@JustinJackFlash said:

A fair reason for not liking TLOU2. Wouldn't boycott the entire company but yeah, fair reason. And yeah I generally agree with what you're saying. But I didn't think that the tough female character in Uncharted 4 meant the game was shitting on or demonizing men. So I'm ok with it.

I'm also not saying Uncharted 4 was shitting on men, but it was an overture of the SJW mindset; show a much larger/tougher male who we've seen grapple guys his size and larger, and show him struggle against a smaller physically weaker woman and digitally tie the player's hands to prevent you from simply defeating her in a fist fight like would likely happen in real life or in another other game with a male opponent.

It wasn't so egregious that it ruined the whole game, but it was a symptom of things to come.

TLOU2 didn't crap on men.

Here I strongly disagree. The heart of the first game was Joel. We play as him, see him lose his daughter, see him accept this new girl as his surrogate, and decide her life is more important than letting her get chopped up for a cure that might not even work.

Then in the next game the write him to be the biggest idiot ever, breaking all the rules he followed in the first game to keep himself and his people alive so that they could have him be murdered by this moronic unlikeable impossibly buff female character. They kill off all the notable male characters in the game and make it about Ellie, her girlfriend, and Joel's killer, and also the (transgender?) Asian character who was friends with Abbey (I didn't bother finishing the game and looked up videos on what happened).

Imagine if they pulled that shit with Horizon Zero Dawn and killed off Aloy in the second game by a guy and had you play as that guy and make it all about him. The feminists would go apeshit about how sexist it is and promotes violence against women.

Sure I think killing off Joel was a poor writing decision as was having to play as Abbie but your comparison of playing as the rapist of Ellie doesn't really compare. Joel murdered Abbie's father. Surely you can sympathize with her.

Not really, I don't know her. Her dad was willing to chop up a little girl without being sure if the procedure would lead to a cure before even exhausting any alternatives.

But the real issue was how they killed Joel. It was in such a stupid way where he had to make really stupid mistakes for it to happen AND he saved her life minutes earlier which made her look like even more of a villain. And then they try to make us sympathize with her? No thank you.

Not really, I don't know her. Her dad was willing to chop up a little girl without being sure if the procedure would lead to a cure before even exhausting any alternatives.

But the real issue was how they killed Joel. It was in such a stupid way where he had to make really stupid mistakes for it to happen AND he saved her life minutes earlier which made her look like even more of a villain. And then they try to make us sympathize with her? No thank you.

I'm pretty sure Joel could have took Ellie without killing Abbie's father. I don't remember since its been a while since I played either games but he surely did not deserve to die. You didn't finish the game so I am not sure if you saw the scenes with Abbie's father and he seemed like a pretty good dude.

When you say exhaust other avenues, I mean this is 20 years after the pandemic. I'm pretty sure they have gone down every road to try and fix things. Even the Firefly chick who was practically a mother to Ellie was willing to give it a shot. The question as to whether or not is it worth Ellie's life is a really tough question which is what makes the story so intriguing. The story asks a really tough question and I can't even pretend to answer it.

So it was stupid the way Joel died. Perhaps poor writing choices but this isn't "shitting on men" like I was talking about. It wasn't an anti-man feminism message. So Joel isn't as paranoid as he was in the first game. Maybe he got soft and comfortable as he got older. Maybe years of not encountering hostile human forces caused him to slip up. Most of the other major male characters that get killed off was to accentuate the anti-revenge message which, if they were insignificant characters, then then message wouldn't have been as visceral.

@cswood said:

Not really, I don't know her. Her dad was willing to chop up a little girl without being sure if the procedure would lead to a cure before even exhausting any alternatives.

The game implied that she was the cure and that it would work. Any doubts of it working were not articulated by the game. Yes, sure, realistically in the real world they could never be sure until they actually do it, but for the purposes of the story and the dilemma the game presents us with it's- cure the world at the cost of one person's life that you have an emotional bond with or save her.

@JustinJackFlash said:

@cswood said:

Not really, I don't know her. Her dad was willing to chop up a little girl without being sure if the procedure would lead to a cure before even exhausting any alternatives.

The game implied that she was the cure and that it would work. Any doubts of it working were not articulated by the game. Yes, sure, realistically in the real world they could never be sure until they actually do it, but for the purposes of the story and the dilemma the game presents us with it's- cure the world at the cost of one person's life that you have an emotional bond with or save her.

Yeah, I think I remember it like that as well and from a writing perspective it makes more sense as it adds gravity to the situation. I think the writing in the original game is superb and easily surpasses most Hollywood caliber writers and is without question one of the greatest stories in a video game, without question. I don't think anyone can question that Joel was pretty goddamn ruthless in killing those doctors. Killing the firefly chick I can sorta understand because she was indeed the muscle, a soldier which would lead to ramifications leaving her alive. But killing the doctors was a bit much and the TLOU2 does show you that he was a pretty good guy. I think people just get caught up with witnessing Joel's transformation from being a cold mercenary type to bonding with Ellie and filling the hole left in his heart from his daughter getting murdered. Still question remains about whether her life is worth saving millions and possibly humanity. Very strong ethical question and very hard to answer.

@movie_nazi said:

and the TLOU2 does show you that he was a pretty good guy

Well of course it does. The entire second game is about getting you to side with Abby. If that doctor had been an abusive drunk or racist then we'd side with Joel even more, but making him a kind angel of a man who loved his body building daughter makes you forget they he was going to kill a small child.

It's emotionally manipulative in a very blatant way. Druckman wanted to kill off Joel but he wanted it to seem justified and get you to side with his newly created female character. Sort of like how they made Luke Skywalker an asshole to make Rey look better, or how they killed off John Connor and replaced him with a female version in Dark Fate, or what they did to James Bond in the last Bond movie, or what I suspect will happen to Indiana Jones pretty soon.

I wouldn't be surprised if they kill off Kratos in the next God of War and turn him into an asshole before they replace him with a lady.