‘War is useless’ I remembered what my old man said that night. That night when we talked it out, the night when I promised I would fight until my last breath. The night when I promised I wouldn't make his baby girl cry ever again.
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Summary
Ellie, a civilian who grew up in a military family, fell in love with Abby, a Marine. Their relationship was challenged as their different worlds collided on to each other.
What do you think of the 'Ellie killed so many people but spared Abby, it doesn't make sense' critique? I get where it's coming from, but it wasn't an issue for me. Human life doesn't have a sunk cost fallacy; just because Ellie killed other people doesn't mean she has to kill Abby to make it "mean something". The WLF/Scars/Rattlers attack Ellie on sight; if they see her, they try to kill her. Fighting in combat is different from killing a malnourished person who isn't a threat anymore, imo.
Agreed. There is so much more to the story that makes that argument underwhelming in most discussions. As always i got thoughts and they're under a cut to spare the feed:
Whenever i see that argument it's always from people who haven't grasped the whole of the game (part one and two) Ellie's entire character is built on making her actions mean something, making her pain mean something, making something out of the shit hand she's been dealt. We grow over two games with her. We watch her kill out of self-defense, fear, love, hurt, revenge, a whole spectrum of emotions because she's a kid, her killing is all personal to her and it becomes personal to us too. We're invested, but we aren't Ellie. It's so easy to be playing a game and want to kill someone who has hurt you but ultimately isn't real. Ellie is a part of that narrative, Ellie has a choice to make that affects her and her alone, we're merely along for the ride. Killing Abby would have meant nothing, because as we saw with Abby, killing Joel didn't make things better, objectively it ruined her life. Abby made the choice to walk away from Ellie in the theater because while killing Ellie would have meant something, Abby knows enough (even if it got muddled in the adrenaline of fighting to survive) to listen to Lev, and walk away. When her head clears enough there is a look on her face that we see mirrored on Ellie's when she's sat in the ocean at the end. It isn't resignation. It's acceptance that everything they've gone through won't be back the dead. The love they had is still there and instead of focusing on what hurt them, they need to focus on the love.
These people want Abby dead because it is so easy to move a joystick and pull a trigger and not think about the character, the person, as real. A lot of people wanted Part II to just be Part I extended, because many people saw it as a fun road trip with zombies. They didn't appreciate the complexities of Joel, they wanted him to be a fun murder dad and they only cared about Ellie through that lens. They don't see killing Abby as a loss of everything that made Ellie, Ellie. If she killed Abby, the little girl Joel loved would be gone completely. That strips her of the choice to save herself.
I'll admit when I first finished the game I wished we had the option to let Abby live or die because I wanted my choice to matter, for everything I went through to matter. Then I realized it was never going to be my choice to make, while I played as Ellie, my experience was not hers. Through Abby I learned that whatever Ellie did, if she didn't let go, she would lose everything like Abby did, and if she was lucky she might get a chance to be redeemed at a great cost to herself.
These games, while not perfect, are telling a story of a world we have yet to comprehend. It is broken people traversing a broken world and finding hope in the hopelessness.
If you invest yourself in half the characters, the character you wanted to be, you aren't going to see Abby as a person worth redeeming and by proxy you aren't going to see Ellie as a person worth redeeming. You only see yourself as the protagonist, the good guy with the gun and everyone else as the bad guys. You leave bodies in your wake but they deserved it because you are the good guy. TLoU has always stripped that back, you are a person making morally grey decisions in a grey world and hoping it fucking matters.
No matter what we the player wants, when it comes to what these characters face, there is no black and white when you're surviving.
This is my part of a collaboration made with wonderful @bogbath . Darling, thank you so much for you patience, your trust and your incredible skills; honestly, the fact that you agreed to do this is the first place made me so happy! Chris here made the lineart and I took care of the coloring. Took a lot of tries, but finally I'm here sharing with all of you the final product! I learned so much out of this, i couldn't be more thankful.
I made them have red halos cause I wanted to call this "Saints & Sinners" or something equally lame haha.
Now, I really don’t have an opinion on the deadnaming stuff, because I am not trans and I don’t wanna offend anybody, but nice too see, such positivity towards the game.
-I’ll keep this brief and I’ll only speak for myself here as I know some people really hate how Lev was handled, and they’re valid, but as someone who gets consistently and maliciously deadnamed, I have to say seeing it being shown had an impact. NOT to show Lev’s pain, but to show how fucking simple it is to be a decent person. Abby’s reaction made me fucking cry, she knows it’s upset him, she checks in, affirms that he is okay, asks him if he wants to talk about it and when he says no, that’s it. He is Lev and the bloodstains on the ceiling, walls, and windows, that were once people got his name wrong.
Some people are lucky that they get that kind of response the second they come out, but that’s not everyone’s reality for someone who has to listen to the litany of “it’s too hard to remember” “I’ve called you [redacted] for so long” to have a scene where none of that happens where a stranger gives Lev more respect than anyone has ever given him. That has an impact. Down the line someone might come out and their sibling who has never really looked into LGBT+ issues and played the game wonders “How would Abby handle this?” that would be fucking great. But again I’m speaking for myself, and no one else.
This game has an impact. If you can get through it twice, it opens you up. There is a lot of negativity around the game held on to by people unwilling to let go of that anger, but there are so many more people who love the game and who are learning to love the game. No game is perfect and TLOU2 has been divisive on so many levels, but it’s nice to see that slowly more positive takes are starting to pop up.
Monogamous or not, introverted or not, asocial or not, possessive or not - we can't or shouldn't ever expect ONE person to cover ALL our social needs. We need a variety of input from different people with different qualities, abilities and perspectives in order to thrive. Expecting one friend or one partner to cover everything is not just unfair, it's toxic and unhealthy.
i know anti asian discrimination is on the rise and it’s been in the back of my mind ever since my dad warned me about going out on my own bc he knew some friends of his had got beaten up and so i try to be careful.
but now these shootings in atlanta make it so very real and in my face. i live pretty close there and it’s like my aunt who’s a nail tech goes there pretty often for supplies. idk i just need everyone to be aware of how bad this is getting.
lately i just see ppl completely brushing aside anti asian racism. you have no idea how many comments i’ve seen saying that asian ppl are basically white... it’s laughable bc we have never been treated as such. especially for me being a tan SE asian. it’s like ppl forget about SE and south asians who are very much being targeted as well. i don’t even know where i’m going w this! it’s just frustrating. idk do what you can maybe donate or smth especially since you guys heavily consume asian media like show up for us too not just for our culture
