Executing the St. Johns: The Only Moral Choice

[dee23]

Originally Posted by JackSchirmer

It occurred to me during Episode 2, then again afterwards during the discussion, that the conventional moral position whereby killing the St. John's is considered the lesser, baser option, had it all backwards.

Here's a typical post on the issue:



Thing is, if you leave the St. John's alive, aren't they simply going to continue, as long as they're alive, trapping, mutilating, murdering, and eating innocent travelers? Don't you have the moral obligation to execute them, whether in anger or after due consideration?

What would their punishment have been in the pre-ZA world for their Dahmeresque crimes? Life imprisonment, at a minimum, and a death sentence in any state that allowed it. The only question remaining is, does the ZA provide a mitigating circumstance? In this case, I think, clearly not. There's still food out there. They do live on a farm. The soil is still fertile. They have corn, for example. They have at least one cow's worth of meat and the ability to dress and prepare that meat, in the neighborhood of five hundred pounds of it, which would last a small family at least several months

Life imprisonment wasn't an option, so executing the family was the only moral thing you could have done, given the circumstances. That it might have occured in front of Clem was unfortunate, but you didn't have the option during the game of taking Danny aside and killing him out of Clementine's view.

It wasn't an easy choice, but killing the St. John's was clearly right choice, the moral choice.

Let's face it they were both going to die anyway. The generator was shorting out and they had no defenses against the walkers. Danny's leg was broken in the bear trap so he wasn't walking anywhere. if you beat Andy long enough he's in no condition to exact revenge. He would have been a broken man once he realised his mother was dead and his dairy farm was in ruins, ransacked by walkers. The farm was being over run by walkers.

If I am honest I would have killed them both if Lee was alone with them but that would have been out of blood lust not necessity. More of us need to be honest about our reasons for killing the brothers. some people just jump for the opportunity to kill because it's a video game and they can, not because it's necessary for the story. The game does give us a choice to play how we want but if you select the view icons over object you will actually hear Lee's inner voice and his own opinions about various things such as how he wouldn't want Clementine to see anymore violence when you aim the cursor on her in the meat locker etc. I personally took this in mind when playing the game.

In the comics one of Rick's concerns is how detached and cold his son is becoming because of the horrors he's seen, how he is loosing his innocence, how their world is changing him to quickly and how their loosing their humanity.

Lee had only been in the apocalypse for 3 months during the dairy farm sequence. I felt a responsibility to be the best care taker possible for clementine, this is after all a story about redemption. How the rest of the group see's Lee is as important as how Rick's group saw him. I remember in the comic when rick was at the prison and started to loose control, the group lost faith in him as a leader and they made a committee so he would no longer make all the decisions. This was shortly after he nearly beat Thomas to death, in the end Thomas was left to the walkers where he suffered a slow death. Lets face it Thomas did more things to Rick's group than the st john did to Lee's. I punched Andy until Carly told me to stop then I left him to the walkers. Some how the sequence seemed more epic that way than a quick electrocution considering Lee left with the respect from his group. Clementine actually looks proud of him. At least I was able to justify looting the car at the end because the food wasn't taken by force. But I couldn't justify killing anyone in cold blood to Clementine which is partly why I didn't kill Larry.

[dee23]

Originally Posted by Viser

Ha, I did reply to you on the other thread where you posted that. I'm just gonna post my reply here.

My thought's exactly.

[dee23]

Originally Posted by YamiRaziel

You can't justify the Danny choices with "walkers were gonna get him". You didn't know about them at that time so it was killing him or letting him live. You didn't know that Brenda and Andy were going to die, so this argument is invalid.

I did kill both of them because they were a threat to my group and other groups as well. They had allowed ZA to turn them into things not much different than the walkers themselves, so they had to be killed.
Regarding Clem, my stance is that I can't shield her from all the wrongs the world is going to expose her to. If I want her to survive, then she needs to learn how to deal with all kinds of fucked up situations and decisions. I can't give her some universal truth but I can try to teach her what I perceive as right and good.

We knew that the generator was defective because Lee sabotaged it remember? Andy would not have restored it to full working order in the little time he spent working on it, he was distracted by the dinner bell. So walkers were going to come, Brenda made that clear that it is routine for them to attempt to get in during the night times.

You would have known from earlier that the bear traps are altered for catching humans so Danny was not getting out of the trap just as the teacher was not getting out with out his leg being amputated. Danny did not need to die at Lee's hand. When Lee left the barn he saw the first of the approaching walkers, Carly kills one of them.

After the rescue of Kenny's wife Lee would have known that zombie Mark would have turned Brenda into a zombie.

If Andy is beaten long enough he is in no physical condition to exact revenge against Lee's group nor is he emotionally or mentally stable after learning that his brother and mother won't be coming since he understands that to mean they are both dead. Both Andy and Danny were walker food. It does not have to be shown, this is the walking dead, it goes without saying. The same way Kirkman didn't need to show us Lilly being eaten by walkers during the Woodbury army assault on the prison in the comics. She was pinned down, without ammunition whilst a heard of walkers were approaching. Everyone left behind at the prison died although it was not shown. Realistically there was no other outcome.

With regards to shielding Clementine, killing a walker or a armed man is one thing, killing in cold blood is another. Yes she is going to see "some fucked up situation" but she doesn't need to see them coming from Lee, her main role model. through out the game you see comments like Lee has made Clementine feel safe etc, for instance if you choose to leave her home at night and the police man fires his gun she panics and asks if they are going to die. Lee's words of comfort and encouragement have an effect and are recorded. When you feed Clementine in the pharmacy Carly points out that you are a good care taker. All of this reflects how Clementine see's Lee, how she is left feeling and how the group see's Lee. If the gamer doesn't care about these things that is fine but Telltale went through great detail to encourage people to see these characters as real breathing people they want to protect, that is the whole point to this game and what will Separate this game from the generic zombie shooters out there and the atari first person walking dead shooter coming out.

[thestalkinghead]

Originally Posted by dee23

You knew that the generator was defective because Lee sabotaged it remember? Andy would not have restored it to full working order in the little time he spent working on it, he was distracted by the dinner bell. So walkers were going to come, Brenda made that clear that it is is routine for them to attempt to get in during the night times.

he only detached the drive belt, not hard to repair.
in the end it just ran out of fuel or broke on its own, Lee didn't break it

[dee23]

Originally Posted by Rock114

Killed Danny, let Andy live. Danny might have come back for us if he were able, but Andy was defeated. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't come after us again. He didn't seem to have the strength to go on after learning his family was dead.

Danny was immobilized he couldn't even get up since his foot was broken in the bear trap. Considering his leg would have got infected as it had no release latch, even if there weren't any walkers he would have died slowly any way. He was less of a threat to Lee beyond that point than Andy who I no longer see as a threat since he is outnumbered, out gunned and barely able to walk after his battle with Lee. Both Andy and Danny would have been vulnerable to both the walkers and the bandits, revenge against Lee could have only been a pipe dream.

[JackSchirmer]

Originally Posted by Desmodus87

I agree to an extent that it would be far better to kill both of the brothers. I chose to leave them both alive only because of Clementine. Having a Daughter myself I think about the situation from a perspective of a father raising a child in a post-apocalyptic world. You keep your kids safe, show them what they need to know to survive and shield them from the darkness and depravity that desperation drives people to.

If I was by myself they would have been dead and I wouldn't have had any regrets, but I wouldn't want a child of mine seeing the would as a bleak place.

A reasonable approach, but I've been taking the tack that the world surely is, in the ZA, a very bleak place, and that shielding a child from that is to escort her to her death. We now kill clearly, unrepentently evil people when it's right because to do otherwise is to let them continue to murder innocent folks. I want the child I'm sheperding to know that. I would discuss it with her at great length, but she needs to know that, like it or not, each of us is now judge, jury, and, when necessary, executioner.

You can't protect children any longer from the truth of what is happening (in the ZA) without compromising their ability to survive. Rick (in the tv show) should have had that conversation early on with Lori. Their son is around 12. Kids younger than that can safely handle guns. The idea that he shouldn't have one or be taught to shoot one is preposterous. It's almost silly that the wife of a sheriff wouldn't want their child to learn to (safely) handle a gun when he's surrounded by threats and nearly continual menace.

[Xarne]

the right thing to do is to kill them both and remove any chance of retaliation but because they pull that BS with Clem watching, most people (like myself) rewound. They all deserved to die, not because its morally right for others who might cross their paths, but because they tried to fkn eat me!

[The_Cheshire_Cat]

Originally Posted by Xarne

the right thing to do is to kill them both and remove any chance of retaliation but because they pull that BS with Clem watching, most people (like myself) rewound. They all deserved to die, not because its morally right for others who might cross their paths, but because they tried to fkn eat me!

Dog it Dog baby

[IndigoHawk]

I agree that killing the St Johns is the only moral choice. St Johns were a danger to your group and others. If you left them alive, you're only helping them kill people after you strengthened their defenses.

Also, it was immoral for Lee to disable the generator to see what was inside barn. He endangered everyone by doing that. Instead, he should have told the St Johns that secrets might get the group killed and demanded to see what was in the barn.

If the St Johns refused, I'm not sure what the right thing to do is. Do people have any right to privacy in TWD? Would Lee have been able to insist on opening the barn or would he have only been able to take people and leave, never knowing that he helped strengthen the defenses of cannibals?

[Cyreen]

Originally Posted by YamiRaziel

You can't justify the Danny choices with "walkers were gonna get him". You didn't know about them at that time so it was killing him or letting him live. You didn't know that Brenda and Andy were going to die, so this argument is invalid.

He was caught in a modified rusty bear trap. He wasn't going anywhere. If the walkers didn't get him, the bandits or infection would. After smacking Andy around for a bit, it's fairly obvious this isn't ending well for them.

It's possible to justify any decision, regardless of what you choose, but that doesn't make it right.