Dads in Games (And How To Not Make Them Monsters) // Codex Entry
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- Опубликовано: 10 апр 2017
- something something dad joke
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Basically (and of course there's more expressed than just this), Joel is more morally questionable than Nier and yet ends up receiving FAR less moral questioning from the narrative of his respective game. He seems less noble and justified in his deeds and yet it's Nier whose actions are really put under a microscope and is made to pay for them.
Ironically enough this is sort of Yoko Taro's crusade here, this bafflement at the way narratively murderous psychopaths are failed by the games they exist in by a lack of acknowledgement of that fact and proper consequences for it.
+Lachlan Still this is a perfect way of putting it. Justifiable actions require examination, where as unjustifiable ones can be dismissed.
i know the best dad....... ASURA
Harry Casanova kill the gods and fuck up the planet for his baby girl, oh yeah. You hit the nail, these characters pale lol
Joel did not want to be a father figure
That’s a major part of why he acts the way he does
We the audience put that on him as well as when him
And Ellie actually strengthen their relationship we see a shift as he was using her as a means to an end and ended up caring for her through their time together
He wanted to stay detached
He wanted to just get the job done
If he went through the whole game without getting close to her as he did, he wouldn’t have much of a reason to contest against the surgery
i disagree with you because you got it wrong by thinking joel is elli's father. his not, that's the whole point. at the beginning, he didn't care for her, she was just a girl that he needed to transfer for his job, he's not her father, his was just her "body guard". when he got to know her, he got attached to her, he wasn't just trying to get anyone with him because if he did, he would've just be nice to her from the beginning and he didn't.
joal is not an assholes to all of the people he meets, only the once that tries to kill him. the proof of that is sam (if that was his name) and his brother, that he was nice to. of course he'll be stressed a little surrounding people he don't know considering the fact that something like an half of the human population are hostile.
the thing that get people so emotional is the connection between joal and Ellie, they do not have any blood connection, yet they naturally care for each other. the ending war brilliant, because of what joal did, it suppose to be so confusing, weather what he did was right or wrong, there is no clear answer.
about the fact that Ellie is kinda invisible, it's not that bad of a thing. a huge portion of annoying missions in games is that you fail because you had to look out for an npc or something, and the fact that Ellie can't be killed does not give the impression that she's invisible, because of the time spent with you playing her that shows that in the end of the day, she's just a girl and not a super hero or something.
I'm not un subscribing or anything just because we had different opinions tho, I'm not one of those salty fanboys that get triggered by anything lol
5:00 Did you actually play the game? Literally everyone outside of a settlement acts like that.
And as a final point, perhaps we don't see it with Ellie, but we do get to see the repercussions of Joel's ruthlessness reflected on his own family since his own brother resents him deeply. He even mentions that the years Joel watched over him have riddled him with nightmares and states surviving wasn't worth the scarring, and that's coming from a fullu grown man, let alone a 14 year old girl.
If that's not a condemnation of his action I don't know what is.
Im normally some one who comes down hard on the last of us, however your arguments here made me go back and forth on my feelings for it.
I feel that as the game starts out we are meant to side emotionally with Joel and its over the coarse of the game that we begin to distance ourselves from him. This is represented mechanically a bit as well when we start playing as Ellie. I think by the end of the game we are supposed to look at Joel as a sympathetic villain. One where we understand how he became who he is even if we dont like what it is he is doing.
I think this is made obvious after the jump from Winter to Spring and we see the pair moments before the Giraffe scene. Here we play as Ellie and Joel seems to have completely adopted her in his mind, talking to her about learning to play guitar and such. At this moment since your playing as an Ellie who is so out of it I personally felt disturbed by Joels dialogue and felt he had lost any semblance of who Ellie is and what their relationship was. It felt like he just accepted her as his new Daughter. This is reflected in the hospital scene where Joel kills the doctors and runs down the hall ways with Ellie mirroring the opening moments of the game before his daughter gets killed. Its a pretty useful cinematic technique having an opening shot mirror an ending shot to see how the characters have changed.
This to me shows how Joel has actually regressed and only learned to care about himself and his own personal demons. This of course is reflected in the lie at the end of the game. This is all to say that I think Joel is the villain in the last of us and I agree with you in that he needs to be the actual villain of the last of us 2. If hes not, I have a hard time seeing the narrative being true to what the first game set out to be. Granted they did do a great job with Uncharted 4 by actually giving those characters an arc so I can hope that they will do soemthign interesting with the Last of us part 2.
Also NieR is great, and overall a game I hold much more closely to my heart than the last of us.
Really late comment, but having just finished the game for the first time myself, one thing you seem to have remembered wrong here, was that we play the whole Spring chapter, including the giraffe scene, as Joel (or atleast I did: if there was a way to let us play it as Ellie, the game didn't indicate it in anyway, unless it's a New Game+ thing or something), but other than that I think you nailed it with this.
I got some heavy Walter White vibes from Joel after the midway-point. Sure, the world has gone to hell in a handbasket and while Joel is hardly the only person to have become violent, desperate and miserable as a result, that does nothing to justify his actions towards the end, let alone straight up lying to Ellie's face about them and part 2 needs to at the very least have him receive some clear retribution for that to make it feel right.
I also think you have to judge the characters through context of the world they inhabit. Joel is a monster by real world standards but within the context of the unforgiving, violent world he finds himself in, it is that kind of ruthlessness that is needed to survive and thrive. The world of Nier is much more civilized by comparison, even if it is a society in decline. If anything, Nier spends more time telling us things are bleak when nothing really feels like so until the timeskip, and even then, thing get sad and somber, not ruthlessly violent with gangs of predatory villagers hiding behind every corner.
In other words, being a monster is the only way Joel could protect Ellie on their journey because he lives in a world of monsters. If anything, Nier's actions are much more unhinged in the context of the world he inhabits.
My comment will have spoilers for Nier, so if you care about that you might want to stop reading here.
The thing that is interesting about the father/daughter dynamic in Nier Gestalt (that's the version with Nier as a father) is that there is actually more than one in the game. The story pits two characters against each other who both care so much about their daughter that they go to any lengths to save them. In the end both characters end up dooming humanity in the process.
On the surface. Father Nier is like you said, a generally likable protagonist. He helps the people in his village and other villages often for little to no reward. He's not perfect. You can tell right away that the way he talks about killing Shades is probably not healthy. And when he meets Kaine he chooses not to kill her because she's only half shade. But despite his hatred of Shades, most of which is based on ignorance of what they really are, you get the feeling that he's the kind of person that wants humanity to stick together. Despite Kaine being half shade, he tries to befriend her fairly quickly. While personally I find some of the relationships to work better from the perspective of Brother Nier (From the Replicant version of the game), it's still quite inspiring to see somebody not really care too much where you come from.
The people that live near Kaine are incredibly suspicious of everything and basically treat her like shit. Nier is one of the few people that make Kaine feel comfortable with her body and motivates her to keep living despite all the shit she has been through. Then he meets Emil, a seemingly young boy with the power to turn anything he sees to stone, like a gorgon or something. While Kaine played a huge part in teaching him not to hate a part of his body like a curse, Nier also helped tremendously. He was the first person to see Emil's transformation into the skeleton-like figure and he accepted him as he was.
Nier and crew helped defend the village and when the villagers got scared of Kaine and Emil, Nier was clearly upset, not only at the villagers, but also at himself. In the second part of the story you begin to see the destructive nature of this conflict and while not all explained it's pretty obvious that the Shadowlord is basically Nier. But the player doesn't exactly see why.
Actually, a lot of the details of Nier are left out of the game entirely. Much of it is relegated to a companion book called Grimoire Nier. Said book has been translated by fans for a long time now and is a good read. It has details about both versions of the game and how despite the story being the same in both, the smaller details such as how characters see each other are drastically different and the motivations change.
In particular though with papa Nier, and from the game itself. In New game plus which starts at the half way point the player can see what the shades are saying through the subtitles. Most of the shades were good people. The Shades were people, they are the Gestalts. Through a process in which the soul is removed from the body the soul becomes the Gestalt and the body the Replicant. The Gestalts that generally attacked were relapsed. Gestalts needed a certain substance in order to stop relapsing or rather to slow it down, and only the Shadowlord could produce it. But the Shadowlord wanted to save his daughter from relapsing, The Gestalt version of Yonah. So he basically kidnapped Papa Nier's daughter and since Papa Nier is basically his Replicant/body, Papa Nier's daughter is Yonah's Replicant. The Replicants were supposed to be shells, but they gained sapience and basically became people.
It kind of brings up the question, does the Gestalt own their Replicant? Once the Replicant gains sapience, do they begin go own their own body? Or does it still belong to the original owner. There's no good answer unfortunately. Either the Gestalt gets their body back and the Replicant basically dies, or the Gestalt relapses and the Replicant dies due to the Black Scrawl (which is what happens when a replicant's gestalt relapses.).
Ideally though the plan was that the Shadowlord gain both Grimoire Weiss and Grimoire Noire and Devola and Popola would start the process of fusing the souls back like originally planned. The Shadowlord kidnapping Yonah's Replicant was not a good idea from a big picture, but the man clearly cares about his daughter and likely didn't fully realize the ramifications of what he was doing. Papa Nier on the other hand had absolutely no idea what went down over a thousand years ago and so didn't realize that he was killing people the entire time. And what's more is that he had no idea the ramifications of his actions. He too cared so much about his daughter. Two men both wanting the same thing fought and when Gestalt Yonah sacrificed herself so Replicant Yonah could be with her father, it drove the Shadowlord to despair. This man has hit rock bottom. And you have to fight him at his lowest point, Nier doesn't care because he truly doesn't know, but as the player became more privy to what was going on, we get to see what it feels like to lose a child and save a child at the same time. The Shadowlord fight is a spectacle, but a pushover nonetheless, and honestly it feels terrible having to win, but one side was always going to lose and no matter which side lost it would still feel terrible.
As Lachlan Still noted the two games treat their endings quite differently. Nier pretty much admits that Nier fucked up big time. It doesn't hold any punches towards any of the Niers. Given the information they had, I can't blame them. TLOU kind of chickens out. If you pay attention you'll notice that the story justifies Joel's actions at the end. The Firefly's were not good people. They planned on killing Joel as he left, even if he did so peacefully. Furthermore they were shown to be utterly incompetent. Killing Ellie would have solved nothing basically. Because the story wanted you to feel that Joel made the right choice all along.
Fucking love Nier, great to see it get more attention
This guy sounds a bit like Digibro
When you said that Joel is a dick because he condemned everyone in the world to save his "daughter" (Which i agree, but he's a father, someone who, sometimes, does shit to keep sure we're safe) i wonder if you do know that Nier Dad basically killed all there was left of mankind and just got his daughter a few years of life (and discovered that now everyone is going to die by that black crawl thing). What makes them any different in that matter ?
This is one where I fully expect a lot of people to disagree with me, but oh well, here we go.
Thank you for this video, I was so sick of the double standard of people Condeming Nier for doing something that he couldn't of fathomed being bigger than he percieved, but loving Joel despite him knowingly dooming everyone. It's bullshit, plain and simple.
@Transient Tiefling
'he couldn't HAVE fathomed' NOT 'he couldn't of fathomed'
I disagree about the ending of TLOU, but agree with pretty much everything else.
The fireflies didn't earn any trust and didn't get Ellie's consent, i'd have killed them too, regardless of Joel
wait, hold up. i thought ellie knew. She did ask joel in the end. She knows full well that she, at the cost of her own life, can save humanity.
I think she didn't know that she would be killed in the process. Her question to Joel was due to the fact that he took her away, so she was worried that there wouldn't be any other way to "save humanity".
The ending was honestly so silly and contrived, it lost me quite a bit. I really don't buy it, that in less than a day Fireflies would have ruled out every possible medical option to harness Ellie's immunity, apart from removing her brain and killing her and should that fail in anyway, then they'd permanently screw themselves over. It really sounds like little more than artificial source of conflict, that gave Joel an excuse to go on killing spree, and whether or not Joel was in anyway justified in deciding to do what he did, he seemingly just had to take it far enough to make himself seem like an irredeemable scumbag for it regardless. Murdering the medical personnel, shooting Marlene just to ensure she'd leave him and Ellie alone and then gaslighting Ellie about what exactly went down back at the hospital, are more than enough to carry Joel across the moral event horizon, if the decision itself and his general callousness hadn't done that already.
Yeah I wouldn't mind more father figures being, well, fathers. Dojima from Persona 4 is one of my FAVORITE characters from that franchise, because of how complicated his relationship is with Nanako. He loves, and treats her like his adorable daughter, but has trouble opening up to her because of how much she reminds him of his dead wife.
Having every old man being broken because "mah kids arrr ded" is getting boring, undoubtedly.
JameboHayabusa sojiro is the best dad and has actual personality imo
Except Nier wasnt supposed to be a dad, but a brother.
A detail that was changed for the western release.
Having played both Nier and TLOU, I really don't like the relationship Nier has with his daughter nearly as much. Despite her dying and the world going to hell, she's impossibly cheerful and the exact model of an adorable Japanese little girl. That character type is fine (I like Nanako from P4 a lot) but it just doesn't gel with the rest of Nier's story. I also dislike how little she gets in terms of interaction. Sure, there's flavor text, but like you said, she's largely absent. The way you seemed to take Ellie as only a motivation for Joel to murder his way to fulfillment is exactly how I saw her to Nier. She's almost a non character on her own, and mostly serves to be cute, sympathetic, and to motivate Nier to accidentally discover the truth behind the world. The twists and reveals at the end all would have been just impatcful to me if she had never spoken a word of dialogue, because the emotional impact rested on the main party. She was set dressing more than anything else.
Compared to Joel and Ellie, who both struggle to survive in their world (while Nier really doesn't, they still live pretty peacefully 90% of the time) and are jaded as a result. Joel is the way he is largely because of guilt, like you said, but I fail to see how that's a negative. I truly believe that's how a lot of people would handle themselves in his situation, I doubt many of us would be as one track minded and cliche as Nier and his friends sometimes were. In the post apocalypse, who has time to go on about the power of friendship? It's such a hard anime trope that I can barely take seriously in games that base their entire theming around it.
I'm not trying to come off like I hate Nier or anything, I actually do love that game. I just think TLOU does that particular relationship in a more realistic manner, and I personally prefer it.
10:49
That was oddly specific.
I think you kind of missed the point with the last of us and misread character and context a lot.
I think the first question to think about is really about the state of humanity itself in TLoU
What's left? Some clean zones lead by the remnants of the military, where citizens trade away freedom for a small, very much illusory wall of protection from the world outside of those walls.
The massive bandit population outside of those walls as well, with a good amount of that population being people just trying to survive in this world, in a way Joel, the fire flies, and even Tommy's group technically lie within this category, especially in the eyes of the military.
So this last hope for humanity, what little of it is left that may or may not even be saveable at this point is supposed to rely on... ok lets face it, most of the people that were likely working on this cure were likely quacks with post apocalyptic levels of medical knowledge. These people you have been following throughout the game who are also shown to be generally incompetent at the research they're trying to conduct with everything down to a scientist getting infected because of a lack of proper safety procedures with what they were doing at the time, causing him to be bitten by an infected monkey. Not only are the scientists incompetent but they're security isn't even competent with them getting overun by local bandits everywhere they go and barely escaping. The fire flies are a small, spread out group that simply do not have the skills or resources, so whether they could even make the cure (which likely would have only been a vaccine) is in question, let alone their ability to distribute it and whether people would EVEN take it.
Another massive problem with the plan is the after effects of it
They don't really solve the massive other problems the world of TLoU has, between the violence (with Joel's violence actually being the least of our problems here) the food and water shortages, and the still incredibly dangerous infected.
Joel's nature is actually questioned quite a bit, for example by his brother.
And while it may seem like Joel hasn't gotten his comupence (and I for one really hope you aren't counting the bandits Joel has killed, all of which have no intentions other than to kill him, there really is no other choice here, 90% of the people you kill have to be killed and likely have or would have had higher body counts than Joel does from the game) I really don't think the point is for Joel to be punished. Joel did what he had to to survive (and its pointed out that he went beyond that and he was punished for that, he lost what little family he had left, not killing them, but them leaving him behind and HATING him). Joel isn't perfect, no one is, the game doesn't try to say that and the game doesn't delude people into thinking that everything is going to be fine.
I also don't think comparing him to Nier is fair, while they might be in similar situations I'd hardly call them comparable situations, not to mention you're dealing with two different writers with entirely different outlooks on life who would probably judge eachothers characters very differently.
I beat Last of Us once. It was a fun ride but not something I genuinely wanted to play. I played it because everyone was playing it. It’s pretty overrated to me. I do like it though. It was fun to me and never bored me but I was never itching to play it. Especially true seeing as I’ve never wanted to play it again. When I beat games like Devil May Cry or Metal Gear Solid, after the credits roll I wanted to play it again.
This was a well put together video. I didn't agree with a single thing you said in the video and I think you missed a lot of things and points in the last of us. You also made some unfair comparisons between Joel and nier. But it's really cool seeing a video comparing two of my favorite video games. Especially when nier is such an underappreciated game. Although I didn't agree with you on anything and think you're wrong about everything you said about the last of us it's still interesting to hear from the other side. Keep up the good work on your videos
Agreed.
"No one else acts like this"
I am sorry, what?
you can also give joel a character arc that ends with him sacrificing himself to protect ellie
A lot of things are easily misunderstood because of the context they come out in and the hype surrounding it. While I don't think the game outright condemns Joel, it makes no mention that he actually loves Ellie herself more than hanging on to Ellie. I don't know. It feels like most of narrative where Joel and Ellie are good for each other was because of the hype surrounding the game. I mean I would argue that the game made it clear that Joel is just trying to replace his daughter because the first part of the game serves to kill her off and make Joel tragic. And so when we are introduced to Ellie we can easily associate her with Joel's daughter. Compare this to UP's opening where while the opening served to make our protagonist tragic. They are not going for the finding a replacement angle but rather to open their heart again angle. The game never made me feel like Joel was a good guy or romanticized their relationship. It's not something like how Friends ends with Ross and Rachel together and plays it off as what should be despite the fact that you know they're terrible for each other.
ELIZABETH IS YOUR DAUGHTER?!
This was an unfair comparison, mainly because Joel is not a “dad” in the sense you are saying for the entire game. He’s actively trying not to be because of the loss of Sarah.
The Last of Us is not about a man trying to be a good dad. It’s about a damaged man who knows that if he cares about anyone again it could break him. And it does.
You’re very hard on Joel, and you’re not wrong to be so. But it comes off to me as victim blaming (which I know is cheeky given Joel’s body count).
You are trying to compare Nier and The Last of Us, and I see that as a fundamental flaw. Instead I would contrast the two on their messages concerning love. Nier is positive about it, showing how love can make people better (mostly). The Last of Us is negative; it shows the absurd conclusion of putting someone else’s well being above everyone else’s.
One last thing. You say Joel is selfish quite a bit. Is the desire to see someone you care about live any more selfish than wanting to see them flourish and grow? Do you think the nervousness of Nier confronting the possibility of boys really has more weight than Joel risking death and the survival of the species? Call it selfish or don’t, but I think you are unfairly dismissive of Joel.
So, yeah. I disagree, but your video was great. Your insight and passion for games is inspiring...and I’m jealous as hell that you S ranked all of dmc4.
Toodles
Curious to hear your thoughts on Part 2 now
I'm starting to get the feeling this guy likes _Nier._
Nice video :)
One of the first things Ryan did when we started to get to know each other was sit me on the couch and play Nier with me.
i think i heard of it once seems cool been meaning to play it but metacritic says it's bad so idk
I think my biggest disagreement is your single comment about Ashley in RE4. I could not have given two shits about her character and/or what her presence brought to the game gameplay-wise. Kind of a bad example to make your point on.
Well if you want another example of an escort character done right, there is Ico, which managed it with Yorda all the way back in 2001.
Also while I'm somewhat indifferent on Ashley as a character, I certainly felt more motivated and invested in Leon's quest to rescue her and get her to safety than I ever did to Kratos protecting his little ginger offspring in new God of War and that's because I fully agree with the sentiment that nothing brakes the immersion and hurts your investment quite like giving you an invulnerable escortee, whom the story says you're supposed to take care of, while the gameplay doesn't give a shit.
I'd honestly go as far as say there isn't really much of a point in putting characters like Ellie or Atreus into the game, if the best you can do inorder to balance them as escortees and not annoy hell out of the player, is to intentionally make them broken and halfassed.
I disagree with a few points on TLOU.
And on Nier. Nier was a great game, but remember that Japan originally had baby faced big brother before they thought the western audience would like dog faced papa Nier more. He is literally 100% exchangeable with another family character, and the story would be exactly the same. Yonah is also held behind your plot shield wall. You can't do anything to help, or not help. She, much like Ellie, is invincible until the plot says otherwise. The only difference is she isn't physically with you in harms way.
Joseph Anderson did a great review on TLOU that I recommend, and he goes real in depth on the world and everything. The entire game points out how big a piece of shit Joel actually is now, with him even telling telling Ellie that he's been on both sides of ambushes. Joel also most likely DID NOT doom all of mankind, as the fireflies at no point in the entire game have shown to be trustworthy, competent, or capable. Literally every checkpoint along the way that you're supposed to meet, their either dead, or some bullshit happened, and their research had a 100% failure rate. Not to mention that after 20 years of cordycep infestations and everything going to hell they're supposed to successfully perform neurosurgery and find a cure? I don't think so.
I do also find that Joel does come to care for Ellie, and yeah, he's probably doing it for shitty selfish reasons. Maybe he just can't bear the loss of someone else close to him, but throughout the course of the game, both of them begin to talk to each other more and Joel does start to trust her and give her some responsibility. Case in point, giving Ellie a gun. Pretty much every argument between Joel and Ellie, especially the one in the clip you provided, is about Joel wanting to leave her with someone else. If you think about it psychologically, if the death of his daughter is still as painful as it is, with aforementioned argument including her and Joel still wearing a broken watch 20 years later, wouldn't it make sense that he doesn't want to go through that again? From someone who ISN'T her dad, leaving her at a power station settlement with your brother to keep her safe while you slink off to the bottom of a bottle to forget the loss of Tess, it actually makes sense. Pushing someone away for their safety is something a selfish and broken man would do.
Also, as someone else pointed out, literally everyone else outside of settlements (and some inside) and the one guy with kid brother is just as eager to kill as Joel to either survive or further their gain. As Pat from Two Best Friends said "When someone says "We are survivors" as justification, you know they're a huge piece of shit.
I don't think TLOU is the best game ever, but I do find the relationship believable, and it does progress as the story goes on. If you didn't catch it, that's kind of on you. It's much like Aigis slowly becoming less robotic and more human in both actions and speech, or Naoto coming to terms with her femininity again in both actions, dress, and speech. You can actually hear her loosen up on her "manly" voice and transition towards a more feminine natural voice over the course of the game.
Ellie starts out flat out disliking and even hating Joel, and they both speak very little to each other. Over the course of the game, even by Bill's town, there's a lot more conversation flowing between them, and there's some great side lines of dialogue about all the shops and various things in Bills town.
That's how I see it anyways.
Also, if you think Joel is abusive to Ellie, then I highly recommend you call your parents immediately and tell them you love them, or buy them a Mercedes or something, because wow.
I just can't imagine how nice your childhood must've been.
JZStudios you hit the nail right on the head, both in your first and second comment
JZStudios m8, you are so right. Codex has no idea what he's talking about .
+JZStudios
"And on Nier. Nier was a great game, but remember that Japan originally had baby faced big brother before they thought the western audience would like dog faced papa Nier more. He is literally 100% exchangeable with another family character, and the story would be exactly the same."
Regardless of which version of Nier you play as, he is the guardian of Yonah and has to either act as a de-facto parent to her, or is her literal father, so the way I see it, while Nier's personal situation is quite different depending on the version, his relationship to Yonah doesn't really have to be.
good video man I watched the whole thing and I have the attention span of a mosquito
I know we could spent forever talking about what a game could or should have been but man was TLOU dumbed down AI ever disappointing. Naughty Dog has been trending towards accessibility - which in some respects I think is great, but removing any bumps in the game's design, that is anything that might put a player off in order to make it palatable to anyone, makes their games feel really disposable and unaffecting.
I think the accessibility should come second, I'd honestly prefer if there was an option to make the AI "dumber" if that meant we could keep the "complex" AI and the balance of power system and situations that were unfair to the player like real people fighting to survive would act.
Any thoughts on Geralt-Ciri relationship? Not super fleshed out in the game but the idea of choosing to support her being her own person throughout the game helping her survive the game was interesting to me.
I have only recently played The Witcher 3 and I have found very refreshing how the main story actively judges "parenting" choices for the ending recognizing Ciri's own point of view and importance for the story. In confront of Nie, The Witcher is a father seeing his daughter grow and become important, more important than he is for the world and the story itself.
You should talk about this topic related to the newest God of War, it would be interesting to know your point of view about it.
What do you think of the hbomberguy argument he's been making on his CuriousCat-- that good satire doesn't have to step back and literally condemn the thing it's talking about? He cites A Modest Proposal as a famous example of a satire that never comes out and says you shouldn't eat babies.
He's right, but there's a catch: The less it steps back, the more it just 'is' the thing. A good example is, well, exactly what you bring up in your video about Pewdiepie: He very well may have intended his video to be satire, a social experiment examining how people get exploited in capitalism. However, when satire and the genuine article are completely indistinguishable, then what's the difference? The catch with A Modest Proposal is it's SO exaggerated, SO absurd, SO offensive, that anyone with a functional brain and an ounce of humanity can tell it's shitting on the people who don't. So when we come to something like The Last of Us, even if we assume it was intended to be a take down of power fantasy/dadification characters, even if the writers were to come out and literally say that word for word, does it really change the text? I know it's cliche to invoke death of the author, but, well, death of the author, and that's what makes any kind of satire or deconstruction so hard. It doesn't have to openly condemn the thing, but if it doesn't, it does have to be so extreme that condemning the thing goes without saying. Otherwise, it's just another entry in the thing it's trying to critique.
Death of the author is dead
Tbh, I think Hbomb's argument goes a little too far. He actually calls Mein Kampf and Triumph of the Wills satire because they show how fascism is unable to have an enemy strong enough to require fascism that can still be beaten by fascism. (Or something. I just noticed I am tired and loopy.) And yeah, it's like saying that a predatory sales pitch is a satire because anyone dumb enough to fall for it would fall for it. People really don't have the time or energy not to be baited, at least not all of the people, all of the time.
Does everything have to pass the moron in a hurry test tho? I dunno. Disclaimer: I haven't even played Last of Us. It just sounds kinda like there's an argument to be made that Joel's sad so he's not actually cool but if that really was enough to convince somebody that the thing they secretly wanted wasn't cool, then all that other stuff wouldn't work or something. I need to sleep tho and am not sure how much sense I am making. Cheers.
> 2 dads doom humanity - One willing to do it - One don't know about it
> 2 dads killing monster - One side is zombie-ist + human it self - One side thought he skill monster, but it more than that...
> Sorry for my bad enghist
Welp... I disagree. I just came from your Persona, Yoko taro and Miyazaki and loved them. I never completely agreed but they had good foundation and covered its potential, good and the bad. Here I kind of feel like it was just a vent. I heard your reasoning but Joel is just a lot more nuanced then that. And I don't think we have ever been told that Joel is a good guy. I see Joel as a character that has succumbed to a everyone for themselves mentality Which isn't unrealistic seeing how the bigger groups handle things. If he didn't care about her, he would not have gone thru all this trouble. Risking his life so many times and for what a "daughter" he didn't care for? I don't think so. I leave it there I do not want to write an essay. But do know that I see him not as explicitly good. Just somewhat justified in his reasoning (not his actions). And I feel like this video only played at one side of him.
Do keep up the good work, Love ur other vids^^
watching this, i just realised something from the trailers and gameplay of the new god of war game, kratos looks like a better father than joel.......sure he has rage burning in him and he is strict but, doesn't look like he hates his son. hell he tries to be calm to him, this is fucking KRATOS where talking about here.
Eh... I’m not quite witcha on this one, chief. Joel is an asshole, but he’s in no way a “bad character.” Also how is Joel abusive.
I myself have yet to try NieR, though after NieR:Automata and mention of a possible remake/remaster from Yoko Taro. I'll wait especially since I lack a PS3 :(.
The game is out of print(doesn't have a digital release either)and is pretty hard to find so unless your very dedicated to playing the entire franchise like I am, chances are most people with a interest in the game will miss out on it if things don't change I haven't played the original NieR either but I ordered it off amazon a month ago for 48$ and still haven't received the game
Lord Blue balls I know most people hate and despise Gamestop but I actually usually see one copy in most stores I would go to.
Kain no gamestops in my city have it, i also have to re order it because my order was a scam, I don't think anyone besides me has the patience to order a 40+ dollar game from 7 years ago twice, if I had to i'd travel to another country just to play this damn game
Lord Blue balls I know it may not seem like it's worth it but I ordered it earlier this week (on Tuesday) and revived it yesterday (Friday) and I believe that's because I have Amazon prime, it makes orders more reliable and a items marked with the "Prime" logo will be delivered sooner and are typically sold to you by verified sellers, so I suggest Amazon Prime if you want more reliable sources. (Hope this helped at all)
Kuroine I'll do literary anything below murder to get it so yeah that information will probably help
I honestly think more people need to play Nier
10:41 I really appreciate that line. I agree with much of what you have to say, in fact it's refreshing to see someone share these thoughts now that the dust has settled.
I also think the game doesn't earn the Winter chapter (weakest point in the game in my opinion because it splits up the two characters which are the only thing interesting about the game is how they interact) and Ellie is kidnapped by a dude who is literally a cannibal and implied rapist (ND really had to double down to show how evil these guys are) and then Joel comes in and now Joel and Ellie love each other - it's so weak. Where I disagree is your notion that Joel should get any comeuppance for the things he's done to show that the game isn't on his side. I think the player should be able to decide if Joel was in the right (he isn't) without the game forcing its viewpoint on you.
It's kind of like people who watch Fight Club and idolize Tyler Durden, or Breaking Bad and idolize Walter White - these shows simply show the actions for what they are and although both characters get a repercussion in the end, some interpret it as just another cool thing they did and those people are objectively wrong. I kind of like that Joel doesn't get any comeuppance - I think that says more about the state of the world they inhabit.
Either way I appreciate what you are doing man. I really dig it.
I actually liked the Winter chapter propably the most out of my time with the game, mostly due to gameplay reasons. Playing as Ellie alone and being clearly underpowered compared to your enemies necessitated more strategizing and made the combat more tense and interesting as a result, and as on the nose evil as David and his posse were, he managed to be a pretty genuinely threatening villain and his bossfight was definitely one of the highlight moments in the game (up there with the giraffe) for me.
However I do agree it really didn't do enough to justify Joel and Ellie transitioning from wisecracking, but emotionally distant travelling buddies to a surrogate family we were apparently supposed to see them as by the Spring chapter.
Don't know if Joel's comeuppance would have been neccessary in this game or not, but going forward, I find it absolutely is. I really don't see Last of Us Part 2 following up on the story without bringing Joel's killing spree at the end of the first game and then proceeding to lie to Ellie's face about it into the light and further addressing it.
You don't feel a father & daughter connection for a reason: there is none. Nowhere does the game imply that, we just naturaly assume it because of the age difference and because Joel lost his daughter in the beginning. For Joel, Elly is more like a hopebringer in a world where hope and the future are lost. He was mostly on autopilot for the last years fighting for survival, like anybody else. Everything he did is for his own benefit, Tess is his partner, but she acts the same way, for her own benefit. Well Tess gets infected and there you go, another loss.
There is not a lot of value fighting for other humans because anybody could be infected anyway. But not Elly.
Since he connected with Elly, he maybe felt something he did not feel for a long time.
Doing something not for his own benefit, like in the good old times. He can see hope and future once again and selfish as he is, he wants to keep it from harm. I think therein lies the true selfishness of Joels character, one we can all relate to: Doing something for others so we can be happier in our own world.
So this is what we get at the end: A happy Joel, even hyper. And a lost Elly, without a purpose, since she was a canditade for the saviour of mankind. Joel took that purpose from her for his own wellbeing. They now switched roles. Joel had no purpose other than survival and found it in Elly. And Elly, now left without purpose, feels like Joel used to feel before that. Now she is alone with no hope and future. And this is exactly what we see in the TLOU 2 trailer, when Joel walks into that room and goes like : Elly wtf are you doing?
So the story is, for me at least, not about father & daughter bonding. Quite the opposite.
Wow, coincidentally i always had that inner thought(or even desire) that Ellie kills Joel, probably not for the same reason i thought in the moment but actually, Joel never seemed to me as a good father figure o even a good person
NIER AUTOMATA GOTY.
Dude! Jajaja!
I like your videos but this one.... I have a completely different view of Joel and you paint him black too many times. I think he is doing the thing every father should do. Protecting his "daughter" from fucking idiots who want to kill her for some sliver of a chance to find a cure for a disease that just showed how fucked up the society already was. And also, he was protecting her from herself because she is a kid (14) and she doesn't understand things and she shouldn't get to decide whether she should sacrifice her life for someone else's cause. You could argue that Marlene is probably more of a mother to her than Joel is father and that maybe no one gets to decide but I'm so happy how things turned out and I enjoyed so much burning and killing my fellow scientists who wanted to experiment on Ellie. :D
I think the ending of TLoU was perfect. I also think that Druckmann is going to fuck it up in the sequel and that he is probably seeing Joel as villain, too. I hope I'm wrong.
Also, after initially wanting to get rid of her, Joel finally decided to stay with Ellie and help her end the search for the Fireflies. That's when he realized he wants to be with her and/or help her. He didn't want to leave her and he didn't want to force her to do what he wanted and I'm sure as hell he didn't think crossing the country to find Fireflies is a good idea. He stood by her.
Anyway, I agree that invisible companions suck and generally the gameplay is mediocre and doesn't work too well with the story.
Nier and Resonance of Fate are my top 2 since the '90s man good mmmm skittles 420
I thought I was the only one who didn't connect to Joel like how everyone else seemingly did... I'm done with reviews now. I'm just going to watch some gameplay videos from now on to decide which games to get.
The first two games I bought for my new ps4, which i bought for said games, were The Last of Us and Uncharted Collection and those are both purchases I regret (Uncharted a lot more so, man that series was overhyped to shit). I also bought Bloodborne and it's not my cup of tea because I don't have the time to sink 100+ hours in a single game that just feels completely devoid of any hope or fun whatsoever. So, I guess I regret that purchase too... All in all, I think getting a PS4 was a horrendous decision on my part which I can't seem to be able to justify no matter how I look at it. Damn it! I'll be sticking to PC from now on.
Form your videos I find you to be one somewhat on the same wavelength as I am when it comes to games (DMC and RE games are my favorite as well) so I was wondering if you could recommend some ps4 exclusives just so I can justify spending 2 months of my salary on a system that's currently just gathering dust at my home.
First off, just wanted to thank you for all the kind comments you've been leaving. I've seen all of them, just been too busy to respond lately, but I just want you to know they are sincerely appreciated.
Anyways, I highly recommend Nier Automata if you haven't played it yet. Probably my favorite game so far this generation. If you're looking for something story driven in the way Uncharted or TLoU is but done better, check out the new God of War. Also, Horizon Zero Dawn is probably the best serious open world game I've played in years.
Thanks! It's not like you don't deserve those comments, your videos are extremely high quality for someone with so few subs and I wish I could afford to do more. I've seen people with million or more subs/views etc whose videos have literally no flow or effort put into them. They just gush about the latest AAA release and it seems to appeal to the majority. I miss the PS2 gaming era. It was just so much fun.
I've had HZD on my wishlist for a while now but I don't know if the complete version or the base version would be better value for money. I really hate dlc and would rather have everything in one go but it's usually not even worth it. I have to say I don't really like the new GOW at all. The over the shoulder camera does not look appealing to me for a combat heavy game and I hate forced walking and talking sections which it seems to be overflowing with. I can stomach them the first time but they massively discourage repeat playthroughs.
And I thought Nier Automata was out for PC too? I was planning on getting it during steam sale or something but if it's an exclusive then I'll get right on that one.
To me, the way The Last of Us's story goes was supposed to be unfair like that, Joel wasn't punished for his actions as much but the game expects us to recognise that what's going on is wrong, that's why the game was good to me atleast. A game that showed us a narrative where the wrong person got his way even though he shouldn't, it's wrong, it's unfair, it's messed up but it happens because things like this can happen without there being punishment althought there should because life is unfair.
The main reason why I disagree with your is because your arguments had "this can't work" and "I don't think that was the intention" as parts of them and as that's just subjective opinion and as I see it, both of those are wrong, it did work as a story for me and I do think that was the intention.
The issue I have with this is that you are giving your opinion but your conclusion goes for "this is wrong" and not "to me, this is wrong", your opinion passes as you suggesting that it's fact or correct when we both know that opinion aren't things that can be objective and definitive like that.
In the end I do agree that Elie should kill Joel in the next game though (if he even is still alive) but I want to reiterate, not all stories have to show characters who are in the wrong get punished and that also includes these abusive relationship stories because in reality that happens, abusive people don't get the consequences of their actions although they should everytime, the other people in the game Joel fights are horrified at what he does in the last part of the game so the characters show that he isn't in the right. Just because another character (Nier) got more smack about what he did when he wasn't as messed up as Joel it doesn't mean that the story was wrong, it was more unfair and it came across as if you were too moved by that unfairness and that led you to not accepting that this story was unfair and wrong was the point and the game does make a case to show it. But that's just what I think, and I understand that it isn't right for me to force that as a fact on to you, and you should too.
did anybody watch bricky let them be bad video
Wow ... take it easy on Joal man ...lol
It seems like people love to create fathers that are shit, and treat it like it's normal for most fathers to be shit.
Sounds like they think fathers day should just be mothers day #2. One of the worst kinds of overused writing mechanics ever.
Dad EVIL.
Mother GOOD! ANGEL!
I remember playing and finishing Last of Us and not being blown away by it as well (found myself bored at multiple parts). It's awesome you touched on what I also thought was a big problem with Joel in that he's never really shown being much besides unsympathetic even before the whole timeskip. It's cool you covered this growing trend. Random thought but I'd love to see more things in entertainment cover the father son relationship in a non negative light or better yet more positive non-romantic male relationships in general. I think there are a lot of ideas to be had there.
P.S. JDilla... you know whats up :)
Joel makes me worry about Neil Druckman's kids.
most of this I personally feel is you projecting your personal feelings about the game onto other people and demanding it be some kind of norm. TLOU is a game entirely motivated by the world around them, Joel murders because he HAS to murder, not that it justified it at all, but the environment and people he was surrounded with were steeped in blood, so he had no choice but to conform. it seems like you largely forgot TLOU takes place in an actual apocalypse, these people are not good, because good is no longer expected, survival is.
Joel had no choice but to doom humanity by killing a hospital full of innocent doctors who could have made a cure before he gaslighted a child about his actions in the aftermath okay
@@CodexEntry Not every fucking story has to be about some shonen "UNITY CAN OVERCOME ALL" plot. Yes, Joel isn't particularly the most heroic protagonist. He's distinct because of the very fact his actions aren't altruistically motivated. He's a man whose steeped into nihilism after his biological daughter was shot in front of him. Such a traumatizing event during an apocalyptic moment, could send anyone off the deep end. The game even reinforced with the scene with his younger brother, Tommy explicitly said he has nightmares from his brother's past actions. Joel's actions are cruel and selfish, but it reflects the nature of the environment he's in. Any one of us can succumb Joel's mental state, and use any ruthless means to seek psychological comfort.
If you think The Last of Us's characters are "unlikable", then I can't imagine if you read the Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. The characters in that book makes The Last of Us look like Bambi. And before you make any assumptions, I'm actually not a huge fan of The Last of Us. Whereas I'm a big fan of Nier Gestalt.
So bascily best gaming father is actually girls brother?
Cause, you know, Nier is Yohnas brother and whole father thing is cover up for us audience.
If the older of the two orphaned siblings has to assume the role of a parent for the younger, it ultimately isn't that big of a difference in my eyes.
And I'm assuming you meant western audience. It bugs me quite a bit, how easily some people seem to forget, that very few of us westerners actually live in USA.
I bought TLoU when it came out because I liked Naughty Dog games, still do, and it was cool to see them take a darker tone with their stories for once. I didn't preorder, didn't look at any reviews either, just scooped it up day one with good faith. And oh man, I felt like I was playing one of the most boring games I'd ever experienced. My friends tried to convince me it was good, but I was about 3/4's through to my understanding, and I returned the game. I even gave away my code for the remaster when I got a PS4. I just couldn't take Joel's pathetic character and how the story went nowhere. Many thanks for helping me realize I'm not the only one.
That's a pretty lit Vash profile picture you got there
Thanks, man. Always cool to meet another Vash fan.
Part of the magic for The Last of Us is lost thanks to time. It really was the first next-gen game and I even find it hard to go back to and replay now.
But I do think we finally see what effect Joel had on ellie. She's a murderer now.
Ularg Naughty Dog games are absolutely cathartic and extraordinary the first time you play them; after that though, hmmmm...
I think you reading of this is a bit of . When you compare the games it's like your frustrated Joel isn't a perfect father. The fact is that Joel from the start did not want to be Ellie's father nor her guardian. So comparing him to family relationships is completely unfair.
You also miss out key moments where Joel and Ellie bond. For example, the car screen, when they look out into the sun set, the giraffe scene and when he embraces her after she had to kill David. There also many in game moments where you had the option for dialogue for Ellie and Joel to bond.
Yes Joel is selfish, I agree with on that but that's what makes the game so interesting and gripping. I think fathers have to do anything to protect the daughters and can mean being selfish in order to do so.
I don't what you mean by abuse, what abuse? I never once see Joel physically harm her and I think father and teen daughter arguing is pretty typlical.
In the end Joel did what any decent father would do, he shared loving moments with her and protected to the end even though she wasn't his daughter and even if that meant damning the entire human race. Pretty beautiful if you ask me.
Just sounds like you want to hate everyone's favourite game or you have some God like view of what a father should be.
No, I'm complaining that Joel doesn't put Ellie first ever. He puts himself first and uses Ellie as a means to his own happiness rather than letting Ellie have agency. He doesn't protect Ellie, he protects himself from losing Ellie which would be fine in and off itself if the game. This is literally the games core message, this is why it ends with Ellie looking at Joel while clearly being deeply uncertain on whether or not she can trust him, but he already denied her right to make a choice about her own fate and murdered dozens of people to maintain control over her, and demanding that you have that level of control over someone is, in and of itself, abusive. It's controlling someone's life against their will which is essentially emotional abuse 101. Again, hence the final shot, and we see Joel lash out at Ellie for not doing exactly what he says multiple times through out the game. However, the game never depicts that kind of shitty behavior as seriously bad, hence why people defend it and think that Joel is actually a good guy. He isn't. He's a piece of shit who dooms humanity, gaslights Ellie, and murders the only people who could find a cure because he couldn't deal with his fucking baggage. You're supposed to think he's a piece of shit cause he is.
And, god, this is exactly what I'm talking about. 'Pretty beautiful'. Ellie was raised by the fireflies. They are her surrogate family. And Joel fucking murders all of them, including the person who was basically her adoptive mom. He does this against Ellie's explicit wishes because he couldn't stand to lose someone else like the selfish fuckhead he is. It's honestly one of the most repulsive scenes in any major game in recent memory, yet a big part of that is because of how poorly it's framed. They provably fucked that scene up because there are people like you who unironically find it beautiful. Again: Joel murders dozens of innocent people including the only doctors who could find a cure to the plague and Ellie's surrogate mom thereby dooming humanity, all against Ellie's clear wishes, and you're going to tell me that's beautiful? Nah. Hell nah. It's possessive, reckless, selfish, and, again, is Joel treating Ellie as a tool for his own happiness rather than as a person with the right to agency.
And of course I have to ask: To what end is all of this done? What do we get out of it thematically? 'Hey, it's okay to murder random people if you're in morning'? 'It's okay to defy the wishes of your surrogate family'? 'It's okay to have complete control over someone's life if you've had a couple fleeting moments of connection with them'?
You know who wasn't a perfect dad? Papa Nier. He fucks up constantly and does a lot of harm to the world at large. Hell, he even dooms the world in much the same way as Joel, but I still think he's a great, well presented character who qualifies as a good Father, even if he's not that good of a person. I'm not going to type out a paragraph on it because I talk about it in the video, but suffice to say that he is far from perfect, but he clearly loves his daughter, sacrifices for her, and puts her first, things Joel fails to do. Nier views his daughter as family. Joel views his daughter as a prop for his own happiness. I don't need my Dads to be perfect. I do need them to not be, well, monsters. Or, failing that, at least have the game clearly say that they're monsters.
+Codex Entry "Joel doesn't put Ellie first ever."
False, halfway through the game Ellie literally convinces him not to leave her with Tommy. He was gonna leave her out of fear of becoming attached and losing her again, but he doesn't all thanks to her wishes.
>Ellie was raised by the fireflies. They are her surrogate family.
No, she wasn't. It's in the text of the game, clear as day.
I disagree, there where true moments where Joel connected with Ellie.
The Last Of Us is a very good game just not a masterpiece
TLoU fails because Joel is the worst character ever, there's no reason to play as him besides you are forced to play as him for 85% of the game and because the overall game is a complete and predictable cliché.
What makes The Last Of Us a bad piece of writing is that the narrative says that (BLANK) is a negative, but then tries to say that it is positive. It's like if every time you hurt yourself god would come down and say "CONGRATULATIONS!"
My god, Neil Druckmann is such a hack. He is arguably the most overrated developer in the gaming industry right now, alongside Jonathan Blow. It doesn't help that he, like Blow, seems to be an arrogant, narcissistic prick in person who thinks way too highly of himself. I guess all that fawning and adulation the western press does for him has gotten into his head. Whether it's his much-lauded writing on Uncharted 4 or The Last of Us, they all fall apart when properly scrutinized. He's very much middlebrow as a writer who fancies his writing as clever or subversive, when it actually isn't. It's sad that he's held as such a mainstream luminary in the industry while true greats like Yoko Taro is still niche, even with the modest success of NieR: Automata and with the decade's worth of great characters he has made.
Also, funny how hard Druckmann tries to virtue signal by making STRONK INDEPENDENT WOMYN characters in his games like Nadine in Uncharted 4, while someone like Hidetaka Miyazaki can make genuinely strong and great and memorable female characters in all of his games just effortlessly without it feeling like cheap virtue signalling.
I'd really like to see some evidence of this guy's monstrous narcissism. People get way too invested in this celebrity hatred crap, but if its justified I won't exactly be losing sleep. Did he insult some famous Japanese developers? I've already heard about that twitter stuff.
brightsuperstition proof. Show proof
Nadine is unrealistic? You do know you're talking about uncharted....a series of IndianaJones stunt filled with caricatures. And there's multiple comments in this section highlighting the massive narrative flaws with nier despite loving it. I'm starting to see how you basically super imposed a bunch of this nonsense without thought
LOL this comment is full of shit.