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

[Norzan]

But seriously, why bother making your first post on this a lashing out against the negative reviews if you don't believe the game needs defending and then being passive aggressive towards the responses even if some are merely inflammatory? Wouldn't it be better to move on without lashing out, or address & respond the issues raised like what @Walpknut does?

Because CT Phipps is notorious for goalpost moving when he sees fit for his agenda. "This game i liked is getting some negative reviews, they are bullshit." to "This game doesn't need defending because Neil Druckman made a bunch of money off of it" is just one example. It's all pointless bullshit to try to dismiss any criticism of his favorite things.

Because he apparently still has the mind of a child and can't handle people criticizing things he likes, when in actuality he should grow a pair of balls and ignore it.

 

[RangerBoo]

Says the butthurt twat that came here and started to defend the game with claims that all negative reviews were "bullshit" in the very first post of this thread. Apparently it does need defending if you instantly start defending the second you find any resistance.

I know he won't respond since he blocked me, but the hipocrisy of this guy is just too damn funny.

Todd Howard is laughing his ass to the bank anytime you say Fallout 4 is shit. See how fucking retarded this non-argument is?

If anything, looking at its sales, it looks kind of underwhelming for a game this anticipated. I expected more than four millions copies in the first weekend, specially basically it's at the end of this console generation when your userbase is at its highest. 6 millions at least would have made more sense.

The fastest selling of ultra specific things certainly doesn't help.

I am actually surprised that the twat hasn't blocked me yet. Any criticism I bring up he hand waves, ignores it or says "It made a bunch of money LOL! Your criticism is invalid." What do you expect from a guy that says Fallout 3 is better than 1 and 2 because Fallout 3 allows you to explore in 1st person. Jesus Fucking Christ. He is lucky this isn't the Codex otherwise he would have gotten the Retard tag by now.

 

[Aurelius Of Phoenix]

Thought this was interesting,

 

[Norzan]

I have seen people trying to justify Abby's muscles with: "Do you expect realism from a game with fungus zombies?", which is just retarded. The Last of Us universe is clearly based on the real world outside of the things it doesn't have, like the aformentioned fungus zombies. I mean, if they can do whatever they want because it has some unrealistic things, why didn't Joel turned into a fire breathing dragon when Abby was killing him?

What's worse is that she had a different model in 2017 which was considerably less buff. Why didn't they used that one is beyond me because they have no problem having Ellie doing great feats of strength when she doesn't have bulging muscles.

 

[RangerBoo]

Haha... Funny story but Abby was originally suppose to be black. However, people would have ended up getting wise to Neil's fetishes as Nadine from Uncharted 4 was also a muscular and masculine looking black woman. What is it with SJW soy boys having a fetish for domineering and masculine black women. You see that with Alex Krutzman and Damon Lindelof works too and it's just fucking weird. Keep your fetishes in the bedroom you fucking freaks and talentless hacks.

 

[CT Phipps]

Eh, I just felt like I was swimming against the tide at the time.

Grimdark Magazine asked me to do a review and I did one.

 

[RangerBoo]

Eh, I just felt like I was swimming against the tide at the time.

Grimdark Magazine asked me to do a review and I did one.

Oh great so you can lie and mislead the readers of that magazine too? Hopefully people will knock the review score by 4 points in regards to your review.

 

[CT Phipps]

Oh great so you can lie and mislead the readers of that magazine too? Hopefully people will knock the review score by 4 points in regards to your review.

Seriously, did TLOU2 kill your dog or something?

I'm not sure what your objection is to the game even. "Revenge is bad" is a moral you may feel was handled poorly but I don't get the anger.

 

[RangerBoo]

Seriously, did TLOU2 kill your dog or something?

I'm not sure what your objection is to the game even. "Revenge is bad" is a moral you may feel was handled poorly but I don't get the anger.

My problem is with you hand waving any criticism that people have with the game by either calling us "man babies" or saying "It made a bunch of money LOL! Your criticism is invalid!". You don't see me or most of the others giving Walpknut shit for liking the game as he knowledge's the games flaws and addresses both it and its criticism. You on the other hand move the goalpost with this game because it fits with whatever agenda you have.

 

[Risewild]

One thing I don't understand. If the first game was already the last of "them"... How can there be a sequel? Is it the last of the last of "them"?

 

[CerberusGate]

One thing I don't understand. If the first game was already the last of "them"... How can there be a sequel? Is it the last of the last of "them"?

The titles of the games are technically lies. For a game called The Last of Us, there are still a lot of people around.

Unless Joel and Ellie remedy it by killing everyone else, making them the literal last of us.

Spoiler: Ending spoilers

https://www.gameinformer.com/video-...ty-dog-on-the-last-of-us-part-iis-controversy

https://gamerant.com/last-of-us-2-ending-abby-die-cut/

Interestingly, the original ending had Ellie killing Abby but damns her to lose her humanity for such an act as she leaves Abby's companion to die after killing Abby.

I think if ND left the decision to kill/spare Abby to the player, there would be less backlash to the ending.

 

[SquidWard]

I know I'm late to this but...

Joel WAS The Last of Us.

The Last of Us TO ME was about a father that loved his daughter that was trying to learn from the mistakes of the past. The character embodied the Dad archetype.

I'm not even on the TLOU 2 hate train but Toronto is spitting straight facts on this. TLOU was not a zombie game. It was not a spore infecting zombie game. It was about a man losing his daughter and learning to love another human being again like once loved his daughter. That's the core of TLOU. It's very evidently about Joel then Ellie. I liked Ellie more than you seemed to Toronto, but I do agree that Joel was the main character here. Ellie was just a moody teenager that grew up in an apocalypse, I can't imagine how crazy teens are in a world like that especially when they get to see reminders and throwbacks to how they could have grown up. It's not like if the world was fixed she'd be able to fix her childhood that was only fucked up because of the end of times.

Also, I'm late to this shitshow but yeah fuck the Fireflies. People say well maybe this time they'd figure it out, nothing happens perfectly in science and medicine the first time. Well, guess what a father figure to a teenage girl DOES NOT want to hear? That. This man risked his life for her and she risked her life for him. They're practically family. Joel lied to her about the Fireflies because he couldn't stand to lose someone who had become his second daughter. Right or wrong in the grand scheme of things, doesn't matter, I'd have done the same fucking thing or at least tried.

I mean, do adults have the right to choose to massacre an entire hospital and cut the throat of an unarmed doctor?

Do adults have the right to choose the fate of a teenager without the teenager's consent? Especially when that choice is going to be the end of their life? You do realize Ellie had no inclination that she was going to die helping with a cure right? The last major bits of talking with Joel she says that, (inaccurate quotes but portray the message) "Once this is all over, we can go anywhere you want." and "After this would you teach me how to swim?" But yeah Walpknut, she has no inclination of wanting to spend more time with Joel after helping the Fireflies. She totally was willing to die on that operating table despite being unconsciously dragged in there by people ready to kill her and not even INFORM HER OF THIS DECISION. How fucking progressive is that? I guess bodily autonomy means nothing now because they might make a cure out of killing an unwilling participant and they're suddenly on the right side here.

Because the whole game is Joel basically forcing his desires on Ellie all through out. And the only reason a player would feel like he is in the right is because they are playing as him, that's why the game ends with you controlling Ellie, and the DLC also is centered on her. Joel stops being the POV character once he shows that he is just another person manipulating Ellie for his own ends.

What are Joel's own ends? Protecting someone who has become a daughter to him? I'm not defending Joel's lies but I understand them more than the doctors and think it might just be a bit more acceptable. Even Joel says, "That's not for you to decide" when the queen Firefly says, "It's what she would have wanted" which is heavy implication that they did not get Ellie's consent and that Joel would rather leave the decision to her than them. And it's obvious there's not going to be a compromise of them sitting down and waiting for Ellie to come to and be informed to make a decision. They are already willing to do what they did, they tried to kill Joel as well, Joel retaliated. It's too late. The Fireflies fucked that up.

 

[Walpknut]

His own ends are forcing the role of "his daugther" on Ellie even tho she wanted to user her immunity to help the Fireflies to find a cure. Just because Joel thinks he is "Protecting someone" doens't erase the fact that he is doing it for his own interests, and also taking away Ellie's own choice from her. And he did this while massacring even surrendering Combatants in cold blood. Then Ellie saying that they will do whatever he wants afterwards, the tone of her voice and her demeanor when taking a look at the Jiraffes one last time before proceeding, combined with Joel trying to convince her to just go back, she says "it can't all just be for nothing", it all really reads like she is mostly coming to terms with the fact that she might die and it's pleadign with herself and Joel to have soemthign to look forward to in case she survives, which is a very typical death flag in any story, she also says afterwards that she is "still waiting for her turn" when telling Joel back about her friend dying in front of her and turning and it's place in ehr conviction to go to the fireflies to contribute to the cure.
The Last of Us 2 makes it clear she in fact expected it to happen.

He says "that's not for you to decide" but apparently it was for him to decide, because he also goes on to tell her that she is not special so she never looks into it and limits herself to being his daugther, which is a classic abuse tactic as well.

 

[SquidWard]

Ellie even tho she wanted to user her immunity to help the Fireflies to find a cure

Which he helped her achieve and they BOTH didn’t think it would result in her death as I pointed out in my previous post. But yes keep with the narrative that he did all that for her but not really it’s because he’s some perverse dad psychopath.

Joel thinks he is "Protecting someone" doens't erase the fact that he is doing it for his own interests, and also taking away Ellie's own choice from her.

Dude how hard is it to grasp that unconscious but otherwise healthy people being killed without their consent and/or knowledge is against their choice. She is going to DIE Walp. DEATH. END OF LIFE. She can turn around and be mad at Joel that she’s not dead but she can’t turn around be mad that she’s not alive if the Fireflies kill her. They are making a choice for her that takes away not only her choice in that moment but also from ever knowing how she’d feel about that choice. It’s called bodily autonomy dude. It’s her body and if she didn’t consent to being killed then it’s normal to assume the person does NOT want to be killed.

I agree that Joel’s lies are awful and he should have told her the truth about what happened and why. I’m not excusing that. But if my child or person that I protect like a child was being killed to potentially save humanity without their consent and informed decision being included, I’d attempt the same thing Joel did. That’s a fairly normal reaction for mammals when they grow close emotionally. She didn’t consent to this and even if they told Joel that, he has no way of knowing that she did. They didn’t wait for her to give answer and they didn’t wait for him to hear the answer. He should have no hand in stopping it if she told him that she was okay with dying. She never did though. Joel fucked up after the fact, I agree.

Let’s say you were passed out for an hour or two and if we killed you, it wouldn’t matter if it was right now or tomorrow, it would potentially save humanity. But we aren’t going to wait for your answer tomorrow, we aren’t going to wait for your answer at all, we’re just going to do it because hurdur we’re the good guys! Are you seriously okay with that? She was obviously recovering from almost drowning and would have been awake soon along with Joel. If she said she still wanted to proceed with it and Joel tried to go on a rampage then I’d understand Joel being an undisputed villain. They could have done that but instead they immediately start drugging this girl and prepping her for surgery without any consent?

 

[Walpknut]

Again, Ellie makes it clear she was ready to die even before she got to the Hospial, the "If we get through this we will do X afterwards" is a very common trope in fiction, a very common death flag as well, specially when coupled with the "longingly look to the horizon, before solemnly declare that they are not backing down", and everything about the framing of scenes and her tone of voice are very by the book "This character knows they will die afterwards" if I have ever seen it happen. And again, she afterwards makes it clear she expected to die, what with stating she now is "Still waiting for her turn".

Were the Fireflies good guys? Not really, they have the same violent demeanor as all the post poacalyptic groups, and obviously engaged in immoral actions, and they were ready to kill Joel. So they aren't exactly "good guys".

The thing here is that Joel not only took her choice from her (The director even stated this is the intention) but also on top of that action also lied to her for years and engaged in classic abuse tactics to cover himself. And in the end his actions doomed humanity to never being able to get rid of the fungus contrary to the wishes of the girl he "wanted to protect", her last question to him at the end of the game is very clearly her giving him another chance of telling her the truth, because she knows he was very clearly lying, and he again repeats the lie, with the last shot of her face disappointed, when she tries to talk to him about her feeling post the "failure of the vaccine" he doesn't even attempt to hear her out fully, he cuts her off to tell him what HE THINKS she should think.

The game even uses the language of gameplay to communicate that Joel is no longer the POV, that he is not the hero anymore, there is a small gameplay sequence that seems out of place, you control Ellie in a brief walk, he is always far away, he only talks to compare Ellie to his daugther and guiding you, due to the lighting his face is mostly framed in shadow until the last moment when Ellie talks to him. After this you never control Joel Again, even in the DLC.

Also in the end both the Doctors and Marlene attempt to plead to him, to relent in his rampage and think it through and he doesn't. He doesn't even seem to care if the Fireflies go and scoop someone else's brain out for it "Find someone else" is his answer, basically do it with someone I don't care about.

And yeah, he is kind of a dad psychopath, as after finding this out Ellie can't even stand being around him as shown in the Last of Us 2.

 

[SquidWard]

but also on top of that action also lied to her for years

And yeah, he is kind of a dad psychopath, as after finding this out Ellie can't even stand being around him as shown in the Last of Us 2.

I have no idea what happens in TLOU 2. Everything I speak of is from the perspective of TLOU 1 alone. I'm also not keen on dissecting older game by using knowledge of a later game (especially if they weren't planned and written to be that way). Same goes for Fallout 1 or Dark Souls 1. The whole fires fade but embers remain shit? Yeah fuck that. Nothing in DS1 implies that. If you're trying to figure out what something is or what you can infer from something you can't use things that never were as of that time. You can't act as if there are obvious hints that Necropolis was born of an experimental vault and have that idea in good faith. You can't act as if the choice you make in Dark Souls 1 does not matter because nothing in the game implies that.

The thing here is that Joel not only took her choice from her (The director even stated this is the intention)

So Ellie doesn't get a choice either way? Is that the stated intention then? Ellie you either live or die and you don't really get to choose.

He doesn't even seem to care if the Fireflies go and scoop someone else's brain out for it "Find someone else" is his answer, basically do it with someone I don't care about.

That's a pretty normal human response to a situation like that. But, it does show that Joel would likely also be resistant to letting Ellie consent to this surgery. I still don't think the outcome of what Joel did was wrong besides lying to her about it afterward. Anything before it seems fine to me. He has no way or reason to know or believe Ellie is okay with this.

Again, Ellie makes it clear she was ready to die even before she got to the Hospial, the "If we get through this we will do X afterwards" is a very common trope in fiction, a very common death flag as well, specially when coupled with the "longingly look to the horizon, before solemnly declare that they are not backing down", and everything about the framing of scenes and her tone of voice are very by the book "This character knows they will die afterwards" if I have ever seen it happen.

The tropes don't change the morality of a situation though. If we are talking about this as if the morality of it truly matters, and we are, then we can't just say "oh well it's like a book dude, so that's a great excuse to murder people against their will." Ellie saying "If we get through this" isn't her accepting that she has to die for the cure but the dangers on the road to that place. That she could die trying to find the Fireflies.

she afterwards makes it clear she expected to die, what with stating she now is "Still waiting for her turn".

This is fair but it still isn't consent. She may feel guilt about those who have died around her but that doesn't give Joel the 100% bad man pass. Joel's lies at the end and I guess his actions in TLOU 2 are better for that? But that includes TLOU 2. You can't just kill people because it's what they would have wanted. Joel was doing the right thing until he decided to fabricate shit about the Fireflies. Had he told her at the first chance/question he got and said they weren't giving her a choice in the matter, I wouldn't see any amount of villainy in the man.[/QUOTE]

 

[Walpknut]

I have no idea what happens in TLOU 2. Everything I speak of is from the perspective of TLOU 1 alone. I'm also not keen on dissecting older game by using knowledge of a later game (especially if they weren't planned and written to be that way). Same goes for Fallout 1 or Dark Souls 1. The whole fires fade but embers remain shit? Yeah fuck that. Nothing in DS1 implies that. If you're trying to figure out what something is or what you can infer from something you can't use things that never were as of that time. You can't act as if there are obvious hints that Necropolis was born of an experimental vault and have that idea in good faith. You can't act as if the choice you make in Dark Souls 1 does not matter because nothing in the game implies that.

I already had that interpretation from playing the first game, I only used the second game's confirmation to complement my point.

So Ellie doesn't get a choice either way? Is that the stated intention then? Ellie you either live or die and you don't really get to choose.

"I am still waiting for my turn" heavily and almost explictly implies she already made her choice beforehand.

That's a pretty normal human response to a situation like that. But, it does show that Joel would likely also be resistant to letting Ellie consent to this surgery. I still don't think the outcome of what Joel did was wrong besides lying to her about it afterward. Anything before it seems fine to me. He has no way or reason to know or believe Ellie is okay with this.

And that would be fine and good, if Joel hadn't been given then a chance to peacefully end it, and then he used it to shoot Ellie's friend in treason and coldly excecute her on the ground tho.

The tropes don't change the morality of a situation though. If we are talking about this as if the morality of it truly matters, and we are, then we can't just say "oh well it's like a book dude, so that's a great excuse to murder people against their will." Ellie saying "If we get through this" isn't her accepting that she has to die for the cure but the dangers on the road to that place. That she could die trying to find the Fireflies.

Framing and tropes are the tools a story uses to convey what is not expecitly told.
The game even makes a point to point out Ellie is specially quiet that day.

These are all narrative elements used to convery something beyond the character explicitly stating their feelings. WHich is why I am using them as part of my argument. We aren't discussing a time line of events, we are discussing a story with deliberate use of framing and tropes to convey a mood.

This is fair but it still isn't consent. She may feel guilt about those who have died around her but that doesn't give Joel the 100% bad man pass. Joel's lies at the end and I guess his actions in TLOU 2 are better for that? But that includes TLOU 2. You can't just kill people because it's what they would have wanted. Joel was doing the right thing until he decided to fabricate shit about the Fireflies. Had he told her at the first chance/question he got and said they weren't giving her a choice in the matter, I wouldn't see any amount of villainy in the man.

Joel also killed the doctor that was unarmed and then when given the chance of endign it peacefully, hell he would've gotten the chance of negotiating him being able to ask her if she wanted to go throug with it, he chose instead to kill the person giving him the chance for a peaceful solution and then executed her as she plead for her life.

It isn't simply a question of wether the Fireflies were right or wrong, but rather the entirety of Joel's actions from that point on, his brutality with non combatants, his refusal of a peaceful solution, and even deciding to lie to Ellie in a way that also made her feel like everythign she went through was for nothing.

 

[CT Phipps]

Eh, the Last of Us IS a story about a father/daughter relationship. However, that was the first one and the story moved on (while still being about Joel and Ellie--Joel's specter hangs over every Ellie scene). It wasn't just Joel even then, though, because the DLC was all about Ellie's survivor's guilt when her friend and crush ended up dying due to the cordyceps.

Ellie was willing to die because she didn't want anyone else to die like her friend.

Does this mean Joel is wrong? Not necessarily. However, I think people who just kind of dismiss the fact Ellie knows exactly what sort of world she lives in, doesn't know the stakes, and isn't willing to die if she knew "the truth" are fooling themselves.

I think everyone should play the Space Museum section of The Last of Us 2 or at least watch it.

There's two hours worth of Joel and Ellie and they're glorious.

 

[TorontoReign]

Classic abuse tactics. Lol.

Ellie was willing to die because she was a moody emo teenager. I can't believe people think teenagers have the ability to discern if their feelings are real or not. Ellie didn't even have a fully developed brain. She was not capable of making a choice about dying to be a martyr so Fireflies can control part of the USA.

This goes back to can a child have the right to become a "transperson".

 

[SquidWard]

So Ellie was willing to die before ever knowing the chances of the cure working vs her own survival rate, without saying as much as a word of goodbye to Joel in person, and without the Fireflies ever caring about explicit consent though they could have gotten that within the day. What's one more day, at most, to respect another human's life when time doesn't seem to be an issue?

The Fireflies got what they deserved, full stop. You only perform surgery on an unconscious person without consent to save someone's life unless they have a DNR which is a form of agency of one's life otherwise we have to assume they don't want to die.