Lake Scene Analysis Episode 5
After playing through Episode 5 I was really frustrated with how everything played out. For example, why not just ask Clem who she would like to go with rather than force Kenny and Jane to fight to the death? I'm sure people would've chosen to split off from the group without someone needing to be killed in the process. Regardless, I am not going to explain the inconsistencies and bad writing of the Lake scene in particular. I liked Luke's character. He was the glue that held the group together; and his death scene was completely unacceptable. Mainly because it was utter and complete b.s.
I apologize for some of the semi-blurry photos in advance. I decided to take some screenshots off of youtube as it was faster than replaying the episode myself.
Anyway, apart from zombies existing in the world, our world is similar to their universe when it comes to physics and other science related matters, right?
1 - The Lake
In the picture below you'll be able to see that the lake was not that large to begin with, so going around would have been really easy to do. In fact, the shoreline seemed really close to the group. It'd be another thing if the ice was frozen over a river and they couldn't find a bridge to cross, but to purposefully put yourself in danger like that without the need to do so is really hard to believe.
Besides, if the walkers heard the gun shot echo throughout the area, they should have also come out from behind the house and walked toward them in that direction. Going out on the lake with the possibility of walkers cutting them off from the shore was not the smartest of ideas; although for plot convenience, the writers didn't have that happen.
2 - The Crack In The Ice
This next part struck me as incredibly odd. In the 1st image we see Clem notice that the ice has cracked beneath her weight. Then, in the 2nd and 3rd images we see Luke directly behind Clem; and finally in the 4th image we see Luke standing above the cracked ice. Now, usually I wouldn't expect a child to know that cracked ice is a bad sign; however, Clem is the protagonist and she is a very smart young girl. As such, she is expected to be smart enough to know that this means trouble.
In my playthrough I didn't steal the pills from Arvo; which makes the group's (Mike, Bonnie, Clem, Luke?) concern for Arvo all the more puzzling, considering that this "Russian" lied about them stealing supplies and almost got them all killed because of it. The cracked ice beneath Clem's feet should not have taken less priority than worrying over whether or not Kenny is going to beat the shit out of a guy who has given no one in the group any reason to be nice to him. You would think that Clem would value her own life and Luke's life above Arvo's that she would pay attention to her situation instead.
Regardless of what happened with Arvo running off, there was a brief moment of time where Clem had the chance to warn Luke about the crack beneath her feet before Arvo, Kenny and Mike caused a scene by running across the unstable ice. If the ice was so thin in that spot that Clem's weight caused it to crack, then Luke's weight would have caved it in. There was the chance to tell him to go around and it was not taken. There's no way that Clem wouldn't tell Luke to be careful and go around. Unless she wants him dead for some reason? This is really bad writing imo.
3 - Arvo's Plot
Next, I move onto Arvo. For those of you who sympathize with him still, I think this part will give you enough reason to hate him. Although I do suspect that this is bad writing and not necessarily ill intent. I say this because the TTG headquarters is in the San Francisco area (San Raphael - 20 miles from San Fran) and I'm guessing that the staff don't really understand what snow means; and what it does. It doesn't snow in San Fran so of course it's logical that they wouldn't have knowledge of it like other people do.
You can tell that Arvo is not a native born American by the foreign accent that he sports; and since it is so obvious/thick, it seems like he would have only recently emigrated to the states (prior to the apocalypse). That means that Arvo should have been living in Russia before. The thing about Russia and other European countries (more northern ones) is that everyone knows about winter. There are lots of lakes and rivers in Europe and people often go ice skating (on lakes) once they are frozen over enough. I'm not going to say that everyone is an expert on ice and snow; but most of the people know when Ice is thick and safe enough to actually step on.
I'm not sure how Arvo injured his leg. Whether he was born that way or it was some sort of accident, it almost would mean that he wouldn't know about the dangers of the lake as he wasn't one of those people to go ice skating; however, he would still know about it well enough as his sister and other family/friends must have done that activity sometime or another in their homeland.
So now you have a situation where Arvo KNOWS that the lake is unstable and is taking the group across anyway. Him offering to go first isn't as much selfless as it is the best chances of survival. If the ice cracks where he steps then the person behind him would be the one to suffer for it (case in point being Clem cracking the ice for Luke). His entire group just got slaughtered by Clem's group so I think it's safe to say that he would do anything he could to try and kill some of them and exact his revenge.
In the 1st image you see him slightly looking back. He looks sort of concerned but I don't think his concern is for the ice as much as hoping that his plan works. The 2nd image switches to him looking somewhat frightened/panicked. I believe that is because he realizes that he is a slower walker thanks to his bum leg and he doesn't want the walkers to catch up to him and cave the rest of the lake in from their weight; thus, he chooses to make a run for it. Lastly, in the 3rd image you can clearly see Arvo glaring at Clem. He's pissed that she didn't die like her friend (Luke) did. If only looks could kill.
When it comes to this situation, I really can't tell if it's just lack of research (bad writing) on TTG's part or if this was done on purpose. All I have to say is, there is no way in hell that Arvo wouldn't have known about the condition of the lake before walking out onto it.
4 - Rescue Options
Moving onto the moment of Luke dropping to all fours with one leg in the water. His leg is injured due to the bullet but I believe that the shock of the ice water would've made him move, quickly. Assuming that Luke had the willpower to remain extremely carefully even while his leg is literally freezing off, we have various options of rescue that don't involve Bonnie fucking things up and killing Luke because of her bad decision making.
Bonnie takes her jacket off and tosses one arm to Luke while she uses the other to help pull him out. Since Bonnie is a bit of an airhead I wouldn't expect her to come up with such a plan, but I can very easily see Jane taking command and telling people exactly how to do this. An even better chance would be to tie several jackets together while Clem uses their guns to cover the rescue team. I assume that Clem would've provided cover fire as she isn't strong enough to drag Luke out; but then again, she managed to drag a passed out Lee to safety in season 1 so she might be some sort of mini-hulk.
You see the image of Arvo with his hands tied up below? I think that no matter how insane Kenny might've been, he still (probably) has the capacity to understand that Luke's life is more important. Untie the thick rope from Arvo's wrists and toss the rope to Bonnie or Jane so that she could help drag Luke out. That rope looks thick so in order for it to knot there'd have to be a decent amount of it, right? Who cares if Arvo might have gotten away in the process. Mike would stay behind with the baby and he could make sure that Arvo isn't dashing for some gun in the house. Even if he managed to run away, it's not like he would've gotten that far with his bum leg. The group could have easily tracked him after making sure that Luke was safe.
Images 2 (cord), 3 (planks), 4 (boards) & 5 (cable and/or ladder) were ALL supplies that the group could have potentially used to extract Luke from the situation. While it was dangerous for Luke to stay put due to the walkers sneaking up behind him, as long as Bonnie and Clem provided him with cover fire he would've been fine. Jane (or someone else) could have calmly crossed the lake and gone into the nearby house and grabbed either of those supplies in order to pull Luke out. The only urgency would be that hypothermia would set in for Luke and he could've possibly lost his leg; but otherwise he would have been fairly alright staying in that position as long as the others made sure that the walkers didn't get to him. There were probably more unseen supplies in that house that could have been helpful in getting him out of there safe and sound. I think if Jane yelled at Bonnie and Clem not to move toward Luke they would've listened to her. Even when Luke falls into the water (because of either Clem or Bonnie) the same scenario could have been used to extract them from the water (except it'd be slightly more urgent now since they were completely submerged at that point).
5 - Underwater Battle
Luke shouldn't have died here for a few really simple reasons. In the images below you can clearly see that he still has his machete. It would only take him a few seconds to pull it out and slice the walkers fingers enough to make him let Luke go.
Luke is a grown man. That means that he is not only strong but he is bigger and thus has a stronger chance of surviving the water than Clem does. He knows how to fight, he knows how to swim and his larger body will retain heat longer than Clem's tiny body would. The walker shouldn't have been an issue for him. The problem would've been pulling himself out of the ice. It's slippery, but again, he could have used his machete as a make shift ice pick of some sorts to give himself some leverage. If doesn't matter how cold his body might've been. The seconds that he had spent underwater was not enough time to shut him down to the point of being unable to fight back. Thus, he would have done much more to get that walker off of him and out of the ice.
6 - Distribution of Weight & Running
This next part just makes me facepalm. In the first two images you see Kenny telling Clem that running across the lake is a bad idea; and yet in images 6 & 7 you can clearly see Bonnie and Jane running. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt even the chances of them getting out of there home free is highly unlikely. When you run you put more force on the ice and it should crack much easier beneath your weight. After all, that's exactly what happened to Arvo when he ran. He fell into the ice but he was close enough to shore that he didn't drown and Kenny yanked him out.
Jane should have definitely not gotten out of there with Clem safely as her weight + Clem's weight + the force of her running should have put them in some serious trouble. Convenient how the ice caves from Luke calmly walking while it holds up from Jane's boots hitting them from running so hard/fast.
Images 3, 4, 5, & 6 show that Jane was way too close to the hole when she pulled Clem out. Why was it that Clem stepping closer to Luke caused the ice beneath her to break but Jane doing the same had no consequences? Jane clearly weighs far more than Clem did. Let's say Jane got really lucky with running away with Clem, she still should not have been able to get Clem out so easily. If for some reason her weight wasn't enough to make the ice crumble beneath her, then adding Clem onto it should have done something.
Lastly, if they ice was cracking beneath them, crawling would have been a better option as their weight wouldn't be centered in just their feet. This, being an option before the ice started caving in and Luke, Arvo and Bonnnie or Clem fell into the water.
7 - Hypothermia
The images below are somewhat bad but I was trying to show that Clem was still up and moving after being brought into the house (pics are from the option to Help Arvo/Stop Kenny). Obviously TTG wouldn't really show them stripping Clem of her wet clothes in order to keep her warm, but Clem shouldn't really have been able to move much. Her body should have been shaking uncontrollably.
I checked up some facts on hypothermia and if the water is below 32F (freezing point) then a regular person would hit exhaustion/unconsciousness in under 15 minutes. That would be for Luke. Clem being much smaller in size would have a smaller time slot than that. Of course it didn't seem like she stayed under the water for very long. Maybe a minute at the most? But at that point her body should have been in a hyperventilating shock. Either way, it definitely wasn't a time that she would have been able to participate in the rest of the group's activities.
A hypothermia victim may become bluish gray, shiver violently, develop muscle spasms and lose the use of arms and legs. Other signs are confusion and loss of coordination. Exposure to cold, wind or wetness can bring on the condition.
Considering that the house had no roof on it, it wouldn't have been any warner inside than it was outside (until they made the fire of course).
Overall I'm really disappointed with this scene. There are so many inconsistencies it's making my head spin. Although Luke getting dragged down by the walker is tragically beautiful (poetic?) I wish that his death would've been handled in a better way.
It's even more disappointing when you consider this thread: click here that shows that Luke was supposedly meant to survive?
What makes this even worse is that if reason number 3 is in fact malicious intent and not writers' error, you have Mike and Bonnie run off with a guy who not only indirectly killed Luke by luring them out to that location but he tried to kill all of them; and for some unknown reason you have Mike sympathize with the guy who tried to rob and kill them twice in less than 24 hours.
Comments
I'm sorry but I must revive this thread. More people have to read this.
Even though Luke's death was, to me, very well done and managed to keep the balance between shock and desperation, I agree with the large amount of people who claim that the circumstances of his death scene were insanely unrealistic and made very little sense.
By the way, I hadn't read this post when it was written because I only played episode 5 in August 27 and was avoiding the forum at the time.
EDIT: One thing I think the OP forgot to mention is that not once does Luke consider throwing away the AK, I mean, that thing is quite heavy (about 4 Kg) and when standing on thin ice, you should consider getting rid of any extra weight.
Wow. I hated Arvo before, but I REALLY hate him now. I had been blaming Bonnie for Luke's death, but I think it's safe to say that Arvo was definitely hoping to get some of them if not all of them killed in the lake.
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I'm still mad that Luke was the only person I really, really liked and he was the only one who died in this episode. Everybody else is either unknown or determinant.
I remember just being like "...oh no" when the ice started cracking under Clementine and it cut to Luke far behind everyone, hobbling on his bad leg.
If Luke used his machete he would infect the water with the walker's blood (Same reason they didn't drink from a well with a walker in it in the show). But still, he could have pushed him away further.
yeah this scene really shows how everybody was teen horror movie level stupid, i wouldn't have been surprised if they then walked into a dark room without bringing a light and said "is anybody there?" then later they run away from a large moving object that could kill them in a straight line, then later found a building where they were hearing weird noises in it so they all split up to investigate.
and the zombies would've died in the underwater and in the snow right? unless they were like nemesis -_-"""
Zombies don't "die" underwater or extreme cold, as they don't breathe or feel as they are the undead.
Zombies will just stay in a "frozen" state when it is really cold or just lay lifeless when deep underwater.
such zombie powers i guess...
You bring up a lot of good points. It's for a good amount of those reasons why I hated Luke's death on that lake. They say there's no way around when CLEARLY there is. A river might've been another story, but it's a lake, it would take them 10, 5 minutes to walk around it and if they really had to cross the ice with the ground unpassable because it was too dense [which it clearly wasn't] then they could've just walked around the edge of the lake so if the ice broke at least they wouldn't fall too far in. Unless it is supposed to be a river but they couldn't animated all the way around because of the size of it? I dunno o_O do they ever call it a lake? It sure looks like one.
Also why do they end up so far away from the broken ice they fall through? As far as I know unless there was a strong enough current like in a river, then that wouldn't of happened, Luke, Clem or Bonnie would've fallen in and come right back up again. And then even if Luke couldn't use the machete because of what somebody else mentioned about the risk of infecting the water with walker's blood, then he could've used his good leg to kick the stupid thing away and break free [if it'd been his good leg the walker grabbed it would've been a different story, but it wasn't, it was his bad leg. Even if it hurt like hell he still would've had a chance!]
And then there's the bull of Jane telling Clem to give up while she's beating at the ice to break it to free Luke. Woman, you are right there! If you can quickly rush in to go pull Clem out after she falls in, then you can clearly hurry over and help Clem break the ice and save a man who is still very much alive and had a chance to survive if you hadn't stood there just watching.
Also don't even get me started on how it is Luke can drown within that time, but Bonnie can swim up from the broken ice completely fine and not needing any help getting out. Where the hell was she?
So yeah, if Luke had to die, there's a thousands ways they could've handled it a lot better.
Jane was right (as was Kenny and possibly Mike since I think they were saying the same thing). Breaking the ice to try and save Luke was a bad idea. I mean I did it because I saw Luke pounding at the ice underneath and felt like I had to do whatever I could to save him in that moment, but looking back at it, purposefully trying to break the ice you're on is suicidal.
You raise alot of good points, Luke should have been able to get out just fine with his machette, but at the same time you also miss a few.
Being from Holland I have stood on 4cm of ice just because we are crazy like that. :P
The biggest assumption you make here is that the ice is of a single thickness. It is perfectly possible that there are spots were you fall trough and spots where you can jump up and down and run like a madman with no problem at the same time. Currents, wind condintions, and snow ice (snow ice of 12cms will cave sooner then smooth ice of 5 cms) can all play a roll here. Thats why the crossing was treacherous, you don't know where the ice is strong and where it is weak. The runners just got lucky in the end.
As for Clem shouting a warning.. Ice cracks all the time, the sound it makes while doing it is what identifies danger or not. The type of crack shown is dangerous, but since it did not follow with the next step, it could be assumed it was just a tiny weakspot.
Bonnie is the one who killed Luke in trying to safe him. What she did was the absolute stupidest thing you could do, which made me annoyed for not having an option to rebuff her after she chastized me. When the ice started to go beneath Luke, first thing he should have done was take a step back to the stronger ice he came from, i the walkers made that impossible he should have thrown his gun towards the others, gotten down on all fours and then on his belly and crawl his way forward towards the stronger ice with the others. With only 1 leg in there is no reason why he could not still do this. 3 anchor points is enough to roll yourself onto the ice.
That's exactly it though, if you were in that situation and saw your friend under the ice trying to get out, instinct would just set in that you'd try to help them regardless [and If Bonnie can apparently do a polar bear thing out of the water, then I guess Jane and the others can too? x_x seriously how oh earth did she pull that off?] I know if it was my friend or someone in my family under that ice I wouldn't care if I fell in, as long as I broke it and helped them get some air then that would be all that'd matter. Like the post of this thead mentions, they could've found otherways to help Bonnie Luke and Clem after that with rope and things from inside that house. You won't freeze to death that quickly, they'd have time.
But Jane standing just there doing nothing until only Clementine falls in feels cold, in that she's willing to go out of her way to help Clem, but screw the guy who they might be able to save if they work together [Bonnie included]. Kinda makes the 'I can't believe he's gone' line from Jane more cheap afterwards because she had the chance to do something when he was still alive, and didn't.
Also why did Luke keep holding onto that rifle? Why was he holding the thing in the first place? I read somewhere somebody said that's a powerful gun, so a guy with an injured leg who needed help walking shouldn't really be holding onto that thing, especially when he's got a handgun and machete, how about giving that rifle to Mike or somebody else who could clearly do with a weapon? But back to the ice incident, if the ice was starting crack, Luke should've thrown that rifle clear of him to lessen the weight and gotten down on his belly. And again with Bonnie, she goes over to help him while still having that backpack on. Rationally if she wanted to help her friend on thin-ice, she should have left her backpack behind to again lessen her weight.
Well, think about it from Jane's point of view. If you see your little brother or sister pounding on the ice below them to try and break it, is your first instinct going to be to get them to stop it or to help them continue to endanger themselves? Jane wasn't there to see Luke pounding on the ice so she didn't have the emotional impetus of seeing a friend desperately struggle for help. That emotional distance helped her look at the situation more logically and objectively rather than react on instinct. Like she said, she's seen lots of people die trying to help someone out of a desperate situation and she didn't want that to happen again. Of course, all this logic and reason went out the window when she saw Clem fall in because Clem was right in front of her.
Sorry, but this is just ridiculous.
Don't thnk so. Shock is perhaps the most common cause of death from immersion in very cold water. The cold water can cause heart attack due to vasoconstriction (narrowing of the blood vessels), causing heart to work harder. Have you ever fell through thin ice? I did once. It happens really fast and there is no time for logical thinking.
No, he wasn't. Gavin Hammon confirmed this.
Yeah, I guess you make some good points there about that
still. it does make me sad how they handled his death. Even Bonnie though, she can end up falling through and never being seen again if you don't break the ice. So in a way even she gets it worse death because she just goes poof and isn't really mentioned again.
It was a stupid, horrible, completely AVOIDABLE death and I'm just still pissed the only new character of the season I cared about had to die no matter what choices you made while everybody else had the chance to live.
Luke should of been at the front of the group because he had a bad leg....and if anything went wrong he could of made it to the other side.
You have some points. But seriously game is full of these type of plot holes. And for the love of god can they just stop with the Teleporting Walkers already?
In season 1 you find out that everyone is already infected. It's possibly that contaminated water wouldn't have killed them. Regardless, it's better to try and fight to survive than to just give up and die altogether.
Alright, so I haven't played the game since I posted this episode but I believe I am correct in saying that the snow barely started coming down in episode 4. There was barely anything there, right? Now, the time difference between episode 4 and episode 5 is a few days (depending on your choices). So are you telling me that in 1-2 days it snowed SO HARD that an entire lake had time to freeze over? No way. If winter is just starting this would not happen at all as the temperatures would fluctuate between being above and below freezing point day by day. You have to remember this is a place in the U.S. that is not hit by insanely harsh snow storms as well. Even if by some miracle it did freeze over, it still is the beginning of winter which means the ice is new and barely formed; hence, it should be unstable everywhere.
Bonnie didn't have a bullet in her leg.
God this season sucked so much.
That doesn't change the fact in explaining where she was, or how she could held her breath longer and not need any help getting out of the ice. It's ice, not the edge of the swimming pool
have you heard about people that fallen through ice in lakes or rivers? It's not so easy to get them out again, that's why some have died trying to save their pet dogs that have fallen in. They ice keeps breaking away and is too slippery to pull yourself up onto.
Take a look at this part in the video, this guy struggles to get himself out and has to use ice picks. It also shows how easy Luke could've gotten himself out of danger by just rolling away, but also how hard it is to pull somebody out without using a rope or something else to help them.
The bottom line is, you shouldn't walk on ice. What the group did was reckless and stupid and dangerous! o_o after being around walkers for two years, you thought they'd have more sense.
Definitely a shitty sendoff to easily one of the most likeable characters in the entire game.
They should have just gone round but everything else was fine, Luke had a better death than most people, even if they shouldnt have killed most of the cats off anyway
I really like this. But if I were Luke I'd probably be too busy panicking to notice I have a machete. Maybe that's what happened. Also lake water is not as clear as they make it out in the games, it'd be pretty much impossible to even find a large hole in the ice.
It was stupid that they even walked on the ice. The idea shouldn't have even crossed their mind, they should have just continued down the edge until they found a more stable crossing because people who survive two and a half years in an apocalypse aren't complete idiots. They would play everything safe and remain cautious instead of throwing their lives away by crossing a frozen lake.