the Katjja conundrum

So when Katjja said she could not live without Duck I sort of knew what was coming, as one of my favourite characters I hoped we would be given the choice to at least try and council her though the ordeal.

So my question is –

1) Was Katjja’s decision to kill herself selfish?

I mean if she goes out alone she kills herself leaving a now doubly grieving Kenny and a post zombie Duck which Kenny will still have to deal with.
Even when they go together she kills herself in front of Kenny and her dying but still conscious son.

I would have liked it if Katjja took Duck into the woods and you hear one shot then as you and Kenny go to see them another shot rings out and you see them both dead but that’s just me.

2) How will the Duck shooting come back to bite us if we shot him or let/made Kenny do it either way I think Kenny’s story may come to an end in episode 4?

Comments

  • edited September 2012
    Actually, as long as you pick any of the dialouge options but "I'll do it" when they're discussing Duck at the train, Kat goes into the woods by herself. You stay to comfort Kenny, then as you explain what's going on to Clem you hear a shot. You and Kenny walk up to the clearing to find Kat laying dead, and Duck still by the tree. It goes the same after that.

    EDIT: sorry, misread the part about Kat going into the woods. Sorry!
  • edited September 2012
    Rock114 wrote: »
    Actually, as long as you pick any of the dialouge options but "I'll do it" when they're discussing Duck at the train, Kat goes into the woods by herself. You stay to comfort Kenny, then as you explain what's going on to Clem you hear a shot. You and Kenny walk up to the clearing to find Kat laying dead, and Duck still by the tree. It goes the same after that.

    EDIT: sorry, misread the part about Kat going into the woods. Sorry!

    No apology needed, I’m a bit of a rambler so bravo on reading through all the wafflie bits
  • edited September 2012
    1) Yeah, suicide is always a selfish act. Until Kenny was dead and no one else relied on her patching up skills, she was still a vital part of a team.

    2) I don't think shooting Duck will really matter. Maybe Kenny will be more despondent if he had to shoot Duck himself, but it's likely that it was just something the player should feel bad about.
  • edited September 2012
    I think shooting Duck or not will affect your relationship with Kenny.
  • edited September 2012
    you can leave duck 'alive' or to turn when you find kats body, and say to kenny do it but then when it says 'do it' or it'll be ok let it time out..
  • edited September 2012
    1) Yeah, suicide is always a selfish act.

    I don't think that holds true in a zombie apocalypse, but I guess that depends on how you view Irene's death in episode one. If you know you're going to turn and kill, is suicide really selfish?

    Katjaa's death was selfish in that other people needed her still, but I understand why she did it. While some people considered Katjaa passive, I thought of her as more stoic. I think she just decided "enough".
  • edited September 2012
    Suicide is always selfish. "I don't want to suffer anymore", is the root idea. I don't think it's wrong, Katjaa and Irene did what I would probably want too. Doesn't make it not selfish; just makes it justifiable.
  • edited September 2012
    what kat should of done is held duck close to her and put his head next to hers and then pulled the trigger on her self..
  • edited September 2012
    It's easy to say what she should of done or what she could of done, reviewing it and putting our own logic into the situation. Look at it from her perspective and make the choice within a few minutes. You live in a world that your death could be seconds away in. You just found out that your lover smashed in an old guy's head in with a salt lick along with losing your one and only son. With a gun so temptingly close by and in a state of grief what would you do?

    It’s not really selfish or her putting her foot down and saying “Enough is enough.” It was an impulsive move made in grief.
  • edited September 2012
    but thats the thing katjaa offing her self first is selfish as she is still leaving duck #alive# and as previously stated kenny or lee has to finish it/duck and then grieve for two people...

    but ttg made it more emotional by having her do it this way..
  • edited September 2012
    SoulShot wrote: »
    You just found out that your lover smashed in an old guy's head in with a salt lick...

    That is only true of you chose to save Carley, if you chose to tell Katjaa about your past, and if you chose to tell her the truth about the meat locker. Three different variables that don't hold true in everyone's games and therefore isn't motivation for Katjaa's suicide.
  • edited September 2012
    So when Katjja said she could not live without Duck I sort of knew what was coming, as one of my favourite characters I hoped we would be given the choice to at least try and council her though the ordeal.

    So my question is –

    1) Was Katjja’s decision to kill herself selfish?

    I mean if she goes out alone she kills herself leaving a now doubly grieving Kenny and a post zombie Duck which Kenny will still have to deal with.
    Even when they go together she kills herself in front of Kenny and her dying but still conscious son.

    I would have liked it if Katjja took Duck into the woods and you hear one shot then as you and Kenny go to see them another shot rings out and you see them both dead but that’s just me.

    2) How will the Duck shooting come back to bite us if we shot him or let/made Kenny do it either way I think Kenny’s story may come to an end in episode 4?

    1- Not at all she lost her only child, seeing him in that state and pointing the gun at him (since she didnt like them in the 1st place) took her over the edge. I dont fault her one bit.

    2- Wont bite me one bit. I know Kenny- so I made him shoot Duck.

    Thank god for a new topic- the ones around here have been beaten to a pulp
  • edited September 2012
    How can suicide be selfish when it's your life? You can do whatever you want with it.
    And in a ZA? What are you living for? They're alive but I'd hardly call that living- more like surviving. Her kid is dead, all life as they knew it is gone, she knows what Kenny did to Larry, they're all changing and she, understandably, cant handle it.
    I would call suicide cowardly in normal society, but never selfish. In a ZA it's even understandable.
  • edited September 2012
    Let's re-evaluate what selfish means. You do it with only your own interests in mind. So in theory, if even no one is around relying on you and you choose to die painlessly, that's still selfish. Selfishness doesn't have to be a bad thing or something that isn't excusable, it just has to put your own interests over everything else.

    Saying that Katjaa was selfish to take an easy way out when things got their worst doesn't make her a bad person. The only time that suicide is not selfish is when it is a selfless act - you die for another. If you commit suicide and others gain from your actions, then it's selfless. Katjaa's death did nothing but make things easier for herself, cost the team the only medical expertise, and place the penultimate nail in the coffin for Kenny's total loss.

    Something can be yours and you can be selfish with it. If you drink a bottle of water that's yours and others want to drink it, is that not selfish because it's your own? It doesn't matter if you're thirsty or not. You could always give it away. Doesn't matter if it's good, evil, practical or not - it's still by definition selfish.
  • edited September 2012
    Is eating a selfish act too?
    Dying for another is a sacrifice, not a suicide.
    Sacrifice is the offering of something for or to a higher purpose.
    Suicide is simply the act of taking one's life, none of the sources I checked mentioned the word selfish in any of their definitions.
    I dont agree.
  • edited September 2012
    Yeah. Surviving is a selfish act. "I ate that cow because my life is more important than its." "I didn't give the food to the needy, I ate it myself."

    Sorry to get so philosophical, but you asked. And of course the dictionary doesn't have inferred meanings in its definitions. You can look up "cell phone" and it won't give you "easily lost" in its blurb, but we all know a phone is lost constantly.
  • edited September 2012
    By that definition there isnt much a human does voluntarily or not that isnt selfish.
  • edited September 2012
    Protecting others, giving up things for others and doing things without personal interest are the few examples of non-selfish acts.

    Unless you're Christian. Then you just want to go to heaven.
  • edited September 2012
    Protecting others, giving up things for others and doing things without personal interest are the few examples of non-selfish acts.

    It could be argued that even those things have a payoff for the person rendering the service and therefore selfish.
  • edited September 2012
    Protecting others, giving up things for others and doing things without personal interest are the few examples of non-selfish acts.

    Unless you're Christian. Then you just want to go to heaven.

    By that definition, the protection of others is done because you want that person to go unharmed, giving food to others people, you dont want them to go hungry, you want them to be nourished. The peace of mind knowing you took care of others brings you personal satisfaction

    Philosophy is too heady for me
  • edited September 2012
    It's true. Which is why I didn't want to get into the philosophy of it all. But if there's a percentage of selflessness/selfishness to every act, I think that those three are majorly selfless (unless you're just trying to get in good graces with ulterior motives). I think that suicide (not sacrificing yourself) is about 90% selfish. It's based on your own pain, your own feelings about the future and discounts your life in other people's perspective.

    Sure, it's your life and your choice and all that, but it's still selfish.

    I once knew a kid who killed himself. The gist of his letter was "no one will miss me." There were thirty people on his front lawn all crying louder than I've seen anyone in my life. Another guy hung himself. His note said "I have no one". He left his body for his ten year old son to find in the morning.

    I ain't really going to be moved by a tale of how suicide thinks of other people and benefits the world. It just doesn't do anything but makes someone suffer less.
  • edited September 2012
    Well then I guess Im breaking character here and saying that in Kat's case, I can understand her weakness and dont fault her for the suicide. In fact, it takes a massive amount of willpower and maybe hope to even want to survive a ZA- not knowing if things will ever return to what we perceived them as- to know you might possibly be in a state of survival and stuck on earth with undead as the new top of the food chain til the end of your remaining days is bleak as hell.
  • edited September 2012
    I don't see her act as a selfish one.

    Just a weak one.
  • edited September 2012
    even with his dead son, Katjja not thought about Kenny.
    She left Kenny(emotionally destroyed) alone in the world.
  • edited September 2012
    I don't know about "weak". Fear of death is a pretty powerful instinct to override all of a sudden.
  • edited September 2012
    from the start katjaa said that she believed everything would eventually go back to normal, but when Duck got bitten she knew it would never be the same, so she couldn't keep on going, but it was selfish, especially leaving Duck
  • edited September 2012
    It's true. Which is why I didn't want to get into the philosophy of it all. But if there's a percentage of selflessness/selfishness to every act, I think that those three are majorly selfless (unless you're just trying to get in good graces with ulterior motives). I think that suicide (not sacrificing yourself) is about 90% selfish. It's based on your own pain, your own feelings about the future and discounts your life in other people's perspective.

    Sure, it's your life and your choice and all that, but it's still selfish.

    I once knew a kid who killed himself. The gist of his letter was "no one will miss me." There were thirty people on his front lawn all crying louder than I've seen anyone in my life. Another guy hung himself. His note said "I have no one". He left his body for his ten year old son to find in the morning.

    I ain't really going to be moved by a tale of how suicide thinks of other people and benefits the world. It just doesn't do anything but makes someone suffer less.
    from the start katjaa said that she believed everything would eventually go back to normal, but when Duck got bitten she knew it would never be the same, so she couldn't keep on going, but it was selfish, especially leaving Duck

    I agree,

    Katjja may have lost her son but she didn't finish what she said she would do and instead -

    1) Left a griveing husband who still had to deal with Duck
    2) A son who's last dying memory is that of his mother killing herself in front of him
    3) A little girl called Clem who saw her as as mother figure as seen in their first meeting at Hershal's farm and left her with no female role model
    4) Lee, a man who bonded with her and tried to give her hope, and now feels like he failed.
    5) Ben, I know he caused the chain of events but how would you feel knowing your actions not only killed a son but also a mother and destroyed a farther's will to fight

    She did this knowng that the group had just lost Doug/Carley, Lilly, their home and about to loose Duck.

    You could say Kenny killing Larry destroyed the group but they were still together at the beggining of ep3, so I say it was Kats suicide that destroyed it as Lee and Clem can go their own way, Kenny is truely broken showing Omid how to drive the train in case anything happens.

    I know its a persons "right" to do whatever they want with their life, but its the life's left behind that have to deal with the aftermath when someone commits suicide in this context.
  • edited September 2012
    1) Was Katjja’s decision to kill herself selfish?

    Yes, it was selfish, considering what shes making Kenny go through, alone.

    but atleast she had the decency and strength to wait until she was in the forest before doing it.
    Cyreen wrote: »
    I don't know about "weak". Fear of death is a pretty powerful instinct to override all of a sudden.

    Fear of death isn't hard to overcome when you lost what you dedicated your life to (Her Son), to begin with.
  • edited September 2012
    I was surprised how calm Katjaa was while taking care of Duck. She didn't feel phased by it. That all made sense when she chose to commit suicide. She had already accepted her own death when Duck was bitten.
  • edited September 2012
    Fear of death isn't hard to overcome when you lost what you dedicated your life to

    Know that for a fact?

    My point was that I think that given Katjaa's dislike of guns and her love for Kenny, the choice to kill herself wasn't "weak", but required resolve and strength.
  • edited September 2012
    you can leave duck 'alive' or to turn when you find kats body, and say to kenny do it but then when it says 'do it' or it'll be ok let it time out..

    Dude, can you post a video on YouTube showing that? I cannot find a single bit of conformation on that.
  • edited September 2012
    Cyreen wrote: »
    Know that for a fact?

    My point was that I think that given Katjaa's dislike of guns and her love for Kenny, the choice to kill herself wasn't "weak", but required resolve and strength.

    She was a weak woman, you see that in episode 1 and 2 when you talk to her without Kenny hanging over her. Her focus was Duck, Duck got bit and she gave up before even ending his suffering.

    Hell, all she did was kill herself and make potential zombie duck a meal.

    There was no strength in that. No resolve. Just "aww shit I can't go on."

    Not even a goodbye for her husband.

    Hmm, I guess it was both weak "and" selfish.
  • edited September 2012
    It's a matter of perspective. If you let the scene progress according to Katjaa's plan, I very much got the sense that she said goodbye to Kenny.
  • edited September 2012
    adontimasu wrote: »
    Dude, can you post a video on YouTube showing that? I cannot find a single bit of conformation on that.

    first attempt was too big file size wise so gonna redo soon
  • edited September 2012
    Referring to the OP- yes, IMO it was very selfish. 99% of suicides are essentially selfish acts and those who commit suicide almost universally have no clue on the impact that their act has upon others. The level of their pain and self-pity generally make them blind to that.

    The group still needed her, Kenny still needed her and there were others that cared about her. That being said, she may have also had made a prior decision that if something were to happen to Duck then she was going to "opt out".

    She quit. Like the guy who hung himself to be found by Daryl and Andrea in the TV series:

    GOT BIT
    FEVER HIT
    WORLD GONE TO SHIT
    MIGHT AS WELL QUIT
  • edited September 2012
    It's impossible for most of us on these forums to comprehend Katjaa's mind state at this time. I may be being a tad presumptive but I would guess there are not many mothers with young children playing this game.

    Losing their only child (and in such an unnatural and drawn out way) would have completely destroyed her. I can easily understand why she decided there was no reason for her to continue. This was not a selfish decision, this woman had lost everything that mattered to her in the world.

    To those people who ask how she could have left Kenny, the uncomfortable truth is that Kenny is just her husband. Duck was her child. We can assume she gave birth to him in the normal way and raised him herself so that bond is far stronger than anything a husband and wife can have.
  • edited September 2012
    Seems kind of stupid to judge someone for committing suicide even though I haven't ever been in the same situation.

    At the end of the day, if you can't go on then you can't go on. I also can't blame her for wanting to be with Duck, wherever he is.
  • edited September 2012
    Wrighty wrote: »
    Seems kind of stupid to judge someone for committing suicide even though I haven't ever been in the same situation.

    I would hope not, are you a walker?;)

    Judging no, there are two sides to every story and everyone is entitled to their oppinion.

    Sure its her life/choice but in a world filled with death and misery why add to it
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