The Bridge and Long-Term Consequences
So... the hell is wrong with y'all?
In the weeks since Take Us Back there's been the usual lines in the sand on decisions but one that's largely one-sided baffles. The bridge scenario between Tenn and Louis/Violet. Because this doesn't have a clear choice, but rather acts as an unintended consequence, the decisions stats aren't really representative of much, instead it's better to look to a community consensus. And it seems to be heavily favoring AJ shooting Tenn. And I just do not get it at all.
If taken at just face value as a "Louis/Violet or Tenn?" decision, I get it. But that's half the story. How they die is extremely important.
On the one side L/V die from walkers to save Tenn. This is relatively standard. Walkers got them in a messy, complex situation. It happens.
On the other, Tenn dies by being shot through the neck by AJ. That's not just something that ends there. It has much greater ramifications on everyone involved.
V/L dying has some fallout to it.
AJ might feel guilt for not intervening to save V/L buuuut, it can easily be rationalized. He was considering shooting Tenn, but didn't. As a result Tenn didn't die but definitely would have if he'd been shot. So his inaction ensured that someone, who would've definitely died if he acted, survived, just with someone else dying in their place. There is a clear trade-off.
Tenn clearly has some guilt over L/V dying buuuuut, he uses this effectively. At the end of the episode he asks AJ to help him learn to be a better survivor to ensure that situation won't happen again. The guilt does not paralyze him, it motivates him.
Clem is largely passive in it and influenced by the player so much that's it's kinda impossible to get a read on her. There's liable to be some grief, especially if they were romantically involved, but nothing that can't be worked over. Gabe's lil' bitch-ass can get curb-stomped in season 3 and she's fine.
Tenn dying.... oh boy....
So, immediately V/L are angry and confused. Someone they've known for at least several years was just murdered right in front of them. They start to confront him about it, but have to drop it due to bigger issues and say they'll deal with it later. And then they don't. Doesn't this sit really uncomfortably with anybody else? This has to have a negative impact on their impression of AJ too. You thought the Marlon situation was bad? There is no consideration that it saved their life, because that wasn't a clear mutually exclusive situation for any character involved (more on meta v strictly narrative at the end). There is no clear trade-off.
AJ, in addition to the negative impressions mentioned earlier, has to have some personal psyche ramifications from this. He straight up says Tenn was his friend. This seems like another casualizing of murder on someone that's clearly had trouble with the concept. The justification for doing it could be that Tenn was a liability, but is that reason to kill him? Not letting him die like with Ben, but actively taking the steps to kill him? That seems like some straight up Whisper shit and a massive red flag.
As for Clem, again it's muddled by the player's shaping her, buuuut even the most hardline warmongering Clementine ought to have some concerns about AJ killing someone he was friends with. And that doesn't go away after awhile, it follows them the rest of their lives. All of them.
So in a strictly narrative sense, having AJ kill Tenn just seems unjustifiable to me. So I think the dedication to the idea from players comes from more meta areas. Most people did get that result due to their decision on AJ's independence and might've tried to justify it after the fact. Romancing V/L would give their character much more weight relative to the player, and thus allow them to overlook or justify the harsher aspects. Knowing the outcomes from the decision they may see the ends much more than the means.
But while we can peak behind the curtain, the characters cannot. Any uncertainty remains relative to them. Any mechanics or rails we see do not exist to them. Now usually this uncertainty can get some sense of closure with how it's handled later. But there is no later. It's over. Whatever happens next in their universe is unclear and the only thing we can do is guess based on the situation we left them in, and that situation is worse for everyone if AJ took that shot.
Comments
Me RN:
I guess my thinking was that he got Mitch killed, he knew he was going to get himself and Louis/Violet killed and still didn’t do anything to stop himself, and even if he does survive who’s to say he wouldn’t get anybody else killed in the future. Louis and Violet are safer, plus they’re just better overall, so Tenn had to go.
He'll be fine she'll be fine he won't become a murderer if u play bad or not he's still a good person in telltale's and skybound's eyes, nothing matters in that matter.
Thorough. Not entirely sure where the final paragraph or two was going, but I got the picture of everything else.
Yeah, the choice is just kinda fucked either way.
But more pertinently, I wasn't exactly comfortable with how brisk and/or somewhat overlooking the results are. This is particularly notable when you look up both of the Violet variants.
It was a messed up situation. AJ's solution if you trust him is to shoot the boy Clementine and whoever's with her are trying not to allow walk to his death. So Tenn's situation is he'll die to someone he once cared for and trusted ( not Minnie like you thought, but AJ ) or he'll be saved by the sacrifice of whoever's with Clementine.
Without knowing how it'll ultimately end up, trusting AJ seems like the worst possible choice. He's learned nothing since Marlon's death. Someone he liked, closest to his own age, presents himself to be a threat to Clementine because he's hesitant to turn down the offer to die with his sisters, and AJ's solution is to shoot him. Why? Is there only one bullet in the gun? Headshot Minnie. If there's more than one bullet in the gun, cover the people you're a part of so they all get across. It's not rocket science.
Players knowing how both choices pan out, know that if they don't trust AJ, whoever is with Clementine with die ensuring everyone else got across first. The majority that had a romance would avoid this option, but it's not the only instance of questioning why would either happen in the first place in the finale.
When the option that survives goes over the fence with walkers starting to close in, they have a nice chat for a few minutes before deciding that AJ and Clementine will find another way which leads to her being bitten. There's no reason why they couldn't lure the walkers a little bit away from the fence, AJ and Clementine both climb the fence, and they all continue on their way together.
The idea with the last couple paragraphs is that although we as the players have access to information and concepts that exist outside the game and its universe (meta), the characters within do not (strictly narrative).
We know that if Tenn was not shot, V/L would've died in their place. But the characters don't. So if Tenn is shot V/L will see it as an excessive precaution rather than a trade-off necessary to save them. Because as far as they know the alternate scenario where they die instead of Tenn does not exist.
Oookay. And what is the overall purpose of this thread?
I'm arguing that the seeming majority of players that feel Tenn being shot is a better outcome are... to put it bluntly, morally wrong and leaving the characters in a much worse state for it.
I kinda wind up on a meta v. narrative tangent because I think a lot of players focus on the meta elements and downplay the narrative ones to justify their position without realizing that the meta aspects don't actually exist in the game's universe and thus are no help or comfort to the characters.
As I said before, Tenn was a Liability that’s why I had to trust a J with the gun.
Its kinda just a problem with the whole game. They only gave any real development to Louis and Violet, so obviously no one likes the ending where they die, theyd rather have peanut brain nobody Tenn get shot, seeing as no one even gives a shit hes dead at the end of the game.
Which is just annoying because youre right. Having AJ just killing Tenn shouldnt be looked on as the "good ending" but it is. No one cares Tenn dies after 15 seconds and then its dropped.
Honestly seeing what the bridge scene originally was going to be with Louis and Violet living, and then Tenn being why Clem got bit, I dont understand why they ended episode 3 the way they did. I feel that really fucked up a lot of episode 4 because the plot was basically done, and if they were originally doing this whole Tenn gets Clem bit and then Tenn wants to put down Clem and shit like Mundle was saying, I feel like episode 4 was a giant mess in terms of "now what" from the start.
Wait, what?
Wait, what?!
But should that be punishable by death?
Again, in the narrative there's no guarantee he'd doom V/L or even himself that the characters are aware of. Him being killed isn't a reaction or a clear prevention, it's a precaution and an extreme one at that (again; actively murdering him).
But then with the meta and player insight, even if you consider the decision as a trade-off for V/L and their capabilities, choosing to save Tenn causes him to take steps to become a tougher survivor afterwards thus allowing you to help eliminate any liability aspect to him. The only danger then is the risk of having a Gabriel situation where he tries to become a fighter but falls short and is killed from it.
Most of the defenses have some value from a meta standpoint, but this one just falls flat with me from either angle.
I mean, there pretty much is a guarantee that he’d get them killed. He wasn’t going to back away from Minnie at all, you could tell how determined he was to go to her, and then he and Lou/Vi got surrounded by walkers, so if it wasn’t one then it would have definitely been both of them. It’s like, say for example, I were in a war zone and my friend didn’t want to handle it anymore was so he ran into the crossfire and I tried to stop him from going into the firing line, I’m fucked if nobody does anything about it, and that’s what AJ did to save Louis, he had to neutralise the threat so there was no motivation to risk his own life.
I believe that Tenn will always be a liability. He got Mitch killed, did he feel remorse? Yes? Did he do anything about it? No. Just because he says he’ll change doesn’t mean that he will.
The problem with the scenario is that if Tenn is shot, there is no moment where it's reasonable to assume this would save anyone. There's no real way to know whether or not Vi/Louis would attempt to save a now dying Tenn, and if that action would cost them their lives. It's only hindsight that makes that clear.
Granted, the majority wouldn't trade Louis/Vi for a hardly developed Tenn, nor even think about it for a moment longer. Most won't even be sad. Looking at that moment though, I do have to wonder what's going on in AJ's head with that in mind. To make a tv analogy, it looks like he does his best Shane impersonation clipping a distraction for the walkers, and oddly picking his best friend to do it.
It's also strange that he switches from 'leave him he's dead weight ', to Clementine being bitten being unacceptable to do whatever choice she asks.
Well...yes there was a real way, I mean they were surrounded, and I mean surrounded by zombies, and Tenn wasn’t giving up. Unless I have shit eyesight it’s actually pretty obvious that he had to be put down or Louis/Violet had to be sacrificed.
And I don’t think it’s strange that his feelings between killing Tenn and Clementine contradict each other. One of them is dead weight and has only known them for about 2 weeks, and if Louis/Violet hadn’t thrown him across they’d both be dead, whereas Clementine is his sister/mother figure who he’s known for literally his entire life, so he wanted to find alternatives to save her seeing as there were no real consequences to amputating her, therefore he took a risk and it happened to work out for him.
No matter who dies, the bridge scene is similar to Ava/Tripp in that the characters die in an anticlimactic way without any sort of resolve and it ends up being something not only does the player shrug at, but the game itself.
I didn't care for either Violet or Louis, so I saved Tenn.
AJ deserves to grow up with his first real friend.
I definitely think those who harbor Vi/Louis to be more important than Tenn are definitely selfish idiots.
Comic spoilers:
I felt like this choice was similar to when Rick had to cut his girlfriend's hand off in order for Carl to survive. AJ had to make a choice to save someone important and useful and loved at the expense of having to cut someone lose that he truly cared about, his first real friend.
Essentially?
Eh, not exactly.
He didn't really help, but in the moment, it seemed more like Mitch jumped the gun.
Im assuming youre confused about the original ending that Mundle confirmed.
Originally the trust AJ choice would play out like this. Everyone gets across the bridge, Louis and Violet always live but are the ones who get stuck behind the fence, then Tenn Clem and AJ go to the rocks, Clem gets bit helping Tenn up which makes AJ mad.
They would then walk to the barn and Tenn would apparently try to kill Clem before she turns, and then AJ either shoots him to make him run away and Tenn lives at the end of game similar to how he lives now, or he gets Tenn to stop trying to kill Clem. Tenn then dies during the barn scene where he gets yeeted outside and died.
A lot of this seemed to be pretty far in production as it seems this was the original idea around 402 release, not pre-production stage, which would explain why Louis and Violet die like they weren't important characters because none of that was originally planned. Just sucks because it kinda shows episode 4 was a mess from the start, which like I said, is probably due to the fact that episode 3 ended with the plot pretty much concluding with no where else to really go for one last episode.
It actually isn't a real way though. We, as players, have that omniscience, however as people in that moment killing Tenn is no guarantee that Vi/Louis will choose to immediately cross out of danger. They may choose to try to stop Tenn's bleeding ( again, the only certainty in the moment is that Tenn will be shot ). They may turn their backs to the walkers and shout at AJ.
Vi/Louis will get Tenn safely across if he isn't shot. If the shots were used to defend Vi/Louis while they did so, that there was a chance no one had to be sacrificed.
Either way, Tenn’s dying, so it’s better to do something rather than nothing. Secondly, they hardly had any bullets, even in the barn AJ said there were none left, meaning they only had about a clip or two during the bridge scene, not enough for all of the walkers, so either one gets used on Tenn in order to see if Louis or Violet come out alive, AJ can just tell Violet or Louis to throw him, resulting in their deaths due to a lack of time to respond, or AJ could have done nothing, one walker would have grabbed Tenn and the other would have grabbed Louis. Those were the only options.
What he means is that there was nothing stopping AJ from telling them to throw him and then shoot the nearest walker to buy them time.
Yes, this is exactly what I was attempting to say. There were more choices available -moreover more options that a lot of people thought of at the time AJ made his choice.
I'm definitely not disagreeing that from a scripted game choice point of view that killing the character without as much development/attachment to the player isn't the best choice. Simply that it wasn't the only two choices from a story point of view. I would even argue that if someone else were on the other side with the gun the choice of shooting Tenn unless he were already bitten wouldn't have even crossed the minds of Clementine/Violet/or Louis.
Yeah, seriously.
Ya think they would've learned after Season 2, but they were so busy just not being ANF(And then Lilith showed back up).
EDIT:* Dude, What the FUCK?!*
And like I’m trying to say, there were multiple walkers closing in on them in close proximity so one walker wouldn’t make any difference at all
I did agree with that also. I do agree the only way that might've worked is if there were only one bullet left in the gun, and AJ of his own agency decided not to save the last bullet for himself. He didn't have to kill the hoard. Just provide cover fire for the few walkers that got too close if they only had a six to twelve shots left. We've done these defend your ground with walkers approaching scenarios in several episodes. From the time it takes Tenn to be thrown, only 3-4 walkers needed to be taken out for Louis/Violet to follow.
But bullets are a precious resource during the apocalypse and they need to be used for the right occasions. If AJ did shoot a few of the walkers attacking Tenn/Lou/Vi, there’d be no bullets left for the barn so they’d be screwed. Now canonically AJ wouldn’t have known that he’d end up being chased down by large groups forcing him into a barn, but he did know that he was dangerously low on ammo and couldn’t afford to waste any.
I do realize that ammo is precious, but I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm low on ammo so I'll just shoot my best friend in case I need more later instead of ensuring everyone gets across. I wish the writers had gone along with a lot of their original plans for the season. They had some pretty chilling ideas at different points in the process.
Ammo only runs out when the plot demands it so there's no point in using that point. And for that matter, AJ only made a wierd choice because the plot demanded it. In reality though, one is inclined to believe that the writers just couldn't come up with a scenario that satisfied the prerequesites for the scene: those being the Hard Calls choice, AJ having to do something on his own and determinant characters.
I'm a goddamn idiot. Not because I realized I made a bad call with this, quite the opposite in fact. I'm doubling down.
The idea of killing someone because they're a liability and to protect others is in line with the Whispers (and The Governor for that matter) there's one other much, much closer to home and it's the worst possible one for AJ to show similarities to.
I don't even need to explain how this gets even worse with the possible fatherhood connection. Honestly if this isn't sending massive alarm bells in your head, Imma call you Michonne Minniseries Episode 1, cause you're In Too Deep.
BUT WAIT, IT GETS WORSE. I remembered the ideas of killing liabilities, but his speech straight-up felt like it was addressing this exact point of comparison. Immediately after the above quotes, with the right dialogue option....
BUT WAIT, IT GETS WORSE.
After that...
I expected relatively surface similarities, but this went deeeeeep man. Enough I wonder if it was intentional. Was Carver right all along? Is AJ doomed to be Carver if you played a certain way? Oh lord, I think this needs it's own thread.... Eh, I'll do some more digging and get it done in the morning.
Clip for reference:
Yeah. It think about the times where ammo saved both Clem and AJ following those scenes. Just after whoever was saved jumps the fence, when Clem gets bitten, when Clem’s leg fails on the way to the barn, inside of the barn itself. Because AJ conserved his Ammo, he managed to save his own life as well as Clementine’s.
If you want to immerse yourself in a story, you can’t think about the plot. If that were a real situation, conserving ammo would have been the smarter choice.
Indeed. I wonder what psychic AJ foresaw when he headshot Marlon.
Eugh
A wholesome mite contradictory there, fella.
I get what you're tryin to say, though.
Carverdidnothingwrong ?
Probably that he wouldn’t really need any bullets because there we’re no walkers to be concerned about, nor an injured Clem to be concerned about, so if there were walkers following his murder of Marlon then they could have just outrun them. Either way there were no consequences in terms of either of them dying when he shot Marlon
Where’s the contradiction?
Blanketly, because plot is how a story is outlined.
But most overtly because the story half is the element the vast majority follow this series for.