"Kenny is Clem's best friend"
Oftentimes, when I read a Jane vs. Kenny thread, I see people say that they chose to save Kenny because he is Clementine's best friend, and that he always looks out for her or the people he cares about. Well, let's examine some of his behavior...
In episode one, he will leave someone to die to keep someone he already saved safe. After he pulled Duck away from that walker, Kenny had a perfect opportunity to help Lee. What does he do instead? He runs away and watches. If Clem and AJ got surrounded, then would Kenny try to save both of them, or just AJ?
In episode two, he would rather kill a group member rather than revive him. If you choose to try to help that person, then he considers you an enemy. He will also refuse to help you when you are in a difficult position because of this. This is the first time he will leave you to die if you disagree with him.
In episode three, he will leave you to die if you chose to help Larry. This is the second time he will do this. Doing this shows that he won't treat people who will disagree with him like dirt immediately after the decision is made. This shows that he will hold a grudge against you if you don't agree with him.
In episode four, he will want you to kill Ben after Ben reveals that he got Kenny's family killed inadvertently. If you don't kill Ben, then that's another strike against you. Kenny's family was his first priority. If you do something to harm Kenny's first priority, then he wants you dead. This is also shown when he abandons a Lee who doesn't agree with his choices in episode five.
In episode two of the second season, he will ignore Clementine and take a shot at Carver, which leads Carver to kill Walter, even if Clementine tells him not to. This shows an ability to ignore people when he thinks he is right. This also shows the consequences of that decision.
There is nothing bad to say about him in the next episode. He saves Clementine from a beating. He helps develop the plan to get them out of there. His revenge on Carver is justifiable.
His reaction to Clementine in episode four is also understandable. I don't hold that against him. Despite everything he went through over the last couple of days, he helps deliver the baby, and he helps develop the plan for the group to move forward. He does better in this episode than people give him credit for.
Episode five is where the audience sees what happens when all of the stress from past events comes out for Kenny. He beats down Arvo multiple times. He lashes out at the group because he feels like they aren't listening to sense. He completely loses it when he thinks AJ, his first priority is gone. He is very abusive both verbally and physically. If he is killed, then he expresses that maybe it was his time. If he is spared, then he leads Clementine to Wellington.
Now, based on the patterns up here, I would say that Kenny is a bad friend. The other person has to pull most of the weight to make things work. Kenny loses all loyalty for you when he doesn't get his way. He wants to kill you if you have hurt the thing he considers to be the most important, whether you did it directly or indirectly. He, in general, doesn't take other people's views into consideration unless the views can be concretely proven correct, which can be an issue when you are trying to keep a group together and come up with a plan. His actions have lead to many deaths. He has wished death upon many people. Keeping the baby alive and safe was Kenny's top priority. If Clem got in the way of that somehow, then she would be expendable to him. She was never his top priority, in my opinion. With a friend like that, who needs enemies?
Comments
It really all depends on your choices from season 1. If you side with Kenny, it's incredible. It's one of the best tag teams ever.
But if you don't, he becomes an asshole who leaves you to die. Berates you when you don't agree with him.
Sooner or later, you're gonna have to pick a side, Lee..
Ok, I pick Lilly
Kenny looks on with a very angry face
Well My Lee did help keep Larry from coming back.
Though he did not help loot the station wagon, nor leave the girl to get eaten at the drugstore.
He did euthanize Duck for Kenny, and later on, the boy in the attic.
He however did not allow Ben to die at Crawford.
And yet, even though My Lee did not agree with everything Kenny said or did, when Clementine was gone, Kenny jumped at the chance to help find her; even though he was unaware of Lee's bite.
So in my book, Kenny was a good friend.
There is no way this has the potential to turn into another Kenny VS Jane. Right? ...Right?
Jane, now she does what a real friend is supposed to do. Teaches Clementine new tricks, reminds her to look after herself, teaches her that not everyone is cut out to make it in a zombie apocalypse, saves Clementine from the ice, lights a fire for her, saves food for her, hell she even bandaged the wound and looked for a bullet. Real friends look out for each other, I felt like Clementine was looking out for Kenny way too much and got too little in return from Kenny. Hell, Jane is even more open-minded than Kenny is. She treats Clementine like a human being, not some kid in need of security, like Sarah.
The last persons that treated Clementine like that was Luke, Christa, and Lee. I didn't need her to hide the baby. I was like, hop on the truck and let's leave with Mike & Bonnie! Kenny's death had to happen sooner or later.
To be honest, I just wanted to put some information out there that I think gets overlooked sometimes. How people react to it is how people react to it.
If you don't like it man, then why do you comment on it. Just don't pay any attention to it and they will slowly die out.
Totally, it´s just that this place has a tendency to...not accept opinions, I guess?
Kenny was a huge dick in season one.
Which is why his "friendship" with Clem in season two felt really out of character for me, the player.
I tried to view it as Clementine and Kenny.. you know, "does Clementine have a reason to like/dislike Kenny" and the like.. but I, the player, had a million and one reasons to dislike him after the way he treated Lee in season one. So it was pretty confusing for me.
Oh, I really don´t care about them, I made my decisions and don´t care what people think about them. It´s just that sometimes people get overexcited and offensive and that´s just...sad, I guess?
It's not so much that I dislike it, I just like an interesting debate from time to time. Sometimes, I even get to see a perspective on the matter that I overlooked. I think Kenny was written well because you can look at the character and it's not black and white.
despite everything you say or do in season 2, Kenny is still a good friend to Clementine. He would never try to hurt her. He even talks to her.
Kenny even talks to Clementine?!?! :O I AM SHOCKED, I DIDN'T KNOW THIS.
just kidding!
I honestly hope not.
I am so tired of that subject.
So am I. If people could discuss in a civil manner it would probably be okay, but things always end up escalating when they shouldn´t.
Ah, my bad.
My comment was directed to ABigBadWolf actually..
Sorry!
It's a forced friendship. You can only be cautious of him, and not say you plain out don't like or trust him unlike season one.
If you sit with Luke at the dinner table, I´m pretty sure.
Clem: I never liked him in the first place.
When can you say that?
That's the attitude I try to display whenever I comment, even if I do not agree with what is being said.
That of being civil, and diplomatic.
For proof of that, check out my first comment, wherein I discuss My Lee's relationship with Kenny in Season 1, which incidentally; also reflects My Clem's relationship with Kenny in Season 2, though I did not go into detail.
And on that note, I'm actually surprised people are allowing themselves to get so whipped up about choices they made in a videogame.
Or that they feel the need to basically attack others who made a different choice, or who perhaps see the game differently then they do.
IT'S ONLY A VIDEOGAME.
I can understand asking questions as to why another person made certain choices.
But often times, when others on here do not agree with them, they resort to insults and alike.
And it does not have to be that way.
People do not have to resort to belligerent behavior, even though they're not in agreement.
Just when Jane was talking how dangerous he was, you can only say she MIGHT be right.
If only people could do that more frequently. Sometimes you post something perfectly civil and you have fifty people at your throat for expressing an opinion. Quoting Nick...
"It´s never gonna stop."
Is one dialogue option you get if you burn the drawing of Kenny´s family in Episode 1.
I think you can say that at the Moonstar Loodge, but I am not sure.
When you sit with Luke at the dinner table.
You were right about Kenny, all along. You knew what he was gonna do
That's exactly what Clem says
That is if you shoot Kenny.
Also, Celm can say the same about Jane if you let Kenny kill her-that he was rigth about her- so I don´t even know why you are posting this.
I agree with you except for these two points.
There is nothing bad to say about him in the next episode. He saves Clementine from a beating. He helps develop the plan to get them out of there. His revenge on Carver is justifiable.
His reaction to Clementine in episode four is also understandable. I don't hold that against him. Despite everything he went through over the last couple of days, he helps deliver the baby, and he helps develop the plan for the group to move forward. He does better in this episode than people give him credit for.
The rest, you're preaching to the choir.
Well in order for it to stop, and I'm just going to be frank about it, people need to stop acting like children; just because someone says something they don't like.
In Kenny's words: "Grow up!"
It's that simple.
At this point I think it´s easier for Kenny and Jane to get married than for these people to accept opinions, really.
He was an awesome character. I Sided with him a lot of the time, even if it wasn't always morally right. I disagree that his relationship with Clementine was forced. Yeah, it wasn't as tight as her and Lee, but they were still pretty close in my game.
Taking morals out of the game, I didn't kill him because I wanted him to remain in the show/game. I also somewhat regret not staying with him at the end.
Were they close in season one? I think thats the point, that they didnt have this special friendship until he came back. I also felt it was forced for that reason.
I think what caused the problems I personally had with Kenny's character in Season 1 was that the decision to help him or not with Larry seems to be so heavily weighted compared to all the other times you get to side with him or against him. So I for one always tried to be decent to him, I saved Duck over Shawn, defended him in the drugstore, fed him, later on was compassionate with him and helped him when Duck needed to be shot etc. However, because I didn't crush Larry's skull Kenny left my Lee for dead, and the fact that I wouldn't drop Ben to be eaten by zombies added in so that Kenny didn't volunteer to help save Clem, he needed persuading. If I recall correctly, he even complained at some point that I 'never' helped him or his family (can't recall the exact wording here.)
So, for me Kenny became somebody who ignored all the times I helped him out, and was prepared to abandon both Lee and Clem because of my refusal to kill two people Kenny wanted dead. Now, I'm not trying to ignore that he can be brave, and he can be selfless, but I hope even the most ardent Kenny fan can understand why my Season 1 playthrough soured me against him.
In retrospect, and to summarize, I think it may have been better if the Larry choice didn't seem to just flip a switch in Kenny's head, turning him from your friend to your foe in an instant. He seemed much more of a coherent character to me in Season 2.
By that logic Carver, Troy and Tavia are clems friends as well.
The same thing happened to me. I decided to help Lilly and refused to drop Ben. In all my playthroughs, Ive never dropped Ben just because I think its horrible that Kenny was egging me on to do that. I was floored when he gave me that "You never did anything for me". Maybe there is some flaw in the design there because I helped him in every other way.
" In retrospect, and to summarize, I think it may have been better if the Larry choice didn't seem to just flip a switch in Kenny's head, turning him from your friend to your foe in an instant. He seemed much more of a coherent character to me in Season 2. "
I totally agree about this. In my opinion, this was just bad writing. In episode 1 of Season 1, Kenny saved your life at the drugstore even if you didn't side with him: " I'm not letting someone else get eaten today, even if he is an asshole. " And one episode later he just abandons you, because you didn't help him to kill Larry (Which was the right decision in my opinion, but isn't the point here). The same thing can be said about the scene in Episode 3 where Lee is stuck under a door and Kenny refuses to help him.
I personally did everything Kenny´s way except leaving Lilly and dropping Ben and he still wouldn´t volunteer to come until I pulled the family card. I did help kill Larry. I don´t understand why he didn´t want to come at all.
Yep thats Kenny's character which is why he is the best. I think telltale handled him well and is probably one of the most realistic characters in TWD, i'm sure most people would want to put there family before anything else! But good thread
You have a point there was little interaction between Clem and Kenny in season 1. Maybe off screen during the time-skip but we don't know for sure.The main reason why there was a connection in season 2 between Kenny and Clem was because they knew each other when the ZA all started. Clem was one of the last people to of known and met Katjaa and Duck so Kenny wanted to stay close to Clem, same goes for Clem Kenny was her last connection to Lee.
" i'm sure most people would want to put there family before anything else! "
In my playthough, Kenny said Lee and Clem are the only family he has left now. ( Dem feels!