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RolStoppable said:
JWeinCom said:

But can you recall ever seeing the same kind of reaction when fan favorites are replaced by non "diverse" characters?  For example, when Snake was replaced by Raiden people were upset, but it wasn't met with this kind of reaction.  When Dante was replaced by Nero for half of Devil May Cry 4, the reaction was not all that extreme.  

If it is solely about replacing older characters, we should expect the same general level of outrage whenever an old character is replaced.  But, that's not what we see.  I'm sure part of the reaction is because of displacing beloved characters, but that doesn't explain it all.

Not exactly comparable situations because the method of replacement differs, namely that the previous main characters die in The Last of Us Part II (Joel confirmed, Ellie unconfirmed). That means that those characters won't return in future games, so the replacement has something final to it instead of being a temporary state like in your examples.

But on the other hand, you are correct that there's more to it on top of the replacement. I mentioned it in a previous post of mine in this thread that the current controversy provides a platform for people who push their own political narrative. They don't account for the majority of people who complain right now, but they are going to be very vocal about it, so the whole issue grows into something really big.

One amplying factor in this is that the medium video games is basically the last bastion of entertainment that is largely free of political messaging - movies, TV and the internet in general are already infested by it - so this creates more paranoia, fear and hostility in response to Naughty Dog's story-driven decisions.

I don't think that video game is free of political messaging.  I think there are tons of political decisions in gaming.  For example, the creator of missile command has discussed how he intentionally made the game about defending bases rather than having the player use missiles offensively.  That's a political statement even in that simple Atari era game.

And there are political messages in pretty much every story driven game.  FF7 for instance is very pro-heterosexual (aside from that obvious sexual tension between Cloud and Barett).  That's a political message... but since it's a message that nearly everyone agrees with nobody takes much issue.

People mainly take an issue when it's a political message they happen to not agree with.  And I'm sure a lot of people are going to say they just don't want any controversy... But it kind of seems like the people who don't want controversy are also the ones most involved in the arguing. So I kind of wonder.