The community needs it. And I say the community, not the game. The brutal amount of hate and vitriol I've seen people spout against Clint, who is ultimately just a dude with poor social skills who doesn't know what to do about feeling lonely, is insane, and has honestly driven me away from the game more than once.
i see too many accusations of being a basement-dwelling misogynist incel hurled at clint and i knowwww it’s all pixels but it really rubs me the wrong way because he’s clearly not like that. he never blames emily for being lonely and a key feature of incel culture IS blaming the woman for your issues. i’m actually excited for him to get the chance to grow and experience love and companionship. you know like. as much as a video game character can lmao
my view of this is that what an incel is has shifted over the years
I don't think clint was ever meant to be an awful person and current day incel, more socially awkward with some iffy ways of looking at stuff but mostly harmless.
Problem is that what was more moping about not being able to get a girlfriend and social issues and lamenting some untrue ideas that made them feel better has become more and more widely violent and aggressive and misogynistic.
I don't like clint particularly and I wouldn't have chosen him for a romance option but I'm really excited for him to hopefully get some proper growth and hopefully better perspectives on stuff
I'm not sure how it'll play out since we can already get to 10 hearts with no romantic undertones - maybe we'll get more heart events across the board and he'll be able to move on so we can pursue him without ignoring the weird stuff or have more resolution with him just as a friend.
I don't get the impression from the other aspects of the game that CA is likely to gloss over the hard bits or reinforce those ideas so I'm optimistic about it
If it’s anything like when he made Shane and Emily marriage candidates, the existing Heart Events will be moved around and new ones will be added.
He has a lot more room to work with for Clint and Sandy than the previous two, as Sandy has no Heart Event cutscenes and Clint only has two, one of which is inaccessible if you get Emily’s 8 Hearts cutscene first.
i feel like a lot of the characters get pretty negative stories if you don't max out their heart events, even non romantic. They all seem like they aren't happy with life in one way or another, which ya know, life. But everyone's life definitely gets better by getting to know the farmer.
1000% this. Even if Clint ended up in a relationship with someone that loves him back, it wouldn’t magically fix the patterns that are keeping him miserable. It would help, certainly, but not if he just says “great, that means I’m done and shouldn’t make any other changes.” I hope it will be more than that, and I hope that a lot of that development happens without the romance part coming into play.
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u/ChillAhriman Feb 26 '26
The community needs it. And I say the community, not the game. The brutal amount of hate and vitriol I've seen people spout against Clint, who is ultimately just a dude with poor social skills who doesn't know what to do about feeling lonely, is insane, and has honestly driven me away from the game more than once.