No! No no no no no no no no no no no!
NO!!!
No goddam sequels! Why the hell does everyone think that a sequel is necessary? Or even work without being forced, for that matter? At least no sequels with Clementine! Do you not understand the artistic meaning behind that ending?[footnote]Yes, I'm fully aware how much of an elitist douche I sound like right now, but hear me out on this one![/footnote] It was an
open ending. Here, for those who haven't beaten the game but love spoilers for... some reason... I'm gonna post the ending scene:
Okay, so you can see Clem walking through the grass, alone most importantly. However, she's holding a gun! It's not clear if she still has any ammo left, but that's part of the point I'm going with. She sits down on a nearby log, clearly distraught over what had happened. Why isn't she with Omid and Christa like I had told her? Did something happen along the way and she got lost? Did she go to the train yard like I had told all three of them to meet up but they didn't survive? What happened? Something bad, that's all we can see from her expression and the way she carries herself.
But she still has that gun! Normally, out of fear, she may have just dropped it. But she kept it with her! I hate to get all symbolic here, but here I go: the gun represents maturity. Clem has grown enough to know that if she has to be alone she needs something to protect herself with. Since I had taught her how to use it, it's much more powerful since
we, the player, had influenced her!
We helped her!
Our actions helped her grow enough to properly defend herself by her own. But did we do enough? That's where the part with the two figures in the distance comes in.
Now, we obviously don't know who these figures are. Maybe they're Omid and Christa! Maybe they're Vernon and one of the people who survived with him. Maybe they're Molly and a friend she met. Maybe they're completely different and random people who we've never met. Maybe they're walkers! Maybe they're safe. Maybe they're dangerous! We don't know, and that's what makes things even more tense but even more powerful. Clem is nervous about what to do. Does she stay where she is? Does she run away? Does that gun have enough ammo? Or even any ammo at all? Will she be okay if she calls for help or go to up to them? If she makes too much of a noise, she might attack more walkers, making her much more cautious. So what does she do? We don't find out. Cuts to black.
It leaves us asking questions! Questions like "What did she do?" or "Who were those figures?" and all that jazz. However, and I can say this with personal experience, it left me asking "Did I do well? Did I teach her enough for her to survive on her own? Did my actions affect Clem positively or negatively? What would have happened if I did NOT kill Larry in the meat locker? Or if I DID take those supplies from the minivan?" Seriously, let's say that hypothetically, if any of the actions I chose, opposite or not, they all still led up to that same exact scene. How would Clem be affected in all of that? It really makes the player ask if he or she thinks they made the right choices throughout the entire game. I know I've been racking up in my head if anything I did or didn't do hurt or helped Clem in the end. Hell, maybe it affected who those two figures were! But I won't know. I'll never know.
And I don't want to know! It's so much more powerful to me that I am still trying to reason with myself that everything that I did would help Clem in the end. I have my own personal feelings about how it ended and I know everyone else did too. If a sequel or a second season was made and Clem was included, it would absolutely ruin that ending, that power! Maybe an entirely new series set in the same universe, but without Clementine whatsoever, would work. But including Clem? No, that would just ruin it all...
