Is Lee Everett Morally Obligated to Help Clementine

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]Did Lee and TellTale Games The Walking Dead season 1 have an obligation to help Clementine out or should he have just walked away from her and left her to her own devices? Welcome back to Lost in Games Unscripted, the series where I talk about pretty much whatever comes to mind at any given time. And today that happens to be Lee and Clementine from Telltale Games: The Walking Dead season 1. Uh, but more specifically moral obligation and what kind of obligation we have to each other.

[00:00:25]Now, we talked a little bit last week about moral obligation in the sense of uh Ellie and whether or not she had the obligation to actually give up her own life potentially to save humanity. And while that was an interesting topic, there is a lot more to it than just whether you owe something to humanity, there's also what we owe to each other.

[00:00:44]Now, on the one hand, it might seem like it's a simple thing. You might say, "Well, of course, Lee has an obligation.

[00:00:50]Clementine's a little girl. She she should be helped, right? she needs the help.

[00:00:55]And yes, you're right on the surface, but the thing about it is is sometimes we need to take the time to actually dig deeper into things and think about why something is right and what perspective we should be using to look at it. So, from the perspective of Lee and Clementine, yes, you're right. She's a little girl and and Lee being the adult would have some kind of a at least he would feel an obligation to help her out. Normally speaking, not everybody is that way. There are people that go about the world that see children as nothing more than a burden and they see them as why should we do anything? Children should be on their own. Children, animal children are on their own after a year.

[00:01:37]Why aren't human children? You know, there there are people that that legitimately think that way. And if everybody thought that way, the species would be ext extinct really quick. As a matter of fact, most people tend to have a soft spot for children, for babies, for, you know, it it's really hard for us to say no when it comes to helping out the the small humans among us. and to a point where there are animals uh domesticated animals like cats that have actually developed over time a a meow that sounds very much like a baby or the same tone as a baby because it gets the humans ex you know the humans actually pay attention to it when they hear that wild puma's uh mountain lions I was trying to think of the word uh actually have a a tendency to sometimes sound like human babies because it they know it'll draw in potential prey in the form of human beings.

[00:02:37]So, it's not abnormal for that because we have this inclination to help out the the smaller among us.

[00:02:45]But is that necessarily always the right thing to do? Well, when it comes to something like self-preservation from from Lee's perspective, having Clementine along could actually be a detriment to his survival ability in a post-apocalyptic world. You know, we're not talking about 50,000 years ago where children were had to be very uh self-sufficient at a young age. You know, they had to be able to they had to learn from a young age how to do things like hunt and how to gather and how to, you know, that was an important thing.

[00:03:16]Children in today's modern society don't have to do all of that, right? We have technology for a lot of stuff and it's just not necessary to survive.

[00:03:24]So from that perspective, if society were to just collapse overnight, more or less like it does in The Walking Dead, you don't know what you're getting into when you come across a kid. And if you're looking to survive and that's your number one goal, it might not be the best idea to take on this child that's going to need you to protect them and feed them as another mouth to feed that can't feed itself, that's not going to be able to necessarily help out as far as gathering things very well.

[00:03:50]So there's that aspect to think of, but as we always do, we look at it from a moral lens and we look at the different uh the moral ideologies and philosophies. And so we'll start with something like deontology, which we've talked about plenty of times on the channel. And deontology is literally about obligation.

[00:04:10]The entire framework is built around having a moral obligation or duty based on something like either a god handing something down or just in general to each other. From a deontological perspective, Lee would absolutely have a a an obligation to help Clementine out because she is another human being, but also because she's another living being.

[00:04:33]you know, deontology is typically used to justify things like um veganism or you know, just focusing on on not doing any harm, right? Uh so from a deontological perspective, he would have to help her out. He would have no if that's if that's what he ascribed to 100%.

[00:04:54]But from a utilitarian perspective where you're talking about the the the needs of the many, the greater good, that kind of thing, it's not necessarily the case.

[00:05:05]Now, if you're thinking long-term survival potentially, yeah, you want to have the next generation raised up and it's going to be good to help teach her and and she's young enough that she's impressionable and you could maybe teach her how to hunt and you could teach her to do things because she's still young enough to learn that kind of stuff. But realistically, that's not necessarily going to help you in the short term if you need to survive dayto-day. And in Lee's case, when he first finds Clementine, he literally has no idea what's going on. All he knows is he he was in a cop car that crashed and then he's surrounded by zombies. He doesn't know what the hell they are. He doesn't, you know, they look like people, but what what's going on? And then he winds up in the house and the babysitter comes after him, the the zombie babysitter. And then Clementine comes down to save him. and all he knows is that there's this little girl, there's these monsters running around and for for his survival's sake, it might be best just to say, "Sorry, little girl.

[00:06:02]Uh, it's good to meet you and go back up in your treehouse. I've got to go. I I don't know what what's going on. I'm going to get out of here."

[00:06:09]Now, emotionally, that's not the right thing to do, right? Emotionally, most of us would know. I I don't think that there's very many of us that would be able to do that. you know, the guilt, you know, me personally, the guilt would rack. I would I would feel so bad if I didn't at least try to do something to to to protect her or do the right thing by her. But does that change when we start to talk about things like Ben, for instance, in season 1, and you look at Ben and you think about, okay, well, he's a little bit older. He would be a little bit more capable, although he doesn't really show it, at least early on, because he's he's been through so much. But does the group have a moral obligation to protect somebody like him?

[00:06:49]So when they first bring Ben back to the group, Lily is freaked out. She's she's angry because they've brought back an injured person, either the the teacher or the or Ben's friend and Ben. And so Lily's like, "What the hell are you doing? We don't have the food. We don't have the resources. We're struggling as it is, and you're bringing another mouth to feed in."

[00:07:09]And the argument initially is well at least from Lee and and and and Kenya like well we couldn't just leave them out there. We we we are part of the reason why they're in this situation.

[00:07:19]Essentially if you if Ben's friend gets shot, you know, so we're part of the reason potentially that one of these people is hurt.

[00:07:27]And outside of that, it's the the thing, well, we'll let him go after we get done, after we help them out, right? We'll use some of our expertise or some of our energy to help them out, and then we'll just kick them back out. But would it really be that simple? I don't think it would.

[00:07:43]Obviously, they don't kick Ben out right away. They don't They go to the farm and they you have all of that. But then even in episode three, he's still there. He's on top of the RV. He's he's acting as a lookout.

[00:07:56]And so, you got to question, you got to ask yourself, well, could they have pu pushed him out? Would they have been right to push him out? Do they have an obligation to help him?

[00:08:08]Because he's a teenager. He's 16, 17 years old.

[00:08:13]He he kind of has his he knows a little bit about the world, but he's still kind of struggling to get through things. You know, this is three months into the apocalypse, I believe, by episode two.

[00:08:24]So, you know, he's been out there for 3 months with his school group, you know, so he's kind of figuring things out on his own. Do we have an obligation to help him?

[00:08:32]He's a little older than Clementine. So, do you feel that same poll? Now, I've noticed a lot of people in my comment sections whenever Ben has brought up uh when we've talked about him, it goes back and forth. Some people say, "Well, he's a kid. He deserves he he he deserves to still have some help." And other people are saying, "Well, he's basically an adult and so he doesn't, you know, he should step up and if he can't step up, he shouldn't be a part of the group."

[00:08:54]So, that divide is still there. But what if we go a little bit older? What about Mark? Mark in season 1, episode 2 is they had brought him on sometime in the three-month gap between episode 1 and episode two, but he was an adult. Now, they brought him in because he had food.

[00:09:09]According to Lily, you know, the only reason we brought you here is because you had food. But would they have been obligated to help him even if he hadn't had food? What if they had found him alone? He had finished off the last of the rations. He was all by himself. He didn't know what he was going to do. And then they stumble upon him in in the army building and they're like, "Hey, should we bring him back? What should we do? What is our obligation to this person?"

[00:09:34]And again, it's pretty simple if you look at it from Deontology and you say, "Our obligation is to help everybody.

[00:09:40]Our obligation is to do the right thing by everybody."

[00:09:44]But that gets you into trouble, too, because you don't know. Maybe Mark could have been a killer. He could have been a bad guy. You don't know what you're getting necessarily with these kind of people. You're in a post-apocalyptic world. Anybody can lie about what they were before. Lee spends a lot of the time not necessarily lying but kind of avoiding talking about it and and unless he is like kind of pushed to do it by Carly. He doesn't really talk to anybody about his past or say, "Yeah, I murdered my my wife's lover and I was on my way to jail when all this started because I was a murderer. I was convicted."

[00:10:20]So, you don't know what you're getting.

[00:10:22]So, would Deontology be the right way to do it? Well, utilitarianism would say maybe I think from this aspect, at least me personally, I'm looking at from a utilitarian perspective, maybe we bring them in. Maybe, you know, we we vet them a little bit. We bring we bring them in.

[00:10:39]We keep a close eye on them. We see how they do, how they act around the group, what their what their mentality is, how they speak, the words they use, the the the tone, all that kind of stuff. Keep a close eye on them. But even then, you can be tricked.

[00:10:55]So, we get back to what's the obligation? Should we do it? I would argue, you know, it's pretty simple from a kid's standpoint. If a kid is is hurt, if a kid needs help, I would argue, yeah, obviously, even up to Ben's age, even teenagers, I would say, yeah, you should probably help them out. Adults, you got to be more careful.

[00:11:19]You got you don't know exactly what you're going to get. And again, that's with groups. We we see groups throughout The Walking Dead, both the games and the shows and even the comics, debating whether to help other groups, not necessarily to uh bring them into their, you know, to their community, but maybe to help them out and and trade food with them, to trade resources.

[00:11:43]Um they're in a difficult spot. A group comes to you or a couple people from a group come to you and say, "Hey, we need medical supplies. We're in a really bad spot."

[00:11:50]And it's it's always the question of what what is their true intention? What is their true purpose? You know, Bonnie in season two lies to the cabin group or she lies to Clementine and and and Kenny and says, "I've actually got my family.

[00:12:06]I just need a little bit of food."

[00:12:09]And of course, they we're going to help you get food. We're going to at least from um God, I can't think of his name. I'll put his picture up on the screen.

[00:12:22]Who says Kenn Kenny's buddy who says, "Yeah, we'll definitely help you out."

[00:12:26]But then it turns out Bonnie didn't actually have a group that needed help.

[00:12:29]But then you look at a group like in the show with with Alexandria when they first find the kingdom or the hilltop and the Hilltops got medicine and they said, "We need some help. We've got this we've got somebody here who's pregnant.

[00:12:40]She needs help. We need somebody to to we don't know what's going on and can you help us?" And it's the question of what do we do? And it's all situational, which you know, this this gets right into situational ethics and talking about what you need to do, what you're obligated to do in certain circumstances, because situational ethics would dictate that you would pay attention to what's going on, not only their actions, but what do you have available? What are your resources? What are your uh what is your defenses look like? Are you able to do you think you could defend yourself against a group?

[00:13:12]How big of a group do you think you what's what's the payoff there? If we help this group out now, maybe they only have like half as many of us and they don't have any defenses and we're fine.

[00:13:21]But maybe they have like five times as many people. Maybe they've got a large civilization going on. You know, we know at least in the game that there's a war going on between the Delta and and potentially Richmond.

[00:13:34]And so the question is like, okay, how big is the group that we might be dealing with? And it's all stuff to ponder and think on. And there's not necessarily a right answer in all of these circumstances.

[00:13:46]And it's never as simple as just saying from an emotional standpoint, yeah, we should do this from an emotional standpoint. Because if we start if we do that, you fall victim to a lot of things. You know, if you say from an emotional standpoint, hey, there's this little kid that needs help. We should help this because they're a little kid.

[00:14:03]And I would feel bad if I if I didn't help them. But what if that little kid is being used and sent to kind of gauge your defenses?

[00:14:11]because that does happen. That that that was one of the things when I was in Iraq that we had to worry about constantly because there were groups of people that would use children and and and put explosives on them and and send them up towards towards groups of of soldiers, you know, so you had to be careful. You didn't know what you were going to get yourself into.

[00:14:33]So if you and that's if you go from an emotional standpoint. That's why it's important to ask these questions to think about these things because you never know what circumstances you're going to be in. And if you get practice of of asking the right questions and focusing and and and asking yourself what do I believe at my core? Do I ascribe to something like deontology where I think there's a moral obligation uh that's handed down or do I subscribe to something like utilitarianism where it's it's the needs of the many out with the needs of the few and we need to make sure we're doing the right thing. We're looking at the consequences of our actions and how that's going to play out and we're paying close attention to everything which how do you look at things and are you being um are you doing the same thing across the board?

[00:15:14]Are you being consistent with how you approach these situations? The more consistent you are, the more practice you have at it. And that's why these games and looking at these thought as as thought experiments is so amazing because it gives you that practice. It gives you that time to kind of reflect.

[00:15:28]How would I handle this situation? And why would I handle it that way? Would I only handle it that way because I'm being emotional about it? Or would I handle it this way because I have a good solid foundation to build on? So, something to think about. I want your guys' thoughts down in the comments below. Not only do you think that Lee, you know, whether or not Lee has a moral obligation to help Clementine, but what about the group? Do they have a moral obligation to help people like Ben or Mark, whether or not Mark has food? Do they have a moral obligation to help other people if you're in a post-apocalyptic situation? What do you think the situation is, and why would you do that? So, let me know all of that down in the comments below. I've got a Patreon and a channel membership if you guys want to sign up for that. That helps me to create more videos and keep the stuff going. Um, if liking and subscribing does that as well. Everybody that watches these videos and makes it all the way to the end, you guys are are rock stars. So, I want to thank all of you for watching. Everybody have a great rest of your day and I will see you in the next