theprof00 said:
I have a really hard time taking these criticisms seriously. Furthermore, the whole setup-confrontation-conclusion argument you brought up hinges on you accurately identifying the story elements. You say that the story is all backwards and mixed up and doesn't make sense. But there are hundreds, if not thousands of revenge stories that are written with a similar type of setup. You say that we need to see Abby's story before we see her kill Joel, but do we really? We PLAYED the first game. We know how bad Joel is. For all I care, the first game IS Abby's exposition. Joel is a villain- Despite bonding with him, or liking him, or even agreeing with his actions. Joel is a villain. TLOU is great game specifically due to how the narrative induces compassion for Joel's journey.... If you honestly need more exposition to understand Abby's motives at that part of the game, then I'm afraid to say that it's pretty obvious why. You didn't understand the last of us. Playing through it myself, I was also surprised that Abby was out for revenge. I wrongly assumed that since she was kind of normal and I had been playing as her, she would be a good guy. What's more interesting is that even now, I can't think of a reason to say Abby was wrong to kill Joel. AFAIK, Abby's story begins 4 years earlier when Joel kills her father. AFAIK, Abby could actually be the hero of her own story, climaxing with her killing the target of her vengeance. If you think about it, Ellie's journey in TLOU2 is Abby's exposition. Abby is just Ellie from the future, if you understand my meaning. The difference being that Abby didn't spare her target and Ellie does. The way you described how the story should have been written, we should have played out an entire story of Abby's revenge and then played out Ellie's revenge. Honestly, I can't think of anything more tedious or boring than having to play out the same plot twice. |
In the first game Joel is shown to be extremely suspicious of everyone, even Henry and Sam. That's how he has survived for so long. That, and by being brutal when it has been necessary. He has done some bad things, yes, but losing your daughter like that and being thrust into an apocalyptic situation will make things pretty meaningless for anyone. He was just a regular dad in the beginning.
Ellie made him open up and brought a small measure of hope and meaning into his life again, he was not about to lose a daughter for a second time. So we understand why he did what he did to save Ellie. Players who have kids themselves can of course appreciate this more deeply. He's not a villain in the most basic sense, just a tortured man.
From Abby's point of view, what happened to her father was of course horrible and wrong as well. (By the way, it's not like Ellie's surgery was a surefire thing to save mankind anyways, all they had was an immune girl and a scalpel and high hopes really.) People get that, but it's a multifaceted thing that was handled pretty poorly with how Joel just gets taken out right away, when there were a thousand ways of making something more complex and compelling storywise. Of course it's pretty realistic and impactful in the sense that sometimes horrible things just happen out of nowhere, you don't see them coming and you just have to deal with it. Life is precious and it can be taken away in a second. But the way they did this here is making it really hard to feel sympathy for Abby, and on top of that we are made to play as her afterwards, which is really pushing it. It's intentional of course, ND wanted to shock us but it seems to have backfired pretty badly.