The Walking Dead EP9: Dangerous In Tent

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Dec 19, 2012

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 112 comments


Link (YouTube)

As Rutskarn blabed at the top of the episode, he’s right now in the depths of the Aunty Paladin’s Kid-Helping Extravaganza, a week-long marathon of tabletop gaming and chicanery, all in the name of helping tiny baby children peoples. I’d suggest you avoid the official webpage, which is nothing more than information and a link to the stream in question where you can watch the endless cavalcade of 24/7 gaming for free. You don’t want that. If you did go to the stream, someone in the chat might be able to explain to you what a “pygmy space moose” is, how it ties into the game they played earlier, and how it relates to me.

So, again, just stay here and watch spoiler Warning and don’t bother with Aunty Paladin’s Kid-Helping Extravaganza.

Also, this post was supposed to go up yesterday but I forgot what day it was. I blame Linux.

I think a big contributing factor to my dislike of Larry was that I played through the first two episodes back-to-back. So for me this conversation at the gazebo took place about an hour after he tried to murder me. If I’d waited weeks in between episodes like most players, then maybe my irritation would have subsided a bit. Also, his whole thing about “just looking out for his daughter” actually made me dislike him more. It made him a jerk and a towering hypocrite, since he wanted to kill someone else’s kid without even making sure Duck had been bitten. And then he never owned up to just how totally stupid and wrong he’d been about the whole thing and about how his wrongness made a tense situation worse. And then the entire group was put in peril trying to get him medicine and someone died as a result. And then he tried to kill me after I saved his life.

So yeah, when I got to the gazebo conversation the whole “he just cares about his daughter” thing just didn’t work for me as an excuse. Ken left someone to die to save his own son, and felt bad about it later. Larry tried to murder someone to protect his not-in-harm’s-way daughter who can take care of herself, and never regretted it.

In short: Larry is a good character but a horrible person.

 


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112 thoughts on “The Walking Dead EP9: Dangerous In Tent

  1. Isy says:

    Let’s be fair to Larry. Apparently everyone else in the game – including Clemintine! – thought trying to murder Lee was perfectly fine, because no one ever mentions it again!

    Are you going to argue with Clemintine, Shamus?

    1. anaphysik says:

      *sigh*
      …No…
      #ClemIsBest

  2. Deadpool says:

    Larry is definitely a horrible person. I’m just not sure Kenny is any better.

    He didn’t leave anyone to die to save his son. His son was ALREADY safe. He just couldn’t be bothered to try and save the other one TOO.

    Kenny also leaves Lee to die several times throughout the game simply because he doesn’t like Lee. Not to save his kid or anyone else, just because he DOESN’T FEEL LIKE IT.

    Not sure he deserves a free pass just because Larry is evil too.

    1. BeardedDork says:

      Kenny is just a repackaged Larry. He straight up wants to murder anybody, and does murder Larry, who might possibly become inconvenient, and he hates Lee if he doesn’t on hundred percent go along with it. Outside of the one incident at the drug store, Larry does come to Lee’s rescue when the chips are down, while Kenny wants to kill Lee somewhere in the neighborhood of once an episode.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        Inconvenient?You were locked in a small room with no weapons* with someone who is about to become a zombie at any moment.Id call that pretty dangerous,and not merely inconvenient.

        *Yes you have a huge ass block,but once the zombie is up,that stops being useful.

        1. BeardedDork says:

          Larry isn’t anymore likely to die here than he was in the pharmacy, If Kenny was really interested in the safety of the people in the meat locker he could have been ready to kill a held safely on his back by CPR Larry-Zombie if he died, rather than simply murdering him in front of Clem because he doesn’t like him.

          1. Jakey says:

            Ummm, yes he definitely is. In the pharmacy he was merely weakened from overexertion, in Episode 2 he’s basically clinically dead at that point.

            Kenny was/is a huge asshole about it, but I can’t argue with his logic.

            1. BeardedDork says:

              If he were dead, he’d be a zombie. What is your basis for drawing such a big distinction between these two exactly identical scenarios?

              In episode 1 he yells and sputters and socks Kenny (depending on your choices), until he grasps at his chest and passes out.

              Whereas in episode 2 he yells and sputters and bangs on a door, until he grasps at his chest and passes out.

              1. Thomas says:

                The fact that the people in the store can and do go out the back door and use the truck to go to other places?also as said later down. He had a pulse earlier

                1. BeardedDork says:

                  Nope, she never checked his pulse she said “He’s not breathing.” There’s a big difference between not breathing, or no pulse for that matter, and dead.

                  1. Abnaxis says:

                    Erm…yeah, so the strike tags don’t work? Future Ep.2 spoilers below.

                    First, the man has a heart condition. He just clutched his chest and keeled over. If he’s not breathing, it’s not because he’s choking on a piece of candy, his heart has stopped. We shouldn’t need the characters to explicitly state whether has has a pulse to use our heads and put two and two together.

                    Second, the only difference between “no pulse” and “already dead” is that at no pulse you have 10 minutes before death/zombie, assuming raising happens after death and not immediately before.

                    Ten minutes to probable brain death without CPR (B.E. CPR). That’s how long you can leave him unattended while you try to save your own life from the psychos imprisoning you. 75-85% of people still die before they can be resuscitated by professionals, even when CPR is administered (taken from a combination of “only 8% survive without CPR” and “CPR doubles or triples probability of survival”) (Heart.org).

                    Whether he’s doing it out of cowardice or not, Kenny is absolutely, unambiguously correct in the freezer. Larry is dead, thankfully in a manner that gives you a few minutes to destroy his head before he gets back up. Trying to revive him is a dangerous exercise in futility.

                    Strike tags barf on links, so reference links below:

                    http://www.becpr.org/facts_statistics.aspx

                    http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/CPRAndECC/WhatisCPR/CPRFactsandStats/CPR-Statistics_UCM_307542_Article.jsp

                    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

                      Strike tags are broken if you include more than 2 paragraphs.You need to put every paragraph in separate tags.

          2. Daemian Lucifer says:

            In the pharmacy he was still breathing and conscious,and we had pills nearby.Here he fell unconscious,and his heart and breathing stopped.We were reviving him.He was dead,and about to rise as a zombie at any moment.And even if were to make his hear beat again,without pills,which werent nearby this time,that wouldnt last.

            1. BeardedDork says:

              The pills aren’t near by? Where are they? Lilly’s pocket would be my guess. Certainly he can wait without the pills, while we go solve the two biggest puzzles in the episode.

              1. Daemian Lucifer says:

                If lilly has them,then why didnt she give them to him?

                1. BeardedDork says:

                  Busy doing CPR, it’s an awful lot easier to give pills to somebody who’s conscious I would imagine.

                  1. Daemian Lucifer says:

                    There was plenty of time in between him clutching his chest and going down for her to reach for the pills if she had them.

                    1. anaphysik says:

                      I’d also like to note that nitroglycerin pills are not MAGIC-SAVE-YOUR-LIFE-pills. Their proper use is really as a preventative; you take them *before* the strenuous activity that would normally put you at risk of an attack. (I take different medicine for a different heart condition, but I do know the feel of ‘my heart feels awful & taking my medicine will help it’ – & Larry looks a lot like that in E1, where he doesn’t really have an attack so much as severe chest discomfort (he is conscious afterwards, & mainly just looks like he feels like shit). Whereas he does NOT look like that in E2.)

                      CPR is always worthwhile in the real world, because we have easy access to medical facilities, & because even a slim chance of survival is worth the effort. Amazingly, though, the real world doesn’t have to deal with heart-attack victims turning into MURDERZOMBIES. When chance of survival is /maybe/ 75% tops (which is already an exaggeration given their circumstances, & that’s even ignoring the fact that Lilly & (determinant)Lee clearly don’t perform ‘proper’ CPR when the time comes)? A 75% chance of hulking MURDERZOMBIE that you have no way to deal with is INCREDIBLY compelling. Summary: Kenny does the right thing. If you helped Lilly like newdarkcloud did, then you are butts. Also, if you didn’t call Lilly a bitch (newdarkcloud didn’t), then you are also butts.

                      ;D

    2. newdarkcloud says:

      Oh yeah, as we will hopefully see in this episode (of the Walking Dead), Kenny is just about as big of a dick as Larry, just more subdued about it.

    3. Roland Jones says:

      Am I the only one who actually got pissed off by the Lilly conversation here? Seriously, “Don’t judge him, and don’t judge me for sticking by him,” the utter hypocrisy and “oh poor us we’re mistreated because we think killing children is a good idea” is infuriating. Like Shamus, I didn’t think any better of Larry or Lilly after it. Everyone else is in a shitty situation too, but most of them don’t decide that being abjectly terrible human beings is the way to deal with it. It wasn’t helped by, as I explained in a past comment here, Lilly’s every decision as leader being what’s best for her and Larry, even when it’s to the detriment of everyone else, while Larry contributed next to nothing and generally made everything worse.

      So, yeah, it wasn’t even too little too late like Shamus said, it actually made me think even less of them. The two of them spend their every appearance making things worse in some manner, and then “oh no, we’re the ones you should be sorry for”? Screw you Lilly, I am judging both of you.

      1. Roland Jones says:

        Wait, this comment wasn’t meant to be in response to anything, why was it put here? Bah. Now it looks weird, like I’m responding to someone without actually responding to anything they said. I’d have used a completely different post to talk about Kenny and so on.

    4. Jokerman says:

      More like he does not want to risk his life to save you if you were a dick to him – kenny is a coward, i dont think there would be any argument there, but i dont think he is a bad guy.

      1. BeardedDork says:

        Larry can be talked out of killing Duck. Kenny cannot be talked out of killing Larry, in Episodes 4&5 he takes every opportunity to try and get Lee to kill Ben, and then in episode 5 lobbies hard for killing the closest thing he has left to a friend. He is like a slightly more likable but far more evil Larry.

        1. Jokerman says:

          Well, Kenny had much more of a point…. larry did just have a heart attack and is a huge man about to kill everyone, that scared kenny into action and i like that you can’t influence him so easily also, he made up his mind and you could either support him or not – that’s realistic, unlike shepard releasing pheromones on everyone.

          Kenny never lobbied hard for killing me in Episode 5 though….maybe it varies on how you treat him, i only went against him when i tried to revive Larry, because i did think trying for a while was the right thing to do. Although i would of killed him if i couldnt revive him fast.

          1. AbruptDemise says:

            Actually, the about to become a zombie thing is a bit of a grey area, with neither side being right. The way the person passed out from a heart attack means that CPR wouldn’t revive them. The purpose of CPR – in this situation – is to keep them alive until the paramedics arrive with chest paddles, which you need in this situation. It’s a grey area because Kenny sure as shit doesn’t know this.

            1. BeardedDork says:

              He isn’t any more certain to die in this situation than he was in a nearly identical situation in the Pharmacy. What Kenny does here isn’t a gray area it’s murder. If he didn’t want to be stuck in a room with a zombified Larry he could have done something useful like try to find a way out, or be ready to kill him if things turn for the worse. Instead because he is inherently a coward and a bully he murders somebody because he doesn’t like them and they are helpless and might become a zombie.

              1. Abnaxis says:

                It is most definitely a different situation. Larry still had a pulse in the pharmacy. He was still conscious. As soon as Lilly said Larry had no pulse, I didn’t even wait for Kenny to want to kill him–I had already reached the same conclusion.

                CPR is basically manual life support–the pumps and breaths you are performing are doing the job the heart and lungs should be doing on their own, and you’re a shabby substitute, at that. Even if they weren’t being held captive at the time, there is just no possible way the group would ever be able to revive Larry, period. He’s dead. CPR only gives a few more minutes before he’s completely dead and back up as a zombie.

                1. BeardedDork says:

                  I’m curious where you get your information about CPR from?

                  According to the British Medical Association, the Resuscitation Council (UK), and the Royal College of Nursing, among others in other countries as well, CPR does have a chance to restart the heart and respiration. In fact on page 3 (the first part of the Main Message) of their document Decisions relating to
                  cardiopulmonary resuscitation
                  available to download in PDF at http://www.resus.org.uk/pages/dnar.htm, “If CPR would not re-start the heart and breathing, it should not be attempted.

                  Without any credible sourcing, of which I could find none, your unsupported argument is both false and dangerous.

                  If I am wrong on this please correct me, otherwise please stop advising against proven, effective, life-saving procedures.

                  1. Abnaxis says:

                    Untagged future Episode 2 Spoilers below, because I want this in the clear.

                    Alright, I thought this was obvious above, but let me make this clear–unless you are being held prisoner, all of society has collapsed around you, and the person whose heart has stopped will rise as an undead monster with an overriding urge to kill you, your friends, and the child in your charge minutes after they die, you should be trained to use CPR and you should use it. I am not advocating that CPR is useless–I am personally trained in its use and I know from personal experience that it can save lives.

                    However, you also need to understand that the purpose of (civilian) CPR is not to restart the victim’s heart, it is to keep blood flowing to their brain to keep them alive long enough for the professionals with defibrillators and epinephrin to show up and take over. That is why the first priority should always, always be to call pramedics, even if you have to pause resuscitating to do it (preferably you tell someone else to do it while you start resuscitating).

                    For my reference, I only really have my training, although the first section of this wiki article says what I am going for. Virtually every other CPR training material says the same thing: the purpose of CPR is to keep people alive for a few minutes longer, because brain damage starts after 4 minutes of no circulation, and the average EMT response time is 10-15 minutes.

                    As for the article you quoted, that is intended for medical professionals in a hospital setting. Doctors don’t get to wait for medical professionals to show up, they are the medical professionals, with the training and knowledge required to recognize the (extremely few) cases in which CPR might have a chance to restart a stopped heart.

                    All of these points do not apply to the situation we are talking about. Lee, et. al., are certainly not medical professionals. There are no EMTs alive, let alone any coming. Everybody is in immediate danger from the St. John’s. If Larry dies, which he will in this situation, he will come back as an implacable murder machine in a room where they have nothing on hand to stop him. Destroying his head was an obvious choice to me.

              2. Jokerman says:

                But remember, back then they thought you had to be bitten to change, it was revealed otherwise in the second episode.

                1. BeardedDork says:

                  Still no more likely to die, than he was then.

                  1. Abnaxis says:

                    Where are you getting that from? His heart was still beating and he was conscious before The only thing that happened to him before was a flutter or a skipped beat that he didn’t even pass out from; later he has no pulse and is not breathing. There’s a world of difference between those two things.

                    While the characters aren’t knowledgeable enough to know this, Larry is as good as dead as soon as he collapses in that freezer.

                  2. Jokerman says:

                    Yes, but what does it matter if he dies when he cant turn into a zombie? Doing what you can to save him makes sense when there is no risk – there was a chance of him suddenly jumping and attacking everyone the second time.

                    Obviously the same risk was there both times, but the characters did not know they were at risk in episode 1

  3. newdarkcloud says:

    One thing I want to say, even if it is a little random. GameInformer just ran an interview with the guys at Telltale about creating the character of Clementine.

    Apparently the whole concept of Clementine’s character, her parents, and the scene at the very end of Episode 5 were all initial concepts that the story was built around.

    They were also originally going to make the protagonist Clem’s older brother, but changed in to Lee because they felt that it would be better for the player if the character was forging the relationship at the exact same time the player was. It would be easier to connect if the protagonist was also making the connection with you.

    After these were all hammered down, the entirety of the game was structured around this relationship between Lee and Clementine. The reason the game is so liberal about killing people off in later episodes is because they wanted you to feel like anyone, even Clementine, could die, making players try just a little bit harder to protect her.

    Also, one of the designers roughly based Clementine off his 5 year old daughter. He said “My daughter seems wiser the less she speaks.”, so they did their best to keep Clem’s speaking roles as small as they can possibly be. He also noted that his 5 year old was often bluntly honest about calling him out when he did bad things, so they added that as part of Clem’s personality.

    Lastly, the whole scene where you meet her was deliberate. They put her in the treehouse to show that her parents trusted her to be a little independent, they made her give Lee the hammer to show that she could be useful and resourceful, and the made her wince when you kill the babysitter-zombie to show that she is still afraid despite all of this.

    1. Thomas says:

      I take huge issue with their reasons behind what you spoilered but it does confirm that my guesses behind their motivation were right. But I will save it for episode 5, because it was fine till then and then we parted ways

      EDIT: Although actually the phrasing is so spot on here I might as well go ahead in brief, includes Firefly/Serenity spoilers thats the exact same reasoning with Wash’ death, which Film Hulk Critic described as Whedon’s only pointless, sadistic death. They forget that we might be attached to other characters and use the death as a tool rather than being meaningful in their own right as characters. The devs didn’t realise that I placed almost equal importance on other peoples lives, despite them trying to put almost all the focus on Clem. (Afterall Lee does threaten to kill people over Clem)

      1. newdarkcloud says:

        That’s definitely an issue I had. I didn’t really like that either. I felt all of those people dying felt a little cheap. Honestly, I initially thought it was more to resolve the character arcs so that the writers didn’t have to worry about choices you’ve made. That kinda rubbed me the wrong way. I disagree about what Rutz said about death not feeling cheap. There were a number of times where I felt the writing could’ve help mask the fact that the choice is merely an illusion.

      2. Neil D says:

        Response to Firefly/Serenity spoilers:
        I don’t read FHC, but seriously? Pointless and sadistic? Why does nobody seem to understand how that was necessary to set up the tone and suspense for the final battle? Book was too removed story-wise and too superfluous to the team for his death to really set the stakes. But after Wash bought it so suddenly and so absolutely, then as the rest of them fell one by one I was wondering if Whedon really was going to have them all go out in a final blaze of glory. Without Wash’s death, I would have just been wondering how he was going to have them all inevitably, miraculously survive, as the heroes always do. Still exciting, in a standard action movie sort of way, but it wouldn’t have had me on the edge of my seat with my jaw hanging open the way I was.

        I mean, I loved the character, and it was a kick in the gut to see him die, but I absolutely understand why it was done and I think it worked marvelously.

    2. Daemian Lucifer says:

      “Apparently the whole concept of Clementine's character, her parents, and the scene at the very end of Episode 5 were all initial concepts that the story was built around.”

      Which is why this game works,and mass effect as a series doesnt.This was built around a single theme,decided in the beginning,that one was built as they went along,with no overarching theme.The theme shouldve been the reapers wanting to kill everyone,but that either got push aside(collectors and tim),or changed beyond recognition.

  4. Gruhunchously says:

    Has Shamus finally become immune to Rutskarn’s puns? If so, he’s the lucky one.

    1. newdarkcloud says:

      Don’t tents up like that. It’s not good for you.

      1. Nytzschy says:

        One can’t help but tense up in a situation like this. The pun controversy is pitched! How will Shamus stake out his position after this, with his credibility seemingly driven straight into the ground?

        1. Gruhunchously says:

          I wouldn’t worry about him, he seems pretty unflappable.

          1. Nytzschy says:

            I disagree, and I must say that I find your interpretation to be tendentious.

            1. newdarkcloud says:

              I find these puns are tentuous at best.

              1. ehlijen says:

                I tentatively agree.

                1. newdarkcloud says:

                  I know. Some puns are great, but I question the intent behind others.

                  1. anaphysik says:

                    You should all be given detention for this.

      2. Gruhunchously says:

        It was only a pretents, sorry.

    2. Jokerman says:

      I totally missed that one too though, since the situation they were in was really tense i thought it was just valid commentary.

    3. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Indeed,Shamoose seems to be outpunning Rutskarn lately.Its like they are fighting for the big pun prize.

      1. Nick says:

        Pole position, you might say

        1. Abnaxis says:

          The stakes are high!

          1. Nytzschy says:

            I’m making a tentative call for Rutskarn on this one. I hope that’s not too out in the woods.

    4. Paul Spooner says:

      Puns are the spice of life. I call for pun retention!

  5. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Oh hey,walking dead!Will watch after I see this awesome fallout PnP in the extravaganza.Join us,we have ca-cannibals!

  6. Re: “Has anyone ever seen a video camera like that?”

    They’re out of production now, but the Flip brand of cameras had that design, and a great many knock-offs as well as decent HD cameras (I have one of the XActi models) are basically boxes with a lens on one side and a screen on the other.

    Not surprised the batteries are dead. They’re pretty thirsty gizmos.

    1. Nick Pitino says:

      Plugging “Pocket Video Camera” into Google shows a veritable rainbow of cameras in that iPod-esque format, funny that I’ve never seen one in person myself either.

  7. Doctor Broccoli says:

    Shooting Jolene immediately is kind of silly, but i can kind of understand why someone would do it. It was a pretty intentse moment after all.

    And yes, that was intentional.

    And so was that.

    1. newdarkcloud says:

      Honestly, by this point the St. Johns were looking more than a little shady at this point, so when this woman comes around accusing them of doing weird stuff, most people are inclined to believe her. This is the part where my suspicions were confirmed and I finally figured it all out.

  8. Amnestic says:

    I know zombies “playing dead” is something of a relatively common zombie trope but I don’t like it and I think it’s silly. It shows mental faculties far beyond what zombies/walkers are meant to be capable of. It doesn’t work as some sort of “sleep mode” since – for the zombie in question – he’d get woken up by the arrows or the shouting or the tractor running into him all before Lee grabbed onto him.

    I know, I know, “don’t question zombies” and all that ‘cos it falls apart. Still bugs me every time it happens in a zombie story.

    1. Indy says:

      I’m still somewhat curious that there were just a few hundred zombies wandering around in the forest at the start of episode 2. It’s made me wonder what causes zombie migration. They seemed to head towards sound, but they wandered – in great numbers – to a forest that wouldn’t be very loud.

      I’m also wondering that if there was a two month gap, why didn’t these zombies begin starving out? Are they immortal? Later in the game, we see a human that starved and the zombie is still fine and chompy.

      Like you, I know I shouldn’t question the zombies, but still…

      1. el_b says:

        It’s explained in the comics, zombie See Other zombies walking somewhere in numbers and assume that they are after food so They follow. Eventually you end up with a herd, it doesn’t drift off and break up into little groups because they are all following whoever is in front. If they attack a barrier, they don’t lose interest after a short while like normal because they see another zombie hitting it and assume there is food so start hitting it again.

        Zombies just lying around doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch. Some of them may be simply too damaged to move or it may be something biological That doesn’t allow some to be active as others. If you’re Going with the logic that they don’t rot as fast as normal if at all, I don’t see how that can be A big thing.

        zombies do actually rot a lot slower than normal, and something seems to stop them just naturally falling apart from overexertion. It’s why some zombie apocalypse is just end like the one on the Dawn of the dead remake and the others Seem to go on forever.

        I’m really looking forward to seeing winter in the walking dead series, forward to some zombicicles getting shattered :-)

      2. What el_b said. In addition, zombies “lying in wait” could be better thought of as “hibernating.” Why waste energy wandering around if there’s no food, you’re injured, rotting heavily, or just using up what little corpse you’ve got left? It’d make sense they’d be in a kind of sleep-mode until the next potential meal or cue that it’s time to start moving came along.

  9. baseless research says:

    About the Farm’s secret:

    Like Josh, I figured out what was happening pretty quickly. Unlike Josh though, I thought the writers were trolling the audience. As in: it’s way too obvious X is going to happen, the writers are trying to make the player paranoid.

    And then it turned out I was right the first time, and my meta-analysis/-gaming hurt me because I thought I was being clever.

    1. The Rocketeer says:

      The exact same thing happened to me in this chapter. I figured it out about the time I arrived on the farm, and the whole time I kept making jokes to myself about stuff that might be happening behind the scenes. So then I, too, started thinking it might all be a fakeout.

      Thing was, not only did my prediction turn out true, so did the off-hand jokes I was making.

      I should point out that calling the twist did not make it any less brutal; I thought this whole episode was great, even if the premise is a bit silly.

    2. Zukhramm says:

      I figured it out when I saw the title of the episode.

    3. Daemian Lucifer says:

      But it wasnt way to obvious.I figured it out as soon as I saw the farm,but I knew that was because Im just genre savvy.For someone who isnt familiar with the tropes it would take a while to pick up all the clues.They might think that something is off,but they wouldnt be screaming CANNIBALS as soon as they saw the house.

      Also,the story worked even with me knowing that,because it doesnt hinge on the twist alone.

      1. Nick says:

        I dunno about that. I was screaming CANNIBALS from the moment I discovered they had precisely one cow on this dairy farm and yet were supposedly not only feeding themselves but these bandits. Even without being genre savvy, that’s pretty obvious

        1. Thomas says:

          It might be more natural to assume that they were actually stealing food from other people if you aren’t genre savvy it might be an extreme idea to think of. But as far as genre savvy goes, an apocalypse without this is like having an apocalypse and not having a group of ultra extreme darwinists

  10. thearpox says:

    I really have to disagree about shooting Jolene. I shot her, and I don’t feel I was stupid, and I would do it again. I also have to note that even though I wasn’t completely sure what was the secret of the Dairy Farm, it has entered my mind at that point.

    Here’s why I shot her:

    1). I don’t like when people point guns/crossbows at me. Especially if they seem ready to fire it. Especially if they are insane, which Jolene clearly was. Besides the normal human reaction, I am really paranoid about this, and I would and will do anything to remove that threat. From the moment I saw Jolene holding that crossbow, I wanted to shoot her as quickly as possible. Not because I’m bloodthirsty or I thought that she was he one who attacked us, but because I was afraid (the game did a really good job at the presentation). I was quite aware that it was a game and I needn’t be afraid, but I played into that fear for full experience. I also didn’t take the first option to kill her, as I hoped to calm her down and/or weed some information out of her. I believe it was second or third that I did, when she seemed particularly dangerous and set off.

    2). Besides, I didn’t know if it was/wasn’t possible to die in that dialogue sequence. It was my first time playing the game; it seemed plausible that it would kill you if you antagonized (read as: pick the wrong dialogue choices) a hostile lunatic and allowed her to take a clear shot at you, which is why I wanted

    3). I was also quite aware that she had information about stuff happening on the Dairy Farm. But you know what? I didn’t care. If she’s pointing a crossbow at me, and her hands are shaking, and she outright says she’s going to kill us, I don’t care that much for information anymore. I care for survival. Besides, I was well aware that Danny was standing right beside me with a gun in his hand, ready to shoot, and I didn’t believe he would let her reveal any secrets. So not shooting her was both dangerous and futile. I also assumed that there would be other opportunities to learn what was happening. As one of the secondary reasons, I also considered a situation in which she would be about to shoot me, but Danny would have to save me by shooting her first, and I don’t give anyone an opportunity to have to save me any more than completely necessary.

    4). If we assume that it would be possible for her to survive (and it was fairly obvious that it wouldn’t, but let’s assume that Lee didn’t know that, because I was roleplaying (what punctuation sigh am I supposed to put here?)) I considered it to be an easy solution of a big problem. Let’s look at it this way: she is crazy, and unstable, and murderous, and afraid, and god knows what else. If we let her live, we will have to deal with her. Maybe, we would even have to accept her in our group. I would rather choose to meet a drunken Larry in a dark alley than have that happen. She would be more of a danger to the group than everyone else combined. Think about the long-term consequences guys; would you let her live if thought about it like that?

    Now, you don’t have to agree with me, but don’t call me stupid about what I did, because I feel it was not. Heck, I would even agree that most of the people who chose that, didn’t think it through very well,or were just replaying the game a second time? (seriously guys, when you critique other people for making “silly”Âť choices, do you even think how many of them are the result of people playing through the game a second time? I take that back if only the first playthrough is recorded). Overall, it was one of my least favorite episodes of Spoiler Warning ever, and not because you took a position opposite from me, or called me stupid. I welcome that. I was because of how unilateral you were in your decision, and because you didn’t explain what decision you took. I’ve watched the episode, and at the end, I am not sure why you would not shoot Jolene. Also, I have some problems with you wanting to shoot Danny every time he says something, and with Shamus being a cold-blooded murderer, who prefers to murder people he doesn’t like instead of trying to mitigate a problem (my opinion, not trying to be personal), but maybe I’ll comment on that later, so as not to detract from the message of this one.

    1. krellen says:

      I’ll not that I did not shoot Jolene, and I also played the scene pointing my gun at Danny as much as the game allowed me to. I wanted those answers.

    2. Jokerman says:

      “and with Shamus being a cold-blooded murderer, who prefers to murder people he doesn't like instead of trying to mitigate a problem (my opinion, not trying to be personal)”

      Where did that come from?

      1. thearpox says:

        Shamus repeatedly says he wanted to kill Larry in this game. I also remember similar kind of attitudes about other characters in other games. When you boil it down to it’s essence, it’s cold-blooded murder. But I do realize how that might seem over the top.

        Sorry to actual Shamus if I had offended him.

        1. Jokerman says:

          It just seemed to come out of nowhere, you did not seem offended until the last few paragraphs of your post. It was well written and the last parts caught me off guard.

      2. X2-Eliah says:

        Shamus does give that impression from the commentary.. more than just in this episode. He often remarks on a character that he “couldn’t wait until the game let him kill them”. It was in fallout 3, it was in mass effects, it is in this game… I mean, not the impression of him being a murderer or anything, but rather the impression that he prefers murder of companions as a viable and preferable in-game action to deal with anything that doesn’t like his character.

        Then again, most of the SW cast seem to hold/adhere to this mindset, so Shamus is hardly the outstanding one in this case.

        1. anaphysik says:

          I think it’s just a natural exaggeration of raging against railroading. Why do they want to kill Miranda, or Larry, or Reaver? Because the game *makes them be stuck with these assholes*. If there was a simple option to say ‘no, you are not on our team, go away,’ then they’d take it. But the games not only force these abhorrent folks upon us, but also often make them centrally important, or frequently talk them up as hypercompetent. The games naturally engender an animosity in players with regards to these characters; the player DOESN’T want the characters around – in real life they’d just walk away from them, but the game WON’T LET THEM DO THAT. And so ‘MURRRRRRDER!’ becomes the only option for release.

          1. Shamus says:

            This is very true.

            You’re stuck to someone who is dangerous to you, and often you’re not even really given proper dialog to express your problems with them. This is an unavoidable videogame contrivance, and leads to the usual videogame solution: MURDUR.

    3. GTRichey says:

      I shot Jolene for one reason and one reason only. SHE HAD CLEMENTINE’S HAT. She may have had information in the obviously dodgy St. Johns, but this was secondary. She’s a clearly unhinged woman who has fixated on your group and has access to your hideout (not confirmed at this stage, but still seems likely). No information was worth it to me. I waited until fairly late in the conversation, but early on decided that this woman cannot be let to live. Perhaps it was a little too much meta-gaming to assume that the St. John’s secrets would be revealed regardless and come to a tense moment whether I found anything out from this woman or from being ‘detective Lee’ later on.

      1. Indy says:

        I only didn’t shoot her because she had that hat. She took it for a reason and I wanted to know how she got it from the Motor Inn.

    4. Zukhramm says:

      There is no to shoot her to protect myself as I know Lee wouldn’t die in episode two of five. Yeah yeah yeah, whatever, immersion, roleplaying, suspension of disbelief? I know it’s a game and I can’t stop knowing that. I never had any reason to act in inte5rest of my own safety. I often tried to protect all the other characters, but when the worst possible outcome is a game over that places me five seconds back in time I the game made me act in ways I would never actually do, because I was effectively immortal.

      That’s probably my biggest complaint with the game actually.

      1. Jokerman says:

        Although we can die if you say the wrong things to the mother when she is holding Kenny’s wife hostage. So its not a sure thing.

        1. Nick says:

          Right, but then the game would reload seconds before. So if you’re already thinking about this like a game, death of the main character is not an effective threat if the immersion’s already broken for you. Potential death of a side character, where the game could just keep going, is way more tense

          1. Thomas says:

            They need to focus on this in Season 2 I figure. That would be a fairly non-expensive way to write lots of tension and feeling of choice into the game even after people have done Season 1. You just need to write it so that those characters don’t have significant affects on driving plot

            1. Indy says:

              But the feeling that they’re disconnected from the plot then becomes an issue. You can’t just cut it cleanly like a piece of Mark’s leg. They need to be blended seamlessly.

              1. Thomas says:

                Excellent spoiler =D But actually no, I think it’s fine. If you really look at Season 1 almost all action is reaction to something external and characters in the party rarely change events. When they do, they’re temporary characters like Glen.

                It would require more work on dialogue. They should be saying different things and you need to remember to always do one or two things in different ways so it feels like things change (like this season does). But if they change the objective from just a Clem figure, but as so you put weight on the survival of other people. It matters what people think of you and if they survive.

    5. Steve C says:

      I looked at the game two ways. I played through the game with an eye towards actions that I would/wouldn’t personally take. However I interacted with other characters as though I was a good man who made a horrible mistake and wanted to redeem himself. I compartmentalized and ignored zombie tropes as much as possible.

      That all shaped the interaction with Jolene. That meant I was not going to kill Jolene. Crazy and armed or not, it’s still murder given that you have other options. A simple sidestep to put a tree between her and Lee is enough to make her non life threatening.

      The fact is you’re armed, your in her “home” and she is talking about having reasonable cause to kill you. Hell, someone just tried to kill you a few mins earlier. She has good reason to assume you’re a dangerous murderer with those guys. And she’s partially right. I _am_ a dangerous murderer. Was she calm? No. Was she handling it well? No. Was she making the best decisions? No. Was she acting rationally given the situation? Yes.

      I wanted to defuse the situation as much as possible. Just because someone is acting crazy right now doesn’t mean they are crazy all the time. Larry is insane and a danger to others the first time we meet him. You’re automatically a dangerous lunatic if you want to kill kids in my book. If we had to make a decision if Jolene was allowed into the group, I sure wanted her over Larry. I also wanted to find out exactly what happened to her daughter as it will help me protect Clementine.

      Clem’s hat, the St. Johns, the various accusations and a few other things were all issues I thought of at the time (and wanted answers to) but those issues didn’t influence if I was going to shoot Jolene or not. None of those are remotely important enough to determine if someone else lives or dies.

      1. thearpox says:

        Alright, I see how why you would spare her life. I mostly ignored the redemption aspect of the game except when the game pointed it out to me, and I had to hide/reveal it. And the extreme paranoia over having guns pointed at me is my own real-world character trait.

        The issue with stepping behind a tree, is that it critically endangers the lives of Danny and Jolene. If you do it, you’re basically initiating a situation in which she would feel threatened. She would then probably shoot Danny, and begin fighting you, and Danny for his part, would probably also shoot her in return (so whoever shoots first would die). All in all, not a very positive scenario. And there is no way to warn Danny so he could step behind the tree along with you, since it could also catch Jolene’s attention. And whatever spoilers occur later with Danny, he is still my partner for this mission, and I’m not going to have him shot by Jolene just to ensure my own safety (which would anyway be compromised if she shot Danny). In light of that, I’m not so sure you have other options.

        “You're automatically a dangerous lunatic if you want to kill kids in my book.” Not sure what you mean by that. Lee never harmed a kid.

        The thing about her being somewhat/fully rational in her behavior, and her not being crazy all the time, that she is still dangerous. Even if she’s not crazy all the time, it’s still an added stress in the group, and it would require extra attention for an extended period of time. It might be worth it if your group is really together, but it’s not worth the chance in a group that we get in the game. And I also tried to diffuse the situation, but it didn’t seem to be working.

        1. Steve C says:

          If someone points a weapon at me I’m going to try and get cover. If anyone points a weapon at anyone else I expect them to try and get cover. If they don’t, I figure that either they can’t or are being reckless. If I feel someone is being needlessly reckless then I consider my duty of care to them (stranger, best friend, w/e) to be finished.

          Larry (not Lee) wanted to kill a kid (Duck). Throwing him outside was the same as killing him, and advocating killing a kid is way cross the line for me.

          As an aside:
          Joking about along those lines I find hilarious. I find it funny because of how extremely unreasonable it is. Cannibalism is in the same category. It’s so far out there in la-la-land that it’s funny. The Simpson’s Halloween eps where the teachers eat all the students is comical. But if it’s supposed to be taken seriously I find it abhorrent and can’t stand it.

  11. Spammy says:

    Jolene threw me off. I got that something was wrong with the farm, but what it was didn’t immediately register (there aren’t any real clues before this, at least for me). And when you got to Jolene and her raving, particularly the “All men are monsters” line, I really thought there was going to be something more related to women. And when you get inside the forbidden room I just took the obvious, non-evil-secret explanation because it did make sense that they’d be trying to keep the kids out of there.

    1. StashAugustine says:

      Yeah, that never did seem to go anywhere, did it? Jolene had that whole thing with watching the camp, did that mean anything or did I just miss it?

      1. Indy says:

        The reveal at the end of the episode is that the bandits won’t attack anybody as long as they keep getting food. Now that you cut the food supply off, it puts her daughter’s stand-in in a great deal of danger. The bandits had raped Jolene and taken her daughter and she really didn’t want that fate for Clementine, so she tries to guard her in a really stalkerish way.

        1. Abnaxis says:

          I always wonder if they took her daughter to trade to the St. John’s for food…

  12. Akheloios says:

    That’s a chest high gate, everyone knows they’re as good as 20m high steel and concrete walls.

  13. LunaticFringe says:

    I personally didn’t pick up on the whole farm secret, but I did think something was up simply because the younger St. John is so damn creepy. Once you’re on the farm he devolves pretty quickly into serial killer voice. I knew something was up, but I thought the redneck cannibal family trope was a little too on the nose. It was only after the fact that they wouldn’t let me see Mark and hid their completely innocent slaughterhouse that I knew they were going for the cliche.

    1. Jokerman says:

      Yea same, i knew something was up but never picked up on what the twist was. But i did know Mark was in trouble.

    2. Thomas says:

      Pshh older St John is just as scary. Think of the number of times someone is genuinely nice to you in an apocalypse. The only other story thing they could have done is make you wreck the place out of suspicion and then make you watch as you’ve been turned into someone who will wreck a genuinely nice person’s life because of the lack of trust the apocalypse has caused.

      At least with younger st John they might be just playing on the idea that hes creepy and you’ve been discriminative to him because of it.

  14. Guvnorium says:

    I too, came to an incorrect conclusion. Up until I got into the barn, I thought the cow was a zombie. As stupid as it sounds, the St. John’s are very quick to dodge Lee’s question about what is wrong with the cow. Once I saw it wasn’t a zombie, I figured out what the terrible secret was.

    1. Jokerman says:

      A zombie cow, that would of been awesome.

      1. el_b says:

        it has zombeef

  15. silver Harloe says:

    Sometimes I’m surprised Josh doesn’t tenter his resignation, but he doesn’t: which makes me think that despite his groans, he’s actually conTent with Rutskarn’s puns.

    1. Chauzuvoy says:

      I think he underestimates the full extent of Rutskarn’s punning ability.

  16. X2-Eliah says:

    Going back to the start of this episode (SW episode, not WD episode), where Lee is crouchwalking along the tractor.. That highlights one game mechanic that I really feel uncomfortable with and still don’t get why developers choose to insist on having it.

    Basically, needing to “walk along/walk after/walk with”. Or drive, or fly instead of walk, as appropriate. That wouldn’t be a problem, but almost universally, your character/machine has one movement speed – and only one, because you are playing with a binary key ‘move/don’t move’, – and the thing you are following/going along with has a slower movement speed.
    So as a result, you are half-shuffling after it by tapping the forward-button, and juggling staying behind with going too far ahead. It looks stupid, it is not how normal machines/people behave, and it is a thing that’s ONLY found in videogames and shouldn’t be there at all.

    Heck, it’s not as if this would be hard to fix – just give the player a hotkey that matches character/ship/car’s speed to target’s speed.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Give us back our walking button damn it!

      1. X2-Eliah says:

        Even the walking buttons don’t help sometimes. There are often situations where an npc will move along at a speed that is exactly somewhat slower than your running speed AND faster than your walking speed. So either way, you run/stop/run/stop/run/stop, or walk/run/walk/run/walk/run/walk/run. Substituting the stopping with the walking doesn’t really solve the actual problem of this movementspeed-shuffle.

    2. Viktor says:

      Or play on a console. :p That’s exactly what thumbsticks are useful for.

      1. Zukhramm says:

        “Rebuy the game on a different machine” is not a particularly reasonable response to criticism.

        1. X2-Eliah says:

          Quite. Plus, I just *can’t* use a controller. I’ve tried. I can’t. Mouse+kb is far too ingrained as a control form for me.

          1. Thomas says:

            Also in this particular moment Lee looks like he’s way too far from the actual tractor. You’d hug right up to it rather than stroll along a metre away. But this is less fundamental than the console-appropriate only gameplay section

    3. Adam P says:

      They do it so that if you stop moving, for whatever reason, then you can catch up.

  17. Theminimanx says:

    Jezus, what’s wrong with Larry’s eyes at 10:48? Where did his pupils go?

  18. anaphysik says:

    The whole bandit attack actually made me less at ease with regards to the St Johns, because it made me believe that they were definitely playing us. St Johns don’t even mention the bandit deal beforehand? Don’t warn us they may attack? Clearly have some disagreement with the bandits that led to an attack (what the bandit leader is shouting during the opening sequence)? Yep, definitely would the St Johns be the type to hide shit from us. The rapidity with which they went ‘let’s go kill those sombitches!’ also put me very on edge, particularly since they didn’t even want to mention them beforehand. (Andy&Danny’s answer to ‘are you armed’ is pretty much ‘yeah, for protection against /the walkers/.’ We only even know of the bandits presence because of a chance encounter on the way to the dairy.)

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