But his death was not meaningless. Sudden and surprising yes, but even then we had time to register it the second he was bitten.
I don't know where you're getting 'meaningless' from. He was a well developed character before his death and his death came about because he was trying to protect something that mattered to him. If that it meaningless to you then I don't know what to tell you.
I agree with everything here.
When Telltale wrote Lee's death, that was an example of how deaths can be meaningless and sudden and happen to anyone. He was our protagonist! We didn't expect him to die--but he did.
Especially this.
Well that's you but me, I saw a nice guy that meant no harm and just wanted to protect his group. He just needed a good friend that actually cared and talked to him about him problems and supported him.
Also i can't really blame him on why he acted the way he did. He had to kill his mom and pete died.
Yeah... They massively succeeded on my account. I hate Nick more than any other character. Wish I understood the fascination, but to me he just comes off as a drunken idiot that gets people killed.
The recent playing dead episode confirmed that telltale was not only planning on killing off Sarah, but were happy to kill off a disabled little girl. And truthfully, that is the attitude that bugs me most. People like that already face enough of that in the real world. To have the creators of this character talk about her like that made me (as a person with really severe anxiety) feel terrible.
It definitely doesn't make me want to pick up another telltale game ever again that's for sure. That interview killed it for me.
But his death was not meaningless. Sudden and surprising yes, but even then we had time to register it the second he was bitten.
I don't … moreknow where you're getting 'meaningless' from. He was a well developed character before his death and his death came about because he was trying to protect something that mattered to him. If that it meaningless to you then I don't know what to tell you.
Well, I was more agreeing more with 'sudden' and 'can happen to anyone'.
We felt invincible for most of season 1, then when Lee gets bitt… moreen the reality that he is infact just like everyone else kicks in.
I don't agree with meaningless. He was freakin Lee ;-;
It's heavily implied he had pre-existing self esteem issues, what with how Pete talks about him and how he talks about Luke. It's pretty valid to assume he's got clinical depression and has been this way since before the apocalypse began.
It's heavily implied he had pre-existing self esteem issues, what with how Pete talks about him and how he talks about Luke. It's pretty valid to assume he's got clinical depression and has been this way since before the apocalypse began.
Okay, before I even though the rest of what you said, I need to explain to you why Nick is disabled. I'm too lazy to type up something new, so here's an analysis I posted on my blog a while back that I'm just going to repost here:
Nick appears to have clinical depression. It’s not confirmed but honestly I’d be shocked if they didn’t intend that because I and a lot of other fans who’ve dealt with that stuff in our own lives have found his portrayal to be almost alarmingly accurate. It’s probably easy to just think “ok he’s depressed so what everyone else is too” but it comes off to me as something existing before the ZA.
Him talking in the shed about how he’s “not built like that” is essentially him saying, in his own words, “i can’t pull myself up by my bootstraps, my depression doesn’t just go away when it becomes inconvenient and it’s time to move on.” It stemmed from the topic of coping with death but considering he fact he used a pre-apocalypse anecdote to discuss it, I got the impression that it’s no so much about him dealing with the apocalypse so much as it is him dealing with life.
Nick also says lot of very self-disparaging things about himself (“they’re good people, better than me” “he’s smart, smarter than me”) and he’s shown to be insecure about a lot of things (getting mad when Pete told an embarrassing story about him to Clem, getting mad over all the times Kenny questions/mocks his manhood) so I think it can be pretty easily determined that he’s got immensely low self-esteem, a kind that seems more deep-seated and personal than it does having been prompted by recent zombie-filled years.
There’s also a dialogue option where Clementine can tell Luke that Nick wanted to die, and Luke says “that’s not the first time he’s been like that”, which basically means that Nick has a history of suicidal thoughts. This one is tricky because Luke could just be referring to when Nick had to kill his mom, but the fact someone is suicidal on top of everything I’ve presented is proof enough in and of itself.
So, no, the word “depression” has never been used, by neither characters nor staff, but there’s a LOT of evidence here to back it up.
Speaking as someone with a [physical] disability I can get your viewpoint. People with disabilities fight an uphill battle in all spheres of… more life. But that doesn't make your life mean more. Just because you need support or protection doesn't mean your life is worth more than those doing the protection. People died protecting/sheltering Sarah, or died because of her inability to act and function autonomously. Where do you draw the line? How many people die protecting someone before it becomes too much? I'm studying psychology so I get the reasons for Sarah's inability better than most but that doesn't change facts. Sarah did not just not contribute anything to the survival of the group she actively detracted from their chances of survival simply by existing. It's not fair and it's brutal and I felt terribly for leaving her behind in that trailer park [after trying to convince her to leave, again, against my better judgement] but I don't regret… [view original content]
Well, their deaths upset me a lot so it took a while for me to get up the nerve to write this, to tell you the truth.
And when I say upset, I don't mean the good kind of upset that Lee's death gave me.
Agreed. I had my issues with the first few episodes, but I still defended the character set-ups of Nick and Sarah. With their flaws, merits, and pre-established relationships, they interacted with Clem in a way that was unique to the group while showing an interesting potential in where their stories could develop.
And that's part of why it feels so disappointing that the ideas behind their characters were seemingly dropped halfway through the season. The set-up for their story arcs were there, already laid out to be built upon and subvert preconceptions about people the way the first season did, but they were wasted..
To be fair, they were heading to a good direction with Sarah and Nick up until EP2, and after that it all changed.
Sarah has several dial… moreogue lines in EP2 which suggests that she WAS trying to fit in and become a useful part of the group, she even says she wanted to be like Clem at the gun scene,and asks her to guide her, aware that her dad must not know, and that he would never let her do it otherwise. She saw Clem as a beacon of hope for finally learning about the world she was in now, and starting to be treated like she was part of the group. Who else was gonna teach her if not Clem? Her dad would never do it himself or allow anyone else to.
She was also aware of her dad's excessive coddling and how he treated her like she was stupid and useless, and she was visibly upset about it. "My dad told you not to tell me, didn't he?", and then if you call him out in front of her "You told me I had to distract her!" she actually gets pissed o… [view original content]
I agree with your points, and that's also why Nick Breckon being back for the finale gives me hope the last episode might do a good job of tying the season off and making it at least feel like it matters.
To be fair, they were heading to a good direction with Sarah and Nick up until EP2, and after that it all changed.
Sarah has several dial… moreogue lines in EP2 which suggests that she WAS trying to fit in and become a useful part of the group, she even says she wanted to be like Clem at the gun scene,and asks her to guide her, aware that her dad must not know, and that he would never let her do it otherwise. She saw Clem as a beacon of hope for finally learning about the world she was in now, and starting to be treated like she was part of the group. Who else was gonna teach her if not Clem? Her dad would never do it himself or allow anyone else to.
She was also aware of her dad's excessive coddling and how he treated her like she was stupid and useless, and she was visibly upset about it. "My dad told you not to tell me, didn't he?", and then if you call him out in front of her "You told me I had to distract her!" she actually gets pissed o… [view original content]
I know people are mad about Greg Miller. He was disgusting.
The fact that they didn't get to redeem themselves is actually a normal th… moreing. I look at it as "This is The Walking Dead. Life is so precious, and it can be taken in and instant. Fair or not, villainess or heroic, it will always end."
I'm not going to repeat myself. I've already explained why this is a lazy, cop-out excuse from a literary standpoint because it's clear this wasn't Telltale's intention when they wrote the scenes. Lee's death, Ben's death--THOSE deaths had that meaning. These deaths did not. Nick and Sarah were just fridged, plan and simple.
No, when I said it was "meaningless" I meant like it had no bearing on the world around him. People are still dying and turning into walkers, Clementine is saved for now but still in danger... I mean like he didn't change the world. His death, in the end, was just another one biting the dust.
But his death was not meaningless. Sudden and surprising yes, but even then we had time to register it the second he was bitten.
I don't … moreknow where you're getting 'meaningless' from. He was a well developed character before his death and his death came about because he was trying to protect something that mattered to him. If that it meaningless to you then I don't know what to tell you.
Well, what i mean by that is I always interrupted these deaths as people that couldn't be saved. I think they were meant to kill any hope t… morehe player was supposed to feel. You grow attached to them, want to save them, then they die to leave the player feeling hopeless. I think they were created to play a purpose to make Clementine's character maybe more jaded if she survives next season. As uncle Pete says, "Everyone has to play a role, even if the people you love them for it, hate you. for it.
We love Nick/Sarah, we hate the way they died, know what i mean. This is what i meant when i said, Artsey Fartsey.
I’ve been thinking about this some more and I just wanted to say that this honestly seems like the only possible explanation.
I’ve always been so confused by it all; why do some parts of the story make no sense, while others are still fairly well done? Why are so many characters consistently/well-written in the beginning but then suddenly forgotten? Why are multiple plots/themes suddenly dropped for no reason? Why do Nick and Sarah's first deaths feel more "right" than when they die the second time?
It’s like Telltale just didn’t want to bother anymore. The first time Sarah and Nick die it can at least be interpreted as purposeful to a theme, however badly done it was. But the second time they die it's just completely nonsensical.
It still doesn’t really make sense to me, tbh. But this survivalist attitude really is the only thing we can take away from the story now. Apparently they’ve given up on all their original ideas...
The attitude that they take on the IGN Playing Dead interview basically confirms this new attitude of theirs. It’s honestly really upsetting.
I'm sure part of it has to do with the company being over-stretched with two other projects coming up by the end of this year, meaning they're less invested in each individual story than before. Players may have the luxury of being able to mull over the story and develop an emotional attachment to it, but to the company TWD is a commercial product.
I’ve been thinking about this some more and I just wanted to say that this honestly seems like the only possible explanation.
I’ve always… more been so confused by it all; why do some parts of the story make no sense, while others are still fairly well done? Why are so many characters consistently/well-written in the beginning but then suddenly forgotten? Why are multiple plots/themes suddenly dropped for no reason? Why do Nick and Sarah's first deaths feel more "right" than when they die the second time?
It’s like Telltale just didn’t want to bother anymore. The first time Sarah and Nick die it can at least be interpreted as purposeful to a theme, however badly done it was. But the second time they die it's just completely nonsensical.
It still doesn’t really make sense to me, tbh. But this survivalist attitude really is the only thing we can take away from the story now. Apparently they’ve given up on all their original ideas...
The a… [view original content]
I agree, and the fact that people try to justify it "Oh, they were holding the group down" kind of angers me. It also pisses me off that the… morere deaths were so quick, Nick is in a chainlink fence, you know, dying for nothing, and Sarah of course, was made by Telltale to die, so she had to have a bad death scene, too. You're right, Telltale is trying to make us Crawford. The sad part about this, is that some people actually think this way, if you're holding the group back, you should be left behind (or in this instance, killed).
I know Spooch even when everyone wanted Duck dead. Maybe I'm just patient with kids but, if I saw Shawn and Duck i'd go straight for Duck. Everyone hated him for no reason. He was a modern child to be honest.
It honestly is sad. People say that even if you try to play good in this game you would let people like Sarah die in real life. No I wouldn't, because I'm a human. I'm not a monster. It kind of scares me how people can think like that.
maybe. I didn't want to believe it really, I'd like to think that Telltale is completely capable of writing a great story and being invested in their own characters. Apparently not it seems.
I'm sure part of it has to do with the company being over-stretched with two other projects coming up by the end of this year, meaning they'… morere less invested in each individual story than before. Players may have the luxury of being able to mull over the story and develop an emotional attachment to it, but to the company TWD is a commercial product.
Right it wasn't executed well; they definitely could've done some things like given Nick some meaningful dialogue in 203. If when you say people were "callous" you're talking about the Playing Dead interview, I'm of the camp that thinks Greg's an ignorant and annoying but not necessarily hateful guy, and the two TT staff were just trying to explain how they had to work with about 1/2 of their players not wanting to save Sarah. Just bc they were relaying a story about people wanting to slap Sarah doesn't mean they wanted to slap her as well. It's part of their job to look at it from all players' perspectives, even the ones they don't agree with personally.
Unless they choose a cliffhanger to set up the next season, they should end the season on an uplifting note. Let's hope it is at least bittersweet.
I actually agree with you on the point that the bleakness of this episode has converted some players into becoming cynical. But it's the ex… moreecution of this theme, particularly in the callous way the doomed characters were treated both by a vocal portion of the internet as well as their own writers, which makes me question the intention of the developers.
Who knows. I'd love to have a uplifting, bittersweet end to the Season with Clem reunited with Christa. It's the only way that will convince me that Season 3 won't just be another slog through relentless bleakness while only the cold-blooded, irritating characters remain alive.
Like it or not, unfortunately, if this whole scenario was to happen for real, then it really is a case of survival of the fittest. Whether that is wrong or right is unimportant. It's simple fact. Natural selection so-to-speak. The strongest will live the longest (generally speaking). In reality, people like Sarah would not have made it past 6 months.
Might not be fair...but it's the way of the natural world.
They also really, really wanted you to hate Ben. And that's not just conjecture. There was an interview where they openly admitted that after seeing that most people in the beta tests saved Ben, they went back and purposefully made Ben's character less sympathetic to try and get players to drop him (I think having Ben abandon Clem in the beginning was one of the things they added). They want to push players to make the more hardcore, ruthless decisions because most players try to play the game as saintly as possible. Getting players to compromise their morality and make the "bad" choice has always been one of their objectives.
At the same time, the episode was all about villainizing a group of people - Crawford - who take that "ruthless" mindset to a stupid and impractical extreme. While Ben does things that really are idiotic (who the hell takes an axe that is clearly meant to be a barricade? Who thinks it's a good idea to confess your betrayal while being attacked by zombies?), the story also points out that killing him would align you with unsympathetic characters. They gave you the choice, either way, and justify it with satisfying conclusions to character arcs - letting Ben die has consequences on how Clem perceives you, and forces Kenny to redeem himself by saving a pregnant woman's life.
I think I can see Amid The Ruins' point in trying to present the same kind of ruthless mindset in the slightly more realistic character of Jane - a pragmatic woman whose intelligence is tempered by her social awkwardness, fatalistic attitude, and her willingness to rob and maim people for survival. The problem is that even though you can chide Jane for her methods, contrived events in the episode ultimately prove her right and you're not allowed to keep her around or let her deal with the consequences of her actions.
They also really, really wanted you to hate Ben. And that's not just conjecture. There was an interview where they openly admitted that afte… morer seeing that most people in the beta tests saved Ben, they went back and purposefully made Ben's character less sympathetic to try and get players to drop him (I think having Ben abandon Clem in the beginning was one of the things they added). They want to push players to make the more hardcore, ruthless decisions because most players try to play the game as saintly as possible. Getting players to compromise their morality and make the "bad" choice has always been one of their objectives.
letting Ben die has consequences on how Clem perceives you
Well, not really. The game allows you to justify letting Ben die in whatever way you choose. One of the options allow you to outright tell Clem that letting Ben die was the right thing to do because "He was a danger to the rest of us."
Whereas Crawford was an over-the-top caricature of pragmatism, Jane represents the more (for lack of a better word) seductive side of it. Going out and actively hunting down those you perceive to be the lessers of society is never going to be an appealing prospect to most normal, well-adjusted people. But as the apocalypse goes on, as the horrors and deaths pile up, it becomes easier and easier to just sever all attachment to others, particularly those who are weaker than you, and just survive for yourself.
I remember the writers of Season 1 talking about how the character of Clementine was there to address a central problem with putting a character in the middle of a conflicted survival group: players are going to wonder why they can't just leave. Clem's presence serves as an emotional anchor that Lee has to the group. In Season 2, that emotional anchor isn't there, or, more accurately, you're playing as that emotional anchor. And so Jane is there to essentially do the opposite of what Clem does for Lee: to hack away at the attachment that Clem has to the group and make her really think about why she doesn't just leave on her own.
That's actually something I really like about Episode 4 and what it does with Jane. It does what I wanted it to do from the start: give Clem a counterweight to her morality. I'll copy here a post I wrote back in October when Clem was announced as the new protagonist:
As the main player character, it's important that Clementine is able to perform what might be seen as an immoral action without it seeming out-of-character. But given how strong her morals were in Season 1, I find it difficult to imagine her engaging in morally questionable actions in Season 2 without it seeming unnatural. But I think there might be a way to deal with this.
In Season 1, you were playing as Lee and, knowing pretty much nothing about the game, you went into it with a more-or-less survivor mentality. Zombie apocalypse. All the rules are out. Prioritize survival above all else. That was your mindset at first. But then you met Clementine and she began to complicate things by serving as your "moral compass." You wanted to protect her innocence from the harshness of the world so you had to listen to her and balance what Lee knew was the smart thing to do with what Clementine thought was the right thing to do. That was one of the main tensions in the game. Without her, I'm betting that a lot of players would have chosen to do the morally questionable actions more often than they did.
Now, in Season 2, you're playing as Clementine, a character whom you know has very strong moral fiber. So if you play her according to how she was in Season 1, you'll tend to prioritize morality over pragmatism. This mindset somewhat limits the range of choices you'll make. That is, unless Clementine has a person in her group who does the opposite of what she did for Lee in Season 1. Someone who might push her towards more morally questionable, but extremely practical choices, acting as her "pragmatic compass" if you will. To ensure that Clementine has a reason to listen to him/her, this person would probably be an extremely capable survivor who's nice and friendly to Clem but just tries to convince her to "do the smart thing" in difficult scenarios to keep her alive. Basically, Lee, with more of a survival streak or Joel from The Last of Us. This way, the tension between doing the smart thing and doing the right thing will be maintained from Season 1, but flipped around and it would make sense for Clementine to follow her "pragmatic compass" and choose the smart option over the right option.
At the same time, the episode was all about villainizing a group of people - Crawford - who take that "ruthless" mindset to a stupid and imp… moreractical extreme. While Ben does things that really are idiotic (who the hell takes an axe that is clearly meant to be a barricade? Who thinks it's a good idea to confess your betrayal while being attacked by zombies?), the story also points out that killing him would align you with unsympathetic characters. They gave you the choice, either way, and justify it with satisfying conclusions to character arcs - letting Ben die has consequences on how Clem perceives you, and forces Kenny to redeem himself by saving a pregnant woman's life.
I think I can see Amid The Ruins' point in trying to present the same kind of ruthless mindset in the slightly more realistic character of Jane - a pragmatic woman whose intelligence is tempered by her social awkwardness, fatalistic attitude, and her willingness to rob… [view original content]
Now that's something I can get behind. Jane's still off-putting to me, but I can see how her design, personality and background has allowed some players to warm up to her. And I wonder if her being a 'seductive' survivalist is also a rationale behind Luke - a man so dedicated to his family that he'll cross states to find them, a man so put off by taking lives that he refuses to put down wild dogs and tyrants - taking up her offer of considering himself first before his friends.
letting Ben die has consequences on how Clem perceives you
Well, not really. The game allows you to justify letting Ben die in whate… morever way you choose. One of the options allow you to outright tell Clem that letting Ben die was the right thing to do because "He was a danger to the rest of us."
Whereas Crawford was an over-the-top caricature of pragmatism, Jane represents the more (for lack of a better word) seductive side of it. Going out and actively hunting down those you perceive to be the lessers of society is never going to be an appealing prospect to most normal, well-adjusted people. But as the apocalypse goes on, as the horrors and deaths pile up, it becomes easier and easier to just sever all attachment to others, particularly those who are weaker than you, and just survive for yourself.
I remember the writers of Season 1 talking about how the character of Clementine was there to address a central problem with putting a… [view original content]
But my point still stands--BOTH of Ben's deaths were very heartfelt and meaningful. His second death, after you save him, I would argue is better than his first. Sarah and Nick were robbed of that.
They also really, really wanted you to hate Ben. And that's not just conjecture. There was an interview where they openly admitted that afte… morer seeing that most people in the beta tests saved Ben, they went back and purposefully made Ben's character less sympathetic to try and get players to drop him (I think having Ben abandon Clem in the beginning was one of the things they added). They want to push players to make the more hardcore, ruthless decisions because most players try to play the game as saintly as possible. Getting players to compromise their morality and make the "bad" choice has always been one of their objectives.
Late to this thread, but...
Like it or not, unfortunately, if this whole scenario was to happen for real, then it really is a case of sur… morevival of the fittest. Whether that is wrong or right is unimportant. It's simple fact. Natural selection so-to-speak. The strongest will live the longest (generally speaking). In reality, people like Sarah would not have made it past 6 months.
Might not be fair...but it's the way of the natural world.
Ultimately Telltales job is to polarize the players by creating equal reasons to like/dislike NPCs because it generates more discussion and debate about choices and ultimately more interest in the game. Whether they do it well is a different matter.
Ultimately Telltales job is to polarize the players by creating equal reasons to like/dislike NPCs because it generates more discussion and debate about choices and ultimately more interest in the game. Whether they do it well is a different matter.
This is a FICTIONAL STORY. And fictional stories require a proper completion of story arcs. Sarah and Nick did NOT get that.
"In reality people like Sarah would not have made it past 6 months." There is no reality because zombies aren't real. People like Sarah, however, ARE real. The fact that they allegedly have no place in this fantasy world because "that's just how it would work" is bs because this is all speculation. But let's humor your comment--in the actual story, she lasted far longer than that. As I said in my original post, Sarah and Nick were the strongest characters in the season because they had survived for years in the apocalypse while already struggling with their own stuff--Sarah with her severe anxiety, Nick with his depression. They've BEEN survivors before the world even ended. They lasted longer than millions of people, all the while still fighting their own personal battles as well as the one around them. So don't you dare tell me they weren't strong.
Late to this thread, but...
Like it or not, unfortunately, if this whole scenario was to happen for real, then it really is a case of sur… morevival of the fittest. Whether that is wrong or right is unimportant. It's simple fact. Natural selection so-to-speak. The strongest will live the longest (generally speaking). In reality, people like Sarah would not have made it past 6 months.
Might not be fair...but it's the way of the natural world.
Comments
He has PTSD and probably survivor's guilt.
But his death was not meaningless. Sudden and surprising yes, but even then we had time to register it the second he was bitten.
I don't know where you're getting 'meaningless' from. He was a well developed character before his death and his death came about because he was trying to protect something that mattered to him. If that it meaningless to you then I don't know what to tell you.
Well that's you but me, I saw a nice guy that meant no harm and just wanted to protect his group. He just needed a good friend that actually cared and talked to him about him problems and supported him.
Also i can't really blame him on why he acted the way he did. He had to kill his mom and pete died.
The recent playing dead episode confirmed that telltale was not only planning on killing off Sarah, but were happy to kill off a disabled little girl. And truthfully, that is the attitude that bugs me most. People like that already face enough of that in the real world. To have the creators of this character talk about her like that made me (as a person with really severe anxiety) feel terrible.
It definitely doesn't make me want to pick up another telltale game ever again that's for sure. That interview killed it for me.
Well, I was more agreeing more with 'sudden' and 'can happen to anyone'.
We felt invincible for most of season 1, then when Lee gets bitten the reality that he is infact just like everyone else kicks in.
I don't agree with meaningless. He was freakin Lee ;-;
Ah, yes agreed then!
It's heavily implied he had pre-existing self esteem issues, what with how Pete talks about him and how he talks about Luke. It's pretty valid to assume he's got clinical depression and has been this way since before the apocalypse began.
I still can't believe how fast this topic escalated. I'm surprised it wasn't more of a thing closer to the release.
The way he was talking about his mom, made me think survivor's guilt.
Okay, before I even though the rest of what you said, I need to explain to you why Nick is disabled. I'm too lazy to type up something new, so here's an analysis I posted on my blog a while back that I'm just going to repost here:
Nick appears to have clinical depression. It’s not confirmed but honestly I’d be shocked if they didn’t intend that because I and a lot of other fans who’ve dealt with that stuff in our own lives have found his portrayal to be almost alarmingly accurate. It’s probably easy to just think “ok he’s depressed so what everyone else is too” but it comes off to me as something existing before the ZA.
Him talking in the shed about how he’s “not built like that” is essentially him saying, in his own words, “i can’t pull myself up by my bootstraps, my depression doesn’t just go away when it becomes inconvenient and it’s time to move on.” It stemmed from the topic of coping with death but considering he fact he used a pre-apocalypse anecdote to discuss it, I got the impression that it’s no so much about him dealing with the apocalypse so much as it is him dealing with life.
Nick also says lot of very self-disparaging things about himself (“they’re good people, better than me” “he’s smart, smarter than me”) and he’s shown to be insecure about a lot of things (getting mad when Pete told an embarrassing story about him to Clem, getting mad over all the times Kenny questions/mocks his manhood) so I think it can be pretty easily determined that he’s got immensely low self-esteem, a kind that seems more deep-seated and personal than it does having been prompted by recent zombie-filled years.
There’s also a dialogue option where Clementine can tell Luke that Nick wanted to die, and Luke says “that’s not the first time he’s been like that”, which basically means that Nick has a history of suicidal thoughts. This one is tricky because Luke could just be referring to when Nick had to kill his mom, but the fact someone is suicidal on top of everything I’ve presented is proof enough in and of itself.
So, no, the word “depression” has never been used, by neither characters nor staff, but there’s a LOT of evidence here to back it up.
That too, I'm sure.
Well, their deaths upset me a lot so it took a while for me to get up the nerve to write this, to tell you the truth.
And when I say upset, I don't mean the good kind of upset that Lee's death gave me.
Lol Yeah, I can tell. I think a lot of us feel the same.
How I see the general season plans/themes:
Season 1: Innocence
Season 2: Survival
Season 3: Transformance
Agreed. I had my issues with the first few episodes, but I still defended the character set-ups of Nick and Sarah. With their flaws, merits, and pre-established relationships, they interacted with Clem in a way that was unique to the group while showing an interesting potential in where their stories could develop.
And that's part of why it feels so disappointing that the ideas behind their characters were seemingly dropped halfway through the season. The set-up for their story arcs were there, already laid out to be built upon and subvert preconceptions about people the way the first season did, but they were wasted..
take that new writers
I agree with your points, and that's also why Nick Breckon being back for the finale gives me hope the last episode might do a good job of tying the season off and making it at least feel like it matters.
I was talking about myself looking at it in that way. I don't take the game's flaws that personally.
O_O
No, when I said it was "meaningless" I meant like it had no bearing on the world around him. People are still dying and turning into walkers, Clementine is saved for now but still in danger... I mean like he didn't change the world. His death, in the end, was just another one biting the dust.
What you just described is exactly how I interpreted it.
edit: double post
I’ve been thinking about this some more and I just wanted to say that this honestly seems like the only possible explanation.
I’ve always been so confused by it all; why do some parts of the story make no sense, while others are still fairly well done? Why are so many characters consistently/well-written in the beginning but then suddenly forgotten? Why are multiple plots/themes suddenly dropped for no reason? Why do Nick and Sarah's first deaths feel more "right" than when they die the second time?
It’s like Telltale just didn’t want to bother anymore. The first time Sarah and Nick die it can at least be interpreted as purposeful to a theme, however badly done it was. But the second time they die it's just completely nonsensical.
It still doesn’t really make sense to me, tbh. But this survivalist attitude really is the only thing we can take away from the story now. Apparently they’ve given up on all their original ideas...
The attitude that they take on the IGN Playing Dead interview basically confirms this new attitude of theirs. It’s honestly really upsetting.
I'm sure part of it has to do with the company being over-stretched with two other projects coming up by the end of this year, meaning they're less invested in each individual story than before. Players may have the luxury of being able to mull over the story and develop an emotional attachment to it, but to the company TWD is a commercial product.
not everyone gets to die a hero
I know Spooch even when everyone wanted Duck dead. Maybe I'm just patient with kids but, if I saw Shawn and Duck i'd go straight for Duck. Everyone hated him for no reason. He was a modern child to be honest.
maybe. I didn't want to believe it really, I'd like to think that Telltale is completely capable of writing a great story and being invested in their own characters. Apparently not it seems.
Right it wasn't executed well; they definitely could've done some things like given Nick some meaningful dialogue in 203. If when you say people were "callous" you're talking about the Playing Dead interview, I'm of the camp that thinks Greg's an ignorant and annoying but not necessarily hateful guy, and the two TT staff were just trying to explain how they had to work with about 1/2 of their players not wanting to save Sarah. Just bc they were relaying a story about people wanting to slap Sarah doesn't mean they wanted to slap her as well. It's part of their job to look at it from all players' perspectives, even the ones they don't agree with personally.
Unless they choose a cliffhanger to set up the next season, they should end the season on an uplifting note. Let's hope it is at least bittersweet.
Late to this thread, but...
Like it or not, unfortunately, if this whole scenario was to happen for real, then it really is a case of survival of the fittest. Whether that is wrong or right is unimportant. It's simple fact. Natural selection so-to-speak. The strongest will live the longest (generally speaking). In reality, people like Sarah would not have made it past 6 months.
Might not be fair...but it's the way of the natural world.
They also really, really wanted you to hate Ben. And that's not just conjecture. There was an interview where they openly admitted that after seeing that most people in the beta tests saved Ben, they went back and purposefully made Ben's character less sympathetic to try and get players to drop him (I think having Ben abandon Clem in the beginning was one of the things they added). They want to push players to make the more hardcore, ruthless decisions because most players try to play the game as saintly as possible. Getting players to compromise their morality and make the "bad" choice has always been one of their objectives.
At the same time, the episode was all about villainizing a group of people - Crawford - who take that "ruthless" mindset to a stupid and impractical extreme. While Ben does things that really are idiotic (who the hell takes an axe that is clearly meant to be a barricade? Who thinks it's a good idea to confess your betrayal while being attacked by zombies?), the story also points out that killing him would align you with unsympathetic characters. They gave you the choice, either way, and justify it with satisfying conclusions to character arcs - letting Ben die has consequences on how Clem perceives you, and forces Kenny to redeem himself by saving a pregnant woman's life.
I think I can see Amid The Ruins' point in trying to present the same kind of ruthless mindset in the slightly more realistic character of Jane - a pragmatic woman whose intelligence is tempered by her social awkwardness, fatalistic attitude, and her willingness to rob and maim people for survival. The problem is that even though you can chide Jane for her methods, contrived events in the episode ultimately prove her right and you're not allowed to keep her around or let her deal with the consequences of her actions.
If your name isn't Clementine or Kenny, then you don't matter in this story.
Well, not really. The game allows you to justify letting Ben die in whatever way you choose. One of the options allow you to outright tell Clem that letting Ben die was the right thing to do because "He was a danger to the rest of us."
Whereas Crawford was an over-the-top caricature of pragmatism, Jane represents the more (for lack of a better word) seductive side of it. Going out and actively hunting down those you perceive to be the lessers of society is never going to be an appealing prospect to most normal, well-adjusted people. But as the apocalypse goes on, as the horrors and deaths pile up, it becomes easier and easier to just sever all attachment to others, particularly those who are weaker than you, and just survive for yourself.
I remember the writers of Season 1 talking about how the character of Clementine was there to address a central problem with putting a character in the middle of a conflicted survival group: players are going to wonder why they can't just leave. Clem's presence serves as an emotional anchor that Lee has to the group. In Season 2, that emotional anchor isn't there, or, more accurately, you're playing as that emotional anchor. And so Jane is there to essentially do the opposite of what Clem does for Lee: to hack away at the attachment that Clem has to the group and make her really think about why she doesn't just leave on her own.
That's actually something I really like about Episode 4 and what it does with Jane. It does what I wanted it to do from the start: give Clem a counterweight to her morality. I'll copy here a post I wrote back in October when Clem was announced as the new protagonist:
Now that's something I can get behind. Jane's still off-putting to me, but I can see how her design, personality and background has allowed some players to warm up to her. And I wonder if her being a 'seductive' survivalist is also a rationale behind Luke - a man so dedicated to his family that he'll cross states to find them, a man so put off by taking lives that he refuses to put down wild dogs and tyrants - taking up her offer of considering himself first before his friends.
Wow, really? Jeez.
But my point still stands--BOTH of Ben's deaths were very heartfelt and meaningful. His second death, after you save him, I would argue is better than his first. Sarah and Nick were robbed of that.
Doesn't excuse the contrived writing...
Ultimately Telltales job is to polarize the players by creating equal reasons to like/dislike NPCs because it generates more discussion and debate about choices and ultimately more interest in the game. Whether they do it well is a different matter.
Telltale's job is also to provide good writing and storytelling...
ZOMBIES AREN'T REAL.
This is a FICTIONAL STORY. And fictional stories require a proper completion of story arcs. Sarah and Nick did NOT get that.
"In reality people like Sarah would not have made it past 6 months." There is no reality because zombies aren't real. People like Sarah, however, ARE real. The fact that they allegedly have no place in this fantasy world because "that's just how it would work" is bs because this is all speculation. But let's humor your comment--in the actual story, she lasted far longer than that. As I said in my original post, Sarah and Nick were the strongest characters in the season because they had survived for years in the apocalypse while already struggling with their own stuff--Sarah with her severe anxiety, Nick with his depression. They've BEEN survivors before the world even ended. They lasted longer than millions of people, all the while still fighting their own personal battles as well as the one around them. So don't you dare tell me they weren't strong.
Did anyone read all of that?