The Last of Us 2 - Two cowgirls murdering each other's loved ones

[CT Phipps]

Any next part of TLOU should be a story centering around a Pakistani-American named Akbar bin Ghazi who is trying to establish a Caliphate in the Midwest. He recruits Abby into his Jihad seeing her to be a formidable warrior and they go around the post-cordyceps wasteland America gaining more and more territory. When they continue gathering more and more territory, they head up to Utah and secure the entire state where Akbar bin Ghazi declares Phoenix the capital of the Ghazi Caliphate.

I'm really not getting where people think this game is political. Yeah, one of the protagonists is gay. So what.

A small scale revenge-murder plot is one of the least political things they could have based a game about. The previous game was about the oppressive military vs. the freedom loving terrorists.

Fuck, you actually make a semi-decent argument Fallout: New Vegas is much more political.

 

[TheGM]

I'm really not getting where people think this game is political.

 

[CT Phipps]

Oh, FYI:

Fallout 3

I like Fallout 3 because of the sense of the desolate broken Wasteland that is on the verge of extinction. It's a shitty place and even if the populace has enough drinking water to survive, there's clearly too much radiation and not enough plant life to make the place anything other than a gravel-filled ruin and desert.

The Bedouin are able to survive in Saudi Arabia's desert but that doesn't mean that they'd not be better off in a greener regenerated land. Washington D.C. isn't naturally a desert so Project: Purity can do what the GECK is supposed to do and regenerate the land on a large-scale level.

The area is devastated by Raiders, slavers, mercenaries, and Super Mutants so that it is a hellhole with no stability. We can proceed to fight them off and in some cases wipe them clean off the map (and thankfully they stay clear). Like a Wasteland Lone Ranger you can rescue every settlement from one problem or another until the majority of them are taken care of. You can also exterminate the Paradise Falls slavers.

If you manage to get your Karma up to perfect and the level, the game will tell you that you've turned about things for the Wasteland. You can even bring the Brotherhood of Steel back from the brink as they're losing against the Super Mutants let alone the Super Mutants AND Enclave.

Decisions like, "Should I mercy kill Harold" or "should I put Harold's life before all the crops he's growing that can survive in the desert?" are ones that I felt had real weight to them. Yes, there's stupid quests like the Nuka Cola Challenge and the Ant-Agonizer (and Little Lamplight) but generally I enjoyed the balance of light with the dark.

I felt the atmosphere was also powerful because of Washington D.C. itself. Seeing the heart of the American Empire and the contrast between its stated ideals vs, the reality meant something to me. It may have been nonsense to you but there was something potent about seeing the place I'd been in real life and took tours of reduced to a ruin.

Can you rebuild America as it was? Should you? The Brotherhood of Steel are doing the right thing in WDC but are they? They've expended most of their lives trying to "fight for justice" and are losing because of it. The Outcasts may well be right that this just is not their fight.

I liked these questions a lot.

Is it political that gay people exist?

 

[Lidku]

I'm really not getting where people think this game is political.

lmao

you actually make a semi-decent argument Fallout: New Vegas is much more political.

What? What is this even supposed to mean? Of course Fallout NV is more political along with more better intrigues found in the TLOU2- it's one of the main themings and draw of the game point blank.

 

[CT Phipps]

What? What is this even supposed to mean? Of course Fallout NV is more political along with more better intrigues found in the TLOU2- it's one of the main themings and draw of the game point blank.

Well good, then we can agree that LOTU2 isn't political.

 

[TheGM]

Is it political that gay people exist?

Yes. Yes it is.

 

[Lidku]

Huh? I didn't agree with you saying that TLOU2 isn't political at all, just pointing out by basic fiat NV has better politics crafted in its story.. wait, maybe I should rephrase this- Fallout NV gameplay and storywise has a good political element brewed within its themes, basic IN-character design choices-

the TLOU2 however from a meta standpoint was meant to be political from the mere fact Druckmann took advisory cues from Anita Sarkeesian, the strange choice having Joel die by a character the audience will not care for, wanting to go for Abby being Trans but changing it last second, the firing of personnel working on the game who didn't agree with the direction it was going, Neil self-inserting himself into the game, and many many other design oddities with the production of TLOU2 make it VERY political from a meta perspective. Without the meta and broaching into in-character? We can verily see that TLOU2 is filled with factional politics in the first place and with that drawing into the whole "Revenge" plot to begin with. To say TLOU2 doesn't have "politics" is lil' screwy.

Yes. Yes it is

I wouldn't necessarily go that far. I don't have any real problem with Elle's lesbianism at all- as a matter of fact I don't see who you want to screw should be political- but to address the romance found in TLOU2? It was really strange to me. I haven't gotten all the details, but Elle's love interest is Bi and screwed some guy?

 

[SquidWard]

Most games that have a decent amount of story can be related to politics anyway. I know of idiots who think Bioshock wasn't political.

 

[CT Phipps]

The TLOU2 however from a meta standpoint was meant to be political from the mere fact Druckmann took advisory cues from Anita Sarkeesian, the strange choice having Joel die by a character the audience will not care for, wanting to go for Abby being Trans but changing it last second, the firing of personnel working on the game who didn't agree with the direction it was going, Neil self-inserting himself into the game, and many many other design oddities with the production of TLOU2 make it VERY political from a meta perspective. Without the meta and broaching into in-character? We can verily see that TLOU2 is filled with factional politics in the first place and with that drawing into the whole "Revenge" plot to begin with. To say TLOU2 doesn't have "politics" is lil' screwy.

A lot of this is flat out not true. But I'll do the big one first.

Abby WAS changed at the last minute. She wasn't changed from trans to cis, though.

She was changed from BLACK to WHITE.

So, this "Abby is trans" bullshit is just that. She was never planned to be trans. She was planned to be a woman of color, though. I do wonder why they decided to make Abby white.

I haven't gotten all the details, but Elle's love interest is Bi and screwed some guy?

Yeah, Ellie is friends with Jesse and Dina. Jesse and Dina are a thing. Jesse and Dina break up but Dina is pregnant. Jesse gets killed on their revenge spree and Ellie decides to raise Jesse and Dina's baby with Dina but Dina makes Ellie promise to give up revenge because it got Jesse killed.

And then Ellie goes to get revenge anyway so Dina dumps her as well as takes the baby.

 

[TheGM]

I wouldn't necessarily go that far.

While I am being facetious, the apparent politicization of the gay character, who is inserted solely for pandering is fairly obvious, as opposed to the superior narrative force that is the character who is gay.

 

[CT Phipps]

While I am being facetious, the apparent politicization of the gay character, who is inserted solely for pandering is fairly obvious, as opposed to the superior narrative force that is the character who is gay.

Which describes Ellie. We didn't even know she was gay until the DLC.

 

[BigGuyCIA]

Speaking as a academic, that's actually how testing things works. If anyone ever says they get it right in the first time, they're fudging data. Killing all the Fireflies is morally correct to Joel not because they're incompetent (though that's possible), it's because he's saving his daughter and fuck the rest of humanity.



That's a dumb argument because Joel openly admits to having murdered a bunch of innocent people as a Hunter. It doesn't matter because Ellie isn't hunting Abby down because Joel is a good guy. She's hunting Abby down because Joel is her father.

It's not about morality or justice nor does either woman pretend to. It's about grief and rage.

In "His Dark Materials" (the show) Ms. Coulter is cold in her trade of sending children to the literal guillotine, but when her kid is accidentally picked she has an absolute fit of panic. That would have been thematically interesting in TLOU with Abby coming to terms with the question of whether her father would do the same to her if she was immune.

Anyways, given the circumstance Joel is justified completely - his past not withstanding. Anyone would be wary of a group operating under the assumed benefit of mankind while parading around like a military junta and harvesting people with immunities.

There's no guarantee that Joel is damning mankind, likewise there is no guarantee that Ellie dying will advance the possibility of finding a cure.

In TNG "What makes a man" the episode asks the audience a simple question - what right do we have to determine a being's right to live, mechanical or biological, and what right do we have to snuff out that existence in the name of scientific advancement. Is the dehumanization of the few worth it so that thousands can benefit (millions)?

Smart writing from the 90's. Maybe Neil should check out Star Trek if he wants to reference complex topics and ideas.

 

[CT Phipps]

In "His Dark Materials" (the show) Ms. Coulter is cold in her trade of sending children to the literal guillotine, but when her kid is accidentally picked she has an absolute fit of panic. That would have been thematically interesting in TLOU with Abby coming to terms with the question of whether her father would do the same to her if she was immune.

I kind of like the fact the game seems to make it clear that her dad absolutely wouldn't--even if Abby was a volunteer. So Abby dad and Joel were not that different.

Especially since Joel said, "Find another."

I like how this relates to Joel taking away Ellie's choice. No, if Ellie was a volunteer, he'd STILL kill all the Fireflies to protect her.

 

[Atomic Postman]

Regardless of the in-universe reasoning/feasibility of the vaccine, I actually think that the story of the first game is a lot stronger if Joel's decision truly is damning mankind and the vaccine would have worked. His decision would be selfish but completely understandable and moral in its own way, but horrific from a utilitarian standpoint. In effect an extremely human thing to do. I played the first game recently and I thought the moral conundrum at the end was actually one of the standouts from what was otherwise a thoroughly alright zombie flick.

I feel arguing that the vaccine wasn't going to work anyway and Joel was 100% in the right in "rescuing" Ellie makes the story of the first game way, way more boring.

 

[BigGuyCIA]

I forget but did they quantify their progress at all, or is it mostly "trust me Joel we are so close to figuring it out."

 

[Atomic Postman]

I wouldn't say it particularly matters for the purpose of the story, right?

 

[BigGuyCIA]

Considering the targeted audience of gamers with a capital g, probably not.

 

[Atomic Postman]

It must be said though that I always thought that the idea of the vaccine saving humanity was a little bit odd. Sure the zombies are at fault for causing the chaotic collapse, but even if people were suddenly immune to the zombies themselves the country is still going to be an anarchic apocalyptic shithole where people are murdering eachother, and if a clicker is on top of you you're still likely to die. The whole zombie fiction trope of "Zombies aren't the problem anymore, people are" is all well and good but that approach does make it hard to muster up stakes for a cure if the zombies themselves aren't everbody's main problem anymore.

 

[CT Phipps]

It must be said though that I always thought that the idea of the vaccine saving humanity was a little bit odd. Sure the zombies are at fault for causing the chaotic collapse, but even if people were suddenly immune to the zombies themselves the country is still going to be an anarchic apocalyptic shithole where people are murdering eachother, and if a clicker is on top of you you're still likely to die. The whole zombie fiction trope of "Zombies aren't the problem anymore, people are" is all well and good but that approach does make it hard to muster up stakes for a cure if the zombies themselves aren't everbody's main problem anymore.

Mind you, I think it works better if it's not AND THIS FIXES EVERYTHING. Even then, a genuine advantage of not having to worry about being infected by the fungus anymore is a pretty big thing by itself. It'll certainly save more lives in the long run than one girl but that doesn't need to, "and the world is SAVVVED!"

Of course, in my view, I would have also said that the cordyceps are slowly starving themselves out anyway and mankind just has to outlast them.

Like 28 days later.

 

[Atomic Postman]

Yeah, I'm not a fan of zombie fiction as a rule but 28 Days Later is the exception for a lot of reasons. The portrayal of the infection as a flash-in-the-pan crisis that would be resolved within months, particularly with the starvation, is one of the things I really like about that movie.

But yeah the zombies in the Last of Us don't make that much sense for that reason, since the bodies would still need sustenance. Them lying against a wall and turning into massive fungal infestations is really cool and does make sense though. But in that form when you've got a gas mask and functional filter they stop being a problem.