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.
Again: is this an issue of accessibility and you need it paraphrased because you can't read large amounts of text, or are you just being a disrespectful jerk?
Again: is this an issue of accessibility and you need it paraphrased because you can't read large amounts of text, or are you just being a disrespectful jerk?
Again: is this an issue of accessibility and you need it paraphrased because you can't read large amounts of text, or are you just being a disrespectful jerk?
Let me start out by saying that I truly appreciate your perspective! This was something I completely missed and am very thankful to you for speaking up about it.
Before I elaborate on my views I just wanted to make a small distinction first: I'm not sure if we can say that Telltale wanted us to hate those characters. Telltale wants us to hate characters like Carver who are unambiguously evil, but when it comes to characters like Sarah and Nick I think it is too far to say that Telltale wants us to hate them. That being said, Telltale did make it very hard for the player to empathize with Sarah and Nick the further the story went along. They actually made it very easy for the player to dismiss them and treat them as liabilities the more you played, making their deaths completely meaningless as you say. I don't think Telltale wanted us to hate these characters, but I do think they wanted us to write them off very easily.
In this specific episode I clearly remember Jane stressing survivability, heavily implying that Sarah should be left to die. Heck, she even made me feel guilty for choosing to save Sarah when she talked about her sister's situation. I remember thinking "maybe it'd be easier to just let Sarah die so she can have her peace. It's probably better than letting her survive and suffer more." And that was basically the perspective I stuck with until I finished the episode. I can see where Jane is coming from (given her backstory) but the problem is that we don't get another character (at least in my playthrough) who balances out Jane's perspective. We are only given a very persuasive perspective that points to letting Sarah die and minor/nonexistent opposing arguments pointing towards a more optimistic view of Sarah. Luke was the only character who barely nodded in that direction when he stated that he believed my choice to save Sarah was the right one.
The fact that Sarah is completely dysfunctional in this episode does not help either. She was in a great deal of pain and suffering I understand that, but the game didn't give her the slightest chance to recover. It made it that much easier for me to believe that she really was just a liability and was only going to drag the group down even further. By the time she died I truly did feel as if it was her inevitable fate and didn't end up feeling too bad about it. This seems to be what Telltale was going for, given how much they emphasized her liability-ness.
I frankly stopped caring about Nick at all by the time I played this episode. When I saw him zombified in ep. 4 I remember thinking "man that sucks" and then I quickly moved on. My thought process, mind you, wasn't "it's a zombie apocalypse, people die all the time," it was actually, "well he was a screwup for the most part. Oh well." I did relate to him when he was suffering due to Pete's death, but his repeated screw ups blew up that connection for me. Additionally. like Skoothz stated, he didn't get the slightest chance to prove himself in any way whatsoever. I only remembered him as a screw-up instead of a person who had to deal with more struggles than the average person but still chose to fight for survival anyways.
Telltale's treatment of these characters is especially problematic when we think about real life people with disabilities. It implies that disabled people are weaker and less functional than "normal" human beings, and are therefore liabilities who couldn't possibly survive a situation like this one. "Normal" people have an inherent advantage over disabled people. To people with disabilities this is a big slap to the face since it reinforces a negative ideology that has been prevalent in societies for a long time and probably makes them feel sub-human. To "normal" people this might introduce or re-inscribe incorrect ideas about people with disabilities.
In spite of all this, I do believe we need to cut Telltale some slack. Writing a story like this one that has so many things going on at the same time must make it very hard to keep track of the details on how each character is handled and how they may affect the people who interact with them. In a perfect world Telltale should be able to give every single character the most correct portrayal+development to make every group of people on earth happy. The sad truth is that it is very well near impossible to achieve that kind of perfection, especially before you get a reaction from your audience.
Skoothz did a very great job at pointing out this problem to Telltale, so now it is up to them to pick up on it and make changes with it in mind once they start making/introducing/developing other characters. Hopefully they will keep this in mind in the future.
God I just want to go to their office in callifornia and scream at them loud. Why do they fail to realize that just because it's "SAD" doesn't make it good at all. Amid the Ruins was sad and pathetic, it made me cry. But that doesn't mean it's a GOOD EPISODE. Most of the crying came from the flawed story and writing. I'd rate this poor episode a 3/10.
I think that's why they decided to kill off nick and sarah, and that some hated her. To make us cry. And again, they need to realize that doesn't determine if a episode is good or not. They still think it's season 1, yet they don't want to put as much EFFORT as they did in season 1. Just lazy. Somebody needs to smack telltale real hard and make them realize that games they make require effort in order to be good.
Oh, okay! Yeah, I mean... there are some people who do genuinely struggle but if they don't have any kind of issues like that, then I'd rather they not come into my thread and brag about how lazy they are. The write up is only 2 pages in Microsoft Word, anyway. That's barely a college essay.
God I just want to go to their office in callifornia and scream at them loud. Why do they fail to realize that just because it's "SAD" doesn… more't make it good at all. Amid the Ruins was sad and pathetic, it made me cry. But that doesn't mean it's a GOOD EPISODE. Most of the crying came from the flawed story and writing. I'd rate this poor episode a 3/10.
I think that's why they decided to kill off nick and sarah, and that some hated her. To make us cry. And again, they need to realize that doesn't determine if a episode is good or not. They still think it's season 1, yet they don't want to put as much EFFORT as they did in season 1. Just lazy. Somebody needs to smack telltale real hard and make them realize that games they make require effort in order to be good.
I personally liked Sarah and nick. I think telltale could have done more to develop there character and give them a death the deserved, not an off screen death or a stupid death. The characters deserved more of a chance in my opinion.
Where ever Jane is in the Tell Tale world , I promise you she is going too die the same way she lives. If you know what I mean , you can't survive a apocalypse all by yourself , only caring about yourself , she's only gonna make it so long living that ... if your going to survive you need people too save you , and you need to save people it's teamwork ....
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… more 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.
Where ever Jane is in the Tell Tale world , I promise you she is going too die the same way she lives. If you know what I mean , you can't … moresurvive a apocalypse all by yourself , only caring about yourself , she's only gonna make it so long living that ... if your going to survive you need people too save you , and you need to save people it's teamwork ....
I totally agree with you , I pulled Ben up because I knew carly would have been pissed at me if I didn't , I hated Ben the whole game but I never gave up on him , I felt bad about how he died falling off that roof
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.
stop. Everyone in this post is taking this way too far, just because they see characters like nick and Sarah die DOES NOT MEAN THAT THEY WILL FEEL BAD FOR THEMSELVES. At this point all anyone is doing is implying that telltale is purposely trying to make people with anxiety feel bad.
I just want to reiterate that when I said I believe Sarah and Nick are some of the strongest characters in the season, I meant what I said. … moreAnd if you're like them, you're a very strong person too. Don't allow narratives like this to make you feel like a lesser or a worthless person, because you aren't.
You are a capable, deserving individual, and you kick life's ass every day just being you!
I know for a fact that it made a lot of people feel bad about themselves and I don't blame them. Don't tell me to "stop" when I'm trying to offer kind and encouraging words to young people who are struggling. Why would you ever think that's okay?
stop. Everyone in this post is taking this way too far, just because they see characters like nick and Sarah die DOES NOT MEAN THAT THEY WIL… moreL FEEL BAD FOR THEMSELVES. At this point all anyone is doing is implying that telltale is purposely trying to make people with anxiety feel bad.
No one's asking for a hero's death. They're asking for completed character arcs and deaths that feel like they were done for more than just shock value.
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.
Like and being are very different Skooth. Should really know that. None of the characters are real. It's all fantasy. So, given the whole context of the fantasy, be it any 'real' apocalypse...take any you pick, I stand by my statements, in scenario, real or made up, where similar 'disaster' has happened, the weak will not survive.
Argue that all you like, you might think as a human you are better than every other species, but look at how every species survives. By our very nature, humans are weak.
As for as their deaths meaning something, seriously folks, get a godamn life and move on. They were not important to Telltale, the fact that you and others 'thought' they 'should' be...is really irrelevant, and your problem, not theirs. Do you bitch like 8 year old girls when a film character you 'thought' should be better fleshed out gets killed? I feel sorry for you, I really do.
And we all know what 'thought and should' did don't we? yeah...that's right lol. As for the rest of your comments, opinions mate, and we all know what they say about those too yeah?
if this scenario was to happen for real
In reality
the way of the natural world
ZOMBIES AREN'T REAL.
This is a FICT… moreIONAL 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… [view original content]
For the people who consider Jane as a Molly copy and paste.
Molly was actually a person with humanity, she was a lone wolf, but was also someone who cared about others.
Molly, even if you beat her down, saved Clementine and Kenny, and was going to save Lee, if Kenny hadn't dropped him.
If Jane was there?
Jane would've killed Lee, left Kenny wounded and let Clementine cry as the horde surrounded them, and escaped by herself in the Alley.
So, given the whole context of the fantasy, be it any 'real' apocalypse...take any you pick, I stand by my statements, in scenario, real or made up, where similar 'disaster' has happened, the weak will not survive.
I stand by my statement as well. They weren't weak.
Do you bitch like 8 year old girls when a film character you 'thought' should be better fleshed out gets killed?
If by "b*tch like 8 year old girls" you mean criticize, yes, I very well might. There's a common racially charged film trope that's been observed in a variety of horror movies in which the African-American character is the first to get killed off, regardless of their role or level of characterization, because prejudiced writers deemed that expendable red shirts. You can read more about the trope here. Do you not think this is something worth getting upset over?
These are fictional portrayals that have problematic REAL WORLD implications. Fiction and real life go hand-in-hand and influence each other greatly and if you're not aware of that you're not paying attention to the world around you.
Like and being are very different Skooth. Should really know that. None of the characters are real. It's all fantasy. So, given the whol… moree context of the fantasy, be it any 'real' apocalypse...take any you pick, I stand by my statements, in scenario, real or made up, where similar 'disaster' has happened, the weak will not survive.
Argue that all you like, you might think as a human you are better than every other species, but look at how every species survives. By our very nature, humans are weak.
As for as their deaths meaning something, seriously folks, get a godamn life and move on. They were not important to Telltale, the fact that you and others 'thought' they 'should' be...is really irrelevant, and your problem, not theirs. Do you bitch like 8 year old girls when a film character you 'thought' should be better fleshed out gets killed? I feel sorry for you, I really do.
And we all know what 'thought and should' did don'… [view original content]
For the people who consider Jane as a Molly copy and paste.
Molly was actually a person with humanity, she was a lone wolf, but was also so… moremeone who cared about others.
Molly, even if you beat her down, saved Clementine and Kenny, and was going to save Lee, if Kenny hadn't dropped him.
If Jane was there?
Jane would've killed Lee, left Kenny wounded and let Clementine cry as the horde surrounded them, and escaped by herself in the Alley.
Jane and Molly are two different characters.
Molly would have been disgusted by Jane if she heard what she did to her sister.
Molly fought tooth and nail to protect her disabled sister and keep her alive. Jane gave up on hers.
Jane would've killed Lee, left Kenny wounded and let Clementine cry as the horde surrounded them, and escaped by herself in the Alley.
Jane did plenty of things out of humanity and care for others. She turned back to help Clem and Rebecca make it through the hoard, even though they would have been just fine if Rebecca just followed Jane's directions. She rushed over and risked her life to save Sarah and Luke in the trailer (remember, she was the one holding the door open and fending off the walker and she was the last one to leave through the skylight). She is explicitly stated to have confronted Arvo rather than just run away because she was afraid of leading him back to the vulnerable group. She's nearly in tears after threatening/robbing Arvo. And even though she was (understandably) reluctant to do so, she did jump down to try to help Sarah rather than just immediately running up the collapsed deck.
Jane doesn't just care about herself. She wants to. But she still has quite a bit of humanity inside her that keep her from doing only the smart, pragmatic thing.
For the people who consider Jane as a Molly copy and paste.
Molly was actually a person with humanity, she was a lone wolf, but was also so… moremeone who cared about others.
Molly, even if you beat her down, saved Clementine and Kenny, and was going to save Lee, if Kenny hadn't dropped him.
If Jane was there?
Jane would've killed Lee, left Kenny wounded and let Clementine cry as the horde surrounded them, and escaped by herself in the Alley.
Jane and Molly are two different characters.
Comments
Is that a rhetorical question?
I love your posts. There should be a love button. Thank you for taking the time to write all this.
Yeah, 8 pages worth of people.
Is this an issue of accessibility for you? Because I can paraphrase it, gladly. But if you're just trying to insult me then that's just rude.
True, but ultimately, their job is to create a coherent, dynamic, and unique story. They've fallen short on that, here.
You're welcome. Thank you for appreciating it.
Must....not....get.....angry....at....TL;DR post.
No, I meant I'm trying not to get mad at the guy who posted TL;DR.
Again: is this an issue of accessibility and you need it paraphrased because you can't read large amounts of text, or are you just being a disrespectful jerk?
I think their joking by trying to force themselves to not get angry at one of the TL;DR posts.
Ohhhh, okay, sorry, I got confused.
Yeah, I just get annoyed when people act like they can't read.
Let me start out by saying that I truly appreciate your perspective! This was something I completely missed and am very thankful to you for speaking up about it.
Before I elaborate on my views I just wanted to make a small distinction first: I'm not sure if we can say that Telltale wanted us to hate those characters. Telltale wants us to hate characters like Carver who are unambiguously evil, but when it comes to characters like Sarah and Nick I think it is too far to say that Telltale wants us to hate them. That being said, Telltale did make it very hard for the player to empathize with Sarah and Nick the further the story went along. They actually made it very easy for the player to dismiss them and treat them as liabilities the more you played, making their deaths completely meaningless as you say. I don't think Telltale wanted us to hate these characters, but I do think they wanted us to write them off very easily.
In this specific episode I clearly remember Jane stressing survivability, heavily implying that Sarah should be left to die. Heck, she even made me feel guilty for choosing to save Sarah when she talked about her sister's situation. I remember thinking "maybe it'd be easier to just let Sarah die so she can have her peace. It's probably better than letting her survive and suffer more." And that was basically the perspective I stuck with until I finished the episode. I can see where Jane is coming from (given her backstory) but the problem is that we don't get another character (at least in my playthrough) who balances out Jane's perspective. We are only given a very persuasive perspective that points to letting Sarah die and minor/nonexistent opposing arguments pointing towards a more optimistic view of Sarah. Luke was the only character who barely nodded in that direction when he stated that he believed my choice to save Sarah was the right one.
The fact that Sarah is completely dysfunctional in this episode does not help either. She was in a great deal of pain and suffering I understand that, but the game didn't give her the slightest chance to recover. It made it that much easier for me to believe that she really was just a liability and was only going to drag the group down even further. By the time she died I truly did feel as if it was her inevitable fate and didn't end up feeling too bad about it. This seems to be what Telltale was going for, given how much they emphasized her liability-ness.
I frankly stopped caring about Nick at all by the time I played this episode. When I saw him zombified in ep. 4 I remember thinking "man that sucks" and then I quickly moved on. My thought process, mind you, wasn't "it's a zombie apocalypse, people die all the time," it was actually, "well he was a screwup for the most part. Oh well." I did relate to him when he was suffering due to Pete's death, but his repeated screw ups blew up that connection for me. Additionally. like Skoothz stated, he didn't get the slightest chance to prove himself in any way whatsoever. I only remembered him as a screw-up instead of a person who had to deal with more struggles than the average person but still chose to fight for survival anyways.
Telltale's treatment of these characters is especially problematic when we think about real life people with disabilities. It implies that disabled people are weaker and less functional than "normal" human beings, and are therefore liabilities who couldn't possibly survive a situation like this one. "Normal" people have an inherent advantage over disabled people. To people with disabilities this is a big slap to the face since it reinforces a negative ideology that has been prevalent in societies for a long time and probably makes them feel sub-human. To "normal" people this might introduce or re-inscribe incorrect ideas about people with disabilities.
In spite of all this, I do believe we need to cut Telltale some slack. Writing a story like this one that has so many things going on at the same time must make it very hard to keep track of the details on how each character is handled and how they may affect the people who interact with them. In a perfect world Telltale should be able to give every single character the most correct portrayal+development to make every group of people on earth happy. The sad truth is that it is very well near impossible to achieve that kind of perfection, especially before you get a reaction from your audience.
Skoothz did a very great job at pointing out this problem to Telltale, so now it is up to them to pick up on it and make changes with it in mind once they start making/introducing/developing other characters. Hopefully they will keep this in mind in the future.
God I just want to go to their office in callifornia and scream at them loud. Why do they fail to realize that just because it's "SAD" doesn't make it good at all. Amid the Ruins was sad and pathetic, it made me cry. But that doesn't mean it's a GOOD EPISODE. Most of the crying came from the flawed story and writing. I'd rate this poor episode a 3/10.
I think that's why they decided to kill off nick and sarah, and that some hated her. To make us cry. And again, they need to realize that doesn't determine if a episode is good or not. They still think it's season 1, yet they don't want to put as much EFFORT as they did in season 1. Just lazy. Somebody needs to smack telltale real hard and make them realize that games they make require effort in order to be good.
Oh, okay! Yeah, I mean... there are some people who do genuinely struggle but if they don't have any kind of issues like that, then I'd rather they not come into my thread and brag about how lazy they are. The write up is only 2 pages in Microsoft Word, anyway. That's barely a college essay.
I'm wayyyyyy ahead of ya >:^D
I personally liked Sarah and nick. I think telltale could have done more to develop there character and give them a death the deserved, not an off screen death or a stupid death. The characters deserved more of a chance in my opinion.
im not telling my opinion about sarah,that just pisses people off
i did not like nick at first,later i learned to like his character i wish his death was more meaning full
I'd put the cotton candy on the pitchfork. Eat it while rioting.
Where ever Jane is in the Tell Tale world , I promise you she is going too die the same way she lives. If you know what I mean , you can't survive a apocalypse all by yourself , only caring about yourself , she's only gonna make it so long living that ... if your going to survive you need people too save you , and you need to save people it's teamwork ....
Jane is a piece of shit
I totally agree with you , I pulled Ben up because I knew carly would have been pissed at me if I didn't , I hated Ben the whole game but I never gave up on him , I felt bad about how he died falling off that roof
The sweetest victory.......Oh god....worst pun....
I'd go for... SWEET JUSTICE.
No, but not everyone who Telltale deems a liability should just be killed off because they're different!
stop. Everyone in this post is taking this way too far, just because they see characters like nick and Sarah die DOES NOT MEAN THAT THEY WILL FEEL BAD FOR THEMSELVES. At this point all anyone is doing is implying that telltale is purposely trying to make people with anxiety feel bad.
I know for a fact that it made a lot of people feel bad about themselves and I don't blame them. Don't tell me to "stop" when I'm trying to offer kind and encouraging words to young people who are struggling. Why would you ever think that's okay?
No one's asking for a hero's death. They're asking for completed character arcs and deaths that feel like they were done for more than just shock value.
I have to admit, I went for Shawn, but just because I wasn't playing blind and I wanted to see what happened.
Like and being are very different Skooth. Should really know that. None of the characters are real. It's all fantasy. So, given the whole context of the fantasy, be it any 'real' apocalypse...take any you pick, I stand by my statements, in scenario, real or made up, where similar 'disaster' has happened, the weak will not survive.
Argue that all you like, you might think as a human you are better than every other species, but look at how every species survives. By our very nature, humans are weak.
As for as their deaths meaning something, seriously folks, get a godamn life and move on. They were not important to Telltale, the fact that you and others 'thought' they 'should' be...is really irrelevant, and your problem, not theirs. Do you bitch like 8 year old girls when a film character you 'thought' should be better fleshed out gets killed? I feel sorry for you, I really do.
And we all know what 'thought and should' did don't we? yeah...that's right lol. As for the rest of your comments, opinions mate, and we all know what they say about those too yeah?
how many of ya'll told sarah to close her eyes when she died? LMAO
For the people who consider Jane as a Molly copy and paste.
Molly was actually a person with humanity, she was a lone wolf, but was also someone who cared about others.
Molly, even if you beat her down, saved Clementine and Kenny, and was going to save Lee, if Kenny hadn't dropped him.
If Jane was there?
Jane would've killed Lee, left Kenny wounded and let Clementine cry as the horde surrounded them, and escaped by herself in the Alley.
Jane and Molly are two different characters.
I stand by my statement as well. They weren't weak.
If by "b*tch like 8 year old girls" you mean criticize, yes, I very well might. There's a common racially charged film trope that's been observed in a variety of horror movies in which the African-American character is the first to get killed off, regardless of their role or level of characterization, because prejudiced writers deemed that expendable red shirts. You can read more about the trope here. Do you not think this is something worth getting upset over?
These are fictional portrayals that have problematic REAL WORLD implications. Fiction and real life go hand-in-hand and influence each other greatly and if you're not aware of that you're not paying attention to the world around you.
Molly would have been disgusted by Jane if she heard what she did to her sister.
Molly fought tooth and nail to protect her disabled sister and keep her alive. Jane gave up on hers.
Wow bro sick burn you sure got us.
Damn truth right here, even if her fate may have been inevitable, the right thing is not to give up on someone.
Jane did plenty of things out of humanity and care for others. She turned back to help Clem and Rebecca make it through the hoard, even though they would have been just fine if Rebecca just followed Jane's directions. She rushed over and risked her life to save Sarah and Luke in the trailer (remember, she was the one holding the door open and fending off the walker and she was the last one to leave through the skylight). She is explicitly stated to have confronted Arvo rather than just run away because she was afraid of leading him back to the vulnerable group. She's nearly in tears after threatening/robbing Arvo. And even though she was (understandably) reluctant to do so, she did jump down to try to help Sarah rather than just immediately running up the collapsed deck.
Jane doesn't just care about herself. She wants to. But she still has quite a bit of humanity inside her that keep her from doing only the smart, pragmatic thing.
i sure did.