The Russians Aren't Evil
The Steinbeck quote that Walter spouts, "All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal", is apt here. I'm seeing tons of blind hate towards Arvo and his groups for attacking Clementine's group, but little insight into why they did it. Despite having a stereotypical bald-headed tough guy among their ranks, I doubt these Russians are stereotypical villains. They're not as bad as Carver, and they might not even be as evil as the bandits that attacked Christa.
It's clear that Jane was excessive in her mistreatment of Arvo. Despite him mentioning that he has friends in the woods, Jane apparently saw nothing wrong with robbing a crippled man, manhandling him, calling him a liar to his face (probably because she felt only she had a sister worth protecting), ignoring his claims that his family was suffering just as much as he was, threatening to murder him, and disregarding both Clem and Arvo's protests to remain calm. Even if Clementine treated Arvo with humanity, the fact that Jane acted so brutishly to him left him with the impression that Clem's group was run by a bunch of selfish bandits. If he returned to his community with news about a group of intruders who rob anyone they meet, it seems only fair that they be robbed and left to die.
There's also the fact that Arvo doesn't at all seem like the type to survive on his own. He's skinny, myopic and crippled. It can be argued that the group keeps him around simply because he's a translator and they take advantage of his pitiful appearance (he points out that he's not in charge of the group), but the fact remains that a group of hardcore survivalists still take the energy and time to keep a physical weakling and his sister alive in the forest, an effort which Carver and Jane would never have bothered with. I suspect that he was sent alone to the observation deck in order to drop off the medicine there before the rest of the group could arrive (perhaps needing a warm place for their injured woman), not expecting any living person to be there. However, when he told his people about the group that robbed him, they instead bade their time in the forest and waited to ambush them.
I do think Arvo is being honest about having an injured woman to take care of - he doesn't seem like the type to lie with a gun in his face. I doubt it's the woman who accompanies him in the cliffhanger ending, unless she turns out to be a drug addict. Other people have already translated the dialogue of the Russians and revealed that while aggressive, they started to have second thoughts when finding out about the baby. They might have backed off had one of Clem's group not shot the baby's mother - keep in mind that only Clem and Kenny noticed that Rebecca was a zombie during the stand-off.
In short, the Russians may have been more amiable had Jane used her brain and not treated Arvo like shit. Instead, she gets to dodge the consequences while Clementine is left to deal with the anger of a survivalist community that could have helped them get to Wellington.
Comments
No one is just straight up Evil, everyone has their reasons for things but some are more stricter than others on things, and I just don't like that they are SO the stereotypical Russian antagonist....
Okay, that's fair reasoning. Or the sick sister could have been somewhere else at the time. I guess we'll just have to suffer the wait and see.
I'm hopeful that the Russians, despite stereotypical appearances, will turn out to be more fleshed-out antagonists than Carver was. Carver's humanity was already gone by the time Clementine meets him, but the presence of Arvo and the group's hesitation about robbing a group with a baby seems to make them more reasonable than the average bandit. I don't think it's fair to say that they would have robbed Clem's group no matter what.
Who knows what might have happened had Clem & Jane trusted Arvo and allowed him to return safely - they could have worked together rather than force Clem's group to be at odds with a community that's much more competent than them. Walter may have been naive with his idealism and hospitality, but the point remains that the people who decided to rob Arvo simply repeated the crimes of Bonnie and Kenny's theft of the Stranger's supplies.
We've known them for like 3 min at most.
Yeah and we'll have to see what happens in episode 5....
Exactly. can't judge a book by its cover
I'm basing off of what we've seen so far and they're translations but first let's see who dies...
I think they'll turn out to be reasonable people who get angry when the shoot-out turns bad and Arvo's little group is killed. I hope Arvo will survive (unless there are other English-speakers in their community), because otherwise there'll be no one left to give Clem's group mercy.
OH YESSS because he cares about his "group" and his "sister". He cares SO MUCH that he tries to throw away the medicine! And blames you if you didn't steal them.
ugh, I thought we already went over this. It's obvious he wants to kill his group or sick member of his group by hiding the medicine and blaming somebody else that they robbed it. What is he going to say? Mike's Raccoon stole it? Boy please. He's lucky he ran into clem and jane, real lucky. He can't just go out on his own, he has to leech off of the goods from his group since like you've said yourself - there's no chance in hell he'd survive by himself.
Before you reply, look at the video itself. He tries to stuff the damn bag in the trash can 0:54
Click here
Yeah, we should get to talk to Arvo more depending on what happens, but I'm said because TeamBike will lose one of or both of its members....
Good post, well said.
I don't see them as evil either but people just making desperate decisions to survive.
It's not "obvious" that he wants to betray his group. Consider that he's still human enough to not want to shoot Clem, and struggles to calm things down once a baby is discovered. And consider that Jane is cold enough to write off a grieving teenage girl as a lost cause, excessively threaten a crippled man in order to look "tough" (just as Michelle took little Clem's gun and bullied her), and then leaves without even bothering to care for Clementine. I want to point out that it's the rash actions of an outsider that turned two groups against each other, when it could have been possible for the Russians to have helped Clem's group instead.
We don't know enough about the group to really form any conclusions about Arvo's intentions, but I'm presenting an argument so that fans might try to be more reasonable towards the characters. I suspect the Russian community will play an important role in the final episode, and our thoughts on them will see a 180 just as people went from hating Bonnie to loving her. And I'm amazed that people still hate Arvo when it's evident that he's not a malicious person.
The group might not be evil, but Arvo was trying to blame are group because he wanted somebody dead. Yeah he didn't think things through since he did sound hesitant, but he still is the reason why alot of people (his own, and ares) are going to die next episode.
Just as it was Bonnie's fault for leading Carver's group to Walter's lodge. Neither she nor Arvo seemed to want things to escalate to such a horrible degree.
I actually wonder if Kenny will execute Arvo out of revenge, just as Carver had murdered Walter.
Obviously he didn't since he begged for his life, but he should've thought that through. He's still evil for lying to his group and blaming clementine and putting everybody life's at risk.
"I wish we could have met differently, Clementine. You were kind. That is not common." - Arvo
I'm not sure that the Russians are cuddly folks either, considering that their living conditions are likely to be worse than Carver's. But I take it to mean that had Clementine been approached by the Russians, they would have taken her in.
They're living is what they are.
"You're only living or you're dead" ~Chuck.
I'm interested to see how it goes with Arvo. Why give a throw away character a cool design (leg brace and broken glasses) and not do something with the person or the injury. He seems like a main character, at least for episode 5.
he and his friends are trying to rob a group that has only a hand full of bullets baby food they are not nice people also one guy is talking about eating there intrails
They don't know that. All they know is that a little girl and a short-haired woman attacked and robbed Arvo while he was alone, and that they had a group with them. They had no idea that Rebecca was a pregnant woman, and their dialogue indicates hesitation when they realize they have a baby.
didn't Maud say something like "Hey! Don't point that thing at me! Put it down" I don't think they wanted to kill anyone until the guy with the bald head started insulting Kenny and saying he could take them.
Umm... What? Russian is my mother tongue and I'm sure that no one of them said anything like this.
If you listen closely you can hear that line in English near the ending
Good point, but, still, I do think, that the Russian group is mere bandits - or "half-bandits", i may say. When they surround you, Buriko says to Arvo "Tell them to put down their - we are taking everything they have" (in Russian). Even if they are just want a revenge for Jane's previous abuse of Arvo, this is not a phrase anyone nice can say - it simply implies, that they are not against robbery (well, Buriko, at least).
I agree that it is not nice. We don't know yet if this is standard operating procedure for them, or if it's specifically revenge for Clem treated Arvo. I hope that even if Arvo and the other three get killed off early on, we'll find out a little more about the true nature of the Russian community in the rest of the episode.
Just another thing - if Arvo really wanted to abandon his 'sick sister', why would he mention that her pain makes her cry out and attract the zombies? He may not happy about being with the group (perhaps he was hoping to sneak away with his sister and meant to drop her medication off at the observation deck first), but he's not dumb enough to not realize he wouldn't last long alone with his leg the way it is.
They're bandits. So, yeah. They're evil.
Clem robbed him. So yeah, she's evil too.
Things aren't ever simple.
Mine didn't. The only thing that was taken was his gun, which was took for obvious reasons. Arvo had no vaild reason to tell his group about Clems group other then being a coward or an ass.
So Jane robbed him. The Russians clearly don't approve of that. They take care of their own people, and won't stand for having strangers threatening their members and stealing their weapons and supplies.
Interesting how this game encourages us to only consider morality when it applies to the protagonist, and not the outsiders. I've seen people try to justify the insane shit that Carver does.
Of a gun he threatened them with? You'd be crazy not to take his gun. Turning up at the end with a group demanding EVERYTHING is hardly a counter to what was simply a demand to move on.
I try to help people and was even willing to help Arvo on his second visit, but he was either to cowardly or lying. Either way, because of his actions people are going to get killed.
He had a gun to defend himself, and clearly didn't want to shoot Clem. I can understand Jane disarming him and even searching his bag (although I'm sure you'd hate it if a stranger did that to you), but her dangling him over the railing and sticking a gun in his face was excessively violent. Seriously, Clem could take him in a fist-fight - doing that is just pointless cruelty.
Jane's motives may make sense (don't make friends with possible bandits), but they made her come across as a potential danger to the Russians. From what Arvo would tell them, their impression of Clem's group would be a dangerous band of thieves willing to exploit children and prey on crippled people. I'm not saying the Russians are much better, or that it's knowable for sure if they would have robbed Clem's group anyway.
But Jane's anti-social behavior wasn't the best way to introduce Clem's group to the Russians, and ironically they could have both been better off had they not met so violently. Walter may have been excessively idealistic, but Jane's cynicism and self-serving attitude seems to have actually backfired.
Never rob bandits. They're much more liable to treat you even worse.
True but The glasses are just a re hash of Sarahs and the leg brace probably comes from tiny tim. I'm not disagreeing with you but there is still a possibility hes just a quick character. I like his voice actor though, it could easily sound stupid
You don't know that for sure. None of us do just yet. What we do know is, they're willing to rob people of everything. Not even Jane did that.
We'll have to wait and see I guess. At the moment, Arvo seems very much like Ben, though he does seem to have a bit more of a backbone with the Russians at his side, but e5 should reveal some light on his character and so on.
My point is that we don't know enough yet to judge the Russians. I just have a feeling that our views on them will change in the next episode, and that they'd be less antagonistic had Clementine's group met them in a less hostile way.
If they knew they had a pregnant woman in the group, perhaps things would have turned out differently. If they didn't make the mistake of associating Jane with the group, perhaps they wouldn't have assumed Clem and her friends were simply marauders. This could be the community's harsh way of protecting themselves - a form of 'wasteland justice' by stealing from thieves.
Going by the rough translation available on here, it seems as though Burich (the bald tattooed one) is definitely ready for it to go wrong. The others less willing as they think there's too many of them. Arvo, doesn't seem happy with the situation either, but he appears to be like Ben in some regards.
Or like Sarah - broken glasses, disabled, clearly not able to make it on his own. Makes you wonder why the group keeps him around.
I'm not defending the actions of the Russians, because they instigated the standoff in the first place. But I'll also point out that the morality of Clem's group has already broken down due to their dire position. If you tell Luke about Jane's attempted robbery, he's more interested in whether she succeeded than shocked that she did such a thing.
I wonder if we'll see Jane again in Episode 5. She can't have gone far, and if Clementine protests that Jane was the one who threatened Arvo he immediately suspects a 'trap'. Perhaps she's still nearby...
but they might have done this before remember the trailer park i bet arvo and his friends were there that group had all most nothing there i bet they were robbed. arvo and his friends wasn't faraway from there
Most of the group wasn't evil, they wanted to take Clem and Co's stuff because Jane or Clem stole from them. An eye for an eye. And, it's the apocalypse! Everyone is trying to survive! They even took the risk to face them while they could have easily kill them and take their stuff. If the situation was reversed, I bet most of the people would rob the group too.
Now, there's a reason why I said most of the group isn't evil... Because that Buricko guy (or whatever his name is) was clearly agressive and bloodthirsty (even without the traductions it's easy to understand that).
I understand what you're saying. But the bottom line is they surrounded us and with guns pointed at our heads, tried to rob a group of suffering suvivors. And if the game gives me the opportunity to murder them, I'm going to personally take an interest in making them suffer.
Heh, the way you phrased it made me think of Rammstein... If you get the reference...