Lee Everett

Lee Everett is the main character of first season of The Walking Dead video game. Lee is the player character in the first season of the game, appearing in five episodes. Tasked with protecting a girl named Clementine in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, Lee allies with several other characters and groups. When creating Lee, the developers attempted to achieve realism, with a strong emphasis on him being a parental figure to Clementine. He is voiced by Dave Fennoy, an American voice actor. He received positive reception for his role in the game, specifically the voice work and the writing. Fennoy was nominated for Best Performance by a Human Male at the Spike VGA.

Appearances

The Walking Dead Season One

Prior to the events of the game, Lee was a professor of history at the University of Georgia, but one day came home to find his wife sleeping with another man, a state senator. In a fit of rage, Lee killed him; he was subsequently tried and sentenced to prison for murder, long since coming to regret his actions. His crime also distanced him from his parents and brother.

The onset of the zombie apocalypse occurs as Lee is being taken to prison; when the car transporting him crashes into a Walker he manages to escape, but he quickly realizes the dire situation as he soon finds himself hunted across the countryside by several Walkers. He takes shelter in a nearby suburban home, where he finds young Clementine who has been hiding from the zombies as her parents had left for Savannah some time before the apocalypse. Recognizing that Clementine would remain in danger, he offers to take and protect her, hoping that they will be able to find her parents. He eventually goes with her to the Hershel Greene farm and meets a fisherman named Kenny and his wife, Katjaa, and son, Duck. After an accident with Walkers claims the life of Hershel's son, Shawn, the five are thrown out and eventually meet with other survivors, and form a small group, though Lee remains subdued about his history. After discovering the fate of his own family in Macon, Lee takes on more of a role of a father-figure to Clementine.

After having holed up in a motel for three months with dwindling supplies, the group meet the St. John family who invite them to dinner at their family dairy. The group agrees to send out a delegation to the St. Johns' farmstead to see if they are trustworthy, however Lee discovers the meat the St. Johns is serving for dinner is human, and the family are cannibals. The electric fence protecting the dairy malfunctions and the place is overrun. Soon after, the group is forced to flee and eventually start heading to Savannah via a train. En route, Lee starts to help Clementine learn survival skills such as how to use a gun and why she needs to keep her hair short. As they near the city, Clementine's walkie-talkie goes off, revealing a man that knows of Lee's actions to this point and promises Clementine that she will be safe once he deals with Lee.

In Savannah, the survivors look for a boat and supplies to flee the mainland. They encounter another group of survivors led by Vernon, a doctor. With Vernon's help, they are able to prepare the boat for their journey; before Vernon leaves them, he warns Lee that he does not think he is a fit person to be Clementine's guardian, and offers to take the child, but this doesn't take place. The next morning, Lee wakes to find Clementine gone, and while searching nearby, he was taken by surprise by a walker and Lee eventually discovers that he was bitten. With what little time he has, Lee and the other survivors agree to look for Clementine, at first believing her to have been taken by Vernon. Instead, the man on the walkie-talkie reveals he has taken Clementine, and tells her she will be safe at the hotel that her parents would have been at. After briefly passing out in the now-abandoned safehouse of Vernon's group, Lee is given the option of amputating his bitten arm. Either way, Lee and the group are able to escape from the hospital where they make their way back to the house, but find that the boat has been stolen by Vernon's group. Shortly after the house is overrun with walkers but the group escape into the attic, where they eventually find a way out. Many casualties arise while making their way to the hotel, Lee is separated from the others and promises to meet them later on with Clementine. Barely hanging onto consciousness, Lee makes it to the hotel, and finds the man; the man explains that Lee's group had previously taken provisions from his family's car, and ultimately leading to the death of his wife and children, and goes to question Lee's other decisions and, regardless of whether or not Lee had helped in taking the provisions from the car, ultimately berates him and plans to punish him and look after Clementine as his own. When the man is shown as insane, talking to his wife's severed head in a bag, Lee gets Clementine's help to subdue the man and either kills him by choking him to death, or being shot in the head by Clementine after Lee is almost killed. They make it out of the hotel where they see Clementine's parents as reanimated before Lee passes out.

When Lee wakes, he is out of strength and barely able to keep conscious, but finds Clementine has dragged him to safety. With his time short, Lee helps Clementine secure keys and a gun to escape to the rooftops, and instructs her to find Omid and Christa. The player can choose to have Lee instruct Clementine to either shoot him or do nothing and leave him be to become a walker due to the fact that the noise might attract walkers, where Clementine will choose an action based on the culmination of the player's choices within the game.^[1]

The Walking Dead Season Two

Lee appears briefly in a flashback that Clementine has after falling unconscious from being shot during the events of the final episode. The flashback occurs during the time the group has fled the motel after Lilly killed Carley/Doug, and Clementine recalls the advice that Lee gave her about learning to survive and cope in this new reality, considerations that she has to keep in mind once she regains consciousness.

Concept and creation

Lee appeared in the 2012 episodic video game The Walking Dead as the protagonist and playable character. He is voiced by Dave Fennoy, and was written by multiple people, including Gary Whitta in the fourth episode.^[2] Fennoy received an audition in an email, and after completing it, he received a call confirming that he got the role. The audition asked for actors to portray him in a "very real" fashion, which is a part of Lee's design that attracted Fennoy. He called Lee "complicated", due to his criminal history, his concern for keeping Clementine safe, and the fact that he associates with people that he may not have had it not been for the zombie outbreak. He added that him having a child of his own helped him relate to Lee and Clementine's relationship.^[3] Whitta described their relationship as "emotionally authentic".^[2] Dan Connors, CEO of Telltale Games, compared Lee to Rick Grimes, the protagonist of The Walking Dead comics and TV series. He called him both tough and smart, while also caring. He also called him a "reflection of the player's choices".^[4] Telltale designer and writer Harrison G. Pink commented that it was important to make everything Lee would say believable, and that Lee is a "human being" with "real needs and real fears and real desires". While they wanted to allow players to choose what Lee says, all options are things that Lee would realistically say.^[5]

Reception

Lee was acclaimed by critics and fans. IGN's Colin Campbell wrote an article detailing why Lee "really matters". He explains that the reason why the game is so good is because Lee has a lot of great qualities, such as being nice and modest about his abilities. He goes on to describe him as an "everyman".^[6] Fellow IGN writer Greg Miller also cited Lee for why he enjoys the game; he wrote that he felt he was actually involved in Lee's development.^[7] Kotaku's Kirk Hamilton writes that he is more interested in seeing Lee grow than Rick Grimes, the protagonist of The Walking Dead comics and TV series.^[8] Rock Paper Shotgun's John Walker wrote that Lee was an everyman character in zombie fiction.^[9] The Daily Telegraph's Emily Richardson felt that the characters drove the story, and cited Lee and his "mysterious and complex" character design as a notable example.^[10] GamesRadar staff named Lee the 84th-best video game hero. They cited his bravery and devotion to Clementine for his inclusion.^[11] Dave Fennoy received praise for his portrayal of Lee, such as by Alan Danzis of the New York Post.^[2] Fennoy was nominated for the "Best Performance by a Human Male" award at the 2012 Spike TV Video Game Awards,^[12] and for the "Performance" category at the 2013 British Academy Video Games Awards.^[13] Lee's character won the "Outstanding Character Performance" at the 2013 D.I.C.E. Summit.^[14]

References