# Last of Us 2 discussion



## Flamestrike (Jun 27, 2020)

So there seems to be a huge disconnect between critical reactions to the game, and fan reaction. Admittedly a lot of the negative responses are a deliberate review bomb campaign by the usual suspects from the cesspool of the internet who take issue at the diverse cast in the game.

Those clowns can obviously be ignored.

But even putting them to one side, we're left with negative reviews by people that had the following main gripes (in some order):

1) They were outraged at 



Spoiler



Joels death. Bearing in mind this was a man who literally went on a mass murder spree to save his surrogate daughter from death, and condemned the entire world (and thousands if not millions of people) to a horrific fate in so doing, depriving them of the cure for the zombie virus. This was also a man prepared to leave a young family to die on the side of the road and employ brutal torture. While his motivations are sympathetic (the loss of his own daughter) his actions are horrific.

While the beauty of the first game is it leaves his final terrible decision for the player to mull over without passing judgement one way or another, its nonetheless strange that the rage over his death is so high.

I personally didnt have a problem with this death. Joel has made a LOT of enemies.

Agreed it was awful seeing a character that I had come to see through his eyes, and feel the terrible weight of his actions and motivations die in such a brutal fashion, but really, that was the point. The game wanted me to be angry at this death. It wanted me to hate Abby and see her as less than human. It wanted me to dehumanise her, be angry at her, and want to get her back. This sets the game up nicely IMO.



2) A lot of players dont get the point of having the player play 



Spoiler



Abby. They were outraged that they had to play the very character that killed Joel. The first half of the game sets her up as the final boss fight (after a number of mini-bosses) but then forces a switcheroo on the player by making them play her.

I personally thought this was great. I hated playing her as well at first, but then the more I played her, the more I realised that Ellie was even more of a monster than she was. Both characters were prepared to let vengeance consume them following the death of a father figure, and followed a path of vengeance that ultimately cost them everything they held dear, including the lives of many friends. However Abby actually spares Ellie, and walks away, even though Ellie has killed so many people she loves. She evolves between her killing of Joel, and her sparing of Ellie, something that Ellie can not do until it is too late.



3) A lot of players just dont get what the game was about. I see a lot of people complaining that



Spoiler



Ellie does not kill Abby in the games penultimate scene and final showdown. For mine, these people are completely missing the point of the whole game; it's not a game about successfully obtaining vengeance on someone; its a game about the destructive cycle of violence and how it begets nothing but more violence.

It deconstructs the 'fight a series of mini-bosses, then the BBEG, racking up hundreds of bodies along the way' trope. It shows that (like in real life) those people are not just monsters to be killed, they're people - often good people.



TL;DR - leaving aside the usual outraged scumbags who seem to want their media white, male and hetero, many of the negative reviews seem to totally miss the above. They miss the point of the game; and miss what it says about violence, the cycle of violence, and how we dehumanise our enemies in order to inflict violence on them.

I havent seen many (indeed any) of the thousands of negative fan reviews who get the above point (what the game was about, what it was saying about violence and revenge and humanity) and hate it on those grounds (barring a few that claim it was too heavy handed about how it went about it.

They seem to somehow totally fail to get the message of the game (a message the game is at great pains to demonstrate).

Personally, I really liked it. I hated it as well, but that was kind of also the point. Im definitely more on the side of the critical reviewers who are scoring the game in GOTY territory.

What are peoples thoughts on the game?


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## billd91 (Jun 27, 2020)

Haven't played it. Not particularly likely to. But lots of people, including people who post reviews and comments, fail to interact much with themes and subtexts. It's something of a learned skill and not necessarily the first concern when trying to master a game's controls, keep abreast of the story, and indulge/immerse in the action.

I have played other games when you change character, specifically Halo 2, and I *hated* every minute I was forced to play the Arbiter to get back to the Master Chief whom I *wanted* to play. Any intent to get me to see a different POV, develop the story, have fun with different abilities - pretty much lost on me because it wasn't the experience I wanted. I'd have been much happier with a cut scene or two with Arbiter-based exposition than having to spend a much larger amount of time actually playing him. It blew me right out of the immersion I had previously experienced in the POV character of Master Chief in that installment of the series. So, honestly, I can see how people might not appreciate switching to another character even if their specific reasons are different. It can be kind of jarring.

As far as the final showdown, 



Spoiler



it sounds like the game is making a fairly momentous decision, whether or not to kill Abby, *for* the player rather than leave that in the player's hands in order to teach the game's lesson to the player. I can see how that might be unsatisfying for some players.


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## Flamestrike (Jun 27, 2020)

billd91 said:


> As far as the final showdown,
> 
> 
> 
> ...




They did that the first game as well, by forcing you to basically murder everyone at the hospital (and doom humanity) to save Ellie.

I do think that if they did give a choice to the player, most of those critical about the game would have 



Spoiler



killed Abby, which misses the entire point of the game.


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## RangerWickett (Jun 27, 2020)

I did not play it. I watched someone do a complete playthrough on YouTube.

I love this as a story. I can understand why it might be a less than ideal design for a game.

In BioShock, the fact that you had to do all the things and did not have a choice really, that fit, because the whole essence of that story was on whether people have a choice. 

But, when I played the first Last of Us, I just sat as Joel in the end and did not go and kill people. I tried that. I did not want to play through his effort to kill a bunch of people. Ultimately, I did it, and it left a strange feeling. I realized that the whole game was really just a long TV show, where you occasionally get to shoot random people and monsters. It was not, like, an RPG.

The game has a message you want to deliver, and that message is only really conveyed if actions play out a particular way. So if as a game, you allegedly have control over the main character, but lose that control in any social interaction, it creates dissonance.

Now, I love how the sequel ends. It's a great story! It was bleak and beautiful. It probably evoked a stronger emotional reaction than any other video game I've watched.

 But I'm not sure it's a 'game.'

Then again, if you just watch these events as an outside observer, and did not have the same level of action investment that you have as a player in a game, maybe it would hit less strongly.

It's certainly a cool game. The gameplay parts look cool. And the idea of screwing with the players emotions really delights me. I mean, I'm a big fan of the question, are we the bad guys? I've always wanted villains in stories to have reasonable motivations and be the kind of person you can potentially empathize with.


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## Gladius Legis (Jun 27, 2020)

I haven't played it, but it seems to exist solely to "subvert expectations" for the sake of it. Which is something I've grown sick and tired of. So, I'm not interested in playing it at all.

(It doesn't help that I also consider the first game a wildly overrated pastiche of video game tropes with all the joy sucked out of it to make it "deep.")


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## RangerWickett (Jun 27, 2020)

Gladius, you are completely wrong in your guess about the purpose of the sequel.

By all means, you have no obligation to play the game, but any fair assessment of the whole product should make it clear that its goal is to put you in the position of empathizing with someone you disagree with. This happens all the time in cinema and literature, but has seldom been done in video games. That 'depth' is not something to be scorned.

This was also pretty much the point of the first game.

It was not designed as a game that would spark joy. It was designed to get you to empathize with the lead characters, and then have them do terrible things so that you would be forced to confront how many people justify their terrible actions. I disagree that it was done simply to be 'deep.' I think it accomplished something that is hard to do in any other medium: put you in the perspective of someone doing something terrible, and making you complicit in their choice. I thought it was a meaningful thing to attempt, and I admire the studio for making the game.

If you want something fun and light to distract you from how crappy things are in the world, no, this is not the game for you.

But if you play it, you might appreciate the message, which is that we can't overcome trauma and make a better life if we're constantly trying to hurt those who hurt us, and that even in places of immense darkness, there are moments of beautiful light. We should be drawn toward those, not toward cruelty and revenge. It's not a particularly controversial idea, but it's something I haven't seen before in a video game, a medium which - at its best - can make you internalize lessons in ways that other media cannot.


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## Gladius Legis (Jun 27, 2020)

RangerWickett said:


> This was also pretty much the point of the first game.
> 
> It was not designed as a game that would spark joy. It was designed to get you to empathize with the lead characters, and then have them do terrible things so that you would be forced to confront how many people justify their terrible actions. I disagree that it was done simply to be 'deep.' I think it accomplished something that is hard to do in any other medium: put you in the perspective of someone doing something terrible, and making you complicit in their choice. I thought it was a meaningful thing to attempt, and I admire the studio for making the game.



If it was meant to make me empathize with the lead characters, it did a pretty bad job of that. I never empathized with Joel. He always came across as a sociopath to me, as well as kind of an idiot. And when he killed everybody in the hospital, it didn't make me think any different of him. I still thought he was a sociopath and an idiot.

TLOU was also hardly the first game to explore similar themes, nor was it the best at doing so. The Walking Dead: Season 1 and Spec Ops: The Line were both considerably more effective with the premise of putting you in the perspective of a character doing evil things, IMO.


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## Gradine (Jun 27, 2020)

I haven't played it myself, but I know there has been a lot of controversy regarding the presence of a trans character within the story. The usual trolls are angry at having to acknowledge our existence; but many in the trans community are not happy with the way that character and their story is presented (to be clear, others have been fine/happy with it)


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## Flamestrike (Jun 28, 2020)

Gradine said:


> I haven't played it myself, but I know there has been a lot of controversy regarding the presence of a trans character within the story. The usual trolls are angry at having to acknowledge our existence; but many in the trans community are not happy with the way that character and their story is presented (to be clear, others have been fine/happy with it)




Only white hetero gender binary men survive the zombie apocalypse apparently. Sadly the gamer culture has demonstrated itself to contain a highly toxic reactionary element. Not all of us, but they're out there. I just disregard those critiques.

Im more intrigued by the critiques of the game that didnt seem to get the story (or the point of the story).

Personally, I rate the original as the best narrative game I have every played, if not the best game I have ever played. You're railroaded into the story but it's done in a way that worked. When you put the controller down at the end of the game, you're thinking about it for weeks on end, in a way that only a great piece of art or film or text can do.

I dont think  the sequel quite lives up to those lofty heights, but I found it a fantastic game nonetheless, with some bold choices made in how it went about it. If anything I found the message the sequel was driving to be too heavy handed, and too obvious, where as the original drew you in emotionally before the devastating pay off at the climax.

I just find the critiques of the game of people that dont get it weird. Literally people are calling it a 'failed revenge story' where the protagonist is unsuccesful in her goals, when that is the exact opposite of the message it rams down your throat the whole game.

It makes you uncomfortable with violence and shows how murder and revenge is wrong, and has you empathising with the 'bad guys', but that's the whole point.


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## RangerWickett (Jun 28, 2020)

Gradine said:


> I haven't played it myself, but I know there has been a lot of controversy regarding the presence of a trans character within the story. The usual trolls are angry at having to acknowledge our existence; but many in the trans community are not happy with the way that character and their story is presented (to be clear, others have been fine/happy with it)




I don't think people who've actually played the game are bothered by the trans character. The leaks made people think the, like, villain of the game was trans, but she's not; she's just buff. But there's another character who is trans, and I've seen only praise for his portrayal.



Flamestrike said:


> If anything I found the message the sequel was driving to be too heavy handed, and too obvious, ...
> 
> I just find the critiques of the game of people that dont get it weird. Literally people are calling it a 'failed revenge story' where the protagonist is unsuccesful in her goals, when that is the exact opposite of the message it rams down your throat the whole game.




Yeah, for some people the underlying moral seems obvious, but others seem to not get it at all. Or, more unsettling, they just really disagree with the idea of violent retribution being a bad idea.

But I think the actual message of the story is a bit more nuanced than you're making it out to be. It's not merely 'revenge is bad,' but that recovering from trauma requires reclaiming agency in your life. I'd go into a deeper dive, but only if you're interested, because it'd be a long spoiler-y comment.


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## Zardnaar (Jun 28, 2020)

Haven't played it the first one kinda bored me. 

 Point if a game though is to have fun. If the ending isn't fun that's a problem ymmv. 

Ending sounds fine gonna come down to execution.


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## RangerWickett (Jun 28, 2020)

Godfather is not a fun movie. 2001 isn't a fun movie. They're still interesting.


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## Zardnaar (Jun 28, 2020)

RangerWickett said:


> Godfather is not a fun movie. 2001 isn't a fun movie. They're still interesting.




 Bit different than a game. You watch a movie you play a game. 

 Both play and game imply fun. If a games not fun I don't play it. 

 I'll watch a documentary or movie that's serious and not fun but different format.


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## Flamestrike (Jun 28, 2020)

Zardnaar said:


> Haven't played it the first one kinda bored me.
> 
> Point if a game though is to have fun. If the ending isn't fun that's a problem ymmv.
> 
> Ending sounds fine gonna come down to execution.




The first game was bleak as well. It basically spends the whole game building a relationship between you (as Joel;  a bitter survivor who lost his daughter 20 years earlier) and Ellie, as a surrogate daughter.

It promises hope of his redemption and hope for a cure for the zombie epidemic the whole way through and then suddenly 



Spoiler



at the end it has you making a terrible choice to protect Ellie by murdering a hospital full of people and dooming the world to the zombie apocalypse by denying them a cure.



I mean it was bleak.

But they absolutely nailed that landing. The slow burn to the grim conclusion. The way they left it in the hands of the player to mull over the ethics and morality of that terrible decision. It was amazing.

The characterisation was on point too, and not just the main characters; also the supporting NPCs.

I'm serious when I say it was the best game I think I've ever played. Definately in my top 3. No other game (and indeed no other media) had had me introspective and reflective of it after absorbing it like that game. It haunted me for a long time afterwards.

I'm glad it wasn't spoiled for me before hand - I came in blind and came out the other end blown away.

It highlighted just what the medium of computer games can do. Unlike a movie where you watch it, you're actively involved in the action. You're not questioning a characters actions as they unfold in front of you on a acreen, you're questioning those actions as you control them participating in them.

It features on nearly every best games of all times lists for a reason man.


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## Zardnaar (Jun 28, 2020)

Flamestrike said:


> The first game was bleak as well. It basically spends the whole game building a relationship between you (as Joel;  a bitter survivor who lost his daughter 20 years earlier) and Ellie, as a surrogate daughter.
> 
> It promises hope of his redemption and hope for a cure for the zombie epidemic the whole way through and then suddenly
> 
> ...




I own it but the poor PS4 gathers a lot of dust. We use the Xbox to watch everything and rarely console game now.


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## Flamestrike (Jun 28, 2020)

Zardnaar said:


> I own it but the poor PS4 gathers a lot of dust. We use the Xbox to watch everything and rarely console game now.




Even though you likely know the ending (which makes the game) it's still worth a play through to see how the devs worked the character arcs, had you along for the ride in the relationship, got you invested and then had you make a terrible choice based on that investment.

Going in blind, I was shaking as the credits rolled. Very few works of art have had me thinking about them afterwards as much as that game. I get that you have no 'choice' in the outcome, but you dont have any in a book or film or painting either. Playing it gives a unique perspective to feel what Joel 'feels' a lot more personally, and to invest more in his eventual terrible decision.

I honestly feel that giving the player a choice (instead of railroading the player) would have lessened the impact. It wasnt so much about your choice; it was about you living someone else making that choice.

It just worked on so many levels.

I see what they went for for in the squeal, and while it mostly worked on me, I did find it heavy handed at times. It was uncomfortable, and intentionally so, and that isnt necessarily a bad thing (it can in fact be a good thing). There were controversial decisions for sure (turning the protagonist into the antagonist and vice versa) but they largely worked for me.

I compare it to the disconnect with other games (like Uncharted) where you play a likeable roguish charming goofy adventurer... who racks up a kill count of literally hundreds of people by the end of the series, who you mercilessly slay with no remorse or second thoughts from literally the opening scene of the 1st game.

Video games have struggled with mass murder, heroes seeking revenge on BBEG's for some slight, dehumanising the 'bad guys' and ultra violence for so long (even with protagonists, and in genres where it doesn't fit), and this game is itself a critique of those tropes, as well as shining a light on how we see and choose to empathise with those we hate.

I really liked it. Not as much as the original, but I really dont get the hate.


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## Zardnaar (Jun 29, 2020)

Flamestrike said:


> Even though you likely know the ending (which makes the game) it's still worth a play through to see how the devs worked the character arcs, had you along for the ride in the relationship, got you invested and then had you make a terrible choice based on that investment.
> 
> Going in blind, I was shaking as the credits rolled. Very few works of art have had me thinking about them afterwards as much as that game. I get that you have no 'choice' in the outcome, but you dont have any in a book or film or painting either. Playing it gives a unique perspective to feel what Joel 'feels' a lot more personally, and to invest more in his eventual terrible decision.
> 
> ...




 You won't like games I play. Stellaris for example is sandbox strategy game. You can play space hippies, fascist, Communists, genocidal dalek types or eat the Galaxy with a tyrand type give mind. 

 I liked uncharted but didn't complete the 3rd and 4th one. Maybe 3D action/adventure games aren't my thing. 

 I did enjoy the new Tomb Raiders, never got into to old ones. 

 Between Steam and the Xbox/PS4 hard drives I have a heap of games I should get around to playing.


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## MoonSong (Jun 30, 2020)

@Flamestrike I'm not really invested into the game, so I don't have an opinion myself, but I can tell the following things as an observer that add up to the observed backlash (rather than hate? hate is such a strong word...). 

Naughty Dog wasn't in the public's best graces.- News of developers abusing crunch time have been pilling up for at least a year, and in the last couple of months Naughty Dog became infamous for being particularly awful to their staff. This took away a lot of good-will that they would otherwise have.

Fans were blind to Joel's defects.- Regardless of the character being objectively an awful and selfish human being, a substantial portion of the fan base was heavily invested in Joel as a character. They wanted a continuation of his story, not another character's. So there was a misalignment of the expectations of this group of fans and the goals of the developers. 

Sony acted like a greedy cartoon villain.- There was a leak in the leading weeks to the launch was very damning to the situation. The content of the leak didn't sit well with some fans and many decided to cancel their preorders. Sony refused these cancellations, and they went after a lot of people reporting on the leaks and this triggered the Streisand effect. And the way they went about it -by firing fraudulent DMCA takedowns- soured the launch. 

And then they had to launch it on Father's Day Weekend.- You know, we are talking about a -misguidedly or otherwise- beloved father figure in fiction that is unceremoniously murdered in front of his child. This is extremely shocking and distressing on a good day. It gets way worse in Father's Day. I know not everybody had a good father, but if you got even a half decent dad, you love him, and find this timing in poor taste. (Also I think a good deal of this game's players are fathers themselves so they feel directly insulted by this)

This is about the worst of the times to launch this one game.- Unlike  2014, right now we are in the middle of very bleak times. Maybe the gaming community deserves the message of the game, but it is the last thing it needs right now. It is in times of crisis, chaos and epidemic when people turn to fiction and entertainment for comfort, and reassurance. People want feel-good games and this game is very very much the opposite of a feel-good game. I haven't played it -nor plan to, I don't own a PS4-, but I have seen some playthroughs and this thing is very very disturbing and very graphical and brutal with the death animations. 

The game lacks catharsis factor.- I've seen players hating going through the game, getting angry over Joel's death and then being forced to play as his killer. They only made it to the end with the hope of seeing retribution as a way to let go of that built up anger. Then they are denied the chance of retribution, and without an outlet to discharge that anger and frustration, they turned it towards the game itself.   

So this all combines into pretty intense backlash.


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## RangerWickett (Jun 30, 2020)

There are two sets of reviews. Sites that let anyone post reviews have tons of 0s. But on sites that only let you review once you've bought the game, the ratings are pretty high.

It's an excellent game, and yes, it's bleak, but I think the story as a whole is positive.


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## Gladius Legis (Jul 1, 2020)

RangerWickett said:


> There are two sets of reviews. Sites that let anyone post reviews have tons of 0s. But on sites that only let you review once you've bought the game, the ratings are pretty high.



This is a flawed way of looking at it. Those sites you mentioned in the latter category only allow reviews from people who bought the game _from that particular site_. It's an incredibly self-selecting sample and not at all an accurate measure of a consensus opinion. And even those sites don't require that you finish the game to review it, just bought it.


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## Manbearcat (Jul 1, 2020)

I have many problems with this game, but I'll start and end with these two things:

1)  It made me feel exactly like watching Alien 3 again.  Ripley (my favorite character of all time) had absolutely everything taken from her...and the story that spun out of it could not have been less emotionally or theatrically compelling. 

2)  If you're making The Last of Us 2, your very first creative meeting must be utterly centered around 1 question and 1 question only:

"How do we make a sequel that doesn't answer the deeply provocative question that the original game saddles you with (in a world that lays bare the absolutely abomination that humanity will devolve to in such an apocalypse, is it reasonable to sacrifice a beautiful, utterly worthwhile creature in order to have a shot at salvaging the monstrous vestige of humanity...or...did Joel make the right decision)?"

If you answer that question, you've erred terribly.

If you answer that question emphatically with such decisiveness so as to leave no possible interpretation...you've essentially burned your creative legacy on a pyre of your own staggering misjudgement or comprehension of what emotionally compelled/provoked TLoU to its ascendent status.

Simply put, if you cannot make a sequel that fundamentally stays away from answering that question...don't make a sequel.


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## Flamestrike (Jul 1, 2020)

Manbearcat said:


> I have many problems with this game, but I'll start and end with these two things:
> 
> 1)  It made me feel exactly like watching Alien 3 again.  Ripley (my favorite character of all time) had absolutely everything taken from her...and the story that spun out of it could not have been less emotionally or theatrically compelling.
> 
> ...




They didnt answer that question though.

They just examined the consequences of the decision made; on both Joel, Ellie and on other people.


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## Manbearcat (Jul 1, 2020)

Your takeaway from the playing of and the results of that game was that it was “an examination” of Joel’s decision and the fallout (on everyone involved) and not “as thorough a condemnation as one could conceive?”

Wow.

That begs the question:

What exactly then, would a condemnation look like in your eyes?

EDIT - I'm baffled here.  This isn't an emergent story that happened by accident.  This is complete authorial intent and trajectory and fallout.  You cited the thematic centerpiece in your lead-post; "Violence begets violence."  Ghandi did this long before Naughty Dog.

You literally cannot make "Violence begets violence (ad infinitum)" the centerpiece of TLoU2, have all of the heavy-handed empathy moves made in that game, and all of the extreme fallout of that game without fundamentally answering the question at the heart of TLoU.

I truly have no idea how a person would start (from first principles) to begin to contest otherwise.


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## Flamestrike (Jul 1, 2020)

Manbearcat said:


> Your takeaway from the playing of and the results of that game was that it was “an examination” of Joel’s decision and the fallout (on everyone involved) and not “as thorough a condemnation as one could conceive?”
> 
> Wow.
> 
> ...




Was the decision condemned though? Ellie struggled with it before telling him she wants to forgive him for it, Joel stated that he would do the exact same thing again if he was faced with the same choice, his brother seemed to agree with it as well. Even flashbacks to Marleene showed her putting the Q to Abbys father 'What if where your own daughter?'

You cant murder a bunch of people, and doom humanity to the Zombie apocalypse without there being some kind of fallout or ramifications from that action.


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## Manbearcat (Jul 1, 2020)

Flamestrike said:


> Was the decision condemned though? Ellie struggled with it before telling him she wants to forgive him for it, Joel stated that he would do the exact same thing again if he was faced with the same choice, his brother seemed to agree with it as well. Even flashbacks to Marleene showed her putting the Q to Abbys father 'What if where your own daughter?'
> 
> You cant murder a bunch of people, and doom humanity to the Zombie apocalypse without there being some kind of fallout or ramifications from that action.




I think you should start with your last sentence above.

Contrast the difference between "some kind of fallout" and the sort of complete and irrevocable fallout that TLoU2 wrought on (a) the protagonists of the 1st game, (b) the things/people/newfound ideas they love and hold dear in a brutal world that resists love/connection/healing/redemption/purpose, and (c) our conception of the themes of redemption, love, purpose and healing (set against a backdrop of abject horror and inhumanity) that the initial game was deeply invested in.

Playing TLoU felt a lot like some kind of combination of reading Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" and watching Aliens.  This game felt like (because it was) the franchise's intentional (and intentionally provocative) unraveling of its thematic connection to those two works (and therefore its connection to its original work).

I remain curious what a full condemnation might look like as a metaplot and thematic ballast for TLoU2 (if this wasn't it).


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## Flamestrike (Jul 1, 2020)

Manbearcat said:


> I think you should start with your last sentence above.
> 
> Contrast the difference between "some kind of fallout" and the sort of complete and irrevocable fallout that TLoU2 wrought on (a) the protagonists of the 1st game, (b) the things/people/newfound ideas they love and hold dear in a brutal world that resists love/connection/healing/redemption/purpose, and (c) our conception of the themes of redemption, love, purpose and healing (set against a backdrop of abject horror and inhumanity) that the initial game was deeply invested in.
> 
> Playing TLoU felt a lot like some kind of combination of reading Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" and watching Aliens.  This game felt like (because it was) the franchise's intentional (and intentionally provocative) unraveling of its thematic connection to those two works (and therefore its connection to its original work).




There was no redemption in the first game though. Joel didnt redeem anyone or anything; he made a selfish decision (born out of love) to save his surrogate daughter from death... by engaging in mass murder, and dooming the entire world to the Zombie apocalypse.

Joel didn't finish part 1 redeemed. He finished part 1 as a mass murderer who denied humanity a cure to the zombie apocalypse dooming everyone.


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## RangerWickett (Jul 1, 2020)

Manbearcat said:


> What exactly then, would a condemnation look like in your eyes?




Well, Abby is Joel, basically. So we're presented with another character who does something very similar to what Joel did - commit murder for the sake of someone they loved. 

We (probably) see Abby as the villain.

Do we also see Joel as a villain? If not, why not?

It's not saying, "Joel is a villain for what he did in the first game."

It's saying, "If you are okay with what Joel did in the first game, why aren't you okay with what Abby does in the second game to Joel? How do you feel about being presented the other side of the situation?"

And as Flamestrike says, Elly tries to forgive Joel, and at the end she tries to forgive Abby.

So I don't see TLOU2 condemning Joel, not at all.

---

What _would _a full condemnation look like? It would look like Ellie finding out Joel did what he did, and then _her_ rounding up a posse including Tommy, and all of them hunting down and eventually killing Joel, and then going to the Fireflies, where Ellie hands herself over to be experimented on for the sake of saving humanity. It would pretend that Ellie could act completely selflessly, and that everyone would recognize Joel as a villain.

That's not what we got.

Instead, we got something that's left me stewing in the implications for days. It's about not simply condemning violence, but about trauma, and recognizing ourselves in others, and about how love and empathy is how we make sense of the world, not violence and power.


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## Manbearcat (Jul 1, 2020)

Flamestrike said:


> There was no redemption in the first game though. Joel didnt redeem anyone or anything; he made a selfish decision (born out of love) to save his surrogate daughter from death... by engaging in mass murder, and dooming the entire world to the Zombie apocalypse.
> 
> Joel didn't finish part 1 redeemed. He finished part 1 as a mass murderer who denied humanity a cure to the zombie apocalypse dooming everyone.




Ok, so this makes more sense.  

If this is the lens through which you viewed the first game, then what you have posted makes complete sense.  You don't feel like there was a question hanging in the balance for the playerbase of TLoU (meaning you come down so squarely on one side that it is an impossibility for you to fathom or empathize with the alternative).  And you feel like a the sort of condemnation of Joel's decision TLoU2, replete with all of the fallout it could possible have wrought (primarily the physical and emotional destruction of Ellie in total and certainly all that she gained from the experience of the 1st game)...was, well, warranted.

Ok, through that lens, I understand your position.  I couldn't possibly disagree with it more sternly and I wonder how you felt the initial game was remotely thematically compelling (if you indeed did?).  But I understand.

What I don't understand is why you seem to be standing firm on "this game (with "violence begets violence ad infinitum" as its guiding ethos) isn't a complete condemnation of Joel's decision.


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## RangerWickett (Jul 1, 2020)

Flamestrike said:


> by engaging in mass murder




Technically if you make an effort, you can stealth past everyone and only kill one doctor. 

I wasn't that patient either, though.


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## Flamestrike (Jul 1, 2020)

Its weird that so many people see Joel as a good guy.

His DnD alignment is unequivocally evil. He loves Ellie no doubt, but he's routinely depicted engaging in truly abhorrent acts of torture and murder.

We also get (in this game) to see Ellie walk down that same path of evil as well, where she engages in brutal torture, mass murder and worse.


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## Flamestrike (Jul 1, 2020)

Manbearcat said:


> Ok, so this makes more sense.
> 
> If this is the lens through which you viewed the first game, then what you have posted makes complete sense.  You don't feel like there was a question hanging in the balance for the playerbase of TLoU (meaning you come down so squarely on one side that it is an impossibility for you to fathom or empathize with the alternative).  And you feel like a the sort of condemnation of Joel's decision TLoU2, replete with all of the fallout it could possible have wrought (primarily the physical and emotional destruction of Ellie in total and certainly all that she gained from the experience of the 1st game)...was, well, warranted.




No, I just refute any argument that Joel 'redeemed' himself. In order to be redeemed he would need to have turned his back on murder and torture. He does nothing of the sort. He is shown early in the game to be OK with brutal torture, this continues unabated through the rest of the game when he again brutally tortures and murders several people:


...before finally murdering a bunch more people, in a mass shooting. Including unarmed medical staff. Then to top it off he murders Marleene so there would be no survivors or witnesses to what he did.

There was no _redemption _here for Joel. Joel is evil at the start of the game (in his 40's) and remains evil the whole way through the game. 

He just has a terrible choice to make at its conclusion (a choice which I myself pass no judgement on).


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## RangerWickett (Jul 1, 2020)

To slightly lighten the mood:


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## Manbearcat (Jul 1, 2020)

RangerWickett said:


> Well, Abby is Joel, basically. So we're presented with another character who does something very similar to what Joel did - commit murder for the sake of someone they loved.
> 
> We (probably) see Abby as the villain.
> 
> ...




Yes, this is clearly what they intended with the empathy moves made with Abby in this game.

There is obviously no questioning that.

But there is absolutely nothing new or compelling about that question.  One of the primary reasons why TLoU was so provocative was precisely *because *the first game demanded you to ponder and answer that question (without the game condemning him...therefore leaving it up to the viewer to have him emotionally swing from the gallows or not).  An answer that someone could trivially come up with is that Joel is neither hero nor villain.  Or he's both.  But that question is left up to the person who experienced the first game.

The second game emphatically declares "Joel is a villain who made the wrong decision...and violence begets violence...and any thing of merit that came out of the first game will be destroyed because of it."  In-so-doing, it answers the question of the first game.  Joel didn't save a redeemed and inspiring creature from a fate that may or may not lead to a cure of a humankind that may or may not be redeemable.   The fate that awaits her in TLoU2 is far, far worse than death.


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## Flamestrike (Jul 1, 2020)

Manbearcat said:


> The second game emphatically declares "Joel is a villain who made the wrong decision.''




No, it does not. *Where *does it declare that?

The game literally has people that agree with his decision (notably Tommy) people that dont agree (Abbys crew; but remember Joel also killed their family and friends and doomed humanity from their perspective) and people that are in the middle (Ellie).

Joel and (in this game) Ellie are evil, but they're not the villains or the heroes. They're both.


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## Manbearcat (Jul 1, 2020)

Flamestrike said:


> No, I just refute any argument that Joel 'redeemed' himself. In order to be redeemed he would need to have turned his back on murder and torture. He does nothing of the sort. He is shown early in the game to be OK with brutal torture, this continues unabated through the rest of the game when he again brutally tortures and murders several people:
> 
> 
> ...before finally murdering a bunch more people, in a mass shooting. Including unarmed medical staff. Then to top it off he murders Marleene so there would be no survivors or witnesses to what he did.
> ...




You're misunderstanding where redemption lies here.

In a twisted way, Joel is redeeming the world itself by reinvesting in it so deeply after it so callously took his daughter.  I don't know if you've ever lost someone extraordinarily important to you by a brutal event or watched someone you desperately love be reduced to their biological constituent parts by cancer...but, trust me...if you have, you can completely understand how someone's conception of the nature of existence (and all the meaning that goes with it) is affected profoundly.

Joel made a brutal, impossible decision to kill a ton of redshirt Fireflies (who were no doubt ruthless killers like him), a Marlene that he fundamentally disagreed with (and surely detested given their differences over Elie), and (horrifically) a (presumably innocent) surgeon.

Joel and Ellie's journey of love, connection, and meaning was redeeming this fallen world.  And Joel signed that redemption in blood.  And now, we ultimately know how that turned out and there are no pieces to pick up after this; violence begets violence and all.


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## Flamestrike (Jul 1, 2020)

Manbearcat said:


> You're misunderstanding where redemption lies here.
> 
> In a twisted way, Joel is redeeming the world itself by reinvesting in it so deeply after it so callously took his daughter.  I don't know if you've ever lost someone extraordinarily important to you by a brutal event or watched someone you desperately love be reduced to their biological constituent parts by cancer...but, trust me...if you have, you can completely understand how someone's conception of the nature of existence (and all the meaning that goes with it) is affected profoundly.




Thats not _redemption _though. In any sense of the word.

I wholly empathise with Joels decision at the hospital, and have no doubt that he loved Ellie deeply as a surrogate daughter. And I make no judgement on whether I agree or disagree with it other than it was a terrible decision to make one way or the other.

But he in no way redeems himself. Since the ZA he has become a cold ruthless killer, with few moral lines he has not crossed, and entirely capable of brutal murder and pitiless torture.

He finishes Part 1 exactly the same way, as a pitiless mass murderer and torturer, just with a surrogate daughter he loves.



> Joel made a brutal, impossible decision to kill a ton of *redshirt *Fireflies (who were no doubt ruthless killers like him), a Marlene that he fundamentally disagreed with (and surely detested given their differences over Elie), and (horrifically) a (presumably innocent) surgeon.




They werent redshirts, they were _people_, and Joel wasnt the hero or the villain (although he was the protagonist of the story).

Stop looking for a hero or villain. Joel was an evil man, and he was the protagonist, and he loved Ellie, but he was neither an objective hero nor villain (or he was one of those two things, depending on who in the world you asked).



> Joel and Ellie's journey of love, connection, and meaning was redeeming this fallen world.




Joel and Ellies journey in Part 1 didnt redeem the fallen world, they _doomed _it! 

Quite literally in fact.


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## Manbearcat (Jul 1, 2020)

Flamestrike said:


> No, it does not. *Where *does it declare that?
> 
> The game literally has people that agree with his decision (notably Tommy) people that dont agree (Abbys crew; but remember Joel also killed their family and friends and doomed humanity from their perspective) and people that are in the middle (Ellie).
> 
> Joel and (in this game) Ellie are evil, but they're not the villains or the heroes. They're both.




Why would we talk about the balance of NPC positions in this game to suss out what the actual authors meta perspective was on this game?

How is that relevant.

Everyone of consequence is ruined in this game as a direct outgrowth of Joel's decision!  And almost every bystander is ruined by it as well!

In what world is that not a condemnation by the authors?  

I've run Apocalypse World where these exact sort of decisions led to the utter ruination of all PCs involved and an enormous tally for NPCs alike.   That is a core conceit of that game.  I don't see how anyone playing those games could have a takeaway that the emergent properties of our play didn't yield a similar theme to TLoU2 (and no one playing did...how could you?) and that the resultant post-mortem is nothing less than a condemnation of the PC decisions that led to the ruination.


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## Manbearcat (Jul 1, 2020)

Flamestrike said:


> Joel and Ellies journey in Part 1 didnt redeem the fallen world, they _doomed _it! Quite literally!




Which is quite literally the point I'm making!  

So we agree!

Lets leave it at that!  Well past bedtime.


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## RangerWickett (Jul 1, 2020)

Do you think Joel was the villain of the first game, Manbearcat?

Clearly not, right?

Well, in the second game, Abby does to Ellie what Joel did to the Fireflies. 

Do you _now _think Joel is a bad guy? You apparently don't. You're angry at the game.

But it's the same action, just in a different context. If you think what Abby did is naughty word, and unfair, and that it ruins a good thing . . . well, that's just what Joel did. Maybe you are unwilling to work through that cognitive dissonance.

If so, good news: you're Ellie.

Ellie might not know the details of why Abby's group killed Joel, but she guesses that it was one of the many people Joel crossed. Despite knowing he was a bad person, and despite knowing that Joel has hurt people the same way, she doesn't want to confront the cognitive dissonance of having to see her father as both good and bad, and to see his killer as being the same as Joel. And all _that_ is bundled up with her anger at Joel for taking away her agency at the hospital, and for making her feel like her life has no point.

Like Owen says at one point, she stops looking for the light. (Notice her guitar and her tattoo has a moth motif.)

It's not simply that 'violence begets violence.' It's that often we are willing to turn to violence and anger because it is easier than holding two incompatible ideas in our heads at once. We'd rather just see _them_ as the bad guy, and not interrogate our own actions.

F*ck, I think that's a pretty useful lesson at any time in history, but it certainly fits now, as we're having a nationwide debate about who deserves justice and who gets targeted by extreme violence. It made me frikkin' love this game. And I love Abby, because basically she _finishes_ the revenge quest that Ellie _wants_ to finish, and she realizes it just hurt her more.

Yes, by the end of the game, a lot of the good things from the first game are ruined. That is supposed to bother you. It is supposed to make you remember this story the next time you get angry at someone else, or the next time you vilify an entire group because you think they're bad. You're supposed to think about it the next time you see a flame war online, or a real war. You're supposed to look for another way to overcome the anger and trauma.

What, would you want a story where everything went well, and where killing people has no consequences? That's not what The Last of Us 1 was about, so why would the sequel do that?


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## Flamestrike (Jul 1, 2020)

RangerWickett said:


> Do you think Joel was the villain of the first game, Manbearcat?




He was evil (in DnD terms). Torture, murder etc. Id happily give him a NE alignment. And hes the protagonist of the 1st game. Those things are largely objective statements.

But I make no judgement on his decision at the climax of the game.

As to whether his actions at the Hospital make him the villain of the story, that's a subjective question. Tommy doesnt think so (but he's pretty E on the alignment scale as well). Ellie wavers between agreeing or disagreeing. Abbys crew certainly think so - he was the man that murdered their friends and family and doomed the world after all.


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## Flamestrike (Jul 1, 2020)

Manbearcat said:


> Why would we talk about the balance of NPC positions in this game to suss out what the actual authors meta perspective was on this game?
> 
> How is that relevant.




Stop calling them NPC's and redshirts and maybe you'll understand the point of the second game better.

They're people. When you make a decision to murder a bunch of people and doom the world, you're going to piss a lot of people off!


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## Manbearcat (Jul 1, 2020)

One last post!

@RangerWickett

Two things.

1)  No one with any level of intellectual or emotional maturity would look at Joel as a hero...or a villain.  If there is a hero in TLoU, its clearly Ellie.  But even Ellie has problems being anointed with that status.  One of the reasons TLoU was compelling because it forced privileged humans living unscathed in modernity to tangle with extraordinarily difficult and novel concepts like "who is Joel", "is this world redeemable", and "is it possible that a person could be right making that decision that Joel made."

Which bridges to 2...

2)  With all due respect, "violence begets violence" is one of the most interrogated and unoriginal themes in human history.  There is nothing novel about it and because it is so deeply interrogated (in both philosophy and in art), it has lost its compelling thrust.

And finally (and this is the other stuff I don't feel inclined to get into), "violence begets violence", regardless of its status as one of the most interrogated themes in human history, can be done and done well.  But there are artifacts of this game (as an actual game) and pacing issues that deeply affect the thematic heft of this game.  Everyone's mileage may vary on this one, but a sandbox game with side quest bloat (and bloat of the variety that pulled me out rather than drew me in) will struggle mightily with pacing and coherency issues (unless it is so carefully crafted).  I definitely felt that in this game (where I didn't remotely feel that in the first game).  And there are plenty of other gameplay artifacts that I have issues with, mostly centered around offscreen/expository dialogue/momentum.

As a standalone zombie apocalypse survival game though...I was mostly pleased (sans the metaplot).


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## Imaculata (Jul 1, 2020)

My thoughts:

The Last of Us 2 was a bit disappointing. But lets talk about the positives first. Graphics and art direction are amazing, combat has improved a bit, the facial mocap is some of the best I've seen, and inclusivity is welcome to see.

But lets talk about the elephant in the room, the story. The story is bare bones and ends on an unsatisfying note. Its message about violence is completely lost in its indulgence and glorification of it. Plus it forces the player to kill certain people, leaving no choice, and then tries really hard to make you feel bad about that choice. It just doesn't work. It tries to pull every cheap trick in the book to make you feel bad, but it ends up feeling manipulative. I think an argument can even be made that it commits character assassination in order to move the plot where it needs to go. But most importantly, there is a huge ludo-narrative dissonance here between the gameplay and what the story wants you to feel.

For example, the game wants you to feel real bad about killing a pregnant woman, but this is a scripted event, so the player had no hand in it. More importantly, the hours leading up to that scene Ellie has shanked hundreds of people brutally in the throat. She is a brutal killer at that point, and NOW the game stops to feel bad about it.

I had no issues with Joel's death, other than it being predictable, and a bit clumsily written into the story. He stumbles upon his soon to be killer by accident.

I was also really put off by the violence in the game. It is unpleasant and cruel, and it made me dislike the game even more. Whatever the writers were trying to say about violence, was lost in their glorification of it.

Forcing the player to play as Abby was the wrong decission I feel. It feels cheap when the game makes you play with the dog twice, knowing Ellie kills it. The game has taught the player at this point that dogs are annoying enemies that should be killed. So why is this one dog any different? Also, you had no choice to spare the dog, so it really wasn't the players doing.

Gameplay wise, the controls seem less responsive than in part 1, there are more bugs, and ai partners behave much more irratically. The fact that monsters ignore your ai allies is blatantly on display when your buddy parcours through a room full of enemies, dancing around 5 feet in front of them, which completely breaks immersion.  The ai also often gets in your way when you are trying to stealth. During combat it is very obvious that the ai waits to let the player do most of the fighting. I also feel Clickers are a lot less threatening than they used to be. Melee combat is clunky as hell and I hate it. And why do they make the player spam the same button for everything? There are also too many stealth and combat sections, and it starts to outstay its welcome quickly. Plus, I don't think this game's stealth system is particularly good.

It feels the game goes on for longer than it needed to. It builds up to an ending, and then has Ellie go on yet another quest for revenge, only to have her change her mind at the end. It feels unevenly paced. It also feels like with this game Naughty Dog has reached the breaking point of their scripted transition mechanic, where they become annoying, predictable, and you start to dread them. You can see them coming from miles away, and now they feel like an unwelcome interruption of your game. I started to resent them, as if someone constantly took away my controller, killed some characters, then handed it back to me and said: "Look what you just did!"


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## Flamestrike (Jul 1, 2020)

Manbearcat said:


> 2)  With all due respect, "violence begets violence" is one of the most interrogated and unoriginal themes in human history.  There is nothing novel about it and because it is so deeply interrogated (in both philosophy and in art), it has lost its compelling thrust.




But then when you read the critical reviews of this game, you can clearly see that this very theme was missed by most.

Seriously. Most negative reviews are bummed that the game didnt progress as a series of Abbys friends as mini-bosses on a kill list followed by Ellie killing Abby and riding off into the sunset.


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## Flamestrike (Jul 1, 2020)

Imaculata said:


> Forcing the player to play as Abby was the wrong decission I feel. It feels cheap when the game makes you play with the dog twice, knowing Ellie kills it*. The game has taught the player at this point that dogs are annoying enemies that should be killed. *So why is this one dog any different? Also, you had no choice to spare the dog, so it really wasn't the players doing.




But dogs are _not _annoying enemies that should be killed. Neither are people. They're more than that, which is what the game is trying to show you here. People are not just faceless redshirts and NPCs to be slaughtered.

If the player (as Ellie) fails to come to that conclusion, it shows how much they miss that central theme.

I actually found it interesting that a lot of people had a harder time killing the dogs (or found it more disturbing), than they did killing people.


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## Imaculata (Jul 1, 2020)

Flamestrike said:


> But then when you read the critical reviews of this game, you can clearly see that this very theme was missed by most




It was missed by most because the game also glorifies violence, and so the gameplay contradicts the story. It didn't work.


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## Imaculata (Jul 1, 2020)

Flamestrike said:


> But dogs are _not _annoying enemies that should be killed. Neither are people. They're more than that, which is what the game is trying to show you here. People are not just faceless redshirts and NPCs to be slaughtered.




The story perhaps wanted you to think that, but the gameplay said exactly the opposite. Plus the game is full of encounters where enemies just attack you, and you have little choice but to return fire.


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## Flamestrike (Jul 1, 2020)

Imaculata said:


> It was missed by most because the game also glorifies violence, and so the gameplay contradicts the story. It didn't work.



The game doesnt glorify violence. It forces you into violence, but then it shows you the effects of that violence (humanises your victims).

You can be critical of it taking away your choice to commit that violence in the first place, but the whole theme of the game is 'violence only begets more violence' which isnt exactly glorifying it.


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## Imaculata (Jul 1, 2020)

Flamestrike said:


> You can be critical of it taking away your choice to commit that violence in the first place, but the whole theme of the game is 'violence only begets more violence' which isnt exactly glorifying it.




No, the theme of the STORY is violence begets violence. But the theme of the GAMEPLAY is stealth-shank people in the throat. The gameplay relishes in violence, while the story wants you to feel really bad about it.


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## RangerWickett (Jul 1, 2020)

Imaculata said:


> For example, the game wants you to feel real bad about killing a pregnant woman, but this is a scripted event, so the player had no hand in it.




I'll half agree with you on this one.

I think the writers wanted you to feel bad that _Ellie _killed a pregnant woman. Naughty Dog games have never really been big on player agency. You are watching a story, and occasionally playing a game to invest you in the character's journey in a way that wouldn't be achieved if you just watched a TV show. You feel a level of participation in their trials and successes . . . and the idea, I'm sure, is that even when the game takes away your choices in cut scenes, you'll still feel invested in the character's emotions as they take actions.

I mean, this is the whole point of the game, right? Ellie knows deep down she shouldn't be doing this, but she keeps on her path for revenge. That's how hate and trauma works; you lose control of yourself.


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## Imaculata (Jul 1, 2020)

But do you also see how this feeling is ruined by our perception of Ellie as a player, who is by that time already a brutal murderer? She kills so many people in horrific ways before you reach that part in the story, that her killing a pregnant woman feels pretty irrelevant at that point. It is as if the writers want you to ignore all the killing you've already done. It makes the main characters irrideemable and unlikable.

This was already a bit of a problem in Uncharted, where our likeable protagonist murders his way through hundreds of goons. But at least Uncharted was not very serious in tone. It was a pulp adventure in the style of Indiana Jones. The Last of Us in contrast, takes itself super serious, and this makes the disconnect between gameplay and story more jarring.

I also feel that as a movie, it would have been laughed out of the theaters. The writing is better than in most games, but that's a pretty low bar. I think objectively, it's not that good a story when compared to other media. And the gameplay loops that it relies on are very repetitive and don't have very strong mechanics.


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## RangerWickett (Jul 1, 2020)

I just simply disagree with your claim that the writing is weak. It strikes me as realistic dialogue, which did a pretty good job staying grounded despite you playing a game. And the acting is phenomenal.

However, I have agreed before that the game, frustratingly, does not provide enough means to avoid combat. You can stealth, but the options to distract people get a bit repetitive. But you don't _have_ to kill those people; the game just makes it _easier_ than being non-violent, which I can see as the point.

Even then, when she kills those people, they're out hunting for her, and it can be spun as self-defense.

Basically, as I went through the game, I saw a story where Ellie starts off just wanting revenge against the specific people who killed Joel, and occasionally kills to defend herself. Then Ellie and Dina kill the guy whose face Ellie cut, who was moments away from killing Dina. The first real morally unacceptable act is when Ellie tortures Nora, which shakes her. And then she _tries_ to do that Joel thing to interrogate Owen and Mel, and screws it up, and kills a pregnant woman, which makes her nearly crumble until Tommy and Jesse show up. Clearly she's struggling with this, and I feel empathy for that.

But when it comes to Abby, Ellie - despite being shocked at herself for these other kills - insists on fighting Abby. It's arguably pretty justifiable there: Abby is attacking, and she's defending herself. But during the battle, there's time where Ellie could try to talk you down, and she doesn't. She's clearly pissed.

Where the tragedy comes in is that Ellie loses, and goes home, and then can't shake free of the trauma. It felt moving to me. The feeling was that almost like Ellie going to her death -- and I've had friends grapple with mental anguish, where I've felt powerless to stop them.

So I think the story is great, even if I kind of had to squint my eyes and ignore the gamist intrusions from time to time.


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## Imaculata (Jul 1, 2020)

RangerWickett said:


> I just simply disagree with your claim that the writing is weak. It strikes me as realistic dialogue, which did a pretty good job staying grounded despite you playing a game. And the acting is phenomenal.




I agree that the writing of the dialogue is pretty solid (for the most part), but the writing of the story is pretty disappointing. As far as game-acting, I would also agree there are some solid performances here.

But since so much of this game is focused on telling a lineair story, I can't help but be underwhelmed by the story that is there.


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## Flamestrike (Jul 1, 2020)

Imaculata said:


> But do you also see how this feeling is ruined by our perception of Ellie as a player, who is by that time already a brutal murderer? She kills so many people in horrific ways before you reach that part in the story, that her killing a pregnant woman feels pretty irrelevant at that point. It is as if the writers want you to ignore all the killing you've already done. It makes the main characters irrideemable and unlikable.
> 
> This was already a bit of a problem in Uncharted, where our likeable protagonist murders his way through hundreds of goons. But at least Uncharted was not very serious in tone. It was a pulp adventure in the style of Indiana Jones. The Last of Us in contrast, takes itself super serious, and this makes the disconnect between gameplay and story more jarring.
> 
> I also feel that as a movie, it would have been laughed out of the theaters. The writing is better than in most games, but that's a pretty low bar. I think objectively, it's not that good a story when compared to other media. And the gameplay loops that it relies on are very repetitive and don't have very strong mechanics.




I wholly agree with the disconnect in Uncharted [likeable, rascally swashbuckling Good aligned protagonist] engages in [murder of hundreds of people]. Gunplay in a game that didnt need it.

I dont see it in TLOU2. I mean, Ellies character sheet clearly has an 'E' in the alignment section. She's completely fine with murder, she literally only leaves her hometown to engage in murder (of Abby and her gang), and then... engages in murder (as she said she would do).

While those two killings were sort of in self defence (although I doubt Owen would have killed her had he successfully disarmed her, he seemed to be a Good man) they were two names on her kill list.

Remember; she had just brutally tortured and murdered the female doctor (after intentionally contaminating her with spores) by beating her to death with an iron bar mere hours earlier. She was setting them up for the 'dual interrogation' trick Joel used in the first game (involving brutal murder and torture) and she approvingly commented on this very tactic when she found 2 victims Tommy used it on the day before.

Ellie is well past the point of return by the time she encounters those two.


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## Flamestrike (Jul 1, 2020)

Imaculata said:


> I agree that the writing of the dialogue is pretty solid (for the most part), but the writing of the story is pretty disappointing. As far as game-acting, I would also agree there are some solid performances here.




The look Joel gives at the start of the game in response to Tommys question of 'What did you do?' with reference to his mass murder at the hospital.

At 1:30


Pure evil.

For CGI man, that was amazing.


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## Zardnaar (Jul 1, 2020)

Flamestrike said:


> But dogs are _not _annoying enemies that should be killed. Neither are people. They're more than that, which is what the game is trying to show you here. People are not just faceless redshirts and NPCs to be slaughtered.
> 
> If the player (as Ellie) fails to come to that conclusion, it shows how much they miss that central theme.
> 
> I actually found it interesting that a lot of people had a harder time killing the dogs (or found it more disturbing), than they did killing people.




 Apparently there's a reason. 

 Dogs trigger the same responses in humans brain as a baby. Cats I think can trigger it as well.

 Furry little things are our babies. 

 Adult humans not so much. Throw in a lot of games involve killing humans it's not hard.


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## Helldritch (Jul 1, 2020)

I played the first one and was enthralled by it. It was fun, morally ambiguous, yes, but it made you think.
The second installment is just about revenge and how bad it is. This is not what a sequel should've been about. Not for The last of us.
It is just a bad game for the fans. Sure the critics loved it. I and a lot of others did not. I am glad that I haven't bought this game. I would've cut the disk in half after Joel's death. I watched the game on twitch. I felt so disapointed and empty at Joel's meaningless death that the rest of the twitch was like a bad dream.

Being forced to play his killer in a futile attempt to make us "feel" her distress is simply not working. It fails miserably at any attempts to feel sympathy or understanding (or at least accept). It would have worked out better IF we would have played her from the begining and IF it had given us the choice of either killing Joel or let him live. For me, the game, story wise, is just a piece of BS.


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## Imaculata (Jul 1, 2020)

Surprisingly, Joel's death is one of the few things in the game that I have no issue with. But the poor lead up to his death, the character assassination of established characters, the oddly placed second act, the grotesque violence and failed message about said violence, THAT bothers me. Also the bugs and poor gameplay. This game is inferior to part 1 in almost every respect, except gunplay and looks.


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## RangerWickett (Jul 1, 2020)

Man, some of y'all just confuse me. The game didn't fail at all to make _me_ empathize with Abby. 

I think a lot of folks just naughty word _loved_ Joel from the first game, and they see this game as killing someone they loved. Whereas I came out of the first game really fascinated by Joel as a character, and repulsed by his decision, but in love with the story.

So for me, the sequel is a continuation of what I loved: a story about flawed people doing bad things in a world that steers them toward violence, and the struggle to keep your humanity amid that. I in no way felt any of the characters acted out of character, and from an interview I watched yesterday with the director and the two actors who play Ellie and Joel, it seems like they all love the characters and felt the story was very true to who those characters were.


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## RangerWickett (Jul 1, 2020)

Spoiler discussion with Troy Baker, Ashley Johnson, and Neil Druckmann:


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## RangerWickett (Jul 2, 2020)

This is the best, most concise explanation for why I like admire game.


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## Imaculata (Jul 2, 2020)

I think as soon as someone starts comparing the story of The Last of Us 2 to big Hollywood movies, the likes of Quentin Tarantino, they're done. You can no longer take them serious. Some people even went as far as to compare the game to Schindler's List! Comparing a simple post apocalyptic zombie stealth game with a historical movie about WWII directed by one of the best directors of our time. Fortunately that was then massively mocked online, and rightly so. The dialogue of the game is good, the voice acting is good... but the story does not even come close to that of a big Hollywood movie. Certainly not a Tarantino movie, or Schindler's List! Honestly, I don't even think it is a good story to begin with:

Joel is beaten to death by Abby through a random meet up and Ellie then wants revenge. Then we play as Abby for a painfully long time and the game tries really hard to make you like her and feel guilty about killing her friends and her dog. Then the game moves towards a predictable ending where Ellie inevitably abandons her quest for revenge and lives happily ever after with Dina... and then there is an extra last act, where Ellie goes on a quest for revenge yet again, only to let Abby go.... again.

That is not a good story. That is poor writing, and poor pacing. Plus several of the established characters from the first game act in ways that do not seem in line with how they were presented in the original game. The game is mean spirited and unpleasant, with an unfulfilling ending and not much interesting to say other than "violence is bad"; a message kind of lost in all the neck-shanking and horrid death gurgles of the hundreds of people you slaughter.

I get why some fans are mad that Joel was killed. Its not just the fact that they killed off a beloved character, but how they did it, and how they try to manipulate your emotions about it to get you onboard with Ellie's quest for revenge. And with Joel gone, the game finds itself running painfully low on likeable characters. I disliked every character in this game.

For an alternate analysis of the game, check Jim Sterling's excellent video. He does a pretty good job:


Now, I'm not saying it is a bad game. But it does not deserve as much praise as the developers (and many fans) seem to think it does. I get that the violence is not for me, that is just my personal taste. But on an objective level, the story is just bare bones. There's hardly any story there. And the gameplay I also find lacking. The bugs are undeniable and full on display. And the gameplay feels repetitive and outstays its welcome. By the time I reached the last act, I wanted it to be over, and there were at least a few more hours of neck-shanking people and torture porn.


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## RangerWickett (Jul 2, 2020)

Do you think that if you played as Abby from the start - just the stuff in Seattle, with occasional flashbacks - you would have enjoyed her storyline? You play through her losing her dad to Joel, don't see her kill Joel, but instead cut to her working to protect her faction in a city, and feeling embittered and unfulfilled until she meets a kid in trouble?

Because I think that's a great story. 

The fact that you say, 'we play as Abby for a painfully long time' makes me think you just weren't enjoying her story as its own story.


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## Imaculata (Jul 2, 2020)

RangerWickett said:


> Do you think that if you played as Abby from the start - just the stuff in Seattle, with occasional flashbacks - you would have enjoyed her storyline? You play through her losing her dad to Joel, don't see her kill Joel, but instead cut to her working to protect her faction in a city, and feeling embittered and unfulfilled until she meets a kid in trouble?
> 
> Because I think that's a great story.
> 
> The fact that you say, 'we play as Abby for a painfully long time' makes me think you just weren't enjoying her story as its own story.




You're right, I didn't. You play as Abby right after she kills a beloved character, and then the game tries for hours to make you like her. It feels manipulative, and I just didn't buy into it. 

I think what this game lacked, is focus. I think I could have enjoyed this game if it was just about Abby, or just about Ellie. But the two protagonists don't work for me. It also feels as if Joel's death is abused by the writers to force Ellie into a role that doesn't fit her, and makes her into a different character from the one in the original game.

By the end of it all, you hate Ellie, and I don't think that's a good thing. Plus they even have you fight Ellie as Abby.... just awful.


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## RangerWickett (Jul 2, 2020)

Yeah, this Jim video has the same . . . hm, how to describe it?

Have you ever tried to explain some tech support thing to someone - click this, press that button, do this thing - and they just don't get it? And while not getting it, they get upset at the computer or TV or whatever, because they think it's badly designed? But really they're just failing to understand how it works?

That's how I feel when I hear Jim's complaints, and many other peoples. They just don't _get it_. They are misunderstanding what the game is doing, and they're blaming it for doing that thing badly.

About 8:45, Jim's talking about how the game wants you to recognize that NPCs are real people, and he sort of goes, "Duh, that's obvious! I don't need you to tell me that!"

But the fact that he's irked at that, and then irked that he is being made to play as Abby, and that he's not enjoying Abby's story as much as Ellie's, that's showing that he still is angry at Abby. He complains about the game manipulating you to like Abby, with a dog and such. He says this like it's a bad thing, like in the first game you weren't _just as manipulated_ to like Ellie and feel for Joel. The only reason he finds this manipulation a problem, is because he hates Abby, and doesn't want to like her.

If you played Abby's story standalone, it'd be a fun game that follows beats very similar to TLOU1, in a cool environment, with some great setpieces. Yet _so many people _are saying they don't like it . . . because they don't like Abby.

If I were an English teacher and Jim turned this essay into me and I was supposed to grade it, I'd give it a B, but not an A, because he makes valid points about how the gameplay isn't always conducive to you coming to empathize with Abby. I mean, he gets that he's _supposed_ to empathize with Abby. But he doesn't. And if he doesn't empathize with her, but does with Ellie, that never indicates that he doesn't understand the story.

You're not simply _watching_ a revenge story where the protagonist comes to a realization at the end that revenge is pointless. You are _living through that_. The game wants you to be angry at Abby, and then to stop being angry at Abby.

And you're not supposed to hate Ellie either. You're supposed to feel sorry for these people, and see that at the end they're on paths toward healing. That's why we loved the first game, because it was about Joel changing from being heartless to being able to love and care again. In that game, we were sort of going through what Joel felt. We fell in love with Ellie too, and that was easy, because she's adorable, and most of us didn't lose a daughter to a zombie apocalypse.

This is much harder. We're supposed to go through what Ellie feels, and forgive Abby, and most people are only getting part way through it.


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## Imaculata (Jul 2, 2020)

I'm strongly going to disagree with you there on The Last of Us part 1. It earned the love of the player for its characters, without it ever feeling manipulative. Part 2 is different, which is why so many players have a negative response to the game's story and characters.

I think you misunderstand the issue when you say that people who dislike the story "just don't get it". They absolutely get it. But the game failed to connect with a lot of people. That is the fault of the game, not its players. Many of the people who dislike this game, loved part 1.

I think it is undeniable that part 2 is more violent than part 1 as well. There's people getting shanked in the throat as you hear their death gurgles, people being hanged and disembowled, and one character having their arm broken with a hammer.

My question is: is all this grotesque violence needed to tell this story?


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## RangerWickett (Jul 2, 2020)

No, the violence isn't necessary. That's my only real complaint about the game. There should have been more ways to deal with human enemies that weren't killing or stealthing. Like, even if you could shoot someone in the knee to immobilize but not kill them, then run past them, that would have helped.


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## Imaculata (Jul 2, 2020)

There are a ton of different directions they could have taken this story in. They could have expanded on the bond of the characters we know and love, perhaps leaving Joel's death to the end. They could also have pushed the infected plot further. The infection could have gotten worse, or a new character who is immune could have been introduced. Most importantly, I think most players wanted to see more of Joel and Ellie, without the death of Joel being exploited, and established characters being twisted, to introduce and make us like a new main character. The reveal regarding Joel's lie could have been a good pay off to save for the end. But instead we got none of the loveable bond that made us like the first game.


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## RangerWickett (Jul 2, 2020)

But they didn't want to tell that story, and that story wouldn't have been novel or challenging to concepts of what video game storytelling could be the way the first game was.

Those story ideas you mention, they sound a lot like what the Uncharted franchise is. You like Coke, so they give you more Coke. Maybe with Vanilla or Cherry, but it's Coke. It's a commodity.

TLOU already did the story of Joel and Ellie bonding. There's no need to tell that story again.


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## Campbell (Jul 2, 2020)

I pretty much agree with your analysis @Manbearcat . 

Talking about The Last of Us 2 is difficult for me because while I am not a fan of the game many of the criticisms I see from people who are uncritical fans of Joel really turn me off. I view The Last of Us 2 much like I do latter day Game of Thrones. Time after time when the writers were at a crossroads they took the easy route for shock value. At times it feels like human misery porn. Bad people do bad things to other bad people for bad reasons.

On a storytelling level it still feels better than most video game faire, but it lacks the poignancy of the first game. The characters do not feel nearly as human to me.


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## Flamestrike (Jul 6, 2020)

RangerWickett said:


> But the fact that he's irked at that, and then irked that he is being made to play as Abby, and that he's not enjoying Abby's story as much as Ellie's, that's showing that he still is angry at Abby. He complains about the game manipulating you to like Abby, with a dog and such. He says this like it's a bad thing, like in the first game you weren't _just as manipulated_ to like Ellie and feel for Joel. *The only reason he finds this manipulation a problem, is because he hates Abby, and doesn't want to like her.*




This.

Which is the point of the game.


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## Flamestrike (Jul 7, 2020)

RangerWickett said:


> This is the best, most concise explanation for why I like admire game.




That review also sums it up perfectly for me.


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## Khelon Testudo (Jul 8, 2020)

Abby is a bit hard to get on with. Mel is right to be concerned about her and Owen. But then, Ellie becomes more monstrous as her arc goes on. Neither of them are exemplary human beings - part of the whole vengeance obsession issue. But you don't have to _like _them to understand where they're coming from. I think it's a refreshing change from all those revenge stories where you never question the protagonist's obsession, or consider the aftermath.


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## Imaculata (Jul 8, 2020)

I strongly feel that they deliberately assassinate Ellie's and Joel's character in order to make Abby look good. There is but a faint trace of the characters from part 1 left in part 2. But the end result of this is that I just end up hating every character and don't have anyone to root for. I think Lev is perhaps one of the least sympathetic characters in the game, because many deaths in the later chapters of the game are directly his fault. And I'm pretty sure the writers tried to make him the most sympathetic.

I think you do need to like _some_ of the characters, in order to care for the story. Also, where the hell did that sex scene come from? And what was the point of inserting it so awkwardly into the story?


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## Flamestrike (Jul 8, 2020)

Imaculata said:


> I strongly feel that they deliberately assassinate Ellie's and Joel's character in order to make Abby look good.




Joel was _always _an evil man. In DnD terms he is NE in the first game. Pre apocalypse he was Neutral (he loves his daughter dearly, and is not evil, but is totally OK with leaving a family to die on the side of the road - he serves his own interests without harming others, or going out of his way to help them).

Fast forward 20 years into the apocalypse and he is shown as being totally OK with brutal torture and murder. On multiple occasions. Even his brother Tommy (who is also down with murder and torture) outright states in the first game that Joel did things as a Hunter that even he found disturbing.

It is outright stated that Joel has 'few moral lines he has not yet crossed'.



	
		Over the years, the pair survived by descending into a sinister way of life, hurting innocent people; going so far as killing them; all to survive. Joel tortured, deceived, and killed countless innocent people, becoming a hunter. He adopted tactics such as tricking passersby into thinking he was hurt so he, Tommy, and likely others could ambush them when they let their guard down.
		
	




	
		Described as being in his late 40's in the first game, Joel knew what the world looked like before it was devastated. Over time, he had begun to become less bound by morality and more driven by doing whatever is necessary to survive. "What he wouldn't do in the past is almost a daily occurrence at this point," Bruce Straley, the game's director, notes.[47]

Joel has been described as a "violent thug, a brutal killer, and a torturer."[48]  During the aftermath of the epidemic that struck the country, Joel had initially become a Hunter, stealing from and killing innocent people in order to get by. This continued for several years, before he resorted to working in black-market dealings and smuggling items or people of interest through quarantine zones or other designated areas.[49]



Joel Miller

He loves Ellie more than anything. But he is not a good man.

Abby on the other hand is clearly depicted as consistently showing mercy, compassion, altruism and kindness (barring her torture and murder of Joel) and she was fighting for arguably a just cause (the Fireflies, seeking to stop the zombie outbreak).

Abby then clearly mirrors Joels journey in the TLOU 1. She joins the morally nebulous Wolves after losing her Father (Joel instead becomes a Hunter and then a Smuggler and stand over man after losing his Daughter) before forming a bond with an outcast (Lev in her case, Ellie in Joels) and turning her back on her past life to protect that person.

I find it insane you can critcise Abby and not also Joel. Their paths are mirrored, with Abby being far more morally upstanding than Joel ever was.

The reason you hate Abby so much is *because the game made you.* You hated her when she killed Joel (who you cared about, and were invested in from the first game) in such a senseless manner, so you couldnt empathise with her when you were forced to play her, even when it became apparent she was (unlike Ellie and Joel) largely a morally Good person.



> I think Lev is perhaps one of the least sympathetic characters in the game, because many deaths in the later chapters of the game are directly his fault.




All the deaths in the game are Joels fault actually. If Joel hadnt have murdered Abbys dad, she never would have come looking for him for revenge. Ellie never would have embarked on her killing spree, and the whole events of the game never would have happened.


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## Imaculata (Jul 8, 2020)

Flamestrike said:


> The reason you hate Abby so much is *because the game made you.* You hated her when she killed Joel (who you cared about, and were invested in from the first game) in such a senseless manner, so you couldnt empathise with her when you were forced to play her, even when it became apparent she was (unlike Ellie and Joel) largely a morally Good person.




I hated Abby, because the scene in which she kills Joel, deliberately portrays her as a villain. Also, her friends were eager to kill Ellie, making her a villain by association. There were countless moments in the plot, where characters could have told each other why they did what they did, which could have avoided a lot of the death and misery, but they never do. Even when characters are about to die, they refuse to tell their motives, and that is lazy writing.

After the game has shown the player that both Abby and her friends are villains, the game goes to great lengths to try and make them look sympathetic, but never quite succeeds. Despite having to play as Abby for a large portion of the game, they never quite succeed in making Abby likeable.

Another thing that bothers me by the way, is the amount of plot armor written into the story. There are countless moments in the game where a villain could kill Ellie or Dina, but doesn't. One of the villains even conveniently leaves a knife near Ellie, so she can escape. This sort of stuff is found all over the game.

And yes, Joel was always a bad person... but he was also likeable. I'm not saying his death is undeserved, it was a long time coming. But it is bad writing to have a mere coincidence be the reason for his death. And it feels kind of abusive towards the player. The way they just kill off a beloved character in the most brutal way possible, (conveniently in full view of Ellie), feels manipulative and contrived, and merely in service to mangle her character and make her the baddie. It is as if a completely different writer, who hates Ellie as a character, decided to completely rewrite her in service of making a new other character (Abby) seem cool. And notice how Abby also gets all the cool items, weapons and upgrades? It feels as if the writers want the player to hate a beloved character, by completely rewriting her in a contrived way, in order to introduce someone new. It is unsurprising that this has caused a bit of an uproar among fans of the game. I don't consider myself a fan of the series, but I too dislike how this was written. I can clearly see the decline in writing quality between part 1 and part 2.



Flamestrike said:


> All the deaths in the game are Joels fault actually. If Joel hadnt have murdered Abbys dad, she never would have come looking for him for revenge. Ellie never would have embarked on her killing spree, and the whole events of the game never would have happened.




This is not entirely true. There are several deaths in the game that are unrelated to Abby's revenge quest, but are the direct result of Lev's actions, such as him deciding to go off on his own, despite being warned not to do so.


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## Flamestrike (Jul 8, 2020)

Imaculata said:


> I hated Abby, because the scene in which she kills Joel, deliberately portrays her as a villain.




No, *you're *the one casting her as the villain in that scene.

From her perspective, Joel is the villain. He's a hunter and smuggler, who murdered her Doctor father, and most of her friends and people she cared about, and doomed all of of humanity to the Zombie apocalypse.

It doesnt get much more villainous than that.

And this is the exact point the reviews above were trying to make. You hated Abby because (to you) she was the villain. She killed someone you cared about (Joel).

The irony is she only killed Joel, because he killed someone _she _cared about (a lot of people she cared about) and doomed humanity to hell on earth.

So tell me again; who is the villain?



> Also, her friends were eager to kill Ellie,




No, they were not. A few wanted to (the dude Ellie cuts on the face, and the Latin American dude) but the Doctor (who Ellie later tortures and murders) and Abbys boyfriend Owen both opposed killing her, with Owen actually stopping the former two from killing her.

Abby herself was not eager to kill Ellie (or Tommy) either and ordered the others to let them both go.



> After the game has shown the player that both Abby and her friends are villains, the game goes to great lengths to try and make them look sympathetic, but never quite succeeds.




No, you're missing the point!

Abby and her friends were always sympathetic!

Imagine playing a game where you start as Abby, with your loving goodly Zebra hugging father, and you're seeking to end the zombie apocalypse and save humanity. Then, suddenly, your father (and most of your friends) are brutally murdered by a hunter and smuggler, thwarting that goal and dooming all of humanity in the process.

Years later, you finally track the man down, and kill him (like in the game), but spare his brother and a young girl.

You then return home, and those two people come after you (even though you spared them) and_ brutally torture and murder your friends one by one._

Your problem is you're missing the point the game is making. _There are no heroes or villains._ There is just violence begetting more violence.



> This is not entirely true. There are several deaths in the game that are unrelated to Abby's revenge quest, but are the direct result of Lev's actions, such as him deciding to go off on his own, despite being warned not to do so.




None of which would have happened if Joel hadnt have murdered Abbys dad, dooming Lev and the rest of humanity to the Zombie Apocalypse. The Wolves wouldnt even _exist _(they'd still be the Fireflies!) and Abby and her friends would never have joined them!


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## Imaculata (Jul 8, 2020)

Flamestrike said:


> No, *you're *the one casting her as the villain in that scene.




No. The scene was directed and written specifically to cast Abby as a villain. This is done by deliberately not having the characters share their motivations with Ellie (and the player), brutally killing Joel in front of Ellie (and the player), zooming in on Ellie's horrified reaction to the murder, and not showing any remorse or sympathy on the part of Abby. That scene is deliberately written so Abby is a villain and Ellie's revenge is justified.

It is only in *hindsight* that we learn about Abby's motivations. But in that scene, *she absolutely is the villain*. She is but a hair away from twirling her mustache and tying Joel to the train tracks.

So this is the core problem with the game's story: After deliberately making Abby into a villain (which is in my view *without question*), the game spends its entirely trying to redeem Abby, but never quite pulls it off. It succeeds in making Ellie unlikeable, sure, but this only leaves many players with no one to root for.

This is is why you are seeing such strong negative reactions to the game's plot.



Flamestrike said:


> None of which would have happened if Joel hadnt have murdered Abbys dad, dooming Lev and the rest of humanity to the Zombie Apocalypse. The Wolves wouldnt even _exist _(they'd still be the Fireflies!) and Abby and her friends would never have joined them!




This is a bit of a stretch. Even in part 1 it is not guaranteed that Ellie's operation will result in a cure. Lev's choices are her own, and her choices doom several characters. Those deaths are not of Joel's making. One of the most important plot points in The Last of Us part 1, is that it is uncertain if a cure is even possible. Even if Joel had not intervened, it is entirely possible (and likely) that the zombie apocalypse continued. Ellie's operation was a longshot, it always was.

Many people seem to forget the nuance that was in the first game.


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## Flamestrike (Jul 8, 2020)

Imaculata said:


> But in that scene, *she absolutely is the villain*.




No, _there is no villain._

Or more correctly, everyone is the villain and everyone is the hero. And no-one is.



> So this is the core problem with the game's story: After deliberately making Abby into a villain (which is in my view *without question*), the game spends its entirely trying to redeem Abby, but never quite pulls it off.




No, that's that what the game is trying to do at all. The game is not trying to set up a 'villain redemption' arc with Abby _as she was never the villain at all._

In fact she was pretty consistently a morally good person, altruistic, kind, self sacrificing, charitable and loving (with the notable exception of murdering Joel).

You're looking at this from a simplistic position; the kind of unthinking tacit approval of an audience cheering on the action hero as he brutally murders hundreds of faceless mooks 'because they killed a member of his family' and seeing the action hero as the _hero_, and the mooks as the _villains_.

You justify the hero's mass murder, while condemning the murder undertaken by the villain.

If Abby is the villain, what the heck does that make Joel?



> This is is why you are seeing such strong negative reactions to the game's plot.




No, Im seeing such strong reactions to the games plot because people thought they were getting a 'murder hordes of mooks and a series of mini-bosses before killing the BBEG at the end' storyline, like you see in literally every action movie ever.



> Even in part 1 it is not guaranteed that Ellie's operation will result in a cure.




Abbys dad was _very _confident it would result in a cure, and he's a specialist and a doctor and all that, and in a the best position to know those kinds of things. He's basically portrayed as Lawful Good - he doesn't seem like the sort of man that would take the decision to murder a defenceless child on the operating table, and violate the Hippocratic oath, lightly.

That's the moral gravitas of the end scene of part 1; Joel is effectively dooming humanity (and committing mass murder) to save Ellie.


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## Imaculata (Jul 8, 2020)

Flamestrike said:


> No, _there is no villain._
> Or more correctly, everyone is the villain and everyone is the hero. And no-one is.




Ultimately yes, but I'm speaking from scene to scene. At the start of the game, the game VERY MUCH sets up a revenge arc for Ellie, with Abby as the villain. I'm kind of stunned why you are disagreeing on that fact. Thats literally what they do.



Flamestrike said:


> No, that's that what the game is trying to do at all. The game is not trying to set up a 'villain redemption' arc with Abby _as she was never the villain at all._
> 
> In fact she was pretty consistently a morally good person, altruistic, kind, self sacrificing, charitable and loving (with the notable exception of murdering Joel).
> 
> If Abby is the villain, what the heck does that make Joel?




Abby is not a villain for the entirety of the game, but she _is_ for the *start of the game*. The positive attributes of Abby that you refer to, are not revealed to the player until much later in the game. Until they are revealed, Abby absolutely is the villain. And the way Joel's death is edited is all done in service of making Abby look worse than she ultimately ends up being. But it is a rather cheap bit of manipulation that a lot of players caught onto. Its very transparent, and that may have pissed a lot of players off.

In regards to Joel, he is a sacrifice by the writers to shock the players and rewrite Ellie's character in service of a plot that reads like it was written by an edgy blogger from tumblr. That again is a large reason why the game receives a lot of backlash. Its not that the entire game is bad, and in fact, I'd argue apart from the weak gameplay the game is pretty solid overall. But people are used to better writing from Naughty Dog.



Flamestrike said:


> No, Im seeing such strong reactions to the games plot because people thought they were getting a 'murder hordes of mooks and a series of mini-bosses before killing the BBEG at the end' storyline, like you see in literally every action movie ever.




This sounds more like you are frustrated that not everyone has the same emotional response to the game as you, rather than you honestly trying to hear and understand their criticism. Do you not recognize at least some of the criticism to the story?

*That being:*
_-The disconnect between gameplay and story
-The overreliance on shock violence
-The constant unnecessary swearing
-The rewriting of established characters
-Unlikeable characters
-The reliance on plot convenience
-Characters refusing to share motives with each other
-The plot armor of certain characters
-The absence of any levity and fun in the plot
-The lackluster unfulfilling ending
-The pacing issues
-The unnecessary last act
-and the fact that the story is predictable?_

You'll notice that when you watch any of the negative reviews of this game, they all mention the things I just listed. This game relies heavily on its story, and its story unfortunately is a bit lacking. Plus, there are a lot of bugs.



Flamestrike said:


> Abbys dad was _very _confident it would result in a cure, and he's a specialist and a doctor and all that, and in a the best position to know those kinds of things. He's basically portrayed as Lawful Good - he doesn't seem like the sort of man that would take the decision to murder a defenceless child on the operating table, and violate the Hippocratic oath, lightly.
> 
> That's the moral gravitas of the end scene of part 1; Joel is effectively dooming humanity (and committing mass murder) to save Ellie.




But it is never 100% guaranteed that Ellie could save all humanity. There was always some doubt. I'm not saying Joel is justified in his act, but there was nuance in regards to the chances of making a cure.


Angry Joe gave the game a pretty fair review I think. Willing to praise what is good about the game, but also giving a fair critique of the story.


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## Flamestrike (Jul 8, 2020)

Imaculata said:


> Ultimately yes, but I'm speaking from scene to scene. At the start of the game, the game VERY MUCH sets up a revenge arc for Ellie, with Abby as the villain. I'm kind of stunned why you are disagreeing on that fact. Thats literally what they do.




And the game then spends the next 25 hours of gameplay deconstructing that arc and showing you that's not what the game is about at all.

The thing is, even now, you're referring to Abby as 'the villain.' You continued to see the game as a revenge plot as you played the rest of the game.

I have a feeling you were let down by the ending, when



Spoiler



Ellie lets Abby go.



If that's the case, you not only missed the whole point of the game, but you're also the reason the game was written in the first place.



> Abby is not a villain for the entirety of the game, but she _is_ for the start of the game.* The positive attributes of Abby that you refer to, are not revealed to the player until much later in the game. *




Yes, but those positive attributes of Abby always existed. Which is the point the game was making.

In our rush to frame ourselves (as Ellie) as the 'hero' and the protagonist, and Abby as the 'villain' and the antagonist worthy of nothing but death, we dehumanised Abby.

Which of course, is false. In the game world, she's a living, breathing, thinking and feeling person, just like Ellie or anyone else.



> In regards to Joel, he is a sacrifice by the writers to shock the players *and rewrite Ellie's character i*n service of a plot




You think it was out of character for Ellie to come hunting after the people that killed Joel? Or out of character for her to 'break bad' and get all murder-ey?

Remember, this is a girl whose father figures are Joel and Tommy, hardened mass murderers, torturers, Hunters and worse. Both are depicted (and explained by Ellie) as teaching her how to torture people for information, to never trust anyone and kill people, and so forth.

She was effectively raised by two NE men. I dont see her as being prepared to _do as they do _to be an assassination of her character at all.


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## Flamestrike (Jul 8, 2020)

Imaculata said:


> Angry Joe gave the game a pretty fair review I think.




Even in that review, *as he plays the game*, during the Abby sex scene he says_ 'She killed Joel, do they think I'm supposed to care about her?'_

It's the fact he cant care about Abby, because she killed Joel, which is the whole _point _the game is making.

Its showing us (as Ellie) how we dehumanise the 'other'. How we frame them as villains. And (like with Ellie) how hard it is to_ let that hatred go._


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## Helldritch (Jul 8, 2020)

The is bad story wise because of the order in which events are presented to us. We should have played her a  bit before her father was killed by Joel. We should have seen her fight infected and saving innocent lives for no better reward than doing so is a good thing do. Not for too long. Let's say about two hours. Then a friend comes and tell her that a raving madman killed her father and the hospital personnel for no apparent reasons. Then I believe that she would have been better accepted as a character. The game would have been a lot more appreciated by the fan and the story would have felt a lot more "acceptable ?".


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## Imaculata (Jul 8, 2020)

Flamestrike said:


> And the game then spends the next 25 hours of gameplay deconstructing that arc and showing you that's not what the game is about at all.
> 
> The thing is, even now, you're referring to Abby as 'the villain.' You continued to see the game as a revenge plot as you played the rest of the game.




It is. After the game shown you how brutally Abby murders Joel, it is almost impossible to come back from that. The game tries so hard to make you like Abby, but it just didn't work for me.



Flamestrike said:


> I have a feeling you were let down by the ending, when
> 
> 
> 
> ...




The reason I was let down by the ending, was because it was predictable, unsatisfying, and went on for too long. The entire last act feels tacked on and unnecessary.



Flamestrike said:


> Yes, but those positive attributes of Abby always existed. Which is the point the game was making.




And yet it did such an effective job at portraying Abby as a villain initially, that I found myself unable to see her otherwise later on. They tried very hard to make me like Abby, by having you play with the dog twice and Abby getting all the lovely toys, but it fell flat for me.



Flamestrike said:


> You think it was out of character for Ellie to come hunting after the people that killed Joel? Or out of character for her to 'break bad' and get all murder-ey?




Everything about how it played out, and how it was portrayed, felt out of character. The sheer brutallity of it all does away with everything that made Ellie such an interesting character. And while it may have been the writer's intent to make her unsympathetic, what we're left with is but a shell of the original character. This is no longer Ellie, and it comes off feeling like they simply rewrote her to facilitate Abby as a main character.



Flamestrike said:


> Its showing us (as Ellie) how we dehumanise the 'other'. How we frame them as villains. And (like with Ellie) how hard it is to_ let that hatred go._




But that sentiment rings hollow in light of how the story goes out of its way to have characters behave dumb. They deliberately have characters withhold crucial information from each other, in order for this to work, and it feels like a cheap trick. It doesn't feel like a believable narrative.



Helldritch said:


> This is a bad story wise because of the order in which events are presented to us. We should have played her a bit before her father was killed by Joel. We should have seen her fight infected and saving innocent lives for no better reward than doing so is a good thing do. Not for too long. Let's say about two hours. Then a friend comes and tell her that a raving madman killed her father and the hospital personnel for no apparent reasons. Then I believe that she would have been better accepted as a character.




It might have helped, but ultimately I don't think this is the biggest problem with the story. I think the biggest flaw of the story, is its mixed message (violence is bad, but yay violence) and the entire concept of trying to make Abby the new character. If this was not a sequel to The Last of Us 1, then it may have been received a lot better.


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## Flamestrike (Jul 8, 2020)

Imaculata said:


> It is.




No, it's really not!

The game is _not _a revenge arc, where the protagonist has something bad happen to them, then murders their way through a series of mooks and minor Bosses before confronting the BBEG and riding off into the sunset.

You're _used _to that arc. It's used in literally nearly every action movie ever made, ever, from Commando to Rambo II, to Taken to the Punisher to whatever.

And never _once_, in all that time, have you humanised the protagonists victims. The protagonist is always the 'hero' and 'justified' in their murderous quest. The antagonist (and their cronies) are always the 'villains' and dehumanised and deserving of murder. The protagonist is the good guy. The antagonist is the bad guy.

This game is not about following that worn out story. What it does is cast a light on the _hypocrisy _of that story, and shine a light on how we dehumanise people. It shows the so called 'hero' from the POV of the people he or she ruthlessly murders. It shows you there is no 'hero', and there is no 'villain'; those things are subjective labels placed on people by other people, and they vary from person to person, depending on that persons perspective.



> And yet *it did such an effective job at portraying Abby as a villain initially, that I found myself unable to see her otherwise later on.*




That is the *entire point of the game*.

Abby is clearly (generally) a good, kind, merciful and nice person, who had a loving, kind and caring father brutally murdered, her world turned upside down, and doomed to spend her entire life in the zombie apocalypse by a terrible murderous man (Joel).

It's no co-incidence that Abbys story mirrors Joels. She loses someone she loves (her loss of her father mirrors Joels loss of his daughter), regains that connection when she bonds with Lev (in the same way Joel does with Ellie), is forced to make a terrible decision (murdering her own WLF comrades to escape with Lev), and escapes to find peace.

Joel followed the same arc in the first game, but he was also a murderous, torturing monster. Abby on the other hand generally speaking (other than her murder and torture of Joel) is not.

If you played the game, *with no knowledge of Joel or Ellie,* just as Abby, as a standard revenge arc for her (track down the man that murdered your father, and destroyed any chance of a cure), you would feel the same connection with her as the 'hero', and the 'just' character of the story, and would see Joel as the evil villain deserving of what he got.

The fact you couldn't empathise with her, is the whole point. It should have you questioning _why_?

The answer is you made her into the villain in your mind the instant she killed Joel. You dehumanised her and hated her. Her feelings, her ambitions, her life; none of that mattered anymore. She was the 'other' - the 'villain' - and someone who now only exists _to be confronted and killed._

It was a confronting and bold choice for a game to make. To shine a light on this uncomfortable truth, by making you play someone who - despite being a good person - is someone we have already labelled as the 'other' and can never stop hating.

Even at the end of the game, I found myself unconsciously pushing the Square button hoping it would kill Abby.

If I could critique the game, it's that it was _too _smart for its own good.


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## Flamestrike (Jul 8, 2020)

Helldritch said:


> The is bad story wise because of the order in which events are presented to us. We should have played her a  bit before her father was killed by Joel. We should have seen her fight infected and saving innocent lives for no better reward than doing so is a good thing do. Not for too long. Let's say about two hours. Then a friend comes and tell her that a raving madman killed her father and the hospital personnel for no apparent reasons. Then I believe that she would have been better accepted as a character. The game would have been a lot more appreciated by the fan and the story would have felt a lot more "acceptable ?".




The point of the game is you're _supposed _to hate her. You're _supposed _to feel difficult playing her. It's _supposed _to make you feel uncomfortable.

All the rage for Abby, and all the rage for being forced to play her (which has - darkly ironically - led to actual death threats against the actress who voices her) was intentional.

The fact it made you uncomfortable playing a character you had already dehumanised, shows us something about ourselves.

If you're one of those people that hated playing her, and could never feel anything for her - Good; thats the whole point.


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## Helldritch (Jul 8, 2020)

Flamestrike said:


> The point of the game is you're _supposed _to hate her. You're _supposed _to feel difficult playing her. It's _supposed _to make you feel uncomfortable.
> 
> All the rage for Abby, and all the rage for being forced to play her (which has - darkly ironically - led to actual death threats against the actress who voices her) was intentional.
> 
> ...



If I don't have pleasure playing a game, if I do not have fun in playing it. If I can't connect with the character I am supposed to play, then the former applies. These are the reasons for which I will not even buy the game. It is a bad game with a bad narrative.


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## Flamestrike (Jul 8, 2020)

Helldritch said:


> If I don't have pleasure playing a game, if I do not have fun in playing it. If I can't connect with the character I am supposed to play, then the former applies.




Its that inability to connect with Abby is what makes the game so fascinating. The game was designed that way. To make you think about _why _you cant feel for her, when (really) she is no different to Joel (indeed she mirrors him, in a nicer and more caring package), the very character whom we hate her for killing.

Particularly in today's world where everyone is divided among left v right, SJW v RWNJ etc, with each side convinced of its own moral superiority and demonising the other. Where we can bomb countries and not care about the people we kill, or where the colour of ones skin or the place of ones birth makes one the 'other' and not worth the same rights or empathy as other people.

The game is making a statement about how we (as human beings) do that (dehumanise and turn people into villains, to justify our own position and prejudices, and make the other something only worthy of hatred and being killed).

Its genius.

Arguably it's far too smart for its own good.

Its fascinating (and horrifying) that the same people that 'dont get it' are the ones literally threatening the actress who voiced Abby.

Not only they cant get past what Abby did, and still see her as the villain and 'the other' whom they hate; they also see the actress that played her in the same light.

Which is the exact mindset the game is shining a light on.



> These are the reasons for which I will not even buy the game. It is a bad game with a bad narrative.




You've never even played the game yet you're arguing its bad?


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## Helldritch (Jul 8, 2020)

Flamestrike said:


> You've never even played the game yet you're arguing its bad?



Yep. I watched streamers (love twitch tv) and played the first one twice to see the consequences of both choice. Watching the streams (yes, I watched two to be sure) I knew that I was right in not buying it. I have been wary of the games with the leaks and decided to not rush buy the game. I was also considering to buy two copies, one for me and one for my daughter but she saw the leaks too and told me to wait for streamers. This was a sound advice. I could not recommend this game to anyone. The first is superior in every way.

If I can't connect to a character in a story based game, then the game is a failure. Not only I can't connect, but I despise how the game turned out. Bad narrative from almost the beginning to the end. If the goal of this game was for us to hate the main character, it succeeded but it backlashed hard as many will not buy the game. I already see copies being sold in second hand stores. It never crossed my mind to sell my copy of the first game. It was even hard (relatively, I agree, to get your hands on a second hand copy of one). And to two dozens of second hand copies of TLOU2 in only two weeks I  these stores is alarming and tend to be in accord with my views. Time will tell...


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## RangerWickett (Jul 9, 2020)

Helldritch said:


> If I don't have pleasure playing a game, if I do not have fun in playing it. If I can't connect with the character I am supposed to play, then the former applies. These are the reasons for which I will not even buy the game. It is a bad game with a bad narrative.




You ever watched No Country for Old Men? Hamlet? Heck, how about the original The Last of Us?

There are plenty of stories where you don't really have _fun_, but the story is still gripping.

I mean, it's cool if you did not personally enjoy the story, or if it put you in emotional places you are not comfortable with, but that doesn't mean it's not a compelling story, nor that it was poorly structured.


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## RangerWickett (Jul 9, 2020)

Oh, and, dear Lord, this is _not_ the sort of game that benefits from having a peanut gallery on Twitch.


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## Khelon Testudo (Jul 9, 2020)

Flamestrike said:


> All the rage for Abby, and all the rage for being forced to play her (which has - darkly ironically - led to actual death threats against the actress who voices her) was intentional.



Laura Bailey is getting death threats?! Now _that _makes me angry.


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## Flamestrike (Jul 9, 2020)

Khelon Testudo said:


> Laura Bailey is getting death threats?! Now _that _makes me angry.




Sadly Yep. People are so angry at Abby, they're making death threats to the actor that played her.

Which is precisely the kind of 'othering' the game is making you take a look at.


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## Imaculata (Jul 9, 2020)

Flamestrike said:


> Its genius.
> 
> Arguably it's far too smart for its own good.




Oh come on, are you listening to yourself?
This game is not as clever as it (or you) thinks it is. If it were the plot for a book or movie, it would be laughed at. It is bare bones. It barely qualifies as a story. It is predictable from beginning to end and has zero likeable characters. It is poorly structured and paced from a narrative and gameplay point of view.

When none of the characters are likeable, then there are no stakes. You don't root for anyone, and so you can't care for what happens to them. It is a fatal flaw for any story not to have any likeable characters.

And can we mention that it is also not particularly original? Some of you seem to be talking like this game is the second coming or something.



Flamestrike said:


> The fact you couldn't empathise with her, is the whole point. It should have you questioning _why_?




I had me wondering why I wasted time on the game. What was the point? It ultimately doesn't lead anywhere. There's no real conclusion or surprise to any of it. No character growth either.



Flamestrike said:


> The answer is you made her into the villain in your mind the instant she killed Joel. You dehumanised her and hated her. Her feelings, her ambitions, her life; none of that mattered anymore. She was the 'other' - the 'villain' - and someone who now only exists _to be confronted and killed._




No, the game made her into a villain by framing the scene as such. Then it tries desperately to make the player like Abby, and it never quite works. The game *really wants you (the player) to like Abby*, and it fails. With no one left to root for, the game has no stakes, no excitement. It drones on and on, and outstays its welcome, leading up to a disappointing and empty conclusion. Also, the entire last act is redundant and doesn't really go anywhere.



Flamestrike said:


> It was a confronting and bold choice for a game to make. To shine a light on this uncomfortable truth, by making you play someone who - despite being a good person - is someone we have already labelled as the 'other' and can never stop hating.




Writing a poor story where every character is unlikeable, is not a bold choice.


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## RangerWickett (Jul 9, 2020)

Imaculata said:


> The game *really wants you (the player) to like Abby*, and it fails.




Not with me it didn't. I dug her. The aquarium scenes helped, similar to various bonding times between Joel and Ellie.

It's cool, man. For the sake of all our smiles and our free time, I think this conversation is getting cyclical. No need for us to keep grappling over something we disagree on.


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## Helldritch (Jul 9, 2020)

RangerWickett said:


> You ever watched No Country for Old Men? Hamlet? Heck, how about the original The Last of Us?
> 
> There are plenty of stories where you don't really have _fun_, but the story is still gripping.
> 
> I mean, it's cool if you did not personally enjoy the story, or if it put you in emotional places you are not comfortable with, but that doesn't mean it's not a compelling story, nor that it was poorly structured.



You're talking to a horror movie fan here. And I did play the original. You clearly read only one post and draw erronous conclusions. This is not a movie or a book, it is a game.

A game must make you connect with its character(s) or otherwise it will fail. Apparently, sales are going down the drain already. This is a poor story, badly presented.


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## Imaculata (Jul 9, 2020)

And I should note that No Country For Old Men had likeable characters and a far better plot. As did The Last Of Us 1.


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## RangerWickett (Jul 9, 2020)

If it makes y'all feel any better, I think Breaking Bad is good, but kinda overrated, so maybe my opinion is trash.


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## Imaculata (Jul 9, 2020)

RangerWickett said:


> If it makes y'all feel any better, I think Breaking Bad is good, but kinda overrated, so maybe my opinion is trash.




I don't think anyone's opinion is trash. And I don't think anyone is wrong or right to like The Last Of Us 2 or Breaking Bad. People can like and dislike things for a variety of reasons that may be very personal.

A good friend of mine has the worst taste in movies. Whenever he recommends a movie, it is a pretty clear warning to me and my other friends that the movie is probably really bad (and we often joke about it). But that's not because his opinion is invalid, but because he can enjoy the sort of cheese that would be off putting to me. He enjoys these movies in a different way, and on a different level. When me and him do agree on a movie, that usually means the movie is really great. Because it has just the right amount of what I like and what he likes.


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