Why Doesn't Sarah Remember Carver?
This might have been brought up already and if so, sorry, but this has been bothering me....
When Carver comes to the cabin, Sarah is afraid of him but has no idea who he is. I thought that was a little weird then, but thought it would be explained. However, when they are taken by Carver and crew to Generic Undead Lowes, she seems to remember things.
She confuses me. I'm trying to figure out if there is something going on with her developmentally, but its really generic so it seems like its shoehorning her into the plot. Maybe someone else has another opinion.
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"Clem, I think I know him. Oh my god, I can't breathe."
She said something like that.
I got the feeling that her time in the community was rather traumatic for her, especially given her (implied) anxiety issues. It's possible that she tries to suppress those memories as a coping mechanism.
Yeah, and if you ask what his name is, she says she can't remember. So she just doesn't remember his name.
Most people think she has anxiety and she started panicking.
This is one of the reasons I believe that she has some sort of anxiety or mental problem. Poor Sarah :I
Sarah already knew Carver, but because she has anxiety problems, it affected her concentration and she couldn't give a straight answer. Poor Sarah.
She was sheltered REALLY WELL.
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She isn't retarded.
She was panicking. Probably the last thing on her mind.
She was panicking. Probably the last thing on her mind.
GTFO
There's a difference between mentally ill and retarded, dumbass.
Mentally ill can mean almost any kind of disorder, from schizophrenia to anxiety to autism to Asperger's (which I do believe Sarah has).
Retarded means that her IQ would have to be below 70. IDK what her IQ is, but it's higher than 70 for sure.
She isn't retarded. She probably has anxiety, I went through the same thing, except I was 11 when I went through that and Sarah's 15.
this REALLY bugged me. the group has more or less refused to tell clem anything up to that point, she's overheard the name "carver", but any time she asks about it she'd get stared at or told "he's a very bad man." rebecca clams up any time carver is mentioned unless she's talking at someone, and the rest just say how bad he is and that clem is safer with them. then you have the perfect chance to get some information when he shows up at the cabin from sarah, but instead she starts freakin out and when you ask who this mystery man is, and she can't remember his name. why? so the player can be mislead a little longer, he can get away with calling himself "george", and not give the player a "reason" to confront him about his made up name?
then there's the issue with sarah herself, carlos warns you that she just "shuts down" and can't handle what's goin on. she freaks out when carver shows up, panics when carlos gets hit and runs to him, starts crying for him while carver breaks his fingers, starts to freak out again when they pull carlos away after getting to carver's camp, and pretty much withdraws into her mind after carlos hits her. then you come to the end of the episode, while not particularly liking the idea of what they're gonna do, she seems surprising ok with being surrounded by walkers coming towards 'em, being gutting, and then smeared, which is a little odd considering her previous mentality, but once carlos gets shot, she goes completely against her character and runs the hell away. no sitting and crying, refusing to leave her dad's side, no standing there completely stunned or hyperventilating. she runs.
looks like forced plot device wins out again.
I don't think she would have asperges or autism my sister has autism and is nothing like Sarah you can more often see a clear difference and most if the time communication is chappy she seems to at most have anxiety unless it's really a minor case she seems pretty okay in my point of view buts it's personal expire nice and it's different for others
idk about this, it could be bad writing,she tried to forget about him,they never interacted much, or the global power of Saltlicks caused her to cease to function and forget about him.....
Why did Carver go to the house in the first place? The only rational explanation I can think of is he'd been spying on the house a while, saw that everyone had left and wanted to kidnap Sarah as a bargaining chip.
"My X has Y therefore I know everything about Y."
Just because you know one autistic person doesn't mean you know all.
It was already established in episode 1 that they all knew Carver, although it's hard to know how much Sarah knew him. This, and Sarah's panicked reaction, heavily implies that she had repressed her memories of Carver. Also, she does say "I think I know him" and "He can't see me".
i know that's why i said its different for others, im not saying everyone with it is the same but i think i would see a more similar quality or clearly reconcilable also should Carlos have told clementine i mean its a zombie apocalypse i think if you child has a illness the person who you asked to look out for her should probably know?!
*this is where i really get angry with Carlos character and i wish he hadn't dies so quickly!!!
I don't think Sarah had actually spoken to him. She'd probably seen him around.
But you have to take into account that when they were originally at Carver's, the Cabin Group weren't considered untrustworthy - this means they would be allowed to roam around wherever they wanted like Shel, Becca and Vince did in Episode 3.
We never see Bill interact with any of the actual trustworthy settlers - he spent most of his time in his office or dealing with the more unruly people who were in the 'pen' - and didn't have time to interact with people like Sarah.
Of course, the three people who knew the most about Carver all had important jobs - Carlos was the place's doctor, Rebecca worked in Carver's office, Luke seemed like he was second in command or even a co-leader. This meant that Carlos probably realised something was up with Carver and kept Sarah away from him as much as possible.
that's reasonable enough. i think it was carlos that said something like "he didn't expect to find you (clem) here." it is kind of interesting how he chose that time to decide to walk up and try enter the cabin. if he had seen everyone but sarah leave, he'd had to have been watchin the house since morning, when luke and alvin left, and somehow knew that pete and nick were gone as well, yet missed when clem and them left the day before and when she went running into the kitchen shortly before, yet noticed carlos and rebecca leave.
given the sort of resources they had, it's pretty hard to imagine carver would just walk up to a house that could be holding multiple people that dont seem to like him, and had previous killed someone, without atleast having his gun drawn, unless he had a very good idea the place should have been empty/only held sarah.
perhaps he was really just thrown off by how clem more or less stared him down and he lost his nerve, and left to think and watch a bit more?
It felt like bad writing and bad question prompt choices.
That makes sense. To add what you had said above, Sarah is a child so she was probably allowed to her own devices. While it is true that Clementine is also child, she probably had to do work with Sarah because they were both in the 'pen'. Maybe Carver had a soft spot children so he didn't make them do any labor unless as punishment. Becca wasn't seen doing any work in season 2.
given carver's claims for wanting a "strong" next generation, i'd still say they (sarah and becca) would have been told to do certain things before the cabin group split, although the manual labor was left to those more able, and preferably out of favor, tho. it's really hard to say, since they never actually had a "bonding" moment between carver and clem, where he shows her around and tries to turn her to his ways. i still think they were still expected to do things, but it just wasn't as strictly monitored as the cabin group was in ep 3...
then again, it's also really hard to believe that sarah hadn't made carver snap prior to telling carlos to reprimand her. he talks as if carlos's coddling had bothered him before then, and carver seems the meddling type when it comes down to their next generation... guess i'm either over thinking it, or it just alludes to another hole they wrote themselves into...
I agree.....The fact that she didn't remember him didn't bother me until they were there and interacting with each other, because she seemed like she knew this place, its people, and Carver. Carver certainly knew her, and your point about him getting mad about coddling Sarah was one that I noticed too. It seemed like something that was brought up from before, not something new, so it settled with me wrong. It does feel like a hole that they've stitched across but I can still see through. IMO
Why downvotes for this comment? At any rate, I agree completely, these are exactly my thoughts. I understand them wanting to include a character who has anxiety, and doesn't have the nerve to deal with the zombie apocalypse....most people I know can't deal with life as it is without zombies - I just feel like Sarah is an inconsistent plot device more than anything. Her "anxiety" is inconsistent, and the writing around it seems vague....at first I thought we were going to realize something important about her state of mind, the way they talked about her...but turns out, she has panic attacks. Oooookay? Thats it?
I think overall the series is well written, but I do find that this second season is a little shoehorned. Particularly in re: to Sarah, as well as all the times they ask Clem to do things that I fell like a normal adult wouldn't do, even for a capable child. Now, I like that Clem WANTS to do a lot of those things (at least in my plays, she always does things herself, never complains, because she's tough) but it seems sort of forced when characters are constantly telling her to do things they could do themselves. For example....In the case of trying to escape the pen, she is probably the only person capable. HOWEVER, at the small shed across the bridge, Alvin tells her to go search the cabin. What the hell is wrong with him? Why can't HE search the cabin? Hes just gonna sit and rest? hes the biggest, strongest looking guy there and he has this kid go find food for his pregnant wife? What is with that guy???
Sorry for the rant!
A theory I have is that Carlos was allowed certain privileges due to him being a doctor. (which must surely be a rarity in a zombie apocalypse.) One of said privileges could be that Sarah be exempt from doing any jobs, maybe even isolated from the rest of the survivors barring at meal times.
That certainly is possible, but I still feel like that is forcing us to come to conclusions based on their poor writing set up skills, and not so much based on complex story structure like S1
I do agree that there are inconsistencies with the writing for Sarah, she was all scared when Carver came to the cabin, and saw all the bad stuff Carver has done to her Dad, yet she still thinks talking during Carver's big speech is appropriate (and no, I don't buy that she has ASD).
I thought she had Autism. But she can talk normally at some point so I'm assuming she was all built up and stressed about Carver and that's why she can't answer Clementine properly. Carver's bad influence most likely traumitised her that badly.
She is mentally retarted.
If you picked she has to learn sometime Carlos says She isn't like the rest of us you might not get that at first. So she has a mental handycap ie retardation. I think it adds more to the plot then some other kid like Duck
I don't think she does have mental retardation. They allude to it, but they do a piss poor job of being consistent with whatever her issue is. She seems normal, except a bit sheltered, with anxiety but it doesn't always come out. It seems to me like they are being very wishy washy about her diagnosis which makes her seem less than credible as a character. I'm not convinced. Just because they tell us that she's not like the rest, doesn't make it so, without good character development to let us see for ourselves. It seems like in this season, theres a lot of that.
Her father says she is special... What does that mean if someone says your special... It means retarted or some other mental illness. She shutsdown when bad things happen she is also dumb as a post it's very clear.
She's not dumb, she's not retarded, and she's not mentally ill, she has anxiety, she's been kept away from the world, and she's innocent. When Carlos said she's not like Clementine, I'm sure what he meant is that she can't function the same way Clementine does, that she isn't tough and hardened like Clementine is. She panicked when Carver was at the door, saying she didn't remember was probably the only thing her panicked state allowed her to say.
Sorry if I sound all pissy. I'm part of the Sarah defense force, and proud of it.