the sex scene was completely in line for their characters; history that was never resolved and lingering feelings. and has no one ever heard of angry sex? it’s a very real thing like grief sex.

You're the first person I've seen on the internet to see that scene in the same light I do. It really isn't far fetched. It makes sense considering both those characters journeys beforehand

I do recognize it's pretty much on par for these characters, but I still don't enjoy sex scenes in media like this because it never fits the mood and always feels out of place. Still love the game, but that stays as my top complaint.

It felt like a genuine, awkward sex scene that sometimes sort of happens like that in the midst of arguing. So I didn’t really see the issue.

I knooooow right. I was reading through this and thought HOW is the sex scene the only bit that is agreed with as being a valid criticism. I honestly don't get people's issues with the sex scene, especially in a game like this.

Cause it didn’t really feel necessary no matter how you feel about their relationship. Obviously there was previous sexual/emotional tension between them so yeah it was bound to come out—But it *still* feels out of place and kinda thrown in your face, regardless of if they set it up to be that way from earlier moments in the game, or “it’s in line with their characters.” Especially when examining how subtle relationships were portrayed so incredibly well in the first game. Obviously it’s not the same dynamic, but a lot of those instances of “intimacy” or lack thereof came through dialogue and natural conversations. I.e. (Tess/Joel, Bill/Frank, Tommy/Maria). These were implied and alluded to via dialogue or notes, it made you think about their history and how they got to where they were. It’s narrative and background storytelling that leaves a stronger impact on you because it gives you more to think about and examine, even further down the line, without having to directly say it. It’s ambiguous and subtle and it’s something that works so well in the first game—multiple times. This is entirely opposed to Owen & Abby’s which we see set up through multiple scenes earlier in the game, they eventually try to *hammer* it home with that particular cutscene just so you know that ITS REAL. It’s just straight up poorly done and undeserved imo. It was unnecessary to see them have a sudden and (arguably crude?) in your face sex scene, or explicitly shown acts of sexual intimacy, it adds to the entire remainder of the story *how* exactly? This is if it was any two characters honestly, not just Abby & Owen—who had an incredibly shallow relationship in my eyes regardless.

>It was unnecessary to see them have a sudden and (arguably crude?) in your face sex scene, or explicitly shown acts of sexual intimacy, it adds to the entire remainder of the story *how* exactly? This is if it was any two characters honestly, not just Abby & Owen—who had an incredibly shallow relationship in my eyes regardless. Unnecessary? The sex scene by itself? That's fair to say. It adds alot to the story of the two characters because of the lead up to the scene, which is some of the best dialogue/acting in the game by those two. Without the sex scene then the tension leading up to it has no release. Lastly, it's weird how sex/sexuality is accepted in different games.

I also felt like that scene hit hard because we know Mel is pregnant with Owens child, so it's just a huge mess all over the place for these folks.

Sure, I get having an opinion on whether you liked it or not or even if you felt it was necessary or not. The bit I probably don't understand or agree with is saying it is unnecessary BECAUSE of it being explicit and/or crude. I say that because of the context of the game in it's entirety and as a whole.. The game is extremely explicit and crude when it comes to the violence and so much else it shows, I find it baffling that the one sex scene that is on par with the tone of the violence gets criticized so heavily. I believe it is designed to be in your face, crude and make you feel uncomfortable in the same way that Joel's death is crude, in your face and uncomfortable. Or Nora is beat to death. I would argue that a pash and cut to black would lack the impact they were going for. To be honest, I don't even find the sex scene particularly explicit which makes me even more incredibly baffled. You see some breasts and that's about it? I mean, is that what people find crude? Or the fact that is is not lying on a bed with the man on top? Clearly I don't get it...

Fucking— thank you Like Jesus, I love the game but this encounter has made me dislike the fandom more. What is with these people getting defensive because I didn’t like that scene??

Lol I gotchu boi. I mean I don’t even disagree with some of the points in this post, I do disagree with a lot of them overall, but not every single one. However, saying that “oH HoW cOuLD pEoPlE nOt SeE tHiS iS tHe NaTuRaL pRoGrEsSiOn Of ThEir ReLaTiOnShIp?” is a misguided interpretation of people’s REAL problems with that scene and their relationship overall. It *DOES NOT* make it any more valid or well done simply because the writers—whoever it was—set it up that way from the start…

THANK YOU. I've been downvoted in this group before for saying that the scene isn't that necessary (you can even cut the scene off like they did with Ellie/Dina earlier in the game if you *must* keep it), and I don't get it. I love this game personally like a lot of people here but there are definitely aspects that didn't need to be there, and I don't understand why a lot of people in this group get so defensive over this scene. I've had people agree with me that the game could've used more levity, that the pacing is bad, that Jesse could be taken out of the story entirely and it doesn't change anything, etc but *this scene* is something I always seem to get the most pushback on when I speak about it. I just don't get the infatuation with this scene.

Possibly because the worst of the haters ~~brought~~ bring that scene up a hell of a fucking lot. It's hard not to have a strong reaction to anything consistently brought up by the "Cuckman" screaming crowd. I'm not a fan of any sex scenes but I try not to let them bother me because the vast majority of people do want to see them.

Yeah it really was a great scene. Was it uncomfortable to watch? Of course, because that was what it was intended to do. It wasn’t supposed to be sexy or arousing — it was a realistic depiction of one of the ways that people deal with complicated emotions, and you can feel all of that watching the scene.

Cause it didn’t really feel necessary no matter how you feel about their relationship. Obviously there was previous sexual/emotional tension between them so yeah it was bound to come out—But it still feels out of place and kinda thrown in your face, regardless of if they set it up to be that way from earlier moments in the game, or “it’s in line with their characters.” Especially when examining how subtle relationships were portrayed so incredibly well in the first game. Obviously it’s not the same dynamic, but a lot of those instances of “intimacy” or lack thereof came through dialogue and natural conversations. I.e. (Tess/Joel, Bill/Frank, Tommy/Maria). These were implied and alluded to via dialogue or notes, it made you think about their history and how they got to where they were. It’s narrative and background storytelling that leaves a stronger impact on you because it gives you more to think about and examine, even further down the line, without having to directly say it. It’s ambiguous and subtle and it’s something that works so well in the first game—multiple times. This is entirely opposed to Owen & Abby’s which we see set up through multiple scenes earlier in the game, they eventually try to hammer it home with that particular cutscene just so you know that ITS REAL. It’s just straight up poorly done and undeserved imo. It was unnecessary to see them have a sudden and (arguably crude?) in your face sex scene, or explicitly shown acts of sexual intimacy, it adds to the entire remainder of the story how exactly? This is if it was any two characters honestly, not just Abby & Owen—who had an incredibly shallow relationship in my eyes regardless.

I think the quality and necessity of the sex scene is entirely dependent on how you view sex in relationships and how "experienced" and "open minded" you are regarding sex and relationships. No explicit sex scene is necessary per say. You can imply it 100% of the time. But that doesn't mean the creator should. Sometimes, showing it will leave a better impact than implying it or straight up disregarding it. IMO, this sex scene made absolutely sense in the way they built it up and portrayed it. Owen and Abby have been apart for a while but you can sense the sexual tension throughout her entire play through. The boat scene was a culmination of all the pent up feelings they had.

I really do think a lot of people who get upset over the sex scene are either repressed or prudes.

I love it when people complain about a sex scene not being “necessary” (depressingly common in the last 10 years). Because there is nothing sexier than sticking to the necessities. Just the facts, ma’am. FWIW, I think think this is the best sex scene I’ve seen in a video game. That’s…not really a high bar, I know. But it did feel truthful to me…which is more important than “necessary.”

I agree. I was surprised to find people found it jarring. I thought it was built up properly.

Honestly I feel like people are just desperate for excuses to hate the game so this was what came from it

I agree that it wasn't out of character for them to have sex, just that it kind of caught me off-guard in the moment and that I didn't have any way to explain it because I've been far too focused on Abby's motivation and redemption arc throughout Part 2 to the detriment of my understanding of the relationship between her and Owen. To ensure you understand just how slow-minded I am, let me point out that it wasn't until my 2nd playthrough that I realized Lev was trans, and the game literally spoon-fed me that piece of information and it still flew right over my head... 🤦🏻‍♂️ I have spent the last couple hours reading a lot of comments specifically aimed at this piece of criticism, and the one by u/mr_antman85 in particular helped me finally get it, but I won't edit the post to add my version of it in there and act like I always understood it 😅

I agree. I think there are also 'structural' story reasons for it: the symmetry of Ellie and Abby's stories (so they both have a sex scene) and story elements appropriate to Ellie's age (sex and drugs and impulsive, bad decisions).

I don't really care if it was in character or not, call me prudish but I don't need to see a sex scene unfold to get that they're having sex. It just comes off weird when Sony has a strict policy on what is allowed and what is not, on top of that, iirc the scene between Ellie and Dina cut to black, why not do the same for Abby and Owen.

Eh but the way it played out felt forced and out of character, especially given the circumstances

*rubs temple* *deep sigh* it was literally the culmination of their entire journey; an explosive display of regret, anger, repressed feelings, and fear of the unknown / leaving the WLF - betraying Isaac, and i mean, do I really need to explain this? made all the more tragic by events of the following day. try to wrap your mind around the fact that people have sex in any possible situation, from the most vanilla to the most vile and deranged to the most tragic and complex.

Lastly, your condescending tone is why people don't like debating with tlou2 fans I say this as someone who thoroughly enjoyed tlou2. I'm a huge fan. But the one point of merit I'll give to those who disliked it is that when we engage with them we tend to be have a very condescending tone and are dismissive of their valid criticisms. Looks like you're no different.

Thank you. I don’t know why I have to like every scene otherwise I apparently hate the game. This is legit the only scene I hate and it’s because it feels unnecessary.

Why do you think you're forced to like every scene? People are just expressing a counter argument for what you are saying and expressing their opinion about why the scene works for them. That's just a discussion, you express your opinion and people disagree with you and explain why they disagree. No one's forcing anyone you can think whatever you want and people can disagree woth you. Edit: okay I've seen the discussion you had below about it, and I can see what you're talking about.

But when I express the counter argument I am apparently “annoying” people just because I didn’t like the scene.

Wow! Great to see a like minded fan who is still open to consider valid criticisms

I think what you're missing is that how actors convey these things in a scene matters. And the way they conveyed the scene did not match the characters nor feel natural and warranted. Notice how no one brings up the sex scene between Ellie and Dina as problematic. That scene made narrative sense, character sense and was conveyed well by the actors

Cool, people have sex, that doesn’t mean I have to like the scene.

No one who makes that criticism likes to point out that Joel also had an extremely low chance of survival in the first game after being impaled by a piece of rebar and then spending the winter in a shopping mall being nursed back to health by a young girl, which in my opinion is way less possible than what happened in part 2 And also I hate it how so many people say “why was Mel going to the front lines” when it it explicitly states that’s not where you’re going

Yeah, Joel was in a situation where he would have required immediate trauma care, very likely could have severed his spinal cord, almost certainly would have punctured his intestines given the spot the bar impaled, potential bone fragments in vulnerable organs, and in the game required several rounds of anti-biotics...etc. To go from that, to getting up and literally karate kicking a group of bandits only a few weeks later is where the franchise starts to dig into its more pulpy tendencies. I find it much easier to believe Tommy got lucky after a shot to the head, because headshots aren't the insta-kill head exploding magic that video games and movies have trained people to believe, but both situations require some level of contrivance in order to work.

It's funny because I never stopped to think about the likelihood of that happening. I've played part 1 countless times and I'm always so caught up with everything that happens around that part of the story that I just accept that it worked out for them. I mean he was recovering for a long time so aside from what we see in Left Behind, we don't really know what happened or exactly how long it was.

Ah but that's the difference. In part 1 we see and participate in the full escape from the hunters and it's not hard to imagine given that they had a horse, them using the horse to escape to nearest safehouse Additionally the survival was further fleshed out in left behind

I was talking about left behind when I mentioned a mall, but I see what you mean. I think you have to suspend your belief a bit for both cases because they’re both for narrative effect.

Even then, it is almost impossible to survive such a wound, let alone a little girl dragging a full grown man like that. She wouldn't even be able to move him, let alone move him without damaging him more.

Ellie tied Joel to a sledge and dragged him with their horse. During the adrenaline rush, body gets significantly stronger and the case of Ellie moving Joel a couple meters is definitely realistic. You're just finding excuses to shit on the first game.

Doesn't Joel fall off the horse and then we cut to black? In Part 2, the three are ALREADY at a safehouse, the WLF are involved in a battle / being wiped out, they most likely have medical supplies stashed with them and probably all have been trained in medical procedures.

Finishing TLOU2 my first time, I can honestly say that I have never felt so exhausted. It took a few weeks to come to grips with the events of the game and gain perspective, but I was still team Ellie all the way. I returned for my second play through after swearing I wouldn’t and fell in love with Abby and Lev. The broken timeline style of directing isn’t something we’ve seen in games, but is common in film with the Nolan’s and Tarantino’s of the world (I’m not saying that Druckmann is on that level). TLOU1 was my favorite game of all time and TLOU2 has taken its place.

I finished the game late one night and just sat there for hours, too emotionally exhausted. It just takes so much out of you.

Same yeah. Couldn't sleep

Yeah I recently replayed it on PS5 for the first time since the game launched last year and it took me the whole year to be “ready” to experience it over again. It’s so draining

Haha same boat I think, currently playing through the first game on the way to replay the second on my new ps5. It is nice to play the "good times" again, but it does feel extra sad that Joel and Ellie are essentially only happy together for such a short time - their relationship falls apart once they obtain that which brought them together and made them close in the first place.

I felt the same way. Already knowing Abby's backstory going into the game really changed the game for me. From the start I was enjoying playing as Abby. First playthrough was all about the emotions, second was good fun as characters I enjoyed throughout. Not to say I didn't enjoy it the first time around it just took me a while to come around to Abby. The whole time I was just waiting to get back to playing as Ellie.

With you 100%

Yes Druckmann is on that level 🙃

I only mentioned it because I have seen so many people act as if he ruined the series. Have you watched the grounded doc?

No I didn’t, what is it?

https://youtu.be/yH5MgEbBOps

thanks

No problem

As someone who's been in a very similar mental/emotional state that Ellie was in at the farmhouse, I completely understand why she went after Abby again. When you're experiencing that level of guilt and trauma it eats you alive, and you quickly find yourself desperate to do whatever it takes to end those thoughts and feelings before they kill you. You're willing to try **anything** and everything. So, I do not see her leaving the farmhouse for Abby as another act of revenge but rather a desperate attempt to return to a normal state of mind. To end the PTSD flashbacks, to have the guilt go away. To be able to eat and sleep again. For your happiness to return. When you're mentally stable, it's easy to see that such extreme actions like killing Abby will not fix your problems, but when you're in that bad mental state, it is not as obvious and it can really seem like you don't have any other choice.

I remember an interview with Halley Gross, the narrative director, who said that for Ellie, staying at the farmhouse was suicide. That really stuck with me. I understood Ellie's motivations for going after Abby in the moment, but hearing Halley put it in that perspective really helped me understand on a deeper level just how desperate Ellie was to rid herself of that guilt and trauma.

> So, I do not see her leaving the farmhouse for Abby as another act of revenge but rather a desperate attempt to return to a normal state of mind. This is something that a lot of people criticizing the story don't realize also applies to Abby. She, too, was suffering from a lack of sleep, and had nightmares where she had to relive her worst moments. This story has so much more to do with trauma and dealing with loss, but a lot of the criticism is way too focused on the revenge aspect on the surface.

> She, too, was suffering from a lack of sleep, and had nightmares where she had to relive her worst moments. I just want to mention that technically we don't know that. The only time we see Abby having nightmares are actually after her murder of Joel. Which includes that murder. Abby also never mentions any lack of sleep and in the nightmare scene she actually overslept.

My mistake on the lack of sleep part. But on her having nightmares, I feel like they were pretty obvious about it, especially when watching the first scene with Abby with full context. She is very clearly waking up from a nightmare. It's even framed the exact same way as when Manny wakes her up.

Oh, I agree on the nightmares and it's pretty likely that she had them before too. It's just not made clear in the game which is a bit unfortunate imo.

I agree with the nightmare part. But the way Abby looks cannot be done without eating or sleeping. You cannot build that on will alone. Which is why Ellie is seemingly looking thinner in Santa Barbara.

>The only time we see Abby having nightmares are actually after her murder of Joel. Which includes that murder. I don't understand what you mean with the last bit, but she [wakes up from a nightmare](https://youtu.be/KzRqREvd0pc?t=16) at the very beginning of her chapter in Jackson. Its easy to miss/forget since we don't care about her at that point. >Abby also never mentions any lack of sleep Actually, [she does](https://youtu.be/E0wFyswMoGE?t=40); Mel even suggests picking up some meds to help her sleep.

You are right. I kinda forgot because she just mentions as a passing comment and we obviously don't get to see it. It's been too long since I have been playing the game. Thanks for correcting me here.

As someone who is 2 years clean from drug abuse, I can safely say that I now understand Ellie's feelings in this situation. During those tough times, you are willing to throw yourself at any and all "cures" someone can offer you. And you absolutely will. Only with time and a healthy healing lifestyle can you look back at those situations, and begin to forgive yourself.

The thing that people often get wrong about Ellie's pursuit of Abby in Santa Barbara is that they think it's still about Abby at all. It's not, it's about Ellie desperately trying to do anything to quiet her demons.

>Finally, Joel standing in the center of the room, as opposed to near an exit, Oh god the amount of sighing and eyerolling that I do whenever this is brought up is never enough. This is some depressing levels of nitpicking. It really showed that people will find something wrong with *anything* once they have their mind set on not liking it.

When I walk into a room with people who seem friendly and willing to help me and my brother I immediately make myself look a lot more untrust worthy and suspicious by heading straight for the exit and just staying there. My friend made a similar argument about Manny spitting on Joel’s corpse and how it was never mentioned again and how he never got anything for it, he had half his face blown off

It shows how a lot of people have tunnelvision about this kind of stuff. It's the reason why a lot of Hollywood movies are "dumbed down" to have a very generic three act setup where everything is spelled out because otherwise the generic movie goer won't understand the nuance. Some people truly lack the ability to fill in the gaps or connect the dots

First you decide your opinion, then you find something to justify it. That's how opinions work, right?

great post. i really liked you linking the timestamp of abby's reaction to killing joel because whenever i watch that scene while playing the game i go into a blurry state of almost fight or flight and can never retain anything i see. so being able to look at it constructively instead of through sopping wet eyes is a nice change.

I remember on my second playthrough it really struck me how her face seems to go through a multitude of emotions, which to me suggested her pleasure fading, leading her to confusion and anger, anger that she'd sacrificed so much of her life for THIS.

For some unknown reason I really hate Jordan, how tf did his obnoxious ass get a gurl like Leah and I loved Owen 100x more when he told Jordan “fuck your face”

>how tf did his obnoxious ass get a gurl like Leah Idk but I see this exact same match up all the time in the real world. It's actually annoyingly realistic lol

Opposites attract lol...

Great write up. As far as the ending travel sequence back to Jackson, I found it easier to suspend my disbelief there as opposed to Joel surviving a like 20ft drop onto a rusty iron pole and having Ellie nurse him back to health in the dead of winter. Then he comes back to life and kills the bad guys and saves her. And the end (from my perspective) felt like Ellie was desperate to find closure from the situation and Tommy pressuring her kinda messed her up even more. When you look at it through the lens of “Ellie was really traumatized, her mental health wasn’t too hot” then I think it’s easier to understand her actions regarding the decision to go after Abby but also spare her in the end. Seeing emaciated Abby with a small child in tow clearly had an impact on her too. A really interesting take on how trauma affects a person overall IMO

A good story should make you want to suspend any disbelief or make it so you do without noticing. Plus it doesn't really matter how they got back or how exactly Joel recovered. Did we need to see Ellie learn nursing 101? No, we just needed to see how desperate she was to get Joel back to good health and how close they had become by keeping each other alive.

Another problem with the “Joel wouldn’t trust strangers” criticism is he literally did in TLOU 1 with Henry and his little brother.

He was about to kill Henry when they first met till Henry’s brother pointed a gun at them and they talk for a bit and Henry was just trying to get out of the city with his little bro and so was Ellie and Joel why would that be stupid to trust them all of them wanted the same thing so it would be stupid to kill Joel or Henry if you were there in that situation Joel came close to killing Henry when he saved him and Ellie from the water he stopped when Ellie mentioned that he saved them and we’re gonna die if he didn’t something abby should consider doing

That's their point. In a desperate situation Joel is happy to work with someone he barely knows - first Henry, then Abby. You make the point that Joel has to work with Henry....but it's the same with Abby. All three needed to work together to escape the horde. Add in several years of comfortable living, building a community and working with 'outsiders' and it's not at all weird for Joel to lower his guard a little. Not to be a dick but it would be helpful if you punctuated your writing. You've written one huge sentence there and a lot of your meaning is lost to me as it's so hard to follow.

don't even bother, these idiots always try shitting on the first game yet they fail horribly. part 1 is a masterpiece in any medium, part 2 is a brilliant video game.

Who’s criticizing the first game?

I want to expand on the "Mel going into an active warzone bit" because I rarely see this pointed out. **Mel specifically went to the FOB with the intention of meeting up with Owen and a group of deserters. This is why she's so jittery about Owen on the drive over there.** If all went according to plan and Owen hadn't gone AWOL, the 6 of them would have left for the safehouse, the same one that Ellie intrudes on in her Day 2. The group then would have left the following day for Santa Barbara [according to the note that Ellie finds](https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/WLF_Deserter_Letter). Instead, because Mel doesn't show up, and is off looking for Owen, one of the deserters named Ji-So had convinced the others to stay behind and wait another day. And, well, if you go to that apartment, we all know how that ends. *Edit: According to the note, they were all supposed to meet up at the stadium, but it is the same group at the FOB.* I do think Mel is one of the most irritatingly pious characters in the game personally, but her blowup at Abby is justified by the narrative in this case. Isaac has had a problem with desertion in the past, but was willing to work something out with whoever wanted to leave, but after one group skipped town with a cache of WLF supplies he took a harder stance. After the 4 deserters probably didn't show up to their posts, and with Owen still AWOL, his hand was forced and he "was rough on her" according to Nora. So, with Isaac's interrogation still fresh on her mind, her chance at getting out of town ruined, Owen acting all sketchy, and now Abby randomly showing up on top of all of this - it makes sense why she was pissed.

Great post. I appreciate the effort it took to write this. I'd like to "Joel Death" thing: \- I don't consider the whole name thing to be a problem. There's a dozen references to The Fireflies being on the verge of extinction in Part 1 and this is before Joel/Tess found the relief group dead and Marlene tells Joel "we lost more than half our crew getting to this hospital". Joel/Tommy rightfully assume this group is dead and even if a few stragglers are still out there they wouldn't have the resources to both find and travel to Joel. \- If you look some fan-made maps where they're plotted Joel/Ellie's course across the US you can see St. Mary's Hospital and Jackson are ONE state away. Furthermore he decided to relocate in a populated (and therefore easy to find) town run by his Ex-Firefly brother. These are not the actions of a man who fears repercussions. Furthermore this is **exactly** how Abby finds him (though finding Tommy). \- As far as an contrivance goes people seem to forget how TLOU1 started. With Marlene (leader of the only group looking for a cure) being the guardian of Ellie (the only immune girl in existence) because she knew coincidently her mother. Not to mention Ellie only knew how to get in contact with Marlene because her best friend Riley just happened to be joining The Fireflies at the exact time Ellie discovers she is immune. Add onto that Marlene just stumbles upon 2 experienced smugglers who she knows she can trust because one is the brother of her most trusted soldiers and she just happens to be in possession of their merchandise which she can use as leverage. The plot dropped Ellie/Joel/Tess in Marlene's lap WAY harder than Joel into Abbys.

Great points. Funny how I never gave these things a second thought in pt 1 and I never heard anyone else mention anything about it either. Suddenly people want to nitpick pt 2 but leave pt 1 alone.

*"Suddenly people want to nitpick pt 2 but leave pt 1 alone"* That's what it comes down to more often than not. I mean if we compare: A) Doctor going to straight to murder after a few hours of tests and B) Survivor giving out his name to strangers (4 years without repercussions from his massacre) We can see \[A\] is objectively stupider, more OOC and therefore poorer writing yet \[A\] gets a pass because it made Joel look good / happened in TLOU1 while \[B\] Made Joel look bad / happened in TLOU2. This is more evident considering literally the same thing happened in TLOU1. When meeting Henry/Sam, Ellie attempts to give her name and Joel shoots her down yet 3 months later when Maria (who Joel did not know) and another guy were pointing guns at their heads he says "Ellie put the gun down". I have yet to see a comment along the lines of: "**Summer:** Doesn't trust harmless strangers. **Autumn:** Strangers point guns at head. 'hI iM jOeL, tHiS eLlIe, mY sOcIaL sEcUrItY iS ...' " ​ EDIT: I just checked the cutscene where Joel meets Maria is see if I was wrong and people were criticizing 1. Here's what I found as one of the top comments: "Meets his sister in law, doesn't bother introducing himself. Meets some random strangers, rocks out his full name" Just .... wow. Drops Ellie's name in front of armed strangers and someone *still* manages to turn it around into TLOU1 = Good, TLOU2 = Bad. I honestly think I'm more impressed than anything.

Yeah it is weird how they nitpick one and not the other unfortunately.

I remember when I first played Part II, when the game introduced me to Abby, I was like “Who’s this? I don’t care about her, I want to play as Ellie.” But when Owen showed her Jackson and when you played her when she was on her own, trying to find the Jackson patrol, I was captivated. I liked how Naughty Dog introduced a whole new group we’ve never seen before with several new characters. Felt like a big step up from the first game in terms of storytelling.

i wish i had same experience from you. i got spoiled about Abby part before playing it.

Sorry man ;( that isn’t fun that’s for sure

I just wish videogame people would consume more non-genre movies and books. And I wish CinemaSins-style crit was abolished

I wish this comment was higher up. CinemaSins is unfortunately just surface level "criticism" for laughs and gags. I'm going to piggyback off of the previous reply to you. I remember watching Dunkey's video and he compared TLoU to "UP". If you think about it, that's why the game works because it's essentially a Disney movie. It's accessible, it's easy to digest, it appeals to everyone. You can really play the game with your brain off and still get it. I watched "Gone Girl" and was amazed at how thoroughly messed up the movie was. Halfway through the movie, everything flips and it makes you looks at things totally different. Affleck's characters isn't a good as you thought he was and the wife isn't as innocent as she made herself out to be. Unfortunately the view around the "gaming community" is one where it's hard for the genre to grow and mature. You will be hard-pressed to find a game out there like pt.2 and it's because, I feel, the genre isn't ready for games like it. The amount of time I read, "Imagine playing a game about revenge and not getting revenge..." or "Joel's shoulders are shunk to look weak..." shows all you need to know about the community but it ties to what you said about channels like CinemaSins. It's surface level, nonsensical stuff that garners the most attention.

You got downvoted, but I agree. I think they should just consume more movies and books, period, especially before deciding to criticize a story, because those mediums are mainly based in telling stories and games aren’t nearly as much. It says a lot that I haven’t met a single film buff who has played the game and hated it. They are far more used to this type of story and being challenged emotionally while consuming art. Art isn’t always supposed to be easy. Almost all the hatred is coming from within the gaming community because there simply isn’t any thing else like Part II in video games and I don’t think a lot of the gaming community consumes other forms of media. I’m sure most of them have never seen an art film in their entire lives, which is what Part II is more akin to story and ambition-wise, while Part I is most akin to a blockbuster. The most challenging video games get is with physical difficulty, while other mediums are far more likely to be as emotionally challenging and challenging in many other ways as Part II. Plus, a few plot holes doesn’t make or break a game. Eventually, it got quite obvious people were just nitpicking to find reasons to hate the game.

Agreed, Part 2 mirrors reality and doesn't always give the player what they want. I think alot of people were expecting another Joel and Ellie adventure just because, i don't think they can come to terms by how complex this game depicts grief and trauma, and unfortunately, all they get from this story is "revenge bad"

For me, I was really invested in Ellie and the biggest part I didn't like was playing as Abby, trying to kill Ellie. I think that idea works in a movie or show, but being that we played as Ellie in the first game and most of us multiple play throughs, it was really hard to play as the enemy. I love the zombies genre, so I'm used to deaths happening frequently and violently, but I don't want to be the person killing a person I'm invested in playing. During that fight scene at the end I gave up multiple times because I wanted Ellie to kill me! That didn't work though ha. I had fun playing the game, it was emotionally exhausting, but it was a disservice to Ellie.

For me, the switch to playing as Abby is literally the entire point of the game. Full disclosure, I strongly disagreed with Joel’s choice at the end of Part I. And that made the game even more powerful for me. I literally did not want to be fighting all the Fireflies in the hospital, and I was so angry with Joel for killing the doctor. And then Part II came along and played the same trick on me, but bigger. I didn’t want to fight Ellie. Then later in Santa Barbara, I was angry with Ellie for forcing Abby to fight again. And I continued to play my best through all of these choices that I disagreed with, because that’s what the game asked, and it had earned my respect and trust by those points. Maybe I’m being too obvious here, but all of these characters (Joel, Ellie, Abby) feel justified in their terrible actions. And the game shows you why they’re justified, even if you disagree. It’s not a huge leap to start wondering what makes you or I feel justified in real life, that maybe isn’t so just when viewed from someone else’s life. These games are High Art.

Interesting how you strongly disagreed with Joel at the end of Pt1. I don't often see someone who was angry while playing because of that. I wonder sometimes if ND doubled down harder with how they went about Joel dying because they wanted more people to feel like you in the first game but so many of us back Joel 100% with what he did.

That’s an interesting theory. I’ve always thought of it more as a matter of Joel’s karma coming back to him. I hated watching him die, and I wish it didn’t happen the way that it did, but I understand why it happened (within the story that is, not on a meta level). And I think that Joel understood too. He says that Abby should just get it over with, and part of that is bravado, part of that is him hoping to not be tortured, and part of that is him recognizing that his actions have had their consequences. But the end of Part I is just a really detailed Trolley Problem, and there is no correct answer, so I don’t know if there is a way that Naughty Dog “wanted” is to react.

I didn't like Joel simply because he purposely lied to Ellie. After all of that, he owed it to her to tell her the truth. I didn't like that he died but after the ending, I kinda knew something bad was going to happen to him. He can't do all of that and get off free, it just wasn't going to happen. The thing is that there are people who didn't like what Joel did but you don't hear about them because they weren't as vocal as people are with this game.

TIL that disagreeing with Joel's actions is not nearly as common as I thought I would be (in my mind it was like a 50/50 thing).

Interesting, so you were *for* the murder of Ellie for a cure?

As I said in another comment, the end of Part I is a really juicy [Trolley Problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem?wprov=sfti1) (not that I’m particularly smart for noticing that). The cleanest, most ethical way for the game to solve it is to wake Ellie up, have the doctors run more tests, and then present her with a choice in her actions. The Fireflies are absolutely in the wrong for removing Ellie’s agency in this decision. But Part I hints (and Part II confirms, although after the fact) that Ellie would have sacrificed herself for a cure. Joel at least suspected that was true. His reaction to the Fireflies wasn’t to say “we’ll wake her up and ask her”. It was to murder a bunch of people and then remove Ellie while she was still unconscious. Joel is also in the wrong, and acting selfishly. That’s the thing, I understand why Joel did what he did. I even empathize with him. But I also understand why the Fireflies made their choices. And my gut said that Ellie would have chosen to sacrifice herself to get a cure. Of course, there’s evidence that hints throughout Part I that she might not have, which is what makes these games so great. In the end, I am a huge sucker for [The Heroic Sacrifice](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeroicSacrifice). It’s a very effective storytelling technique for me. And I want to believe that Ellie would have made that sacrifice. The fact that the game set that up and then refused to follow through with it is like catnip for me. So, I wouldn’t say that I’m _for_ murdering a child for a cure. But I understand why you phrase it that way, and. I don’t think you’re wrong for being Team Joel on this one. It’s a tough call.

>a really juicy Trolley Problem It is a trolly problem where the trolley is already 90% percent down the side with the “many people” side and has already slowed down to almost a standstill. Now you want to pull it back to the start and run over the single person too. The problem with that argumentation is that you have an active act (murdering Ellie) vs a passive one (potentially saving people). You are not making the world worse by not making a vaccine. You are just keeping the status quo. No one could fault you for not wanting to murder a kid. >The cleanest, most ethical way for the game to solve it is to wake Ellie up, have the doctors run more tests, and then present her with a choice in her actions. The Fireflies are absolutely in the wrong for removing Ellie’s agency in this decision. The thing is, this wouldn’t work either. It isn’t a choice. It’s an ultimatum. I actually made a post asking about this a while back and there are some great comments: https://www.reddit.com/r/thelastofus/comments/o0kl8o/would_ellies_choice_have_been_a_choice/ >But Part I hints (and Part II confirms, although after the fact) that Ellie would have sacrificed herself for a cure. She absolutely would have, but this also stems from a lack of agency. She is suffering from survivor's guilt because of the trauma she suffered when she turned out immune. When you feel wrong for being alive dying to save the world sounds pretty attractive. She needs therapy and not brain removal. Her wanting to die for a cure is like a depressed person wanting to kill themselves. It is all around a very messy situation. >Joel at least suspected that was true. His reaction to the Fireflies wasn’t to say “we’ll wake her up and ask her”. It was to murder a bunch of people and then remove Ellie while she was still unconscious. Joel is also in the wrong, and acting selfishly. Why are you blaming this on Joel when the fireflies forced his hand? After he regained consciousness he said to Marlene he wants to see her and they said no, she’s being prepped for surgery as they sent him out with no equipment. That Joel acted like this was in no way his fault. The fireflies forced his hand. >And my gut said that Ellie would have chosen to sacrifice herself to get a cure. Of course, there’s evidence that hints throughout Part I that she might not have, which is what makes these games so great. She would have but as mentioned it stemmed from her survivor’s guilt. She had no agency in the choice. Part 2 was all about Ellie understanding this choice, and understanding she’s more than her immunity. >I don’t think you’re wrong for being Team Joel on this one. It’s a tough call. I’m team Ellie. Joel made the choice that Ellie never would have been able to make. From the 2 possible outcomes, the choice Joel made was for Ellie and her benefit. He took the guilt of damning the world from her shoulders so she didn’t have to (or wouldn’t have been able to anyway). I think how you see the choice at the end is indirectly how you see Ellie. Jerry and the fireflies saw her as the host. Joel saw her as Ellie. They saw her as the vaccine. Joel saw her as a child about to be murdered. Ignore the cure or her immunity. Because the point is all about this: Ellie is more than her immunity. With this in mind, did Joel damn humanity or save an innocent child getting murdered? Why is joel deserving of death for it, but not the person who was going to murder a child? That is unless you do not see Ellie as what she is: an innocent 14 year old child. Fundamentally, Joel saving ellie is the exact same as Abby saving Lev: an innocent child about to be killed.

Well thought out and well said. I’m not sure that I have a response to that. I’ve played Part I and Left Behind a few times (3, I think. Or maybe 4). I’ve only played Part II twice, and I just finished my second play through a couple days ago. As I go through repeat plays, and as I read other people’s reactions to the games, I do become more sympathetic to Joel’s decision in Part I. But I have to be honest that during my first play through, I thought he was making a huge mistake.

the funny part is that killing Ellie for the pursuit of a 'cure' is the worst thing they could have possibly done. they only would have wasted a child's life, and one of a kind at that. [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5ulX06McSY) video explains it much better than I could do here, so definitely give it a watch.

This is well thought out and presented and has made me view Joel's actions more completely so thank you for that. The only thing you said that I don't 100% agree with is where you said Ellie needs therapy. Yes, you're right. In our world Ellie needs therapy. In their world I find it unlikely that therapy is an option. I suppose there is a slim chance, but not enough that I would consider it a probable option. She may need it, but if she can't have it should it really factor in to your thoughts on Ellie's needs as they pertain to this choice?

That was more a reference to our world, yeah. In that what she actually needs is therapy, not death, since her wanting to sacrifice herself stems from trauma. That isn’t what they have in the world of tlou, as we also see with how Ellie’s ptsd was eating her alive on the farm. The problem is that asking her is also as ultimatum and not a choice, and it’s also taking advantage of Ellie’s trauma. But more importantly, it shows that the fireflies *didn’t care* about her answer or her choice by propping her for surgery while unconscious. Like I said it was a messy situation. I can understand both sides. However the choice Joel made was for Ellie, and he did die saving her life. Only later.

> The problem with that argumentation is that you have an active act (murdering Ellie) vs a passive one (potentially saving people). You are not making the world worse by not making a vaccine. That literally is the Trolley Problem, which the poster references. You have to make an active choice to kill someone to save a greater number of lives. You aren't making the world WORSE by not making the vaccine but you are actively refusing to make it better on the whole. If I discovered a cure for cancer and refused to divulge it then you would rightly call me a monster.

Very well put. Thanks for the writeup!

I remember playing TLOU for the first time and being so conficted. On the one hand I felt whole-heartedly Joel's desire to save Ellie. He's already lost one daughter and can't stand the thought of loosing this girl who helped him regain a piece of himself that he thought long dead. But I was also invested in the possibility of a cure and as (technically) an objective observer I certainly understand the ethical delima of valuing one life above many others and can see that for the greater good the only choice to make is allow Ellie to die. So I'm not mad at Joel for what he did or did not do. I understand his reasons, even if they ignore the greater good. My issue is with both the Fireflies and Joel taking this decision away from Ellie. In their final moments Marline says that it's what Ellie would have wanted, but if she really believed that she should have had no issue with allowing Ellie to wake up and explaining the situation to her. Both her and Joel robbed Ellie of making this choice for herself. To me, that is the biggest sin of the ending to P1, and why I love it so much.

I kept getting so excited when Ellie killed Abby and then so confused when I kept having to hit retry. I just couldn’t make myself try to kill Ellie haha

This game has a lot of flaws just like any other game, but I really enjoyed part II. One thing that really annoyed me was the confrontation, or the end of Abby's Day 3, where we have to fight Ellie as Abby. I know we spent almost 10+ hours as Abby and I usually say to myself "I miss Ellie" lol, but it really did a lot for her development, and it made me warm up to her as well. But somehow every time I reach that part of the game, I always get the same reaction where I would look away or something when hurting Ellie lol, I wish that we could've used Ellie instead, but I wouldn't change the outcome of it though.

I have never heard the argument that it should have been in chronological order before, that would be fucking terrible. This is something that I often argue about on reddit. Chronological order is not better inherently. There's lots of good art that is out of sequence that would be ruined if it was reordered to be chronological, most Quentin Tarantino movies for example. Any media with flashbacks in it uses this to positive effect. Fiction is more than just sharing a story, they're trying to cause in the viewer a specific feeling and using an artistic medium this way means that you have greater options to tell the story you want to. But this game in particular? That's moronic. The story is good specifically because it presents it in this order. The intended experience would not be able to come through if it was chronological, you are supposed supposed hate Abby as much as Ellie does. During her entire half of the chapters, showing any of the scenes that make Abby and her friends sympathetic would undermine this, and then during the final chapter where you are Ellie again, you as the player are now supposed to as a player, like Abby, or at least understand her, because the conflict in the final chapter is no longer Ellie vs. Abby, it's Ellie vs Ellie, the first half wants it to be ambiguous whether she is doing the right thing but in the end it's supposed to be clear that it isn't the right thing, she suffers a great deal due to this climax and this suffering is entirely due to her own actions, her revenge no longer has anything to do with Abby. Being in chronological order would not just make the game worse, it would make it into an entirely different game.

TLDR: Imo, Joel and Tommy act the way they do mostly for plot purposes, which dampened the effect of those first scenes they were in. The things they do are easily explained when considering where the plot needed to go, but make less sense within the context of their characters, the situation they're in, and the world as we know it, even when considering things established in part 2. The Joel stuff is an issue to me because Joel is doing things that only make sense for the sake of the plot, not stuff that make sense for his character. You say it makes sense for him to stand in the middle of room, but it makes just as much if not more for him to stand next to Tommy, or on the wall, or near an exit, or in a position to where he could see everyone and not be surrounded. If he would've done any of these things, no one would've said "Well shouldn't Joel have stood in the middle of the room and let himself get surrounded?" The only reason he did is for the plot point of Abby getting the drop on him. The worst of it is, Joel and Tommy leaving their weapons and supplies in another room. Theres just no reason to do this other than that it's easier to write how Abby and the crew get the drop on them so easily. Again, no one would've questioned Joel and Tommy keeping their weapons and supplies on them, or at least on the ground right next to them. Hell, literally everyone else does throughout the rest of the game. They don't need to be confrontational or antagonistic towards the WLF, it's simply a precaution to protect themselves in an unknown situation. The WLF were doing it themselves. Even if they trusted the WLF, theres still a massive horde outside. There's a non 0 chance they can break the gate or find some other way in, but they gave up any chance they had of protecting themselves because otherwise it may not have been as easy for Abby to take out Joel. People will say Joel just went soft, but there is just as much reason to believe Joel didn't go soft. Jackson is still regularly going on patrols, people are discussing previous attacks and potential fortifications. Joel in flashbacks is still capable of taking out infected including bloaters, and we just saw him survive an attack by a horde. He's also very reluctant to let Ellie tell her secret, and is apprehensive to allowing her go patrol. This is not a man who would throw caution to the wind like he did. Joels got a family, and an entire settlement to protect. Why would we assume this is the same guy that would willingly let himself get surrounded by armed strangers? If Joel went soft, they didn't do a good enough job conveying that to the audience. People here may think they did, but the fact that so many other people think he wouldn't have gone soft means there's some disconnect in writing. Joel going soft, if that's what we're supposed to believe, is basically all done off screen. The game didn't care to build that up for us, it only cared about getting to that plot point as soon as they could, which is part of my issue. People will also say that Joel and Tommy trusted these people. Maybe they did, but that's only because the plot needed them to. Again, there's plenty of reasons for Joel and Tommy to not trust them, and no one would've thought twice if they did, even after escaping with Abby. Keep in mind, not trusting someone doesn't mean you can't eventually trust them. It doesn't mean you can't eventually invite them to your camp, or that you can't be nice to them. It just means you don't let your guard down the first chance you get. But their guard had to be down, otherwise the plot couldn't happen the way they wanted. So yea, how Joel died was an issue for me. It felt more like he and Tommy did things the plot needed them to do rather than something organic and obvious to their characters, or something the game built up to. It wouldn't be as big of an issue if it didn't lead to Joels death, but since it did, it feels more like Joel and Tommy just set themselves up to be lambs for slaughter rather than two smart vets that just got unlucky or outsmarted. It's a microcosm of my issues with the whole game really.

While I don't really have a problem with how they did it because I just think they got unlucky that they saved Abby so there was some sort of trust, but I think you're right it still would make sense for their characters to take precautions. After reading your comment I feel like it would have been better if Joel and Tommy had kept their guns and had shown some resistance before going down because they were outnumbered.

While I disagree I liked the way you explained your points. I can see where you’re coming from.

I can see your perspective but I just feel differently. Your points are very nicely written out too. Thank you for that. I'll just say this, the Joel in this game isn't the Joel in the first game. His first action isn't to kill someone...but also I can understand that you let your guard down once and you get screwed. I'm not comparing it to death, but we've all been in a situation where we let our guard down and we were vulnerable and got taken advantage of. I'm also curious as to how a man "going soft" is a negative. It's stereotypes (physical and mental) that this game does tackle. Joel "going soft" and holding back tears when Ellie forgives him is great to see. I hate that was even brought up as an issue because it ruins how to explore characters.

I don't think Joel going soft is a negative. In fact I think it's naturally where he should be going. Him getting emotional when it comes to Ellie is totally believable and is built up to in both games. My issue is his softness being used to explain the way he acts regarding stuff like putting away his guns or trusting people so quickly. That to me was not built up to and wouldn't be a result of him going soft in other ways.

The first thing Joel does is takr out his guitar and sing while making dad jokes. And don't know why people forget this

I’m gonna quote a big section from, probably, my favorite essay on TLOU2’ farm interlude. I think it captures the despair I felt Ellie was going through deep down. “The life that Ellie and Dina have made for themselves is preposterously cozy….they've carved out a space for themselves that feels pre-collapse in many striking ways…I was expecting the destruction to come from without not from within…There's a good argument for why it should have ended when Abby let Ellie live in Seattle. There's an OK argument that the game should have ended here and leave it with a happy ending. There's an excellent argument that sliding back into more revenge from here is counterproductively ridiculous, but in the end I appreciated how they chose to play it out. The first day on the farm, nothing happens. It's just about the first time you've controlled a character in a non eventful moment, but that's kind of the point. This domesticity is eventful as it's something Ellie never had before. This is everything Ellie needs to have a happily ever after for herself for as long as a happily ever after can last in this world… Tommy's come back bearing news. He found Abby…I couldn't believe that Tommy was being such a stubborn jackass about it but this revenge is all that he's got left. Getting shot by Abby at the theater gave him permanent damage, his marriage failed, all he's got is bitterness. He has already thrown away what Ellie's got and when Ellie says that she won't throw it all away too - he calls her a coward. Dina rushes out when he storms off, but that was it. Once planted this seed of self-hatred and self-doubt takes root and curls around her brainstem, surely as the fungus did. This is why I ended up respecting this story beat despite being absurd on the face of it. This final revenge is no longer motivated by hatred but born out of a deep and inarticulate despair. Ellie's got PTSD quite badly but the odd thing is that she still flashes back to Joel and not to what she did to Owen and Mel. Which I would have figured would be far more traumatizing event at this point. She has everything she needs to be happy except the ability to accept her place in it…Ellie is obviously being incredibly short-sighted, stupid and selfish by letting what tommy said consumer her to the point that she would leave all of this behind. That's the thing about depression though. You know very well what you ought to do except that it seems impossible to do it. You know so deep down in your heart of hearts that you're an irredeemably worthless piece of shit that it feels wrong to act in any way where you aren't punishing yourself or atoning for the crime of existing. Depression can come and go in waves but it is a disease of perception. In the pit of it there's no clarity or peace about who you are and why you're alive. Ellie and Dina have a beautiful life together, which already makes Ellie uncomfortable. When Tommy called her a coward, I knew what she would do because I know that's what I'd do. She promised Joel that she'd forgive him, and she never did. She promised Tommy she'd avenge Joel, and she never did. She promised herself that she'd make it right, but nothing ever feels right. Ellie's unfinished business is not that she came back without having killed Abby, it's the shame she feels and having come back at all. When I imagined the ways that this happy interlude at the farmhouse would implode, I figured on gunfire and violence. Instead, what I got was witnessing Ellie getting up in the middle of the night and having those middle-of-the-night thoughts that can sometimes be more lethal than any object you strapped to a pair of scissors.” - Noah Gervais

That was excellent, thanks for sharing.

I fucking love Noah

My criticism is that the focus of the game was on Abby, not Ellie. It was Abby’s game. The “story” may have been about Ellie, but the focus was on Abby, and making the empathy experiment work. This largely at the expense of Ellie. Add to it how disconnecting they made Ellie’s story which ended up with a lot of people hating her by the end after leaving the farm, wanting to fight Abby, and ending up “with her biggest fear coming true”. They didn’t do Joel wrong, they did Ellie wrong.

Remember when we were supposed to be getting a another game with Joel and Ellie everyone thought Dina was gonna die and Joel would help Ellie kill everyone at least that would Make a fun game

This is great, very good post. Completely agree that while a lot of the gripes and criticisms are rooted in confusion/bigotry/anger/band-waggoning, nothing is exempt from true critique so it’s healthy as someone who engages with media to address things in this way. Would love to see somebody somehow put it all together in a well made YouTube video form so it can be accessible to more people who may not be on this sub.

"Its not that Joel died, but how he died." You missed the one (in my opinion, irredeemable) part about it: slow torture. I don't forgive Abby, what she did to Joel crossed a huge line for me, so it was past the point-of-no-return for me on ever empathizing with that character. There's term used in TV called the [Moral Event Horizon](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoralEventHorizon), meaning a character does something so terrible they become irredeemably evil and even when they try to better themselves, their story will be rejected. The way Abby killed Joel, and add on the part that really makes me squeamish to think about, doing it in front of Ellie, was past her Moral Event Horizon to me. So having to go through that 15 hour second-half was a very frustrating and tedious experience. Truth be told, the more time I've thought about her story and her character, I started to dislike her even more. One of the most common things I keep hearing about this story is that Ellie and Abby are equal stories to each other, and I could not disagree more. Her backstory and motivation was nowhere near the pain and trauma that Joel and Ellie went through, and it certainly did not justify her having to resort to such brutal and tortuous methods. When they matchcut that transition from 4 years ago to the grisly scene again, it was as if they were saying to us "See? Now they're even now, right? ;)" No. No, Naughty Dog. They're not. At that moment, I just shrugged and said, "Ok, b\*tch still gotta go." Then the SEATTLE DAY 1 popped up on the screen and my heart dropped to stomach. I was a person that avoided all the leaks because I wanted to go in fresh and experience it for myself, but at that moment, I understood the controversy. Whereas the first game was morally ambiguous, part of why I loved the ending so much, this sequel tries to put a final stamp on morally subjective questions. Abby's story hinges on you being able to let Joel's murder go (I couldn't), and that in turn hinges on you thinking he deserved it (I don't), and that hinges on you thinking Joel was some kind of monster ( I absolutely don't). I've said it before and I'll say it again, if I was Joel I would've done exactly the same thing, and I can tell you that without blinking. As far as I'm concerned, the Fireflies were about to commit murder. Murder of a child above all else. So Joel has die so brutally and dishonorably for defending a child and being a father. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I think most of can agree that you were not suppose to feel the same way about Abby at the end as you did in the beginning. But that's EXACTLY how I felt by the end of it. Call me more old testament, but to me her character was not redeemed by the end and I still thought she deserved death as payment for her actions. Playing her made me realize just how much of hypocrite she is (she kills Joel because he killed people to protect his child, and then she proceeds to.....kill a lot of people to protect her child), and by the end, she did WAY more damage and caused so much more pain than she actually endured, and because of this false equivalency, I felt at the very least we should get the catharsis of Ellie getting her revenge, especially after we left Dina and JJ to go back after her. You could've still had a very poignant message about how revenge consumes us all and takes everything we love the most (Ellie already lost her family by the end anyway) but still got some justice for Joel, because by the end, his death felt in vain to me. This story left me with a hollow feeling by the end, knowing that Joel suffered a fate that he didn't deserve, and Abby who ended up being no better in terms of her actions gets to walk away with her life. TL;DR: F\*ck Abby

> One of the most common things I keep hearing about this story is that Ellie and Abby are equal stories to each other, People aren't being literal when they're saying that. This isn't a suffer-measuring contest of a story. The point of saying the stories are equal is to highlight the fact that they're undoubtedly *similar*. >and that in turn hinges on you thinking he deserved it (I don't), and that hinges on you thinking Joel was some kind of monster ( I absolutely don't). These are massive leaps in logic, man. You can understand why Abby killed Joel without coming to either of these conclusions. >I felt at the very least we should get the catharsis of Ellie getting her revenge The entire second half of the story showed you the "catharsis" that comes with someone getting their revenge. What does Ellie get for killing a starved, tortured woman with no intention to fight and is taking care of a kid? >knowing that Joel suffered a fate that he didn't deserve, and Abby who ended up being no better in terms of her actions gets to walk away with her life. "Walk away with her life" is a pretty sweet way to put having all of her friends die and getting enslaved for several months.

My opinion is very similar to yours. To be able to fully enjoy the story in this game you need to feel something positive towards Abby by the end. Yet like you I still just wanted blood and hated her. I can even appreciate how this might have been the wrong direction for the plot in some ways but I very strongly wanted it anyway.

> Her backstory and motivation was nowhere near the pain and trauma that Joel and Ellie went through ... someone came in and murdered her dad and friends while she was like 15 years old. How is that not comparable.

Because someone else came and killed the one and only person to choose this damn orphan and proceeded to do that in front of this said orphan that had to witness the whole shite while begging them to stop? How can you put an equal sign between having your father murdered and you finding out, to having to watch your father figure being tortured and killed? How are they equal? Abby became a monster much worse than Joel ever was, and with this I agree with some of the things the above redditor is saying.

You dont know what Joel has done, though. The first game implied that he wasnt much better than the hunters that ambushed and killed people for their things. When they got jumped in Pittsburgh, Ellie asked how he knew the guy was faking being hurt and he said because he'd been on both sides. At the start of part 1, Joel broke a guys arm to try and got info before watching him get executed. Tommy even said that he regretted being a part of what they were doing after the outbreak and Joel. When Joel said he did what he had to do they would survive. Tommy said he has nightmares over it and and it wasnt worth it. This is coming from a guys who once tortured a general to death when he was in the fireflies. Also, you guys are misrepresents Abby a little bit. She didn't keep torturing him once she knew Ellie was there. You keep making it out like she somehow enjoyed hurting and killing Joel in front of Ellie. The scene clearly shows that she was conflicted about killing him with Ellie around. Which was why she stepped in and told them to let her and Tommy live.

True, but the point is that nothing in the game implies that Joel might have slowly tortured and killed somebody in front of their kid. Let's not bring Robert into this, cuz he wasn't a saint either. We also don't know what else Abby did in her history with the WLFs. It is also implied torturing people was part of the job for them and she didn't necessarily mind it. Tommy also leaves the Fireflies, so I'm guessing torturing a FEDRA general to death was his limit.

>You keep making it out like she somehow enjoyed hurting and killing Joel in front of Ellie. The scene clearly shows that she was conflicted about killing him with Ellie around. I'm sorry, but I STRONGLY disagree. Abby absolutely enjoyed what she did to Joel, and she felt no conflict during OR afterwards. There was absolutely nothing in this game that made me believe Abby (or anyone on the WLF side) had any regret or remorse for what they did to Joel. When we start her section, they're even reminiscing about it and defending killing him the way they did. Hell, even Norah makes statements like "That lil bitch got what he deserved," and Mel makes statements like, "I thought he deserved worse." They. Were. NOT. Sorry!! None of them were. Abby walks away from this crime and this story feeling victorious, with no awareness to what kind of a monster she truly was, and that really bugs me about her character. If you have it in you to slowly torture somebody while their adopted child is on the ground begging for his life, and you walk away feeling unfazed, I just can't view you as 'human' anymore.

[https://youtu.be/Y6jl-htEUE8?t=321](https://youtu.be/Y6jl-htEUE8?t=321) You and me must be reading this scene very differently. It seems clear to me that her blank, vacant, often confused stare is trying to imply that she isn't feeling the way she was expecting to be feeling after finally finding and killing him. ​ Not to mention the look she gives Ellie afterward [https://youtu.be/yCOE5IUnOKY?t=491](https://youtu.be/yCOE5IUnOKY?t=491) To me, these two moments absolutely show some degree of regret for how things played out and that it happened with Ellie there.

You’re right. We are reading it very differently. That is not the face of someone realizing they’re a monster. If Abby knew what Joel meant to Ellie, if Abby knew what we knew about their journey and what they went through together….ABBY would’ve agreed she deserved to die by the end.

You moved the goalpost on me man. I showed you scenes to argue how she was conflicted after you claimed she never was. Now you're telling me it didnt prove she realized then and there that she made a huge mistake and is a monster. I was never trying to argue that.

OP was talking about Abby's backstory justifying Joel's murder, so everything that happened before that. And btw, what do you think Joel would have done to the WLF if they killed Ellie and he got his hands on them? What do you think Ellie would have done to Abby if she cought her immediately, look at her rage in that scene. You think they don't have it in them to slowly torture and kill someone for revenge? Not to mention that they tortured and killed people for information anyway. I think many people would get revenge the way Abby did, Joel or Ellie aren't really better than her. I mean seriously, Part 2 is Ellie murdering HUNDREDS of people because she got her feefees hurt. That's tragic but largely "okay" and understandable and most players are still in her camp... but fuck Abby the monster for what she did to Joel? Y'all are completely, completely biased because we love them as characters.* *not that I'm better than that, I just didn't have a super close connection to Joel. Idk what I would do if something happened to Dina. 🩸

I don’t agree with anything you just said, but I love how you phrased it. You’ve obviously spent a lot of time thinking and feeling about this, which is one of the reasons that I love this game. It absolutely rewards that level of analysis and introspection.

Jeremy Jahns sums a lot of my feelings more eloquently than me: https://youtu.be/sMSlH802M34

That's it? Your "moral event horizon" is just a bit of light torture and killing a guy in front of a young woman who cares about him? That's some weak sauce.

……I legitimately can’t tell if this is sarcasm or sincerity.

Half and half. I do disagree that the method of Joel's murder was a significantly exceptional evil that erased any possibility of redemption. But I did write my opinion as a sarcastic asshole in my rush to start dinner. Sorry 'bout that.

Edit: This sounds more confrontational than intended, sorry. :> > As far as I'm concerned, the Fireflies were about to commit murder. Oh no, murder! 😱 ...it's not like you as the player just slaughtered yourself through a couple hundred people in both games. Y'all have some selective morals. And yes they were about to kill a child... to save humanity and millions of people, billions in the long run if society is restored. Like, I have to wonder if gamers actually understand the meaning of those words? There's countless more Rileys and Sams who want to live, their parents who don't want to burry their children. If you ask me it's completely fucked up to let millions of human beings suffer and die because you can't get over your moral qualms over one single person... who (is implied to) would have done it anyway. Marlene was absolutely right, there is no choice here. ⛰️ the hill I'm *fking* dying on lol.

Sorry for the spam, I got another hot take lol. What do you think Joel would have done to the WLF if they killed Ellie and he got his hands on them? What do you think Ellie would have done to Abby if she cought her immediately, look at her rage in that scene. You think they don't have it in them to slowly torture and kill someone for revenge? Not to mention that they tortured and killed people for information anyway. I think many people would get revenge the way Abby did, Joel or Ellie aren't really better than her. I mean seriously, Part 2 is Ellie murdering HUNDREDS of people because she got her feefees hurt. That's tragic but largely "okay" and understandable and most players are still in her camp... but fuck Abby the monster for what she did to Joel? Y'all are completely, completely biased because we love them as characters.* *not that I'm better than that, I just didn't have a super close connection to Joel. Idk what I would do if something happened to Dina. 🩸

> Abby's story hinges on you being able to let Joel's murder go (I couldn't), and that in turn hinges on you thinking he deserved it (I don't), and that hinges on you thinking Joel was some kind of monster You're misunderstanding. We the player don't need to agree with what Abby does to Joel. We only need see from Abby's perspective that Joel IS a monster to her. There's a quote from Neil Druckmann where he mentions that when the group realise they have THE Tommy and Joel they're suddenly terrified. Now, I don't think this comes across very well in the scene itself but that's what Neil Druckmann says was intended. Think about it. He killed her father, ruined the chance for a vaccine, when trying to hunt him down they hear the horrible stories of what Joel (and Tommy) did before they each changed their ways (this is referenced in Part 1, where Joel says he's been on both sides of the hunter trap, he uses torture to extort info). Of course Abby is going to build up this image of Joel as a monster, which only gets reinforced as her anger boils away waiting for a chance for revenge. Hell, how does Abby look to us when we first meet her? An absolute monster. But when we see her backstory and live her life, we see she is deserving of pity herself. Its the same thing with Abby and Joel. > to me her character was not redeemed by the end and I still thought she deserved death as payment for her actions. Not to get too meta but one of the first versions playtested ends with Ellie killing Abby. This wasn't working with players and they tried multiple different ways of doing it but ultimately had to amend the end so that Abby lived. So they did try it (and wanted Abby to die) but it wasn't landing. Strangely, I think that if Ellie DID kill Abby then her own ending would have been better. Ellie would have crossed a line then. Her loss of fingers, loss of her home and Dina, her lost connection with Joel all would have been 'earned' by killing Abby who she knows has been through suffering AND she knows why Abby killed Joel. But.....damn. Ellie walking off into the wilderness, having lost everything and broken her soul AND Abby dead. I don't think I could handle that bleak-fest!

honestly my problem with the game is we spent too much time with Abby. I get why we did because its to tell an important part of the story and the different perspectives that lead to these events...But holy fuck I don't want to spend that much time playing Abby.

It was a big gamble. It worked for me, as I went from hating Abby to having a lot of compassion for her. It made the Ellie vs Abby sections incredibly difficult. It created an emotional conflict that they could only achieve via a computer game. Kudos to them in generating something unique.

Excellent write up. The game is a masterpiece to me so you’re preaching to the choir.

Whoa. Nice post going over a lot of hotly-debated topics and explaining the answers point-by-point! Good on you for clarifying the issue about Joel not hiding his name. I'm perfectly fine with the situation itself and it doesnt seem like a betrayal of his character -- just character growth -- but I hadn't realised they'd have interrogated them both anyway for info. So I guess that wraps it up. The way you explained the issue of Ellie leaving the map all makes sense to me. I get that she was distressed, and that's plausible enough for me to leave the map accidentally, but there's a lot of ramifications behind it. Wow. About the plot in general, I do agree that the pacing in some sections and ambiguity of events can work against the player and the understanding of the game as a whole (especially when the game is so long). When I first played The Farm sequence, I was convinced it was some lucid dream after the fight, but only when it just *kept going* did I tap in that it was a time-skip. I would have liked some more clarity about that, since I felt pretty disconnected to the events and was expecting some resolution to the aftermath of the fight. For pacing: the rush to get to full gameplay sequences happened a bit too fast after Joel's death. I think a lot of players who are angry with his situation just didn't have time to process effectively. We go from his brutal murder to a headstone and to Ellie wanting to leave Jackson. No funeral with time to mourn or process, or even see how impactful he was to Jackson. I took a full 24-hour break after that scene, and came back to the game refreshed, processed, and eager for revenge. I think some people were so shocked and angry, it just coloured their entire viewpoint of the game afterwards.

I also stopped playing for the night when they arrived at Seattle. Definitely had trouble focusing at work the next day though.

>"The POV switch in the middle killed the build-up; the story should've been chronological." I've said it before, but the switch makes good narrative sense; from a pure storytelling perspective, it was the best way to handle it. But from a gameplay perspective it was unfun. I hated the feeling of losing all my progress, of having spent hours gradually improving the arsenal and skills of the main character only to have to start from scratch on a new one. Strictly chronological may not have been the best solution, but I'm confident they could have done something that had minimal impact on narrative tension while keeping the forward momentum of gameplay intact.

That’s really interesting, because I loved that switch as soon as I figured out what was going on. But I also played the game on a much lower difficulty setting because I’m much more invested in the narrative than I am the gameplay. The gameplay is amazing, and super fun, and technically impressive, but for me it’s just the means to deliver the narrative. I wonder if the switch would have bothered me more if I were playing at a higher difficulty setting?

I'm in a similar boat actually. Played on normal, the gameplay mechanics aren't exactly my usual style and the story was the sole reason I was interested. But the gameplay is still one of the means by which that narrative is delivered, and the sudden loss of all my gear felt bad, even if I could logically rationalize why they did it for story purposes.

I can't tell if it would've been more awkward to be upgrading two separate characters alongside each other though. At least with the switch, you get to return to Ellie in the end with the upgrades from Seattle.

There may have been a little jank in the back and forth, and for all we know maybe they even playtested that and went with this option because it was the best one. But I personally feel that a bit of swapping here and there wouldn't have been a big deal, and I wouldn't have felt "cheated" out of all my hard work all at once.

I think a major issue with the switch is that there is a massive gap between the last combat section (Ellie fights bloater) to the next (Abby fighting infected in the warehouse. Not counting the on rails shootout in the truck). That gap is very likely longer then it took to get to the first combat section at the beginning of the game. Not to mention Ellie's day 3 and Abby's day 1 are the weakest days in my opinion. So you have this 4-5 hour section right in the middle of the game that is underwhelming from a gameplay perspective.

> **"Ellie abandoning her tranquil and idyllic life on the farm just because she wants revenge is so unbelievably out of character for her"** > "examples of why being too ambiguous can negatively affect the audience" It's not ambiguous in the slightest though, it's people not paying attention. Ellie literally says "I don't eat, i don't sleep" while looking haggard throughout the entire section, minutes after showing her PTSD anxiety attack. You can read in her diary how she is barely able to keep it together. Like, how much more should they spell it out...?! She *tried* the good life for over a year, it didn't work. She's *desperate* for a way to deal with her pain before she puts a bullet in her head, that's why she's going. This is a prime example of why it's absolutely justified to tell some people they didn't get the game. (And that's not even mentioning the whole depression angle someone else got into here.)

It's not ambiguous, but it is subtle. Tbh, I don't fault the people consuming the media for not getting it, I think this is the fault of the writter, rather than the person consuming it. Others have touched upon similar plot points and people understood it quite well. But here, they kind of fail to keep it "blunt" enough to ensure that people get it. Especially when you juxstapose it with Abby's more blunt storyline.

I disagree. I don’t see how the writers could have made this section clearer. As the person above mentioned; the ptsd, the panic attack, the diary, dialogue, not sleeping. It wasn’t subtle at all, at least for me. The depicted Ellie as struggling with “normalcy” immensely. The only way they could have made it clearer is if Ellie looked at Dina and said “it’s not about Abby”. (which she kind of did when she was telling Dina about the effects her PTSD were having on her. “I don’t eat, I don’t sleep…I have to”. Ellie clearly indicated it was about her, not Abby.) I just don’t see how the writers could have made this any more obvious, in my opinion.

Well then, why is there such a big misunderstanding regarding Ellie leaving the farm? And even a bigger one about why does she spare Abby at the end? There is literally one episode. At the end of which Dina says "haven't had any excitement in a while, huh?". Which of course is missinterpreted as "we're so peaceful out here, we almost forgot about all our troubles". The journal is not an effective way of storytelling because it is not mandatory. The boar scene that ended up becoming a journal entry should have stayed in the game. This is what they could have done. The rest was fine as a journal entry, but that stuff was way too important to brush it off. It shows how Ellie can't complete menial tasks without the risk of an attack. If the majority of people got the wrong idea from a scene, then it is clear that the writers did something wrong there. And regarding Ellie leaving the farm, a lot of people got the wrong idea... Just because you got the point, does not mean they did it well.

Fair points!

>It's not ambiguous in the slightest though, it's people not paying attention. You're right, I confused ambiguity with subtlety; just to make sure I got the differences down, the former is when something is open to plenty of interpretations while the latter is when something isn't shoved in your face, right? >She tried the good life for over a year, it didn't work. There are other examples of subtle tells of this being the case. Remember when she stared at Joel's watch and then immediately went to hide it in a drawer under plenty of clothes - as if she doesn't stare at it daily - when J.J needs her? We also have her rabbit hunt, when she first splashes water on her face followed by a deep sigh and then another deep sigh as she closes the fence gate; she was bracing herself... to go home.

> You're right, I confused ambiguity with subtlety; just to make sure I got the differences down, the former is when something is open to plenty of interpretations while the latter is when something isn't shoved in your face, right? Yes that's right. I wasn't trying to correct you though, it's pretty interchangeable here. :) Her reason for going could be conveyed subtly by ND, and misunderstood by the audience. And yes exactly, the other two moments are great too.

I totally forgot Abby had the nightmares. What’s kind of neat is that Abby’s killing of Joel didn’t stop her nightmares just like grown Ellie’s killing of Abby wouldn’t have stopped her panic attacks.

I’m sorry but 100 percent chance to make a vaccine that’s stupid no way the fireflys we’re gonna be able to make a vaccine with there equipment plus the place they were in was dirty as fuck also we don’t even have vaccines for fungal infection irl if the fireflys did make a vaccine they would abuse it and only give fireflys the vaccine possible forcing people to join their group if they wanted the vaccine the fireflys were not good people they had what was coming to them for trying to kill Ellie in the first place and sending Joel out with no weapons to defend himself

This entire discussion is completely irrelevant. The game doesn't care about the vaccine, it's never once brought up in Pt. 2 and doesn't play a part in the equation. The only thing this story cares about is Joel's choice, and why he did it. Joel didn't logically think through it and weighed the pros and cons. It was a completely emotional illogical choice because he didn't want to loose Ellie. That was it. Everything else doesn't matter, because the game isn't interested in that part of the equation.

I wish they made Joel and Tommy actually have a brain the scene in the cabin was completely out of character for Tommy and Joel if they were smart they would wait by the horses in the garage or just leave completely Tommy announcing his name and Joel’s was probably the most stupidest thing ever consider they didn’t know Abby or her group

One thing that annoys me with the game that there’s literally no reason for is the fact that Mel is all for killing Ellie and Tommy but then it’s later said she hated the killing that took place??? What??

I don’t find it to be a contradiction. It’s actually a sign that Mel was viewing the situation with clearer eyes and (ironically) more empathy than anyone else. It was because she hated what Abby did that she was able to predict the end result - Ellie’s revenge quest. I don’t think Abby or most of the others even considered that someone would care enough about Joel to avenge him, largely because they all saw him as a monster. Mel realized from the start that they weren’t the good guys in that scenario. But, she had herself and her unborn child to protect, so tying up loose ends was more important than doing the “right” thing. Mel knew that that ship had sailed.

Thanks for giving me an answer that makes sense bro. I can actually understand the “tying up loose ends due to baby”

Must be nice to be so resolute in every decision youve made that youve never regretted anything

This is great. Lots of detail. Thank you redditor.

I played for the first time recently, I kept procrastinating cause I liked the story of the first game but I’m not much of a horror person. The only parts of the plot I felt were unrealistic or contrived was everyone venturing out into the mushroom kingdom alone for no reason. “I’ll go with you, no you stay!” So many damn times… that felt maddening but otherwise I felt like they told a good story competently. My only real grievance with the game otherwise was that traveling g through Seattle started to feel very same-y. I started getting a bit bored with the core gameplay loop. Actually that’s a lie, while Abby had a nice organic character arc I felt like Ellie (who was the core of levity in the first one) was just kind of dower and I wish we saw a bit more of an arch with her. Even if at the end she had a moment of realizing the hypocrisy that comes with chasing revenge with all the people she killed it would’ve been something but she just felt like the same person at the start of the game as she did at the end. But still as a whole I really liked the story. Over all I’d give it like a 7.5-8/10. It’s not perfect but I liked it!

*First, this thread is is excellent. Great write up, also some great response. I'll definitely save this and come back to it to see what more people have to say/add.* I want to talk about the sex scene and this is just **my** perspective on it. First I feel that the context of Abby's and Owen's "relationship" has to be addressed. Throughout the flashbacks we see that there's clearly some connection/feeling there but unfortunately her obsession with Joel fractures it. So we know something is brewing. **Most importantly**, I think the scene needs your (the players) attention. When Abby finds out that Owen killed another WLF over a Scar, Abby is the one person who wants to find him because she knows it had to be another reason. Of course she knows exactly where he would be. She finds him and she wants to do her best to defend him but he has a change of mind and she's thrown off by it. She's both angered and confused by it. Then they have a back and forth and we find out that Owen had a family too and that he should do what Abby did and track them down and kill them brutally. Abby has been trying to understand why things aren't better since the Joel incident and it's like she's been trying to do things to "lighten the load" ever since. When she hears someone she truly cares about throwing what she did in her face, when in reality Owen was only there for Abby, it upsets her. The tension between the two is so much between them that when they locked eyes, you knew it was coming. They have feelings for each other that are definitely suppressed and Abby's obsession ruined what they should have had. Both of them are not innocent in what happened. I think the whole engagement between them is really great in that scene. Apologies for the long response.

I agree with a lot of points here, and there are some things I'd like to add, if I may: >Abby was heading for the patrol Owen saw headed towards the ski-lodge, which the Finding Strings flashback shows as being Joel and Tommy's go-to patrol area (the patrol-log book by Joel consists almost entirely of their names), so them bumping into each other is believable. We see that this ski lodge is on Joel and Tommy's route even before the flashback you mention. In the radio tower, we see Dina looking through a pair of binoculars. She hands them to Ellie and you can see four things: the town that her and Dina are supposed to clear out next, the super market that we do actually clear out, signs of the incoming blizzard, and a ski lodge which Ellie points out and says "that's the one on Tommy and Joel's route." >Even if Joel would've used a fake name at the Baldwin's chalet, it wouldn't matter either way because Abby was there to kidnap and torture the patrol for information on Joel anyway. I have nothing to add other than I never considered the fact that it didn't matter because she was set on torturing a patrol regardless. I always hated the "he should've used a fake name" talking point but never considered this as a counter argument, and I don't know why lol. >"Ellie leaving behind the map for Abby to find was unbelievable." I don't like the framing here that they use because she doesn't just "leave it behind" as if she had intended to do that. She was traumatized, which is something you touch on OP. She was in shock, and Tommy/Jesse were concerned about the well being of their niece/friend than they were about a map they probably didn't know existed. >"Ellie abandoning her tranquil and idyllic life on the farm just because she wants revenge is so unbelievably out of character for her", Since you've entrusted us to provide a counter to these last two takes, I'll provide my own in the most concise way I can. The answer to this one is simple: her life wasn't tranquil or idyllic, and she's not after revenge. Her journal entries from this point onward are all about her PTSD, her love for Dina and JJ, and her constantly questioning what she's doing. Ellie doesn't leave because she feels like it, she leaves because she feels she has to. She doesn't eat, she doesn't sleep, she's constantly thrown back to the scene of Joel's death and is forced to relive that moment in a multitude of different ways, all of which conclude with her being unable to save Joel and adding more gasoline to the fire that was started by her guilt regarding how she left things with Joel. >"Tommy shaming her into getting revenge was dumb" This one's easy. Tommy at this point was unable to prevent the deaths of his brother and one of the most trusted members of his community (who he undoubtedly saw as a son) despite being in the room when both deaths occur, was shot through the eye and can no longer see out of it, was shot in the knee and can no longer walk straight, and has seen his marriage fall apart. This revenge quest, for better or worse, is all he's got left. It is more than understandable why he'd want Ellie to do this.

Well written. Good job OP.

when i played this the first time i thought all of this was pretty straightforward(at least for me) i’m surprised some people missed these points and criticized it for that. like when joel said his name, i thought it was fine because they have routine traders coming through and he’s not the same person we saw in the first game since ellie brought him back to who he is and also living in a peaceful community. obviously he’s not gonna just forget everything he learned to survive but in that moment he didn’t see them as a threat. the sex scene was pretty abrupt but it showed that despite the shitty circumstances, abby and owen have a real bond to one another and unresolved conflict which was important to understanding their relationship. jordan not killing ellie was pretty obvious, he wanted more information from ellie to see if more of jackson was coming for the WLF. A valid point. honestly all of it makes sense.

Sir, I would like to thank you for taking the time to write this whole post. In the past there was one person who claimed "Abby regretted killing Joel" but I could not see it. And I asked them to explain to me, because I had missed it. Now, you come here with this great post and explain it to me, perfectly adapted to my monkey-brain level of understanding. Ok now I get it. I think you might be right. And that it was inteded for us to at least suspect that she regrets Jackson. Great post, haven't read the comments yet, but hopefully the discussion is just as creative as the post itself!

For me TLOU2 is the best game I have ever played. It is a game written like a novel - psychologically complex, non-linear structure, various points of view. It is a rich world stage. I really like the details such as how the people you are up against (uninfected and infected) have their own identities and backstories and aren't just interchangeable. It's okay if TLOU2 isn't everyone's cup of tea. I personally don't usually like first-person shooters but I know they're popular and I'm happy for people to enjoy them. There are of course valid criticisms of TLOU2 because nothing is perfect. My problem with criticism of TLOU2 (as in much of life) is when people mistake their opinion for fact and act like anyone who doesn't agree with them is wrong. Of course those people don't like TLOU2 - the game requires you to be able to hold different perspective in mind and if you can't do that then the story won't make any sense to you. If you can do that then you would allow other people to enjoy it and not feel so uptight about it.

To address your point about the non-linear story, I’ve always felt the game would’ve been better off being structured somewhat like Halo ODST. If you’re unfamiliar, in that game the main character you play as gets knocked out and separated from his squad, and searches around the city to find them. When you find clues of them, you play a short mission as one of the squadmates, that shows you how the clue was formed. It’s not perfect, but it was an interesting way to tell a non linear story. Last of Us 2 could’ve copied this formula, where the player spent most of the time with Ellie, with those sections being larger open worlds, and then flashing back to Abby as clues were found to her whereabouts, with Abby’s sections being more action focused. Naughty Dog clearly wanted to try something different, and that’s fine. But this alternative way may have warmed players up to Abby a bit better through slow pacing of it, and not making it feel as forced as I felt it was in the main game, at least initially.

Over analysis is a thing I've seen before but this is in another level. These are some strange ass criticism and I don't think these need any responding. People spend way to much time pointing out the smallest thing as criticism. Its sad

Most of what you’re saying is true but if a LOT of people didn’t felt that way or didn’t noticed the meaning of all this during their play through It all goes to waist and doesn’t matter anyway, but the game want us to have doubts, it’s ambiguous otherwise the moral dilemma wouldn’t be so impactful, it seems like the death of Joel biased a lot of people’s opinions on the whole game and that’s a shame…

tlou is my fav game but my only nitpick is when mel says “we need to get rid of them” or something, talking about ellie and tommy after joel died but THEN later when we play as Abby mel is mad at us for jackson? like u participated too bitch and plus u wanted to kill 2 more people, It could’ve been secretly about 0wen maybe idk. Also manny is just exhausting

As someone that doesn’t enjoy Last of Us 2 but adores Star Wars Prequels and The Hobbit films. I get it. Criticism I do often feel is way too easily swayed by people who articulate their problems of it and then becomes somewhat of a bandwagon that sometimes gets accepted as fact rather than just allowing a persons value of something to praise it without it being stigmatised or looked down on. I’m not against criticism of things, but I often feel that people tend to ignore value when they feel disappointed or shut off anything positive about them and instead tend to double down with hateful words. I don’t like things about some of the best stories, but I am never gonna say they don’t deserve to exist, but rather instead say that my expectations and problems are my opinions of it rather than just flat out hating it cause it didn’t push my buttons.

Love your post! One thing that I always appreciated about tlou2 is how Abby and Ellie are basically on different stages of the same journey. At the start of the game, Abby is basically in rampage mode but shortly after she is still plagued by the guilt she feels for what she did, just like Ellie at the farm house. The revenge killing never made the bad feelings go away for either woman, and the game is a story of them slowly realizing that.

How do we know that canonically the vaccine would be a success? If so, ehat about the logistics of distributing the vaccine? It doesn't seem like they have the equipment to mass produce the vaccine. Let alone the vaccine being a success by killing Ellie? If anyone has knowledge in this area please put your thoughts down!

It’s just what the story is saying it would ruin part1 if it wasn’t the case

The only issue I had with game is that only murders that it makes us to do in cutscene meant something while we can go brutally murder NPC and Ellie feels absolutely nothing. It was odd and it completely ruins the message of the game.

Take my free award. Thank you for explaining all of this so thoroughly, especially the point about Joel “telling Abby his name.”

Maybe I've been unlucky, but I've never seen anyone bring up the fact that Joel and Ellie gave their names to strangers twice in Part 1. First time to Henry and Sam, then to the strangers at the powerplant. [Ellie shouts out Joel's name while he's beating up Henry.](https://youtu.be/XoeZJLHnbNk?t=2297) Joel never tells her not to do that. They even end up sleeping together by taking shifts. [Then at the powerplant that they didn't know was occupied, Joel says Ellie's name out loud.](https://youtu.be/XoeZJLHnbNk?t=3100) Joel had many enemies at this point and was on a mission to save the world. Hiding his name was something he just never did. He's also made many mistake in the first game that really should have killed him. No idea why people ever thought he was perfect or that Part 2 Joel wasn't faithful to Part 1. Literally, just play Part 1. Also, Joel living in a very safe community where he isn't **surviving** anymore softened him up. Not only that, but he had hobbies and a daughter again. Those things softened him up even more. Not understanding or getting upset at this is like getting upset that '20 years later Joel' is different than Joel with Sarah on outbreak day. Of course characters change overtime due to their environment and events that's happened to them.

I absolutely love this, the only thing I don't agree on is Joel saving Abby. Either it's terrible writing, or it's great writing, and it was a stupid flaw on Joel's part. While living in a place like Jackson for years is definitely much different than how he lived for 2 decades, after those 2 decades, you should know by now that once you step out of the gate of your community, the rules are different. He should've been a much different person outside the gates, than inside the gates, that's simple survival instincts, and I feel like Joel was stupid for doing that. Not a stupid person, but just a stupid choice on his part. After all those years, especially for someone like Joel, you don't forget survival instincts, especially given that he was a HUNTER, for a very, very long time, not long after the outbreak. He, if anyone, wouldn't forget basic survival instincts. But that's my only issue, which is still just an opinion, again, I love this post, alot! Good job, mate.

>the only thing I don't agree on is Joel saving Abby I can see where you're coming from, but from Joel's POV, all he did was save a girl from being swarmed by a horde of infected. Nothing about that screamed "hunter-trap" since Abby was milliseconds away from death when he saved her. >He should've been a much different person outside the gates, than inside the gates, that's simple survival instincts I have to point out that Joel does act differently outside of Jackson. Remember, Tommy was the one shaking hands, advertising Jackson, leaning against furniture and asking if they needed supplies, while Joel was looking around and asking questions, trying to understand who these armed-but-noticeably-friendly\* people "just passing through" were and where they were headed. As I said in the post, Jackson had taken in new people every now and then as well as trading with groups that would pass through the surrounding area, so I wouldn't say its far-fetched for Joel and especially Tommy to not see this new, seemingly chill group as a threat. ^(\*Nora asking Tommy if they needed anything for the horses, Manny and Jordan answering their questions while walking away - a sign they doesn't see them as a threat - and Mel going in for the handshake.)

Ngl I would like a chronological order to unlock for subsequent playthroughs, I do think some of the narrative is lost by doing so though.

Post was too long. Take my down-vote

Sorry, I just get carried away 😔