okay so.....its been like 7years lol, finally part 2 got released and i finished playing it last night!
honestly, my head is pretty empty lollllll
well, i can say for sure that i did not hate it, i think all the uproar was not valid, really. esp over joels death; maybe thats because when i first saw that initial trailer, back in 2016 i immediately theorized that joel was already gone (literally.....i still have the post up lolll) so ive been known for 4 yrs lollll but really.
i did not hate abby, not once; even when she was blugeoning joel to death i felt anger but i did not hate her; in fact by the end of the game i actively liked her, her growth as a character and her relationship with Lev (!! luv LEV!!!) made it worth it. also maybe this is blasphemous, but i felt like the game got way more fun to play after it switched to her. and that may be bc with ellie, everything just weighed so heavy in my heart, and when playing the game as her i was actually very very anxious for some reason. so ya i think the writers took a huge risk with the switching it up that way they did, but i fall in the category of ppl who enjoyed this risk and enjoyed the new perspective and change in pace. it was a great element they brought in of trying to get you to understand the viewpoint of the very ppl you’d just been mowing down. and that “YOU’RE my people!” line ??*chef’s kiss* like literally if you completed the game still hating abby with all ur heart, idk what to tell you, you missed the whole point of the narrative i think
also, to address joel’s death, and the entire story theme/arc of the cycle of revenge, pain, and trauma, and lastly forgiveness.
I....feel like i didnt really internalize joels death after that scene. and i feel like i still havent? i cried hard after that scene, and in the flashback of the ‘good times’ that happened right after it.
Also, I really enjoyed everything with the moth motifs, with it representing Joel (I think) and how the game starts with the moth on the guitar given to her, and ending with it being let go and left at the house.
but after that very last cut scene, with ellie standing up, putting the guitar against the ledge and just walking out. idk, i could see it as it was, her forgiving him and letting him go. i feel like i should've cried. I remember crying and being so devastated at the end of the last game, despite no-one dying, just at the though of ellie and joel’s relationship being destroyed, and them never mending it.
(*edit* lol okay it's the next day and I rewatched the entire end farm scene and I'm bawling now, guess I just needed a day to decompress lollllll)
And they never did mend things, not really. Like, there was the beginning of the possibility of forgiveness, which was great but its not the same as actual forgiveness. and while ellie got to complete that full motion over the course of the game, joel will never know and be on the receiving end of. maybe its that the forgiveness could have only happened as a result of joel’s death. who knows. i guess its just something well have to live with.
i saw a yt comment relating it to the relationship you have with a parent; and I took that to mean how alot of ppl have conflict and strife til the parent dies, and then you feel cheated bc as long as they were alive that possibility of forgiveness exists (but it's never something u ever get around to acting on, either because it's too painful or its just easier sometimes to be angry), but when the parent dies you lose that chance and all ur left with is the guilt of having never said anything. but I think, some ppl do eventually come to forgive in the wake of that death anyways, and I'm choosing to believe that that's wat happened here.
but yeah, maybe joel died thinking ellie never fully forgave him/hated him a little as punishment for what he stole from literally all of humanity. Or maybe just knowing that there was a possibility for forgiveness was enough for him. And maybe it really is the ending that he deserved.
