Maybe to get more sympathy? I know I didnt rob him cuz when he said "sick sister" I imagined a little kid.
Also, the Russian translation … moreapparently says that they were yelling at us to give back their medicine, even if we didnt take it, so obviously he was hiding it from them and then blamed it on us when they noticed it was missing. Considering he was the only one who spoke English it was a perfect plan since we couldnt tell them the truth. And it makes NO SENSE to leave something as valuable as medical supplies unattended just cuz you dont want to carry an extra bag.
Those are all really well thought out and consistent points defending a very unpopular opinion. It seems to be a problem on this board of pe… moreople being unable to see things from more than one point of view. I was disappointed that there wasn't an extended conversation moment with him, especially considering the kind of impact he had on the group. But then again, that might have been a deliberate intention.
At the risk of starting yet another flame war, I would also like to add that Kenny's treatment of him so soon after the incident with the other Russians (and subsequently, his sister) also might have contributed to his colored opinion of Clem and the rest of the group, and contributed to what is likely a myriad list of reasons why he (probably out of fear) pulled the trigger in the end.
I went back and looked at the scene before I posted and while Kenny did say that, they were still discussing another possible way around. The final decision was made when Arvo insisted it was safe. He didn't tell them there was another way and he took them a way where their path led directly to crossing the lake.
And I don't know much about crossing thin ice but I'm still not entirely sure being the first is the most dangerous, especially when you are more familiar with the lake like Arvo was. I don't think you are giving Arvo enough credit. He was in a desperate and enraged situation and I think he planned for people to die. With any hope Clem would die so, like you said, he wouldn't have pull the trigger. When that didn't work, he tried to do something stupid and blatantly tried to shoot her.
The issue I have with Arvo is that the time that passed and the way my Clem treated him (nice all the way, no stealing), made it extremely difficult to sympathize with him. When you have that much time to consider your actions and you still hate and want to kill that person, I can't understand that. Although, I still think this is more the writing and the lack of choice at fault. Arvo will hate you no matter what you say and do, which doesn't seem right to me.
I discussed the lake scenario in my original post--please have a look at it again. Also, it depends on the choice you make. I forget what op… moretion it is, but when Clementine expresses worry, Kenny says "The fastest why between two things is a straight line" meaning, he was for it as well.
At the point they were discussing this, there was no zombies behind them that they knew of. They knew there was a possibility they could have heard the gunshot. If the walkers were literally right on their tail, I could understand it, but they had time to stop and talk about crossing the lake and only after they started going did the walkers appear.
Plus, like I mentioned, I'm not sure going first is the most dangerous. I feel like all that extra trampling will make it most dangerous for the last person, like it was for Luke.
The group had two cripples and were being pursued by zombies, and it was Kenny himself who agreed with the idea to walk across the lake. Ar… morevo also fearlessly walked across the lake to demonstrate it was possible, when he could have just allowed the others to take that risk and die first. We can't forget that.
It annoyed me as well. It was as if Telltale wrote them specifically to be the hated character that Clementine's group is victorious against--somewhat, anyway.
I went back and looked at the scene before I posted and while Kenny did say that, they were still discussing another possible way around. Th… moree final decision was made when Arvo insisted it was safe. He didn't tell them there was another way and he took them a way where their path led directly to crossing the lake.
And I don't know much about crossing thin ice but I'm still not entirely sure being the first is the most dangerous, especially when you are more familiar with the lake like Arvo was. I don't think you are giving Arvo enough credit. He was in a desperate and enraged situation and I think he planned for people to die. With any hope Clem would die so, like you said, he wouldn't have pull the trigger. When that didn't work, he tried to do something stupid and blatantly tried to shoot her.
The issue I have with Arvo is that the time that passed and the way my Clem treated him (nice all the way, no stealing), made it extremely diffi… [view original content]
i do sympathise with avro but he shot a little girl who was kind to him from the start when she meets him told off her friend who wanted to … moresteal from him and said how sorry she was for his sister and stood up to a raging grown man to protect him and was willing to leave with his group and take the baby together that's my clementine she shot kenny and left with g i jane i'll bet we will see them at the howes later and if they'll sorry my clementine will forgive them but she won't forget just like with jane
Exactly, a lot of of this episode was trying to force you to feel something rather than actually letting you, as the player, draw your own conclusions and affect the outcome. Mike and Bonnie are traitors, Arvo is a murderer, and Jane is a psychopath. They turned the characters into one dimensional antagonists and there was no way you could change that.
It's why this episode and most of this season didn't really work for me. I felt like the game was trying to manipulate me rather than letting me manipulate and connect with the game. It was very disappointing.
It annoyed me as well. It was as if Telltale wrote them specifically to be the hated character that Clementine's group is victorious against--somewhat, anyway.
When Clem shot ARVO's sister...it was KILL or BE KILLED....who gives a fuck about his sister in that situation...
If clem didn't shoot her...the game would have ended...no more TWD series.
You know, after seeing the translation of what he said...
I hate him even more... frankly, if Clem was nice to him he would not have shot here, if he was so good, this here proves that he's just pure evil for shooting an 11 year old girl. Full Stop.
Well to be fair, for all we know, Arvo doesn't know that when you die you come back as a zombie regardless of being bit. It seems likely that when he saw Natasha moving, he didn't think she was a zombie. That he thought she was still alive, and Clem finished gunning her down. Plus Clem is given strong associations with Kenny, not matter how you play the game all the other characters view her as like, I dunno, his daughter. In Arvo's eyes Kenny's obviously gonna be a huge negative association.
But honestly I don't really get Arvo's reasoning for shooting Clem, it just wasn't very clear, so since I like the character and feel for him otherwise, and because he's still just a kid, I'm gonna give Arvo the benefit of the doubt and hope in season three he has a chance to redeem himself a little.
I take issue with you labeling shooting people as a "bad decision".
I also don't believe that he was in any way irrational from grief or … morewhatever, since he didn't try to attack Mike and Bonnie. He was going to calmly leave with them. Shooting Clem at that point was not "heat of the moment". It was intent. And he had 2 days to come to the conclusion that his sister couldn't have resuscitated herself (you do CPR because the heart has stopped) and that the only way she would have been moving is if she had died and come back as a zombie. The kid tried to murder a little girl because he blames her for something that is his own fault. There is nothing more to understand here.
Also, Arvo's sister was underdeveloped, not just because she died but because no one acted like Arvo was someone whose sister just died. Not even Arvo. Kenny could barely leave the tent after his girlfriend died yet Arvo is on a forced march and being defiant with Kenny right after his sister's death. I think Arvo would have just been broken or at least in shock. He's lived through the same crappy apocalypse everyone else has, somehow lasting this long with his sister (who else has lasted this long with a blood relative!), and then he loses everything in a few minutes.
Why did he even want to escape Kenny? What was motivating Arvo to even take one more step? At that point nothing Kenny could do was worse than losing his sister.
Arvo had balls, I'll say that. He threatened Jane when she tried to rob him, and stood up to Kenny after taking him to his house and being … moretold that he was a liar WITHOUT KENNY EVEN TAKING A MOMENT TO SEE IF ARVO WAS TELLING THE TRUTH.
Shooting Clem still reeks of trying to retroactively justify all the racism and irrational hate Kenny was piling onto him, and it bothers me that his fans have swallowed it without question. You might try to justify it as him being paranoid, or wanting to spite Kenny by hurting his loved one, but in the end it happens so that we feel wrong about sympathizing with a beaten, scared, physically disabled boy who lost his whole family and was getting abused by a raging madman.
This is a good thread. It doesn't excuse his actions but it really does a good job of coming up with an explanation for what he did. People don't have to sympathize with him, and I understand completely why they wouldn't. (Even though I don't feel the same, I like his character, always have since his first appearance...)
After finding the translation video, if it is correct, then it pretty much confirms that during the shootout, Arvo didn't know his sister had turned and therefore when Clementine shot her, he assumed it to be murder. I used to think that Arvo knew she turned and hated Clementine still, and I thought it was very dumb of him to hate her so much, especially if she had been nice to him most of the time. But now things make a lot more sense. I wish Telltale had some sort of translation subtitle for him.
I was very annoyed that they didn't do more with Arvo. Not being given the chance to have a discussion with him and explain that his sister had turned when Clementine shot her was intentional by the writers so Arvo would continue to hate the player character, that much seems to clear to me. Furthermore, the only reason we got to be nice to him and tell Kenny to stop hurting him in the first place is so when he'd shoot Clem, the player would hate him. (Like I said earlier...) We never got to really speak with him. They made Arvo seem sympathetic and instead of trying to build on that and maybe let Clem eventually have a positive relation with him, they pulled this shit and had him shoot her just to get him out of the story and make us hate him on the way out. It feels like a dirty trick to me, so I won't hate Arvo. I won't do it. (I think they confirmed that they also made Kenny act extra volatile so the Jane vs Kenny choice would be hard. So from what I understand, they purposely tried to manipulate the players and pushed character development to the side in favor of difficult decisions.) It still feels like Arvo was just a plot device and that is so disappointing considering I was excited for him to be explored more. They just wanted to make an easy villain out of him and everybody knows how protective everyone is over Clementine. The whole scene was a cheap shot. (Haha, look. A pun.) And having Mike and Bonnie steal all the supplies when they previously seemed so concerned over Clem and AJ's safety was just rubbing salt in the wound and seemed OOC of them.
Maybe they actually will do something with him. I mean, Mike was at one point, determinant. Bonnie is definitely determinant. But for some reason, Arvo wasn't. If Telltale wanted to kill them off, they would have found ways to do it, onscreen. It was TWDG finale, come on. The entire twd franchise isn't known for holding back on character deaths. Arvo might live to see another season. After they wasted his potential this episode I can't believe I'm still bothering with thinking they'll somehow bring him back and do better, I doubt it but it is possible.
And the Lilly parallels, good that you pointed that out. I see a lot of people comparing Arvo to Ben because they both fuck stuff up, but if they wanted us to see the parallel between those two they would have made the dream sequence feature a moment where Ben ruined something. Lilly and Arvo are much more comparable now that I've seen a translation, so yeah.
...You wouldn't happen to have a tumblr, would you? I saw this same post over there.
I don't think he knew that, though. Approaching the end of episode four, Arvo notably became more and more hysteric. I can barely speak Russ… moreian myself, but the translations say he was all but begging both sides 'Put your guns down! Please! I don't want to die! I don't want to die!' and then when his sister got shot... that was it, I think he sort of just shut down mentally. When a person reaches that level of a mental breakdown, they very rarely look at things logically because they are driven purely by emotions. He most likely /thought/ that he could save her, hence why he didn't abandon her in fear of his own safety, and why he wrestled to get back to her after Kenny held him hostage. Maybe by her re-animating.. he thought it had worked? She was crawling, as if trying to escape and get her strength back so... maybe. But by Clementine shooting her, he twisted it around in his head that it was /her/ fault. That much I can see.
I thought th… [view original content]
We obviously don't know for sure, but I kinda think Arvo was screwing both groups. I think he tried to steal supplies from his own group, got caught by Clem and Jane and went away with no gun (with or without supplies). He got back to his group and they wanted to know where his gun was or/and supplies. Even if you did nothing wrong, he blames Clems group of stealing them which resulted in the Russians going after Clem's group.
Regardless if he had reasons or not, I really felt like they pulled the "bad Russians"-stereotype-thing with this one. Some conflict needed for the finale? Let's just add some random Russians (Let's not talk about accents here) that do evil stuff because...Russians! I was really disappointed with this. Sure, the whole medicine-hiding thing for his sister makes an interesting twist, but that's subtle at best and still doesn't justify the behaviour as a whole. It's also kind of contradictory to put fire into the conflict by saying the whole group stole everything and then crying that noone should shoot. Not to mention how the other guys were portrayed, I mean a bald guy with tattoos all over his head? You could just put a sign on him saying "I'm an evil prisoner", same effect. The player's reactions to Arvo are proof enough - most people will simply see them as villains. Every other character in this series gets at least some time for you to catch why he is evil, even it is some twisted logic. But here it's all missing.
Still waiting for a game that takes someone with a Russian accent and makes him the best guy in the world, just to screw this stereotype-bull**** for once. Really tired of this.
Yes but prior to that? From Arvo's point of view, his gun is stolen, leaving him defenseless when already doesn't have full mobility. When his group meets Clem's group he doesn't want anyone to die. Then his sister is shot, he tries to perform CPR in the entire fire-fight, after he is pulled away by Kenny, he sees her start crawling which makes him believe that his CPR worked, (reanimation). Clem kills her. Arvo hates her for that. He is suffering under the verbal and physical abuse of a racist, yelling redneck who insults him and degrades him repeatedly. Tied up like an animal after he was telling the truth that there was a house. The only minor comfort in that situation is Mike, who shows him kindness who confirms that Kenny is going too far. Mike gives him power in the form of a gun. Arvo takes advantage of the power. And shoots Clem in a form of pain and revenge. So it's definitely understandable why he hated Clem, she brought him nothing but pain and suffering!
Yeah I'm sorry, but if Clem falls in the river and she's freezing to death in the house before the fire starts, he gives her a hate look. Fuck that shit, I hope he dies a painful death.
Yeah, that's my disappointment with Season 2's writers. They had the opportunity to actually subvert our stereotypical expectations and make the Russians out to be sympathetic characters, but instead they lazily relied on Americans' automatic hatred of them to make it easier to hate on Arvo's crew.
Despite this, I still find him a very sympathetic character and don't believe that his shooting of Clem at all justifies the volume of hatred that both fans and Kenny pile onto him.
Regardless if he had reasons or not, I really felt like they pulled the "bad Russians"-stereotype-thing with this one. Some conflict needed … morefor the finale? Let's just add some random Russians (Let's not talk about accents here) that do evil stuff because...Russians! I was really disappointed with this. Sure, the whole medicine-hiding thing for his sister makes an interesting twist, but that's subtle at best and still doesn't justify the behaviour as a whole. It's also kind of contradictory to put fire into the conflict by saying the whole group stole everything and then crying that noone should shoot. Not to mention how the other guys were portrayed, I mean a bald guy with tattoos all over his head? You could just put a sign on him saying "I'm an evil prisoner", same effect. The player's reactions to Arvo are proof enough - most people will simply see them as villains. Every other character in this series gets at least some time for you to ca… [view original content]
When Kenny grabs Arvo and threatens to kill him if Vitali doesn't give up, Vitali will say in Russian "You killed the boys sister, you bastard! He's already dead, you'll be doing him a favor."
Well....I am glad someone tried to explain Arvo's actions from his perspective at least. Personally, I don't think Arvo knew things would get so bad when he told his group to confront them. At the same time it is VERY clear he has a real "get even" kind of mentality, as shown with him getting his group to rob Clem's group and shooting her later on, regardless of how she tries to help him against Kenny.
I know he thinks Clem shot his Sister but I wonder why it never entered his mind as to "Why"? I know if I was held captive that would have been my first question to her....(My Clem talked with him and told him we lost people too). I think his mind was already made up about Clem and that he thought she was just a inhumane monster who killed his sister and was just torturing him, via Kenny. (Not speaking clear English likely assisted with this)
All that being said....I still would like to put a bullet in his brain for shooting Clem...
A little child is what you see Clem as. I doubt Arvo sees her that way. At least not anymore. In his eyes, she's no more than a coldblooded killer who murdered his sister.
That's pretty much it - he relied on the kindness of stronger people, be they Buricko or Mike, to survive. Not to mention he himself is men… moretally resilient - he broke after days of being Kenny's captive, and ended up becoming cold-hearted enough to try and murder a little child.
Despite all this, I don't think Arvo was inherently a bad person any more than Kenny was. They were both put through terrible amounts of stress and did regrettable things. I'm interested to see whether he hardens into a monster or shows genuine remorse for what he did to Clem.
The buck starts and stops with Arvo playing innocent and ambushing the group in spite of not doing any harm to him.
He intentionally put other people in danger to have them robbed. He deserves to be beaten and deserves no trust. Kenny (a person I despise) was completely justified in beating Arvo and he got treated better than he deserved by the group (not killed and Kenny barely even started with him). Abandoning him at the house would have been the honorable thing to do. His payment to the group is giving them those supplies and he would still deserve some time served after that, but lucky for him, the group doesnt have time to waste on imprisoning him. Hes lucky he ran into a group that is that merciful.
And no, Luke's death wasnt his fault, but he deserves to be beaten for his defiance nonetheless.
Oh, defiance deserves a beating then? Were you cool with Carver giving Kenny brain damage? Because that's just savagery, and Kenny's beating of Arvo is deliberately meant to evoke Carver's beating of Kenny.
The merciful thing to do would have been to use a brain and realize that Arvo was no longer a threat now that his family was dead. The merciful thing would have been to treat him like a human being and try to win his loyalty. The merciful thing would be not to abuse him, indulge in bigotry, and then vindictively talk about killing him even though he didn't hurt anyone of you. The rational thing would have been to wait and see if your prisoner had supplies rather than insult him in his own house and beating on him before even confirming that he was telling the truth.
Arvo won major points for me by standing up to Kenny, just as Ben did for insulting him. Kenny, on the other hand, lost points for not learning from his mistreatment of Ben and instead becoming an even nastier person than he was before.
The buck starts and stops with Arvo playing innocent and ambushing the group in spite of not doing any harm to him.
He intentionally put … moreother people in danger to have them robbed. He deserves to be beaten and deserves no trust. Kenny (a person I despise) was completely justified in beating Arvo and he got treated better than he deserved by the group (not killed and Kenny barely even started with him). Abandoning him at the house would have been the honorable thing to do. His payment to the group is giving them those supplies and he would still deserve some time served after that, but lucky for him, the group doesnt have time to waste on imprisoning him. Hes lucky he ran into a group that is that merciful.
And no, Luke's death wasnt his fault, but he deserves to be beaten for his defiance nonetheless.
Arvo's being defiant because of his sister's death though. We can't roll our eyes at Arvo for being angry at Clem when she shot his sister then be angry at Arvo for being mad at Kenny for beating on him. These are both very valid emotional responses.
In fact, everything Arvo feels is completely justified. He may misunderstand the situation, but the facts he has a grasp on give him plenty of reason to be angry.
1) Jane robbed and threatened to kill him.
2) Kenny is beating on him.
3) Jane rejoins the group.
4) Clem shoots his sister in the head.
All in the span of about two or three hours. If I was Arvo, I would hate just about everybody.
Also, Arvo's sister was underdeveloped, not just because she died but because no one acted like Arvo was someone whose sister just died. Not… more even Arvo. Kenny could barely leave the tent after his girlfriend died yet Arvo is on a forced march and being defiant with Kenny right after his sister's death. I think Arvo would have just been broken or at least in shock. He's lived through the same crappy apocalypse everyone else has, somehow lasting this long with his sister (who else has lasted this long with a blood relative!), and then he loses everything in a few minutes.
Why did he even want to escape Kenny? What was motivating Arvo to even take one more step? At that point nothing Kenny could do was worse than losing his sister.
Kenny did not seek out Carver, threaten him and attempt to rob him. Kenny did no wrong to him, it is a completely different situation.
Punishing people for crimes they DEFINETELY committed is not bigotry, its justice, such as it is given the conditions theyre in. Beating him for his defiance is justified, since he is paying for his crimes by guiding them to the house, Arvo though, proves his cowardice and remorselessness by attempting to escape Kenny, rather than paying for the crimes he knows he committed. For that, he must shown that attempting to escape his judgement also has consequences.
Arvo continually lost points for having no remorse for what he did, only ever caring for himself, truly the most selfish character we have seen in the series.
Oh, defiance deserves a beating then? Were you cool with Carver giving Kenny brain damage? Because that's just savagery, and Kenny's beati… moreng of Arvo is deliberately meant to evoke Carver's beating of Kenny.
The merciful thing to do would have been to use a brain and realize that Arvo was no longer a threat now that his family was dead. The merciful thing would have been to treat him like a human being and try to win his loyalty. The merciful thing would be not to abuse him, indulge in bigotry, and then vindictively talk about killing him even though he didn't hurt anyone of you. The rational thing would have been to wait and see if your prisoner had supplies rather than insult him in his own house and beating on him before even confirming that he was telling the truth.
Arvo won major points for me by standing up to Kenny, just as Ben did for insulting him. Kenny, on the other hand, lost points for not learning from his mistreatment of Ben and instead becoming an even nastier person than he was before.
Here's the facts. If I were in Arvo's place or in his group I'd have done the same shit and had his back. But I wasn't. I was on the opposite side and I've been with Clem since the beginning of the ZA. So fuck Arvo and his group. And fuck Mike and Bonnie.
That's something that has been hammered into our heads since Episode 1, where bandits are willing to shoot Clem in the face and a group of scared people were willing to leave her to die rather than help her. It doesn't at all justify their mistreatment of her, just as Carver and Troy and Arvo were wrong to hurt Clementine, but her actions have proven her to be a lot more capable and potentially dangerous than adults would give her credit for.
And the same goes for Arvo. A lot of people hated him purely because he was associated with a scary-looking group of foreigners who tried to rob Clem in revenge for Jane's treatment of him, and the hatred is a lot stronger now that he defied Kenny and hurt Clem. At the same time, I admire Arvo for not putting up with Kenny's shit and insulting him while knowing full well it would get him hurt.
The only thing he did wrong, as far as I'm concerned, was shooting Clem instead of Kenny and Jane while they were sleeping. Perhaps it was because Jane and Mike wouldn't let him get away with murdering two people, even if they themselves didn't want to stay with them.
A little child is what you see Clem as. I doubt Arvo sees her that way. At least not anymore. In his eyes, she's no more than a coldblooded killer who murdered his sister.
At the point they were discussing this, there was no zombies behind them that they knew of. They knew there was a possibility they could hav… moree heard the gunshot. If the walkers were literally right on their tail, I could understand it, but they had time to stop and talk about crossing the lake and only after they started going did the walkers appear.
Plus, like I mentioned, I'm not sure going first is the most dangerous. I feel like all that extra trampling will make it most dangerous for the last person, like it was for Luke.
Same here. It's the most transparent with Kenny, where even the endings where you get to kill him are written in order to manipulate you into trying to feel terrible and having him redeem himself. Even if it puts him out of character - whether he acts unusually submissive and vulnerable while pleading for Clem's life at Wellington, or acting extremely calm and sedate when mortally injured by Clem, or even just allowing her to shoot him or leave him behind despite having no evidence that he was wrong for killing Jane. The writing goes out of its way to paint him as this misunderstood tragic hero even when it'd have been more naturalistic (and braver) to just leave him unredeemed.
The way the episode was written, where the rest of the group empathized with Arvo, also led me to pity him and hate Kenny. Their points are not made invalid even if they end up doing things that are frankly out of character - Bonnie and Mike abandoning a baby and a child in the hands of a man they consider dangerous, Arvo not taking his revenge out on Kenny, Jane doing something incredibly stupid with AJ purely to troll Kenny.
Exactly, a lot of of this episode was trying to force you to feel something rather than actually letting you, as the player, draw your own c… moreonclusions and affect the outcome. Mike and Bonnie are traitors, Arvo is a murderer, and Jane is a psychopath. They turned the characters into one dimensional antagonists and there was no way you could change that.
It's why this episode and most of this season didn't really work for me. I felt like the game was trying to manipulate me rather than letting me manipulate and connect with the game. It was very disappointing.
Kenny killed one of Carver's men. He tried to encourage the rest of the cabin group to escape while en-route to the community. He threw a tantrum which brought zombies into the compound. Then he took the blame for a plan that involved the theft of Carver's property, and made a dismissive comment right to his face.
Carver was wrong for being a violent monster, but there was a reason behind his actions. Just as Kenny had a vague justification for his inane cruelty to Arvo. Arvo and Carver were in entirely different antagonistic positions to Kenny - Carver was his captor, Arvo was his prisoner - and deserved different responses. I'd be worried if you treat a teenage boy who made a bad decision with a murderous despot the exact same way - the world is not that simple.
You sound quite irrational here - which "crimes" did Arvo commit again? How is Kenny calling him all sorts of slurs and not having any empathy for Arvo not understanding English not 'bigoted'? How is Arvo being 'cowardly' and 'remorseless' for trying to escape a man who already murdered his friends and repeatedly beaten and threatened him?
You talk a lot of tough shit. I also guarantee that you wouldn't last long in a real prison.
Kenny did not seek out Carver, threaten him and attempt to rob him. Kenny did no wrong to him, it is a completely different situation.
Pu… morenishing people for crimes they DEFINETELY committed is not bigotry, its justice, such as it is given the conditions theyre in. Beating him for his defiance is justified, since he is paying for his crimes by guiding them to the house, Arvo though, proves his cowardice and remorselessness by attempting to escape Kenny, rather than paying for the crimes he knows he committed. For that, he must shown that attempting to escape his judgement also has consequences.
Arvo continually lost points for having no remorse for what he did, only ever caring for himself, truly the most selfish character we have seen in the series.
Seriously, why do you even protect Arvo?
I robbed him and I think that was deserved.
I hope Mike/Bonnie killed him or that he ended up being devoured by walkers, he didn't make that long with his leg.
Kenny had every right to try to escape his imprisonment, he did Carver no wrong, he drew the walkers to the store because of this. Everything Carver got he deserved and then some.
Whatever Carver's reasons, there is no doubt, killing Kenny's friend who had done no wrong, then imprisoning Kenny, is wrong in every regard.
And what crimes did Arvo commit? Attempted armed robbery with clear intent to kill isnt a crime anymore? If you went to court with that case, baring any sort of deal for Arvo to testify against the others, hed be going away a long time. Kenny's slurs are excusable because hes RIGHTFULLY angry at him for bringing armed gunmen to come and KILL HIM. How do you not see this? Hes treating Arvo FAR better than Arvo had treated him, its a very easy comparison. Ive explained how Arvo is cowardly and remorseless, he doesnt care that he brought said armed gunmen to kill a bunch of people who did him no wrong. He runs off as if he shouldnt atone for it and he back talks Kenny instead of obliging him because, oh no, hes being called names. Because calling people names is as bad as bringing armed gunmen to come kill people, right?
As for actual prison, I guess prisoners who try to escape just get to go back their cells with no consequences in your world right?
Kenny killed one of Carver's men. He tried to encourage the rest of the cabin group to escape while en-route to the community. He threw a … moretantrum which brought zombies into the compound. Then he took the blame for a plan that involved the theft of Carver's property, and made a dismissive comment right to his face.
Carver was wrong for being a violent monster, but there was a reason behind his actions. Just as Kenny had a vague justification for his inane cruelty to Arvo. Arvo and Carver were in entirely different antagonistic positions to Kenny - Carver was his captor, Arvo was his prisoner - and deserved different responses. I'd be worried if you treat a teenage boy who made a bad decision with a murderous despot the exact same way - the world is not that simple.
You sound quite irrational here - which "crimes" did Arvo commit again? How is Kenny calling him all sorts of slurs and not having any empathy for Arvo not understandin… [view original content]
My point was that with all Arvo has been through, he should be barely functioning, not defiant. It's too soon for him to be defiant. What gives him the spark to even stand up to the world after what he's been through? Nothing. That's why he doesn't make sense.
It's not about whether he's justified; it's about whether he's acting like someone who had survived for a couple years in the zombie apocalypse, somehow hanging onto his sister, only to lose everything in a few minutes.
Maybe he makes sense but I don't think so. If Kenny's girlfriend dying was enough to break him, then how much worse should it be for Arvo?
Arvo's being defiant because of his sister's death though. We can't roll our eyes at Arvo for being angry at Clem when she shot his sister t… morehen be angry at Arvo for being mad at Kenny for beating on him. These are both very valid emotional responses.
In fact, everything Arvo feels is completely justified. He may misunderstand the situation, but the facts he has a grasp on give him plenty of reason to be angry.
1) Jane robbed and threatened to kill him.
2) Kenny is beating on him.
3) Jane rejoins the group.
4) Clem shoots his sister in the head.
All in the span of about two or three hours. If I was Arvo, I would hate just about everybody.
Its been like 2 years since the outbreak. I highly doubt no one died of anything but walker bites in all that time. And like I said, since he was doing CPR, he must have know her heart stopped (There is -no- point to him doing CPR otherwise. If her heart and breathing were fine he would have been putting pressure on her wound). You live in a world of zombies, where the dead come back to life, if someone starts moving after being shot and having their heart stop then your first thought should not be "oh, she must have magically resuscitated herself while I wasnt looking".
So you are saying he shot her cuz of her association with Kenny? Thats even a worse reason then if he blamed her for killing his sister. And I really dont see why he would assume Clem has strong association with Kenny if she spends the whole time arguing with him and defending Arvo?
Well to be fair, for all we know, Arvo doesn't know that when you die you come back as a zombie regardless of being bit. It seems likely tha… moret when he saw Natasha moving, he didn't think she was a zombie. That he thought she was still alive, and Clem finished gunning her down. Plus Clem is given strong associations with Kenny, not matter how you play the game all the other characters view her as like, I dunno, his daughter. In Arvo's eyes Kenny's obviously gonna be a huge negative association.
But honestly I don't really get Arvo's reasoning for shooting Clem, it just wasn't very clear, so since I like the character and feel for him otherwise, and because he's still just a kid, I'm gonna give Arvo the benefit of the doubt and hope in season three he has a chance to redeem himself a little.
Comments
We didn't know his elder sister long enough to know if she was 'sick', because she died.
Careful, reasoned thought is always welcome anywhere - be it online or in a real disaster.
I went back and looked at the scene before I posted and while Kenny did say that, they were still discussing another possible way around. The final decision was made when Arvo insisted it was safe. He didn't tell them there was another way and he took them a way where their path led directly to crossing the lake.
And I don't know much about crossing thin ice but I'm still not entirely sure being the first is the most dangerous, especially when you are more familiar with the lake like Arvo was. I don't think you are giving Arvo enough credit. He was in a desperate and enraged situation and I think he planned for people to die. With any hope Clem would die so, like you said, he wouldn't have pull the trigger. When that didn't work, he tried to do something stupid and blatantly tried to shoot her.
The issue I have with Arvo is that the time that passed and the way my Clem treated him (nice all the way, no stealing), made it extremely difficult to sympathize with him. When you have that much time to consider your actions and you still hate and want to kill that person, I can't understand that. Although, I still think this is more the writing and the lack of choice at fault. Arvo will hate you no matter what you say and do, which doesn't seem right to me.
At the point they were discussing this, there was no zombies behind them that they knew of. They knew there was a possibility they could have heard the gunshot. If the walkers were literally right on their tail, I could understand it, but they had time to stop and talk about crossing the lake and only after they started going did the walkers appear.
Plus, like I mentioned, I'm not sure going first is the most dangerous. I feel like all that extra trampling will make it most dangerous for the last person, like it was for Luke.
It annoyed me as well. It was as if Telltale wrote them specifically to be the hated character that Clementine's group is victorious against--somewhat, anyway.
Thats fine as long as she is open minded and willing to listen. Thats how I play my Clementine.
Exactly, a lot of of this episode was trying to force you to feel something rather than actually letting you, as the player, draw your own conclusions and affect the outcome. Mike and Bonnie are traitors, Arvo is a murderer, and Jane is a psychopath. They turned the characters into one dimensional antagonists and there was no way you could change that.
It's why this episode and most of this season didn't really work for me. I felt like the game was trying to manipulate me rather than letting me manipulate and connect with the game. It was very disappointing.
When Clem shot ARVO's sister...it was KILL or BE KILLED....who gives a fuck about his sister in that situation...
If clem didn't shoot her...the game would have ended...no more TWD series.
You know, after seeing the translation of what he said...
I hate him even more... frankly, if Clem was nice to him he would not have shot here, if he was so good, this here proves that he's just pure evil for shooting an 11 year old girl. Full Stop.
Well to be fair, for all we know, Arvo doesn't know that when you die you come back as a zombie regardless of being bit. It seems likely that when he saw Natasha moving, he didn't think she was a zombie. That he thought she was still alive, and Clem finished gunning her down. Plus Clem is given strong associations with Kenny, not matter how you play the game all the other characters view her as like, I dunno, his daughter. In Arvo's eyes Kenny's obviously gonna be a huge negative association.
But honestly I don't really get Arvo's reasoning for shooting Clem, it just wasn't very clear, so since I like the character and feel for him otherwise, and because he's still just a kid, I'm gonna give Arvo the benefit of the doubt and hope in season three he has a chance to redeem himself a little.
Also, Arvo's sister was underdeveloped, not just because she died but because no one acted like Arvo was someone whose sister just died. Not even Arvo. Kenny could barely leave the tent after his girlfriend died yet Arvo is on a forced march and being defiant with Kenny right after his sister's death. I think Arvo would have just been broken or at least in shock. He's lived through the same crappy apocalypse everyone else has, somehow lasting this long with his sister (who else has lasted this long with a blood relative!), and then he loses everything in a few minutes.
Why did he even want to escape Kenny? What was motivating Arvo to even take one more step? At that point nothing Kenny could do was worse than losing his sister.
This is a good thread. It doesn't excuse his actions but it really does a good job of coming up with an explanation for what he did. People don't have to sympathize with him, and I understand completely why they wouldn't. (Even though I don't feel the same, I like his character, always have since his first appearance...)
After finding the translation video, if it is correct, then it pretty much confirms that during the shootout, Arvo didn't know his sister had turned and therefore when Clementine shot her, he assumed it to be murder. I used to think that Arvo knew she turned and hated Clementine still, and I thought it was very dumb of him to hate her so much, especially if she had been nice to him most of the time. But now things make a lot more sense. I wish Telltale had some sort of translation subtitle for him.
I was very annoyed that they didn't do more with Arvo. Not being given the chance to have a discussion with him and explain that his sister had turned when Clementine shot her was intentional by the writers so Arvo would continue to hate the player character, that much seems to clear to me. Furthermore, the only reason we got to be nice to him and tell Kenny to stop hurting him in the first place is so when he'd shoot Clem, the player would hate him. (Like I said earlier...) We never got to really speak with him. They made Arvo seem sympathetic and instead of trying to build on that and maybe let Clem eventually have a positive relation with him, they pulled this shit and had him shoot her just to get him out of the story and make us hate him on the way out. It feels like a dirty trick to me, so I won't hate Arvo. I won't do it. (I think they confirmed that they also made Kenny act extra volatile so the Jane vs Kenny choice would be hard. So from what I understand, they purposely tried to manipulate the players and pushed character development to the side in favor of difficult decisions.) It still feels like Arvo was just a plot device and that is so disappointing considering I was excited for him to be explored more. They just wanted to make an easy villain out of him and everybody knows how protective everyone is over Clementine. The whole scene was a cheap shot. (Haha, look. A pun.) And having Mike and Bonnie steal all the supplies when they previously seemed so concerned over Clem and AJ's safety was just rubbing salt in the wound and seemed OOC of them.
Maybe they actually will do something with him. I mean, Mike was at one point, determinant. Bonnie is definitely determinant. But for some reason, Arvo wasn't. If Telltale wanted to kill them off, they would have found ways to do it, onscreen. It was TWDG finale, come on. The entire twd franchise isn't known for holding back on character deaths. Arvo might live to see another season. After they wasted his potential this episode I can't believe I'm still bothering with thinking they'll somehow bring him back and do better, I doubt it but it is possible.
And the Lilly parallels, good that you pointed that out. I see a lot of people comparing Arvo to Ben because they both fuck stuff up, but if they wanted us to see the parallel between those two they would have made the dream sequence feature a moment where Ben ruined something. Lilly and Arvo are much more comparable now that I've seen a translation, so yeah.
...You wouldn't happen to have a tumblr, would you? I saw this same post over there.
We obviously don't know for sure, but I kinda think Arvo was screwing both groups. I think he tried to steal supplies from his own group, got caught by Clem and Jane and went away with no gun (with or without supplies). He got back to his group and they wanted to know where his gun was or/and supplies. Even if you did nothing wrong, he blames Clems group of stealing them which resulted in the Russians going after Clem's group.
I felt bad for him and tried to get Kenny to take it easy on him. When he shot me, I hated him.
Regardless if he had reasons or not, I really felt like they pulled the "bad Russians"-stereotype-thing with this one. Some conflict needed for the finale? Let's just add some random Russians (Let's not talk about accents here) that do evil stuff because...Russians! I was really disappointed with this. Sure, the whole medicine-hiding thing for his sister makes an interesting twist, but that's subtle at best and still doesn't justify the behaviour as a whole. It's also kind of contradictory to put fire into the conflict by saying the whole group stole everything and then crying that noone should shoot. Not to mention how the other guys were portrayed, I mean a bald guy with tattoos all over his head? You could just put a sign on him saying "I'm an evil prisoner", same effect. The player's reactions to Arvo are proof enough - most people will simply see them as villains. Every other character in this series gets at least some time for you to catch why he is evil, even it is some twisted logic. But here it's all missing.
Still waiting for a game that takes someone with a Russian accent and makes him the best guy in the world, just to screw this stereotype-bull**** for once. Really tired of this.
Yes but prior to that? From Arvo's point of view, his gun is stolen, leaving him defenseless when already doesn't have full mobility. When his group meets Clem's group he doesn't want anyone to die. Then his sister is shot, he tries to perform CPR in the entire fire-fight, after he is pulled away by Kenny, he sees her start crawling which makes him believe that his CPR worked, (reanimation). Clem kills her. Arvo hates her for that. He is suffering under the verbal and physical abuse of a racist, yelling redneck who insults him and degrades him repeatedly. Tied up like an animal after he was telling the truth that there was a house. The only minor comfort in that situation is Mike, who shows him kindness who confirms that Kenny is going too far. Mike gives him power in the form of a gun. Arvo takes advantage of the power. And shoots Clem in a form of pain and revenge. So it's definitely understandable why he hated Clem, she brought him nothing but pain and suffering!
Haha, I thought that meant like give him a drink, not bash his face in!
This does a pretty good job of showing what happened from the Russians and Arvo's point of view.
Russian Translations
Em...did Kenny just inadvertently save Arvo from his zombie sister?
Technically, unless Arvo would have reacted fast enough to run away.
Yeah, that's my disappointment with Season 2's writers. They had the opportunity to actually subvert our stereotypical expectations and make the Russians out to be sympathetic characters, but instead they lazily relied on Americans' automatic hatred of them to make it easier to hate on Arvo's crew.
Despite this, I still find him a very sympathetic character and don't believe that his shooting of Clem at all justifies the volume of hatred that both fans and Kenny pile onto him.
When Kenny grabs Arvo and threatens to kill him if Vitali doesn't give up, Vitali will say in Russian "You killed the boys sister, you bastard! He's already dead, you'll be doing him a favor."
Arvo having a gun was the least fucked up thing about what they were doing.
Well....I am glad someone tried to explain Arvo's actions from his perspective at least. Personally, I don't think Arvo knew things would get so bad when he told his group to confront them. At the same time it is VERY clear he has a real "get even" kind of mentality, as shown with him getting his group to rob Clem's group and shooting her later on, regardless of how she tries to help him against Kenny.
I know he thinks Clem shot his Sister but I wonder why it never entered his mind as to "Why"? I know if I was held captive that would have been my first question to her....(My Clem talked with him and told him we lost people too). I think his mind was already made up about Clem and that he thought she was just a inhumane monster who killed his sister and was just torturing him, via Kenny. (Not speaking clear English likely assisted with this)
All that being said....I still would like to put a bullet in his brain for shooting Clem...
A little child is what you see Clem as. I doubt Arvo sees her that way. At least not anymore. In his eyes, she's no more than a coldblooded killer who murdered his sister.
The buck starts and stops with Arvo playing innocent and ambushing the group in spite of not doing any harm to him.
He intentionally put other people in danger to have them robbed. He deserves to be beaten and deserves no trust. Kenny (a person I despise) was completely justified in beating Arvo and he got treated better than he deserved by the group (not killed and Kenny barely even started with him). Abandoning him at the house would have been the honorable thing to do. His payment to the group is giving them those supplies and he would still deserve some time served after that, but lucky for him, the group doesnt have time to waste on imprisoning him. Hes lucky he ran into a group that is that merciful.
And no, Luke's death wasnt his fault, but he deserves to be beaten for his defiance nonetheless.
Oh, defiance deserves a beating then? Were you cool with Carver giving Kenny brain damage? Because that's just savagery, and Kenny's beating of Arvo is deliberately meant to evoke Carver's beating of Kenny.
The merciful thing to do would have been to use a brain and realize that Arvo was no longer a threat now that his family was dead. The merciful thing would have been to treat him like a human being and try to win his loyalty. The merciful thing would be not to abuse him, indulge in bigotry, and then vindictively talk about killing him even though he didn't hurt anyone of you. The rational thing would have been to wait and see if your prisoner had supplies rather than insult him in his own house and beating on him before even confirming that he was telling the truth.
Arvo won major points for me by standing up to Kenny, just as Ben did for insulting him. Kenny, on the other hand, lost points for not learning from his mistreatment of Ben and instead becoming an even nastier person than he was before.
Arvo's being defiant because of his sister's death though. We can't roll our eyes at Arvo for being angry at Clem when she shot his sister then be angry at Arvo for being mad at Kenny for beating on him. These are both very valid emotional responses.
In fact, everything Arvo feels is completely justified. He may misunderstand the situation, but the facts he has a grasp on give him plenty of reason to be angry.
1) Jane robbed and threatened to kill him.
2) Kenny is beating on him.
3) Jane rejoins the group.
4) Clem shoots his sister in the head.
All in the span of about two or three hours. If I was Arvo, I would hate just about everybody.
Kenny did not seek out Carver, threaten him and attempt to rob him. Kenny did no wrong to him, it is a completely different situation.
Punishing people for crimes they DEFINETELY committed is not bigotry, its justice, such as it is given the conditions theyre in. Beating him for his defiance is justified, since he is paying for his crimes by guiding them to the house, Arvo though, proves his cowardice and remorselessness by attempting to escape Kenny, rather than paying for the crimes he knows he committed. For that, he must shown that attempting to escape his judgement also has consequences.
Arvo continually lost points for having no remorse for what he did, only ever caring for himself, truly the most selfish character we have seen in the series.
Here's the facts. If I were in Arvo's place or in his group I'd have done the same shit and had his back. But I wasn't. I was on the opposite side and I've been with Clem since the beginning of the ZA. So fuck Arvo and his group. And fuck Mike and Bonnie.
That ruskie deserves death sentence for shooting our clementine=(
Racist.
That's something that has been hammered into our heads since Episode 1, where bandits are willing to shoot Clem in the face and a group of scared people were willing to leave her to die rather than help her. It doesn't at all justify their mistreatment of her, just as Carver and Troy and Arvo were wrong to hurt Clementine, but her actions have proven her to be a lot more capable and potentially dangerous than adults would give her credit for.
And the same goes for Arvo. A lot of people hated him purely because he was associated with a scary-looking group of foreigners who tried to rob Clem in revenge for Jane's treatment of him, and the hatred is a lot stronger now that he defied Kenny and hurt Clem. At the same time, I admire Arvo for not putting up with Kenny's shit and insulting him while knowing full well it would get him hurt.
The only thing he did wrong, as far as I'm concerned, was shooting Clem instead of Kenny and Jane while they were sleeping. Perhaps it was because Jane and Mike wouldn't let him get away with murdering two people, even if they themselves didn't want to stay with them.
There was a zombie that snuck up on Kenny while he was distracted. I took that as an indicator that there would be more on the way.
Same here. It's the most transparent with Kenny, where even the endings where you get to kill him are written in order to manipulate you into trying to feel terrible and having him redeem himself. Even if it puts him out of character - whether he acts unusually submissive and vulnerable while pleading for Clem's life at Wellington, or acting extremely calm and sedate when mortally injured by Clem, or even just allowing her to shoot him or leave him behind despite having no evidence that he was wrong for killing Jane. The writing goes out of its way to paint him as this misunderstood tragic hero even when it'd have been more naturalistic (and braver) to just leave him unredeemed.
The way the episode was written, where the rest of the group empathized with Arvo, also led me to pity him and hate Kenny. Their points are not made invalid even if they end up doing things that are frankly out of character - Bonnie and Mike abandoning a baby and a child in the hands of a man they consider dangerous, Arvo not taking his revenge out on Kenny, Jane doing something incredibly stupid with AJ purely to troll Kenny.
Kenny killed one of Carver's men. He tried to encourage the rest of the cabin group to escape while en-route to the community. He threw a tantrum which brought zombies into the compound. Then he took the blame for a plan that involved the theft of Carver's property, and made a dismissive comment right to his face.
Carver was wrong for being a violent monster, but there was a reason behind his actions. Just as Kenny had a vague justification for his inane cruelty to Arvo. Arvo and Carver were in entirely different antagonistic positions to Kenny - Carver was his captor, Arvo was his prisoner - and deserved different responses. I'd be worried if you treat a teenage boy who made a bad decision with a murderous despot the exact same way - the world is not that simple.
You sound quite irrational here - which "crimes" did Arvo commit again? How is Kenny calling him all sorts of slurs and not having any empathy for Arvo not understanding English not 'bigoted'? How is Arvo being 'cowardly' and 'remorseless' for trying to escape a man who already murdered his friends and repeatedly beaten and threatened him?
You talk a lot of tough shit. I also guarantee that you wouldn't last long in a real prison.
Seriously, why do you even protect Arvo?
I robbed him and I think that was deserved.
I hope Mike/Bonnie killed him or that he ended up being devoured by walkers, he didn't make that long with his leg.
Wow, so many points to easily dismiss!
Kenny had every right to try to escape his imprisonment, he did Carver no wrong, he drew the walkers to the store because of this. Everything Carver got he deserved and then some.
Whatever Carver's reasons, there is no doubt, killing Kenny's friend who had done no wrong, then imprisoning Kenny, is wrong in every regard.
And what crimes did Arvo commit? Attempted armed robbery with clear intent to kill isnt a crime anymore? If you went to court with that case, baring any sort of deal for Arvo to testify against the others, hed be going away a long time. Kenny's slurs are excusable because hes RIGHTFULLY angry at him for bringing armed gunmen to come and KILL HIM. How do you not see this? Hes treating Arvo FAR better than Arvo had treated him, its a very easy comparison. Ive explained how Arvo is cowardly and remorseless, he doesnt care that he brought said armed gunmen to kill a bunch of people who did him no wrong. He runs off as if he shouldnt atone for it and he back talks Kenny instead of obliging him because, oh no, hes being called names. Because calling people names is as bad as bringing armed gunmen to come kill people, right?
As for actual prison, I guess prisoners who try to escape just get to go back their cells with no consequences in your world right?
My point was that with all Arvo has been through, he should be barely functioning, not defiant. It's too soon for him to be defiant. What gives him the spark to even stand up to the world after what he's been through? Nothing. That's why he doesn't make sense.
It's not about whether he's justified; it's about whether he's acting like someone who had survived for a couple years in the zombie apocalypse, somehow hanging onto his sister, only to lose everything in a few minutes.
Maybe he makes sense but I don't think so. If Kenny's girlfriend dying was enough to break him, then how much worse should it be for Arvo?
Its been like 2 years since the outbreak. I highly doubt no one died of anything but walker bites in all that time. And like I said, since he was doing CPR, he must have know her heart stopped (There is -no- point to him doing CPR otherwise. If her heart and breathing were fine he would have been putting pressure on her wound). You live in a world of zombies, where the dead come back to life, if someone starts moving after being shot and having their heart stop then your first thought should not be "oh, she must have magically resuscitated herself while I wasnt looking".
So you are saying he shot her cuz of her association with Kenny? Thats even a worse reason then if he blamed her for killing his sister. And I really dont see why he would assume Clem has strong association with Kenny if she spends the whole time arguing with him and defending Arvo?