Kenny's Endgame?
Yup, another Kenny thread. But bear with me.
We've been going back and forth about how Kenny's role in S2 (if Telltale decided to bring him back) could possibly be justified, considering his poignant final scene in S1. Just last night I was watching Steven Spielberg's WAR OF THE WORLDS. During the third act, Tom Cruise and his daughter are holed up in the basement of a house with an insane Tim Robbins. What if a similar approach was taken with Clementine and Kenny?
Maybe in the third or fourth episode of S2, Clem encounters Kenny again, this time in even worse shape than we last saw him. He could be shacked away in some rundown cabin, or better yet, living alone on a rickety old boat out on the water. Throughout the entirety of the episode, it would literally be just you and Kenny. Imagine the last ten minutes of NO TIME LEFT stretched out into a full hour. The atmospheric potential could be through the roof.
Now, the episode could flow in one of two ways, both of which would depend on your relationship with Lee in S1. If Lee and Kenny were on the best of terms, the interaction between Clem and Kenny would take on a more melancholic, wistful tone, occasionally interrupted by a walker attack. If Kenny was your worst enemy, Kenny would be more deranged, and a legitimate threat to Clem's life...more in line with the sequence I mentioned from WAR OF THE WORLDS. The story would then become a more claustrophobic tale, with a little girl attempting to escape from a man she once knew who's now become something less than an animal.
But one way or another, the episode would conclude with Kenny finally dying for good. How Kenny dies would be the ultimate culmination of all the choices and actions the player had wrought upon Kenny's character throughout S1.
(I should mention this scenario could also be applied to Lily for all those fans out there who absolutely despise Kenny, although Lily vanished in episode 3 and wasn't quite as pivotal for the entire run of S1.)
Comments
I would think this was a great idea if we hadn't already spent so much time with Kenny in season one.
I think it may be time to let him go.
If I had seen the corpse of Kenny dead, I would let him go. But until I know what happened, I'm not doing it. I really liked Kenny. But I can't just let him go. I just hope TT will bring him back. Because instead of tying loose ends, they might want to introduce new characters.
I don't think that Clementine would find Kenny by herself but maybe with Omid and Christa.
I have to admit of all the Kenny theories I would be happy with this. Him being almost crazy on a boat would be quite intresting. He saves her and everyone is happy but then it slowly shows he's a bit crazy. This could work with any season 1 character honestly they at first seem fine then slowly reveal there true nature.
Sounds nice, but I'm not sure I'd like to be trapped in ONE LOCATION with Kenny for an entire episode. I mean, he's my bro nd all, but one location seems like it would get old a bit quick. Other than that, the idea's great.
When I said "one location", I didn't exactly mean Clem and Kenny would be completely confined inside one or two rooms for two hours. If they were in a cabin, they could roam outside for a few scenes in the surrounding forest. Or, if the episode took place on a sea vessel, it would be something much, much larger than the tiny motorboat we saw in S1, like a full-sized swordfishing boat.
I just think for a game that's built more on character interaction and unique dialogue exchanges than zombie carnage, this kind of situation could really push the format to its limit.
If anything they should just let Kenny die in the city helping Clementine escape. The way they push the horrible Christa and Omid characters on you at the end was cheap. Why did I tell them I wanted Kenny to take care of Clementine, but was never even given the option to tell Kenny? It's because they don't want you to make that choice to begin with, and telling Kenny would require him to give the reasssuring response you would expect, and that would have made Kenny's final decision to abandon a dying Lee, who is counting on him to help rescue Clementine at that point, even more out of place than it already was. That's why Lee isn't given any options to say anything about Clem needing him during those scenes. Christa and Omid inspired no confidence whatsoever. They are still basically strangers at that point, and I don't know how making Christa insult Lee or Kenny everytime she opens her mouth was suppose to make her come off as "tough" either.
Kenny might return as an alcoholic.
Kenny is shown to care about Clem, and kids in general, regardless of what he thinks about Lee. Making him an intentional threat to Clementine is just stupid. He's already showing just how damaged he is at the end of the game, but he's apologizing and talking about all his past mistakes. Why would they change that character into a deranged psycho who posed a threat to Clementine under any circumstance? It's pointless and out of character for him.
If it's a boat like that, then alright. I just envisioned the boat from Season 1 when you said that, with absolutely no room to... do anything but sit, I guess.
Holy shit, my parents were watching War Of the Worlds last night too! Small fucking world!
Kenny tells Lee to fuck off if you don't support him a specific number of times throughout the game, no matter how much Lee pleads and begs. This is not the action of a man who cares about "kids in general". Take the monster Kenny became in that one scene, and multiply it by ten.
I kind of doubt a few brief snippets of dialogue would completely guarantee the state of Kenny's mind. He might seem a little apologetic towards Ben, and he can finally bring himself to care for Clementine, but I wouldn't say a guy who tries to rescue a kid in an alley who's clearly beyond help is "all there". At any rate, this semi-crazed version of Kenny wouldn't necessarily be trying to kill Clem directly, but his behaviour could be so erratic and unpredictable (again, depending on his relationship with Lee in S1), he could easily put Clem in mortal danger.
I agree with you that Kenny is damaged at the end of the game, but he is acting like a man who's full of regret and is over eager to sacrifice himself in a way that lets him die with purpose. His sacrifice felt out of place to many, but I don't think it was meant to show a man so damaged he just abandons Clem; even though that's basically what it felt like. I had no faith in Christa and Omid who you're suppose to choose for Clem. They are shoved down your throat as being perfect guardians for Clem with the poorest writing in the game.
I feel Kenny wanted to die for something that would forgive his past mistakes, the same way Lee found redemption for taking care of Clementine. I don't think they did the best job of doing that(especially with Ben), but I believe that was their intention. I don't want them to bring back his character under any circurmstance that doesn't have him die in the city. They need to leave him alone or just show/tell an extended death scene that has him sacrificing in some way that helps Clem escape the city. He has no more reason to live, and it's pointless to continue his story just like it would be to continiue Lee's story if Clem had died.
I don't understand why people assume Kenny would be crazy if he came back in season 2. Believe it or not, but people don't go insane when their family members/loved ones die. Sure he'd be a broken shell of a man but would he go 'crazy'??
It always seems like cheap plot device when a character starts losing his or her mind after the loss of a loved one.
Curious how more than a few forum members were demanding outright that Kenny should only come back as a villain in S2 (if he came back at all), but when someone actually puts forward a scenario where that would actually happen, said forum members go ballistic. Make up your minds, guys.
Okay then, this ship theory is full of crap IMO. I think Kenny shouldn't be a villain. Maybe just a member of Tavia's community. He should have a minor role as a temporary companion and then that's it. I don't want to decide his fate, that should be up to TT.
I made my mind up, all right?
I didn't feel like Christa and Omid were "shoved down your throat as being perfect guardians for Clem" -- a lot of that support comes from them, and Lee can ultimately neglect to mention Christa and Omid in his final advice to Clem.
Plus, it's not like they were random characters thrown in at the very end. They had been in the season for three episodes.
I would like to see kenny appear in Russel's ex group, since for the "leader" SEVEN was the magic number and without Russel they are just six. I mean maybe Kenny will be in the group and maybe Clem will encounter them and they will ask her to join them. I don't think TT would make such an elaborate description of the group, mentioning all his members and then don't make the group appear in at least one episode.
That is a scenario I can go with, yea.
Kenny is DEAD. face it, and let him go. His end game is him turning into a walker or seeing his guts on the street.
If we see a body, it'll be let go. But there's too much evidence from a writing standpoint that he might still be alive. While in reality, he probably would have died, since the writers went out of their way to make sure we never saw anything concrete, and that they kept his ending slide as a vague "lost", it seems to indicate that they might have been wanting Kenny as more than a corpse in Season 2, especially given the edits that his "death" scenes had.
I'm guessing Kenny was supposed to die, but the writers found a way to make it interesting and let him live in a way the his death his ambiguous... So not my favourite charatcher, but someone I hope to see returning in season 2.
Well I want to see Maybelle too then.
I haven't seen her corpse, so I can't let her go.
Level 100 redneck lorde
Or maybe she find Omid and Christa instead of Kenny, maybe with a baby?
EDIT: Well we now know Clem find Omid
there is no evidence whatsoever that he's alive, only kenny fan assumptions. It's Telltale so there's never a 100% chance he's dead, but its at least 99.9%. Let him RIP as a hero.
All I want to know is: Kenny is dead or not. A simple answer suits me just right.
No, Kenny will not be a threat. If that happens, I will never play a TTG game again. Thats how sure I am. This theory is dead.
Im not a kennyfanboy, but 99.9% is pretty much. Why 99.9%? I would understand if we heard like loud screams and walkers feasting while blood splattered and ran on the floor etc. But we didn't see or hear anything. Everybody else we saw die we actually did see dying. But not Kenny. How you can be 99.9% sure he's dead sounds so stupid I don't even know what to say.
Same, I want to know if Maybelle died. What happened to her baby too?
So many loose ends..;)
We do hear screaming.
It's not screaming, it's more like grunting. BEN screams. Drop him from the tower in Episode 4, and you get to hear some screaming. Telltale actually took most of Kenny's yelling out.
Yes, think about Merle from the show, he gone missing in the first few episodes and then he reappeared in the 3rd season.
Basically, we don't know anything concrete.
Kenny's fate HAS to be explored somehow, and it might not even be with actual footage, just info or images. I am a fan of Kenny and I'd love to see him return and meet with Clem...but that would probably end up in him "finally" dying.
I think almost all of the fans know exactly what happens with Lilly and Rick's group. It's highly possible that they bring her back, I just don't know how. And she's most likely NOT to die.
Who is Maybelle?
The St John's cow.
So? Wouldn't you panic surronded by walkers? Kenny screaming doesn't mean he's dying. It's possible that he dies because the screaming ends. Or, he got out safe. Until we se his body, you cannot be sure of what happened.
I can't see how he will be a threat or som kind of a villain. That was my point. Agree with everything else. Lilly will surely come back. Why are you mentioning Rick btw?
It would make sense for Kenny to either end up a very broken man, depressed, barely getting by, looking weak, not taking care of himself etc. It would be heartbreaking to see him become that way but it's pretty plausible. The other outcome could be that he's now BOSS AS FUCK and like, beefy and covered in scars and wrapped in bullet belts, just like consumed with avenging his family's deaths. That would be kool. The idea of him being 'crazy' in a dangerous sense would be a waste of his potential imo. If TT decided he Did make it out alive. (fingers crossed)
Don't you know what happens between her and Rick? Well, maybe not with him but with his loved ones.