Latest Posts by yeeyee-alumni - Page 2
Thought I'd give a quick update on my future essay about Abby, since quite a few people these past few days let me know they're looking forward to that (which makes me so happy honestly^^). You're gonna have to be patient with me though, it's gonna be at least another week. Not only is there sooo many things to include and discuss, but I also wanna make sure that it is as well-structured, well worded and thorough/all-encompassing as I can make it, cause if my last essay ruffled some feathers, then oh boy, I can't wait to release this next one. Thanks for all the support though, it seems quite a few people had a similar view. I received many kind and supportive words as well as some really good criticism, so thanks for that! <3
ellie + hands
actually. Come 2 think of it. like. humor me for a moment, o followers of mine who are here solely because i post about gillian’s p*rtofino pictures. what seattle day 1 on ellie’s end needs is a tess. LET ME EXPLAIN. having dina there doesn’t work because dina’s character has to do a lot of storybuilding jobs. you have to understand as a player why ellie loves dina, you have to start loving dina yourself, and you have to understand why dina would join you on this revenge mission. and the first felt more out of convenience than anything else (it was a longtime crush but there’s nothing substantial beyond like. paper crowns), the second had me thinking dina was just very bland as a character and thus could be substituted out easily, and the third was just…convenience again. but with tess in the beginning of part 1 like you dont know who robert is but you know robert’s guys beat tess up and now it’s time to fuck robert up. like her anger just fits so well with the narrative that you dont question it at all. and the other thing is like. two young women going on a revenge quest like. Like i get that they both are worldly but they still feel wildly underprepared imo. so if it had been like…ellie and tommy instead for instance. like he has a history, you know there’s anger there, and there’s that unending depression and rage because this was not the world that had been promised to him. and also joel couldn’t occupy that spot because his emotions, though big and overwhelming, oftentimes get pushed down, so it would be a new experience and a bunch of great opportunities for characterization. i would much prefer swapping genuine war stories over dina talking about a farmhouse or making a dumb joke. tonally i think it would fit way better
okay seattle day 3 on ellie’s end was. alright. seattle day 2 absolutely takes the cake but day 3 was alright. kind of boggles my mind that im more attached to jesse as a character than dina because you get so much more time with dina but ellie and jesse’s interactions are actually interesting in comparison adlskgjasldgkjads i am. a dina hater. like a full blown dina hater. it’s okay it’s fine we’re allowed to have opinions. the way the music swells when you’re about to sink the boat is VERY GOOD and i lowkey wish there had been more visual storytelling like how you see all of the bloody rags in the aquarium and are like uh what the fuck. because that was 10/10 cool. also it very much pisses me off when people call playing as abby again an “empathy test” because imo it’s not empathy whatsoever it’s pure logic. like logically speaking ellie and abby are the same. i don’t think that’s rooted in empathy whatsoever. and like if you grow to respect abby or see her side i also don’t think that’s empathy like again to me that’s just logic. also i abhor how it’s implied that like. if you never end up caring about abby then you’re a bad person. like i think it’s very predictable for people to be more attached to joel than they are to abby and if you as the player always hold it against her a little bit that she killed the guy you played as for most all of the first game then like…i don’t know. lowkey it feels like an abuse tactic to say you MUST like abby on an emotional level. like people who hate her and call her awful like i think we can all agree that they’re idiots and that logically speaking her story shows why she took those actions etc etc but the implication of “you must like this person who killed someone you cared a lot about” feels very…not cute to me. like i like her a lot! i think she’s neat! but the idea that someone lacks empathy because they never fully like abby for whatever reason…sounds gross to me. idk if it’s the fan response or the game itself at this point but i think people really watered down the message of how there are many sides bc that means that there can be many opinions! and the implication of “you must see every side” like. it’s okay to favor one side over the other! just because there are many sides doesn’t mean you have to be truly neutral. so yeah. that always irks me. frankly i’d rather hang out with an “i see her side and i respect her but frankly i’ll never get over what she did to joel” person than an “actually joel was a bad guy too and there’s no true villain” type. u feel. does that even make sense. i am also lowkey still pissed that naughty dog made a buff as hell well-rounded female character with a STUNNING PERFORMANCE from laura bailey and then made her a “villain” of sorts. i think that reinforces a lot of stereotypes associated with video games and it does irritate me. especially because when i first saw the story it felt like a slap in the face to be given a female character who hasn’t really had a chance to exist in other forms of media and then slap me in the face with actually she’s going to kill your favorite guy. like frankly that sucked! again i like her as she is i do like her But it felt as if they were dangling something awesome in my face and saying you only get this if you suffer. did not like. also i dislike that they have abby’s dad save animals as a way to communicate that he’s a good guy. that felt ridiculously hamfisted to me and especially when you’re like still not liking abby at that point in the game it feels cheap and eyeroll inducing. i honestly would’ve preferred if he was Just A Guy and then you get more time to hear about how he grapples with what he’s about to do to ellie. also i’ve always thought it was a huge cop out that the game never has abby’s dad say if he would do the same if his daughter were in ellie’s place. the first time i saw it i wanted to scream SO YOU DO UNDERSTAND WHAT JOEL DID YOU ABSOLUTE MORON because i was <3 angry <3 and this time i was more hoping that after abby said if it was me i would want you to do it that her dad would add something along the lines of if it was you i don’t know that i could. because i think that kind of thing both agrees and disagrees with joel’s choice at the end and shows jerry’s humanity simultaneously. it just strikes me as a little ridiculous that he went out of his way to save a zebra but was then super fighting for a chance to kill a teenage girl. you know? and i understand what he said about how all the violence of the fireflies was made right by this one act, i get that, but in the writing/acting/whatever i never really felt that he grappled with what he was doing. i think i would’ve connected with him more as a character if he wasn’t put on such a pedestal. also never in my life will i understand the purpose of mel as a character but that’s a rant for another time
remember when p.2
listen. the most jesse ever learned about why ellie even went to seattle to avenge joel in the first place is that “he had a falling out with former fireflies” and that “he was a smuggler and they disagreed about some goods.” jesse never learned about ellie’s immunity, even after he blew up an entire suburb to show up for her. he never even learned that joel specifically did what he did on ellie’s behalf and that’s why she feels obligated to seek revenge. he comes not because he’s in it for the cause, he comes because he’s that good of a friend. he wanted to protect the people close to him. he wanted to demonstrate that ellie’s pain was his pain, so he would help ellie do what she felt she needed to do to heal. he just wanted to be there for ellie. and he obviously would have taken a bullet for her, because well, he did. god, what a fuckin mensch. anyway, i love jesse and i miss jesse. i wish we got to know him more
i read your last post about tlou2 and i 100% agree with you. one other thing i don’t understand is how there are fans of the game who genuinely like abby. she’s selfish and she’s done some really awful stuff.. i just don’t understand how people like her. other than torturing and killing joel, they way she bashed dina’s head in and was about to kill her and the way she said “good” when ellie told abby about dina being pregnant, that was so fucked up on her part
Oh, I am currently writing another essay about Abby 👀 And I will talk in length about why her caring for a random child and playing fetch with dogs doesn't actually redeem her... but I wanna word that right before I release it into the world 😅
Joel did not doom humanity (no matter how much the second game wants you to believe that)
To demonize Joel’s decision at the end of the first game (saving his surrogate daughter’s life) you need to bend over backwards and ignore any and all context the first game gave us with regards to who the Fireflies truly are. Because the truth of the matter is: a) they knocked Joel unconscious while he was trying to revive a young girl b) they drugged Ellie immediately to tear her body apart for their needs c) THEY DID NOT ASK ELLIE FOR PERMISSION to give her life for their cause, they didn’t even tell her she would have to die (Ellie was making plans with Joel after the giraffe scene, “Once we're done, we'll go wherever you want. Okay?”, clearly indicating she had no idea she would have to die) d) they did not let Ellie and Joel see each other to say their goodbyes e) they were about to walk Joel out into the wilderness without any of his gear/resources, which during the zombie apocalypse is a certain death sentence f) they didn’t hold up their end of the bargain (remember how Marlene promised Joel guns in return for delivering Ellie?) So even if you show them as much goodwill as possible, the Fireflies are still a bunch of assholes. If the exact opposite had happened, they let Joel go all on good terms and then he suddenly decided to turn around and murder everyone I would have called him a terrible person, but that is not what happened. As it stands, the Fireflies are shady and questionable at best. But it actually gets worse:
a) the procedure that would 100% kill Ellie had an incredibly low success rate (the doctor mentioned in his recording that every previous operation with other test subjects had failed) b) the same recording mentions cerebrospinal fluid having been extracted, meaning they were capable of performing a non-lethal spinal tab, but they’re unable to perform a non-lethal biopsy or craniotomy on Ellie? (this may seem like nit-picking, but actually further solidifies my point about how incompetent the Fireflies/Abby’s dad were/was) c) to add to their immense incompetence, mere hours after receiving Ellie they decide to IMMEDIATELY KILL THE ONLY PERSON KNOWN TO BE IMMUNE as oppose to keeping her alive for as long as possible to run every single test in existence on her. But let's paint a picture of the best case scenario, which is Jerry, the absolute legend that he is, actually manages to get a vaccine out of Ellie, what happens then? a) How are the Fireflies, who are nearly extinct at this point, supposed to MASS PRODUCE and NATIONWIDE DISTRIBUTE a vaccine? That is logistically impossible. b) More than likely, they would use the vaccine as a bargaining chip against FEDRA (granted, this is more a guess than a fact, but to believe they wouldn’t take advantage of the vaccine in the fight for political power against the government they’ve been fighting for years is beyond naïve). But let’s be even more generous: turns out the Fireflies are the most altruistic resistance group to have ever existed, they actually manage to produce and distribute the vaccine into every last corner of the country, everyone is immune. What now? a) You might be immune to spores and bites, but your immunity doesn’t help you when a clicker rips your throat out or a bloater crushes you to death, the infected can still kill you in numerous other ways. b) The faction wars going on are not gonna disappear overnight. WLF and Seraphites will continue to kill each other by the dozens every day, one could even argue that introducing a vaccine into the conflict would only cause things to escalate further. c) Numerous cannibals, hunters and bandits still roam the country, they will not abandon their practices overnight and they are arguably a much bigger threat than the infected to begin with. Just because everyone is immune does not mean that the world returns to sunshine, rainbows, and flowers. To imply that it would, means being simplistic and naive beyond reason. It should be obvious by now that Ellie’s death WOULD NOT HAVE IMPROVED ANYTHING. The chances of actually getting a vaccine are slim to none, the chances of vaccinating everyone are even more dour, and even then the overall situation would not improve much. With such bad prospects I wouldn't be willing to sacrifice my child either. (I am aware that an argument can be made that none of these factors had an impact on Joel’s decision to save Ellie, yet they’re still crucial when making a judgement about the Fireflies/Abby’s dad). To summarize: a) Abby’s dad was incompetent and a horrible person (his conversation with Abby in the second game tells us that he would not be willing to sacrifice his own child, but if it’s someone else’s it’s a-okay for him). b) The Fireflies were a malicious and incompetent terrorist group with messed up morals. c) No, Joel did not doom humanity. Subsequently, Abby’s quest for revenge was not justified because the Fireflies and her dad were never justified in their actions to begin with. And this is only solidified by the second game having to retcon the hell out of all these arguments I just painstakingly illustrated and explained in order to even attempt to have Abby’s motivation be seen as justified. Only one example being how it was clearly established in the first game that they had MULTIPLE doctors in Salt Lake City (Marlene: “The doctors tell me that the cordyceps, the growth inside her, has somehow mutated.”; Ellie: “She said that they have their own little quarantine zone. With doctors there still trying to find a cure.”). Yet in the second game we are told by
Abby that actually no, turns out her dad was the only doctor that could have developed vaccine. And it doesn't take mental gymnastics to see why the second game takes it upon itself to alter most of the context of the first one: to (retroactively!) condemn Joel. HOWEVER, a sequel doesn’t get to pick and choose which established facts from the first entry it builds upon or what it gets to retroactively declare as non-canon only to have it fit their preferred narrative. Quite frankly, that’s bad writing. A sequel, in order to be considered well-written, has to not only be a natural continuation of the events, but has to stay consistent with the characters and the world that were previously set up. And if you have to alter much of the context to make it look like Joel condemned the world, isn't that the most obvious sign that he never actually did? And all of this effort for just one goal: to justify Abby’s quest for revenge and yet it still wasn’t and here’s why: Joel killed her dad in order to PREVENT HIM FROM KILLING HIS DAUGHTER. Abby on the other hand WILFULLY SLOW TORTURED Joel for what appears to be hours, prolonging his death for as long as possible, all for her own gratification (and we won't mention how she went through with it despite Ellie's crying and pleading). And don’t even try to make the argument about Abby wanting “justice”, Joel didn’t torture her dad out of revenge or for his own gratification - this is not justice, this is simply sadistic. A man killing someone who is about to murder their child in semi-self-defense cannot be compared to someone wilfully slow torturing someone to death for their own gratification, like Jesus, I didn’t think I’d have to spell that one out. I am aware that the second game tries to do whatever it can, including retconning their own original story, to paint Ellie and (especially!) Joel as evil. And for a considerable amount of the player base this actually worked, and while I cannot find it in me to condemn them (we all experience stories differently after all), I reserve the right to reject arguments in defense of Abby such as “all people are forced to do bad things during the apocalypse” and “does context even matter?”. If the only way you can defend/justify Abby's actions is to remove all context and nuance, then your reasoning is built on quicksand.
Me playing The Last of Us: Left Behind for the 7th time: but what if this time Riley doesn't get bitten???
Me every time:
Left Behind - Part 1 of 4
I’m replaying “Left Behind” and not getting emotional about it at ALL 😭😭😭
hey i played tlou and left behind recently so heres these two lil gals
everyday i sit and i think about my memories with riley and i cry
2nd part AU where Tess is alive 🤟
Ellie’s (lack of a) character arc & why the result is an unsatisfying story
Let’s state the obvious: Ellie does not have a character arc in The Last of Us Part 2. A character arc is defined as a gradual transformation or inner journey of a character in response to changing developments in the story. And you may argue that Ellie from the beginning of the game is not the same as the one at the end of the game, and I would agree with you. She went from a woman consumed by revenge (not really but we will stick with that for now) to a woman able to forgive her aggressor and move on. However, there are problems with this supposed inner change on multiple levels. a) the change is not gradual b) the change comes out of nowhere c) the change is not informed by anything I don’t think there’s any need to thoroughly explain the first statement. Ellie has the same goal from the beginning to the very last second before attaining her goal. At no point in the story is she self-reflective, questions her methods, there’s no moral dilemma for her, no inner conflict, no doubt that causes her to put her own actions into a new perspective and possibly change her motivation. From beginning to end she believes to be 100% justified in her goal to kill Abby. Subsequently, if Ellie were actually consumed by revenge, the only logical conclusion to her story would be for her to eventually drown Abby.
Which neatly leads me to the next point: her change comes out of nowhere. The decision to let Abby go, as is implied by the narrative, is triggered by a random, arbitrary flashback of Joel. First of all, the timing here is outright comical. For what reason is she having this specific flashback at this very moment? Sounds like contrived, convenient bs to me to give the appearance that her decision is informed by something (which it isn’t, and we'll get to that in a moment). Second of all, getting a flashback to the most important person in your life that has been brutally murdered in front of you, seeing an image of what could have been and what was unjustly taken from you, is not gonna inspire you to forgive your aggressor. If anything, it would make you more determined and sadistic. And third of all, I hear you all yelling "but it was a flashback to their conversation about forgiveness and that inspired her to forgive Abby." And I have multiple qualms regarding this line of thinking. Number one, forgiving the person you love most in this world for having lied to you cannot be compared to forgiving the person who brutally took said person from you. This actually further accentuates my previous point, this is the person that robbed you of your opportunity for reconciliation. Implying that Ellie's thought process here is „I wanted to forgive Joel, but this person robbed me of any opportunity to, so I have to forgive her” is muddled, nonsensical and quite frankly unrealistic. And number two, is the implication here that this is the first time Ellie has thought back to that conversation? That’s a whole new level of nonsense. She will have reflected on all moments with Joel, including this one, and yet at no point prior to this moment had she considered even the possibility of forgiveness, as I have illustrated earlier. So why now? Very obviously to get a payoff, which was neither set up nor properly developed. And moving on to my last point: it is not informed by anything. I know a lot of players didn’t want Ellie to kill Abby, and even I felt that way at first, albeit presumably for entirely different reasons (I was so drained and removed from the narrative by that point that I only thought to myself "just go home, you psychos"). But upon reflection, I concluded that that would have been an unsatisfying conclusion narratively speaking. Nevertheless, Abby seems to have grown dear to many players. After all, they have spent several hours with her, they have seen her struggle, overcome her obstacles, fight for what she believes to be right. Their feelings towards Abby are informed by the person they have seen her to be and by the experiences they went through with her. Yet Ellie is missing all of that context. She has not been with us throughout our three days in Seattle, she doesn’t know Abby outside of her having horrifically killed Joel and she has not gained any new information that would lead her to change her opinion about her. And so, we have another example of the story making characters do things that are not informed by anything, for the sake of a poor payoff. And since we're talking about characters acting nonsensically, let's talk about the roughly three minutes leading up to Ellie nearly drowning Abby, shall we? Ellie approaches the beach absolutely determined to find and kill Abby (repeatedly murmuring Abby’s name to herself). Yet when she reaches the pillars, she cuts Abby down, letting her free Lev and follows them to the boats, indicating that Ellie has changed her mind, showing pity/empathy upon seeing Abby a mere shadow of her former self. And yet again, we have Ellie acting in a way she never has before. She didn’t have pity for Nora who was coughing her lungs out, or for Jordan who had advocated for letting her live, or for any other innocent WLF or Seraphite that came in between her and killing Abby. But the one person she holds a grudge against to the point of killing hundreds of innocent people without batting an eye, that is the person she is suddenly capable of feeling pity/empathy for? Is it really that surprising that Ellie's actions here feel forced, uncharacteristic, and illogical? But it actually gets worse. In an additional display of Druckmann not knowing how humans work, we have Ellie putting her backpack with all her gear in the boat, looking at her bloody hand and then remembering "Oh yeah, that's the woman who killed Joel. I almost forgot.” And at this point in my playthrough I was laughing out loud. And so, we have Ellie all of sudden determined to kill Abby again, so much so that she is willing to threaten an innocent child’s life (this by the way was the final nail in the coffin for me, they thoroughly obliterated Ellie’s character throughout the entire game, but this goes against the very core of her being). And we know the rest, they fight, Ellie nearly kills Abby but eventually lets her go. To summarize what happened in the three minutes before our big emotional payoff to our 25 hour-long journey of playing this epitome of misery porn: Ellie has 3 - count them 3!!! - changes of heart. Her motivation does a perfect 180 almost every minute. This is not how people work! That’s lazy, contrived beyond believe, and borderline comical levels of writing, because Druckmann prioritized having a final boss battle on a beach over organic, coherent, and logical storytelling (but I guess it was worth it for the goddamn visuals). However, what’s most infuriating is that there are such easy fixes if one only thinks about it for more than two minutes that could erase nearly all for the major issues I just illustrated while maintaining the plot points of the two fighting on a beach and Ellie letting Abby go. If we have Ellie walk to the beach immediately, finding Abby there untying the boat (Lev nearly passed out in the boat, Ellie not seeing him) and she then attacks Abby, immediately we have erased two of Ellie’s changes of heart, she remains consistent in her goals/motivation, not jumping back and forth between two extremes. The two women fight much like we see it in the game, and then as Ellie is about to finish it, we hear Lev calling out to Abby. And there we have our motivation for Ellie to not kill her. Not because she gets a random, convenient flashback, not because she forgives Abby (Abby has done nothing to earn Ellie’s forgiveness), not because Abby has earned her redemption, but because Ellie cannot find it in her to put an innocent child through the pain Abby has put her through. Because at the end of the day, Ellie’s hatred for Abby does not outweigh her capacity for compassion and empathy for those deserving of it (a core characteristic of hers that was established in the first game). Because Ellie would rather let an individual live that is undeserving of it than cause the same pain she was put through to an innocent child that is undeserving of it. Granted, if we were to go with this ending, we would still have to build towards it properly and therefore would have to tweak the rest of the game, mainly by showing Ellie being self-reflective, merciful towards innocents, and even doubtful about her goals at times to make her final decision informed by prior developments in order to have the character arc actually be a gradual transformation leading to a logical conclusion. I have been a writer for nearly 4 years now, which means I am in no way an expert, or the most creatively talented person around and yet I would argue that this ending would be much more satisfying to most players than the alternative we were presented with. Because as it stands, none of our actions or decisions (and yes that is something important to consider when we are working within the medium of video games), or Ellie’s for that matter, lead up to this conclusion. The conclusion to this story, the final moment, the big emotional payoff hinges on a random flashback, not on any other developments that previously occurred in the story. Subsequently rendering all of the 25 hours entirely pointless, none of it had an influence on the finale, none of it mattered narratively speaking. So, is it even a surprise that many found this to be dissatisfying? I noticed a few people who are fond of Abby accusing people feeling differently of having too much of an emotional bias or even going as far as to say they are less emotionally intelligent. This is problematic for two reasons, a) different people have different reasons for disliking Ellie’s final choice. Some still hate Abby as much as in the beginning, others feel drained and indifferent, and others still feel similarly to how I feel in that it’s mainly narratively dissatisfying. And b) the same story can have a different effect on any amount of people (otherwise, we would have settled the discussion about what the greatest movie all of time is long ago). My point being, that no matter how you feel about this particular story you are 100% justified in feeling this way, and yes that includes people that by the end of the game still hate Abby just as much as they did the moment she bashed Joel’s skull in. That does not necessarily have to be personal bias, more often than not it’s the ability to see through the storytelling techniques used, rendering them mostly ineffective for these people (and I include myself in this). I wanted Ellie to kill Abby not because I was unable to empathize with her or couldn’t see past my own personal bias, but because that would have been the logical, narratively satisfying conclusion to this specific story.
Repurposing this account
Accidentally deleted my side account, meaning all the essays I posted are gone too. So, I decided to repurpose this ancient account of mine and have to clean it up first, will repost all my content here in the upcoming days. So to any of you following me still (knowing that I haven’t posted anything in forever honestly), I will be posting mainly about The Last of Us Part 2 for now, so if that’s not something you’d be interested in, this is your sign to unfollow, I guess 😅 Other than that, I was able to save two of my essays that I will be reposting shortly, the third one I’ll try to rewrite in the upcoming days. That’s it from my side. xx