Round One: Ellie vs Clementine

Now for those of you saying “But wait, they’re not the main characters!” well maybe more so for Ellie rather than Clementine seeing as she was the main focus for season two, but for the other, even though Joel is the playable character for the majority of the game, Ellie is the one that gets the most focus, we’re the one that gets the most development and the one we identify with the most, not to mention she’s the one front and centre on the box art, so suck it.


And to start off, let me just say that these two, are just incredible; oh, not just because they’re great characters, but because they prove most major studios wrong, you know what I’m talking about, that idea that gamers can only relate to characters if they’re a straight white male which every gamer in the world will tell you is not true. Well here’s the proof, not only do we have two female protagonists but they’re also kids, that’s really rare, you know what’s even rarer than that? One of them is black and the other is a lesbian, that’s almost unheard of for a videogame character, let alone a main character! So no matter who wins, they’re both fantastic in my book.

But more into who is actually the better character, that’s gonna be tricky, Clementine is a little girl who ends up being thrown into a zombie apocalypse and has to learn quick how to fight to survive or else she’ll die, while Ellie was born into the zombie apocalypse, this is all she’s ever known and has been bred to fight all her life. So looking at it from this perspective I would have to say Clementine is the better character, not only is she a lot younger than Ellie but she is all of a sudden thrusted into this life, her childhood is cut short in order to survive, the innocent life of yesterday is suddenly gone, so her fight for survival is made all the more impressive. But on the other hand, Ellie has had a lot more experience in this world and is the better fighter; after all if you were in a zombie apocalypse you’d probably want Ellie by your side over Clementine.

But it’s not just about what events they go through but how they deal with it, Clementine after experiencing a tragedy often becomes more mature and often colder from the experience, with every death she becomes a lot more use to it and overtime is hardly affected by it; granted she still does have that soft side to her where you see how much she really cares, but for the most part she’s becoming more used to the situation. While Ellie, while arguably going through even more tragic experiences, I mean yeah both of them lost their friends and family but Clementine was never nearly raped and eaten, Ellie never loses her sense of humanity, and that’s a big part of her character, she always tries to see the best in other people and find the good in a bad situation. Not only is this impressive considering everything she goes through but the fact is she’s a person that shouldn’t even have any humanity to begin with, she was raised in this desolate world and has seen humanity at its worst. Fact is, while Clementine is always learning from her experiences, she is slowly losing more of her humanity, Ellie is always learning but always keeps her humanity, so while I hate to leave Clementine high and dry, I can only pick one winner, and in this case, the winner of this round is Ellie.

Winner: Ellie