SPOILERS The Last Of Us P2 SPOILERS

[JWeinCom]

sales2099 said:

Well... have you played Resident Evil 5?  Cause when I played through the game at first I was thinking "why would people have a problem with this?  Of course zombies will be black in Africa."  And then when I got to the part where I'm fighting literal spear chuckers, living in huts, dressed in tribal garb I'm like... "Oh... ok.  I kind of get it."

This...

Is quite different than this...

And... I don't think those kind of pre-contact tribes are very common in Africa anymore.  I'm not going to assume intentions, but it was a poor choice.

As for FF7, I'm not saying anything about homosexuality.  I'm not saying they're putting it down by focusing on heterosexual relationships, just that portraying heterosexual relations positively, is a pro-heterosexual relationship message.

To think of it another way, let's turn to FF8.  In the beginning we have Squall who is a withdrawn sullen lad.  His relationship with Rinoa makes him open up and is portrayed as a very positive thing.

The message is basically that love is great and desirable. Find your manic pixie dreamgirl.   That's a position that the developers are espousing.

Alternatively, they could have had Rinoa completely fuck Squall's live up, they could have had them wind up in an incredibly abusive relationship, they could have had Squall reject her and instead use his solitude to become an even better SEED person.

FF8 could have had an anti-relationship message.  Instead they have a pro-relationship message.  That's as much of the developers expressing their opinion about how the world should be as it is when two gay characters are portrayed positively in a game.    So, I'd call that a political message.  

As for the rest, you're kind of just making assumptions on what Naughty Dog's motivations are.  You are assuming that they killed of Joel specifically to include a non-white character, and I think that's incredibly unlikely.  If they wanted you to play as a non-white character, they could have accomplished that easily without killing anyone.  And that would probably make more sense, cause I would imagine they don't expect everyone to love this new character.

Basically correlation does not imply causation.  You're saying the conversation went like this: "Well our main priority is to include a "diverse character".  Therefore, let's kill Joel."  How do you know that the conversation didn't go like... "We want to make this story about someone taking revenge on Joel for the horrible things he did.  Oh, and why not make this new character "diverse"?  Couldn't the desire to include more "diverse" characters and the decision to kill Joel have been completely independent?

For Re5 the point was that people were reading into something that wasn’t there because again I wouldnt call Japanese people racist against Africans. It’s just video game design and the lore explained why they reverted to ancestral behaviour. 

Cant speak on Ff8 but I’ll again bring up degrees. Political messages about relationships or anti relationships do not register on the same level as say religion or identity politics. Some subjects are more hot button and others aren’t worth the controversy. 

Did you not see the interviews making the rounds? Everything I said is public record of interviews I read, mostly concerning Neil Druckman the director of the game. Some form of actual ties with Anita S (Feminist Frequency). He went on record saying white males in games are the “default” and he had to rethink portrayals in his projects going forward. That’s a heavy implication Joel’s death was a narrative decision by the company and the plot written around it. 

I get your concern of the possibility of plausible deniability. However the personal politics of ND, which again is a quick google search away, is making your scenario increasingly unlikely. The sequel is playing as 2 strong women, which in itself isn’t a problem. It becomes a problem when a fan favourite is squeezed out (Joel) to make way for this form of game they want to create. 

The thing with RE5 shows a similar problem from the other end.

It's perfectly justifiable to point out that the portrayal of some Africans as literal spear chuckers is problematic in the context of Western culture.  Asserting that there is a particular agenda about that, ie racism, is not justifiable without particular evidence.

At the same time, blaming a particular narrative choice on an agenda is similarly not justifiable without evidence. I don't think what you've provided counts.  There is just a huge leap between "we have to re-think portrayals" and "we have to kill the white man".  I'm not denying that they wanted to add more "diverse" characters cause they clearly did.  But there were many other ways to get there.  Developers wanting to add more "diverse" characters isn't going to lead to a virtual genocide of white male protagonists.  

Your response to FF8 is pretty much my point.  There are political statements all around.  But the only ones that are problematic are the ones that are "controversial".  So, let's say that Abby was actually a trans character as people initially suspected.  What makes this a "controversial" issue, aside from the fact that people don't approve of gender non-conforming people? Without that being at the core, it's just another political statement that would just be like "relationships are good" that would just blow right by without anyone caring.