The Last of Us Part II

[Lorgar Aurelian]

In the case of the dog scene, however scripted it is, I think it's unfairly forcing the player to paint some characters in an unfair light. Literally taking all decision-making out of the players' hands in order to force a certain narrative is nothing BUT forced. :/ UEG made this point in his video: "Ellie is bad because she kills dogs. Addy is good because she saves a zebra". While I think it's well within the rights of the author to portray characters how they choose, in this case it seems heavy-handed.

people put way to much stock into dogs and project way to much because of it. ellie isn't bad because she kills a dog, ellie defends her self from a dog that attacks her no one was stinking up a fuss when clementine killed a dog in the walking dead because she didn't go after it and neither does ellie killing a dog in self defense isn't some massive evil act that stains a character for ever.

[PaladinSum]

they give you the opinion to have them fit perfectly you just need to play stealthily and avoid killing. sure they could have made it so you only have knock out options instead of killing but they clearly want to make the gameplay a bit more actiony so they give you the option to choose.

You still kill Mel in a cutscene so Abby can be justified saying good when she's warned she's about to kill a pregnant woman.

Ellie bad. Abby good.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

And when you fail to bridge the gap, you get Lara Croft who goes from having a PTSD moment in a cutscene then racks up headshots with no remark or remorse in the gameplay.

And you are further doubling down how pointless making life precious is when you can have a huge war with thousands of people that can die without a care.

ya there's a gap but that's just how gaming is and likely always will be.

the story also isn't about life being precious its never once painted that way its about choices how they effect others and revenge and the war is a direct showing of all of those things.

[Gigantique]

Just reached the point where a certain NPC catches up to Ellie and asks if she thought he was gonna do this alone, and man that bait n' switch by Naughty Dog can go straight to hell. The trailer scene depicting Joel had me at least believing his "horrific for the sake of it" death would come partway into the story, to let him and Ellie play off one another like in the first game.

In the same sense the first flashback to Joel and Ellie had me genuinely sad, because their interactions is exactly what made TLoU so good.

I really liked Joel. Dude was relatable, as I'm fairly sure most of us would have had an equally hard time giving up our surrogate daughter after being locked off for 20 years emotionally from losing our actual daughter. He did bad shit, but so did most people in that world, and he still had a caring core that Ellie nurtured to blossom again.

Doing him dirty like ND did in the de-facto opening scene just made me harden against whatever lesson they want to teach me in my escapist fun, so I'm deliberately stealth killing every human, dog and infected with surgical precision, even if I have to backtrack to get them all.

Which is a shame, as everything apart from the story setting is straight up breathtaking, and I enjoy the interactions between Ellie and Dina. Jesse so far feels like he's been slapped in to remove Joel from any settings (Joel could have been the one to send them out from Jackson etc). When Jesse popped in to ask if I thought he would let me do this alone, I legit asked out loud how tf I would know, you're a complete nobody to me my dude.

Damn this game is bumming me out.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

You still kill Mel in a cutscene so Abby can be justified saying good when she's warned she's about to kill a pregnant woman.

Ellie bad. Abby good.

this is blatantly wrong abbie. is not at all shown in a good light when she's threatening dina they clearly point this out when lev comes in and she stops.

[Edge-]

You still kill Mel in a cutscene so Abby can be justified saying good when she's warned she's about to kill a pregnant woman.

Ellie bad. Abby good.

This seems a gross reductionism. Neither are "good" or "bad", they're both "both". It depends on what perspective you take. It depends on what actions of theirs you factor in.

That seems like kinda the point, that this is not all black and white. This is messy and complicated, and by showing you dual narratives as they have that's what they want players to grapple with. Not "Ellie bad. Abby good" or "Ellie good. Abby bad." but "Ellie complicated. Abby complicated. Violence begets more violence. Violence bad." and the way in which this is expressed is...largely through violence to drive that home.

[Jastall]

Isn't the whole point of the gameplay......that those named NPCs *do* matter to some, but not to the player? Like, the point is to draw out the themes of tribalism - that whoever is a nameless mook to you is still important to someone else. The gameplay isn't trying to make you CARE about the suddenly named mook. It's drawing attention to the idea that you killed someone who WAS CARED FOR by someone else.

That's the whole point of switching to Abby. She doesn't know the Joel we know as players of TLOU. She only knows the dude who killed her father for what she sees as unjustified reasons.

It's like, one of the major themes of the game, and fairly obvious.

But then why does Abby's life matters to Ellie at the end? That's the one point where the story trips over itself harder than a poorly played Norman Reedus in Death Stranding I think. Previous to that, it globally makes sense even if I have my issues with it. But that's the point where the entire message falls apart, and it comes across that Abby's life matters more in the grand scheme of things because the plot says so because she's a main character- which is very hard to mesh with the idea that whose life matters is subjective.

I think it would have fit the game's theme far more had Ellie capped Abby without even a single shred of remorse, even after knowing that at that point Abby herself became a less vengeful person and cared for Lev (sp?). It would still be a totally pointless act that solves nothing as Ellie's life is still in ruins by her own hands, but at least that way both her character and the story's themes remain intact.

[Kallisto]

Sigh...well, can't say I didn't try to keep it on topic. So here goes:

Yes, in many cases you're correct that "click bait" titles are going to be a good indication of the content of the video. However, also in many other cases it's simply an unfortunate reality that such titles are required in order to survive on youtube due to the way the algorithm works. IIRC UEG has even stated multiple times that he despises that it's necessary to use such headers on his videos to avoid being effectively shadow banned. In a reality where companies often use false DMCA takedowns, both users and content creators attack sponsors, and youtube taking huge chunks of the profit from any monetization that isn't already wrecked by adblockers....."clickbait" titles are sometimes a necessary evil, especially for a channel that often challenges the status quo or doesn't preach the message that's current popular.

AFAIK Upper Echelon is actively trying to move away from this by taking on sponsors, and using third parties(such as patreon) to get around these problems. But it's a struggle that isn't always successful.

Again, you REALLY should actually watch a few of his videos to get a REAL assessment of the nature of his content. You may still end up disagreeing with his point of view, but at least then you will be doing so from an informed perspective instead of leaping to a conclusion with a stereotype.

Don't give me the bullshit that it's "THE ALGORITHMS" it doesn't fly.

[SirCowdog]

people put way to much stock into dogs and project way to much because of it. ellie isn't bad because she kills a dog, ellie defends her self from a dog that attacks her no one was stinking up a fuss when clementine killed a dog in the walking dead because she didn't go after it and neither does ellie killing a dog in self defense isn't some massive evil act that stains a character for ever.

You're taking it out of context, though. The point being made wasn't that Ellie was bad for killing a dog. It's that it's heavily contrasted by Abby saving a zebra. And that's not even the only case of that sort of thing throughout the game.

The point is that the players are being forced into viewing the characters in a certain light by writing that isn't particularly subtle. Instead of painting characters in shades of grey and letting the players come to their own conclusions, it's brute-forcing that decision by effectively making characters wear hats with labels on them in all caps: "Good guy!" or "Badguy!"

I get that the overall message of the game is one of illustrating how awful the cycle of hatred is, and that no one comes out of it clean. In that regard I think the story did an adequate job. But as I said before, I think it did so at the completely unnecessary destruction of existing beloved characters. And that's where the lion's share of the hate for this game stems from.

I personally I'm pretty neutral on the subject. I don't have any particular emotional investment either way. So I can see both sides of the argument. But I think that I'm really leaning towards the people who are upset at how the game is written.

- - - Updated - - -

Don't give me the bullshit that it's "THE ALGORITHMS" it doesn't fly.

Hey, like I said: You can keep being angry and assuming everything about a channel based on a stereotype, or you can educate yourself and actually form a real opinion. If you still don't like his take on things afterwords, fine. But so far as I can tell this kind of response is just based out of ignorance. And that's not something I'd be proud of if I were you.

This is the last time I'll respond to you on this topic. It's detracting from the core discussion of TLOU2, and not going anywhere anyway.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

You're taking it out of context, though. The point being made wasn't that Ellie was bad for killing a dog. It's that it's heavily contrasted by Abby saving a zebra. And that's not even the only case of that sort of thing throughout the game.

The point is that the players are being forced into viewing the characters in a certain light by writing that isn't particularly subtle. Instead of painting characters in shades of grey and letting the players come to their own conclusions, it's brute-forcing that decision by effectively making characters wear hats with labels on them in all caps: "Good guy!" or "Badguy!"

I get that the overall message of the game is one of illustrating how awful the cycle of hatred is, and that no one comes out of it clean. In that regard I think the story did an adequate job. But as I said before, I think it did so at the completely unnecessary destruction of existing beloved characters. And that's where the lion's share of the hate for this game stems from.

I personally I'm pretty neutral on the subject. I don't have any particular emotional investment either way. So I can see both sides of the argument. But I think that I'm really leaning towards the people who are upset at how the game is written.

It is taken out of context but not by me. ellie killing a dog isn't meant to be the big emotional part of the section of the game it's the actual people she kills that are suppose to matter this is something shown by ellie her self. ellie defending her self from the dog is no different from celmintime doing the same in the walking dead the only difference is that no one had an agenda when it came to the walking dead so it wasn't blown up to more then it is.

When it comes to abbie her saving the zebra isn't meant to show you how good of a person she is its suppose to show you who her dad was and how he was raising her to reinforce the person she lost because of joel. it's not about abbie in the slightest its about her connection to her father.

this whole thing is a perfect case of missing the forest for the trees people focus on the animals and ignore all other context of the scenes to simply it down to quotable garbage like ellie bad abbie good.

[PaladinSum]

this is blatantly wrong abbie. is not at all shown in a good light when she's threatening dina they clearly point this out when lev comes in and she stops.

And her punishment is...?

The game goes out of it's way to never actually punish her. Who gives a fuck if useless sacks of garbage like Manny or Owen die? She shakes those off like she and Manny shake off killing those kids.

Meanwhile,Joel and Ellie are the only psychopaths that lose.

- - - Updated - - -

This seems a gross reductionism. Neither are "good" or "bad", they're both "both". It depends on what perspective you take. It depends on what actions of theirs you factor in.

That seems like kinda the point, that this is not all black and white. This is messy and complicated, and by showing you dual narratives as they have that's what they want players to grapple with. Not "Ellie bad. Abby good" or "Ellie good. Abby bad." but "Ellie complicated. Abby complicated. Violence begets more violence. Violence bad." and the way in which this is expressed is...largely through violence to drive that home.

It's as complicated as having Abby literally pet the dog Ellie kills.

Edit: Also. Violence bad. Except during gameplay. Then it's awesome.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

And her punishment is...?

The game goes out of it's way to never actually punish her. Who gives a fuck if useless sacks of garbage like Manny or Owen die? She shakes those off like she and Manny shake off killing those kids.

Meanwhile,Joel and Ellie are the only psychopaths that lose.

Why would she be punished for not killing them? The game actively punishes her for her revenge on Joel before ellie even shows up. Only to lose more to ellie after the fact. The deaths effect her she just carries her self differently but that’s because of what she’s been though as a wolf when she finds her friends dead she falls back into what she was like before she killed Joel something she was trying to move away from and it’s only lev being there that stops her from comply relapsing.

[Edge-]

It's as complicated as having Abby literally pet the dog Ellie kills.

And?

Edit: Also. Violence bad. Except during gameplay. Then it's awesome.

No, it's bad then too. That's why they gave the NPC's names rather than just "Mook 1/2/3", whether that lands with the player or not. That's why much of the violence is so graphic and violent, it's not supposed to be joyously popping dudes in the dome. That's also why they give the player a lot of agency to avoid many fights altogether, including for example, dogs.

Again, I'm not claiming this game is a perfect, flawless masterpiece, but folks are basically looking for black and white issues in a game that's intentionally not black and white, and seem to be uninterested in scratching just beneath the topical coat of paint.

[SirCowdog]

It is taken out of context but not by me. ellie killing a dog isn't meant to be the big emotional part of the section of the game it's the actual people she kills that are suppose to matter this is something shown by ellie her self. ellie defending her self from the dog is no different from celmintime doing the same in the walking dead the only difference is that no one had an agenda when it came to the walking dead so it wasn't blown up to more then it is.

When it comes to abbie her saving the zebra isn't meant to show you how good of a person she is its suppose to show you who her dad was and how he was raising her to reinforce the person she lost because of joel. it's not about abbie in the slightest its about her connection to her father.

this whole thing is a perfect case of missing the forest for the trees people focus on the animals and ignore all other context of the scenes to simply it down to quotable garbage like ellie bad abbie good.

I would agree with you...if it wasn't for the rest of the game.

What I think this ultimately comes down to is the disjointed timeline presentation and ham-fisted writing. The point you're making is probably valid, but is swamped by the overall poor writing and presentation of the rest of the game. And HEAVILY colored by the destruction of characters that people had come to love from the previous game. That's why it comes across as "Ellie bad, Abby good".

It will be interesting to see, in the following months, what youtube comes up with as people edit and cut the story into something more engaging and interesting. I know that's happened with a number of other narrative-based games in the past.

[PaladinSum]

And?



No, it's bad then too. That's why they gave the NPC's names rather than just "Mook 1/2/3", whether that lands with the player or not. That's why much of the violence is so graphic and violent, it's not supposed to be joyously popping dudes in the dome. That's also why they give the player a lot of agency to avoid many fights altogether, including for example, dogs.

Again, I'm not claiming this game is a perfect, flawless masterpiece, but folks are basically looking for black and white issues in a game that's intentionally not black and white, and seem to be uninterested in scratching just beneath the topical coat of paint.

Except the cutscene dog. Man, that's a cheap ploy.

And tell me why I should feel bad for people who don't exist according to the people who say those deaths are

1. Non canon

2. Don't matter because the war covers it up.

"No wait" is "Fuck the Division".

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I would agree with you...if it wasn't for the rest of the game.

What I think this ultimately comes down to is the disjointed timeline presentation and ham-fisted writing. The point you're making is probably valid, but is swamped by the overall poor writing and presentation of the rest of the game. And HEAVILY colored by the destruction of characters that people had come to love from the previous game. That's why it comes across as "Ellie bad, Abby good".

It will be interesting to see, in the following months, what youtube comes up with as people edit and cut the story into something more engaging and interesting. I know that's happened with a number of other narrative-based games in the past.

well i think it would have been better to have both story's parallel instead of back to back. the whole ellie bad abbie good is some heavy bull shit which only works if you ignore all other context of the related parts of the game to bend it towards an agenda which the youtuber which coined it obviously was.

[bigsav1]

I just finished the game this afternoon and I'm not gonna lie, I was kinda disappointed with the ending. The overall game wasn't that terrible, like most people I had absolutely no interest in playing as Abby, which made those parts of the game a slog for me. I really enjoyed the first game and I was super amped for this to come out but I feel the ending soured the entire game for me sadly.

[SirCowdog]

well i think it would have been better to have both story's parallel instead of back to back. the whole ellie bad abbie good is some heavy bull shit which only works if you ignore all other context of the related parts of the game to bend it towards an agenda which the youtuber which coined it obviously was.

I don't agree that it's "heavy bullshit". I think the points you're making about TLOU2 would be much stronger if it was a standalone game. Or just not about Joel and Ellie. Swap them with new characters in the same universe, and the game probably would have received much less controversy. In fact, I think it probably would have been a better game, and allowed the story to focus more on Abby's character progression rather than Ellie's downfall. But I think it's very unfair to ignore that the first game exists, with a powerful emotional investment by many players. Emotions that were trampled ruthlessly by Druckmann in order to brute force certain feelings from players.

"Ellie bad, Abby good" may very well be an oversimplification of what's going on, but it is non-the-less a tactic that is being used in the game. And I personally think it detracts from the good points of the story that you've been describing.

[eschatological]

But then why does Abby's life matters to Ellie at the end? That's the one point where the story trips over itself harder than a poorly played Norman Reedus in Death Stranding I think. Previous to that, it globally makes sense even if I have my issues with it. But that's the point where the entire message falls apart, and it comes across that Abby's life matters more in the grand scheme of things because the plot says so because she's a main character- which is very hard to mesh with the idea that whose life matters is subjective.

I think it would have fit the game's theme far more had Ellie capped Abby without even a single shred of remorse, even after knowing that at that point Abby herself became a less vengeful person and cared for Lev (sp?). It would still be a totally pointless act that solves nothing as Ellie's life is still in ruins by her own hands, but at least that way both her character and the story's themes remain intact.

I don't think the ending is making that statement. I honestly don't think Ellie gives a fuck. It's more about Ellie letting go and moving on. There's no moral lesson about Abby's life suddenly mattering, it's that Ellie is tired and exhausted with the rage that's consumed her, and she needs to move on if she ever wants any hope of having any sort of life.

Like, you're inserting your own metanarrative suggesting what the authors are saying, when the narrative makes it fairly clear what they're actually saying.

And the ending you suggest precisely WOULDN'T mesh with the themes of the game. The themes of the game are about despair, and how all-consuming rage and revenge is, and how it is just an endless downward spiral. Ellie is lost at the end of the story, but with the ending it has some hope. There's a hope that she can find normalcy now. Her actions are the first step out of the pit - much like the first steps Abby made previously in the story.

I can't see how you think your ending "meshes with the themes."

[everydaygamer]

Except the cutscene dog. Man, that's a cheap ploy.

No, it's not, it was Abby's dog but we don't know that at the time. At that moment it's just another dog like all the others we run into that have been annoying us up until that point.

The reason we play as Ellie first then Abby is so that as Ellie we only ever see the wolves as the bad guys and then as Abby, we're forced to see things from Abby's perspective and realize how a change of perspective can easily change how you see things.

In my opinion, this wouldn't work if we were constantly switching back forth as some wanted.