I’m only about 15 mins in to the video but I do have to respectfully disagree about Tommy’s decision to leave Ellie behind not making sense. It makes perfect sense. He knows what Joel sacrificed so Ellie could live, and he knows his brother would kick his ass if he knew he was knowingly bringing Ellie into such a dangerous situation. Not to mention, Tommy has grown to love Ellie, too. It’s his niece. Did he know Ellie would probably find a way to follow him? Yes. But that doesn’t make it nonsensical that he would refuse to be the one to invite her to join him in something so dangerous. He knows if Ellie dies, Joel died for nothing. Not to mention, he knows Joel wouldn’t want either of them going after Abby. Tommy might want to go against that, but it’s realistic he would at least want to do what he could to limit Ellie’s role in it.
I dont think Tommy wouldve gone in the first place, he left joel in the first game because he believed Joel had gone off the tracks and that theyd lost all morality. So he joined a community. Once joel became a father again and worked for the community Tommy and he reunited. Why would Tommy abandon his family and community to kill some randos when hes already come to the conclusion that thats not the life he wants to live.
That’s why at the end of the game when Tommy was so upset that Ellie wouldn’t go after Abby, I was so confused. I honestly thought it was like a dream sequence or something. I immediately said Tommy wouldn’t want her to go! He would 100% want her to stay and focus on her family just like Joel would have wanted for her. Him going from begging Maria to lock her up so she didn’t get killed to being mad that she didn’t want to go on a suicide mission to find Abby is absolutely ridiculous. I cannot understand how the writers misunderstood their own characters so much!
@@uploadinstuffwhat you detailed in why he originally left Joel and how he found a community and reunited with Joel is exactly why he would go. To him this group of people showed up just outside of his community and murdered his brother. So not only is it revenge for killing his brother, which in itself is not immoral, but the safety and security for his community could be at risk.
@@Kmiller5515 Except they werent and he knew it. It was a couple people who lived in Seattle 800 miles away. Its not about the morality, its that he wouldnt leave Maria and Ellie and everyone and risk death or capture (in which case he wouldnt be able to support his community or loved ones) in order to kill someone that killed someone close to him. Also at the end he knew it was personally motivated by abby and he wanted to go after abby to kill her. When he couldnt go he pressured ellie into going, knowing it would ruin her life. Both characters behaved that way so that Abby wouldnt seem so bad by comparison even though she did a thing the creators knew would be hard to swallow from the fans.
I kinda concur. Your logic is sound but living in this world is dangerous. I think Tommy's lust for revenge fuckin got the better of him. And he wasn't thinking clearly at the time. I don't think he was tryna keep her safe, cause if that was the case he wouldn't have allowed Ellie to go on patrols and shit (had be been that over protective). I think he was pissed at Ellie for not leaving sooner.
Ellie doesn’t ask why she’s never found anyone else who’s immune because she’s dumb or because the writing is bad, she asks it because the first thing Joel tells her when she wakes up is that there’s dozens of immune people. It’s his literal explanation from the first game as to why they left the firefly base.
Exactly, she’s calling him out on the inconsistency and improbability of his argument, giving him the chance to come clean and admit it makes no sense.
Which is funny because the other immune people who reached the Fireflies are dead, something she didn't know but Joel might've, since it's in lore pick-ups
@@josephpmorganDA that's Yr opinion and I'm pleased for you. Me i hated it in the leaks and it was worse in gameplay that's my opinion. And my opinion has nothing to with Joel as I agreed with that
hmm, i don’t know. i think dina leaving ellie makes perfect sense. she gave ellie an ultimatum, “if you leave again, i’m gone”. and ellie leaving again shows that she valued revenge over her family.
@@GameOverloadMO If you think about it, Ellie chose to pursue Abby again over her life with Dina and that's what made her leave the farm. All that chasing after Abby in Seattle brought to them was pain, so Ellie setting off again and Dina leaving her makes perfect sense, she has a son to look after and she wants nothing to do with Ellie's quest for vengeance anymore. Ellie loses everything because she kept choosing violence over peace. Dina has no way of knowing that once Ellie found Abby she would let her go, no way of knowing if after killing Abby someone was going to find their farm and get revenge on Ellie. Ellie gets punished despite letting go because she only let go at the very last second.
@@GameOverloadMO I would argue that the ending challenges you, as does much of the game. The ending does not have to be "satisfying", necessarily, it needs to be complete, and it needs to make sense. After all, it's not the ending so much that matters as it is the journey the characters went on. Ellie's primary character flaw was resolved - she realized that revenge was not going to heal her - and that is what the story was centered around. The fact that she "lost everything" is the point. She sacrificed everything that tethered her to humanity in pursuit of the satisfaction that revenge ultimately could never give her. The storytellers make this point exceptionally clear. You admit that Dina's choice to leave makes sense - then what else is there? You seem to say that Ellie is "punished" for "breaking the cycle", but I think that's missing the point. She ends up alone *because* of her choices, and she leaves the guitar to symbolize her growth, or the completion of this part of her journey. What's next is up to us to decide as viewers. She could go back to Jackson and find Dina, or she could embark on a journey to find a doctor and develop a cure, or any number of things. We don't know, but that is the point. Great storytellers do *not* make choices which cater to the feelings and desires of their audience. Rather, they make compelling choices that set their characters on exciting journeys. You admit many times to have been captivated by emotional scenes in the game, but then go on to criticize the game for "lazy" writing. I think that many of your points about plot convenience are unfair and misguided - you could say the same about any number of moments in the first game (or any storytelling really), but because you don't have a bias against that game, you forgive those conveniences or "contrivances" as you put them.
@@danielgonzalezjimenez5677that’s why it would have made more sense for Ellie to kill Abby. Ellie is left alone and unable to play the guitar as a consequence of archiving her revenge.
@@GameOverloadMO It's not Ellie breaking the cycle that causes her to lose everything. It's that she broke the cycle too late. That's why she lost everything.
Something I noticed on my second play through was the correlation between Ellie and a character that Dina talks about called "Eugene" Eugene joined the firefly's when he is a younger man and that's where he met Tommy and ended up in Jackson .A note from his ex wife that you can find in his bunker shows her begging him to come home to her and her daughter, telling Eugene to leave the firefly's, to let someone else save the world, let someone else get revenge on FEDRA, to pick family over revenge and war. But Eugene didn't, he left with the firefly's, left his family behind, and it seems like he never saw them again, and Dina comments on how lonely Eugene was for the remainder for his life before he had a stroke and died. In the end, Ellie also choice revenge over family, left her partner and child behind, and in the end lost everyone she loved and became very lonely. I don't know if this was an intended idea put into the game or if I'm reading to much into it, but I thought it was interesting.
I never understood why Joel explained himself to Ellie while leaving out so many details at Salt Lake hospital. Like the fireflies took an unconscious Ellie and were ready to kill her to make this vaccine. Kinda silly because 20 years had gone by. What’s another day to wait before scrambling her brains? They also attacked Joel, a man who was performing cpr on a child. I get that they had to make conflict for the first games ending. But Ellie is a child and despite her potentially wanting to sacrifice herself, she is too young to make that choice, and the fireflies screwed up any possibility of making a vaccine due to their haste. I just think Joel should’ve explained himself further. Yes he lied, and it’s bad. But it’s not like Ellie was consenting and the fireflies handled this responsibly. “Oh my! The child is here! Quickly before she wakes up, prep for surgery! Right away! Let’s not do any tests or ANYTHING! We’ve waited 20 years for this chance, let’s rush into it blindly for no reason!”
Joel didn’t fully explain or go into detail because 1, it wouldn’t flow well narratively and I’m sure Neil would say it would have ruined the pacing (even though the games pacing is already pretty bad), 2, it makes it so the writers have plausible deniability to make Joel out to be the person in the wrong and so Ellie is more justified in her choice to cut off her relationship with him. Then 3, it creates more drama in the story so when it’s finally revealed that the two did make up and were going to try to repair their relationship, it’s more of a surprise. Realistically though, anyone would go into detail and explain the entire situation to Ellie for sure.
You make some Good points. I also think about how in that moment, Joel had FINALLY been caught in his lie. And I’m sure we’ve all Had moments in life when a little fib or lie or anything really got exposed about us or caught about something. And me personally I’ve been so razzled that I couldn’t speak. Like my brains going 1000 miles a second. So maybe Joel was experiencing that. Like having this huge confrontation with Ellie, getting the truth exposed must’ve been hard for him to speak in that moment. Idk I need to rewatch that scene. But yeah.
@@derekcampbell4209 Ultimately, why the characters make the choices they do in the story all comes down to what story the writers and Neil Druckmann wanted to tell. The narrative choices made all were made for the express purpose of where they wanted the story to conclude even if the choices that characters make, the plot armour, the lack of detail Joel went into about what happened with the Fireflies and so on and so forth is all done to surprise Ellie and the audience by the end of the game, even though Ellie should logically already know her and Joel made up. I suppose you could say her anger and rage drove her to push that to the back of her mind and thats completely fair but whats not fair is for her to forget about the scene of her and Joel making up until like (I can't recall the amount of time exactly) 6 months after the fact. Most of my issues with the game stem from the fact that it was overly ambitious and tried to juggle too much rather than just focus on the core of what The Last of Us is, and even Neil knows what that is because he created it and talked about it in interviews and thats Joel and Ellies connection and relationship. So by making a game that isn't really about that (the stuff with that is the best part of the game) it doesn't feel like TLOU and suffers from bad writing that feels like a first draft.
100%!!! The Ellie finding out the truth scene is so terribly written and is another example of the game conveniently having the characters make dumb decisions or leave out crucial information. There is absolutely no reason why Joel shouldn't have told Ellie exactly what happened. "Ellie they attacked us. They kidnapped us. When they woke me up they held me a gun point and told me I couldn't see you and that I just had to leave you behind to die. They had you for HOURS, and decided they were going to kill you. You couldn't ask them questions or do more tests because they wouldn't let you, so I stopped them". THAT is what happened. But nope, joel conveniently has to describe it in a way that leaves out crucial information and makes HIM look like the bad guy. It's so dumb
I just need someone to explain to me why he felt the need to convince ellie to kill abby. I personally can’t make sense of it and I’ve given up trying.
@@The1andonlysharpshooterTommy first lost his big brother right in front of him, then went on a revenge quest where he failed to eliminate the prime target and lost Jesse in that same process, barely survived, became crippled where he cant walk properly, he cant see with his right eye so he cant use his sniper skills anymore, then when they got back to Jackson Ellie swore to him that SHE would make Abby pay because Tommy can not. And on top of all that he and Maria broke up. That man has nothing left, he is a shell of himself
As much as I disliked the gaps in the story-telling - I thought it lent a palpable sense of realism to the characters' journeys. People do dumb things when they shouldn't. They trust people they shouldn't, when they shouldn't, and often do foolish things trying to protect loved ones - which backfire. This should be expected, not the exception. Tommy leaving early and trying to spare Ellie the pain of revenge (whether you get revenge or not, there's always pain) makes sense from a human perspective. Joel trusting strangers he shouldn't - while in extremis - makes sense from a human perspective. Dina being more worried about her friend/lover's mental state and feelings more than she should have been about her baby makes sense from a human perspective. All of these things, coupled with the randomness of the depopulated world allowing people to cross paths unexpectedly, are things that could happen in real life - history is littered with such examples of being in the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time. All of theses 'wrong' decisions by our characters feel very believable from a human perspective.
Saying “people do dumb things in real life” doesn’t excuse bad writing. Joel standing in the middle of the room with people with guns is just bad writing because he would NEVER do that.
@@THEONETRUEOVERLORDIt isn’t lessening the blame and being an excuse, it’s an actual reason. Trauma and grief has different unique responses and reactions for everyone. The writing showcases that. It isn’t an excuse to poor writing, it’s a valid defense and reasoning as to why the characters made the actions they chose.
Tommy leaving Ellie in Jackson makes a lot of sense to me. He didn’t want something to happen to her while seeking revenge. And on top of that if he did bring her along and something bad happened to her, he didn’t want that on his conscience. Losing his brother and his brothers “daughter” (again), both bc he couldn’t protect them well enough might have been too much for him. Also he knew he could take care of himself. Was it stupid to go alone? Yes. But he was for sure putting in work with his sniper. Edit: I also want to add that with his state of mind and emotions at that moment, he likely wasn’t thinking rationally (which would have been go with Ellie so you can both take care of Abby. And you can have each others backs) he was likely thinking more emotionally, being that he couldn’t handle losing Ellie too
I 100% agree, because Joel’s death is caused from the hospital massacre. Basically the reason Joel did what he did was to save/protect Ellie. If anything bad happened to Ellie if Tommy brought her with him, he would never be able to live with that. I really believe that this guy was hating on a lot of parts of the game for no reason as he claimed was just the writers were basically being lazy. Most of all the things he disliked actually made sense to have in the game, but that’s my opinion.
i still maintain that it would have been better pacing to START with Abby’s story up until she gets to the theater AND THEN swapping to Ellie’s story from the beginning. it would’ve made people a lot more sympathetic towards abby, and the shock of seeing the girl you just spent the first half of the story playing as murdering Joel would have been mind blowing
Starting day 1 beginning with Abby without the intro of even knowing Joel is dead…if we pick up from Abby day 1, then watch her into day 3. Then we cut to Ellie day 1..Jackson prologue comes at the end of day 3 after she kills Owen..that would be a tough sell but would also maybe play better. We would never know what and how Joel dies, maybe we know he does and eventually we know Abby does by the end of her day 3, but we cut right into Ellie and now we never had to sympathize with Abby, we are fresh on confusion and maybe rage with Ellie. We still don’t see Joel’s death full until the death scene which becomes a flashback, much like the other 2 Joel flashbacks. The farm and Santa Barbara can play out the same but it makes you really wonder if they changed out the order of play, not trying to make you sympathetic but instead made you go in full blind for a long time, not even knowing what either motive was for Abby or Ellie until later….I think it may have worked better. Or not because wtf am I to restructure a huge story but it’s interesting to think the story we have presented in a different order
I've been saying something similar, that we needed to spend more time sympathizing with Abby BEFORE Joel's murder, even moving her Day 1 prologue nightmare of finding Jerry in the hospital would have helped the audience understand her character. But listening to the podcast and director commentary, it seemed like ND wanted to make the audience hate her character, and see if they could manage to understand her later. They completely succeeded in the first part, and with the second for many players, but obviously that didn't work for everyone.
@@samniel They focused too much on trying to get a reaction. It backfired for a lot of people, took them out of the game, and made them completely disconnected from it, and not interested or invested in the story. Because even though people understood the character and her motivations, they didn't care and were more interested in laughing at the game than caring about the story. It's a major failure in terms of not just execution but setup. When people would rather pause the game and start ripping it apart and critiquing every flaw in the story or just no longer care and just play for the sake of it, you have failed in creating investment and interest. Trying to make people hate a character first will often result in a lack of investment in that character and the story as a whole as we have seen with this game. That was one major mistake, the game makes others just as bad.
they never pointed out how the good doctor and his people wanted to dissect the child’s brain without her consent for a _chance_ at a cure cuz it’d throw a wrench into their whole moral compass thing.
The issue is that even if a cure were discovered, it's too late. The world has plunged into darkness, and many people have turned greedy, likely to exploit it for power over others. Joel probably foresaw this before his hospital rampage.
@@brafshsyt this, but also I saw another video that talked about how okay, let's say they make the vaccine, it works, it's perfect... Now what? Like how are they going to organize the distribution, cause I don't think it would be easy or fair tbh
I have yet to play either games. I've watched others playthroughs/cutscenes. But...my inital reasoning for Ellie putting the knife to Levs' throat was to in a sense antagonize Abby to engage in fighting her, giving Ellie a reason to to go though with it.
Similar to Abby when she and the others found Joel, she didn’t really have a plan in place. And even then at that moment, she’s doubting her decisions but to her, she needed that quick fix. Note how Ellie also says “I CAN’T let you leave” rather than “I WON’T”
@@DariusFrench6273she knows revenge is silly but she thinks its the only thing to help her get over joel. In my opinion thats the only reason she does the latter part of the game.
@@jeronimo196 🤣we don't talk about those. It's about the friends we made (and lost), and lessons learned...not about the hundreds of innocents we slaughtered along the way. 😉 All jokes aside, the game teaches that those people aren't just nobodies, though. A huge part of the plot of part 2 is about consequences for those "side characters" we killed in the 1st game. Just like those characters, the people we are playing as are part of this rich, deep world with thousands of other stories going on at the same time. That's what makes me love TLOU 2 even more, that it ATTEMPTS to address exactly what we're joking about above. That said , it is a game that MUST be entertaining at the same time. There are inconcistencies in the themes the game seeks to discuss and the actions we take that aren't addressed (every time) along the way. IT's just a nature of this being an action game; it doesn't make the larger themes and broader discussions the game evokes all moot. On that note, we're probably gonna get attacked by some Rattler groupie in part 3 in a way that will rock us to our core lol.
Great video but… you said it was bad writing that Ellie asks why she’s never met another immune. In the first game, Joel told her that there were dozens of others like her. I think her asking Joel that, was supposed to be rhetorical
Everyone criticizing these game for story, writing, execution etc. But the one thing which no one criticize is the music. Like man its too damnnn GOOOD. Like i dont think that anyone who had played or watch this game being played have anything to criticize its music. Gustavo Santaolalla respect 🫡🫡🫡
@@miller-joel why the fuck wouldn’t she? Because it’s in memory of the passing of her significant others “father” people use commemorative names all the time
I would like to point out a little flaw about this whole revenge story- the vast trail of dead bodies Abby and Ellie leave behind... well, im sure they have family and friends too, who also might be upset by losing their loved ones
honestly, i think that applies to the idea of revenge. those people, while unnamed, probably had people they cared about and people that cared for them. it shows how revenge is never black and white nor does it only ever involve the people wanting/escaping revenge. it’s a cycle and we only saw ellie break it
Also the fact that revenge cycle is broken when you just kill the avenger. Its philosophy is about as deep as a puddle. Just like the batman not killing people quote "KIll a murderer, and the number of murderers stay the same" Then kill two murderers dumbass lol.
And if you listen to director's commentary, Neil Druckmann points out quite a lot that Ellie becomes ruthless and kills without thinking. And that was a big point they made in TLOU2. Ellie's search for revenge takes away all her humanity, so she doesn't care how long the trail of bodies are, all she wants is revenge. Same goes for Abby until she meets Lev.
Quick correction for the Epilogue when Ellie returns to the abandoned farmhouse. It’s subtle & easily missable, but the scene starts where u can see Ellie wearing Dina’s bracelet. Signifying that she already has returned to Jackson and to JJ& Dina. She’s basically leaving the guitar behind to move on. So it’s not as bleak as most would think. But great analysis, I enjoyed this video & gave me even more perspective on the game as a whole. So thank you
I think my issue with the game comes down to rhe whole "ending the cycle of revenge" point just not working for me. The amount of people Ellie and Abby kill along the journey and I'm supposed to think that the cycle is over because Ellie spared the person she actually wants to kill? Who can tell me that the next game the child of another random npc (that's what the doctor was in the first game, pretty much) won't show up to kill either Ellie or Abby as revenge? Idk, it was just a bit too much for me to believe. It's a story that I don't think fits an action game. It will work better in the series for sure. ETA: I do like the game guys, I just didn't enjoy the story all that much but that's fine, the game was still pretty solid for me
I completely agree. The theme of the cycle of revenge and empathy is so overdone in all mediums, and I never got why they thought that's such a strong selling point with this particular story/sequel. As if it hasn't been done before? It left it empty, by the ending because of it 😢
@@isabella_annamarie but the fans of the game don't want to hear this because they exert that the story was more nuance than that. Like what nuance? It's the same story with different characters, but what differs here is that the characters don't have this profound effect on many of us. These characters were written in a way to force an empathic bond with the audience, but in the end the message overstayed its welcome, and you are left with a complete waste of money and time for an experience done much better elsewhere.
Tommy leaving Ellie behind does kinds make sense to me. If Ellie died going out to avenge Joel, then everything Joel did since meeting Ellie was for nothing. All the fireflies he killed (Tommy was a firefly once too) and all of the emotional progress to becoming a better person Joel made as a result of taking care of Ellie would be gone in the wind. He didn't want to risk that and so instead, he went himself.
I would point out during Abbys first section before she meets jole during the snow storm she finds their tracs and follows them so I kinda do nto get how it is contrived to think some one hunting some one would find them when they leave tracks.
Yeah, she's specifically looking for them and following tracks. I think maybe they could have fixed this by having one of Abbys crew find one of the notes that the Jackson patrols leave in their towers, documenting their patrols. They then learn that Joel is likely to be patrolling near the ski resort area? It's a bit contrived as-is, but it's not particularly bad.
@@bort118 Actually Owen pointed her in the direction of the outpost they went to, it's why when she found those tracks she was gonna follow them. I really feel like the horde made things contrived quite a bit when they didn't need to be.
1. Well, for one, how could she have known they were specifically Joel's tracks? Joel and Tommy weren't the only one that went out on patrol. Many number of people did. 2. It's kinda difficult to continue following tracks when you're getting chased by a massive horde of infected! She was being chased by many infected and was running in a random direction to get away. She just so happens to be going the direction of Joel's path. How is that not contrived?
@@Kira_Official_ She didn’t she was just following them to see where they led and if Joel and Tommy might be in the patrol that’s heading to a outpost in the general direction she was heading in. Yes, that’s the issue I have with it, it is still quite a bit contrived and would be one of the bigger problems if the existence of the horde and their migration wasn’t explained in Ellie Day 2.
Hard disagree for Joel deserving death, fireflys are incompetent and unable to actually do Anything other than terrorise, whos to say they wouldnt fuck it all up and kill her for no reason, as well, they were super hostile and shady. They werent gunna be able to save the world, as well they wanted to use the Cure as a chip agist fedra, they were just shitty and didnt deserve mercy, and finally, Joel was no worse than anyone else in the wastes. Cannibals, rapists, thieves, murderers of all kind, Joel wasnt some evil dude who deserved death, he literally was just like everyone else. Buy that logic, ALMOST ALL people in this universe deserve a slow death. The wlf soldiers are also FAR WORSE than joel and anyone at jackson. Its really annoying to hear ppl go, "joel was a bad dude who deserved what he got" he was just staying alive the only way anyone could. He is FULLY justified in what he did
For real. I always ask, “if it was your daughter on that hospital bed, would you still let them go through with the procedure?” Because that’s what it was. Also, if you look at various collectibles from the hospital, you learn that the surgery has a 90% failure rate, and have tried the exact same thing with other immune people and FAILED. Twenty years into the apocalypse, in a filthy operating room, a group of resistance fighters and a ragtag team of doctors are gonna somehow save the world? Let’s say that somehow, they actually managed to get a vaccine out of it; how the Hell are they gonna mass produce it? People were shooting unarmed people in the streets with vehicle mounted machine guns for food and clothes, and you’re telling me ANYBODY has the resources to mass produce a medical treatment? Get the fuck out of here. The biggest threat throughout the game were other people trying to loot your corpse, for things you had gotten from rooms full of infected that you never had to go into. Indeed, Joel was absolutely justified in saving Ellie. He only killed people who stood in his way.
He doesn’t deserve it for the doctor, he deserves it for literally every single thing bad thing he’s done before and afterwards that. Joel not being any worse than anyone else doesn’t change the fact that he was murderer who had little to no care for other people until Ellie.
I know I'm a month late, but I had to throw in, with a casual knowledge of immunology I know that you can't vaccinate a mushroom. That's not how medicine works. We don't risk children to make something that can't exist. He was right. There was no cure.
I disagree that Ellie making the right choice by sparing Abby was "rewarded" by losing Dina and JJ. She lost them by making the wrong choice to pursue Abby instead of letting it go. Sparing her was Ellie finally learning her lesson
Absolutely. You get it. What you just wrote is pretty much exactly what the story’s writers were going for - they explicitly said as much during the cutscene commentaries during a playthrough of the Remastered game.
It makes no sense as a story. She cuts down everyone to get to Abby to have a fist fight, finally gets her where she’s wanted her for so long, and in a moment of reflection, says “na, never mind” (btw knows nothing of her back story, she’s just some random ass firefly to her). It’s nonsense.
@@jhulgan85by doing this whole "what's one more death?" thing, you're reaching the same conclusion that Ellie reaches on the beach: there's no real good reason for Ellie to kill Abby. Ellie isn't even doing it for Joel anymore, and it won't bring her any peace of mind. If the only justification you can think of is "well I've done this thing for so long so I can't stop now," then ironically, you've reached the point where you need to stop and walk away. Ellie walked away and has a chance to just go about life on her terms, which she hasn't been able to do until now.
They need to do a DLC that shows Tommy's 3 days in Seattle (kinda like Left Behind in Part 1) I was so disappointed when they made Part 2 for PS5 and it didn't have it
Oh man, I’d love to play Tommy sniping at Abby on the bridge. While they successfully made me empathize with Abby to an extent, I hated Manny the whole time. He spit on a dead man just to add more disrespect, like was taking his life not enough? Him dying was my favorite scene when playing as Abby, so I’d love to pull the trigger on that bastard myself.
We needed to see that. We see how devastated and torn Ellie was throughout her time in Seattle. But no one ever thinks about Tommy. How was Tommy feeling? Was he thinking about his brother and the good old days before the outbreak, and Sara. How far they had come as survivors and their journey to Jackson. Tommy needed more love man. We could have literally seen some pre outbreak flashbacks with Tommy and Joel or something along those lines, give Troy Baker a reason to bring that character back.
@@GerryLo5198 it would be cool to experience that but its unecessary by the end of the game. We know what it meant to Tommy. He left everything to. We also see what its done to him and what Ellie has to look forward to if she cant move past it.
Everyone loves to say Joel had to face "consequences" for killing so many people, but they don't recognize he killed to survive and to protect his own. Not for revenge or because he enjoyed it. So he should be punished for being good at surviving? For keeping Ellie alive crossing the country for a whole year? For killing soldiers, hunters, and cannibals, who were more than happy to shoot first? And why don't the Fireflies have to face "consequences" for trying to kill Ellie? Didn't they have it coming?
Ellie wanted to die, she was ready to die for a cause. No one says the Fireflies are perfect, but Joel killed many innocent people for a very selfish reason- one even ellie didn’t agree with. Yes, he says “he saved her” but she didn’t want saving and that’s what makes him so selfish. As Ellie put it in part 1 “everything we’ve been through, everything I’ve done, It can’t be for nothing”. Joel knew what she wanted.
@@seraphitella2466 Completely wrong. Not everyone with survivor's guilt wants to die. Ellie and Joel talk about how the Fireflies might get a "cure" from her, and he says they will probably take a blood sample. There's no talk whatsoever about dying for it. In fact, they are making plans for the future. Ellie says after they are done, they can go wherever Joel wants. And she wants to learn to swim and play the guitar. That actually happens in the game. Those are the word written. Not some guess or supposition. Ellie's "cause" at 14 might not be her cause at 19 or 29. Her mother, Riley, Joel, they ALL tell her to keep fighting and find a true purpose in life. Which is impossible to do if she's dead. Joel didn't kill one innocent person in the entire game. There's speculation about his days with Tommy shortly after the collapse, and he says he's ambushed people, but we have zero factual data beyond that. Marlene was the selfish one for kicking Joel out of the hospital and keeping Ellie unconscious. She's the one who removed everyone's choices. Not Joel. When Ellie says "it can't be for nothing" she is NOT saying she wants to die. They are almost at the hospital, and she wants to complete the journey and give the "cure" a chance. NOT the same thing at all as dying for it. She just don't want to turn around and never find out if she could have made a difference. And if Joel "knew" there was a ghost of a chance she could die, he would never allow her anywhere near that hospital in the first place. Ellie had plenty of reasons to question the Fireflies and the certainty of the "cure." If she "sacrificed" herself without asking any questions, she would obviously not be in any mental or emotional condition to make that decision in the first place. And Marlene was not going to let her ask any questions or make any choices. "I was supposed to die at that hospital" is a completely ret*rded retcon in "part 2." They did NOT cross the country and save each other's lives multiple times just so that Ellie could die at that hospital. Least of all, for a fantasy "cure" that would NEVER have happened, and would not have "cured" anything or anyone. The fantasy "cure" would not make the soldiers, hunters, Fireflies, cannibals, runners, clickers, stalkers, bloaters disappear and magically restore civilization.
I disagree, it’s HEAVILY implied that Joel is/was a horrible person and became so after losing his girl. he is a direct contrast to Tommy, I’m pretty sure Tommy comments on how they could’ve survived without killing innocent people “we just weren’t any good at it” not arguing for fictional karma but Joel without a doubt had it coming, charming and lovable but brutally bitter and selfish
When Ellie asks the question why she hasn't seen anyone else who is immune, it's because in the first game, Joel tells her there were more like her and they didn't need her anymore. 18:50
In the commentary for the game Neil mentions the trailer lie was a mistake and that he regrets doing it. Also, your video was unlucky to come out a few days before the Grounded II documentary about the making of the game.
After watching Grounded II, I don’t think a great deal has changed for me to be honest. Maybe more understanding of the decision behind why they went for this kind of story, but that’s probably it.
It makes perfect sense why Tommy left Ellie behind. Joel murdered all those people to save Ellie, and he died for it. Joel gave his life to make sure Ellie would live. Tommy didn't want to risk the life of Ellie. If Tommy let Ellie go out and get killed, then Joel died for nothing. Tommy made it his responsibility to do his best to make sure Ellie survived for Joel.
Just leave it at the first season, the second one is like a pretentious hyper depressing misery p0rn story, at least if they stay true to the game. Nothing worth watching.
The whole “you killed my father” revenge plot would have helped me like Abby more if she didn’t torture Joel for multiple hours before killing him, that lost any hope I had for ever liking Abby.
Ellie also tortured Nora, but because it’s a character you do not care for, it’s okay? You don’t have to like Abby, the game only wants you to understand her perspective I believe, but throughout the game you can clearly see how she struggles with what she did to Joel. Right after killing him, she doesn’t look relieved as she’d expected. Then in her 3 seattle days, you see her continuously have nightmares about her father still - because she knows killing Joel didn’t fix anything. It is only when she finds a new purpose in life (Yara & Lev) that she starts to move on from her trauma
@@seraphitella2466 Ellie tortured Nora and was given a bad ending by the devs Abby tortured joel and was given the happy ending by the devs Thats another reason people hate this game, despite them doing the same thing, the npc that caused this entire game to happen gets the good ending, meanwhile the character that we actually cared about gets the bad one
If someone killed your dad or someone you cared for greatly and they were in front of you not remorseful at all, you would probably do the exact same thing. I think that’s what a lot of people miss
@@Cocojonut-fp8ek yeah, these people hate the story so much that they suddenly 'forget' things like that so it seems worse. Not to mention the genuine not just mental torture Abby endured on that pole. Doesn't seem happy to me in the slightest
My biggest issue with the theme and message of the story is the environment of the world. You’re in a post apocalyptic world, filled with not only infected zombies, but gangs of savage people doing anything to survive and literally militias. Your in a world were you’ve witnessed your closest friends and families die, and you’ve been forced to do some of the most messed up stuffs. What’s to stop some randoms ass Npc that Abby or any other character killed from coming back and continuing this “cycle of revenge” that the game so desperately wants to villanize. I don’t think this was the game for this message
a random ass npc can't come up to take "revenge" cuz they wouldn't be from a big group& instead have to worry but protecting them in this stupid world everyday. Abby or Ellie were able to do that cuz there were in a position of some power like fireflies, military, wfg etc.
Thank You!!!! I've said this many times. A world like this where there will always be violence because it's a post apocalyptic world where infected roam and people are out for themselves isn't a good place for this kind of themes. This was a story that didn't need to be told.
This is mostly spot-on! The first game shows us, in no uncertain terms, that violence is a terrible but mandatory way for people to survive in this world. The game basically screams this at you for the entire runtime! Joel's propensity for violence, and apathy towards his victims, is why he lasted as long as he did and why he was the perfect protector/father figure for Ellie to survive in this world. There are so many situations where they are forced into kill-or-be-killed scenarios just because they're in the wrong place at the wrong time. The alternative, being a pacifist, just means torture, death or infection for you or your companions. What were they meant to do when ambushed in Pittsburgh? Just surrender? They'd be dead in seconds! If you're paying attention, Part 1 already talked about the violence! It showed the consequences of killing during the winter chapters, and was handled with so much more nuance. It didn't force a moral judgement, it let you decide for yourself whether Joel and Ellie's actions were justified or not. To tag a dogmatically moralistic "cycle of violence" theme onto a world this brutal and unforgiving is a ridiculous misunderstanding of the universe and characters they themselves created.
@@Batch00 You put this better into words then I ever could!! I don’t even mind that they killed Joel, I just feel like his death and the writing of the game could be executed way better
Recently got a PS5 (was on pc after ps3) I absolutely loved TLOU and recently played TLOU2 and I was quite sad at how Joel went out but couldn’t blame Abby for feeling like that.
I'll keep it real and say that while I disagree with a lot of the criticisms against the writing of the game, I genuinely love the story through and through and it's one of the most impressive I've ever seen across any medium but TBH it's my favourite game of all time, so there may be some bias. With that said though, this was a really well made video and I really appreciate that you're bringing a lot more to the stage than the typical criticisms this game gets. Awesome video, was very surprised to see you have under 5K subs.
I have some big plot issues with this game, the convenience of the horde pushing everyone in the right direction and right time, Jesse leaving Dina alone in an unsecured base to go with Ellie to find Tommy, Mel and Owen's confrontation with Ellie regarding the pregnancy, the tension and suspense of Ellie's POV being completely reset, 1-2 moments involving the Dina-Ellie-Jesse love triangle which I didn't like, Yara teleporting to Abby to save her from Tommy, and stuff like that. However, from a more story-based perspective from the 2 main characters in this one I fairly liked it. Tommy leaving Ellie and wanting her locked up makes sense because he's trying to protect her while that darker side of him from his Firefly days and when he and Joel were hunters has been brought to the forefront basically. There are pieces of context in several areas of this game and even the last game that support the softening of Joel. For example, in the last game after fighting alongside Henry and putting his trust in Henry (also due to him having a younger brother) he slept alongside them once they were safe. The game also makes it clear that Joel has been put into the patrol position which due to the reliability and caring Haven project as shown in a paper from Ellie Day 2 alongside those patrol notebooks and other context clues/dialogue would support his softening. It's also important to acknowledge that Tommy was trying to establish trust with Abby in that lodge and that even if Joel said nothing she would've known anyways. Ellie's journey in Ellie's POV up to Day 3 may make the game come off as just a revenge story (reminiscing memories hint at that) but Abby's perspective recontextualizes the story into something else and in the epilogue section with Ellie this is clearly not just a revenge story anymore, there's more driving her to this point than that. The game is not trying to turn Ellie into a villain from my perspective, it is just showing Ellie going down a path of false justice with her obsession being reinforced by the memories, while Abby has already gone down that path and she's trying to come back from that by realizing her wrongs and mindset and trying to change it but fails until Lev reminds her of what's important and what she's been trying to accomplish. (Pure Survivors in this world) Yes, I will admit that the majority of the side-characters don't have as much character to them as the characters from Part I and Left Behind and I admit that the flow of the plot with certain contrivances and a few pieces of plot armor are indeed messy, but I just don't think the story is absolutely terrible like a lot of people say. I don't think it's as good as Part I and the plot construction is definitely weaker, but I just can't say that it's bad in my opinion. 7/10
I see what you mean about how the writers implemented Joel's death but i don't think its lazy writing. I think they were trying to make his death have the biggest and most sudden impact possible. I think they succeeded and i think it worked perfectly. Joel's death was devastating to me as a long time player and fan and it hit me fast and hard, very hard. I don't think they could have brought that across much better. I really enjoyed the video thanks
Noone upset at all that joel didn’t describe what happened at all to ellie, just told her “yea i killed them because they wanted to kill you.” not… “They knocked me out trying to save you from drowning, put a gun to my head and told me you needed to die, lied to me saying there wasn’t any other way and didn’t want to at-least humor the person who brought ellie DAYS of travel to the base safely by testing on you… not just outright kill you in a haphazard non-guaranteed way of MAYBE getting a cure. Not to mention they didn’t ask you , they purposely kept you unconscious so they didn’t possibly have to contest a child maybe valuing their life more then a low chance cure? A cure that a terrorist group (with a history with shitty choices and decision) may monopolize on the surviving humans of the world??. I just called them on their flawed decision and they threatened to kill me for caring about your wellbeing.” If he even said ANY of those points ellie wouldn’t just idk… ice him out? Let alone the narrative aspect of killing him so early and ruining the rest of the game for people who wanted tlou2 to be a sequel and a focus on idk… the relationship of ellie and joel? the WHOLE point of the first game? They set up abby so poorly and the back and forth narrative could’ve been done so much better. Im so upset and i hope the movie series change up joels passing or ill never forgive Naughty Dog for crippling this franchise like this
I the first game there is a dialogue in which ellie says that it is stupid to sacrifice few people to save the majority.... But in the second part she completely changes reasoning
@@gaia7240 Oh my god there is no way you're this thick. The entire plot of the story, literally the whole plot, revolves around how Ellie's search for revenge turns her into a monster and changes everything about her. That's the exact contrast the game is looking to create, and clearly does. In the first game, Ellie is a 14 year old girl who still shows a lot of empathy and is still quite moral considering the world she lives in whilst in TLOU2 she's the opposite. Hence why she no longer agrees or thinks that it is "stupid to sacrifice a few people to save the majority" which by the way doesn't make any sense for the first game and I don't think she said that so I am guessing you meant to say the opposite
Neil Druckmann talks about this in directors commentary actually. It's so much more powerful because Joel doesn't even need to say the words. Ellie knew the truth the whole time and began to resent Joel which we see in the flashback where they go through the hotel for guitar strings. So when Joel said "Making a cure would've killed you", it shows that Ellie knows exactly what he means and has known for a very long time. It just hurt so much more when Joel confirmed it
She has ptsd, lost her fingers and also lost dina and it was all for nothing! I just know they're gonna set abby and that bald kid up for the 3rd game. Goodluck with that.
Another terrific video! All of your points were valid, including pointing out Lev's shoes. I think it is okay to not have a clear conclusion on how to feel about The Last of Us Part 2. It had indeed created multiple debates and discussions. I am not just looking forward to seeing how HBO will adapt this divisive chapter but also the upcoming behind-the-scenes documentary on this game.
I think the best thing about the final flashback was that it gave new context we lacked to Ellie's reasoning behind her revenge quest. If you went into this game blind, you would think Ellie wants to take revenge because, despite being on bad terms, she loves Joel, and while that is true, there is also the fact that they just sort of reconciled the night before, and she agreed to try to forgive Joel, because she probably has been missing Joel for the last 2 years as much as he has been missing her, but then Abby took that opportunity from her before she even had the chance to make anything of it. I honestly really like that.
When I got to Abby’s mission about looking for the Fireflies with Lev I was incredibly frustrated by one of the lines. The line was “You’re always helpful.” After I heard that I knew that the writers thought Abby was done with her character progression and that her story was concluded. The last thing that happens to move her character progression was having Mel tell her that she’s a piece of shit and having Abby cry over it before Yarah tells her she is not which Abby then denies because she knows it’s true. On the island the only thing that changes about her is that her motivation for helping Lev is solidified when she sees Lev who lost his family and sees how it nearly breaks him before she snaps him back and states that he is her people and that’s apparently it. This doesn’t work for me at all as she doesn’t do much. She just accepts that in general her actions are bad. To me this character is nearly irredeemable and I say that while thinking that killing Joel is one of her more justifiable actions. On the first mission you have with her she has 2 conversations that make her and to an extent Manny horrible people to me (there’s also that “good” scene with Dina). The first one is with Mel in which she asks Abby how she feels about killing Joel and how she feels about killing seraphite children. For the first one she simply states that she can’t believe how awful Joel’s actions were and made it sound like she would gladly have beaten him down for longer (but that last bit is just my interpretation). That tells me that even trying to see anything wrong in her actions is alien to her. Her answer to the second question has her saying that the blood of children she kills is on their hands because even if being there is not their fault it’s not hers either which is awful. The conversation with Manny is simply about how they would love to torture prisoners more and I think Manny also compliments something about her torture or her killing but maybe that’s in a different conversation. These just show me how awful Abby is on the regular and she doesn’t ever think of questioning it. With the lack of the conclusion to her redemption I think this game should’ve gone one of two ways. The first is to have Abby knowing that she’s awful and beg for her life only so that she can keep Lev’s life from spiraling the way hers did. Everyone in these games is very traumatized but Lev’s trauma occurred in a way that would easily lead to self-loathing and giving up as he has no one to rely on while being a child and the deaths of his mom and sister can easily blamed on himself for shaving and going back to the island. Abby is the last person he has left and if Ellie took her life Lev wouldn’t last long nor would he go with Ellie either. The second is to give the story a small theme revolving around excuses and self delusions. The seraphites have a religion that has no violence and people still follow it while being in a war and while making a kid their apostate which must be killed. At this point the religion is just something they use to put their faith into and something they change to moralize their actions. In the same way that Abby uses weird loops of logic like “it doesn’t matter if it’s not the kids’ fault because it’s not mine either”. The same way that Ellie sees through Joel’s attempts to distance himself from her in the first game Lev should see through Abby’s excuses and make her see that everyone is accountable for their actions. This could lead to an end to Abby’s redemption in which she can actually apologize for all of her actions even those not related to Ellie. It could also lead to Ellie’s redemption if he makes her see that revenge isn’t good and begs her not to fall into the habit of using the same delusions everyone else does. Either way I don’t think this game should have a final boss with Abby and it especially shouldn’t have a conclusion in which the characters DON’T TALK! With the intentions, mannerisms, and information Ellie goes to Abby with in the ending, killing her would align with the actions of a SAINT. She also enters the beach saying “Abbyabbyabbyabby” like a horror movie villain. With a line like “we left you live and you wasted it” killing both Abby and Lev would seem like things Ellie would find as reasonable at this point (even if she might puke about Lev afterwards). This is also the only point in which the circle of revenge would end as neither of them have any friends left to go after Ellie. Something needed to happen to keep her from killing them. She is also injured and tired so it doesn't make sense for her to want a fist fight. The only thing Abby or Lev should be able to do at this point is beg. IDK why you think Ellie wouldn't threaten Lev as the number of people you kill in this game is huge and Lev is a kid who is used to war and gun fighting. A bunch of Ellie's kills aren't even necessary either like the rattler she had on the floor. Ellie is a full blown murderer at this point. I also don't think Mel is a bad person as the only fighting we see her do is because of a surprise horse attack and beside that she only does safe medical work. When held at gun point she doesn’t seem to do well under pressure either which makes me think she doesn’t get involved in too much combat and only wants to help through being a medic. Owen seems like a worse person to me as when they’re held at gun point he does know what’s going on and says that answering Ellie’s question will get them killed and when Mel is about to do that he stops her only to save Abby and never says anything to save Mel like saying she’s pregnant or that she’s just a medic. This is even though Mel is the one who believes Owen, wants to accompany him to find the fireflies, and HOLDS HIS CHILD instead of calling him stupid. Lastly, from someone who often misses the point of certain things the last memory had me laughing my ass off. Ellie wants to forgive Joel and he’s all like “I don’t think that’s the right word because if the lord gave me a second chance at that day I would do it all over again”. I knew that wasn’t the point but it made that my favorite scene in either game.
Personally, I don't think that the concept of switching perspectives was too ambitious for a video game. The story of the game could be amazing if they were willing to make the game longer and get rid of some coincidences. And if they were to redo the timeline and make it more linear, like for example if we were to play all those flashbacks before Joel's death we as the players would have been even more eager to do the things we do with Ellie. Also, we could've played for Abby from the beginning, getting to know her and maybe finding a liking to her, we could have longer "flashbacks" so we could play with her and get to know her rather than be crushed when her father would die (nice parallel to Sara, before she would kill Joel). After playing as young Abby we would start the game with young Ellie. We would do all of her flashback parts before playing the actual start of the game. The concept, adventure, and story aspect of the game would be a proper sequel to the first game. Only if they would put it together differently and didn't rely on coincidence.
Manny's dad was most likely also a firefly. We're introduced to him shortly after Abbie's half of the game gets underway. While it's not explicitly stated, I think in all likelihood he was the one who know about Tommy's whereabouts. We also don't know how many other fireflies joined the WLF - any number of them could have known Tommy. So I don't think this was lazy writing. I actually think it was carefully thought through.
Calling this a “revenge” story is oversimplifying the plot. It’s about grief; both women’s stories are parallel in losing their father’s from murder. Both women lack healthy coping mechanisms to process their grief and all stages associated. It’s much more than “revenge”
19:51 Ellie asking why she hasn’t ran into other people who are immune is a super important question. It isn’t “bad writing” (a phrase used way too often to describe writing folks don’t understand). Part of Joel’s original lie is that the Fireflies have dozens of immune people to work with, but it doesn’t matter - they can’t make a cure. Ellie knows he’s lied, but she loves him, has crawled through all kinds of traumatic events with him-she doesn’t want to believe he’s lied. This is her picking his lie apart as gently as she can. Not because she’s scared of Joel, but because she’s scared of the truth. It isn’t bad writing. It’s actually necessary writing.
Saying Joel deserved to die in worl like the last of us is so stupid. This is a world that is unfair there are no "good" guys everyone has killed and done messed up things, having fireflies as the good guys doesn't make sense since in the first game it was implied they weren't all that good of a faction. Also sending an entire squad to hunt one dude is so stupid even in an apocalypse. And don't get me started on thepregnant lady on the battlefield.
nice symbolism if only they didnt destroy our sanity and f'ed over the players, forcing them to emphasize with a person they totally didnt give a F and wanted dead so bad. that's a mess we were denied of a choice in the ending. the symbolism might leave a tear in the weak minded that settles for peace and kisses, but the execution was total manipulation of our wants thus making the end result flawed in every way imaginable.
Agree that this is not a perfect game by any means lol However, a lot of the character and character decision making critiques are what I think makes the characters real. People have hypocritical behavior in real life. Ragging on them for being hypocritical makes that a biased take against those characters. After Ellie murders a pregnant woman and reconnects with Tommy (who could have been presumed dead at that time) In a whirlwind of emotional events-I’m sure the last thing she would have been thinking about is the map she didn’t realize she dropped during a fight. I agreed with many of the takes in the beginning of this video but as it went on, a lot of the them did not feel grounded in the environment of the story and just felt very birds eye view of “why did the writers do that.” I think it’s meant to be a bit messy.
That is not how characters should work and it's literally a sign of bad or lazy writing, you need to give a reason to why a character does that or the viewer won't feel connected to it and just label it as a foolish character
Tommy not taking Ellie makes sense, for the most part. Tommy did not go on the journey with Ellie that Joel did. He hasn’t seen how capable she is. He’s heard stories of it, sure, but he hasn’t witnessed it. And Joel has been greatly limiting her ability to be a scout and to use many of the skills she’s developed. Ellie, though 18, is still just a kid to Tommy. This is *his* brother and *his* mission. He’s trying to process the whole thing, attempting to hold on to the new life he’s been living, but the old life wins out and he goes. That being said, if he showed up at Ellie’s door and said, “Let’s go,” it would have also worked.
Love how you approached this retrospective. You dunked on it when it was deserved, but gave it praise when it was deserved. I don't know why people insist on loving or hating the game with no grey area. This game is more complex than a blanket statement opinion implies. Amazing video man!
I still find it weird when people say the game “manipulates” the player into liking Abby. The game “manipulates” literally every perception you have of every single character on screen because it’s a piece of fictional media. If the game was only ever told from Abby’s point of view, and you never played as Ellie at all or knew who she was, you’d be on Abby’s side 100%. It’s not manipulative, it’s just called introducing a new character that achieves the emotions the developers wanted you to feel. Like ALL media does.
All media is meant to ellicit emotions. People complaning about manipulation are in a sense wrong that all media is built on manipulating the audience. But we shouldn't be taking complaints at surface level and assume that's all their worth, that's of no use to anyone instead we should be digging for the reason behind why people feel the game is 'manipulative'. That isn't too difficult as this isn't a new phenomenon, people feel its manipulative because its too overt and on the nose in attempting to ellicit emotions from the player something that really isn't that rare in stories. In the same manner a war film can feel overt for having the side character with no real scenes before tell everyone about how they have a family waiting for them minutes before dying.
I personally feel that the conflict between Ellie and Joel are pretty poorly understood by the writer's, They could have made the entire game on this theme even without having to introduce a new character to invoke a new theme, Cycle of violence in a post apocalyptic world is befitting theme for a game like tlou2 but it seemed so forced to facilitate that particular theme where as the predecessor exceeded our assumptions about post apocalyptic, Joel's demise was heavily foreshadowed and expected but the emphasises on theme of cycle of violence doesn't fit well in the world of last of us, The parallel of Abby and lev was just so empty in all aspects of the game, Jackson town was wasted in the entire game, They could've literally had someone like abby living in Jackson then taking out Joel therefore creating tension amongst the people, Ellie immunity being revealed to people of Jackson could have got a intriguing plot or search for the truth from Ellie perspective instead of seeking revenge. This is just my opinion if anyone actually made all the through this thanks
About Joel supposedly not being careful enough with the salt lake crew. While i think being safe in Jackson for 4 years definitely plays into it, its not the entire explanation. If you look at that scene carefully you can notice that pretty much the whole time tommy is taking lead. He is almost always running in front, he Introduces them first, tells the where to go, and Joel waits for Tommy's confirmation before going back to Abby's crew. When they get there, Tommy is the one who is initially warm towards them, asking how they're doing, asking for supplies for their horses, introducing Joel again, and even inviting them back to Jackson. This all makes sense for Tommy's character, he acts based on honor, wants to help people and overall acts as a hero. the only things joel actually says here is telling them they will leave as soon as they can and questioning why they are in the area, both things that could come from a place of suspicion of them. And so, when Joel is shot the first thing he does is get angry at Tommy. i think that it is heavily implied in this sequence that Joel has become more dependant on Tommy as he ages.
Your struggle to buy into the Abby/Lev dynamic as it’s too much of a mirror of the Joel/Ellie dynamic is an interesting one. I agree it is on the nose. But we also can’t pretend like the strong/weak companions on a journey together is unique to Joel and Ellie. The writers also had an enormous mountain to climb by wanting to get you to empathize and ultimately, though conflicted, root for Abby. That mountain being, as you noted, she killed an extremely beloved character. What better way to climb that mountain than with a familiar set of tools the players are already accustomed to and adore? Maybe could have been executed differently, but I don’t fault them for doing it.
i will always try to respect the criticisms given to the direction delivery and decisions made for the story even if they all worked for me i understand that this game asks alot of the common player to get onboard , tho i will never get behind the gameplay downplays as i see this game as a true peak in that regard it just feels incredible to handle and went above and beyond in that aspect even when most people will just play it to get from one cutscene to the next
@@GeronimoOoO7 I played them both back to back, it's literally the exact same, or it was improved. There was technically speaking no back step at all, so I don't know how you came to that conclusion.
@@GeronimoOoO7 gun play feels more satisfying just off of the polish in Animation sound design and impact but by far the biggest upgrades were environment (stealth and whatnot) and Enemy Ai the second game didnt add much it added simple things and made sure to expand the creativity and feel off it to the max idk how you come to that conclusion the first game handles fine and is a blast overall the second game is a benchmark of quality to expect for every major release
I cant believe how you left out one of thee most key parts to the ending. How Ellie wasn't just now alone without her family, but had lost the only connection she had left with Joel too in the guitar as she lost her fingers and could no longer play. Also thought the writing was terrible for Joel's parts. All they had to do was put some dialogue in when hes speaking with Ellie about how broken losing Sarah left him and how she helped stitch him back together, and that was why he couldn't let her die. Would have made Ellie sympathize with his decision and made forgiving him much easier.
One thing I've noticed about this game is that most criticisms of contrivances or "plot holes" are the result of people who just straight up didn't pay attention, or even worse, didnt even play the game. I could list examples, but there are honestly so many that I don't know where to start.
I hope jeffrey wright reprises his role as isaac in the tv show. He’s up for a best actor oscar this year, if he’s in the show they’ll have to flesh out the character more. You hear so much about Isaac before you meet him, its disappointing how little consequence he has in the story in the end.
It reminded me of the movie 1917. How all the high ranking people in positions of authority are played by "big name" actors, even though they get very little screen time and are basically cameos in the main characters story. It conveys to the viewer, that these people are a big deal within the world of the narrative, even if they're not part of "our story" for very long.
When it comes to the issue of Ellie's consent to be sacrificed for a cure, I think that it isn't fair to state that Joel was as much at fault as the Fireflies: The Fireflies already removed Ellie's chance to offer consent when they put her under anesthesia and prepped her for surgery. Joel didn't have time to reason with them; they wouldn't have listened to him if he tried. If Joel didn't intervene, he would have let Ellie (his own adopted daughter) be murdered by others without her consent. He did, indeed, rescue her and stop the hope of a cure without her consent; but at least he chose to save a life instead of being accessory to a murder. The lying afterward, I admit, was immoral; but, really, it made precious little difference. The people who could have made the cure were already good and dead by then; who could Ellie go to if she decided that she wanted to sacrifice herself after all? Now, it can be argued that Ellie's lash-out against Joel was portrayed as unjustified in the game: Ellie's own survivor's guilt clearly factored in heavily to her reaction, as well as her own disappointment in Joel's lie and the fact that no cure turned out anyway. Her trauma took over, and it took her years to get over it; I don't begrudge her that. I only wish that someone in the game would have said SOMETHING in Joel's defense.
I can always agree with haters of the game about the pacing and some of the story beats not being written perfectly but it has way more good writing then flawed writing. It definitely is subtle with the way it does certain things and is heavy fisted with others. It’s the obvious choices the writers make that give certain people the prospective that the game is hollow, poorly written or coincidental. Don’t get me wrong, the biggest coincidence was Abby runnning into Joel; the other ones seem reasonable. Example: [Tommy ambushing Abby & Manny] Tommy’s must’ve been listening on a radio (as Ellie has) to know the WLF are gunna do an full army invasion on the Seraphites; so they need to get to the docs and acquire the boats. Tommy knows that’s probably the best place to hold up and wait till he has eyes on Abby or one of her friends. He sees Manny with a small scouting platoon and opens fire. (I’ll admit it’s a coincidence that Abby needed a boat too) Now what I said isn’t said anywhere but it can be pieced together by what Tommy can clearly do. He’s a survivor like Joel, he’s been solo this whole time, he found and killed a safe house of soldiers to get to Abby’s first friend. He’s survived several packs of infected. He’s capable; plus Jesse found him by hearing radio chatter. The WLF are very military like, so it’s not far fetched he is using their radio chatter against them. Back to Abby bringing Joel to her friends… I know you brought up the point that supporters make of “Joel has lived in this community for 4 years and has softened up” but that’s exactly what happened. Not that “easier life has made him soft/rusty” but more of Joel’s choices has made him softer. The point of the first game was this brutal survivor that only cares about personal gain having his rugged shell chipped away by the innocents of a child. When Joel is in Jackson he starts to be a kinder person because of and FOR Ellie. Tommy (not stated but inferred) always seemed like he was a good guy; a guy that wanted to save people. He basically had a heroic heart that Joel suffocated with his own misery. (Which the HBO show added onto by Tommy joining the U.S service and the show was co-written by Neil Druckman) Tommy joins the firefly in his want to HELP people and be a LIGHT that the fireflies once branded themselves to be. He later leaves after he realizes they’re kinda bullshit and joins a community of people that are all working together to help rebuild some type of safety. A place where people can have families and bring back some sense of happiness in this forsaken world. They become a trade city where other small communities would come through to trade, which meant they were welcoming to new comers. They say they have bandits but can be handled. With years of practice (which I agree with people that say “years of hardship they know not to trust people and just give out their names”) you can tell which people are genuine and aren’t going to harm you for the hell of it between the bandits that just want your stuff by any means necessary. Abby’s group didn’t come off as these rugged group of bandits. They seemed well taken care of and were younger. (Which usually by the age of what Abby’s group was, these kids would be doing runs for whatever camp they’re with and Jackson probably runs into kids their age to trade between communities occasionally) TOMMY being the good guys he is and always been, being in with the Jackson people for possibly 10+ years and being the co-leader of Jackson offers to HELP THEM restock and introduces HIMSELF. He then allows Joel (the brother he’s been seeing attempt to become a more open and kinder person for the likes of Ellie) to introduce himself. Joel being a better man than he once was introduces himself. [I never got why people would say “he should’ve lied”. Why would he? That just puts their own community in bad light. If you find this super nice group of people but they lie to get you in, you wouldn’t want to stay.] He was better person.. you can even see that from ALL THE FLOWERS that are at his house. People in the town care for him. If he was an asshole going around not talking to people/being toxic, people wouldn’t give a fuck about buying flowers and walking to his house to pay their respects… Abby NOW having 100% confirmation proceeds to shoot him because she knows what this man is capable of. This is “the monster” (in her eyes) that slaughter 10s of soldiers by himself. Her having a small group and Joel having his biological brother with him as backup. She decides to not risk a big fight. Who knows if this Tommy guy is as ruthless/skilled/powerful as Joel. [this next part is how I INTERPRETED the scene but other can see it another way] Abby crouches down to Joel and ask him to guess who she is. Joel then being the masculine man we all know and love, belittles her by saying “why don’t you say whatever speech you’ve got rehearsed and get this over with” (which FUCK YEAH! What a badass way to go out!) I personally saw Abby possibly putting him out of his misery like the old dog he is, since he did just save her life. Kinda like, “you scratched my back so I’ll scratch yours, but… I can’t let you go.” But since Joel put that old persona back on and is now being that monster Abby portrays him to be, she goes ahead and belittles him. Abby shows him that he isn’t this big a bad monster and proceeds to torture him. Troy Baker said this about Joel when he is attack by Abby. “There’s one thing I fall back on to the criticism of my own performance; Is there’s a specific moment. The thought that Joel has is ‘This is what happens when you drop your guard. I allowed myself to trust, I allowed myself to love, I allowed myself to feel, I allowed myself to be safe and THIS is what YOU GET!’ It is a moment of regret. Even inside that moment he goes ‘I’d do it ALL over AGAIN! Cuz what I got was the girl.’ and the fact that doesn’t come through (with out a line of dialogue, a moment of a look) if anything it falls on my failure to be able to present that moment; but rest to sure, that moment is there for Joel.”. So at the end of the day when Joel see Ellie for the last time, Troy’s quote perfectly wraps up Joel’s decisions. If you’re interested in seeing Troy baker, Ashley Johnson and Troy baker speak about the game then you can watch the YT video of them talking about it. Search - Gamecast ep. 26 The Last of us Spoilercast I know it was a long comment but I did go along to enjoy the whole video; even if I had some disagreements on some of your other arguments against the game narrative. ❤️
When I first played this, my emotions were all over the place. I was angry, sad, scared, happy and everything in between. When I got to the final fight, I was torn. I wanted her dead. I hated her for what she had done, but then seeing her relationship with Lev, and understanding why she did it, I was conflicted. I still am to be honest. I think if I was in Ellie's shoes, not knowing the full sorry I would likely have done it. Its a game that really makes you think and that's why I adore it. Edit: I also hated Mel though 😂
I don't understand why people get so hung up on Joel and Tommy entering the lodge with Abby. They are caught in a blizzard and there is a massive horde of infected hunting them down. Joel and Tommy are on guard, but are caught in a desperate situation and had no choice. Their choice was get torn apart by infected or take refuge with strangers. It makes perfect sense.
@@kokushibo1014 They were on guard, they didn't take the saddles off the horses which suggests they were going to leave as soon as they had the chance. Giving their first names isn't that big of a deal either. It was just insanely bad luck that this group were looking for a Joel and knew he had a brother named Tommy which gave away their identities. In the final scene with Joel talking to Ellie, he comments on how he traded with some people for coffee, so they do interact with outsiders. Look at it like this, Jackson clearly has a large community, it is totally implausible to suspect every citizen has been vetted to check whether they have a vendetta against another resident. Also, the context of them "trusting" the group isn't that odd. Even if they were hostile, they just saved Abby which would make most people indebted to them. Again, it was just insanely bad luck that this group had a vendetta against Joel.
@@jackolohan3654You can also say that Joel would've been distracted that morning by the thought of finally being able to make up with Ellie due to the last night's conversation. No matter how battle-hardened a survivor is, we're all stil human, and we make mistakes. Joel wasn't invincible. And like you said, they had incredibly bad luck in that scenario.
It was not about getting into lodge. It was about Joel and Tommy giving them their names and trust, after 20 years (in case of Tommy 17-18) living in constant danger, developing survival paranoia, being extremely distrustful and careful, and even aggressive to be prepared for instant danger. Despite that, they act nothing like in Part 1 in that lodge. And no, the argument of ,,4 years in safe, trusty and comfy city made them softer" doesn't work. 20 years of trauma and living in constant fear and danger vs 4 years in Jackson - it's pretty unnatural to switch your persona in that frame of time, after all those years acting on survival instict To add, whenever Joel and Tommy were leaving Jackson, they still were suppossed to be very careful when they came across strangers. Jackson survived all those years because people in this city were careful on who enters the city. We can assume they tried to check everything about strangers who wanted to join Jackson's society. Even only speaking with them, they needed to be careful with words that they use, because they could be speaking with bandits, or people who wanted to hurt them. Joel and Tommy trusting Abby's group doesn't make any sense. It's lazy writing, and they really wanted to kill Joel like that. They switched entire Joel's personality to fit their badly written narrative.
She dosen't get a "good ending" because she didn't so the right thing. She still chose to leave Dina so she was going to loose her anyways. The choice she had was to let Abby live and end the cycle of violence that brought her their in the first place or continue the pain
After a second time playing, I don't think you really learned all that much. Every time Abby does something or builds a connection, it's not the writers preaching to the player to like her. You don't have to like her. It just humanizes her and educates why she is breaking the cycle of violence.
About the section in the finding strings flash back with the two dead bodies, Ellie asks Joel why they haven't found any other immune people because of what he told her in the first game. In the car on the way to Jackson after the hospital, the final scene of the first game when Ellie wakes up Joel tells her that it turns out "there 's a whole lot more like you" and that they can't make a cure and stopped looking for one a long time ago. That's why she asks this its not because she is naive or from bad writing its because Joel told her that there are other immune people and it is a common thing to be immune. This scene actually makes a lot of sense and I think that the part of Joel's lie about other immune people existing is the main reason Ellie begins to be suspicious.
One of the failure of this narrative by basing it off Joel's past coming to do him in the end, is the very fact that by that resolve, all of the 7 - 11 people Ellie killed have family members, friend etc waiting in line to come after Ellie. Also this goes for Abby and her friend. The basis of the blame is strange when everyone else are murderers in similarity with Joel. Remembering that Joel was not killed for the potential preventing a cure. He was killed because he killed an NPC character. The setup was understandable but was weaker choice to set off the story. I am pretty sure with proper brain storming the writers could have came up with a better way for Joel to die because by this method there are lines of people waiting to kill Abby, Ellie etc. Also Joel did not just outright killed Abby's father, the man was threatening Joel and was in the way of a fed-up Joel rescuing Ellie. Abby know well why her father died because she was implicated in the notion of her father actually going through to killing Ellie.
not to mention it forces you to kill that npc, it literally wasnt a choice, even if you dont shoot him he comes at you with the blade and joel puts it into the dudes neck. plus i love how abby doesnt seem to care that her dad was going to kill a child in the first place. and you spend the whole first game seeing that its all 100% needed to act that way to survive
@@TylerNoah02 of course they don't pay attention, they only fixate on what serves their narrative to keep hating on Abby. Most people in TLOU universe are shit, fanboys just cannot get over their fave's death and then having to play as the one who killed their fave. Fanboys pick and choose story beats that suit them and makes them feel like their misogyny is justified. I mean listen to the OP, repeatedly calling it lazy writing by omitting very crucial parts, like Tommy leaving for Seattle 'not making any sense' all the while leaving Tommy's letter to Maria saying LOCK ELLIE UP out of his analysis. these people will never look at the bigger picture, they're just butthurt their fave character got killed
Even after killing Joel Abby’s flash backs were of her dad (PTSD) What changed in her final flash back in the hospital was Lev (Love) Ellie’s final flashback was her convo with Joel and forgiving (Love) That’s the point of the end. Killing Abby won’t fix anything. Ellie lost everything again because she went to seek out her vengeance but can you blame her? It’s not a story of revenge, it’s a story about EMPATHY which a lot of you lack and it shows.
The guy talks about 'perspective' and then only applies it in a certain sense while failing to see that no matter the objective truth of the situation from Abby's perspective Joel murdered her father in cold blood, might've killed companions that she knew in getting there, and Joel took away a potential vaccine. Combine that with the emotionally irrationality that a person goes through after something like that, and you have an emotional obsession growing.
I would also argue this isn't a revenge story. It's about forgiveness. Forgiveness of your enemies. Forgiveness of the people around you, and forgiveness of yourself. I think Ellie also hated Abby SO much because she was robbed of the chance to forgive Joel. We see the scene the night before his death where she tells him "I don't know if I can forgive you, but I'd like to try." And she never got to mend their strained relationship. Ultimately she chooses to forgive Abby and let it all go, as she would have tried with Joel. At least that's my take on it! But no, lol i certainly do not think this story is as cut and dry as "revenge is bad."
There is not a sign of actual empathy in the whole game, they are just acting out of their needs, that's it, the game is just about losing your humanity
I don’t think it’s overly contrived that Abby runs into Tommy and Joel. They received a tip that Joel was in Jackson (that may be more contrived, but with the amount of people alive in the world, it might make sense that people become more well known widely). Abby and her team are in Jackson. It’s not unreasonable to believe that Joel and Tommy would be out scouting. My guess it they probably saw her and were following her for a while until she needed help. Other than her muscles, she looks like a young girl. These two men have been rehabbing at Jackson, learning how to care for more than themselves. It’s not unreasonable to think they likely saw this girl and tried to help. That being their downfall is pretty brutal. All this being said, I think tightening up why Joel and Tommy would have their guard down would have been helpful to the story.
Just finished it for the 3rd time last week. Still holds up. You criticized the story, pace and delivery, which is fine, but didn't really proposed how it should've been done. I agree with Troy Baker in the Grounded II documentary: Not a single person has been able to propose a better way to tell that story.
Agreed. There have been a lot of armchair writers thinking they could create a better narrative for TLOU2, including the jackass who replied above my comment. However, no one has actually proposed a more compelling, more dramatic, or more exciting alternative.
its because the story was awful and absolutely nobody asked to be forced to emphasize for that train wreck of a chracter that is Abby. if you can't understand how much we were wronged as players for being denied what we primarly wanted, thats a YOU problem. you might glaze the useless story symbolim of "cycle of hate". but honestly no one cared except for the weak, emotionnal crybabies that defend this mess just because the story wanted to be deep. all the characters were useless self inserts and they were a lot of gay stuff in that game and god forbids youtube strikes my comment for speaking my mind that's how it is. you can't convince us the palyers of what we actually wanted till the end of the game. to kill that useless B.
Yep, pretty much agree with this take. Out of the new characters I feel like Jesse and Owen were the most sound and understanding people. Everyone else is kinda meh. And the way they handled Joel and Tommy (minus the flashbacks) just kills all of the established traits the first game had for them. Like the way Tommy acts and handles situations sometimes made audibly go "... whuAT?!?"
48:18 thats exactly how Joel felt when Ellie said its over and saving her life. And next episode you realised it. Also what would be more logical is that we would see flashbacks of Joel starting heavily drinking because of his ruined "Parentship" with Ellie, so thats why he later could have been easily "caught ,or killed"
I honestly looooved getting to play as Abby and the pararles between her and Ellie. I do agree sometimes the shifts or flashbacks kill the pace a bit but to me, those are the parts that made the game so amazing.
yea you loved being forced to emphasize for the antogonist and being wronged out of a choice at the end? ohhh nooo violence is not wayyyy... sis its a video game at the end of the day you cant wrong the player like that. only the weak minded like you would be glazing this mess of a story just for the "cycle of hate" symbolism at the expense of our chracters and own player satisfaction. i respect that you liked it but the end result wasnt there. the only thing that saves the game are the flashbacks between joel and elie but again. the game was first advertised as another adventure with the two of them. it seems like you settled with what was served to you "just because the story tried to be deep". oh my.... what a mess.
@@pumpyronaldrump_4417 I think it was good. Not every story needs to be sunshine and rainbows. It's a dark story that makes you feel very strong feelings, for me that's a good thing.
@@elproson1 it's not about the games story not being happy, it's about how they did it. The writer's basically spit in your face, and then call you a bad person for being mad. It feels like moral grandstanding especially since as how this guy pointed out, Ellie kills so many people but stops right at the end for Abby which somehow apparently stops the cycle of violence, and still gets punished by Dina leaving. It's the equivalent of some modern artist puking on a classical painting and then saying you are mad because you are too dumb to understand it. The only reason this game has good elements is because it builds on the last game, which was good. Guarantee you that all of those things people dislike is shit that Neil pushed on it once the competent writers of Naughty Dog were ran off the company.
Honestly, I hated the way this story unfolded. Abby and Ellie are not the same. What Joel did was to save Ellie. Abby's father was going to kill Ellie. Abby doesn't see the difference. These are not parallel characters. Abby is just a bully and having us play her character and eventually escape fate is a disservice to the story. It can be good storytelling to portray the flip the protagonist and antagonist only if they are mirrors of each other. But this is not that.
From Abby's perspective, her father died at the hands of a man who directly slowed down the chance for a vaccine to be developed. She can only see Joel as a terrorist. Joel is pretty much the main villain of the first game. (I would still have done what Joel did) I do agree that playing as Abby didn't feel very good. I had absolutely no attachment to her as a character. It was a questionable decision.
@@anewfuture Abby not seeing her wrong is what I really hate about her, I get why she killed Joel it's not that difficult to understand, but it's still stupid, and in the end she doesn't even talk about it, like, does she even understand that Ellie is the immune girl? Why she just can't understand that Joel was saving her? This is a sign of a small brain to me
No. Joel murdered them all - that didn't need to be done. He killed Abbie's father, she was just a little girl who needed her dad too. Calling her a 'bully' is just silly. She followed the natural course of justice after what Joel did. I mean, look at all the butchering Ellie does to Abbie's crew. She kills a pregnant woman! And Abbie lets her go a SECOND TIME! That's hardly a bully. Again, I think you're calling her that cos she looks like a guy, lol. Because everything else you say makes no sense.
@@harmonygalvin1814 We cannot forget that the Fireflies was a terrorist group, they also killed hundreds, maybe even thousands of people. You say Ellie killed a pregnant woman, first off, she didn't know. While Abby is about to kill Dina, Ellie yells out that she is pregnant, and Abby says "GOOD". Abby is a bully, the amount of people that she has also killed, who have children, mothers, fathers, brothers. She is just as bad as everyone else. Joel didn't kill anyone who didn't shoot at him first, and in a world that they live in, it's either kill or be killed. It has also been stated in the first game that there is no vaccine, because you can't make a vaccine for fungal infections, not even in todays modern society. The survival rate for Ellies operation was also 10%, which she did not know because she was kept unconscious the whole time. And lastly, in the first game we also found out that the Fireflies didn't even have the medical supplies to get a proper vaccine to the people. The Fireflies, including Abby's father, were not good people, and they were going to kill Joel and Ellie regardless if there was a cure or not. (Actual facts from the first game).
@harmonygalvin1814 Joel didn't need to to that lol. You forget that the fireflies robbed him of saying goodbye to Ellie, they took away his belongings, they didn't give him the guns he and Tess were promised. Then they threaten to off him. He had nothing to lose and at that point offed the terrorist group known as the fireflies.They are wanted criminals in the game for a reason.
Honestly, all of your points make no sense. Tommy leaving Ellie behind makes perfect sense. His brother died to save her life and he knows he probably won’t come home again. Of course he left her behind.
i think ellie leaving dina for revenge in the end then coming back for her not seeing them there signifies it was ellie's decision that made them leave regardless of ellie sparing abby or killing her..
I’m never going to agree with “Joel had it coming”. It was always a stretch to say. Joel was correct in his assumption murdering Ellie was wrong. There is no empirical evidence to support this medically. If she was the only immune then intense further study and more responsible care should be given. Instead of violence and abuse against both of them. Abby never deserved her revenge. Her father attacked Joel first. We can’t even get to the “trolley problem” in this story due to the ridiculous amount of wrong doing leading up to it. This is why I had such trouble with part 2. It’s built on flimsy rails and filled with shock factor. The elements of character growth feel forced and the storytelling screams sequelitis and unfinished. It’s a good game in my opinion not great.
As an opinion piece, totally valid. As a critique, heavily heavily colored by your attachment to legacy characters. The game tries just as hard to get you to like characters and hate others across the board. Sex scenes are character driven across the board and not just "weird" when its the character you like less lol
Abby telling owen to get his priorities straight is out of frustration and guilt for sleeping with him in the first place. These are things that are actually more complicated and nuanced but *whoosh*
And you're bothered by playing the first showdown as the character you just spent 10 hours playing and "sympathizing" as? If they switched back to Ellie you would probably complain they should have stuck to their guns and used the momentum for the half game switch or not done it at all
Ellie taking back up her vengeance quest and threatening Lev is the story indicating how different she and Abby actually are. Abby lets Ellie live *twice*. She only lets her live the second time because she has actually grown as a person and met someone that challenges her to be better. Ellie gets her happy ending and it's not enough to erase the urge to punish Abby. And all of this because of the supposed "love" that justified Joel's rampage. There are parallels but everyone is also different, it can't just be flattened to "we're really all the same"
@@meximan282 I don't think that's meant to be complex at all, I'm surprised that a lot of people miss that Abby feels guilt and shame for things in the end. Even when I missed stuff in Abby Day 2 and the Owen boat scene, the ending and beginng of Day 2/Day 3 made me get these details a lot more. For instance, Abby actually hanging her head down when Owen talks about torturing Joel, Abby occasionally questioning her motivations, Owen's story relating to Abby Day 1 flashback and Abby's time with Joel, etc.
@@skywalkerorder2839 Abby telling owen to get his priorities straight? I don't know if it's "meant" to be complicated either but the reviewer seems to only be able to track one feeling or motivation at a time so if anything seems to contradict he reduces it to "lazy/bad writing"
You make a lot a great points but its very subjective, as it should. Not to defend ND because I domy love everything about the game, but the switch of perspective is annoying at first yes, but I wouldn’t say it’s stupid even for a video game. The reason is 2 folds: First we know the whole story with Abby saving Lev, and the ending etc so we do end up liking Abby and we do SEE from living(playing) it that no one is innocent and the hurt you make will come back to you -immune or not. Secondly, if ND didn’t go for an unconventional two part story with two opposing characters then it means the other option would have been a normal, standard straight story line that you don’t really play, you just follow along like any Uncharted game, with no twist no surprise. I’m not saying the idea is the best but it’s not bad, it’s actually really great. It is what it is, like a movie or a song. It’s a deep story there extremely realistic in terms of human reactions. People who hate aren’t hating on 99% of other games where nothing makes sense whether the story dev or characters reactions. And where of course the hero always wins at the end.
I disagree that Joel deserved death. I have a kid- two really, my German shepherd and my son. You’re looking at this story from the perspective of someone who is living in a modern society without the strife of survival. He did what any parent would do if they had the means in that situation. Everything else he did was survival, and I can’t judge someone for just trying to live.
I have heard this from another parent and I agree. A parent would save their own child of course. But would you not also expect immense grief from a child when their parent is taken? And say it wasn’t your child who would be killed for the cure but would be forced to endure a world of suffering and possible early death for Joel’s kid to live? I think of course every parent would make the same choice as Joel, put in his place, but for me part two is meant to remind us, that the world isn’t just Joel and Ellie. What he did had consequences outside of them.
The fundamental problem with this game is that it tries to make you break away from how humans fundamentally operate. We are tribal creatures, we've evolved to stick with our group/tribe and root for them no matter what logic compels us to ignore it. Our tribe is OUR tribe, and no matter what they did, we will have the primal urge to stick with them. TLOU1 is, in this context, the exact opposite of TLOU2 as it appeals to this side of our humanity in the finale. A survey even showed that ~50% of normal players, *but 100%* of parents who test-played TLOU1 said that they agreed with Joel's decision and would've done the same in his shoes everytime. But in TLOU2, we are made to think, "But see, Abby had her reasons too. She's just like Ellie, both were enacting revenge. She's a human too". But that's irrelevant, we've bonded with Joel and Ellie so much that they're OUR tribe now. No matter the reasons Abby could've had (at best, they're just as bad as Ellie's), we still care about OUR tribe, and just cannot care to sympathise with someone that broke both of our beloved characters. We'll still always root for Ellie. We'll still always support her in this case. It's fine to make us realise Ellie is too drowned in revenge, but it's ineffective to make us realise Abby is a good person too. We just won't. Doing so takes too much effort and time that this game wouldn't have had. Hence the Abby sections feel wrong and especially the boss fight against Ellie. That being said, there could've still been a way - make Abby a part of that tribe too. The way to do that would've been to give Abby time as a character BEFORE she kills Joel. Establish her character and her part of the family before we know what she does. Now I know this wouldn't have been possible in TLOU2. It was advertised as a Joel and Ellie game and spending the first-half as Abby would've turned off most players. Hence, in my controversial opinion, TLOU2 should've JUST been about Abby. Show how her father's death haunts her. Let us get to know Owen and Mel and the other characters better. Take us through a journey with her people, so that she eventually joins OUR tribe. Then, in TLOU3, she can come and kill Joel. It would've still stung, but in my opinion, now that both of the protagonists are in our tribe, the game would've actually delivered on all the notes even better. Joel's death wouldn't have felt as bad, Ellie's murder spree would've felt much more ruthless and villanious, and we would've sympathised with Abby more.
This guy perfectly sums up my feelings for this game. Gameplay graphics and cinematic scenes are perfectly amazing. Story just has me in and out and can be hard to wanna replay
Yeah. It’s def hard to play to replay, just because the story hurts it so bad. That being said, it’s a lotta fun to play, if you’re into massacring hundreds of NPCs.
Same I just sometimes feel like people are idiots cuz they can't understand the story well or smth Also there is the thing that Joel didn't deserve to die or get tortured like that,but he hella deserved it, and i hate to say it(ik this will start a war, down blow up my notifications pls)
Ellie didn't lose Dina. The ending of the game shows Ellie wearing Dina's bracelet which Dina held onto when she left, not to mention she has a jacket on. It's not supposed to be Ellie being alone, its her moving on from Joel after not being able to play guitar, and living the rest of her life with Dina. The reason why you didn't see this is because the game does an awful job showcasing this, the last scene we get of Dina is her saying that if Ellie leaves, they're done, only for her to, offscreen, turn around and accept Ellie. This is what I hope the writers were doing at least, because Ellie losing everything after breaking the cycle of violence destroys the first games amazing ending.
Maybe they went back to Jackson, seeing as JJ would be around 2 or 3 years old at the time of ellie’s return, and it would have been mighty hard for Dina to take care of him alone
34:43 My theory for the writing problems is that they originally had something different in mind for the whole revenge plot and they just had to figure something out quickly, because they decided to change the narrative on a last minute. Maybe Joel wasn't supposed to die so quickly first? It would also explain why the trailer was different from the actual game where there was Joel originally, but then switched to Jessie.
I’m only about 15 mins in to the video but I do have to respectfully disagree about Tommy’s decision to leave Ellie behind not making sense. It makes perfect sense. He knows what Joel sacrificed so Ellie could live, and he knows his brother would kick his ass if he knew he was knowingly bringing Ellie into such a dangerous situation. Not to mention, Tommy has grown to love Ellie, too. It’s his niece. Did he know Ellie would probably find a way to follow him? Yes. But that doesn’t make it nonsensical that he would refuse to be the one to invite her to join him in something so dangerous. He knows if Ellie dies, Joel died for nothing. Not to mention, he knows Joel wouldn’t want either of them going after Abby. Tommy might want to go against that, but it’s realistic he would at least want to do what he could to limit Ellie’s role in it.
I dont think Tommy wouldve gone in the first place, he left joel in the first game because he believed Joel had gone off the tracks and that theyd lost all morality. So he joined a community. Once joel became a father again and worked for the community Tommy and he reunited.
Why would Tommy abandon his family and community to kill some randos when hes already come to the conclusion that thats not the life he wants to live.
That’s why at the end of the game when Tommy was so upset that Ellie wouldn’t go after Abby, I was so confused. I honestly thought it was like a dream sequence or something. I immediately said Tommy wouldn’t want her to go! He would 100% want her to stay and focus on her family just like Joel would have wanted for her. Him going from begging Maria to lock her up so she didn’t get killed to being mad that she didn’t want to go on a suicide mission to find Abby is absolutely ridiculous. I cannot understand how the writers misunderstood their own characters so much!
@@uploadinstuffwhat you detailed in why he originally left Joel and how he found a community and reunited with Joel is exactly why he would go. To him this group of people showed up just outside of his community and murdered his brother. So not only is it revenge for killing his brother, which in itself is not immoral, but the safety and security for his community could be at risk.
@@Kmiller5515 Except they werent and he knew it. It was a couple people who lived in Seattle 800 miles away.
Its not about the morality, its that he wouldnt leave Maria and Ellie and everyone and risk death or capture (in which case he wouldnt be able to support his community or loved ones) in order to kill someone that killed someone close to him.
Also at the end he knew it was personally motivated by abby and he wanted to go after abby to kill her. When he couldnt go he pressured ellie into going, knowing it would ruin her life.
Both characters behaved that way so that Abby wouldnt seem so bad by comparison even though she did a thing the creators knew would be hard to swallow from the fans.
I kinda concur. Your logic is sound but living in this world is dangerous. I think Tommy's lust for revenge fuckin got the better of him. And he wasn't thinking clearly at the time. I don't think he was tryna keep her safe, cause if that was the case he wouldn't have allowed Ellie to go on patrols and shit (had be been that over protective). I think he was pissed at Ellie for not leaving sooner.
Ellie doesn’t ask why she’s never found anyone else who’s immune because she’s dumb or because the writing is bad, she asks it because the first thing Joel tells her when she wakes up is that there’s dozens of immune people. It’s his literal explanation from the first game as to why they left the firefly base.
Fax
Exactly, she’s calling him out on the inconsistency and improbability of his argument, giving him the chance to come clean and admit it makes no sense.
Which is funny because the other immune people who reached the Fireflies are dead, something she didn't know but Joel might've, since it's in lore pick-ups
Exactly, first thought that popped in my head. 20:00
Correct me if I’m wrong but weren’t those lore drops about other immune people removed in the later versions of the first game?
i think i’m more upset that ellie can no longer play guitar than the fact she let abby live
Yeah, that was the only thing that remained from Joel, and she lost it, she can no longer play the song that Joel has singed
Just switch hands
@@J221. True
But it will take still a pretty long time
i think the message is that revenge in order to honor/avenge one’s memory ends up tarnishing it in the end
THIS! losing her fingers is the last tie she has to a method of honoring Joel’s memory. That’s what broke the cycle of violence imo.
When you realise if Ellie just stayed with Dina and JJ, Abby would have died on that beach
Better option than that train wreck of an ending we did get
@@terrahawk1977 Great ending 10/10 😂
@@josephpmorganDA that's Yr opinion and I'm pleased for you. Me i hated it in the leaks and it was worse in gameplay that's my opinion. And my opinion has nothing to with Joel as I agreed with that
@terrahawk1977 that was my sarcasm bro, I understand your grief.
@@josephpmorganDA grief which is as I said I agreed with Joel’s death so what’s the grief
hmm, i don’t know. i think dina leaving ellie makes perfect sense. she gave ellie an ultimatum, “if you leave again, i’m gone”. and ellie leaving again shows that she valued revenge over her family.
Oh for sure, Dina leaving makes sense. Ellie breaking the cycle and losing everything as a result was where most take issue.
@@GameOverloadMO If you think about it, Ellie chose to pursue Abby again over her life with Dina and that's what made her leave the farm. All that chasing after Abby in Seattle brought to them was pain, so Ellie setting off again and Dina leaving her makes perfect sense, she has a son to look after and she wants nothing to do with Ellie's quest for vengeance anymore. Ellie loses everything because she kept choosing violence over peace. Dina has no way of knowing that once Ellie found Abby she would let her go, no way of knowing if after killing Abby someone was going to find their farm and get revenge on Ellie. Ellie gets punished despite letting go because she only let go at the very last second.
@@GameOverloadMO I would argue that the ending challenges you, as does much of the game. The ending does not have to be "satisfying", necessarily, it needs to be complete, and it needs to make sense. After all, it's not the ending so much that matters as it is the journey the characters went on. Ellie's primary character flaw was resolved - she realized that revenge was not going to heal her - and that is what the story was centered around. The fact that she "lost everything" is the point. She sacrificed everything that tethered her to humanity in pursuit of the satisfaction that revenge ultimately could never give her. The storytellers make this point exceptionally clear.
You admit that Dina's choice to leave makes sense - then what else is there? You seem to say that Ellie is "punished" for "breaking the cycle", but I think that's missing the point. She ends up alone *because* of her choices, and she leaves the guitar to symbolize her growth, or the completion of this part of her journey. What's next is up to us to decide as viewers. She could go back to Jackson and find Dina, or she could embark on a journey to find a doctor and develop a cure, or any number of things. We don't know, but that is the point.
Great storytellers do *not* make choices which cater to the feelings and desires of their audience. Rather, they make compelling choices that set their characters on exciting journeys. You admit many times to have been captivated by emotional scenes in the game, but then go on to criticize the game for "lazy" writing. I think that many of your points about plot convenience are unfair and misguided - you could say the same about any number of moments in the first game (or any storytelling really), but because you don't have a bias against that game, you forgive those conveniences or "contrivances" as you put them.
@@danielgonzalezjimenez5677that’s why it would have made more sense for Ellie to kill Abby. Ellie is left alone and unable to play the guitar as a consequence of archiving her revenge.
@@GameOverloadMO It's not Ellie breaking the cycle that causes her to lose everything. It's that she broke the cycle too late. That's why she lost everything.
Something I noticed on my second play through was the correlation between Ellie and a character that Dina talks about called "Eugene"
Eugene joined the firefly's when he is a younger man and that's where he met Tommy and ended up in Jackson .A note from his ex wife that you can find in his bunker shows her begging him to come home to her and her daughter, telling Eugene to leave the firefly's, to let someone else save the world, let someone else get revenge on FEDRA, to pick family over revenge and war.
But Eugene didn't, he left with the firefly's, left his family behind, and it seems like he never saw them again, and Dina comments on how lonely Eugene was for the remainder for his life before he had a stroke and died.
In the end, Ellie also choice revenge over family, left her partner and child behind, and in the end lost everyone she loved and became very lonely.
I don't know if this was an intended idea put into the game or if I'm reading to much into it, but I thought it was interesting.
I've never thought about that and it makes sense, doesn't ellie say that she wants to go out like Eugene?
@@mrnickcuellar oh my God she does
@@mrnickcuellarshe does! She meant from old age but now it feels like foreshadowing 😭
Of course it was intentional smh
Sure but Eugene was a 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴 and as far as we know Ellie is not.
I never understood why Joel explained himself to Ellie while leaving out so many details at Salt Lake hospital. Like the fireflies took an unconscious Ellie and were ready to kill her to make this vaccine. Kinda silly because 20 years had gone by. What’s another day to wait before scrambling her brains? They also attacked Joel, a man who was performing cpr on a child. I get that they had to make conflict for the first games ending. But Ellie is a child and despite her potentially wanting to sacrifice herself, she is too young to make that choice, and the fireflies screwed up any possibility of making a vaccine due to their haste.
I just think Joel should’ve explained himself further. Yes he lied, and it’s bad. But it’s not like Ellie was consenting and the fireflies handled this responsibly. “Oh my! The child is here! Quickly before she wakes up, prep for surgery! Right away! Let’s not do any tests or ANYTHING! We’ve waited 20 years for this chance, let’s rush into it blindly for no reason!”
Joel didn’t fully explain or go into detail because 1, it wouldn’t flow well narratively and I’m sure Neil would say it would have ruined the pacing (even though the games pacing is already pretty bad), 2, it makes it so the writers have plausible deniability to make Joel out to be the person in the wrong and so Ellie is more justified in her choice to cut off her relationship with him. Then 3, it creates more drama in the story so when it’s finally revealed that the two did make up and were going to try to repair their relationship, it’s more of a surprise.
Realistically though, anyone would go into detail and explain the entire situation to Ellie for sure.
You make some
Good points. I also think about how in that moment, Joel had FINALLY been caught in his lie. And I’m sure we’ve all
Had moments in life when a little fib or lie or anything really got exposed about us or caught about something. And me personally I’ve been so razzled that I couldn’t speak. Like my brains going 1000 miles a second. So maybe Joel was experiencing that. Like having this huge confrontation with Ellie, getting the truth exposed must’ve been hard for him to speak in that moment. Idk I need to rewatch that scene. But yeah.
Great point. Abbys dad killed amungst a massacre of her friends . Possibly the only man able to make a Vax to save the world. It's a game of sides .
@@derekcampbell4209 Ultimately, why the characters make the choices they do in the story all comes down to what story the writers and Neil Druckmann wanted to tell.
The narrative choices made all were made for the express purpose of where they wanted the story to conclude even if the choices that characters make, the plot armour, the lack of detail Joel went into about what happened with the Fireflies and so on and so forth is all done to surprise Ellie and the audience by the end of the game, even though Ellie should logically already know her and Joel made up.
I suppose you could say her anger and rage drove her to push that to the back of her mind and thats completely fair but whats not fair is for her to forget about the scene of her and Joel making up until like (I can't recall the amount of time exactly) 6 months after the fact.
Most of my issues with the game stem from the fact that it was overly ambitious and tried to juggle too much rather than just focus on the core of what The Last of Us is, and even Neil knows what that is because he created it and talked about it in interviews and thats Joel and Ellies connection and relationship. So by making a game that isn't really about that (the stuff with that is the best part of the game) it doesn't feel like TLOU and suffers from bad writing that feels like a first draft.
100%!!!
The Ellie finding out the truth scene is so terribly written and is another example of the game conveniently having the characters make dumb decisions or leave out crucial information. There is absolutely no reason why Joel shouldn't have told Ellie exactly what happened.
"Ellie they attacked us. They kidnapped us. When they woke me up they held me a gun point and told me I couldn't see you and that I just had to leave you behind to die. They had you for HOURS, and decided they were going to kill you. You couldn't ask them questions or do more tests because they wouldn't let you, so I stopped them".
THAT is what happened. But nope, joel conveniently has to describe it in a way that leaves out crucial information and makes HIM look like the bad guy. It's so dumb
Well, Tommy does tell Maria to lock up Ellie so she doesn’t follow Tommy. He went in her stead in order to keep her safe. Makes sense to me. 🤷♂️
It wasn’t how much Joel meant to Ellie as he said, it’s how much Ellie meant to Joel which directed Tommy’s actions
@@Jay-ph7niEXACTLY.
@@Jay-ph7ni So whyd he make ellie go hunt her down at the end when he wasnt able to? Oopsie.
I just need someone to explain to me why he felt the need to convince ellie to kill abby. I personally can’t make sense of it and I’ve given up trying.
@@The1andonlysharpshooterTommy first lost his big brother right in front of him, then went on a revenge quest where he failed to eliminate the prime target and lost Jesse in that same process, barely survived, became crippled where he cant walk properly, he cant see with his right eye so he cant use his sniper skills anymore, then when they got back to Jackson Ellie swore to him that SHE would make Abby pay because Tommy can not. And on top of all that he and Maria broke up. That man has nothing left, he is a shell of himself
As much as I disliked the gaps in the story-telling - I thought it lent a palpable sense of realism to the characters' journeys. People do dumb things when they shouldn't. They trust people they shouldn't, when they shouldn't, and often do foolish things trying to protect loved ones - which backfire. This should be expected, not the exception.
Tommy leaving early and trying to spare Ellie the pain of revenge (whether you get revenge or not, there's always pain) makes sense from a human perspective. Joel trusting strangers he shouldn't - while in extremis - makes sense from a human perspective. Dina being more worried about her friend/lover's mental state and feelings more than she should have been about her baby makes sense from a human perspective. All of these things, coupled with the randomness of the depopulated world allowing people to cross paths unexpectedly, are things that could happen in real life - history is littered with such examples of being in the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time. All of theses 'wrong' decisions by our characters feel very believable from a human perspective.
Saying “people do dumb things in real life” doesn’t excuse bad writing. Joel standing in the middle of the room with people with guns is just bad writing because he would NEVER do that.
Very well said
@@THEONETRUEOVERLORDIt isn’t lessening the blame and being an excuse, it’s an actual reason. Trauma and grief has different unique responses and reactions for everyone. The writing showcases that. It isn’t an excuse to poor writing, it’s a valid defense and reasoning as to why the characters made the actions they chose.
Humans are illogical creatures.
Tommy leaving Ellie in Jackson makes a lot of sense to me. He didn’t want something to happen to her while seeking revenge. And on top of that if he did bring her along and something bad happened to her, he didn’t want that on his conscience. Losing his brother and his brothers “daughter” (again), both bc he couldn’t protect them well enough might have been too much for him. Also he knew he could take care of himself. Was it stupid to go alone? Yes. But he was for sure putting in work with his sniper.
Edit: I also want to add that with his state of mind and emotions at that moment, he likely wasn’t thinking rationally (which would have been go with Ellie so you can both take care of Abby. And you can have each others backs) he was likely thinking more emotionally, being that he couldn’t handle losing Ellie too
Right, it's in character for him. If you look at his behavior in the first game
I 100% agree, because Joel’s death is caused from the hospital massacre. Basically the reason Joel did what he did was to save/protect Ellie. If anything bad happened to Ellie if Tommy brought her with him, he would never be able to live with that. I really believe that this guy was hating on a lot of parts of the game for no reason as he claimed was just the writers were basically being lazy. Most of all the things he disliked actually made sense to have in the game, but that’s my opinion.
i still maintain that it would have been better pacing to START with Abby’s story up until she gets to the theater AND THEN swapping to Ellie’s story from the beginning. it would’ve made people a lot more sympathetic towards abby, and the shock of seeing the girl you just spent the first half of the story playing as murdering Joel would have been mind blowing
Starting day 1 beginning with Abby without the intro of even knowing Joel is dead…if we pick up from Abby day 1, then watch her into day 3. Then we cut to Ellie day 1..Jackson prologue comes at the end of day 3 after she kills Owen..that would be a tough sell but would also maybe play better. We would never know what and how Joel dies, maybe we know he does and eventually we know Abby does by the end of her day 3, but we cut right into Ellie and now we never had to sympathize with Abby, we are fresh on confusion and maybe rage with Ellie. We still don’t see Joel’s death full until the death scene which becomes a flashback, much like the other 2 Joel flashbacks. The farm and Santa Barbara can play out the same but it makes you really wonder if they changed out the order of play, not trying to make you sympathetic but instead made you go in full blind for a long time, not even knowing what either motive was for Abby or Ellie until later….I think it may have worked better. Or not because wtf am I to restructure a huge story but it’s interesting to think the story we have presented in a different order
It wouldn't fix everything but it is a significant improvement for pacing.
I would’ve been pissed if I spent the first half of the game not playing as Ellie
I've been saying something similar, that we needed to spend more time sympathizing with Abby BEFORE Joel's murder, even moving her Day 1 prologue nightmare of finding Jerry in the hospital would have helped the audience understand her character. But listening to the podcast and director commentary, it seemed like ND wanted to make the audience hate her character, and see if they could manage to understand her later.
They completely succeeded in the first part, and with the second for many players, but obviously that didn't work for everyone.
@@samniel They focused too much on trying to get a reaction. It backfired for a lot of people, took them out of the game, and made them completely disconnected from it, and not interested or invested in the story. Because even though people understood the character and her motivations, they didn't care and were more interested in laughing at the game than caring about the story. It's a major failure in terms of not just execution but setup. When people would rather pause the game and start ripping it apart and critiquing every flaw in the story or just no longer care and just play for the sake of it, you have failed in creating investment and interest. Trying to make people hate a character first will often result in a lack of investment in that character and the story as a whole as we have seen with this game. That was one major mistake, the game makes others just as bad.
they never pointed out how the good doctor and his people wanted to dissect the child’s brain without her consent for a _chance_ at a cure cuz it’d throw a wrench into their whole moral compass thing.
everyone knows that lol, the implication here is that even if it’s just a chance it could save the entire freaking world
@@sarahm3674 even for a chance they should still get consent
and that there is absolutely no guarantee that they know how to make a cure
The issue is that even if a cure were discovered, it's too late. The world has plunged into darkness, and many people have turned greedy, likely to exploit it for power over others. Joel probably foresaw this before his hospital rampage.
@@brafshsyt this, but also I saw another video that talked about how okay, let's say they make the vaccine, it works, it's perfect... Now what?
Like how are they going to organize the distribution, cause I don't think it would be easy or fair tbh
I have yet to play either games. I've watched others playthroughs/cutscenes. But...my inital reasoning for Ellie putting the knife to Levs' throat was to in a sense antagonize Abby to engage in fighting her, giving Ellie a reason to to go though with it.
Similar to Abby when she and the others found Joel, she didn’t really have a plan in place. And even then at that moment, she’s doubting her decisions but to her, she needed that quick fix.
Note how Ellie also says “I CAN’T let you leave” rather than “I WON’T”
@@DariusFrench6273 yes this! She is so blinded by her revenge. She has convinced herself that she CANT go on unless she avenges Joel
@@DariusFrench6273she knows revenge is silly but she thinks its the only thing to help her get over joel. In my opinion thats the only reason she does the latter part of the game.
@@Welcome2Niches it only took killing a hundred people, but Ellie finally learned how to forgive - and that's the important part.
@@jeronimo196 🤣we don't talk about those. It's about the friends we made (and lost), and lessons learned...not about the hundreds of innocents we slaughtered along the way. 😉 All jokes aside, the game teaches that those people aren't just nobodies, though. A huge part of the plot of part 2 is about consequences for those "side characters" we killed in the 1st game. Just like those characters, the people we are playing as are part of this rich, deep world with thousands of other stories going on at the same time. That's what makes me love TLOU 2 even more, that it ATTEMPTS to address exactly what we're joking about above. That said , it is a game that MUST be entertaining at the same time. There are inconcistencies in the themes the game seeks to discuss and the actions we take that aren't addressed (every time) along the way. IT's just a nature of this being an action game; it doesn't make the larger themes and broader discussions the game evokes all moot. On that note, we're probably gonna get attacked by some Rattler groupie in part 3 in a way that will rock us to our core lol.
Great video but… you said it was bad writing that Ellie asks why she’s never met another immune. In the first game, Joel told her that there were dozens of others like her.
I think her asking Joel that, was supposed to be rhetorical
I didn't say it was bad writing. I said many people say it is, but I disagree with them.
Joel was lying. He didn't know.
Everyone criticizing these game for story, writing, execution etc. But the one thing which no one criticize is the music.
Like man its too damnnn GOOOD. Like i dont think that anyone who had played or watch this game being played have anything to criticize its music.
Gustavo Santaolalla respect 🫡🫡🫡
Just those few notes with the guitar of the trailer gives me goosebumps
JJ is Jessie Joel not Jessie Jr. per Neil
That's nice to know actually
Why would Dina name her child "Joel"?
@@miller-joel why the fuck wouldn’t she? Because it’s in memory of the passing of her significant others “father” people use commemorative names all the time
@@loganmapes2307 Uh...because she didn't have any connection to Joel? Duh.
@@miller-joel you’re an idiot.
I would like to point out a little flaw about this whole revenge story- the vast trail of dead bodies Abby and Ellie leave behind... well, im sure they have family and friends too, who also might be upset by losing their loved ones
honestly, i think that applies to the idea of revenge. those people, while unnamed, probably had people they cared about and people that cared for them. it shows how revenge is never black and white nor does it only ever involve the people wanting/escaping revenge. it’s a cycle and we only saw ellie break it
Also the fact that revenge cycle is broken when you just kill the avenger. Its philosophy is about as deep as a puddle. Just like the batman not killing people quote "KIll a murderer, and the number of murderers stay the same" Then kill two murderers dumbass lol.
And if you listen to director's commentary, Neil Druckmann points out quite a lot that Ellie becomes ruthless and kills without thinking. And that was a big point they made in TLOU2. Ellie's search for revenge takes away all her humanity, so she doesn't care how long the trail of bodies are, all she wants is revenge. Same goes for Abby until she meets Lev.
Quick correction for the Epilogue when Ellie returns to the abandoned farmhouse.
It’s subtle & easily missable, but the scene starts where u can see Ellie wearing Dina’s bracelet. Signifying that she already has returned to Jackson and to JJ& Dina. She’s basically leaving the guitar behind to move on. So it’s not as bleak as most would think.
But great analysis, I enjoyed this video & gave me even more perspective on the game as a whole. So thank you
I think my issue with the game comes down to rhe whole "ending the cycle of revenge" point just not working for me. The amount of people Ellie and Abby kill along the journey and I'm supposed to think that the cycle is over because Ellie spared the person she actually wants to kill? Who can tell me that the next game the child of another random npc (that's what the doctor was in the first game, pretty much) won't show up to kill either Ellie or Abby as revenge?
Idk, it was just a bit too much for me to believe. It's a story that I don't think fits an action game. It will work better in the series for sure.
ETA: I do like the game guys, I just didn't enjoy the story all that much but that's fine, the game was still pretty solid for me
exactly so!
I completely agree.
The theme of the cycle of revenge and empathy is so overdone in all mediums, and I never got why they thought that's such a strong selling point with this particular story/sequel. As if it hasn't been done before? It left it empty, by the ending because of it 😢
@@isabella_annamarie but the fans of the game don't want to hear this because they exert that the story was more nuance than that. Like what nuance? It's the same story with different characters, but what differs here is that the characters don't have this profound effect on many of us. These characters were written in a way to force an empathic bond with the audience, but in the end the message overstayed its welcome, and you are left with a complete waste of money and time for an experience done much better elsewhere.
Imagine if that WLF girl playing a PSP had a boyfriend, and came to find ellie for revenge
It’s also not believable for a setting like this
Knowing what happens in the game makes the original teaser trailer feel so haunting.
Tommy leaving Ellie behind does kinds make sense to me. If Ellie died going out to avenge Joel, then everything Joel did since meeting Ellie was for nothing. All the fireflies he killed (Tommy was a firefly once too) and all of the emotional progress to becoming a better person Joel made as a result of taking care of Ellie would be gone in the wind.
He didn't want to risk that and so instead, he went himself.
I would point out during Abbys first section before she meets jole during the snow storm she finds their tracs and follows them so I kinda do nto get how it is contrived to think some one hunting some one would find them when they leave tracks.
Yeah, she's specifically looking for them and following tracks. I think maybe they could have fixed this by having one of Abbys crew find one of the notes that the Jackson patrols leave in their towers, documenting their patrols. They then learn that Joel is likely to be patrolling near the ski resort area? It's a bit contrived as-is, but it's not particularly bad.
@@bort118 Actually Owen pointed her in the direction of the outpost they went to, it's why when she found those tracks she was gonna follow them. I really feel like the horde made things contrived quite a bit when they didn't need to be.
1. Well, for one, how could she have known they were specifically Joel's tracks? Joel and Tommy weren't the only one that went out on patrol. Many number of people did.
2. It's kinda difficult to continue following tracks when you're getting chased by a massive horde of infected! She was being chased by many infected and was running in a random direction to get away. She just so happens to be going the direction of Joel's path. How is that not contrived?
@@Kira_Official_ She didn’t she was just following them to see where they led and if Joel and Tommy might be in the patrol that’s heading to a outpost in the general direction she was heading in. Yes, that’s the issue I have with it, it is still quite a bit contrived and would be one of the bigger problems if the existence of the horde and their migration wasn’t explained in Ellie Day 2.
True, contrivances really never bother me, but there are other things about this story that I hate.
Hard disagree for Joel deserving death, fireflys are incompetent and unable to actually do Anything other than terrorise, whos to say they wouldnt fuck it all up and kill her for no reason, as well, they were super hostile and shady. They werent gunna be able to save the world, as well they wanted to use the Cure as a chip agist fedra, they were just shitty and didnt deserve mercy, and finally, Joel was no worse than anyone else in the wastes. Cannibals, rapists, thieves, murderers of all kind, Joel wasnt some evil dude who deserved death, he literally was just like everyone else. Buy that logic, ALMOST ALL people in this universe deserve a slow death. The wlf soldiers are also FAR WORSE than joel and anyone at jackson. Its really annoying to hear ppl go, "joel was a bad dude who deserved what he got" he was just staying alive the only way anyone could. He is FULLY justified in what he did
exactly. HOW IS IT POSSIBLE THAT NOBODY THINK OF THIS????
For real. I always ask, “if it was your daughter on that hospital bed, would you still let them go through with the procedure?” Because that’s what it was. Also, if you look at various collectibles from the hospital, you learn that the surgery has a 90% failure rate, and have tried the exact same thing with other immune people and FAILED. Twenty years into the apocalypse, in a filthy operating room, a group of resistance fighters and a ragtag team of doctors are gonna somehow save the world? Let’s say that somehow, they actually managed to get a vaccine out of it; how the Hell are they gonna mass produce it? People were shooting unarmed people in the streets with vehicle mounted machine guns for food and clothes, and you’re telling me ANYBODY has the resources to mass produce a medical treatment? Get the fuck out of here. The biggest threat throughout the game were other people trying to loot your corpse, for things you had gotten from rooms full of infected that you never had to go into. Indeed, Joel was absolutely justified in saving Ellie. He only killed people who stood in his way.
He doesn’t deserve it for the doctor, he deserves it for literally every single thing bad thing he’s done before and afterwards that. Joel not being any worse than anyone else doesn’t change the fact that he was murderer who had little to no care for other people until Ellie.
I know I'm a month late, but I had to throw in, with a casual knowledge of immunology I know that you can't vaccinate a mushroom. That's not how medicine works. We don't risk children to make something that can't exist. He was right. There was no cure.
I disagree that Ellie making the right choice by sparing Abby was "rewarded" by losing Dina and JJ. She lost them by making the wrong choice to pursue Abby instead of letting it go. Sparing her was Ellie finally learning her lesson
Absolutely. You get it. What you just wrote is pretty much exactly what the story’s writers were going for - they explicitly said as much during the cutscene commentaries during a playthrough of the Remastered game.
It makes no sense as a story.
She cuts down everyone to get to Abby to have a fist fight, finally gets her where she’s wanted her for so long, and in a moment of reflection, says “na, never mind”
(btw knows nothing of her back story, she’s just some random ass firefly to her). It’s nonsense.
@@jhulgan85by doing this whole "what's one more death?" thing, you're reaching the same conclusion that Ellie reaches on the beach: there's no real good reason for Ellie to kill Abby. Ellie isn't even doing it for Joel anymore, and it won't bring her any peace of mind. If the only justification you can think of is "well I've done this thing for so long so I can't stop now," then ironically, you've reached the point where you need to stop and walk away. Ellie walked away and has a chance to just go about life on her terms, which she hasn't been able to do until now.
@@tristin5668
They did little to show Ellie struggling with the idea of killing Abby up to that point.
Her gay lesson 😂
They need to do a DLC that shows Tommy's 3 days in Seattle (kinda like Left Behind in Part 1)
I was so disappointed when they made Part 2 for PS5 and it didn't have it
Oh man, I’d love to play Tommy sniping at Abby on the bridge. While they successfully made me empathize with Abby to an extent, I hated Manny the whole time. He spit on a dead man just to add more disrespect, like was taking his life not enough? Him dying was my favorite scene when playing as Abby, so I’d love to pull the trigger on that bastard myself.
We needed to see that. We see how devastated and torn Ellie was throughout her time in Seattle. But no one ever thinks about Tommy. How was Tommy feeling? Was he thinking about his brother and the good old days before the outbreak, and Sara. How far they had come as survivors and their journey to Jackson. Tommy needed more love man. We could have literally seen some pre outbreak flashbacks with Tommy and Joel or something along those lines, give Troy Baker a reason to bring that character back.
@@GerryLo5198 it would be cool to experience that but its unecessary by the end of the game. We know what it meant to Tommy. He left everything to. We also see what its done to him and what Ellie has to look forward to if she cant move past it.
@@Welcome2Niches the game has a bunch of fluff so why not add a little bit more
i think they’re doing that in the tv show adaptation
Fun fact the diary entry that is seen at 44:45 on the right side is the lyrics of a song called "The Guardian" by Shawn James :)
Everyone loves to say Joel had to face "consequences" for killing so many people, but they don't recognize he killed to survive and to protect his own. Not for revenge or because he enjoyed it. So he should be punished for being good at surviving? For keeping Ellie alive crossing the country for a whole year? For killing soldiers, hunters, and cannibals, who were more than happy to shoot first?
And why don't the Fireflies have to face "consequences" for trying to kill Ellie? Didn't they have it coming?
Ellie wanted to die, she was ready to die for a cause. No one says the Fireflies are perfect, but Joel killed many innocent people for a very selfish reason- one even ellie didn’t agree with. Yes, he says “he saved her” but she didn’t want saving and that’s what makes him so selfish. As Ellie put it in part 1 “everything we’ve been through, everything I’ve done, It can’t be for nothing”. Joel knew what she wanted.
@@seraphitella2466 Completely wrong. Not everyone with survivor's guilt wants to die.
Ellie and Joel talk about how the Fireflies might get a "cure" from her, and he says they will probably take a blood sample. There's no talk whatsoever about dying for it. In fact, they are making plans for the future. Ellie says after they are done, they can go wherever Joel wants. And she wants to learn to swim and play the guitar.
That actually happens in the game. Those are the word written. Not some guess or supposition.
Ellie's "cause" at 14 might not be her cause at 19 or 29. Her mother, Riley, Joel, they ALL tell her to keep fighting and find a true purpose in life. Which is impossible to do if she's dead.
Joel didn't kill one innocent person in the entire game. There's speculation about his days with Tommy shortly after the collapse, and he says he's ambushed people, but we have zero factual data beyond that.
Marlene was the selfish one for kicking Joel out of the hospital and keeping Ellie unconscious. She's the one who removed everyone's choices. Not Joel.
When Ellie says "it can't be for nothing" she is NOT saying she wants to die. They are almost at the hospital, and she wants to complete the journey and give the "cure" a chance. NOT the same thing at all as dying for it. She just don't want to turn around and never find out if she could have made a difference. And if Joel "knew" there was a ghost of a chance she could die, he would never allow her anywhere near that hospital in the first place.
Ellie had plenty of reasons to question the Fireflies and the certainty of the "cure." If she "sacrificed" herself without asking any questions, she would obviously not be in any mental or emotional condition to make that decision in the first place. And Marlene was not going to let her ask any questions or make any choices.
"I was supposed to die at that hospital" is a completely ret*rded retcon in "part 2." They did NOT cross the country and save each other's lives multiple times just so that Ellie could die at that hospital.
Least of all, for a fantasy "cure" that would NEVER have happened, and would not have "cured" anything or anyone. The fantasy "cure" would not make the soldiers, hunters, Fireflies, cannibals, runners, clickers, stalkers, bloaters disappear and magically restore civilization.
I disagree, it’s HEAVILY implied that Joel is/was a horrible person and became so after losing his girl. he is a direct contrast to Tommy, I’m pretty sure Tommy comments on how they could’ve survived without killing innocent people “we just weren’t any good at it” not arguing for fictional karma but Joel without a doubt had it coming, charming and lovable but brutally bitter and selfish
@@ightbuddy3055 "heavily implied" 🤣
@@miller-joel the amount of fallacies in this one comment is crazy lmao
When Ellie asks the question why she hasn't seen anyone else who is immune, it's because in the first game, Joel tells her there were more like her and they didn't need her anymore. 18:50
In the commentary for the game Neil mentions the trailer lie was a mistake and that he regrets doing it. Also, your video was unlucky to come out a few days before the Grounded II documentary about the making of the game.
After watching Grounded II, I don’t think a great deal has changed for me to be honest. Maybe more understanding of the decision behind why they went for this kind of story, but that’s probably it.
It makes perfect sense why Tommy left Ellie behind. Joel murdered all those people to save Ellie, and he died for it. Joel gave his life to make sure Ellie would live. Tommy didn't want to risk the life of Ellie. If Tommy let Ellie go out and get killed, then Joel died for nothing. Tommy made it his responsibility to do his best to make sure Ellie survived for Joel.
My girlfriend really likes the last of us season 1 and i am not ready for her to find out what happens in the second game
pedro pascal is always getting his head bashed in some ways LOL
It won’t be written as bad in the show probably
@@sandr921 mmmh, I doubt it, the writers insist they did a great job with the game
Don't watch it then; what's the problem?
Just leave it at the first season, the second one is like a pretentious hyper depressing misery p0rn story, at least if they stay true to the game.
Nothing worth watching.
The whole “you killed my father” revenge plot would have helped me like Abby more if she didn’t torture Joel for multiple hours before killing him, that lost any hope I had for ever liking Abby.
Ellie also tortured Nora, but because it’s a character you do not care for, it’s okay? You don’t have to like Abby, the game only wants you to understand her perspective I believe, but throughout the game you can clearly see how she struggles with what she did to Joel. Right after killing him, she doesn’t look relieved as she’d expected. Then in her 3 seattle days, you see her continuously have nightmares about her father still - because she knows killing Joel didn’t fix anything. It is only when she finds a new purpose in life (Yara & Lev) that she starts to move on from her trauma
@@seraphitella2466
Ellie tortured Nora and was given a bad ending by the devs
Abby tortured joel and was given the happy ending by the devs
Thats another reason people hate this game, despite them doing the same thing, the npc that caused this entire game to happen gets the good ending, meanwhile the character that we actually cared about gets the bad one
If someone killed your dad or someone you cared for greatly and they were in front of you not remorseful at all, you would probably do the exact same thing. I think that’s what a lot of people miss
@@MaykonDourado didnt she lose like all her friends?
@@Cocojonut-fp8ek yeah, these people hate the story so much that they suddenly 'forget' things like that so it seems worse. Not to mention the genuine not just mental torture Abby endured on that pole. Doesn't seem happy to me in the slightest
My biggest issue with the theme and message of the story is the environment of the world. You’re in a post apocalyptic world, filled with not only infected zombies, but gangs of savage people doing anything to survive and literally militias. Your in a world were you’ve witnessed your closest friends and families die, and you’ve been forced to do some of the most messed up stuffs. What’s to stop some randoms ass Npc that Abby or any other character killed from coming back and continuing this “cycle of revenge” that the game so desperately wants to villanize. I don’t think this was the game for this message
a random ass npc can't come up to take "revenge" cuz they wouldn't be from a big group& instead have to worry but protecting them in this stupid world everyday. Abby or Ellie were able to do that cuz there were in a position of some power like fireflies, military, wfg etc.
Exactly. A universe such as the last of us can only have so much room for morality in its cycle of writing
Thank You!!!! I've said this many times. A world like this where there will always be violence because it's a post apocalyptic world where infected roam and people are out for themselves isn't a good place for this kind of themes. This was a story that didn't need to be told.
This is mostly spot-on! The first game shows us, in no uncertain terms, that violence is a terrible but mandatory way for people to survive in this world. The game basically screams this at you for the entire runtime! Joel's propensity for violence, and apathy towards his victims, is why he lasted as long as he did and why he was the perfect protector/father figure for Ellie to survive in this world. There are so many situations where they are forced into kill-or-be-killed scenarios just because they're in the wrong place at the wrong time. The alternative, being a pacifist, just means torture, death or infection for you or your companions. What were they meant to do when ambushed in Pittsburgh? Just surrender? They'd be dead in seconds!
If you're paying attention, Part 1 already talked about the violence! It showed the consequences of killing during the winter chapters, and was handled with so much more nuance. It didn't force a moral judgement, it let you decide for yourself whether Joel and Ellie's actions were justified or not. To tag a dogmatically moralistic "cycle of violence" theme onto a world this brutal and unforgiving is a ridiculous misunderstanding of the universe and characters they themselves created.
@@Batch00 You put this better into words then I ever could!! I don’t even mind that they killed Joel, I just feel like his death and the writing of the game could be executed way better
17:30 I thought Joel would pop up in Ellie's head for the rest of the game like Joker in Arkaham Knight
Can confirm, you do NOT have enough to upgrade everything if you explore every room as I've always done this and it's waaay off enough
Recently got a PS5 (was on pc after ps3) I absolutely loved TLOU and recently played TLOU2 and I was quite sad at how Joel went out but couldn’t blame Abby for feeling like that.
I'll keep it real and say that while I disagree with a lot of the criticisms against the writing of the game, I genuinely love the story through and through and it's one of the most impressive I've ever seen across any medium but TBH it's my favourite game of all time, so there may be some bias. With that said though, this was a really well made video and I really appreciate that you're bringing a lot more to the stage than the typical criticisms this game gets.
Awesome video, was very surprised to see you have under 5K subs.
Can I ask you why and if you read much?
The developers made Dina pregnant so that there would be a good reason for her to stay at the theater, and Ellie could continue her vendetta alone.
17:34
To be fair ND has said that they regret the switchout, it was apparently done to "get back" at the amount of leaks they were dealing with.
I have some big plot issues with this game, the convenience of the horde pushing everyone in the right direction and right time, Jesse leaving Dina alone in an unsecured base to go with Ellie to find Tommy, Mel and Owen's confrontation with Ellie regarding the pregnancy, the tension and suspense of Ellie's POV being completely reset, 1-2 moments involving the Dina-Ellie-Jesse love triangle which I didn't like, Yara teleporting to Abby to save her from Tommy, and stuff like that. However, from a more story-based perspective from the 2 main characters in this one I fairly liked it. Tommy leaving Ellie and wanting her locked up makes sense because he's trying to protect her while that darker side of him from his Firefly days and when he and Joel were hunters has been brought to the forefront basically.
There are pieces of context in several areas of this game and even the last game that support the softening of Joel. For example, in the last game after fighting alongside Henry and putting his trust in Henry (also due to him having a younger brother) he slept alongside them once they were safe. The game also makes it clear that Joel has been put into the patrol position which due to the reliability and caring Haven project as shown in a paper from Ellie Day 2 alongside those patrol notebooks and other context clues/dialogue would support his softening. It's also important to acknowledge that Tommy was trying to establish trust with Abby in that lodge and that even if Joel said nothing she would've known anyways. Ellie's journey in Ellie's POV up to Day 3 may make the game come off as just a revenge story (reminiscing memories hint at that) but Abby's perspective recontextualizes the story into something else and in the epilogue section with Ellie this is clearly not just a revenge story anymore, there's more driving her to this point than that. The game is not trying to turn Ellie into a villain from my perspective, it is just showing Ellie going down a path of false justice with her obsession being reinforced by the memories, while Abby has already gone down that path and she's trying to come back from that by realizing her wrongs and mindset and trying to change it but fails until Lev reminds her of what's important and what she's been trying to accomplish. (Pure Survivors in this world)
Yes, I will admit that the majority of the side-characters don't have as much character to them as the characters from Part I and Left Behind and I admit that the flow of the plot with certain contrivances and a few pieces of plot armor are indeed messy, but I just don't think the story is absolutely terrible like a lot of people say. I don't think it's as good as Part I and the plot construction is definitely weaker, but I just can't say that it's bad in my opinion. 7/10
I see what you mean about how the writers implemented Joel's death but i don't think its lazy writing. I think they were trying to make his death have the biggest and most sudden impact possible. I think they succeeded and i think it worked perfectly. Joel's death was devastating to me as a long time player and fan and it hit me fast and hard, very hard. I don't think they could have brought that across much better. I really enjoyed the video thanks
Noone upset at all that joel didn’t describe what happened at all to ellie, just told her “yea i killed them because they wanted to kill you.”
not…
“They knocked me out trying to save you from drowning, put a gun to my head and told me you needed to die, lied to me saying there wasn’t any other way and didn’t want to at-least humor the person who brought ellie DAYS of travel to the base safely by testing on you… not just outright kill you in a haphazard non-guaranteed way of MAYBE getting a cure. Not to mention they didn’t ask you , they purposely kept you unconscious so they didn’t possibly have to contest a child maybe valuing their life more then a low chance cure? A cure that a terrorist group (with a history with shitty choices and decision) may monopolize on the surviving humans of the world??. I just called them on their flawed decision and they threatened to kill me for caring about your wellbeing.”
If he even said ANY of those points ellie wouldn’t just idk… ice him out? Let alone the narrative aspect of killing him so early and ruining the rest of the game for people who wanted tlou2 to be a sequel and a focus on idk… the relationship of ellie and joel? the WHOLE point of the first game? They set up abby so poorly and the back and forth narrative could’ve been done so much better. Im so upset and i hope the movie series change up joels passing or ill never forgive Naughty Dog for crippling this franchise like this
I the first game there is a dialogue in which ellie says that it is stupid to sacrifice few people to save the majority.... But in the second part she completely changes reasoning
@@gaia7240 Typical retconning of the characters to help fit in the stupid plot.
@@gaia7240 Oh my god there is no way you're this thick. The entire plot of the story, literally the whole plot, revolves around how Ellie's search for revenge turns her into a monster and changes everything about her. That's the exact contrast the game is looking to create, and clearly does. In the first game, Ellie is a 14 year old girl who still shows a lot of empathy and is still quite moral considering the world she lives in whilst in TLOU2 she's the opposite. Hence why she no longer agrees or thinks that it is "stupid to sacrifice a few people to save the majority" which by the way doesn't make any sense for the first game and I don't think she said that so I am guessing you meant to say the opposite
Neil Druckmann talks about this in directors commentary actually. It's so much more powerful because Joel doesn't even need to say the words. Ellie knew the truth the whole time and began to resent Joel which we see in the flashback where they go through the hotel for guitar strings. So when Joel said "Making a cure would've killed you", it shows that Ellie knows exactly what he means and has known for a very long time. It just hurt so much more when Joel confirmed it
@@jengooo112 yeah but she goes on revenge already thinking like that, so it doesn't make any sense
She has ptsd, lost her fingers and also lost dina and it was all for nothing! I just know they're gonna set abby and that bald kid up for the 3rd game. Goodluck with that.
Another terrific video! All of your points were valid, including pointing out Lev's shoes. I think it is okay to not have a clear conclusion on how to feel about The Last of Us Part 2. It had indeed created multiple debates and discussions. I am not just looking forward to seeing how HBO will adapt this divisive chapter but also the upcoming behind-the-scenes documentary on this game.
Season 2 is gonna be a wild ride one way or another. The behind the scenes for Part II is gonna be must watch for sure.
I think the best thing about the final flashback was that it gave new context we lacked to Ellie's reasoning behind her revenge quest. If you went into this game blind, you would think Ellie wants to take revenge because, despite being on bad terms, she loves Joel, and while that is true, there is also the fact that they just sort of reconciled the night before, and she agreed to try to forgive Joel, because she probably has been missing Joel for the last 2 years as much as he has been missing her, but then Abby took that opportunity from her before she even had the chance to make anything of it. I honestly really like that.
When I got to Abby’s mission about looking for the Fireflies with Lev I was incredibly frustrated by one of the lines. The line was “You’re always helpful.” After I heard that I knew that the writers thought Abby was done with her character progression and that her story was concluded. The last thing that happens to move her character progression was having Mel tell her that she’s a piece of shit and having Abby cry over it before Yarah tells her she is not which Abby then denies because she knows it’s true. On the island the only thing that changes about her is that her motivation for helping Lev is solidified when she sees Lev who lost his family and sees how it nearly breaks him before she snaps him back and states that he is her people and that’s apparently it.
This doesn’t work for me at all as she doesn’t do much. She just accepts that in general her actions are bad. To me this character is nearly irredeemable and I say that while thinking that killing Joel is one of her more justifiable actions. On the first mission you have with her she has 2 conversations that make her and to an extent Manny horrible people to me (there’s also that “good” scene with Dina).
The first one is with Mel in which she asks Abby how she feels about killing Joel and how she feels about killing seraphite children. For the first one she simply states that she can’t believe how awful Joel’s actions were and made it sound like she would gladly have beaten him down for longer (but that last bit is just my interpretation). That tells me that even trying to see anything wrong in her actions is alien to her. Her answer to the second question has her saying that the blood of children she kills is on their hands because even if being there is not their fault it’s not hers either which is awful. The conversation with Manny is simply about how they would love to torture prisoners more and I think Manny also compliments something about her torture or her killing but maybe that’s in a different conversation.
These just show me how awful Abby is on the regular and she doesn’t ever think of questioning it. With the lack of the conclusion to her redemption I think this game should’ve gone one of two ways. The first is to have Abby knowing that she’s awful and beg for her life only so that she can keep Lev’s life from spiraling the way hers did. Everyone in these games is very traumatized but Lev’s trauma occurred in a way that would easily lead to self-loathing and giving up as he has no one to rely on while being a child and the deaths of his mom and sister can easily blamed on himself for shaving and going back to the island. Abby is the last person he has left and if Ellie took her life Lev wouldn’t last long nor would he go with Ellie either.
The second is to give the story a small theme revolving around excuses and self delusions. The seraphites have a religion that has no violence and people still follow it while being in a war and while making a kid their apostate which must be killed. At this point the religion is just something they use to put their faith into and something they change to moralize their actions. In the same way that Abby uses weird loops of logic like “it doesn’t matter if it’s not the kids’ fault because it’s not mine either”. The same way that Ellie sees through Joel’s attempts to distance himself from her in the first game Lev should see through Abby’s excuses and make her see that everyone is accountable for their actions. This could lead to an end to Abby’s redemption in which she can actually apologize for all of her actions even those not related to Ellie. It could also lead to Ellie’s redemption if he makes her see that revenge isn’t good and begs her not to fall into the habit of using the same delusions everyone else does.
Either way I don’t think this game should have a final boss with Abby and it especially shouldn’t have a conclusion in which the characters DON’T TALK! With the intentions, mannerisms, and information Ellie goes to Abby with in the ending, killing her would align with the actions of a SAINT. She also enters the beach saying “Abbyabbyabbyabby” like a horror movie villain. With a line like “we left you live and you wasted it” killing both Abby and Lev would seem like things Ellie would find as reasonable at this point (even if she might puke about Lev afterwards). This is also the only point in which the circle of revenge would end as neither of them have any friends left to go after Ellie.
Something needed to happen to keep her from killing them. She is also injured and tired so it doesn't make sense for her to want a fist fight. The only thing Abby or Lev should be able to do at this point is beg.
IDK why you think Ellie wouldn't threaten Lev as the number of people you kill in this game is huge and Lev is a kid who is used to war and gun fighting. A bunch of Ellie's kills aren't even necessary either like the rattler she had on the floor. Ellie is a full blown murderer at this point. I also don't think Mel is a bad person as the only fighting we see her do is because of a surprise horse attack and beside that she only does safe medical work. When held at gun point she doesn’t seem to do well under pressure either which makes me think she doesn’t get involved in too much combat and only wants to help through being a medic. Owen seems like a worse person to me as when they’re held at gun point he does know what’s going on and says that answering Ellie’s question will get them killed and when Mel is about to do that he stops her only to save Abby and never says anything to save Mel like saying she’s pregnant or that she’s just a medic. This is even though Mel is the one who believes Owen, wants to accompany him to find the fireflies, and HOLDS HIS CHILD instead of calling him stupid. Lastly, from someone who often misses the point of certain things the last memory had me laughing my ass off. Ellie wants to forgive Joel and he’s all like “I don’t think that’s the right word because if the lord gave me a second chance at that day I would do it all over again”. I knew that wasn’t the point but it made that my favorite scene in either game.
Personally, I don't think that the concept of switching perspectives was too ambitious for a video game. The story of the game could be amazing if they were willing to make the game longer and get rid of some coincidences. And if they were to redo the timeline and make it more linear, like for example if we were to play all those flashbacks before Joel's death we as the players would have been even more eager to do the things we do with Ellie. Also, we could've played for Abby from the beginning, getting to know her and maybe finding a liking to her, we could have longer "flashbacks" so we could play with her and get to know her rather than be crushed when her father would die (nice parallel to Sara, before she would kill Joel). After playing as young Abby we would start the game with young Ellie. We would do all of her flashback parts before playing the actual start of the game. The concept, adventure, and story aspect of the game would be a proper sequel to the first game. Only if they would put it together differently and didn't rely on coincidence.
Manny's dad was most likely also a firefly. We're introduced to him shortly after Abbie's half of the game gets underway. While it's not explicitly stated, I think in all likelihood he was the one who know about Tommy's whereabouts. We also don't know how many other fireflies joined the WLF - any number of them could have known Tommy. So I don't think this was lazy writing. I actually think it was carefully thought through.
Calling this a “revenge” story is oversimplifying the plot. It’s about grief; both women’s stories are parallel in losing their father’s from murder. Both women lack healthy coping mechanisms to process their grief and all stages associated. It’s much more than “revenge”
It's not though.
@@jordanthompson8268it very much is
@jordanthompson8268 of course it is. Just what he said
@ It's not that deep.
Dina is pregnant to give Ellie a reason to be alone in combat sections
19:51 Ellie asking why she hasn’t ran into other people who are immune is a super important question. It isn’t “bad writing” (a phrase used way too often to describe writing folks don’t understand). Part of Joel’s original lie is that the Fireflies have dozens of immune people to work with, but it doesn’t matter - they can’t make a cure.
Ellie knows he’s lied, but she loves him, has crawled through all kinds of traumatic events with him-she doesn’t want to believe he’s lied. This is her picking his lie apart as gently as she can. Not because she’s scared of Joel, but because she’s scared of the truth.
It isn’t bad writing. It’s actually necessary writing.
This makes sense
Been replaying it recently, and it's definitely grown on me a lot
Same, playing it for a second time rn and I’ve enjoyed it more then my first play through
nope
🤢🤮 "Been eating this dogshit recently, and it's definitely grown on me a lot."
@@Clown_the_Clownlet people have fun
I always loved the gameplay but the story itself i dont think i can ever enjoy
In trailer it was supposed to be PTSD in Ellie's mind making her see joel
Saying Joel deserved to die in worl like the last of us is so stupid. This is a world that is unfair there are no "good" guys everyone has killed and done messed up things, having fireflies as the good guys doesn't make sense since in the first game it was implied they weren't all that good of a faction. Also sending an entire squad to hunt one dude is so stupid even in an apocalypse. And don't get me started on thepregnant lady on the battlefield.
I think of the game as not about revenge but about forgiveness, as in the end they let eachother go, nkt to say there is no feeling of revenge
nice symbolism if only they didnt destroy our sanity and f'ed over the players, forcing them to emphasize with a person they totally didnt give a F and wanted dead so bad. that's a mess we were denied of a choice in the ending. the symbolism might leave a tear in the weak minded that settles for peace and kisses, but the execution was total manipulation of our wants thus making the end result flawed in every way imaginable.
@@RirimoYTtotally disagree
Agree that this is not a perfect game by any means lol However, a lot of the character and character decision making critiques are what I think makes the characters real. People have hypocritical behavior in real life. Ragging on them for being hypocritical makes that a biased take against those characters. After Ellie murders a pregnant woman and reconnects with Tommy (who could have been presumed dead at that time) In a whirlwind of emotional events-I’m sure the last thing she would have been thinking about is the map she didn’t realize she dropped during a fight. I agreed with many of the takes in the beginning of this video but as it went on, a lot of the them did not feel grounded in the environment of the story and just felt very birds eye view of “why did the writers do that.” I think it’s meant to be a bit messy.
That is not how characters should work and it's literally a sign of bad or lazy writing, you need to give a reason to why a character does that or the viewer won't feel connected to it and just label it as a foolish character
Tommy not taking Ellie makes sense, for the most part. Tommy did not go on the journey with Ellie that Joel did. He hasn’t seen how capable she is. He’s heard stories of it, sure, but he hasn’t witnessed it. And Joel has been greatly limiting her ability to be a scout and to use many of the skills she’s developed. Ellie, though 18, is still just a kid to Tommy. This is *his* brother and *his* mission. He’s trying to process the whole thing, attempting to hold on to the new life he’s been living, but the old life wins out and he goes. That being said, if he showed up at Ellie’s door and said, “Let’s go,” it would have also worked.
Love how you approached this retrospective. You dunked on it when it was deserved, but gave it praise when it was deserved. I don't know why people insist on loving or hating the game with no grey area. This game is more complex than a blanket statement opinion implies. Amazing video man!
I still find it weird when people say the game “manipulates” the player into liking Abby. The game “manipulates” literally every perception you have of every single character on screen because it’s a piece of fictional media. If the game was only ever told from Abby’s point of view, and you never played as Ellie at all or knew who she was, you’d be on Abby’s side 100%.
It’s not manipulative, it’s just called introducing a new character that achieves the emotions the developers wanted you to feel. Like ALL media does.
All media is meant to ellicit emotions.
People complaning about manipulation are in a sense wrong that all media is built on manipulating the audience.
But we shouldn't be taking complaints at surface level and assume that's all their worth, that's of no use to anyone instead we should be digging for the reason behind why people feel the game is 'manipulative'.
That isn't too difficult as this isn't a new phenomenon, people feel its manipulative because its too overt and on the nose in attempting to ellicit emotions from the player something that really isn't that rare in stories.
In the same manner a war film can feel overt for having the side character with no real scenes before tell everyone about how they have a family waiting for them minutes before dying.
I personally feel that the conflict between Ellie and Joel are pretty poorly understood by the writer's, They could have made the entire game on this theme even without having to introduce a new character to invoke a new theme, Cycle of violence in a post apocalyptic world is befitting theme for a game like tlou2 but it seemed so forced to facilitate that particular theme where as the predecessor exceeded our assumptions about post apocalyptic, Joel's demise was heavily foreshadowed and expected but the emphasises on theme of cycle of violence doesn't fit well in the world of last of us, The parallel of Abby and lev was just so empty in all aspects of the game, Jackson town was wasted in the entire game, They could've literally had someone like abby living in Jackson then taking out Joel therefore creating tension amongst the people, Ellie immunity being revealed to people of Jackson could have got a intriguing plot or search for the truth from Ellie perspective instead of seeking revenge. This is just my opinion if anyone actually made all the through this thanks
About Joel supposedly not being careful enough with the salt lake crew. While i think being safe in Jackson for 4 years definitely plays into it, its not the entire explanation.
If you look at that scene carefully you can notice that pretty much the whole time tommy is taking lead. He is almost always running in front, he Introduces them first, tells the where to go, and Joel waits for Tommy's confirmation before going back to Abby's crew.
When they get there, Tommy is the one who is initially warm towards them, asking how they're doing, asking for supplies for their horses, introducing Joel again, and even inviting them back to Jackson. This all makes sense for Tommy's character, he acts based on honor, wants to help people and overall acts as a hero.
the only things joel actually says here is telling them they will leave as soon as they can and questioning why they are in the area, both things that could come from a place of suspicion of them.
And so, when Joel is shot the first thing he does is get angry at Tommy. i think that it is heavily implied in this sequence that Joel has become more dependant on Tommy as he ages.
Your struggle to buy into the Abby/Lev dynamic as it’s too much of a mirror of the Joel/Ellie dynamic is an interesting one.
I agree it is on the nose.
But we also can’t pretend like the strong/weak companions on a journey together is unique to Joel and Ellie.
The writers also had an enormous mountain to climb by wanting to get you to empathize and ultimately, though conflicted, root for Abby. That mountain being, as you noted, she killed an extremely beloved character.
What better way to climb that mountain than with a familiar set of tools the players are already accustomed to and adore?
Maybe could have been executed differently, but I don’t fault them for doing it.
30:25 i find it funny how before abby spoke in this scene both Jerry and marlene thought it was an incredibly fucked up thing to do
i will always try to respect the criticisms given to the direction delivery and decisions made for the story even if they all worked for me i understand that this game asks alot of the common player to get onboard , tho i will never get behind the gameplay downplays as i see this game as a true peak in that regard it just feels incredible to handle and went above and beyond in that aspect even when most people will just play it to get from one cutscene to the next
Absolutely, I completely understand loving or hating the story, but dunking on the gameplay? Nah, no way.
The handling and gunplay is literally worse than its predecessor. Just because it looks cool doesn’t make it good
@@GeronimoOoO7 I played them both back to back, it's literally the exact same, or it was improved. There was technically speaking no back step at all, so I don't know how you came to that conclusion.
@@GeronimoOoO7 gun play feels more satisfying just off of the polish in Animation sound design and impact but by far the biggest upgrades were environment (stealth and whatnot) and Enemy Ai the second game didnt add much it added simple things and made sure to expand the creativity and feel off it to the max idk how you come to that conclusion the first game handles fine and is a blast overall the second game is a benchmark of quality to expect for every major release
Thank God for Abby. Best character of the game by far. Her parts of the game were AMAZING.
I agree💎
I cant believe how you left out one of thee most key parts to the ending. How Ellie wasn't just now alone without her family, but had lost the only connection she had left with Joel too in the guitar as she lost her fingers and could no longer play.
Also thought the writing was terrible for Joel's parts. All they had to do was put some dialogue in when hes speaking with Ellie about how broken losing Sarah left him and how she helped stitch him back together, and that was why he couldn't let her die. Would have made Ellie sympathize with his decision and made forgiving him much easier.
One thing I've noticed about this game is that most criticisms of contrivances or "plot holes" are the result of people who just straight up didn't pay attention, or even worse, didnt even play the game. I could list examples, but there are honestly so many that I don't know where to start.
real
Exactly
Wrong. We paid attention. And unlike you, we could list examples.
People who didn’t like this game are just too close-minded and dumb to understand the complexities
@@beckee6282 🤣
I hope jeffrey wright reprises his role as isaac in the tv show. He’s up for a best actor oscar this year, if he’s in the show they’ll have to flesh out the character more. You hear so much about Isaac before you meet him, its disappointing how little consequence he has in the story in the end.
Agreed. It really bugged me how little attention he got considering the build up, as well as the actors talent.
It reminded me of the movie 1917. How all the high ranking people in positions of authority are played by "big name" actors, even though they get very little screen time and are basically cameos in the main characters story.
It conveys to the viewer, that these people are a big deal within the world of the narrative, even if they're not part of "our story" for very long.
Update: you got your wish!
When it comes to the issue of Ellie's consent to be sacrificed for a cure, I think that it isn't fair to state that Joel was as much at fault as the Fireflies:
The Fireflies already removed Ellie's chance to offer consent when they put her under anesthesia and prepped her for surgery. Joel didn't have time to reason with them; they wouldn't have listened to him if he tried.
If Joel didn't intervene, he would have let Ellie (his own adopted daughter) be murdered by others without her consent. He did, indeed, rescue her and stop the hope of a cure without her consent; but at least he chose to save a life instead of being accessory to a murder.
The lying afterward, I admit, was immoral; but, really, it made precious little difference. The people who could have made the cure were already good and dead by then; who could Ellie go to if she decided that she wanted to sacrifice herself after all?
Now, it can be argued that Ellie's lash-out against Joel was portrayed as unjustified in the game: Ellie's own survivor's guilt clearly factored in heavily to her reaction, as well as her own disappointment in Joel's lie and the fact that no cure turned out anyway. Her trauma took over, and it took her years to get over it; I don't begrudge her that. I only wish that someone in the game would have said SOMETHING in Joel's defense.
i think at the end ellie’s actions don’t make much sense because she doesn’t even know what she’s doing at that point, she completely lost herself
I can always agree with haters of the game about the pacing and some of the story beats not being written perfectly but it has way more good writing then flawed writing. It definitely is subtle with the way it does certain things and is heavy fisted with others. It’s the obvious choices the writers make that give certain people the prospective that the game is hollow, poorly written or coincidental.
Don’t get me wrong, the biggest coincidence was Abby runnning into Joel; the other ones seem reasonable. Example: [Tommy ambushing Abby & Manny] Tommy’s must’ve been listening on a radio (as Ellie has) to know the WLF are gunna do an full army invasion on the Seraphites; so they need to get to the docs and acquire the boats. Tommy knows that’s probably the best place to hold up and wait till he has eyes on Abby or one of her friends. He sees Manny with a small scouting platoon and opens fire. (I’ll admit it’s a coincidence that Abby needed a boat too) Now what I said isn’t said anywhere but it can be pieced together by what Tommy can clearly do. He’s a survivor like Joel, he’s been solo this whole time, he found and killed a safe house of soldiers to get to Abby’s first friend. He’s survived several packs of infected. He’s capable; plus Jesse found him by hearing radio chatter. The WLF are very military like, so it’s not far fetched he is using their radio chatter against them.
Back to Abby bringing Joel to her friends… I know you brought up the point that supporters make of “Joel has lived in this community for 4 years and has softened up” but that’s exactly what happened. Not that “easier life has made him soft/rusty” but more of Joel’s choices has made him softer. The point of the first game was this brutal survivor that only cares about personal gain having his rugged shell chipped away by the innocents of a child. When Joel is in Jackson he starts to be a kinder person because of and FOR Ellie. Tommy (not stated but inferred) always seemed like he was a good guy; a guy that wanted to save people. He basically had a heroic heart that Joel suffocated with his own misery. (Which the HBO show added onto by Tommy joining the U.S service and the show was co-written by Neil Druckman) Tommy joins the firefly in his want to HELP people and be a LIGHT that the fireflies once branded themselves to be. He later leaves after he realizes they’re kinda bullshit and joins a community of people that are all working together to help rebuild some type of safety. A place where people can have families and bring back some sense of happiness in this forsaken world. They become a trade city where other small communities would come through to trade, which meant they were welcoming to new comers. They say they have bandits but can be handled. With years of practice (which I agree with people that say “years of hardship they know not to trust people and just give out their names”) you can tell which people are genuine and aren’t going to harm you for the hell of it between the bandits that just want your stuff by any means necessary. Abby’s group didn’t come off as these rugged group of bandits. They seemed well taken care of and were younger. (Which usually by the age of what Abby’s group was, these kids would be doing runs for whatever camp they’re with and Jackson probably runs into kids their age to trade between communities occasionally) TOMMY being the good guys he is and always been, being in with the Jackson people for possibly 10+ years and being the co-leader of Jackson offers to HELP THEM restock and introduces HIMSELF. He then allows Joel (the brother he’s been seeing attempt to become a more open and kinder person for the likes of Ellie) to introduce himself. Joel being a better man than he once was introduces himself.
[I never got why people would say “he should’ve lied”. Why would he? That just puts their own community in bad light. If you find this super nice group of people but they lie to get you in, you wouldn’t want to stay.]
He was better person.. you can even see that from ALL THE FLOWERS that are at his house. People in the town care for him. If he was an asshole going around not talking to people/being toxic, people wouldn’t give a fuck about buying flowers and walking to his house to pay their respects…
Abby NOW having 100% confirmation proceeds to shoot him because she knows what this man is capable of. This is “the monster” (in her eyes) that slaughter 10s of soldiers by himself. Her having a small group and Joel having his biological brother with him as backup. She decides to not risk a big fight. Who knows if this Tommy guy is as ruthless/skilled/powerful as Joel.
[this next part is how I INTERPRETED the scene but other can see it another way]
Abby crouches down to Joel and ask him to guess who she is. Joel then being the masculine man we all know and love, belittles her by saying “why don’t you say whatever speech you’ve got rehearsed and get this over with” (which FUCK YEAH! What a badass way to go out!) I personally saw Abby possibly putting him out of his misery like the old dog he is, since he did just save her life. Kinda like, “you scratched my back so I’ll scratch yours, but… I can’t let you go.” But since Joel put that old persona back on and is now being that monster Abby portrays him to be, she goes ahead and belittles him. Abby shows him that he isn’t this big a bad monster and proceeds to torture him.
Troy Baker said this about Joel when he is attack by Abby. “There’s one thing I fall back on to the criticism of my own performance; Is there’s a specific moment. The thought that Joel has is ‘This is what happens when you drop your guard. I allowed myself to trust, I allowed myself to love, I allowed myself to feel, I allowed myself to be safe and THIS is what YOU GET!’ It is a moment of regret. Even inside that moment he goes ‘I’d do it ALL over AGAIN! Cuz what I got was the girl.’ and the fact that doesn’t come through (with out a line of dialogue, a moment of a look) if anything it falls on my failure to be able to present that moment; but rest to sure, that moment is there for Joel.”.
So at the end of the day when Joel see Ellie for the last time, Troy’s quote perfectly wraps up Joel’s decisions.
If you’re interested in seeing Troy baker, Ashley Johnson and Troy baker speak about the game then you can watch the YT video of them talking about it. Search - Gamecast ep. 26 The Last of us Spoilercast
I know it was a long comment but I did go along to enjoy the whole video; even if I had some disagreements on some of your other arguments against the game narrative. ❤️
When I first played this, my emotions were all over the place. I was angry, sad, scared, happy and everything in between. When I got to the final fight, I was torn. I wanted her dead. I hated her for what she had done, but then seeing her relationship with Lev, and understanding why she did it, I was conflicted. I still am to be honest. I think if I was in Ellie's shoes, not knowing the full sorry I would likely have done it. Its a game that really makes you think and that's why I adore it.
Edit: I also hated Mel though 😂
I don't understand why people get so hung up on Joel and Tommy entering the lodge with Abby. They are caught in a blizzard and there is a massive horde of infected hunting them down. Joel and Tommy are on guard, but are caught in a desperate situation and had no choice.
Their choice was get torn apart by infected or take refuge with strangers. It makes perfect sense.
I think people are more upset that they're actually not on guard and gives their names right away, trusting this unknown group
@@kokushibo1014 They were on guard, they didn't take the saddles off the horses which suggests they were going to leave as soon as they had the chance.
Giving their first names isn't that big of a deal either. It was just insanely bad luck that this group were looking for a Joel and knew he had a brother named Tommy which gave away their identities. In the final scene with Joel talking to Ellie, he comments on how he traded with some people for coffee, so they do interact with outsiders.
Look at it like this, Jackson clearly has a large community, it is totally implausible to suspect every citizen has been vetted to check whether they have a vendetta against another resident.
Also, the context of them "trusting" the group isn't that odd. Even if they were hostile, they just saved Abby which would make most people indebted to them. Again, it was just insanely bad luck that this group had a vendetta against Joel.
@@jackolohan3654You can also say that Joel would've been distracted that morning by the thought of finally being able to make up with Ellie due to the last night's conversation.
No matter how battle-hardened a survivor is, we're all stil human, and we make mistakes. Joel wasn't invincible. And like you said, they had incredibly bad luck in that scenario.
It was not about getting into lodge.
It was about Joel and Tommy giving them their names and trust, after 20 years (in case of Tommy 17-18) living in constant danger, developing survival paranoia, being extremely distrustful and careful, and even aggressive to be prepared for instant danger.
Despite that, they act nothing like in Part 1 in that lodge.
And no, the argument of ,,4 years in safe, trusty and comfy city made them softer" doesn't work.
20 years of trauma and living in constant fear and danger vs 4 years in Jackson - it's pretty unnatural to switch your persona in that frame of time, after all those years acting on survival instict
To add, whenever Joel and Tommy were leaving Jackson, they still were suppossed to be very careful when they came across strangers. Jackson survived all those years because people in this city were careful on who enters the city. We can assume they tried to check everything about strangers who wanted to join Jackson's society. Even only speaking with them, they needed to be careful with words that they use, because they could be speaking with bandits, or people who wanted to hurt them.
Joel and Tommy trusting Abby's group doesn't make any sense. It's lazy writing, and they really wanted to kill Joel like that. They switched entire Joel's personality to fit their badly written narrative.
@kokushibo1014 very agreed. both were so completely off guard, it seemed so inconsistent with their post apocalyptic personalities
She dosen't get a "good ending" because she didn't so the right thing. She still chose to leave Dina so she was going to loose her anyways. The choice she had was to let Abby live and end the cycle of violence that brought her their in the first place or continue the pain
After a second time playing, I don't think you really learned all that much. Every time Abby does something or builds a connection, it's not the writers preaching to the player to like her. You don't have to like her. It just humanizes her and educates why she is breaking the cycle of violence.
That's what I thought too. It was just showing things from her perspective. Revenge its self is human.
About the section in the finding strings flash back with the two dead bodies, Ellie asks Joel why they haven't found any other immune people because of what he told her in the first game. In the car on the way to Jackson after the hospital, the final scene of the first game when Ellie wakes up Joel tells her that it turns out "there 's a whole lot more like you" and that they can't make a cure and stopped looking for one a long time ago. That's why she asks this its not because she is naive or from bad writing its because Joel told her that there are other immune people and it is a common thing to be immune. This scene actually makes a lot of sense and I think that the part of Joel's lie about other immune people existing is the main reason Ellie begins to be suspicious.
One of the failure of this narrative by basing it off Joel's past coming to do him in the end, is the very fact that by that resolve, all of the 7 - 11 people Ellie killed have family members, friend etc waiting in line to come after Ellie. Also this goes for Abby and her friend. The basis of the blame is strange when everyone else are murderers in similarity with Joel. Remembering that Joel was not killed for the potential preventing a cure. He was killed because he killed an NPC character.
The setup was understandable but was weaker choice to set off the story. I am pretty sure with proper brain storming the writers could have came up with a better way for Joel to die because by this method there are lines of people waiting to kill Abby, Ellie etc. Also Joel did not just outright killed Abby's father, the man was threatening Joel and was in the way of a fed-up Joel rescuing Ellie. Abby know well why her father died because she was implicated in the notion of her father actually going through to killing Ellie.
not to mention it forces you to kill that npc, it literally wasnt a choice, even if you dont shoot him he comes at you with the blade and joel puts it into the dudes neck. plus i love how abby doesnt seem to care that her dad was going to kill a child in the first place. and you spend the whole first game seeing that its all 100% needed to act that way to survive
@@cryofist Exactly bro!
@@cryofistShe literally said if it was her she’d also want to die for the cure y’all dont pay attention at all
@@TylerNoah02 of course they don't pay attention, they only fixate on what serves their narrative to keep hating on Abby.
Most people in TLOU universe are shit, fanboys just cannot get over their fave's death and then having to play as the one who killed their fave. Fanboys pick and choose story beats that suit them and makes them feel like their misogyny is justified. I mean listen to the OP, repeatedly calling it lazy writing by omitting very crucial parts, like Tommy leaving for Seattle 'not making any sense' all the while leaving Tommy's letter to Maria saying LOCK ELLIE UP out of his analysis. these people will never look at the bigger picture, they're just butthurt their fave character got killed
Even after killing Joel Abby’s flash backs were of her dad (PTSD)
What changed in her final flash back in the hospital was Lev (Love)
Ellie’s final flashback was her convo with Joel and forgiving (Love)
That’s the point of the end. Killing Abby won’t fix anything.
Ellie lost everything again because she went to seek out her vengeance but can you blame her?
It’s not a story of revenge, it’s a story about EMPATHY which a lot of you lack and it shows.
The guy talks about 'perspective' and then only applies it in a certain sense while failing to see that no matter the objective truth of the situation from Abby's perspective Joel murdered her father in cold blood, might've killed companions that she knew in getting there, and Joel took away a potential vaccine. Combine that with the emotionally irrationality that a person goes through after something like that, and you have an emotional obsession growing.
I would also argue this isn't a revenge story. It's about forgiveness. Forgiveness of your enemies. Forgiveness of the people around you, and forgiveness of yourself.
I think Ellie also hated Abby SO much because she was robbed of the chance to forgive Joel. We see the scene the night before his death where she tells him "I don't know if I can forgive you, but I'd like to try." And she never got to mend their strained relationship.
Ultimately she chooses to forgive Abby and let it all go, as she would have tried with Joel.
At least that's my take on it! But no, lol i certainly do not think this story is as cut and dry as "revenge is bad."
Yeah bestie your such an empath omg
There is not a sign of actual empathy in the whole game, they are just acting out of their needs, that's it, the game is just about losing your humanity
I don’t think it’s overly contrived that Abby runs into Tommy and Joel. They received a tip that Joel was in Jackson (that may be more contrived, but with the amount of people alive in the world, it might make sense that people become more well known widely). Abby and her team are in Jackson. It’s not unreasonable to believe that Joel and Tommy would be out scouting. My guess it they probably saw her and were following her for a while until she needed help. Other than her muscles, she looks like a young girl. These two men have been rehabbing at Jackson, learning how to care for more than themselves. It’s not unreasonable to think they likely saw this girl and tried to help. That being their downfall is pretty brutal. All this being said, I think tightening up why Joel and Tommy would have their guard down would have been helpful to the story.
Just finished it for the 3rd time last week. Still holds up. You criticized the story, pace and delivery, which is fine, but didn't really proposed how it should've been done. I agree with Troy Baker in the Grounded II documentary: Not a single person has been able to propose a better way to tell that story.
This is not true, there are plenty, the most common are the ones where Abby infiltrates Jackson and after becoming Ellie's friend she kills Joel
Agreed. There have been a lot of armchair writers thinking they could create a better narrative for TLOU2, including the jackass who replied above my comment. However, no one has actually proposed a more compelling, more dramatic, or more exciting alternative.
@@BahamutBreaker the jackass literally gave examples and you went "no nobody did", no need to insult you know
its because the story was awful and absolutely nobody asked to be forced to emphasize for that train wreck of a chracter that is Abby. if you can't understand how much we were wronged as players for being denied what we primarly wanted, thats a YOU problem.
you might glaze the useless story symbolim of "cycle of hate". but honestly no one cared except for the weak, emotionnal crybabies that defend this mess just because the story wanted to be deep. all the characters were useless self inserts and they were a lot of gay stuff in that game and god forbids youtube strikes my comment for speaking my mind that's how it is. you can't convince us the palyers of what we actually wanted till the end of the game. to kill that useless B.
Honestly, the first game's ending was perfect. No need to make a sequel at all.
Yep, pretty much agree with this take. Out of the new characters I feel like Jesse and Owen were the most sound and understanding people. Everyone else is kinda meh. And the way they handled Joel and Tommy (minus the flashbacks) just kills all of the established traits the first game had for them. Like the way Tommy acts and handles situations sometimes made audibly go "... whuAT?!?"
Also why didn't Joel even try to shoot at abby? He has his gun! There is no universe where Abby would survive an encounter with Joel
I felt like he was tired and wanted to go
@@gaia7240 Tired the morning after finally starting to make amends with Ellie? Not sure about that
It seems like all the great parts he loves are so lovable because they love the first game
48:18 thats exactly how Joel felt when Ellie said its over and saving her life. And next episode you realised it. Also what would be more logical is that we would see flashbacks of Joel starting heavily drinking because of his ruined "Parentship" with Ellie, so thats why he later could have been easily "caught ,or killed"
I honestly looooved getting to play as Abby and the pararles between her and Ellie. I do agree sometimes the shifts or flashbacks kill the pace a bit but to me, those are the parts that made the game so amazing.
yea you loved being forced to emphasize for the antogonist and being wronged out of a choice at the end?
ohhh nooo violence is not wayyyy... sis its a video game at the end of the day you cant wrong the player like that.
only the weak minded like you would be glazing this mess of a story just for the "cycle of hate" symbolism at the expense of our chracters and own player satisfaction. i respect that you liked it but the end result wasnt there. the only thing that saves the game are the flashbacks between joel and elie but again. the game was first advertised as another adventure with the two of them. it seems like you settled with what was served to you "just because the story tried to be deep". oh my.... what a mess.
There should have been WAY more development of Abby before Joel is murdered. MAYBE we would have cared a little more about her character. Maybe.
I think the writers wanted to shock you with it. Just to make you feel what the fuck and be angry. And they clearly accomplished that
@@elproson1to the detriment of the game.
@@pumpyronaldrump_4417 I think it was good. Not every story needs to be sunshine and rainbows. It's a dark story that makes you feel very strong feelings, for me that's a good thing.
@@elproson1 it's not about the games story not being happy, it's about how they did it. The writer's basically spit in your face, and then call you a bad person for being mad. It feels like moral grandstanding especially since as how this guy pointed out, Ellie kills so many people but stops right at the end for Abby which somehow apparently stops the cycle of violence, and still gets punished by Dina leaving. It's the equivalent of some modern artist puking on a classical painting and then saying you are mad because you are too dumb to understand it. The only reason this game has good elements is because it builds on the last game, which was good. Guarantee you that all of those things people dislike is shit that Neil pushed on it once the competent writers of Naughty Dog were ran off the company.
Yeah no
part 2 had me more engaged than part 1
Honestly, I hated the way this story unfolded. Abby and Ellie are not the same. What Joel did was to save Ellie. Abby's father was going to kill Ellie. Abby doesn't see the difference. These are not parallel characters. Abby is just a bully and having us play her character and eventually escape fate is a disservice to the story. It can be good storytelling to portray the flip the protagonist and antagonist only if they are mirrors of each other. But this is not that.
From Abby's perspective, her father died at the hands of a man who directly slowed down the chance for a vaccine to be developed. She can only see Joel as a terrorist. Joel is pretty much the main villain of the first game. (I would still have done what Joel did)
I do agree that playing as Abby didn't feel very good. I had absolutely no attachment to her as a character. It was a questionable decision.
@@anewfuture Abby not seeing her wrong is what I really hate about her, I get why she killed Joel it's not that difficult to understand, but it's still stupid, and in the end she doesn't even talk about it, like, does she even understand that Ellie is the immune girl? Why she just can't understand that Joel was saving her? This is a sign of a small brain to me
No. Joel murdered them all - that didn't need to be done. He killed Abbie's father, she was just a little girl who needed her dad too. Calling her a 'bully' is just silly. She followed the natural course of justice after what Joel did. I mean, look at all the butchering Ellie does to Abbie's crew. She kills a pregnant woman! And Abbie lets her go a SECOND TIME! That's hardly a bully. Again, I think you're calling her that cos she looks like a guy, lol. Because everything else you say makes no sense.
@@harmonygalvin1814 We cannot forget that the Fireflies was a terrorist group, they also killed hundreds, maybe even thousands of people. You say Ellie killed a pregnant woman, first off, she didn't know. While Abby is about to kill Dina, Ellie yells out that she is pregnant, and Abby says "GOOD". Abby is a bully, the amount of people that she has also killed, who have children, mothers, fathers, brothers. She is just as bad as everyone else. Joel didn't kill anyone who didn't shoot at him first, and in a world that they live in, it's either kill or be killed. It has also been stated in the first game that there is no vaccine, because you can't make a vaccine for fungal infections, not even in todays modern society. The survival rate for Ellies operation was also 10%, which she did not know because she was kept unconscious the whole time. And lastly, in the first game we also found out that the Fireflies didn't even have the medical supplies to get a proper vaccine to the people. The Fireflies, including Abby's father, were not good people, and they were going to kill Joel and Ellie regardless if there was a cure or not. (Actual facts from the first game).
@harmonygalvin1814 Joel didn't need to to that lol. You forget that the fireflies robbed him of saying goodbye to Ellie, they took away his belongings, they didn't give him the guns he and Tess were promised. Then they threaten to off him. He had nothing to lose and at that point offed the terrorist group known as the fireflies.They are wanted criminals in the game for a reason.
Honestly, all of your points make no sense. Tommy leaving Ellie behind makes perfect sense. His brother died to save her life and he knows he probably won’t come home again. Of course he left her behind.
i think ellie leaving dina for revenge in the end then coming back for her not seeing them there signifies it was ellie's decision that made them leave regardless of ellie sparing abby or killing her..
I’m never going to agree with “Joel had it coming”. It was always a stretch to say. Joel was correct in his assumption murdering Ellie was wrong. There is no empirical evidence to support this medically. If she was the only immune then intense further study and more responsible care should be given. Instead of violence and abuse against both of them. Abby never deserved her revenge. Her father attacked Joel first. We can’t even get to the “trolley problem” in this story due to the ridiculous amount of wrong doing leading up to it. This is why I had such trouble with part 2. It’s built on flimsy rails and filled with shock factor. The elements of character growth feel forced and the storytelling screams sequelitis and unfinished. It’s a good game in my opinion not great.
Ya I'm confused as to why i hear Joel deserved his death so often. Did what he had to do in a world we can't do more than imagine.
As an opinion piece, totally valid. As a critique, heavily heavily colored by your attachment to legacy characters. The game tries just as hard to get you to like characters and hate others across the board. Sex scenes are character driven across the board and not just "weird" when its the character you like less lol
Abby telling owen to get his priorities straight is out of frustration and guilt for sleeping with him in the first place. These are things that are actually more complicated and nuanced but *whoosh*
And you're bothered by playing the first showdown as the character you just spent 10 hours playing and "sympathizing" as? If they switched back to Ellie you would probably complain they should have stuck to their guns and used the momentum for the half game switch or not done it at all
Ellie taking back up her vengeance quest and threatening Lev is the story indicating how different she and Abby actually are. Abby lets Ellie live *twice*. She only lets her live the second time because she has actually grown as a person and met someone that challenges her to be better. Ellie gets her happy ending and it's not enough to erase the urge to punish Abby. And all of this because of the supposed "love" that justified Joel's rampage. There are parallels but everyone is also different, it can't just be flattened to "we're really all the same"
@@meximan282 I don't think that's meant to be complex at all, I'm surprised that a lot of people miss that Abby feels guilt and shame for things in the end. Even when I missed stuff in Abby Day 2 and the Owen boat scene, the ending and beginng of Day 2/Day 3 made me get these details a lot more. For instance, Abby actually hanging her head down when Owen talks about torturing Joel, Abby occasionally questioning her motivations, Owen's story relating to Abby Day 1 flashback and Abby's time with Joel, etc.
@@skywalkerorder2839 Abby telling owen to get his priorities straight? I don't know if it's "meant" to be complicated either but the reviewer seems to only be able to track one feeling or motivation at a time so if anything seems to contradict he reduces it to "lazy/bad writing"
You make a lot a great points but its very subjective, as it should. Not to defend ND because I domy love everything about the game, but the switch of perspective is annoying at first yes, but I wouldn’t say it’s stupid even for a video game. The reason is 2 folds:
First we know the whole story with Abby saving Lev, and the ending etc so we do end up liking Abby and we do SEE from living(playing) it that no one is innocent and the hurt you make will come back to you -immune or not.
Secondly, if ND didn’t go for an unconventional two part story with two opposing characters then it means the other option would have been a normal, standard straight story line that you don’t really play, you just follow along like any Uncharted game, with no twist no surprise.
I’m not saying the idea is the best but it’s not bad, it’s actually really great. It is what it is, like a movie or a song. It’s a deep story there extremely realistic in terms of human reactions. People who hate aren’t hating on 99% of other games where nothing makes sense whether the story dev or characters reactions. And where of course the hero always wins at the end.
I disagree that Joel deserved death. I have a kid- two really, my German shepherd and my son.
You’re looking at this story from the perspective of someone who is living in a modern society without the strife of survival. He did what any parent would do if they had the means in that situation. Everything else he did was survival, and I can’t judge someone for just trying to live.
I have heard this from another parent and I agree. A parent would save their own child of course. But would you not also expect immense grief from a child when their parent is taken? And say it wasn’t your child who would be killed for the cure but would be forced to endure a world of suffering and possible early death for Joel’s kid to live? I think of course every parent would make the same choice as Joel, put in his place, but for me part two is meant to remind us, that the world isn’t just Joel and Ellie. What he did had consequences outside of them.
The fundamental problem with this game is that it tries to make you break away from how humans fundamentally operate. We are tribal creatures, we've evolved to stick with our group/tribe and root for them no matter what logic compels us to ignore it. Our tribe is OUR tribe, and no matter what they did, we will have the primal urge to stick with them. TLOU1 is, in this context, the exact opposite of TLOU2 as it appeals to this side of our humanity in the finale. A survey even showed that ~50% of normal players, *but 100%* of parents who test-played TLOU1 said that they agreed with Joel's decision and would've done the same in his shoes everytime. But in TLOU2, we are made to think, "But see, Abby had her reasons too. She's just like Ellie, both were enacting revenge. She's a human too". But that's irrelevant, we've bonded with Joel and Ellie so much that they're OUR tribe now. No matter the reasons Abby could've had (at best, they're just as bad as Ellie's), we still care about OUR tribe, and just cannot care to sympathise with someone that broke both of our beloved characters. We'll still always root for Ellie. We'll still always support her in this case. It's fine to make us realise Ellie is too drowned in revenge, but it's ineffective to make us realise Abby is a good person too. We just won't. Doing so takes too much effort and time that this game wouldn't have had. Hence the Abby sections feel wrong and especially the boss fight against Ellie.
That being said, there could've still been a way - make Abby a part of that tribe too. The way to do that would've been to give Abby time as a character BEFORE she kills Joel. Establish her character and her part of the family before we know what she does. Now I know this wouldn't have been possible in TLOU2. It was advertised as a Joel and Ellie game and spending the first-half as Abby would've turned off most players. Hence, in my controversial opinion, TLOU2 should've JUST been about Abby. Show how her father's death haunts her. Let us get to know Owen and Mel and the other characters better. Take us through a journey with her people, so that she eventually joins OUR tribe. Then, in TLOU3, she can come and kill Joel. It would've still stung, but in my opinion, now that both of the protagonists are in our tribe, the game would've actually delivered on all the notes even better. Joel's death wouldn't have felt as bad, Ellie's murder spree would've felt much more ruthless and villanious, and we would've sympathised with Abby more.
This guy perfectly sums up my feelings for this game. Gameplay graphics and cinematic scenes are perfectly amazing. Story just has me in and out and can be hard to wanna replay
Yeah. It’s def hard to play to replay, just because the story hurts it so bad. That being said, it’s a lotta fun to play, if you’re into massacring hundreds of NPCs.
this video is every single thing i think most people get wrong about the game :( i’m sad the impact i personally felt from it didn’t effect others
Me too its my favorite game
Same
I just sometimes feel like people are idiots cuz they can't understand the story well or smth
Also there is the thing that Joel didn't deserve to die or get tortured like that,but he hella deserved it, and i hate to say it(ik this will start a war, down blow up my notifications pls)
@@Roland6733no one gave a fuck bro 😂
Then you get to play it again. Another aspect was conveyed is DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES. That is!
Ellie didn't lose Dina.
The ending of the game shows Ellie wearing Dina's bracelet which Dina held onto when she left, not to mention she has a jacket on. It's not supposed to be Ellie being alone, its her moving on from Joel after not being able to play guitar, and living the rest of her life with Dina.
The reason why you didn't see this is because the game does an awful job showcasing this, the last scene we get of Dina is her saying that if Ellie leaves, they're done, only for her to, offscreen, turn around and accept Ellie. This is what I hope the writers were doing at least, because Ellie losing everything after breaking the cycle of violence destroys the first games amazing ending.
Why was the house empty and all furniture and pictures gone then?
Maybe they went back to Jackson, seeing as JJ would be around 2 or 3 years old at the time of ellie’s return, and it would have been mighty hard for Dina to take care of him alone
@@gamerscreed9768But she didn't pack up any of Ellie's stuff, because she left her. Duh.
34:43 My theory for the writing problems is that they originally had something different in mind for the whole revenge plot and they just had to figure something out quickly, because they decided to change the narrative on a last minute. Maybe Joel wasn't supposed to die so quickly first? It would also explain why the trailer was different from the actual game where there was Joel originally, but then switched to Jessie.