Lee's A Good Character?
I'm new to the forum so if this has been said before I apologize.
I see a lot of posts about Lee being such a great character and how people connected with him and how no new character could top him.
I think it's funny because in my opinion Lee Everett isn't even a real character.
Before we start making decisions for Lee all we know about Lee as a character is he's a convicted murderer.
All of the choices and events Lee went through that made us like him were our doing. Not his.
Whoever Lee is as a character by the end of S1 is entirely dependent upon what we as players do. There isn't a user on this forum that liked Lee as a character. We all connected Lee because he was us.
Again sorry if it's been said before, but yeah that's how I feel.
How do you feel?
I see a lot of posts about Lee being such a great character and how people connected with him and how no new character could top him.
I think it's funny because in my opinion Lee Everett isn't even a real character.
Before we start making decisions for Lee all we know about Lee as a character is he's a convicted murderer.
All of the choices and events Lee went through that made us like him were our doing. Not his.
Whoever Lee is as a character by the end of S1 is entirely dependent upon what we as players do. There isn't a user on this forum that liked Lee as a character. We all connected Lee because he was us.
Again sorry if it's been said before, but yeah that's how I feel.
How do you feel?
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
i think it is because it is so well done that you think that, try doing something entirely different (or in other words something Lee the character wouldn't do) and you will notice that you cant, there are obviously multiple versions of Lee but they are all the character Lee, you just sort of choose his mood at the time you don't change his character, the decisions are ours but it is Lee that carries them out.
We decide whether he's short tempered, well liked, a father figure, an asshole, indecisive, forgiving etc.
I feel that all the characteristics in his personality are our doing.
On the bright side for players like me, it means that i don't have to mourn him too much, his spirit (ie me) will reincarnate into a new form for season 2.
Well first, welcome to the forums. In my opinion, lee is a great character, no matter what the choices. He went through a lot even before the apocalypse, and I can't say I wouldn't have done the same if I had been in lees position. There was no win in that situation, and his anger got the best of him.
You can have lees with different personalities, but essentially they are all the same. He always wishes things were different with his family, he misses them, and no matter whatever happens lee never had any bad feelings toward Larry. You help Kenny's family even if he treats you like shit for your previous actions, and no matter what they are friends. Lee always tries to do what is best for clementine, even if they aren't good decisions. Lee can end up quite the asshole, and potentially dangerous person to outsiders (ie. Vernon's group, bens group, the St. John's, etc. but no matter what lee is a good person with a bad past, and gets to redeem himself by keeping a little girl safe. I think he is either my favorite or one of my favorite video game characters, simply because he is so realistic, he has flaws and goes through great turmoil. Anyway, it's my opinion.
I agree, lee will live on with the new PC of TWD. I felt as him more as myself in game form, but still saw lee as his own person. We just molded his thoughts and actions, he was still his own character. The player just got connected with lee as a character in general. I felt bad for lee, but also bad because it was like I had just died, and now Clem was all alone. Like you failed at the game, and failed as Lee's controller. I think I mostly feel bad for Clem, being left parent less twice, and now alone in a dangerous, sick, zombie-infested world. I hope we can see her in season 2, and that my PC can carry on for lee now that he is gone.
The way I look at it if Clem were to tell the next group of people who Lee was the actual things he did wouldn't be brought up. It would be the decisions and feelings we made through him that she would speak of.
I think that's the great thing about the game is that while most events and characters seemed important in the moment, by the end of it everything that had physically happened to everyone was the last thing we all thought about... Except maybe the bite.
To me, when it came down to it, all that mattered was the type of man I was in front of and directly to Clem.
"You know what you're doing? You got kids of your own?"
"Nah, nah. No... no kids."
"Woulda liked one then."
"... You know."
"Hey, Lee. You think you'll ever have kids?"
"I'd like to someday. Maybe a little girl, like you."
"I hurt her a long time ago."
"How?"
"In a lot of ways. She traveled for work. I didn't like that. I wanted a family."
So, essentially, Lee always wanted a family. His wife couldn't. And finally when the world went to hell, when his life went to hell, he finally made a family. Clementine was his family, a little girl, like he always wanted. And in the end he could only be with her for three or so months, and died knowing she'd be alone in this fucked up world. It's really, really sad as well as a powerful backstory and motive for a character.
"... I'll miss you."
Yeah
Yeah, excellent point. All though I do agree with the initial assumption that people get more attached to Lee than others because they're allowed to project a lot of themselves onto his character, he's still a well written character anyways. If you were to just show someone videos of the game where they had no control over Lee I'm confident most people would still become fairly attached to his character.
And as CarScar points out, regardless of your choices, Lee does have a complete character arc. In addition to the family element there's the underlying theme of atonement. With Lee's life being in ruins because of what he did and the outbreak giving him a second chance to make amends for what he did, or fall victim to the same mistakes, depending both on what choices the player makes and their interpretations of them.
Being able to live out part of yourself through Lee does probably help his popularity, but his character actually does have a good deal of depth. If you were to play the game as Kenny and Lee was a computer controlled character, he'd be viewed as every bit a well written character as the rest of the cast.
Holy crap yes he would. In fact, seeing it from his perspective, most people would probably be able to understand us people who don't lol. Or at least be able to understand Kenny more.