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It feels like a finger is on the scale a bit when the game goes out of its way to humanize the faction that Ellie spends the game killing while the faction Abby spends the game slaughtering is made out to be as monstrous and inhuman as possible.
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Sep 6, 2020 18:42
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Yeah, my 2 big complaints are: - the Seraphites get very little narrative, and what's there is awful - Rattlers outta fuckin nowhere, who the gently caress are these guys e: 3 complaints actually, why the gently caress did the Seraphites care about gender that much? If they were like post-apocalyptic bible thumpers or something it would make sense but society has collapsed and reformed a bunch of times by now. Without that background it seems like it's saying that transphobia is an inherent human problem and not a societal choice, which ignores a lot of human history. Dr. Fishopolis fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Sep 6, 2020 |
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Sep 6, 2020 18:46
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General Dog posted:It feels like a finger is on the scale a bit when the game goes out of its way to humanize the faction that Ellie spends the game killing while the faction Abby spends the game slaughtering is made out to be as monstrous and inhuman as possible. Yeah but this was already a balancing act because you have to sort of over-correct for Abby otherwise our emotional attachment to Ellie takes over. Dr. Fishopolis posted:Yeah, my 2 big complaints are: TLoU1 pretty easily establishes that these rogue slaver and human trafficking factions are a dime a dozen and operating anywhere there might be people or supplies. The Rattlers don't stand out to me at all.
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Sep 6, 2020 18:47
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They should've pushed the game back to 2029 and made it 48 hours longer with Abby's story at the forefront before you even get to Jackson as well. That way you have enough time to get to know all 7 of her friends. And really you only need to focus on 6 because everyone will immediately love Alice the second she shows up.
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Sep 6, 2020 19:03
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idk I kind of liked the seraphites. more than the wolves at least. they accepted a truce and seemed to be chill on their Minecraft island until the wolves killed a bunch of them. and they’re actually building a new society instead of foolishly clinging to the idea of bringing back the old world now granted the new society they’re building is a heteronormative extremist one based on violent religious fundamentalism, but hey that’s showbiz baby
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Sep 6, 2020 21:27
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it’s also kind of funny that so much is made of how Joel doomed humanity but humanity seems to be doing fine and moving on to the extent that it could plausibly be possible to
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Sep 6, 2020 21:33
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That is also underscored by how minimized the infected are in this game. The infected were absolutely the chief threat for huge swaths of the first game, and they barely even factor into the narrative here. Everyone just treats them as completely hyper normal.
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Sep 6, 2020 22:03
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I just got around to playing this and I'm at the point where I'm now playing as Abby (day 1). I kinda get the feeling I'm supposed to be developing sympathy for her and that the game is designed around me doing heinous poo poo to people who are "bad, no wait they were just normal people all along". However, I can't. She murdered Joel because he protected Ellie from getting murdered. Like, Joel and Ellie were never given a choice IIRC. Sure Ellie would have probably gone along with it (and might have been able to convince Joel) but they straight up didn't get a say in it. So gently caress Abby and gently caress her dad for trying to murder Ellie for "the greater good". gently caress her for living in what looks like what passes for luxury in this world yet still hunting down and murdering Joel. gently caress her friends too, as they've been nothing but assholes for the first half of the game. I'm pretty sure I killed them all in self defence of myself or someone else. Am I weird for thinking that?
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Sep 7, 2020 00:31
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No this is the perfectly normal journey many (most?) people go on during the game. It’s more about where you end up at the end, but no you’re right on the money.
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Sep 7, 2020 00:40
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Kin posted:I just got around to playing this and I'm at the point where I'm now playing as Abby (day 1). you are not weird you have what is called a normal person’s sense of morality
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Sep 7, 2020 02:07
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if anything, WLF encounters with Jackson types kind of end up portraying people from Jackson as  Worth Being Afraid Of™, and it's kind of awesomeboth the Tommy scene and the encounter with Ellie are incredibly nerve wracking and intense
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Sep 7, 2020 02:22
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Kin posted:I just got around to playing this and I'm at the point where I'm now playing as Abby (day 1). Abby killed Joel because Joel killed her dad. She doesn’t really care about bigger motivations or whatever else (she even pretty much says so after shooting Jesse’s head off in the theater) It doesn’t really invalidate your larger point (which as I said previously here made the ending of the first game weaker and more convoluted to me when it’s revisited in the sequel) but the game wants to mirror their main playable characters’ motivations i.e. hunting down their paternal figure’s murderer. (Though in Abby’s case you mostly play the aftermath of that) That neither character seem to understand - or at least openly acknowledge - that similarity by the end is to me is maybe the game’s narrative biggest problem - and I thinks there’s quite a bit of them The Unnamed One fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Sep 7, 2020 |
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Sep 7, 2020 02:40
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:if anything, WLF encounters with Jackson types kind of end up portraying people from Jackson as Dead rear end, the moment you first see the sniper and you realize it's Tommy is some of the most intense emotional response I've ever had in a game. I was terrified and in that moment I even forgot that you already know he doesn't die there and I thought I was gonna have to kill Tommy.
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Sep 7, 2020 02:47
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:e: 3 complaints actually, why the gently caress did the Seraphites care about gender that much? If they were like post-apocalyptic bible thumpers or something it would make sense but society has collapsed and reformed a bunch of times by now. Without that background it seems like it's saying that transphobia is an inherent human problem and not a societal choice, which ignores a lot of human history. I suppose you could argue that their whole "science and technology is evil" philosophy goes hand in hand with the idea that sex=gender but I think the truth is more that Druckmann has written them as an extremely problematic allegory of Palestinians and so has decided that religious fundamentalism as he understands it today would apply to them.
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Sep 7, 2020 03:01
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Yikeseroo. Now I can't unsee it.
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Sep 7, 2020 03:26
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I don’t see it at all
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Sep 7, 2020 03:42
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Bust Rodd posted:I don’t see it at all I didn't either until I read Druckmann's quote that the story was directly inspired by his own childhood prejudice growing up in Israel. I think this Vice article does a nice job of showcasing some of the parallels: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bv8da4/the-not-so-hidden-israeli-politics-of-the-last-of-us-part-ii After that it seemed EXTREMELY unsubtle to me that the WLF were the IDF and the Scars were Palestinians as Druckmann understands them and the alegory, boy does it have problems. Honestly I loved the hell out of the game while I was playing it but since reading a lot of Druckmann's own quotes about it I'm 'death of the author'ing this thing as hard as I can because I REALLY hate his takes on his game.
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Sep 7, 2020 04:03
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i'm a pro-BDS jew, I see this poo poo all the time. yeah I loved the game and that's one dead author good gracious. e: well also I already knew druckmann was israeli, i'm not clairvoyant
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Sep 7, 2020 04:56
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why would anyone ever read vice or base their opinions on anything that comes out of that shithole
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Sep 7, 2020 05:12
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:why would anyone ever read vice or base their opinions on anything that comes out of that shithole I'm not a huge fan of Vice either and feel free to take the article with as many grains of salt as you please but it'd be mad to say that the parallels the article discusses don't exist. It's clear in the visuals, some of the characters' dialogues and Druckmann's own statements.
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Sep 7, 2020 05:16
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I guess I just don’t see a problem with the author using his real world experiences to inform the aesthetics of this game. The Serephites are dangerously violent religious fundamentalists, and the WLF are authoritarian fascists, and both factions are bad for very obvious reasons in the game. Extending that to mean that you think Neil’s explicitly writing an anti-Palestinian take into his AAA video game to paint them as terrorists seems like an absolutely insane leap of logic to me personally. I read the article you posted and it just seems like Neil wrote about things he was familiar with, like using tunnels to evade checkpoints, or a religious community valuing martyrdom (you know, the way all Christians do, for example).
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Sep 7, 2020 05:25
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nobody's saying he's nefariously sneaking some hidden political agenda into the game, it's just gross to learn where the allegories came from because his politics are gross. it doesn't ruin the game for me, it's just an unpleasant answer to a question I now wish I hadn't asked.
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Sep 7, 2020 05:31
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Mandrel posted:idk I kind of liked the seraphites. more than the wolves at least. they accepted a truce and seemed to be chill on their Minecraft island until the wolves killed a bunch of them. and they’re actually building a new society instead of foolishly clinging to the idea of bringing back the old world also this has become a strangely woke take in retrospect
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Sep 7, 2020 05:37
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:also this has become a strangely woke take in retrospect i didn't buy that viewpoint when chris avellone used it to justify caesar's legion and i don't buy it now
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Sep 7, 2020 05:38
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Why are his politics gross? He's using some abstract childhood experiences growing up adjacent to Israel/Palestine conflict to tell a story with a backdrop of American socio-political division and strife.
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Sep 7, 2020 05:42
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I never got that at all. I always felt that the allegory was more about people siding with Ellie over Abby and how the conflict never seems to end
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Sep 7, 2020 05:43
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...with a backdrop of American socio-political division and strife.
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Sep 7, 2020 05:50
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:Why are his politics gross? He's using some abstract childhood experiences growing up adjacent to Israel/Palestine conflict to tell a story with a backdrop of American socio-political division and strife. Because the Seraphites are completely unsympathetic murderous fascist cultists. It's a game that forces you to sympathize with antagonists, except the Seraphites, they're just unqualified evil. Which was the origin of my complaint about the writing, which the only plausible answer anyone's given so far is that they're a Palestinian allegory. Which, imho, is gross.
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Sep 7, 2020 05:51
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:Because the Seraphites are completely unsympathetic murderous fascist cultists. It's a game that forces you to sympathize with antagonists, except the Seraphites, they're just unqualified evil. Which was the origin of my complaint about the writing, which the only plausible answer anyone's given so far is that they're a Palestinian allegory. Which, imho, is gross. You don't see their entire civilization burning down as sympathy? Or the nuance of the martyr's depiction, the way the game comments on the success of their naturalistic living methods? Just curious, because hosed up religious poo poo happens in Iran, too, but Iran is not a fascist society. Are people unable to comprehend nuance?
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Sep 7, 2020 05:56
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I mean I think the actual reason the Seraphites are portrayed as unsympathetic monsters is because that’s what the story needs them to be.
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Sep 7, 2020 06:00
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:You don't see their entire civilization burning down as sympathy? Or the nuance of the martyr's depiction, the way the game comments on the success of their naturalistic living methods? I'm not saying it isn't nuanced, it's just that if you're going to include that allegory, and also spend half the game hunting and killing them, and also never play from their perspective, I personally feel like maybe they're painted as the bad guys. Also, I have zero clue what Iran has to do with anything, you're gonna have to explain that one. e: vvv yeah, yet again, I'm not saying it's intentionally anti-palestinian at all. Dr. Fishopolis fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Sep 7, 2020 |
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Sep 7, 2020 06:02
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Bust Rodd posted:Extending that to mean that you think Neil’s explicitly writing an anti-Palestinian take into his AAA video game to paint them as terrorists seems like an absolutely insane leap of logic to me personally. I read the article you posted and it just seems like Neil wrote about things he was familiar with, like using tunnels to evade checkpoints, or a religious community valuing martyrdom (you know, the way all Christians do, for example). Not at all what I'm saying, I really don't think Druckmann's intention was to make it anti-Palestinian, I think he really wanted to do a there's 'bad on both sides' take and I just don't think he's put enough thought or work in to avoid this allegory from being problematic as hell. You've got the WLF, who have the clear IDF parallels. We do see them as facists, they torture people and they're militaristic but we also get to know a lot of them from Abby's friends, Diego's father, video game girl and we do see their perspective on the conflict quite a bit. We see them looking after people, running schools, we get a lot of time with them. Then you get the Scars and oh boy, backwards religious fundamentalists who mutilate their enemies, take child brides and the only Scars that aren't trying to murder you in the game are two teenagers actively trying to escape their lifestyle (people that have rejected them really). We're led to the conclusion that a key issue in the conflict is that the Scars refuse to just stay on their own self sufficient island (land) which is just... yikes, if we're working with the Israel and Palestine allegory here. I don't think Druckmann intended it to be anti-Palestinian at all, I just think that if you go in to tell a Israel/Palestine conflict, as Druckmann himself states he was doing, and then it ends up looking like this, its got problems. The Neal! fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Sep 7, 2020 |
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Sep 7, 2020 06:03
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:
Recent story about a father 'Honor-Killing' his 14 year old daughter has upset a lot of people, but would not be the type of thing I would indict an entire culture for. Get my drift?
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Sep 7, 2020 06:10
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It's like with the issues the game has with Trans people. I love Lev and on the surface it's a great thing for diversity to see a trans character in a triple A game but then you finish the game and you go and read some of the takes coming out of the trans community and realise that the last thing a lot of trans people wanted to see was another trans character whose main point of conflict in the game comes from the fact that they're trans. I do think Druckmann writes his games with complicated issues with the best intentions. I also think that you need to do a lot of work and listen to more voices outside of your own understanding to better balance your writing when you want to delve into complicated topics that aren't part of your own lived experience. I don't feel I've seen enough evidence that Druckmann does that in his games.
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Sep 7, 2020 06:12
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I just read the Vice article and the article linked in that article and Neil doesn’t say in either of those articles that he is trying to tell and Israel Palestine story. I guess maybe I should listen to the podcast, although since this is the TLoU2 thread, it would probably be more appropriate to find a YouTuber who listened to the whole thing and metastasize my own opinion through their subjective lens.The Neal! posted:It's like with the issues the game has with Trans people. I love Lev and on the surface it's a great thing for diversity to see a trans character in a triple A game but then you finish the game and you go and read some of the takes coming out of the trans community and realise that the last thing a lot of trans people wanted to see was another trans character whose main point of conflict in the game comes from the fact that they're trans. Druckman also said he worked with and consulted trans authors and trans staff at Naughty Dog during the writing process. Whose input matters more here, the trans people who liked the story and helped him tell it, or the trans people who wished they had told a different story? Which group of trans people’s input should he have weighed more? These are somewhat rhetorical, I’m just trying to illustrate that he can’t please everybody and there was a 0% chance of a trans character in AAA game perfectly embodying a universal trans experience that everyone would be equally happy with. He did get input from the community, but that always gets brushed under the rug when people complain about it. Bust Rodd fucked around with this message at 06:19 on Sep 7, 2020 |
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Sep 7, 2020 06:15
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a story where the only trans character's arc is that they're trans is objectively not great representation. I don't think it was insensitive or bad, or that Lev is a bad character or that anyone had transphobic badthink evilbrains about it, it's just not great representation. Not everything has to be, but they did make a big deal out of it in interviews, so it rubbed some folks the wrong way I guess.
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Sep 7, 2020 06:30
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Bust Rodd posted:I just read the Vice article and the article linked in that article and Neil doesn’t say in either of those articles that he is trying to tell and Israel Palestine story. I guess maybe I should listen to the podcast, although since this is the TLoU2 thread, it would probably be more appropriate to find a YouTuber who listened to the whole thing and metastasize my own opinion through their subjective lens. Druckmann also said he threw out everything the consultant said so he could just focus on Lev as a character but it is my sincere hope he misspoke there. You raise a good point but I think the main conceit was that he could have had a story for a trans character and not made them suffer for being trans (so maybe made it more about running from the Scar community for another reason) and then possibly actually pleased everyone? Except Transphobes I suppose but gently caress those people.
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Sep 7, 2020 06:31
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:Recent story about a father 'Honor-Killing' his 14 year old daughter has upset a lot of people, but would not be the type of thing I would indict an entire culture for. Get my drift? except Iran is real, and you can read things and talk to people from there to find out what it's like. the only things we know about the Seraphites are what Druckmann decides to tell us, and it's not a pretty picture. I'd like to think they're not all fervent cultists, but without evidence to the contrary that's just headcanon.
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Sep 7, 2020 06:39
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The Neal! posted:Not at all what I'm saying, I really don't think Druckmann's intention was to make it anti-Palestinian, I think he really wanted to do a there's 'bad on both sides' take and I just don't think he's put enough thought or work in to avoid this allegory from being problematic as hell. I think the issue is that the WLF/Seraphites conflict doesn't so much resemble the actual Israeli/Palestinian conflict as is (people being colonized out of their homes by a ethnonationalists), in so much it resembles the mythology of the I/P conflict as told within liberal Israeli culture: two equally capable and morally ambiguous sides carrying out an eternal war with no clear beginning, one side secular, the other side religious.
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Sep 7, 2020 06:54
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Phobophilia posted:I think the issue is that the WLF/Seraphites conflict doesn't so much resemble the actual Israeli/Palestinian conflict as is (people being colonized out of their homes by a ethnonationalists), in so much it resembles the mythology of the I/P conflict as told within liberal Israeli culture: two equally capable and morally ambiguous sides carrying out an eternal war with no clear beginning, one side secular, the other side religious. yeah you've articulated my problem with it far better than I did, thanks.
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Sep 7, 2020 07:07
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