Why The Last of Us Part II Needed You To Hate It
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- Опубликовано: 19 апр 2023
- The Last of Us Part 2 is perhaps THE most controversial video game ever released, and I wanted to break down why that is and explain why I believe that the game practically required half of it's audience to hate it in order to properly convey it's themes to the other half.
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At first I was mad that Ellie went to Santa Barbara. But then I was glad she went. Cause she saved Abby’s life. Still probably wasn’t the right choice.
Well, she took out the Rattlers. However, the suggestion is that there was starvation outside its members; what the situation would be after a collapse ...
Then you are insane. People who defend Ellie and Abby are disgusting. Like the only reason why people defend Ellie is because Ellie is a tomboy.
Ellie saved herself by going to SB, she found the closure she was longing for.
She also freed the slaves held captive by the rattlers and started a rebellion, On top of that saving lev and Abby. The Santa Barbra trip seemed so out of place and dragged on at first but now it makes a lot more sense why they went with that.
You left out where the game forces you to kill a dog and then has you play fetch with that dog not too long after so that you feel like a piece of garbage
That was pretty brutal
THAT WAS THE SAME DOG!?
@@bug688 Alice
@@bug688 Im so sorry you found out
Not really.
You kill Alice (the only dog you HAVE to kill, btw. The other dogs can be bypassed in combat), like 25 minutes later you play fetch. But it is NOT with Alice, it is with Bear.
Now, Bear is a dog we come across in regular combat. At the hospital on Ellie Day 2. If you don't kill him there, he pops up again on Ellie Day 3.
We do play fetch with Alice, but that it MANY hours after we kill her as Ellie.
But yeah, regardless, I don't think that the game was making me feel bad about Alice by making me play fetch with her. I don't feel bad. Ellie did that, not me.
I did, however, feel a little bad about Bear. Cuz that was an optional dog I killed (with a seraphites pickaxe, no less. One of the two dog kills in the game that made me go oooof lol. The other one being the very first one you can kill). Cuz that was an optional dog I could've spared.
I loved part two even more than part one. The only problem I had was Tommy's random change of heart to make Ellie pursue Abby further. Otherwise it was a total masterpiece, I'm happy that Ellie gets to live with the consequences of her decisions whatever they may be, not just get a happy ever after despite it all.
I think Tommy was ready to let it go in Seattle, but getting his eye shot out and his leg messed up made him bitter about it all over again, and loosing his marriage after he got back probably caused him to spiral even further and hyperfocus on the person (Abby) he blames for putting him in that situation
@@bignstuffExactly what I thought too, but I think it could also be that he just agreed to head back to keep Ellie, Dina and Jessie safe, and then would've just sneaked out of Jackson again.
I thought so too at first, but other people have mentioned that it's very likely with his kind of facial injury the possibilitiy of a TBI (Traumatic brain injury) developing and creating a different sense of self or a difference in personality/aggressiveness/aggravation. Definitely possible after being literally beaten with a steel revolver and shot in the eye.
i mean i get that but like he was left with literally NOTHING after abby and ellies confrontation, all he had left was killing abby and ellie was backing out for something that tommy lost trying to help ellie achieve
@@msampson2286 Tommy wasn't helping Ellie though, all he lost was his own choice, he decided to go on a revenge mission on his own, he left his wife to do that of his own volition, he didn't die in the process which is itself is an achievement. He just didn't strike me as a person who would be that bitter about his own choices having very logical consequences that he should have accounted for in the first place. The explanation of a brain injury changing him is about the only explanation I can accept here.
I do wholeheartedly believe that the first game was about hope and love and the second game was about forgiveness. I knew that when she saw that brief second of Joel and when we got that final flashback scene. But on my third play through of the game I actually felt bad for Abby during the final fight scene. Ellie threatened a child, something she never would’ve done at any other point in time. She forced Abby to fight her by threatening Lev. I just felt bad for Abby in that scene. Ellie was going to let her go until she looked at the blood on her hands and was reminded of Joel’s bloody and mangled body
I also felt bad for her. She was on the same path Ellie was on but wanted to leave it behind her.
if this game is about forgiveness why didnt abby forgive joel for saving her life ?
@@Kushi420 Everything Abby does in Seattle in game is literally because she feels bad for killing Joel and she needs to redeem her own wrongdoing by helping Lev…
You simpletons just keep pointing out how good the story actually is.
@@markedone494 she shouldn't killed him in the first place, she should've thought about killing him after Joel saved her maybe she would've rethink her decision to kill Joel and ask him why he killed her father
@@Kushi420she was still holding resentment for what he had done she was on a mission and traveled all the way their I doubt she would’ve stopped there and asked him a question he had killed someone very close to her
Wasn't a huge fan of Joel in part 1. I like that the game pretty much forces you to be a hypocrite in so many instances. I've seen people judge Abby for almost cutting Dina's throat even after she found out that she was pregnant. But those same people will shrug their shoulders when Ellie kills Mel, "she shouldn't have attacked her." They'd say. Obviously the reason we care more about the Jackson group vs the Washington group is clear but still. That's not the only instances, there are tons of other instances where if you judge Abby you'd be a hypocrite for not judging Ellie or Joel from part 1.
Exactly!! And ppl act like Abby should've shown that she regretted killing Joel more- but why would she? She doesn't regret killing the man who made her an orphan and uprooted her whole sense of purpose, she just regrets wasting so much time dedicating her life to it and regrets becoming so hyperfocused on revenge that she pushed Owen away (similar to Ellie's regrets abt Joel). Joel/Tommy/Ellie did monumentally more damage to Abby's life than she ever dealt them, so the fact that she's still treated like she's the 'villain' is baffling to me.
I judge Abby for a single reason. Seriously if she were to kill Joel out of literally ANY other reason than revenge, I would buy whatever story they tried to tell however flawed.
The fact that we seek revenge for people who sought revenge doesn't make me feel like I'm doing something wrong, I'm giving Abby and her group what they asked for, they can't expect to stay bloodthirsty for a single man for 4 YEARS, brutally torture him to death literally in front of a person that clearly loves him without those same people coming after them.
Something I would accept is if.. I don't know Jackson was under attack or that some situation happened that resulted in Joel dying, Ellie filled with grief going after them to seek revenge for something they didn't really ask for. That's when all of it works for me. I judge Abby because she knew the consequences and got them. As Ellie, I'm wronging someone who PURPOSELY wrong me, I'm somewhat justified, at least more than Abby.
@@playyourdrums6762 (long comment, oops) There's a valid reason she held onto that anger for 4 years tho, and it's not bc she's an evil, irredeemable monster- it's bc she was essentially taken advantage of in a lost and vulnerable state. Joel's actions directly made her an orphan and took away her + her friends' sense of purpose in the Fireflies. This made her susceptible to brainwashing by Isaac who became a new mentor/father figure to her. But we learn he's a man with a twisted sense of justice, as seen in how he handles the conflict with Scars, wants to eliminate their whole island, and kills WLF traitors, so that's the mindset he teaches to her friends but specifically Abby. Abby was young and not physically strong when her dad died, but she still had her trauma and anger, which Isaac likely fueled to train her into a killing machine/top soldier for his militia to replace her old identity in the Fireflies. So the idea of revenge, violence, and war was all she focused on and knew for 4 years.
It's also confirmed by Laura Bailey (Abby's actress) that Isaac was a friend of her dad, so Isaac understood but perpetuated Abby's trauma for years, actively supporting the Salt Lake crew to go find the man who ruined their lives, which is why her friends (except Owen) agreed to go to Jackson with Abby, too. If Ellie's justified in killing ppl bc of her trauma out of revenge and her friends came to help bc they agree to a lesser extent, Abby's trauma (+ her friends') is equally justified, as all of their trauma has been ingrained into them daily bc of their military brainwashing, making violence and war their only sense of purpose. But the act of killing Joel unlocks her realization that the war and violence she's been taught within the WLF didn't resolve her trauma; his death is the catalyst of her breaking out of her brainwashing by doubting Isaac + regaining a truer sense of purpose in protecting equally lost people, her 'enemies' Yara and Lev.
@beccazac I don't agree.
Abby wasn't taken advantage of, she simply found herself in a situation where a loved one died at the hands of another man in a world where that is EXTREMELY common. Sure he did a horrible thing and ruined the salt lake group's lives but he didn't do it out of spite for them or in order to make them suffer, and going after him wasn't going to reverse what he did, they weren't hunting him down in order to save the world from it's doomer, there was even no justification in ridding the world of him, I'm sure they met a lot of people just as horrible as him, it would be madness going around getting rid of all the horrible people, correcting a world like this (Although now saying this I guess they're fireflies and the save the world mentality is kind of their thing). Point is, killing Joel wasn't going to give Abby anything other than vengeance and everybody knew that, Abby is not justified. The whole thing with Issac and trauma and all that other stuff, not only they don't show any of it, and this is a game that haunted my thoughts for years and still this is the first I'm hearing of that story detail, but it also does not justify this. And I'm not saying Ellie is, the whole point of her section is to show that she's not. But the fact that she's going after people who went through the EXACT SAME journey as her loses it's point for me, if Ellie isn't justified than Abby is no better, why than show her point of view if I just played it half of the game? I know her point of view, she sought vengeance for her father's killer, sounds like a summery for Ellie's section. Going on a revenge quest against people who went after a revenge quest, just like there's deeper depth to Ellie's story like how Abby robbed her of finally reconciling with Joel and that does not justify Ellie, so is the same with the other side, the game loses what it's trying to tell and really has no deeper themes or stuff like that, it's just telling the story of what happened to the characters of the first game and it's telling a shit story at that.
Game was flat for me because the quest of both the main characters was pointless for me to experience.
@@playyourdrums6762 [long comment again] It's never about reaching an end goal/destination or making rational decisions; it's abt how the characters have developed throughout their journeys, for better or worse due to their human instincts + emotions. If that were the case, TLOU1 would've ended with Joel leaving Ellie with the Fireflies as he promised, whether or not he grew to love her over the course of the story. And if you think telling a similar story as the first game is useless, I don't know what to tell you bc that's kinda how sequels work, or else it wouldn't make sense thematically. I can't tell you how to experience a game, but in no way was TLOU2 pointless, bc its story expands on TLOU1's themes of grief, sense of purpose, and trauma. But it's all a direct result of TLOU1 and Joel's violent act of love that affected the lives of two girls, which made them commit violent acts for the people they loved too.
Joel, Ellie, and Abby all mirror each other in pursuit of losing their sense of purpose but regain meaning in survival by learning to protect the people they grow to care about. Abby regains her humanity after abandoning her brainwashed life of war in the WLF after realizing her revenge was useless, and makes a new family with Lev, another outcast, to look for the Fireflies and return to her original goal of 'looking for the light'. And Ellie spends a lot of the game like how Abby was those 4 years prior to killing Joel, bc Joel's death was recently and her emotions are at an all-time high. Due to her survivor's guilt from TLOU1, Ellie was already living like a shell of herself in Jackson since the end of TLOU1 bc she felt like she had no purpose after not providing a cure. Then losing Joel before she could mend her relationship with him was her last straw and she goes on a suicidal revenge journey, bc she can't face her guilt for pushing away the person she truly cared about the most for years.
After Abby spares her + Dina and gives Ellie the chance to experience a peaceful family life with a partner and child, Ellie finally starts to experience the fulfilling life that Joel wanted her to experience when he saved her from the hospital, not for her to waste it on grief and regret. When Tommy shows up at the farmhouse, Ellie at that point isn't full of anger like she was in Seattle, and she's not mad at Abby either bc she's accepted that she was more angry at herself this whole time. Ellie's just depressed and doesn't know any other way to cure her PTSD except to find Abby and possibly kill her if that's what it takes. But when she has agency over Abby's fate for the 1st time in SB (bc Abby was in full control during their 2 prior encounters) Ellie's flashback of Joel- of when he showed support for her relationship with Dina, when she was scared for years that Joel would judge her- was a final reminder that abandoning Dina and JJ is the last thing Joel would've wanted for her. So Ellie spares Abby to give herself closure and moves on to seek real help for her PTSD in Jackson.
This game is the ultimate story of Joel's sacrificial love for Ellie bc he knew she was worth more than being a cure, which she couldn't see until she had Dina and JJ. But more importantly, it's abt regaining your sense of purpose, and revenge is the most basic, surface-level theme bc it only serves as a mechanism to explore deeper psychological themes of dealing with trauma, grief, and regret. It never shows that one character's better or worse, or that either side is acting rationally in their emotions- they simply show the outcomes of both characters' actions, even Joel's, and that both sides suffer in order to restart their life from a fresh perspective. It's not a story that's traditionally made for a video game format and everything isn't spelled out for you, which is why not all viewers will understand it or connect to the characters. I could write a book explaining the whole story, but I honestly think it'll be more clear to people once they see it in the HBO show, as opposed to a game format.
I never hated Part 2. It’s more emotionally driven than Part 1 for sure. I mostly disliked the pacing issues and thought they could’ve done better with Abby’s arc. At a certain point, I was kind of over Ellie’s revenge as Jack(septiceye) put it during a specific scene and especially before Nora’s. I never expected a video game to make me shiver or even turn away from a death scene. Joel’s death always cause some form of reaction and I know that’s the point but man it makes you take a breather from the game. What I like about this game is that despite all the negative reviews it pulled (and people changing their mind or people keeping their same opinions), it still got people talking for months. And maybe you really think. I personally don’t know any other game that has had that same impact as LOU II.
Tbf you’re supposed to be over Ellie’s revenge before the Nora stuff.
Jesus christ you really called me out on the "know-it-all" attitude I had when I found out people didn't like Part 2 as much as I did lol.
Well I didn’t hate Part II at all. I actually hold it up there on equal terms with Part I. They go together perfectly in my eyes and by the end I really enjoyed Abby’s character. Yes I was sad about Joel, but I figured his death would come in to play in a sequel anyways. And the way it was done I don’t feel it was disrespectful. I understand the people that disliked it though, as everyone has their own eyes and forms their own opinion based on their own personal experience and beliefs. 🤷🏻♂️
I haven’t finished the video yet, but that was just my take based on the title. Great video so far though man.
direct contadiction with no salient point? yeah your just being contrarian for the sake of being unique even though your just picking red team over blue.
@@thenightwatchman1598 opinions on the game aren't all black and white. you can like the game while also calling out it's flaws, and the other way around too. the fact that people are still butt-hurt over this story is what makes the extremely hateful, AND the extremely positive takes on the game immature. either they learnt how to move on, which was the entire point of the game, or they missed the point and kept either shitting on it or glazing it. personally, i appreciate the audacity the writers had to piss everyone off.
@@craaab____721 i never played it so take what i say with a grain of salt.
@@thenightwatchman1598sure, I'm glad we can come to a mutual understanding. good day
A point I feel is fair to consider when you say things like Joel doomed all of humanity is that the fireflies only actually said they thought there was a *chance* Ellie could help create a cure. They weren't certain. It was just as likely they would do the surgery, Ellie would die, but nothing positive would have come of it so while I understand the point you are still making it's not entirely true to say Joel doomed mankind. Plus, even if the cure was created, you still have a world where there's Raiders and murderers and zombies that even if they can't turn you can still beat you and bite you to death. It's not like having a cure would magically change all of that FWIW.
You also can't vaccinate against fungal infections. That's not how they work.
Oh it’s confirmed the vaccine would’ve worked Druckman was clear on that
i think a LOT of the divisiveness had a lot to do with the fact the fandom was already split on how they felt about joel’s choice, but almost EVERYONE loved him still. i could be wrong if it was studied, but i feel like a lot of the people i saw immediately jump to hating this game and abby immediately were people who wholeheartedly believe he did the right thing, and not as much because of the “the fireflies are incompetent” stance, but solely because it’s what THEY would do, as they love ellie too.
for that crowd, seeing ellie turn into This was hard, and as mentioned in the video many felt judged when they couldn’t forgive or at least move on from abby and DID still want her dead, and couldn’t see the parallel between her and joel through their hatred. and genuinely, i don’t think this game is supposed to be a judgement on how you respond to the story, but genuinely asking YOU the player, if you could move on from the pure hatred into something else a little less destructive and a little more focused on yourself and helping your actual pain. which is one of the hardest things to do, so most of the division made perfect sense to me, aside from the people who just jumped to hating it the second they killed joel or got to abby and didn’t even try to hear out the justification for that choice. you can disagree that it was worth it, but a lot of that initial uproar wasn’t about that
Spot on. A game that forces people to see others perspective to highlight our own bias will always be divisive because people are very different. Those who lack empathy or have less emotional maturity tend to be the ones who simply cannot see the other side and even refuse, whereas the opposite is true for those who have more empathy and emotional maturity.
In the end, if the game wasn’t divisive it would have meant the writers failed.
@@ItsSVO exactly. as someone with a LOT of empathy, i fell for the writer’s point completely, and very quickly wanted ellie to stop, even faster understood the abby/joel parallel and grew to appreciate her side, and eventually to love her and lev. i still had the “oh FUCK no” reaction to playing as her initially, and the hatred of her killing joel, but i actually allowed the story to at least TRY make its point and convince me. a lot of the initial uproar refused to do so on principle and missed out on an actually really good conversation piece, whether you left the game convinced or not
@@lightworthy I completely agree. I think ultimately people are either ellie in the water letting Abbie go or they’re stuck as Ellie in Seattle still.
Well said.... Even my sister loves the first game but absolutely hates the second game with a passion, but she's a Joel fangirl 😂 and she wanted him and Ellie to have another adventure to find Ellie's mother..... Ugh 😅
@@ItsSVOI mean making a game people loved would’ve been better too vs saying only our view matters or is right like you said the devs and critics had bias too that the fans disagree with wholeheartedly forcing bad pacing and a story that’s tries to act deep but is at ankle height there’s good deaths and bad deaths not to mention the lies spread by the devs too but hey at least there’s great reviews by people who respectfully dislike it a nd express it in a long video format but I’m guessing people don’t listen because it’s easier to straw man/cherry-pick opinions I’m guessing from fans who aren’t fond of criticism of the game not saying you of course but of others
I'm not going to get into the game's issues in detail because it has plenty of them, but suffice it to say that it was paced horribly and literally ripped me out of the experience. Abby's sections felt like a cheap, watered down imitation of Part 1 just riding on that game's coat tails and Abby herself pulled some stunts I absolutely hated. Dinah felt pointless, Tommy and Joel acted out of character, and Jesse was literally just there to die. I did like Lev and Yara though.
No, what I want to bring up is my issue with Naughty Dog and how they handled these leaks. When all the discourse started, to say they handled it poorly is an understatement. I was disappointed with what I heard from the leaks but still willing to give the game a chance up to that point. But the studio literally called half their fanbase names in response to criticisms. Were some people out of line? Absolutely. But completely ignoring any valid criticisms with "The people who don't like the game are homophobic and transphobic and so anyone who doesn't like the game is invalid" from Naughty Dog itself? They lost me right there. Then add on that they literally lied in game footage released shortly before the release showing Joel in a section after he'd died and Jesse was there instead on top of other very scummy dev decisions? No, ND have completely lost my support for their stuff going forward. Especially if Druckmann is involved.
It was a very interesting, yet very poorly executed, story concept. The story structure and character decision making are the biggest issues. The decisions of Abby to repeatedly spare Ellie and for Ellie to ultimately spare Abby are completely illogical and inconsistent with the characters’ personalities and motivations.
Also, Abby’s basic story is fine, but most of the story we play through is mostly pointless to the overall game. Her gameplay could have been cut in half without changing much about the story and game.
i think a problem with part 2 is that it tries to make us bond with abbie’s friends. characters we had already killed as ellie which demotivated me personally to care much for them knowing that in 2 or 3 in game days they’re dead
The fact you knew Ellie had killed them made me bond with them more.
You frame the ending of Part 1 in just the perfect way to support your argument: The salvation of the human race was right there for the having, except Joel chose to save Ellie. The cad! You go further, then, positing that "most people in the universe would absolutely see Joel as the bad guy here".
Maybe, if "most people in the universe" didn't have two brain cells to rub together.
The truth is, nothing about the situation Joel finds when he wakes up makes any sense, and everything raises suspicions that the Fireflys are running some kind of agenda. What kind of "Everything"?
*The doctor is a brain surgeon, with zero training or history in any kind of vaccine development, ignoring the larger problem that no successful vaccine has ever been made for a fungus, and no surgeon has ever been schooled in mycology.
* The doctor has never even seen anyone like Ellie, but in a mere estimated hour with an unconscious Ellie, and with only rudimentary equipment, he now fully understands the mechanism of Ellie's immunity and how to make the vaccine. Yeah, that's not suspicious at all.
* The doctor is so certain of his knowledge, we are to believe, that it is absolutely necessary to IMMEDIATELY kill Ellie, right this minute. No, sorry, we know it took a year to get here, but she must die NOW, no time to let her wake up and give her informed consent to dying.
* What, let her live while they try a few things first? Extract a sample of the fungus from Ellie to study it, see if they can grow it, proceed step by step while she is still alive? Fuck no! No time to lose, kill her now!
*And once they have her brain in a jar, what then? This doctor has none of the resources of a vaccine development facility, you know, the kind that were fully staffed in the years after the outbreak, but failed in all attempts to create a therapy.
* And in the one-in-a-million chance they make one dose of effective vaccine, how can they manufacture it, in their rundown, filthy "clinic"? Or distribute it?
So Joel's dilemma isn't "one life vs. all life", it's "let these people kill my daughter now simply because they say it must be done this instant". I'm sure the author of this video would say "well, sure, as long as you say it must be done, take my daughter, she's out in the back yard".
I fully see what you’re saying here, and it’s definitely something that we as viewers can take into account. The legitimacy of the vaccine and the firefly’s ability to distribute it is something that we can weight in on our decision on wether we think Joel was right or not or if it’s more complicated then that. But Joel can’t. He fully believes that the vaccine could be made and that it could be given to everyone in the world and save everybody’s life. He wouldn’t travel half way across the country, risking his life, after the death of Tess, for something that he didn’t believe in.
Basically, It isn’t about if the vaccine could actually be made, it’s about Joel believing it could be made.
And with that, it does come down to ‘one life vs all life’, because HE believes that killing Ellie would save the world.
(plus it was a very ‘in the heat of the moment’ thing because of the shock of resuscitating Ellie and being knocked out, and then waking up and finding he’s with the firefly’s and being told that Ellie is being prepped for surgery and the surgery will kill her. Next thing he knows is he’s being escorted out and he has barely any time at all to make a decision, he doesn’t have the time to think more critically about the situation and if Ellie agreed to it or if a cure could genuinely be made (cause like I said before not about if it could, but if Joel believes it could). Also, who knows maybe in the world of tlou they could actually make the vaccine and the legitimacy and medical inaccuracy’s wouldn’t be in question.
About the consent also- it’s in the apocalypse and Marlene/the firefly’s really can’t risk Ellie saying no so they compromise by making the choice of all life over one life, and Marlene’s ethics and past relationship with Ellie is a whole other thing that I won’t get into now.)
(Also also- I really hope this doesn’t come of as aggressive or mean or rude or anything I’m genuinely not trying to be like that at all, I’m just trying to give an alternate opinion and give something for people and you to think about, but I am sorry if it does come off that way!!!)
TLDR: Not about if the vaccine can be made, it’s about wether Joel believes it can be made.
Not to mention in the first game they tell you they already killed others immune people for nothing
I replayed these games recently and in Part there's the motif of the Future Days song ("If I ever were to lose you, I'd surely lose myself").
The lyric that actually stood out to me way more was "All my stolen missing parts, I've no need for anymore." Joel sing that line in clear reference to finally finding some kind of closure with Sarah through Ellie. Ellie lost her fingers, and by extension lost her connection with Joel through playing guitar, and that seemed to be the final little push to set her on a new path. Abby experiences this line over and over through Lev, first when saving him & Yara finally ends her recurring flashback of finding her dad, and again with Lev shortly after her life & friends in the WLF all die violently.
On a replay, after having had plenty of time to digest the ending and having this new context in mind, it's surreal to see Abby & Ellie's confrontation together. Ellie still thinks this is all about the Fireflies and Joel, whereas Abby has long abandoned that part of her life and was in the process of starting her life over yet again. Ellie's side of this is tragic: She couldn't overcome her trauma the way Abby could, and stagnated into a broody mess. Ellie missed out on the maybe one good lesson Joel had for her, which that "You keep finding something to fight for."
The fact that NO ONE ever mentions the fact that Abbey's dad was the one who was gonna murder Ellie in the first game is just crazy. It takes at least SOME vindication away from Abbey, not to mention the Surgeon died in the dumbest way possible. He literally wouldn't let Joel leave with Ellie unless he killed him.
You have to accept the game saying Ellie was the cure for humanity, and that the fireflies could make a cutre.....that is what makes Joel's choice even more damning.... He damned humanity to save his surrogate daughter..... And yes Abby's dad would obviously not want Joel to take away that chance of a cure....
@@iad77 If you're gonna criticize Joel for hus action then you sure as fuck better criticize Abbey's dad for being more than willing to murder a child without her concent and then Leeroy Jenkins himself into Joel like a dumbass.
@@iad77uhmmmmm that’s still not a reason to murder a child without letting him say goodbye or at least tell her first and the world was already screwed being 14-16 years after the start of the infection and a single extremists faction fighting the former government won’t be able to make multiple cures for the rest of the world lastly doctors code which he broke so he couldn’t even be decent enough to do the bare minimum or find another mean that wouldn’t kill the patient or work with other factions to find other people like Ellie
@@iad77 in the first game they directly tell you they would have killed Ellie for nothing and that there Is no cure, the fireflies were another organization of psychos
@@gaia7240 The game never tells you there was no cure wtf are u yapping about
It's also fucked up that abby completed her revenge and found love with lev yes she lost her friends but Ellie shouldn't complete here revenge hmm I guess it's good conversation until last of us 3
My thing with the first game's whole debate over, if Joel was right to do what he did, is that the target audience of this game is mentally incapable of understanding the level of undoing of everything from before.
There is no *saving* the world. It's changed irrevocably by this point. There are cities that outright don't exist anymore. Like, buildings rotted away to their foundations. and streets buried under grass.
Saving the world is totally out of the question by now! Sidestepping the whole "verifiably unable vaccinate against fungal spores" thing, it's just outright morally wrong to keep holding on like the Fireflies do. Stoking smart and capable people to leave their communities, bombing the last few safe places, participating in criminal enterprises, and giving the authorities an excuse to clamp down on people by doing so, like getting a single scrape in a moist room leading to you being a fucking monster a day later wasn't enough.
The Fireflies are made up of competent, intelligent people, who couldn't accept that the world has moved on, and further contribute to the pain and suffering of *everyone around them.*
The only people, doing alright, were in Jackson! Because they MOVED ON! Tommy's married now, with a baby! New buildings are put up, people have jobs and roles in their communities, there is democracy! The people of Jackson accepted the new world and they're fuckin' thriving in it because of that. Even the WLF pre-Ellie, but FEDRA, the Fireflies, manufacture suffering for the sake of, what? Bringing back a world that could never be again? A miracle cure that has been paid for in the lives of everyone dead by their hands, that by what we know of fungal diseases, doesn't exist? FEDRA becoming outright fascist to maintain an urban heirarchy. These places holding on are only hurting everything around them.
The message *I* gleamed from The Last of Us is: *You have, to let, go, if you want to move forward.*
ruclips.net/video/1u0z_ttNSzI/видео.html abby through the entire game.
And choose humanity, like Jackson was the only Place where they actually help people, the fireflies revealed themselves for being another bunch of selfish murderous people, I like the cat Joel decided that out of all the people alive in that world it was Ellie who deserved to be saved because she wasnt selfish
That is what the last of us meant, the last people with humanity
Played the first one on release and loved it (of course).
When the second one released all I knew is it turned into online tribal war....so I waited end kept myself spoiler free. Bought it about a month ago for 10 euro. Just finished it an hour ago.
Staying out of the online bullshit convo for those years was the right choice XD
So now I'm jumping online to see what the issue was and why everyone was losing their shot on release.
The fundamental problem with the story of TLOU2 is really the contrived moral relativism it forces into every aspect of the story. Everyone in the game is actually equally good and equally bad. No one has the moral high ground until suddenly they do. And why? Because the story makes them. Ellie is willing to kill hundreds of people in order to get revenge on one person, but it’s only when she’s about to get revenge on that one person when she suddenly has a change of heart. Abby is willing to gladly and knowingly murder a pregnant woman, but then suddenly decides to once again make a mistake that already cost the lives of all of her friends by letting Ellie live. Again.
story pacing is mess, and I hate how game is telling you killing is bad but you live in an apocalypse where you need kill to survive
Ellie didn’t kill hundreds of people tho. You chose to do that. The only confirmed kills are the ones in the cutscenes. Everyone else could’ve been stealthily avoided.
So that justification has no leg to stand on.
Give me a prequel with Joel, Tommy, and Tess.
I used to think editing waz the issue. I proposed rearranging the game so that Abby was played sooner. That was because I thought the creators wanted us to feel for Abby and had somewhat failed. Now I see they wanted us to feel has frustrated, angry, and hurt, all with the hopes that we'd learn alongside Ellie. Thank you for this perspective!
nah the whole story was just bad and poorly paced
@@BAM_BAM_XCI solid argument. /s
Here’s the thing, it’s Ellie’s choice to make so I felt quite separated the moment it happened and then ultimately felt empty after she actually made it, not because I didn’t understand the decision but because I didn’t know why it was truly made, the real motivation behind it. I still don’t know the answer to that question as I am left to guess at why. There are way too many themes interwoven throughout the game that the answer becomes murky and depends entirely upon your own personal perspective. I know this is the reason for your video but I simply disagree. This is what made it, not a bad ending but an incomplete one. I don’t know the pure motivations of the characters, especially Ellie, when it comes to the end game and that is what makes it feel empty, not the actual decision itself. To me this ineptitude is laid low at the feet of Naughty Dog and specifically Neil Druckman’s direction. They told a incomplete and ultimately messy end game story…imo. One last final thing, the motivation of people’s actions can tell you how right or wrong they truly are. Naughty Dog gave me a very simple and straightforward reason for Ellie to kill Abby, Abby murdered Joel. Then they gave me several different competing ideas throughout the game as to why Ellie shouldn’t or wouldn’t kill Abby. Finally Neil Druckman proceeded NOT to tell me the deciding reason why Ellie ultimately chose not to kill Abby. Whether on an emotional and/or intellectual basis, how can I agree or disagree with any decision made when I don’t fully understand the parameters of the choice being presented?
People think Joel did a bad thing when he took away Ellie's choice to save the world. What a lot of people forget is that the Fireflies didn't give Ellie a choice either. She never regains consciousness. They kept her out and then plopped her on a table to cut her brain open and kill her. That's a few thousand times worse than a little lie.
Not to mention, Ellie’s a literal child who shouldn’t have to make that choice and in the real world would never be given the option to consent to that. Joel did the right thing getting her out of there. I don’t necessarily think he should’ve lied to her but I won’t crucify him for it.
Everyone ALWAYS GLOSSES OVER that Abby's dad PULLED A KNIFE on a feral man, like in every JOEL VS Abby's Dad argument, NO ONE BRINGS THAT UP and it's HELLA important. He probably wouldn't have lost his life if he didn't decide to be so stupid.
This was a great video analysis. Subbed.
I LOVE your mention at the end of real people being emotional that sometimes make illogical choices. I'm so tired of people saying the character's choices don't make sense. That doesn't make it bad writing.
Excellent video. As to Joel’s decision to save Ellie: It was the moral choice. First, practically, there was no guarantee that sacrificing Ellie WOULD guarantee a cure. I think it is good not to accept the black or white choices we are often presented. Secondly, it is immoral to allow anyone, especially our “daughter,” to be killed in the name of science. What is the point of saving humanity if in doing so we lose our “humanity?”
Even if the cure was certain, the question would be would these "Fire-flie" characters be the ones you'd wish to have it? Also on Joel's part had I the ability to kill them I would, merely for not letting her tell me her decision. That is the in my opinion the death warrant on them all, knocking us out and not asking is plenty enough reason.
I disagree. Joel’s decision was a selfish one but done out of his genuine love for Ellie which is what makes it understandable. Joel’s selfishness here is born of the trauma of losing his actual daughter and being helpless to save her, he won’t be helpless this time though and that’s why he does what he does.
@@ItsSVO Well I agree selfish in part as we are all that every last human full of that selfishness virtue, or full of BS and hoping others buy it that we aren't. Now as to me I embrace it and harm or mess with me or those I care for and I'd kill over it.
Disrespect now like not following courteous rules, will bring consequences with the right person. Some people you think are peaceful when in fact are just harmless and thus have no choice.
Then there are others for instance like the Joel character, who can be heroically good and thus truly peaceful because they've the capacity and mental strength to not be. Now as to the "Fire-Flies" disrespectful selfish of course and stupid enough to not realize the obvious nature of someone, who survived and brought them this person.
Take it from this old SOB, someone I care for and or love, I'd throw you and every human on earth into hell over keeping them alive, under the same circumstance. What is more would feel proud and virtuous doing so. Ellie realized this as well what Joel was and that is the why his death tortured her so, rightly!... She condemned him for doing the right thing and she knew it as well.
@@ItsSVO but It was the fireflies Who put It on that spot to make that decision, you don't behave like that If you have good intentions
@@gaia7240 The fireflies did have good intentions, that doesn’t mean what they were doing was right though either. That’s the point of the narrative, nobody is right or wrong, it’s purely based on perspective.
We can all agree that the majority of us liked the first game, but find the execution of the story for part 2 is questionable at best and badly written at worst.
The thing I noticed is that most of the hate always comes from people who were influenced by the leaks. Most gamers who avoided the leaks and avoided the influencers ended up enjoying the game. Whereas almost every person that jumped on the leaks ended up hating the game. Go and check any of the youtube gaming critics and you'll notice this trend.
My nephew was a leaked influenced player he hated the game I played the game fully then spent 2.5 hours undoing all his influencer fed garbage, lies, and madeups so he fully understood the whole story he withered he had nothing to complain about as all his fed issues were answered by the game either vocally in it or via context the developers went out of their way to include and while he understood how he was fed false info, lied to , or otherwise manipulated into taking the view point he had a few weeks later he still decided to not only not want to play the game but still held when speaking to others the same lies that were debunked! He just liked to keep it going and pretend it was horrid for it's own sake so he'd have company in the whole affair.
Coincidentally he's also the one who won't read historical books on the account written by the victims of the account once an influencer or main stream tell him the lie myth that was formed for the winners either so an overall failure, disinterest, and unwillingness to learn truth even though he'll tell you he's got all the truth in the cosmos!
I avoided every spoiler and ended up loving it. Your probably right.
I avoided them and hated the game
I think a major problem is that so many people are small minded and cannot look past the death of [spoiler] and instantly wrote it off rather than see it all the way through and get all the small moments and interactions. I still know many people who dropped it after the 2 hour mark, not even playing the first half.
Calling murdering an innocent child for "The Greater Good" "the moral high ground" is a bit of a stretch, to put it mildly. If I had another lifetime, I'd make a list of all of the unspeakable crimes done in the name of "The Greater Good", but let's just take Sarah's death in the beginning of Part 1. The soldier murdered her for The Greater Good of containing the spread of the virus. No, there IS no difference, no matter how much you try to slice and dice it. I guess Joel began his "villain" career right there by not strangling his daughter himself, the selfish bastard.
As to "most people in this universe would *absolutely* see Joel as the villain"... Well, if you exclude every human being who is a parent from "most people", then you might be right. 100% of parents on the actual playtesting team for Part 1 agreed with Joel and did NOT see him as a villain. Unless Neil Druckmann lied about that, which I don't think he did.
I agree with you about Part II, though. Good analysis.
I think he means that if we never saw this story from Joel's perspective at all but instead from another character whose kid was infected and could've benefitted from the cure, then we'd see Joel as the antagonist. Parents understand Joel bc we grew to know him and his trauma, but parents would equally understand if they just saw a story of a parent who wanted nothing more than to cure their child.
If your kid was infected, you'd do anything to get them some kind of cure to save them, and that might mean you'd sacrifice some person you don't know for that cure (exactly how viewers don't blame Henry in TLOU HBO for giving up an innocent, healthy man that he loved to get medicine for Sam's leukemia). And you'd be upset if you heard that someone was immune and possibly could've provided that cure when suddenly a man took that child to prevent it from being made, but you don't know who that man is or his relationship to that immune kid. So any parent in that universe could possibly hate that man for putting his priorities above everyone else's. While killing Sarah wasn't saving anyone's life bc she wasn't actually a threat/infected, Ellie's sacrifice could've saved multiple people, which is all she wanted to do in the first place.
People would obviously feel sympathetic abt a girl having to be sacrificed to make a cure, but people are only ever emotionally connected to people and things they know. Like how some people see Abby's valid trauma from her dad dying but still don't like her bc they're more emotionally connected to Joel and Ellie. It's a bit like ppl's reactions to modern animal testing; a majority of people don't like the thought of it and don't support it, yet many don't drive themselves crazy to stop it bc they're still benefiting from the products that are now safe for them to use. Obviously not the exact same, but hopefully that makes sense.
Fair points, thanks for the awesome response! As for my remark about everyone in the universe seeing Joel as the villain, those people are not privy to everything we as the audience know about Joel and Ellie and their relationship. As far as most people know, if they know anything at all, it's that some dude killed everyone in a hospital and kidnapped someone who could have saved them and their families from the infection. We, and those playtesters, only find ourselves on Joel's side because we know him and we know what Ellie means to him, and we are not impacted by the consequences of that choice
@@bignstuff Thanks right back atcha. So you were referring to every person in the universe *not* knowing the details? Yeah, that makes sense and I agree there.
And, again, thanks for your analysis of Part II, it perfectly describes what it was that made me "come around" to the game, because I was one of those who absolutely detested it when it came out. That changed long ago, but I never really could put my finger on the reason why I changed my mind.
This video of yours helped explain some of the "missing bits" 🙂
I think it’s about delusions and the deep belief of having a moral high ground to stand on in the first place. An objective study of the world at that time and material basis for producing a cure doesn’t give as rosy a picture as the doctor depicted to Marlene and Abby.
@@bignstuff But not everyone in the universe BELIEVES that the fireflies were actually going to find a vaccine. The fireflies killed and tortured plenty before the vaccine was even a possibility. Not everyone is going to take their word for it. Only the fireflies and their friends believed that and were more than willing to kill for that. Is that belief sound and true? Ask yourself that.
JESUS CHRIST. I forgot how brutal the abby and ellie fight was like damb
I love the story of TLOU (1 + 2) and I think it couldn’t have been done in a more richly dense, cinematic and beautiful way. I think about this game pretty much everyday and I’m just blessed to have something this dope to experience!
it needed me to hate it and tried too hard to, if you think being polarizing being good is a bad sign. i've gotten more into game games and less into forced linear story games cause of the last of us part 2. im done supporting games trying to just being pushing forward movies with quick time events
Oh man This video is wonderful! The Quality and everything
I love the way you explain things at 13:15 and 18:57
This gave me a new understanding of the characters even though I already like the game
Good shit dude
My own silly thoughts
im a new fan
If I’m being real
If I waited years for a sequel for a game I loved hoping to see more of my favorite characters And their interactions I would be pretty pissed too
But I fortunately got to play right after the first
I LOVE part 2, I love Joel, Ellie and Abby
I love Ellie’s quest for revenge, it’s so interesting and kinda horrifying to see, It was so hard to get connected with abby but her interactions with lev are so wonderful
I love Ellie realizing Joel will never come back, no matter what she does no matter how many regrets she has he’s gone
And killing abby wont fix any of it
The story is absolutely tragic and I love it
It sucks that *some* fans got disappointed it wasn’t what they were expecting and didn’t really give it a chance, maybe the show will have a better reaction now that we know what’s coming🏌️♀️
I'm definitely super interested to see how they handle the next season of the show lol
Joel was always the "bad guy", he even says so himself. Whilst I can sympathize with Abby for the most part, she wasn't a very likable character herself. Even her own friends didn't seem to care that much for her.
I think the only playable character to come out of this game in a better light than they entered it was Ellie. Her redemption, though only slight, did make sense to me.
That said, the constant flashbacks and switching character got a bit much for me, and did take something away from the playing experience. Though by the end i6f the game I understood why they did it.
All in, a worthy sequel but not quite as good as part 1.
Her friends didn’t care for her because she was hellbent on revenge and slowly losing herself, she was very much liked before that hence why we see the flashbacks that show her and Owens relationship deteriorate. Much like Ellies friends also felt about her and how we see her and Joel’s relationship fall apart in flashbacks.
Doesn’t mean it’s good. Making you feel angry or disappointed doesn’t equate to quality. Much less if immersion requires absurd amounts of suspension of disbelief.
What a great discussion about this game. Really appreciate the attention to detail you provided.I wasn’t following you before this video and didn’t even know that your channel existed but you have a new follower now!
I feel so out of place when I talk about this game sometimes because I don't have that many strong opinions about it, just some things I would change.
To me Abby's session wasn't very convincing. It didn't work for me, specially because I already knew those people were dead. There was no tension if Abby was gonna live or die because we know she's alive from the movie theater scene. So I was just... Bored? Idk.
I'm of the opinion that the game should have started with Abby's session, up until the theater scene. Imagine starting the game with this unknown character; you reach the sniper point and-- wait, is that Tommy? Then the aquarium... Who killed them? Then the teather and... Holy shit why is Ellie there?
Then it would cut to the beginning we got in Jackson and we get the Ellie session. Idk I just think it would be a lot cooler. Aaaand might have made people warm up more to Abby. I know I didn't care about her at all even at the ending. A shame, really, considering how I felt like the game wanted you to like her at all costs
Damn that actually would have been pretty sick. I'm curious how they'll handle the order of events in the hbo series. They might change it up a bit from the game
@@bignstuff
Honestly, I hope they do. I don’t know why we were introduced to her friends after the fact.
Dammit man, you're not supposed to come up with an interesting, cogent examination of The Last Of Us: Part II that frames all the things that make the game so polarizing to Naughty Dog's fanbase.
You really did hit the various nails on the head in your video.
Before watching it, I really didn't have a framework for why I didn't like the sequel, and, to some extent, I still don't, but after seeing your work I've come much closer.
Before, I think my main difficulty was the one that critics brought up when they talked about the third Alien movie; when they noted that the third movie, by killing off everyone who had been definitively saved in the sequel, had negated the second movie, erasing its value as a story. For me, Part II was like that. To get to the very artificial conclusion of The Last Of Us, J and E, had to shot, shiv, and axe their way through the hundreds of people only to have Joel find himself faced with surgeons who had never heard of laparoscopy or needle biopsy ("She has to die." "Uh, no."), complete his redemption arc with one last burst of violence, and walk off into living out the rest of his life in the company of his beloved, lesbian adopted daughter.
The second game wipes all that away through the, to me at least, too-convoluted means of showing someone of equal love's reaction to the obverse fate that follows her revenge arc for the death of her father, and it's here that your examination makes me realize that it is a good story even if I hate it (and I do hate it, deeply, *passionately*); firstly because it depends on lots of convolutions (The saintly surgeon's daughter is "Power Girl" who can find the time and resources to find a Joel in a haystack and set the whole process of robbing Joel of his redemption in motion, and; secondly, the story seems cynical in that what it takes to tell it drags its ass on the carpet like a dog desperately trying to clean itself.
Watching your video made jelled something I hadn't seen on my own: Part II is one of the worst good stories I've ever seen.
Fantastic video essay, man. Took a peek at your channel and I’m really glad this one is doing numbers for you!
Amazing insight and it was wonderful to hear someone else’s deep dive and thoughts on this beautiful, tragic, stunning piece of art. Kudos! :)
Oh and no way did you go into too much “artsy conjecture”!
I’m a film critic and it’s a shame people and their attention spans nowadays don’t allow themselves to reflect on art whether it be film, video games, song, poetry…
Not many people will sit and think after consuming a piece of art or media and so much of the creators and artists intentions and the beauty of their storytelling is lost.
So continue to dive deep and find meaning in what you consume! It’s almost always there! After all, someone created it and I’m sure your type of response and thought provoking discussion is exactly what Naughty Dog would hope in their wildest dreams would happen in response to their art :)
Thanks again
Thanks for watching! And I appreciate the kind words, it means a lot!
This video is a masterpiece, you manage to change my point of view (I still hate abby) by explaining what the theme of the game was. You deserve more credit and support
I loved this video. I think you are right in your analisys - Naughty Dog did it all on purpose, knowing they made a good game that would be devisive and controversial. And, btw, I don't know how is it that your channel didn't explode yet. I am joining now, so in a year I can say: I was here from the humble begginigs haha.
I love how they completely ignore Ellie's immunity in the second game
Like, you'd think that abby and the others would try to capture her
I get that they decided that that one guy was the only one able to find a cure (and he didn't write anything down apparently, lol), but still, you might want to give it a try😂
Would you say it's almost like they started with the plot and then worked it into the setting, lazily and without regard to the characters?
Because that's literally what happened.
Last of Us Part 1 immediately became one of my favorite pieces of media. I am a relatively newer fan of the franchise, I wanted to watch the tv show but I felt like I could not do so without watching the games first so I did. And I fell deeply in love with LoU part 1.
The story, the vibe of it, the relatability of Joel being a shattered man inside the shell of human flesh, a man that has done so many bad things in his life and yet still failed to fulfill what he saw as his purpose as a protector of those he cared about. As is easy to tell im extremely attached to Joel, in the same respect I understood that the nature of a man thats done the things he's done is that it all comes back around at some point. The rent will always come due, so to speak.
In short, LoU 2, I hated it. I had a visceral, raging fire of hatred for it upon first viewing. I so desperately looked forward to more of the development of Ellie and Joel, the meltdown when Ellie inevitably learned what Joel had done and how they would work to repair it and we were robbed of all of that.
I WANT to love Last of Us 2. I really do. Its a beautiful game that preserves the feel of the first but there is just so much wrong from a narrative and structure point of view. I am trying so hard to love LoU 2 because I don't want to feel like such a wonderful story could go so bad that my first reaction was I'd rather they never continued the story than to continue it like this. Joel was always going to die. Joel's choice, which was never really a choice in the first place (at least in his mind) brought him past the point of no return. But I'm finding it so hard to accept the way it all transpires.
All of this to say that I appreciate this video offering another perspective another point to latch onto and analyze to help maybe come to terms with and learn to enjoy the chosen narrative of Druckmann and ND
I listened to critical essays posted on this site and all of them, no matter how long or "well-reasoned", invariably included Joel's death as the game breaker. That objection may be buried an hour into the video behind a wall of justifications but it's always there. Joel's death. That's the number one reason people are butt hurt over this game. If Joel had lived or been given an "honorable" death, most of those complaints would disappear.
So, according to you, asking for a character's death to be believable is people being butt hurt? Yeah okay
If Naughty Dog meant that, then they succeeded. They lost half the fanbase hence the money that would have come from those sales.
I was so happy that Pewdepie did a full livestream of his playthrough of the game, that way I could watch him play it so that I don't have to
It was a fun watch. To say he didn't like the game was a understatement. He was pretty mad and disappointed by the end.
@@drakenfist Ikr, trying to find good things to say about the game was so funny
Yeah I really liked the part when he left the room while a cutscene was playing, just shows how good he is at paying attention, he really is a genius
The fact that your channel is this small is a crime. This was one of the most beautifully told essays about the game in under 30 mins. What a game...
This game is easily one of the worst games ever and Ellie makes you want kill her.
Then they failed cause I loved part 2 even more then the first
This was an amazing video thank you so much
@Big N Stuff This has been the most honest reaction to the general discourse surrounding the game that ive heard so far. At least you TRIED to understand why both sides of the fandom felt the way they did, in the end.
Jeez. That final fight between Abby and Ellie is so hard to watch. I have 100 hours in Part 2, but it's still gut renching to see the 2 fight in the water
I stopped playing at the point Ellie decided to go back for revenge, so in my headcannon Ellie and Dina are still living their lives and Abby died on that pole.
I waited for the controversy to die down and the price to drop to get the game. Reflecting on your thesis, thinking of why in was needed to be hated, or why part 1 is about love and part 2 is about how far you would go, it makes sense why it’s so compelling and the point of it seems unbiased when deconstructing & starting from scratch, forgetting the spoilers, etc.
I enjoy the game play a lot, and it’s a beautiful looking piece of work, I usually prefer a more optimistic ending, but I think I understood want they were going for, specially after describing it and once you put it into your perspective, it makes sense how emotions can affect our ability to rationalize.
Looking at Joel as a villain doesn’t do the overall story justice. TLOU isn’t about good and bad, no one in the show is good. No one. Marlene is selfish and power hungry, Joel is a psycho, Ellie has a penchant for violence and FEDRA keep the population like prisoners. It’s essentially the age old story of:
Kill the few to save the many
In the end, there was never any guarantee of a cure even being made, let alone being distributed across the world.
Subscribed for the phrase, "spoil the heckin' fuck out of it"
My problem with the writing stems mostly from structure tbh. I think Abby's story was worth telling, however ellie feels like an after thought. Her chemistry with Dina is horrifying and the plotline with jesse serves no purpose. Had the game been about just abby and had it showed her side of the story throughout I think it would've raised the same questions and be a more effective narrative. It would also leave a chance for a third game where we could explore ellie and joel's relationship knowing our time is limited. It would be a trilogy with the themes: love, hate and grief. It could've been a masterpiece in storytelling
Omg... somebody who understands the game wasn't meant to be fun!! Thank you!
I just posed this question on another TLOU2 video essay who was saying the game wasn't fun.
"Why does every video game NEED to be fun? Does every song we listen to need to be fun for us to enjoy? Every movie needs to be fun?
That one dimensional thought process is why video games are so limited.
Y'all complain about every game being the same and then bitch because you didn't get rainbows and butterflies feeling from a post apocalyptic thriller. Joel murdered a hospital full of people and y'all considered it was a happy ending and Ellie and him would go frolicking through the wilderness? Lol"
@@jay2thaudy
I don’t know anyone who looks at it as a happy ending. I mean the camera literally panned to their dead bodies.And we as players have to roll with it because it’s that kind of game/perspective. We sympathize with him more but I don’t know anyone in the fandom that viewed as a happy ending. Both endings are bleak, Part 1/LOU just ended on a more upbeat tone
@@alexwilliams2276 yeah, there’s a different between “happy ending” and “happiest ending possible for this story”. tlou1 is the latter. there’s never gonna be a happy ending after joel and ellie get to that hospital, either she dies and joel is retraumatized from losing her and tbh likely goes on some kind of rampage anyway, or he goes on the rampage to /save/ her, and murders arguably completely innocent people trying to find a cure. that last point obviously depends on who you are and how you view the fireflies, since as the years have gone on people have pointed out more and more how incompetent the fireflies have seemed before that anyway, so who says they’ll even be ABLE to make a cure, and why jump straight to murdering the one human you know who is immune, when for all they know it could also end up destroying the immunity from being “harvested”. the other ending is the one we got, and realistically the happiest one possible.
i think a LOT of the divisiveness had a lot to do with the fact the fandom was already split on how they felt about joel’s choice, but almost EVERYONE loved him still. i could be wrong if it was studied, but i feel like a lot of the people i saw immediately jump to hating this game and abby immediately were people who wholeheartedly believe he did the right thing, and not as much because of the “the fireflies are incompetent” stance, but because it’s what THEY would do, as they love ellie too. for that crowd, seeing ellie turn into This, was hard, and as mentioned in the video many felt judged when they couldn’t forgive or at least move on from abby and DID still want her dead, and couldn’t see the parallel between her and joel through their hatred. and genuinely, i don’t think this game is supposed to be a judgement on how you respond to the story, but genuinely asking YOU the player, if you could move on from the pure hatred into something else a little less destructive and a little more focused on yourself and helping your actual pain. which is one of the hardest things to do, so most of the division made perfect sense to me, aside from the people who just jumped to hating it the second they killed joel or got to abby and didn’t even try to hear out the justification for that choice. you can disagree that it was worth it, but a lot of that initial uproar wasn’t about that
I don't agree with your portrayal of Joel's decision in the original game's ending. The doctors basically took one look at Allie, and then decided to kill her, and scoop her brains out for a CHANCE at developing a vaccine for the fungus. And also keep in mind, that developing a vaccine for fungal infections is something that even our fully functioning medical industry deemed unviable.
dishonesty and half truths to stir up drama are the hallmark of narcissists after-all.
Why people keep saying Joel doomed humanity? They tell you there was no cure and wanted to kill her for nothing
Exactly, and hypothetically even if the fireflies managed to create a cure let's just say they played things smart and didn't tell Joel or better yet murdered Ellie before Joel woke up.
And then by some Hail Mary pass managed to make a cure for a fungus..... They would still have the insurmountable Herculean task of not only trying to mass produce the let's be generous and say I don't know 10 vials of cure across the entire planet with absolutely no supply lines, without the Cure falling into the hands of federa or bands of fanatics, cultists,and Bandits.
And then on top of that The Cure would do absolutely nothing for those already infected like say Clickers. So you would still have a virtually endless Army of the fungal Undead to contend with.
At best the fireflies could probably have made like maybe a single community immune and even then the immunity is just from turning.
As we saw with Ellie in The Last of Us One if she bites somebody they still get infected.
All this to say that at the end of the day Ellie's death wouldn't have mattered they would have murdered a child for a cure that they had no way of Distributing to the entire planet. Best case scenario they use it to leverage power and gain some sort of political footing worst case scenario "The Cure" is lost to either Bandits, the government who just hoarded anyway, or the passage of time.
i really like your explanation for this. i honestly liked second game but the fact that ellie went out again wasnt sitting right with me but with your take on things it makes so much more sense and gives depth to the whole story. Ellie never had the chance to forgive abbie because even in the fight in the theater she was in no position to make the decision but was only lucky that abby didnt kill her and dina. only after she had the advantage in the last fight she clearly had the chance to decide rather she kills her and couldnt forgive her or if she lets her live. noted that „forgive“ isnt the right word here but rather understand abbies actions. I think Ellie could never really forgive her for killing joel.
I'm so happy I found out about the game after part 2 was already released.
i remember my friend telling me they hated the game, so i thought ‘i shouldn’t like this game either’ and i held it off for about 2 years, and when i finally decided to play it when i got my ps5, i actually loved it and understood (yet still didn’t agree) with abby. also the gameplay had some of the smoothest combat i’ve seen out of a game in years
To this day, I thought it was terrible game design and an insult to people who wanted a story.
Everything else about the game was top notch - animations, mechanics, level design, sound, acting, all great.
But to make a game with great combat mechanics just to make you feel awful for enjoying the mechanics for 25 hours, plus make the whole thing a revenge story and give you facts piecemeal through flashbacks to keep you hanging instead of provide that to you through forward action was just awful, stupid and insulting.
Death of a primary character as the inciting incident was a terrible use of the material. Revenge stories can be handled in 30 minutes in an after school special. People already knew where the story was going - there was no need to stretch it out that long as a way to more deeply invest into the characters. Game makers should be properly marrying the narrative to the action instead of making their own deeper personal agenda so obvious.
But, the content creators loved it.
I'm not their fan anymore. I'm not the fan they wanted. But they didn't tell me. I had to see this game to know.
Last of us 2 summarized:
Horrendous story + Phenomenal gameplay = meh
The freedom of gameplay was a great part of part 2, more replayability more opportunities for the game to be different but equally as thrilling. The worst part was them forcing the poorly written plot points, "press square to kill Nora" "beat Ellie in a fight" much like being forced to listen to 2 straight minutes of gameplay audio of Ellie/Abby in this video were unnecessary and drawn out when they were supposed to be purposeful to teach us a lesson we understood 10x over by the time the story forced it on us an 11th time
Such a well written thoughtful video. it's really easy to pick a side to clickbait and get attention, but you decided to find a point to talk about. And you are a RUclipsr who can actually SUMMARIZE. can't tell you how many times ppl give a breakdown of the story and it just goes on and on, 1/3 of the video. Your script was really well written as well. Just overall nice video, and its always more interesting to try to understand this game than just double down on the hate for it
Nah, the game is horrible.
In my humble opinion Joel was right because they did not give Ellie the choice they were just going to kill her without telling her and that is wrong she had the right to know and have a choice and also there is the point of her being a minor and that they are killing a child even if it is to save humanity it is still wrong and Joel was correct.
The big companies rated it over 8 and the actual fan base rated it below 5
This game is a HUGE mistake they ruined one of the best parts of this franchise, we all loved ellie and Joel’s journey through America
And in the second game they just shat on all of it and replaced the best characters with some trans kid and a woman that looks like a man that killed Joel
We all just wanted 1 more Joel and Ellie adventure, and in the 3rd game we would of probably excepted his death if they actually made it cool unlike the second game where he gets murdered by a random ass man-woman that Joel saves and then we get forced to play as her. This game is garbage The only cool thing is no return.
2/10
-shit story
-shit characters (they even made Ellie bad)
-good gameplay
-cool add on/dlc kinda thing
Different take. Ellie in the second game is a spoiled little bitch and is reflective of Druckman's nihilistic and selfish demeanor.
She demands Joel keeps her in the first game at Jackson (the 'thin ice' confrontation) because she's scared of being abandoned. This was Joel's last attempt to keep her at arms length, to maintain his emotional scar tissue so as not to get hurt again. The thing that scares her most is being left alone (conversation with Sam in KC). She understands that Joel lies to her at the end of TLOU1 but makes peace with it because she understands that Joel could no more let harm come to her than he would have with Sarah, and ultimately he did what she wanted by rescuing her, ie. did not abandon her.
Fast forward to 2, conveniently now Ellie needs her life to mean something more and being alone doesn't matter (the show reflects this shift). So much so that in the end, her own actions lead to everyone she loves either dying or leaving her (Joel, Jesse, Tommy, Dina and the baby). Even her ability to make music is gone. There's no apparent reason for this shift, but because we need Joel to be villain enough to feel some measure of sympathy for Abbie, the whole first game is kinda memory holed.
Your last few minutes were quite perceptive but the unfortunate thing is that Druckmann via the show undermines the theory. The enormous retcons (Joel's panic attacks, the hospital scene making Joel look more like an executioner than a desperate father, Ellie's over emphasis on making a difference vs being abandoned) set him up to be the villain of the second season far more than the original show did for the second game. It's obvious that the excesses originally intended were tempered in the first game, unleashed in the second game and fully realised in the show.
Thank you, playing the second game It didnt even felt like she was the same Ellie
Was just a dumb story.
Ellie sitting in the water like an idiot because she thought of joel 😅😅
Sorry, but emotions and trauma dont work that way, especially after youve left a mountain of corpses in your wake.
I could point to a dozen videos that explain it better than me but you get what im saying. And the mental gymnastics people do to 'understand' the plot is comedy to me.
The Abby section of the game is a chore to plow through, not the least because of what she did to joel, but because shes unlikable in every way.
This might seem like 'brave' writing to some, but spare me already with that BS. it dulls the enjoyment of the gameplay and at the end of the day, this is a video game for christs sakes 😅😅
I believe you explained this perfectly🖤
Yes, you're right. But yeah they judged the players, and they executed their good idea not only poorly but somewhat heavily politicizing the contents of the story, without even going deep on many of the topics that were Brought up. So, no, too easy doing the question thing this way, it excuses all the sloppiness in a cheap way.
I'm one of the game enjoyers, but still it's not more of a masterpiece for actively trying to hurt the player or just the experience of the player.
The game directors ask the players to learn to not assume too much too quickly, but evidently assume too much about the players, so they're hypocrites.
Good summary. I got some comments but good.
Well, mission accomplished, no doubt about it. If this is a good thing is a totally different question. I bought a PS3 mainly because of TLOU back in the day, but TLOU2 was more of a reason not to buy a PS4. So of course I also didn't buy the game and neither did I buy the PC remake of TLOU and I also don't think I'll ever buy a game or watch a show where Druckmann is involved ever again, even if I were interested, purely out of spite.
Over three years and I still play the game and watch videos on youtube about it. I finished part II and i just cried, I felt so sorry for Ellie, for Abby...No game ever touched me that deep. To this day, that final fight of the two of them at the beach makes me incredibly uncomfortable.
this is what tlou stans unironically believe - that naughty dog wanted you to hate the game XDDD
what i find so funny is many of the flaws/issues people usually mention are overlooked in other games/media, just pointed out because of the pure hatred for the game. part II is really the manifestation of the narrative it is telling and for that it is extra brilliant
Personally: the shock of the Part 2 story RE: Joel and playing as Abby initially made me feel uncomfortable and angry. The gameplay has always been amazing. Over time, I’ve grown to love all aspects of Part 2, even Abby. If people can get past their own personal feelings on what they want the story to be, it’s actually an extremely compelling and powerful story, albeit presented a little sub par.
You’re either ellie in Seattle or ellie sat in the water after letting Abby go. Sadly some people never get to Santa Barbara and are stuck in Seattle.
I don't think hate is the word I'd use. It made me angry at the characters, but i understand why i had to go on that journey
The entire second game makes every life important when you kill a human enemy and the other people notice they yell out their name
This is such a great video. I absolutely agree. A lot of people fight over these endings as right and wrong. The way people argue over the ending of life is strange. But the point is, every feeling is valid. Every experience is unique. No one is right or wrong, it’s just perspective. If more people realised that, there would be a lot less venom on the internet, over a GAME.
I’m a last of us fanatic, if anyone was gonna hate it it should have been me. But I got it. I think its Incredible story telling, amazing mechanics. I’m excited for the next chapter. If Abby died, she’d have never got to the firefly’s and they would never know she existed still. 👀 the story would end there and it would just end miserably. The ending of two leaves it open for a third and I’m excited for that! Great video. 👍🏾
It's just that in my opinion I recognize no moral or ethical ambiguity here, you'd have to explain it to me?... If I knocked you out and didn't ask you your permission and had sexual relations with you what would you call that act? So if I knock you out and do something to you like surgery that kills you, is that morally ambiguous and if so how so? All Joel knows is this is what happened, they had the ethics of a rapist consent not required not wanted nor sought. Does Ellie get a chance to even say bye to Joel? What about what she might want doe after shes sacrificed, that deserves no hearing? His situation is not up in the air or unplanned, they had guns on him they knew the deal, that is why they had guns and armed men with him. So no it is no matter of opinion, unless rape murder and mugging is okay with you then I can see your perspective. These are clear rules of conduct of humane responsible civilized decent humans and not up for bargaining no matter how bad someone wants those ends cannot be justified.
@@dougcasey6117 I have no idea where all the creepy rape talk is coming from. That has nothing to do with the game. So let’s stick to the topic. The game and what we see feature in it. I agree with you, everything you say about Ellie, Joel and the fireflies. That’s also my stand point. But if you were a firefly in these times, you would see Joel as a monster. As for ethics and morals you and I both know they don’t exist in this (the last of us) world.
@@rachelsrevenge.2877 There’s no creepy any such thing, unless your a mental case looking for offense. What there is here is a salient ethical comparison, some folks are to obtuse to understand metaphor and obviously in that camp.
Honestly I am not convinced Joel did a bad thing with saving Ellie.
1. The Fireflies are zealots who believe they can create a cure to the virus whereas in reality that would have been very complex and unsure, but the Fireflies present this as an absolute truth.
2. Ellie is not really given a choice, she's told about her "one and only option".
3. Ellie is a teenager/child and Joel is her parental wisdom, children often make the wrong decision specifically if they don't have someone point out the risks.
4. Is it moral to kill someone without knowing whether or not it will work and without informing that person properly about the risks and potential failure?
Ultimately to me it comes down to Joel saving Ellie not just for love but also because of hope.
I forget the name of the actress that played Abby, but her reaction seeing her father murdered was heartbreaking imo and so well done.... The other pivotal acting scene was the line "You're my people" after she's turned against the wlf ....
This game was obviously influenced by groups of people that had no businesses having no part in the last of us. I wish this game was its on original story with original characters instead of plaguing the original story
The end of part 2 f****** hits me every time 😭
The only ending in gaming that makes me emotional.
I absolutely love this breakdown u make a lot of sense but that ending was trash somebody should’ve died whether it had be Ellie or Abbey
I do like Part II but I think killing abby would've been fun, and it would've been more impactful if you hadn't played as abby.
completely agree.
I mean Joel lying to Ellie and her not believing him is a pretty big loose end....
My favorite thing about TLOU Part 1 is the relationship between Ellie and Joel. As a father, I deeply get that relationship. I love that relationship. When I got done with the game, I held my kids a little tighter. TLOU Part 2 didn’t scratch that itch for me, but the story was still great. It just wasn’t the story I wanted.
Ever since the game came out, I’ve always defended it online. I still think about the game every so often, there aren’t many stories out there in gaming that pull the rug from under you like part 2 did for me, brilliant game.
Very excited to see what HBO does with season 2 of their show, wouldn’t be surprised if they change a thing or two. Awesome video.
Sorry but no
Just because someone is immune the the Infection doesn't mean you impose that choice on that person.
It was Ellie's choice if she acceots it or refuses, even if it means end of humans.
If we just make the decision without her consent, humans are worth saving.
Correction
Humans are NOT worth saving
@@privatecaboose250 that was the whole point of the last of us, the last people worth saving when everyone else is selfish and brutal
@@gaia7240
Sorry I forgot includes not
Humans are not worth saving if we take away Ellie's right to choose.
Good job.
There's a life before TLOU and there is a life after TLOU...at least for me.
"A hero sacrifices you to save the world and a villain sacrifices the world for you." - some profound dude
I just wanted to say that the first time i saw Joel die i was so distraught that i didn't even notice that when Ellie tells him to get up he opens his eye to look at her.
I just ended the game myself and every bone wants me to kill abby but its a great ethics topic because if u want 2 kill abby u enjoy seeing ellie psychological downward spiral sometimes u have 2 let go. Ellie lost everything but joel loved is replace so to speak with dina and jj and u threw that away for more blood think about it
Well her relationship with Dina was a joke anyway
I’m a newb just stumbling into this world From the HBO series but I really liked this game. I would have preferred the story head in a different direction…but the gameplay is a shit load of fun and the graphics are breathtaking. I’m really glad I didn’t have to experience all the bs with the leaks and transphobia. This video is also fantastic so thanks!