Luke's reaction when you choose to sit with Kenny
Did anyone else think it was stupid, dumb, made no sense, cringe or all of the above? When Pete said I know I sure ain't willing to leave a kid out here when we have a doctor that can take a look at her.
It made me realize even more what a scumbag Luke was. The guy drops Clem and she falls on her injured arm.
He locks her in a shed. He forces you to go with him to the bridge when it could've been and turned out to be dangerous.
You wind up having to fend for yourself then save him.
He makes you talk to a possibly dangerous person. He tells Clem she'll be safer if she stayed with the group basically forcing her to tag along. He doesn't tell her about carver and the situation the group was in.
When Kenny says she's staying here Luke said the hell she is or something like that. Yet he makes a sad and look of betrayal face when you decide to sit with someone you knew for way longer. Seriously?
Comments
It only took one episode for me to despise Luke. And that was the very first episode he was in.
Remember that while he dropped Clementine and was hesitant to believe her about Sam when he noticed her bite, he still defended her from Rebecca and Nick and only went along with Carlos's plan to be absolutely sure she wasn't infected, arguing in favor of helping her out both beforehand and at the house meeting in the kitchen.
He also only had her go along with him on the bridge because he wanted to Nick more time and underestimated how dangerous the bridge actually was. Once the fight on the bridge was over and he saw Matthew coming towards them, he had Clementine talk to him specifically to avoid pissing Matthew off himself and had the the intention of gunning him down if he did prove hostile.
Overall, Luke is a guy who really does want to be a good leader his group can look to to get things done and most importantly do right by them, but he's actually not very confident in his own abilities and has a tendency to fall back on sneakier tactics when real danger is involved.
As for the dinner thing, that's obviously because he taken a liking to Clementine, which was still easy to do back then.
When kenny said she's staying here, Luke said something more along the lines of "what?"
What he said was "Excuse me?"
Yeah something like that
So people hate Luke now? I thought he was one of the most likeable characters in S2.
I liked Luke, but I totally get what you mean. Although I don't think of him as a bad guy, I considered him to be a jerk at times. To me, Luke was too soft for the apocalypse; like his comments on the dog, being emotional, avoiding conflict etc. The worst thing Luke has done (imo) is banging Jane instead of watching out for zombies knowing the situation we were in. I also really didn't like how he was treating Kenny as if Kenny was harming AJ. Luke dropped the ball a few times, but I was still with him because he was the ONLY one out of the Cabin Group that seemed to have sense after Pete's death.
Luke wanted a friend in Clementine. The sad face or whatever when she sits with Kenny is him realising that she is under new leadership and that he might no longer be her closest friend in the group. The bridge thing - yeah it wasn't really necessary for Clementine to go with him but he asked her to because he enjoyed her company. A lot of people (myself included) at the time thought that the nice guy thing was just an act and he was really a villain because of how nice the writers made him.
That would've been interesting, but I feel like they've done it too many times at that point in the series with the St. John's, Vernon, Roman, and Tavia (I guess).
Luke drops Clementine out of fear that she was bitten, he was panicking, as we've seen before in The Walking Dead, people can be irrational in emotional stress.
You can't single handedly blame Luke for locking Clementine in the shed, the whole group decided this (bar Sarah).
Clementine is living in a world full of walking corpses that will devour her at sight, I think it's a little too late to be worrying about it being dangerous, she's already been on her own and with just one person for over a year...
He was in trouble, it's not like Luke could've just used the power of plot convenience to give himself the edge, he's not Kenny.
The whole fucking Cabin Group were dangerous to Clementine, except for Sarah, Alvin and Pete, they all wanted to leave her to die at one point.
Clementine makes the decision to stick with the group, the player's aren't given the choice because the game has a linear story-line, not because Luke 'forced' her to.
I'll give you that one, however, no one in the cabin group did, Sarah was the first to give hints towards him and only didn't tell Clementine because she forgot. Not to mention at that point in time they didn't know they were in immediate danger and Clementine can say she doesn't plan on staying, giving them less reasons to trust her with that information.
Luke's reaction is understandable, I mean, if you're gonna argue with Luke disagreeing with Clementine staying, how about arguing about Kenny attempting to force Clementine to stay and force the cabin group away?
It's the same pouty face Clementine can give him and remember that Kenny practically does the same thing.
I don't know why you're making Luke out to be a bad guy, he was one of the few decent characters.
Pretty sure it's largely a Ron the Death Eater thing.
To be fair, only the St. John Bros. really fit that description. Vernon was just looking out for what was left of his group's safety by seizing an opportunity that involved screwing Kenny over, Roman was an otherwise casual extremist with a similar goal, and Tavia was an emissary who lost her passion over time and became an indifferent, if somewhat abrasive member of Carver's Inner Circle.
That's true but I think having the "may seem nice but is actually evil" villain should've been only a One time thing or else everyone would be predicting it if they come across another nice person.
Look at Joan. Everyone pretty much predicted she'd be the villain when she was first introduced.
Yep. They put it to a vote and the majority ruled in favor of going through with the shed plan 3 to 2.
Or Jane for that matter.
Yeah, pretty much. That's also the reason for things like Carlos suggest the shed plan regardless of your first impressions or Kenny forcing Clementine to carry the walkie talkie so he later take responsibility when they're caught.
Or was simply too worked up to think clearly at the time, but same thing.
Because Ron is a Deatheater, apparently.
Whatever that is.
I have some other ideas when it comes to Luke's character arc. After his original crew were all killed, he would start feeling undervalued and underappreciated by the group and would want to leave them. Only problem is, he wouldn't know how to go about it. Instead of dying the rather lame death that he did, I would have let him leave the group without telling anyone, which gives him potential to return. Or even fake his death to get away from the group if you really wanna go for shock value, lmao.
Did they? Cause if it wasn't revealed in the very same episode, I would've thought Clint or even Lingard(which in a way was the case originally) would be the main suspects.
Lol, Kenny much?
Its just the way Joan was speaking to Javi and David that gave it away, well at least to me.
Clint was my 2nd suspect if it didn't turn out to be Joan. Lingard wasn't a suspect mainly because he was treating Kate and was mentoring Eleanor throughout Ep.3.
I suppose. Then again, I really liked Joan in that episode, so maybe I was just a little biased.
Actually, he was impressed with her work and apparently took her before the rest of the Council to get her a job working alongside him and an apartment to live in.
He had the look of a jealous boyfriend.
Luke is honestly such a useless piece of shit. He also wanted to immediately lie about what happened to Matthew when we discovered the truth, despite them being very gracious and trusting hosts to us thus far. Plus the dog incident, plus the bridge fiasco, plus running away when Carver attacked, plus getting caught stealing good and getting Kenny beaten up, plus wanting to leave Kenny behind, plus the Jane fiasco, plus the Arvo fiasco.... fuck Luke. He fucked everything up but gets a pass because he's nice.
Entire dog-bite situation was nonsense because they could not realized the difference between a dog bite and a zombie bite which is %1000 impossible because of the different shapes of the mouth of these creatures.
But I cannot make the idea for delivering Luke as a bad guy. Even it is one of the bullshits in the entire TWD franchise, lets agree that he cant put up the difference between a dog bite and a zombie bite. You are living in a world that surrendered by these slow-ass hungry creatures that eats anything when they across something that breathing or still fresh. You know the fact that when these slow-ass bastards bite someone, they are gonna be dead and revive eventually. So its an understandable statement to put. Luke has a right to be nervous and worry. Your argument on this part is invalid.
He didnt lock her. Majority locked her. Luke cant start an anarchy in the group because of a kid that he just met. His hands were tied.
Well I wouldnt take Clem with me when I already have Nick and Alvin and Carlos to use. Its a plot necessity because of the Clem focus. Even lets call it senseful, it doesnt mean that he is an asshole. He needs someone to watch out for. So if he took Nick,Alvin or others with him and they faced with the same danger, would you call him an asshole ? No, you wouldnt.
I agree with the first sentence. Even she is a kid, it is still apocalypse and people went crazy already so they wouldnt mind to kill a kid for their own safety. But forget it, because the game demands it.
Well, what are the chances for a kid to survive on her own in a world that full of walkers, crazy humanity and limited supplies ? That is your answer. She will have a better chance with a group for surviving even that group is in an obvious danger but the danger that you dont know the details about it.
He has a friendly nature and he is an amicable person so this choice made him sad and disappointed. Its not something that proves Luke is an asshole.
He was just trying to keep Walter from understandably killing his best friend in response, dude.
Actually, Kenny sent him away after he started going on about "something". And even then, he and Kenny were clearly out of their respective depths and Luke chose to take a more cautious approach when Kenny's backfired.
His point was that if the others were really serious about leaving, they'd have to accept that they'd have to leave the seriously injured behind to have a higher success rate. Which included Sarita and himself, btw.
That was Jane, dude. Hell, all Luke did was take aim at Arvo when he moved in on Buricko's orders and limp around while Mike and Kenny argued about him.
So the immediate action is to lie and cover up a murder? I loved Nick but hiding Matthew's fate was totally fucked up and Nick knew it. That's why he decided to come clean, he is actually a good person.
I dont think we can honestly say that Kenny made Luke not help by telling him to take a hike or whatever. Luke wasn't ready for a confrontation regardless. But yeah neither plan ended up working completely, but i feel like Kenny's plan would have succeeded if only Luke came too because he could have talked Bonnie down.
Luke didn't include himself on the list of people that would stay behind. He suggested just leaving Sarita and Kenny which is why Sarita became so furious with him.
Yeah the Arvo thing was Jane's fault, I meant that Luke was sympathetic towards Arvo which obviously wasn't smart. He could have had away with both Bonnie and Mike if he could think pragmatically for once and not with his bleeding heart.
Kinda like how Kenny smashed Larry's head in and kept shooting at Carver even after he made an example of Walter, eh?
Eh, wishful thinking, but I suppose. Assuming he could get close enough to talk to her without getting his head blown off, that is. Not to mention that Bonnie wasn't the one capping people.
"Yeah, but now we're dealing a guy beat to shit, Sarita in no shape to do anything, and I'm a goddamn mess."
I put all this together because I'm not quite sure what you're ultimately getting at here.
Yeah, i've mellowed out towards Luke in time but this was one of the things that annoyed me as well. There is no way I was gonna cover up the murder of one of Kenny's people just because of Nick's insanity and Luke shouldn't have been dumb enough to ask that. His decision making was a little dodgy in other situations as well... wanting Carver to live after everything he put them through, running out of his hiding place in the shootout with the Russians, yelling at Kenny for trying to ease the burdern of a dying women by helping with the baby.
Lol wat
All I'm saying about the hostage standoff was that Kenny already took out that one guy and Bonnie could have been talked down by Luke or at least wouldn't shoot him, thus if Kenny took the second shot and knocked down Carver then Troy would be the only guard left and would be caught off guard. Just conjecture
Yeah, exactly. The best way I can describe Luke is... selective morality? Like he pretends like he has morality on his side but only after he has already made up his mind about a situation. He is cowardly and then tries to be in the right, if that makes sense.
Example: if Kenny or anyone else had left Clem in a shed to basically die, he would being it up to Clem non-stop and emphasize how they couldn't trust her. If someone murdered one of their group and then tried to lie about it when they could have come clean, he would never trust their word again. Massive hypocrite.
Even the nicest people tend to have a berserk button. For all you know, telling Walter that you shot and killed his friend could be that berserk button. In Luke's own words "He's gonna ask who did it, and you're gonna tell him?" ... "It's right to get Nick killed? Because that's what's gonna happen!"
It's not that Luke didn't want to tell him, per se... it's that he didn't want to risk his friend's life by doing so. Maybe it wasn't the best course of action, but I don't think his decision here is completely damnable.
If you ask me, there were three choices for handling that situation; 1) you surrender, like Rebecca and Alvin do, to avoid bloodshed, 2) you open fire, and risk casualties, as well as possibly get yourself caught anyways, or 3) you retreat and get away from the area, leaving your friends to fend for themselves... for the time being.
Unpopular opinion time: the third option is probably the smartest of the bunch; the rest of your group is caught... but you're not. Your group suffered minimal casualties because you didn't try to attack, and you're still out there and able to do something later down the line. Compare that to Kenny's attempt to help... one guy was killed, potentially a second guy was killed as well, Carlos beaten up even more, and Kenny still ended up having to give himself up. I'm not saying Kenny's choice was terrible, but I can't help but wonder if it was really worth it, since he ended up in the same position as everyone else.
I dunno if it's really fair to blame Kenny getting beaten up solely on him. The way I see it, it's similar to the Ben situation-- him getting caught did cause a turn of events that led to Kenny getting beaten, but he was not the direct cause of it. It was situation that snowballed into something worse... something that was almost certainly not the intention of the person that (inadvertently) started it.
Luke gets caught > Luke is taken back to the pen > Carver beats him up/tortures him in front of everyone > The rest of the group gives up the first radio > Carver tells Troy to bring everyone else back > Troy takes Clem, Kenny and Mike back > Carver asks for the second radio > Kenny decides to take the blame for the second radio > Carver chooses to make an example of Kenny
Honestly, he had something of a point here; at that point in time, Kenny was still unconscious, and for all they knew, possibly in a coma or worse according to what Carlos says. The plan is to walk out through a herd. You really think they'll be able to just carry an unconscious man out of Howe's, let alone through a couple thousand walkers? It's a miracle that Clementine managed to drag Lee to the jewelry store... and the jewelry store was literally 5 feet behind where Lee passed out. And like Luke himself said, he was playing devil's advocate. I mean hell, I'm playing devil's advocate myself right now by suggesting that Luke had a point. Suggesting something doesn't necessarily mean you agree with it.
I got no problem with not liking Luke. People are going to like some characters and dislike others no matter what. In fact, I can almost guarantee you that someone, somewhere, unironically likes Badger of all people as a character. As crazy as that probably sounds, we all know its true. People find themselves liking/disliking characters for reasons we can't always make sense of, so who am I to judge?
But with that being said though, I don't think it's fair to pin most of this on Luke, personally. I'm not gonna deny that he made mistakes (namely the points you brought up that I didn't try to argue in this post), but I don't think he fucked everything up, either. He tried to do what he thought was best in a situation where the 'best' answer wasn't clear to begin with. I can't really fault him for that myself, because basically every character in the game has tried to do that in some capacity (admittedly, some better than others); Lee, Clementine, Kenny, Nick, Christa, Omid, Chuck, Lilly, Ben, Javier, David... even fuckin' Larry. Like I said, some did it a lot better than others, but they all had some kind of a noble goal driving their actions, for better or worse. I mean, even Larry was trying to keep his daughter safe, although I think most of us can agree that the way he went about it was uh... certainly interesting. That, and the fact that his incredibly aggressive and judgmental attitude certainly leaves a shitty first impression on people.
Come to think of it, how did Carver learn about the walkie talkies?
He probably didn't know about the radios at first, he probably just beat the shit out of Luke until they told him what they were planning.
It goes to show a simple truth: If you make the most likable, loyal, and all-around good character, someone will absolutely despise them. Likewise, if you make the most hatable character with no redeeming qualities, no motivations, no nothing... someone will still like them.
I know this goes without saying but how is it even remotely possible to like Badger as a character? He's basically Randall with zero character development, and Randall didn't have that much character development to begin with. And this is coming from someone who's been pushing for the return of Nate, a creepy psycho speculated rapist who acted like a dick for 15 minutes straight and never returned.
No it's not. Not by any standard. What did his choice to do that even result in? All he did was exhaust himself and follow them back to their camp (yeah because that's really the best place to help them where they're behind a gated prison and 24/7 guard patrol) and even once he sneaked in he got himself caught. So he went through all that for nothing. The only way that option would have worked is if he managed to get to them before they reached the truck but even then it's just a repeat of the gunfight in NGB where it's essentially another stalemate except this time not in the lodge.
Fixed.
I didn't recall much funny dialogue from Randall, though he did have his moments I suppose. Most I remember about him is his remarks about bashing kids heads in and his his speech about how the world is before determinantly getting his head caved in by Michonne. He was a pretty decent villain, much better than the ones in A New Frontier at any rate.
tfw you're nothing but nice to the group but the loud aggressive guy who argues with practically every member of your group is the one the fanbase winds up preferring
In all seriousness, though - and by that, I mean I won't meme too much and I'll try to remain objective, even though I love Luke as a character - being a little bit upset that someone you want to be your friend sitting with someone you don't know from Adam is probably gonna elicit the puppy eyes from anyone. I'd be a bit hurt. I'd be confused, and also a little miffed, if said stranger then said your new friend wanted to stay with him over you.
I get that everyone is entitled to their opinions - in fact, it's the thing I find myself praising the most about these games, the fact they encourage such diverse opinions - but the issue I do have is that some opinions get ... fanatical. And debate then becomes impossible, because then you enter 'Parable of the Invisible Gardener' territory. While, again, I understand why someone may dislike Luke as a character, I feel some reasons that have been given on this page have been a bit on the 'weak' side, without meaning to provoke an argument. In this post, I'm going to try and argue Luke's case using evidence from within the game, and with as little bias as I can physically achieve - which is going to be hard, because I really really really love Luke. repping #teamluke and #teamjane 'til I die
i ship luke and jane so hard its not even funny any more
Imagine you've been surviving for two years in the zombie apocalypse. Your parents were killed by walkers, and your best friend's mom suffered the same fate. Recently. You're afraid, even though you're with a group, that you won't live to see tomorrow. On a patrol of the woodland near your home, you see a little girl trying to push a walker back. She looks terrified, her arms are shaking from exertion and exhaustion, tears track down her cheeks. You rescue her from the walker that had pinned her, and you and your best friend's uncle escape back towards your home, the little girl held in your arms.
She introduces herself as Clementine after you introduce yourself. You find out her group is gone, that she's all alone in the world. She keeps trailing off when she talks, stealing glances at her arm. Her tone is miserable. She sounds empty. She admits she's not entirely sure she can walk by herself.
And then you see blood staining her forearm.
You remember your best friend crying as his mom got her throat torn open by jagged teeth. You remember your mom and dad getting mauled by the undead, the same red stain coming from the walker's bites. You panic, freaking out, and the girl slips from your grip. It's her word that it was a dog that bit her, yet there was no sign of a dog. You've met your share of liars, and you don't know what to believe.
Would you honestly, in your heart of hearts, believe this little girl who came out of nowhere that she got bitten by a dog, when you haven't seen a dog in years? When you first saw her crying, trying to push a walker away? Just some food for thought ^^
The group voted for her to be put in the shed. If you appeal to him, he argues for you, saying:
"It probably is just a dog bite."
During the group meeting in the kitchen, Luke'll argue against Clementine being in the shed, trying to get the group to let her out. He's one of the few members of the group - along with Pete - to advocate her being let out. Blaming him for a group's decision is a bit like blaming America for the actions of the confederates. Yea, the confederate movement was in America, but that doesn't make everyone responsible.
To the first of these points: Two out of the three dialogue options indicate Clementine wants to go with Luke, and the third merely shows hesitation. The one that does, Luke points out that she can handle a light bit of recon. Forcing implies he frogmarched her to the bridge, yanking her by the forearm and pushing her there himself. Which he didn't. He encouraged her to go with him to check the bridge out. As far as he, and most the group, seemed to be concerned, it was just going to be a couple of walkers on a bridge. There is almost no way he could foresee them getting jumped by five walkers, and him plummeting through the middle. Bear in mind, as well, Clementine has sewn her own arm up and moved around the group's home undetected. As far as he's concerned, she's capable. She seemed to think similarly, as she had no difficulty dispatching the first walker on the way to the bridge.
To the second, about having to fend for herself then save him: Luke hardly looked at the bridge and went "Man, I should totally fall through this for shits and giggles, just to make Clementine work harder." He physically couldn't pull himself up, he was struggling to keep himself stable. He was as shocked as she was, I'm pretty sure, when he fell through and cried out. If we're going by the logic that people Clementine was forced to help are total scumbags, then I guess we need to say that these incidents are examples of the characters below just not trying hard enough and trying to make things difficult for Clementine.
There are probably more examples, but I'm super tired and these are the only ones I can think of.
I'm not trying to be mean, but this is a flawed fallacy that you're presenting. If Luke had pranced along the bridge screaming 'la la la, come and get it walkers', then sure, fine, it's all his fault. But he was trying to pull himself up to help Clementine but, by his own admission, he was stuck. It'd be like a hostage negotiator screaming "God FUCKING dammit, why did you go and get yourself captured by that bank robber, you senseless moron?!" Sure, it's a shitty situation you have to pry them out of, but it's not their fault.
This was the point that made me scratch my head, because I really didn't understand what's so heinous about standing next to a girl as he uses the - in my mind, sensible - viewpoint that a man is less likely to shoot a child who flubs her words than an adult. It's not like he sent her off on her own with nothing but the clothes on her back and a 'good luck' as he ran to safety. Here's the actual scene itself, for reference:
Notice how he's standing right next to her, and how his gut instinct is to pull her out of the way of the shot. He's immediately defensive towards her. During the opening of the conversation, his hand is right next to his gun until Matthew steps closer. If it was a case that he, again, had shoved her forwards and ran away, then he'd be guilty of putting her in danger. But this point is kinda facile, to me, as he was right next to her the whole time, and elected her to do the talking so that they could pull a sympathy card, if nothing else.
The issue I take with this point is that, fundamentally, an eleven-year-old girl is going to be safer in a group than by herself. The saying 'two heads are better than one' doesn't just apply to mythical beasts - although a two headed monster, admittedly, is infinitely cooler than most one headed monsters. In my opinion, it would have been far scummier if Luke had turned around and said "okay, off you go then" and left a kid to face the world by herself. You've kind of criticised him for trying to keep her safe, which is really backwards in its logic, in my opinion. If he'd held her there for more malicious reasons, then I'd be fine with critcising him for this, but you're - in essence - criticising a twenty-six year old man for trying to keep a little girl safe in the zombie apocalypse. Just chew that one over for a minute.
On top of your post, I also saw some comments making other points critiquing Luke's character, which I'm going to briefly summise in this post here, before I take another break from this community and have a good old nap until Life is Strange comes out. Or until I scrape the money together to go to the zoo.
oh good
As @Deltino brought up, I doubt Luke was looking at this from a 'fuck these people' point of view. His best friend in the whole wide world panicked and shot him, thinking it was in self-defense. In his mind, he was worried Walter - or maybe Kenny because, let's be fair, the dude's intimidating - was going to try and avenge Matthew. Blood for blood, that kind of thing. I genuinely cannot agree with the idea that Luke was doing this out of a personal thing. If someone you cared about shot someone, in what - in retrospect - was a huge mistake, I highly doubt anyone would be wanting to throw them under the bus. If only there was a way to gauge what players would DO in this situation.
Oh, wait.
Man, I guess the overwhelming majority of players are guilty of the exact same thing, too.
Again, Deltino brought up the really valid point that there were very few things Luke could do to help. I really don't understand what Luke could have done to help the situation. With Kenny, he shoots one of Carver's men and - determinantly - takes a shot at Carver, as well. But all that does is incite the man, to the point where Alvin is shot in cold blood as a form of sick revenge. If he ran in through the front door, machete in one hand and gun in the other, he was outnumbered and outgunned, so he can't take the 'fight' approach from either afar or up close. If he surrendered, then all he does is get himself in a position where he can't help the group at all, and is relegated to doing whatever Carver wants. Of all the courses of action made available to him, this was - in my honest, humble opinion - the lesser of all the other evils on the cards.
Maybe I'm missing something, I really don't know, because both the 'surrender' and 'shoot' options are explored by the rest of the cast, but to no avail.
I would answer all these points, but Deltino has already done an amazing job covering most the points surrounding Luke being anti-Kenny, so I'll cycle past them in favor of not having this post transform into a short novel.
Jane and Luke fucked up - no pun intended. Is this worthy of hating them? Absolutely not, in my mind. As I mentioned in a post a while back, one bad thing doesn't wipe away all the good things a character has done. Consistently being 'bad' most certainly does make someone, well, bad. Luke and Jane doing 'kissing stuff', in and of itself, doesn't make them murderers or bandits. They both got caught up in a moment of passion, Jane made an offer which Luke chose to accept after - in my game - having what was likely the absolute shittiest day of his life (losing Sarah and Nick back-to-back, and Alvin and Carlos the night before). They both made a huge mistake, no question about it.
But, c'mon, two people having sex is worthy of Luke being marked as some evil guy? It seems like a stretch. Again, I can absolutely see how they messed up. And, if Sarah is alive at that point, Luke and Jane fooling around did lead to the teenagers death. But, considering the fact the two - throughout their time in the series - ultimately did more good than bad, I'm hard pressed to say that this point is really noteworthy in anything more than trying to find a way to blame a character who's really not done that much wrong. I see the point, how him accepting Jane's offer was a selfish move, but just being selfish on one occasion - in my honest opinion - hardly makes a character bad.
Wait... what?
Correct me if I'm mistaken - I've definitely been known to be, well, mistaken! - but I do believe Luke didn't rob Arvo. Nor did he even encourage it. If you tell Luke that you robbed Arvo, he'll be extremely disapproving of you, noting sardonically that Jane is rubbing off on Clementine more than is likely healthy. When Arvo approaches the group, Luke is immediately wary of him, only to then point an assault rifle at the teenager when it's revealed all of that was an ambush. It was mentioned, in a comment, that Luke dared to stand up for Arvo, and that made him guilty for the Arvo fiasco.
Not trying to be funny, here, but quite literally the only person not sympathetic towards Arvo was Kenny. And, following this trail of thought, I do believe it was Kenny's continued beating and abuse of Arvo that lead to Mike and Bonnie wanting to leave the group with the Russian boy. Like, I get that Arvo did turn out to be a bit of a bad egg but - on the other hand - Kenny did, in my game, literally beat him unconscious, refer to him as 'euro trash', a 'fucking commie piece of shit', and got so caught up in shoving him around after Luke died that he literally elbowed my Clementine in the face. So I feel, while Arvo definitely acted irrationally - after getting abused, beaten, and losing his sister, who wouldn't? - Kenny was definitely the spark to light the fire, and that - if I had to point the finger at anyone - I would blame Jane and Kenny for what happened with Arvo. Jane for initially robbing him, and Kenny for continuing to escalate the situation by beating a teenaged boy to the point of unconsciousness - in my game - and being continually horrible towards the kid. Just my two cents.
I really can't argue against the point which is just 'fuck this', because there's no rationality behind it. I defy the idea he fucked 'everything' up, as I've tried to argue the point that - really - he's not messed up that much, and it's very much a case of, in my opinion, over-vilification.
Again, while I really do appreciate that everyone is entitled to their own opinion - it takes a whole lot of people to make the world go 'round! - I feel that a lot of the points made against Luke in this thread could, potentially, do with having a little more fleshing out to make them more convincing, as a lot of them do seem to lean quite heavily on the 'fuck this because I like that' defence. Which, again, is fine, but it's not really a thrilling debate, nor is it an especially convincing argument.
The most important point I feel with any debate, however, is this - There's no such thing as a 'wrong' opinion, or a 'wrong' choice, and just because I may disagree with your personal opinion, that in no way means I disagree with you, as a person, on a personal level.
I hope this post/essay/whatever this turned into was an interesting enough read, I put a fair amount of time and effort into making this, including recording bits of gameplay and finding screenshots of certain moments. Thank you for reading, and have a great day! If I don't reply to this, it'll be because I'm taking the aforementioned break from the Telltale site. As I stressed above, there's no such thing as having an incorrect opinion, and I hope this reply hasn't come across as condescending in any way to your point of view. I rarely reply to posts, in general, so I'm super sorry in advance.
Take care, and thank you for reading my overly long ramblings about my tied-for-absolute-favourite character from season two ^ _ ^
Wouldn't it make more sense for the trope to be called 'Tainted Hero' or something? Ron the Death Eater made me think fanfiction, like someone wrote Luke as an antagonistic character in a popular fanfic lol
I must say, your points about Luke are great and your post structure is visually beautiful!
Lol yes. It was so eyeroll-worthy. Like, buddy, she barely knows you. Quit it with with the puppy dog eyes.
Eh, I was under the impression it could be both. There were people claiming he was secretly an glory houne who just wanted sex from Clementine, Sarah, and/or Jane, after all.