History YMMV / TalesFromTheBorderlands

* InternetBackdraft: [=Zer0=]'s new voice in Episode 5 was ''not'' well received at all, with many upset how it sounded far too high-pitched.

* TheScrappy: [[spoiler: Yvette]] has ''many'' fans wanting [[spoiler: her]] dead for [[spoiler: her cruel betrayal of both Rhys and Vaughn.]]
** TakeThatScrappy: Though thankfully in the same episode you can sic Dumpy or [[TheReveal give her a shocking revelation with a stun baton]], so that helps. In Episode 5 [[spoiler:you have the option to punch her lights out ''and'' leave her for dead, or drop her out of an airlock]].

* InternetBackdraft: [=Zer0=]'s voice in Episode 5 was ''not'' well received at all, despite it having previously been pitched the same in the Tina DLC for Borderlands 2.

*** Jack gets a big one: In Episode 3, when he pleads with Rhys to accept his partnership, he mentions that he ''knows'' that people hate him. In Borderlands 2, Jack was the most hated man on Pandora, but he seemed completely unaware that nobody loved him, even his own private army, and insisted that he was the hero. Could he have been hiding the tiny shard of the less sociopathic and slightly more aware person that he used to be at the start of the Pre-Sequel all this time? Or is he just trying to butter up the guy who is Jack's only hope of gaining back his life and power, and knows faking a HeelFaceTurn is the best way to do it? Likewise, are Jack's dickish actions towards the others just him indulging in his customary warped sense of humor... or a cunning and targeted attempt to isolate Rhys from the others, and thus make him more dependent on Jack?

*** To what extent is the Handsome Jack featured in this game the same man as the one in ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'' and ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel''? Is he the same person reborn through Hyperion tech, or just an advanced AI programmed to believe it is Jack and mimic his behavior? The story and characters generally regard him as the former, but the science behind his return would indicate the latter.

* AlasPoorVillain: [[spoiler:Jack's second and final death pretty covers the full spectrum of pity as Rhys coldly watches him pathetically beg for his life.]] The game even lets you outright apologise for killing him. Not to mention, [[spoiler:Jack finds out from reading the corporate database that his daughter is dead just before he tries to kill you in a way that'll kill him too, implying that he was DrivenToSuicide after a fashion.]]

** [[spoiler: Scooter]] getting killed off divided up the Borderlands fanbase, with one side believing that, despite how sad it was, [[spoiler: Scooter]] went out like a badass, while the other side thinks that [[spoiler: killing Scooter]], one of the most beloved characters in the franchise, was unnecessarily cruel. Some have even speculated/accused Gearbox of signing off on this so they could [[spoiler: replace Scooter with Janey Springs as the "mechanic" of the series.]] [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement Which opens up a whole other can of worms we won't elaborate on here.]]

** On Tumblr, the debate if Fiona is Caucasian or a woman of color has sparked some very nasty debates and fighting in the tags. [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement That is all that needs to be said]].

* CatharsisFactor: [[spoiler: Finally killing Handsome Jack in episode 5 can be this.]]

* CounterpartComparison: [[spoiler: Gortys]] is often compared to [[VideoGame/TheWalkingDead Clementine]] for Telltale fans due to both of them being innocent, small girls acting as the MoralityPet for their hardened groups. [[spoiler: Even the finales for both games involve the two needing rescue by their friends and [[TookALevelInBadass taking a massive level in awesome]] after some inspiration from their faithful allies.]]

** TakeThatScrappy: Though thankfully in the same episode you can sic Dumpy or [[TheReveal give her a shocking revelation with a stun baton]], so that helps. In Episode 5 [[spoiler:you have the option to punch her lights out ''and'' leave her for dead]].

** Gayperion for Rhys and Vaughn.

** What better RealSongThemeTune for Bossanova than ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dWPgWJYBpU this?]]''

* CrackPairing: Rhack (Rhys x Jack) is very interesting in this regard. On the Telltale forums, it's considered a crack pairing. But on Tumblr, Rhack is the most popular ship in the fandom.

* On Tumblr, the debate if Fiona is Caucasian or a woman of color has sparked some very nasty debates and fighting in the tags. [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement That is all that needs to be said]].

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment:
** Rhys' climactic finger gun battle with the Hyperion accounting department in chapter 5 of Episode 4 is the capper to a minor background gag, but comes completely out of nowhere, is surprisingly lengthy, and is ridiculously over the top, even by this game's standards. It totally interrupts the flow of the story and after it's finished nobody acts like it even happened. [[spoiler:The finger gun battle finally becomes relevant in Episode 5: when battling the Traveller, Gortys is able to fire bullets from her fingers after scanning Rhys' finger gun data.]]
** Also from Episode 4, if you choose to [[spoiler: shoot Butt Stallion (the diamond pony in the Handsome Jack's tour) it apparently ''bleeds''. The guard arresting Fiona tells her that she didn't see anything as he escorts her to the prison cells, but we don't exactly know what the scene means. The mysterious bleeding statue is never revealed to be alive or not, you don't have the option of looking into it, and nothing about it gets answered. Later, there is a questionable scan about grief-induced hibernation.]]

** A minor one over Rhys's voice, with Creator/SamWitwer being recast by Creator/TroyBaker, and fans debating who would've been better for the part.

** Another one has recently shown up when it was revealed that Anthony Burch, lead writer of Borderlands 2 (and disliked by a number of people for many reasons, mostly on the topic of his writing being ReferenceOverdosed with memes and some ham-fisted political ideals) wrote two scenes in episode 4: talking to Scooter, and infiltrating Hyperion [[spoiler: disguised as Vasquez]]. The real issue comes with the second scene, in which you can choose to greet two Hyperion (male) guards with "Hey, ladies. Whatcha been doin'? Talkin' about boys?" While this seems to be keeping in character [[spoiler: with the fact that you're pretending to be [[{{JerkAss}} Vasquez]]]], the two guards respond with some comments about misogyny, and stating that actually, one of the guards in question has a brother who is marrying his boyfriend. The ostensible point of the scene isn't what they say so much as it is that their responses throw Rhys as off-balance as possible; that said, a good number of people dislike the scene for feeling preachy, while another camp thinks it's funny and not worth getting worked up over.

* AmbiguouslyBi: Deleted dialogue suggests that Vaughn may have been intended to come across as this.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Cut dialogue that was intended to be a message from Vaughn to Rhys sounds an awful lot like Vaughn is referencing having ExperimentedInCollege and/or [[ComingOutStory coming out as gay/bisexual]] while delivering an AbortedDeclarationOfLove to Rhys.
-->Vaughn: I remember when I was a kid and there was this one time at camp. There was this other kid there and, y’know, we were young, we didn’t know what was going on. And, uh... I mean I had never… Zach and I would get together, go to the gym, work out and then go to the bathroom together. But it was more of a bonding experience, y’know, it was more of two people sharing the human experience, y’know what I’m saying… I was always curious like [[UnusualEuphemism “well how do people go to the bathroom?”]] I mean it’s not anything- Y’know ‘cause no one sets you aside and tells you how that happens. So I mean, yes, we [[ExperimentedInCollege experimented a little bit with some things]] and I don’t really feel like- I mean I’m not- It sort of made me question like what’s real and what matters, y’know? So that’s when I think I really- ‘cause I was this little fat kid- and um… I- *message cuts off* c- *message cuts off* probably gonna kill you. We can talk about it late-*message cuts off* That’s why you have to be careful...

* FandomNod:
** The frequent use of Jakobs weapons in the episodes is a nod for the manufacturer being one of the more popular ones in Borderlands 2, due to their high damage, extremely high fire rate and strong reliability. Mordecai's use of an upgraded Unforgiven Masher is a nod to his very popular and very powerful "Gunslinger" skill tree.
** Troy Baker and Erin Yvette approve of Rhysa. Subsequently, a few ShipTease moments were put in Episode 3, which also, inevitably, sparked off a very small, but very nasty, shipping war.
** Zero using his sword and a sniper rifle respectively are a nod to the ever-popular melee and sniper builds often used on him.
** [[spoiler: Jack's office]] is full of them: Mentions of Elpis, Nisha's old hat,a [[spoiler: picture of Angel]], Buttstallion and her special abilities, and old pictures from Opportunity.
** Finch's actual WeaponOfChoice is a Double Penetrating Unkempt Harold, ''the'' most powerful pistol in the game, and a massive GameBreaker. As well as that, it has the two most sought-after parts for it-the 2x bullets accessory, and a Torgue grip.

* GuideDangIt: Getting all possible teammates available for the final battle in Episode 5. The game does tell you which choices would have made each teammate available, but only after the fact (however, since the plot requires at least three teammates, if less than three are available the game will bring the count up to three by unlocking a normally unavailable teammate). Here's a list of how to unlock each available teammate:
** [[spoiler:Athena is available if, in episode 4, you lie to Janey and tell her that Athena said she loved her before being captured, which will salvage Athena and Janey's relationship, or if you otherwise encourage Athena to be honest with her.]]
** [[spoiler:August is available if, in episode 3, when Vallory asks you who's to blame for the failed deal, you blame either Felix or Vasquez instead of August. Or during Episode 1 if you chose ''not'' to shot him.]]
** [[spoiler:Cassius is available if, in episode 3, you persuade Athena to back down instead of encouraging her to kill Cassius.]]
** [[spoiler:Felix is available--sort of--if, in episode 1, you warned him about the bomb attached to the briefcase and thus saved his life. He won't actually arrive as a teammate, but he'll reveal that he actually saved the money instead of letting it explode, and you'll be able to choose another teammate to replace Felix--including the Mystery Vault Hunter, since the money is enough to hire the Mystery Vault Hunter.]]
** [[spoiler:Janey Springs is available if, in episode 4, you honored Scooter's request and launched his satellite into space after he died.]]
** [[spoiler:The Mystery Vault Hunter is available if you either found all possible money and never spent it, thus having the maximum amount of money in the game by the time you need teammates for the final battle, or spared Felix so he left you enough money to hire the Mystery Vault Hunter.]]
** [[spoiler: [=Zer0=] is available if, in episode 3, when Mordecai asks Fiona who she is, Fiona identifies herself as a potential Vault Hunter.]]

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Cut dialogue that was intended to be a message from Vaugn to Rhys sounds an awful lot like Vaughn is referencing having ExperimentedInCollege and/or [[ComingOutStory coming out as gay/bisexual]] while delivering an AbortedDeclarationOfLove to Rhys.
-->Vaugn: I remember when I was a kid and there was this one time at camp. There was this other kid there and, y’know, we were young, we didn’t know what was going on. And, uh... I mean I had never… Zach and I would get together, go to the gym, work out and then go to the bathroom together. But it was more of a bonding experience, y’know, it was more of two people sharing the human experience, y’know what I’m saying… I was always curious like [[UnusualEuphemism “well how do people go to the bathroom?”]] I mean it’s not anything- Y’know ‘cause no one sets you aside and tells you how that happens. So I mean, yes, we [[ExperimentedInCollege experimented a little bit with some things]] and I don’t really feel like- I mean I’m not- It sort of made me question like what’s real and what matters, y’know? So that’s when I think I really- ‘cause I was this little fat kid- and um… I- *message cuts off* c- *message cuts off* probably gonna kill you. We can talk about it late-*message cuts off* That’s why you have to be careful...

** [[spoiler: Zer0 is available if, in episode 3, when Mordecai asks Fiona who she is, Fiona identifies herself as a potential Vault Hunter.]]

* InternetBackdraft: Zer0's voice in Episode 5 was ''not'' well received at all, despite it having previously been pitched the same in the Tina DLC for Borderlands 2.

* FreudWasRight: [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Vasquez, who pointed out that every spaceship in the universe looks like a penis. The really funny thing is that he's ''wrong'': We haven't seen very many ships in this 'verse (escape/drop pods from Atlas and Jacobs, Sanctuary, a crashed Hyperion ship, some jet-looking things, a Dahl fleet is seen early in the ''Pre-Sequel!'', but that's about it), and other than the Hyperion and Dahl ships being long and thin, they don't really look like penises unless you squint. Vasquez might be projecting a little.

** Yvette also has this in spades [[spoiler: regarding her HeelFaceRevolvingDoor behavior. First she starts out as a friend and ally. Then in episode 4 she callously doesn't care about the apparent deaths of his former colleagues, explains to Vasquez!Rhys how she betrayed him, purposefully denied supplies to them and does all that in a smug, bithcy manner... yet the game provides several opportunities for her to be forgiven. One side claims her betrayal and her explanation for it was the same as the much less vilified Vaughn's (which ignores the fact that Yvette ''actually'' betrayed Rhys for money while in the safety of her office while Vaughn ''planned to do so'' for survival while he was in mortal danger during a death derby) while her condemners point at her gleefulness and that, depending on choices, she can betray Rhys one last time by taking the last escape pod if freed from prison.]] In the end it is questionable whether she is just a CorruptCorporateExecutive gleefully manipulating Rhys or just another victim of the circumstances and Hyperion's corporate culture.

** August. He may be a crook and a Pandoran bandit [[spoiler:and son of a crime lord]] but it gets hard not to feel bad about him as the story goes on and things get progressively worse. [[spoiler:First he gets played like a tool by Sasha and Fiona, then his mother finds out about his little scheme, and on Episode 5 he can genuinely stand up against Finch and Kroger to save Sasha (and Fiona), getting shot in the guts for his trouble. To complete the shitfest his life became he can't do anything to save the life of his mother who is abruptly killed.]]

** [[spoiler:Athena is available if, in episode 4, you lie to Janey and tell her that Athena said she loved her before being captured, which will salvage Athena and Janey's relationship]]

* BaseBreaker: [[spoiler: Handsome Jack's]] presence in the game is one for several people. Some fans were glad to have him back, enjoyed his interactions with the characters, and hope that his [[spoiler: vague "death" in this game means he can appear in future games in the Borderlands franchise.]] Others have tired of his character and are hoping that his [[spoiler: "death" means he is KilledOffForReal.]]
* BigLippedAlligatorMoment:

* EnsembleDarkhorse

** [[spoiler:Athena is available if, in episode 4, you lie to Janey and tell her that Athena said she loved her before being captured, which will salvage Athena and Janey's relationship]]

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Being Borderlands, are you surprised that the series has some great licensed music?
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcsfftwLUf0 The music playing during the opening title sequence]], right up until it suddenly stops as Rhys runs over a skag.

** The theme for Episode 4 is the sky-high, dramatic [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNaPCIxCmWM&list=PL1RYQwOa2wzb67YtBeOI9WkhIIvtHH_QS "To the Top"]], which plays over the team taking off on their ship to Hyperion.