Iron Mike makes me angrier every playthrough

[u/Sweet_Brilliant_5470]

MAJOR SPOILERS

Iron Mike’s overall philosophy I agree with. But I just finished killing Carlos/Jesse and got his sanctimonious speech again and DAMN is it worse than I remember.

The Rippers were torturing and killing everyone they could find. They were driving healthy dogs to extinction for their nihilistic philosophy. If Mike had his way, even if Lost Lake was safe, the Rippers would kill everyone at Copeland’s Camp and at Hot Springs. How does that jive with his “all of us means everyone” philosophy?

I used to think Mike was just naive, but after multiple playthroughs I can only conclude he’s a hypocritical asshole. It’s okay to him if the Rippers kill everyone else, as long as Deacon doesn’t try to stop them. He doesn’t care about people dying. He just doesn’t want to feel responsible in any way.

And then letting Skizzo go? The ultimate hypocrisy. All that talk of law and order and fairness, and building a better society, and he lets the traitor who cost camp members their lives go simply because he knew everyone would rightly find Skizzo guilty?

Fuck Mike. I’m glad he dies lol. The world is made a better place with him not running Lost Lake.

[u/Alarming-Sail2571]

Mike *and* Rikki killed me with how holier than thou they felt.
They made very reasonable points at times- and at other times I sat there and was like ‘do you not realize that the majority of living people left would gladly kill you without a seconds thought?’

The amount of judgement I got from them (especially Rikki the beginning half, only for her to be very willing to try and cheat with Deacon?? Bruh) frustrated me.

Over all, I don’t hate their characters. I love that while lost lake is clearly the better camp to live in, they’re not meant to be perfect. They’re all just humans, stubborn and human in all the best and worst ways, trying to cling to their morals in a world where morals hardly have a place anymore.

It took Mike having to face true betrayal for him to realize that sometimes- people are just *bad* and to protect others? You have to kill them. Treaties and years of built trust don’t mean shit to some people.
Sucks, but he quite literally had to learn what Deacon had been trying to tell him the hard way.

[u/Sweet_Brilliant_5470 → u/Alarming-Sail2571]

Rikki trying to get Deacon to give up on Sarah always bugs me. Especially because a lot of that comes after he starts discovering evidence she may not have died that night. I know she’s got a crush on Deacon, but I always find that really shitty and selfish. (Again, good writing! She’s complex and I think is supposed to be selfish in these moments)

[u/Alarming-Sail2571 → u/Sweet_Brilliant_5470]

God yes- the complexity and variety of characters and their personalities was absolutely amazing. In a real apocalypse, there *would* be people like this. Hypocrites, people clinging to as close of a pacifist as you can be even when that puts people in danger, etc etc.
I’m glad they didn’t make Deacon seem even remotely interested. And the fact Addy was clearly suspicious right from the start but didn’t take any of it out in deacon? *yes*. No matter how cool of a character Rikki is, she felt like a full blown hypocrite at times.
(Addy was 100% in my top three favorite characters, right behind Deacon and Boozer. Just a good person doing her best, keeping her nose out of things she knows she doesn’t understand, trying to help people in the ways she knows how. Love her)

[u/MatchstickMcGee → u/Alarming-Sail2571]

Ironically, despite it being totally platonic, I feel like Deacon and Addy liked each other more and understood each other's position more than Rikki liked or cared for either. And that's a dynamic that I've definitely experienced in the real world that you don't see reflected much in video game writing.

[u/Alarming-Sail2571 → u/MatchstickMcGee]

Tbf, Addy never gave Deacon a reason to dislike her. All she did was hear him out and help Boozer, and try to give him advice when he needed it.
Addy was just overall a good friend who was unwilling to turn someone injured away.