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About the Ending of The Last of Us Part II [Spoilers]

BluRayHiDef

Banned
I don't see why people keep saying the message of the game is that revenge is bad, seems like the exact opposite.

Abby kills joe to avenge her father and totally gets away with it, no consequences, revenge is good and you should do it.

Feels like the Arya story where she just kills the entire Walder Frey's family and totally gets away with it, no consequences.

Abby does suffer consequences; many of her friends are killed by Ellie.
 

INC

Member
Only sjw part I had issue with was the lev scene, felt abit forced

Other than that, dont really have an issue with the story, not enough to cry about it like some
 

Jon Neu

Banned
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; I think that Dina is attractive (and that she's got the cakes :messenger_winking:). There's nothing wrong with women having hairy armpits. Hair naturally grows from their armpits, so why are you bothered by it? Furthermore, it doesn't seem to me that shaving would be a priority in a post-apocalyptic world.

Have you seen how they live in Jackson? They have every commodity at their disposal.
 

Shantae

Banned
Gee, maybe, you know, that's the theme of the game???
Don't buy into that BS, because the theme is contrived, and I already pointed out that it was written by hacks. It's almost as if they write down what they wanted to do: Kill Joel, make sure everyone knows Ellie's a lesbian, kill pregnant women, and make it seem like everyone sucks. Then they just wrote a narrative around this stupid bullet points. Regardless if they make sense or not. They need to earn that shit, and not just say "because this is the message I want to send, to hell with logic"
 
Ignore the story and focus on the graphics and gameplay would be my advice
i hope they patch in some MP as the best parts of the game are you playing the environment to your advantage

Would love to see a horde mode type game where you have to get the most kills against npcs
 

MiguelItUp

Member
While not having played TLOU2, I've seen about 90% of the game more than once. I love revenge stories, I really do. I don't think I realized how much I did until I saw Old Boy for the first time so many years ago. Since then I've seen SO many films and video games about revenge, and it's a theme that I'll always love. As long as it's handled well.

Here, I just don't think it is. I feel the story could've been more impactful and effective if it was all shifted a bit. If things were done in a different order, or even slightly different I feel the weight could've been heavier. But instead it just feels bizarre.

The idea of someone going absolutely insane with rage to get to that ONE target only to not follow through with it sounds ABSOLUTELY ridiculous in my mind. All of the killing she did to get to that point was essentially, for nothing. Joel was tortured and would've been even longer if Abby was not told to "hurry up". The fact that Ellie was then forced to watch his last breaths and then the final blow that would take his life. But decides, "Nah, you can live."

I almost feel like it would've been so much better if Ellie killed Abby, and then the ending played out in a way that made you feel like it wasn't worth it, or that more baggage came with it than you thought it would, etc.

I feel like the message could've been more profound, and the theme of revenge (and guilt) could've been a lot heavier. It just kind of missed the mark.
 
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You know the writing is bad when every important plot point must be rationalised through ideas conjured from outside the scope of the presented story. At this point, its defenders are working backwards (this happened - I guess I can explain it with that).

This is not a puzzle narrative, to invite such exploration. It's also not the Marketa Lazarova of games, where the pace of the visceral happenings coagulate into a clear narrative. There's a Luc Besson quote somewhere that says if two persons don't understand what you're doing, you failed as a storyteller.
 

INC

Member
I just don't understand why I needed to play as Abby for 6 hours. I got nothing from it. I still have no real feelings for the character and they failed to makes her killing Joel feel justified.


I took it as everything isnt as BnW as you makes it, its shades of grey.

Joel killing was a bit ott tbh, but oh well

Plus you got to experience what it was like fighting ellie, hunter/hunted etc
 

Shantae

Banned
I used to feel the end of TLOU1 was so good in it's subtlety. It was almost like an Eyes Wide Shut ending to me, both people knew something that they were not going to openly talk about, and were going to go on with their lives accepting it, even if they didn't like it. Or in the case of Ellie, she was going to be resentful towards Joel for the rest of her life, because he took away the choice she made to give up her life for a possible cure, but Joel took away that choice, and he was never going to admit to it. It was just such a smart ending, and it's why we didn't need a sequel at all, because it gets ruined by the bull shit that's in this game.

I never felt like Ellie needed to be told by Joel that he took her away and killed everyone though, because I thought she was smart enough to know that that's exactly what he did.
 

Fake

Member
But she didnt tho, in the timeline she said she wanted to forgive him after the party, so she didnt hate him at all

No shit Sherlock. Thats why I think the writing is bad. Make sure you end the cicle of revegence... Or at least make you forget you kill a pregnant woman.
 

Nikana

Go Go Neo Rangers!
I took it as everything isnt as BnW as you makes it, its shades of grey.

Joel killing was a bit ott tbh, but oh well

Plus you got to experience what it was like fighting ellie, hunter/hunted etc

But I don't want to fight Ellie. If you want me to feel like I need to fight Ellie as Abby then you need to give me a good reason. They both are on a revenge path and Abby's has no real weight behind it.

Why would I feel bad for Abby as I have played as and watched Ellie grow as a character and struggle with the death of her surrogate father.

If the goal was for me to understand Abby then you needed to give me real context as to why I should feel for this character. The fact that all of her friends are killed after she killed Joel doesn't make me feel bad for her.
 

INC

Member
No shit Sherlock. Thats why I think the writing is bad. Make sure you end the cicle of revegence... Or at least make you forget you kill a pregnant woman.

She was ugly anyway, did the kid a favour.

But I don't want to fight Ellie. If you want me to feel like I need to fight Ellie as Abby then you need to give me a good reason. They both are on a revenge path and Abby's has no real weight behind it.

Why would I feel bad for Abby as I have played as and watched Ellie grow as a character and struggle with the death of her surrogate father.

If the goal was for me to understand Abby then you needed to give me real context as to why I should feel for this character. The fact that all of her friends are killed after she killed Joel doesn't make me feel bad for her.

Shes got man titties, so I felt bad for her
 
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Shantae

Banned
But I don't want to fight Ellie. If you want me to feel like I need to fight Ellie as Abby then you need to give me a good reason. They both are on a revenge path and Abby's has no real weight behind it.

Why would I feel bad for Abby as I have played as and watched Ellie grow as a character and struggle with the death of her surrogate father.

If the goal was for me to understand Abby then you needed to give me real context as to why I should feel for this character. The fact that all of her friends are killed after she killed Joel doesn't make me feel bad for her.
This might have worked if the entire game was Abby, like the beginning of the game takes place shortly before the end of TLOU1, but we don't know that until half way through. MAYBE could have worked, but like I keep saying...these writers are hacks, lol.

We get to see her relationship with her father, she happens to be away from him at the time Joel kills him, and then she finds out what happens...wants to kill those responsible, and then you have a time skip.
 
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Nikana

Go Go Neo Rangers!
This might have worked if the entire game was Abby, like the beginning of the game takes place shortly before the end of TLOU1, but we don't know that until half way through. MAYBE could have worked, but like I keep saying...these writers are hacks, lol.

We get to see her relationship with her father, she happens to be away from him at the time Joel kills him, and then she finds out what happens...wants to kill those responsible, and then you have a time skip.

Which is fine for the sake of the plot for her character but they never go into her reasoning for killing him in cold blood the way they did. In fact anytime they talk about it playing as Abby they are like, yeah fuck him.

So the fact she's a person too means I am supposed to forgive her for murdering a character I know in brutal fashion because he was trying to save essentially his daughters life?

Fucking what?
 
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Shantae

Banned
Which is fine for the sake of the plot for her character but they never go into her reasoning for killing him in cold blood the way they did. In fact anytime they talk about it as Abby they are like, yeah fuck him.

So the fact she's a person too means I am supposed to forgive her for murdering a character I know in brutal fashion because he was trying to save essentially his daughters life?

Fucking what?
Yep, that whole sequence just ruins the game. Not just because of the fashion in which she does it, but for the reasons I pointed out before. If she was face to face to Joel on his own, maybe that scene could work, but the fact that they have Ellie there begging for his life, and she still goes through with it in the most brutal way possible does not make her a sympathetic character at all. But no, she's not only having no sympathy for Ellie, but she's gonna make it last longer because she's a selfish bitch. Oh yeah, I totally can relate to her -_-
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
It sounds dumb as fuck

You murder people all game to learn the message that murdering people is wrong lol ok

Also Ellie deciding not to murder, lol, sure, guess the next game is just Abby since Ellie gonna just sit on her ass the rest of her life. Unless they decide to rewrite the character again and ignore all that bc they need a main for 3 and all you do in these games is kill people no matter what bullshit message the writers tack on at the end.

What a dumb story
 
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Nikana

Go Go Neo Rangers!
Yep, that whole sequence just ruins the game. Not just because of the fashion in which she does it, but for the reasons I pointed out before. If she was face to face to Joel on his own, maybe that scene could work, but the fact that they have Ellie there begging for his life, and she still goes through with it in the most brutal way possible does not make her a sympathetic character at all. But no, she's not only having no sympathy for Ellie, but she's gonna make it last longer because she's a selfish bitch. Oh yeah, I totally can relate to her -_-

I just don't get it. Maybe I missed something? The entirety of Abby's playthrough was utterly pointless.
 

Shantae

Banned
I just don't get it. Maybe I missed something? The entirety of Abby's playthrough was utterly pointless.
Because they think the audience is easily manipulated. "You're playing as this character, so obviously you're going to identify with them now. Ellie's not the main character anymore, it's Abby. They're so much a like, get it???"
 

Nikana

Go Go Neo Rangers!
Because they think the audience is easily manipulated. "You're playing as this character, so obviously you're going to identify with them now. Ellie's not the main character anymore, it's Abby. They're so much a like, get it???"

They are about as alike as The Doom Slayer is to SpongeBob Square Pants.
 

GC_DALBEN

Member
The ending was honestly everything I hoped it would be.

When Joel was slowly dying and thought Ellie was dead, I loved seeing him get on his horse for one last ride as he pursues Abby's group with that wonderful country song playing in the background. Then when he confronts her group we see Ellie return wounded, and Joel and Ellie make their escape. I loved it when Joel told Ellie he'll hold them off, and Ellie said "I love you dad" before they split up. We got a great fistfight between Joel and Abby, but Joel is old and dying so naturally he loses, but he dies looking at the sunrise and Ellie makes her escape. It was a beautiful sendoff.

I was still a bit afraid the game would end there, but thank god we got a whole playable section with Ellie and her family on their farm. I got so pumped when Tommy arrived with the location of Abby's group. My god what an amazing sequence that was. Tommy gets wounded and tells Ellie to keep going, and then we get this awesome fucking final battle with Ellie tearing through Abby's group one by one until she finally gets to Abby herself. The music while this was all happening was so badass too:


I loved how in the end when Ellie returned to her family having killed Abby, it leaves you with the question. Revenge was satisfying, but was it worth it? Will this ever come back to haunt Ellie? Just like the first TLoU I walked away from a moral victory, but questioned if it was the right one. Fantastic fucking game. Naughty Dog did it again!


:messenger_smiling_hearts::messenger_smiling_hearts:


-------------

I cant get over of how stupid this is, im so disapointed. Joel death was so bad writen, i didnt feel anything, and he is one of my favorites char in recent gaming, playing as abby was so shitty, i rushed all her parts. The game starts good, and all the parts of Ellie + Joel are AWESOME (a game with both characters would be a 9/10 with the new graphics and animations) TLUS2 is a 9/10 graphics, 3/10 story, 9/10 animations, 8/10 sound, abby in simply a bad writen character, the game is SO LONG, so boring after a while. IMHO TLUS 1 is a 8/10, this one is a 6/10.

I think they could kill Joel, but theres tons of better ways of doing this.

Chars:
Joel was good (i needed more of him, i liked the first one mainly because of him)
Ellie was good
Dina was good
Jesse was good (i liked him a lot)
Owen was ok
Tommy was ok
Abby was terrible, ruined the game
Everyone else was trash in this game.

Sorry about my english.
 
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Shantae

Banned
They are about as alike as The Doom Slayer is to SpongeBob Square Pants.
Oh but they're trying to show us that this never ending cycle of vengeance is the real evil of the world. Not the zombies. An eye for an eye makes the world go blind, see?? Get it?? They're both letting their own grief control them, they're basically the same character! /s
 

deriks

4-Time GIF/Meme God
Another sucky thing is, we don't know if Joel even knows why he's getting beaten to death by someone who he saved earlier. :lollipop_confounded: :lollipop_confounded: :lollipop_confounded:
Is too dry. He got ambushed after saving the girl, gets shot, a few beats, Ellie shows up conveniently, and we see the death blow. Everything happens too quick for my taste.

Where is Abby's build up? Oh, is like when she discover that Joel killed her father and that's it. Ages later and they conveniently get together.

The story itself is good, but poorly executed. If the direction took more of their time, they could figure it out how Joel could be killed, but very late on the game. Build some tension with Ellie and Abby. Make Abby meeting Joel a fun way, just because Ellie got mad with Joel, and then Abby goes figuring it out that he is the Joel by the end of second act or even start of the end.
 
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MayauMiao

Member
Ellie doesn't kill Abby at the end because upon experiencing flashbacks of Joel and thinking about what he meant to her, she realizes what Abby's father must have meant to Abby.

Joel killed Abby's father, which drove Abby to kill Joel; as much as Ellie misses Joel, she understands why Abby killed him and accepts it.

So Ellie understands why Abby murders Joel right in front of her eyes.
 
Don't buy into that BS, because the theme is contrived, and I already pointed out that it was written by hacks. It's almost as if they write down what they wanted to do: Kill Joel, make sure everyone knows Ellie's a lesbian, kill pregnant women, and make it seem like everyone sucks. Then they just wrote a narrative around this stupid bullet points. Regardless if they make sense or not. They need to earn that shit, and not just say "because this is the message I want to send, to hell with logic"
It made perfect sense. Which part didn't work for you?
 

GreyHorace

Member
It's one of the stupidest endings I've ever seen anywhere, whether in videogames or movies or tv.

Ellie sparing Abby's life completely robs the story of any sort of catharsis or payoff. Ellie kills a bunch of Abby's goon squad yet at the end has a fucking change of heart? Nothing in the story justifies it!

And then in the end she has a flashback of Joel where she berates him for taking away her willing sacrifice from the first game. The guy's already been brutalized and now six feet under, but they go the extra mile to piss on his memory.

Fuck Neil Druckmann. This game was nothing more than a way for him to piss on the fans of the first game. There is no other reason for why the story is like this. He can go fuck off for all I care.
 
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MiguelItUp

Member
It's one of the stupidest endings I've ever seen anywhere, whether in videogames or movies or tv.

Ellie sparing Abby's life completely robs the story of any sort of catharsis or payoff. Ellie kills a bunch of Abby's goon squad yet at the end has a fucking change of heart? Nothing in the story justifies it!

And then in the end she has a flashback of Joel where she berates him for taking away her willing sacrifice from the first game. The guy's already been brutalized and now six feet under, but they go the extra mile to piss on his memory.

Fuck Neil Druckmann. This game was nothing more than a way for him to piss on the fans of the first game. There is no other reason for why the story is like this. He can fuck go fuck off for all I care.
Right? Almost EVERY player I've seen was frothing at the mouth in hopes that they get to take Abby out. It's like the biggest blueball situation in recent entertainment that I know of. I KNOW I've seen films and shows where a stupid decision like that occurs to the point where you go, "WHAT?! NOOOOO!" and all appreciation you have for it is thrown out the window. I feel like that happened here big time. Even if people were unhappy with direction in the game, a good ending could've left people feeling better. I just really don't understand what the goal was here. I want to hear Druckmann himself break it down and describe it, while surely preparing to roll my eyes out of my head.

Then all these scenes with Joel, is it supposed to make you feel less connected to Joel? Make you view Joel through a different scope? A more negative one? If so, it sounds like it really fails. I mean, it failed for me ten fold. A lot of people still love Joel just as much as they did before. Nothing is wholeheartedly justified.
 
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GreyHorace

Member
Then all these scenes with Joel, is it supposed to make you feel less connected to Joel? Make you view Joel through a different scope? A more negative one? If so, it sounds like it really fails. I mean, it failed for me ten fold. A lot of people still love Joel just as much as they did before. Nothing is wholeheartedly justified.



This video makes me both sad and angry.

Sad, because these people are excited at seeing a favorite character return but have no idea of the grisly fate he's going to meet. I imagine some of them have already played through the game and are justifiably pissed.

Angry, because anyone who's played the game knows that the cutscene at the end plays differently in the game. It's not Joel but Jessie whom Ellie talks with. So Neil Druckmann and Sony lied in the marketing and used Joel to dupe players. Fuck them.
 

Whitecrow

Banned
Does it make sense that she wants to help those who saved her but with Joel that's not even a consideration?

Or is it the game's way of saying that Abby is not a person of conscience and principle?
Joer killed his father and there's no vaccine thanks to that also.

But as I've said, the way it's told, it's garbage. I think we are agreeing here.
 

joe_zazen

Member
That’s the most stupid shit ever.

This stranger who brutally murdered my surrogate father and that she is a total psycho had suffered too, I will leave her be and stop suddenly to be a total psycho myself so we can have this profound subverting your expectations ending.

Well, kill yourself then, because you have killed hundreds and hundreds of people who had family, friends and so on.

fred rogers said that you can love anyone once you know their story mr. Meanie.
 

Matsuchezz

Member
Left Behind is backstory.... I have not even played it.
I just mean that the first game had zero romance nonsense.... and I have no problem with some of that, if it is relevant.
It doesn't even make sense the way Abby doesn't want Owen until he is with someone else... and then she has to get in there between a pregnant woman and her partner. She is just a terrible character.... that's just my opinion.

The problem is that the story hinges almost completely on you getting to like Abby and if you don't it all falls down like a house of cards.... checkmate!

I enjoy actually playing the game very much by the way.... I have a digital copy and a special edition. It's only one element that I have an issue.

Reason and sense must be part of relationships, but many times they are senseless, women sometimes just want to be with men when they are taken, but when they were single they were not interested, And this is the case. I really liked Abby and where she is coming from with her hate towards Joel, in the end they are all people just trying to survive and they will all do whatever seems right to stay alive and keep their loved ones alive.

I believe Ellie spares Abby when she pictured Joel playing the guitar, right then she knows she would never forgive Abby for what she did, but she will try to, and it makes total sense after watching the last scene where Joel and Ellie talked, me personally I would have killed her, but these kind of decisions are not taken using logic, they are passionate decisions., and try to find logic in them is fruitless.
 
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IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Don't know if mods will keep this thread around since we already have a spoiler thread, but Abby really should have gotten killed. She was irredeemable from inception, or at the very least in execution. She killed Joel in front of a begging Ellie, and we're supposed to sympathize with this bitch that is mad because her own father got killed? Instead of being angry with Joel, maybe show some humanity and empathize with Ellie who is begging you NOT to kill her father.
The point is someone has to stop cycles of revenge.

Drukmann is an ARTEEEST
 
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