Can the world stop turning around the main character?
Hey everyone! I haven't seen a thread talking about that topic so I gave it a shot since it's been bothering me. I'll try to make it short and clear and if by the end of this, none of you agree with me, then please tell and I'll quietly shut up. Obviously spoilers of all Walking Dead games.
I won't beat around the bushes. My main complain in the two last Walking Dead games, aka Season 2 and TWD Michonne, is that the world turned around the main character, unlike Season 1.
Not to confound with ''story''. Obviously a story needs to turn around a character. The world of the story however doesn't have too. In Season 2 and TWD Michonne, the world that we don't see is ''stagnant'' until the main character arrives in the place.
Season 2
-The Cabin Group for example. They're isolated due to their fear of Carver and Nick lost his mother at one point. Other than that, everything is well and nothing is happening. It's only when Clem shows up in the story that everything goes to shit : Pete instantly dies, Carver finally finds them, all 7 of them dies in the course of two weeks and the main character moves on. The End.
-Then Carver's group. Strong community, strong (dangerous) leader. Exists at least since 400 days. Everything is well. Then again, Clem shows up, everything goes to shit: Carver dies, Howe's is invaded by walkers, presumably all who lived there either died of fled. The main character moves on. The End.
TWD Michonne
- The same problem happens in TWD Michonne with the community of Monroe. Stable community, problems with Samantha and Greg but otherwise all is well. Again, Michonne arrives, everything goes nuts. They leave with the leaders dead and the community burned.
-Then the Fairbanks, who survived 3 YEARS without major issue (besides the mother's suicide). Michonne arrives and half of them immediately dies.
You see what I'm saying? All those events happen ONLY when the character arrives, not before nor after. They are ''stagnant'' until the main character is in the picture. And that's something that's been bothering me because it wasn't the case in season 1. The bells ringing across Savannah, Crawford people turned zombies, Vernon and his group stealing the boat , Clem willingly going to the Stranger. All those events, those mysteries, weren't triggered by Lee, he experienced it. The world around him was ''alive''.
And that was my point. What do you think of that? I wanted to know if people around here would agree with me or not. Either way, like it or hate it, I'm gonna give myself a tap in the back for writing this during almost 1 hour and half!
Comments
Those are some good points and I never really realised it until now. I think that is another key reason why season 1 felt so much bigger and better than season 2.
I started to see this as I was watching someone playing Season 2 recently.
Like, how strange that the moment Clem joins this new group, Pete gets bit, Carver shows up, they all leave, and find Kenny. After that I guess the rest of season 2 sort of carries its self out, but seriously looking back, the chances of all that happening the moment Clem shows up seems impossible.
Admittedly, while I thought you were talking about how the story didn't really give the main character a proper story of their own (which could use some talking about itself), I did sorta notice this. The entire Cabin Group get's destroyed after they meet Clementine and determinately Kenny, Most of the Ski Lodge Group gets screwed over by unfortunate events, Carver and his settlement get their faces beat in, and the Russian Group lose most of their supplies and lives. These two are an omen that only themselves, Jane(if Kenny dies first), Arvo, and presumably Mike survive.
Really good. I like those points. Clem is really a bad luck charm to them, that sucks.
If there ever is a group we get captured by in Season 3, there better be a small circle of people wanting to break out already instead of: New Guy shows up, "Hey! Let's break out!" Normal survivor says: "Are you kidding? We'll all be killed! [insert villain] hates it when we don't obey!" -- New guy: "Well, I'm the hero, so I gotta break the rules within my first 24 hours here..."
Honestly, on the topic of the cabin group, I can kind of agree. The cabin group just started falling apart after Clementine showed up, without any correlation between Clementine's presence and the following events. Pete getting bit and Carver showing up were two unlikely coincidences that seemed to happen directly after Clementine showed up, with no correlation between them.
As for your other examples? I'm not entirely sure I'd personally agree.
Let's start with the Fairbanks. Do they really count, considering that we technically led the trouble to them in the first place? It's not like they suddenly died after we showed up for unrelated reasons like Pete did. We were already being hunted; we literally led the problem straight to their doorstep. John dying and the house being burned down is because we inadvertently led Randall to the house, and the chain of events that followed his capture.
As for Greg, I don't know if that one can be blamed on us. Sam is the one who led us to the ferry to begin with, and she already attracted the attention of Monroe prior to that. She was already on the run from them when we showed up. If we want to argue, Sam played a bigger role in causing the events of the miniseries than Michonne did. If she never used that radio, we never would have crossed paths with her, we'd never get captured, Zachary would never shoot Greg, Monroe wouldn't get burned down, the rest of the Fairbanks family wouldn't get caught in the crossfire, and Berto (and possibly Oak as well) wouldn't have gotten killed.
I don't think Howe's being overrun is fair, either. If Howe's just spontaneously combusted after we showed up, then I could see what you mean. But in this instance, our actions are what caused Carver to die and the community to be overrun. None of those things happened just because we were in the general vicinity. They happened because we made them happen. We're the ones that hatched an escape plan, we're the ones that helped facilitate the walker invasion. It's not like Howe's suddenly began to fall apart by itself after we showed up. We're the ones that figuratively swept its foot out from under it.
Look at it this way; when it comes to the St John's, who is more responsible for their downfall; the St John's themselves, or Lee's group? It was only after Lee's group showed up that their mother would end up dead, the farm overrun, and both Andy and Danny winding up presumably dead. But a lot of people would blame the St John's for causing their own downfall, because hey, if they never turned to cannibalism and tried to kill and eat innocent people, we never would have had to fight them and escape.
So, couldn't you argue the same idea with Carver and Howe's? If he never tried to track down the cabin group and bring them back against their will, they wouldn't have tried to escape a second time; an escape that would ultimately cause the place to be overrun as part of the plan.
I don't know. You do bring up some good points, but I'm kind of torn on whether or not I agree with all of them.
Kudos on coming up with an interesting topic, though. I think there's some good discussion possible on both sides for this.
Hey, thank you for taking the time to write all this, it's really nice to see and it's appreciated!
I agree 100% with your point of Lee with the St-Johns. In fact, that episode (which was still very f**king good) is similar to what I criticized about Season 2 and Michonne: All is well -> Character shows up -> Everything goes to shit.
''Let's start with the Fairbanks. Do they really count, considering that we technically led the trouble to them in the first place? It's not like they suddenly died after we showed up for unrelated reasons like Pete did. ''
-In fact that's what's bothering me. If I take that example and the one with Clem with her escape plan, you're right. Both of these situations happened because of the actions of the character and this is why I don't like it. I don't like the main character being the cataclysm that changes the whole game. With Howe's for example, I'm pretty sure dozens of people have been unhappy/prisoners before we came in and try to escape. Yet we're the one who succeed to do it in such a big fashion that the whole community is f*cked. Same with Monroe, it literally burns everywhere the moment the main character decides to escape.
Even more, although I like Jane, her endings makes little sense. I mean, of all the people who lived in the community, not a single one had the same idea as Jane and decided to come back? That's pretty far-fetched for me. But like I said, the world turned around Clem's story so those people simply ''stopped'' to exist. Whoever wrote the episode didn't bother with that detail and I don't think it's good.
With TWD Michonne, I would have preferred that we arrive in Monroe and it's already in flames **. We don't know what's going on, we learn that some girl and her brother made troubles with the community, we experienced it, etc. But the point is that **we aren't the cataclysm and something already happened. Or if we arrive at the Fairbanks's house exactly during the trade. You don't know what's going on. You see one guy prisoner of a bunch of kids and on the other side, you see the big fat lady with her group talking her way to get him.
That's something I would have liked. It would show that the world around is ''alive'', that things are happening while the protagonist is away, that the world isn't ''stagnant'' and doesn't wait the main character to become relevant. That it doesn't wait the main character to become the cataclysm who turns the whole story, but instead that he's merely a pawn.
You get what I'm trying to say? Am I clear enough? Don't worry to tell me, it's already hard to explain and being very clear.
Exactly. Everything goes relatively well, then the main character appears and everything is in ruins but almost always because of the main character. And this is something I think they should change , story-wise.
Well, couldn't that argument very well be extended to season 1?
I mean, it took 12 hours for Lee and company to kill an entire family of cannibals with minimal casualties, at least considering they were a family who had been eating people with meticulous calculation and planning for some odd months before their reckoning because they let Lee dawdle around suspiciously for a good 3-5 minutes, all the while it taking anyone roughly 30 seconds to wash their hands.
I mean, I'm really only playing Devil's advocate here, cause I do agree. But I'd also argue that sometimes shit falls apart. Obviously the puss cabin group had absolutely no ideal how bad it was, and that inclusion coupled with Carver coming out of nowhere shortly after Clem arrived led to some interesting accusations that either A, he was always one step ahead of them or B, the cabin group wronged Carver in some way.
But nonetheless, the term you're thinking of would be "over-active plot structuring" and it's prominent in many bad games...
[cough cough] Life is Strange [cough cough]
First of all, thank you!
I couldn't agree more about the Lee stuff, it fits perfectly with what I complain about (even if the episode was good.). However, it was the only episode of season 1 who really did that because otherwise I don't have any complains about the other episodes of the first season.
''But I'd also argue that sometimes shit falls apart.''
I agree that it's true, sometimes things DO fall apart, but the issue is, like I said, it always happens WHEN Clem/Michonne is there.
''But nonetheless, the term you're thinking of would be "over-active plot structuring" and it's prominent in many bad games...'' / Thanks, I'll remember it.
Right now that's my biggest fear of Season 3, that everything goes to shit ONLY when Clem/Javier will arrive wherever.
Really, my only hope is that the game paces itself better and doesn't try to drown out the player with morally morose and boring characters, and takes time to adequately define a characters' perspective.
Not holding my breathe though.
Seems a bit silly to me. It sounds like you prefer things to happen off screen.
By that argument you could say Carley/Doug never died until Lee showed up.
Clementine is a walking bad luck charm, confirmed.
Can you elaborate a bit on this?
Clementine's hat is a walking bad luck charm.
Absolutely.
So, I typed 'cough' twice, then typed the title of a particularly poopy game that had one of the most rushed and arbitrary plots in recent memory, then typed 'cough' two more times to further signify my flu getting out of hand.
It's a video game. The story usually never really kicks off until the protagonist begins their journey. Things obviously happen before the protagonist starts interacting with the world around them, but the most exciting events should occur when the main character affects the world with their actions and presence. That's how you keep the player engaged. If too many events took place before our hero arrives the player would feel lost keeping track of events and the people that it affected (don't bore me with exposition), also the player would prefer to be involved as much as possible to keep things interesting.
But that's Clementine's power.
Her hat secretly sucks the lifeforce of the people around her and lets her absorb it. An unlikely assassin that grants her immortality.
Why do you think she never takes that thing off?
While I can see where you're coming from and can agree to an extent, I think it's important to note that if the main protagonist, who we happen to be playing as, weren't as heavily involved with the central stories and characters of the season, the game wouldn't really be all that fun, nor interesting. We need to be involved and play a role in how things come about, because we, as players, want to experience the exciting and dramatic moments, ourselves, instead of just having them be off-screen and explained by somebody.
Having said that, though, I agree with you about some things. Clementine's arrival to the Cabin Group did just kinda kick-start all the events in motion, fairly randomly, and we were led to believe that before she joined them, Luke and the gang were living quite decently in a cute little cabin within the peaceful woods. I think it would've been better had we ran into them, whilst they knowing Carver was on their trail, were fleeing from the area and looking for a safer, more secure place to hide out. That way, we'd still be involved, but it would have felt, that they as their own characters, would've been experiencing at least something before Clem came into their lives.
EDIT: Spelling mistake.
I agree with you on Season two...Clementine shows up and then the story kicks off as if it were waiting for her.
However I disagree with you on Michonne. The events were already unfolding...Sam and Greg would still have been caught or even killed without protagonist intervention. The fine folks of Monroe died because of actions that were already unfolding...without Michonne there it is possible that Pete and his crew would have been killed for their stuff. And Sam's family would have all died.
I completely agree. It's less about the character actions and more about the consequence of events as they happen to the character.
Things felt more natural in season 1 because nothing really started or ended with us, except the St. John's. We show up at the Greene farm and Shawn dies, however the Greene family and farm doesn't end with us. We show up at the pharmacy and we are assimilated into the group - we don't start or end it because we grow and adapt with its changing dynamics. We show up at the cancer survivor group and Brie dies, but the group doesn't end with us.
Meanwhile, in season 2, we aren't given a chance to truly be assimilated into the cabin group, so we still feel like the group ends with us when all of them die, with the exception of AJ. When we arrive at Howe's the compound ends with us. When we are attacked by the Russian's they end with us - well, with the exception of Arvo, but that doesn't seem to matter.
In Michonne Monroe ends with us. The Fairbanks family does not, but we still feel like half of the family is gone because of us.
In season 1 we still have that feeling that the world keeps moving on despite our involvement in it. In season 2 and Michonne it feels like everything we touch withers and dies, even if the main character themselves isn't the direct cause of it. It's the experience.
I disagree. I mean, I agree in that I think the most interesting things need to happen to the main character, but I disagree that the character needs to experience the majority of the events to make it a good story.
I'm going to take "Starved for Help" as the best example of this. Sure, we see the most interesting events - the barn, the mark reveal, the meat locker, the fight and downfall of the St. Johns. But there is a whole untold story happening in the background, found in small details. You can investigate the farmhouse to discover more backstory to the St. John family (later to be used against Brenda), and the clues around Jolene's campsite, her clues in her conversation, and clips in her video recording give us a secondary look at the bandits and the rise of the St. John's Dairy meat trade. We don't directly experience or influence any of those events, but there are glimmers of them happening without a huge exposition dump, and those little things make the world more alive.
Crawford is similar. We indirectly learn about the rise and fall of Crawford and determinedly Molly's backstory (pretty interesting events, in my opinion) but we don't experience it or influence it. In fact, nothing really important outside of exposition clues happens in Crawford at all, except for Brie and determinedly Ben's death. Crawford is a place we pass through, it's part of a world bigger than us.
Compare that to Howe's. The only backstory we really get is an exposition dump by Bonnie about how things used to be, as well as an exposition dump by Reggie concerning the aftermath of their escape. Throw in a reference to a George here and there. But there aren't many clues or areas off interpretation we can get about Howe's backstory without then being spoonfed to us before completely getting wiped off the map. There aren't even any mentions of Nick's mother who was probably at Howe's with them. Sure, we get to experience the most interesting and important events at Howe's, but without more natural determinate clues to engage the player in discovering it's place in the world (and not exposition dumps, which I agree, weighs the player down) it feels more like an artificial checkpoint we have to pass through before the next plot point. It's about making the exposition feel like part of the game.
I get what you're trying to say, yeah. But I guess I'm seeing things from a different perspective than you are.
Is the main character really the catalyst in the situation with Howe's/Monroe? Howe's more so in particular.
The rest of the cabin group escaped once. Then they get recaptured, and they obviously try to leave again. Clementine doesn't just convince them to do it, nor does her being there persuade them to do. It was something they would have tried to do regardless of the Clementine being there or not. And that plan was formulated separately from Clementine. She helped, but she's not the sole reason the escape plan was formed, nor the sole reason it was a success. I don't really see it as being fair to say that Clementine being there is what ultimately caused the plan to be successful, or for it to turn out the way it did. They would have attempted an escape anyways, and it likely would have had the same results, only taking a day or two longer to set in motion without Clementine being there.
I'd agree more if it came across as no one attempted this before, and that the main character deciding to escape is why everyone else jumps into action. But the fact is, neither of those are technically true; the cabin group tried (and succeeded) in escaping once before. Now they've been recaptured. And Clementine's decision to escape is not what spurs the rest of the group to escape; the rest of the group wanted to escape long before Clementine became involved in the plan. In fact, the escape plan in particular-- drawing a herd to the compound and escaping amidst the chaos-- isn't even Clementine's plan. Kenny was the one who decided on that plan, and ultimately everyone else decided to go with it. Clementine even has the opportunity to disagree with said plan, but is more or less overturned by the rest of the group. She wasn't even present when it was being discussed; she returns to the yard as Kenny and everyone else is discussing it.
Again, I dunno. Maybe it's just the way I'm looking at the situation, but I don't think the main character has that much impact on the situation, or at least, no more than anyone else in the group does.
And as a final note...
Believe me man, I know exactly how you feel. I'm not exactly the best at explaining myself, to say the least.
[removed]
Hence another reason why Episode 3 felt so bare. No real focus on the citizens, Bonnie,Troy, and Tavia(in that substantial order) are the only guards with any role, there are only five or so different areas are seen, and, just to hammer this point home, we don't even get to see more a few of Kenny, Sarah, and Mike's assignments are. Plus, a lot of things set up with Carver's past with the Cabin Group is never really expanded on.
Ironically enough, that's part of another reason why Episode 3 sucked: Clementine didn't really matter much from a plot perspective!
Kind of like what I replied above, I don't think the problem is necessarily the main character being the cause of something or not. I think it's the issue of the character experiencing the immediate finality of everything, instead of letting some parts of the world live on without the character.
Like in season 1, there are plenty of unknowns and alive characters at the end. Molly, Omid, Christa, Kenny, Lilly, Vernon, Boyd, Clive, Joyce, Herschel, Chet/Andre, and Glen, none of which are introduced in the last episode. In season 2 there was Christa, Mike, determinedly Bonnie, Arvo, determinedly Kenny/Jane, AJ, the family (don't know any of their names except Gil) and Edith, and some off those characters are only alive because they appear within the last 10 minutes. I guess anyone that might have fled from Howe's too but that is left very ambiguous.
So most of the groups we run into in season 1 experience losses but are able to survive as Lee's part of the plot moves through. In season 2 Clem's plot is the wrecking ball that just destroys most groups who enter it, whether she was the direct cause or not. Even when Lee saw the end of his own group, it wasn't immediate - they dwindled, then separated. The St. John's is the only real exception to this in season 1, but as I pointed out in another comment, the St. John's farm held a lot of clues to a larger backstory, while Howe's relies mostly on exposition dump, making it seem not as real of a place in comparison.
You see exposition dump, I see others confirming what we already know with a little more insight since we've experienced most of it first hand and giving the player what this topic is asking for. We had Jane's mysterious presence, Reggie's story about his arm with Mike, the building additions to Howes in prep for Carver's plans of expansion, and who the cabin group were before Clem met them. Can't just ignore all that and say nobody did nothing till Clementine arrived. It may sound a little boring, but it's background info. none the less and that's what this topic is asking for. I will admi I would love for more things to be in detail, but then the entirety of ep. 3 would be exposition and that would get boring.
But I thought you were arguing against exposition dump? That's what episode 3 does.
I'm not ignoring any of that, I'm pointing out that all of those details are told through exposition as explained plainly by the characters, and nothing outside of that tells us anything we don't already know, that's exactly the problem. George is really the only indication that something happened outside of us that didn't have to be explained, but even then we had to hear about George and it wasn't a determinate detail we could find and interpret for ourselves. It's HAVING to know all of this through other characters makes it feel like it was written only for Clementine to hear and move her story forward, and there couldn't just be a background story or any hidden implications that upon finding would have added to the atmosphere. Even the boards for the expansion didn't really add anything, because we already heard Carver call it an expansion.
Also I disagree exposition is inherently boring. Done right it can be pretty interesting. "Around Every Corner"is extremely exposition-heavy and though it isn't the most exciting episode it's not boring, in my opinion.
Ep. 3 shows much more than it tells. Characters talk to Clementine, because she's new there, but a lot of the talking points stem from just observing Carver's camp and the people in it. Reggie's missing arm introduces us to an important character (Mike), Jane's mysterious back story has a purpose that we actually use later in the episode. Carver's expansion is shown everywhere and explained, why is that a bad thing? It's one of the most important things happening to this camp, so it's going to get talked about. It's mentioned and we can tell it started to happen before Clem got there. There's plenty more world turning observations in ep. 3 if you take the time to look (comic store), but don't really apply to Clem's story and that's okay. Stuff gets mentioned and explained here and there, but it's not exhausting to hear it. I think it's very well paced and it serves to help build the world around Clementine.
You want hidden details in the areas that Clementine visits and secrets to discover, but that's just not how it is in ep. 3. Sometimes a camp is just a camp. The whole community being run by an insane, mad leader is good enough.
The keywords there are part of my issue, honestly.
Well we got Bonnie, Troy, Tavia, Johnny, 400 days group (detriment), Jane, Mike, George, Reggie, and some background characters. Also the cabin group. Luke, Pete, Sarah, Carlos, Rebecca, baby AJ, Nick, Nick's Mother. That's a good amount of people right there.
Now if we add Clementine, Kenny, and Sarita, this list would get a little too much for TT to write stories for don't ya think? This story should focus on what's happening to the key characters(I know it's heartless to those no named people but oh well). Carver affected their lives and in turn played a role in Clementine's story.
If you put us in a community run by the villain for an entire episode, I want to see as much as possible and learn as much as I can about the people living there.Too bad only a few of them get any substantial screentime and even fewer get any real focus. Not to mention the characters we do see often(Cabin Group, Ski Lodge Group, Carver's Posse, The Inmates) are uneven in screentime, with Sarah, Rebecca, Bonnie, Kennyr, Clementine, and especially Kenny having the most.
Hence another reason why Episode 3 felt so bare. No real focus on the citizens, Bonnie,Troy, and Tavia(in that substantial order) are the only guards with any role, there are only five or so different areas are seen, and, just to hammer this point home, we don't even get to see more a few of Kenny, Sarah, Kenny, and Mike's assignments are. Plus, a lot of things set up with Carver's past with the Cabin Group is never really expanded on.
Actually, most of those people do have names.
We always want more, I would absolutely love more, but in a 2< hour story, it is what it is. How could they pull this off without boring the player with more exposition dialogue or derailing from the main story from Clementine's POV. For back ground characters more dialogue and events would have to be written and developed to have these characters fleshed out, but that would take up time and resources that wouldn't matter in the end, since most players wouldn't give a damn and they're dead/missing. The whole point of the episode was to escape Carver's camp remember.
The no named people I was referring to are the background characters that walk around and don't do anything. Just filler community people. Didn't care about them since they don't really effect Clementine and her groups story all that much. I'm sure I would care if it was more fleshed out, but then when does it end? Characters get more screen time for a reason.
As I said, I would love for more too, but TT can only do so much with how they run things.
No, I'm pretty sure that's much more telling than showing, because the characters literally tell you what happened before you get a chance to process it for yourself. It doesn't matter that we notice Reggie's arm is missing if he explains why it's gone 2 seconds later. It doesn't matter that we notice a mysterious woman if she's explained 2 seconds later. The clues of expansion doesn't matter because it's explained 2 seconds later. Sure there is going to be moments where characters will have to spoonfeed you exposition in order to keep the episode within a reasonable timeframe (example, Vernon and Molly both explaining what Crawford is and what it has done) but there should also be supplementary details to flesh out the world beyond what is told to us or what is relevant to us. And I'm saying Crawford gave that to us in spades, and Howe's left much to be desired. There are little details - Rebecca mentioning she used to work the announcement system, a tense relationship between Becca and Sarah - that come so close to giving us something like that, but it falls short for me.
The thing I'll give you is the Comic Store, I completely forgot about that. Still, that doesn't offer much because it appears it doesn't just have little to do with Clementine's story, but it also has little to do with anyone's story, it's just sort of there because it's in the vicinity of Howe's and where Luke chose to hide. I'm just curious where the dried blood came from.
I agree but there often has to be a or some characters that the world turn around as their actions affect the on-goings of the world or place.
So just throw everything i mentioned out. Cool. I hope that you found a way to enjoy the game somehow, I sure as hell did.
Edit: sorry for the pissy post. I just think this episode has its fair share of showing and telling even if it's on the same point.
Just because someone is criticizing a game doesn't mean they have to hate it. I actually liked episode 3 when it came out, but after the season finale I realized that episode was where some of the game's weaknesses started for me. I think it would have been better for them if they didn't try to cram Howe's into one episode. More time means more opportunity to sprinkle world-building detail throughout. Between the exposition dump, establishing life at camp, introducing new characters, coming up with s plan to escape, and wrapping up Carver's demise, they left no room for anything else.
True there could have been more to Carver's camp if we stayed for more than one episode. I'm not a huge fan of the what ifs scenerios in hopes for a better story, but this episode definitely had potential to be something more if only because of the 400 days character. Still we were pushed to head towards Wellington in the messiest way possible and I guess that requires cutting ties with Howes as quickly as possible without fully exploring it's in and outs. But I certainly didn't want to stay under the rule of a mad man and be a slave for longer than I had to. That feeling is shared with pretty much everyone in Clementine's group.
Agreed. Minus the when it first came out part, of course.