I'll never understand how anyone can think it was terribly written, at all. I get being pissed that Joel died, but hey, now you and Ellie have something in common. Also, Joel had it coming.
TLoU2's fans' consensus is "They're just mad that Joel died". Sure, some people are, but I'd wager the majority of people angry at what went down would have been able to accept Joel dying if it was better written.
Joel threw his name out there with no caution. Not only would there possibly be some people out there looking for revenge, I figured he'd be especially concerned about people still looking for Ellie.
The way Abby handles the revenge is the worst offender, everything about it felt wrong and inhuman.
Joel had just helped her, and that counted for nothing. It's not like Joel had a reputation for pretending to be friendly and helpful only to gut you in your sleep, so there's not really any grounds to assume his help was anything less than genuine. The human response to that should be hesitation and reevaluation; "This is the guy who killed my dad and all our people? What's up with that? What's his deal?" But nope, straight to brutal violence. An infinitely more compelling and relatable tale of vengeance would have been to have her realize at that moment that he was the guy who killed her dad, then spend some time working over that in her head while she probes his responses occasionally or something like that, before eventually arriving at "I still need revenge".
The way she killed him was excessive to the point of feeling like poorly disguised revenge p*rn. She shot out his knee(s?) with a shotgun and beat his skull in with a golf club. I struggle to think of other occurrences of characters using similar acts of violence, but the two that come to mind are: Raul Menendez from Black Ops 2 (shot out Hudson's knees) and Negan from TWD (beat you-know-whos' brains out). Both stories (appropriately) treated these characters like evil, excessive psychopaths. Continuing the thought of a better narrative from above, if Abby had shot Joel in the leg or foot with a pistol, and then tried to beat answers out of him with her fists, before eventually shooting him in the head with a pistol or some such, I don't think I'd have had any criticisms about how he'd died.
This is all while ignoring whether or not Abby knew why Joel did what he did, but either way it doesn't look good. If she knew Joel was trying to save Ellie, it's bad (excessive violence on someone who isn't evil, just some sort of "wrong"), and if she didn't know why he killed her people, it's bad (excessive violence before she even knew why he'd done it).
It's crazy how people think someone should react rationally when faced with the murderer of their father. Like you somehow understand what it feels like to be in the shoes of someone with that much rage. I can't imagine the thoughts I'd have if someone murdered my parent.
Yeah it's crazy but immense grief makes you do crazy things. Joel tortured two men to find out where Ellie was. That's on the same level. Joel doesn't get a free pass. Her father and her closest bond was murdered. Pretending she went too far with something most people would have incredibly dark thoughts about, is naive. It's not like the game was applauding her actions either.
Immense grief does make people a bit crazy, but there is a line that can be crossed and then these people become evil, psychopathic, excessive, etc. (a la Raul Menendez). Do you think there's such a line? Or is there nothing that someone can do in grief that makes you think "Nah, they're sick in the head"?
Haven't played TLOU2 (am aware of what happens), but regarding "Joel had just helped her, and that counted for nothing.": When I played Mass Effect 2 and Jacob revealed that everybody was with Cerberus during the first mission I immediatley thought: "Where's the option to shoot them all?"
"The silly made-up point" lazy dismissal aside (and ignoring that that's far from the only bit of bad writing here)... Joel was smart and cautious in the first game. Throwing his name around when people might still be looking for not just him but especially for Ellie was idiotic.
...you need to replay the game, my guy. Tommy says, "This is my brother," and Joel says, "Joel." Sure, Tommy threw it out first which was his own stupidity, but Joel apparently would have done the exact same regardless.
Any person being honest with themselves would acknowledge, "Yeah, it was dumb that Joel didn't seem to be that intent on hiding his name." Defenders of 2 don't ever give an inch, it seems. (As for it being part of Tommy's arc, from what I recall his arc wasn't about regretting not being careful in general, just that he was coincidentally responsible for introducing Joel to his killers.)
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u/Prestigious-Sea2523 Apr 21 '24 edited Apr 21 '24
Wait until season 2 of the last of us comes out. I can't wait for everyone to watch Pedro Pascal's skull to get caved in with a golf club