Why is AJ unlikable?
I can't quite put my finger on it
Even when he was in Rebecca's tummy, I wasn't keen on him.
I don't think I can even attribute it to his actions. With Lee, If Clementine had shot anyone in the back of the head, I'd have just been like "meh, Clem had her reasons" but with AJ, I just think he's a butthole.
I took to Clem immediately and wanted to protect her immediately and 'loved' her more and more as the game went on. I didn't even really mind dying for her. She was worth it.
If AJ gets Clem killed, I'll hate him
I laughed my arse off when he elbowed mullet (can't remember his name) in the nuts though.
Why do you find him unlikable? Help me understand
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I can't quite put my finger on why I like him. I was always indifferent to him. Maybe it's because Clem cares which makes me care about raising this kid, or it's because he maybe the one person since Lee who cares about Clem as much as I do.
I hated AJ the moment Clem got saddled with him. I wanted to toss him in a dumpster and leave him. Clem was way too young to be trying to care for a newborn, especially if you end up alone with him. She'd end up getting herself killed trying to scavenge formula or he'd get them killed crying because in reality, babies cry, a lot. He'd be ringing the dinner bell for zombies and constantly attracting walkers to them.
I hate him less now that he's older and not a complete burden. Still, out of principle, I'm not keen on him.
I think they made him likeable enough (shrug)
Weren't you the one who was like "Clem, you and I are going to get as many kids killed as possible" after the Ep1 trailer? AJ started the op quite nicely
The first two posts seem to shed some light but my own personal reason for it is because is because he simply shouldn't have existed. In fact neither should his parents. On it and Christs could have better fit the role of Alvin and Rebecca. The bond would have felt at least slightly stronger. The idea of the baby in general is a problem for a few reasons because it acts like a generic plot device to direct the story without being a fleshed out character. AJ, a child of whom the parents of she knew less than a month. For the baby for it to be Clementine's single driving force throughout the entire narrative of A New Frontier hurt her character tremendously in the game. Now that he's a more prominent character I'm more indifferent to him
Aren't children 'unlikeable' in general?
Yeah that's actually a really good point. If he had been Omid and Christa's kid I'd actually care about him because I liked them both. I liked Omid more, but I liked them both. I never even liked Rebecca much at all and it's never established for sure who AJ's father is. Could be Alvin, who was nice enough, or could be Carver..., who knows.
I actually like him the most out of every character in ep 1
I also would've cared more for Baby/Toddler AJ had he been Omid's and Christa's child but now since hes an actual character I don't mind. I see him as Clem's son tbh.
That's a fine point, but I was more about letting one more die. I don't want to kill as many as possible, I need these kids to form my gang. But we'll probably get a few more kids killed before my gang fully coalesces and we're going to be smiling while we do it.
And also Marlon did his fair share too, so ya know, Respect.
Yeah, they really screwed the pooch on this one back in S2. I really wish Sean Vanaman & Jake Rodkin would've never left, seems like things started to go south with plot holes in this series after their departure.
https://telltale.com/community/discussion/120497/christa-season-2s-original-plot#latest
Maybe THIS was the original plan, but after their departure they couldn't keep those ideas without facing possible intellectual property theft which led to all the drastic script changes? IDK their red tape process, but something had to cause the series to become so far derailed before ANF came along, aside from the failings of Bruner. I do know that when presenting a script, if you don't want your ideas stolen, you lawyer up which I assume people did working on TWD, otherwise I don't have any logical explanation for the rewrites. None of us will ever know because company NDA's keep this type of stuff from surfacing, anyways.
Hell, the proper way to have done this was to keep consistency with the teams. When S1 was first going through the storyboard process, they should've mapped this series out for the next 5 years, right then and there and kept the same team throughout all the projects. I understand they didn't anticipate S1 to gain critically acclaimed success, but after it did, lightbulbs for the long-term should've immediately went off for everyone that was involved in S1 -- followed by an emergency meeting to get everyone from
S1 back on board with the future installments.
I get Telltale likes to switch things up and give everyone a shot episode by episode, but c'mon that's like taking Michael Bay away from Directing the first 5 successful Transformer's films and letting rookies have a stab at them. Real studios wouldn't take that kind of risk with their bread and butter.
Because he’s evil, cold hearted, takes everything way too seriously and isn’t being shaped by my teachings at all
Holding up Michael Bay and his Transformers movies as something to be proud of lolololololol
Alvin Jr.'s okay. Never had a problem with him.
But to answer your question(as in, to you), I'm guessing it's because he's not a Season 1 character/connection, is the son of Rebecca and probably Carver, and maybe even because he inherently sets up a Lee & Clementine format with Clementeen and himself--with almost everything that implies.
As yes--da deepest TWDG characters!
Actually, Mr. Vanaman eventually threw up his hands and said "Fuck it, this story ain't my responsibility!" when Season 2 came out.
He also said two scenes in All That Remains were left relatively untouched from his original draft, so it's even more likely that that was always the plan.
Cause he is black (Yeah I'm racist)
"Is it because I'm black?"
Fool proof response to dismiss any fault on your part, and also both stun and throw shade at whoever it is used against
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️NO❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
See, I briefly considered potentially making the joke myself(Privileges!), but thought it'd be in bad taste.
Someone make this a meme.
I don't find him unlikable at all. Game children are usually annoying, but he's a pretty cool kid.
Dude, you would've trolled even if I said Steven Spielberg or Stanley Kubrick. That, or you just fail horribly at recognizing a simile. lolololololol
Can you provide me the source for Mr. Vanaman showing frustration with Season 2? I thought it had more to do with what happened under Bruner.
"The Telltale Games team, including co-founders Kevin Bruner and Dan Connors, and The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, made their way onstage to accept the award. Kirkman accepted the large, black statue from Saldana with both hands and handed it off to Connors and Bruner. Bruner, in turn, gestured two others onstage: Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin, the project leads and co-creators of the game, thanking them for creating the game’s heroes. Neither of them was named onstage for their work in creating the studio’s biggest creative success. Shortly before two women in sparkly outfits ushered everyone offstage, Vanaman abruptly pulled the statue from Bruner’s hand in a moment that appeared unplanned and said, “We work with the most talented people on the planet."
https://theverge.com/2018/3/20/17130056/telltale-games-developer-layoffs-toxic-video-game-industry
I don't think he wanted to give up on it, but under the previous management he had no choice which led to his exit and founding his own company. Also S2 was penned by Nick Breckon, who's credited on the DLC "The 400 Days," but not in season one like Vanaman.
I did some searching before posting and the closest I could come to what you said is his comments on https://gamesradar.com/sean-vanaman-walking-dead-firewatch-interview/
& even there, his follow up question about leaving Telltale being a risk doesn't takeaway from the fact it sounds like he wasn't happy there under Bruner. That isn't debatable. Again, NDA's keep people from discussing these things bluntly in detail. I see it happen in interviews all the time when those "hard questions" come up.
To take it even further, he probably wanted to start his own company under Bruner, but for all we know as I'm not a Telltale employee, it's likely he was bound by a non-compete agreement that prevented him from doing so. I'm not sure if this has changed under Pete, but I don't see any other place to shift the blame to except Bruner. If Hideo Kojima can restore Kojima Productions post-Konami, I can only assume a non-compete agreement & toxic management under Bruner among other d33tz we'll never be privy to, contributed to Vanaman's departure.
he is not that bad right now, but in s2/s3 he was very annoying
Here is a thread with the interview in question
Also, I heard Vanaman was the one who recommended Breckon take over in his steed in the first place.
Not at all lol. It's just when I think of good movies, Transformers and Michael Bay aren't anywhere near what come to mind.
Honestly, off the top of my head, if I was going to compare it to something, it'd be like Force Awakens then The Last Jedi. Force Awakens set up for so much then like Luke with his lightsaber, The Last Jedi was just like "LOL" and tossed it all away. (Not trying to start a SW debate. I liked TLJ well enough.)
Some people just can't stand kids. Hell, some people even have a phobia for young children. It's a true fact. Google it.
I mean Aj is def more of an actually character which is already better because I do enjoy him. I actually really enjoyed Aj and Clems dynamic, although Im sick of telling Aj to stop taking other peoples shit, and Im still a bit upset about the whole Aj killing Marlon no matter what.
Overall he is way more likable than before, and I atleast care enough about him, unlike other games where it was just "Hes just a baby, so you have to care about him."
i like him, very complex and different. people dislike him as hes not.lile clementine and doesnt have that social and emotional development like clem had. makes it hard to develop that bond
I think it's the way AJ was developed as a character that is why he is shown to have a lack of empathy and has a habit of stealing/intruding. His poor social skills, poor etiquette and habit of attacking those who "snuck up" behind him. Also he could of been Rebecca's child by rape.
the same people that hate AJ and want him dead are the same that see Marlon as redeemable after killing Tenn's sister's. i'm sure race has nothing to do with that. lmao.
I like AJ....fuck the haters.
Thank you! I'm going to watch it now but it's still not the original script and leaves a lot to speculation. "Early in TWDG S2′s development Vanaman wrote a rough draft of the entire season arc and a script for the first episode before handing his work to Nick Breckon and leaving Telltale. Most of that work was then completely “redone”, enough that he feels he has no creative ownership over Season 2."
Without the original we have no way of saying for certain we would've had the same S2 had Vanaman stayed. I'm not saying you're wrong, but just seems like there's a lot we'll never know regarding this series.
1) I'm not a part of the hate AJ crowd, but I'm still waiting for him to grow on me over the remaining episodes. I think people here are just having a hard time with his lack of character development. During the first 15 minutes, I was under the impression he was a pretty capable and logical child that listened to Clem. Basically a younger S2 Clem in the S1 body. When he expressed his disappointment with there always being no one around, I assumed he would appreciate being around other humans again at the school.
Instead he immediately becomes a child exhibiting the terrible twos. A menace and an utter walker-inviting mess. He experienced life on the ranch long enough to recall being around people, so we can't say he's showing out because he doesn't know how to act around a group. Either way, this is where the contradiction in his character really shows. He can't all of a sudden turn into childish brat among the group whereas when it's just Clem & him, he returns to the focused, cold-calculating walker killing assistant again. One that can keep quiet, listen and navigate his way around monsters like a mini Special OPS recruit.
2) Yeah I'd like to see Marlon redeemed but I'd also like Brody to remain alive and for the last 20 minutes to have been a dream sequence, so what? I'm pretty sure it's not but that doesn't mean I'm not looking forward to the rest of this season.
I don’t like him either. I think a part of the reason is while Lee definitely had to take care of Clem, she never felt like a burden. She was a child and she had her selfish moments, but she was also able to adapt and actively showed that she learned from her mistakes. She was actually mature, and could understand concepts like death and sacrifice as they were forced on her.
AJ doesn’t strike me as mature, but everyone keeps insisting he is even though I don’t see it. Of course he’s chill with death and knows how to shoot a gun; he was born and raised in the zombie apocalypse! That isn’t a sign of maturity, it just means he’s a product of his environment. Clem wasn’t, she was used to life before the apocalypse and then had to adapt after everything went to hell. Clem was also meant to be a sign of hope. She was always smiling, always optimistic (at least during season 1). AJ is just so serious and has little tolerance for anything hopeful or sentimental. Sure, he liked Tenn’s drawing and tells Ruby a joke if you choose to go that route, but his default is taking action without considering the feelings of others. He isn’t sympathetic to other people, aside from Clem.
I think people don't like him because of the event at the end. That surprised me for sure, he was pretty little to kill someone either.
But Marlon had already lost his mind and I didn't have hope for that dude either,no matter how he acts he was convinced. While I was thinking "If I set him free/lock him to the basement, he'd probably find ways to get his revenge " (because let's face it, that's how things work in Walking Dead universe) and... AJ shot him.
Yeah, let's pull out the "race card". I'm sure nothing bad will come of it.
This.
I also don't give a fuck about AJ because his character never developed. I mean in s2 and s3 he was just a little baby, we didn't see him much and he was the son of parents we never really cared about. This is one thing btw I would agree with PewDiePie which is that Telltale introduces too many characters and kills off too many. Now that you think about it, you realize Clementine is the only one you would really care after 3 seasons, and having to start from zero all the time and having to develop the "care" for characters is annoying and you could then easily find yourself in the position that you don't care about a character's death.
I like him his a naturally good kid.
The haters hate him for reasons are not his fault
But they love characters who dose shitty stuff that make them deserve the hate saying that they were right or they dose wrong thing for the right reason
But they simply hate a child for his existence, I like to hear one of them say I want my own kids dead cause they shouldn't exist.