Lee and Clementine's Relationship: Father/Daughter or Friend?
Everytime after season 1, Clementine mentions Lee as a friend, and never as a father figure. How do you think she feels about her relationship with Lee?
What do you think of their relationship?
Perosnally, I think of it as a surrogate father/surrogate daughter relationship.
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I would have to say I see Lee as a father figure to Clementine. He has been with her through all of Season one and was able to teach her things she would need as she got older. As you maybe aware because of the fact Clementine's real father was not around very much and ended up becoming a zombie she really had no father figure in her life up to that point and to me Lee just fit that role.
It was really just a friendly relationship to Clementine; however if Lee were with her at this point she would probably see him as a father figure. I wish we could see what would've happened differently if Lee were still there to guide Clementine. I would take some alternate timeline where we cut the arm early over what we're getting in Season 3 any day.
More adoptive uncle/niece if anything. Clementine never stopped thinking about her parents. To Lee she may have been a daughter, but I'm pretty sure she didn't see him as a surrogate father, just a very close friend.
Yes, she always mentions him as a friend, casually.
Interestingly, she thinks about Kenny as her father especially if you choose to go with Kenny in season 2, there are strong signs and words from Clementine in S3 ep1 and 2 that she started to see Kenny as her father. The flashback scene and her monologue in the ep2 about Kenny, his family and his protectiveness and struggling to call him friend were all pointing towards it. We know Kenny had been literally thinking about her as his own daughter to the extent that calling her Duck but apperantly two seasons and 2 more years between the season 2 and 3 made Clementine consider him as her father too.
Although it's a bit related to Kenny's leadership and family caretaker nature, I believe it's also related to the time and things they go through together. So if Lee lived more and spend more time, Clem would eventually think about him as her father. Perhaps not to the extent of Kenny since Lee's different and he has more light-hearted personality but I think the result would be the same.
On the contrary, if you went with the Jane ending, she didn't seem to think about Jane as her big sister or mother and she didn't even seem to have any kind of family relationship to Jane. In that ending although she mentions Lee casually again without adding anything, if you try to name AJ's middle-name Kenny, Clem gets sad and talks about how she and AJ wouldn't be alive without Kenny and Jane doesn't like it.
So, there hasn't been enough time and events for Clem to consider Lee as her father but it would eventually happen like it happened with Kenny instead.
I believe it was more father/daughter type, there was a few scenes of Clementine just sleeping on his shoulder and they really bonded.
I viewed it as a father/daughter relationship so I treated it as such whIle playing S1. It's understandable that Clem would call Lee a good friend though, as it would seem wrong if he was anything but. She already has a Dad and that should never be replaced.
When was this established?
I saw it as a father/daughter-type relationship, but I don't think Clem did.
Like somebody else said, the whole time she was with Lee, she was looking for her parents. If she had spent more time with Lee, she probably eventually would've started seeing him as a father figure, but during the 3-4 months they were together, she didn't. Instead she saw him as a friend who was trying to help her find her parents.
I saw it as a guardian relationship. Lee might had seen it as surrogate relationship, for Clem season one and even in two she seems to act like it was more of a friendship.
Lee was a father figure, but I think Clementine sees him as a really good friend. She already had a father not so long ago that she cared about deeply.
I would have liked it in season 2 if Clementine had the choice to say Lee when Carver asks her what her father's name was.
I always considered Lee like a second father but because i chose Kenny and spent so much time with him, my Clem considers Kenny as her father figure.
My Clementine didn't see Kenny as a father figure. I'm never got any indication of that.
Same here. For some reason Clem liked Kenny from the beginning although she had very limited interactions with him. So much that she draw a picture of him with his family and kept it for a long time along with Lee's photo.
I believe Kenny taking the blame for the radio and losing his eye in the process was the first step Clem started to think about him as his father-figure depending on your choices.
Same would happen with Lee if he lived longer and continue caretaking Clementine.
If you kill him or leave him that can be true but even in those Jane endings she definetely cares more about Kenny than Lee although she probably doesn't consider him her father in those endings. Like I said before, in the Jane flashback if you try to name AJ's middle as Lee, she just casually says Lee and doesn't add anything else. If you go with Kenny, she becomes noticably sad and talks about how she and AJ wouldn't be alive without Kenny.
I think this happening in the Jane ending speaks volumes about Clemetine's view on Kenny even if you go against his wishes all the time and eventually kill him. On the Kenny ending it's pretty much obvious she started to consider him a father figure.
Lee can tell the Stranger that he always wanted a child of his own I think. I deliberately avoided the options to call Clementine a daughter out of respect to her parents and because if we're keeping it real, she ain't his kid even though he obviously loved her and protected her. I wish Lee had survived for longer and had a kid of his own. That would have been a much better storyline than the AJ story.
Remember in S1, Lee can tell Vernon that Clementine is his daughter. When Vernon is leaving he tells Lee that you lied to him to get him to join you. Although technically he is right, I still would've preferred to tell him I think of her as my kid so no need for the attitude.
Something like that. "She [Lee's wife] travelled for work. I didn't like that - I wanted a family."
Actually, the first time that Lee infers he would've liked a family was in the first episode with Kenny:
Kenny: "I mean with that little girl. You know what you're doing? You got kids of your own?"
Lee: "Nah - no, no kids."
Kenny "Woulda liked one then?"
Lee: "...Y'know."
And the first time he can actually state this is to Clementine in Episode 2.
Clem: "Lee, do you think you'll ever have kids?"
Lee: "I'd like to someday. Maybe a little girl like you."
Clem: "That's nice. You'd be a good daddy."
I don't see why Clementine would name Lee over her actual father.
Because with the way i play the character, Clem now saw some of the people that helped her survive as new parental figures/family members.
In my opinion Lee was Clem's surrogate father and i think the game hinted it more than one time.
Like @davissons mentioned, the story gives you that kind of dialogue several times like when Lee was talking to Clem or the stranger or Kenny.
And also in the first episode while that argument between Larry and Kenny about Duck, Larry said to Lee "I got a daughter in here, You got a daughter in here"
As for Lee, he definitely truly loved her, I mean everytime Clem is sad or crying or scared or anything, Lee is the first one for her to talk to, and Lee did everything to protect her
And when he saved her and gave her hat Clem said "i thought i lost it"
And then Lee said "i thought i lost you" so yeah of course he loved her like a daughter
As for Clem and as when she mentions him as a friend, i think she just say it like this just in front of people, i mean i think it will be odd if she said "my surrogate father Lee", so she just say he is a friend, but she loved him so much and the fact that she always mentions him can tell you how truly she loved him.
And Clem in season 1 "maybe" she didn't feel Lee like a dad figure because this whole time she was trying to find her real parents and their death was unconfirmed, and when it got confirmed in the last episode, it was clear that now she has no one except Lee the man who cared about her like a father this whole time, but unfortunately he didn't make it, but if he did make it I'm SURE their bond will become stronger and it will be a Dad&daughter relationship more than anytime before.
So yeah i think they wanted us to feel that kind of relationship not just being friends and that's it, or at least that's how i see it from my perspective.
You have to keep in mind there was a 3 month timeskip at the motor inn.
Clem probably interacted more with Kenny than we saw
Depending on what you choose, you can play it kinda like Lee wants to replace Clem's parents, which is kinda creepy depending on how you look at it
I always thought Clem saw him as a father figure. He did everything a father would do, took care of her, protected her, guided her, saved her life more than once, even sacrificed himself for her. But I dont think she saw him as a replacement of her father. Not Omid or Kenny either, but if she was to call anyone a second father, it would have to be Lee.
Well this is a way of interpreting her feelings based on your play experience, but it surely wasnt mine. To me, they just werent that close and I cant imagine her caring more about Kenny than Lee. I didnt pick the Kenny ending because, again, I didnt feel like their relationship warranted that.
I think she can do either.
To be fair, he just lost "his" daughter coming out of Crawford.
Yeah, not gonna lie, the way he reacted to Vernon's offer [in the SGB Playthrough] did make me raise an eyebrow.
Same. Except the ending part cause both were killed.
And another optional line of dialogue says he always wanted kids...
Well yeah, that too, lol. For Kenny at least.
Even in your play experience she's so close to Kenny that she draw a picture of him and had kept it for a long time. And you can't even deny her saying and expressing her caring feelings about Kenny at some points in season 2.
And even if you went with a Jane ending, choosing to name AJ's middlename Kenny reveal Clem "still" cares about Kenny.
So what I was trying to say, you could be right. In your play experience she may not see him as her father figure. But even in your play experience she doesn't hate him or dislike him just like you want her to be. Because it's simply not in the narrative.
You're right. She had to interact with him in that 3 month timeskip. In season 2, she's with Kenny all the time anyways. And in the Kenny ending, she spends 2+ years more with him.
Nah my clem will never care about kenny more than
LEE is>>>>>>>>>>>>>kenny
Lee doesn't even exist in my mind. He was just my choices.
It's obvious you like yourself more than Kenny
If I remember right, that picture was of the whole family. She liked and cared about Katja and Duck too. I'm sure she cared about Kenny as a part of her old group, but there wasn't any special affection there for me. I didn't choose any options that expressed this great friendship. Yeah, in season two, the game was trying to make it seem like they were best friends at points, but I wasn't there for that. I didn't want her to hate and dislike him, but I don't want to be forced into acting like I loved him either. I still remembered how he refused to help look for Clementine with Lee just because he was mad at him. I wish the dialogue options had reflected that.
I'd like to expand on this, to whoever said Clementine never considered Lee as a father figure.
When you first meet Clementine on the radio, and in certain dialogue you don't say anything, she says "I just want you to answer me like my dad!", her first impression of Lee was him being almost her father and was instantly comfortable being around him. Watch this
He was a friend, a surrogate father, a father figure and her guardian, gave up his life to protect her. That's the highest level of caring for someone.
Vernon could have been anyone, a psychopath in the closet, opportunist, anything. You literally knew that guy for 1 day or something I think? In a world like the Walking Dead, Lee's reaction was definitely realistic. You aren't gonna just give up your daughter to a stranger, are you? He took over Clementine's parent role after they disappeared without knowing if they were alive or not, and even faithfully continued to do so even when he saw them as walkers. To the point he was trying so hard to protect her that he kept slipping in and out of consciousness while he was bitten then Clem had to drag him,, dying while further telling her how to protect herself to the last breath until he slumped on the radiator and inevitably died. She never forgot him, she always remembered him and was embedded so much in her mind she still mentions him like her father, to this very season.
Definitely creepy and not a parent, how sick of Lee to do these disgusting things! Should have offed this underlying all powerful demonic girl when he had the chance!
Yeah, I kinda raised an eyebrow a bit on that one myself. I didn't mind Kenny at the time, but I always sorta felt like he was holding Clementine back from being her own person. Which was one of the better moments of No Going Back, incidentally--how meta!
That too.
I'm pretty sure you meant to respond to me, but with that said, it was just that line at that moment that kinda made me question whether that was healthy or not. Yes, at the end of the day, Lee is the protagonist and one we have a lenient amount of say over, but the game already established that he had family issues that caused him to murder someone in a fit of rage, so it's entirely possible that he was using Clementine to fill that void from a certain interpretation.
Why i like kenny more than my self i am real and he is nothing but a fake maya autodesk Three-dimensional design