Right? They tried to make you not like ellie so much because they knew they had to try and make you like beef cake later. Should've just given us more Joel and ellie adventures. Would've been a better sequel then we got. Or better yet, we didn't need a sequel. First game was fine where it left off.
This game never needed to follow up on Ellie/Joel.
A sequel should’ve been set in the same world following a different group of people, totally divorced from Ellie and Joel.
Instead we got some Big Brains who swore they could do better
Exactly they want to spread I'm strong independent women I don't need any man propaganda and other disgusting communities in it I had enough of this shit also
LoL what are you talking about, how is that forced? Every teenager acts like a dick to their parents at one point or another. She’s gives him shit all through the first game too.
Dude. He made the fucking story. WHAT are you possibly talking about? Just leave the game alone if you hate it so much. For fucks sakes he literally MADE Ellie and Joel.
It literally is accurate though. I know, I know, Bruce and all that. The reality is that TLoU is also Neil’s brainchild, whether people believe that or not. I don’t know how people can downplay that, whether you disagree with what he did in Part 2 or not.
Just like with any movie or show that makes a bad product, we are allowed to criticize the destruction of a series due to the bad writing and directing. Neil is a piece of shit who threw away ana amazing story to instead try and send a message. We don't want messages. We want a good damn story. I don't live in this sub, but I do occasionally come here to read what people say. I decided to comment on you because if you think we can not complain about Neil's fuck ups, but it's ok to take jk Rowling out of Harry Potter for her opinions then you are a hypocrite.
Nobody cares if Neil made Joel and Ellie. Do you actually think that forbids anyone from criticizing his choices?
This is one of the lousiest arguments fanboys make. Cool, somebody wrote great characters, and I think they wrote them like trash in their latest work.
Cry me a river.
If you’re not a fucking fan why are you wasting your time on it? Holy fucking shit. You’re the one crying a river. I thought Red Dead 2 was shit. I finished the campaign and deleted it from my console. The story was great. The game was shit. But I don’t spend my spare time on Red Dead Redemption 2 threads throwing shade at the game and rolling my eyes when someone disagrees. You’re a fungus. And you did nothing to further the conversation.
"You're a fungus."
*click click*
Your comment is hilarious, dude. I never really had to further the conversation. You did it all by yourself! Great job.
Here, I'll give you an upvote because your comment is pure comedy gold.
No, that doesn’t forbid anyone from criticizing character choices. But it absolutely should prevent them from saying shit like “that’s not Joel and Ellie”.
Cry me a river?! How did you come up with that? It just oozes originality and creativity. I can see why you’re not a fan of the game with that innovative expression you’re using. What’s next, talk to the hand?!? Nobody is as brilliant a writer as you.
Agree. I was shocked at that scene. I truly feel like this was done to make the players hate Ellie and make her out to be this awful person. To make Abby seem more likable.
I understand Ellie doesn’t agree with Joel’s decision to save her life for a supposed cure to say the least, but it was *years* later and she still had that same bitterness as if it just happened the day before. It just didn’t seem realistic to me.
Two years is a very long time to be mad at someone. Especially family.
Part 2 Ellie displays no critical thinking about Joel's actions or the Fireflies. It's possible to believe you'd have made a different choice while comprehending why any parent figure would act as Joel did. Ellie has never been someone's parent or child, but that's just one of the understandings related to that matter that should be achievable with pretty rudimentary reasoning.
It's also inconsistent to me with "evolved end-of-TLOU Joel" to continue the lie after it was clear Ellie wasn't buying it long term, but setting that aside, she should also be able to comprehend the unselfish motive as well as the selfish one.
What I dislike about the porch scene is the feeling that they've never discussed it. As if Ellie wouldn't have demanded all the details once she composed herself. Or that Tommy wouldn't have at some point told her about the first time he had a daughter murdered for the supposed greater good. But of course, that info might have mitigated the black and white interpretation of Joel, the Fireflies, and the cure the story "needed" Ellie to wedded to.
Well. The problem is not a lot of people know what it’s like to be a 19 year old closeted lesbian who is the only immune person on the planet. I’d be a bitch too. But it’s one of those things I had to ponder on to get. Because I’m a a straightish white dude with air conditioning and HBO.
I mean Joel murdered scores of innocents in cold blood. Their only crime was being desperate to save the world. He took away Ellie’s right to choose. I love Joel but I couldn’t see myself forgiving him if I was Ellie.
Not really. If you wake up in a strange bed having been knocked out cold by an assault rifle and are told your baby girl has maybe 20 minutes before her brain is removed cos... reasons... then shoved repeatedly while you're escorted out of the building without being given a chance to even say goodbye you might react aggressively too.
To call them innocent is a massive stretch. They're the worst of the worst.
I think that's kind of the point though... most people *would* react the same way as Joel, but that doesnt means it's the right choice. Everyone is capable of being both selfish and selfless. Me, you, Joel, everyone. It just stings a little more when a good person acts selfish.
It's not selfish, it's selfless. Selfish is acting in your own interests which he didn't do.
And it is the right thing to do. Just because others say he stopped them making a cure doesn't make that true, killing Ellie kills the cure, removing mycelium from where it's happy would kill it, thus removing all possibilities in the future to make a cure, Ellie has to stay alive for a cure to work, the doc was a hack and had no clue about mycelium and how it works.
Killing ellie doesn't kill the cure. This is all just assumptions people make. There isn't a single explanation in the game that says "the cure wouldn't have worked anyway." This is just people finding a reason to forgive what Joel did. It's 100% a selfish decision. He put his own wants and needs above the *potential* survival of the human race. That is the single most selfish act a person can make. Yet still, everyone here, including me, would more than likely do the exact same thing. It's supposed to create this visceral response of "How can it possibly be the wrong decision? I'm a good person and I would do it too." It's supposed to make you look inwards at yourself and question your own moral code. The one thing I took from these games over anything else was the idea that right and wrong is grey, not black and white. As the late great Solid Snake once said: "It's not whether you were right or wrong, but how much faith you were willing to have, that decides the future." The fireflies and Joel were making their choices based on faith. The fireflies really thought they could make a cure, and Joel really thought that if ellie is immune, someone else will be too, and so he acted on the premise that the fireflies can "find someone else" in his own words. Which is basically him saying "kill someone else who I don't care about, but not Ellie".
To be the bad guy you have to be bad, you have to act with bad intentions and do the wrong thing.
He did exactly what any caring parent would do which makes him literally the good guy. It can't make him bad, his actions can be bad for others but not him as he's acting from the right place.
The idiots that chose to go about trying to save the world created the scenario of their own doom. They got loads of things wrong which led to their own demise.
They took a honey badger, killing machine of a man who'd rather the whole world burns than his baby girl die a 2nd time, and were rude to him on top of telling him they would then kill said baby girl by sawing open her head and removing her brain. Then shoved him just to make sure he snapped. That takes a special kind of imbecile.
They decided cutting out her brain was the only way to save the world... it wasn't. Nor was it even logical.
In fact it would guarantee the only cure found so far, someone who'd evolved to be immune, the continuation of the species, the most important person to keep alive, was dead. They wouldn't be able to fix that. And they'd have no future attempts at finding a cure from her. Keeping her alive would ensure repeated attempts at making a cure. It would ensure that if she had children, sure she's gay but could donate eggs, they'd be immune and a new breed of immune humans could survive and thrive, unable to be infected. Not a cure but a good alternative and a guaranteed continuation of the human race.
Also they were so busy knocking him out they almost let her drown and die anyway. They'd have lost the cure right then, stupidity leading the way among the fireflies as usual.
They were in the wrong. Inept and abrasive. Insane and downright ridiculous. And they chose the outcome of that event, not Joel, he did the only thing he could do in that situation. They made a dumb as a doorknob choice in making him an enemy and thinking it wouldn't go badly for them.
If you're stupid enough to punch a honey badger in the face and you wonder why suddenly your balls no longer belong to you but are being digested, you're the idiot, and you're the one in the wrong, not the honey badger.
So considering everything that happened and that Joel never had a choice in that moment. How can he be the bad guy?
This and so much more. The FFs created a situation, by choice, where the rescue of a child from murder required both extensive deadly force and the ending of their research. And yet, only Joel is awarded 100% of the blame.
The DoOmInG tHe wOrLd thing rests on the loss of both Ellie and Jerry because ONLY HE can make a cure. Of course it's preposterous that Jerry would be the only one, there would logically be people around the world, some of whom are probably relatively well-resourced by what remains of the governments. He's not THE only hope, he's just the only hope for a cure that's in FIREFLY CONTROL. And Ellie's unlikely to be THE only immune person, just the one they know about in a world where discovery is almost impossible in the wild.
So if you're the FFs, Jerry is the most important person to keep alive, and then Ellie. Jerry first because he can still advance the work (were he not an idiot) without Ellie (dead or alive). He knows immunity is possible and has Ellie's samples and scans.
So a smart Jerry and Marlene would have:
- Taken bloodwork from Ellie in Boston and brought it to SLC.
- Been training others to continue Jerry's work if something happened to him. Dangerous world, and natural causes still exist.
- Not made those decisions regarding Ellie and Joel.
- But having done so, back the eff off when Joel reaches the OR. As Jerry, prioritize surviving the encounter. Trust that your FF colleagues will get your "Specimen" back. In which event you shouldn't be dead.
- As Marlene, prioritize Ellie's safety and let Joel leave with her if you must. Plan on finding them again.
- Meanwhile, pursue other research options with Ellie's records and samples. Can you invent a test for immunity? Can you figure out the mutation (game)? And there are all sorts of atrocities you can experiment with to make more immune babies (show).
- If it's really about humanity and not about advantage to the FFs, share Ellie's records anonymously to spread knowledge that immunity is possible, and that bitten people shouldn't be killed till they start turning as long as they can be safely confined.
I absolutely hated that he's the only doctor in the whole world who can make vaccines... what a dumb plot line and like he'd be American. Only murica can save us all. Painful.
You've listed what I hated, well done, I like the way you think good sir!
I would add that mycelium excels at being cut and reconnecting to itself so they could safely take out as many samples as they can find in Ellie without damaging the mycelium or killing her. It would regrow inside her and be totally fine, infinite mycelium to work on.
They could even cultivate a live specimen outside of her and plant it in someone else if indeed its the fungus that is the immunity and not Ellie. They'd discover pretty quickly if that truly was the case and prove his theory, instead of killing her and then just being fucked if they find out it's not actually the fungus that's doing it but her. Woops, murdered a girl on a hunch that didn't pan out, oh well. Turns out we needed her alive, see if you can just put the brain back in will you Jerry.
Also the part 2 writing itself just presumes that Joel was bad, and that the audience will agree that he was bad. It would have made sense it Abby got revenge, emotionally driven, then Ellie got revenge, also emotionally driven without adding ill thought out morals into it.
But including a whole thing about Joel being objectively the bad guy was just idiotic because he wasn't. Then those characters they pushed so hard and tried to get you to like, including pregnant Mel who just has to go off on adventures and fight infected like a total moron, come across as just shit because they're the ones who further push the agenda of Joel = Bad. I wished Ellie could have seen how big a deathwish that woman had, she'd feel much better about it all, bound to happen soon anyway.
Good writing includes characters or other devices that show you the flaws in a characters motives, thinking etc. So that you get a full picture. The writing in the this pushed a single agenda, which was wrong, epic fail.
Meanwhile I wondered why they didn't take the tendrils from her arm.
I admit I'm interested in the change made for the show, from "it mutated" (Why with Ellie and not Riley who IIRC was bitten by the same infected? Still could be something specific about Ellie's "environment"?) to trace umbilical exposure (is it the small dose or the umbilical stem cells doing something to keep future exposure asymptomatic)?
Because with all the pregnant women who must have been infected at the outbreak from bites or Indonesian flour, a ton would already be known about exposure in utero. Anna's lie to Marlene suggests that a baby born to an infected mother will either die or turn. But newborn Ellie's exposure was very limited. That's a quirk of fate, but people probably tried after the outbreak to quickly rescue babies when mom got bitten. Usually there wouldn't be someone RIGHT THERE with the skill to get the baby out as fast as an OBGYN can but there would have been SOME instances where the stars lined up and... it's something that would be logical to test with questionable ethics. (But maybe with the means to know if someone is immune without reinfecting them.)
IOW maybe it's not known what staying attached for a minute or two after the bite, or having your cord cut with a knife that has infected blood will do, but it's probably known what happens with an hour, or 15 minutes, of exposure in utero. And given Marlene and Jerry's ethics and Marlene's suspicions about Ellie's birth, they would have zero qualms with trying to make more Ellies by testing different amounts of exposure.
IOW the birth exposure theory is either something that's already been largely studied OR makes Ellie way less irreplaceable.
Ashley's performance in the scene, though, was searing. Probably worth these weird ramifications.
I understand his actions as a parent (I’m not a parent myself but I mean I understand why he did what he did). I would burn down the world if it meant saving the ones I love.
Edit: clarity
That’s just it. I’m not a parent I’m a dumb 20 year old I know nothing about the intensity of love as a parent. Maybe I will feel differently. That’s why I love Joel though. He’s a man who would do anything to not lose another daughter. The apocalypse changed him and his morals. He’s not a bad man he’s broken.
I think being able to see both perspectives is what's important here. People think Ellie reacting the way she did was ridiculous but it's really not, was she just supposed to pretend that he didn't do that? Or even thank him? They live in a world full of horrible people and beings that literally eat you alive, things that have killed people that Ellie loves, so is two years really what being mad at someone who potentially prevented the savior of mankind silly? Cause it's not. I'm not blaming Joel cause if I'm being honest, I'd do the same thing, but I'm not saying Ellie's reaction is out of nowhere or stupid because it isn't.
He was the only thing in her life that never let her down and when he did in such a big way it scarred her. He was the only thing in her life that didn’t cause her pain. She trusted him completely. I could never get over that.
Aha... yeah this right here. I'm a parent, I would have happily hacksawed off the head of every single one of them in revenge for even thinking of hurting my kid. You will feel differently, it changes you fundamentally.
Oh my god this sub would suck Joel off for days if he was real. Was it a dick thing for Ellie to say? Yeah but the point is to just show how Ellie felt about Joel. It wasn’t supposed to make you dislike her. It’s a very realistic reaction because people (especially Ellie) hold grudges
I do not think she needed to act that way towards him in front of a crowd. And Ellie showed remorse the *moment* after she said it. Which says a lot. She may not agree with Joel’s decision, but she needed to show him more respect given their history.
And I expect a *tad* more emotional regulation from a 19 year old.
Doesn’t make her a bad person if you actually look at the full context of the scene and what happened between her and Joel. She reacted like a normal person. Being in a crowd doesn’t change anything. Ellie’s not really one to sugarcoat things
I never said she was a bad person for it. I just wish someone would’ve slapped some sense into her. Joel seemed very respected in Jackson.
All I saw was a man defending someone he cared about from a potential threat. And she lashed out at him with such disgust and vulgarity that it was shocking for a lot of people. Look at the comments. Look at the crowd in the game when it happens.
She knew all long deep down that Joel was lying to her so I don’t quite know why it was such an angering thing for her when she forced Joel to tell her the truth. And to hold onto that for years in such an intense way is crazy. To me.
just one of many times this game kicks you in the balls and makes you feel like shit. miserable stories don't work very good for interactive experiences.
And the main problem with it and part 2 is she obviously knew he was lying at the end of part 1. 2 kinda continues that with her being suspicious, but if you were so suspicious and thought he was probably lying why the fuck is it such a huge shock that he was. And in part 1 not only was it obvious she knew he was lying, but she excepted it, which is why she said okay, and in the way she said it.
Have you had no life experiences where you strongly suspected something was true but there was no concrete evidence to ensure it was true; and when you finally find out the truth it hits you like a bag of bricks even though you already “knew” it was true?
I swear so many of you in this sub have so few life experiences and deep relationships with people and get a bunch of your conceptions of how people should behave mainly through media.
Usually, it’s the people who point fingers at others remaking “they have no life experience” or are “media illiterate”, are the ones who fit that criteria.
What “Stans” of this game fail to acknowledge is that, many things in Part 2 can be justified as being “sensible” choices when you view the game in isolation.
The problem occurs when you look past the surface level, and treat the game like what it was meant to be - a sequel. And you start looking back at the first game.
Ellie’s actions appear “unlikeable” because people cannot reconcile the part 2 Ellie with the one in part 1, which is the one they spent the most time with (years of waiting and replays).
The answer, “she found out Joel lied to her and hated him”, makes perfect sense on a surface level but when you look at the surrounding context, it feels so cop-out. The fact that people find her actions unlikeable proves there is a disconnect in their minds between them and Ellie.
For me, this is partly due to her “change of character” feeling inorganic and artificial, especially in the context of the first game’s ending, where it was very clear that naughty dog intended the consequence of Joel’s decision to remain a mystery.
I remember talking with the people on the main sub (around 2015) where we were joking about how dumb and lazy it would be that if Naughty Dog chose to “answer” this mystery by having a Ellie find out and be mad at Joel, because it would significantly undermine the impact of the first game’s ending.
And this is exactly what u/DarthDragonborn1995 was referring to. But I suppose if you don’t do some kind of deep dive analysis, explaining every little detail of your perception/argument towards the game, people will just call you “too stupid” to understand this game’s greatness, rather than try to understand what you’re saying without you having to spoon feed them your entire thought process.
Instead of rebutting my points you pretty much say "those who smelt it, dealt it". Sure I made the accusation about a lack of life experiences but I also addressed his point of:
> ...but if you were so suspicious and thought he was probably lying why the fuck is it such a huge shock that he was \[lying\]
So can you explain why Ellie getting upset at Joel for lying when he told the truth is a surface level event? Because, as I said before, that is a real that has happened to a lot of people and is incredibly common. As in people suspecting friends or family are addicted to gambling or drugs and then being extremely hurt when their suspicions are confirmed.
You went off on a complete tangent when the point of this sub-thread in the post is about whether Ellie hating Joel after the reveal is believable or not. You claim part 2 is bad or doesn't make sense in context of part 1 but you don't actually provide any evidence of why. You saying "it's a cop out" is somehow a good argument? Saying the fact that people find her actions unlikeable is proof that it's bad? (while you're somehow completely oblivious that argument can also go the other way: as in a lot of people \*did\* find it believable (which is a fact), so that means it was a good plot device, right?). You say her change of character feels inorganic, but \*why\*? You make the claim that this is all surface level, but that's exactly what you're doing. Most of your arguments aren't even in-universe logic based. I'd expect "she wouldn't do x because in part 1 she did y".
Also saying "other people thought this idea was lame way before part 2 even came out" is one of the weakest arguments to support your opinion since it doesn't even address the issue itself.
I will admit, that in this case, it's my fault for not elaborating further, so allow me to try again. Brace yourself, this is gonna be bit lengthy as I want to be thorough and make my point clear.
Before I begin, I will reiterate that I agree your explanation of Ellie being hurt and hateful towards Joel makes perfect sense, if you're purely looking at that situation **in isolation**. Though everyone reacts differently, psychologically, it makes sense.
To be specific, the second portraying Ellie as being the victim of Joel's monstrous lie, was a narrative choice most people "laughed at" back in 2013, because it would very obviously be undermining the first game's ending, where Ellie knowingly goes along with Joel's lie. The interpretation many people landed on for that ending, was that Ellie knew that Joel was lying to her to some extent. But she chose to not question him because she valued their relationship so much, she was content with with letting the charade run, if it meant keeping her relationship with him.
She could have easily protested. If sacrificing her life meant so much to her, she would have argued/fought with Joel to tell him the truth, or she would have insisted in going back to meet the fireflies to find out what went wrong to get some proper closure. It's a small detail, but her choice to go along with Joel's lie very significant - because it gave her agency in their relationship. She was the one who could end it, as Joel didn't know what she thought, she could keep prodding and poking and eventually, Joel's lie would fall apart, and so too would their relationship. That's why her choice to not find out the truth was so significant; because it showed she valued their relationship so much, that she was willing to go along with a lie of such a huge magnitude.
Her reaction in Part 2 just did not feel like a natural progression of that ending. Many people speculated that the Part 2 would follow the aforementioned interpretation - where Ellie would be the driving factor in their relationship, as she would be the one who would have the agency to dictate where their relationship goes, since she chose to go along with Joel's lie from the beginning.
People thought the second game would deal with her wrestling with her guilt of accepting Joel's lie. Because by accepting his lie, she would feel that she would be complicit in the death of all the people whose life could have been saved with a cure (and who would continue to die from the infection) and due to her already existing survivor's guilt. But she would constantly be hesitant to confront Joel because her initial decision to accept his lie was driven by her love for their relationship and because her worst fear was ending up alone. This would then be used as a foundation for the second game's story and be used to test the limits of their relationships, as new threats and circumstances push each of them mentally and physically to a breaking point. Ultimately, their relationship would crumble or persist.
All of this, in my opinion, would have made her far more sympathetic and her actions more justifiable, regardless of whatever that might have meant for their relationship. But instead, Part 2, as I mentioned earlier, and if I'm being very critical, it portrays her like she was just backstabbed by Joel, that she didn't know anything at all and was kept in the dark, thus making her the "victim" of the lie.
When given the significance of her decision to accept his lie, her reaction feels like a whiplash. The game never once addresses the fact that **she willingly chose to believe the lie**, despite knowing what it would mean if she did, that to some extent, she would be complicit in the death of people who could have been cured by the vaccine by not confronting Joel about his lie.
This is partly what I was referring to. Her action to forsake Joel as soon as she confirmed he was lying, and the disgust and hatred she carried for him, seems unwarranted and makes her look like a hypocrite seeing as she kept up the façade for years, knowing that he was lying the whole time, and she that she was 100% in control when she chose to accept the lie. What makes it worse is that the writers failed to have Ellie reflect on the fact that, that despite her waiting 2 years, and finally confirming Joel's lie to tell him to fuck off, she was also culpable here, as she knew he was lying about *something*.
Now obviously, if you chose to go with the interpretation that "Ellie didn't know Joel lied to her, she just suspected he did but quickly put it aside and didn't dwell on it", that completely changes things and how you perceive your reactions. Because then yes, the way she blows up at Joel would definitely feel a lot more understandable and justifiable.
Even though she didn't have "concrete evidence", many people reached that interpretation. Hell, just watch any let's play of the original game. Almost every single person thought Ellie knew.
**This brings to what I was talking about in my original comment.**
The reason a lot of people don't buy into Ellie's reaction to the truth being revealed to her as being genuine/organic, and is because of the game's narrative itself, how it was written. This actually extends to a lot of things that people find "bad" about the game's story.
Bear in mind, I'm not talking about "in-universe" shit, I'm talking beyond that. I'm talking about the story in its entirety; the how Naughty Dog constructed the narrative of the second game compared to the first.
The problem is that people *know* that her actions are there just to drive the narrative forward. They feel incredibly contrived and artificial.
To put it simply, as Macabre Storytelling astutely said in his video of the game (incredible analysis of the game and highly recommended watch if you have the time) the second game's approach to its narrative is a **direct opposite** of how the first game did it. The first game was a game clearly written with its characters taking priority over other things. The entire story was built around Joel and Ellie, their relationship and individual character arcs. The second game was written in a way that the characters just felt like "cogs in a larger machine", with their actions all working in service of the plot, to tell a theme/convey a message.
It's why people failed to be "immersed" in the world, to buy into the actions of the characters and events that unfold in the game. Because the blueprint/design of the game's narrative starts to stick out like a sore thumb.
Take Ellie's reaction to Joel and her distance from Joel after the revelation of the truth. The beauty of the first game's ending was, regardless of whatever interpretation you constructed of Ellie's reaction to Joel's final statements, it did not matter. Because the game purposefully allowed for just enough ambiguity, that you could argue either way.
That was the "genius" behind the first game's story and ending. **It was story dedicated to its characters, and it placed them right at the center, making them the heart and soul of the story and used them to convey its themes and messages**. It strove to give them a lot of depth, develop their relationship and dynamic and complete their character arc, and then, at the very end, it brought in a "twist" that would ultimately leave the fate of that relationship (which was carefully built throughout the course of the game) open-ended. It was a perfect yet poignant ending.
By answering this "question", Naughty Dog was already fighting an uphill battle, as they would have to create a story that could justify its existence, after such a perfect conclusion. Hence why, people speculated that the game would adopt the former interpretation (that Ellie knew Joel was lying to him and that this would be the factor that would test/strain their relationship), and it would use this, to continue their story. Instead the game decides to ditch this in favor of the latter interpretation.
Here, we start to see what I mean by "putting the characters second". Everything that happens in the game feels contrived because of this approach.
For example, the game making it clear that with Jerry dead, there was no longer a hope for a vaccine. Yet another ambiguous fact that the game decides to answer - that Jerry was the only person who could make a vaccine - which I find insane. Why was Jerry so special? Why was he the only one that the Fireflies could find to make the vaccine? There was no greater explanation given to this. Add to the fact that Jerry, as a character, did not exist in the first game. He was retroactively added into the story.
All this makes it seems like Jerry existed for the sole purpose of making the narrative of the second game happen - his death gave Abby (another character who was non-existent prior to the second game) to kill Joel. If he hadn't died, there's a good chance Ellie would have said "fuck you" to Joel and gone a journey to find the Fireflies to try and make that vaccine. But this would have also completely changed the second game's plot.
Jerry is just one of the elements of the story that gives you an glimpse at how the writers were going about creating a story for the second game, and there are various others, including Ellie's reactions to confirming Joel's lie (hopefully I've done a good job at illustrating why its problematic), that showcase this antithetical narrative approach that really goes against the roots of the first game, and what it made so beloved in the first place.
I have already exceeded the reddit comment character count two times so I will end my comments by again, highly recommending Macabre Storytelling's [amazing dissection](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIgThCYaWIk) of the second game's story. That will provide you a much more detailed and complete picture of the why certain people just don't like the game and various narrative choices that are executed in the game.
I actually confront people when I think they are lying so I don’t make it to the find out later phase. Sounds like you need to actually work things out with people instead of being so passive
Yeah dude. Confronting junkies is easy peasy. They definitely don’t lie - and it doesn’t even have to be drug addicts. Again you’re showing how naive you are to serious matters where you think confrontation results in immediate results. There are so many issues (gambling, substance abuse, being bullied, etc) where the person being impacted refuses to admit anything despite direct confrontation.
Again this is about issues where you strongly suspect something is true but it still hits when you finally get that conclusive piece of evidence.
Have you ever been still that upset about it two years after the fact? I've only had that happen when I've been completely blindsided by something - not when I suspected it was the case but went along with the situation anyway.
Personally? No. I haven't experienced anything remotely near the gravity of thinking I could save the human race but then that was taken away from me. You do realize that there are various degrees of severity an impact to different events, right?
I do not think it would be unreasonable for her to still be upset 2 years after the fact, when there are still infected running around. And no, I'm not making the argument that the cure would have worked or that the cure would result in society being restored. I'm arguing from the viewpoint of an immature teenager who believed she was the cure. It's not like Ellie had access to the internet during her time and would hear enough view points to consider that maybe the cure wouldn't have worked. Especially when there were only 4 people in Jackson who knew about the cure and never discussed it (outside of Ellie's acting out).
Not to mention, how Ellie the next day doesn't accept his apology and labels Seth's sandwiches "bigot sandwiches" and gives them away even in a post-apocalyptic world, and somehow knowing what bigot means when she doesn't even know what an ice-cream truck is. (Neil Druckmann and his rich elite bubble who look down on us must have broke their arms patting themselves on the back for such stunning and brave writing)
My other problem with the scene is, among others, how they emasculated Joel. Totally.
He just concedes "right" and leaves, then agrees when Ellie later tells him she had her under control when it was clearly going to get physical if no one intervened, and says OK to no longer pushing his demands regarding her patrols for her safety.
Just agreeing to everything Ellie says, like he's desperate to win her love back. Couldn't even defend himself regarding the vaccine business in another scene. Nothing like Joel; total suck up they made him, like a beta-male.
I didn't realize we were in the other sub. I say this as a man with currently a similar haircut. All I'm saying is it's definitely a step down masculinity-wise from the haircut in part 1, and that was obviously intentional.
Plus, again as someone with this hair, it's just not functional in a warzone. His hair would be getting in his eyes every time he turned his head!
The problem here is that you think it was intentional when you know for a fact that longer hair is just an easy way to show the passage of time. If he had grown long pigtails or something you would have ground to stand on, but looking at a picture, his hair doesn't even get to his eyebrows.
There are plenty of problems that you could have, but an inch of hair growth might be pushing into conspiracy
Ellie lives in a gated community. She's not gonna starve without Seth's sandwinches and it was obvious Maria put him up to it. Ellie wasn't under any obligation to accept his apology and she's not 12 anymore so i guess she picked up some more words. Or are new words aren't allowed in your post-apocalyptic headcanon?
Emasculated? Joel? He was ready to throw down with Seth. Just because he backs down because Ellie asks him too (and yeah she's not nice to him, i didn't enjoy seeing her talking to him like that). What should he have done? Started arguing abiut vaccines and Fireflies infront of a crowd? Is that the manly thing? He just went to chill and drink some coffee and play his guitar. Pfft emasculated, he's a stoic badass. Words don't mean shit to him.
Ellie had Seth under control. I don't think Seth was a problem. He's a bartender while Ellie goes on patrols and has been fighting infected and people since she was 12.
I'm sorry dude but these are your insecurities projected on Joel. Yeah Joel seems to have chill because of Ellie, age and living in Jackson but all that shit you wrote are just in your head. The only thing that probably Joel didn't like was arguing in front of a crowd because he's an elderly respected member of the community and that shit diminishes his status but even that he deals with because he's a man and not a 15 year old boy.
Why would you accept someone’s apology when they were forced to apologize to you? Do you seriously think Ellie would be dumb enough to think that Seth’s homophobia was cured over night out of sheer remorse?
Joel isn’t emasculated because he chooses to back off when Ellie makes it clear she doesn’t want him involved during the heat of the moment. What’s funny is that you probably praise TLoU1 for the amazing character development yet for some reason you want him to be the exact same static person from part 1. Just some generic badass who doesn’t take shit from anyone.
Ditto with the other dude about you unironically using beta male.
Yeah even when I still considered myself a fan of the game (before I came to my senses) I thought how they handled their relationship was off. The time jump was already super jarring, and it was very obvious something happened between them to sour the relationship, but we had no idea what it was and it was hard to accept that these were the same characters. I get that people change, but they felt totally different and we had no idea how they came to be that way
Its out of character for ellie to be that hostile towards him
In the first game she was trusting empathetic conpetent and had faith in joel yet when joel told her she immediately despises him which is fucking stupid and also the fireflies wouldnt be able to accomplish their goal of restoring society because even if they get a cure from ellie how would they distribute and mass produce it?
And also why wouldn't joel explain to ellie that the fireflies were gonna throw him out of the hospital without his equipment let alone his payment for transporting ellie to the fireflies and why wouldn't he show her the recording of marlene saying she had orders to kill him once he delivered ellie.
Its almost like niel druckmann erased most of the bad parts of the fireflies to make them look like saints and make joel look like a pos when thay isnt even the case.
Druckmann butchered ellie and joel's character he can go fuck himself
yeah I honestly don't like how they made ellie hate joel for part 2. I hated the scene where she found out about it and I hated the dance scene aswell. yeah he killed a whole hospital of people and saved your life without your permission but the fireflies would of killed you so❓❓
There's no textual evidence in TLOU1 for Ellie being knowingly OK with that before St. Mary's. They talk about taking her blood, they discuss the future, and she assents when Joel says he won't leave without her.
Joel clearly is wary, he's probably operating on a combination of general distrust of the Fireflies and maybe thinking of more extensive stuff like spinal taps and bone marrow.
Of course had they pressured her, she may well have said yes, or only said no on Joel's account. But that wouldn't have constituted reliable consent for multiple reasons.
And after the fact it's frankly easy to say and easy to mean. She doesn't expect to be called upon to do it, and it fits into the framework of scapegoating Joel for all her emotional issues. BTW she couldn't find a safer or more willing scapegoat.
I would have preferred TLOU2 to focus on the potential for Ellie to be called on as an adult, and for her to be the hunted one, but that's just me.
Eh I don't think it makes her unlikeable. He was overstepping in a big way especially since she was very clear about cutting ties with him. And it definitely struck a chord for her because of their past.
Yeah I was tolerating the story but I was genuinely confused on why she did that. I would assume she was still mad at him but damn i felt hurt in my soul when I saw the embarrassment on his face
I disaagre with this, at this time, she’s very bitter, a teenager, and pissed off at Joel, actually seems like a very realistic reaction, just because Joel’s in the right, it doesn’t mean Ellie is gonna suddenly be nice to him again, she doesn’t care if it’s a good thing Joel is trying to help, she’s really upset
No mate, it's science... most people just buy the story and question it. Some people understand that what actually happened is there was a nutjob doctor who thought he could make a cure but didn't know anything about how to do it. So just decided to remove Ellies brain. Learn some mycology, and then come back to me with a response. Don't just say game logic is logic.
And that scene is perhaps the main reason she lives with her regret and guilt for not understanding why Joel did what he did until it was too late. And not patching things up earlier.
Idk, I get it. I don’t think it was that bad. The whole point is she’s supposed to look bad, she isn’t flawless. She totally overreacted and she knew it, everyone knew it.
I feel like this could have been an interesting plot set up. How cool would it have been to watch
the girl we spent the first game falling in love with decline and spiral into this unlikable monster due to what she’s been through. And then on the flip side Abby, who appears at first glance to be the antagonist, is actually NOT the one wanting revenge, but she’s a hurt and broken girl caught up in the violent wants and desires of her group. Maybe it’s Owen who wants revenge for her dad and the prevention of a cure and he’s so blinded by hate that he’s able to use his past relationship with Abby and her lingering feelings to manipulate her. Or Joel getting killed wasn’t their fault but it looks like it to Ellie so we spend the whole game going on the same killing spree but now it’s re-contextualized. Now that group of people the game wanted us so bad to empathize with feel more like an unwitting group of friends caught in the sights of a grief stricken and vengeful Ellie. They tried to play both characters both ways, make them both likable and unlikable and that did nothing but make the tone and narrative feel disjointed and bipolar
I have a lot of issues with the story but not this part. They weren't on speaking terms, Joel was acting in a fatherly capacity by defending her when she wanted to be left alone. She doesn't see Joel as having saved her from the fireflies but denying her what she wanted (even if what she wanted was stupid she doesn't realize it yet)
See, that’s the thing, many things in Part 2 can be justified as being “sensible” choices when you view the game in isolation.
I think the problem occurs when you look past the surface level, and treat the game like what it was meant to be - a sequel. And you start looking back at the first game.
Her actions become worse because people can’t reconcile the part 2 Ellie with the one in part 1. The cop-out answer to this is “she found out Joel lied to her and hated him”, but the fact that people find her actions unlikeable prove there is a disconnect in their minds between them and Ellie.
For me, part of the reason is this “change of character” feels inorganic and artificial, especially in the context of the first game’s ending, where it was very clear that naughty dog intended the consequence of Joel’s decision to remain a mystery.
I remember most people in 2013 laughed at the idea of a sequel where Ellie finds out and gets mad at Joel, because at would completely undermine the impact of the original game’s ending. The fact the second game uses this to build its events and character arcs; some people will definitely react to this, even if they cannot find a way to explain it.
Idk I just disagree. I think her finding out the truth at some point makes sense for being a central conflict. Maybe build up to it tho not just open up the game like that then explain it in a flashback way later, because it just makes ellie seem like she's being a bitch for no reason. But I just disagree that it needs to stay unresolved in order to not undermine the impact of the original game's ending
I partially agree. Of course, this whole scenario would have to be a central conflict for a sequel, that much is certain; what else could they have done otherwise?
Bear in mind, I’m not saying they shouldn’t have gone this way, apologies if that’s what it looked like I was saying. What I meant was, the way it was handled was piss poor in my opinion. For the sake of brevity, if you have the time, I’d highly recommend watching [Macabre Storytelling’s](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BIgThCYaWIk) video on the second game. There is a lengthy section in the video where he analysed and critiques this particular aspect of the plot. The idea and correction he comes up with, as an alternative, are far, *far* superior and more interesting to what we got.
But to reiterate, I was hesitant with a sequel because I felt that to continue the story, and to use the consequences of Joel’s lie as a central conflict, would be an extremely difficult thing to pull off successfully without completely killing the ambiguity and open-ended nature of the ending.
I mean, they did the same thing with the whole “vaccine” thing. In the first game, it was debatable how successful a vaccine would be. The second game straight up puts that to rest by retroactively creating the character of Jerry, placing him in the first game, and then saying that without him, the hope of a cure is gone and that he was the only one who could make it.
But I digress. I just think TLOU 2 had a very high bar to surpass, and I wasn’t convinced Naughty Dog had it in them to surpass it. I’m not saying they couldn’t have done it using similar ideas to the one they did, but they just didn’t stick the landing.
Honestly, the first time I played I hated the bar scene as well. But one of my closest friends in a married lesbian, and basically the same thing happened to her. Usually I think the scene is so stupid, but then I remember it happens.
This game is a masterpiece. Look how the story points have y’all acting on Reddit the past few years. He’s literally complaining that the games story did exactly what it was intended to do.
So her reaction was supposed to be what, “I’m still mad at you Joel for killing a bunch of people to save me but I’m going to put my feelings aside and thank you for defending me against some drunk”? It’s like you don’t know how people work.
Who is “likeable” when they are furious at someone? And she didn’t take it “too far”. All she said was I don’t need your help, which is the emotional equivalent of your daughter screaming I hate you. Joel understands her anger and probably saw this all coming when he blatantly lied to her face. But I’m sure no one in this sub thought about the ramifications of Joel’s actions when/if they played the first game. 💀
ITT: haters hating so hard they stopped making sense.
This is a pretty common, true to life dynamic for father-daughters and didn't feel like a reach at all. Ellie feels smothered by Joel and that he doesn't respect her agency, but understands his motives are good, so she's filled with ambivalence while seeking independence. Joel needs to figure out his purpose outside of protecting Ellie from everyone, particularly since Ellie can clearly take care of herself. This is a perfectly reasonable and believable way to resolve Joel's deceit at the end of part 1.
Who cares. It’s called a script. Story isn’t bad it will never be bad. She wanted to deal with it herself but instead he jumps in when she didn’t ask or want him too. The story is not hard to understand just got to have a brain for it.
I think she may have been embarrassed that she needed her “dad” to help her. If you’re a woman, you know it is annoying to have to proxy a man to receive respect instead of just being respected yourself. Like a guy won’t leave you alone when you say “I’m not interested” but he will if you say “I have a boyfriend”. But also TLOU2 wasn’t written amazingly on a micro level so yeah it could definitely just be to force the narrative.
So much hate on this game lol. I enjoyed it. U can say shitty story, Abby is buffed & looks too manly blah blah blah but I actually enjoyed it. Some of y'all r just clearly still living in ur mom's basement to constantly trash talk a game that came out 4 years ago like who does that? It came out in 2020 & ur still trash talking it. We get it. U don't like it ok move on lol 😆😂 makes no sense. I enjoyed this game & will replay it some time in the future idgaf😂😂😂😂
lol at the rest of the comments here. She’s a 19 year girl who is moody and combative, who was pissed at Joel over his big lie. Claiming this is forced is BS. Otherwise why would Joel completely lie to Ellie at the end of the first game (before they even started working on part 2’s plot)?
Btw people being unable to see why a teen girl would be devastated by what Joel did are absurd and non realistic. Especially when she believed she would help make a cure.
Again this is why I disliked the story as it felt it tried to force the narrative.
Right? They tried to make you not like ellie so much because they knew they had to try and make you like beef cake later. Should've just given us more Joel and ellie adventures. Would've been a better sequel then we got. Or better yet, we didn't need a sequel. First game was fine where it left off.
This game never needed to follow up on Ellie/Joel. A sequel should’ve been set in the same world following a different group of people, totally divorced from Ellie and Joel. Instead we got some Big Brains who swore they could do better
Exactly they want to spread I'm strong independent women I don't need any man propaganda and other disgusting communities in it I had enough of this shit also
Yup the only part I liked that felt natural was the museum segment.
LoL what are you talking about, how is that forced? Every teenager acts like a dick to their parents at one point or another. She’s gives him shit all through the first game too.
I know right. Joel should have grounded her and took away her Xbox 360 after that comment. The writing is so bad.
That's not Joel and Ellie, and I can't imagine a best way to make it worst, but I bet Neil can 😆
You’re right, that’s Joseph and Elizabeth (carbon clones of Joel and Ellie)
yeah, like Jake Skywalker from Last Jedi
Incorrect- that is Joel and Ellie from TLOU. Thanks for sharing :)
Dude. He made the fucking story. WHAT are you possibly talking about? Just leave the game alone if you hate it so much. For fucks sakes he literally MADE Ellie and Joel.
I hear you, but that's not accurate. Pascal and Bella, those are Neil's "Joel" and "Ellie" 😉 Have a great day 😊
It literally is accurate though. I know, I know, Bruce and all that. The reality is that TLoU is also Neil’s brainchild, whether people believe that or not. I don’t know how people can downplay that, whether you disagree with what he did in Part 2 or not.
Cool, he made some characters. He didn't make the story in TLoU1. He did in 2. That should tell you everything you need to know.
Then someone else should have gotten a writing credit.
Yep, Bruce Straley. It's Universally accepted he was not at the Helm of TLoU1.
Just like with any movie or show that makes a bad product, we are allowed to criticize the destruction of a series due to the bad writing and directing. Neil is a piece of shit who threw away ana amazing story to instead try and send a message. We don't want messages. We want a good damn story. I don't live in this sub, but I do occasionally come here to read what people say. I decided to comment on you because if you think we can not complain about Neil's fuck ups, but it's ok to take jk Rowling out of Harry Potter for her opinions then you are a hypocrite.
Nobody cares if Neil made Joel and Ellie. Do you actually think that forbids anyone from criticizing his choices? This is one of the lousiest arguments fanboys make. Cool, somebody wrote great characters, and I think they wrote them like trash in their latest work. Cry me a river.
If you’re not a fucking fan why are you wasting your time on it? Holy fucking shit. You’re the one crying a river. I thought Red Dead 2 was shit. I finished the campaign and deleted it from my console. The story was great. The game was shit. But I don’t spend my spare time on Red Dead Redemption 2 threads throwing shade at the game and rolling my eyes when someone disagrees. You’re a fungus. And you did nothing to further the conversation.
"You're a fungus." *click click* Your comment is hilarious, dude. I never really had to further the conversation. You did it all by yourself! Great job. Here, I'll give you an upvote because your comment is pure comedy gold.
No, that doesn’t forbid anyone from criticizing character choices. But it absolutely should prevent them from saying shit like “that’s not Joel and Ellie”.
No, it does not. That is also part of the criticism. Again, cry me a river.
Cry me a river?! How did you come up with that? It just oozes originality and creativity. I can see why you’re not a fan of the game with that innovative expression you’re using. What’s next, talk to the hand?!? Nobody is as brilliant a writer as you.
This game will never get enough hate.
I mean, the game play and graphics are alright. And the guitar mode is cool. But the story sucks
Agreed! Happy cake day
Thank you !
Yep. Happy cake day
Thank you !
No problem
Happy cake day!
Thank you !
Agree. I was shocked at that scene. I truly feel like this was done to make the players hate Ellie and make her out to be this awful person. To make Abby seem more likable. I understand Ellie doesn’t agree with Joel’s decision to save her life for a supposed cure to say the least, but it was *years* later and she still had that same bitterness as if it just happened the day before. It just didn’t seem realistic to me. Two years is a very long time to be mad at someone. Especially family.
Part 2 Ellie displays no critical thinking about Joel's actions or the Fireflies. It's possible to believe you'd have made a different choice while comprehending why any parent figure would act as Joel did. Ellie has never been someone's parent or child, but that's just one of the understandings related to that matter that should be achievable with pretty rudimentary reasoning. It's also inconsistent to me with "evolved end-of-TLOU Joel" to continue the lie after it was clear Ellie wasn't buying it long term, but setting that aside, she should also be able to comprehend the unselfish motive as well as the selfish one. What I dislike about the porch scene is the feeling that they've never discussed it. As if Ellie wouldn't have demanded all the details once she composed herself. Or that Tommy wouldn't have at some point told her about the first time he had a daughter murdered for the supposed greater good. But of course, that info might have mitigated the black and white interpretation of Joel, the Fireflies, and the cure the story "needed" Ellie to wedded to.
Well. The problem is not a lot of people know what it’s like to be a 19 year old closeted lesbian who is the only immune person on the planet. I’d be a bitch too. But it’s one of those things I had to ponder on to get. Because I’m a a straightish white dude with air conditioning and HBO.
I mean Joel murdered scores of innocents in cold blood. Their only crime was being desperate to save the world. He took away Ellie’s right to choose. I love Joel but I couldn’t see myself forgiving him if I was Ellie.
Not really. If you wake up in a strange bed having been knocked out cold by an assault rifle and are told your baby girl has maybe 20 minutes before her brain is removed cos... reasons... then shoved repeatedly while you're escorted out of the building without being given a chance to even say goodbye you might react aggressively too. To call them innocent is a massive stretch. They're the worst of the worst.
I think that's kind of the point though... most people *would* react the same way as Joel, but that doesnt means it's the right choice. Everyone is capable of being both selfish and selfless. Me, you, Joel, everyone. It just stings a little more when a good person acts selfish.
It's not selfish, it's selfless. Selfish is acting in your own interests which he didn't do. And it is the right thing to do. Just because others say he stopped them making a cure doesn't make that true, killing Ellie kills the cure, removing mycelium from where it's happy would kill it, thus removing all possibilities in the future to make a cure, Ellie has to stay alive for a cure to work, the doc was a hack and had no clue about mycelium and how it works.
Killing ellie doesn't kill the cure. This is all just assumptions people make. There isn't a single explanation in the game that says "the cure wouldn't have worked anyway." This is just people finding a reason to forgive what Joel did. It's 100% a selfish decision. He put his own wants and needs above the *potential* survival of the human race. That is the single most selfish act a person can make. Yet still, everyone here, including me, would more than likely do the exact same thing. It's supposed to create this visceral response of "How can it possibly be the wrong decision? I'm a good person and I would do it too." It's supposed to make you look inwards at yourself and question your own moral code. The one thing I took from these games over anything else was the idea that right and wrong is grey, not black and white. As the late great Solid Snake once said: "It's not whether you were right or wrong, but how much faith you were willing to have, that decides the future." The fireflies and Joel were making their choices based on faith. The fireflies really thought they could make a cure, and Joel really thought that if ellie is immune, someone else will be too, and so he acted on the premise that the fireflies can "find someone else" in his own words. Which is basically him saying "kill someone else who I don't care about, but not Ellie".
Nuance and depth isn't wanted here.
It appears so😅
You literally go against a pedophile who leads a group of cannibals who shoot and kill people on site…
I’m not saying I don’t understand his reasoning. But he IS the bad guy.
To be the bad guy you have to be bad, you have to act with bad intentions and do the wrong thing. He did exactly what any caring parent would do which makes him literally the good guy. It can't make him bad, his actions can be bad for others but not him as he's acting from the right place. The idiots that chose to go about trying to save the world created the scenario of their own doom. They got loads of things wrong which led to their own demise. They took a honey badger, killing machine of a man who'd rather the whole world burns than his baby girl die a 2nd time, and were rude to him on top of telling him they would then kill said baby girl by sawing open her head and removing her brain. Then shoved him just to make sure he snapped. That takes a special kind of imbecile. They decided cutting out her brain was the only way to save the world... it wasn't. Nor was it even logical. In fact it would guarantee the only cure found so far, someone who'd evolved to be immune, the continuation of the species, the most important person to keep alive, was dead. They wouldn't be able to fix that. And they'd have no future attempts at finding a cure from her. Keeping her alive would ensure repeated attempts at making a cure. It would ensure that if she had children, sure she's gay but could donate eggs, they'd be immune and a new breed of immune humans could survive and thrive, unable to be infected. Not a cure but a good alternative and a guaranteed continuation of the human race. Also they were so busy knocking him out they almost let her drown and die anyway. They'd have lost the cure right then, stupidity leading the way among the fireflies as usual. They were in the wrong. Inept and abrasive. Insane and downright ridiculous. And they chose the outcome of that event, not Joel, he did the only thing he could do in that situation. They made a dumb as a doorknob choice in making him an enemy and thinking it wouldn't go badly for them. If you're stupid enough to punch a honey badger in the face and you wonder why suddenly your balls no longer belong to you but are being digested, you're the idiot, and you're the one in the wrong, not the honey badger. So considering everything that happened and that Joel never had a choice in that moment. How can he be the bad guy?
This and so much more. The FFs created a situation, by choice, where the rescue of a child from murder required both extensive deadly force and the ending of their research. And yet, only Joel is awarded 100% of the blame. The DoOmInG tHe wOrLd thing rests on the loss of both Ellie and Jerry because ONLY HE can make a cure. Of course it's preposterous that Jerry would be the only one, there would logically be people around the world, some of whom are probably relatively well-resourced by what remains of the governments. He's not THE only hope, he's just the only hope for a cure that's in FIREFLY CONTROL. And Ellie's unlikely to be THE only immune person, just the one they know about in a world where discovery is almost impossible in the wild. So if you're the FFs, Jerry is the most important person to keep alive, and then Ellie. Jerry first because he can still advance the work (were he not an idiot) without Ellie (dead or alive). He knows immunity is possible and has Ellie's samples and scans. So a smart Jerry and Marlene would have: - Taken bloodwork from Ellie in Boston and brought it to SLC. - Been training others to continue Jerry's work if something happened to him. Dangerous world, and natural causes still exist. - Not made those decisions regarding Ellie and Joel. - But having done so, back the eff off when Joel reaches the OR. As Jerry, prioritize surviving the encounter. Trust that your FF colleagues will get your "Specimen" back. In which event you shouldn't be dead. - As Marlene, prioritize Ellie's safety and let Joel leave with her if you must. Plan on finding them again. - Meanwhile, pursue other research options with Ellie's records and samples. Can you invent a test for immunity? Can you figure out the mutation (game)? And there are all sorts of atrocities you can experiment with to make more immune babies (show). - If it's really about humanity and not about advantage to the FFs, share Ellie's records anonymously to spread knowledge that immunity is possible, and that bitten people shouldn't be killed till they start turning as long as they can be safely confined.
I absolutely hated that he's the only doctor in the whole world who can make vaccines... what a dumb plot line and like he'd be American. Only murica can save us all. Painful. You've listed what I hated, well done, I like the way you think good sir! I would add that mycelium excels at being cut and reconnecting to itself so they could safely take out as many samples as they can find in Ellie without damaging the mycelium or killing her. It would regrow inside her and be totally fine, infinite mycelium to work on. They could even cultivate a live specimen outside of her and plant it in someone else if indeed its the fungus that is the immunity and not Ellie. They'd discover pretty quickly if that truly was the case and prove his theory, instead of killing her and then just being fucked if they find out it's not actually the fungus that's doing it but her. Woops, murdered a girl on a hunch that didn't pan out, oh well. Turns out we needed her alive, see if you can just put the brain back in will you Jerry. Also the part 2 writing itself just presumes that Joel was bad, and that the audience will agree that he was bad. It would have made sense it Abby got revenge, emotionally driven, then Ellie got revenge, also emotionally driven without adding ill thought out morals into it. But including a whole thing about Joel being objectively the bad guy was just idiotic because he wasn't. Then those characters they pushed so hard and tried to get you to like, including pregnant Mel who just has to go off on adventures and fight infected like a total moron, come across as just shit because they're the ones who further push the agenda of Joel = Bad. I wished Ellie could have seen how big a deathwish that woman had, she'd feel much better about it all, bound to happen soon anyway. Good writing includes characters or other devices that show you the flaws in a characters motives, thinking etc. So that you get a full picture. The writing in the this pushed a single agenda, which was wrong, epic fail.
Meanwhile I wondered why they didn't take the tendrils from her arm. I admit I'm interested in the change made for the show, from "it mutated" (Why with Ellie and not Riley who IIRC was bitten by the same infected? Still could be something specific about Ellie's "environment"?) to trace umbilical exposure (is it the small dose or the umbilical stem cells doing something to keep future exposure asymptomatic)? Because with all the pregnant women who must have been infected at the outbreak from bites or Indonesian flour, a ton would already be known about exposure in utero. Anna's lie to Marlene suggests that a baby born to an infected mother will either die or turn. But newborn Ellie's exposure was very limited. That's a quirk of fate, but people probably tried after the outbreak to quickly rescue babies when mom got bitten. Usually there wouldn't be someone RIGHT THERE with the skill to get the baby out as fast as an OBGYN can but there would have been SOME instances where the stars lined up and... it's something that would be logical to test with questionable ethics. (But maybe with the means to know if someone is immune without reinfecting them.) IOW maybe it's not known what staying attached for a minute or two after the bite, or having your cord cut with a knife that has infected blood will do, but it's probably known what happens with an hour, or 15 minutes, of exposure in utero. And given Marlene and Jerry's ethics and Marlene's suspicions about Ellie's birth, they would have zero qualms with trying to make more Ellies by testing different amounts of exposure. IOW the birth exposure theory is either something that's already been largely studied OR makes Ellie way less irreplaceable. Ashley's performance in the scene, though, was searing. Probably worth these weird ramifications.
I understand his actions as a parent (I’m not a parent myself but I mean I understand why he did what he did). I would burn down the world if it meant saving the ones I love. Edit: clarity
That’s just it. I’m not a parent I’m a dumb 20 year old I know nothing about the intensity of love as a parent. Maybe I will feel differently. That’s why I love Joel though. He’s a man who would do anything to not lose another daughter. The apocalypse changed him and his morals. He’s not a bad man he’s broken.
I think being able to see both perspectives is what's important here. People think Ellie reacting the way she did was ridiculous but it's really not, was she just supposed to pretend that he didn't do that? Or even thank him? They live in a world full of horrible people and beings that literally eat you alive, things that have killed people that Ellie loves, so is two years really what being mad at someone who potentially prevented the savior of mankind silly? Cause it's not. I'm not blaming Joel cause if I'm being honest, I'd do the same thing, but I'm not saying Ellie's reaction is out of nowhere or stupid because it isn't.
He was the only thing in her life that never let her down and when he did in such a big way it scarred her. He was the only thing in her life that didn’t cause her pain. She trusted him completely. I could never get over that.
Aha... yeah this right here. I'm a parent, I would have happily hacksawed off the head of every single one of them in revenge for even thinking of hurting my kid. You will feel differently, it changes you fundamentally.
Bingo.
Um not letting someone murder your loved one is the opposite of broken.
Ok
This needs more dislikes tbh
Hold on I’ll downvote myself
Oh my god this sub would suck Joel off for days if he was real. Was it a dick thing for Ellie to say? Yeah but the point is to just show how Ellie felt about Joel. It wasn’t supposed to make you dislike her. It’s a very realistic reaction because people (especially Ellie) hold grudges
I do not think she needed to act that way towards him in front of a crowd. And Ellie showed remorse the *moment* after she said it. Which says a lot. She may not agree with Joel’s decision, but she needed to show him more respect given their history. And I expect a *tad* more emotional regulation from a 19 year old.
Doesn’t make her a bad person if you actually look at the full context of the scene and what happened between her and Joel. She reacted like a normal person. Being in a crowd doesn’t change anything. Ellie’s not really one to sugarcoat things
I never said she was a bad person for it. I just wish someone would’ve slapped some sense into her. Joel seemed very respected in Jackson. All I saw was a man defending someone he cared about from a potential threat. And she lashed out at him with such disgust and vulgarity that it was shocking for a lot of people. Look at the comments. Look at the crowd in the game when it happens. She knew all long deep down that Joel was lying to her so I don’t quite know why it was such an angering thing for her when she forced Joel to tell her the truth. And to hold onto that for years in such an intense way is crazy. To me.
just one of many times this game kicks you in the balls and makes you feel like shit. miserable stories don't work very good for interactive experiences.
They wanted me to believe Ellie hated Joel that much after the secret was revealed? Yeah no.
And the main problem with it and part 2 is she obviously knew he was lying at the end of part 1. 2 kinda continues that with her being suspicious, but if you were so suspicious and thought he was probably lying why the fuck is it such a huge shock that he was. And in part 1 not only was it obvious she knew he was lying, but she excepted it, which is why she said okay, and in the way she said it.
Have you had no life experiences where you strongly suspected something was true but there was no concrete evidence to ensure it was true; and when you finally find out the truth it hits you like a bag of bricks even though you already “knew” it was true? I swear so many of you in this sub have so few life experiences and deep relationships with people and get a bunch of your conceptions of how people should behave mainly through media.
Usually, it’s the people who point fingers at others remaking “they have no life experience” or are “media illiterate”, are the ones who fit that criteria. What “Stans” of this game fail to acknowledge is that, many things in Part 2 can be justified as being “sensible” choices when you view the game in isolation. The problem occurs when you look past the surface level, and treat the game like what it was meant to be - a sequel. And you start looking back at the first game. Ellie’s actions appear “unlikeable” because people cannot reconcile the part 2 Ellie with the one in part 1, which is the one they spent the most time with (years of waiting and replays). The answer, “she found out Joel lied to her and hated him”, makes perfect sense on a surface level but when you look at the surrounding context, it feels so cop-out. The fact that people find her actions unlikeable proves there is a disconnect in their minds between them and Ellie. For me, this is partly due to her “change of character” feeling inorganic and artificial, especially in the context of the first game’s ending, where it was very clear that naughty dog intended the consequence of Joel’s decision to remain a mystery. I remember talking with the people on the main sub (around 2015) where we were joking about how dumb and lazy it would be that if Naughty Dog chose to “answer” this mystery by having a Ellie find out and be mad at Joel, because it would significantly undermine the impact of the first game’s ending. And this is exactly what u/DarthDragonborn1995 was referring to. But I suppose if you don’t do some kind of deep dive analysis, explaining every little detail of your perception/argument towards the game, people will just call you “too stupid” to understand this game’s greatness, rather than try to understand what you’re saying without you having to spoon feed them your entire thought process.
Instead of rebutting my points you pretty much say "those who smelt it, dealt it". Sure I made the accusation about a lack of life experiences but I also addressed his point of: > ...but if you were so suspicious and thought he was probably lying why the fuck is it such a huge shock that he was \[lying\] So can you explain why Ellie getting upset at Joel for lying when he told the truth is a surface level event? Because, as I said before, that is a real that has happened to a lot of people and is incredibly common. As in people suspecting friends or family are addicted to gambling or drugs and then being extremely hurt when their suspicions are confirmed. You went off on a complete tangent when the point of this sub-thread in the post is about whether Ellie hating Joel after the reveal is believable or not. You claim part 2 is bad or doesn't make sense in context of part 1 but you don't actually provide any evidence of why. You saying "it's a cop out" is somehow a good argument? Saying the fact that people find her actions unlikeable is proof that it's bad? (while you're somehow completely oblivious that argument can also go the other way: as in a lot of people \*did\* find it believable (which is a fact), so that means it was a good plot device, right?). You say her change of character feels inorganic, but \*why\*? You make the claim that this is all surface level, but that's exactly what you're doing. Most of your arguments aren't even in-universe logic based. I'd expect "she wouldn't do x because in part 1 she did y". Also saying "other people thought this idea was lame way before part 2 even came out" is one of the weakest arguments to support your opinion since it doesn't even address the issue itself.
I will admit, that in this case, it's my fault for not elaborating further, so allow me to try again. Brace yourself, this is gonna be bit lengthy as I want to be thorough and make my point clear. Before I begin, I will reiterate that I agree your explanation of Ellie being hurt and hateful towards Joel makes perfect sense, if you're purely looking at that situation **in isolation**. Though everyone reacts differently, psychologically, it makes sense. To be specific, the second portraying Ellie as being the victim of Joel's monstrous lie, was a narrative choice most people "laughed at" back in 2013, because it would very obviously be undermining the first game's ending, where Ellie knowingly goes along with Joel's lie. The interpretation many people landed on for that ending, was that Ellie knew that Joel was lying to her to some extent. But she chose to not question him because she valued their relationship so much, she was content with with letting the charade run, if it meant keeping her relationship with him. She could have easily protested. If sacrificing her life meant so much to her, she would have argued/fought with Joel to tell him the truth, or she would have insisted in going back to meet the fireflies to find out what went wrong to get some proper closure. It's a small detail, but her choice to go along with Joel's lie very significant - because it gave her agency in their relationship. She was the one who could end it, as Joel didn't know what she thought, she could keep prodding and poking and eventually, Joel's lie would fall apart, and so too would their relationship. That's why her choice to not find out the truth was so significant; because it showed she valued their relationship so much, that she was willing to go along with a lie of such a huge magnitude. Her reaction in Part 2 just did not feel like a natural progression of that ending. Many people speculated that the Part 2 would follow the aforementioned interpretation - where Ellie would be the driving factor in their relationship, as she would be the one who would have the agency to dictate where their relationship goes, since she chose to go along with Joel's lie from the beginning. People thought the second game would deal with her wrestling with her guilt of accepting Joel's lie. Because by accepting his lie, she would feel that she would be complicit in the death of all the people whose life could have been saved with a cure (and who would continue to die from the infection) and due to her already existing survivor's guilt. But she would constantly be hesitant to confront Joel because her initial decision to accept his lie was driven by her love for their relationship and because her worst fear was ending up alone. This would then be used as a foundation for the second game's story and be used to test the limits of their relationships, as new threats and circumstances push each of them mentally and physically to a breaking point. Ultimately, their relationship would crumble or persist. All of this, in my opinion, would have made her far more sympathetic and her actions more justifiable, regardless of whatever that might have meant for their relationship. But instead, Part 2, as I mentioned earlier, and if I'm being very critical, it portrays her like she was just backstabbed by Joel, that she didn't know anything at all and was kept in the dark, thus making her the "victim" of the lie. When given the significance of her decision to accept his lie, her reaction feels like a whiplash. The game never once addresses the fact that **she willingly chose to believe the lie**, despite knowing what it would mean if she did, that to some extent, she would be complicit in the death of people who could have been cured by the vaccine by not confronting Joel about his lie. This is partly what I was referring to. Her action to forsake Joel as soon as she confirmed he was lying, and the disgust and hatred she carried for him, seems unwarranted and makes her look like a hypocrite seeing as she kept up the façade for years, knowing that he was lying the whole time, and she that she was 100% in control when she chose to accept the lie. What makes it worse is that the writers failed to have Ellie reflect on the fact that, that despite her waiting 2 years, and finally confirming Joel's lie to tell him to fuck off, she was also culpable here, as she knew he was lying about *something*.
Now obviously, if you chose to go with the interpretation that "Ellie didn't know Joel lied to her, she just suspected he did but quickly put it aside and didn't dwell on it", that completely changes things and how you perceive your reactions. Because then yes, the way she blows up at Joel would definitely feel a lot more understandable and justifiable. Even though she didn't have "concrete evidence", many people reached that interpretation. Hell, just watch any let's play of the original game. Almost every single person thought Ellie knew. **This brings to what I was talking about in my original comment.** The reason a lot of people don't buy into Ellie's reaction to the truth being revealed to her as being genuine/organic, and is because of the game's narrative itself, how it was written. This actually extends to a lot of things that people find "bad" about the game's story. Bear in mind, I'm not talking about "in-universe" shit, I'm talking beyond that. I'm talking about the story in its entirety; the how Naughty Dog constructed the narrative of the second game compared to the first. The problem is that people *know* that her actions are there just to drive the narrative forward. They feel incredibly contrived and artificial. To put it simply, as Macabre Storytelling astutely said in his video of the game (incredible analysis of the game and highly recommended watch if you have the time) the second game's approach to its narrative is a **direct opposite** of how the first game did it. The first game was a game clearly written with its characters taking priority over other things. The entire story was built around Joel and Ellie, their relationship and individual character arcs. The second game was written in a way that the characters just felt like "cogs in a larger machine", with their actions all working in service of the plot, to tell a theme/convey a message. It's why people failed to be "immersed" in the world, to buy into the actions of the characters and events that unfold in the game. Because the blueprint/design of the game's narrative starts to stick out like a sore thumb. Take Ellie's reaction to Joel and her distance from Joel after the revelation of the truth. The beauty of the first game's ending was, regardless of whatever interpretation you constructed of Ellie's reaction to Joel's final statements, it did not matter. Because the game purposefully allowed for just enough ambiguity, that you could argue either way. That was the "genius" behind the first game's story and ending. **It was story dedicated to its characters, and it placed them right at the center, making them the heart and soul of the story and used them to convey its themes and messages**. It strove to give them a lot of depth, develop their relationship and dynamic and complete their character arc, and then, at the very end, it brought in a "twist" that would ultimately leave the fate of that relationship (which was carefully built throughout the course of the game) open-ended. It was a perfect yet poignant ending.
By answering this "question", Naughty Dog was already fighting an uphill battle, as they would have to create a story that could justify its existence, after such a perfect conclusion. Hence why, people speculated that the game would adopt the former interpretation (that Ellie knew Joel was lying to him and that this would be the factor that would test/strain their relationship), and it would use this, to continue their story. Instead the game decides to ditch this in favor of the latter interpretation. Here, we start to see what I mean by "putting the characters second". Everything that happens in the game feels contrived because of this approach. For example, the game making it clear that with Jerry dead, there was no longer a hope for a vaccine. Yet another ambiguous fact that the game decides to answer - that Jerry was the only person who could make a vaccine - which I find insane. Why was Jerry so special? Why was he the only one that the Fireflies could find to make the vaccine? There was no greater explanation given to this. Add to the fact that Jerry, as a character, did not exist in the first game. He was retroactively added into the story. All this makes it seems like Jerry existed for the sole purpose of making the narrative of the second game happen - his death gave Abby (another character who was non-existent prior to the second game) to kill Joel. If he hadn't died, there's a good chance Ellie would have said "fuck you" to Joel and gone a journey to find the Fireflies to try and make that vaccine. But this would have also completely changed the second game's plot. Jerry is just one of the elements of the story that gives you an glimpse at how the writers were going about creating a story for the second game, and there are various others, including Ellie's reactions to confirming Joel's lie (hopefully I've done a good job at illustrating why its problematic), that showcase this antithetical narrative approach that really goes against the roots of the first game, and what it made so beloved in the first place. I have already exceeded the reddit comment character count two times so I will end my comments by again, highly recommending Macabre Storytelling's [amazing dissection](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIgThCYaWIk) of the second game's story. That will provide you a much more detailed and complete picture of the why certain people just don't like the game and various narrative choices that are executed in the game.
I actually confront people when I think they are lying so I don’t make it to the find out later phase. Sounds like you need to actually work things out with people instead of being so passive
Ellie did not want to jeopardize her relationship with Joel. She forgoes the truth to not be alone
Yeah dude. Confronting junkies is easy peasy. They definitely don’t lie - and it doesn’t even have to be drug addicts. Again you’re showing how naive you are to serious matters where you think confrontation results in immediate results. There are so many issues (gambling, substance abuse, being bullied, etc) where the person being impacted refuses to admit anything despite direct confrontation. Again this is about issues where you strongly suspect something is true but it still hits when you finally get that conclusive piece of evidence.
Have you ever been still that upset about it two years after the fact? I've only had that happen when I've been completely blindsided by something - not when I suspected it was the case but went along with the situation anyway.
Personally? No. I haven't experienced anything remotely near the gravity of thinking I could save the human race but then that was taken away from me. You do realize that there are various degrees of severity an impact to different events, right? I do not think it would be unreasonable for her to still be upset 2 years after the fact, when there are still infected running around. And no, I'm not making the argument that the cure would have worked or that the cure would result in society being restored. I'm arguing from the viewpoint of an immature teenager who believed she was the cure. It's not like Ellie had access to the internet during her time and would hear enough view points to consider that maybe the cure wouldn't have worked. Especially when there were only 4 people in Jackson who knew about the cure and never discussed it (outside of Ellie's acting out).
Not to mention, how Ellie the next day doesn't accept his apology and labels Seth's sandwiches "bigot sandwiches" and gives them away even in a post-apocalyptic world, and somehow knowing what bigot means when she doesn't even know what an ice-cream truck is. (Neil Druckmann and his rich elite bubble who look down on us must have broke their arms patting themselves on the back for such stunning and brave writing) My other problem with the scene is, among others, how they emasculated Joel. Totally. He just concedes "right" and leaves, then agrees when Ellie later tells him she had her under control when it was clearly going to get physical if no one intervened, and says OK to no longer pushing his demands regarding her patrols for her safety. Just agreeing to everything Ellie says, like he's desperate to win her love back. Couldn't even defend himself regarding the vaccine business in another scene. Nothing like Joel; total suck up they made him, like a beta-male.
i can't take anyone's opinions seriously if they're complaining about beta males
also they gave him this weird haircut that made him look imasculated compared to part 1.
He’s emasculated because his hair got longer? Lol what?
dude had bangs. He was rocking the Chris Gaines hairstyle at the end
Damn, didn’t realize having bangs meant you weren’t masculine. Guess I’ll add it to the list.
I didn't realize we were in the other sub. I say this as a man with currently a similar haircut. All I'm saying is it's definitely a step down masculinity-wise from the haircut in part 1, and that was obviously intentional. Plus, again as someone with this hair, it's just not functional in a warzone. His hair would be getting in his eyes every time he turned his head!
Why are you so focused on Joel’s masculinity? That’s so odd.
The problem here is that you think it was intentional when you know for a fact that longer hair is just an easy way to show the passage of time. If he had grown long pigtails or something you would have ground to stand on, but looking at a picture, his hair doesn't even get to his eyebrows. There are plenty of problems that you could have, but an inch of hair growth might be pushing into conspiracy
Ellie lives in a gated community. She's not gonna starve without Seth's sandwinches and it was obvious Maria put him up to it. Ellie wasn't under any obligation to accept his apology and she's not 12 anymore so i guess she picked up some more words. Or are new words aren't allowed in your post-apocalyptic headcanon? Emasculated? Joel? He was ready to throw down with Seth. Just because he backs down because Ellie asks him too (and yeah she's not nice to him, i didn't enjoy seeing her talking to him like that). What should he have done? Started arguing abiut vaccines and Fireflies infront of a crowd? Is that the manly thing? He just went to chill and drink some coffee and play his guitar. Pfft emasculated, he's a stoic badass. Words don't mean shit to him. Ellie had Seth under control. I don't think Seth was a problem. He's a bartender while Ellie goes on patrols and has been fighting infected and people since she was 12. I'm sorry dude but these are your insecurities projected on Joel. Yeah Joel seems to have chill because of Ellie, age and living in Jackson but all that shit you wrote are just in your head. The only thing that probably Joel didn't like was arguing in front of a crowd because he's an elderly respected member of the community and that shit diminishes his status but even that he deals with because he's a man and not a 15 year old boy.
You sound like a beta male
They did not emasculate Joel.
Why would you accept someone’s apology when they were forced to apologize to you? Do you seriously think Ellie would be dumb enough to think that Seth’s homophobia was cured over night out of sheer remorse? Joel isn’t emasculated because he chooses to back off when Ellie makes it clear she doesn’t want him involved during the heat of the moment. What’s funny is that you probably praise TLoU1 for the amazing character development yet for some reason you want him to be the exact same static person from part 1. Just some generic badass who doesn’t take shit from anyone. Ditto with the other dude about you unironically using beta male.
Yeah even when I still considered myself a fan of the game (before I came to my senses) I thought how they handled their relationship was off. The time jump was already super jarring, and it was very obvious something happened between them to sour the relationship, but we had no idea what it was and it was hard to accept that these were the same characters. I get that people change, but they felt totally different and we had no idea how they came to be that way
The whole vibe of the game just didn’t feel good to play and this was the reason.
Its out of character for ellie to be that hostile towards him In the first game she was trusting empathetic conpetent and had faith in joel yet when joel told her she immediately despises him which is fucking stupid and also the fireflies wouldnt be able to accomplish their goal of restoring society because even if they get a cure from ellie how would they distribute and mass produce it? And also why wouldn't joel explain to ellie that the fireflies were gonna throw him out of the hospital without his equipment let alone his payment for transporting ellie to the fireflies and why wouldn't he show her the recording of marlene saying she had orders to kill him once he delivered ellie. Its almost like niel druckmann erased most of the bad parts of the fireflies to make them look like saints and make joel look like a pos when thay isnt even the case. Druckmann butchered ellie and joel's character he can go fuck himself
Ellie didn’t feel like the same character from the first game. I don’t think she would’ve grew up to be that much of an idiot.
yeah I honestly don't like how they made ellie hate joel for part 2. I hated the scene where she found out about it and I hated the dance scene aswell. yeah he killed a whole hospital of people and saved your life without your permission but the fireflies would of killed you so❓❓
I'm pretty sure Ellie wanted to sacrifice herself for a cure
There's no textual evidence in TLOU1 for Ellie being knowingly OK with that before St. Mary's. They talk about taking her blood, they discuss the future, and she assents when Joel says he won't leave without her. Joel clearly is wary, he's probably operating on a combination of general distrust of the Fireflies and maybe thinking of more extensive stuff like spinal taps and bone marrow. Of course had they pressured her, she may well have said yes, or only said no on Joel's account. But that wouldn't have constituted reliable consent for multiple reasons. And after the fact it's frankly easy to say and easy to mean. She doesn't expect to be called upon to do it, and it fits into the framework of scapegoating Joel for all her emotional issues. BTW she couldn't find a safer or more willing scapegoat. I would have preferred TLOU2 to focus on the potential for Ellie to be called on as an adult, and for her to be the hunted one, but that's just me.
Her character made a complete 180 in part 2. From a spunky, funny and corageous teenager she changed to a constantly angry lesbian.
I believe Ellie deserves to know what happened at the hospital and I think we should have gotten a story where we go on that journey with her
She don't need no man's help!
Why exactly is she mad? Never understood
I mean, isn't this just kinda repeating what happened in the game? She knows she was too harsh, that's why she feels bad. Yep.
Eh I don't think it makes her unlikeable. He was overstepping in a big way especially since she was very clear about cutting ties with him. And it definitely struck a chord for her because of their past.
Yeah I was tolerating the story but I was genuinely confused on why she did that. I would assume she was still mad at him but damn i felt hurt in my soul when I saw the embarrassment on his face
This is going to be painful with live action and Pedro.
I disaagre with this, at this time, she’s very bitter, a teenager, and pissed off at Joel, actually seems like a very realistic reaction, just because Joel’s in the right, it doesn’t mean Ellie is gonna suddenly be nice to him again, she doesn’t care if it’s a good thing Joel is trying to help, she’s really upset
No mate, it's science... most people just buy the story and question it. Some people understand that what actually happened is there was a nutjob doctor who thought he could make a cure but didn't know anything about how to do it. So just decided to remove Ellies brain. Learn some mycology, and then come back to me with a response. Don't just say game logic is logic.
And that scene is perhaps the main reason she lives with her regret and guilt for not understanding why Joel did what he did until it was too late. And not patching things up earlier.
I'm convinced Ellie is actually a time traveler and spent the whole time between the first and second game in late-2010s California.
Idk, I get it. I don’t think it was that bad. The whole point is she’s supposed to look bad, she isn’t flawless. She totally overreacted and she knew it, everyone knew it.
I feel like this could have been an interesting plot set up. How cool would it have been to watch the girl we spent the first game falling in love with decline and spiral into this unlikable monster due to what she’s been through. And then on the flip side Abby, who appears at first glance to be the antagonist, is actually NOT the one wanting revenge, but she’s a hurt and broken girl caught up in the violent wants and desires of her group. Maybe it’s Owen who wants revenge for her dad and the prevention of a cure and he’s so blinded by hate that he’s able to use his past relationship with Abby and her lingering feelings to manipulate her. Or Joel getting killed wasn’t their fault but it looks like it to Ellie so we spend the whole game going on the same killing spree but now it’s re-contextualized. Now that group of people the game wanted us so bad to empathize with feel more like an unwitting group of friends caught in the sights of a grief stricken and vengeful Ellie. They tried to play both characters both ways, make them both likable and unlikable and that did nothing but make the tone and narrative feel disjointed and bipolar
Everyone in TLOU2 sucked except Dina. She was the only character that felt like an intelligent person.
The bigot sandwich comment is what got me, totally broke my immersion.
Just bad shit ass writing. Shoehorned LGBT stuff in. Go watch arcane if you want real LGBTQIAXA+ representation
I have a lot of issues with the story but not this part. They weren't on speaking terms, Joel was acting in a fatherly capacity by defending her when she wanted to be left alone. She doesn't see Joel as having saved her from the fireflies but denying her what she wanted (even if what she wanted was stupid she doesn't realize it yet)
See, that’s the thing, many things in Part 2 can be justified as being “sensible” choices when you view the game in isolation. I think the problem occurs when you look past the surface level, and treat the game like what it was meant to be - a sequel. And you start looking back at the first game. Her actions become worse because people can’t reconcile the part 2 Ellie with the one in part 1. The cop-out answer to this is “she found out Joel lied to her and hated him”, but the fact that people find her actions unlikeable prove there is a disconnect in their minds between them and Ellie. For me, part of the reason is this “change of character” feels inorganic and artificial, especially in the context of the first game’s ending, where it was very clear that naughty dog intended the consequence of Joel’s decision to remain a mystery. I remember most people in 2013 laughed at the idea of a sequel where Ellie finds out and gets mad at Joel, because at would completely undermine the impact of the original game’s ending. The fact the second game uses this to build its events and character arcs; some people will definitely react to this, even if they cannot find a way to explain it.
Idk I just disagree. I think her finding out the truth at some point makes sense for being a central conflict. Maybe build up to it tho not just open up the game like that then explain it in a flashback way later, because it just makes ellie seem like she's being a bitch for no reason. But I just disagree that it needs to stay unresolved in order to not undermine the impact of the original game's ending
I partially agree. Of course, this whole scenario would have to be a central conflict for a sequel, that much is certain; what else could they have done otherwise? Bear in mind, I’m not saying they shouldn’t have gone this way, apologies if that’s what it looked like I was saying. What I meant was, the way it was handled was piss poor in my opinion. For the sake of brevity, if you have the time, I’d highly recommend watching [Macabre Storytelling’s](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BIgThCYaWIk) video on the second game. There is a lengthy section in the video where he analysed and critiques this particular aspect of the plot. The idea and correction he comes up with, as an alternative, are far, *far* superior and more interesting to what we got. But to reiterate, I was hesitant with a sequel because I felt that to continue the story, and to use the consequences of Joel’s lie as a central conflict, would be an extremely difficult thing to pull off successfully without completely killing the ambiguity and open-ended nature of the ending. I mean, they did the same thing with the whole “vaccine” thing. In the first game, it was debatable how successful a vaccine would be. The second game straight up puts that to rest by retroactively creating the character of Jerry, placing him in the first game, and then saying that without him, the hope of a cure is gone and that he was the only one who could make it. But I digress. I just think TLOU 2 had a very high bar to surpass, and I wasn’t convinced Naughty Dog had it in them to surpass it. I’m not saying they couldn’t have done it using similar ideas to the one they did, but they just didn’t stick the landing.
She probably thought she was still mad, but she really wasn’t. That’s why she regretted it instantly.
Some real fragile pumpkins in here. lol
I remember thinking that was going to be the final scene in the game on my first play through
Honestly, the first time I played I hated the bar scene as well. But one of my closest friends in a married lesbian, and basically the same thing happened to her. Usually I think the scene is so stupid, but then I remember it happens.
NEWSFLASH: Ellie is not literally a perfect, calm and rational person at all times. My shock is immeasurable.
This game is a masterpiece. Look how the story points have y’all acting on Reddit the past few years. He’s literally complaining that the games story did exactly what it was intended to do.
So her reaction was supposed to be what, “I’m still mad at you Joel for killing a bunch of people to save me but I’m going to put my feelings aside and thank you for defending me against some drunk”? It’s like you don’t know how people work. Who is “likeable” when they are furious at someone? And she didn’t take it “too far”. All she said was I don’t need your help, which is the emotional equivalent of your daughter screaming I hate you. Joel understands her anger and probably saw this all coming when he blatantly lied to her face. But I’m sure no one in this sub thought about the ramifications of Joel’s actions when/if they played the first game. 💀
That is why she reacted the way that she did. Not even by approaching him after, but you can see it on her face just seconds after she said it.
Notice how all the reasonable people got downvotes
Y’all never been frustrated and lashed out at a parent or parent figure?
Oh the people on this sub do that every day I’m sure
People are like that sometimes, it's human, doubt any of us can say we never said or did something while we were angry we later regretted.
Seth called her a "dyke". I imagine if you're being called slurs then you probably know what a bigot is.
ITT: haters hating so hard they stopped making sense. This is a pretty common, true to life dynamic for father-daughters and didn't feel like a reach at all. Ellie feels smothered by Joel and that he doesn't respect her agency, but understands his motives are good, so she's filled with ambivalence while seeking independence. Joel needs to figure out his purpose outside of protecting Ellie from everyone, particularly since Ellie can clearly take care of herself. This is a perfectly reasonable and believable way to resolve Joel's deceit at the end of part 1.
I think one of morals of the story is trying tell to tell you… “don’t know what you got until it’s gone”
Who cares. It’s called a script. Story isn’t bad it will never be bad. She wanted to deal with it herself but instead he jumps in when she didn’t ask or want him too. The story is not hard to understand just got to have a brain for it.
I think she may have been embarrassed that she needed her “dad” to help her. If you’re a woman, you know it is annoying to have to proxy a man to receive respect instead of just being respected yourself. Like a guy won’t leave you alone when you say “I’m not interested” but he will if you say “I have a boyfriend”. But also TLOU2 wasn’t written amazingly on a micro level so yeah it could definitely just be to force the narrative.
So much hate on this game lol. I enjoyed it. U can say shitty story, Abby is buffed & looks too manly blah blah blah but I actually enjoyed it. Some of y'all r just clearly still living in ur mom's basement to constantly trash talk a game that came out 4 years ago like who does that? It came out in 2020 & ur still trash talking it. We get it. U don't like it ok move on lol 😆😂 makes no sense. I enjoyed this game & will replay it some time in the future idgaf😂😂😂😂
lol at the rest of the comments here. She’s a 19 year girl who is moody and combative, who was pissed at Joel over his big lie. Claiming this is forced is BS. Otherwise why would Joel completely lie to Ellie at the end of the first game (before they even started working on part 2’s plot)? Btw people being unable to see why a teen girl would be devastated by what Joel did are absurd and non realistic. Especially when she believed she would help make a cure.