LIFESTYLE: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORTH OF LOUIS AND VIOLET’S BACKSTORIES (TWD TELLTALE)

Originally Published on Not One of Yo Lil Friends: https://notoneofyolilfriends.home.blog/2019/01/21/lifestyle-the-psychological-worth-of-louis-and-violets-backstories-twd-telltale/

January 21, 2019:

By Jaya Montague

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL OR PSYCHOLOGIST. I HAVE SOME EXPERIENCE IN STUDYING PSYCHOLOGY, BUT THIS IS MY OPINION. THIS SECTION ALSO SERVES AS A TRIGGER WARNING TO MENTIONS OF SUICIDE, PTSD, AND TRAUMA.

I’ve followed the story of Clementine for seven years.

Telltale’s Walking Dead series starts with Clem as a doe-eyed and curly-haired eight-year-old. In the first season, her caretaker, Lee, dies from a Walker (Zombie) bite. Each episode peels a layer of her maturing into the 16-17-year-old she is now.

In the current and last season, Clem and her “adoptive” son AJ meet up with other kid survivors at “Ericsson’s Boarding School for Troubled Youth.”

Clem always has major choices that shape the whole story and other characters. One of those decisions is between two people she can save during the Delta kidnapping raid on the school.

My goal in this post is to explain the psychological issues that come with both of their stories and why it’s important to understand their natures.

The split is between Violet, the de facto leader or Louis, one of the school’s hunters that plays the piano.

Clem’s choice helps her rescue the other kids, and she finds out their backstory.

I’ve looked through online discussion boards. There is a debate on whose tale is the saddest or worth more care. Violet and Louis have different experiences, but it’s not possible to weigh one over the other.

So, I’ll start with Violet’s story first.

Violet

Violet, at first glance, stays the same. She rolls her stained eyes to the back of her head or calls someone an “idiot.”

In real life, she’s the teen girl who wears Spencer’s and eats lunch alone.

We know her.

The issue is judging others. A person’s front of the house might be gorgeous/rotten. But when the key opens the door, the indoors is immaculate/disgusting.

Violet’s lovely inside shows in her love for Clementine.

Her story is the focus at the party they throw before their mission. They sit in a circle over their behavior records and Violet explains how she ended up at Ericsson.

Violet’s childhood is the same as mine.

My mom worked and didn’t come around until she stopped working. My dad left my life. Violet’s mom had three jobs and her father, an absent alcoholic. Likewise, Violet and I spent most of our time with our grandmothers. Her grandfather died and her granny rocked in her chair until she couldn’t take the pain anymore.

11-year-old Violet looked at sketches by her grandmother’s feet when her grandma pulled out a .22 rifle.

After Violet’s grandmother shoots herself in the chest, Violet saw cartoons for five hours afterward. Soon after finding her dead parent and daughter looking at cartoons, Violet’s mom asks why Violet didn’t call for help.

“It wasn’t like Grandma was going anywhere… and besides, I just wanted to finish my cartoons,” Violet says.

Bringing Violet back to the example of the house, her front is her distance from others. Walk further into the home and the general layout is spotless.

The human condition is not able to be flawless. Some places are clean, but some areas carry cracks and dirt.

It is difficult to pinpoint a mental diagnosis for real people. Finding one for a video game character is harder. Dr. Michael D. De Bellis and Abigail Zisk review the effects of abuse on the body.

The study says those who suffer childhood trauma (Violet), are at risk to lack social skills.

While this can apply to any of the characters, it’s clear in Violet.

She might experience PTSD and why she has abandonment issues. This closing-off is important to her character development because if the raiders capture Violet, she turns on Clem and tries to stop them from escaping. Symptoms of PTSD include disruptive behavior, which makes sense of how she will act in the next episode.

Louis

Louis is the opposite of Violet.

Louis clings on to music. His belief in the “old world” finds Louis playing the headmaster’s piano when everyone else is working. He’s one of the first students to welcome Clementine onto the campus.

Like Violet, Louis doesn’t appear to change in the beginning. He’s joking how Clem’s never had a boyfriend or skirting his responsibilities.

If Violet is a home, Louis is a prism.

A prism is a prism. Even when light shines through, the prism remains. Louis’ past doesn‘t reduce who he is. From the pain, he can show light outward.

He is a source of peace for Clementine and AJ. His balance of himself as a person and as a survivor in this apocalypse.

I see myself in Louis too.

I know the need to keep everyone content. His story stems from his family’s wealth. His family gave him whatever he wanted except for singing lessons.

To quote his dad, “You either get to be rich or be happy. You can’t have both.”

Louis then creates a fake mistress for his father and steals his credit cards to make hotel charges. This goes on for a year and his parents’ divorce when he tells them.

Prisms separate the light in different colors.

Louis’ light produces the positive but shows the things that aren’t as great.

Wealth does not equal happiness.

The “From wealth to well-being? Money matters, but less than people think” study shows that folks assume that cash means someone is happier.

This might be Louis’ dad’s reasoning on why his son couldn’t do something that made him happy. Louis being spoiled is a perspective that is a possibility. Even though “spoiled child syndrome” is a loaded term, it exists. When children do not have age limits, Louis’ behavior can occur.

Louis’ reaction to seeing Clementine in the jail represents that.

Getting that idea shows his loyalty to Clem.

His behavior, if someone picks Violet over him, breaks after the abuse he faces.

This changes who he is.

From a writing perspective, I think that the wait to reveal Louis and Violet’s past makes sense. I spent two episodes with these characters and I only know them in the present. Rounding them out gives me more of a reason to care about them and that creates closeness.

Foiling Violet and Louis because of their individual stories can’t be done. They went through things at different points of time, but both of their situations are valid. The stories create value and importance to who they are in Clem’s life.

Whether Clem opened her pack of maxi-pads or met her teen love for the first time, she did so without family.

Choosing Violet or Louis is an individual choice, but whoever stands by Clementine is now her family.