Does it bother no one that Clementine's a little girl? (Episode 2 Spoilers)

[DudeistBelieve]

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Okay, yes Episode 1 of season 2 showed us what a capable resourceful little Clem was. Dare I say it, she's pretty bad ass for a kid, but the fact is only we (the audience) saw those moments.

But I'm playing through Episode 2, and I'm noticing a few things that just feel off. First off, the other characters taking Clem's words and opinions to heart as if she was an adult like Lee. I mean I got Alvin approaching me asking what he should do about the cans of peaches or I'm talking Walter off the ledge from killing Nick.

And in the cutscene for the next episode, Kenny's there scolding her because ("at least one of us didn't give up"). For fucks sakes, I know Kenny is kinda sick in the head, BUT SHE'S FUCKING TEN! What was she suppose to do? Run into the woods on the off chance she finds you? Not even going to touch the fact her decision to give themselves up probably saved lives.

You know what the odd thing is though? In Episode 1, Christa and her get attacked by those guys in the woods, playing as a little girl I was kind of skeeved out. Lets face it, end of the world, the moral playbook goes out the window, and I imagined what ever those old men would want with a little girl wasn't going to be PG13. It gave the situation weight and danger, and then finally meeting the other characters I really did feel like a helpless child that no one listens too or takes seriously.

Now I got this pregnant ***** asking what she should do since she cheated on Alvin, Luke and Nick asking me about kenny, as if Clem is fucking Batman.

So Escapist, is it just me or is anyone else feeling this too? That world is just a little too much revolving around Clem?

 

[Mikejames]

Some bits are easy to poke fun at, like that sequence where they had to turn off a turbine and the group just kind of leaves it up to her, but for the most part I enjoy the role that Clementine's grown into.

I can feel her age come into play during moments like the shifty conversation with Carver, or the argument during dinner. She doesn't reciprocate with everyone in a uniform way though, so Clem shall accept the inevitable berating from Kenny as her predecessor did before her.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Some bits are easy to poke fun at, like that sequence where they had to turn on a turbine and the group just kind of leaves it up to her, but for the most part I enjoy the role that Clementine's grown into.

I can feel her age come into play during moments like the shifty conversation with Carver, or the argument during dinner. She doesn't reciprocate with everyone in a uniform way though, so Clem shall accept the inevitable berating from Kenny as her predecessor did before her.

God I forgot all about the turbine.

In defense of it, you could say it was really simple but at the same time with it being as easy as turning a flippin' key it does question how stupid all these adults are.

 

[karma9308]

I think it really depends on how you play her. When people do the usual "God you're so young" my Clem always says "I can handle myself." Or even

Spoiler: Episode 1 spoilers

You locked me in a shed remember? I took care of that walker by myself too.

If you have her say "I'm just a little girl" then yeah it would be kinda jarring.

Also? Word of advice to people, don't replay the first season so you can create a save file on your PC to import into season two, then ON THE SAME DAY, play season two. It's just...there should be warnings...or something. I'm really not in a good place right now.

 

[Splitzi]

I see her as a girl who has gone through extreme hardship and come out the other end molded by it. By now she is a hard human being. She'd have to be if she was still alive. She lost her parents, her surrogate father, too many companions to count, and gone through Christa's miscarriage(stillborn?). She grew up in an uncaring and vicious world. She isn't an average ten year old, and to view her as such is a disservice.

Edit: Clarity

 

[Mikejames]

God I forgot all about the turbine.

In defense of it, you could say it was really simple but at the same time with it being as easy as turning a flippin' key it does question how stupid all these adults are.

Well, she was the one with a lighter that allowed her to see the panel, so there's that?

Also? Word of advice to people, don't replay the first season so you can create a save file on your PC to import into season two, then ON THE SAME DAY, play season two. It's just...there should be warnings...or something. I'm really not in a good place right now.

Limit to how much crap people want to see Clementine go through in a day?

 

[lacktheknack]

Also? Word of advice to people, don't replay the first season so you can create a save file on your PC to import into season two, then ON THE SAME DAY, play season two. It's just...there should be warnings...or something. I'm really not in a good place right now.

Limit to how much crap people want to see Clementine go through in a day?

Well, she is just a little girl!



OT: It doesn't really bother me any more than it bothered me what teenaged-archeology-university-student Lara Croft had to do in Tomb Raider 2013 with little to no help of the people around her.

 

[legend of duty]

I hope at the end they make Clem the leader, just to fuck with the audience even more.

 

[Raggedstar]

As a correction, I think she's 11. Not much of a difference, but for the sake of accuracy.

I agree that the level of trust and weight the adults give Clem can be a bit jarring (lighter or not, that turbine scene was a bit stupid), but for the most part I like how she's being used. It's not like she's being made responsible for HUGE decisions of the group and running the joint (nothing on the level of Lee).

I remember Chuck said a few good things in ep 3 of season 1. It was in a discussion where Lee gets pissed off at Chuck for telling Clementine some things about dying. Chuck is telling Lee he needs to plan with her, teach her how to fire a gun, and cut her hair, treating her as a SURVIVOR as opposed to a little girl, because someday she'll need it (...and she does). I think it can be somewhat relevant in this discussion too.

"She'll die a little girl if you treat her like one. You gotta consider her a living person. That's it. You're either living or you're not. You ain't little, you ain't a girl, you ain't a boy, you ain't strong or smart. You're alive"

I guess combine how capable she has proven herself (surviving alone for so long, destroying walkers on her own, can handle a weapon, suturing her own arm) to be and the fact that the world has gone to shit for more than 2 years, I can see how they can trust her for the most part. For the peaches, I guess most of the reason is that Clem found them and would be the only witness if Alvin decided to give them to Rebecca (also Alvin seems like a pretty cool dude). Luke and Nick talking to her about Kenny I can expect because she's the only one to have any experience with him.

But for the record, I chose the "I'm just a little girl" options as a way to sass people, especially Rebecca.

 

[Rayne360]

I think its refreshing honestly. We've always wanted stronger female leads, now we get a strong female child lead. Take anyone and throw them into this world and they will become a different person regardless of their age.

 

[Phasmal]

Well, adults are actually pretty good at heaping shit on children, and I suppose in a post-apocalypse situation- you'd need to grow up pretty fast, and Clem seems at times to be the only one with her shit together.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

I see her as a girl who has gone through extreme hardship and come out the other end molded by it. By now she is a hard human being. She'd have to be if she was still alive. She lost her parents, her surrogate father, too many companions to count, and gone through Christa's miscarriage(stillborn?). She grew up in an uncaring and vicious world. She isn't an average ten year old, and to view her as such is a disservice.

Edit: Clarity

So basically you're saying, Clem IS Batman. What with the murdered parents and all.

 

[Broderick]

While others have said something similar, I am going to say that living in the apocalypse changes people. One of the main plot points of the first walking dead was about Lee starting to teach and train Clem for living in that horrible world of theirs. She is quite young, but she has gone through so much crap in her life. I would say she is quite experienced in many different aspects considering the way the survivors live in that universe; I mean you have to, otherwise you have a good chance of dying.

So while some scenes seem a bit silly on how much the team seems to confide in Clem, it actually makes sense in most of them. I mean this is the little girl who broke out of containment, stole supplies from a possibly dangerous group of people, and then began to suture her arm without any sort of numbing agent. If I saw anyone do that regardless of age, I would probably treat them with a bit of respect.

 

[Mikeyfell]

Think about it like this.
If an adult survives that long in the zombie apocalypse you're impressed.

If a little kid survives that long in the zombie apocalypse you defer to their judgement on matters of survival.

Also, and this is a Fourth-wall-tacular argument, but she's the main character. She's earned the right to use main character powers on all the NPC's. Sort of like in Mass Effect 2 when Shepard made all those really important seeming decisions that had no effect on anything whatsoever. And the defense of that was "Well Shep is just a guy, of course he's not going to be able to sway the opinion of an entire alien species." But at the same time it's like "But he's the MAIN guy!" So I'd take an experience that's better for the player over one that makes a modicum more sense. (Even though in the case of Clem people would be dumb not to listen to her.)

 

[Splitzi]

So basically you're saying, Clem IS Batman. What with the murdered parents and all.

Yes, but small, black, and no money... oh and a girl. Goddamn now I have to replay it with Clem as Batman... thanks alot.

OT: I think growing up in that world would age a child very quickly. I think she's more mature than her age would suggest.

 

[Requiem191]

I think the scene with Alvin and the peaches went differently for me, at least in my mind and my view of it. It felt like Alvin was trying to take advantage of Clem since she's a child. "Could you say that this is all that was there and that I'm feeding my wife and no one else?" It was like he was saying, I'm an adult, you're a kid, let me do what I want to do and have you believe that I'm doing the right thing in the end. I had Clem say, "I'm not going to lie for you." and it made the most sense, honestly. He was trying to take advantage of her, thinking he could do so since she was young, and have her lie to cover his own ass. My Clem just avoided the headache altogether and said no, go fuck yourself, if you wanna do something, just be honest about it.

When it comes to the turbine, I think what happened mainly had to do with the fact that Clem didn't have a gun or at least shouldn't have been handling any guns. I know she never fires anything during the turbine scene, or at least didn't in my run through of it, but I forget if she ever had a gun at the beginning of it. Anyways, all of the adults had guns so they were gonna go protect the lodge. Better to have the little girl who has proven herself smarter and more capable than everyone else in the group to put her brains to work solving their biggest problem than wasting a set of hands that could be better served shooting some zombie heads off. That's what makes the most sense to me, but turning the turbine off still felt a little too easy. Like, they should have just had Clem hand her lighter to someone for a second and have them turn it off since it was so simple. It wasn't even really a puzzle, it just sorta... happened. That's more a gameplay lapse than a story/plot hole, imho.

When it comes to the whole situation with Walter though, you've gotta take a lot into account. He's a teacher, she's about as old as his students were, she had Walt's boyfriend's knife (I forget his name), she proved herself capable to a lot of people, and in that moment of shock and grief when he figures out why his boyfriend wasn't coming up the mountain, you'd have to assume that the guy would be willing to listen to anyone he felt comfortable around. Plus, if you were smart about the whole thing, you urged everyone to tell the truth the entire time (never ever forget what Hershel said at the beginning of this whole thing). If you were honest and didn't (try to) hide anything from Walter, then that reflects well on you and gives Clem a better position to talk from, despite her age.

All in all, while I do agree that the amount of times they treated Clem like she was an adult seemed off, I don't think the group was entirely off base or out of touch with reality by treating Clem the way they were. They know what a useless little girl looks like in the character of Sarah. That's just how it is when it comes to her. Clem is the opposite of Sarah and the group needs strong and capable members in order to not fall apart. Without people like Clem, regardless of their age, the group would implode. I honestly feel like if Clem were a character in her thirties, things would be exactly the same. It really does just come down to her being alive, not her being young, and that's what the writers are trying to show us about the zombie apocalypse.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

So basically you're saying, Clem IS Batman. What with the murdered parents and all.

Yes, but small, black, and no money... oh and a girl. Goddamn now I have to replay it with Clem as Batman... thanks alot.

OT: I think growing up in that world would age a child very quickly. I think she's more mature than her age would suggest.

It really works. Carlos is all scolding me for taking the picture and Bat-Clem is just leaning against the wall scowling "You told me to keep her distracted"

I think the scene with Alvin and the peaches went differently for me, at least in my mind and my view of it. It felt like Alvin was trying to take advantage of Clem since she's a child. "Could you say that this is all that was there and that I'm feeding my wife and no one else?" It was like he was saying, I'm an adult, you're a kid, let me do what I want to do and have you believe that I'm doing the right thing in the end. I had Clem say, "I'm not going to lie for you." and it made the most sense, honestly. He was trying to take advantage of her, thinking he could do so since she was young, and have her lie to cover his own ass. My Clem just avoided the headache altogether and said no, go fuck yourself, if you wanna do something, just be honest about it.

I told him that the group should decide, because I was getting sick of grown adult forging grudges against a little girl.

This game is kind of exhausting in the way that nothing ever goes Clem's way. Harry Potter is the boy who lived, Clem is the girl who couldn't catch a break.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I see her as a girl who has gone through extreme hardship and come out the other end molded by it. By now she is a hard human being. She'd have to be if she was still alive. She lost her parents, her surrogate father, too many companions to count, and gone through Christa's miscarriage(stillborn?). She grew up in an uncaring and vicious world. She isn't an average ten year old, and to view her as such is a disservice.

Edit: Clarity

She's still, ultimately, only ten years old. Growing up in a fairly brutal place does not make her particularly well equipped to deal with adults in any of a host of situations. For example, you probably don't want to leave any long term planning up to someone that, according to psychology at any rate, is literally incapable of long term planning.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

I see her as a girl who has gone through extreme hardship and come out the other end molded by it. By now she is a hard human being. She'd have to be if she was still alive. She lost her parents, her surrogate father, too many companions to count, and gone through Christa's miscarriage(stillborn?). She grew up in an uncaring and vicious world. She isn't an average ten year old, and to view her as such is a disservice.

Edit: Clarity

She's still, ultimately, only ten years old. Growing up in a fairly brutal place does not make her particularly well equipped to deal with adults in any of a host of situations. For example, you probably don't want to leave any long term planning up to someone that, according to psychology at any rate, is literally incapable of long term planning.

Plus puberty is going to hit soon, you don't want your fate in the hand of a hormonal teenager.