Carolina Fever
Inconceivable Member
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I haven't played the game. I was interested in watching the series because I am a fan of Pedro Pascal. Not sure I want to watch it now.
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That's fine, and I am going to also push back to defend my stances, and try to offer some details from the game to defend my views.
Several things wrong there. Starting here, the characterization of "strangers" is a charitable deflation of what they are. The FIreflies were identified throughout as a militia group, one that Tommy (identified as a good person) chose to leave before our story events. In game 1 Ellie and Joel are attempting to fight their way across America to reach the Fireflies because they must deliver Ellie to doctors working on a cure. season 1 of the TV show, and how they discuss it in Boston.
I accept your assertion that not every single father of every kind would murder to save her, but your "morally neutral, if not morally good" characterization is false. It is a war from the start, for Joel and all the soldiers who are Fireflies. The doctor came at Joel to kill for a cure, the soldiers were there to kill the enemy. They brutalize Joel at each point in the scenes of him with them. The point is not every father, the point is Joel and what he personally lost before as his intolerably horrific life story. It is impossible for him morally--within his own morality-- to allow another daughter, albeit surrogate, to be killed.
Lastly, your use of the term "murder" is questionable in the extreme. It is a warfare situation in which Joel is at war to save Ellie, at that point.
In the game this is false; Ellie is put to sleep and there is no suggestion she was told she had to be killed in their process. She is not saved by Joel before being put asleep, but after, after saving her from nearly drowning, and within seconds of having fatal brain surgery. In the game the Fireflies and Marlene are clearly depicted as not regarding Ellie as a human being, or her life mattering at all except as their means to an end. Marlene makes it clear that Ellie did not know by saying "it's what she would want." Would? Not did. Marlene is not just dismissive of Joel's concerns, she will not even allow him to see her ever again, and when he begins to respond to this he is kicked brutally in the back. This is twice the Fireflies have brutalized Joel for no reason. The first time was when he was in the process of rescuing Ellie from nearly drowning, and needing help. Marlene and the FIreflies treat both Ellie's life as a sacrifice and Joel as a person to be brutalized, killed if needed, and then just told to leave, that he should just forget about Ellie.
I am astonished at that, I was 100% all in to save Ellie in my play-throughs, but actually you can play through it, stealth style, with very few kills. The TV show has an agenda of making Joel far less favorable and has him kill all he meets. I could digress on that lame narrative annoyance but skip it for now.
This is not correct, as I have detailed, and a lot of change to the story has happened in the second game and in the TV show. Fireflies were not good, Ellie was not told, was the story.
It is complicated, it is not moral for him, as Joel, to allow her to be killed for a cure, real or not. In all formats he is emotionally damaged as a character, and his experiences morally demand his choices.
I never had a problem with some supposed need of keeping a good guys versus bad guys narrative, and I have very often decried that simplistic approach in books, theater, and movies as melodrama, and false to the realities of the human condition. It is not, in essence, a problem for me to have Joel killed in the story, or to have Abby as his killer to be a playable character in a game, but as I wrote, any narrative that is only about revenge is not interesting to me. Part 2 is simply making Ellie horrible like Abby was, and trying to show us revenge versus revenge. Worse, the attempt by Druckman to "teach me" that revenge is meaningless, and have that "lesson" be the story --instead of one about caring for the life of another person, in a game is naive and silly.
let me preface this by saying that i never played the video game, so i don't have the same perspective as some of you here but as someone who enjoys the show, i wholeheartedly agree with your perspectives.That's fine, and I am going to also push back to defend my stances, and try to offer some details from the game to defend my views.
Several things wrong there. Starting here, the characterization of "strangers" is a charitable deflation of what they are. The FIreflies were identified throughout as a militia group, one that Tommy (identified as a good person) chose to leave before our story events. In game 1 Ellie and Joel are attempting to fight their way across America to reach the Fireflies because they must deliver Ellie to doctors working on a cure. season 1 of the TV show, and how they discuss it in Boston.
I accept your assertion that not every single father of every kind would murder to save her, but your "morally neutral, if not morally good" characterization is false. It is a war from the start, for Joel and all the soldiers who are Fireflies. The doctor came at Joel to kill for a cure, the soldiers were there to kill the enemy. They brutalize Joel at each point in the scenes of him with them. The point is not every father, the point is Joel and what he personally lost before as his intolerably horrific life story. It is impossible for him morally--within his own morality-- to allow another daughter, albeit surrogate, to be killed.
Lastly, your use of the term "murder" is questionable in the extreme. It is a warfare situation in which Joel is at war to save Ellie, at that point.
In the game this is false; Ellie is put to sleep and there is no suggestion she was told she had to be killed in their process. She is not saved by Joel before being put asleep, but after, after saving her from nearly drowning, and within seconds of having fatal brain surgery. In the game the Fireflies and Marlene are clearly depicted as not regarding Ellie as a human being, or her life mattering at all except as their means to an end. Marlene makes it clear that Ellie did not know by saying "it's what she would want." Would? Not did. Marlene is not just dismissive of Joel's concerns, she will not even allow him to see her ever again, and when he begins to respond to this he is kicked brutally in the back. This is twice the Fireflies have brutalized Joel for no reason. The first time was when he was in the process of rescuing Ellie from nearly drowning, and needing help. Marlene and the FIreflies treat both Ellie's life as a sacrifice and Joel as a person to be brutalized, killed if needed, and then just told to leave, that he should just forget about Ellie.
I am astonished at that, I was 100% all in to save Ellie in my play-throughs, but actually you can play through it, stealth style, with very few kills. The TV show has an agenda of making Joel far less favorable and has him kill all he meets. I could digress on that lame narrative annoyance but skip it for now.
This is not correct, as I have detailed, and a lot of change to the story has happened in the second game and in the TV show. Fireflies were not good, Ellie was not told, was the story.
It is complicated, it is not moral for him, as Joel, to allow her to be killed for a cure, real or not. In all formats he is emotionally damaged as a character, and his experiences morally demand his choices.
I never had a problem with some supposed need of keeping a good guys versus bad guys narrative, and I have very often decried that simplistic approach in books, theater, and movies as melodrama, and false to the realities of the human condition. It is not, in essence, a problem for me to have Joel killed in the story, or to have Abby as his killer to be a playable character in a game, but as I wrote, any narrative that is only about revenge is not interesting to me. Part 2 is simply making Ellie horrible like Abby was, and trying to show us revenge versus revenge. Worse, the attempt by Druckman to "teach me" that revenge is meaningless, and have that "lesson" be the story --instead of one about caring for the life of another person, in a game is naive and silly.
The first season was great.I haven't played the game. I was interested in watching the series because I am a fan of Pedro Pascal. Not sure I want to watch it now.
Yeah, but not sure it will be worth watching if the rest of it ends up being bad.The first season was great.
I agree that part 2 of the series is just clunking along on four square wheels, and in so many ways. Ellie flips from a playful kid, the way she was early on with Joel in part 2, to a revenge-driven demon human. The perfect hair styles of others and the ease of life presented at times seems all wrong. Dumping in the game part 2 ending (memory of the reconciliation talk with Joel) in the middle, along with attempting to rehab Abby from the start of this season, are both narrative decisions that just do not work for me. No question though that Pascal's acting has been brilliant, in what is left over for him.Given my expectations for the writing, going forward, I don’t think you’ll have much concern. Mazin has lost the plot, and frankly it seems like Druckmann kinda lost his own way in season 2. I don’t have confidence in Mazin’s ability to craft something compelling. Maybe he recaptures the essence of season one, but I expect more pressed tshirts, stupefying impulsivity by Ellie, and expository dialogue (your audience isn’t stupid, Craig).
I agree with what you write here but did not want to play part 2, not just for the revenge theme. I learned to love the big RPG games in middle age, and in great ones (if hokey) like Fallout 3, as most are, I was captured by the emotion of putting myself into an onscreen character. It happens automatically with the way our brains work. When you dodge attacks, get mad at when you "die" (lol), you begin to really feel a bit of reality that makes good gaming different from all other art formsThat said, my experience, Abby becomes sympathetic and worth rooting for. IMO, the most compelling characters in the series are support characters from the second half of game two, and Abby’s role with them makes the second game much more than a ham-fisted revenge trope. Some gamers experienced part 2 as simplistic moralizing, and were offended. I didn’t take the overarching trope from the experience because there’s enough opportunity for character study for me to enjoy on a more micro scale. The gameplay also aligns with my preferences (it’s no Ghost of Tsushima, but it’s smooth).