Those who did not like story beat of certain character in TLOU 2, can I ask you something? (Open TLOU 2 spoilers)

[Lynchian Anomaly]

I'll never understand this. what was his character that would prevent him from dying?

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Especially when it is in character at that point. He's softened up over the years and was particularly happy that day with the reconciliation with Ellie on the table. Also even in the LOU1 (Joel at his most hardened) he wasn't above circumstantial help from strangers (Sam and Henry) which could have just as easily been a trap.

 

[Hero_of_the_Day]

Found it a bit too brutal and excessive. But, didn't mind it. My bigger problem with the game is that I didn't like the more open structure of the first half. Still enjoyed the game overall, but not as much as the first.

 

[Thorn]

TLOU2 has several pacing problems, including this.

 

[WhtR88t]

I thought they handled it really well. It was shocking. I was sad, but also super conflicted because he was an awful human and deserved it no different than the rest of them.

Ellie probably has it coming to her in the 3rd game too. It goes along the story that humans are animalistic, awful creatures and will do anything for their own survival.

 

[SecondNature]

You're missing a step in that process.

- Joel shoots Abby's dad in the head

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Which people have no problem with (for the most part) because Abby's dad was a threat to Ellie. In that moment, almost every person Ive seen play the game wanted to save Ellie and were gung-ho about doing it. Which is why so many find it hard to care about Abby

 

[Keikaku]

His death didn't surprise me, I knew it was coming at some point. Him getting killed by a loser like Abby was fucking bullshit though. She and her dad wrote their death sentence by okaying Ellies death. Joel had every fucking right to kill every last motherfucker in that hospital.

Then having to play half of the game as that loser and being supposed to sympathize with her was fucking laughable. I wanted her dead and was denied the pleasure.

 

[Lobster Roll]

Which people have no problem with (for the most part) because Abby's dad was a threat to Ellie. In that moment, almost every person Ive seen play the game wanted to save Ellie and were gung-ho about doing it. Which is why so many find it hard to care about Abby

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Which is crazy because Abby's dad holds up a scalpel and puts himself between Joel and Ellie. A scalpel. If you choose to go with the melee animation, it has Joel quite easily overpowering Abby's dad and jamming that scalpel into his neck. There's no reason why Joel couldn't have just cold-cocked him and grabbed Ellie. But no matter how the player approaches that moment, it's Joel killing a doctor who was basically a non-threat to him. I just find it so weird how people can't empathize with Abby who finds her father murdered and wanting revenge in a timeline where blood for blood is pretty much the standard operating procedure for revenge. Abby settled the score and let Ellie / Tommy live. Hell, she let's Ellie live *twice*. The more I think about the game, the more I like Abby.

 

[Veelk]

Execution was ass and I will never change my mind

The opening of the story should have built up to that point by following Abby exclusively. don't open with remember that time Joel killed an innocent doctor

Dont even market Joel or Ellie.

Start with Abby and have players experience the shit she went through organically. Have them track down her father's murderer. Have them really get into the grit with Abby and the taste for revenge. Slowly build up just who her father's killer was. Then you jump Joel, kill him (make the player do it) and then switch to Ellie.

leave the players with the feeling of "Are you not entertained?!?" Really hammer in that uncomfortable feeling of wanting to murder your own beloved character. Then the conflict is much more effective in causing strife in the player.

But that would have taken a more talented writer to pull off.

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I like this idea, but it would obviously lead to a very different story and it would have been much more predictable that Joel was her target.

I don't want to give the impression I agree that the way it happened was bad. It was great. But it's just an interesting way to do it alternatively. Hell, part of the development included having Abby go into the town and mingle with the residents of Jackson before finding Joel, so it's not even that they were that far off from what your suggesting.

 

[Seesaw15]

Fair, but the Fireflies are presumably his biggest most infamous foes, no? We are talking literal scientists and paramilitary members here who had a decent level of organization.

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I think the key word is had. If Joel left Marlene alive (his and Tommy's only connection to the Fireflies) then sure. But Joel dies 4 years after the events of TLOU 1. We see through Ellie's memories that the Fireflies as an organization imploded after hope for the cure died. Like the rest of the world Joel has no reason to believe the Fireflies are still out there just a bunch of scattered groups.

If Joel as a character never wanted to die he could have became a mountain hermit and lived to be 100. His arc from the first game left him vulnerable because he valued normalcy/community for Ellie over just pure survival.

I have no problem with people not liking story choices in TLOU2. Its as close to a singular vision as a piece of blockbuster entertainment can get so not everyone will vibe with it. I just wish people who disagreed with the story choices didn't hide behind 'defending logic' . No piece of fiction makes sense under scrutiny. Coincidences/characters having off days are required for the engine of a story to move forward.

 

[ViewtifulJux]

It was the least surprising thing in the game, dunno why it was so shocking.

 

[Drunkensamurai]

I thought the story was perfect.

 

[Rosebud]

They specifically switched characters out for trailers to make it look like Joel was in more of the game. Abby was *not* heavily featured in early PR. Yes, we knew Ellie would be the main character and Joel would be the companion this time around, but I think most assumed he'd be in more than 5 to 10 percent of the game.

I think you're confusing the narrative post-spoilers with what Naughty Dog actually showed us officially.

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Abby was featured in a trailer in 2017, and the end implies she's playable

 

[Veelk]

I think the key word is had. If Joel left Marlene alive (his and Tommy's only connection to the Fireflies) then sure. But Joel dies 4 years after the events of TLOU 1. We see through Ellie's memories that the Fireflies as an organization imploded after hope for the cure died. Like the rest of the world Joel has no reason to believe the Fireflies are still out there just a bunch of scattered groups.

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People seem to have forgotten that the Fireflies were on their last legs even in TLoU1 too. Marlene's recordings talked about how they were losing to the Fedra and her status as leader was hanging by a thread with tons of political infighting.

Coincidences/characters having off days are required for the engine of a story to move forward.

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Often, it is, but the frustrating thing about this is that this situation constructed isn't that far out. Three coincidences drive the situation 1. That Abby happened to arrive to Jackson on the day Joel happened to be on Patrol duty (not a major stretch) 2. That a horde happened to hit that day, (not a major stretch) and 3. that the WLF group was somehow prepared to recieve Abby, Tommy and Joel when they came in riding despite having no idea that a horde would be there (this one is admittedly kind of strange, but also not integral)

That's it. Everything else is such a non-coincidence that it's obvious that it's obvious that's not people's real issue with the scene.

 

[My Blue Heaven]

it's funny that abby inspires all this invective and venom, i just thought she was a boring jabroni and druckman's weak attempt to the MGS2 subvert player exepctations thing but worse basically

 

[Jolkien]

It was very badly written. The Joel we got the know would never have trusted random strangers like he and Tommy did. I absolutely don't buy it.

 

[PucePikmin]

Abby was featured in a trailer in 2017, and the end implies she's playable

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An out of context trailer everyone was confused by, which never names Abby. At the time the criticism was it just seemed like a piece of perplexing random grimdark violence. The end doesn't imply anything one way or the other. All the subsequent PR made it look like another Ellie/Joel story.

 

[Aswitch]

A few reasons:

-Died too soon in the story in retrospect

-How he died was infuriating and I wanted to get revenge for Joel

-Playing as Joel's Killer to try and make you sympathize with Joel's Killer I just wasn't a fan of, but respected Naughty Dog for trying to do. It just really didn't work for me at all. I just really disliked the character for Killing Joel as justified as her reasoning was.

-I just really didn't want Joel to die(as obvious and imminent as it was).

 

[smurfx]

i don't really see how people say joel deserved to die when you basically kill an enormous amount of people in the game with any of the characters. ellie deserves to die and so does abby. everybody in that world basically murders like its nothing and doesn't seem to feel any remorse. don't understand how people suddenly act like joel is history's greatest monster in that shitty world of murderers. my only problem with joel dying that way is that it was way too low stakes. if he died fighting against that entire group abby belonged to it would have been better for me. my actual main gripe against the game is there not being enough monsters to kill. the best parts are always when fighting against them except we spend the majority of the time killing humans.

 

[ket]

It was very badly written. The Joel we got the know would never have trusted random strangers like he and Tommy did. I absolutely don't buy it.

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this man knows henry all of 10 minutes in tlou1 but then falls asleep in henry's hideout while leaving him alone with the girl he's supposed to protect

 

[Hero_of_the_Day]

It was the least surprising thing in the game, dunno why it was so shocking.

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Don't think many were surprised he died. As the poll results show, most didn't expect it to be in the opening of the game. Not that I think there was anything wrong with that personally.

 

[Veelk]

Also, I just want it noted that I love this plot point so much that I unironically want other franchises to do it.

Can you imagine Lazarovic's daughter came to take her revenge on Drake and Cassie has to take up her father's mantle as "The Uncharted Explorer" to hunt her down through a lost city. Her mom can tell her "You really are the Charter now, Cassie."

Or fucking Kratos. But of course that's going to have a totally different emotional resonance. Most people who saw Abby kill Joel were upset when it happened. If someone beat Kratos to death with a golf club, you'd just want to buy them a beer.

 

[etrain911]

To my surprise people were shocked Naughty Dog killed Joel off, even though Joel dying was like the most obvious thing to ever happen in my mind in the sequel. Not the circumstances maybe, but he had to go. I've seen a lot backlash to this specific plot point, even from people I know personally.

My question is, why did you not like the handling of Joel's death? If my options are not enough, please state your own.

I did not have issues with it, especially from Abby's perspective. I thought he would have been killed later from I started the game, but that's it.

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I'll answer, but only cause your Avi is from OFF. ;P

Spoiler: My answer

I thought he was gonna be killed too, it just felt contrived that one of the doctors happened to have a kid and the way the flashback to before the surgery came off felt really saccharine. There were a lot of monstrous things Joel had done and it would've made sense for Abby to have been a relative of Robert or something or even Marlene.

 

[PumpkinPieAddict]

My feelings of Last of Us 2 are very tough to describe. Full disclosure, the first game is one of my favourites. I avoided almost all the media for the game (outside the first two trailers). I've had some time removed from the game so forgive me if my memory is off. I could probably go into depth if I look at my previous thoughts journaling, ways I might restructure the game and etc but no one would care to read it.

RE Joel's death. My assumption going into the game was that he would die around the 3/4th mark. Him dying early actually didn't bother me. In fact, Naughty Dog was brilliant in invoking the emotion out of me. I dreaded the whole time the walk to the cabin, the sounds of Joel in pain, etc.

His "wake" was fantastic. I think his usage throughout the game (via flashback) was great. Finding his "closure" with Ellie at the end was amazing, Ellie following similar paths ala Joel and then realizing it was all for nothing were great broad strokes.

The problem was just everything falling flat for me. Abby as a character was, fine. I felt pushing us back in the timeline just to sync up again was very annoying pacing wise. Her revenge against Joel and redemption didn't speak to me as much as I wanted it to.

On Ellie's behalf - I thought there was far more that could have been more.

Joel didn't have to go out like a hero in this brutal world, that's silly considering what he's done and what we've seen.

What's also really difficult is that Joel is an extremely compelling character to me. Troy Baker's delivery alone outshines everyone he's with. The character is flawed and human. He lost so much and is still learning to process Sara's death. Every scene of backstory he's in, you're just reminded how good the character is and how you're ultimately controlling Abby - someone who didn't resonate with me. Or Ellie, a character I kept waiting to go to that next level.

My memory is extremely hazy of this game and I'm not ready to revisit it for a while. I just kept feeling the game was flat or boring. I remember hitting around day 2 with Ellie and thinking to myself, I'm really not enjoying this game - what's wrong with me? And then we get a Joel flashback scene. But once it was over I was back to this game and just no longer enjoying myself.

I guess ultimately I didn't have a problem with the fact he died. I just feel that the follow-through and execution of those ideas for the game thereafter were completely flat for me.

 

[Deleted member 1476]

I'm one of the few who didn't mind his death, I thought he would die in the first game so living to see the second was already a plus. My issues with the game plot are elsewhere.

 

[Anomander]

You're missing a step in that process.

- Joel shoots Abby's dad in the head

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Let me take you back to step 0.

- Abby's father was about to sacrifice Ellie without having her consent.

It's also convenient that you leave out the part where Abby tortures Joel for a while. Joel never tortured her father, if she was only concerned with eye for eye she could have just killed him instead.

 

[HououinKyouma]

I love the way they killed Joel off. It was devastating, ruthless, and cold. Anything can happen to anyone at any time in this universe, and that proved so.

What didn't quite work for me is then turning around and trying to make me sympathize and enjoy the character who performed the action. I'll tip my hat to Naughty Dog though, this worked for a ton of people, so clearly they did something right here.

For me, no matter how well they handled Abby's character arc, it just....didn't quite hit the same way for me. I think it's more of a testament to how much I loved Joel and Ellie than some criticism of Abby.

 

[Veelk]

It's also convenient that you leave out the part where Abby tortures Joel for a while. Joel never tortured her father, if she was only concerned with eye for eye she could have just killed him instead.

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No, if she wanted an eye for an eye, she'd have to murder his dad instead. Given that his dad was unavailable and also it's possible he doesn't even have a good relationship with his dad and also being an old man he might not be alive anymore and it would be a different dynamic to his dad being killed when he's over 40 years old vs her dad being killed when she's a teen, it's really simpler to just say she would have to murder his most important family member, which would be Ellie if she knew her relationship or Tommy if she just made a ton of assumptions that Joel cares about Tommy most, which would be wrong.

That's the thing about revenge, it's never really as symmetrical as you want it to be.

 

[Viceratops]

I didn't like how Joel was killed in a manner of Naughty Dog trying to justify their theme of going beyond good and evil. They said everything is just a perspective and different people have different perspectives and nobody is right or wrong. They all just have things that they care about.

It's just nihilism, there's no point to it. And they didn't need to do it. And then they have the gall to make you play as the character that kills Joel and try to make you empathize with her. And this is after people wait 7 years to experience a new story with him. What a terrible idea.

And everyone saying, "but at least they took a risk in a AAA game" it didn't pay off. All it did was make the important parts of the TLOU universe smaller. There's a reason the HBO series is focusing on Joel and Ellie, because that's what people care about.

 

[Anomander]

No, if she wanted an eye for an eye, she'd have to murder his dad instead. Given that his dad was unavailable, she would have to murder his most important family member, which would be Ellie if she knew her relationship, Tommy if she just assumed he gave a shit about his brother.

That's the thing about revenge, it's never really as symmetrical as you want it to be.

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That's not really the point here. What I'm trying to say is how the hell am I supposed to sympathize with her after seeing what she did? If it was a clean death, sure it would have made it easier. Rescuing a kid isn't going to whitewash all that.

 

[Veelk]

That's not really the point here. What I'm trying to say is how the hell am I supposed to sympathize with her after seeing what she did? If it was a clean death, sure it would have made it easier. Rescuing a kid isn't going to white wash all that.

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My advice would be to never sympathize where you can help it. It's not, like, the worst thing you can do but it's nevertheless uncouth. It's like lying, there are select times where it's harmless, even sometimes where it's good, but it's mostly better to just not do it.

What you want to do is empathize. Sympathy is where you feel pity for someone down on their luck where you are not. It's pity, and no one likes it, and in terms of fiction, it doesn't work if you think the character 'deserves' their fate.

Empathy works different. Empathy is understanding and feeling with a character, not for a character. It works so long as characterization is believable and you want to/allow yourself to do it. If you empathized with Ellie, then you've already got all the incredients to empathize with Abby. You just need to let yourself do it.

 

[Deleted member 29599]

From the very first trailer it was pretty obvious that Joel was gonna bite it. That i didn't have an issue with. But the way he died was so completely stupid and out of character with the Joel i had spent 30 odd hours with in the first game that it could only come off as extremely jarring and dumb. Maybe that's the point, seeing as TLoU2 is basically Misery/Revenge Porn The Game, doesn't make it any less stupid. Nothing smashes my suspension of disbelief in any medium harder than characters doing stupid shit that people in real life (put in that situation) would never do.

 

[Yort]

Was fine with Joel's death in a vacuum, but thought the back half of the game fell flat, trying to say Abby is a good person when she's not trekking across the continent to beat people to death.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Frankly, I was surprised Joel survived the first game. Him dying at the end seemed like the perfect capstone for Ellie's coming-of-age story (granted, it would also be a bit cliched and predictable).

 

[Fafalada]

2.) I felt misled by the marketing, which was intentionally engineered to make it seem like Joel would live throughout the game

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I find this hard to believe. First trailer was telegraphing "Joel is dead" all over - and the rest of marketing materials never bothered to contradict it in any way (for obvious reasons I guess - but if anything, the emphasis of brand new characters just reaffirmed it for me). Actually by the time first 'leaks' happened I was surprised people were surprised - I sort of felt it would have been public knowledge by then...

 

[Deleted member 17207]

I beat TLOU for the first time right before playing TLOU2. I didn't for a moment stop to think "whoa this is out of character" lol. It seemed natural, it was some time later and they were living in a completely different climate (safe town vs warzone), they were all caught up in the moment of running from infected in a blizzard, etc. He had it coming to him, and the longer he was going to be in the game, the less impact it would've had when it finally happened.

I really think the whole "out of character" argument is one someone made on Reddit one day and then everyone piggybacked onto lol. It reminds me of how the plinkett prequel reviews came out and suddenly everyone hated them for the exact same reasons.

 

[Deleted member 17207]

Was fine with Joel's death in a vacuum, but thought the back half of the game fell flat, trying to say Abby is a good person when she's not trekking across the continent to beat people to death.

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I don't think the game is trying to argue that anyone is a "good person". Just that everyone has a story and it's not as black and white as you might think.

 

[TiG]

I find this hard to believe. First trailer was telegraphing "Joel is dead" all over - and the rest of marketing materials never bothered to contradict it in any way (for obvious reasons I guess - but if anything, the emphasis of brand new characters just reaffirmed it for me). Actually by the time first 'leaks' happened I was surprised people were surprised - I sort of felt it would have been public knowledge by then...

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Come on, Neil Druckmann himself said that TLOU is specifically about these two characters.

 

[BlueJay]

I didn't like it, but that's what made it brilliant for me. I knew Joel dying was a possibility, but for it to happen so early was such a shock, and like Ellie, I could not come to grips with it.

And that's what makes it so special. I missed Joel the entire time, felt a bit lost without him- exactly what Ellie was feeling.

I hate what Naughty Dog did to Joel, but that's because of my attachment to him. Looking at the larger picture, it was such a courageous, masterful decision and they deserve full credit for it in my opinion.

 

[Deleted member 19533]

He should have died but the way it happened was so stupid and out of character

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Exactly this. It was completely out of character for him to behave in such a way.

A lot of the story seemed to be written in such a way just to get things where they wanted them go. I know you may be thinking, "duh," but there's a lot of issues with things like this and deus ex machina.

TLOU, the original, is a mediocre game with a great story and visuals. The sequel is the same but without the great story. As such, I feel it falls really short.

 

[EternalDarko]

In the context of the wider story that went on within TLoU, how he died made perfect sense.
I loved part 2, I can understand certain criticism such as pace and certain end game switcheroos, but absolutely do not get the hate towards characters like Abby.
I look forward to playing it again when there's a PS5 update.

 

[Fafalada]

Come on, Neil Druckmann himself said that TLOU is specifically about these two characters.

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I wouldn't know, that would require me to follow dev-interviews leading up to launch, which I really can't be bothered with. I did watch all the gameplay/trailers - and that's what they led me to believe.

 

[Legacy]

I felt like it happened a bit too soon but I didn't not like it. Didn't ruin the game or story for me

 

[Hampig]

People mad that the advertisement's don't give away a major characters death... what?

 

[TiG]

I wouldn't know, that would require me to follow dev-interviews leading up to launch, which I really can't be bothered with. I did watch all the gameplay/trailers - and that's what they led me to believe.

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Fair enough. Anyways I followed the game closely too and didn't get that impression at all.

Here's the link if you care

The Last of Us Part II - PlayStation Experience 2016: Panel Discussion | PS4

https://www.playstation.com/games/the-last-of-us-part-ii/?emcid=or-1s-412983Neil Druckmann, Ashley Johnson, Troy Baker, and Game Informer's Andy McNamara sha...

www.youtube.com

A lot of the story seemed to be written in such a way just to get things where they wanted them go. I know you may be thinking, "duh," but there's a lot of issues with things like this and deus ex machina.

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Yeah agreed. Didn't like how characters casually cross great distances by themselves when the world is shown to be so dangerous.

 

[Kalentan]

I beat TLOU for the first time right before playing TLOU2. I didn't for a moment stop to think "whoa this is out of character" lol. It seemed natural, it was some time later and they were living in a completely different climate (safe town vs warzone), they were all caught up in the moment of running from infected in a blizzard, etc. He had it coming to him, and the longer he was going to be in the game, the less impact it would've had when it finally happened.

I really think the whole "out of character" argument is one someone made on Reddit one day and then everyone piggybacked onto lol. It reminds me of how the plinkett prequel reviews came out and suddenly everyone hated them for the exact same reasons.

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A lot of people who think it's "Out of Character", never actually understood the character in the first place. Or that you know, people change, also context, people don't like context either.

 

[CHC]

I think concerns about the logistics of his death are kind of a little silly. I mean, yes, he let his guard his down because he's a softer character after living in relative safety for like 5 years. But even if he wasn't I mean.... they could just kill him a different way. It seems neither here nor there with regard to the story's overall arc.

 

[Kirksplosion]

I didn't mind Joel's death or how it was handled, I did have an issue playing as his killer though.

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Yeah. Basically same. I didn't see his death coming like so many did, but that story choice didn't bother me.

I wouldn't say I had an "issue" playing as Abby, but I had such an affinity for Joel because of the first game that I was never able to become fully invested in her story, and the game therefore failed to make me really empathize with her throughout despite its best efforts.

 

[TiG]

For Abby, It interesting. Initially I hated her because of Joel, but as I played her part I just became apathetic. No hate but just bored.

 

[KoopaTheCasual]

When my roommate told me that Joel's death was one of the "controversies" about TLOU2, I was baffled. If anything, it was really telegraphed in marketing and the lead up. The story introduces these strangers that are seeking revenge on "someone" within the camp. Hmm... who has the highest body-count by far.....? As soon as he headed back with Abby to her camp, I was like, "wow dude, you're super dead."

For me, my biggest gripe of the game (initially) was that Ellie played much like her TLOU self, and you had to stealth everything, which I personally found really annoying (even if it makes perfect sense). It was super refreshing to get to play as Abby, who played like an even tankier version of Joel.

Frankly, I was surprised Joel survived the first game. Him dying at the end seemed like the perfect capstone for Ellie's coming-of-age story (granted, it would also be a bit cliched and predictable).

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This, honestly. Joel's death was a ticking timebomb, that I'm SHOCKED took that long to go off. Him making it to act one of the sequel was a success.

 

[kamineko]

i just thought it was a little over the top