#thinking about the fact the narrative was so powerful Dave Fennoy said regularly after young people send him messages asking for help and

[ziracona]

Thinking for the rest of my life how S1 of TWDG begins with Lee in cuffs, life over, because of a man he just killed, who took a girl he loved, and ends with Lee in cuffs, life over, because of a man he just killed, who took a girl he loves, but literally everything about that string of statements has so utterly changed meaning, the end could not be farther from the start. The bookend of finishing right where you started, and nowhere near it.

Both the first and last line in the game are spoken to Lee, about Lee, and reflect regret towards the end of his life, but even the flavor of regret could not be more distant. “I reckon you didn’t do it,” and “(I’ll miss you) - Me too,” do not even share a sadness. The first legacy, remarked on throughout season 1, would have been ‘murderer.’ The real one is so far the opposite, his ghost carries every person who survives for the rest of the series. I hear it described as about redemption, but the focus is never once in the game about Lee making up for something. You never even really know what he did or if it was merited. The game is a second life, and culminates in a stranger accusing Lee of having no right to live or have someone who loves him for every single thing he’s done wrong since the game began, no matter how unfair the accusation, and about that being bullshit. About it being enough, what he did for Clementine, for everyone, for himself. It’s about salvation, maybe. Of the self, by the self, from ruin, through meaning in love and caring for other people, no matter their endings or yours. Ben always dies, but it mattered. Omid always dies, but it mattered. Duck, Carly, Katya, Mark, Doug, always die, but it mattered. And Clementine always lives, and that does too. Lee always dies. It just takes the course of a season. But he’s not lost anymore when he does.