"The Last of Us" (Inclusive: both games, both TV seasons--spoiler spores warning)

[rodoheel]

I didn't have some huge philosophical objection to how the second game was framed, even if the whole "now we're going to force you to sympathize with the people you learned to hate in the first half" as part of exploring the futility of revenge cycles was a bit contrived. (The whole thing where you spend the first act terrified or and killing evil guard dogs and then you basically have to pet and love the puppies as Abby felt particularly manipulative.) However, I did find it very hard to play through the second game because it was simply so long and emotionally exhausting. For the last third of the game, especially, I no longer agreed, or even really sympathized with, the choices characters were making, so it wasn't really that fun and I wasn't really that eager to see what happened; I just wanted it to be over. I was finishing it to know that I had played through the whole narrative, not because I really wanted to see what happened anymore.

For that reason, I've chosen not to watch the second (and I guess 3rd and maybe 4th) season of the show. I know what's going to happen, in broad strokes, and candidly I don't have any desire to put myself through that again; just like I have no intention of playing through the game again.

 

[circlesky88]

So Ellie was so gung ho to go after a group of Wolves when they drag the Scar kid away. But she gets the drop on two of the people that are responsible for Joel's death and she turns into a quivering mess?

 

[rodoheel]

The problem with the second game is that it transformed into something ridiculously bad because it tries to lamely teach you the BiG LeSsoN that revenge is meaningless, kids, and does it by forcing you to play a character you absolutely despise. That is a contrived, silly, ABC After-school Special thing for a game creator to come up with. Joel did what a father any would do in the first game. His own daughter was killed in front of him and his surrogate daughter, Ellie, unknown to her and without her consent, was to be killed to attempt a cure of some kind by a small and highly questionable group led by "a doctor" feeding their fever dream of saving humanity. Beyond his defense of her life of someone he now sees as his daughter, what he did was also proper because the so-called cure was clearly no certainty. They captured Joel and Ellie by force and violence--even the series shows them bashing Joel in the back of the head with a rifle. The fireflies were simply another group about power, and whatever confidence you assign the rag-tag group with the ability to fix the cordeceps outbreak worldwide, Joel was not going to morally allow Ellie to be killed. (Neil Druckman agrees with what I just wrote). The doctor also came at Joel with a knife to prevent the rescue.

I mostly agree with your critique of the second game but one thing I will push back against is the idea that Joel's actions at the end of the first game were unambiguously (1) "what any father would do" and (2) "proper." I very much disagree with the first - I don't think every father would murder numerous morally neutral, if not morally good, strangers to save their own kid's life in that situation, even understanding Joel's past trauma, and especially in light of the fact that Ellie herself was making the choice to sacrifice herself. I think some fathers would have had another conversation with Ellie to make sure she understood and give her one last chance to reconsider, then respected her wishes; some might have let it happened then killed themselves; some might have let it happen and gone on living to honor and experience the hopefully new world her sacrifice had bought. Playing through the end of the first game as Joel, I was saying "no no no no" as I had to shoot and kill all the Fireflies to get Ellie out. It was a difficult sequence to play through.

And from a moral perspective, I outright disagree with the idea that it was necessarily "proper" to refuse to sacrifice Ellie - and murder all the Fireflies - simply because the cure was "no certainty" and because the Fireflies displayed some questionable ethics throughout the game. Whatever the case, it was what Ellie wanted - it was, to Ellie, the point of all the difficulty they'd gone through, to be part of making a cure. Joel took the decision entirely out of her hands, and then lied to her about it, making her unknowingly complicit in what he did.

Honestly I think it undercuts the brilliance of the first game to suggest that Joel's choice at the end was morally and emotionally uncomplicated. The moral ambiguity of what Joel did - and making gamers consider and debate what they would have done in the same circumstance - was a big part of what made the game so special, beyond just how good a game to play it was overall. So while I agree with some of your critiques of the second game, the fact that it refused to treat Ellie and Joel as the unambiguous "good guys" - and Abby and her friends as the unambiguous "bad guys" - was not really a significant issue from my perspective.

 

[an0maly]

I mostly agree with your critique of the second game but one thing I will push back against is the idea that Joel's actions at the end of the first game were unambiguously (1) "what any father would do" and (2) "proper."

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.

I very much disagree with the first - I don't think every father would murder numerous morally neutral, if not morally good, strangers to save their own kid's life in that situation,

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.

even understanding Joel's past trauma, and especially in light of the fact that Ellie herself was making the choice to sacrifice herself.

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 think some fathers would have had another conversation with Ellie to make sure she understood and give her one last chance to reconsider, then respected her wishes; some might have let it happened then killed themselves; some might have let it happen and gone on living to honor and experience the hopefully new world her sacrifice had bought. Playing through the end of the first game as Joel, I was saying "no no no no" as I had to shoot and kill all the Fireflies to get Ellie out. It was a difficult sequence to play through.

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.

And from a moral perspective, I outright disagree with the idea that it was necessarily "proper" to refuse to sacrifice Ellie - and murder all the Fireflies - simply because the cure was "no certainty" and because the Fireflies displayed some questionable ethics throughout the game. Whatever the case, it was what Ellie wanted - it was, to Ellie, the point of all the difficulty they'd gone through, to be part of making a cure. Joel took the decision entirely out of her hands, and then lied to her about it, making her unknowingly complicit in what he did.

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.

Honestly I think it undercuts the brilliance of the first game to suggest that Joel's choice at the end was morally and emotionally uncomplicated.

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.

The moral ambiguity of what Joel did - and making gamers consider and debate what they would have done in the same circumstance - was a big part of what made the game so special, beyond just how good a game to play it was overall. So while I agree with some of your critiques of the second game, the fact that it refused to treat Ellie and Joel as the unambiguous "good guys" - and Abby and her friends as the unambiguous "bad guys" - was not really a significant issue from my perspective.

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.

 

[Carolina Fever]

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.

 

[WaynetheDrain]

I understand not wanting to have Abby as a major protagonist in Season 3, but remember…No Abby, no Rat King. And we must have a Rat King episode.

 

[rodoheel]

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.

Thanks for the detailed response. It's been a while since the first game and I thought it was clear that Ellie knew she would die, but it appears that's not correct. What appears to be the case is that the game is ambiguous about whether Ellie knew the surgery would kill her or not.

I will push back against some of this, though.

1. You cannot say that the characterization of the Fireflies as morally neutral is "false." Yes, we see people associated with the Fireflies do bad things. We also see people associated with the Fireflies do good things. Among other things, they are employing scientists who are trying to create a cure, which is of course what spawns the central mission of the game in the first place. Does Marlene show a willingness to kill/sacrifice people to get that cure? Yes, but there is never any suggestion that her desire to create a cure is based on anything other but a desire to help everyone. Not just, like, to profit from it or become all-powerful or something.
2. I also don't think it's correct to say that the Fireflies, at least not Marlene, don't view Ellie as a human being. Marlene makes clear that she sees Ellie as a human being and express remorse that she has to die given that she has known Ellie since she was a little kid. She simply sees the sacrifice of one life for the good of humanity as a necessary moral choice. It's basically the trolley problem in game form. There is no unambiguously "correct" choice with the trolley problem; that's the whole point.
3. The conversation that Ellie has with Joel after the fact (right at the end of the game), in my opinion, is clearly intended to communicate that Ellie was in fact willing to sacrifice herself if given the choice. And before Joel kills Marlene, Marlene tells him that he knows it's what Ellie would want and he doesn't dispute it. I think the intent of the game is to say that Joel knows Ellie would have chosen differently - that is, after all, the primary reason why he lies to her about it, because he knows him taking that decision out of her hands, and taking away her chance for the deaths of all her friends to "mean" something, could have broken them apart forever. Again, I think that is the clear moral question that drives the end of the first game and the beginning of the second one: whether Joel's decision is fundamentally selfish (for his own benefit) or fundamentally selfless (for Ellie's benefit). As I said, I think given Joel's trauma the decision is understandable, but I still think it was fundamentally a selfish decision. Both because he rejected any agency for Ellie (or consideration of what she wanted) and further rejected any consideration of the broader good for mankind.
4. Whether or not the game gave you the choice of killing only some of the Fireflies or all of them is, in my view, irrelevant. You are forced to kill at least some of them - including medical personnel.
5. Defense of Joel's actions as happening in a war is not. in my view, applicable here. Joel and Ellie are not at war with the Fireflies, even though as you say Joel has fought with them a couple of times. (Note: Marlene later tells Joel that they only knocked him out the first time because they didn't know who Joel and Ellie were.) And Joel doesn't kill just soldiers; he also kills at least one noncombatant, the doctor. Joel's killing of the doctor is, in my view, unambiguously murder. Whether that murder was justified in Joel's to save Ellie's life is another question, but that doesn't mean it's not murder. The fact that the doctor was armed with a scalpel doesn't change that either.

Here's a video with the end of the game so it's clear what we're discussing here:

 

[4thgenheel]

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.

the notion that the fireflies and abby's dr/surgeon father were going to somehow cure the cordyceps infection as a result of some half-assed terminal brain surgery in that ramshackle piece of shit hospital that barely had electricity is frankly preposterous.

they had one dr/surgeon and a few nurses. they had just been run out of a different hospital by infected and/or raiders.

anyone with a lick of fucking sense who really wanted to leverage ellie for a cure would throw all their resources into protecting the ever living shit out of her until they could find more/better doctors, surgeons, researchers, facilities, a lab, etc. and ensure that they were actually going to get something done instead of just haphazardly performing fatal surgery in some bumfuck hospital in utah, needlessly killing one of the only hopes for a cure.

reckless, idiotic nonsense from marlene and the fireflies and abby's dr dad. the behavior of his progeny in the aftermath gives me serious doubts about his mindset and faculties, too.

tldr, good on joel for taking their asses out and saving ellie. i really hope that they don't try to make me like abby in season 3. im gonna be outtie 5000.

 

[UNCatTech]

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.

The first season was great.

 

[Carolina Fever]

The first season was great.

Yeah, but not sure it will be worth watching if the rest of it ends up being bad.

 

[Healing]

tldr, good on joel for taking their asses out and saving ellie. i really hope they don't try to make me like abby in season 3. im gonna be outtie 5000.

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).

That 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).

 

[an0maly]

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 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.

That 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).

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 forms

The Last of Us (part 1) took me to a whole new place, in deep cognitive involvement and emotional investment, because I was no longer just caring just about my avatar, me as 3rd person pixel proxy "self," I was caring about the game conception of Ellie. About a child in a horrible world who needed my skills and efforts. I wanted to do well in the game and protect her on a qualitatively new level from wanting to protect myself in past games. That stuff is deeply involved in why the original The Last of Us took gaming into the realm of actual great art. Reading all the controversy early, I just felt the revenge game of part 2 lost that greatness and chose not to play it. I recognize others thought part 2 of the game was great in other ways.

 

[Healing]

Reading all the controversy early, I just felt the revenge game of part 2 lost that greatness and chose not to play it. I recognize others thought part 2 of the game was great in other ways.

I won’t argue what tlou2 “is”, ie whatever Druckmann has or hasn’t said publicly (I genuinely don’t know), but I’ll speak from what took away. Revenge was the base human instinct used in tlou2 to trigger opportunities for exploration of hero worship, black vs white, cognitive dissonance, moral depravity, the knife’s edge upon which civilization wobbles, redemption, amongst others. Intermixed are themes of inclusion and growth.

Mind you, I received the bulk of this experience in a second playthrough, leading up to season 2. During my first playthrough, the repeated tragedy and traumatic and stressful combat left the keystone cinematic cutscenes feeling like too much additional weight. Second playthrough, progression wasn’t as stressful because I relatively recalled the environments, where the baddies hid, etc. therefore I had more emotional energy sink into character experiences.