@lumpofdeformity: I agree with you wholeheartedly about the Joel thing! In my mind, TLOU was never Joel's game, even if you spent the majority of the game playing as him. The prerelease discourse surrounding this game has made it very difficult to talk about, because it seems like a lot of people took sides even before release. Joel has always seemed to be a generic character in my eyes, and I can't really imagine people stanning him.
I also agree with you 100 percent on Abby having the more interesting story. I think the reason I am so critical of her specifically is that I like her way more than Ellie (even in spite of her status as a WLF). If the goal of the story is to explore both sides of a conflict, I want to like both parties equally. It feels like we are both looking at the same problem from different angles. One could tone down Ellie's violence, rage, and despair. Alternatively, you could darken Abby's story by writing more confrontation with her potentially violent past.
I agree with you completely! I appreciate the apology, but no offense was taken. I also apologize if you were offended by anything I wrote. It's easy to mix personal criticism with criticism of the game, but it wasn't my intention.
And one final, big yes! I don't know if the woke label was applied by Naughty Dog or the hooting chuds, but there is very little about this game that is actually progressive. Thats okay! I normally don't concern myself with the politics of a game- I was just confused about how it was actually applied. I purposefully ignored all the prerelease controversy.
@kashbocks: @lumpofdeformity: I'm not arguing with you about how the game presents Ellie as the only possibility for a cure. I agree with you there. I also agree with you that Joel is a bad guy and got what was coming to him. However, I think you are giving Abby far too much credit in her pursuit. Her bloodthirst for Joel is primarily a function of her desire to get revenge for her father. It's also about the loss of a potential cure, but this is clearly secondary. She is as selfish as Ellie, and we shouldn't pretend that she is trying to correct the cosmic wrongs of all the other bad things that Joel has done. If she actually cared about that stuff she wouldn't be in the business of killing Seraphites for fun.
Almost all of my criticisms of the game comes from a dissonance between what Naughty Dog is trying to present in the context of the game versus specific decisions they made to ignore or under-develop tangentially related elements. This is a personal view, but I don't think that one should make a game that explores and condemns violence while also having a protagonist be a happy and functioning member of a violent apartheid state. I don't think that Abby's encounter with Isaac or the final Seattle chapters count as any form of closure or reflection on her role in murder of (dozens? hundreds?) of people.
Touching on what Kashbocks wrote, I think it's also strange that Naughty Dog has created a game about strong women but almost all of the plot is still being driven forward by men. Not that it's any real measure, but does this game pass the bechdel test? Both protagonists seek revenge for the killing of a father figure, both complications are the functions of pregnancies, both have to navigate the city in search/service of men, and the game seems to suggest that motherhood is the ultimate fulfillment for its protagonists. Abby ultimately finds peace in her adopted motherhood of Lev and Ellie is ultimately lost when she abandons her motherhood.
This kind of stuff is why Abby (the character) specifically angers me and Ellie doesn't. By the end of the game Ellie is pretty clearly defeated, but I think that Naughty Dog has mostly used Abby's powerful character (and her redemption) to couch some really regressive ideals. It's a shame, because I love her character design and actor's performance. And ND does some really great physical storytelling with her in the Santa Barbara chapter.
@draugen: I think there are quite a few interesting places one could go when looking at how players internalize the game, and the point you make about intentions is a good one. Abby's father, Joel, Abby, Ellie, the Seraphites, and even Isaac all probably believe in the purity of their own intentions. Intentions don't mean much in the world of TLOU or our own.
My specific issue is with how Naughty Dog seems to go overboard in trying to redeem Abby while simultaneously depicting Ellie as being selfish and irresponsible. To me it didn't feel balanced enough for the "both sides" narrative and structure that Naughty Dog uses, which made everything kind of feel like an endorsement of Abby, her actions, and her perspectives.
If you extend on from this and consider Abby and Ellie's upbringings, where they live, the company they keep, etc. that endorsement of Abby is weirdly problematic. Not sure if others read it as being similarly disproportionate, and I doubt that ND meant for the game to show favoritism, but it's the reason why I was left with such a bad taste.
@lumpofdeformity:Justifying the murder of an unconscious child on an experiment that, as you admit yourself, would probably amount to nothing is a hell of stance to take. Further endorsing the violent history of Abby, considering all of the Seraphites, children, civilians she killed while happily working for Isaac.... Oof.
It isn't a matter of Team Joel or Team Abby. I think framing your critique in such a way honestly goes against the entire message of the game.
@smurfbearpig: She wasn't raised as a WLF. It's actually the subject of a pretty big flashback. She was a Firefly until her teens, presumably under less murder-y circumstances considering how torn up her father seemed over choosing to murder an unconscious Ellie. After her father got murdered by Joel she joined up with Isaac.
@ryno9881: I completely agree! At times, the game's desperate attempts to craft parallels between Abby and Ellie become its biggest fault, and is a large cause of the "cheese." Yet for all of its attempts to show how Abby and Ellie are similar, it completely ignores the most meaningful distinction between them- Abby is a happy member of a systemic violence machine and Ellie isn't. She reports unquestioningly to a torturer. She works for an organization that hides landmines to kill indiscriminately. While Abby eventually seems to find a conscience, it's only in the waning moments of the game, and when you consider how her final encounter with Isaac concludes, she never really has to answer for her role in that machine.
Add on top of that how Abby's vendetta is motivated by her father's eagerness to murder an unconscious child, and the way she revels in torturing Joel after he and Tommy save her life, and her entire campaign seems evil and unjustified.
Naughty Dog is welcome to explore both sides of a conflict, but I don't for one second buy that Ellie and Abby are similar people, except for the notion that both have been defeated when Santa Barbara concludes.
@nnickers: Yeah, it's pretty pathetic. I expect more out of GB users than parroting the gamers as a victimized community narrative that runs wild in other parts of the web.
@bladeofcreation: Shhhhhhhh. Apparently it's inappropriate to even reference it. After all, one may be reminded of a totally unrelated candidate and the mean online socialists who made fun of your tattoo.
When you have a prolonged conversation about good and bad things in something that's not very substantial, it's going to feel like all of it is exposed. I think it would feel different if only one person from East and one from West had played it. As it is, it seems like both crews burned through their conversations early, so now there won't be much to talk about after the game is out for regular consumers.
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