Arvo
I guess this post could be classified as an Arvo defense, but it's more of my interpretation of things, because there's so little information on Arvo to begin and since we will most likely never know the official story, the theories of him being an evil super-genius may be right or they may be wrong, but in this post I'll discuss why I think they are wrong. This will be long, but look on the bright side, now I can stop posting the same stuff to every other Arvo thread. The masterpost has finally arrived. Oh. And I made it even longer.
The Observation Deck
I’m going to start this by saying I don’t blame anyone for the chain of events that occurred here, because if people don’t blame Arvo for the shootout the next person they go to is Jane, but I don’t agree with that either.
First, Arvo pulls a gun on Clementine because she startles him. It doesn’t even look like he’s had time to register the fact that she’s a kid before he pulled the gun, and considering the dangerous world they live in, it’s become a natural reaction to take out a weapon when surprised. He’s practically a kid himself and he doesn’t know who she is or why she was hiding and watching him, so of course he’d be a bit freaked out. It’s clear that he’s scared, doesn’t want to shoot, and was eventually going to leave once Clementine was done talking to him. When he turns away from the trashcan, he starts to head back out onto the deck, if Clem was never there he would have kept on walking so I have no doubt he would have eventually put the gun away and left Clementine alone, he probably had other places to be. Arvo even says that he’s going to go, just because he didn’t leave right that second didn’t mean he was never going to. Jane interrupts him before he has the chance to leave.
Even though it was likely Arvo wouldn’t have hurt anyone, he was still pointing a gun at Clementine, and Jane did what she thought was necessary to protect, and everything else she does to Arvo is a continuation of that. When she tells him to put the bag down, it’s because she wants to check for more weapons. When she advocates to steal, it’s because she cares enough about the group to get them items that could help them. (At the expense of strangers who may need it just as much, but point is, she wasn’t doing it just for the hell of it.) When she threatens him to never come back, it’s because she wants to keep the group safe. She can’t give the gun back because that’d be stupid and dangerous to do to someone she just threatened to kill. “If I ever see you again, you won’t be walking away. Oh here, have your gun back!” Could she have handled the situation better? Probably, but that could be said for a lot of the situations in this game.
Arvo doesn’t know any of this though. We know that Jane felt so bad about the way she treated him that she was driven to tears, but Arvo never saw what we did and doesn’t know enough about her to see the reasoning behind the way she treated him. All he sees Jane as is a scary, violent woman who jumped him, stole his gun from him, and then threatened to kill him, and why wouldn’t he go back to his group and tell them this? Why wouldn’t they ask what happened to his gun? Why wouldn’t they want revenge?
If someone so much as tries to take the hat off Clementine’s head, players are out for blood. Don’t tell me that if Clementine and Arvo’s places were switched and she was the one who first pulled a gun on someone out of fear, and then ended up having that gun taken and used to threaten her with by people who were sneaking around watching her, that players wouldn’t be ridiculously angry about it. You people would be majorly pissed off if that happened to her and you’d probably want to go after them for what they did, don’t try to deny it. If any of the characters in Clementine’s group heard that one of their own was threatened the way Jane did with Arvo, they’d be at least a bit shaken up over it, and at most want revenge. I don’t see why the Russians shouldn’t feel the same. As for Clementine’s part in it, from his point of view, what Jane and Clem did to him looked like a coordinated ambush. One of the dialogue options even allows Clementine to tell Jane to sneak up on him, so determinantly it can be one from the start, but regardless of player intent, to Arvo it looks like an ambush.
Clementine and Jane wanted to find a safe place for their people and Arvo was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was a misunderstanding that went downhill from there, but I don’t think anyone did anything worthy of eternal damnation at that point.
Arvo’s Accusation and the Shootout
Even if Clementine doesn’t take the bag of medicine, Arvo still accuses her of stealing from him. I have theories as to why that may be, and none of them involve him being a lying junkie who blamed everything on Clem to feed his raging drug addiction, or whatever. Just because Jane thought he was one doesn’t mean it’s canon. (Now, if it were Kenny who claimed Arvo was an addict, I’m sure Telltale would bend over backwards to make it true.)
If Arvo was stealing directly from his own group, he never would have told them about the medicine because he wouldn’t want them to know he had it at all. Second, why would the Russians let the youngest, most inexperienced member of their group go so far away from their base alone with something as important as medicine? I think Arvo may have been stealing from his people, but if that’s the case he would never have said anything about it to his group. (“Hey guys, you know the medicine I stole from you? Well, someone else stole it from me.” Yeah. Okay.) Jane taking his gun and then on top of that threatening to kill him was probably what provoked the Russians.
Arvo getting his gun stolen was important. In the very first episode, the gun Michelle steals from Clementine and kills Omid with is given a close-up shot. This was used to imply that Christa may resent Clem for leaving her gun unguarded. As soon as Jane throws Arvo’s gun down, there’s a similar close-up shot on it, meaning his gun had to have significance. if Clem doesn’t steal, she can say that “Jane took your other stuff” Clem can acknowledge that the gun may have played a part in why Arvo’s group came after them, even if Arvo never confirms what exactly set them off.
The four guns that the Russians had might have been the only ones they had. If they were going to hold up a group of people who they believed had a member dangerous enough to rob and threaten one of their own, wouldn’t they have given Arvo a replacement gun as a precaution, if they had one to give? But Arvo didn’t have another gun on him at the shootout, or at all, (Until his mysterious Russian majyyks conjured one out of thin air for the specific purpose of allowing him to shoot Clementine, good one writers. Almost as good as Buricko and Vitali randomly switching places and guns in the shootout.) so the gun Arvo had previously and the ones the rest of his group came to the shootout with were probably the only ones they had. At the house, the only thing Clem’s group finds is the two bags of supplies, I don’t remember them mentioning they found any weapons.
Then Jane threatened to kill him, and that clearly shook Arvo up considering how paranoid he is if Clementine tells him to get even with Jane instead of the rest of her group. (“I do not see the woman who was with you! Where is she hiding!?!”) He also had to walk all the way back to his house completely defenseless. As mentioned earlier, there’s really nothing anybody could do about that, because giving him back the gun would be a bad move on Jane’s part, but losing the gun probably didn’t sit well with his people anyway.
The Russians went after Clementine’s group because Arvo assumed that Jane was still with them. Why wouldn’t he seek out Clem? She was with Jane when he first met her, and Arvo didn’t know that Jane left the group the night before. Clementine tells him that she left, but he believes that it’s a trap. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Arvo automatically jumps to the conclusion that Jane is hiding, because that’s exactly what she did to him before on the deck, it makes sense that he’d get scared and think she’d try to pull the same thing again.
Also, it was pretty obvious that Arvo didn’t exactly seem ecstatic to have to talk to Clementine’s group. One dialogue choice leads to him apologizing to Clementine and calling her kind, (Even if she does take the pills at that.) if he was really so petty and smug about the situation he wouldn’t be saying sorry, nor would he be pulling all the sad and guilty faces he did during the hold up. Translation also reveals that Buricko is the one calling the shots, which further proves that Arvo didn’t really want to steal from them, because he was taking orders from Buricko. (“What do you want me to take from them?” Buricko was literally instructing Arvo on what to do and say the entire time.) If Arvo was the mastermind behind the plan, he wouldn’t be taking direction from another person. If Arvo had any power in his group, his pleas to Buricko to put his gun down wouldn’t have gone completely ignored. All the Russians seem to look to Buricko, even Vitali at one point was asking him to back off, and the man just wouldn’t listen. If Clementine tries to set up a bargain Arvo tells her that “Buricko is saying we will take everything.” Arvo didn’t even try to relay the message of a compromise because he likely knew the answer would be no, I think Buricko was by far the most stubborn person there.
The only way I could see Arvo being mainly at fault for the shootout was if he did say Clementine and Jane took the medicine when they didn’t, and his group decides to go after them just for the meds, and the gun has nothing to do with it. But I’ve already explained why I think the gun was significant, and why I think Arvo wouldn’t want his group to know he had the medicine in the first place. If the Russians were already planning on going after Clem’s group for the gun and Arvo decided to pin the meds on them too, (If my theory about the medicine having nothing to do with it is wrong.) then that’s a dick move but if they were coming after them anyway, well, then they were coming anyway and it makes no difference.
Sister’s Illness
Unused lines apparently confirm Arvo wasn’t lying about his sister being sick. But I suppose they were unused for a reason so maybe they retconned it. Illnesses where one doesn’t have to be bedridden but still need medication exist, so if it turned out Arvo wasn’t lying I wouldn’t be surprised. This is just speculation, but I think that Arvo and Natasha were trying to leave Buricko/Vitali for whatever reason and Arvo was storing the meds so far away from their house so the two of them could come get it later when they are ready to leave. I have a feeling that Arvo wasn’t exactly a highly regarded member of his group, one line from Vitali during the shootout shows that he was likely going to sacrifice Arvo to get at Kenny if Arvo hadn’t already broken free because, “He’s already dead without Natasha, killing him will only help him!” or something like that, so maybe Buricko and Vitali were abusive and Arvo and his sister didn’t want to be around them anymore.
The Lake
It seems silly to assume Arvo would be an expert on ice and know exactly where each spot on the lake was thin or thick because he’s from Russia, that is just very stereotypical. (Unless ice safety is actually a thing they teach there, but I don’t know anything about Russia.) The only suspicious thing Arvo did was offer to go first, apparently the ice is strongest for those who go first. Maybe he did have a plan to kill everyone, but if that’s what he was trying to do it feels like a weak plan to me. Going first may be the safest in comparison to the rest of the group, but if he was aware that the ice wasn’t completely safe, he’s still taking a risk by going out there. And he falls in and could have died if Kenny didn’t pull him out. So I guess it just depends on how desperate you think he was to escape (Even if it means risking his own life.) and decide if he honestly believed the ice was safe and it turned out he was mistaken, or if he knew it was dangerous and was lying.
It appears that Arvo ran out of fear of the walkers and not because he thought it would be a good time to make an escape. When they first mention the walkers on the lake, Arvo looks behind and sees them, and starts going faster. Once the two walkers fall into the lake, he looks again, sees that they have fallen, and takes off. He ran because he panicked, and if that was the cause of the ice breaking on Luke, then Kenny and Mike also share some of the blame along with Arvo for getting Luke killed, since all three of them stupidly ran across the ice. I think it is also worth noting that Clementine leaves a little crack and I’m not sure Luke went around it, and he’s also dragging a pretty heavy looking gun with him, So maybe the three of them weren’t even the main cause of him falling in. But if they were, I don’t think Arvo started it to try and drown everyone else, it was because he freaked out due to walkers.
Language Barrier
Arvo’s drop in English-speaking abilities wasn’t because he was purposely trying to piss off Kenny, but because he went through an extremely traumatic situation. Have you ever been emotional enough to the point of where it was hard to figure out what you want to say? Now imagine if you went through an awful experience like watching your sibling die in a country where you were required to speak a language you don’t know as well as English, and on top of that you have someone constantly abusing you and berating you because you’re having trouble remembering that language and also because they just hate you and want you dead. That’s basically what happened with Arvo.
When Kenny grabs him as he’s trying to revive Natasha, Arvo speaks completely in Russian the whole time even though he desperately wants to get back to his sister. It probably would have made more sense for him to beg to be let go in English, but he doesn’t do that because he’s in an extremely stressful situation and he isn’t thinking straight. The following days are a continuation of that, he’s still being shoved around and made fun of and is likely still broken up over his sister dying, so his English speaking skills dropped as a result of his emotional problems.
Bonnie and Mike
I doubt that Arvo manipulated them into leaving, and even if he was the one to suggest it, they really didn’t need much convincing. Before Arvo was even introduced, Mike and Bonnie were wary of Kenny. The first interaction Mike has with Kenny is when Kenny picked a fight with him for no good reason, and he yelled at Mike when he tried to talk to him about Sarita, which scared both him and Bonnie. The two of them had likely only known Kenny for a few days, depending on how long they were at Howe’s for, and for that short time he was very volatile, their wariness of him was obvious from the beginning. It was Kenny’s stubbornness that drove them away. It makes perfect sense for them to not want to go up north searching for a place that may not even exist, or follow an obnoxious, bossy person who has outright stated he doesn’t care what they think. Contrary to popular belief, Bonnie and Mike aren’t mindless, naive sheep. They were scared and selfish when the shit hit the fan and they thought Kenny would murder Arvo if they didn’t bring him, Arvo didn’t drag them kicking and screaming away from their dear old friend Kenny.
Kenny definitely had a right to be angry at and not trust Arvo, after all if Jane hadn’t come in, Vitali would have killed Kenny, but the way he went about expressing his hatred was excessive. Arvo was tied up and cooperating for the most part, anything Kenny says about hurting Arvo to ‘protect’ the group was just a lame excuse to take his anger out on him. Kenny practically wanted Arvo to lash out at him. “Just give me a reason…” Is the first thing Kenny says to Arvo once he’s already restrained, that pretty much shows to me that Kenny was looking for excuses to abuse and ridicule him, not because he was desperately trying to save everyone from him or something. I suspect that Kenny's behavior was basically the icing on the shit cake for Bonnie and Mike.
I don’t quite understand how people came to the conclusion that Arvo was playing on their sympathy. It wasn’t like Arvo was trying to appear pathetic on purpose, (…He’s just a natural at it.) unless you believe there’s some conspiracy where Arvo was falsely grieving for his sister and went out of his way to earn beatings from Kenny or something just so Bonnie and Mike would pity him. They felt bad for Arvo because they are supposed to be caring people. Which makes their complete disregard of Clementine’s life by taking all the supplies seem very OOC, if Mike and Bonnie cared enough for Arvo, then they’d still care for Clementine.
Shooting Clementine
Not gonna defend this one. I will say however, that there are two different ways to look at the situation depending on the player’s actions, if Clementine calls for help he appears to shoot her out of fear, if she cooperates with Mike it comes off as a knee-jerk attempt at avenging his sister’s death. As for if he feels remorse, we can’t know for sure if it is one way or the other, because he ran away. I think he might, when he shoots Clementine there’s no look of satisfaction, only shock. Maybe he realized too late that he fucked up and that avenging his sister isn’t going to bring her back, but as for if the guilt is eating him up inside, I guess that’s just another thing on the long list of stuff we’ll never get to find out about him.
The act of Arvo shooting Clementine isn’t something that should be defended in game, because even though in my opinion the real reasoning behind it was plain shitty writing, it doesn’t change his actions as a character. He still shot her and that’s indefensible.
…And here’s where I start complaining. (You all saw this coming.)
Having him shoot Clementine no matter what she does feels really contrived. The writers purposely wanted to keep him a plot device with no personality, backstory, or chance for redemption. It was as if they created him with a specific, plot-driven purpose instead of making him into an actual character we could bond with and learn more about. Funny how Clementine has all these chances to defend him, but none to actually talk to him. Being nice to Arvo was only allowed so people would be even angrier at him when he shoots her, not because it was a part of the process where the two could come to an understanding with one another eventually.
There was really no excuse for not letting Clementine talk with Arvo. He was tied up for 90% of the episode, he wasn’t going anywhere. But if she had the chance to have a genuine conversation with him, then he’d eventually ask, “Why did you murder my sister” Clementine would clear things up and then he’d have no reason to be paranoid and hateful towards her.
In a game where interaction with characters is a key part of the experience, the protagonist was specifically denied the chance to make a connection with him, because he had to serve his two purposes, which go hand in hand, shoot Clementine, and then justify Kenny’s behavior. Since Kenny was ‘right about him all along’ his abuse and xenophobia towards Arvo before he ever shot her is now excused, apparently. If you talk to Kenny and Jane first and then try to talk to Arvo, the game literally skips right over him and onto the bonfire scene. That right there is pretty telling that they didn't want to develop his character at all.
Clementine getting shot was never meant to be realistic or important in the long run, just an event that happened to move the plot along. I might have been angry at Arvo if Clementine suffered for the shot, but she never really does at any point in the story with the exception of mentioning that her shoulder hurts a bit in the truck. None of the characters ever mention it again except for a one-liner from Kenny that basically boiled down to ‘Fuck Arvo’. It happened, and then was completely forgotten.
This is supposed to be a serious injury. She literally took a bullet to the shoulder, and got up like it was just a scratch a few hours later. With the supplies, if Bonnie has died in the lake, Mike and Arvo only have one bag with them. Clem can still accuse them of stealing everything. What happened to that mysterious bag? Jane and Kenny didn’t have it. None of them suffered from the loss of supplies. Arvo’s (And Bonnie and Mike’s, might as well throw them in too.) actions weren’t significant enough and felt too contrived for me to actually give a shit, let alone generate any genuine, everlasting hatred towards them. I should have been angry after what they did, but it feels way too forced, so instead, I’m pretty much apathetic towards it.
I guess this is common stuff from Telltale now. Physically disabled characters like Arvo and Reggie are plot devices, and the characters hinted to have mental illnesses like Sarah (I believe it was confirmed she had PTSD?) are turned into jokes players are encouraged to hate and make fun of. Apparently the writers even admitted they purposely made Kenny act very cruel this episode, threatening to slap Clementine for example, just to turn players against him. Back in season one, when Ben abandoned Clementine to walkers in the city? They were trying to influence people to hate Ben and kill him, so I guess even S1 is guilty of this. Arvo shooting Clem felt similarly manipulative to me.
I liked Arvo, and still do, to be honest, because I thought he had the potential to be a very interesting character. Arvo, even though he was with a group who ended up opposing Clementine’s group, was much more interesting and sympathetic to me in comparison to the other antagonist characters in S2 and raised plenty of questions that I'm bitter I never got to know the answers to. How did he get stuck in the USA? Why was he hiding the medicine? What were his other group members like? How did he get the leg brace? And so on. I like Arvo more for the potential he had as a character, rather than what he actually amounted to in canon. And I still stubbornly hold on to the ‘could have beens’ with this character instead of hating what he canonically was. Which is weird, I know, but I don't care.
If people want to hate him, by all means they can continue to. I’m not expecting anyone to automatically forgive him or agree with me when I talk about how badly written he was, because bad writing, when it comes down to it, is simply opinion. But I don’t agree with the interpretation that he’s a stone-cold, snake in the grass sociopath, so I wanted to offer this post as a counter to that. It’s not much, but I wanted to write it.
So. I'm done here, feel free to go back to your regularly scheduled Arvo-hating.
Comments
Fuck Arvo.
...I saw this coming a mile away.
I have no doubt.
This is a theory that i endorse, i'm not saying he is evil but just very good at manipulating people. They see him as a cripple, not a threat, so they don't take him seriously. I believe very intelligent and that he uses that language barrier as deception. He is a very intelligent guy, i saw what he was doing right away. I could tell he was manipulating Mike, Kenny even Clementine if he get's the chance.
I believe he was stashing his drugs, that he probably stole from his friends. Why would someone go and stash drugs for no reason, other than having them on hand when you were ready to leave. To me it was obvious that Arvo stole the medicine from the Russians, then blamed Clementine regardless if you stole the drugs yourself.
Like i said he was trying to deflect the blame from him to Clementine. He stole the drugs initially, since none of them spoke English except Arvo, he could manipulate the communication. If you remember during that part, Arvo was being a little submissive, wanting to give up, where the other Russians wanted their drugs back. They were in charge at that point, they had realised what Arvo had done.
Arvo used the lake to kill someone, plain and simple. The whole story of him walking back and forth across that was a lie. The other Russian dudes walked on that ice , why didn't they crack the ice, or fall in. It was a complete lie, where he used the ice as a chance to escape. From his perspective Arvo, had to get out of there. He was in that Carver situation, so he had to go. I'm sure Arvo wanted Ken to die, but was happy it killed at least one of them, possibly two.
I think it was a accident, i don't think he intended to shoot Clementine.
Now we wait for Bonnie Defense.... or is it?
I'm sure I could pull out something as equally long-winded, unorganized, and dramatic for Bonnie in the next 12 hours or so, but I'm too tired right now.
and i want to see Craver Defense too
Oh lord, what next? A Troy defense?
Carver and Troy are still Likeable characters, at least in my opinion. If people like Kenny, why can't people like Carver. I don't see the difference.
because "people don't always makes sense,''
-lee
Sam the Dog Defense Masterpost.
You guys are putting too much pressure on me. I can't write all these. .3.
I don't see how Troy is likeable, all he really does is yell, abuse, and hurt Clem in almost every scene whenever he shows up, of course, Kenny and Carver kind of do the same thing.
I like him because he made me laugh, and i believe everyone deserves a second chance in life. Lee killed a state Senator, he got a second chance to do right.
Hitler defense thread please.
ChallengeMode
He served his country at one time.
He had a cool mustache, that is all.
Defending Arvo? Are you fucking serious?
Hell yeah.
Interesting and nice post.
But still.....
HE'S A DEAD MAN
Yeah, it's not hard to defend Arvo, and it takes no stretch of the imagination to see his character get some support.
This is why I don't like most defense threads, always blame it on the writing. If you can't find a better point to defend Arvo with other than "bad writing" then your points aren't very strong to begin with, no offense.
Whats there to defend? He's an insecure psychopath who enjoys shooting children. A spoiled brat that gets away with everything. But your thread has inspired me to make a defense thread for one of my favorite characters. Can you guess who?
If that's honestly your interpretation of Arvo then I'm not even going to bother trying to change your mind. I think Arvo isn't even close to resembling a 'psychopath' but to each their own I guess.
...Would this character happen to be Nate? Because if it is, then I cannot wait to see a defense thread on him.
You should come take a look
http://www.telltalegames.com/community/discussion/89264/nate-defense-thread?new=1
Well, it is kind of the issue in how forced it feels and bad writing is half of the problem with characters in S2.
Again, bad writing is an opinion, not a fact. Which makes it kind of bad to bring up in a defense thread.
The majority of my post was just meant to go through Arvo's actions as they were written, and not focus on criticizing it, but I couldn't leave out my usual "Arvo was horribly written" complaints, the masterpost wouldn't be complete without that. But in my defense I did include that on the one point I didn't bother defending, which was Arvo shooting Clem, so I guess the last paragraph in general was me just throwing my opinion in. .-.
Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not.
I think Arvo was the creation of Telltale being lazy. They probably needed a villain cause they just killed their last one off. But Arvo's existing is just kinda weird, a Russian living in Tennessee who can't even speak English or his friends. Or how he was miles away from his home to dump medicine in a trash can. Or how he ambushed the group in the perfect position, even though you can wait days before leaving.
Honestly, I think Arvo is the creation of laziness, and I don't he should of really been in this game. But thanks Amid The Ruins, for being the whom that birthed this horrible thing.
Brace yourselves. The "FUCK ARVO" comments are coming.
Oh, don't I know it. .3.
That's a first lol. "You shot my dick off" was the funniest line in the game.
I think Arvo isn't a bad idea, I mean he's even kind of an intriguing and original idea, but the execution for him is off, especially with no back story to speak of for him so we have no idea what to think of him. Is he supposed to be sympathetic? Is he supposed to be a villain? Is he a tragedy?
We're given no context to him so we have nothing to go off of him but his actions, which are also kind of confusing. One minute he's scared and awkward and can apologize about ambushing our group, the next he sounds a bit too commanding when telling the group what to do yet he's clearly not in charge.
Arvo's an interesting idea as a character because you don't see the idea of someone from a different country stranded in an unfamiliar country too often. But with no back story and his sometimes confusing attitude and the fact that the game tries as hard as it can to not allow us to learn about him or his group or how he feels about everyone he knows dying in less than ten minutes, it feels like the game is trying to make us not care about him so it is easier to hate him.
I wish we could have explored his character more, I mean how many other Russian teenagers with poor eyesight, broken eyeglasses and a bum leg are out there? He just sounds really interesting to me.
Amid The Ruins sucked in general. The worst way I could think of to build up to Episode 5
I thought Arvo was the one good thing about Amid the Ruins, they seemed like they were setting his character up to have more of a backstory and give us a chance to have Clementine bond with him or whatever and then they threw that away like they did with plenty of other characters this season.
Okay, I exaggerated quite a bit. Arvo was an interesting character, better than most of the cast actually. But how Episode 4 created him was just bad really, the entire Episode was bad so I'll excuse him there.
Long inhale
no.
OMG who like Arvo?
He want to rob you
he shoot you
even if you don't take his bag, he want to rob you with his russian friends
he is asshole and liar
So why you want to defend him? he do something good to your character or others? NO
The unfortunate truth is Arvo shot a young girl. And in some cases, for no other reason because he could.
Now, whether by the writers' emission to sloppily push Kenny on "good" terms to some people to force the lazy final conflict being a tougher choice or just because Arvo was written to be a snake in the grass is completely irrelevant. Either way, Arvo is still scum.
Can I find it my heart to forgive him? Absolutely not, he's a dead man walking...