Character Name: Clementine (last name unknown) Canon: The Walking Dead (the game, by Telltale Games) Canon Point: Near the end of Episode 4, after her talk with Lee post-Crawford. Background/History:her wiki.
Personality: [ AS A NOTE, this game is one where you control the protagonist's choices and they affect later gameplay. As such, this will be based on my playthrough--as a general rule, Lee chose to be honest with Clementine, to do what she thought was best, to side with Kenny and his family through everything, and to save everyone he possibly could. Except Lilly, but she shot Carley in the face so fuck her. :| ]
A month ago, Clementine was an entirely normal eight-year-old girl. She went to school, lived in a sweet little two-story house with a fenced yard and a treehouse, and had two parents who loved her more than life itself. Now, two months into the mass-extinction and reanimation of all of mankind, she's finding everything she ever knew or believed being challenged or drawn into question. As such, a lot of the aspects of her character are currently in the process of change. Some are in the initial stages, and some are just about changed already. But if one thing's shown time after time throughout the four available episodes of the game so far, it's the fact that while things may be rough, she's adapting to this new world quickly and she's not going to let it take her down.
Let's start from the top, though, shall we?
☑ lee everett Within the first twenty minutes of the game, Clementine's rescued by Lee, and she almost immediately latches onto him as a protector and figure of authority. Though she saw him kill her undead babysitter--the first time she saw someone dispatch a walker, no less--she could tell that he was at the very least a good enough person to trust to keep her safe, especially once he said he'd help her find her parents. Throughout the rest of the game so far, Lee rose to the occasion. He didn't have the slightest clue on how to take care of a kid, but he tried his absolute best regardless, always putting her safety first and taking her opinions into serious account. Really, Lee counts on Clementine as much as she counts on him. They're partners, despite the way the other adults sometimes side-eye him for how often he treats her like a grown-up rather than a kid, and it makes a world of difference. Besides just 'protected', Lee makes her feel trusted, respected, and useful, and through that he's won an inordinate amount of love and respect of his own. Because she knows he does his best to make sure they're equals, Clementine trusts anything he does or says or tells her to do. Lee is her hero, and as she's slowly come to realize, the only family she has left.
☑ helping others One thing that's apparent from as soon as you meet Clementine is that even if she's scared, she will always, always help someone who needs it. It doesn't even need to be someone she knows, or someone she trusts. It's as if she doesn't realize that not helping isn't a possible option. The only exception there is if she know for a fact that they're a Bad Person (back to that in a bit), in which case she..... contemplates dropping hammers on their head, oops. Still, all through the game she's trying to help people, Lee or Kenny and his family or any of the others, or even strangers on the road (Lee helps one of them push their car, and Clementine's shoving with all of her weight even though she's really not doing any good--she's trying.) This is one thing that never changes, no matter how many hardships she goes through. She gets more and more cautious, but she never stops trying to help. Her first zombie kill, as an example, is to save Molly, a girl they met less than five hours prior. A relative stranger is worth shooting to kill for the very first time, just because she needed help. And whenever the adults are talking about a problem, she's always there with, 'Can I help?' or 'Do I get a vote?' and trying to help figure out the situation. It doesn't always work, but for an eight-year-old? It works a hell of a lot, all things considered.
☑ simplified world-view When Lee first takes Clementine under his wing, her world-view is incredibly black and white. Did you just kill someone? Check yes or no. If yes, were they a bad person? Check yes or no. If no, that means you're a bad person, doesn't it? Whether or not a decision was okay wasn't based on whether or not it had to be done, but rather, whether or not the recipient of said decision was 'bad'. Right off the bat, she adjusts to the fact that killing walkers isn't the same as killing people. (In the very start, she sees Lee smash her undead babysitter's face in with a hammer. The first thing she asks is if he killed it, and his reply is that 'something else did'. Meaning she was dead before she even attacked Lee.) But then she's faced with much more complex issues to figure out how to feel about. Like finding out Lee's a convicted murderer. It's for killing a senator for sleeping with his wife (though we're never given the full story, really), but Clem doesn't know that. So it became, did you really kill someone, Y/N? Well... were they one of the monsters? No? W-Well were they bad? Yes, they were bad? Okay, then it's okay. She's actually incredibly understanding when she finds out, despite how dangerous it makes him sound. As long as he was a good guy killing a bad guy, she can forgive him, because in this world that just has to happen sometimes.
This black and white way of seeing things is brought sharply into question when Lee and Kenny dispatch of Larry, Lilly's father and a fellow group member, when he may or may not have died of a heart attack. (Lilly swore he was still alive, but Kenny said they couldn't risk being stuck in a meat locker with 200+ pounds of big angry walker, because Larry was a big strong guy and could easily overpower them all even in death. Lee ultimately agreed with Kenny, and they smashed Larry's head with a salt lick while Lilly screamed that he wasn't dead.) Clementine sees her Lee splatter the head of this man who Lilly swears is still alive, and Clem knows for a fact that Larry wasn't a bad person, just grumpy. This is almost outright traumatizing for her, because it's the first time she's introduced in any real clarity to the concept of, 'sometimes good people have to kill good people because it's the only way to survive'. It's the first time she sees something like that happen without the killer being a designated 'bad person'. All of a sudden, she has no idea what to think anymore. Lee's quick to talk her down from it of course, and after a bit she ends up saving their asses (she's the only one who could fit through an air duct, etc etc.), but that's a message that really sticks with her.
That black-and-white way of thinking isn't just in reference to who can kill who, though. It's revealed later that Ben, a teenager they picked up in early Episode 3, was responsible for the deaths of Kenny's wife and son. (By proxy--he angered the bandits, they brought walkers, the son was bitten.) Kenny flips out, enough that they have to vote on whether or not to even let Ben come with them. Clementine insists on getting a vote, and her vote is that Ben's her friend and 'we don't leave friends behind'. It's firm. Leaving Ben just isn't a thing that's happening. And earlier on in the story, they come across a car full of supplies. It's seemingly abandoned, but the motor's still running. Clementine is firm on the fact that they shouldn't loot the car, because what if the people come back?? That would be them taking food and supplies away from good people, in her mind. Thankfully, Lee backed her on it. The rest looted the car anyway, but Clem didn't feel so alone, standing back and watching with her hand in Lee's. This even extends to who she's friendly to. She has to beg Molly for Lee's life, when they meet, but as soon as Lee realizes it was a misunderstanding and starts introducing himself to Molly all casual and such, Clementine is totally chill with her because Lee is. She even waves and smiles when Lee introduces her.
☑ adaptable Clementine may be just an ordinary eight year old in many ways, but one key difference is her profound adaptability. Instead of crying or trying to find someone else to protect her from the danger, she finds a safe place. Then, when zombie!babysitter is attacking Lee (a stranger, at the time), she helps him kill the babysitter because already she understands that it's not her babysitter anymore. Even if she doesn't know what it is. And when they have to leave her house (and quite possibly never come back), she does with only a little hesitation, even though it's the only safety she's ever really known. Throughout the game, she learns what to think of the walkers and how to handle them, what to think of people and how to handle them, how to survive, how to live on low rations, how to shoot a gun, how to strategize... Really, she's a perfect little girl in that sense. Everything Lee ever asks of her, she finds some way to learn how to do it. And sure, there are times when it's too much to handle, times when she breaks down and cries, but not a single person in the group would even think of saying that she isn't a productive member of the group, all things considered. This, I think, is a very large part of what makes her partnership with Lee a viable thing--she's learning to stop thinking quite like a kid, and in the process, she's becoming someone Lee can count on to legitimately have his back.
☑ sharp, intuitive This is another thing that's shown from the get-go. While other children hid under their beds or with adults they trusted when the apocalypse hit, she grabbed food and a hammer and hid in her treehouse. And this was before anyone started teaching her how to survive. And really, her keen mind is shown all through the game, especially when you put her and Kenny's son side by side. She acts worlds older than him, despite being the same age.
As far as smarts are concerned, it's implied multiple times throughout the game that she's in the higher range of intelligence for kids her age. When asked about her classwork back in the first grade, she said it was really easy. Then later on, she's telling Lee about a guy who came to her house before Lee did, and how he tried to break in through the sliding glass door. Lee points out that the door was unlocked. Clementine grins a little and says, "He was dumb."
Beyond just smarts, though, she's actually incredibly sharp as far as social situations and even self-awareness are concerned. One of the biggest examples of the former is when they first bring Ben back to camp. Lilly's giving Lee hell for bringing home more mouths to feed, and Clem tugs on Ben's hand and says to come see what she drew. He looks to her, then to the two arguing, and he tries to object. Clementine just tugs a little harder and says, 'Just c'mon....' She wants him away from the people arguing over him so it doesn't stress him out or hurt his feelings. She's trying to subtly engineer that situation, a sort of awareness that most kids wouldn't have. As far as self-awareness goes, at one point Lee asks why she keeps her walkie-talkie even though it's broken. She says she needs it, that her parents might try to use it to find her. Lee knows how false this is, and tries to tell her, but he only gets as far as, "Look, Clementine..." before she says, "I'm not stupid, Lee. I know it's just pretend. But it makes me feel better." And that's a good enough answer for him.
(And this is just headcanon, I may be reading too much into it, but something tells me her parents never quite realized how smart she was. Whether it's because she sort of found her sharp mind in the wake of the apocalypse or whether they somehow just didn't notice it before, I don't know. You just hear her mom on the answering machine, and she's crying and saying to call the police, honey, (and slowly,) "That's nine, one, one." To an eight year old. Meanwhile, her kid's already got a mini-fortress up in a tree. I dunno, that just struck me as odd.)
☑ kind, friendly, lovable Clementine is one of those kids that nobody can hate. She tries her hardest to be nice to everyone, to have a smile for anyone who needs it, to reach out to people she knows are hurting. She's also pretty good at seeing things from other people's point of view, and though she's never outright mentioned it, she seems to live by the golden rule and treats people how she'd hope someone would treat her. She's also polite whenever possible, and very rarely rude at all. She tries to avoid complaining, especially when it's something like hunger and she knows they're on limited rations. On top of that, she loves to make things for others! This is usually some sort of silly art project, but the thought's what counts, right?
As a side note to this, she's actually pretty touchy-feely once she cares about you. It doesn't take more than an Episode (a couple of days, ICly) for her to hug Lee whenever they're reunited, or to reach for his hand when she needs support.
☑ still just a child Despite how mature she seems to be, she's really still just a child. She misses school, loves all sorts of art (drawing and chalk art and leaf rubbings and even just decorating things with stickers) to the point where she could sit and do art for hours on end. And hand the end result out to everyone she likes, obviously. She asks a ton of questions, be them simple or more difficult than she realizes, and she gets frustrated when the answers to those questions are fudged or softened. She's even got a mischievous streak that comes out when you least expect it. Like at one point, you examine a salt lick, and she tacks on, "But don't lick it! It's gross..." And Lee just looks at her for a second and says, "Did you lick it, Clem?" And she kind of looks away and says, "I dunno~..." Or at another point, she says Duck (Kenny's kid) is always blaming her for things. Lee asks, "Like what?" She says, "Like putting a bug on his pillow." And he pauses, then asks, "Did you put a bug on his pillow?" And she grins a little and says, "Yes."
Adversely, her age makes things a lot more difficult for her to handle sometimes. When Kenny and Lee have to smash Larry's head, she drops to her knees in a corner and slams her eyes shut and cries, "I don't wanna see!" And when it happens, she sobs, and even when Lee calms her down, she still curls up in the corner for a bit. I mentioned earlier how that was a sort of revelation moment for her, but still, she wouldn't have reacted quite so dramatically if she weren't just a child. When Duck ends up dying, that hits her pretty hard, too. She understands what's happening, but she just sits there with her knees tucked to her chest, and she barely answers Lee when he talks to her. She's tough and she tries her best, but when things get bad enough, she's still going to cry, still going to get scared, and she's not quite as good at hiding it as the adults tend to be.
Clementine | The Walking Dead (game) | not reserved! [part 1 of 2]
Contact Info: plurk - tracetopia, aim - amxire
Other Characters Played: Lightning Farron
Preferred Apartment: None.
Character Name: Clementine (last name unknown)
Canon: The Walking Dead (the game, by Telltale Games)
Canon Point: Near the end of Episode 4, after her talk with Lee post-Crawford.
Background/History: her wiki.
Personality:
[ AS A NOTE, this game is one where you control the protagonist's choices and they affect later gameplay. As such, this will be based on my playthrough--as a general rule, Lee chose to be honest with Clementine, to do what she thought was best, to side with Kenny and his family through everything, and to save everyone he possibly could. Except Lilly, but she shot Carley in the face so fuck her. :| ]
A month ago, Clementine was an entirely normal eight-year-old girl. She went to school, lived in a sweet little two-story house with a fenced yard and a treehouse, and had two parents who loved her more than life itself. Now, two months into the mass-extinction and reanimation of all of mankind, she's finding everything she ever knew or believed being challenged or drawn into question. As such, a lot of the aspects of her character are currently in the process of change. Some are in the initial stages, and some are just about changed already. But if one thing's shown time after time throughout the four available episodes of the game so far, it's the fact that while things may be rough, she's adapting to this new world quickly and she's not going to let it take her down.
Let's start from the top, though, shall we?
☑ lee everett
Within the first twenty minutes of the game, Clementine's rescued by Lee, and she almost immediately latches onto him as a protector and figure of authority. Though she saw him kill her undead babysitter--the first time she saw someone dispatch a walker, no less--she could tell that he was at the very least a good enough person to trust to keep her safe, especially once he said he'd help her find her parents. Throughout the rest of the game so far, Lee rose to the occasion. He didn't have the slightest clue on how to take care of a kid, but he tried his absolute best regardless, always putting her safety first and taking her opinions into serious account. Really, Lee counts on Clementine as much as she counts on him. They're partners, despite the way the other adults sometimes side-eye him for how often he treats her like a grown-up rather than a kid, and it makes a world of difference. Besides just 'protected', Lee makes her feel trusted, respected, and useful, and through that he's won an inordinate amount of love and respect of his own. Because she knows he does his best to make sure they're equals, Clementine trusts anything he does or says or tells her to do. Lee is her hero, and as she's slowly come to realize, the only family she has left.
☑ helping others
One thing that's apparent from as soon as you meet Clementine is that even if she's scared, she will always, always help someone who needs it. It doesn't even need to be someone she knows, or someone she trusts. It's as if she doesn't realize that not helping isn't a possible option. The only exception there is if she know for a fact that they're a Bad Person (back to that in a bit), in which case she..... contemplates dropping hammers on their head, oops. Still, all through the game she's trying to help people, Lee or Kenny and his family or any of the others, or even strangers on the road (Lee helps one of them push their car, and Clementine's shoving with all of her weight even though she's really not doing any good--she's trying.) This is one thing that never changes, no matter how many hardships she goes through. She gets more and more cautious, but she never stops trying to help. Her first zombie kill, as an example, is to save Molly, a girl they met less than five hours prior. A relative stranger is worth shooting to kill for the very first time, just because she needed help. And whenever the adults are talking about a problem, she's always there with, 'Can I help?' or 'Do I get a vote?' and trying to help figure out the situation. It doesn't always work, but for an eight-year-old? It works a hell of a lot, all things considered.
☑ simplified world-view
When Lee first takes Clementine under his wing, her world-view is incredibly black and white. Did you just kill someone? Check yes or no. If yes, were they a bad person? Check yes or no. If no, that means you're a bad person, doesn't it? Whether or not a decision was okay wasn't based on whether or not it had to be done, but rather, whether or not the recipient of said decision was 'bad'. Right off the bat, she adjusts to the fact that killing walkers isn't the same as killing people. (In the very start, she sees Lee smash her undead babysitter's face in with a hammer. The first thing she asks is if he killed it, and his reply is that 'something else did'. Meaning she was dead before she even attacked Lee.) But then she's faced with much more complex issues to figure out how to feel about. Like finding out Lee's a convicted murderer. It's for killing a senator for sleeping with his wife (though we're never given the full story, really), but Clem doesn't know that. So it became, did you really kill someone, Y/N? Well... were they one of the monsters? No? W-Well were they bad? Yes, they were bad? Okay, then it's okay. She's actually incredibly understanding when she finds out, despite how dangerous it makes him sound. As long as he was a good guy killing a bad guy, she can forgive him, because in this world that just has to happen sometimes.
This black and white way of seeing things is brought sharply into question when Lee and Kenny dispatch of Larry, Lilly's father and a fellow group member, when he may or may not have died of a heart attack. (Lilly swore he was still alive, but Kenny said they couldn't risk being stuck in a meat locker with 200+ pounds of big angry walker, because Larry was a big strong guy and could easily overpower them all even in death. Lee ultimately agreed with Kenny, and they smashed Larry's head with a salt lick while Lilly screamed that he wasn't dead.) Clementine sees her Lee splatter the head of this man who Lilly swears is still alive, and Clem knows for a fact that Larry wasn't a bad person, just grumpy. This is almost outright traumatizing for her, because it's the first time she's introduced in any real clarity to the concept of, 'sometimes good people have to kill good people because it's the only way to survive'. It's the first time she sees something like that happen without the killer being a designated 'bad person'. All of a sudden, she has no idea what to think anymore. Lee's quick to talk her down from it of course, and after a bit she ends up saving their asses (she's the only one who could fit through an air duct, etc etc.), but that's a message that really sticks with her.
That black-and-white way of thinking isn't just in reference to who can kill who, though. It's revealed later that Ben, a teenager they picked up in early Episode 3, was responsible for the deaths of Kenny's wife and son. (By proxy--he angered the bandits, they brought walkers, the son was bitten.) Kenny flips out, enough that they have to vote on whether or not to even let Ben come with them. Clementine insists on getting a vote, and her vote is that Ben's her friend and 'we don't leave friends behind'. It's firm. Leaving Ben just isn't a thing that's happening. And earlier on in the story, they come across a car full of supplies. It's seemingly abandoned, but the motor's still running. Clementine is firm on the fact that they shouldn't loot the car, because what if the people come back?? That would be them taking food and supplies away from good people, in her mind. Thankfully, Lee backed her on it. The rest looted the car anyway, but Clem didn't feel so alone, standing back and watching with her hand in Lee's. This even extends to who she's friendly to. She has to beg Molly for Lee's life, when they meet, but as soon as Lee realizes it was a misunderstanding and starts introducing himself to Molly all casual and such, Clementine is totally chill with her because Lee is. She even waves and smiles when Lee introduces her.
☑ adaptable
Clementine may be just an ordinary eight year old in many ways, but one key difference is her profound adaptability. Instead of crying or trying to find someone else to protect her from the danger, she finds a safe place. Then, when zombie!babysitter is attacking Lee (a stranger, at the time), she helps him kill the babysitter because already she understands that it's not her babysitter anymore. Even if she doesn't know what it is. And when they have to leave her house (and quite possibly never come back), she does with only a little hesitation, even though it's the only safety she's ever really known. Throughout the game, she learns what to think of the walkers and how to handle them, what to think of people and how to handle them, how to survive, how to live on low rations, how to shoot a gun, how to strategize... Really, she's a perfect little girl in that sense. Everything Lee ever asks of her, she finds some way to learn how to do it. And sure, there are times when it's too much to handle, times when she breaks down and cries, but not a single person in the group would even think of saying that she isn't a productive member of the group, all things considered. This, I think, is a very large part of what makes her partnership with Lee a viable thing--she's learning to stop thinking quite like a kid, and in the process, she's becoming someone Lee can count on to legitimately have his back.
☑ sharp, intuitive
This is another thing that's shown from the get-go. While other children hid under their beds or with adults they trusted when the apocalypse hit, she grabbed food and a hammer and hid in her treehouse. And this was before anyone started teaching her how to survive. And really, her keen mind is shown all through the game, especially when you put her and Kenny's son side by side. She acts worlds older than him, despite being the same age.
As far as smarts are concerned, it's implied multiple times throughout the game that she's in the higher range of intelligence for kids her age. When asked about her classwork back in the first grade, she said it was really easy. Then later on, she's telling Lee about a guy who came to her house before Lee did, and how he tried to break in through the sliding glass door. Lee points out that the door was unlocked. Clementine grins a little and says, "He was dumb."
Beyond just smarts, though, she's actually incredibly sharp as far as social situations and even self-awareness are concerned. One of the biggest examples of the former is when they first bring Ben back to camp. Lilly's giving Lee hell for bringing home more mouths to feed, and Clem tugs on Ben's hand and says to come see what she drew. He looks to her, then to the two arguing, and he tries to object. Clementine just tugs a little harder and says, 'Just c'mon....' She wants him away from the people arguing over him so it doesn't stress him out or hurt his feelings. She's trying to subtly engineer that situation, a sort of awareness that most kids wouldn't have. As far as self-awareness goes, at one point Lee asks why she keeps her walkie-talkie even though it's broken. She says she needs it, that her parents might try to use it to find her. Lee knows how false this is, and tries to tell her, but he only gets as far as, "Look, Clementine..." before she says, "I'm not stupid, Lee. I know it's just pretend. But it makes me feel better." And that's a good enough answer for him.
(And this is just headcanon, I may be reading too much into it, but something tells me her parents never quite realized how smart she was. Whether it's because she sort of found her sharp mind in the wake of the apocalypse or whether they somehow just didn't notice it before, I don't know. You just hear her mom on the answering machine, and she's crying and saying to call the police, honey, (and slowly,) "That's nine, one, one." To an eight year old. Meanwhile, her kid's already got a mini-fortress up in a tree. I dunno, that just struck me as odd.)
☑ kind, friendly, lovable
Clementine is one of those kids that nobody can hate. She tries her hardest to be nice to everyone, to have a smile for anyone who needs it, to reach out to people she knows are hurting. She's also pretty good at seeing things from other people's point of view, and though she's never outright mentioned it, she seems to live by the golden rule and treats people how she'd hope someone would treat her. She's also polite whenever possible, and very rarely rude at all. She tries to avoid complaining, especially when it's something like hunger and she knows they're on limited rations. On top of that, she loves to make things for others! This is usually some sort of silly art project, but the thought's what counts, right?
As a side note to this, she's actually pretty touchy-feely once she cares about you. It doesn't take more than an Episode (a couple of days, ICly) for her to hug Lee whenever they're reunited, or to reach for his hand when she needs support.
☑ still just a child
Despite how mature she seems to be, she's really still just a child. She misses school, loves all sorts of art (drawing and chalk art and leaf rubbings and even just decorating things with stickers) to the point where she could sit and do art for hours on end. And hand the end result out to everyone she likes, obviously. She asks a ton of questions, be them simple or more difficult than she realizes, and she gets frustrated when the answers to those questions are fudged or softened. She's even got a mischievous streak that comes out when you least expect it. Like at one point, you examine a salt lick, and she tacks on, "But don't lick it! It's gross..." And Lee just looks at her for a second and says, "Did you lick it, Clem?" And she kind of looks away and says, "I dunno~..." Or at another point, she says Duck (Kenny's kid) is always blaming her for things. Lee asks, "Like what?" She says, "Like putting a bug on his pillow." And he pauses, then asks, "Did you put a bug on his pillow?" And she grins a little and says, "Yes."
Adversely, her age makes things a lot more difficult for her to handle sometimes. When Kenny and Lee have to smash Larry's head, she drops to her knees in a corner and slams her eyes shut and cries, "I don't wanna see!" And when it happens, she sobs, and even when Lee calms her down, she still curls up in the corner for a bit. I mentioned earlier how that was a sort of revelation moment for her, but still, she wouldn't have reacted quite so dramatically if she weren't just a child. When Duck ends up dying, that hits her pretty hard, too. She understands what's happening, but she just sits there with her knees tucked to her chest, and she barely answers Lee when he talks to her. She's tough and she tries her best, but when things get bad enough, she's still going to cry, still going to get scared, and she's not quite as good at hiding it as the adults tend to be.