About how TT handled Nick and Sarah
Sorry, this is a rant but I feel that it's important.
Alright, so I just finished playing Episode 4 and realised at the end that Nick and Sarah both died and it had basically zero imact on any of the characters. Nick got an, "oh fuck..." off Luke and a weep off Rebecca and Sarah only got a few feels at off of Clementine.
Now I know that this is Season 2 and the writers aren't doing too well with impact through death (infact I only felt the impact when Walter and Rebecca died), but the thing that got me was that these where charecters who we where left to look after. Pete asked us to look after Nick, but when he becomes determinate he gets like 3 lines before we find him dead, how where we supposed to look after him?
"Clementine look after Sarah, she's your freind!", well I did everything I could do but after saving her once and trying again the game forced her death on me... I find it weird how TellTale went from making me scream at the screen at Doug/Carlys death to making me roll my eyes at the predictability.
Sorry about the rant but after this episode I need to release my fustration with Season 2's development so far, ahah!
Comments
I was fine with Sarah's death I felt it hit hard. The only reason clem didn't really react was because shes already seen so much death.
Nicks on the other hand....ya I felt it could have been handled better. They should have had him go out a hero saving someone or something.
I don't think there are many people who disagree with you. MANY people are talking about how horribly Telltale handled Nick and Sarah's deaths.
There's crearly a problem in the writing process. There are TOO many ideas and storylines and they want all of them to be the main one and this creates confusion. It's something like this : "Ehy,you gotta focus on Nick and his problems ! Nope,now on Carver and Bonnie ! Nope,now you gotta focus on Sarah,fuck Carver ! Oh wait,now we want Jane to be focused so fuck Sarah and Nick,kill them off ! Oh wait,now we gotta do the Kenny vs Luke thing so Jane needs to go ! And also Rebecca's got her baby so fuck off from the plot !"
Yeah, Sarah's death was impactful and sad, but no-one really cared that a 14 year old (I think that's right, correct me if I'm wrong, ahah) had just died. Everyone just carried on with whatever they where doing
Again, as said above, I feel Sarah's death was actually done really well. And to be honest, I got Nick unfortunately killed in my first playthrough in Episode 2, but on my opposite choices play-through, I felt his death was REEEEEEEALLY bad. To be honest that was my only problem with Episode 4 though.
The only way you can fulfill Pete's promise of looking after Nick is to let Nick die in Episode 2 at the lodge. That way he doesn't suffer the horrendous way Telltale "handled" his character in Episodes 3 and 4, and he at least gets to die onscreen and in a way that at least contributes to another character's (Walter) development. That's what Pete really meant, but we players misinterpreted what he was saying.
My thoughts exactly. I feel like Sarah was Ben all over again as far as their fates go. And Nick, too, deserved better. What a waste.
This is a perfect example!
Well think about it. Its like 2 or 2 and a half years into the apocalypse they've probably seen it happen before.
Nick was truly wasted potential, it not that he needed a heroic death or anything it just sad that he became irrelevant after Episode 2. And thus the impact was lost.
It sounds terrible but I think you're right. Letting him go to save him more pain...
I'm getting them feels again
One alternative way they could have handled Sarah would have been to have her live until the end of the episode and then make her be the one who shoots Rebecca and ignite the standoff. It would give her something to do and make everyone who taught her how to shoot instantly regret their decision.
Not sure what they could have done with Nick. I didn't really see where they would have taken his character arc after Episode 2.
They are doing perfect with deaths. Maybe realize TWD universe isn't some fairy tale where everyone survives.
i've wished nick stay a live but .............
Yeah, they both fell off balconies, what's telltale's obsession with balconies?
At least see him nearly dead. Or they could have let him learn Pete's lesson before he perished, "That no one in this world is going to give a Goddamn whether you like something or not. You gotta grow up son."
Nick's potential is so badly wasted... I wish things where different but what can we do now?
She's 15 but yeah, she's still pretty young and was basically a child for her age. I think they really tried to pull out all the shock value. Even killing Duck was more tasteful than hers (and you can tell it's emotionally wrenching to see him go).
But the deaths are more likely to affect the player. It's been two years since the apocalypse starter, people are getting used to deaths. It isn't like normal day, where a death could impact a whole life. You either have to live through it or move on...or else you don't make it.
Sarah and Nicks deaths both greatly affected me, and the whole tone of the episode was quite sadistic. Plus everyone expressed how other characters deaths made them feel. Rebecca feels bad about Alvin, Jane feels bad about Jaime, Kenny fees bad about Katjaa, Duck and Sarita. Plus Clementine feels bad about pretty much everyone she's lost.
Though I do have to say whilst Sarahs death seemed to be pretty damn effective and well handled (in my opinion), Nicks was a bit...rushed.
The setting isn't supposed to be sunshine and fairy tales but that doesn't mean everything has to be hamfisted and in your face.You know when a character died in season 1 it held a lot of weight but now the deaths feel pretty meaningless and we roll our eyes. It's pretty much how I felt about season 4 of the show, they were killing kids and extras to try and be ~edgy~ but the audience had no reason to even care.
Balconies are evil...or maybe they just hated Ben and Sarah, which is kind of understandable.
I think you just nailed it.
I am so upset for Sarah. I wish atleast at the end a Gun fell and she TRIED to shoot walkers and defend herself/ Find its completely empty/Miss. Then atleast if she dies she died, she remembered what you taught her and she'd try and overcome her fears.
Rebecca, Sarah and Nick were thrown to the wolves and that makes me real upset.
"he at least gets to die onscreen and in a way that at least contributes to another character's (Walter) development."
To be honest,realistically not everyone in the Walking Dead Universe will have some sort of meaningful "glamour" death-some people they just end up dying and..they're dead. I guess this was case for Nick.
Though in terms could story line and plot Nick and Sarah's appearance did leave much to be desired.
At least Ben actually does something if he's saved.
Only for him to still meet a brutal death. Case in point.
Guys, do you remember the horror movie Final Destination? It's exactly like that. It doesn't matter how many times you save a character and how much effort you put in it: that character is gonna die a meaningless death because Someone has already decided it. How sad..
Sarah was my favourite character so far, very interesting and original. I wanted to to see her evolution after the death of carlos but... whatever. This game is getting really boring.
They're both determinate characters. We all know characters whose fate is determinate always die in telltales TWD games. It's just too difficult to program different scenarios for them on the level telltale develops. They were both going to die regardless of your decisions in the game.
I tried to save sara but..
i'm very sad
So was Star Trek also trying to be "edgy" when it killed off its redshirts? When I think of some desperate attempt to be "edgy", I think of season 3 of TWD, where T-Dog and Lori both died sudden shock deaths in "Killer Within", or Andrea's meaningless death in the finale. No real build up, no purpose, no meaning, just death of big characters for the sake of it, basically like what's going on now in the game.
Season 4 actually bucked the tradition of killing someone major off just for the sake of it in the finale, killing off Hershel at the midseason at the perfect time for him to go. The extras were never meant to make us care for them in particular, but for the effect on the main characters like Hershel, whose entire character arc was fueled by trying to save them. As for the kids, it was not only a direct storyline from the comics, but had a large amount of foreshadowing and screen time for Lizzie and enough for Mika to have an impact, and more importantly, served a purpose in the story for Carol's development.
I'm not telling you to care, but in no way is what season 4 was doing even comparable to TWDG's season 2.
I really wanted Sarah to live. It was almost like Clementine had her own Clementine, ya know? I would've loved to see Sarah become a strong character through Clem's guidance.
This was the only thing I didn't like about the ep. Nick and Sarah were one of the most well written characters in season 2. Can Telltale could of at least give them a meaningful death and not a cheap one?
Clem and Jane come across Nick, who's not quite dead yet, but is visibly covered with walker bites, and clearly on the way out. Through Nick's dialogue, we learn he did his best to defend Luke and Sarah before getting swarmed. His last words:
"It's weird. Despite everything...I feel okay."
There. I just gave Nick a more potent death than Telltale did.
You know, I really wouldn't mind determinant characters ultimately dying if only they impacted the story somewhat. The Carley and Doug choice was important because they had very different relationships with Lee and it greatly altered Lilly's characterization, and saving Ben was important because it effected Kenny's development.
Without Ben, he simply saves Christa because he knows she's pregnant and he feels obligated to help after criticising her and Omid for being willing to leave him because of his obsession with boats.
With Ben, Kenny finally realizes what a selfish asshole he was being, blind to the fact that other people have families as well and have suffered just as much as, if not more than him. He tries to help someone whom he previously wanted to murder, and Ben calling Kenny out on his hypocrisy was really rewarding a scene you would've missed out on if he wasn't saved.
Save Nick, no meaningful change in the story or any of the characters. Save Alvin, no change in story and Rebecca is slightly less angry. Save Sarah, no change in story or characters. By the way, was anyone else really disturbed whenever the camera cut to a full view of the observation deck? Because I kept looking at the pile of rubble in front of it and thought "Sarah's mangled, crushed corpse is still under there... Meanwhile, Luke is sad that he can't fuck Jane."
Just about the only notable determinant character choice this season was Pete/Nick, because saving Pete gave you the touching scene of promising him to look out for Nick, while saving Nick gave him more character development that you wouldn't have seen otherwise.
Seriously, was Nick's voice actor just not available or something?
Eh, I'm a bit iffy on making every popular character's death a heroic one. It seems kind of cliche. I agree that finding him alive would have been more impactful though.
I didn't necessarily mean "heroic". When Clem and Jane find Nick, he would be in absolutely awful shape - whole chunks of skin missing, arms and legs broken, etc, - strung up on the fence like some grotesque scarecrow. Essentially, Dee's death from Bonnie's story multiplied by ten. The painful realization that Nick tried to protect Luke and Sarah, only to fail utterly, would have given the scene a special little sting.
Agreed. As much as I love this season, nothing came close to the jaw dropping moment of Carley's death, or the utter shock of discovering Mark without his legs.
Telltale Games handled Sarah perfectly. Sarah failure to grow would realistically doom her and anyone else. It would have sent a bad message by saying " Hey you're just a girl, so it's you don't have to get tougher and handle adversity to survive".How would you survive long at all with the motto "Well hey, its never too early to give up"? Because of that Sarah was not only a danger to her own self, but to EVERYONE around her. Having her around put everyone at risk. I know people will be in denial down voting me, but its the absolute truth and you know it
I don't blame Sarah being a detriment to the team on here as much as I do Carlos. It was his failure as a father to teach her about the realities of their world. They were years into this hell and fucking Clementine did more actual good for Sarah than Carlos sheltering her all this time.
I saw Sarah and Carlos' relationship to be the very opposite of Clemetine and Lee's. Lee's understood that protecting Clementine included teaching Clementine how to protect herself and being honest about the world around them. Lee understood the fact that its impossible to protect someone 24/7. Carlos on the other hand did the exact opposition and was completely unrealistic in believing there would never be a time where he couldn't help her.. Look at how they ended up. Clementine survives and helps others survive as a young child in the absence of Lee. Sarah without Carlos only lasted as long as she did because she was dependent on others including a child younger than her. People make excuse by saying say had some sort of mental disability. That's not true. That was never stated. Sarah was clearly portrayed as a sheltered daughter. That's it.
My last and favorite point on why TTG did a great job with Sarah is the ongoing struggle with how females are portrayed in games. If you are one those people that has always hated the "damsel in distress" theme, then you should be able to appreciate the story-line with Sarah along with Clementine's badassery. Sometimes, the big strong man won't able able to rescue you. The truth is you can't depend on others to save your ass anytime things don't go your way whether you are male or female. Yeah having friends and others to lean on is great, but ultimately being responsible for yourself is what being an adult is all about. Curling up in a little ball and giving up should reap no rewards. It's a reality that many games have not shown females.
I tried to save her in order to the right thing that Carlos should have done. The only thing about Sarah's death that bothered me is how Luke didn't get any shit for her death.
No, it's "the truth" as you personally see it. Every player has their own interpretation of the game, just as every player has their own "version" of Clementine. For all we know, if it wasn't for that balcony, Sarah could have proven Jane wrong after all.