Telltale DOES listen to us (E5 Spoilers)
For the longest time, many people (I would almost say MOST) around the forums were resigned that the Pizza and Ice Cream choice was going to be between Luke and Kenny. Understandable, considering the dynamic of the season and various foreshadowing (ie., the table scene in S2E2). But we all know how it turned out. So many people were surprised at Luke's death in the first half of the episode, probably because they were anticipating him being a major factor in the final choice of the episode.
That being said, Jane had an enormous amount of positive fan reaction (much like Molly did) as a female role model for Clem to look up to in S2E3 and S2E4. Luke did not.
Jane may not have been planned originally to appear in No Going Back, which could account for her Deus Ex Machina-esque entrance therein. But knowing the fanbase was attached to her more than Luke, I believe they changed it to accommodate for the tastes of us fans. Just to make that final decision THAT much harder.
My evidence for this? http://www.telltalegames.com/community/discussion/80890/wait-what-about-luke
The soundbyte here proves they recorded Luke being pulled out of the lake. He was originally INTENDED to be the final choice alongside Kenny, but TTG wisely scrapped it for Jane. That's my theory, anyway.
Credit goes to AGentleman for unearthing the sound byte.
Comments
I still want Luke back.
FUCK YOU TELLTALE!
NOW I WANT THE OTHER ENDING WITH LUKE!
Ehhh. Debatable just by the discussions I've seen around the internet.
I do think/agree that part of why he wasn't in the end was because the fans were already expecting it. I firmly believe that. Fan expectation of that meant most people already knew who they would choose. There are people who would choose Luke, people would choose Kenny, and then the people who didn't like either of them. The decision would be really easy to make for a lot of people.
I also think that kind of fight between Jane and Kenny would never happen if Luke was either in Jane's place or was there at all. Luke hardly ever starts arguments so he would never want it to escalate to the point that it did. He's much more level headed than Kenny is and he would never be as deceptive as Jane was. He already knows how easily Kenny goes off on others when someone upsets him - it would be way out of character to do something as reckless as hiding a baby in order to prove a point. He's had no problem telling Clementine to her face that Kenny is broken and she shouldn't blindly follow him. He wouldn't, all of a sudden, be like "oops sorry Kenny, I killed a baby by accident but not really here he is"
So basically, I think Luke is too good of a person to create the kind of conflict they wanted the season to end with. They may have had a fight if Luke genuinely did lose the baby on accident, but he would never use the baby as a tool to provoke Kenny.
Thats what I was thinking. I was thinking the only way they could've invoked such a fight between Kenny and Luke was if Luke actually accidentally got AJ killed. And tbh I think that was just to dark for TellTale to do.
The other option would be make it an rather anticlimactic Save Kenny or Save Luke from a Walker choice.
Luke and Kenny going into a fight is out of Luke's character.
Jane fits the role of fighting Kenny in the rest stop.
But I don't like Jane more than Luke. I was gunning on choosing Luke ever since season two. Then suddenly my hope crashes and cracks like the thin ice of a frozen lake.
But to be honest I doubt your theory's right anyway. They probably did it for the sake of not being predictable. It was probably their plan all along. (EVEN THOUGH I WOULD HAVE BEEN FINE WITH A PREDICTABLE FINALE BECAUSE I LOVE LUKE SO FUCKING MUCH AND IT HURTS SO BAD TO HAVE HIM GONE)
Where do people find all these game files and unused stuff?
Luke will come back in season 3 and tell Clem "I got lucky. Real lucky"
Because yeah TELLTALE, that makes perfect sense.
same question here
I WOULDN'T EVEN CARE ABOUT THE TOTAL UNREALISM
I JUST WANT LUKE BACK
I DON'T WANT HIM BEING A WALKER UNDER THE ICE OF A FROZEN LAKE
Yeah, that whole "Jane was preferred to Luke" thing is pretty debatable. Luke had his detractors, but so did Jane from doing the exact same thing as Luke during Amid the Ruins, and quite a few people also began to adopt the idea that Luke was this innocent guy who got "used" by Jane. Oh, the humanity. -_- But in the end, I prefer a good conclusion to a story that's being set up as opposed to winging it when you realize you've made it predictable. I still think Jane and Luke should have switched places, as Jane being on the ice would then bring the question of "save her or leave her", which was the philosophy she imparted to Clementine and would come back as a cold (Hurr hurr) shock. Luke would probably have to actually lose the baby for the fight with Kenny, and it would have fit because Kenny already had this point of view that Luke was a fuck up, and Luke was getting angry with Kenny because he was getting erratic.
Luke dying before any kind of conflict with Kenny was a decent shock, but as I've said before, shock in a story really only works the first time you use it. After that, you inevitably begin to see issues with its inclusion, unless it's done really, really well. Lilly shooting Carley comes to mind here, as I've spoken before that the writing suffers a bit in that whole scene. Not enough to ruin it, but enough to make you question it.
It's sad, because working right through the issues fans have with a character or character dynamic rather than just rewriting things to appease them is what Sean Vanaman understood, as shown in the interview when he discusses Lilly and how fans perceived her, and that indicated to him that he didn't need to change a damn thing with her. I imagine Lilly would have been mercilessly torn apart by walkers if season 2's writers had the control they have now. (Edit: Actually, now that I think about it, they couldn't do that for reasons of Kirkman, but if the original plan to bring her back in episode 5 played out, I'm sure they'd have jumped at the chance)
Telltale even said that in the Spoilercast. They wanted him to be seen as someone Clementine could walk off into the sunset with at the end only to kill him off very suddenly.
I don't know why, but even with that statement, I feel like there were a lot of other reasons for him being killed off. I hope so because that's kind of lazy and disheartening to me. But I agree! Having Luke around would be my ideal ending and I would have picked him over pretty much everyone else.
Well they determinately kept Team Bike alive, but made them turn on you lol. Just like how they gave us hubs with one line of dialogue per character. Telltale gives us want we want but not exactly lol
damn it people chill!!!! we only riot if clem died!!!, don't go to far!
Telltale reads the forums, take the best suggestions and throw them into the garbage bin then come up with something "unpredictable" that ends up being worse in every way.
Perfectly said.
I admire Sean Vanaman and his vision for the series. Say what you will about how you feel about Lilly personally, but she was a well written character. He treated his characters with the respect and attention they needed. If there's a problem with how fans are reacting to a certain character, address the problem like he did! A character's upcoming death needs to hit players hard? Make sure players have a reason to feel sad for their sudden absence. Your character isn't being received well? Figure out where you went wrong and write to it. Sean understood that you don't just kill characters because they're unliked. You make them purposeful to the story and make them seem real to the players.
It's sort of what put me off a Season 3 now. I can get the sudden death working on characters like Carley or Doug who were sort of side characters, but Luke's death as it was felt like a step too far and too early for a character with his role they'd been building up as important as Kenny. If it really had to happen like Kenny's death then it should've been at the playground.
Realism doesn't always mean a good pay off
and for me it killed the hype train instantly and has me sad that I don't want to hop on board anymore in case things like that happen again in the future. It ruined the game for me and that hit me hard because I'd really been enjoying the series up until now. And it makes it worse knowing there are alternate endings this season and Luke wasn't always meant to drown in that lake.
I could be wrong, but I think I red somewhere that in season 1 telltale games gave us the option to kill larry because everybody hated him
Hmm, interesting. Certainly possible, I suppose, but even if that was the case, his death was handled perfectly and with plenty of meaning behind it which held huge consequences for how Lilly or Kenny view you from that point on, as opposed to, say, Sarah's death.
I guess the message here is if you're going to appease fans, do it in a way that still holds a lot of meaning and doesn't feel like pandering alone.
totally agree with you. I hated him and kept saying "first chance I get, I'll let you die". I thought it would have been like in episode 1 with the Carley/Doug choice, just save the other guy in danger and you get rid of Larry, but Telltale shocked me by actually saying : "If you want him dead so much, you have to do it with your hands." And in the end I wasn't able to do that, because of the weird situation, the shock, and the fact that I didn't want Lee to become a murderer. So yeah, in my opinion that was a great example of good writing.
I feel like there was more than one idea that was dropped or shifted around this season. Though I wouldn't have hinged the shift of focus from Luke to Jane entirely on her fan response (both seemed pretty divisive after episode 4), it's hard to picture Luke in the same brawl to the death that she had with Kenny.
So, they scrapped Luke for a character we only knew for like one and half episodes prior? I liked Jane, but I'd really prefer it if she didn't return in this episode.
Am I the only one who didnt like Jane to begin..
i doubt jane is more popular then luke.
i am so glad they did not listen to the fans. fans are stupid. the ending they want totally lacks drama. that would have been such an easy decision.
that was the perfect heart vs. mind situation. a test if you could judge a character. if you actually know what is best for the baby and yourself and when to give up on a person.
I WANT NICK BACK!!!
FUCKTELLTALE
One major reason why I think the final choice wasn't between Kenny and Luke would be because that whole fight scene would be so out of character for Luke. I mean, he isn't that violent of a dude. He wanted to take it easy on Carver (or at least give him a quick, painless death) and Carver would have been his number 1 enemy. Carver was against him from the beginning of the series, at least Kenny had some common ground with Luke and they were, more or less, on the same side.