Luke

What others see of Luke's personality depends how well he knows them. He's inclined to approach strangers distantly at first,  believing that everyone who he can eventually trust needs to, in some way, show something that counts, but he's still pretty willing to give some of the people he meets that chance to prove themselves if they don't seem like a threat (e.g. Mike, Jane) In e4 he does make it clear, though, that just because someone's nice or does a good deed doesn't mean they've immediately earned their place in the group, even if he's grateful for the help. When it comes to those he cares about, Luke's an overall nice guy with a strong selfless streak, whether he's giving up sleep for days to find and (try to) set his captive friends free or rescuing a baby in the middle of a firefight . After all, family -- and the friends who have become his family in recent years -- means everything to him, and like he says, ''it's a tough world out there without people you can trust'.

When life is kind and his group is safe and at ease, Luke is down for engaging in friendly banter. But these moments of peace are few and far between and he is prepared to step up to the task of protecting his people. He has spent the last couple of years in survival-mode and that has no doubt taught him to be more resourceful and careful than he has ever needed to be. After Pete’s death Luke becomes the de facto leader of the group, and in this role can deal with difficult situations fairly well after any initial kneejerk panic (e.g. while he's stranded on the ice he tries to both reassure and direct Bonnie and Clem on what to do,) preferring to plan rather than to jump recklessly into anything. He's a reasonable, sympathetic leader who will at least hear out everyone's opinion whether or not he agrees with it. He can also make some pragmatic choices. But while he's able to view things logically, like in the way he can recognize when a group member is an unintentional threat to the wellbeing of the group, it’s obvious that his head and his heart aren’t always aligned as he tends to quietly angst over making some 'necessary' decisions (like when he admits that not telling Walter about Matthew is a 'fucked up' thing to do.)

Luke is said to have been designed for the purpose of being Clementine’s Clementine: he generally serves as a moral compass and as a reminder, despite his flaws, of the existence of humanity and goodness in a post-apocalyptic world. Mercy is often seen as a weakness as to show it is to take a big risk. But when placed in a position to exact revenge on a kneecapped man who had badly beaten him and Kenny, terrorized his friends, and killed one of them, Luke refuses to torture or murder him. He insists, “there ain’t one part of that son of a bitch I don’t hate, but that does not make this right” and, with a herd of zombies on its way, he makes a point of leaving the room, wincing at the sound of Kenny bashing the man's face in. Luke later contemplates Kenny’s brutality and is troubled and disappointed if Clementine continues to defend Kenny’s actions, lamenting how the horrors of the world seem to have gotten to her. But while Luke prefers to use weapons as a deterrent, never being shown to kill anyone onscreen, he has the readiness to do what needs to be done if there is no other way. As he says himself to Clem in ep2, when they consider the likelihood of a stranger pulling the trigger on her: ‘if it comes to that, I’ll shoot him first’. When negotiation attempts fail and a firefight breaks out between groups in ep5, he whips out his rifle and opens fire.

He’s pretty resilient to emotional trauma, not the sort of person to completely fall apart or turn to violence when life gets rough. His ability to tamp things down and weather out tough circumstances makes him able to keep moving. Nick points this out in e2, implying that this has always been a part of Luke’s character and not simply a quality shaped by living in a lawless, post-apocalyptic world. This, along with the terrible situations he and his friends have endured and the fact that they’re rarely if ever offered the luxury of time to grieve, can sometimes make Luke appear unaffected by deaths around him. He often  downplays the physical and emotional shape he's in, too, especially when he senses there are more important things for him and his people to worry about. That said, there have been a couple of moments where he's been pushed to an emotional outburst. When he's confronted about sleeping with Jane at a bad time, he says: “[she] made me an offer and…Jesus Christ, I needed it, okay? I mean, look around you, okay? Everything is shit. So forgive me for wantin' to enjoy one moment of something else!” It’s the most he raises his voice to that point and the unsteadiest its ever been. But then he pushes down his feelings again and stiffly assures startled and confused group members that ‘everything is fine’, leaving things at that.

Luke neglecting his zombie-spotting duties for a few minutes and giving into Jane's offer of an escape is a big lapse in judgment regardless of whether a determinant character indirectly dies when an undead mob appears. It's easy to say that it's pure desperation that motivated him to stop, drop, and roll around like a teenager, and on the surface this is not untrue. But at the root of the situation was the fact Luke was dealing ('not dealing' is more accurate) with the deaths of several of his friends in a short span of time and was emotionally compromised when he made that choice. What he did was wrong and he owns up to dropping the ball hard. It’s his first and only purely selfish act in the game, justifiably criticized and sometimes regarded as out of character given his prior behaviour. But it serves to prove that he's really no superman, no flawless hero, and he doesn't move on as 'effortlessly' as it may seem.

Even before he confesses to suffering survivor's guilt to Clem alone in e5, it's clear beforehand that he's hard on himself, generally believing there was more he could have done to turn even the most hopeless of situations around. For example, if Clementine makes the choice to leave Sarah behind in the trailer, Luke will try to insist that there was nothing more they could have done, but his voice is raw and shaky. Then while walking away he’ll blame himself for having let the others help him out of the skylight of the trailer first even though he was injured, claiming that it was as if "he had already made his mind" about leaving Sarah. Jane, hearing this, tells him he shouldn’t let guilt eat at him, only for him to reply that he can’t just forget what happened.

In a nutshell, Luke is a decent guy with a sense of mercy that makes most people want to take him by the shoulders and shake him silly and a strong sense of loyalty. He'll go great lengths for those he trusts often to the point of endangering his own life – despite his claim that he "just wants to survive." He tries his best to do what’s right for those he cares for, generally approaching situations logically, but his head and heart are often at war over what that might mean, especially in his efforts to keep his soul intact. Either way he ends up getting the job done, he tends to beat up on himself, then repress his emotions, and then push on anyway, not only to be an effective leader and keep people together but because it’s the only way he seems to know how to deal with relentless hardships.

Resilient, pacifistic, moralistic, sympathetic, reserved, self-sacrificing, guilt-ridden, needs a plan, loyal, family-oriented

Would you prefer a monster that FITS your character’s personality, CONFLICTS with it, EITHER, or opt for 100% RANDOMIZATION? FITS