What an Artist Owes - Telltale’s Walking Dead & Abusive Relationships
That’s right, I titled this shit (potential TW)
Gotta get thoughts out somewhere because it’s on my mind. I watched a really well made visual essay on the second season of the Telltale Walking Dead which deduced that ultimately it tells the story of an abusive relationship that the player is unaware is actually abusive. Since your choices are not necessarily major forks in the road where Clem has to choose who to save but are a lot more subtle, ultimately most of your choices relate back to how they’ll be perceived by the violent surrogate father figure. Frequent character conflicts toy with the idea that you’re too scared to leave him and be safe but you’re also too afraid of him leaving you and losing that attachment to your previous father figure. NOW, here’s where it bugs me. It was a really detailed and honestly perfect description of an aspect that never registered for me during my playthrough, but then he says something along the lines of “the audience is entitled to levity” (paraphrasing), in relation to the fact that while the story is honest and bleak, it never presents a positive message or sense of hope to counter the super dark story. To which I say, no artist owes anyone anything in terms of what they create.
The video seems to misunderstand a key part of abusive relationships and broken and abusive people blaming the world for being the way they are; these people exist, and it's real, and I personally know that it feels like hell. So criticizing a story that presents this but doesn't offer a hopeful message or a positive lesson as a result, is frankly just naive. What the story presents instead is subtle honesty; you don’t necessary know what relationship is happening until the final moment where you’re given the ultimatum of killing, leaving, or staying with them. That’s due to ultimately being a game set within the confines of The Walking Dead mythos, subsequently....there’s a lot of other shit happening which you feel takes priority and feels like the main conflict. But the idea that the audience is owed a message explaining why Kenny is an unhealthy character and giving a sense of hope, is ridiculous to me? An artist doesn't exist to tell people what is inherently good to believe and what isn't... that's where it blurs the line of propaganda; whether it’s a good or bad message (depending on beliefs). An artist exists (and this sounds pretty basic) to create art. That is their job. To present an image, a story, a tone, an emotion etc. that they want to present. It’s expression, and imagination. It is not inherently supposed to be believed as fact. So to disregard a piece of fiction that presents a genuinely honest and subverted portrayal of an abusive relationship because it didn’t give you a message to support, is assuming that said piece of fiction was made to dictate thought. Which no piece of fiction is there to do. Hell even documentaries are not created to dictate thought, but to only present a view. What stories do, is present an audience with a series of characters and relationships which the audience witnesses taking their course through the narrative the artist has imagined. They are separate to us, they are not us nor necessarily who we should be. Fiction exists in a bubble that we just happen to look at. Characters are not all good (ideally). They have flaws and quirks that define them, along with their positive traits. Characters without flaws are not interesting, because they no longer become relatable or have a sense of complexity about them. Stories should be problematic, because that’s what conflict is. Frankly you don’t always get a happy ending. Things don’t always work out. Sometimes there is no good lesson to learn at the end of the day; that’s the kind of arc that takes place in Season 2.
I’ve started to genuinely despise a big portion of this site, because there is this weird and innate fight against anything involving conflict. I saw a goddamn post explaining why Dr Facilier from The Princess and the Frog is a problematic character and should not be appreciated.....he’s a fucking villain. There’s such a constant dance around harsh conflict and unsavoury resolutions recently, but is that not what makes shows like Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad so well received? Among other things, these shows are considered in such high regard because at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter who the audience wants to come out on top, the characters will go through their lives as they’re written, regardless of what makes the audience feel good; which sometimes means the plot feels unfair and grim. Again, this is the artist’s creation. They do what they believe happens next, not what necessarily the audience feels is just.
So back to The Walking Dead visual essay thing I watched and the point I was trying to make here. Season 2 presents an ending and a narrative that doesn’t feel good. It is almost entirely bleak. That being said, the creators had no duty to provide levity. They have no obligation to their audience to tell them how to feel about abusive relationships. A relationship is presented on screen. That’s it. That’s all it is. What you take away from reading into it is entirely up to you. This is called interpretation. An artist provides art to be interpreted, it is not their purpose to also provide the interpretation to their own art. So if you made it to the end of this, I hope you take away something. A work of fiction ultimately feeling unfair to it’s characters, or stimulating negative emotions, is not inherently bad. Nor does it OWE you a positive counter-argument or anything for that matter. You should not discount a character because they have problematic qualities (flaws). This is characterization. The more we decide to limit conflict within characters because we do not agree with them, the more we limit complexity in storytelling. Final point, despite the fact that I feel I’ve said this constantly throughout. But maybe all caps will cement it.
AN ARTIST DOESN’T HAVE ANY CREATIVE OBLIGATION TO AN AUDIENCE, OR OWE YOU ANYTHING. THEIR ART IS THEIR OWN.
