About the St. Johns
My apologies if this was already answered, but do you think the St. Johns were always cannibals?
I want to think that they started eating people after the outbreak started, which makes more sense. However, the secret room they kept Mark in makes me think they planned it building house or something (edit: it's actually a bathroom).
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Nah, I don't think they were always cannibals. I'm pretty sure there's some dialogue available with Lee trying to guilt Brenda about this and how her husband wouldn't have approved.
Ah, right. It's just the secret room made me reconsider. I guess it wouldn't be too difficult for them to make it after the outbreak happened.
What secret room?
The one upstairs was just a normal bathroom they just shoved a bookcase in front of the door
The one in the barn was for slaughtering cattle
i think that secret room was a bathroom they just put a bookcase in front of the door
I feel dumb now. I wasn't really looking in the background when I found Mark, but bathroom makes sense.
No they weren't cannibals before the apocalypse; Brenda makes that pretty clear when she gives that speech about how she was taught not to waste. And the secret room was a bathroom, not really a secret. They just blocked it off so Mark couldn't escape
Yeah as you said, bathroom. Also because the group was inside. Putting the bookshelve in front of the door would be a smart way to hide it. When you're in a ZA, you become a scavenger. And with the limited amount of food, resorting to cannibalism was the only way because they weren't going to give up their home.
Yeah because Brenda was saying that growing up in rural Georgia your thought not to waste- that made me think that she was always a cannibal. Plus as you said they had the house all planned out.
Yeah but she followed that by by saying now you have all these creatures that eat people which leaves me to believe that because the walkers were doing it they started to and as we have said the house was custom built but That doesnt necessarily mean they built it for the purpose of cannbalising people but i have a feeling that telltale left their actions pre apocalypse intentionally ambiguous to inspire discussing like these
I think they only turned to cannibalism out of desperation. Now you're probably thinking "but it's only been 3 months, how are they already desperate?"
Think about the situation they would have been in:
The bandits hounding them. They give up food/supplies in order to keep them from slaughtering them all.
Trading with other survivors in order to get fuel for the fence.
Feeding themselves.
They need to scrounge together supplies, all while keeping themselves fed. Danny makes a point in that "a few loaves of bread fetch a high price" as it wouldn't be easy to procure without a stable set-up. Owning a dairy would normally be an advantage for them in regards to food, but since most of their farmhands and cows end up dying, that means that they are significantly undermanned.
I imagine that the cannibalism was a last resort when they started to run dry on both food for themselves, and things that they were able to trade/give to the bandits. I imagine they didn't even start out eating human meat. They simply found someone who was on the verge of death, cut them up, and tried to trade the meat off to the bandits or whoever else came along. Hell, I think that is their main objective: when you're hiding in the stalls from Danny/Andy, you can overhear their conversation, and Andy makes a point of saying that they can't keep Clementine alive, as there's not enough meat on her to trade.
However, as time went on, they slowly started to embrace that dark side, and it got to a point where they started to get more ruthless, enjoy butchering people, and even started to eat the meat themselves.
And so that brings us to where we are: our group was yet another target for them. Convince us to trade with them, thin out and separate our group (trying to turn on the fence in order to kill Mark and Lee, as to whittle down the group's numbers), trap the remaining members of the group and harvest them for meat.
I also think that each of the three had varying levels of sanity prior to turning to cannibalism, if not prior to the apocalypse itself. Danny was obviously the most unstable of the family, as he's the only one that seems to take true pleasure in cannibalism and killing people, and just look at the way he acts throughout the episode; you can obviously tell that something is off with him from the get-go, even when he's being nice. He's someone who definitely had mental problems before everything happened.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Brenda seems like she's the most 'moral' and stable of the family, whatever that's worth. She seems like the only one that sees/rationalizes what they do as a necessary evil, and seems to be quite hesitant to actually kill or hurt people up front/directly (she says out loud multiple times that she doesn't want to hurt the group, and during the hostage situation with Katjaa, she claims that she doesn't want to kill Katjaa or Lee).
Andy is the enforcer of the family and falls in the middle: he does what he has to in order to keep his family safe, and he's not above killing people or doing some extremely nasty shit in order to ensure that, but he doesn't particularly enjoy doing any of it like Danny does.
Of course, none of that is to say that they're good people by any means, but they aren't fully evil, either. In that sense, I really liked them as antagonists, because they genuinely felt like regular people (maybe sans Danny) who ultimately turned into monsters as a result of the desperate situations they were forced into.
This is a great read. I hadn't given much thought to the St. Johns, but after reading this, more the reason to kill them so they can't do this to anyone else. IMO.
Fair enough but I think the walkers just encouraged it even more. and the secret door was pretty well thought out and the gutting house.
It wasnt the only way though. They had plenty of other food. They just didnt seem to want to give up meat.
I actually was thinking of starting a fan fiction based around the St johns experience and their turn to cannabilism. One where there dad is still alive (for a bit).
But to answer ur question, I don't think u can make the St johns out to be evil when we don't know they're full story. I'd like to think they were good ppl, who when life gave them shit, they made shit stew.
There's not a lot to be said about the father, and not a whole lot said about the bandits, even after the bandits attacked the place and shot Mark (which, Ido I haven't played in awhile but what the fuck, why did the bandits just leave after that? What did the St. John's do?) but there's more then meets the eye for this groups.
Idk I kinda think Danny is the most sane one there. Danny and Brenda.
And I honestly don't think they enjoy it, more than they realize it is a necessary evil that they'd rather live with then die because of. The zombies are eating ppl anyway right?
They all have varying levels of sanity, yes, but think about how bad it was on the farm. I actually have a feeling that Lees group was one of their first encounters with ppl, other then bandits and the one guy they had that made the fences electric.
The milk from maybelle? They couldn't live of her and she was sick as well and with a baby on the way, that's another mouth to feed. If they left, hey could've become scavengers, but they chose to kept their diary and cannablism was the only answer.
Makes me wonder why they didn't keep some people around like Terminus and become an army. They could've taken out the bandits then.
I'd read that fan fiction. I don't know if the St. Johns were evil, but what they were doing was evil, IMO. Also, if I were the bandits, wasting all those arrows, I'd want something in return. Odd that they abandoned their pursuit quickly and not return later. Good luck with the fan fiction if you go with it.
I wonder what happened to their father... Maybe they ate him..???
Aww I'm ruining my own fan fiction lol
I can't remember if the St. Johns ever mentioned how long ago their father died, but in your fan fiction, the dying father giving himself up as food could be the start of the cannibalism...??
Maybe... Someone made them do it?
youre either the butcher or the cattle...
Ah too much, I gotta start writing
You saw how they were built, and livin in Georgia I guess they don't think about goin vegetarian
They seemed to be actively farming, they give the group a whole basket of freshly made biscuits or muffins or something.
Exactly. If they can make fresh biscuits, theyre far from starving to death. I mean, im a meat eating gal, I freely admit, but I like to think I could go cold turkey as opposed to eating other people.
The idea probably just came to them eventually, what with Brenda's whole "taught not to waste" principle. They also clearly weren't starving (had access to milk, cheese, butter, vegetables) and most likely wanted to preserve the meat of others in their own twisted way.
Doesn't Danny say after she gives them the basket that you can't get stuff like that without a cow for milk and butter ?
Eating biscuits from your sick cow could be bad if the cow dies. I guess it's easy to say it when you're aren't actually going through a ZA.
And its far too easy to justify cannibalism, it seems.
Lol wow I completely forgot they had biscuits. That kinda takes away from the episode... Unless that was there last batch of fresh milk or somethin like that.
I'm not justifying anything. I'm eating biscuits isn't going to help you. And if your cow is providing the milk and butter and it dies, what are you going to do ?
Eat something that doesnt require dairy products.
Such as? What can you eat at he St. John's dairy that isn't dairy ?