Better villain: Norma in "Michonne", Carver or Joan
Which villain-y leader do you prefer?
Norma in the DLC: Michonne
Carver in Season 2
or
Joan in A New Frontier
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Which villain-y leader do you prefer?
Norma in the DLC: Michonne
Carver in Season 2
or
Joan in A New Frontier
Comments
Norma, without a doubt.
Unlike Carver and Joan, she wasn't portrayed as a one-dimensional tyrant who served as an villain purely for the sake of having an antagonist in the story, and she was shown to be at least more willing to be diplomatic than Carver and Joan so as long as her terms are met, otherwise she's willing to kill a hostage over the loss of Monroe and the endangerment of her brother.
It also helped that from a certain point of view, Norma had good reasons to want to be angry at Sam, considering that her actions did lead to Michonne and her burning down Monroe over a theft attempt she had committed twice over.
Objectively Norma, though Joan was kinda like an answered prayer initially, arguably had more potential, was off to an interesting and clever start before the rewrites. Though admittedly, I did manage to find entertainment value in her character shift, so my reaction afterwards was mixed rather than solidly negative.
Though I suppose that also begs the question of what exactly it is you're looking for in a villain/antagonistic.
Norma had a lot more going for her than "im BAD!!!!!!" so she definitely was the mostly dynamic of the bad guys. I still hate Michonne's ending though and how horribly done it is if you do the trade deal and have Randal alive. Would have preferred if Michonne just had another ending, give Randal back they go on their separate ways, instead of "RANDAL FUKIN STRANGLES U WITH ALL 10 BROKEN FINGERS!!!!!!!" and then it makes it so Norma has to fight you.
Carver was good for being intimidating. Overall I think Carver was pretty good, we knew what he was about, we knew what type of person he was. He was pretty generic though, with him just being "bad" just because. He also died a little too fast, but I dont think he was too super badly done, just cut short from really getting to shine.
Joan is the worst bad guy Telltale has ever done. Its still one of my least favorite things from ANF with just how shitty her inclusion as the "bad guy" was written into the story. We meet Joan once, then next time we see her shes EVIL. Then we see her for 1 min at the start of ep 4 just to take David away, then ep 4 ending comes and she just goes "IM SO BAD ILL KILL ONE OF YOUR PEOPLE JAVI!" then she either dies, or she disappears. Horribly done, Joan just had no "oomf" to their character. Atleast Carver when we first meet him he is menacing, and then the next time we see him he gets straight to business and we see what type of bad shit he is willing to do. Joan is just, "Loot the camp man haha o now kill a person, haha rad o shit im dead ;(" I swear Joan had less than 10 mins of screentime, which is way too low for what was suppose to be the "bad guy" of ANF.
Norma was complex but kind of boring. I much preferred her crazy ass psycho brother.
Carver was the best at making me feel genuinely on edge and fearful about what he was going to do next. He was also incredibly intelligent.
Joan was pretty much a cartoon character.
Carver was arguably the good guy of Season 2. Or at least the only not completely dumb character. He worked well as an antagonist, having all the build-up and everything, but was unfortunately taken down way too soon and way too easily (by an 11-year-old no less). I'm convinced a Carver ending would've been a thing as implied by the whole "we're not so different you and I" thing with Clem in In Harm's Way (and the preview with them both looking at the incoming herd together). Lots of wasted potential.
Norma was good. Just like Carver, she was pretty much in the right, except also morally. She didn't have as much build up as Carver and her easy defeat ultimately made her previously intimidating presence lose all its value (though realistically she and her men would've killed the "good guys", Michonne included, easily). Only loses to Carver because she lacked the screentime honestly. She was the antagonist of a mini-series, not a whole Season, so of course, she was lacking in relation to her peer antagonist.
Joan sucked massive ass. I guess she had a good premise with the whole ruthless master manipulator who'll-stop-at-nothing-to-save-her-people thing. That was quickly ruined in episode 4 when she proves to be so fucking dumb it left me wondering how this woman had survived even 3 days into the apocalypse let alone organized these whole shadow operations. Combine that with the fact that they decided to completely turn her into some comic villain doing evil things for evil's sake only to pull off the silliest, weakest and in all honestly dumbest "twist" I've encountered in a while (Ava vs Tripp... except REVERSED!!! How impressive and revolutionary!!! Still scratching my head at how people found this appealing or interesting in any way. It was so cheap and non-sensical, gosh).
Norma for sure. She’s probably the most sensible and relatable villain in Telltale’s Walking Dead. Her actions were completely justified and some of the time I actually felt bad for her.
Carver is a decent villain but was completely wasted in Episode 3. Imo, they killed him off too early. He’s set as the big baddy in S2, shows up in Ep2, then dies in Ep3. Why? All that build up was for nothing.
Joan was a horrible villain. No driving force and her character is basically “I’m bad and imma prove it!!” This one quote from her pretty much sums her up: “I can do whatever I want!”
From best to worst, I’m going to say:
Randall
St. John Brothers
Stranger
Norma
Carver
Badger
Joan.
Carver in Episode 2 was fantastic. He was mysterious, enigmatic, well-spoken, and intimidating. Unfortunately, Episode 3 did not do him justice.
I liked Joan for the little bit, but she was clearly underdeveloped. In Episode 3 she was okay, had potential, but that was gone. A shame really.
Calling Norma a ‘villain’ is probably strong. An antagonist for sure, but Randall was a villain (though I liked him). She was sympathetic and reasonable, although some more development would have been nice, but considering that mini-series as a whole was short, I don’t hold it against her character.
How do you even reason that Carver was the good guy? I can understand him wanting to bring what he thought to be his child back to his stronghold, but to force everybody else to come back as prisoners as well was not a good thing to do.
Well, considering he was Kenny originally, I'll try not turn my stomach here either way.
Norma was the best, then Carver, then Joan.
St. Johns beats them all for antagonist role though.
Norma is probably my favorite villain in the series, mostly because she is not just evil for no reason, for the most part she is just another person trying to protect her group, maybe in an extreme way, but she is just the opposite side of the coin, the one we get to see, not the one we are
Considering i would've sided with Norma over Sam if given the choice, id say Norma. She's the antagonist, sure but she had a reason for everything. She didnt just kill because she wanted to. She even wanted Michonne and her crew to join them at Monroe for their safety. The community was safe and it seemed like Kenny's dream community until Sam fucked it all up with all the theft instead of just making a deal with Norma
Overall, Norma, but Carver pre-In Harm's Way and Joan pre-finale definitely came close. I wish more had been done with what they were leading up to. I genuinely though Norma would be determinant, Carver could be sided with/asked about/tricked, and Joan would've been, like, important.
Yeah, seriously.
Not to mention what said child existing in the first entailed no matter how you approach it.
Yeah, there were some interesting concepts going for Joan. I like the Idea of a manipulative antagonist who is imennsely good at using persuasion and blackmail to sway people over to her side. Though she ended being so evil without much reason to be. At least for me she turned out to be the worst atagonist so far but some of the concepts they seemed to have been going for originaly weren't terrible.
I call him the "good guy" because had everyone just done what he told them and not only pretty much every single death in Season 2 (first half of episode 2 onwards) would've been avoided, but the group would've also prospered.
What if Rebecca hadn't just run off with what was most likely Carver's son (which he was absolutely in the right to go after)? Would've George and Pete met the same fate as they did? What if the group had just given themselves up peacefully? Do you think anyone would've died at the lodge? What if Kenny hadn't started shooting people in a hostage situation where the other party's only demand was "let us bring you all to our safe zone so I can raise my baby"? What would've happened if our group had decided to stay in the fortified compound rather than throwing themselves onto a herd? Do you think Carlos, Sarita, Sarah and Kenny's mental stability would've perished as well? In fact, the whole goddamned problem throughout EP4 and EP5 was the lack of supplies and a safe place to raise AJ. I just found it hilarious that days before our group of very smart people had decided to destroy one such place and killed its leader.