I Feel Bad For Lilly (TWDG Discussion)
I Feel bad for Lilly ngl, she went through some traumatic stuff in season 1 and now people hate her, Like she shouldn't be hated for killing Carley/Doug. THAT ISNT HER FAULT, if her dad was still alive and if Ben didn't trade with the bandits she wouldn't have shot them... it is sorta Kenny and Ben's fault. Does anyone else agree?
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Her father was a racist asshole.
I don't hate her, but to say her killing of Carley/Doug wasn't her fault, that's just nonsense no harm. She intentionally guns down Carley because she suspected Carley as being involved in giving away supplies, because Carley stood up for herself, she gunned her down without remorse. For Doug, she was going to gun down Ben, and Doug prevented that, Lilly is responsible because she held that gun knowing what she was doing.
Regarding Kenny's involvement in her breakdown, he took a chance, either deal with a man of Larry's stature while they're down and not able to harm anyone, or cross your fingers that he bounces back, but in my eyes, with how sudden he dropped and lost consciousness, he was more likely to die.
Ben, like it or not, his deal kept the bandits off the group's back for the one-week timeskip after Episode 2, he managed to keep them at bay by giving the amount that he did, what prevented them from coming in, killing everyone and taking them all? Very easily could've been done and that would've been that. I don't agree with the secrecy from Ben, but think about it, you try and tell Lilly, someone who is grieving and edging towards a complete mental breakdown about yet another stressful incident, she's going to break, and she'd refuse to do it, so I don't agree with it, but I understand why Ben did what he did. Also, if some people did say they had your friend, you'd be hesitant to test them, they may well have been lying, they may not have, but in Ben's mind, he had the power to determine if his friend would remain safe, and if his group remained safe, and he did that up until the raid
Beating a dead horse at this point but yes.
Why am I mixed emotion about her? 😆
i am too
Lily is a tragic character
I really like her
Eh, she brought it on herself. A character that kidnaps kids and betrays friends is gonna get it coming.
Sorry but Lilly had no fucking reason to cut off a child's tongue just because he didn't shut up for once. It's unforgivable. No regrets having AJ shoot her, even though I saved Louis in my game.
Of course she should be hated for killing Carley and Doug, even though she was heavily traumatized. Sure, she could've been redeemed, but then S4 rolled out and they didn't really do anything with her character. Most of the time she just rambles on about random edgy apocalypse stuff and no one really gets it because we have 0 clue about her journey. All in all she was very wasted and reduced to a petty villain so it's only natural everyone hates her even if she was a pretty solid character in S1.
Hardly, where we left her in Season One was her descent into becoming a villain, we saw what 8 years of surviving and several years of fighting for the Delta moulded her into. The desperation she had for recruits that she had no issue with maiming them, so they'd get in line and submit, that is what an apocalyptic world can do to you, it's not essential to see every gritty detail of her Journey to understand why, we know why.
It's natural that people will harden according to their environment, she's involved in communal warfare, and abducts children, of course she's going to be cold, that doesn't make her wasted, that's building upon the cold, bitter Lilly we left off in Season One by exposing her to a cruel world over the span of years. She's unrecognisable sure, but given the condition of the world, most people are going to be drastically different to how they were in the early days
Wait what, when the hell did this happen??
If you save Violet, Louis gets his tongue cut out because he was defending Aasim and Omar from Lilly, his talking led to Lilly getting the knife, and doing the deed. Kinda goes to show that the Delta don't really care about the kids wellbeing, so long as they can hold a gun or take down some of their enemies, they're pretty much expendable. She also succeeded in getting Louis to submit, as he was traumatised by it, which is like, fairly understandable
There is a huge leap between killing Carley/Doug in the week following the most traumatizing experiences of her life, and being the person that's looking gleeful while she boasts about the psychological and physical torture she inflicted on innocent kids. Being cold and bitter and being a literal war criminal hardly equate, so no, I don't really think her character progression feels as natural as you're trying to put it.
And I'm not saying that Lilly needed to be a good guy or our friend or even on our team, far from it. I understand that wouldn't feel natural, but they should've worked with that initial animosity Clem would have toward her, instead we immediately jump to Lilly hunting Clem and her kid down so they don't actually have to navigate their relationship.
But making a HUGE S1 character like Lilly unrecognizable requires way more justification and effort than "oh what a cold bitter world we live in. time passed. use your imagination!". "8 years passed and now she's a completely different person, imagine really really bad things in between" just doesn't really cut it for me. Lilly was my favorite character from S1 and I didn't feel like I got a continuation from my favorite S1 character but rather an unexplained reboot of her personality and morals with some cheap Lee and Larry mentions thrown in between.
Whether you liked her in S1 or hated her, we needed time with her to do this character justice and we just didn't get it. She had a total of 4 proper scenes before she gets written off. That's just not a way to treat a character like her.
I get that the writers were quite literally forced to bring a major S1 character back by the higher ups and I respect that having your creative work conditioned by some random quotas marketing or whatever imposes on you sucks tremendously, but it really shows that the team had no real interest in Lilly's character. It's what I see when I read Kent Muddle talking about her (the few times he decided to respond to questions about her), it felt like he was mentioning a chore, not a character. It's really day and night when you compare how he talks about the kid characters and such.
And well, that's just it. They brought her back for marketing purposes and then used her as some random villain. Lilly was an unique character with an unique past and personality but still her S4 role could've easily been filled with any random new character, Dorian, Sullene, you name it: it would've worked the same and that's really telling and disappointing.
You forgot that if Louis gets captured by Delta, he gets his tongue cut off? Not sure who exactly did it but assumely Lilly is the one who ordered that since she acted like she agreed with Louis losing his tongue and she was the leader.
Whoaaaa holy shit that's awful.
Yeah, I didn't get Louis captured. I saved him in Season 4, and wow am I glad I did that. Nothing that serious happens to Violet.
I only played the final season once, so I guess I should go back and experience the other paths... (maybe get those remaining trophies too. It's one of the very few telltale games with missable trophies!)
She breaks down Ben when questioning him in the RV, she very well has the capacity to psychologically break people down and get what she wants from them, and 8 years of an undead world will twist and turn you in ways you'd be surprised by. Being cold and bitter and a war criminal may not equate, but the former are both part and parcel of being a war criminal, add in her surroundings, and her mission for the Delta, you've got yourself a cold-blooded survivalist wanting to do anything to preserve any potential future they have, at the expense of anything or anyone.
I know you aren't, to back up your first point, Clementine literally saw Lilly gun down Carley/Doug, of course she'd hold some animosity towards her, even if Lilly perhaps didn't feel that way, especially since Clementine was 8 at the time, but in saying that, that's exactly why Clementine holds the animosity, it was an unnecessary killing, their relationship became sour after that, I don't understand how that is something that should've been delved into when Clementine herself saw clear as crystal what Lilly did, the forceful abduction of children is another key element that fuels into that disgust towards Lilly, she's not who Clementine once knew. And nah lad we didn't immediately jump to the hunt, Lilly tried her hand at manipulating Clementine by using AJ as the key, saying how she'll die protecting him, but can live if she joins them. The relationship is evidently a sour one well before they crossed paths, for reasons already mentioned.
Does it now? I strongly disagree, the state of the world alone is enough of an explanation mate, and in taking into account the loss and hardship she encountered and would have encountered in her time, that's suffice as to why she's a lot more brutal. If it doesn't cut it for you, then that's that, but that's not an issue with the game, it simply just doesn't do it for you, that's fair.
Four scenes and she stole the show in each of them, she made an impact in each one, and you say we needed time with her, explain to me in what scenario she'd sit down with Clementine, her literal opponent in this fight between the Delta and Ericson's, and pour her heart out to her about all of her experiences? Each scene is her trying to pry away Clementine from resistance because that's her objective.
That's just nonsense lad no harm, no real interest in Lilly's character? That hardly shows in the final product, Lilly's character is one that's defined by the surrounding world and her duty. If you see that in his comments, then fine, but that's on your end, doesn't really make it true, but sure if they did come out and clarify how they treat characters in the development process, I'm sure there'd be a few that'd have gripes, there's no winning for the Devs sadly.
Hardly marketing purposes, she was brought back to raise the stakes of Clementine's Final Chapter, that's just inaccurate. She was used in the marketing, but the general crowd suspected Lilly would make a return regardless of marketing or the Story Builder. Lilly remained a unique character with a unique past and personality, which reinforce her narrative by the time we encounter her again. The point is she isn't meant to be recognisable, she's vastly different, the Rick we see in the latter stages of the Comics is vastly different to the Rick we saw at the beginning, the Clementine we see at the end of The Final Season is different to the little girl we saw in Season One, we may have seen their trials and triumphs up until the conclusion of their Stories, but whether or not we got to see every spec of their Journies, they'd be defined by what they went through, we don't see Lilly's trials and tribulations, but we know that they were harsh enough to carve her into the person she is. We just don't need to see everything as a justification for a change in behaviour, it'd be nice, but like it or not, it's not necessary.
Stories are not real life and are meant to have thematic elements. Not saying all stories should ignore all realism because they shouldn't, but what makes fiction entertaining is because it is fiction. It isn't real, it takes a world (usually similar to our own) and and tells that story with thematic elements w/ pathos and ethos to entertain. Real life sucks and is boring, if Clem and Lily were real neither of them would think about greater purposes or reasons for "why they crossed paths again" because that's not what the real world is. So I guess that is basically what happens in TFS. But thing is, TFS isn't real life, it is fiction. Most fiction doesn't just bring back an old character for no greater purpose to the story or characters. There's nothing entertaining in a story when you bring up a thematic element like "character forgotten in the past returns as the main antagonist to the protagonist" and you do nothing with it. No greater purpose. No themes, moral, or inner dilemmas. It just is what it is, and that is simply pretty boring fiction writing.
I wouldn't say this applies to all writing, but I would say it would apply to The Walking Dead.
But this is all blanks you need to fill for her character to make sense. Leaving the audience to fill in some blanks is fine, leaving the audience to come up with her whole character arc is not, in my opinion.
My point is that the trauma Lilly inflicted on Clem should've been a plot point, not a passing mention quickly brushed aside. What Lilly did probably haunted Clem's dreams for years, made her distrustful of other people, even those she considered friends, traumatized, etc. Well, TFS just doesn't show interest in any of this? Clementine and Lilly's relationship in TFS doesn't take into account their past, it's about the new person Lilly is and the new people Clementine cares about. Why bring a character back if you're throwing away their previous relationship with the protagonist out the window? Lee mentions? Did we really need those that bad that we had to bring Lilly ba
Well, you see, this is where we fundamentally disagree. I simply need the game to put more effort in characterizing Lilly than just "the world spoiled her". To me, Lilly as a character deserves more than that lazy excuse.
The fact that it's not an issue with the game for you doesn't make it universally not an issue either by the way. It's an issue with the game for me, don't invalidate that.
Well, that's what I'm saying: they wrote her in a way where it's literally impossible to get any meaningful development out of her. She's just an evil villain who refuses to reason with the protagonist. Pretty basic writing 101. A villain like this would be completely acceptable were the villain in question not a complex character such as Lilly.
Also, I don't have to tell you how the game should be written better. I'm not a professional writer. I'm just a fan who came out of this season displeased and my perspective is all I can give you: Lilly should not have been relegated to the role of a the petty evil villain woman who you hardly interact with.
Of course, I never said I can read their thoughts or something. I'm telling you MY perspective on what they've put out there and on the final product. I just assume that I don't need to stick a "THIS IS MY PERSPECTIVE ON THINGS" in every other phrase, but just for good measure: THIS IS MY PERSPECTIVE ON THINGS!
I can confidently say that I came out of the final season feeling like Lilly, a character whose return I anticipated and looked forward to many times, felt like a side character and many times an afterthought. The game spends 70% of its time on the kids and the other 30% is split by Lilly, Minerva, James and Abel. She is hardly in the big finale, if at all. From all this and more I get left with the feeling that maybe the team just didn't really care about investing story time with Lilly.
I'm sorry, but I just don't see how. Was it the randomly mentioning of Lee? The Larry sob story? What else did she bring to the game that couldn't have been given to us by a new character filling her shoes.
I was among those who anticipated and looked forward to her return. Up until episode 4 I remained positive that we were getting something meaningful from a character I really enjoyed.
Sorry, but no. I don't see it.
No. We don't know. We assume.
I didn't need to see Lilly's journey. I needed the game to spend ANY time developing her character, not just having her regurgitate empty platitudes and one liners about the apocalypse. That's just not meaningful development to me.
What you needed out of her character and what I needed is obviously very different. I obviously don't want to convince you that TFS Lilly is bad or sour your experience with the game, which was clearly positive. I just hope you understand that not everyone had a positive experience with it and that that's valid too.
I understand how a Story operates man, but the purpose of my comment is explaining that Lilly is someone shaped by the harsh realities of that world, that her brutal methods are a result of a brutal survival and desperation to preserve the last thing she had left. Akin to Kenny, who literally kills Jane because he believed she took away his purpose in AJ, I'll not bother going over Lilly's mission as we know what it is, but the desperation is there that her methods are undoubtedly extreme, but carried out to submit and teach by example, that if the children can't follow willingly, that they'll follow via torture, be it of the psychological or physical kind.
Bringing back Lilly, as I mentioned to IronWoodLover, raised the stakes and made Clementine's fight to preserve the School a lot more personal, Lilly being a direct counterpart to Clementine similar to Lee and Larry, both losing father figures, but both have different ideals and desires. Lilly represents an old world thinking, Clementine represents a new world way of thinking. There's a lot more themes and dilemmas there.
They're hardly blanks when they are easily observable from Season One and taking into account the world they live in.
And I'm sure that instance with Lilly was traumatising, of course it was, and I'm positive it affected Clementine's trust, but why is that something that should be brought up or displayed between the two? How would that conversation even play out? Their past relationship is taken into account, Lilly even hesitating to shoot Clementine when she brings up how they were like family, the past was taken into account, but the past itself is the past, Clementine and Lilly aren't the same people they were back in that Motor Inn. The previous relationship wasn't thrown out the window, it evolved to a point that both people changed so much that they were no longer who they once were, and the difference in sides puts that relationship behind, Lilly has established a life for herself in a Community, Clementine has too, neither would throw that away for the sake of a familiar face, as the roadblock is their differing views and one's desire to use the other as a bullet sponge and fight their war.
I did not say that you claimed to have that ability, but it's just disrespectful to assume a lack of interest from the Devs because they didn't satisfy you. No need to put in all caps that's your perspective, I was aware.
Ultimately the Delta was not the focus, the focus was building a life at the Boarding School and establishing a place to call home. And yes, I noticed that you shared your feelings that the Team didn't care about investing Lilly's Story, but I'm just pointing out that truly isn't the case.
A personal fight, and the mentioning of Lee is far from random, it's obvious Clementine valued Lee more than anyone else in that group, bringing up Lee touched a nerve, which was what Lilly wanted to get into her head. Calling it a sob story is awfully dismissive of the Story when it plays into why Lilly is as brutal in her manipulation methods, it's a crucial element of her Story, her justification for the wrongdoings she commits.
Alright then, it's still there though.
I didn't need to see Lilly's journey. I needed the game to spend ANY time developing her character, not just having her regurgitate empty platitudes and one liners about the apocalypse. That's just not meaningful development to me.
But we do know because how else would she have made it, we saw what Clementine went through to get to where she was, Lilly's Journey would've been difficult itself. The game did develop her character, building upon what was previously established from where we last saw her, she was going on a bad path and when we reunite, she's further down that path, she is not the Lilly we knew before.
I get it, I understand that not everyone had a positive experience with it, not everyone is going to like everything, but to me that doesn't show there to be a flaw or an issue with the game, as you mentioned it demonstrates that what you wanted and I wanted were different, and that's fine.
I know, but I was just saying how just because "it's a brutal world" is really not interesting story telling. We barely know anything about who the Delta even are other than they want child soldiers to fight for them. Its all really underdeveloped stuff which makes it not that interesting because it doesn't really spike your intrigue. Bringing back Lily should feel more personal but what I was trying to get at is that it really doesn't which is why I was saying "bringing back a forgotten character from the past who becomes the antagonist" is really boring if that's literally all it is. Lily was super, super underused for what they were trying to go for. She has 20 minutes of screentime through eps 2 and 3 before she dies only getting a 2 minute scene in episode 4. This isn't to say a character needs more screen time to be effective, the problem is just how ineffective these scenes are. Like it or not, truth is if Lily was swapped out with a brand new character the change to the story and game would be extremely minimal because nothing in this story happens that truly makes Lily's inclusion feel like it has a purpose for being there. (Because again, this is a story not the real world.)
Also the Lily and Clem father thing is a similarity, not a theme and is no where close to a dilemma. Themes are a lot more than just similarities. I could say that Tales from the Borderlands is actually thematically about avenging a loved one and what different people will do to achieve that as it parallels between Kroger and Loader Bot avenging of Finch and Gortys. Is what I said actually wrong? No, but it certainly isn't a theme of Tales from the Borderlands even though it isn't wrong. Its just a similarity/parallel you can point out. Themes are a lot more overarching than 5 minute scenes that dont even draw attention to the parallel.
It's 100% fine to enjoy TFS and its not even a bad game at all. I just personally find it really lacking compared to previous Telltale Games/Walking Dead games and to other story based video games which outshine it imo.
This so much.
Those last two paragraphs in particular either mirror my various thoughts/reads on the matter or brings up another interesting vive of information around it.
Lilly is a cunt.
I can definitely see it. Even Clementine is guilty of unrealistic behavior in conjunction to what she has done. People who act like her under similar circumstances would be considered psychotic.
Probably doesn't help that that's the baseline for nearly everything in the series.
When I shot her I started crying hard right after, I couldn't handle my old favorite character be shot...
Season 4? youve never played it, have you...
That Just feels really offensive. Would you just keep that to yourself please?
Season 4, Final Season, ehhh...
No. :P
Well then. leave me alone please, go somewhere else
I don't agree, seeing how such a drastic change in the environment, such a dramatic change in people's lives, breaking routine and seeing the entire world crumble down around them, seeing what becomes of them with their world crashing down, to me at least, that's interesting.
We do not need to know that though, would that have been welcomed? Absolutely, but in the grand scheme of things, it's not crucial, we know they are a thriving Community, we know from Abel it's a sustainable Community built to last but desperate for fighters that children are being considered, the thought of what that Community was when they were standing, and their predicament, for me anyways, it did catch my interest.
Going face to face with someone we knew, being a very different character than the person we saw through Lee's lens way back when, is extremely personal, like I cannot grasp the problem with her being how she is, there's a reason her attitude is the way it's portrayed, I understand that's not everyone's cup of tea, but in the context of that world, a dramatic change in behaviour over the length of 8 years based off what we do know, isn't an unnatural path for her to take. And yes, I agree Lilly's scenes were brief, but when she made her appearance, she stole the show, all eyes were on her because her presence and personality captured attention. Her being there is what makes those scenes effective, the introduction of an entirely new antagonist wouldn't have had the same effect.
I'm sorry I didn't intend to lead on as if the similarity was a theme, as you said, it's not, it is simply a similarity. My intention was that there are dilemma's and theme's there between the two, one being a representation of a struggle between an old world idealogy and new world idealogy.
That's fair lad, we're all good, sorry for the late reply, but yeah the way I see it you have your view and I have mine, I appreciate that we had a calm discussion on it. I have more thoughts on it but I have struggled to put them into words, so I just left them, but again, cheers for the kind chat
There's a bit of what the Delta was if you look hard enough, but it's really not much. I'm sure I did a sum up or two back when this community wasn't 70% locked, so feel free to revisit that place and plug what you're looking for into Google.
I will say that one thing I didn't know was that apparently, Lily can say something about Delta welcoming her in after years of no one else and so she felt like she had to do what it takes to protect what is basically her new family. That kinda works in a vacuum...but not really with almost everything else we had to go on. So shrug.
(I was gonna make a joke but nah)
If you like her you're just going to make up reasons that she isn't really as bad as she is to justify it but you're still wrong. She's a horrible monster who needed to die and nothing more.
It's not really fair to accuse people of lying about something they like, especially without a context. The OP might be saying some odd things, but you're overgeneralization.
Also, people like Woody are definitely within their rights to explain that they liked her character for the vast majority of her existence before she returned to qualify as a monster, which they would also acknowledge.
I loved her character....