Thoughts on Ellie's redesign in TLoU: Part 1

[Casual Shinji]

I believe they only express there is a CHANCE that it works in the games. There was no guarantee IIRC. I might be wrong but I think that the game made it pretty clear throughout that the Fireflies where not good people either and were lying for a lot of the game. Am I misremembering?

The Fireflies are whittling down and have not had a real win likely for years. They're being driven out of Boston, and their uprising in Pittsburgh fell through as well. Ellie is pretty much their last attempt to inact real change.

IMO he did the right thing as a father. Joel is a practical guy and he isn't stupid. The cure wasn't 100% a sure thing, plus the Fireflies have been know terrorists for a long time before the game even happens, plus Joel knows that if someone had the power of a cure they would abuse that power and the world is probably too far gone for anything to be saved.

Joel isn't thinking about that though. He doesn't even ask Marlene whether the cure is feasible, he just says "Find someone else." Marlene might as well have given him a full explanation of why the cure would work, Joel still wouldn't give a shit. His involvement starts and ends with Ellie. Joel is opperating completely on emotion and trauma by the end. It's what that scene with the surgeon signifies, with the surgeon functioning as Joel's little voice of reason, and Joel brushing off that insignificance with a scapel.

The big problem with the story at the end here is there are FAR too many what if's.

If a cure is successful, can they manufacture enough for demand in a run down world?
If a cure is possible will it cure people already zombies or only as an emergency cure for people who've been infected but not yet changed?
If a cure is only a treatment what happens to the group in control of this cure?

So now you consider the idea of, "Is the solution worse than the cause?" Because the world is fucked beyond belief, even if humanity suddenly didn't have to worry about the fungus anymore, there aren't enough people left to eradicate all infected zones or build society so what world are you really curing? Nothing really, you are removing one danger and replacing it with several more.

Again, I don't think any of that matters to Joel. It's interesting ponder about, but for the ending of the game, and Joel's character arc, I don't think it has any relevance.

But it's a video game story so some of this you have to wave away right. But you also can't ignore it when you have conversations like this where we try to argue the morality of what the character did. The only way we can consider the morality is consider the situation as if it were real. Which breaks the argument down entirely because the moment you start using real-world logic a ton of other problems with the situation pop up.

Pretty much. We also have Joel surviving getting punctured through the gut and being nursed back to health by a 14-year old. What matters is the emotion behind it, that Ellie will not give up on Joel no matter what. And with the ending what matters isn't how viable a cure would actually be, but that Joel would rather let the world burn down than to lose Ellie.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Joel isn't thinking about that though. He doesn't even ask Marlene whether the cure is feasible, he just says "Find someone else." Marlene might as well have given him a full explanation of why the cure would work, Joel still wouldn't give a shit. His involvement starts and ends with Ellie. Joel is opperating completely on emotion and trauma by the end. It's what that scene with the surgeon signifies, with the surgeon functioning as Joel's little voice of reason, and Joel brushing off that insignificance with a scapel.

That's fine. That's why there is a debate over his actions. Hell you might even argue that Joel doesn't "need" further explanation, because to him we brought this girl all this way only for her to get murdered for some Firefly shit. Cure or not, I don't know how many parents would just let somebody kill their kid, especially with no warning really.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

That's fine. That's why there is a debate over his actions. Hell you might even argue that Joel doesn't "need" further explanation, because to him we brought this girl all this way only for her to get murdered for some Firefly shit. Cure or not, I don't know how many parents would just let somebody kill their kid, especially with no warning really.

Plus didn’t they just forcefully take her from him? Like, she didn’t just willingly go IIRC. What kind of fucked up protocol is that for anyone in a hospital setting, post apocalypse or not.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

But it's a video game story so some of this you have to wave away right. But you also can't ignore it when you have conversations like this where we try to argue the morality of what the character did. The only way we can consider the morality is consider the situation as if it were real. Which breaks the argument down entirely because the moment you start using real-world logic a ton of other problems with the situation pop up.

Like this for example -

First comment -


olucaspc 8 days ago
I always like when zombie games/movies/books have the virus be transmitted by blood but they never get infected when the zombie blood splatter all over the survivors face

 

[BrawlMan]

Like this for example -

First comment -


olucaspc 8 days ago
I always like when zombie games/movies/books have the virus be transmitted by blood but they never get infected when the zombie blood splatter all over the survivors face

Exactly why I like 28 Days Later. Though they're technically not zombies. In George a Romero's Living Dead films, people come back from a dead whether they're bit or not, unless they received extreme trauma to the head, or have their head cut off. Return of the Living Dead 1&2, only had the dead come back to life, if they were hit with 2-4-5 Trioxon, via gas or rain water.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Like this for example -

First comment -


olucaspc 8 days ago
I always like when zombie games/movies/books have the virus be transmitted by blood but they never get infected when the zombie blood splatter all over the survivors face

Forget that - Joel bare-knuckle punching zombies in the face. Disregarding him very likely punching them in the open mouth, just punching them would damage his fists and transfer zombie blood into his wounds.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Forget that - Joel bare-knuckle punching zombies in the face. Disregarding him very likely punching them in the open mouth, just punching them would damage his fists and transfer zombie blood into his wounds.

It's one of those things where the character's actions during gameplay don't count and only cinematic injury is cannon. The gameplay exists so that the game can happen, but a lot of it means the characters would be dead regardless so there is usually this line where cinematics and gameplay are separate in regards to cannon and story.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

It's one of those things where the character's actions during gameplay don't count and only cinematic injury is cannon. The gameplay exists so that the game can happen, but a lot of it means the characters would be dead regardless so there is usually this line where cinematics and gameplay are separate in regards to cannon and story.

To me it always seems to be more disappointing when, as a game, the gameplay is forced to serve the story rather than vice versa.

 

[MrCalavera]

I thought it's cause originally they wholly based Ellie's appearance on young Elliott Page, and realized that you probably can't get away twice with taking likeness of someone famous without their approval.

 

[Bartholen]

Forget that - Joel bare-knuckle punching zombies in the face. Disregarding him very likely punching them in the open mouth, just punching them would damage his fists and transfer zombie blood into his wounds.

This is one of those narrative dissonances where the worldbuilding of TLoU fails IMO. As good as it is otherwise, I think it would have benefitted from being less the bog-standard zombie apocalypse setting and introducing at least some elements to indicate how this world has adapted to the cordyceps. Sure, they have infection detectors, gas masks and the usual totalitarian control state, but everyday people would have come up with all sorts of low-tech solutions to help with everyday life in this specific setting. After all, it's 20 years later and human society is still limping on. Seeing as Joel is a smuggler, and likely dealing with the dangers of the outside (including fistfighting infected) a lot more than the average citizen, you'd imagine he'd at least wear some gloves while on the job. Or brass knuckles over gloves.

Hell, you could base a whole game around this idea: seeing as human teeth (and therefore presumably those of the infected) are pretty damn bad at biting through leather, one could reasonably assume that hunting and tannery would be highly valued in this world (or any other zombie apocalypse setting). Since wildlife seem largely absent from the safety zones, hunters would have to venture outside to hunt, and therefore face all the risks involved, making them a high-risk, but prestigious occupation.

 

[Catfood220]

This is one of those narrative dissonances where the worldbuilding of TLoU fails IMO. As good as it is otherwise, I think it would have benefitted from being less the bog-standard zombie apocalypse setting and introducing at least some elements to indicate how this world has adapted to the cordyceps. Sure, they have infection detectors, gas masks and the usual totalitarian control state, but everyday people would have come up with all sorts of low-tech solutions to help with everyday life in this specific setting. After all, it's 20 years later and human society is still limping on. Seeing as Joel is a smuggler, and likely dealing with the dangers of the outside (including fistfighting infected) a lot more than the average citizen, you'd imagine he'd at least wear some gloves while on the job. Or brass knuckles over gloves.

Hell, you could base a whole game around this idea: seeing as human teeth (and therefore presumably those of the infected) are pretty damn bad at biting through leather, one could reasonably assume that hunting and tannery would be highly valued in this world (or any other zombie apocalypse setting). Since wildlife seem largely absent from the safety zones, hunters would have to venture outside to hunt, and therefore face all the risks involved, making them a high-risk, but prestigious occupation.

This is one of the (many) things that I had a problem with this game. The fact that despite surviving for 20 years, including time spent in a bandit gang, Joel is strangely unprepared for the world around him. I mean, his whole survival kit consists of a gas mask and a hand gun with a couple of bullets. Of course, it could be that he has several stashes all over the place in case he loses one. But still, you'd of thought he'd keep his main one near his base. A short scene where he's like "just got to get some gear from over here" would of stopped me moaning about this...maybe not.

And then, why hasn't he hasn't a good knife in his years surviving? I mean after Ellie kills David there is a perfectly good machete just sitting there for him to take. And why after 20 years surviving in a zombie apocalypse does he need to find survival manuals to figure out how to do something like stick a blade onto a bit of wood?

 

[Bartholen]

I still find it crazy, but not surprising, those imbeciles didn't believe a muscular woman can exist (in a zombie apocalypse). I guess they decided to ignore all the muscular women in Street Fighter. Or did not know about the ones in Golden Axe. This next game I'm about to bring up is an obscure one, but even Undercover Cops has a playable female character that's partially muscular and takes place in a nuclear apocalypse. Her name is Rosa Felmond, by the way.

I think this comparison is a bit disingenuous. Street Fighter has always had extremely stylized, cartoonish proportions on characters. Golden Axe is a beat 'em up in a fantasy setting that started as 2D pixel art. Neither of those are presenting themselves as realistic visually. The Last of Us by comparison is one of, if not the most dedicatedly realistic-looking series on the market right now, and mostly is very reasonable in-universe when it comes to the characters' physical appearances. Therefore when outliers pop up, it's way more jarring: how did Bill, a lone nutter in a town filled with infected manage to stay so plump? How did those raiders in Pittsburgh, an area outside of any safety zone, have biceps that big if they have to resort to highway robbery for resources? And yes: how does Abby stay that jacked?

Now, I'm not saying Abby or any other women can't be that jacked in that setting. What I'm getting at is that TLoU 2 doesn't provide enough context to establish, or to allow the player to make reasoned conclusions, about how she maintains her physique. No other human character in the entire game, including male ones, is anywhere near her level of fitness. The only ones that come close are the Seraphite brutes, and those could be either reasoned with untreated gigantism, or falling into the same "huh?" category as the aforementioned raiders. Sure, we see that the WLF has a well-maintained gym which Abby seems to sleep next to, but that could just be incidental. No one ever refers to Abby being a gym maniac, and we never see her do anything more physically straining than what presumably any other WLF member does (prior to her odyssey, obiviously). At best you can "well maybe" her physique: in her first flashback we see that she was pretty jacked even as a teenager. Well, maybe she's just been into lifting her whole life. Or well, maybe she frequents the gym like everyday. That's the best we get.

 

[twistedmic]

This is one of those narrative dissonances where the worldbuilding of TLoU fails IMO. As good as it is otherwise, I think it would have benefitted from being less the bog-standard zombie apocalypse setting and introducing at least some elements to indicate how this world has adapted to the cordyceps. Sure, they have infection detectors, gas masks and the usual totalitarian control state, but everyday people would have come up with all sorts of low-tech solutions to help with everyday life in this specific setting. After all, it's 20 years later and human society is still limping on. Seeing as Joel is a smuggler, and likely dealing with the dangers of the outside (including fistfighting infected) a lot more than the average citizen, you'd imagine he'd at least wear some gloves while on the job. Or brass knuckles over gloves.

Hell, you could base a whole game around this idea: seeing as human teeth (and therefore presumably those of the infected) are pretty damn bad at biting through leather, one could reasonably assume that hunting and tannery would be highly valued in this world (or any other zombie apocalypse setting). Since wildlife seem largely absent from the safety zones, hunters would have to venture outside to hunt, and therefore face all the risks involved, making them a high-risk, but prestigious occupation.

It always kinda bugs me how in zombie games, movies and shows nobody ever tries to armor up in any fashion. Even once they know zombie bites spread the infection everyone runs around in short sleeves or no sleeves.

You never see anyone with sturdy long sleeves (leather or denim) or some cobbled together bracers. I’m pretty sure anyone can make rudimentary armguards with duct tape, a pair of scissors, a screwdriver and some shoelaces.
Even sticks and twine could make something.

 

[Bartholen]

It always kinda bugs me how in zombie games, movies and shows nobody ever tries to armor up in any fashion. Even once they know zombie bites spread the infection everyone runs around in short sleeves or no sleeves.

You never see anyone with sturdy long sleeves (leather or denim) or some cobbled together bracers. I’m pretty sure anyone can make rudimentary armguards with duct tape, a pair of scissors, a screwdriver and some shoelaces.
Even sticks and twine could make something.

I think in a lot of cases this can be chalked up to 1 of a few reasons:

1. The story taking place during or right after the shit hits the fans so to speak, so immediate survival is more of a priority since no one knows what's going on and there's no established safe zones. This would be something like 28 Days Later or Dawn of the Dead.
2. The characters in the story being on the move and having no time, resources or either to cobble together makeshift protection, therefore having to rely on scavenging what's left. The initial parts of the Walking Dead would be this.
3. Society in the story having broken down entirely to the point where there are no safe zones to gather resources or learn skills necessary for survival. Every man for himself, you make do with what you got. I think Zombieland would fall into this category.

The Last of Us, however, is none of these: Joel lives in one place in an established safe zone, he has an occupation that gives him access to resources, and it's 20 years after the cordyceps outbreak. Hell, it's established people even have days off in the safe zones. No excuses there.

 

[sXeth]

I think in a lot of cases this can be chalked up to 1 of a few reasons:

1. The story taking place during or right after the shit hits the fans so to speak, so immediate survival is more of a priority since no one knows what's going on and there's no established safe zones. This would be something like 28 Days Later or Dawn of the Dead.
2. The characters in the story being on the move and having no time, resources or either to cobble together makeshift protection, therefore having to rely on scavenging what's left. The initial parts of the Walking Dead would be this.
3. Society in the story having broken down entirely to the point where there are no safe zones to gather resources or learn skills necessary for survival. Every man for himself, you make do with what you got. I think Zombieland would fall into this category.

The Last of Us, however, is none of these: Joel lives in one place in an established safe zone, he has an occupation that gives him access to resources, and it's 20 years after the cordyceps outbreak. Hell, it's established people even have days off in the safe zones. No excuses there.

Yeah TLoU tries to have its cake and eat it too. They do have the relatively believable "we can't completely contain and eradicate the zombies because spores cause it, not just bites", which at least lends to how the infection is ever a problem beyond a week or two of localized outbreak. And we see a semi-logical world where people do organize and adapt to this without the completely collapse of civilization for unestablished reasons.


And then it all chunks out the window when they suddenly need to have a zombie survival game and have to act like civilization doesn't exist and all that again. Suddenly even a knife is a rarity, and any kind of combat prep is scrounging.

 

[Casual Shinji]

This is one of those narrative dissonances where the worldbuilding of TLoU fails IMO. As good as it is otherwise, I think it would have benefitted from being less the bog-standard zombie apocalypse setting and introducing at least some elements to indicate how this world has adapted to the cordyceps. Sure, they have infection detectors, gas masks and the usual totalitarian control state, but everyday people would have come up with all sorts of low-tech solutions to help with everyday life in this specific setting. After all, it's 20 years later and human society is still limping on. Seeing as Joel is a smuggler, and likely dealing with the dangers of the outside (including fistfighting infected) a lot more than the average citizen, you'd imagine he'd at least wear some gloves while on the job. Or brass knuckles over gloves.

Hell, you could base a whole game around this idea: seeing as human teeth (and therefore presumably those of the infected) are pretty damn bad at biting through leather, one could reasonably assume that hunting and tannery would be highly valued in this world (or any other zombie apocalypse setting). Since wildlife seem largely absent from the safety zones, hunters would have to venture outside to hunt, and therefore face all the risks involved, making them a high-risk, but prestigious occupation.

I mean yes, but also there's like two games out, so the time to spend on all of these details is limited. Even so there is still a lot of detail present, enough to make the world believable, which they then expounded on in the sequel. The whole Pittsburgh uprising in the first game had some decent lore to it, but was rather meager. Then in the sequel they kinda redid it in Seattle with the uprising being the WLF; a far more distinct faction, along with the Seraphites, giving a much larger scope and sense of community than is present in the first game. Even then though, most people playing didn't really care much about that, even if they did like the characters.

I agree that a plant-based infection past on mostly through spores is a concept that's a lot more facinating then the game is willing to spend time on, but considering the kinds of games these are I don't think it would've benefitted from really sinking its teeth into this. Maybe if it was an open-world RPG, but as a linear action game I think it does more than enough.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I think this comparison is a bit disingenuous. Street Fighter has always had extremely stylized, cartoonish proportions on characters. Golden Axe is a beat 'em up in a fantasy setting that started as 2D pixel art. Neither of those are presenting themselves as realistic visually. The Last of Us by comparison is one of, if not the most dedicatedly realistic-looking series on the market right now, and mostly is very reasonable in-universe when it comes to the characters' physical appearances. Therefore when outliers pop up, it's way more jarring: how did Bill, a lone nutter in a town filled with infected manage to stay so plump? How did those raiders in Pittsburgh, an area outside of any safety zone, have biceps that big if they have to resort to highway robbery for resources? And yes: how does Abby stay that jacked?

Now, I'm not saying Abby or any other women can't be that jacked in that setting. What I'm getting at is that TLoU 2 doesn't provide enough context to establish, or to allow the player to make reasoned conclusions, about how she maintains her physique. No other human character in the entire game, including male ones, is anywhere near her level of fitness. The only ones that come close are the Seraphite brutes, and those could be either reasoned with untreated gigantism, or falling into the same "huh?" category as the aforementioned raiders. Sure, we see that the WLF has a well-maintained gym which Abby seems to sleep next to, but that could just be incidental. No one ever refers to Abby being a gym maniac, and we never see her do anything more physically straining than what presumably any other WLF member does (prior to her odyssey, obiviously). At best you can "well maybe" her physique: in her first flashback we see that she was pretty jacked even as a teenager. Well, maybe she's just been into lifting her whole life. Or well, maybe she frequents the gym like everyday. That's the best we get.

That's the thing though; neither Bill nor those raiders nor any other unlikely aspect of this series, including Joel getting completely run through and surviving, were put under the same level of scrutiny. The game shows us a gym in a militarized community that has a decent supply of beef. That's really all that's necessary to explain why Abby be buff. That and because she just wants to be - In the cafeteria that you walk through you see plenty of women that are as big and even taller than Abby, and not the scrawny kind, they're just either wearing a jacket or not as defined.

The fact that Joel at 52, mostly surviving off of rations, can just take on dozens of zombies and raiders with his fists was already something we had to not think too carefully about. Same thing with Abby, same thing with everyone having white teeth despite the absence of dental hygiene, and same with gas apparently not going bad.

 

[BrawlMan]

I think this comparison is a bit disingenuous. Street Fighter has always had extremely stylized, cartoonish proportions on characters. Golden Axe is a beat 'em up in a fantasy setting that started as 2D pixel art.

No, it's not disingenuous. I am pointing out the hypocrisy of such people who make these dumb arguments. My point still stands, stylized or not. Which is somewhat ironic for Street Fighter's case has while it's still stylized, VI has a realistic art style due to the RE engine.

TLoU 2 doesn't provide enough context to establish, or to allow the player to make reasoned conclusions, about how she maintains her physique. No other human character in the entire game, including male ones, is anywhere near her level of fitness. The only ones that come close are the Seraphite brutes, and those could be either reasoned with untreated gigantism, or falling into the same "huh?" category as the aforementioned raiders. Sure, we see that the WLF has a well-maintained gym which Abby seems to sleep next to, but that could just be incidental. No one ever refers to Abby being a gym maniac, and we never see her do anything more physically straining than what presumably any other WLF member does (prior to her odyssey, obiviously). At best you can "well maybe" her physique: in her first flashback we see that she was pretty jacked even as a teenager. Well, maybe she's just been into lifting her whole life. Or well, maybe she frequents the gym like everyday. That's the best we get.

Not everything has to explained on a silver platter. I forgot which chapter it was, but in one of the flashbacks you can actually go explore and check Abby's training regimen. There's a schedule of what she does and what she eats. I think she even comments to herself about it. It's been too long, but I do remember that part. The brutes (male and female) are jacked, and I highly doubt it's giantism. That's nothing more than fan wank theory. I highly doubt Naughty Dog was implying that's why they were so big or large. The size of plotholes of how anybody (usually male) can be so muscled up, might as well apply to nearly every game or film that takes place after World War 3 or a nuclear apocalypse. Something most males don't even question, nor have a problem with. Yet when a woman that is a muscled up and not traditionally traditionally attractive does it, it's all the sudden a freaking issue.

 

[bluegate]

What I'm getting at is that TLoU 2 doesn't provide enough context to establish, or to allow the player to make reasoned conclusions, about how she maintains her physique.

If those thoughts went through your brain while playing the game, you're better off not playing anything at all.

Maybe you could get away with Pong. Although there is the question of how those darned paddles move around with no visible means of propulsion or support whatsoever. Then there's the ball, or dot, bouncing off of invisible barriers... Darn it. Another game ruïned for me.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I think this comparison is a bit disingenuous. Street Fighter has always had extremely stylized, cartoonish proportions on characters. Golden Axe is a beat 'em up in a fantasy setting that started as 2D pixel art. Neither of those are presenting themselves as realistic visually. The Last of Us by comparison is one of, if not the most dedicatedly realistic-looking series on the market right now, and mostly is very reasonable in-universe when it comes to the characters' physical appearances. Therefore when outliers pop up, it's way more jarring: how did Bill, a lone nutter in a town filled with infected manage to stay so plump? How did those raiders in Pittsburgh, an area outside of any safety zone, have biceps that big if they have to resort to highway robbery for resources? And yes: how does Abby stay that jacked?

Now, I'm not saying Abby or any other women can't be that jacked in that setting. What I'm getting at is that TLoU 2 doesn't provide enough context to establish, or to allow the player to make reasoned conclusions, about how she maintains her physique. No other human character in the entire game, including male ones, is anywhere near her level of fitness. The only ones that come close are the Seraphite brutes, and those could be either reasoned with untreated gigantism, or falling into the same "huh?" category as the aforementioned raiders. Sure, we see that the WLF has a well-maintained gym which Abby seems to sleep next to, but that could just be incidental. No one ever refers to Abby being a gym maniac, and we never see her do anything more physically straining than what presumably any other WLF member does (prior to her odyssey, obiviously). At best you can "well maybe" her physique: in her first flashback we see that she was pretty jacked even as a teenager. Well, maybe she's just been into lifting her whole life. Or well, maybe she frequents the gym like everyday. That's the best we get.

Anita: “You need to have a really jacked female character in your next game, and make her playable. Oh, and have her kill Joel off in the most viciously gruesome way possible.”

Neil: “Ok.”