The Last of Us Fan Art the Last of Us Fanfction Two of Us
'The Final of Us: Part Two': One Year Subsequently and the Worst Takes Still Remain
Some people all the same have "Opinions."
I year ago today, Naughty Domestic dog's long-awaited sequel The Terminal of The states: Role II debuted. What was briefly a glorious moment in the gaming customs at large quickly devolved into a mud-slinging mess. Reaction ranged from the totally advisable disappointment and demand for refunds to the wholly unhinged death threats and serial of multi-phobic slurs aimed at the Devs, the actors, and journalists. Anyone remotely involved with The Terminal of Us: Part II was fair game, and it was open up flavour, especially if someone dared defend or praise any attribute of the game on websites or over social media channels. Surely the stress of the COVID pandemic and the shock of the game's fell narrative had a part to play in all this. Surely a year's worth of time has helped to heal all wounds and now libation heads have prevailed, right?
I'chiliad sorry to say that the globe of The Last of Us: Part Ii isn't all that unlike from ours when it comes to the depths to which we humans will sink just to hurt each other, fifty-fifty if we're ultimately hurting ourselves. So despite the fact that the game won hundreds of awards in 2020, some folks are however so upset past the game'south very existence, the fact that Naughty Canis familiaris dared to tell the story that they did in the way that they did, that they're all the same taking aim at its legacy ane yr later. Unfortunately, that says a lot more well-nigh the supposed fans than it does the game itself. Nosotros've written extensively about the game's focus on empathy, the uncomfortable shift into the enemy'south perspective that was a trailblazing approach to storytelling, and its perfect ending. Alas, all that effort wasn't enough to bring some folks effectually.
Then, with that in listen, we've put together the worst of the worst takes on The Last of U.s.a.: Office Ii that are still beingness fired off a yr afterwards.
Spoilers Ahead
"Information technology'southward the Worst Game Ever and No, I Haven't Played It"
This category of criticism is my absolute favorite of the agglomeration. Nada saps the brownie out of your argument faster than the words, "I haven't played it, but..." You demand to have laid hands on a video game, or, at the very least, watched a thorough playthrough to get a sense of it before you have a leg to stand up on when information technology comes to criticism. Second-manus knowledge, making assumptions based on the rumor mill, or merely repeating what you lot've heard from others with no thoughts of you lot're own, yes, that'southward not cut information technology. And yet "I haven't played it, but..." remains one of the most mutual phrases I hear out of the mouth of haters when the conversation turns to this game.
Admittedly, well-nigh of the people who started a playthrough of The Final of Us: Office Two and then gave upwardly did and so after 1 particuarly specific point. You know the point I'm talking almost, but I'll lay information technology out here anyhow: It's Joel'southward death at the hands of Abby. That'southward it. That's the moment that caused untold numbers of people to put the game down out of acrimony, hurt, sadness, frustration, whatever, and never option information technology upward over again. However, that moment besides apparently gave those same people menu blanche to trash the residual of the game, sight unseen, often without any specifics for fright of admitting their own vulnerability.
I get being angry at that moment; yous're supposed to exist. I get being upset with developers for that specific determination; I wasn't too pleased with it either. But to deprive yourself of the residual of the game and lock yourself into a screw of detest non only misses the point of the game itself but does needless irreparable harm to y'all, dear histrion. Because the rest of the game asks simply, "What if we had met Abby outset? What would our perspective look like then?" you are missing literally half of the story if yous opt out at the outset sign of unpleasantness. Ironic, that, because Joel, widely seen every bit the hero of the series, wouldn't have quit, he would accept soldiered on.
"Joel Never Would Accept Made That Mistake"
Office of the effect with TLoU2 haters is the near deification of Joel. To be off-white, in The Last of Us, you're presented with a playable character who'south non invulnerable but is a total badass. Joel survived the initial wave of Infected, but sadly his daughter did not. That hardened the man, turned him cynical, the better to weather the brutal new reality that is the post-apocalypse. Along with Joel's blood brother Tommy, who'southward kinder by intentional comparison, and Tess, a ruthless hardass equal to Joel himself, the hero of our story becomes a smuggler, ferrying just about anything (and anyone) across the inhospitable landscape. That's where we meet Joel when he agrees to spirit Ellie off to the Fireflies, only information technology'south not where Joel's journey begins nor ends.
Once upon a fourth dimension, Joel and Tommy were members of the Hunters, a fell survivalist grouping known for ambushing, killing, and torturing "tourists" in their territory for supplies and information. Swell group, that. And yet it's Joel's fourth dimension in the Hunters and the Smugglers that's given him the tools of the trade he'll need to keep Ellie prophylactic on their trip west. At the end of that trip, Joel, unchanged, would have simply handed Ellie over to the Fireflies, collected his payment, and returned to the life of a smuggler. The entire point of that journeying is that Joel came to care for Ellie as a surrogate daughter, to the extent that he killed damn near everyone in that hospital -- armed or non, militia fellow member or not -- just to keep her safe. Sure, that's heroic from the point of the role player who just spent untold hours escorting both Joel and Ellie to safe, but in the wider world of The Concluding of Usa, Joel is a straight-up villain.
Joel has, through the players' easily, murdered tons of folks past the time The Concluding of Usa: Office Ii rolls around. Indirectly, past depriving the world of the potential cure locked upward inside Ellie, he's responsible for countless more than deaths. That's the crux of the conflict between Joel and Ellie throughout much of the sequel and in the spaces outside of it; we only larn how Ellie establish out about this fact, and how she felt about it, towards the end of the game. Sure, getting the cure would have killed Ellie but saved humanity; Joel chose to save Ellie instead, even if that'due south not what she would take wished for herself. Only the signal of the sequel is that Joel is a human who has aged, who has softened, who has come up to grips with his violent by and hopes to notice a fashion towards a more peaceful future. You can sense as much by exploring Joel's room, taking in the paw-carved guitars and sculpted depictions of nature, done with an artist'southward hand that's been done gratis of claret, as best as information technology can exist anyway.
Simply the hopes of becoming a ameliorate person doesn't mean y'all can escape the sins of your past forever. Abby's final confrontation with Joel at the beginning of Role II is the straight result of Joel's own actions at the end of Part I. Does Joel brand a error in letting his guard downwards around Abby and her party? Yes. Does information technology price him his life? Yes. Was it however the correct decision fabricated past a man hoping to foster community and assist out people in need, with the aim of washing his prior sins abroad? Yes, once more. But that's not what people stuck in the by, in their own version of The Last of Us, want to hear. If y'all want a version of Joel who never learns from his mistakes, who never grows, or ages, or matures, who never tries to do better, I kindly invite you to choice upwards Naughty Canis familiaris's own Uncharted series and blast abroad infinite enemies equally the perennial super-soldier Nathan Drake.
"But SJWs Praise This Game"
Commencement of all, imagine thinking that so-called "social justice warriors" praising a game is a bad thing. That likely means that the game in question features positive portrayals of people outside the typical norms seen in popular culture, people forth the LGBTQ spectrum, people of colour, people at various points of the spectrum of mental health, and folks whose disabilities prevent them from fully accessing and enjoying most games. If e'er there was a complaint that was really bald-faced praise, information technology's this ane.
And yet, I could see critics having a point if The Terminal of Usa: Role II had shoehorned in "wokeness" simply for the sake of doing so in an attempt to stay relevant within socially progressive communities. Except ... the story doesn't do that at all. Ellie, who's in a same-sexual activity relationship with Dina, goes on a encarmine quest for revenge, leaving behind everything she should hold safe and sacred in guild to exact vengeance on those who have wronged her. If you swapped out Ellie and dropped in any straight male protagonist from any number of video games, TV shows, and movies over the final century, the same people who decry the so-called "SJW calendar" would be all well and skillful with the revenge story; they'd probably even praise information technology. But hold on, it gets worse.
When the game's character Abby was revealed, her appearance, coupled with some leaks that revealed the beingness of a trans graphic symbol inside the game, brought the transphobic folks out of the woodwork. Abby's not your typical female video game grapheme. She's built like a truck and hits merely as difficult, her childhood portrays her equally more than of a stereotypical tomboy than annihilation more classically "feminine," and even her sex scene didn't, how shall we put this, "confirm" anything one way or the other. Just it's later revealed that a completely dissimilar character, Lev, is actually the trans character. The Last of Us: Office II goes out of its way to include a trans man's story as part of the narrative, folding in specific cultural and community stigmas to that event, but Abby took the brunt of gamers' transphobia merely considering she looked the part and was an easy outlet for their anger over Joel's death. And while information technology'south perfectly valid to contend the claim and shortcomings of the way Lev'south story and the character himself are handled in the story, the fact that Lev exists is not grounds for dismissing the charcter or the whole game in general.
It's unfortunate that the characters who most speak towards breaking out of the cycles of violence, which are either self-inflicted or forced upon them by external factors like militant groups, are too the ones nearly targeted by those looking to spew hate wherever they tin. Just when people finish listening to your criticisms, such as they are, what'southward left to practise but merely ignore reality in general?
"TLoU2 Isn't Canon"
Non that I'm ranking these "arguments," but this 1 would have to be my second favorite. Whole subreddits take sprung upwards around the thought that, because a certain subsection of the fanbase disagrees with the decisions fabricated in The Last of U.s.a.: Part 2, the sequel no longer exists within the franchise's established catechism. I'one thousand all for fans keeping their own head-canon and even sharing it with others; fan-fiction is also a artistic way to become involved with some of your favorite IPs. But to pretend a whole-ass game no longer exists because you're mad at it is not just kittenish, information technology's a habitual exercise that likewise has dangerous real-world implications.
We humans are an odd sort; my fellow Ameicans, odder still. We have a habit of ignoring what's happening around us equally long equally it isn't in our faces or directly impacting our daily lives. Once that switch flips and we're inconvenienced by that very same affair we've been ignoring, it'southward suddenly all we tin can talk about and someone else needs to fix it immediately. We will make up imagined realities out of whole cloth if it simply makes our 24-hour interval-to-24-hour interval a fiddling smoother for us, even if information technology inconveniences, impacts, or impedes others. Living in a fantasy world seems like a harmless enough idea when it'south only a few people who are exterior the norm, but when information technology's thousands, millions, teeming masses who opt for ignoring the obvious, blind to what'south literally happening in front of them ... that's about as scary as it gets. It's ironic that that mob mentality can exist seen in the obvious corollary in zombie pop civilisation, from Night of the Living Dead to The Walking Dead , and from the Freakers of Days Gone to the Infected of The Concluding of Us, the mindless followers traveling in hordes, lashing out at the slightest provocation, and doing every bit your neighbor does without a moment's idea. I honestly wish I was exaggerating the similarities between these fictional monsters and their real-world equivalent, merely the very real COVID pandemic has shown that nosotros're non all that far off from the post-apocalyptic fantasies of our contemporary culture.
If it makes y'all feel better to believe that Joel is still out there killin' and grillin' and tunin' guitars, that'south cool. I don't want to take that from you lot. But at the aforementioned fourth dimension, your head canon doesn't give y'all the correct to target members of the community who are interacting with the world as it actually exists.
"The Worst Ending of Whatsoever Game. Always."
This criticism gets leveled at a lot of pop culture productions: Movies, Idiot box shows, video games, books, you name it. It'southward as if there's a race to the bottom for so-called fans to tear things down and label them in the extremes of the 1-star worsts and the x-star bests. The reality is, of grade, subjective, and the finall tally will exist somewhere in the center one time it'due south all averaged out. Game endings are also entirely personal; what might have impacted me in a meaningful style might have been a snoozefest or a cheezy copout for someone else. But anyone who seriously considers the ending of The Final of The states: Part II to be "the worst catastrophe of any game always" either needs to play at least a few more games or is deep into their own aforementioned delusions.
If nosotros never encounter The Concluding of Us: Part Three , I for one will exist a happy camper. Function 2 ended pretty much the just fashion information technology could. If the intent was to show ii women who were ii sides of the same coin, both of them caught in a never-catastrophe wheel of revenge, both of them realizing that that pursuit was a dead terminate, then it would have been disingenuous to have either Ellie or Abby emerge "victorious" at the end of information technology all. Both of them suffered Pyrrhic victories of their own making. That catastrophe, seeing each of them walk abroad to their split corners, their ain versions of sanctuary, is certainly not a happy one, but it is a satisfying one.
Imagine for a 2nd that Ellie had "won" and killed Abby. What would that become her? She would still arrive home to find Dina and JJ packed upwardly and gone, and she'd even so have two fewer fingers left to play her dearest guitar. Would fans who hated Abby have been happy with this result? Perchance, but the truth remains that nada else would have changed for Ellie, and Joel wouldn't magically return to her. In fact, with the weight of the sin of yet some other expiry on her soul, Ellie may not take been able to think back on her final conversation with Joel in a manner that let her find some peace at long last. And if Abby had killed Ellie? Forget about it. The fandom would still be on fire to this solar day. And yet, zip in the game would have changed; Abby and Lev would accept rowed off into places unknown with but a fiddling more weight on their consciences than before. Does that really sound similar a better selection?
I've written plenty well-nigh the ending of The Terminal of Us: Role II and no amount of arguments, well-reasoned may they be (though I've yet to see whatever), are going to sway my opinion much. I rarely liked what Naughty Dog was asking me to practise in the game, be it delving into the depths of ruined buildings to fight hordes of monsters and the Rat King or stepping into the shoes of a savage murderer to learn her life'southward story, but I count myself better for giving myself over to the feel. The catastrophe of The Terminal of Us: Function Two is the culmination of all those little moments throughout the game(due south), throughout the franchise. Information technology'south profound, it'southward provocative, and it will stick with me for a long, long time; it simply couldn't have concluded whatsoever other way.
Thankfully, the hate for The Last of Us: Role II has been reduced to a few shadowy corners of the internet. It seems to lurk in the same areas as the folks who wake up screaming about Star Wars: The Terminal Jedi on a daily basis. I'yard happy to say that the vitriol, though it withal exists a year later, is quieter now while it's just every bit hollow and baselss as e'er. I was actually pleasantly surprised to notice an outpouring of praise and back up when Naughty Dog shared their own anniversary commemoration for the game over Twitter:
Maybe there's hope for humanity after all...
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Source: https://collider.com/last-of-us-2-controversy-explained/