Is Kenny Really a Good Man?
[Mod edit: In order to ensure civil discussion regarding the Pizza/Ice Cream choice, I have created a Civil Character Discussion Megethread. In order to ensure there is no drama, I am locking all other threads about the choice - old and new alike. Please keep discussion in the Civil Character Discussion Megathread. Thanks! - Blind Sniper]
Kenny is a person who has felt more than we've imagined. We think he has commited wrongdoings from his own heart. However, worse things have influenced him than we really think. In this world of the apocalypse, there is no right choice.
Kenny really begins to change after that incident at the St. Johns. Many people don't realize how important that was to Kenny. Kenny was making sure everyone stayed safe and stopped what could have become worse. Even after this action he took, everyone in the group still saw him as someone not to trust due to this action. Unfortunately, it had to be gruesome. But the block was the only thing that could have killed Larry. Clem sees that as a wrong action and sees Kenny differently from then on. If you ask me, Lee helping would have been the best choice there because Kenny comes back to that topic over and over again within the story. And whenever he did, Lee would have the option to put him down and make him feel like he has done something wrong. If Lee did help kill Larry, he would then be able to share the time and moments and would feel the same shame Kenny feels. If Kenny was the only one who thought what he did to Larry was right, we should be surprised by how he isn't completely insane and still has feelings for close others.
Losing his family was something that everyone else thriving to survive must have experienced. However, Kenny has experienced that in a way worse way. Throughout Episodes 1 and 2 of Season 1, Katjaa and Duck were so full of enthusiasm. But let's stay with Katjaa, considering most of the time Duck wasn't even aware of what the hell was going on. Katjaa was a caring and enthusiastic person who held on to hope that one day, all this would be over. But in Episode 3, she changed. Earlier in the Episode, she requests from Lee what happened back at the St. John's farm with Larry. You have an option to say so or not, but she figures something fishy out. From this, she becomes dissapointed in Kenny. Kenny was well aware of this. Later on in the Episode, Duck in an accident gets bitten as bandits are raiding the motor inn. Katjaa feels greatly confident that she can cure him, but soon finds out her son will soon succumb to this plague. In the end, Kenny has to be convinced to stop in order to resolve the conflict with his son. But think about this. Whether Lee decides to shoot Duck for them, Katjaa shoots herself either in front of Kenny or to be discovered by Kenny. Upon having this, the burden of killing Duck is still at hand. What do you think is going on in Kenny's head? He just witnessed his whole family die. This isn't something the other survivors have experienced, it is a tragedy, far beyond other ones we've heard. And despite whether Lee treated him well or not, Kenny would also feel great loss upon losing Lee.
In the transition from Season 1 to Season 2, Kenny strives by himself for months. During these months, the major prior events really get to him. This we can see upon his arrival in Episode 2 of Season 2. He had met a wonderful and caring woman named Sarita. Little did he know that destiny consumed her very life too.
Clem has the option to cut off Sarita's hand due to a bite as they are crossing the herd at Carver's Camp. If you ask me, the best option is to just kill the walker and let Sarita get away for then on. This reason for Kenny. Kenny can either witness Sarita killed by the herd, or slowly die later on in the Episode. Despite losing her, I would recommend keeping the bite so Kenny can say his goodbye's properly to Sarita.
Besides all the actions Kenny had taken during Season 2, he is idolized to be an unaware sociopath that isn't aware of his actions. But the people who think this are far from wrong. If at the end of Episode 5 he isn't shot, Clem, AJ, and Kenny will arrive at Wellington, where it is a supposed safe community. But where Kenny truly redeems himself and proves how caring he can be is when the woman running the entrance to "Wellington" claims there is no more room for newcomers. Upon hearing this, Kenny volunteers to be alone and requests that the children be safe at Wellington. He even states that he doesn't trust himself with Clem or AJ, therefore meaning that he was aware of his actions. From this point, Clem can choose to go to Wellington, or stay with Kenny.
Do you think he is a good man?
Comments
Nope.
Doesn't mean I think he's a bad one either, but he sure as hell isn't a good one.
Good people do bad things sometimes, I think he is a good person and the Wellington endings back it up too.
In the Walking Dead, nobody is a good person.
I do.
Kenny, though having lost everyone he was close to, still looked out for the ones he cared for.
No doubt Kenny was suffering from Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder.
Kenny and my Lee were best friends, and even though Kenny had just lost his family, when Lee was in trouble, what with Clem going missing, proved his friendship and refused to let Lee go off on his own.
And later on when Kenny discovered Lee had been bit, he cut Lee's arm off, in an effort to try and save him.
And as far as Clementine, Kenny treated her like his own.
He went to great lengths to protect her, by taking a horrific beating.
And when it came down to it, he was so concerned about Clementine and Aj being safe, that he was willing to give them up, if that's what it took.
That tells me he is still a good man!
And it was for those reasons, I had Clementine leave with Kenny.
But I do disagree with you on one thing, about there being no right choice.
There are certain things that will always be right and wrong.
There's always a choice, to choose to do right or wrong.
And it's those choices that make us who we are.
Now, with Kenny and Lee killing Larry, that could be considered doing the less of two evils.
1, either kill Larry and potentially protect everyone else.
Or 2, risk Larry coming back and killing everyone else.
Killing the St John's.
They were definitely depraved people.
It's hard for me to feel much sympathy for them.
Regarding Duck.
Some may consider euthenizing him wrong, that no-one has the right to take a life under any circumstances.
But considering the alternative, of him coming back as a Walker, euthanizing him was actually a kindness.
I had Lee euthanize Duck for Kenny.
The Stranger.
Simply put, the Stranger was to dangerous to be left alive.
If he came after the group before, he would do it again.
Carver.
As with the Stranger, Carver was to dangerous to be left alive, for the same reason.
Well, he is not a Saint, obviously, but he is sure as hell is a good person.
Well here is how i see it. I see a lot of myself in Season 2 Kenny. So i am going to think yeah of course he is a good guy. He has problems like everyone else, rage problems, shit i picked up along the way in life. You learn to deal with it the best way you can, as long as it doesn't hurt others. I think Kenny is at that stage in his PTSD is where he doesn't know how to control it.
From my own experience it takes a while.
What about Walter
What about Matthew and Sarita? They looked like very nice people.
Lee said it best. Good people do bad things.
So yes, I whole-heartedly believe Kenny is a good man.
But were those actually just peaches and beans?
Didn't the peaches and beans have "Everyone who eats this will die." written on the back of it in tiny letters? WALTER REALLY WAS EVIL.
Kenny has his faults no question, but what had young kenny gone through? Life can be hard on people and it scars there personality..
Lee (from what we know) had one big hit... his wife sleeping around.. and he committed murder!, some peoples lives are one knock after another and that causes us to create coping mechanisms, many of which aint good..
The thing is underneath it all its easy to see kenny is a good man, one of the best... even with his baggage he does his best and ive always been able to count on him...
Yes he goes off the rails, but when that happens its hard to pull yourself back and hes done it time and time again for clem....
That crazy sumbitch.
he does make up for it later on
ummm yeah
"He wasn't a bad guy, sometimes people may not always agree with him, maybe even me." -Lee talking about Kenny when he thought he died
In his own words(determinant), he could have been a better husband, a better father, and a better friend. How he could have been better changes in season 2, but by the end of it, I find that this statement hasn't changed. He was good, but he could be better, way better. But it didn't happen, "yet" in my case.
Kenny's intentions have always been good, what I don't like of Kenny are his methods. Destroying Carver's head was not necesary, it just showed how fucked up and dangerous Kenny truly was. Also letting Clem and AJ inside Wellington without even knowing what Wellington was, is a bad move. They could be child eaters (if they were truly in crisis, they wouldn't be giving out supplies to random strangers).
"He lost everyone" This is a pretty flawed argument, everyone's lost everyone, yet not everyone feels the need to crush somebody else's skull slowly and painfully. Also Kenny refused to listen to anybody, he thinks he is always right. He is an hypocrite, he didn't want anybody to even check his son when he was bit, yet he had no problem crushing Larry's head when he wasn't even sure Larry was going to die.
He was a bad combination, a psycho who's priority is somebody else (AJ). There was absolutely no need of even beating Jane when he THOUGHT she killed AJ. There was no need of beating Arvo when he THOUGHT Arvo was lying. There was no need of telling everyone else to fuck off and refusing to help them when he THOUGHT Clem could have saved Sarita.
Thinking Jane was crazy and wanted to kill Kenny is pretty dumb actually, he SAVED him from getting killed by the russian, and she even felt bad for killing the russian, it's not logic to think she wanted Kenny dead when she could have just waited for the russian to kill Kenny and then killing the russian.
(You may stop reading from now on, I'm just gonna talk about Jane)
Jane could be a Psycho too, but she knew what she was doing, Kenny loses his mind when he goes crazy, that's way more dangerous. Kenny was very mad at Clem when he saw her without AJ, Clem didn't get her ass beaten only because Kenny let his fury fall on Jane.
Kenny could be a good man, but his experiences changed his attitude drastically, and as you said made him a very different person living with an internal shame on what he had done to get to this point (Wellington). I would say this ending did give him a redemption somewhat, showed the better person he can be, but isn't always. (It isn't my personal 'canon' ending, but I went through it). Luke says he's broken, and he is (understandably). Jane had to go through a terrible thing with her sister, Luke wasn't getting depressed at the fact that everyone else from the cabin had died by this point (let's be honest, nearly everyone he knew really up to that point). People reacted to these things differently, Kenny struck me as the sort just to never to come to terms with this stuff, and it ate away at him. It's all very tragic.
I told him straight up, he was dangerous, you could see it in the group. He split the group with an intractable attitude. A bad person? Not so much. Dangerous though to others he doesn't have a very strong personal attachment to, yes.
I would say he was a good man, he was just very difficult to be around too at times.
EDIT: Also THANK YOU for a well reasoned and balanced thread! So refreshing and interesting to read.
And thank you for that crack on assessment of kenny.... crack on job..
I love kenny to bits and agree totally....... good post
No, I think he was a selfish man only concerned with himself who only trusts himself. Kenny was not my Lee's best friend. Kenny raced to save Duck from the walkers on the tractor and left Lee to try to save Shawn by himself thus killing Shawn. He had no PTSD at this time, his family was perfectly fine and safe from harm yet he let the son of the man who let them stay with him die. I feel Kenny had so many chances to be this hero he obviously wanted to be to his family. I don't blame him for Larry's death or his anger towards Ben AT FIRST.I blame him because it's one thing to be depressed and angry or bottle up your feels like Luke, but you would think as someone who has lost so much he would try to prevent more death rather than cause it. Wanting Ben to die because he made a mistake(albeit a really big one) that resulted in the loss of Kenny's family is kind of like saying Hershel should have shot Kenny for letting his son die or Lilly should have shot Kenny. My biggest thing with Kenny is yeah you can say he's lost a lot and has PTSD, but what about Lilly? How many of us left Lilly on the side of the road for killing someone out of rage, rage that I think can be considered PTSD since Kenny had just dropped a alt lick on her fathers head while she tried to revive him coating her in her own fathers blood. Kenny's not evil or Carver, but the things he's doing won't make him a better person or get through what's happeing to him, in my eyes it just made him darker and colder and less remorseful to point where if he were real and I was Clementine, I'd be terrified of what he's capable of because if you don't shoot Kenny he is now capable of murdering someone who was not evil out of rage. Soon it may be someone innocent.
I think he had his faults (like everyone, really) but he was a good person at heart.
I had this really (really) long post written down, exploring the consequences and intent behind killing Larry and continually beating up Arvo whilst on their walk.
I decided to delete it, because in the end... how the hell are you going to apply good or bad to someone in a ZA scenario?
I mean sure - don't kill innocent people for no reason is still going to be a pretty good rule of thumb morally. But there are so many grey areas and considerations to be made. So in the end I concluded that it was the wrong way to go about it.
There's no point in discussing if he's a good man or a bad man. What we should discuss (and I would say have done ad nauseam) is whether or not Kenny is the kind of person you would want in a group.
For some the answer is yes. They value his loyalty towards his group (or those he cares about as it is sometimes defined) highly, enough that they'll tolerate that sometimes his methods and his communication skills... well leave something to be desired.
For others the answer is no. They might say he's too prone to violence. He has a short temper and you're never quite sure what he'll do. For them this detracts too much, leaving Kenny an undesirable group member, even with his good intentions.
Of course given a stable environment and a big enough group, there would be no big trouble in having Kenny be part of it - even if you're in the group for whom the answer is no. But when shit hits the fan, while you'll probably want to keep the group together, if someone has to go - some people wouldn't mind if Kenny was one of the first (or more accurately perhaps, would prefer it not be other people before Kenny).
I think if you look at it this way, it's also possible better to understand those you disagree with.
Anyway, to somewhat answer the question raised by the OP. You might already know, if you recognize me from every other discussion on this board, that I am very much in the second group. Given a choice of all (the "bigger") characters in the first 2 seasons Kenny wouldn't be my last choice for a group member (leave that honour to Carver or the St. Johns), but he would be pretty far from the top.
"One good act does not wash out the bad, nor does one bad act the good" ~Stannis Baratheon.
Had to bring in a Game of Thrones quote because it kinda does apply to Kenny. He always had good intentions at heart. Season 1, his #1 priority was always his family. This makes him good. But what does he do to those around him? Not good things. Doesn't listen to anyone else's opinions. Holds grudges. Stubborn. Temper. So at heart, Kenny's a good dude, but he's got some problems.
"You're not a bad guy, Kenny, but FUCK" ~Lee Everett
Ultimately he's a dude with a strong personality who always looks after family, but he ends up butting heads with anyone who challenges his judgement. He's not a bad guy. And I'm tired of hearing the argument that he's lost people. It's the freakin' zombie apocalypse, everyone has lost people.
Lee's quote that everyone uses pretty much sums of the fact that Kenny is a good man, but a hard ass being one. I mean people say he's bad and all cause he's a ticking time bomb to go off, and some of these are the people that root for Nick. A guy who almost ended Clementine and shot Matthew after Luke and Clem already told him to put his gun down. Kenny's not a bad guy at all. He's a hardened survivor who doesn't stand for wasted time and bullshit.
Kenny is similar to Pete (maybe it's font color, haha) that they both have bullshit detectors. But Kenny's never killed anyone because he didn't know what to do in a situation or because he doesn't like someone. He has his reasons, and every one of them so far has been justified.
To me he wasn't necessarily 'bad' even if I didn't agree with him a whole lot. He had good intentions, but didn't always act them out in the proper way (being too rash and risky in some matters). But he always did have family as his top priority... which is a hell lot better than a lot of other people.
Yep, a great person... (Sarcasm)
Ken is good to people who were good to him. Carver hates everyone's guts for everything they do.
Does that prove anything?
Spoiler Alert: nope.
you are basically asking for trouble we don't need anymore of this shit
btw i think kenny is a good man just a little crazy at times
Good people have breaking points, too.
I see a little more of Kenny from Season 1, in myself.
your post is so retarded that it just gave me cancer.
This one speaks the truth.
He is the hell of a guy.
The capacity for a person to do something like that proves that the man is highly unstable and a detrimental step in the equation to the survival of Clementine and everyone else in the group.
I also find it weird people can turn a blind eye so quickly to that scene, a scene in which a young girl can choose to stand by and watch and man viciously disfigure and murder another man for personal gain. And no matter the intent of Clementine, Kenny should've grown up and not enacted in his little murder fantasy especially if someone Kenny claims to love and cherish was there five feet away.
So my answer is Kenny is not a "good man." He is, however, a piece of shit. Bound by his bloodlust, and no matter how many times someone says they love you, actions speak louder than words.
Hi Ultimate_Bread
I like your thread. I have a thread about: Clementine's dream means
and I also talked about Kenny and about Clementine' dream means.
In the Walking Dead Game all in the group thought that Kenny was crazy and angry, but I don't think so. Kenny had bad times and we know as Clementine, what Kenny has experienced.
When we think about Clementine's dream, what Lee told us that: When people were are sad, that can make people angry sometimes.
(If you noticed it, the camera in the dream will also be shown on Kenny, while you talk to Lee.)
I think, that the dream means Kenny also had bad times because of his family. Kenny could never hurt Clementine! Kenny was sad, that can make people angry sometimes. People don't always make sense. 'Cause bad things happen to everyone. And it's hard to keep bein' yourself after they do. It's not like math. Sometimes there just isn't a right answer. Part of growing up is doing what's best for the people you care about... even if sometimes... that means hurting someone else.
Kenny is awesome guy. I Love Kenny!
When do you interest, I have a thread about: Fans reactions to Kenny
You can see there are so many Fans of Kenny.
I'm also a Fan of Kenny.
I honestly don't see Kenny getting out of this alive. He's just one of those characters who will be with you, almost to the end.
Forever Lee, Kenny and Clementine.
I think that dream means everyone.
Easy-going people can be angry. Loyal people can betray. Smart people can be stupid.
As for hurting someone for those you care: Kenny tried to kill Jane for AJ, Jane tried to kill(she may don't mean to do that at first but during the fight she starts that attempt) Kenny for Clem. And Clem has to do something, or let something happen, for one of them.
You know, that Kenny has lost one eye, because Carver has beaten him. That's obvious, that Kenny kills Carver.
But: (If you noticed it, the camera in the dream will also be shown on Kenny, while you talk to Lee.)
This dream: I think it means more for Kenny!