Why brining Kenny in for s2 was a poor choice.
Telltalerocks
Banned
We all love Kenny, even I do. But the Kenny we like died and sacrificed himself for his friends. In season 2, his determinant death is stupid. Kenny being introduced back was not a good choice and instead, they should have focused more on Christa,Omid, and if they had time, Lily and the 400 days characters. I know people are going to hate me, but Kenny in s2 is completely useless.
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Excuse me, what was that?
Kenny was already my favorite character in S1, but I even liked his role better in S2. He became more of a main character than he was in the first one, more like the deuteragonist. He tries to follow Lee's steps. He saved Clem, takes care of her, he gives his eye for her, and determinantly sacrifices himself for her. He helps Rebecca deliver the baby. He ends Carver. In the end, he was right about everyone, especially Arvo. Useless? Really? I'd say he was one of the most useful people.
I disliked how Clementine had a forced relationship with him, I dislike how they acted like they were close when in Season One their characters barely interacted, I still liked Kenny returning this Season though but his appearance evidently moved the spotlight away from the newer characters.
Agreed, who cares. These two characters had 0 chemistry. In fact, Lily and Clementine had a huge relationship that could have been explored in season 2. What if Christa and lily met in s2, it would be interesting to have custody over Clementine. Christa really did like Clementine and thought she was a very good role mode for her kid. Lily really liked Clementine because she did not have a mother and she thought of Clementine as a sister, or a little cousin or a little sister. Lily and Clementine were perfect together.
I hope we see Lily in Season 3. Also now that I think about it, Kenny was one of the characters who bonded with Clementine the least, Larry and Mark didn't either but they weren't even present for half the Season.
I disagree, it was the right move to bring Kenny back.
Yeah like who are we going to believe? Telltale which has experience in making story based games and has a set of writers who have plenty of their experienes? Telltale who has repeatedly made GOTY games and made millions of people cry? Are we going to believe them or a random forum user who may or may not have a point? I think I'll go with the latter. (SARCASM)
To people who say it was 100% perfect to bring him back think of this. Look at the S2 Cast prior to episode 3 and look at 3 on. It was completely about either him or Jane from then on and the other characters were not developed at all
I'm happy TT brought him back. They left his "death" a mystery like a comic book character, since it was never shown on screen. A familiar face, a controversial one at that, made S2 all the more exciting.
Damn straight. Kenny's return gave S2 an extra "oomph" that would have been lacking otherwise.
Bringing him back was a good choice. I love the reunion scene. But giving him so much focus and taking the spotlight away from the cabin group was a mistake.
It's called "having opinions".
Im not so sure about that. Maybe focus on the other characters would have given it more oomph. We'll never know.
I would have preferred he stayed gone but if he had to return, he should have stayed on the side, not taken focus away from everyone else, especially Clementine!
As a fan of Kenny I admit that his return can be seen as somewhat absurd and implausible given how he died, however I have never agreed with the thing about him supposedly taking the spotlight away from the other characters. If the other characters were interesting enough then they would be taking it from him, like how Jane took Luke's place as a potential guardian to Clementine and a rival to Kenny. I don't think lack of screentime is a good enough excuse seeing as Kenny wasn't in the 1st episode at all and spent a good portion of one episode in a tent by himself.
I dont agree that the characters werent interesting enough to displace Kenny. Kenny always seems to take up so much more attention with all his bluster and drama. If the focus wasnt so much on him, we could have seen more development. I found a lot of the characters with interesting potential.
I really would have liked seeing Lilly again instead of Kenny. It opened up to so many plot lines and great dialogue with Clementine and her, along with choices.
I disagree. I liked Kenny. Although I preferred his role in the first season rather than the second season.
Bait thread. But yes I would have really liked a story revolving around Christa and Clem personally.
It was a horrible choice. It took away any chance of character development we could've had with any of our new characters because everything just became the Kenny show. I also think that his appearance may have changed the course of the entire game. Episodes 3 and 4 definitely did not play out as initially planned, as seen from their cover slides that in the end had nothing to do at all with the finished product.
Season 2 was horrible for me, in terms of any story/character development. And the main reason for that was because almost everything was about Kenny and they just had to make him a "hero" for Clementine to look to even though they never interacted at least in my play through of season 1.
Blaming Kenny for failure of other characters just seems like an excuse to me. If these characters were so interesting and full of potential then they would be taking it from him. For me even some of the minor characters in season 1 didn't have that problem, why? Because they along with season 1 in general were a little bit more nuanced and better written.
I think the group of writers from S1 would agree Kenny was not used effectively in S2's story if they were being honest. I think even the writers from S2 would agree if they were allowed non-corporate-speak.
Writing in video games is decided just as much by external factors such as funding, time constraints, and staff layover, as it is by the skill of the writers. S1 wasn't interrupted by the main writers leaving midway through, and their exit also makes me think there were other issues during S2 production that provided the impetus for their exit. I'm hoping the writing will receive more support for S3, although the increasing amount of titles Telltale has committed to doesn't give me much confidence.
I found Kenny's influence over Clem somewhat overbearing - they hardly interacted at all in Season 1 now all of a sudden its like their close friends?
And why was it Kenny vs Jane? How was that better than Kenny vs Luke?
Kenny did not make a worthy replacement for Lee, neither did Luke really, but at least he wasn't an emotionally insecure psychopath who becomes increasingly hard to like as episodes progress. Originally I preferred for Clem to just kill him outright, I had it of him shackled to Clem's character and causing more problems, though in my later playthroughs I didn't even want to give him the mercy of death, I had Clem simply walk out on him instead.
I really wish Telltale didn't kill off Pete so quickly, he could have made a better adult mentor than either Luke or Kenny.
I didnt say those characters were failures. I said that they would have gotten more development if the story wasnt so focused on Kenny. A lot of time was spent on him and his issues and that has little to do with whether or not the other characters were interesting. I already found them interesting and wanted to see more of them. Omid, Christa, the 400 days people, and the cabin group, can you really say none of them were worth getting more attention? I think in season one it was a bit more balanced because the main character, Lee, wasnt as overbearing.
I still dont understand why he was brought back when there were so many characters already on the table.
I have been saying this exact thing ever since S2 Episode 5, yet Kenny fanatics keep saying "Oh, it's plausible that they formed a relationship during S1." Or they'll simply say, "Oh, well there's plenty of moments where you can act like you didn't have a relationship with Kenny" even though there 's also a good number of points where the writing and the way Kenny acts around Clem think they're best friends, it wasn't consistent at all with S1.
None of that is Kenny's fault though. Blaming him for 400 characters or Omid (who the writers killed off before Kenny even appeared) makes no sense. These characters being underdeveloped is entirely another issue to Kenny being a main character . It would be like blaming Lee and Kenny for season 1 characters not taking off. No one ever done that because even most minor characters were a little more interesting (no disrespect to season 2 which is still really good)
I think youre still not taking my point, but thats fine. Its simply a matter of wanting all that time spent on Kenny 2.0 to have gone elsewhere.
To be honest, that was one of the biggest reasons I killed him, him taking the spotlight. I don't want the new characters to be overshadowed like cabin group. And because I liked Jane better anyways. Hopefully no other character will steal the spotlight.
Ok but imo that's an issue with the writers and those characters more than it is with Kenny.
You know, I always thought of the argument of Kenny having too much screen time as one of those glass half-empty/half-full kind of situations. A matter of perspective.
You can look at it two ways: Kenny got too much spotlight over the other characters, or alternatively, the rest of the characters didn't get enough spotlight.
I tend to lean on the latter. I think the amount of screen time Kenny got was actually fine. He felt like he got the proper amount of time on screen, and the problem is that the rest of the characters didn't.
For the sake of using a metric here, let's use how much dialogue (hours/minutes worth) that some of the characters have:
Lee, main character, S1: ~5 hours of dialogue
Clementine, main character, S2: 1 and a half hours of dialogue
Clementine, secondary character, S1:~40 minutes
Luke and Kenny, secondary characters, S2: 30 minutes for Luke, 50 for Kenny. ~80 minutes total
Kenny, third-wheel, S1: 1 and a half hours (yeah, Kenny in S1 actually got the same amount of dialogue --if not more-- as Clementine in S2 did)
Jane, third-wheel, S2: ~40 minutes
Ben, 3 episodes of S1 (potentially 4): ~30 minutes
Rebecca, 4 episodes of S2: ~20 minutes
Lilly, 3 episodes of S1: ~40 minutes
Carlos, 3 episodes of S2: 10 minutes
So, the average amount of dialogue for a character in S1 was ~30 minutes
The average amount of dialogue for a character in S2? ~15 minutes
I don't think it's the fact that Kenny got too much attention, but rather he's the only one that got the proper amount of attention. He got about the same amount of dialogue the average supporting character in S1 got, and he's one of the main characters of S2. Meanwhile, a character like Carlos barely manages to break 10 minutes worth of dialogue. Vernon and Molly, both one episode characters, have more than 10 minutes of dialogue. If this doesn't highlight a problem in character development/interaction, then I don't know what will.
But then why introduce the Cabin Group first, set them up as main characters of the story in the first two episodes, and then abruptly cut off their importance into the story as soon as Kenny is reintroduced in the second half of Episode 2, and them kill them all off one by one? Why not just introduce Kenny right away in Episode 1 if the Cabin Group was never going to be a major part of the story and will not have a major influence in Clementine story?
It's fine to say that Kenny has the right amount of focus, but his focus is what cost the Cabin Group their role in the first half of the story that was initially supposed to be about Carver and the Cabin Group. Then suddenly, Kenny arrives and suddenly the Cabin Group and Carver suddenly never matters anymore as the story becomes mostly about Kenny and his struggles, especially when Jane also arrives to steal more of what remains of their spotlight.
If anything, Kenny's return to me means that the writers had little confidence in writing the story arc about the Cabin Group and Carver, and decided to bring back Kenny to cut off the original idea and instead turn it into a story all about Kenny, Clementine, and Jane. The Cabin Group are now just there to fill the death list quota and nothing more.
Holy Christ, Carlos only got 10 minutes?
I say it gave S2 that extra "d'oh"
I felt the same way and now knowing how long each person got to speak really reinforces it.
Kenny had the perfect amount of time given but not many other characters did, so people not too fond of him we're forced to spend more time with him compared to other characters which sadly resulted in a lot of resentment for Kenny. I personally loved Kenny in season two but I do hope Telltale evens out the roles a bit in season three so that everyone can enjoy time with their favorite characters.
Cool story bro.
S2 was a mistake in general
I wouldnt go that far.
Wow, you timed all the dialogues of those characters? You must've put a lot of effort in it.
S2 was a potential that was never fully reached would be more accurate.
Well, not me specifically. Someone on youtube uploaded pretty much all the dialogue across both seasons.