[Season 1-2 Spoilers]Wait... People actually like him?

Kenny and I have been through a lot of ups and downs. At the end of the day, I feel like Kenny is always a slave to some prime motivator, and in this sense, he's principled. Kenny is at his best when he has a specific motivation driving him, throughout both seasons, though the target changes over the course of time.

For a majority of season one, this is Duck- Kenny will do anything to protect his boy and won't let anybody or anything stand in his way. Once he loses Duck, Kenny goes through personal turmoil before finding a new sense of purpose in finding a boat, into which he pours all of his energy. Once the boat is taken, Kenny again lashes out and seems empty and broken. With what we think are his last breaths, he desperately tries to help in the search and rescue of Clementine, even at the cost of martyrdom.

In season two, Kenny seems to have a newly defined sense of self through Sarita, and once again, once Sarita dies, the wheels start to come off. At this point, I think that Kenny has crossed the bounds of sanity permanently. Clementine tries to refocus Kenny on helping Rebecca with the birth of her child, which works to some extent, but Kenny in his emotionally unstable state plays himself up in some grandiose sense as this baby's sole caretaker and only source of survival with the loss of Rebecca. At this point he really is a ticking time bomb, and part of him seems to know it regardless of how you resolve the final episode.

Through it all, Kenny is extremely goal-oriented and motivated, he can be compassionate but only when it aligns with what he is trying to accomplish. Without a clearly defined role and purpose, Kenny starts to derail. It's these exact qualities why I sympathized with him but felt he was a liability in the end. He's not defined by an overarching ideal but rather by ever-changing motivators, and who's to say if we'll align in the future?

With that having been said, he did a lot to help Lee/Clementine throughout the two seasons, but he was fine to butt heads with both of you since your personal well-being and safety was never his prime motivator. I was also really bothered at the end of season one, when I felt I had sided with him on all the important decisions (repeatedly consoling Kenny and helping Duck) but he refused to help initially find Clementine. As madmsk points out, I did disagree with him about Larry in the freezer, and I can see how that action goes against his prime drive of protecting Duck, which may cause him to side against me.

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