Did Anybody Else Just Plain Not Care About The Characters in S2?
Looking for other opinions but am I only the only person who didn't care at all about ANY of the characters that were introduced. In my S1 my whole thing was to have Lee get Omid and Christa to look after Clem so for them to go was bad... But I got on with it and the dog was a great moment. The problem really came with the new group. No defining characters and the fact that they were jerks to an ELEVEN year old girl and never really got any better. Even fucking Larry liked Clem and wanted to protect her but this group don't really give a crap (apart from Pete who is in the whole series for about two minutes). Ludicrous that TWD expected us to care about them especially considering that I would say that only the St Johns and the Bandits were the only characters who tried to harm her... Having the new group be happy to stick her in the shed with a serious wound... Wow.
From the first time we spoke to the end of the series I wanted Clem to leave, without the baby. Even at the end I killed Kenny (I liked him but he was a broken man) and I wanted to either shove AJ onto Jane or kill Jane and have my Clem a little wiser and more cautious about any kind of contact and ultimately a loner (which in my mind would make S3 better in which Clem is either able to take a good route or bad route alone). Instead she has to keep the baby.... For some reasons. It just seems to me as a player who LOVED the first season (top five games) mainly for the fact that I felt such strong emotions for everybody but S2.
If Christa and Omid were gone, I wanted Clem to be safe and she would only be safe on her own, not a bunch of psychos who thinks children should be adults once they're slightly beyond toddler age and up.
So yes I have to say the eight deadly words, "I don't care what happened to those people" and I still don't. Here's hoping TTG have characters who are compelling, complex who at the very least when they see a girl not yet in puberty act like anything but a psycho would. Especially if we're going to be forced to stick with them for no reason...
Comments
I cared about a lot of the characters in Season 2, some even more than some of the characters in Season 1.
I'd write more, but I don't have the time. The point is that I did care about the characters, along with Alvin, Mike (before he betrayed us), Rebecca, Walter, and Sarah.
Seriously, you don't care? I mean fine that's your opinion, but you went through the whole season and you didn't care one bit for any of them? You must have a really strong brain to not get impacted by their deaths.
I thought most people cared about them. In fact I think that's the reason lots of people disliked season 2, cause we didn't get much development on them and some had disappointing deaths (in others opinions, I didn't have as big as a problem with season 2 as most people did.)
That's a shame @TCD23, I guess Telltale can't really appease everyone to become emotionally invested with their characters. Telltale seems to be banking off the hopes of you (the player) becoming attached in some way to their characters and if it doesn't work you are not gonna have a good time, just like with any story.
Cared deeply for:
Kind of cared for:
Didnt give two shits about:
Being a Kenny fan here but i don't know how you or anyone could kill Kenny lol. Honestly his ending is so much better than bloody Jane's or Clem going alone but i respect your choice.
For me, i agree with you, it was hard to like any of Season 2's characters.
The only characters i did care about was Clem and Kenny, Christa and Omid. Hopefully in season 3, they will actually properly develop characters and we'll grow more attached to them.
I cared for The Lodge Group and the Cabin group
Not anyone else after that though
Pretty much everyone in S2 wasn't developed well and had little to no personality. I didn't even know their names until Ep2 was released, I didn't really care that much about them besides Nick, Rebecca, and Pete.
I cared about Christa and Omid. And Sarah, I guess.
Looking back at season 2, it's honestly really depressing how most of the characters were either plot devices (AJ, Bonnie, Mike, Arvo...) or contrived fanservice (Kenny...) rather than anything resembling actual people, like season 1's characters. Fingers crossed for season 3...
The only ones I cared for were, Luke, Nick, Pete, AJ, and Rebecca. I guess you can add Kenny too, but he's from Season 1.
...I weep more for what they could have been than what they actually were.
Let me think who I cared about...... (Not counting Omid and Christa...Since you know....)
Clem
Kenny
Pete
Honestly....That's about it, wait.... liked Nick and Mike (At First) and I liked Luke too but don't seem to love him like everyone else does.
My problem isn´t not caring. It´s caring too much.
I liked them all honestly but they definitely lacked a lot of development, and when Kenny returned it made it even harder for them to get screen time but I really loved them, with my two favorites being Nick and Arvo.
I liked all the characters, but was only affected by Luke and Sarah's deaths.
I still found myself attached to characters from S2, although admittedly, not at the same level as in S1 (with four exceptions: Nick, Luke, Pete and Rebecca)
Sarah was a pretty great character to me, and her first death in particular is pretty hard hitting. Similarly, Alvin may not have been around all that much, but he got one hell of a send-off in episode 3
Carlos is the only character I never got super attached to or whose death really affected me that much, mainly because he is one of the least developed of the cabin group. What do we really know about Carlos in all honesty? Not denying the guy was a bit of a bad-ass in episode 2 (spitting in Carver's face and outright telling him to fuck himself when he has him hostage. I'll bet the tough motherfucker splinted his broken fingers himself), but we never really got a chance to sit down and talk to Carlos outside of him chewing us out in All That Remains. I'm pretty sure we got more one-on-one scenes with Alvin than we did Carlos.
The other characters from S2 were good (Walter, Jane, Mike, etc), but they never quite reached the same emotional level as the cabin group did (although it's pretty obvious why that'd be the case)
I think they had a pretty great and diverse roster this season, the only shame is that they just ended up picking them off one by one. They kind of got the double whammy here. On top of having less development, and as a result, less depth than S1's characters, they also suffered the same fate as the cast of S1: slowly getting picked off. Hell, they arguably got it even worse than S1 since none of them even survive the whole season, not even with the unknown status.
They're walking on a thin line here. People may still get attached to characters in the following seasons, but if they keep killing the entire season's cast by the end, that attachment will just become less and less as people grow more apathetic to it. I mean, look at how people practically write off determinant characters as dead at this point. That really shouldn't be the case.
Yes, I thought certain characters like Pete, Reggie, and Carlos could've been better if developed properly. As it stands, every time anyone died, I found myself either shrugging, laughing, or face palming. I hated most characters simply out of spite for the shitty narrative (AJ is a prime example of just how much I hate terribly forced plot-device characters). The hell with literally everyone in season two other than Clementine (and Sam too, simply 'cause he was a damn dog).
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Kennys ending made no sense and honestly, the only reason I can see it added was to pacify the TeamKenny fandom Telltale no doubt knew bringing back a major character would create. Kenny, after showing his true psychopathic colors kills Jane to find out that AJ is actually alive? Yeah, that's totally "the best ending". Clementine being left alone with a baby and a batshit crazy sociopath.
That's just my opinion, btw, don't mistake me for Team anyone unless it's "Team rational sense".
Glad to see you back, Merak!
I think OP's going way too far. Clearly, Season 2 had characters worth giving a damn about. It's just that many of them were treated very badly.
Nah really only Clementine, Kenny and Luke before his character inconsistency. I didn't really get to know about everyone in the group thus had no reason to care. I didn't give a fuck about Jane and her stupid sister or Mike and .
Put it this way, character deaths in season 1 had more of an impact on me than deaths in season 2. That's not to say I didn't care about them, it all stems from the shorter time we had with them, both in episode lengths and personal interaction. Couldn't really attach myself to them specifically, just the situation they were in.
Won't say that I didn't care about them but I feel like I should care about them a lot more. I'm a lot more engaged with characters from tother stories than for those of season 2.
I found it harder to care, if that makes sense. We're supposed to like Luke because he's this sweet guy who always helps Clementine, but I felt nothing for him. Pete and Walter were nice, but their deaths didn't really bother me because of how quickly they were thrown away. Sarita was basically Katjaa 2.0, 'nuff said. I even lost a lot of my fondness for Clementine. I think it's the sloppy writing; characters were killed off before we got to know much about them. I did like Nick, but we all know how poorly his character was treated, so his deaths were more cringeworthy than anything. My biggest attachments were to Kenny and Sarah.
I cared only for Kenny and Clementine.(Yes,I mentioned Kenny first on purpose.)
Yes it is the best ending in my opinion but mainly because of the scene following all that after they reach Wellington. What Kenny does for Clem and AJ is truly a beautiful thing, something Jane probably would never do. My opinion anyway. Not everyone likes Kenny we all know that
By the way, why did Kenny's ending make no sense?
Kenny's an uncontrollable psychotic, and you can tell not long after he gets his ass handed to him by Carver, he doesn't even want to live anymore. Whats the point of keeping him around when he's lost his son, wife, and side chick? That's dumb. Like the alternative ending to "I Am Legend" (Will Smith Movie), when Dr. Neville makes peace with the infected thus survives, even though he's lost his daughter, wife and dog to the outbreak. No man should just "start over" with a new family after that.
Its not about "liking Kenny", it's about good story telling, and I don't know what happens after choosing Kenny (I shot him and left alone), but im sure that "beautiful thing" isn't him getting an attitude overhaul, so it doesn't really matter to me. An unstable person isn't the best ally in a zombie apocalypse.
Thanks Bokor! Though I probably wont be on too often because I'm seriously trying to stop procrastinating on school work, and this forum is so damn distracting...
A few months ago I would’ve agreed that OP is being a bit extreme, but I recently went through Season 2 again. Oh my holy crap, it was worse than I remembered. Rebecca’s absurd short-term memory loss, Carlos and Bonnie’s utter lack of consistent characterization, Kenny’s lazily recycled arc… It’s clear that the writers clearly had no clue what the fuck they were doing, and realizing this has really soured my thoughts on nearly all the characters, regardless of the potential they once had.
Thank god Telltale actually seems to know what they’re doing with Borderlands and Game of Thrones.
Same here. From Season Two, they were the only two that mattered. There was not one character I felt empathy for other than those two, and I don't suppose they really count anyway, because they are Season One characters originally.
Now hate, that's different. I hated Arvo, Mike, Jane and especially Bonnie. For reasons I shouldn't have to go through again.
If we do encounter those characters in Season Three, then I hope the option to shoot first and ask questions later is there, otherwise I will be very dischuffed.
Well, for one thing, Ohio (which is where Wellington is, apparently) is fucking gigantic. Like, more than 40,000 square miles. Average walking speed for humans is about 3.1 miles per hour, so Kenny and Clem would've walked around 744 miles in 10 days if they walked at a constant pace nonstop with no sleep at all. It is completely preposterous that Kenny and Clem luckily just happened to find Wellington in the middle of the damn woods within 10 days.
Sure, maybe you could argue Wellington put up signs all over the state like Terminus, directing travellers to their camp. Problem is that even if this was the case, there was absolutely nothing in the game that indicated this, and the theory resultantly feels more like desperate fanon attempting to patch up a gaping plot hole the writers likely just forgot about.
'Realism is why Christa didn't come back' my ass. Seeing as Kenny is the antithesis of realism, there was really no reason for Christa to have not returned.
Huge inconsistencies with how Clem (and Kenny, to an extent) was written in this scene was also a major issue, but let's not get into that. Not feeling up to ranting today.
Also, how did AJ not starve to death??? Oh, that's right, he was a plot device, not an actual human being who required frivolities like food or water.
While we're on this topic, I think the endings would have fared better if they didn't have the "Nine days later" message at the start of them. Just have them be a simple transition, where the exact amount of time that has passed is ambiguous to each ending.
Why did they even need to clarify it was nine days later, anyways? What's so important about it being 9 days later? What changed so dramatically in that time period that it was worth mentioning?
Woah hold the phone Let me go through your list
Kenny-Cared lots about
Nick-Couldn't care less
Sarah-Is the Duck of season 2. (Which is not good)
Rebecca- hate her! She tried to make Nick shoot you and is such a "Damsel in distress" I hated her
AJ-honestly I don't know if this is normal but I couldn't care less
Walter-Oh yeah hes a thing!
Bonnie-Hate her more than Rebecca. She made Luke die. No other way to put it
Luke-Like his equally as much a Lee. No joke
Alvin-Deeply cared for
Pete-BOWSE
Carlos-That "so called Doctor" Forget him
Mike-Was in my top 3 in season 2 until I caught him trying to steal our stuff. Uh-Uh
Jane-Half cared for her
Sarita-Same feelings
i found Nick relatable,
i liked Duck a lot more than clem in season 1 (and would have rather had clem die cause Duck is so good),
Rebecca was going through terrible emotional problems she was prego (not the sauce)
AJ i cared about because of keeping alvin and rebs legacy alongside the fact people should be more humane and try to keep the world the same before shit went down,
Bonnie had little input on Lukes fate in that situation,
I know some of these feelings of mine are hard to believe but its just how i think yo :V
Well try the Kenny ending and tell me you don't think that ending is a "beautiful thing" lol. But fair enough, its your opinion.
Just looked at it on YouTube. It's a caring gesture an all, and sure Jane probably wouldn't have done it, but the Kenny character is still a loose cannon and I don't think he should've attacked Jane. We were all survivors in the same group. I didn't want to shoot him, but he was at fault, imo.
I think they're honestly putting in a lot more effort into the new properties whereas The Walking Dead is treated less thoughtfully, hoping that they can coast off Season 1's success rather than actually innovate or improve on the flaws with that formula.
The fact that they've decided to retain Clementine in Season 3, despite giving her multiple endings in Season 2, proves to me that 1. they have no long-term plan and 2. they aren't brave enough to diverge from the formula and give us something new.
The 'original' ending of I Am Legend was more in line with the book AND supported by earlier evidence in the film which indicated the vampires' intelligence and capacity for humanity/emotional attachment. Neville was meant to realize that he was, in a way, being a monster himself and tried to make amends.
But the common consumer is happier to go with the "BOOM ALL THE BAD GUYS ARE DEAD" ending rather than something morally complex.
In a way, I kinda feel this is the case for the moral dissonance in Season 2 of Clementine indirectly causing Carver's followers to suffer a horrible death. We're meant to think they're all guilty by association and don't deserve sympathy, even though it's implied that they're mostly just ordinary people who've been misled by a madman.
You can argue that the twist is that 'Wellington' was named for the logo of the company that created the shipping crates that compose its walls, rather than actually referring to the town in Ohio. That would allow for "Wellington" be in northern Tennessee rather than a zillion miles away. Although this really reeks of awkward back-tracking.