Why So Much of the Blaming is Invalid
People on this forum blame characters for a lot of things that just aren't the characters' fault. I wasn't going to get into this because I wasn't sure I could explain my reasoning well enough, but then I started that Bonnie's Claims of Innocence discussion. Now I feel like I added fuel to the fire. So I'm in it now. It's what I got.
I think a lot of the blaming stems from people overthinking the bad things that happen in the game. When a character does bad things, that says something bad about the character. When bad things happen in SPITE of the character trying to do good, that doesn't say anything bad about the character. It's just good writing.
I think it might help if I state the basic structure of a story. I don't mean to patronize anyone who already knows this, but the basic structure of a good story is this:
Character(s) has a goal.
Character tries one way of reaching that goal.
That way fails, and the situation worsens.
Character tries another way of reaching that goal.
That way fails, and the situation worsens.
Character tries ANOTHER way of reaching that goal.
That way fails, situation worsens, and so on and so forth. As many times as you want.
.
.
.Character tries final way and reaches goal, but goal does not turn out exactly as expected.
Happily Ever After (optional). The End. The story. Is. Over.
The above structure is how the Walking Dead game is written. Kenny shooting Carver at the lodge is a prime example, but this is Clem's story so I'll start with her. She starts with the goal of getting everyone somewhere safe (Wellington perhaps). That goal is replaced with a sort of mini-goal of getting everyone safely out of Carver's clutches. Kenny shares these goals. He tries to reach the Carver mini-goal by shooting Carver's men. This way fails and makes the situation worse with Carver killing Walter. Then Kenny tries to shoot Carver in the head. He misses. Barely. So, that way fails and makes the situation worse with Carver killing Alvin.
HOWEVER, who decided that Kenny would miss the shot?
The writers.
They very well could have decided the opposite and had Kenny make the headshot. Then, no one would blame Kenny for what he did, not even Carlos. I imagine his conversation with Kenny would go something like this:
Carlos says, "If you'd missed Carver's head, I'd berate you for your rash actions. But, hey, rash actions worked. I guess sometimes rashness is a valid option. High five" (I don't think the dialogue would have been this badly written, but you get what I mean.)
But then the Carver story would be over. The writers didn't want the Carver story to be over yet, because that would have been a really anticlimactic end. They wanted the Carver situation to worsen, because they could give us a much more dramatic end in Ep 3.
See what I mean? The way things turned out at the lodge had nothing to do with Kenny. It had everything to do with the story. The story needed to be more dramatic. Heck, neither Alvin nor Walt had to die if the writers had decided to have Kenny kill Carver first. (I doubt Bonnie or the others would have had the drive to kill anyone after Carver was dead.) But if it had gone down like that, Ep 2 wouldn't have been nearly dramatic enough. I mean, just imagine it. Stop and imagine it. Wouldn't you have been majorly disappointed if Ep 2 had ended that way?
You can apply the same "for the sake of the story" reasoning to Sarah messing up her chores, Luke getting caught, Carver finding the radio, Sarah losing it when her dad died, etc.
It's not the characters' faults.
It's the writers' faults.
They FATED those things to happen.
And thank goodness for that. If those writers didn't have the guts to write the heart-wrenching stuff they do, The Walking Dead wouldn't be exciting. And I love the Walking Dead for its excitement. You go, TWDG writers!
So, to recap, when a character does something bad, that says something bad about the character. You can blame them for what they did. When something bad happens in spite of the character trying to do something good, that doesn't say anything bad about the character. It was fated by the writers. You shouldn't blame the character.
I'm trying to explain it as best I can, but I know I could very easily have said something that implies something I didn't mean. So I'll wait for everyone's reactions to see what I can explain better.
Comments
i'll disagree with you on one big point. i'm not playing and seeing the writer. they got (and deserved) plenty of blame for other things, but if a character is annoying or needy, i dont say "oh, well that's just how sarah was written." i think, "damnit sarah, shut up or i'll slap you myself." nick shooting matthew may have been written, but i didn't see a writer force nick to shoot, i saw him take the shot. it may have been written that way, he may have been fated to screw up, but he's still the one i see doin it, so i'm gonna blame luke and carlos for his (matthew's) death.
That's true. Nick shooting Matthew is an example of a character DOING something bad, which does say something bad about the character. Nick shot at Matthew just like he shot at Clementine: out of fear and without any attempt at diplomacy or rational observation first. He thought Clem was bit by a zombie, while we all know she wasn't. He thought Matt drew on HIM, while we all know it was the other way around. What this says about Nick is that he's paranoid at best and crazy violent at worst. Either way, it is on him because he did something bad. But my post is about when characters experience bad things in spite of their best attempts to do good things.
Same with Sarah. If she says something annoying or needy, that means she's annoying or needy (which I don't think she's all that annoying really). That's something she did. But if she's trying to keep Reggie from getting in trouble and he gets in trouble anyway, that doesn't say anything bad about her. Sure, she did her chores badly, but all that means is that she's bad at chores and/or deeply distracted by what happened with her dad, neither of which is wrong of her to be. She said she didn't want Reggie to get in trouble, and I believe her, so I believe she did the best she could and Reggie got in trouble anyway. That was in-story fate, a fate determined by the writers.
Wouldn't that break the immersion? Constantly thinking about the writers whenever a character does something?
Well, not for me, but I'm not saying you have to think about the writers all the time. If that breaks immersion for you, don't think about the writers who fated bad stuff to happen. Just think about the fact that it was fated, and don't blame the characters for it. (And once again, I'm not talking about when a character does something bad. I'm talking about when bad stuff happens.)
why are the majority of posts in this forum written like the persons trying to defend themselves after being slapped? is this one person using multiple alts or is this a whole group of crybabies..