Kenny and Luke from going their separate ways. And if anything does indeed happen to poor Mike and Bonnie, Clem and the baby’s safety could become an even more important objective apart from their own survival, and this might too become a bad thing because it could cause further arguments to be stirred up between Kenny and Luke. As a result, it could cause a bigger divide on the two thinking they know best and there being nobody else except for Clem to tell them to chill if no other characters joins their dwindling group in the long run.
We must take into consideration Kenny and Luke have only known each other a couple days. So think of it like this, on the one hand Kenny might not want to leave the baby and Clem with Luke because he views him as a turd and doesn’t know anything about babies, where as Luke on the other hand might not want to leave his friend’s baby or the little kid he’s been looking out for in the hands of a man he views as broken and who messed up Carver’s face pretty bad, but might also do the same to other people while caring for a baby and a kid. See the possible dilemma?
At the same time we can't rule out that Kenny and Luke won't eventually form a truce, something that has possibly been hinted as another form of foreshadowing in Amid The Ruins. In the picture above for example, while Kenny and Luke argue, there is a poster on the wall that quotes "We must forgive our enemies" & "Let us have peace" while showing two soldiers shaking hands. There is also the statue of a solder carrying the other that may even play into this, where future circumstances might have these two put aside their differences if one of them gets injured [it could even be a connection to Good King Wenceslas Christmas song for all we know].
Whatever happens, there could a chance the four of them together might not work out as a family and that they're on the road to a divorce and not just because their marriage was a flimsy one to begin with. Kenny and Luke might split and Clem may only be able to follow one, or a character could be fated to die regardless if we side with Kenny or Luke. Because just like how Lee still died whether you cut his arm off or not, the ending could be the same for this season whatever choices are made...or perhaps it won't. Truth is we don't know what the decision is that Clementine has to make, yet given this is a game with the illusion of choice, we may not have a big a say as we might think when it comes down to it.
"What's the most important thing in this world?"
As was the theme of family introduced in Episode 2 by Luke, along with his words of "It's a tough world out there without people you can trust", so has trust been present throughout this season in every episode. Trust is the thing Clementine questions of many characters like Bonnie and Jane, but are also what Kenny and Luke can end up asking Clementine when she goes to sit at their tables.
Who do we trust more with Clementine's life, Kenny or Luke? Who do we want looking out for her when shit hits the fan? Who would we want there as family?
The mother raccoon and her babies being a type of foreshadowing might really just be nothing at all. It could be they are simply there because they are, as so to give the characters some time out from the craziness of escaping Carver's camp. But who knows, maybe like the board games, Sarita's song and the other hidden meanings in the game, maybe those raccoons could wind up symbolizing some other meaning of what it is to be a family's surviving in a world gone to hell...
...where people just wanna eat the crap out of you o_o
Comments
I completely agree with you. I'm pretty sure Telltale didn't just throw a raccoon like that for nothing. And I hope you're right but only time will tell us!
You.Are.Awesome.
Give this man a cookie.
The mother raccoon should be Christa, she escaped from the bandits in the first episode like the mother raccoon did from Mike, Bonnie and Clem
I like this theory very much. I also think theres been a lot of blatant foreshadowing with Jane talking to Clem about survival and about how she can see Clem surviving on her own. A lot of us here think there will be an ultimate decision with Luke and Kenny, but I am also willing to bet there's an option to just leave them all.
Or the raccoon is only there so mike can eat the shit out of it. (I'm sorry old joke)
But this is a pretty good idea.... Maybe there's more reasoning behind it.
I think the mother raccoon is Kenny and the babies are Rebecca's baby. Maybe in episode 5 Kenny will become really over obsessive to the point where only he can touch the baby.
This is some great analysis. However, I want to add something - Jane's discussion with Clementine was very poignant. "Don't let them drag you down with them." "You don't owe them anything."
It's entirely possible, right now, that Clementine may have to leave it "all" behind, whether she wants to do so or not. If you look at the pieces to that board game, it's entirely possible that Clementine is standing alone far away, or standing with another with another dead and another left behind.
She's a woman, not a man :P
Give her all the cookies.
Hm, interesting. I was actually thinking about this the other day, that maybe the raccoon family was going to foreshadow something, and that the two raccoon cubs represented the two children left in the story, Clem and the baby, and the mother raccoon as meaning only one other adult will be around to look after them... but I didn't think it held much weight as a theory, and concluded that they were just raccoons in the story for the sake of a fun little moment with Mike and Bonnie.
But you do present some good points here, so now I'm thinking it might actually be foreshadowing something, although if I were to think of anyone to take on the role of the mother raccoon, my best guess would be Christa, since she's been the surrogate mother figure to Clem for over 2 years, and she's very likely to return in the final episode, plus as a lot of people have been saying she'll probably take on the role of the baby's mother if we're ever reunited with her. But that means no Luke or Kenny for season 3...
Or if the mother raccoon does represent either Luke or Kenny, then that means no Christa (nooo, now I really understand the words of "you can't have both").
Really nice theory though, and thanks for linking to that board game theory, since it's really cool too.
i think everyone will end up dead except for clem and the baby, then christa will find them
Hey Lilac I came up with a theory about pizza and ice cream I want you to add it if you want.
First theory:
Let's just say it's launch time and that a friend who's starving told you that he wants to eat someplace.He suggest Pizza or ice cream , for whatever reason this guy told you that you pick the place you eat:pizza or ice cream.but he told we can't have both at the same time (moment of truth) nobody mentioned that we can have one before the other.
Now Remember that Pizza is a meal and ice cream is a type of dessert.Now the rational man will choose pizza before ice cream.right.
I don't think someone will have ice cream before Pizza.The ice cream will only satisfy you with it's taste.Pizza will satisfy you with taste and appetite(as the pizza it's big and take time to eat).The ice cream it's only here to be chosen it after we choose pizza.
That means if we choose pizza we can still choose ice cream(explanatory:we eat the meal and we finish our already satisfied appetite with desert)
But if we choose ice cream we can no longer choose pizza anymore as it's unhealthy to eat desert before a meal.
Second theory:
We have ice cream and pizza on a table we can't have them both but remember we can choose one before the other.
you chose to eat ice cream.you ate and found it tasty and only took a couple a minute to eat.The pizza it's still here you can still choose to eat it (the pizza takes time to rot)(Pizza is still alive we can still choose him)
You chose to eat pizza the only problem with pizza it takes time to finish eating it, that means Ice cream has melted and you can no longer choose ice cream(Ice cream is dead we can no longer choose him)
I hope it's understandable.
Give this woman all the cookies.
All possible foreshadowing that i found.
When the Racoon runs away could be foreshadowing Clementine managing to escape the ambush.
When Mike points the gun at the Racoon it could be foreshadowing Clementine (holding the baby) will be at gunpoint.
When Bonnie makes Mike put down the gun could mean there could be a peacemaker with the antagonist (Arvo perhaps?)
Clementine running away with the baby could be a reference to this achievement.
Interesting theory. It might be a stretch in a few ways, but I found the chess board callback to be intriguing.
I'd want Bonnie to be the mother raccoon. I know she's probably not the mother raccoon but, am I the only one that's tired of Luke and Kenny?
Yes, if i had a choice.. id save Bonnie and Mike and leave Luke and Kenny.
I thought the Risk board was simply depicting the end of episode 1.
Pete and Clem at one side of the stream and Nick on the other. (or Clem/Nick - Pete)
The dying guy in the middle.
For nothing? But we got the awesome "I'd eat the shit out of that raccoon."
GOTY
Ah, I really hated Jane when she said that stuff about gong solo. I really wish there'd been an option to kick her down the stairs because it just boiled my blood. There's no way I'd want that for Clem, not at the age she is T_T but yeah that could end up happening too.
What's the most important thing in this world?
Clem, it's family?
Now gimme those cookies! :P
Reading this thread I am actually getting the feeling that either Luke or Kenny will get hurt during the shootout, forcing the one who isn't hurt to almost literally carry the other person to safety while Clementine tries to protect the baby. Eventually it will come to a point where Clementine has to choose between going with Kenny or Luke and depending on your choice, one of them could actually die.
Very good theory.
Raccoons vs Russians...
Christa's baby could be foreshadowing.
Also I'd honestly choose Luke over Kenny at this point if I had to choose one. He had sex one time. It's forgivable and honestly? Nothing too horrific happened that couldn't be contained. Kenny? Emotionally lashes out at Clementine.
Bleh.
I'm way to exhausted to write a long response in agreement to your foreshadow theory, but I'll just say that perhaps the mother raccoon represents the leader of the group to which we don't know exactly who, and Mike portrays Vitali when he exclaims "Buricko! Buricko! We can take them! I can kill any three of them with my bare hands, we don't even need the weapons! That's right, I mean you, eyepatch man, you're weak and I could tear out your throat with my teeth, who needs to use bullets for the likes of you? I'll kill you all and eat your entrails for breakfast!"
This is the relation to Mike wanting to, of course, eat the shit out of the raccoon. The mother raccoon escapes with her two cubs.
The mother raccoon may represent Clem (discounting the leader thing) who will undoubtedly escape the conflict with two other members. According to the theory, it will most likely be Kenny and Luke, leaving Bonnie and Mike to die.
I unfortunately have no idea where the baby fits this though. Espurr's side to the raccoon theory seems more valid when it comes to the baby.
The raccoon will raise the baby! After everyone dies! Lol!
Why not the raccoon him/her self? The raccoon will be a mom for the baby! Lol!
Mike is the winner because after all the raccoons kill the Russians Mike would eat the shit out of them
I have a similar interpretation. A mother will do what is best for her family: protect, nurture, discipline, feed, give and show affection, guide, mediate, arbitrate...the list goes on. In general, she is dedicated to her family, regardless of the toll it will exact upon her. In this season, everyone approaches/appeals to Clementine for almost every task. In a way, she is the "mother" of the group. Jane knows this, and does her best to remind Clementine of her options. Hence the "don't let them drag you down with them" line.
Clementine's "children" should be people she can trust and depend upon, and who will also look out for her. But, there would be no conflict if the children were Mike and Bonnie. It would not surprise me (but I would be highly disappointed) if Mike and Bonnie have some type of heroic sacrifice for the greater good, leaving Clementine with Luke, Kenny, the baby and the ensuing drama to follow.
"No it's food." :P
Telltale: Hey! Who told you it was okay to hack our game!? We've been trying to hide that surprise for weeks! x_x
I remember a theory someone gave, that the difference between ice cream and pizza could be that with ice cream it's for one person, where pizza is something you can share with others. Honestly, I'm not entirely sure what to make of what the theories on those foods and how they connect to the game or Kenny or Luke, so I don't know...
The only theory i could figure on it, is that they're foods those characters once liked and it'll pop up in a conversation like 'what's your favorite food?' type of thing. But I'm sorry but couldn't quite understand what you were trying to say. Were you talking about Luke and Kenny? Could you explain it differently? ^^
Wow what a thread! This would have to be the best one I've seen on this forum.
I think the whole situation of trying to kill the raccoon also reflects the moral dilemma of robbing Arvo. By eating the raccooon/stealing Arvo's medicine, you're depriving their family of their means of survival in order to protect yourself.
And I love the irony of a little girl becoming the "mother' of her group.
Yes I was talking about them.Just picture Luke as pizza and Kenny as ice cream.
Edit: sorry for how the post came out, don't know hat happened
Good idea, I like it. Agreed that Kenny, Luke, Clem and the baby will most likely be the survivors of the shootout. I was trying to fit together these three metaphors (raccoon family, Wenceslas, and the game), and I came up with a bit of an idea of what might happen. See what you think.
Clem does make a pizza/ice cream choice to go with either Kenny or Luke, though it was really hard for her. I think the choice itself was represented by the gameboard, where the fallen piece has fallen right on the border between two colors, representing how Clem was right on the fence between choosing (she'd be the one in the green box; I upped the brightness so you could see the two countries' colors):
But then after she made said choice and we have two separated groups, she and her fellow (let's say she chooses Luke) feel bad and go back to find Kenny and the baby, maybe because a big snowstorm starts. Clem feels bad about abandoning part of her "family." (Now remember in "Good King Wenceslas," the King is out in the snow because he wants to bring goods to a poor man. The servant is there to help the King out on his journey to find the poor man, but the servant at first seems reluctant to be out in the snow for the poor man.) I imagine Clem to be the least injured of the three (Luke, Clem, and Kenny) after the gunfight and she really wants to help Kenny--her family member, so I think Clem encourages the injured Luke to continue on, making Clem King Wenceslas and Luke the servant, while Kenny is the poor man. Then they all find each other again! Kenny and Luke will reconcile; Kenny's touched that Luke came to find him. But then later either Kenny or Luke succumbs to his injuries or the cold (a lot of people think it'll be Kenny), leaving only a raccoony family of three behind. A bittersweet reunion. This even works with the "Fallen but never Forsaken" statue--whoever dies has "fallen," but they haven't been "forsaken" or abandoned by the rest.
The same could happen if she chose Kenny instead of Luke.
Hopefully that was clear. What do ya'll think?
Wait a sec....
Some of you are saying Bonnie is the mother raccoon and Clem and the baby are the smaller raccoons. If that becomes true
(Episode 1 when Clementine looks at the doll could be Bonnie she says "I cant eat that" or something)
Now im episode 4 Mike says "I could eat the shit outta that raccoon"
Could this possibly foreshadow Bonnie being eaten to death by humans?
Since the game board was in Episode 1, I think it was representing how Clementine(single piece) was going to chose between Nick/Pete(two pieces) and that among them, Pete(fallen piece) would die.