One thing I wish I had added in the video was an in game explanation refuting the idea that Joel's last four years have been so soft and easy in Jackson that he would completely change character. The whole town doesn't send out a big group to go get revenge for Joel out of fear that hunters will attack the town again and they could get destroyed. Jackson hasn't been rainbows and flowers the last four years, there is a big enough threat of immediate attack that they don't send out a team to hunt down Abby's group right after Joel dies. If there is a serious fear of hunters raiding the town again, like Tommy/Maria tell Ellie, then Joel and Tommy trusting a random group of armed strangers right outside of Jackson is even dumber.
@@LaraCroftEyes1 they'd already given their names to Abby, and they were hesitant when Abby suggested they go back with her to her compound but they did it anyway. They've just saved her life and they've fought off infected together, it's safe to assume at this point that Joel and Tommy aren't thinking this girl is plotting to kill us 🤷🏾♂️. Even when Tommy is giving their names to Abby after baracading themselves in, if you watch it's almost in an effort to calm Abby down because she's terrified. I guess we're seeing different things
@@banksy6462 with that logic Ellie would have invited the whole crew of David back with her just because he helped her fight off infected. That is no reason to trust somebody because Abby had her own self interest to think about in that moment. She needed them to survive that does not make them automatic allies. Likewise they had no reason to mention anything in that moment because an extra gun helped them out as well but after that they should have been more cautious.
Bro only one you tuber got this the dad joel killed was black guys so all of a sudden they want us to act like hes wasn't go look at tlou1 ending u will see the doctor is black
@@guitarman0365 No, it's an entirely different situation. Ellie and Joel had no one to back them up in the first game, so she couldn't reveal their location to David because then he would know how alone and defenseless they were. However, in the second game, Tommy tried to bring Abby's group to Jackson because there they would have been totally outnumbered, and thus he would have control over the situation. Tommy and Joel were completely surrounded and cornered at the house, so the best thing they could do was going back to Jackson, with or without them, and it probably would have worked with any other group.
I'm sure there's a lot of brothers named Tommy and Joel in the single settlement they were looking for in the post-apocalypse. Every man in that city was named either Tommy or Joel... Except for when they were name Jesse, Eugene or Seth.
My friend and I were making the same joke as we did a playthrough. Just imagine Abby kneels down and she's like 'Joel Miller.' All threateningly and he goes. 'Wtf no, Joel Smith.' We were cracking up.
"I'm Mel, by the way." "My name is, uh, Frank. This is my brother." "Carl." Roll credits Edit: I'm aware that Abby already knew they were Tommy and Joel. This is meant to be a joke. Tommy giving away the names of himself and his brother in the heat of battle was the same level of stupid as after the fact, though. Plus, in the cutscene it's pretty clear that Abby's gang is waiting to hear their names from them before they go along with Abby. Regardless, this was only meant to be a stupid joke, smh
The problem is Abby already knew there names. When the 3 fought against the infected. They called each other out with there names. First she looked surprised and disgusted. (If I remember right she also pushed Joels hand away) Then she must have thought wow Jackpot, I dont need to infiltrate this town. Both came to me. Now lets guide them to my place. Btw I dont like the story. She didnt even tell him for what he's gonna pay for. Also she got rescued from him twice and still had no problem to multilate and torture him. In one of the trailer. I looked like Ellie got raped or beaten and heads out for revenge. It would be also very disgusting, but at least everyone important lived and I guess most of us had no problem with it to hunt down the group for what they've done to her.
They already knew who they were...looks like y'all played a different game. It was bad luck they ended up in that house with them, but they were planning on attacking Jackson, or in some way take Joel, since they knew he was there. I'm named Joel (the Italian version) too, I don't think Abby went around killing every fucking Joel she met 😂
@? Because they are in Jackson, she doesnt even act surprised nobodys there. This means she probably went to Jackson and Just came to the farmhouse to play joels guitar and say goodbye to him by leaving his guitar behind.
@João Paulo No, she doesn't. The story doesn't treat these things as Abby suffering for the consequences of her actions. Instead, they are treated as cruel injustices inflicted upon her and that you should feel bad for her.
@João Paulo She in no doubt regretted killing Joel but all her friends did die indeed. Dumb bitch should've second guess herself for killing a guy who just saved her.
The "revenge is bad" angle doesn't even work with this game because the person who gets revenge gets to walk away with a loved one, whereas the person who gives up on it loses everything.
@@robstefani9853 The story is about the characters processing loss and dealing with their grief. Abby getting revenge doesn't help her process the loss of her father (as displayed by her dreams) and she has to develop as a character in order to find her peace of mind. Ellie is unable to process the loss of Joel until she develops as a character and "forgives" Abby (as displayed by the drawings in her journal). Both character's thought revenge would help them cope with their loss and they both lost a lot as a result. The original comment kind of ignores the fact that Abby's entire friend group was murdered as a result of her killing Joel, and draws a false line of causation from Abby's killing of Joel to her happy ending, and a line between Ellie not killing Abby and her somber ending. To me, this is a very shallow interpretation of the story. In my experience the game never tried to tell me that any action is "bad" but portrayed very realistic actions and reactions of grieving characters.
I had more of a problem with Abbys mission to kill Joel. I get her revenge motivation to do so but it's a plot hole that more betrays Isaac's character: Isaac, the militant leader of the WLF will allow Abby the WLF master scar killer AND a team of his soldiers + resources on a mission hundreds perhaps thousands of miles away to kill ONE man in the midst of a supposed scar war because he believes in justice?
We barely see Isaac's character and it's a plot hole that he made a decision to let a small group of his hundred's of soldiers leave? Isaac was a freedom fighter and as authoritarian as we see the WLF become and as flawed as isaac's character is, I don't see it as out of character for him to let the man who doomed the world be brought to "justice".
@@claytonwatson1862 Isaac was in the middle of a war with the Scars, and won't let Abby go search for Owen before an attack, but lets a whole team of his top fighters and a doctor go on a trip all the way to Jackson? To follow a lead? They didn't even know Joel was there.
@@miller-joel Isaac has a plan to attack the island during an upcoming storm. This is weeks after Jackson. Owen is also AWOL, meaning, in Isaac's mind, he's either abandoned ship or died, not worth looking for two days before his master plan. They're completely different situations. Yes they're at war with the Scars but through dialogue we learn his character is "about justice" and given the narrative he's heard from Abby and co there's little reason for him to not sign off on it. We also don't see the scene where he signs off on it or how much convincing he needed. If you think it's out of character for a character we see for less than 20 minutes in the game, sure, there's a weak argument there. But to call it a plot hole is hilarious.
@@CyborgSodaCollects Joel doesn't have any mystical powers. This is like whining about the fact he could also get shot thousands of times throughout the game, but all of sudden one small piece of rebar impaling him puts him to near death. Joel in cutscenes is just as human as everybody else.
7 years. The writers at Naughty Dog had 7 years to come up with this story. And somehow they wasted it on this nonsensical hyper-contrived fanfiction-grade nonsense.
I wish they had just made a separate game with Abby and Lev. Thats obviously what they wanted to do here. Just tell their story completely separate from Joel.
@@saucytendies I wanna say thats what they can do for part 3. Make the continuation of this around abby and lev. Abby is infected, kill her off early game. Time skip to lev being an adult his travels have to intertwine with ellie in hopes to find a cure. In which they do then we can end the game here. That can be main idea. I have so many good ideas for a part 3 ending to tie up this game
@@roberto9094 Lev is one of the most boring and forced companions ever, the last of us was about Joel and Ellie and their struggle to survive together, introducing a new main character that the player already hates is what made the last of us 2 suck. Only a remake of tlou2 in which characters behave accordingly to character could save the franchise lol
@@daanlutkewillink3893 You're absolutely right point for point. This is why i said they need to make lev an adult during the time skip make him more mature and likeable. This game made abby unlikeable, so you need to do the opposite with Lev. He's also a child so theres room for character development. Part 3 has to make amends for how they screwed over some of this story. They can even throw Ellie back into the frying pan if need be. There plenty of ways you can go with this,but they have to get it right
@@roberto9094 There is absolutely no reason to be interested in Lev's story, yeah he is trans (?). But he is in no way a relatable person for most people, there is also no theme that would fit a story. Ellie left us in part 1 with the suspense on how her relationship with Joel would continue after his lie about the fireflies and her immunity. Lev is just... meh, I wouldn't have been sad if he had died, because his whole character seems inconsequential and he could have been easily replaced. If ND is gonna try to release a game with either Abby or Lev as the main character they might as well directly sign a chapter 7 bankruptcy agreement
It's ridiculous to imagine that Tommy, ex-Firefly, and Joel, wiper out of Fireflies, don't have ready made fake names they are using everywhere they go. They would know just how much heat would be on them if they were found out by anyone connected to the past.
@@JJShalashaska Well, these days Joel is considered an unredeemable asshole and villain who deserved to brutally die by an ever increasing part of the community, and conveniently enough, by people who never played the first game on its initial release. But for those of us who were old enough to play TLOU Pt. 1 at launch, Joel is a very endearing and fascinating character worth exploring, instead of just being done away with in a cheap death scene. The second game really just made so many foolish story decisions, and pumped Abby and her father up while making Joel look like a villain more than he deserved. He was a rough and tough man in a rough and tough world, but he did what he had to do to survive. You don't make it as far as he did otherwise, but that doesn't make him an evil man. And anyone that thinks he did something wrong by protecting Ellie and taking her away to live a better life are full of it: any parent, surrogate or biological, would put it all on the line for their child, no matter what. I think the people that despise Joel are uncomfortable looking at the part of themselves that sympathizes with what he did, because they don't want to admit just how much they are like the part of them they hate and don't want to admit that they'd do the same thing in his shoes. Joel just got cheated, and deserved a much more fitting end. I think we all knew he was going to die, but it was the manner in which it was done that was both creatively bankrupt and disrespectful to the potential that was there to do much more with his faltering relationship with Ellie.
The fact that he tells his name is the least of his worries. I mean in 20 years he probably created a lot more enemies than that buff woman. And he never used a fake name in the first game. BUT WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU NOT ASSUME THESE STRANGERS HAVE BAD INTENTIONS????
@@Bad_At_Parties Considering that she violently beat him to death with a golf club I don't think they even thought about it that deeply. But they did play as her for a large portion of the game and watched her story. It's funny that even the game's own characters point out helping/saving Levi isn't going to redeem her for what she did. Which honestly looking back is a highlight. Still a terrible opening and dumb way to kill off the first game's protagonist, though.
Superior plot line: Tommy gets killed saving Joel, then joel chases them out while he tries to return the favour, then joel and ellie set out on their crusade to avenge Tommy and they slowly but surely reconcile over time (and they take out abby in the end)
Really would have loved to play this game. Makes way more sense too. In an immediate reaction to everyone pausing he jumps out the window or some shit and they kill Tommy. I fuckin hated being forced to play as Abby and that last bit with Ellie like ffs.
@@jaredplantulli4288 I literally spent 30 seconds thinking of this, it's not like I'm a professional, at least it wasn't a complete disgrace to the masterpiece that was the first game, everyone is actually competent in this slightly less shitty version
Remember when Ellie IMMEDIATELY ON SIGHT shot that Hunter guy that was drowning Joel in the first game? Not get closer to try and negotiate or pull some “drop the weapon” scene like she did with Abby?
I totally forgot about that my god. Ellie did save his life in a split second choice. That was the first person she killed wasn't it? I'm trying to remember the scene.
SaucyTendies Ellie even fucking mentions it in dialogue to Dina in the sequel. But Druckmann had his vision for Joel’s death and by god he was gonna get it.
SaucyTendies Just remembered, Joel didn’t take off his backpack and guns when he fell asleep on a couch after meeting Ellie, even though it was Tess’s and his own safe house.
Colby Sullivan Only... Henry had Sam, his little brother which tipped Joel off that Henry and Sam weren’t hunters. Despite this, it was Ellie who revealed Joel’s name to Henry, after they try to kill each other. It was only in the radio tower that Joel and Henry really began to trust each other.
I always just assumed Joel had that survival instinct because he was a Hunter (or at least implied that he was). It's also why I thought he was really a hardcore fighter and could take care of himself. Hunters are ruthless, and that's why he knew they were going to get ambushed in the first game. I guess he thought he had no reason to put his guard up while around Abby and her friend because he freakin' saved her life lol If you saved someone you wouldn't think they would immediately stab in you in the back, right? I did think it was dumb of Tommy to just openly give their names to a bunch of strangers AND offer them supplies and tell them their location in a zombie apocalypse, especially without knowing a thing about them. I mean these people did nothing to warrant that sort of hospitality. Tommy kind of made me mad when he did that lol he got a fancy little town and doesn't know how to act. He minus well have told the people staying in his town to just keep the gates open and let the zombies in while hes at it
Joel in part 1 lost Sara and lost purpose in the world. In his travels with Ellie he regains happiness and finds purpose(by the end). Meaning he doesn't want to roam, he is tired of that and wants to live a happy life. Which is highlighted extremely in part 2. Dude is 60. He had many bad moments, skilled/trained, and a lot of lucky moments. Even in part 1 we can see he got lucky. I can count 3 to 4 or more where he should've died until someone happened to save him or something conveniently happened. Come on. Last of us is about the world and telling a overall story. Game of thrones man
@@DarkAttackYT it's interesting you jumped to season 8. I was thinking like season 1 with sean bean being a main character and beheaded. Or his son. Not a season where a main character boringly gets to live while doing their thing. How isn't it good? I mean being unbiased or not married to the characters how is it bad? Besides my first play through which I was disgusted and questioned things for a bit I got through it to see the end. Then I found the pieces in the story which explain the world around it. I mean the whole idea of her father being the only scientist to be able to do that procedure. With him dead even if they found someone immune they couldn't do anything. How that mirrors ellie's role. It works and makes sense. The world is big joel and ellie are two people.
@@starryshark Tommy already introduced himself and Joel to Abby beforehand so it wouldn't have a made a difference if her friends knew. Also the whole town of Jackson is based on helping other survivors. So it isn't dumb for Tommy to offer supplies for the group especially after they took him and Joel in and have shown no signs of hostility.
@@saucytendies while I respect your opinion you shouldn't use your influence to call other people Idiots just because you don't like how they went about their creative labor. Your reasoning is, for the most part, justified, but you're being an asshole about it.
Except it wasn't an ambush. None of the group knew who he was when he arrived (bar Abby). They were genuinely grateful to them for bringing Abby back and openly friendly (Mel). They weren't after anyone but Joel and had no beef with anyone else so they weren't out looking for random victims. You kind of forgot that
@@Revan-eb1wb embarrassing myself how? I said don't call other people dumb with your influence, dipshit. He can say he doesn't like the game all he wants I I couldn't give a shit less
I just found this comment under a video, and the guy who wrote it is a hero: Joel's death Is like a story about an Olympic Swimmer, who forgets how swim and drowns, because he hasn’t been in the pool for 4 years. To be precise, in the last 4 years he was even more active since it is even said he keeps going on patrols with Tommy, killing bandits and infected to increase the safety of Jackson.
You left out the bit about patrols rescuing passers by and taking them back to Jackson. Ah right, that bit doesn't work with your bias so you conveniently ignore it..
Tbh what Abby did to Joel was much worse than what Joel did to Jerry. At least Joel didn’t restrain Jerry’s loved ones and force them to watch him get killed. Abby, on the other hand, held both Ellie and Tommy down and they were forced to watch. They could’ve knocked em out right then and there. But no, Abby forced them to watch. I’d kinda understand her reason for killing Joel, but forcing his little brother and adopted daughter watch him get butchered is inexcusable. Abby is not a morally good person, because a morally good person wouldn’t do that. I think everyone knew Joel was gonna die because he’s a mentor character, but the execution was unbelievably sloppy. As with the character swapping (ex: swapping Joel with Jesse), that’s scummy. They had us believe Joel was gonna help Ellie, but instead they had Jesse. They also did the same thing with the flashback where Joel tells the truth to Ellie. They had older Joel’s model in trailers and screenshots, but they had a slightly younger Joel in the actual game. Why would they do that? That’s literally false-advertising. Great video, pretty much all of my problems with TLoU 2 explained very well.
man it still doesnt make sense for abby that joel only shot jerry...for her joel was a monster..she felt the need to torture him..people react different..if my parent were shot in the head by someone for exemple..do u think that i need to shoot the killer quick? if i want to torture him, i would do it...and in my perspective..im still the good guy
@@vallykoool it’s not about that, the whole reason this wouldn’t have happened because it’s JOEL FUCKING MILLER he wouldn’t be tortured in the first place
@@TheTrueFawaz wtf is this logic, just grow up and understand what happened..and why it happened...he was tortured because he ruined their life and he was friendly because abby and her group helped him and joel and were friendly as well..
@@vallykoool you’re talking about the first game mate, i’m referring to the second game, i’m not saying Joel didn’t deserve to die he did and he was a piece of shit you are correct but his death was WAAAAAY out of character is what i’m trying to say so please stop being such a smartass
SPOILERS The coincidences just keep building up: 1. Joel and Tommy would have known the area better than Abby but don’t know any other safe places to go? 2. They were even able to find the mansion, which is in a valley, in a blizzard 3. Ellie happened to go the right direction when her, Dina, and Jesse split up 4. Ellie didn’t get lost in the blizzard seeing as she lost Dina in it earlier 5. Ellie KNEW that the mansion was where everyone was when she came across it And this is just the first 2 hours! Also on Abby being a psychopath: 1. Was going to lead a literal GENOCIDE against the Seraphites with Isaac and Manny 2. No reaction when Manny died in front of her 3. Doesn’t display any guilt when she and Owen do the nasty, even though Mel is about ready to give birth to his baby 4. Shoots Tommy when he is unarmed 5. Smiles and says “good” upon finding out Dina is pregnant when she is going to kill her 6. Kills her old friends with no remorse as they shout at her confused Theres even more but one of the dumbest things I think is that Abby is willing to kill old buddies for the sake of Lev who she met a day ago, but didn’t kill Tommy and Ellie. 10/10 Masterpiece!
@ I'm sure Ellie would have killed Mel even if she knew, if Ellie had found Dina and Jesse dead at the theater beforehand. Abby is also haunted by the torture she put Joel through, what are you even on about? Owen gives her shit for it and she assaults him for it. Have you played the game?
@@MrSurrealKarma Why the fuck would Ellie killed Mel if she knew? Considering the fact that she was traumatized after she saw the belly, it would be a proof that she wouldn't if she knew it firsthand. You clearly don't know wtf you're talking about.
@ItalianOfficialGamer "your point about playing the game is stupid" I bring it up because people don't seem to have played or watched the whole thing. And yes, I'm aware that Ellie normally wouldn't kill Mel if she knew she was pregnant. But if Ellie had just found Dina and Jesse dead when arriving at the theater things would definitely be different. What point are you trying to make at the end here? That Ellie isn't a complete bad guy? Yeah, no shit. The reason Ellie didn't spend 5 years looking for revenge is because she didn't have to. She found her target quick. Time didn't change her mind, the events that occurred and people that died did. Abby also spared Ellie several times, even after Ellie killed her friends. And how was that ending and message a bad one? You obsess over revenge and it gets everyone you love killed.
@@zeroskaterz92 Read the whole post, bruv. It would've been different if Ellie found Dina and Jesse dead in the theater when she came back, with no context.
The Joel and Tommy I know will never use their names out loud. The Simplest thing the writers could have done was that they could use nicknames like ; Earl and Jimmy instead of Joel and Tommy. Better even not use names at all. In the first game even Ellie does not tell her name to David when she first meets him. If Ellie, a 14 year old could do that in the first game......then you definitely understand what went wrong. Too bad the writers do not.
Joel also doesn’t even tell his name to Henry when he meets them. Ellie does and he gives her a look like why did you do that. Then she learns not to do it and doesn’t tell David.
I agree that Joel wouldn’t say his name in a room with a bunch of strangers but his fate was pretty much sealed the moment Tommy introduced both of them to Abby while they were running away from the infected
I think he could have gotten out of there if he had his weapon on him and didnt stand in the middle of the room while tommy watched the girl behind him take a shotgun from owen and get ready
Tommy was not the one ontroducing them. It was Neil Druckmann and what was her namne ... Gross something. Like someone said - when story is good you hate villain but when story is bad you hate writer.
I saw the video of Neil, Troy and Ashley talking about that scene and how carefully planned it was, and how no one knows the characters better than they do, and no one is more protective of those characters than they are...and if you got to be part of that conversation, you would completely destroy them with facts. You would make them look like complete morons. They would have no response to your argument here. This was clearly a very well organized group, well armed, well equipped, etc. They parked their horses right next to a ****ing military vehicle. Neil says Joel was thrown off because he was looking for hunters. Bullshit. Joel would have smelled soldiers/fireflies 10 miles away. And Tommy was a former Firefly. Gimme a break. Another thing Neil said: Tommy was offering everyone to go to Jackson, because that's safe (a safer environment for himself and Joel). WTF, dude. Too late. Right now, you are trapped in a basement with heavily armed strangers. You are not getting out alive. You are not going to talk your way out of this. And that bullshit excuse about Joel getting soft after 4 years...ugh.
I really wish I could have an argument with Neil about Joels death. It took me a fat minute to make this video properly so I genuinely appreciate your comment man! I spent like 3 days working on it and still totally missed that military vehicle that was parked there! I just figured it was dead, but you’re right that makes way more sense as to how they got there and back to Seattle so fast.
@@saucytendies You did a great job breaking down that scene. I suspect that *part* of the problem is that Neil is now VP of ND, so there's not a lot of people who can say no to him. But that barely begins to explain what he did here. They do seem to be in an echo chamber, where only they have the right answers, and if you don't agree, you are not "open-minded." Well, their intentions are irrelevant. What matters is the end result. If they truly intended to honor the characters, they failed. Let's say I intend to give you a compliment, but you find it insulting. The result is that I insulted you, even if that was not my intention. And that's my fault, not your fault for not being "open-minded." I wonder if they can even understand that at this point.
It boils down to fridge jacket, as soon you see the WLF patch you should have veered to another place and not the safe house. Like they are suppose to patrol that area and know the area but suddenly they think the place she picks is the best. That faction is not a foe but for sure not a friend either.
Neil was just trying to lie his way out of the hole he dug for himself with his lazy contrivances and sloppy writing. When defending them acting like Joe Biden trying to read an entire paragraph to a camera, he claims they've gone soft in 4 years, despite patrolling and killing infected and humans. His defence? "Joel's looking for Hunters, these are normal people". What's the tell for a Hunter? Do they have a special uniform? Is it the hats? Do they have business cards? Abby is eating enough red meat to be built like a male weightlifter. That alone would set my spider sense tingling. She's not, in any sense of the word, normal. To say nothing of them easily killing a few infected at the gate and suddenly there's no more, so why did Joel & Tommy go inside an unsecured location with no idea who these people are, what they want or even how many more are inside? They had no idea where to go, but when Abby mentions the mansion & her friends, they know the place & who owned it, yet they didn't think of it, or know that it had solar panels on the roof? Joel & Tommy survived 24 years in this world precisely because they never allowed themselves to walk into situations like these. The longer they live, the less likely this is. The only concession I'd make to the softness is Joel delaying his and Tommy's flight from the horde to sprint 30 yards in the opposite direction they were heading in to save a stranger. Even that isn't consistent with his pre-pandemic character. In a world of hordes and hunters, Joel & Tommy go patrolling hours from Jackson with what, the 8 bullets the game lets you hold, machetes that break after a few hits, but can be blacksmithed cold with found objects, no nail bombs or molotovs? Does Jackson have no decent firepower? Then why are they out there at all? Don't question, just consume & applaud or ND will ask Sony to call your employer to ask about your attitude.
Ellie’s reaction to seeing Abby torturing Joel makes me think that the surgery from the first game was more successful than I thought. Why didn’t she shoot?! She had a full 6-7 seconds, Ellie in the first game would’ve shot Abby in 3 seconds.
On her first kill, she just grabs the gun and kills the Hunter who is drowning Joel, even though it makes her sick. She doesn't just sit there wondering what to do. That's Ellie. I don't know who this is, but it's not Ellie.
@@BenReillySpydr1962 explain what character building that she got from Joel's death? Aside from becoming a brainless psychopath in an attempt to make Abby looks more appealing
Ellie walks into the room sees Abby. Doesn't shoot. Meanwhile abby shoots jessie the moment he came in. It's either Ellie is just dumb or the plot is really bad
Abby intended to kill everyone at the theater because she knew they were all related to Ellie. That’s why she shot on sight. Ellie was only investigating and had no clue who Abby was. Just because you disagree with a story doesn’t make it bad
@@theworld6710 Was only investigate and had no clue who Abby was? Wtf are you even talking about? You clearly didn't even play the game nor even watch the cutscene. Ellie literally told Abby that she knew why Abby was there.
Matthew idk about you but if I walk into a room and I see my father figure getting tortured and I have a clear shot at the person responsible I’m not gonna calmly walk and in and say “well we’ll well what do we got here”
Also, when Abby tells Joel about the mansion that her friends are at, he knows where she’s talking about! He says “that’s the Baldwin’s place”. Which I take to mean going by that mansion is part of their patrol route or something. That should of also been a red flag to him as to why a group of people are so close to their town, let alone a place that he is familiar with and is probably apart of the patrol route.
Right?? Any other time Joel would've been wary about going to a stranger's hideout but woop-de-doo they killed some zombies together so they must be good people.
@Daniel Benros I disagree. He would've at least been more argumentative like he was in the first game. There's an advert or a cutscene in the first game where Joel's driving in a truck with Ellie in the city and a guy runs out screaming and waving for help. Ellie wants to help but Joel tells her no, keeps driving and sure enough bandits come out of nowhere and start shooting at them. He was never that trusting of people so being so open about their town and following her was out of character.
@@danielbenros4561And that's another problem, they are staying in one of the places where they patrol. Joel would've been more cautious that a bunch of strangers were so close to Jackson to begin with. Just because they may be their only option doesn't mean you should be trusting of them so easily. Ellie had to survive a horde with David, but that doesn't mean she ever trusted him in the slightest. That's why David is dead. In a world where anyone can easily be a threat I doubt joel would even go that far to even save abby. Besides, it was abbys dumbass that almost got herself killed anyway.
Clearly a skinwalker killed Joel, then took his body and pretended to be him. Cause that’s the only way I’ll believe this bullshit, why would he be so trusting of a random group of armed people after everything he’s been through??
"You two live nearby?" Tommy "No, we are actually looking for a camp my wife and his daughter may be" "Oh, I see. I'm Mel, by the way" Tommy "Peter. and this is my friend, Marcus" "Nice meeting you two. You guys want to come with our group?" Joel "Sorry, but we are in a hurry. Let's go, Pet" "No problem, we are actually on our way, too" Tommy "Good luck fellas" There, fixed their poopy encounter. Not perfect, yes, but better and at least they are smart here.
Exactly. Joel and Tommy will leave their place and sooner Abby's group will attacked Jackson with the purpose of killing Joel but, on the story twist, Tommy will be the one dead and Joel will immediately leave Jackson to get revenge. But Joel will never tell it to Ellie since it's his brother. But Ellie will be stubborn and will follow Joel just like the story in TLOU2. Joel will be have a memorable death in the Theater instead of Jesse being dead there. It doesn't make any sense why Jesse is there on Seattle.
Louie Claus Hi Louie I don’t know who you are but what you just wrote now is the best plot this game should have taken. I’m angry and hurt at the same at the shit ND served us. Thank you bro, your plot is my plot, that is my Last of Us 2
"How can it suck so bad? What is this?" Even now, 2 years later, I keep finding ridiculous things about it. We are supposed to believe Joel and Tommy "got soft" living in Jackson, but Abby and her group didn't "get soft" living in their state-of-the-art complex, with luxury rooms, cooks, gun ranges, weight rooms, etc. Gimme a break.
After years of being excited to see where Joel and Ellie are going to head to next and what adventure awaited them, Neil Fuckmann had to spit on all of our expectations to make a “revenge is bad, but revenge is okay in certain situations”
Imagine a random character killed nathan drake because his mercenary uncle was killed by him, and now for the rest of the game you have to play as that random character.
Honestly, there's no way Joel and Tommy would be out in the blizzard to begin with given their expertise in field work, let alone encountering Abby in the most contrived circumstance. To me, Abby died by the infected at the beginning of the game. The End.
@@bren97122 Even though i dislike his actions for spitting on Joel, i did like his character. He got what he deserved though. Abby did too by getting infected. They need to do part 3 with Lev find a cure and end the game
TLoU 2 fanboys: Joel had become soft after 4 years of living in safety TLoU 1 Joel: *refuses to save a family at the exact beginning of the game, which, at that time, he had been living in ACTUAL safety for his entire life up to that point.* But sure, surviving in the APOCALYPSE and nearly the END OF THE WORLD for 4 years would definitely erase all of your anxiety and paranoia all gathered up in over 20 years of barely surviving :D
He was also on patrol. Part of their job is to 1. Clear infected, and 2. Bring back any survivors they meet and confirm they’re not hunters. The beginning of the apocalypse where he’s ACTIVELY WITH HIS DAUGHTER is a lot difference than mid apocalypse where you’re comfortable with killing and protecting, and you’re with your brother who can also hold his own. It’s a lot different.
@@DarkAttackYT If you look at the log books, (Iirc, the one in the flashback with Ellie, Tommy and Joel patrolling, but it might be the book that Ellie signs with Dina) you see instances of people going on patrol, finding survivors, and making a note of cutting the patrol short to bring them back to Jackson.
the reason that they put present Joel on the trailers is to make us think that Joel would be playable during most of the gameplay. they knew the game wouldn’t sell if people knew Joel would die so soon in the game. they used joel to advertise the game so it can sell.
Best bet?...Cure Fucking find a Doctor whose not a Quack who wants to open people up just to guess what part is the cure.... there's this called Plasma Therapy where they take some Blood and Test it?...like 10/10 Thanks Scriptwriter! It made no sense at TLOU about Dissecting Ellie now it's 100/10 Bullshittery on Joel Being a competent man with experience to be completely turned a Toddler not knowing this is exactly like walking to a bear trap
Make sure in this hypothetical scenario you stipulate that they’re surrounded by a horde of infected in the middle of a snowstorm and can’t make it back to Jackson. That’s the bigger picture here. I feel like most of these points imply there was an option besides trusting Abby, and there really wasn’t. Find a different abandoned house and interrogate her? Maybe? That’s really all I can think of and even that’s not really a good alternative because they run the risk of not finding a house and keeping themselves exposed and vulnerable.
William Trotman Doesn’t that horde get wiped by molotovs at the gate lol? Unless you’re telling me there’s more to that horde in which case where are they because the gunfire should have attracted them.
Knowing Joel he won’t be at that situation at the first place but let’s just say he is.. He would be there but not in the center of everyone, he would be staying beside the door, and Tommy would probably notice Joels suspicious and goes with it
χορήγηση He wouldn’t take off his guns and backpack the same way he didn’t take of his guns and backpack in the first game when he went to sleep in his own safe house with Ellie in the next room.
It's funny how someone can come here, and ignore all these 13 min of solid arguments, showing how stupid Joel's death was, and say something like "You just can't handle Joel's death". If you would like so, it would be possible to make a ton of videos for every single plot hole in this game. Btw, nice video.
Movies are fictional as well and novels, they can be all held to the same standard. If thats the argument then why debate about anything if the rationale is ehhh its just a fake character, don’t take it to heart. Anyway, points made in the video good valid points. But to each their own.
@@icedmosquito109 If you're a fan of the first game, there's really no way you can be happy with what happened in TLOU2. You got that right, fans are emotionally attached to Joel. Deep. Not irrational. This is what separates a game from a movie. A game character from a movie's. Its more personal. When the main character dies a tragic death in a movie, we all got affected. More so in a game where you are playing as that character and knew what they have been through seeing events through their perspective. Fans love Joel and Ellie. The first game ingrained that love for these two. Fans wanted more of them and waited for 7 years. Now look what they got. Joel died, spitted on. Ellie left with nothing. I understand its a story. Joel's death may be questionable or not. In character or not. But how the game treated Joel is how the game treated the fans, plain and simple.
People can be emotionally attached that’s perfectly fine, in the first one they killed Joel’s daughter, I cried during that scene but I was prepared for something to happen to Joel, I knew there were going to be repercussions from what he had to do at the end of the first one and that’s why I didn’t take it as hard as other people seemed to. This was the developers wanted to make you feel that emotion but I don’t think they intended people to throw a bitch fit and send hate messages to the actress that voiced Abby As some irrational people have. It’s a video game you can not like it but in the end my personal opinion it did what I think the developers intended it to do.
You're the first one I've heard that points out how Joel's death makes Ellie look stupid. People always argue that sequence from Joel and Tommy's point of view, but somehow aren't surprised that Ellie, you know, the same Ellie that took down scores of cannibals in the first game all to defend Joel, is unable to pull the trigger on Abby on that first scene. TLOU II is a great example of plot armor and why fan fiction should never be published as cannon.
I think initially Abby and her group were going to infiltrate Jackson and work out who Joel was, but the writers wanted to get to Joel's death more quickly, so his death was kind of rushed and contrived in the end.
I'm happy someone made a whole video just explaining this topic. Thank you, many great points and I fully agree! I didn't even think about the parts relating to Tommy.
i agree with everything you said it's literally like there were completely different people that wrote the 2nd last of us and they had absolutely no clue who joel and tommy were in the first game there was SO many out of character things that joel did just in the short amount of time he was alive but believe it or not there was even more out of character things that tommy did and on top of that they never explained how tommy survived from getting shot in the face by abby joel's death made no since and tbh 80% of this game made absolutely no since i wish they never even made this game
Dude right! What gets me is how Tommy, Dina and Ellie got back to Wyoming all with concussions, a dead body, broken legs, arms, a punctured lung and massive brain damage from getting your head smashed into the ground. I hate how they left Tommy blind, crippled and with his wife leaving him.
SaucyTendies i couldn’t agree more man i don’t know what they messed up on more joel’s death or the hundreds of things that happened in the game that were left un answered lol this game is so bad and feels SO rushed even though they had 7 years to work on it plus Ellie is now going to have ptsd for the rest of her life i just don’t understand how they messed up so bad on this game sorry for ranting i love you man love your videos btw
@@saucytendies Because revenge = bad, right? Then why did Abby get rewarded with surviving, getting away with Lev, and rejoining the Fireflies after getting her revenge? I guess revenge is only bad if your name is Ellie or Tommy.
@@saucytendies Don't think, consume product & applaud. How'd they even get out of the theatre? Tommy is a half-blind cripple months later. Dina was already so sick she was a useless sack before her beating. She hulk smashed her face repeatedly, when she was previously shown to be able to insta-kill infected & beefy Scars with one head slam. Ellie has a broken arm and was so badly beaten that even with Dina about to have her throat slit, all she could do was turn her head. Nothing else was moving at all. Travel in TLOU2 is apparently now as easy as travel in Westeros in GoT season 8. Ellie's lone round trip to Santa Barbara is almost as far as she and Joel travelled together in the first game. It's such a non-event, it's not even worth showing. Are the coach companies running again?
I will ask the question no one else ever seem to ask. How did they even know it was Joel who wiped out the facility? Don't forget the end of the first game where Marlene confronts Joel as he escapes. While she is pleading to spare her life Joel in his own words said "You'd just come after her.". He then shoots her and ties up the last loose end. He very well knew that if he and Ellie were to live peacefully there had to be no witnesses. Logically speaking any Fireflies who show up afterward would assume its the government faction they been waging war with is who done it and be none the wiser. Even under these circumstances Joel would have been cautious and only use his real name around trusted friends and associates. He would know better than state his true name to strangers in the event a witness did escape and later encountered remnants of the Fireflies. Operating under an alias would have been the first thing that came to mind. When you just pissed off a big organization and they want you dead, you of course would not want to be catching their eye, using an alias would be the first thing that comes to mind for not just Joel but anyone with a brain would realize this.
Imo Joel surely thougth that Marlene was the only one capable and has knowledge to go after them (for the other FF he was just an smugler) when he killed her there weren't after him. Plus the Fireflies disapeared
Marlene and Abby father talked about Joel a little bit and Abby Heard that , and we saw that not every soldier died , Joel barely made it to the elevator , lots of soldiers saw him
Is such nonsense, they killed Joel but let Tommy and Ellie live? What is the logic? By the way , Ellie is the only cure, they all seems to forgot about it.
Apparently, they let Ellie and Tommy live because they were really nice people and cared about justice. They were completely fine with beating Joel to death in front of his daughter, but killing them, no, that would be going too far! (Rolling my eyes).
Honestly you know there's some government agency still out there in a bunker somewhere. She still is the key and that couldve been a great story within itself. Imagine the US government hearing word of another immune person and they go after Ellie and kidnap her, Joel springs into action and Abby wanting revenge stalks him throughout his journey to save Ellie... GOLD. Everyone would be onboard with this...but nope.
If you played the game you would have seen the group is split on killing Ellie and Tommy. It's really just Owen and Abby who make the decision to let the other two live. Abby because she just killed a defenseless man and doesn't want to experience more of that, and Owen because he's an idealist.
@@claytonwatson1862 I played the game. It's a completely moronic excuse. They claim that killing Ellie and Tommy would be going too far. But beating Joel to dead in front of his daughter is not? It's garbage. Stop making excuses for it.
@@miller-joel then she is just causing pain for ellie on top of that. She seeks for revenge for her father dieing which she did not have to witness then he just causes far more pain to ellie by forcing her to watch it and a much longer painful death for joel. Then later on when finding out specifically who ellie was in relation to joel and why he killed the surgeon she shows nothing. She never feels anything of remorse or conflict in her decisions. Revenge bad for Ellie but good for Abby says Naughty Dog.
6:19 .. lmaaao that was literally my first reaction while watching a livestream, like Tommy was like : Lemme go legally blind real quick for a couple minutes while Abby gets her shotgun from Owen for no reason and points it at my brother .. not even someone who was plotting with them would do that kind of shit -10/10 writting
Not to mention that there could be other people that have Tommy and Joel’s name, so how they know that this is the Tommy and Joel that they’re looking for?
Perfectly articulated, man. Joel acts like a completely different person for the sake of plot. It's so sad what happened to this story. The Joel and Ellie dynamic was amazing. They created something so great in their relationship, but Neil destroyed it, almost as if he didn't realize what was so great about the first game.
In Neil's early concepts for TLOU1, he wanted to include a revenge plot, but other head creators decided to remove it, because they knew that no SANE person would be motivated to seek revenge in a world so hellish and dangerous. That's why the whole game feels wrong. All the characters feel insane for traversing this hellish world. They're all too eager to throw themselves into danger. The motivations just don't make sense when compared to how difficult it is just to stay alive in this world. Ellie even seems to become self aware about her own plot armor, saying things like "i don't plan on dying", when literally EVERYONE around her has been dying the whole time. She thinks she's immortal? because she's the main character? wack.
Good explanation. Good job! It's shame that some people just keep repeating: "It's an adult story, for people with brain, you don't get it". If the story is bad written and characters poorly written - it is just bad story. Man, I have waited for that game for 5 years, made preorder in September 2019. I can't believe what ND and Druckmann did. I just can't. Sony exclusives always were good, what happened?)
Man I feel you. There are a lot of comments arguing against me on here basically saying it could have happened bc joel got soft off screen. I think Sony exclusives are still good, this is just one bad one (that I hope is the last). God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn and Bloodborne don't have any of these issues and are some of my favorite games of all time :)
My problem is the defense everyone has for why it’s bad writing or bad written characters. It’s bad writing because ellie doesn’t shoot Abby the INSTANT she opens a door. Why the fuck would she shoot anyone she sees the instant she opens a door. She had to look at Joel and recognize it was him. It’s not entirely easy to tell it was him with his skull half bashed in. “Joel wouldn’t have trusted them” a million people have said why that’s the case. Or in the video he says that Joel saves her so she shouldn’t have tortured him. He literally said joel killing her father was a weak explanation. Like that’s mad goofy. I don’t see it as bad writing or bad characters. I see it as DIFFERENT writing and a different turn in the characters. And people don’t like different.
Wouldnt say for adults only but absolutely for people who dont live in their own little world and who are able to look over their own horizon. Big guess youre not one of them, so stay within youre bubble
@@joel.orleansI disagree, Ellie knew that Joel and Tommy were in danger before she even reached the house. Inside the house, she cld literally hear Joel’s screams, so she knows he’s in danger. But when she opens the door, she doesn’t even need the time to recognise that it’s Joel on the floor bc she knew he was in danger through his screams, so imo, she cldve shot Abby quickly instead of stepping inside to get a better chance of shooting, she’s clearly skilled with guns now, so no need to get closer to Abby to shoot. Abby has the right to kill Joel bc he killed her dad. But the way she kills Joel isn’t justified. Pls tell me one thing, who tf goes for a revenge kill before finding out the reason Joel killed her dad?? I mean, if someone was to kill ur relative, u wld obv first want to know y they killed them right? And then do ur revenge blah blah. Abby doesn’t even question Joel at all, he cldve gave her a reason and she wldve killed him knowing the reason y Joel killed her dad, she wldnt have empty answers. And imo, Joel had the rights to killing her dad and saving Ellie, cuz her dad did threaten Joel with a blade, and I feel like, the relationship between Abby and Lev, Abby wldve understood the reasons y Joel killed her dad to save Ellie, she wldve understood Joel’s motive to bonding a father daughter relationship with Ellie. (Maybe not cuz of how much a psychopath Abby is, the way she brutally tortured and killed Joel). And come on, Abby was literally going to die 100% but Joel saved her, she shldve realised at that moment thag Joel acc didn’t go on a killing spree since he saved her, and she shldve realised that “maybe Joel had a reason to killing my dad since he saved me and didn’t kill every1 he saw”
dud i think you've done the best job explaining why this makes no sense Joel knows a trap when he sees one walking into a room filled with people he or Tommy doesn't know the fact they weren't looking for Joel they didn't even know Joel was there the fact the last games told and showed that Jackson gets raised often another reason not to trust strangers that Abby just runs into Joel and Tommy Abby not really saying why she is doing this "guess" Ellie said it best "Joel has fucked with a lot of people" the fact those 2 are unarmed be these friends or not you keep a gun on you the "Joel is clearly rusty from all his time in Jackson" sure if he was sitting on his ass all day but no he's out there dealing with Zombies Tommy should seethe shotgun being handed over and Abby moving to shoot need i go on i can't say about everyone but i don't care you killed Joel but i do care how you killed him
Jonathan Ellison you answered your own question. When they walk in it isn't a trap because none of them bar Abby knows who he is at that point. They even get a genuine welcome when they arrive because everyone is happy they brought Abby back. It is unlikely Owen has even told them about being near Jackson given his and Abby's earlier conversation. Mel introduces herself and shakes Tommy's hand and she means it. It is only when they introduce themselves that the mood changes and Joel spots it immediately and starts to scan the room. Abby reacts first because she already knew. The answers are all there if you look at the details.
@@dorkangel1076 hmm yeah I guess though them not having their guns on them is still kinda stupid even if they didn't get to fire there should still be a gun strapped to their leg or in their belt or somewhere still seems really stupid letting your guard down that much with people you don't know
Bruce Crawford genuine welcome my ass. That soon to be scar face fuck was a complete prick and asshole tone to Tommy. There was no talk about the horde of zombies they escaped. And the chance everyone was outside with the gate open with guns drawn in a blizzard...get the fuck out of here. This game story is so fucking stupid, it reaches abysmal idiocy. I think a hilarious comparison is Abby blasting Joel’s knee cap off in preparation for a Pulp Fiction moment and then head over heels in love to give her life for Lev and Yara for saving her life. Next level shit would be finding out if NaughtyDog made this game so fucking dumb on purpose so that it would create all this buzz and dialogue/interest in criticism. Bad publicity is still publicity. And perhaps still a win for Neil Druckmann to get people talking and thinking of his so-called “Masterpiece” game.
Greg Horner Really Greg? What exactly did he do to Tommy before he knew who they were? Do you think they might have been out there they were because they hoped Abby would make it back and they were keeping the gate open in case she did?
Jonathan Ellison Fair enough but I think their guns were empty by that stage. I'm pretty sure Abby was the only one firing during the horseback ride and they talk about being "out" in the ski lift. They got off their horses in the garage and just walked into the next room. They didn't even want to unsaddle their horses, just brush them down. Their sense trap ability wouldn't be going off because there was literally was no trap. That might even work against them here. As soon as the mood changes, Joel senses it immediately but by then its too late.
Here's how I would have fixed the story: 1. Make it a more Eliie focused story. You start right after the end of the Last of Us 2. We can build from the beginning of the game (joel tels tommy the truth, joel meets young ellie and plays the guitar). Then we can start by maybe exploring a bit more of Jackson, have more character interaction with Dina and Jesse. They could probably still keep the love story with Dina and not kill Jesse off. 2. The game can advance into showing what it's like to complete one of the patrol missions. Like maybe she starts out small (which is explained in the first game in flashbacks but never developed). 3. Probably through their patrols, they can like start unrevealing the whole story with the Wolf and Scars. Abby's story would probably take a backseat a little - like maybe develop more from that flashback where we saw her dad died. I want to see how she learns of the identity of Tommy, Joel and Jackson. Make incredibly broken and give her a strong motivation to kill Joel. Make it so like we as the player know that there is some danger awaiting Joel at the end of the game. 4. As the whole Wolf, Scar and Jackson narrative unfold, you slowly get to see more of what the world has become. Basically, this will set the bigger narrative of the game. 5. Maybe halfway through after all the patrols and the killing (like her being more involved in the patrols and the fight against the Wolf/Scar - it really doesn't matter since the group at Jackson does not have an affiliation with the Wolf/Scar), she slowly starts to question as to whether they are actually others like her. Then boom have that reveal where she finds out the truth. 6. Build more on the flashbacks we got. Because those were good. 7. So after Joel and Ellie starts to break down, maybe have a scenario where Ellie kind of has to choose whether she can trust Joel. Maybe have Joel like kidnapped or be in danger in one of the times where they are fighting against the Wolf/Scar. Then perhaps the game can show a scenario where Ellie has to choose whether she can trust Joel with her life in a certain life-threatening situation. 7. We won't have to play as Abby - she could be like just like a background character waiting to kill. Like right after her father's death, the game can show how she trained to become a badass Wolf, how she learned of Joel and Tommy's identity, how she becomes more involved in the war against the Scar. 8. If they wanted to, Yara and Lev could still be an addition in-game. But instead of saving them just make Abby this super dark character where she shows no remorse in killing. 9. At some point in the game after Ellie and Joel gets over the fact that he lied, the story could continue to show that they both try to reconcile with one another after Joel does some act to show that he does care for Ellie and is willing to do whatever it takes to keep her alive. After she sees this, she'll probably have a change of heart. 9. The suggestion above will surely make the campaign a lot shorter but the story will be more focused. Perhaps the ending will be a situation where Joel and Ellie are pinned down by Abby. Ellie could then decide 'ok it's my turn to protect my protector' but then Joel decides to sacrifice himself as he is killed by Abby. 10. In this way, you can still have a sequel but at least the story wouldn't be that bad. The war between the Wolf and Scar and also the Jackson gang would probably escalate to a point where all sides suffer some form of casualty. Everyone involved in the war would have lost something. In this way, if they do decide to go the revenge plot route - it would have made a lot more sense. Even if she does have a change of heart in the following sequel, it would still make sense because in this version, I suggest that Ellie still has her friends and allies. They could be something that will help bring Ellie back into the light in the following sequel. Who says you can't have a story of hope in a world that's so bleak and dark. These were basically my thoughts. Looking forward to anyone who has a better idea for a remake.
@@saucytendies The saddest part is, Neil's latest IGN interview said it was originally like that, a lot more about Jackson, building the relationships, an open world, with Abby coming in & trying to find Tommy, to spy on him to find Joel. And that Abby was meant to die all along and there was meant to be a lot more of the Wolves and Scars, too. Then he changed it all. WTF was he thinking? It's like he didn't have confidence in himself, which his desperate responses to criticism show, so he structured the game to be like the first one, cutting a lot of content and making it all feel rushed, contrived, undeveloped and forced. We have the shocking death to end the first act, with Joel mirroring Sarah. We have the goal of the game being to hunt & kill Abby, with a side of save Tommy, mirroring getting Ellie to Salt Lake to save the world. We have playing as Abby mirroring playing as Ellie. Then we have the shock twist at the end, where Ellie saves Abby and then lets her go, mirroring the twist where when you get to the Fireflies, you realise they aren't the freedom fighters Ellie idolises, but a delusional band of zealots who instead of using Ellie to create a "vaccine", their leader is going to murder her instead to indulge his fantasy of being the saviour of mankind so you have to rescue her from them instead.
I just want remake. This story doesn't make scenes Joel's death, Joel's behaviour, Ellie's behaviour , Tommy's too and Abby's story. If you naughty dog wanted from we to understand about her character you had to do DLC. For these 6 years you couldn't do a fucking DLC. And that I have to play as the killer of Joel for 12 hours. I understand that we have to understand in some way more about the new characters but not for so long. I mean. They say Ellie is the main character in the game WHAT A LIE... ABBY WAS Even that Ellie went to revenge for Abby and when she almost kill her she didn't do anything kill every last one of them BUt expect for my father's killer.
*Sigh* This game was a complete failure and it hurts to say this because I loved the first game. 7 years for this lazy fart sniffing story and Neil had the audacity to shit talk fans that disliked the game. Naughty Dog is over. I am so happy I never purchased this game and I will never buy a game from them again.
1:56 I don’t agree with the premise that this is indicative of some deeper paranoia that’s part of Joel’s character. Joel had his first encounter with the infection earlier that night. We both are just speculating about what he means here with “you ain’t seen what I seen.” It’s entirely possible that he’s just a selfish person, and that’s being compounded with the fact that he doesn’t fully understand the infection and how it works. It also wasn’t just that he dealt with an infected person earlier, it was his friend and neighbor who he saw change and become a runner. Not wanting to risk picking up an infected person in this situation isn’t equivalent to paranoia. I don’t agree that this example is indicative of some deeper paranoia but let’s just stipulate that you’re right and that it definitely is, what else is going on in this scene? Tommy wants to stop and pick these people up. And Tommy is clear in the first game about the fact he didn’t agree with things Joel did to survive while they were still together in the beginning. Tommy was the one who went with the Fireflies, who are a group trying to restore order and unity in the world. Although we can definitely be skeptical about whether or not their version of that would be a good thing, fixing the hydroelectric plant and building community in Jackson was his goal in the first game. By the same logic we can stipulate that it definitely shows he’s a trusting and optimistic person. Your video encouraged me to rewatch Joel’s death and the events leading up to it and I think it makes plenty of sense. The larger context of the scene is that Joel and Tommy have to escape a swarm of infected, and having an extra set of hands by grabbing Abby is (I think anyway) a practical decision that Joel made in the moment. Before they get on horseback, Joel is covering the door and I don’t think he’s focusing on the fact that Tommy gives Abby their real names right away. He and Tommy know they can’t make it back to Jackson and they can’t stay where they are. They choose to go with Abby because Joel is familiar with the layout of the mansion. EDIT: Adding onto the previous paragraph, it was clearly established at the beginning that Jackson had a bunch of different patrols out. It's possible that at first glance Tommy and Joel might have thought Abby was part of a different patrol. I also want to point out that Joel being hesitant when it comes to telling people his real name isn't consistent with how he behaves in the first game at all. What does a name matter in a world with no social media, internet, or reliable long distance communications? The horde situation is a situation where they don’t really have a lot of options given the weather and being surrounded by the infected. In general, screenwriting is about manufacturing situations that build conflict. You can rightfully criticize the dues ex machina of Abby randomly being rescued by the person she was there to kill. The only writing decision I’m critical of here was Joel not asking Abby on the way there how many “friends” she was staying in the mansion with. But Tommy being friendly with all these strangers, and trying to assure them right away that there’s no reason to rob and murder them since they could get supplies from Jackson without bloodshed, is consistent with what we’ve seen about his character. Not to mention Joel does seem to realize right away once he gets to the mansion that they fucked up somehow and something isn’t right. EDIT: I've been playing through the first game on grounded. In part one, Joel brings a firefly into his apartment and promptly takes a nap leaving them unsupervised. Failing to size up Abby isn't that unbelievable.
Abby likes reading, but she never (IN FOUR YEARS) picks up a medical textbook in attempts to continue her father's work. It's ALL about the protein and weights. Abby doesn't ask Joel about "the immune girl" and her whereabouts, again, to possibly finish what her father died for. Abby doesn't hesitate with Joel after having heard Marlene and her father discuss how both Marlene and Joel have feelings for this immune girl FOUR YEARS PRIOR. Abby has no remorse or second thoughts even after Ellie tells her she's the immune girl. Does anyone find it odd that NO ONE believes there's another doctor, besides Jerry, capable of performing this surgery OR using Ellie's blood as a possible vaccine even though there are TWO DOCTORS IN ABBY'S GROUP, let alone the WLF compound?
Totally agree. For the life of me I can’t figure out why Abby’s race changing doctor is the only one who could “make a vaccine”. By splitting open her brain without her consent, killing the only immune person they have seen in 25 years might I add.
SaucyTendies There's a bit of a difference between grown attached to and having replaced his dead daughter with her in his head. The game makes it clear the reason it needs to be done. You can whine real world science all you want. All that matters is if it would work using game world science. Yes, they could have handled it better but if you think the doctor waving a signed consent form instead of a scalpel at Joel would have made any difference at that point you don't know him at all.
I feel all the "He'd never have given his name." people are seriously off base, first off, Tommy was always shown to be more outgoing, and Joel was just following his lead; but also, throughout the entirety of the first game he openly uses Ellie's name at all times (what if someone had learned of an immune girl named Ellie?), and NOT ONCE corrects her for shouting his at the top of her lungs. He was never secretive with names, as there's very few scenarios where it would be an issue. I also think the main thing people are overlooking are the people involved, Joel's been in this world for decades, everybody kills, everybody's armed. Throughout all this time he's dealt with both bandits and just general travelers, certainly with helping Jackson grow, that's what made this group the ultimate pitfall. They didn't present the obvious threat of the bandit who stepped into the middle of the road in part 1, they came off as just a group of average people. And it was Abby stumbling on Joel that made getting into that scenario more believable, had they set a trap, and tried to lure him in, he'd have been onto it in a heart beat; instead, she takes advantage of a situation where he HAS to shelter with them, and as everyone else is being legitimately friendly with them, including starting introductions, it was a completely casual atmosphere. Only Abby knew, and she made sure not to tip her hand, there was no danger present in the room when they started introductions. The literal instant the danger presented itself Joel caught on, but it was too late; there were no obvious signs, I mean a day is plenty of time to realize there were solar panels, just a perfect storm of circumstance. It does make sense. The one point I will somewhat agree on is Tommy not catching the shotgun exchange, but if that happens when Mel is introducing herself, everything else happens very quickly.
Yup totally agreed. And it's possible the gate was open because they knew Abby had snuck out and were trying to hold off the horde until she came back in. They care about their people too. You can see this because when you kill people as ellie, they look for them by name. And coincidences like Abby randomly meeting Joel and Tommy happens all the time. Plus, Joel probably grew a little softer and Tommy has always been nicer so he convinced joel to go save abby. We don't get to see why he goes to save her, it happens off screen and chances are, tommy helped convince him. And you can definitely sense that joel feels a little uncomfortable in that room, and suspicious. But he also knows that they're heavily outnumbered. Also, the argument is brought up that there's tons of tommys and joels in the world. But how many Tommy's have an older brother named joel? So ya, they reacted when they heard joel 1. Because it shows tommy was the tommy they were looking for since he has a brother named joel 2. Joel is the main man they were looking for, looking for tommy was a means to an end It's honestly a little sad how people will play mental gymnastics to hate on this game without actually looking at it in depth. Plus Jessie talks about how he looks up to joel and shit. If joel was still the mass murdering, shoot first ask questions later, paranoid guy he was in the first game, i doubt he'd look up to him that way and go and seek revenge too. People can change, and it'd honestly be sadder if joel was a static character who never changed between the first and second game. Now THAT would be poor writing
Sure you could argue that Joel wasn’t that paranoid about using names, but that doesn’t justify the fact the Joel in the first game would NEVER trust a group of randoms he just met to walk into their house unarmed and friendly, let alone try to save a random armed woman about to be killed by a runner. Your argument that he was caught off guard by the group is just wrong. Nothing about the group said that they were harmless, and a man like him who has survived 20 years in that kind of world would never lower his guard around a group of strangers, no matter how “harmless” they seemed. You’re focusing too much on his leniency of name using and ignoring the video’s point that tlou2’s Joel is NOT the same Joel from part 1, and his death was only used to form a poorly written sequel about revenge to the masterpiece that was part 1.
I've seen idiots on the internet by saying being in jackson made him softer, or being a better person for Ellie. But being softer or a better person doesn't mean a person becomes a moron.
I agree with all your points. Another thing to note though is how the game tried to portray Abby and her dad similarly to how they first portrayed Joel and Sarah. That Abby's father is just this sweet dad who's just so kind that he saves zebras and is trying to find a cure. But then their whole facade just breaks down when he asks Marlene why she wants to tell Joel about the consequences of the surgery. Like, ANY GOOD doctor would 100% ask for the patient's and the guardian's consent to a life threatening surgery. But this man.. This spineless man who can't even answer marlene when she asked him what he'd do if he were in Joel's shoes, decides that no Joel and Ellie don't deserve the common decency to know about the procedure's consequences cause he wants to be the fucking hero. I don't understand how Naughty Dog thought we'd sympathize with these genuinely selfish characters while framing Joel to be the bad guy.
말로우마쉬 Thats the point they didn't show him as a saint. They showed he wasn't all good or all bad. They showed he struggled over the decision. Joel wasn't the guardian though, Marlene was. Thats why he asked her. Joel was the delivery driver to them.
@@dorkangel1076 He didn't struggle with the decision to put Ellie on the operating table. He struggled trying to convince Marlene to agree and he struggled to answer Marlene's questions. He desperately wanted to do the surgery since he's not attached to Ellie in any way so he doesn't really care about anything else besides the cure. Joel has been with her and caring for her for a year more or less. And Ellie grew attached to him so much so that she didn't want any one else to take her to the fireflies if it wasn't gonna be him.
Uncharted 5: Thief gets Golfed: Story/lore: Nathan drake during his adventures killed a guy who happened to be the father of a girl whom we dont know,she tortures nathan and kills him in front of sam.we play as the girl for the rest of the game😂😂
I can not begin to tell how mad it made me when Joel died. And some people say Joel dropped his guard because by then he was living the good life in Jackson for a couple of years.... *Bullshit!!* I agree with all the things you said in the video. And indeed, the biggest spit in our face, or mine at least, was the fact that they portrayed Joel in the trailers saying _"You think i'd let you do this on your own"_ When it turned out that was actually Jesse... They knew! They knew that thát would piss people off. It was nothing but woke propaganda and the weakest storytelling ever! God, i hated that game! There's a video on youtube, can't remember the guy's name, but i believe it's called "How to divide a fanbase". And in the last segment of the video he poses a story on how he thinks the game would be way better, and i've been listening to that story mouth wide open. Man, if only tlou2 would be half as good as that story i would have liked it a hundred times better than the actual turd we were left with.
I honestly just thought Abby was a character who was hell-bent on revenge so much so that she began training like a soldier in order to gain the skills required to get her deed done. She was a morally conflicting character who changed during the outbreak due to her many flashbacks with Owen, showing that he started to get fed up with Abby and her psychotic need for revenge even after five years and living life with the W.L.F. faction. So when she tortures Joel and enjoys it, it shows her tormented soldier side coming out. However, after this she also begins to soften up more knowing that what she has been training for over the last five years has been completed and she can rest. That’s why throughout her story it’s constant back-and-forth between trained soldier mode (which she was mainly in for most of the time skip) and her tender, motherly side that comes out with Lev and Yara. Owen cheating on Mel with Abby also brings out part of her “inner animal” since her and Owen were arguing seconds before their awkward sex scene. It shows that although Abby is becoming a kinder human, she can still be flawed in ways that her animal instincts cause. Also in the scene where Abby is about to kill Dina after FUCKING UP Ellie and company, Lev’s childlike tone calling out to Abby made her snap back to her tender side instead of becoming an even deeper monster and becoming driven by hate just as Ellie has. I don’t know though, maybe she is just a terribly written character?
Nothing wrong with her character honestly, it's her development that was bad. I'm just repeating from another commenter, they should've had Abby's campaign a dlc, that not only would they have more money, but they were not forced to play as a character who killed a beloved character
jonevat 77 Ellie in the Theatre with Abby "You killed my friends. We let you live and you wasted it". Raises gun. (perhaps, flashback of Abby and her dad) Fade to black. TO BE CONTINUED. Can you imagine the outrage if they'd done that... 😉
5:51: Joel should have jumped over a couch? Lol, you analyze this game like it must be the most realistic thing ever and then you say that? Really? That's something that happens in an action movie or something, but never in real life. Nobody is jumping behind couches. What would be the point of that? 6:43: sure, Tommy not seeing the shotgun is weird, but yet again, you think like an action movie. One doesn't simply grab someones gun from the holster. 7:14: really? If somebody I know is screaming, I will recognize their voice. What are you on about? Humans aren't all the sudden unable to identify somebody's voice just because they are screaming. Even if there is a margin of error here. She is looking for Joel and hears the screams of somebody with a voice that sounds much like Joel. 7:26: How do you know that people would shoot immediately, when they see this? Are you actually basing this on something or is it just something you are assuming? I wouldn't be surprised that your assumption is again based on what you saw in movies. Joel murders Abby's father, kills of a lot of fire flies and you don't see that as a good motivation? Why are you ignoring Abby's trauma by the way? She is constantly thinking about what happened that day. She having nightmares about it. She is being consumed by the traumatic event. The fact that it is 5 years ago doesn't matter, because of her trauma. The only thing that people with trauma can think about is the traumatic event. They cannot let go, that's why it's called a trauma. Why did Abby kill Joel after he saved her? Because Joel saving her, doesn't automatically fixes her trauma and therefore doesn't magically fix her intense hate for Joel. Abby is not showing the behavior of a psychopath, but of a heavily traumatized person. The same goes for Ellie, she is not going after Abby and her friends because of a Blutlust, but because she is heavily traumatized. She cannot think of something else then Joel's death and finding Abby. People who think that the story is about "revenge is bad" clearly only looked at this game at a very superficial level. Joel's death means nothing? Really? Literally everything in the game happens, because of Joel's death. Joel's death gives a sense of grief that I've never felt before in a game. Joel's death is also there to show what trauma can do to a person. How it changes a person and how it can lead to morally bad decisions.
I think the number 1 thing that doesn't make sense is that even if you're on your way to kill someone, if they save you from being ripped apart by zombies I think they've earned your respect / forgiveness. So even if Abby decided to kill Joel anyways, she should have done it without malice. that's a great point about the gate already being open, and them not reacting to the name Tommy
Exactly! I've been trying to explain this moral to a friend: "If someone saves you from being ripped apart by zombies, I think they've earned your respect/forgiveness." But they just don't get it. Makes you wonder what Neil Druckmann was thinking.
playing as abby after she killed joul was a nightmare. I killed myself on purpose several times. I hate her so much. I almost deleted the entire game. it was a bad decision by naughtydoog to delete joule from history. when we have played an entire game with him as the main character
Coincidence after coincidence after coincidence and with a sprinkling of plot induced stupidity on top. Even ignoring the contrived convenience of Joel and Tommy running into Abby, I honestly believe it'd be far more in character for them to simply go in a different direction after she reveals her group of friends are nearby, that way not only do they split up the zombie horde since some would chase Abby, thus allowing them an easier escape or fight, but they'd also get back to Jackson with the crucial info that Abby so carelessly leaked about her group of unknown friends are lurking on the borders of their territory with who knows what agenda, after all Jackson has been attacked by bandits and Hunters repeatedly.
Thats true! All these comments about how Joel and Tommy have gotten soft could be true if the game didn’t literally tell us hunters attack the city regularly enough to not allow a group to leave for revenge.
Something that kinda pisses me off is when how you talk about how bad Joel's death was handled some people come out of nowhere and say "oH u JuST dOn'T uNdERsTanD tHe GaMe"
U did miss out one thing: in the flashback sequence where Ellie and Joel go to find guitar strings, Joel makes Ellie wear a mask when entering a room of spores because “what if we run into someone.” Part of that is just him being protective but it can also be seen as a sign that he fears Fireflies will come after him for what he did and the wild off-chance of him running into that someone while Ellie’s standing next to him without a mask in spores will give him away. The man may have softened up during Jackson as notes and dialogue indicate that they would often trade with strangers..... but they did that behind their safe walls. The dudes still paranoid. I get the whole point of Abby taking Joel out after he saves her is the beginning of her redemption arc as her guilt drives her to help Lev and Yara......but it made her character irredeemable in that moment, especially since we the player didn’t know her motives beforehand.
They didn't just trade with strangers behind their walls, they actively helped people while on patrol. Some of those people are now living in Jackson. His paranoia has shifted from himself (which was all he used to care about) to Ellie (who is now all he cares about losing). He is still desperately trying to stop her finding out what he did in the hospital (in case he loses her) If someone knows she's the "cure girl", then they might know what happened and tell her. That's his real fear. Abby has obsessed over killing Joel for four years. She frequently has the vivid dream of finding her father dead by Joel's hands. In fact, she's just had it when she awakens in the lodge that morning. A few hours later she meets Joel. Him saving her at that point isn't going to mean squat. I thought she'd be irredeemable when I got to her story too and then they showed her motives and how it effected her and what she went through to try and be a good person again. It's cleverly done in that Ellies story gives little away. For example, Ellie doesn't even know it was Abby's decision not to kill her and Tommy, she misses the whole conversation as shes in shock about Joel ( as are we). We only find that out in Abby's story and it took me a second play-through to spot that. Ellies story shows Abby standing over Joel from the back, Abby's shows her from the front and we see her expression. Both stories are told totally in the viewpoint of who you're playing as which can be difficult as each makes the other out to be the villain. Big picture wise, Joel didn't deserve to die but I understood why Abby thought he did. Big picture wise I don't think Abby deserves to die but I understand why some people do. The paradox is if you think Abby deserves to die, then you have to admit so did Joel.
Wdym Joel died? That's clearly Joel and Tommy's inferior cousins who have the same name and are way more dumber, Abby just mistakened them for the real Joel and Tommy
I dont know I'd Druckmann is disturbed. That's really pushing it. I think he's really pretentious, up his own ass, and edgy, but not disturbed. Kentaro Miura's Berserk is much darker and he's in sound mind. You don't have to be a psycho to make psychotic work.
technically it was Tommy's his fault he was the one who introduced themselves and if Joel didn't say his name it would have just been there as suspicious as in saying it. Not to mention him being in a nice town surrounded by nice people who aren't always trying to kill him all the time for the past 4 years. And it said in the game that most people who pass by on nice and Joel even traded coffee with them. Also joel just saved abby life you don't expect them to turn on you. And only reason they went to Abby's places because they didn't have any other choice.
That's fair, but in the traders example you gave, they would be saying they were traders and would have merchandise to sell. This group is an armed group wearing military uniforms from Washington. Tommy or Jesse also mentioned a big group couldn't leave to go avenge Joel because the hunters could attack again, so no their camp hasn't been flowers and sweet candies for the past 4 years, he hasn't gotten soft.
during the outbreak, it is shown that Joel is cold enough to leave a family behind this is a guy that hadn't killed a single infected or hunter before now you've got a Joel whos lived in the apocalypse for at least 10 years killing infected and other people but because some people traded coffee with him he's supposed to loosen up and save Abbys life
After replaying TLOU recently, I couldn’t agree more, as you pointed out Real Joel had a survival instinct day one before spending the next 20- 30 years living in the apocalypse , which somehow made him soft? After all the delays of TLOU 2 I was expecting something extraordinary story , as you already said makes no sense what so every👎🏼
If this was Joel not in a safe place for the last 5+ years and being happy and having he’s guard down being out there for more than 20+ years and if not at a safe place 100% Joel would’ve killed them all easily but in this spot I’d have to disagree
See I knew it didn't make sense. I was arguing with some nerd about how terrible this game is and had to rewatch this shit to remind myself why it made no sense because I forgot it all lmao not playing this shit again.
I'm going to try my best to "debunk" some of these points. 2:06 Joel didn't spot a fake injury. He knew that it was an act because he's done it before and he could tell they were hunters by the way they dressed. 2:24 Obviously he's going to save a girl if she's in danger, He's out on patrol it's his job. He didn't tell her his name, Tommy did. 2:37 I'm pretty sure thr group noticed Abby was gone and they probably heard infected, gunshots, horses so they would most likely go out armed and see it's Abby. 2:20 How would that group not know there are solar panels? They most definitely checked the area and spotted solar panels. Not to mention Solar panels aren't that hard to miss. 2:39 Well the group has been answering their questions. Since Joel and Tommy would probably have to spend the night they'd want to build some trust and so Tommy would answer a question they asked. Also their town Jackson, Not a hideout a town, is based on helping others so it would make sense that Tommy would offer them help since they have shown no sign of hostility. Also like I said he already introduced themselves to Abby and she hasn't tried to hurt them, So when Mel introduces herself they would introduce themselves too. 4:03 there's lots of ways to explain this. Either A: Like everyone likes to point out there are tons of people named Tommy, so when they heard Joel's name they probably put two and two together. B: They weren't looking for Tommy. Abby only mentioned that Tommy was in Wyoming but they were looking for Joel. They went to Wyoming hoping to find Joel because Tommy was there. C: I don't think the rest group knew about Tommy. Again Abby only mentioned Tommy to Owen but they went for Joel. Most likely everyone knew about Joel and not Tommy. 5:14 True it's a red flag, but Joel could have also said that in a jokingly way to try and lighten the situation. But even if he were to think immediately that he's in danger there's nothing for him to do, jumping behind a couch wouldn't have done anything. 7:13 I've already mentioned this in another comment but she had 3 seconds to take in what's happening. She walked into the room not knowing where anyone is or how many people are there, all she knows is that Joel is there and in danger. I'm not going to talk about Abby's motivation because that's up to personal views.
The argument of Joel went "soft" makes no sense. Considering he wasn't a hardened survivor at the start and still left those people with a child on the side of the road.
It's absolutely stunning how defenders of this game will STILL defend that scene. They totally get the gold in mental gymnastics, just beating out The Last Jedi defenders.
I stopped playing after when Tommy asked Ellie to go to Santa Barbra. I like to imagine that Ellie stayed with Dana and the baby. While Abby died on the pike.
I'd love to have seen a story more like this: Tommy gives away Joel, but Abby manages to restrain herself. The rest of her following doesn't know who they are looking for, so no reaction is given. Abby offers to let them stay the night, and Tommy accepts before Joel can reject. Joel chews the hell out of his brother for this. Tommy responds with an argument that life is different now, and maybe he's just stuck in the past, still trying to survive in a world that no longer exists. Cut to Abby, who is forced to weigh her father's death against the man who saved her life. In the end, she decides he doesn't deserve to live, and she rallies guards in the night to come and kill him. She tells them not to hurt Tommy however, in a twisted sense of gratitude to Joel for saving her life. "He dies, but only him, understand me?" Paranoia has gotten the better of him, and he preempts their attack with his own. Tommy does in fact die here, perhaps protecting Joel, perhaps just randomly, to satsify this directors insane obession with realism. But Joel manages to escape, and he kills the guards in the process, cementing her desire for revenge. Perhaps her holding back out of respect for his saving her life cost her a friend in the process. He strikes out alone and wounded, and too ashamed and fearful to return home and notify the others of Tommy's death, something he sees on his hands. Abby manages to fool Ellie, telling her that Joel has gone crazy and killed one of their own, perhaps even the pregnant women, and Ellie isn't willing to fully accept it, but agrees to set out and find him, to bring him in. There's an unspoken undercurrent here about how Ellie doesn't want anyone else to have to kill Joel, it should be her terrible duty alone to complete should it become necessary. There's a lot of opportunity in this time period for introspection. Before she sets out after Joel and after he's escaped is somewhat of a low-action moment in the arcs of the story. You could have scenes of the family of the people Joel killed mourning, and Ellie has to try and comfort them. It makes her ask whether or not he truly does deserve to continue on. Ellie sets out after Joel, and finds him hiding out in a nearby abandoned town. They have an emotional talk, in which Joel refuses to accept responsibility for what he has done, trying to tell her his side of the story. Guns are pulled on each other, and Ellie is letting all of her hurt and anger pour out of her, just confused as to why he did this. You can have a lot of different morals being thrown around here, the standard fare of "how much blood do you have on your hands?" Ellie tells Joel he's coming with her back to face judgement for what he did. Joel tells her this is a death sentence, and if she really is going to do that, go ahead and just shoot him here. In the midst of all this, Abby shows up in the town. She's tracked Ellie, knowing she would lead him to Joel. A three-way standoff can occur, with Abby revealing the truth of her father's death, and it blindsides Ellie. Instead of having found out about it earlier, the truth of the Fireflies is revealed here, at an emotional climax of the current arc. Ellie is stunned into lowering her weapon, trying to process everything that is going through her brain. She may have always suspected, but she had lied to herself in order to ignore the truth. Decades of lies come to light, the knowledge that she could have been a cure (theroretically of course) but never got the chance to sacrifice herself. Maybe we get a nice "Well shit" moment from Joel here. While Ellie is distracted, Joel uses this opportunity to grab one of the characters that wandered too close, and sets off a firefight he is going to win. Ellie is standing there quiet. Joel is beating to death someone with a brick. She's still torn, he's strangling a woman. He has his back to her and her gun is raised. At this point, Ellie is faced with the same decision Joel was given at the end of the last game. She can kill him, and end this bloodshed, or she can make a selfish choice and ignore all the wrong he has committed, siding with him once again. Abby removes her choice from her by coming round a corner and barrelling into him with a golf club. Cue the beating with the golf club. Joel has earned his death. He's killed off half of Abby's crew, and fought like the caged lion he is. It still carries the message of pointlessness and selfishness, as he killed innocent and otherwise good people in his own benefit, and he is still in a morally gray area. He didn't know for sure that it was an ambush, and though he might have tried to justify it to Ellie, even he doesn't know for sure whether or not he was in the right. The golf club beating is no longer as disrespectful to him, though it is still violent and sudden. After Joel dies, Abby moves on, telling her that they are done. She can't kill Ellie outright, but she sure as hell doesn't want anything more to do with her after she stood there without action. Ellie does the only thing she can do to avoid the guilt. She blames everything on Abby. Abby becomes the focal point of her grief and rage. Ellie always said she was afraid of being alone, and now Abby has killed both her father and uncle figure. She ignores any extenuating factors, and pins everything on Abby and her goons. Cue the standard revenge fare, where we get to play as Ellie tracking down Abby, and Abby moving on unaware of her closing predator. Slowly Ellie becomes a Joel, a selfish and morally bankrupt person who puts their own needs above others. As she's chasing Abby down, more and more grey seeps into her already monochrome character. Abby at first desperately tries to get away, costing her friends in the process. Eventually she turns around to face this demon and we get a climatic ending fight. Abby might plead with Ellie as they fight "Look at what you've done!" "Why should you have the right to get revenge but I don't?" Abby beats the shit out of Ellie and turns her back, sparing her, still unwilling to finish her. Ellie uses the opportunity to unfairly get the drop on Abby, and begins killing her. Someone close to Abby is there watching, frozen, unable to move forward to help, but crying as they watch their mother or signifigant other get murdered before their eyes. Abby throws Ellie off and they both stand there, badly wounded, and both unable to step forward. Ellie's guilt and anger has been drained from her, and it all feels very pointless all of a sudden. As she stands there, she watches Abby stand in front of and protect their SO/child. Just like Joel did to her. She realizes she's been traumatised by the people Joel killed in front of and for her. She doesn't want to do this, but she's worked her way into a dead end. She's killed Abby's friends and burned her bridges to her old life down. Abby, sensing this, starts to back up. Ellie is unwilling to let go of her revenge but unwilling to take it as well. Abby might say something along the lines of "I've stood where you stood...and made the wrong choice. Make the right one." Transparently self-serving, but still it rings with truth. From there you could run straight into basic structure of the current ending, as it already attempts to encapsulate those feelings. Obviously the scenery would be different but the messages and choreography could be the same. The problem with the current ending is that it is unsupported by what came before. With a new support structure the ending itself is not that bad. --------------- Honestly I'm just going to pretend this is how it ended.
Interesting concept! I would've preferred this over the current storyline by a mile. Especially since people keep forgetting that Joel is not a good person. Even if he's a fan-favorite, he's still a (as you put it well) selfish and morally bankrupt individual, that in all honesty did deserve to be on the receiving end of revenge from Abby (although I do not agree with how Naughty Dog wrote his death). You'd also sympathize with Abby (as it was originally intended) as her revenge is actually justified in the eyes of the player.
@@endomanen Yeah, the main problem with the current story is we are never SHOWN, just told. The critical rule every movie producer follows is show, don't tell, and TLOU2 violates that. We aren't shown the good things Abby does before she murders Joel, we are just told that we should like her and that she is a good character. We aren't shown the bad things Joel did to deserve his death, and we aren't shown his life as a hunter, we are just told, seconds before his death, that he is a stupid old man. Later we are told that Joel deserves to die because he did bad things in a past life. But we don't see anything in TLOU 1 that isn't justified in some way until the very end, by which time we have grown to love Joel and understand his reasoning. Most of the game you are killing in self-defense and you can sneak large portions of it. The only real two points of conflict we have with our own moral compass is Joel's past, and Joel's final decision to kill Marlene/save Elllie. Joel's decision is put at the end of the game for a reason. It's when we are most in-tune with the character we have spent an entire game bonding with. It would be real difficult to make the player care if you shot Marlene in that scene with Richard and then kidnapped Ellie, because you have little to no knowledge of any of the characters. Joel's past, we don't get to see any of. We get a few lines about how he used to be a bad dude, and then we pivot back to our humanitarian goal and the good Joel is doing, even if he has to kill to protect Ellie. If the TLOU2 has started with some Joel flashbacks as a hunter, not only could we have seen and understood what terrible things he did, we could develop his sense of regret, PTSD, and his core protectiveness of Ellie. We wouldn't be surprised Abby was looking for him, since it would be very obvious that eventually someone would come back to haunt him from his past. Seeing Joel needlessly killing and being evil, and seeing Abby needing to protect her own/devastated by what she lost would reframe the conflict in the player when they see Joel being beat to death. You'd have the emotional reaction of "shit, I liked him a lot...but he kinda got what he deserved. Too bad he did those things." instead of the anger and outrage we had. @Walmart Ninja As to the claims of fan fiction, you're right. This isn't a triple A produced story 7 years in the making, with teams of writers working round the clock to figure out how to show Joel being a bad person correctly and the moral ambiguity of their world. This is a youtube post on a video bashing the game that failed miserably even with all of their added bonuses. If I had the resources they did, I can guarantee my story would not look how it does now. But it also wouldn't look like what they shat out. Most of the things written in this story are less absolute plot points and more vague conceptual points for a general arcing storyline and central theme definition/development.
Tbh in the Elie Ran Out Of Ammo section, it's pretty much a trope. Good Guy reaches the bad guy and instead of immediately engaging in combat, the good guy waits for the monologue.
I like the text you throw up at the screen. 1:33 Plot armor is funny, ain’t it? Joel saving Abby right before Abby kills him is so jarring. Honestly, I would agree. Bizarre is a great word to describe this insanity of an inciting incident. Joel’s death required no effort or skill from Abby and it just felt too easy. Killing Joel should not be an easy task. This just occurred to me. If in the first game Joel was smart enough to know that it was an ambush, why didn’t he just drive away in the truck and avoid the ambush altogether? He just drove into an ambush *knowing* it was an ambush. He did not need to engage.
One thing I wish I had added in the video was an in game explanation refuting the idea that Joel's last four years have been so soft and easy in Jackson that he would completely change character. The whole town doesn't send out a big group to go get revenge for Joel out of fear that hunters will attack the town again and they could get destroyed. Jackson hasn't been rainbows and flowers the last four years, there is a big enough threat of immediate attack that they don't send out a team to hunt down Abby's group right after Joel dies. If there is a serious fear of hunters raiding the town again, like Tommy/Maria tell Ellie, then Joel and Tommy trusting a random group of armed strangers right outside of Jackson is even dumber.
I don't believe one second Joel would walk into a room full of strangers and Tommy giving their names then Tommy chilling by leaning back.
@@LaraCroftEyes1 they'd already given their names to Abby, and they were hesitant when Abby suggested they go back with her to her compound but they did it anyway. They've just saved her life and they've fought off infected together, it's safe to assume at this point that Joel and Tommy aren't thinking this girl is plotting to kill us 🤷🏾♂️. Even when Tommy is giving their names to Abby after baracading themselves in, if you watch it's almost in an effort to calm Abby down because she's terrified. I guess we're seeing different things
@@banksy6462 with that logic Ellie would have invited the whole crew of David back with her just because he helped her fight off infected. That is no reason to trust somebody because Abby had her own self interest to think about in that moment. She needed them to survive that does not make them automatic allies. Likewise they had no reason to mention anything in that moment because an extra gun helped them out as well but after that they should have been more cautious.
Bro only one you tuber got this the dad joel killed was black guys so all of a sudden they want us to act like hes wasn't go look at tlou1 ending u will see the doctor is black
@@guitarman0365 No, it's an entirely different situation. Ellie and Joel had no one to back them up in the first game, so she couldn't reveal their location to David because then he would know how alone and defenseless they were. However, in the second game, Tommy tried to bring Abby's group to Jackson because there they would have been totally outnumbered, and thus he would have control over the situation. Tommy and Joel were completely surrounded and cornered at the house, so the best thing they could do was going back to Jackson, with or without them, and it probably would have worked with any other group.
If Tommy the one who died, Joel would've clear seattle from : WLF, Scars and infected.
U would had enjoyed just doing that for the rest of the game?
@@carrymywill idk
@@carrymywill better than trying to sympathize with Joel's Killer
@@carrymywill I think i would.
@@carrymywill i would love to do that with joel and Ellie
Imagine if they got the wrong tommy and Joel. You'd be surprised how common those names are here in texas
I'm sure there's a lot of brothers named Tommy and Joel in the single settlement they were looking for in the post-apocalypse.
Every man in that city was named either Tommy or Joel... Except for when they were name Jesse, Eugene or Seth.
My friend and I were making the same joke as we did a playthrough. Just imagine Abby kneels down and she's like 'Joel Miller.' All threateningly and he goes. 'Wtf no, Joel Smith.' We were cracking up.
Apparently there are about 1000 people in the US named Joel Miller
I thought they were riding around just shooting everyone named Tommy and Joel
@@arcanefury3666 open the phone book for a name. Remember futurama with bender looking for fry?
"I'm Mel, by the way."
"My name is, uh, Frank. This is my brother."
"Carl."
Roll credits
Edit: I'm aware that Abby already knew they were Tommy and Joel. This is meant to be a joke. Tommy giving away the names of himself and his brother in the heat of battle was the same level of stupid as after the fact, though. Plus, in the cutscene it's pretty clear that Abby's gang is waiting to hear their names from them before they go along with Abby. Regardless, this was only meant to be a stupid joke, smh
The problem is Abby already knew there names. When the 3 fought against the infected. They called each other out with there names. First she looked surprised and disgusted. (If I remember right she also pushed Joels hand away) Then she must have thought wow Jackpot, I dont need to infiltrate this town. Both came to me. Now lets guide them to my place.
Btw I dont like the story. She didnt even tell him for what he's gonna pay for. Also she got rescued from him twice and still had no problem to multilate and torture him.
In one of the trailer. I looked like Ellie got raped or beaten and heads out for revenge. It would be also very disgusting, but at least everyone important lived and I guess most of us had no problem with it to hunt down the group for what they've done to her.
They already knew who they were...looks like y'all played a different game. It was bad luck they ended up in that house with them, but they were planning on attacking Jackson, or in some way take Joel, since they knew he was there. I'm named Joel (the Italian version) too, I don't think Abby went around killing every fucking Joel she met 😂
@@Guy1105Fawkes it was more of a plot contrivance than bad luck tbh
@@tannerbarnes7392 obviously...I was talking from a reality point of view
@@tannerbarnes7392 They weren't in battle. The battle ended.
Its actually Joel's secret 2nd brother, the real Joel is still at Jackson
Lmao love it
Let's raid naghty dog
Twin bro , lol.
“Dont do that dont give me hope”
i hope
The game’s ultimate moral: revenge is bad, unless your abby
wym, all her friends got killed and she got enslaved and ultimately hanged without food or water
@? Ellie got a fucking wife and a son living in a big village wym
@? Because they are in Jackson, she doesnt even act surprised nobodys there. This means she probably went to Jackson and Just came to the farmhouse to play joels guitar and say goodbye to him by leaving his guitar behind.
@João Paulo No, she doesn't. The story doesn't treat these things as Abby suffering for the consequences of her actions. Instead, they are treated as cruel injustices inflicted upon her and that you should feel bad for her.
@João Paulo She in no doubt regretted killing Joel but all her friends did die indeed. Dumb bitch should've second guess herself for killing a guy who just saved her.
The "revenge is bad" angle doesn't even work with this game because the person who gets revenge gets to walk away with a loved one, whereas the person who gives up on it loses everything.
For real. I think Neil's quote about how "this game is about love" show just how delusional these people are.
It's almost as if the story is more nuanced than "revenge is bad"
@@claytonwatson1862
How so?
@@claytonwatson1862 L
@@robstefani9853 The story is about the characters processing loss and dealing with their grief. Abby getting revenge doesn't help her process the loss of her father (as displayed by her dreams) and she has to develop as a character in order to find her peace of mind. Ellie is unable to process the loss of Joel until she develops as a character and "forgives" Abby (as displayed by the drawings in her journal). Both character's thought revenge would help them cope with their loss and they both lost a lot as a result. The original comment kind of ignores the fact that Abby's entire friend group was murdered as a result of her killing Joel, and draws a false line of causation from Abby's killing of Joel to her happy ending, and a line between Ellie not killing Abby and her somber ending. To me, this is a very shallow interpretation of the story. In my experience the game never tried to tell me that any action is "bad" but portrayed very realistic actions and reactions of grieving characters.
I had more of a problem with Abbys mission to kill Joel. I get her revenge motivation to do so but it's a plot hole that more betrays Isaac's character: Isaac, the militant leader of the WLF will allow Abby the WLF master scar killer AND a team of his soldiers + resources on a mission hundreds perhaps thousands of miles away to kill ONE man in the midst of a supposed scar war because he believes in justice?
I hadn’t even thought about Isaac’s reaction to her leaving.
It would probably take a 33-hr video to point out all the plot holes and inconsistencies.
We barely see Isaac's character and it's a plot hole that he made a decision to let a small group of his hundred's of soldiers leave? Isaac was a freedom fighter and as authoritarian as we see the WLF become and as flawed as isaac's character is, I don't see it as out of character for him to let the man who doomed the world be brought to "justice".
@@claytonwatson1862 Isaac was in the middle of a war with the Scars, and won't let Abby go search for Owen before an attack, but lets a whole team of his top fighters and a doctor go on a trip all the way to Jackson? To follow a lead? They didn't even know Joel was there.
@@miller-joel Isaac has a plan to attack the island during an upcoming storm. This is weeks after Jackson. Owen is also AWOL, meaning, in Isaac's mind, he's either abandoned ship or died, not worth looking for two days before his master plan. They're completely different situations. Yes they're at war with the Scars but through dialogue we learn his character is "about justice" and given the narrative he's heard from Abby and co there's little reason for him to not sign off on it. We also don't see the scene where he signs off on it or how much convincing he needed. If you think it's out of character for a character we see for less than 20 minutes in the game, sure, there's a weak argument there. But to call it a plot hole is hilarious.
This is like Batman getting jumped by a random goon.
Joel isn't like batman
@@kevinbarbeau5001 I'm referring to his instincts\abilities or lack there of in this scenario.
@@CyborgSodaCollects Joel doesn't have any mystical powers. This is like whining about the fact he could also get shot thousands of times throughout the game, but all of sudden one small piece of rebar impaling him puts him to near death. Joel in cutscenes is just as human as everybody else.
@@majorevangelism HE IS COMPARING
@@ofiwipe Yeah, a superhero from a magical universe to a normal human in a more realistic one.
7 years. The writers at Naughty Dog had 7 years to come up with this story. And somehow they wasted it on this nonsensical hyper-contrived fanfiction-grade nonsense.
I wish they had just made a separate game with Abby and Lev. Thats obviously what they wanted to do here. Just tell their story completely separate from Joel.
@@saucytendies I wanna say thats what they can do for part 3. Make the continuation of this around abby and lev. Abby is infected, kill her off early game. Time skip to lev being an adult his travels have to intertwine with ellie in hopes to find a cure. In which they do then we can end the game here. That can be main idea. I have so many good ideas for a part 3 ending to tie up this game
@@roberto9094 Lev is one of the most boring and forced companions ever, the last of us was about Joel and Ellie and their struggle to survive together, introducing a new main character that the player already hates is what made the last of us 2 suck. Only a remake of tlou2 in which characters behave accordingly to character could save the franchise lol
@@daanlutkewillink3893 You're absolutely right point for point. This is why i said they need to make lev an adult during the time skip make him more mature and likeable. This game made abby unlikeable, so you need to do the opposite with Lev. He's also a child so theres room for character development. Part 3 has to make amends for how they screwed over some of this story. They can even throw Ellie back into the frying pan if need be. There plenty of ways you can go with this,but they have to get it right
@@roberto9094 There is absolutely no reason to be interested in Lev's story, yeah he is trans (?). But he is in no way a relatable person for most people, there is also no theme that would fit a story.
Ellie left us in part 1 with the suspense on how her relationship with Joel would continue after his lie about the fireflies and her immunity.
Lev is just... meh, I wouldn't have been sad if he had died, because his whole character seems inconsequential and he could have been easily replaced.
If ND is gonna try to release a game with either Abby or Lev as the main character they might as well directly sign a chapter 7 bankruptcy agreement
It's ridiculous to imagine that Tommy, ex-Firefly, and Joel, wiper out of Fireflies, don't have ready made fake names they are using everywhere they go. They would know just how much heat would be on them if they were found out by anyone connected to the past.
@ItalianOfficialGamer amazing niel impression
too many people don't even get this point of view. Looks like world is twisted
@@JJShalashaska Well, these days Joel is considered an unredeemable asshole and villain who deserved to brutally die by an ever increasing part of the community, and conveniently enough, by people who never played the first game on its initial release. But for those of us who were old enough to play TLOU Pt. 1 at launch, Joel is a very endearing and fascinating character worth exploring, instead of just being done away with in a cheap death scene. The second game really just made so many foolish story decisions, and pumped Abby and her father up while making Joel look like a villain more than he deserved. He was a rough and tough man in a rough and tough world, but he did what he had to do to survive. You don't make it as far as he did otherwise, but that doesn't make him an evil man. And anyone that thinks he did something wrong by protecting Ellie and taking her away to live a better life are full of it: any parent, surrogate or biological, would put it all on the line for their child, no matter what.
I think the people that despise Joel are uncomfortable looking at the part of themselves that sympathizes with what he did, because they don't want to admit just how much they are like the part of them they hate and don't want to admit that they'd do the same thing in his shoes. Joel just got cheated, and deserved a much more fitting end. I think we all knew he was going to die, but it was the manner in which it was done that was both creatively bankrupt and disrespectful to the potential that was there to do much more with his faltering relationship with Ellie.
The fact that he tells his name is the least of his worries. I mean in 20 years he probably created a lot more enemies than that buff woman. And he never used a fake name in the first game.
BUT WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU NOT ASSUME THESE STRANGERS HAVE BAD INTENTIONS????
@@Bad_At_Parties Considering that she violently beat him to death with a golf club I don't think they even thought about it that deeply. But they did play as her for a large portion of the game and watched her story. It's funny that even the game's own characters point out helping/saving Levi isn't going to redeem her for what she did. Which honestly looking back is a highlight. Still a terrible opening and dumb way to kill off the first game's protagonist, though.
Superior plot line: Tommy gets killed saving Joel, then joel chases them out while he tries to return the favour, then joel and ellie set out on their crusade to avenge Tommy and they slowly but surely reconcile over time (and they take out abby in the end)
Would have been a way better game.
Really would have loved to play this game. Makes way more sense too. In an immediate reaction to everyone pausing he jumps out the window or some shit and they kill Tommy. I fuckin hated being forced to play as Abby and that last bit with Ellie like ffs.
Another thing they could've done was allow you to choose who lives or dies. Like playing as Abby if you died then cool, game over.
SaucyTendies Jesus eff are you guys serious? Talk about cliche.
@@jaredplantulli4288 I literally spent 30 seconds thinking of this, it's not like I'm a professional, at least it wasn't a complete disgrace to the masterpiece that was the first game, everyone is actually competent in this slightly less shitty version
Remember when Ellie IMMEDIATELY ON SIGHT shot that Hunter guy that was drowning Joel in the first game? Not get closer to try and negotiate or pull some “drop the weapon” scene like she did with Abby?
I totally forgot about that my god. Ellie did save his life in a split second choice. That was the first person she killed wasn't it? I'm trying to remember the scene.
@@saucytendies yep. And Joel pretended to be angry towards her
SaucyTendies Ellie even fucking mentions it in dialogue to Dina in the sequel. But Druckmann had his vision for Joel’s death and by god he was gonna get it.
SaucyTendies Just remembered, Joel didn’t take off his backpack and guns when he fell asleep on a couch after meeting Ellie, even though it was Tess’s and his own safe house.
The bullets would've just whizzed off Abby's jacked up muscles anyway. Ellie didn't want to waste valuable ammo.
What's your name?
Joel: Jack
Abby: okay have a good day
Tommy: uh no his real name is joel miller
Joel: GODDAMN IT TOMMY
@@Nonameoffroad Would have been a great comedy. Like the Spaceballs of Games, much better than the turd it is.
ROLL CREDITS 😃
Joel survived for 27 years, I guess it was more out of good luck rather than him being smart and paranoid. sad. stupid dog writing, last Jedi level.
Colby Sullivan
Only...
Henry had Sam, his little brother which tipped Joel off that Henry and Sam weren’t hunters. Despite this, it was Ellie who revealed Joel’s name to Henry, after they try to kill each other.
It was only in the radio tower that Joel and Henry really began to trust each other.
I always just assumed Joel had that survival instinct because he was a Hunter (or at least implied that he was). It's also why I thought he was really a hardcore fighter and could take care of himself. Hunters are ruthless, and that's why he knew they were going to get ambushed in the first game. I guess he thought he had no reason to put his guard up while around Abby and her friend because he freakin' saved her life lol If you saved someone you wouldn't think they would immediately stab in you in the back, right? I did think it was dumb of Tommy to just openly give their names to a bunch of strangers AND offer them supplies and tell them their location in a zombie apocalypse, especially without knowing a thing about them. I mean these people did nothing to warrant that sort of hospitality. Tommy kind of made me mad when he did that lol he got a fancy little town and doesn't know how to act. He minus well have told the people staying in his town to just keep the gates open and let the zombies in while hes at it
Joel in part 1 lost Sara and lost purpose in the world. In his travels with Ellie he regains happiness and finds purpose(by the end). Meaning he doesn't want to roam, he is tired of that and wants to live a happy life. Which is highlighted extremely in part 2. Dude is 60. He had many bad moments, skilled/trained, and a lot of lucky moments. Even in part 1 we can see he got lucky. I can count 3 to 4 or more where he should've died until someone happened to save him or something conveniently happened. Come on. Last of us is about the world and telling a overall story. Game of thrones man
@@DarkAttackYT it's interesting you jumped to season 8. I was thinking like season 1 with sean bean being a main character and beheaded. Or his son. Not a season where a main character boringly gets to live while doing their thing.
How isn't it good? I mean being unbiased or not married to the characters how is it bad?
Besides my first play through which I was disgusted and questioned things for a bit I got through it to see the end. Then I found the pieces in the story which explain the world around it. I mean the whole idea of her father being the only scientist to be able to do that procedure. With him dead even if they found someone immune they couldn't do anything. How that mirrors ellie's role. It works and makes sense. The world is big joel and ellie are two people.
@@starryshark Tommy already introduced himself and Joel to Abby beforehand so it wouldn't have a made a difference if her friends knew. Also the whole town of Jackson is based on helping other survivors. So it isn't dumb for Tommy to offer supplies for the group especially after they took him and Joel in and have shown no signs of hostility.
Inconsistent character and plot writing. 10/10 - a masterpiece
IGN 10/10 - a masterpiece.
I swear every time i just hate more and more the story of this game...
It’s shite
10/10 your breath taking
I give it 8/10 fingers
In the first game
Ellie: “how did you know about the ambush?”
Joel: “I been on both sides”
He kind of forgot that
Dumb and dumber must share a brain with Neil
@@saucytendies while I respect your opinion you shouldn't use your influence to call other people Idiots just because you don't like how they went about their creative labor. Your reasoning is, for the most part, justified, but you're being an asshole about it.
Except it wasn't an ambush. None of the group knew who he was when he arrived (bar Abby). They were genuinely grateful to them for bringing Abby back and openly friendly (Mel). They weren't after anyone but Joel and had no beef with anyone else so they weren't out looking for random victims.
You kind of forgot that
@@keythekidd stop embarrassing yourself. He is 100% right. It is dumb
@@Revan-eb1wb embarrassing myself how? I said don't call other people dumb with your influence, dipshit. He can say he doesn't like the game all he wants I I couldn't give a shit less
I just found this comment under a video, and the guy who wrote it is a hero: Joel's death Is like a story about an Olympic Swimmer, who forgets how swim and drowns, because he hasn’t been in the pool for 4 years.
To be precise, in the last 4 years he was even more active since it is even said he keeps going on patrols with Tommy, killing bandits and infected to increase the safety of Jackson.
thats a pretty good analogy!
You left out the bit about patrols rescuing passers by and taking them back to Jackson. Ah right, that bit doesn't work with your bias so you conveniently ignore it..
larso_kaparso well rescuing someone, helping to survive a horde mind you completely far from Jackson, almost 2 hours, what other choice did they have?
Tbh what Abby did to Joel was much worse than what Joel did to Jerry.
At least Joel didn’t restrain Jerry’s loved ones and force them to watch him get killed. Abby, on the other hand, held both Ellie and Tommy down and they were forced to watch. They could’ve knocked em out right then and there. But no, Abby forced them to watch. I’d kinda understand her reason for killing Joel, but forcing his little brother and adopted daughter watch him get butchered is inexcusable. Abby is not a morally good person, because a morally good person wouldn’t do that. I think everyone knew Joel was gonna die because he’s a mentor character, but the execution was unbelievably sloppy.
As with the character swapping (ex: swapping Joel with Jesse), that’s scummy. They had us believe Joel was gonna help Ellie, but instead they had Jesse. They also did the same thing with the flashback where Joel tells the truth to Ellie. They had older Joel’s model in trailers and screenshots, but they had a slightly younger Joel in the actual game. Why would they do that? That’s literally false-advertising.
Great video, pretty much all of my problems with TLoU 2 explained very well.
tommy was knocked out unlike ellie but everything else is right.
man it still doesnt make sense for abby that joel only shot jerry...for her joel was a monster..she felt the need to torture him..people react different..if my parent were shot in the head by someone for exemple..do u think that i need to shoot the killer quick? if i want to torture him, i would do it...and in my perspective..im still the good guy
@@vallykoool it’s not about that, the whole reason this wouldn’t have happened because it’s JOEL FUCKING MILLER he wouldn’t be tortured in the first place
@@TheTrueFawaz wtf is this logic, just grow up and understand what happened..and why it happened...he was tortured because he ruined their life and he was friendly because abby and her group helped him and joel and were friendly as well..
@@vallykoool you’re talking about the first game mate, i’m referring to the second game, i’m not saying Joel didn’t deserve to die he did and he was a piece of shit you are correct but his death was WAAAAAY out of character is what i’m trying to say so please stop being such a smartass
SPOILERS
The coincidences just keep building up:
1. Joel and Tommy would have known the area better than Abby but don’t know any other safe places to go?
2. They were even able to find the mansion, which is in a valley, in a blizzard
3. Ellie happened to go the right direction when her, Dina, and Jesse split up
4. Ellie didn’t get lost in the blizzard seeing as she lost Dina in it earlier
5. Ellie KNEW that the mansion was where everyone was when she came across it
And this is just the first 2 hours!
Also on Abby being a psychopath:
1. Was going to lead a literal GENOCIDE against the Seraphites with Isaac and Manny
2. No reaction when Manny died in front of her
3. Doesn’t display any guilt when she and Owen do the nasty, even though Mel is about ready to give birth to his baby
4. Shoots Tommy when he is unarmed
5. Smiles and says “good” upon finding out Dina is pregnant when she is going to kill her
6. Kills her old friends with no remorse as they shout at her confused
Theres even more but one of the dumbest things I think is that Abby is willing to kill old buddies for the sake of Lev who she met a day ago, but didn’t kill Tommy and Ellie.
10/10 Masterpiece!
@
I'm sure Ellie would have killed Mel even if she knew, if Ellie had found Dina and Jesse dead at the theater beforehand.
Abby is also haunted by the torture she put Joel through, what are you even on about? Owen gives her shit for it and she assaults him for it.
Have you played the game?
@@MrSurrealKarma Why the fuck would Ellie killed Mel if she knew? Considering the fact that she was traumatized after she saw the belly, it would be a proof that she wouldn't if she knew it firsthand. You clearly don't know wtf you're talking about.
@ItalianOfficialGamer
"your point about playing the game is stupid"
I bring it up because people don't seem to have played or watched the whole thing.
And yes, I'm aware that Ellie normally wouldn't kill Mel if she knew she was pregnant.
But if Ellie had just found Dina and Jesse dead when arriving at the theater things would definitely be different.
What point are you trying to make at the end here?
That Ellie isn't a complete bad guy? Yeah, no shit.
The reason Ellie didn't spend 5 years looking for revenge is because she didn't have to. She found her target quick.
Time didn't change her mind, the events that occurred and people that died did.
Abby also spared Ellie several times, even after Ellie killed her friends.
And how was that ending and message a bad one?
You obsess over revenge and it gets everyone you love killed.
@@zeroskaterz92
Read the whole post, bruv.
It would've been different if Ellie found Dina and Jesse dead in the theater when she came back, with no context.
Abby didn't show any reaction to Mannys death? Are you kidding?
The Joel and Tommy I know will never use their names out loud. The Simplest thing the writers could have done was that they could use nicknames like ; Earl and Jimmy instead of Joel and Tommy. Better even not use names at all. In the first game even Ellie does not tell her name to David when she first meets him. If Ellie, a 14 year old could do that in the first game......then you definitely understand what went wrong. Too bad the writers do not.
Joel also doesn’t even tell his name to Henry when he meets them. Ellie does and he gives her a look like why did you do that. Then she learns not to do it and doesn’t tell David.
I agree that Joel wouldn’t say his name in a room with a bunch of strangers but his fate was pretty much sealed the moment Tommy introduced both of them to Abby while they were running away from the infected
I think he could have gotten out of there if he had his weapon on him and didnt stand in the middle of the room while tommy watched the girl behind him take a shotgun from owen and get ready
Tommy was not the one ontroducing them. It was Neil Druckmann and what was her namne ... Gross something.
Like someone said - when story is good you hate villain but when story is bad you hate writer.
That's exactly what i thought. Why go around introducing yourself by your real name when you've done the things he's done.
Right! Tommy had already gave up the info while they were fighting
SaucyTendies if they had a vaccine all they would do is vaccinate the fireflys
I saw the video of Neil, Troy and Ashley talking about that scene and how carefully planned it was, and how no one knows the characters better than they do, and no one is more protective of those characters than they are...and if you got to be part of that conversation, you would completely destroy them with facts. You would make them look like complete morons. They would have no response to your argument here.
This was clearly a very well organized group, well armed, well equipped, etc. They parked their horses right next to a ****ing military vehicle. Neil says Joel was thrown off because he was looking for hunters. Bullshit. Joel would have smelled soldiers/fireflies 10 miles away. And Tommy was a former Firefly. Gimme a break.
Another thing Neil said: Tommy was offering everyone to go to Jackson, because that's safe (a safer environment for himself and Joel). WTF, dude. Too late. Right now, you are trapped in a basement with heavily armed strangers. You are not getting out alive. You are not going to talk your way out of this.
And that bullshit excuse about Joel getting soft after 4 years...ugh.
I really wish I could have an argument with Neil about Joels death. It took me a fat minute to make this video properly so I genuinely appreciate your comment man! I spent like 3 days working on it and still totally missed that military vehicle that was parked there! I just figured it was dead, but you’re right that makes way more sense as to how they got there and back to Seattle so fast.
@@saucytendies You did a great job breaking down that scene. I suspect that *part* of the problem is that Neil is now VP of ND, so there's not a lot of people who can say no to him. But that barely begins to explain what he did here.
They do seem to be in an echo chamber, where only they have the right answers, and if you don't agree, you are not "open-minded."
Well, their intentions are irrelevant. What matters is the end result. If they truly intended to honor the characters, they failed. Let's say I intend to give you a compliment, but you find it insulting. The result is that I insulted you, even if that was not my intention. And that's my fault, not your fault for not being "open-minded." I wonder if they can even understand that at this point.
" no one knows the characters better than they do"....isn't that familiar, seems like all the arrogant ass-holes have the same speaking
It boils down to fridge jacket, as soon you see the WLF patch you should have veered to another place and not the safe house. Like they are suppose to patrol that area and know the area but suddenly they think the place she picks is the best. That faction is not a foe but for sure not a friend either.
Neil was just trying to lie his way out of the hole he dug for himself with his lazy contrivances and sloppy writing. When defending them acting like Joe Biden trying to read an entire paragraph to a camera, he claims they've gone soft in 4 years, despite patrolling and killing infected and humans. His defence? "Joel's looking for Hunters, these are normal people". What's the tell for a Hunter? Do they have a special uniform? Is it the hats? Do they have business cards?
Abby is eating enough red meat to be built like a male weightlifter. That alone would set my spider sense tingling. She's not, in any sense of the word, normal.
To say nothing of them easily killing a few infected at the gate and suddenly there's no more, so why did Joel & Tommy go inside an unsecured location with no idea who these people are, what they want or even how many more are inside? They had no idea where to go, but when Abby mentions the mansion & her friends, they know the place & who owned it, yet they didn't think of it, or know that it had solar panels on the roof?
Joel & Tommy survived 24 years in this world precisely because they never allowed themselves to walk into situations like these. The longer they live, the less likely this is. The only concession I'd make to the softness is Joel delaying his and Tommy's flight from the horde to sprint 30 yards in the opposite direction they were heading in to save a stranger. Even that isn't consistent with his pre-pandemic character.
In a world of hordes and hunters, Joel & Tommy go patrolling hours from Jackson with what, the 8 bullets the game lets you hold, machetes that break after a few hits, but can be blacksmithed cold with found objects, no nail bombs or molotovs? Does Jackson have no decent firepower? Then why are they out there at all? Don't question, just consume & applaud or ND will ask Sony to call your employer to ask about your attitude.
Ellie’s reaction to seeing Abby torturing Joel makes me think that the surgery from the first game was more successful than I thought. Why didn’t she shoot?! She had a full 6-7 seconds, Ellie in the first game would’ve shot Abby in 3 seconds.
On her first kill, she just grabs the gun and kills the Hunter who is drowning Joel, even though it makes her sick. She doesn't just sit there wondering what to do. That's Ellie. I don't know who this is, but it's not Ellie.
*_Our disappointment is immeasurable and the story is ruined_*
lmao
Joel lost his brain for the plot
He really did
@@saucytendies He lost his daughter for plot too.
@@BenReillySpydr1962 made sense for the development, that's the difference it was meaningful
@@gabszz Are you suggesting that Joel's death didn't build character development for Ellie?
@@BenReillySpydr1962 explain what character building that she got from Joel's death?
Aside from becoming a brainless psychopath in an attempt to make Abby looks more appealing
The fake names is absolutely a must great observation, you'd think the two brothers would have fake names already setup for meeting strangers
Ellie walks into the room sees Abby. Doesn't shoot.
Meanwhile abby shoots jessie the moment he came in.
It's either Ellie is just dumb or the plot is really bad
they made ellie dumb AND the plot is really bad
@@darkember849 Stfu she had 5 sec to shoot abby
Abby intended to kill everyone at the theater because she knew they were all related to Ellie. That’s why she shot on sight.
Ellie was only investigating and had no clue who Abby was.
Just because you disagree with a story doesn’t make it bad
@@theworld6710 Was only investigate and had no clue who Abby was? Wtf are you even talking about? You clearly didn't even play the game nor even watch the cutscene. Ellie literally told Abby that she knew why Abby was there.
Matthew idk about you but if I walk into a room and I see my father figure getting tortured and I have a clear shot at the person responsible I’m not gonna calmly walk and in and say “well we’ll well what do we got here”
Also, when Abby tells Joel about the mansion that her friends are at, he knows where she’s talking about! He says “that’s the Baldwin’s place”. Which I take to mean going by that mansion is part of their patrol route or something. That should of also been a red flag to him as to why a group of people are so close to their town, let alone a place that he is familiar with and is probably apart of the patrol route.
Right?? Any other time Joel would've been wary about going to a stranger's hideout but woop-de-doo they killed some zombies together so they must be good people.
@Daniel Benros I disagree. He would've at least been more argumentative like he was in the first game. There's an advert or a cutscene in the first game where Joel's driving in a truck with Ellie in the city and a guy runs out screaming and waving for help. Ellie wants to help but Joel tells her no, keeps driving and sure enough bandits come out of nowhere and start shooting at them. He was never that trusting of people so being so open about their town and following her was out of character.
@@danielbenros4561And that's another problem, they are staying in one of the places where they patrol. Joel would've been more cautious that a bunch of strangers were so close to Jackson to begin with. Just because they may be their only option doesn't mean you should be trusting of them so easily. Ellie had to survive a horde with David, but that doesn't mean she ever trusted him in the slightest. That's why David is dead. In a world where anyone can easily be a threat I doubt joel would even go that far to even save abby. Besides, it was abbys dumbass that almost got herself killed anyway.
Clearly a skinwalker killed Joel, then took his body and pretended to be him. Cause that’s the only way I’ll believe this bullshit, why would he be so trusting of a random group of armed people after everything he’s been through??
"You two live nearby?"
Tommy "No, we are actually looking for a camp my wife and his daughter may be"
"Oh, I see. I'm Mel, by the way"
Tommy "Peter. and this is my friend, Marcus"
"Nice meeting you two. You guys want to come with our group?"
Joel "Sorry, but we are in a hurry. Let's go, Pet"
"No problem, we are actually on our way, too"
Tommy "Good luck fellas"
There, fixed their poopy encounter. Not perfect, yes, but better and at least they are smart here.
Exactly. Joel and Tommy will leave their place and sooner Abby's group will attacked Jackson with the purpose of killing Joel but, on the story twist, Tommy will be the one dead and Joel will immediately leave Jackson to get revenge.
But Joel will never tell it to Ellie since it's his brother.
But Ellie will be stubborn and will follow Joel just like the story in TLOU2.
Joel will be have a memorable death in the Theater instead of Jesse being dead there.
It doesn't make any sense why Jesse is there on Seattle.
Problem with that tho is that tommy told Abby who he was.
Louie Claus Hi Louie I don’t know who you are but what you just wrote now is the best plot this game should have taken. I’m angry and hurt at the same at the shit ND served us. Thank you bro, your plot is my plot, that is my Last of Us 2
@@Gunner9585 Well maybe they shouldn't
Exactly
This video is so funny because you hear the genuine confusion on how we got to this point
Lmao I cant tell you how many times I cut out me saying “its just so dumb”
Right? Lmao
"How can it suck so bad? What is this?"
Even now, 2 years later, I keep finding ridiculous things about it. We are supposed to believe Joel and Tommy "got soft" living in Jackson, but Abby and her group didn't "get soft" living in their state-of-the-art complex, with luxury rooms, cooks, gun ranges, weight rooms, etc. Gimme a break.
@@miller-joel
This can't be your argument. One had a motivation to kill out of revenge while the other had motivation to be better out of guilt.
@@clarkwayne6327 Abby's psychotic obsession with revenge was ret*rded. Not even Owen was behind it. He kept pushing back all the way.
Not even a huge fan of the last of us but Joel's death make me mad
After years of being excited to see where Joel and Ellie are going to head to next and what adventure awaited them, Neil Fuckmann had to spit on all of our expectations to make a “revenge is bad, but revenge is okay in certain situations”
Imagine a random character killed nathan drake because his mercenary uncle was killed by him, and now for the rest of the game you have to play as that random character.
Stop giving Neil ideas
Uncharted 5: The Woke Thief
@@sbj97 I laughed out loud lol
Honestly, there's no way Joel and Tommy would be out in the blizzard to begin with given their expertise in field work, let alone encountering Abby in the most contrived circumstance. To me, Abby died by the infected at the beginning of the game. The End.
Tommy went on a tear tho, killing ppl left and right
And it would have been better if we played as him instead if Abby
Yeah he did work. I cheered when he blew out the brains of that dickhead Manny.
Tommy was absolutely based in this game until the end where he's suddenly a jerk
@@bren97122 Even though i dislike his actions for spitting on Joel, i did like his character. He got what he deserved though. Abby did too by getting infected. They need to do part 3 with Lev find a cure and end the game
@@roberto9094 When did Abby get infected?
TLoU 2 fanboys: Joel had become soft after 4 years of living in safety
TLoU 1 Joel: *refuses to save a family at the exact beginning of the game, which, at that time, he had been living in ACTUAL safety for his entire life up to that point.*
But sure, surviving in the APOCALYPSE and nearly the END OF THE WORLD for 4 years would definitely erase all of your anxiety and paranoia all gathered up in over 20 years of barely surviving :D
If anything, he'd be paranoid about protecting Ellie and Jackson at all costs if need be.
He was also on patrol. Part of their job is to 1. Clear infected, and 2. Bring back any survivors they meet and confirm they’re not hunters. The beginning of the apocalypse where he’s ACTIVELY WITH HIS DAUGHTER is a lot difference than mid apocalypse where you’re comfortable with killing and protecting, and you’re with your brother who can also hold his own. It’s a lot different.
@@DarkAttackYT If you look at the log books, (Iirc, the one in the flashback with Ellie, Tommy and Joel patrolling, but it might be the book that Ellie signs with Dina) you see instances of people going on patrol, finding survivors, and making a note of cutting the patrol short to bring them back to Jackson.
They Laugh At Us Part II
the reason that they put present Joel on the trailers is to make us think that Joel would be playable during most of the gameplay. they knew the game wouldn’t sell if people knew Joel would die so soon in the game. they used joel to advertise the game so it can sell.
You should make a video analyzing Joel and Tommy’s character and make up your own story how you think they would’ve actually reacted in this situation
Best bet?...Cure Fucking find a Doctor whose not a Quack who wants to open people up just to guess what part is the cure.... there's this called Plasma Therapy where they take some Blood and Test it?...like 10/10 Thanks Scriptwriter! It made no sense at TLOU about Dissecting Ellie now it's 100/10 Bullshittery on Joel Being a competent man with experience to be completely turned a Toddler not knowing this is exactly like walking to a bear trap
Make sure in this hypothetical scenario you stipulate that they’re surrounded by a horde of infected in the middle of a snowstorm and can’t make it back to Jackson. That’s the bigger picture here. I feel like most of these points imply there was an option besides trusting Abby, and there really wasn’t. Find a different abandoned house and interrogate her? Maybe? That’s really all I can think of and even that’s not really a good alternative because they run the risk of not finding a house and keeping themselves exposed and vulnerable.
William Trotman Doesn’t that horde get wiped by molotovs at the gate lol? Unless you’re telling me there’s more to that horde in which case where are they because the gunfire should have attracted them.
Knowing Joel he won’t be at that situation at the first place but let’s just say he is.. He would be there but not in the center of everyone, he would be staying beside the door, and Tommy would probably notice Joels suspicious and goes with it
χορήγηση He wouldn’t take off his guns and backpack the same way he didn’t take of his guns and backpack in the first game when he went to sleep in his own safe house with Ellie in the next room.
It's funny how someone can come here, and ignore all these 13 min of solid arguments, showing how stupid Joel's death was, and say something like "You just can't handle Joel's death". If you would like so, it would be possible to make a ton of videos for every single plot hole in this game. Btw, nice video.
Ive thought about making a couple more for sure! Glad you liked it!
These are not solid arguments. This is grasping at straws, forcibly trying to make the decisions and actions of the characters look irrational.
Movies are fictional as well and novels, they can be all held to the same standard. If thats the argument then why debate about anything if the rationale is ehhh its just a fake character, don’t take it to heart. Anyway, points made in the video good valid points. But to each their own.
@@icedmosquito109 If you're a fan of the first game, there's really no way you can be happy with what happened in TLOU2. You got that right, fans are emotionally attached to Joel. Deep. Not irrational. This is what separates a game from a movie. A game character from a movie's. Its more personal. When the main character dies a tragic death in a movie, we all got affected. More so in a game where you are playing as that character and knew what they have been through seeing events through their perspective. Fans love Joel and Ellie. The first game ingrained that love for these two. Fans wanted more of them and waited for 7 years. Now look what they got. Joel died, spitted on. Ellie left with nothing. I understand its a story. Joel's death may be questionable or not. In character or not. But how the game treated Joel is how the game treated the fans, plain and simple.
People can be emotionally attached that’s perfectly fine, in the first one they killed Joel’s daughter, I cried during that scene but I was prepared for something to happen to Joel, I knew there were going to be repercussions from what he had to do at the end of the first one and that’s why I didn’t take it as hard as other people seemed to. This was the developers wanted to make you feel that emotion but I don’t think they intended people to throw a bitch fit and send hate messages to the actress that voiced Abby As some irrational people have. It’s a video game you can not like it but in the end my personal opinion it did what I think the developers intended it to do.
You're the first one I've heard that points out how Joel's death makes Ellie look stupid. People always argue that sequence from Joel and Tommy's point of view, but somehow aren't surprised that Ellie, you know, the same Ellie that took down scores of cannibals in the first game all to defend Joel, is unable to pull the trigger on Abby on that first scene. TLOU II is a great example of plot armor and why fan fiction should never be published as cannon.
I think initially Abby and her group were going to infiltrate Jackson and work out who Joel was, but the writers wanted to get to Joel's death more quickly, so his death was kind of rushed and contrived in the end.
I'm happy someone made a whole video just explaining this topic. Thank you, many great points and I fully agree! I didn't even think about the parts relating to Tommy.
i agree with everything you said it's literally like there were completely different people that wrote the 2nd last of us and they had absolutely no clue who joel and tommy were in the first game there was SO many out of character things that joel did just in the short amount of time he was alive but believe it or not there was even more out of character things that tommy did and on top of that they never explained how tommy survived from getting shot in the face by abby joel's death made no since and tbh 80% of this game made absolutely no since i wish they never even made this game
Dude right! What gets me is how Tommy, Dina and Ellie got back to Wyoming all with concussions, a dead body, broken legs, arms, a punctured lung and massive brain damage from getting your head smashed into the ground. I hate how they left Tommy blind, crippled and with his wife leaving him.
SaucyTendies i couldn’t agree more man i don’t know what they messed up on more joel’s death or the hundreds of things that happened in the game that were left un answered lol this game is so bad and feels SO rushed even though they had 7 years to work on it plus Ellie is now going to have ptsd for the rest of her life i just don’t understand how they messed up so bad on this game sorry for ranting i love you man love your videos btw
@@saucytendies Because revenge = bad, right? Then why did Abby get rewarded with surviving, getting away with Lev, and rejoining the Fireflies after getting her revenge? I guess revenge is only bad if your name is Ellie or Tommy.
@@saucytendies how on Earth did Dina not have a miscarriage after that, like???
@@saucytendies Don't think, consume product & applaud.
How'd they even get out of the theatre? Tommy is a half-blind cripple months later. Dina was already so sick she was a useless sack before her beating. She hulk smashed her face repeatedly, when she was previously shown to be able to insta-kill infected & beefy Scars with one head slam.
Ellie has a broken arm and was so badly beaten that even with Dina about to have her throat slit, all she could do was turn her head. Nothing else was moving at all.
Travel in TLOU2 is apparently now as easy as travel in Westeros in GoT season 8. Ellie's lone round trip to Santa Barbara is almost as far as she and Joel travelled together in the first game. It's such a non-event, it's not even worth showing.
Are the coach companies running again?
I will ask the question no one else ever seem to ask.
How did they even know it was Joel who wiped out the facility? Don't forget the end of the first game where Marlene confronts Joel as he escapes. While she is pleading to spare her life Joel in his own words said "You'd just come after her.". He then shoots her and ties up the last loose end. He very well knew that if he and Ellie were to live peacefully there had to be no witnesses.
Logically speaking any Fireflies who show up afterward would assume its the government faction they been waging war with is who done it and be none the wiser.
Even under these circumstances Joel would have been cautious and only use his real name around trusted friends and associates. He would know better than state his true name to strangers in the event a witness did escape and later encountered remnants of the Fireflies. Operating under an alias would have been the first thing that came to mind.
When you just pissed off a big organization and they want you dead, you of course would not want to be catching their eye, using an alias would be the first thing that comes to mind for not just Joel but anyone with a brain would realize this.
Imo Joel surely thougth that Marlene was the only one capable and has knowledge to go after them (for the other FF he was just an smugler) when he killed her there weren't after him. Plus the Fireflies disapeared
Marlene and Abby father talked about Joel a little bit and Abby Heard that , and we saw that not every soldier died , Joel barely made it to the elevator , lots of soldiers saw him
Imagine gta when you kill some npc by accident and then hes kid kills you and its end
Is such nonsense, they killed Joel but let Tommy and Ellie live? What is the logic? By the way , Ellie is the only cure, they all seems to forgot about it.
Apparently, they let Ellie and Tommy live because they were really nice people and cared about justice. They were completely fine with beating Joel to death in front of his daughter, but killing them, no, that would be going too far! (Rolling my eyes).
Honestly you know there's some government agency still out there in a bunker somewhere. She still is the key and that couldve been a great story within itself. Imagine the US government hearing word of another immune person and they go after Ellie and kidnap her, Joel springs into action and Abby wanting revenge stalks him throughout his journey to save Ellie... GOLD. Everyone would be onboard with this...but nope.
If you played the game you would have seen the group is split on killing Ellie and Tommy. It's really just Owen and Abby who make the decision to let the other two live. Abby because she just killed a defenseless man and doesn't want to experience more of that, and Owen because he's an idealist.
@@claytonwatson1862 I played the game. It's a completely moronic excuse. They claim that killing Ellie and Tommy would be going too far. But beating Joel to dead in front of his daughter is not? It's garbage. Stop making excuses for it.
@@miller-joel then she is just causing pain for ellie on top of that. She seeks for revenge for her father dieing which she did not have to witness then he just causes far more pain to ellie by forcing her to watch it and a much longer painful death for joel. Then later on when finding out specifically who ellie was in relation to joel and why he killed the surgeon she shows nothing. She never feels anything of remorse or conflict in her decisions. Revenge bad for Ellie but good for Abby says Naughty Dog.
6:19 .. lmaaao that was literally my first reaction while watching a livestream, like Tommy was like : Lemme go legally blind real quick for a couple minutes while Abby gets her shotgun from Owen for no reason and points it at my brother .. not even someone who was plotting with them would do that kind of shit -10/10 writting
And they safed her live
Im so sick of people defending this mess of a story, i mean people can like whatever they want but to act like its some masterpiece drives me nuts
Agree 100 percent!!!!
Not to mention that there could be other people that have Tommy and Joel’s name, so how they know that this is the Tommy and Joel that they’re looking for?
Tommy : I'm John and this is my brother Patrick
Abby : Wow ok, thanks for saving my life.
*Roll Credits*
pretty much lol
Perfectly articulated, man. Joel acts like a completely different person for the sake of plot.
It's so sad what happened to this story. The Joel and Ellie dynamic was amazing. They created something so great in their relationship, but Neil destroyed it, almost as if he didn't realize what was so great about the first game.
"Hi, I'm joel. Hey, why are you guy's pulling out golf clubs?"
Arthur Morgan: "What they done to you?"
In Neil's early concepts for TLOU1, he wanted to include a revenge plot, but other head creators decided to remove it, because they knew that no SANE person would be motivated to seek revenge in a world so hellish and dangerous. That's why the whole game feels wrong. All the characters feel insane for traversing this hellish world. They're all too eager to throw themselves into danger. The motivations just don't make sense when compared to how difficult it is just to stay alive in this world. Ellie even seems to become self aware about her own plot armor, saying things like "i don't plan on dying", when literally EVERYONE around her has been dying the whole time. She thinks she's immortal? because she's the main character? wack.
Totally agree, I actually made a video about how similar his rejected revenge plot is to this game
Good explanation. Good job! It's shame that some people just keep repeating: "It's an adult story, for people with brain, you don't get it". If the story is bad written and characters poorly written - it is just bad story. Man, I have waited for that game for 5 years, made preorder in September 2019. I can't believe what ND and Druckmann did. I just can't. Sony exclusives always were good, what happened?)
Man I feel you. There are a lot of comments arguing against me on here basically saying it could have happened bc joel got soft off screen.
I think Sony exclusives are still good, this is just one bad one (that I hope is the last). God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn and Bloodborne don't have any of these issues and are some of my favorite games of all time :)
My problem is the defense everyone has for why it’s bad writing or bad written characters. It’s bad writing because ellie doesn’t shoot Abby the INSTANT she opens a door. Why the fuck would she shoot anyone she sees the instant she opens a door. She had to look at Joel and recognize it was him. It’s not entirely easy to tell it was him with his skull half bashed in. “Joel wouldn’t have trusted them” a million people have said why that’s the case. Or in the video he says that Joel saves her so she shouldn’t have tortured him. He literally said joel killing her father was a weak explanation. Like that’s mad goofy. I don’t see it as bad writing or bad characters. I see it as DIFFERENT writing and a different turn in the characters. And people don’t like different.
Wouldnt say for adults only but absolutely for people who dont live in their own little world and who are able to look over their own horizon. Big guess youre not one of them, so stay within youre bubble
@@joel.orleansI disagree, Ellie knew that Joel and Tommy were in danger before she even reached the house. Inside the house, she cld literally hear Joel’s screams, so she knows he’s in danger. But when she opens the door, she doesn’t even need the time to recognise that it’s Joel on the floor bc she knew he was in danger through his screams, so imo, she cldve shot Abby quickly instead of stepping inside to get a better chance of shooting, she’s clearly skilled with guns now, so no need to get closer to Abby to shoot. Abby has the right to kill Joel bc he killed her dad. But the way she kills Joel isn’t justified. Pls tell me one thing, who tf goes for a revenge kill before finding out the reason Joel killed her dad?? I mean, if someone was to kill ur relative, u wld obv first want to know y they killed them right? And then do ur revenge blah blah. Abby doesn’t even question Joel at all, he cldve gave her a reason and she wldve killed him knowing the reason y Joel killed her dad, she wldnt have empty answers. And imo, Joel had the rights to killing her dad and saving Ellie, cuz her dad did threaten Joel with a blade, and I feel like, the relationship between Abby and Lev, Abby wldve understood the reasons y Joel killed her dad to save Ellie, she wldve understood Joel’s motive to bonding a father daughter relationship with Ellie. (Maybe not cuz of how much a psychopath Abby is, the way she brutally tortured and killed Joel). And come on, Abby was literally going to die 100% but Joel saved her, she shldve realised at that moment thag Joel acc didn’t go on a killing spree since he saved her, and she shldve realised that “maybe Joel had a reason to killing my dad since he saved me and didn’t kill every1 he saw”
dud i think you've done the best job explaining why this makes no sense
Joel knows a trap when he sees one
walking into a room filled with people he or Tommy doesn't know
the fact they weren't looking for Joel they didn't even know Joel was there
the fact the last games told and showed that Jackson gets raised often another reason not to trust strangers
that Abby just runs into Joel and Tommy
Abby not really saying why she is doing this "guess" Ellie said it best "Joel has fucked with a lot of people"
the fact those 2 are unarmed be these friends or not you keep a gun on you
the "Joel is clearly rusty from all his time in Jackson" sure if he was sitting on his ass all day but no he's out there dealing with Zombies
Tommy should seethe shotgun being handed over and Abby moving to shoot
need i go on i can't say about everyone but i don't care you killed Joel but i do care how you killed him
Jonathan Ellison you answered your own question. When they walk in it isn't a trap because none of them bar Abby knows who he is at that point. They even get a genuine welcome when they arrive because everyone is happy they brought Abby back. It is unlikely Owen has even told them about being near Jackson given his and Abby's earlier conversation. Mel introduces herself and shakes Tommy's hand and she means it. It is only when they introduce themselves that the mood changes and Joel spots it immediately and starts to scan the room. Abby reacts first because she already knew. The answers are all there if you look at the details.
@@dorkangel1076 hmm yeah I guess though them not having their guns on them is still kinda stupid even if they didn't get to fire there should still be a gun strapped to their leg or in their belt or somewhere still seems really stupid letting your guard down that much with people you don't know
Bruce Crawford genuine welcome my ass. That soon to be scar face fuck was a complete prick and asshole tone to Tommy. There was no talk about the horde of zombies they escaped. And the chance everyone was outside with the gate open with guns drawn in a blizzard...get the fuck out of here. This game story is so fucking stupid, it reaches abysmal idiocy. I think a hilarious comparison is Abby blasting Joel’s knee cap off in preparation for a Pulp Fiction moment and then head over heels in love to give her life for Lev and Yara for saving her life.
Next level shit would be finding out if NaughtyDog made this game so fucking dumb on purpose so that it would create all this buzz and dialogue/interest in criticism. Bad publicity is still publicity. And perhaps still a win for Neil Druckmann to get people talking and thinking of his so-called “Masterpiece” game.
Greg Horner Really Greg? What exactly did he do to Tommy before he knew who they were? Do you think they might have been out there they were because they hoped Abby would make it back and they were keeping the gate open in case she did?
Jonathan Ellison Fair enough but I think their guns were empty by that stage. I'm pretty sure Abby was the only one firing during the horseback ride and they talk about being "out" in the ski lift. They got off their horses in the garage and just walked into the next room. They didn't even want to unsaddle their horses, just brush them down. Their sense trap ability wouldn't be going off because there was literally was no trap. That might even work against them here. As soon as the mood changes, Joel senses it immediately but by then its too late.
Here's how I would have fixed the story:
1. Make it a more Eliie focused story. You start right after the end of the Last of Us 2. We can build from the beginning of the game (joel tels tommy the truth, joel meets young ellie and plays the guitar). Then we can start by maybe exploring a bit more of Jackson, have more character interaction with Dina and Jesse. They could probably still keep the love story with Dina and not kill Jesse off.
2. The game can advance into showing what it's like to complete one of the patrol missions. Like maybe she starts out small (which is explained in the first game in flashbacks but never developed).
3. Probably through their patrols, they can like start unrevealing the whole story with the Wolf and Scars. Abby's story would probably take a backseat a little - like maybe develop more from that flashback where we saw her dad died. I want to see how she learns of the identity of Tommy, Joel and Jackson. Make incredibly broken and give her a strong motivation to kill Joel. Make it so like we as the player know that there is some danger awaiting Joel at the end of the game.
4. As the whole Wolf, Scar and Jackson narrative unfold, you slowly get to see more of what the world has become. Basically, this will set the bigger narrative of the game.
5. Maybe halfway through after all the patrols and the killing (like her being more involved in the patrols and the fight against the Wolf/Scar - it really doesn't matter since the group at Jackson does not have an affiliation with the Wolf/Scar), she slowly starts to question as to whether they are actually others like her. Then boom have that reveal where she finds out the truth.
6. Build more on the flashbacks we got. Because those were good.
7. So after Joel and Ellie starts to break down, maybe have a scenario where Ellie kind of has to choose whether she can trust Joel. Maybe have Joel like kidnapped or be in danger in one of the times where they are fighting against the Wolf/Scar. Then perhaps the game can show a scenario where Ellie has to choose whether she can trust Joel with her life in a certain life-threatening situation.
7. We won't have to play as Abby - she could be like just like a background character waiting to kill. Like right after her father's death, the game can show how she trained to become a badass Wolf, how she learned of Joel and Tommy's identity, how she becomes more involved in the war against the Scar.
8. If they wanted to, Yara and Lev could still be an addition in-game. But instead of saving them just make Abby this super dark character where she shows no remorse in killing.
9. At some point in the game after Ellie and Joel gets over the fact that he lied, the story could continue to show that they both try to reconcile with one another after Joel does some act to show that he does care for Ellie and is willing to do whatever it takes to keep her alive. After she sees this, she'll probably have a change of heart.
9. The suggestion above will surely make the campaign a lot shorter but the story will be more focused. Perhaps the ending will be a situation where Joel and Ellie are pinned down by Abby. Ellie could then decide 'ok it's my turn to protect my protector' but then Joel decides to sacrifice himself as he is killed by Abby.
10. In this way, you can still have a sequel but at least the story wouldn't be that bad. The war between the Wolf and Scar and also the Jackson gang would probably escalate to a point where all sides suffer some form of casualty. Everyone involved in the war would have lost something. In this way, if they do decide to go the revenge plot route - it would have made a lot more sense.
Even if she does have a change of heart in the following sequel, it would still make sense because in this version, I suggest that Ellie still has her friends and allies. They could be something that will help bring Ellie back into the light in the following sequel. Who says you can't have a story of hope in a world that's so bleak and dark.
These were basically my thoughts. Looking forward to anyone who has a better idea for a remake.
Wow you put a lot of thought into that! I like that more than the actual story for sure
👏🏼 I would have enjoyed that story, I did not connect at all with this one.
@@saucytendies The saddest part is, Neil's latest IGN interview said it was originally like that, a lot more about Jackson, building the relationships, an open world, with Abby coming in & trying to find Tommy, to spy on him to find Joel. And that Abby was meant to die all along and there was meant to be a lot more of the Wolves and Scars, too.
Then he changed it all.
WTF was he thinking? It's like he didn't have confidence in himself, which his desperate responses to criticism show, so he structured the game to be like the first one, cutting a lot of content and making it all feel rushed, contrived, undeveloped and forced.
We have the shocking death to end the first act, with Joel mirroring Sarah. We have the goal of the game being to hunt & kill Abby, with a side of save Tommy, mirroring getting Ellie to Salt Lake to save the world. We have playing as Abby mirroring playing as Ellie. Then we have the shock twist at the end, where Ellie saves Abby and then lets her go, mirroring the twist where when you get to the Fireflies, you realise they aren't the freedom fighters Ellie idolises, but a delusional band of zealots who instead of using Ellie to create a "vaccine", their leader is going to murder her instead to indulge his fantasy of being the saviour of mankind so you have to rescue her from them instead.
I just want remake. This story doesn't make scenes
Joel's death, Joel's behaviour, Ellie's behaviour , Tommy's too and Abby's story.
If you naughty dog wanted from we to understand about her character you had to do DLC. For these 6 years you couldn't do a fucking DLC. And that I have to play as the killer of Joel for 12 hours. I understand that we have to understand in some way more about the new characters but not for so long. I mean. They say Ellie is the main character in the game WHAT A LIE...
ABBY WAS
Even that Ellie went to revenge for Abby and when she almost kill her she didn't do anything kill every last one of them BUt expect for my father's killer.
Although I disagree with a lot of the arguments on this video, this is an idea I would love to see and experience.
*Sigh* This game was a complete failure and it hurts to say this because I loved the first game. 7 years for this lazy fart sniffing story and Neil had the audacity to shit talk fans that disliked the game. Naughty Dog is over. I am so happy I never purchased this game and I will never buy a game from them again.
I am also happy that I didn't buy this failure game
buying the fucking deluxe edition was one of the bigger mistakes I've made
i'm never buying another game from them again as long as cuckmann's there
1:56 I don’t agree with the premise that this is indicative of some deeper paranoia that’s part of Joel’s character. Joel had his first encounter with the infection earlier that night. We both are just speculating about what he means here with “you ain’t seen what I seen.” It’s entirely possible that he’s just a selfish person, and that’s being compounded with the fact that he doesn’t fully understand the infection and how it works. It also wasn’t just that he dealt with an infected person earlier, it was his friend and neighbor who he saw change and become a runner. Not wanting to risk picking up an infected person in this situation isn’t equivalent to paranoia.
I don’t agree that this example is indicative of some deeper paranoia but let’s just stipulate that you’re right and that it definitely is, what else is going on in this scene? Tommy wants to stop and pick these people up. And Tommy is clear in the first game about the fact he didn’t agree with things Joel did to survive while they were still together in the beginning. Tommy was the one who went with the Fireflies, who are a group trying to restore order and unity in the world. Although we can definitely be skeptical about whether or not their version of that would be a good thing, fixing the hydroelectric plant and building community in Jackson was his goal in the first game. By the same logic we can stipulate that it definitely shows he’s a trusting and optimistic person.
Your video encouraged me to rewatch Joel’s death and the events leading up to it and I think it makes plenty of sense. The larger context of the scene is that Joel and Tommy have to escape a swarm of infected, and having an extra set of hands by grabbing Abby is (I think anyway) a practical decision that Joel made in the moment. Before they get on horseback, Joel is covering the door and I don’t think he’s focusing on the fact that Tommy gives Abby their real names right away. He and Tommy know they can’t make it back to Jackson and they can’t stay where they are. They choose to go with Abby because Joel is familiar with the layout of the mansion.
EDIT: Adding onto the previous paragraph, it was clearly established at the beginning that Jackson had a bunch of different patrols out. It's possible that at first glance Tommy and Joel might have thought Abby was part of a different patrol. I also want to point out that Joel being hesitant when it comes to telling people his real name isn't consistent with how he behaves in the first game at all. What does a name matter in a world with no social media, internet, or reliable long distance communications?
The horde situation is a situation where they don’t really have a lot of options given the weather and being surrounded by the infected. In general, screenwriting is about manufacturing situations that build conflict. You can rightfully criticize the dues ex machina of Abby randomly being rescued by the person she was there to kill. The only writing decision I’m critical of here was Joel not asking Abby on the way there how many “friends” she was staying in the mansion with. But Tommy being friendly with all these strangers, and trying to assure them right away that there’s no reason to rob and murder them since they could get supplies from Jackson without bloodshed, is consistent with what we’ve seen about his character. Not to mention Joel does seem to realize right away once he gets to the mansion that they fucked up somehow and something isn’t right.
EDIT: I've been playing through the first game on grounded. In part one, Joel brings a firefly into his apartment and promptly takes a nap leaving them unsupervised. Failing to size up Abby isn't that unbelievable.
Abby likes reading, but she never (IN FOUR YEARS) picks up a medical textbook in attempts to continue her father's work. It's ALL about the protein and weights.
Abby doesn't ask Joel about "the immune girl" and her whereabouts, again, to possibly finish what her father died for.
Abby doesn't hesitate with Joel after having heard Marlene and her father discuss how both Marlene and Joel have feelings for this immune girl FOUR YEARS PRIOR.
Abby has no remorse or second thoughts even after Ellie tells her she's the immune girl.
Does anyone find it odd that NO ONE believes there's another doctor, besides Jerry, capable of performing this surgery OR using Ellie's blood as a possible vaccine even though there are TWO DOCTORS IN ABBY'S GROUP, let alone the WLF compound?
Totally agree. For the life of me I can’t figure out why Abby’s race changing doctor is the only one who could “make a vaccine”. By splitting open her brain without her consent, killing the only immune person they have seen in 25 years might I add.
@@saucytendies 🤣🤣🤣 A to the MEN!!!
SaucyTendies There's a bit of a difference between grown attached to and having replaced his dead daughter with her in his head. The game makes it clear the reason it needs to be done. You can whine real world science all you want. All that matters is if it would work using game world science. Yes, they could have handled it better but if you think the doctor waving a signed consent form instead of a scalpel at Joel would have made any difference at that point you don't know him at all.
Jason Burns Have you heard of specialisation in medicine? Does your local GP practise heart surgery in their spare time?
Looks like Joel's biggest weakness wasn't clickers or hunters
It was the plot
Hehe
Well thought out and well articulated. 10/10 editing too. Have a cheeky sub lad.
Thanks man!
I feel all the "He'd never have given his name." people are seriously off base, first off, Tommy was always shown to be more outgoing, and Joel was just following his lead; but also, throughout the entirety of the first game he openly uses Ellie's name at all times (what if someone had learned of an immune girl named Ellie?), and NOT ONCE corrects her for shouting his at the top of her lungs. He was never secretive with names, as there's very few scenarios where it would be an issue.
I also think the main thing people are overlooking are the people involved, Joel's been in this world for decades, everybody kills, everybody's armed. Throughout all this time he's dealt with both bandits and just general travelers, certainly with helping Jackson grow, that's what made this group the ultimate pitfall. They didn't present the obvious threat of the bandit who stepped into the middle of the road in part 1, they came off as just a group of average people. And it was Abby stumbling on Joel that made getting into that scenario more believable, had they set a trap, and tried to lure him in, he'd have been onto it in a heart beat; instead, she takes advantage of a situation where he HAS to shelter with them, and as everyone else is being legitimately friendly with them, including starting introductions, it was a completely casual atmosphere. Only Abby knew, and she made sure not to tip her hand, there was no danger present in the room when they started introductions. The literal instant the danger presented itself Joel caught on, but it was too late; there were no obvious signs, I mean a day is plenty of time to realize there were solar panels, just a perfect storm of circumstance. It does make sense.
The one point I will somewhat agree on is Tommy not catching the shotgun exchange, but if that happens when Mel is introducing herself, everything else happens very quickly.
Roman Shank I’ve played through the game in two days. I enjoyed the gameplay, but not the story
Yesss you said exactly what i was thinking
Yup totally agreed. And it's possible the gate was open because they knew Abby had snuck out and were trying to hold off the horde until she came back in. They care about their people too. You can see this because when you kill people as ellie, they look for them by name. And coincidences like Abby randomly meeting Joel and Tommy happens all the time. Plus, Joel probably grew a little softer and Tommy has always been nicer so he convinced joel to go save abby. We don't get to see why he goes to save her, it happens off screen and chances are, tommy helped convince him. And you can definitely sense that joel feels a little uncomfortable in that room, and suspicious. But he also knows that they're heavily outnumbered. Also, the argument is brought up that there's tons of tommys and joels in the world. But how many Tommy's have an older brother named joel? So ya, they reacted when they heard joel
1. Because it shows tommy was the tommy they were looking for since he has a brother named joel
2. Joel is the main man they were looking for, looking for tommy was a means to an end
It's honestly a little sad how people will play mental gymnastics to hate on this game without actually looking at it in depth.
Plus Jessie talks about how he looks up to joel and shit. If joel was still the mass murdering, shoot first ask questions later, paranoid guy he was in the first game, i doubt he'd look up to him that way and go and seek revenge too. People can change, and it'd honestly be sadder if joel was a static character who never changed between the first and second game. Now THAT would be poor writing
Omar Syed perfect.
And don’t forget that Joel and Abby were shooting from the horse, making noises
Sure you could argue that Joel wasn’t that paranoid about using names, but that doesn’t justify the fact the Joel in the first game would NEVER trust a group of randoms he just met to walk into their house unarmed and friendly, let alone try to save a random armed woman about to be killed by a runner. Your argument that he was caught off guard by the group is just wrong. Nothing about the group said that they were harmless, and a man like him who has survived 20 years in that kind of world would never lower his guard around a group of strangers, no matter how “harmless” they seemed. You’re focusing too much on his leniency of name using and ignoring the video’s point that tlou2’s Joel is NOT the same Joel from part 1, and his death was only used to form a poorly written sequel about revenge to the masterpiece that was part 1.
I've seen idiots on the internet by saying being in jackson made him softer, or being a better person for Ellie. But being softer or a better person doesn't mean a person becomes a moron.
I think the infected that jumped on Abby and almost killed her is actually a time traveler trying to prevent the events of The Last of Us 2
lmao
I agree with all your points. Another thing to note though is how the game tried to portray Abby and her dad similarly to how they first portrayed Joel and Sarah. That Abby's father is just this sweet dad who's just so kind that he saves zebras and is trying to find a cure. But then their whole facade just breaks down when he asks Marlene why she wants to tell Joel about the consequences of the surgery. Like, ANY GOOD doctor would 100% ask for the patient's and the guardian's consent to a life threatening surgery. But this man.. This spineless man who can't even answer marlene when she asked him what he'd do if he were in Joel's shoes, decides that no Joel and Ellie don't deserve the common decency to know about the procedure's consequences cause he wants to be the fucking hero. I don't understand how Naughty Dog thought we'd sympathize with these genuinely selfish characters while framing Joel to be the bad guy.
말로우마쉬 Thats the point they didn't show him as a saint. They showed he wasn't all good or all bad. They showed he struggled over the decision. Joel wasn't the guardian though, Marlene was. Thats why he asked her. Joel was the delivery driver to them.
@@dorkangel1076 He didn't struggle with the decision to put Ellie on the operating table. He struggled trying to convince Marlene to agree and he struggled to answer Marlene's questions. He desperately wanted to do the surgery since he's not attached to Ellie in any way so he doesn't really care about anything else besides the cure.
Joel has been with her and caring for her for a year more or less. And Ellie grew attached to him so much so that she didn't want any one else to take her to the fireflies if it wasn't gonna be him.
One things is for certain is that Manny is supposedly the cameo of Neil, so we can all say that Neil basically spit on Joel’s character
Uncharted 5: Thief gets Golfed:
Story/lore:
Nathan drake during his adventures killed a guy who happened to be the father of a girl whom we dont know,she tortures nathan and kills him in front of sam.we play as the girl for the rest of the game😂😂
We all knew Joel was going to die the moment Naught Dog announced Ellie was the main protagonist.
I can not begin to tell how mad it made me when Joel died. And some people say Joel dropped his guard because by then he was living the good life in Jackson for a couple of years.... *Bullshit!!*
I agree with all the things you said in the video.
And indeed, the biggest spit in our face, or mine at least, was the fact that they portrayed Joel in the trailers saying _"You think i'd let you do this on your own"_
When it turned out that was actually Jesse... They knew! They knew that thát would piss people off. It was nothing but woke propaganda and the weakest storytelling ever! God, i hated that game!
There's a video on youtube, can't remember the guy's name, but i believe it's called "How to divide a fanbase". And in the last segment of the video he poses a story on how he thinks the game would be way better, and i've been listening to that story mouth wide open. Man, if only tlou2 would be half as good as that story i would have liked it a hundred times better than the actual turd we were left with.
I honestly just thought Abby was a character who was hell-bent on revenge so much so that she began training like a soldier in order to gain the skills required to get her deed done. She was a morally conflicting character who changed during the outbreak due to her many flashbacks with Owen, showing that he started to get fed up with Abby and her psychotic need for revenge even after five years and living life with the W.L.F. faction. So when she tortures Joel and enjoys it, it shows her tormented soldier side coming out. However, after this she also begins to soften up more knowing that what she has been training for over the last five years has been completed and she can rest. That’s why throughout her story it’s constant back-and-forth between trained soldier mode (which she was mainly in for most of the time skip) and her tender, motherly side that comes out with Lev and Yara. Owen cheating on Mel with Abby also brings out part of her “inner animal” since her and Owen were arguing seconds before their awkward sex scene. It shows that although Abby is becoming a kinder human, she can still be flawed in ways that her animal instincts cause. Also in the scene where Abby is about to kill Dina after FUCKING UP Ellie and company, Lev’s childlike tone calling out to Abby made her snap back to her tender side instead of becoming an even deeper monster and becoming driven by hate just as Ellie has. I don’t know though, maybe she is just a terribly written character?
definetely the character developement was nearly not existent, and the little bits that we got, it was a contradictory mess.
Endo Souldreamer she’s supposed to be a conflicting character that flips, don’t see how it is confusing
Nothing wrong with her character honestly, it's her development that was bad. I'm just repeating from another commenter, they should've had Abby's campaign a dlc, that not only would they have more money, but they were not forced to play as a character who killed a beloved character
jonevat 77 Ellie in the Theatre with Abby "You killed my friends. We let you live and you wasted it". Raises gun. (perhaps, flashback of Abby and her dad) Fade to black. TO BE CONTINUED. Can you imagine the outrage if they'd done that... 😉
I Think Dina was Originally going to be Killed. But Joel Replace Her(Instead of Killing Joel)
Do you think the writer was also dealing with infection?
Maybe that's why it's a fucked up plot
5:51: Joel should have jumped over a couch? Lol, you analyze this game like it must be the most realistic thing ever and then you say that? Really? That's something that happens in an action movie or something, but never in real life. Nobody is jumping behind couches. What would be the point of that?
6:43: sure, Tommy not seeing the shotgun is weird, but yet again, you think like an action movie. One doesn't simply grab someones gun from the holster.
7:14: really? If somebody I know is screaming, I will recognize their voice. What are you on about? Humans aren't all the sudden unable to identify somebody's voice just because they are screaming. Even if there is a margin of error here. She is looking for Joel and hears the screams of somebody with a voice that sounds much like Joel.
7:26: How do you know that people would shoot immediately, when they see this? Are you actually basing this on something or is it just something you are assuming? I wouldn't be surprised that your assumption is again based on what you saw in movies.
Joel murders Abby's father, kills of a lot of fire flies and you don't see that as a good motivation? Why are you ignoring Abby's trauma by the way? She is constantly thinking about what happened that day. She having nightmares about it. She is being consumed by the traumatic event. The fact that it is 5 years ago doesn't matter, because of her trauma. The only thing that people with trauma can think about is the traumatic event. They cannot let go, that's why it's called a trauma. Why did Abby kill Joel after he saved her? Because Joel saving her, doesn't automatically fixes her trauma and therefore doesn't magically fix her intense hate for Joel. Abby is not showing the behavior of a psychopath, but of a heavily traumatized person. The same goes for Ellie, she is not going after Abby and her friends because of a Blutlust, but because she is heavily traumatized. She cannot think of something else then Joel's death and finding Abby. People who think that the story is about "revenge is bad" clearly only looked at this game at a very superficial level.
Joel's death means nothing? Really? Literally everything in the game happens, because of Joel's death. Joel's death gives a sense of grief that I've never felt before in a game. Joel's death is also there to show what trauma can do to a person. How it changes a person and how it can lead to morally bad decisions.
Good analysis but the game is clearly about revenge is bad. No matter how you put it.
I think the number 1 thing that doesn't make sense is that even if you're on your way to kill someone, if they save you from being ripped apart by zombies I think they've earned your respect / forgiveness. So even if Abby decided to kill Joel anyways, she should have done it without malice. that's a great point about the gate already being open, and them not reacting to the name Tommy
Exactly! I've been trying to explain this moral to a friend: "If someone saves you from being ripped apart by zombies, I think they've earned your respect/forgiveness." But they just don't get it. Makes you wonder what Neil Druckmann was thinking.
playing as abby after she killed joul was a nightmare. I killed myself on purpose several times. I hate her so much. I almost deleted the entire game. it was a bad decision by naughtydoog to delete joule from history. when we have played an entire game with him as the main character
Coincidence after coincidence after coincidence and with a sprinkling of plot induced stupidity on top. Even ignoring the contrived convenience of Joel and Tommy running into Abby, I honestly believe it'd be far more in character for them to simply go in a different direction after she reveals her group of friends are nearby, that way not only do they split up the zombie horde since some would chase Abby, thus allowing them an easier escape or fight, but they'd also get back to Jackson with the crucial info that Abby so carelessly leaked about her group of unknown friends are lurking on the borders of their territory with who knows what agenda, after all Jackson has been attacked by bandits and Hunters repeatedly.
Thats true! All these comments about how Joel and Tommy have gotten soft could be true if the game didn’t literally tell us hunters attack the city regularly enough to not allow a group to leave for revenge.
Something that kinda pisses me off is when how you talk about how bad Joel's death was handled some people come out of nowhere and say "oH u JuST dOn'T uNdERsTanD tHe GaMe"
you are wrong
U did miss out one thing: in the flashback sequence where Ellie and Joel go to find guitar strings, Joel makes Ellie wear a mask when entering a room of spores because “what if we run into someone.” Part of that is just him being protective but it can also be seen as a sign that he fears Fireflies will come after him for what he did and the wild off-chance of him running into that someone while Ellie’s standing next to him without a mask in spores will give him away.
The man may have softened up during Jackson as notes and dialogue indicate that they would often trade with strangers..... but they did that behind their safe walls. The dudes still paranoid.
I get the whole point of Abby taking Joel out after he saves her is the beginning of her redemption arc as her guilt drives her to help Lev and Yara......but it made her character irredeemable in that moment, especially since we the player didn’t know her motives beforehand.
You’re totally right, very well thought out comment man!
They didn't just trade with strangers behind their walls, they actively helped people while on patrol. Some of those people are now living in Jackson.
His paranoia has shifted from himself (which was all he used to care about) to Ellie (who is now all he cares about losing). He is still desperately trying to stop her finding out what he did in the hospital (in case he loses her) If someone knows she's the "cure girl", then they might know what happened and tell her. That's his real fear.
Abby has obsessed over killing Joel for four years. She frequently has the vivid dream of finding her father dead by Joel's hands. In fact, she's just had it when she awakens in the lodge that morning. A few hours later she meets Joel. Him saving her at that point isn't going to mean squat.
I thought she'd be irredeemable when I got to her story too and then they showed her motives and how it effected her and what she went through to try and be a good person again. It's cleverly done in that Ellies story gives little away. For example, Ellie doesn't even know it was Abby's decision not to kill her and Tommy, she misses the whole conversation as shes in shock about Joel ( as are we). We only find that out in Abby's story and it took me a second play-through to spot that. Ellies story shows Abby standing over Joel from the back, Abby's shows her from the front and we see her expression. Both stories are told totally in the viewpoint of who you're playing as which can be difficult as each makes the other out to be the villain.
Big picture wise, Joel didn't deserve to die but I understood why Abby thought he did. Big picture wise I don't think Abby deserves to die but I understand why some people do. The paradox is if you think Abby deserves to die, then you have to admit so did Joel.
Wdym Joel died? That's clearly Joel and Tommy's inferior cousins who have the same name and are way more dumber, Abby just mistakened them for the real Joel and Tommy
I dont know I'd Druckmann is disturbed. That's really pushing it. I think he's really pretentious, up his own ass, and edgy, but not disturbed. Kentaro Miura's Berserk is much darker and he's in sound mind. You don't have to be a psycho to make psychotic work.
technically it was Tommy's his fault he was the one who introduced themselves and if Joel didn't say his name it would have just been there as suspicious as in saying it. Not to mention him being in a nice town surrounded by nice people who aren't always trying to kill him all the time for the past 4 years. And it said in the game that most people who pass by on nice and Joel even traded coffee with them. Also joel just saved abby life you don't expect them to turn on you. And only reason they went to Abby's places because they didn't have any other choice.
That's fair, but in the traders example you gave, they would be saying they were traders and would have merchandise to sell. This group is an armed group wearing military uniforms from Washington. Tommy or Jesse also mentioned a big group couldn't leave to go avenge Joel because the hunters could attack again, so no their camp hasn't been flowers and sweet candies for the past 4 years, he hasn't gotten soft.
during the outbreak, it is shown that Joel is cold enough to leave a family behind this is a guy that hadn't killed a single infected or hunter before now you've got a Joel whos lived in the apocalypse for at least 10 years killing infected and other people but because some people traded coffee with him he's supposed to loosen up and save Abbys life
After replaying TLOU recently, I couldn’t agree more, as you pointed out Real Joel had a survival instinct day one before spending the next 20- 30 years living in the apocalypse , which somehow made him soft? After all the delays of TLOU 2 I was expecting something extraordinary story , as you already said makes no sense what so every👎🏼
Very simple, Neil Cockmann was the writer, he didn't even wrote/directed the original TLOU story game, Bruce Strailey was and we missed him so much.
If this was Joel not in a safe place for the last 5+ years and being happy and having he’s guard down being out there for more than 20+ years and if not at a safe place 100% Joel would’ve killed them all easily but in this spot I’d have to disagree
See I knew it didn't make sense. I was arguing with some nerd about how terrible this game is and had to rewatch this shit to remind myself why it made no sense because I forgot it all lmao not playing this shit again.
Naughty dog seriously disrespected the characters from part 1 like nothing good comes out for anybody, like Joel, Ellie, Tommy, Maria.
Totally agree man, literally everyone gets their lives ruined or they are killed in this game except for Abby...
"WE HAVE TO FIND TOMMY"
"Hey I'm Tommy"
"Ah cool nice to meet ya man"
"Yeah I'm Joel"
"*Surprised pikachu face*"
Ima just pretend that this game never happened and that Joel and Ellie went on another adventure to solve another
problem and succeed
I'm going to try my best to "debunk" some of these points.
2:06 Joel didn't spot a fake injury. He knew that it was an act because he's done it before and he could tell they were hunters by the way they dressed.
2:24 Obviously he's going to save a girl if she's in danger, He's out on patrol it's his job. He didn't tell her his name, Tommy did.
2:37 I'm pretty sure thr group noticed Abby was gone and they probably heard infected, gunshots, horses so they would most likely go out armed and see it's Abby.
2:20 How would that group not know there are solar panels? They most definitely checked the area and spotted solar panels. Not to mention Solar panels aren't that hard to miss.
2:39 Well the group has been answering their questions. Since Joel and Tommy would probably have to spend the night they'd want to build some trust and so Tommy would answer a question they asked. Also their town Jackson, Not a hideout a town, is based on helping others so it would make sense that Tommy would offer them help since they have shown no sign of hostility. Also like I said he already introduced themselves to Abby and she hasn't tried to hurt them, So when Mel introduces herself they would introduce themselves too.
4:03 there's lots of ways to explain this. Either A: Like everyone likes to point out there are tons of people named Tommy, so when they heard Joel's name they probably put two and two together. B: They weren't looking for Tommy. Abby only mentioned that Tommy was in Wyoming but they were looking for Joel. They went to Wyoming hoping to find Joel because Tommy was there. C: I don't think the rest group knew about Tommy. Again Abby only mentioned Tommy to Owen but they went for Joel. Most likely everyone knew about Joel and not Tommy.
5:14 True it's a red flag, but Joel could have also said that in a jokingly way to try and lighten the situation. But even if he were to think immediately that he's in danger there's nothing for him to do, jumping behind a couch wouldn't have done anything.
7:13 I've already mentioned this in another comment but she had 3 seconds to take in what's happening. She walked into the room not knowing where anyone is or how many people are there, all she knows is that Joel is there and in danger.
I'm not going to talk about Abby's motivation because that's up to personal views.
This is actually the smartest person on youtube, not vsauce, not any science youtuber. This man made more sense then the word sense
My canon isn't even that this is a fanfic with a budget, it's a nightmare sequence from Ellie right after the first game.
The argument of Joel went "soft" makes no sense. Considering he wasn't a hardened survivor at the start and still left those people with a child on the side of the road.
I mean every normal person that sees someone beating up ur best buddy would kick door and shoot instantly
Fax,I'm not just gonna hesitate when father is being tortured
It's absolutely stunning how defenders of this game will STILL defend that scene. They totally get the gold in mental gymnastics, just beating out The Last Jedi defenders.
Yeah...I personally think last jedi is worse, but thats just because I am a much bigger star wars fan
3:00 why not leave the backpacks on the horse?
The only reason Abby faced consequences was because she didn’t kill the witnesses (Tommy and Ellie).
I stopped playing after when Tommy asked Ellie to go to Santa Barbra. I like to imagine that Ellie stayed with Dana and the baby. While Abby died on the pike.
Whats weird is Joel would never have wanted Ellie to go get "revenge" for him once she was happy with a family.
I'd love to have seen a story more like this:
Tommy gives away Joel, but Abby manages to restrain herself. The rest of her following doesn't know who they are looking for, so no reaction is given. Abby offers to let them stay the night, and Tommy accepts before Joel can reject. Joel chews the hell out of his brother for this. Tommy responds with an argument that life is different now, and maybe he's just stuck in the past, still trying to survive in a world that no longer exists. Cut to Abby, who is forced to weigh her father's death against the man who saved her life. In the end, she decides he doesn't deserve to live, and she rallies guards in the night to come and kill him. She tells them not to hurt Tommy however, in a twisted sense of gratitude to Joel for saving her life. "He dies, but only him, understand me?"
Paranoia has gotten the better of him, and he preempts their attack with his own. Tommy does in fact die here, perhaps protecting Joel, perhaps just randomly, to satsify this directors insane obession with realism. But Joel manages to escape, and he kills the guards in the process, cementing her desire for revenge. Perhaps her holding back out of respect for his saving her life cost her a friend in the process. He strikes out alone and wounded, and too ashamed and fearful to return home and notify the others of Tommy's death, something he sees on his hands.
Abby manages to fool Ellie, telling her that Joel has gone crazy and killed one of their own, perhaps even the pregnant women, and Ellie isn't willing to fully accept it, but agrees to set out and find him, to bring him in. There's an unspoken undercurrent here about how Ellie doesn't want anyone else to have to kill Joel, it should be her terrible duty alone to complete should it become necessary. There's a lot of opportunity in this time period for introspection. Before she sets out after Joel and after he's escaped is somewhat of a low-action moment in the arcs of the story. You could have scenes of the family of the people Joel killed mourning, and Ellie has to try and comfort them. It makes her ask whether or not he truly does deserve to continue on.
Ellie sets out after Joel, and finds him hiding out in a nearby abandoned town. They have an emotional talk, in which Joel refuses to accept responsibility for what he has done, trying to tell her his side of the story. Guns are pulled on each other, and Ellie is letting all of her hurt and anger pour out of her, just confused as to why he did this. You can have a lot of different morals being thrown around here, the standard fare of "how much blood do you have on your hands?"
Ellie tells Joel he's coming with her back to face judgement for what he did. Joel tells her this is a death sentence, and if she really is going to do that, go ahead and just shoot him here. In the midst of all this, Abby shows up in the town. She's tracked Ellie, knowing she would lead him to Joel. A three-way standoff can occur, with Abby revealing the truth of her father's death, and it blindsides Ellie. Instead of having found out about it earlier, the truth of the Fireflies is revealed here, at an emotional climax of the current arc. Ellie is stunned into lowering her weapon, trying to process everything that is going through her brain. She may have always suspected, but she had lied to herself in order to ignore the truth. Decades of lies come to light, the knowledge that she could have been a cure (theroretically of course) but never got the chance to sacrifice herself. Maybe we get a nice "Well shit" moment from Joel here. While Ellie is distracted, Joel uses this opportunity to grab one of the characters that wandered too close, and sets off a firefight he is going to win. Ellie is standing there quiet. Joel is beating to death someone with a brick. She's still torn, he's strangling a woman. He has his back to her and her gun is raised. At this point, Ellie is faced with the same decision Joel was given at the end of the last game. She can kill him, and end this bloodshed, or she can make a selfish choice and ignore all the wrong he has committed, siding with him once again.
Abby removes her choice from her by coming round a corner and barrelling into him with a golf club. Cue the beating with the golf club. Joel has earned his death. He's killed off half of Abby's crew, and fought like the caged lion he is. It still carries the message of pointlessness and selfishness, as he killed innocent and otherwise good people in his own benefit, and he is still in a morally gray area. He didn't know for sure that it was an ambush, and though he might have tried to justify it to Ellie, even he doesn't know for sure whether or not he was in the right. The golf club beating is no longer as disrespectful to him, though it is still violent and sudden.
After Joel dies, Abby moves on, telling her that they are done. She can't kill Ellie outright, but she sure as hell doesn't want anything more to do with her after she stood there without action.
Ellie does the only thing she can do to avoid the guilt. She blames everything on Abby. Abby becomes the focal point of her grief and rage. Ellie always said she was afraid of being alone, and now Abby has killed both her father and uncle figure. She ignores any extenuating factors, and pins everything on Abby and her goons. Cue the standard revenge fare, where we get to play as Ellie tracking down Abby, and Abby moving on unaware of her closing predator.
Slowly Ellie becomes a Joel, a selfish and morally bankrupt person who puts their own needs above others. As she's chasing Abby down, more and more grey seeps into her already monochrome character. Abby at first desperately tries to get away, costing her friends in the process. Eventually she turns around to face this demon and we get a climatic ending fight. Abby might plead with Ellie as they fight "Look at what you've done!" "Why should you have the right to get revenge but I don't?"
Abby beats the shit out of Ellie and turns her back, sparing her, still unwilling to finish her. Ellie uses the opportunity to unfairly get the drop on Abby, and begins killing her. Someone close to Abby is there watching, frozen, unable to move forward to help, but crying as they watch their mother or signifigant other get murdered before their eyes. Abby throws Ellie off and they both stand there, badly wounded, and both unable to step forward. Ellie's guilt and anger has been drained from her, and it all feels very pointless all of a sudden. As she stands there, she watches Abby stand in front of and protect their SO/child. Just like Joel did to her. She realizes she's been traumatised by the people Joel killed in front of and for her. She doesn't want to do this, but she's worked her way into a dead end. She's killed Abby's friends and burned her bridges to her old life down. Abby, sensing this, starts to back up. Ellie is unwilling to let go of her revenge but unwilling to take it as well. Abby might say something along the lines of "I've stood where you stood...and made the wrong choice. Make the right one." Transparently self-serving, but still it rings with truth.
From there you could run straight into basic structure of the current ending, as it already attempts to encapsulate those feelings. Obviously the scenery would be different but the messages and choreography could be the same. The problem with the current ending is that it is unsupported by what came before. With a new support structure the ending itself is not that bad.
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Honestly I'm just going to pretend this is how it ended.
Interesting concept! I would've preferred this over the current storyline by a mile. Especially since people keep forgetting that Joel is not a good person. Even if he's a fan-favorite, he's still a (as you put it well) selfish and morally bankrupt individual, that in all honesty did deserve to be on the receiving end of revenge from Abby (although I do not agree with how Naughty Dog wrote his death). You'd also sympathize with Abby (as it was originally intended) as her revenge is actually justified in the eyes of the player.
This is worse than actual game. Sorry, just my opinion.
@@ВладиславБулаев-л3э Sounds like fan-fiction
@@walmartninja2788 Better than what we got though
@@endomanen Yeah, the main problem with the current story is we are never SHOWN, just told. The critical rule every movie producer follows is show, don't tell, and TLOU2 violates that. We aren't shown the good things Abby does before she murders Joel, we are just told that we should like her and that she is a good character. We aren't shown the bad things Joel did to deserve his death, and we aren't shown his life as a hunter, we are just told, seconds before his death, that he is a stupid old man. Later we are told that Joel deserves to die because he did bad things in a past life. But we don't see anything in TLOU 1 that isn't justified in some way until the very end, by which time we have grown to love Joel and understand his reasoning. Most of the game you are killing in self-defense and you can sneak large portions of it. The only real two points of conflict we have with our own moral compass is Joel's past, and Joel's final decision to kill Marlene/save Elllie. Joel's decision is put at the end of the game for a reason. It's when we are most in-tune with the character we have spent an entire game bonding with. It would be real difficult to make the player care if you shot Marlene in that scene with Richard and then kidnapped Ellie, because you have little to no knowledge of any of the characters. Joel's past, we don't get to see any of. We get a few lines about how he used to be a bad dude, and then we pivot back to our humanitarian goal and the good Joel is doing, even if he has to kill to protect Ellie.
If the TLOU2 has started with some Joel flashbacks as a hunter, not only could we have seen and understood what terrible things he did, we could develop his sense of regret, PTSD, and his core protectiveness of Ellie. We wouldn't be surprised Abby was looking for him, since it would be very obvious that eventually someone would come back to haunt him from his past. Seeing Joel needlessly killing and being evil, and seeing Abby needing to protect her own/devastated by what she lost would reframe the conflict in the player when they see Joel being beat to death. You'd have the emotional reaction of "shit, I liked him a lot...but he kinda got what he deserved. Too bad he did those things." instead of the anger and outrage we had.
@Walmart Ninja As to the claims of fan fiction, you're right. This isn't a triple A produced story 7 years in the making, with teams of writers working round the clock to figure out how to show Joel being a bad person correctly and the moral ambiguity of their world. This is a youtube post on a video bashing the game that failed miserably even with all of their added bonuses. If I had the resources they did, I can guarantee my story would not look how it does now. But it also wouldn't look like what they shat out. Most of the things written in this story are less absolute plot points and more vague conceptual points for a general arcing storyline and central theme definition/development.
Tbh in the Elie Ran Out Of Ammo section, it's pretty much a trope.
Good Guy reaches the bad guy and instead of immediately engaging in combat, the good guy waits for the monologue.
I like the text you throw up at the screen.
1:33 Plot armor is funny, ain’t it? Joel saving Abby right before Abby kills him is so jarring. Honestly, I would agree. Bizarre is a great word to describe this insanity of an inciting incident. Joel’s death required no effort or skill from Abby and it just felt too easy. Killing Joel should not be an easy task.
This just occurred to me. If in the first game Joel was smart enough to know that it was an ambush, why didn’t he just drive away in the truck and avoid the ambush altogether? He just drove into an ambush *knowing* it was an ambush. He did not need to engage.
Glad you like it! That always bothered me too about Joel driving forward. They could have easily fixed that scene by showing people behind the car